“One hundred?” Alys repeated disbelievingly. “One hundred pounds?”

“I told you!” the younger woman triumphed. “And Sir James is taking nothing from me for using his house!”

Alys glanced at her mother at the mention of his name. Alinor was impassive, her eyes on the bright face of her daughter-in-law.

“You’ll bring the money home tonight?” Alys pressed her. “You know how badly we need it in the warehouse.”

“It’s not for running the warehouse,” Livia ruled. “It’s for buying us a beautiful new home.”

“We are buying a new home?” Alinor asked.

Alys glanced from her to Livia. “It’s a plan of Livia’s,” she explained shortly. “And of course it would be wonderful to move to another house, out towards the country, with a garden. But, my dear, you owe for the warehousing, and for two voyages, and we cannot carry such a great debt.”

Alinor watched the two young women as Livia spread her hands before her friend, like a magician, a trickster on a street corner, showing that he has nothing up his sleeves. “Don’t nag me for money. For see? Nothing yet. But tonight, I will bring home a fortune.”

Alys smiled, soothed at once.

“And we won’t buy another poky little house far out of town,” Livia declared. “You know what I have in mind.”

“Does she?” Alinor remarked.

NOVEMBER 1670, HADLEY, NEW ENGLAND

Ned woke in the morning with bluish light filtering through his frosted window, and a memory from the night of the whisper of snow. He opened his door a crack and found a deep drift blown against the threshold, almost knee-high. It had been snowing all night again. Ned would have to dig himself out of his door. When the weather was bad, a howling wind and blizzard of snow, he tied a rope around his waist to the ring latch of his front door, and paid it out as he went to feed the cow and the sheep, huddled for warmth in their shared stall. He took an armful of logs on every return journey and followed his line back to his front door. Without the rope he would not have been able to find his way across his own yard, the battering of the snow was so blinding, the scream of the wind so deafening. Some days, in the middle of a storm, although he was standing no more than a few feet away, he could not see his own house. The world was a whirl of icy blindness; when he looked downward the snow was so thick around his knees that he could not see his own feet in the new moccasins.

But this day was so calm, and the sky so clear, that Ned had decided to try his new snowshoes and even go into town and sell some of his winter stores. He sat on his stool and tied his new moccasins and then worked his feet into the straps of the snowshoes. Feeling like a fool, he tramped clumsily to his door pulling on his heavy wool coat and his oiled cape on top. He had made his own fur hat out of rabbit skins and he pulled it down over his ears. He had no idea how he would manage with the basketwork boots like great hooves on his feet, and his first challenge was to step up from his threshold to the drift that had blown against his door. The snow was softest here and he sank and stumbled and fell headlong, and picked himself up again. He was panting and sweating with the effort, but once he had climbed onto the denser snow he found he could stand without sinking, and by adopting a slow laborious waddle, he found he could get along. When he looked back he saw that, though he was walking in snow that was feet deep, he was leaving a track of only a few inches.

It was exhilarating to walk on the top of snowdrifts instead of having to dig a path through them. It was still hard work, Ned was sweating and panting with the effort; but he could see that he could get to the town gate and even down the broad common road which was a snowfield of driven white. It was a beautiful day for his adventure with his new snowshoes, the sky a duck-egg blue, the shadows as dark blue as indigo on the dazzling snow. Ned lurched his way, a basket in each hand, to the north gate, half-buried in the drifts.

He swung his baskets over, and then climbed over himself. On the town side of the gate on more even ground, he found that the thick snow was smoother under his snowshoes, and he could stride forward, a little bowlegged, a little awkward, but definitely making progress.

As he went along he saw other houses of the town were snowed in. Most people had dug a narrow path from their doors to their byres or stables, most had cleared a narrow path to the common road, and Ned stood high on the snowdrifts as they came out, muffled up in furs, to buy anything they needed. Ned sold dried goods, berries, mushrooms, and some dried game meat, and corn kernels from his winter store.

People remarked on his strange snowshoes: some had never seen such a thing before. Ned explained that Quiet Squirrel had made them and traded them with him and that if anyone wanted a pair, he was sure that other trades could be made. But the men said that they would rather dig themselves paths to their stores and stables than stagger around like drunk Indians, and Ned would get frostbite and lose his feet, and the women said they could not wear them under skirts anyway.

John Russell was holding a prayer meeting, half a dozen people in his study and hall as he led them in prayer for guidance, for them as pilgrims in the cold land. Ned shed his snowshoes and his oiled cape, fur coat, and hat and bowed his head with the others. When the service was over the men and women exchanged news before opening the front door to the icy outer world. One of Ned’s regular customers saw him and came forward.

“D’you have any fresh fish, Ned Ferryman?”

Ned ducked his head in apology. “It’s been too cold to take from the weirs,” he said. “Later in the season, perhaps I’ll learn to fish through the ice.”

“Would you dare?” she asked.

Ned swallowed, hiding his apprehension. “It’s safe enough, I know.”

She nodded and went away, and Ned looked around for Mrs. Rose, the minister’s housekeeper. She came to his side. “I’ll take some dried venison, Mr. Ferryman,” she said. “And what are these?”

“Dried cranberries, and these are blueberries. I picked them myself. They’re very good.”

“I use them in pies,” she said. “I’ll have a quarter.”

“I’ll bring them through to the kitchen,” he offered.

She inclined her head. “Will you take a seethed ale against this cold weather?”

“I should be glad of it.”

She led the way to the kitchen at the back of the house.

“The nights are very long for our guests,” she said quietly, speaking of the hidden men. “Too cold to go out, they stay upstairs and read. They barely see the sun.”

“I’ll visit them before I leave,” Ned said. “They must feel imprisoned.”

“If I were them, I’d go back to the old country and take my chance,” she said.

“They’d be executed on the quay as soon as their ship arrived,” he told her quietly. “There’s no safe return for those that sentenced the old king to death. It’s death for them there. Remember, they captured John Barkstead, John Okey, and Miles Corbet and executed them—hanged, drawn, and quartered them. And they were not even in England—the new King Charles had them traced and trapped in Holland, and dragged back to England to their deaths.”