My father resumed walking. “Please. Take us to our wounded.”
Rhys led us into the village, down the main lane between the buildings. We passed houses and barns, stables and sties. A blacksmith and a baker’s shop. The villagers had come out of their homes to watch us pass, and, like the farmwoman, their disjointed appearance confused me. Their clothing and their homes, both Indian and old Welsh. Some of them nodded to us, some waved, and some stared. I smiled and returned their gestures, looking for someone my age among them. But all I saw were adults of the same indeterminate age as Rhys. We crossed a small village green and arrived at the taller building I had seen from a distance.
“Your companion is here.” Rhys stood before the door. “This is the hall of Prince Madoc, and you are welcome to enter.”
“The hall of Prince Madoc?” I whispered to my father. “How could that be?”
“A ceremonial title, I’m sure,” my father said.
Rhys stepped aside, and we entered a dim and lofty great room. In the center, a fire burned in a hearth without a chimney. Phineas lay near it on a blanket, his shirt removed, while several men surrounded and attended to him. The gashes in his side were deep, ragged, and still bleeding.
The sight of him worried and confused me. He was a spy for the French. I was still sure of that. But up on the mountain, he’d put himself between the bear-wolf and me. He had protected me.
One of the men turned as we entered. He wore a finer shirt than the others, stitched with writhing, knotted dragons in red thread and Indian beads across his chest, and around his neck a heavy twist of golden wire with dragon mouths at the ends. His hair was longer than Rhys’s and the others’, and he had a thick mustache that reached his jaw.
He waved for us to approach, and Rhys led us before him, then backed away to the side of the room.
“I am Madoc ap Owain Gwynedd,” the man said. “You are welcome to Annwyn.”
My father bowed. “We are grateful to you and your men, Prince Madoc. I am John Bartram. With me are my son William, and my fellow philosophers. This is Jane Colden, and this is Andrew Montour.”
I noticed Andrew hanging back from us, his head bowed.
Madoc craned his neck to look at him. “Welcome, all of you. Your man is gravely injured. My adviser, Myrddin, is skilled in medicine and will do his best to heal him.”
A man kneeling by Phineas looked up. “The night will bear it out.” His pale blue eyes had the color and quality of the ice that forms over the edges of our pond in winter. “I am about to stitch the wounds. Is there a healer among you?”
My father nodded toward Phineas. “He is our physician.”
Myrddin went back to work.
“And now,” Madoc said, “Rhys will show you to a house where you may stay.”
“You are very generous,” my father said. “But if I may —”
“There is nothing more you can do here.” Madoc summoned Rhys with a flick of his hand. “I am sure you have questions, as do I. But now is not the time for answers. Eat, rest, pray for your companion, and then we will talk.”
My father’s mouth opened, then snapped shut.
He bowed again and allowed Rhys to lead us from the hall, back out onto the village green. We crossed to a nearby cottage, and Rhys let us inside. There were several beds and a table bearing trenchers of dried meat, corn, bread, and the vegetables we’d seen growing along the road. My eyes widened and my stomach came alive at the sight and aromas of so much food.
“Prince Madoc will speak with you this evening,” Rhys said. “For now, this house is yours.”
“Thank you, Rhys,” my father said.
“I can take the young woman to her cottage, now.”
Jane shot me a worried glance.
My father put a hand on her shoulder. “Her cottage?”
“Yes.” Rhys cocked his head. “She does not sleep with the men, does she? We have arranged another place for her.”
Jane shook her head, and my father cleared his throat. “I think she will stay with us,” he said.
“With you?” Rhys glanced at Jane, then around the room at the rest of us. “Very well. If that is your custom.” Then the Welshman left, shutting the door behind him. Through one of the narrow windows, I watched him stride back to Madoc’s hall and go inside.
My father sat down on one of the beds and squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. “This is a disaster.”
“Agreed,” Mr. Kinnersley said.
I was also disappointed in what the lost Welsh kingdom had turned out to be, but I did not find it to be the disaster my father did. The French attack, the spying, the loss of the de Terzi, the bear-wolf. Those were disasters. Madoc and his people were … strange. They were supposed to be like ourselves. But they had found a different way to live out here in the frontier.
“In what way is this a disaster, John?” Mr. Godfrey stood over the table. “We have found what we came to find.” He picked up a strip of meat and tore off a bite with his teeth. He looked at the ceiling as he chewed. “I wonder if this is the flesh of an incognitum.”
“Francis!” My father stared at him from across the room.
Mr. Godfrey took another bite. “One must eat, John.”
My father stood. “Explain how this situation is not a disaster.”
Mr. Godfrey reached and ripped off a hunk of bread from a large, round loaf. The crust crackled, and my mouth watered, but I didn’t dare eat.
“Very well.” Mr. Godfrey addressed the room. “When we left Philadelphia, who among you thought we would actually be able to strike out into the vastness of this New World and find what we were looking for? Be honest with yourselves. How many of you harbored doubts? Because I doubted. And yet here I am, against all probability, standing in a Welsh-made cottage eating Welsh-baked bread.” He took a bite. “And it’s very good, I might add.”
