All the men present then tried one by one to lift the sword and found they could but only stare at it, resting there on Merian’s table. This was well and good, for if anyone could have moved that magnificent gift, even the most honest among them would not have hesitated to steal it.
Sanne kissed Purchase for doing so grand a thing for his father, and she too beamed with pride at her son’s ability to turn rock into something so wondrous with nothing but his skill and the furnace.
After the gifts had been bestowed, they drank another toast as night grew real, and it was soon time for the guests to depart. When their friends had bidden good-bye and were safely on the road again, only the three Merians and Adelia were left in the house. There was then a knock at the door. As Adelia was in the kitchen, Purchase went to answer, to see whether it was one of the guests returning for some forgotten trifle, a latecomer, or one come for another reason entirely.
When he opened the door he saw there a very tall man who seemed vaguely familiar — for he had seen him in the sword — although he had never met him before in life.
”I’m looking for Jasper Merian,” the man said, holding his road-beaten hat down over his hands.
“Who should I tell him is calling?” Purchase asked, wondering that one who looked as lowly as the fellow at their door should have come to the front and not gone around to the rear of the house. “What is thy name?”
“Tell him it is someone from Sorel’s Hundred.”
Purchase nodded and went back inside to his father.
“There is someone at the door who says he’s from somewhere called Sorel’s Hundred and claims to have business with you,” Purchase announced to his father, after reentering the dining hall. “Didn’t seem to mind that it’s well past normal visiting time.”
Merian excused himself and stood to go to the door, as his wife and son milled there waiting to see who this late arrival could be. When Merian returned, he held the other man with great affection and introduced him to the two in the room. “I’d like both of you to meet someone very dear to me, who I have not seen in a great many years,” the old man said, presenting the stranger to his family. “His name is Ware, though he is also called Magnus, and he is my son. You can see that, because he is punctual.
“Purchase,” he said, leading Ware over, “this is your brother, even if you never knew you had one.”
This was not entirely true. Sanne had told him on a couple of occasions, late at night when the two happened to meet up in the kitchen or else were otherwise awake when the rest of the house was quiet, that his father had whole secret lives she knew but little of, and one of them included another wife and child. This, though, was first proof to Purchase of his father’s life before them. Still, he went to Magnus and embraced him as bidden, and the affection between them was very natural.
Ware, called Magnus, stood there in the center of the great room and received his brother’s embrace. He would have returned it but could not hug him back, because his hands they were still shackled.
two
The two men sat across from each other with the fire burning low behind them, looking at one another only tentatively. Although they touched often, it was by accident and caused them both some small embarrassment at first, until they grew used to it. Breaking the center chain was very simple. Purchase did this with a strong chisel and a good sharp whack from one of the hammers on a workbench in the barn. The bracelets, though, were another matter, and he was forced to work at them a long time with the smallest tools in his possession.
It was an admirable lock, and when he finally deciphered its clenching mechanism he would feel some small sympathy for his defeated adversary, for its maker had designed that lock with great care and deep insight and intended it to hold until whosoever had mastery of the key released it, but not before.
“How is that?” Purchase asked, pausing in his work to get a better hold on one of the shackles.
Ware massaged his raw flesh beneath the iron and answered, “Not bad. But I have lived with them awhile and am not the best judge.”
“Do you want me to wait so you can catch your breath?” Purchase asked, for he could see how the skin under the handcuff had been almost completely removed and what pain Ware must be in, despite shrugging it off.
“No. Better to go ahead and have done with it.”
Purchase resumed work, trying not to aggravate the skin under the irons, which was orange with rust around the wounds where the metal had contacted his blood. As he watched the stoicism with which Ware bore this pain and intrusion, Purchase felt a tremendous respect for the other man and his private travails.
Ware, for his part, looked at Purchase, and how deliberate he was with what was undeniably an unpleasant and rough business, and his affection for the younger man took hold as for a brother raised under the same roof, and even if they were very different men, they were bound together then nonetheless.
They went on like this, with unspoken tenderness for each other, as they shared a singular understanding until the lock finally revealed itself and opened. Nor when it was done did they thank or comfort each other, but took it each in stride as roles that might easily be reversed.
When the irons were finally off, Ware plunged his hands up to the elbow in a vat of water, washing the filth and dried blood from them. As he did this, Merian and Sanne came into the barn. Sanne carried with her a parcel of clean rags, which she had cut into bandages. When Ware took his hands from the water, she dried them and began to dress his raw wrists in the cotton.
Merian surveyed this scene and did not speak, but he was exceedingly proud of all his family. This, he thought, far surpassed any birthday he had ever celebrated before, even that original year of freedom when he was still in Virginia and first gave himself one, knowing not when he was actually born. He went carousing that year with friends until the celebration turned some unmarked corner and he was left very sore off from celebrating. He figured then it was because he had not done it before and so was not used to it, but soon learned that that was the nature of joy — a flying that could also turn full around if you took it out of sensible range.
He thought this year he had achieved perfect balance.
When Sanne finished dressing Ware’s wounds, they all returned to the main house, where Sanne had Adelia bring out food from the kitchen for Ware, which he devoured at first in a rush, but soon slowed down, seemingly full. When he had his fill of meats he took a very little bit of pudding and a half glass of cider to wash it all down.
“Are you feeling better?” Purchase asked.
“Do you want anything else?” Sanne wanted to know.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he answered them. “A whole heap better than before.”
“What else—” Sanne began, but Merian intervened.
“There’s plenty of time for getting acquainted. I think Ware might like to rest right now.”
Merian led him to an empty room above the kitchen and asked whether there was anything else he needed to pass the night in peace. The new arrival replied there was not, and very soon after Merian left the room.