Murdo made a show of bending and running water over his head as he replied. “All of us from the western isles, which would be eight. Half the tribesmen and rangers perhaps, no more. But eight or ten be too weak to carry themselves. And there’s not a chance for anyone in manacles.”
From the moment Duncan had seen the expanse of water, much wider and deeper than he had expected, his mind had been racing. His hand had gone to the spirit pouch that always hung from his neck. The totem inside, given to him by Conawago five years earlier when scores of lives had depended on his swimming impossible waters, called him to the deeper channel. He could easily escape right there, reaching the far bank underwater, surfacing only every two or even three minutes. But he could not leave his companions. “Then it’s the swamp,” he said. “We will flee into the swamp where their horses and dogs will be useless.”
“May the blessed Mary preserve us,” Murdo said with a grim nod. “And pray the serpents and quicksand and leeches ignore us in favor of the damned pharaohs.”
But Duncan knew they would never find an escape if they could not even find hope. “They need to see that it’s real, that we make progress,” Duncan observed as he surveyed the half-starved men. “Murdo, if that man in the boat wakens make a distraction. Shove someone. Fight over a piece of clothing. Anything to keep his eyes on you.”
“Christ, Duncan, don’t be foolish. The river is swift underneath. It will take ye to the bottom and we’ll ne’er see ye again.”
“As a bairn I lived in the water so much my friends called me the McCallum seal,” Duncan replied. He touched the spirit pouch that hung from his neck, then began working his way toward the handful of men who were bathing in chest-deep water. A minute later he was among them, then slightly beyond them, dipping his head in the water, even fully immersing twice with motions of washing his long, streaming hair. The third time he did not surface.
Farther from the bank and the churning of the slaves, the water cleared. Minnows swam among long strands of weed. A hulking catfish nearly as long as Duncan himself lolled on the bottom, watching him with black pebble eyes. He surfaced silently in the shadow of the dinghy. The sentry’s broad back was toward him, and the low snoring told him Murdo had been right. He could not dare put his hand on the boat for fear of rocking it, but he was able to wrap his ankles around the trailing anchor line and push up gently enough for his arm to clear the gunwale. He explored the items on the rear bench with his fingers and chose three, securing them into his britches before relaxing his grip on the line and letting himself sink into the dark water.
The Galilee rules gave them only half a day’s rest on the Sabbath but they were able to linger in the stable yard as they waited for their midday meal. Duncan motioned Tanaqua and Murdo inside the stable and led them to the shadows of the necessary bench, where he revealed his bounty. A fishing knife with a long slender blade. A coil of thin rope, and a pouch which yielded a fork and spoon. “Good metal,” he said of the utensils. “With enough work on a stone, their handles can become blades.”
“Y’er a bloody magician!” the big Scot exclaimed.
“Just a swimmer.” Duncan watched as Tanaqua tested the strength of the rope and looked up in query. “If we are going through the swamp the men will be tied together.”
Tanaqua considered his words, then nodded. “Because of the quicksand.”
“Tell only the men you trust from home,” Duncan warned his friends. “Devon’s killer is still among us.”
As Tanaqua kept watch, Duncan climbed onto Murdo’s back and hid their treasures in the rafters. By the time the company was led out to the fields, the Pennsylvania Scots and Iroquois had a new light in their eyes.
After an hour of readying the last row for planting, Duncan felt the gaze of old Jaho, who stood in the field as if waiting for him. Trent, like Winters, had begun giving the Susquehannock more latitude, and walked by the old man without a word. When Duncan reached him Jaho extended his hand, enclosed around an object. Duncan hesitantly offered his open palm, thinking the old man wished to give him something, but Jaho instead extended his other hand to enclose Duncan’s in a tight grip. “Ononyot says you are the Death Speaker,” the Susquehannock said, “that you are touched by the spirits, and do their work.”
“I respect the spirits,” Duncan said in a tentative tone, “and try to understand what they desire.”
Jaho nodded. “Have you ever considered, McCallum, what bears dream about in their winter sleep?”
Duncan found himself grinning at the extraordinary question. The old man seemed to live in more than one world, and Duncan had no way of knowing which the old man was in now.
“The old spirits, the ancient ones, are like sleeping bears,” the Susquehannock, still gripping Duncan’s hand, explained. “They only wake now and again but they have dreams and those they touch may walk with them in those dreams. Actual dreams, my mother called them. Messages between worlds. Sometimes messages between ages.”
Duncan had no reply, and Jahoska seemed to expect none. His leathery face wrinkled with a smile, then he released Duncan’s hand and opened his own closed hand. Duncan’s heart skipped a beat. On the old man’s palm was a fossil, the kind the scientists called a trilobite.
“A seed stone lies at the intersection,” Jahoska said. “The Death Speaker will need to see that.”
Duncan slowly reached into his own pocket and produced the fossil he had brought from Shamokin. When Jaho saw it a cry of joy escaped his throat. For some reason he seemed greatly relieved. “Intersection of what?” Duncan asked.
Jaho cocked his head as if surprised at the question, then his leathery face curled again in a grin. “The crossroads of old miracles and new miracles.”
“Sotweed!” snapped Trent.
Jaho backed away, closing the fossil in his fist again and raising it toward the sky. When Duncan turned to his work, the big African slave who had greeted him before was standing alone in the field, thirty paces away, staring at him.
THE NEXT DAY TOKENS CAME UP FROM THE EARTH. TANAQUA, AT the head of the line that worked the seedling row, bent to tie his moccasin, then deftly palmed something from the soil. An hour later, as they were begrudged their morning ladle of water, the Mohawk opened his hand to give Duncan a fleeting glimpse. It was a small metal rod. Duncan did not recognize it until Webb walked by several minutes later dragging his chains, which had been left on for more than a week, as if the overseers especially feared him. It was a manacle pin, one of the little rods that when pounded down by a hammer locked the clamps around the ankles, or when pushed against another locking pin could release it.
An hour later they came upon an oak leaf pinned by a squarish, oblong rock with a channel cut into it, a hammerhead used by the old tribes. As Duncan grabbed the stone, he realized the items were not random. They had been left for the Judas slaves. Minutes later Ononyot showed him a packet of leather scraps he had found, with a needle and thread tucked into the vine that bound it.
Three men, including Major Webb, wore manacles. As soon as their door was barred for the night, Duncan and Tanaqua braced Webb’s foot and went to work on his chains, using the little rod, with sharp blows of the stone hammer, to pop out the pins that bound the chains to his ankles. The manacles of the other two men quickly followed.