“A monastery,” came a voice behind them. “Or at least the beginnings of one.” Conawago stepped into a pool of light cast by one of the windows. “I was brought here by my Jesuit teachers to visit for a few weeks as a boy. I heard the news that Queen Mary had died, making William of Orange a widower, while seated in that very kitchen, drinking hot cider on a stool by the fireplace.”
“Surely not,” Woolford argued. “That was in the last century.”
Conawago ran his fingers along the names in the wall with a sad smile. “Sixteen and ninety-three to be exact.” The Nipmuc’s energy and enthusiasm for life often made it easy to forget that he had lived more then four score years. “The abbey of Saint Ignatius,” he continued. “It was a grand scheme funded by the king in Paris for a few years. He sent soldiers to help construct these first buildings. I remember a parchment on the wall of the kitchen showing plans to build several buildings such as this one, in a square with a central courtyard. A monastery and school were to be established at a point between the warring tribes of north and south, to act as a buffer. It was intended that novices be taken in from all the tribes. They would become a tribal army of missionaries. I remember when I was here there were half a dozen native monks. The abbot was very proud of his native children’s choir. They all lined up and sang for us, liturgical chants in Latin. I was deeply moved. He meant to take them all to Paris to perform for the king. After the singing we played lacrosse, the monks against the children.”
“What happened?” Woolford asked.
“Years later a Huron chief came to visit his son, who was a novice here. He became furious when he saw his son’s garment and his gentle demeanor, said the black robes had turned him into a woman. He returned with his warriors to put an end to things. When they came the Jesuits just prayed. The Hurons threw them over the cliff then fired the big barn. They were about to burn the abbey house when a terrific storm blew up and extinguished the fires. A very bad omen. They fled, and half were lost when their canoes were upset by the wind. It is said that no Hurons have ever returned to this end of the island, that it is taboo to do so.”
“A sanctuary then,” Woolford concluded. “Is that why we are here? We didn’t come all this way to hide.”
Conawago did not reply, and Duncan and Woolford followed as the old Nipmuc pushed on, up the wide, winding stairs to a corridor of small identical rooms, the cells of the monks. “Samuel, Jean, Pierre, Stephen, Victor, Frederick, Louis,” he read the names painted on the first doors as he walked down the long hall. “I met these black robes. I wasn’t certain about their vengeful God, but there could be no doubt about their courage and reverence. They stood alone in the wilderness, made an oasis here for a few years with naught but their crosses, Bibles, and virtue for protection. They died unmourned, without confession.” He paused to read a Latin inscription on the wall like an old scholar. “Some say they were therefore not permitted into heaven,” he added with a sigh, “that at night they can be seen wandering with the others over the island.”
Woolford removed his cap. “The island of ghosts.”
“War is closing in on all sides, and Custaloga brought us to a long-dead monastery?” Duncan asked after a moment’s silence.
“This island has always been known for something else, long before the abbey. This was the island’s side of light. The monks meant to help ease the misery, to break the dark side.” Conawago made a cryptic gesture toward the low ridge that divided the island.
The others. How many monks could there have been, Duncan asked himself. A dozen? Certainly no more than twenty. There had been many more skulls on the beach.
Duncan was about to press for more of an explanation when Tushcona called them for her feast. She would not let anyone eat until they offered a long murmured prayer, spoken too low and too fast for Duncan to understand. He made out a plea for the safety of Adanahoe and saderesera, the grandchildren.
Their company was hungry but also weary. After their makeshift banquet, the Council’s weaver, assisted by Hetty, took charge, assigning rooms as if she were a tavern keeper, assuring everyone they could sleep soundly without a sentinel since the building was protected by the old black robes. Tushcona paused in a small chapel at the end of the second-floor corridor. Duncan, still bewildered by her behavior, followed and saw emotion flood her countenance as she studied the simple wood-paneled chamber. Centered on the plaster wall above a low shelf was a pale spot where a crucifix had hung. Tushcona smiled as she saw it now lying on the windowsill, broken into several pieces but salvaged. Someone had bound the shards together against a piece of wood with strips of sinew. The old Iroquois woman lifted the broken cross and reverently leaned it upright on the shelf. She turned back to the window, hesitating a moment before running her fingers along the front lip of the sill. She made a tentative pulling motion then uttered a syllable of surprised pleasure as the front board of the sill fell outward on hinges to reveal a narrow compartment. Inside was a rosary and several beeswax candles.
“How could-” Duncan began to ask, but Conawago was suddenly at his side, squeezing his arm to cut him off. They stepped aside to let the old woman set the candles in the dusty sconces along the corridor of sleeping cells. Ishmael followed, lighting each one with a taper.
No one needed to stand guard, the old woman reminded them again, and she ushered Duncan and Conawago into the last of the chambers where their blankets and packs awaited, putting a finger to her lips as though it was now time for silent meditation in the cells.
Duncan slept fitfully, then woke abruptly, his mind boiling with images of Adanahoe as a ghost and warriors hacking at monks with their war axes. The floor planks creaked as he made his way down the corridor, checking on the sleeping figures as he passed each cell. Ishmael had chosen to sleep curled on the floor nestled against the big dog.
He pushed open a narrow door and found a twisting stairway that led to the third floor. Lifting a candle from a sconce, he ventured upward, into another corridor. Half the space was finished into cells. He passed into another chamber, still in rough timber, used for storage. Crumbling wicker hampers were lined against one wall, filled with rotting clothing. On a shelf behind them were small wooden boxes, each with the name of a monk and two dates. He opened the hinged top of the first, marked Brother Luc, 1652–1687. Inside was a small bible, a writing quill, a ring, and a lock of blond hair tied with a red ribbon. On the bottom was a piece of parchment with a narrative in French.
Brother Luc, dove of Christ, was martyred on the northern shore of Lake Huron, it began, going on to explain that he was the son of a lowly shoemaker in Burgundy who as a teenager had answered God’s call to live among the tribes of North America. Luc had opened half a dozen missions and christened over two hundred aborigines before being burned alive for administering European medicine to Ojibways dying of fever.
Duncan closed the box reverently, realizing now that it, like the others, held the personal effects of monks killed by the tribes they had sought to convert.
He ventured toward the pool of moonlight cast through the window to find a makeshift chapel. A rough bench bore a cross made of white birch sticks set on a piece of white ermine fur. Other benches faced the altar. On the adjacent wall, charcoal pictograms had been drawn in the fashion of those he had seen on the chronicle skins of the Iroquois Council. But as he raised the candle he saw that these did not depict hunts or raids. A stick figure with a beard carried a cross on his back up a hill. In another scene the bearded man sat with others at a long table, in another he distributed fish to a crowd of smaller figures.