My father walked over to the table. He stood next to Mr. Godfrey, looking down at the food. “Billy, Jane, eat. The rest of you, too.”
So I ate. Ravenously. Meat, bread, corn right off the cob that stuck in my teeth, and roasted vegetables. Jane and I both giggled like little children. I ate until my stomach hurt and couldn’t hold any more.
My father didn’t take a single bite. He watched us all eat, and after a while, he said, “I recognize that simply finding this place has been a tremendous feat, and you are all owed honor and glory for that alone. But that isn’t enough.”
The others put down their food and listened to him.
“Look at these people.” My father pointed at the door. “Look at this place. They’re practically Indians. We came seeking allies, but these backward Welsh are far from what we needed or hoped for. They have nothing to offer, strategically or militarily. Quite frankly, I’m surprised the French haven’t found them here and driven them out.”
Mr. Kinnersley brushed a kernel of corn from his chin. “Why haven’t the French routed them?”
“I doubt they know they’re here,” Mr. Faries said. “Remember, the Osage in this territory do not speak of them.”
My father pounded the table. “That’s because there isn’t anything to speak of!”
All of us froze, except Mr. Godfrey.
He licked his fingertips. “John, I’m afraid you must give up what you hoped to find and, instead, look for what you may have found.”
“And what is that, Francis?” my father asked.
Mr. Godfrey shrugged. “I don’t know. That is the reason you must look.”
My father cursed and withdrew from the table. He went to one of the beds, sat, then lay down and closed his eyes. Watching him, I wanted to do the same thing. The food in my belly had put out the fire that had kept me going since the fight with the bear-wolf.
But something nagged at my thoughts.
Louis’s manner had suggested he and his fellow Osage were frightened of the people of Madoc. He had called them demons. My father had dismissed that as superstition, but here
in their village, in the demons’ lair, I could not help but worry.
Across the table from me, Andrew stared with a vacant expression, rubbing the locket he wore around his neck. I realized he had not said a word since we had met Rhys atop the mountain and come down to this place.
“Are you well, Andrew?” I asked.
“Hm?”
“Are you well?”
“I am.”
“What are you thinking about?”
His smile had a sad angle to it. “My mother.”
We rested for the remainder of that afternoon. As the setting sun peered in through the cottage windows, my father rose from his bed and asked if I’d join him for a walk outside.
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be in his company, and nothing he had done since our falling-out at the ship had changed that. If anything, his reaction to Madoc and this village only confirmed what I had already said to him. But he was the elected leader of our expedition, and I was a Society member.
“Yes, sir.”
Outside the cottage, the air smelled of woodsmoke and the fields glowed. Madoc’s people walked the lanes of their village, coming in from their day’s labor. They smiled and nodded, and we nodded back.
My father strolled with his hands clasped behind his back. “First, let me say that I do not hold you responsible for what happened to the de Terzi. That was Mr. Kinnersley’s doing. You should not have slept on your watch. But to quote from Alexander Pope, ‘To err is human; to forgive, divine.’ I cannot blame you under the circumstances.”
“Thank you for that.” My voice came out flat.
“But things are still not right between us?”
“No. They’re not.”
“I would like for them to be.”
“So would I.”
“And how do you see them being made right?”
It was a fair question. It deserved a fair answer. I stopped in the middle of the street to face him. “Admit you were wrong about Andrew.”
“But I was not wrong about Andrew.”
I almost laughed at him but walked on instead. I had nothing more to say.
He caught up to me. “Even if I entertain your theory, and Andrew isn’t guilty of spying, he is still half-Indian and not to be trusted.”
I wanted to get away from him, but where? Back home, I would have gone down to the river, among the wild irises, to watch the fishermen out on their boats. But here, strangers surrounded us, and a wilderness surrounded them. I decided to turn back toward our cottage, toward Jane and the others.
“Billy, where are you going?” He followed me.
“I’m going back.”
“I’m not finished.”
“But I am, Father.” I kept walking. “I am finished.”
I reached the cottage and went inside. Madoc stood in the center of the room, flanked by Rhys and the adviser, Myrddin. Around them, the Society members looked somber. Jane and Mr. Faries had tears in their eyes.
“What is it?” I asked.
No one answered.
My father came in behind me. His eyes swept the room. “What has happened?”
“It’s Phineas,” Mr. Faries said. “He is dead.”
Annwyn had no churchyard. It had no church. Madoc said no priest had been willing to cross the ocean with their people. But the village had a graveyard in a grove of oak, and they agreed to let us bury Phineas there. Each of the Society members took hold of the shovel for a time as we dug a grave the proper size and depth. We had no coffin, so we simply laid his body in the earth and gathered around.
“I will make no great speech,” my father said. “Phineas would not have wanted that. Instead, I will quote but one verse from the Gospel of John. ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’”
I looked down into the grave, the freshly turned dirt mixing into Phineas’s blond hair. In the fight with the bear-wolf, he had laid down his life. Whatever else he had been guilty of, he had done that. In that moment, and for that reason, I forgave him.
My father stepped aside, and Myrddin gave what I thought to be a prayer in Welsh. Then each of the Society members took hold of the shovel for a time as we buried him. When that was done, we piled stones upon that spot as a marker and returned to the village.
