The minister nodded. “Come on upstairs,” he said. “All of us doubt our mission, and those of us who have been defeated and have to endure the calumny of the world have a hard road to tread.” He led the way up the stairs. The spare-room door was open, for William and Edward to follow the service, listening in silence. Ned greeted them.

“Did you get my warning to the Councils?” he asked. “Will it have to wait for spring?”

“I wrote, and sent a letter downstream,” John said. “The river is open lower down and a native in a mishoon was going, even in this cold weather; he said he’d take it to the coast. The ships for the coastal trade should be sailing, between storms, so it should get to Plymouth and then Boston, it’ll take days, or even weeks. But yesterday I had a message overland from the Council brought by the militia they were so anxious to get news to the outlying towns. It’s bad news. Very bad. They confirm what you say, Ned.”

Ned looked at the grave faces of the three other men.

“They’ve had reports from all around the country that King Philip has been holding feasts and dances at his winter quarters,” John Russell said grimly. “Not even this weather can stop him.”

Ned nodded in silence.

“They didn’t know he was sending scouts out. How do they even get messages through?”

“They have ways,” Ned said, thinking of the snowsnake track, and the smoke signals. “They’re not afraid of the forest, they walk on the frozen river. They aren’t trapped in their houses like we are by the cold.”

“The Council says that someone has seen that King Philip is stockpiling weapons and his pnieses—his men at arms—are in black warpaint.”

“What does that mean?” Edward asked.

“It means they’re preparing for war,” Ned said unhappily. “If the Council would just talk to him…”

“As soon as it thaws they will summon him to Plymouth and he will have to answer for his acts. They swear that this time they will teach him a lesson he’ll not forget. He’s not allowed to prepare for war—that’s rebellion against our rule. We will accuse him of rebellion and he will face the greatest punishment.”

William nodded. “Hanging,” he said shortly.

Ned, shocked, looked from one royal rebel to the other. “We can’t hang him for rebellion. He’s not subject to our laws, he’s not under our rule. He’s a leader on his own lands. The treaty—”

“The treaty said that he should stay on his lands and we on ours,” John Russell interrupted. “That we should live in peace. That his enemies would be ours, and ours would be his.”

“And they’re stockpiling weapons,” William pointed out.

“We sell them weapons!” Ned said despairingly. “We sell them the very weapons we’re complaining about!”

“We sell them for hunting,” Edward ruled. “Not for them to be turned on us.”

Ned turned to John Russell. “All this could be peaceably resolved,” he said. “But if they summon King Philip and treat him like a traitor, they will shame him before his people; that will anger him, things will get worse. If they would meet him halfway somewhere, and give him gifts and treat him like the friend that his father was. If they would speak to him like an equal and promise to stop buying land and cheating his people out of land! If they would take away the cause of war, then it won’t come to war. Surely! Isn’t that in our interest? Isn’t that the best outcome for us all?”

William shook his head. “It’s too late, Ned. Remember the old king, Bloody Charles? There comes a point where you can’t keep asking someone to give their word and change their ways. There comes a point where you have to capture them, arrest them, and kill them.”

“It’ll be the same with this king,” Edward agreed. “He’s growing overmighty. We have to stop him now.”

“He doesn’t even call himself a king!” Ned protested.

Grimly, the three men shook their heads. “It’s God’s will,” John Russell said simply. “Who are we to question?” He dropped a heavy hand on Ned’s shoulder. “Are these the doubts?” he asked gently. “Are these your doubts, Ned? Are you doubting God’s intention for us?”

Ned knew he could not argue with God. “Mercy…” he said quietly. “Mercy for the Massasoit…”

“As soon as the thaw comes we’re ordered to muster and train the town militia,” John Russell told him. “You’ll be summoned, Ned, and we’ll need you more than anyone. You’re one of the few who has seen action. You’ll be made a captain.”

Edward leaned forwards and clapped Ned on the shoulder. “You’ll be a commander, Ned! And we’ll advise. We’ll stay out of sight but we’ll order the drilling and training, and we’ll plan defenses.”

Ned remembered Wussausmon saying that the fences would not stop a deer and that the People could command fire to go where they wanted. “We’ve only got stock fences,” he said. “Nothing that could defend us against an attack.”

“They won’t directly attack us,” John Russell said. “They wouldn’t dare. I expect them to creep up on a few deserted farmhouses. They’d no more attack us than fall on Springfield. They know we’re too strong for them.”

“But you should come into town, Ned,” William said. “You’re too remote, out there by the river, and they could scalp you in the night and get away by canoe and we’d not even know it. You’d better come into town and then you can supervise the defenses.”

Ned thought for a moment he must have taken a fever he felt such a rush of sickness and weariness. “I can’t leave the ferry,” he said miserably. “If the people from Hatfield want to come over in spring, especially if they feel in danger, I have to be there to bring them over. And I can’t leave my beasts in the winter and I can’t drive them in through the snow.”

“The Hatfield people must fall back inside our palisade as soon as they can travel,” Edward ordered. “And the ferry ropes cut, and the raft sunk, so the enemy cannot use it.”

Ned shook his head, at the thought of destroying his ferry, at the thought of Quiet Squirrel and her people being named as enemies, at his sense of the world falling out of control, falling from godliness and certainty into fear and war.

“You’ll have to come into town,” his old commander told him, and Ned heard the order. “Your place is here, with your own people. Now that it’s war.”

DECEMBER 1670, LONDON

Dinner with his aunt and Livia was even worse than James had feared. From the first introduction it was a joust of beautiful manners.

“May I present the Nobildonna da Ricci—” he started.

“Peachey,” Livia corrected him.

“You don’t know her name?” his aunt turned to him.

“My fidanzato mistakes,” Livia said smiling, curtseying low. “It is my accent! I am learning to speak English, you know. My name is pronounced Peachey.”

James’s aunt, who had known Sir William Peachey of Sussex in the days before the war, gave her nephew a long considering look, and curtseyed very slightly to the widow. “Any relation to the Sussex Peacheys?”