Ned fetched two cups of root tea. John gave him a pinch of tobacco from the pouch at his belt and they both filled their pipes and smoked in silence. The aromatic cloud kept the insects away from their faces, and they were both aware that the smoke was sacred in the religion that neither practiced. Together they watched the sun set on their left behind the high terraces of the river, as the sky slowly turned from cream to darkness.

“Your friends will come back next moon,” John said. “It’s not been a good summer for them.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

John shrugged. “Who knows? They have discontent in their blood.”

“Will you bring them?”

“As I promised.”

“Thank you.” Ned hesitated. “They’re not happy?”

John shrugged. “They eat well enough and they are warm and dry. The women take them extra food sometimes. But they miss their homes. And they say they will never get home to England, not while this king is on your throne.”

Ned nodded. “They were two of the judges that executed this king’s father. He forgave those who fought—I was in that army—but he said the judges must die.”

John nodded; it was part of his law that a life should be paid for a life, so that part of the story did not surprise him. But a rebellion against a leader was unknown. “You took up arms against your own king? And they killed him?”

“He was a tyrant,” Ned tried to explain. “In my country we have an agreement about what kings may do. Even though they are kings. We had a parliament—like the General Court here. But he did not respect them, so we fought him and caught him and then we executed him.”

“I have heard of this. Did your friends smash his head? With a club?”

Ned choked on shock at the picture John conjured up and laughed awkwardly. “No, no,” he said. “We beheaded him. With an ax.”

It still sounded barbaric. Ned wondered that he had never thought of this before. “We built a scaffold, outside his palace,” he said, thinking that everything he said made the execution sound worse. “It was a proper trial. Before judges, many judges.”

John looked incredulous. “We’d never kill a king.” He shook his head, disbelieving. “You are a most violent people.”

“I’m not explaining it well,” Ned said. “Don’t tell people—it’s more complicated than I can say.”

“But you crucified your God as well?”

Ned tried to laugh. “That wasn’t us! That was years before!”

John shook his head. “You are a strange people to us,” he said. “I was raised in an English family and studied at Harvard, but I don’t think I will ever understand you. I translate between my people and the people of my raising—English—and I know the words, but the meaning!” He broke off.

“An Englishman’s word is as good as an oath,” Ned said stiffly.

John shook his head. “We both know that’s not true,” he said.

Ned felt anger rise and then he slapped his guest on the shoulder. “God forgive us,” he said. “You’re right. God help us, indeed. We speak falsely to you and to each other. We’re sinners indeed.” He got to his feet and fetched the jug of small ale; but he paused before he poured a cup. “I’m forbidden from giving you liquor,” he said, “for fear that I cheat you while you’re dead drunk. We are trying to be good neighbors, you know.”

“Oh, get me drunk and buy my land.” John held out his cup. “I’ve got an eight-acre plot in a praying town; it’s only mine if I obey your laws and deny my people’s faith. I go between my angry ruler and yours. Get me drunk, steal my land, and throw me onto the streets of Plymouth.”

Ned poured the small ale. “They don’t want your eight acres in Natick. You know what they want: the great lands near Boston. So the city can grow and spread.”

John nodded. “I know it. We all know it. But this has been our land forever, tracked with our feet, the animals we hunt are the kin of the animals our ancestors hunted. They are kin to us. We belong here. We can’t sell.”

“Are you agreed?” Ned asked curiously. “Are you coming together as people say? To resist us?”

John raised his cup to the silent river. “You know I can’t say. Would you not be bound to pass my words to your elders? Would they not tell the governor? And then they’ll summon the Massasoit as if he were their servant, scold him and fine him and take more of our land and pretend it is a just punishment and not your greed? I warn you—I want to warn you; but I will not betray him.”

“He mustn’t gather the tribes together,” Ned said flatly. “I warn you in return: it would be the end of all our hopes to live free and at peace here.”

“But we are not free,” John pointed out. “We are not at peace. When your king overstepped his rights you killed him. What should we do when you overstep? The Pokanoket are tired of you, and your broken promises. I translate nothing but insults. The Pokanoket are tired of me too.”

“Are they? Is the Massasoit tired of you? Is it dangerous to go between two worlds? Should you stay in the praying town and be an Englishman, where we can keep you safe?”

“You can’t keep me safe, you can’t even keep yourselves safe. Your town is fenced with wood that wouldn’t stop deer. You know we can make fire in a forest and tell it which way to go! If we told fire to come to Hadley, your roofs would burn in a moment, we could walk through the ashes. If we were all as one and we rose as one against you, you would not be able to resist us.”

“We can,” Ned said firmly. “Don’t tell anyone that we can’t.”

“So now you’re all Englishman? I thought you were half Norwottuck?”

Ned sighed. “I am a man at peace, in a peaceful country,” he said. “Neither Indian nor English.”

“We will all have to choose a side at the end of the peace.”

“God forbid,” Ned said sourly. “None of the militia know how to march.” Then he remembered that he was speaking to a Pokanoket. “Don’t tell anyone that either.”

SEPTEMBER 1670, LONDON

Alinor, Livia, and Alys were breakfasting in Alinor’s room. The glazed door was open and the warm air breathed into the room. For once it smelled only of salt and the sea, the stink of the river was washed away by the high tide. Livia, waiting for her ship to come in, was too nervous to eat anything; she drank her chocolate and nibbled at the edge of a roll of bread. Alys glanced at her. “Would you eat some pastries?” she asked. “I can send Tab out for something sweet?”

“No! No, I am eating this.” She broke off a little crumb.

“What did the apothecary say about the thunderstone?” Alinor asked her daughter.

“He paid well for it. He’d never seen such a thing before. Three shillings a pound, and it was a pound and a half weight. When you write to Uncle Ned, tell him that we can sell more. And any curiosities—he told me the gentlemen of science are taking an interest in such things, especially from New England.”

“And the sassafras?”