As we approached our cottage, Madoc shook his head. “Come. We must talk.”
We followed him to his hall and entered the chamber where I had last seen Phineas lying on the floor. The hearth was cold, but a haze filled the dark space between the timber rafters. Along one wall, I noticed a table lit with candles, and upon the table rested a silver chalice and a bottle. At the far end of the room stood a massive wooden chair. Carved animals leaped, crawled, and flew up its legs, over its arms, and down its back. What must have been years and years of smoke had darkened the wood to a rich umber, and the armrests bore the smooth polish of many hands.
“So you do have a throne,” my father said.
Madoc took his chair and leaned back into it. His mustache accentuated the hard line of his frown. “Why are you here?”
My father glanced at Mr. Kinnersley, Mr. Godfrey, and Mr. Faries, the only other members of the Society remaining besides myself. Then he stepped forward.
“We have come to extend a hand of friendship to your —”
“YOU LIE!” Madoc’s shout rang in the hall.
My father blanched.
The prince pounded the arm of his throne. “You come to wage war!”
“Prince Madoc.” My father held his empty hands out before him. “We —”
Madoc pointed at him. “Before you say one more word, Englishman, there is something you should know.”
“What is that?” my father asked.
“My scouts have learned that a French army marches toward Annwyn.”
A murmur passed among the Society members. The French? I thought we had escaped them back at the Forks of the Ohio. But they were here? How had they found us?
“They are three days away,” Madoc said. “At least five hundred men. They are led by a man named Marin.”
My father nodded. “He attacked us once before, but with a greater number of men. Their march has taken its toll.” He stepped closer to the throne. “Prince Madoc, I apologize for not being more forthright with you. It is true that we have come to seek an alliance with you, both political and milita —”
“Why would Annwyn want an alliance with you?”
“Well, I —” The question seemed to fluster my father. I think he had assumed an alliance as a given. “That is, we —”
“If I may ask a question.” Mr. Godfrey stepped forward. “How is it you and your people know English?”
“We learned it from you,” Madoc said. “Our spies have been among you since the first of your fur traders and missionaries reached us.”
The revelation detonated among the Society members, leaving an aftermath of confusion. Madoc’s people had been among us? When? Where? Were they in Philadelphia now? And why had they not announced themselves?
Mr. Godfrey held up a hand. I thought he was about to make a point, but he just sputtered. “How — I don’t — But —”
“Our people had been in this New World, as you call it, for more than four hundred years when your people landed on these shores. If they had been there at Jamestown or Plymouth to greet your ships, they would have welcomed you and formed a quick alliance.” Madoc leaned forward on his throne. “But by the time they learned of you, you had already gone to war many times against the pobl cyntaf, and they wanted no part of that.”
“But you have seen your share of war, have you not?” my father asked. “We found one of your fortifications on the Ohio River.”
“You found Gwynedd.” Madoc rose from his chair and walked to the cold hearth. “One of our first cities. In the beginning, my people did as they had always done. They claimed land. They built walls and they defended them. But soon that land was not enough, and they sought to conquer more.
But they were small in number, and the pobl cyntaf were numerous. Many from both sides lost their lives on the walls of Gwynedd, and the stones drank up their blood.”
I remembered the echoes I had heard in the wall, the cries of anguish, fear, and rage.
“It took them many years, but my people finally found a way to live peacefully in this land.” Madoc turned to my father. “We have observed you long enough to know that an alliance with you would make peace impossible.”
He was right. We had come because Mr. Franklin feared that war with France was imminent. We were here to bring the Welsh into our conflict. And I think my father had assumed they would go willingly.
“I am sorry you have traveled so far.” Madoc returned to his throne. “And at such great cost to you. But we cannot give you what you seek.”
The hall was silent. My father put his hands on his hips and looked at the floor. He shook his head. “We came seeking something that doesn’t exist.”
“It may have existed once, long ago,” Madoc said. “But no more. And now the French are here.” He paused. “You English. You wanted me in your war. So you brought your war with you.”
“Prince Madoc, believe me,” my father said. “We did not intend for that to happen.”
Madoc smirked. “Of course not. But you cannot help it. It is your nature.”
“To err is human, sir,” my father said.
To forgive, divine.
“Look at my village.” Madoc made a sweeping gesture. “We have no wall. I have one hundred and seventeen men who can carry arms. But their weapons have not been used for anything more than hunting for more than three hundred years.”
“We will leave your village.” My father looked to the Society members, and they nodded their agreement. “Marin came for us. Perhaps he’ll follow us.”
“It is too late for that,” Madoc said. “The French believe this territory to be theirs. Now that they have learned of us, they will not let us remain here. But we will find a new place and we will rebuild. As we speak, Rhys is spreading my order for our people to prepare themselves to leave. You should do the same. Go now.” He dismissed us with a wave.
My father bowed and motioned the rest of us toward the door. We all shuffled from the hall out onto the green and were met there by several dozen men and women. They stared at us and glared at us, but said nothing. It seemed Madoc’s order had already reached them, and they were angry with us. I couldn’t blame them. They had to leave their homes and their farms because of us.