She looked at him in surprise. He’d never before mentioned a brother in England.
“He took for soldiering with the Solemn League and Covenant for Cromwell,” he said. “He died on Marston Moor and I didna’ know of it for five years. But I know why he fought. So that a Scotsman wouldna’ have to bend his knee to tricked-up vessels and rich cloths thrown up over the altar of Christ like a whore’s skirt.”
In all her years she had never heard him speak at length about anything other than the determined acquisition of that which increased the holdings of Goodman Allen.
He pressed his arms tightly around his chest and said, “There’s been talk. About you and the Welshman.”
Martha crossed her own arms and waited. The anxiety she had felt in the wagon on the way to Andover had begun to build again, making the jellied parts of her eyes feel pierced with gunmetal shards. She pulled the shawl tighter around her chest with unsteady hands and stared at her feet, two steps from open air.
She felt the restraining grasp of her father’s hand over her arm. “Oh, fer Christ’s bloody sake, Martha, I didna’ raise ye to be well regarded. To be liked. Any puny, weak-waisted slut can be liked. I raised ye to be reckoned with. To be fierce in the face of others’ pridefulness. T’say to those who would be puffed up in their own cleverness, ‘Kiss ma backside and the Devil take the rest.’ D’ye hear me? I don’t know this… slack-kneed girl in front of me.” He softened his grip on her.
“I’d rather ye be wed to a wanted man with principle than to a magistrate with the balls of a seahorse.”
He took from his pocket a small gold coin and bounced it in his palm. “A coin has two faces, but it’s forged from the same metal. That’s you and I.” He tapped twice at his brow. “We’re the same.” He reached out for her hand and closed her fingers over the coin. Martha looked at him amazed; she didn’t know whether to be more surprised at his holding her hand or the giving up of a gold coin. He turned abruptly and began his descent down the rock.
He threw over his shoulder, “Ye have to ask yerself, daughter. Is he worth a fight?” He stumbled, cursing, then righted himself and shouted, “It’s a fair way to Billerica on foot. Best start now.”
She gave him time to return to the house and, slipping the coin into her apron, descended the rock on steadied legs. She walked Boston Way Road for a short distance before cutting west at Preston Bridge over the Shawshin and followed Blanchard’s Plain southward. The paths were still boggy from rain, veined through with muddy rivulets and carpeted with mottled leaves that clung fast and clammy to her legs. At Strongwater Brook she peeled off her shoes and stockings and picked her way across the sucking black clay, mired up to her knees. On the other side she sat on a stone wall, rubbing hard at her blackened legs with leaves, scraping away the sodden dirt, only just remembering that all her few belongings were still in Andover. She laughed aloud, the sound harsh and challenging, thinking she didn’t even have the cloak for a blanket.
The path descended into rows of pines, banked and half-buried by a recent mud slide, and when she came upon Long Pond, she realized she had walked too far west. She floundered through a backwash of branches and fallen trees, losing the path for a time until she came upon Alewife Creek, getting her bearings again. In another hour she passed Nuttings Pond and saw her cousin’s house, a thin column of smoke coming from the chimney.
Behind it stood the barn, and she watched it for a while until she was certain Thomas was there. She crept along the shadowed side of the barn, slipping in through the door. She stood quietly for a moment, listening to the sounds of Thomas and John mucking out a stall.
She stepped forward into the light of a hooded lantern and said, “Thomas.”
They both startled at her voice, and she could imagine what they were seeing; her dress was torn and muddied, her shoes two stumps of clay embedded with leaves and the bristling eruptions of twigs.
She said again, “Thomas.”
Thomas set down the pitchfork and, turning to John, said, “Leave now. Stay gone a good while.”
John propped his pitchfork against the stall and walked quickly past her, closing and latching the door.
She stepped out of her shoes, leaving them behind like a chrysalis shedding its casing, searching Thomas’s face for any sense of betrayal. But there were no bitter looks, only an alarmed concern as one might give a sleepwalker. She stepped closer, staggering through the straw, and he was there, holding her up briefly, then setting her on a stool. He turned away, filling a bucket of water from the trough, and knelt in front of her. Peeling off her stockings, he dipped his hands into the bucket and began to wash her legs with long, kneading strokes. The water was surprisingly tepid on her skin, as though the huffed, steaming breath of the cows had warmed it first.
He set aside her shawl and carefully washed her face and neck, cupping one palm around the back of her head, running his other hand across the birdlike bones at the base of her throat and the darker skin above her bodice. The water ran in droplets between her breasts, collecting on her ribs like animate things, and she recalled she must breathe. Her hands, lying useless at her sides, were collected and rinsed with water until the pads of her fingers were pale again.
While he washed her he spoke to her calmly, beseechingly, in Welsh and then in English, telling her, “Daniel spoke only that you and the missus had quarreled, and that he sent you for a time to your father’s.”
“Thomas,” she whispered, “through my own carelessness I have revealed to Daniel…”
He held her chin so that she faced him. “Martha, Daniel knows who and what I am. He always has. He is but one of many who has chosen to give safe harbor to men such as myself.” Startled, she reflexively pulled back, but he held her fast. “Pots are not the only things he carries in his wagon. His work goes to the heart of his commitments to keep those in hiding from harm. He carts letters and dispatches from here to Boston and back again for a man named James Davids who, to the best of his abilities, watches over those of us wanted by the king for treason.” He craned his face closer to hers, his voice low and urgent. “Daniel carries the greatest treasure in the colonies: intelligences, warnings, instructions. Without such knowledge we would be like blind men pursued by dogs.”
That Daniel had put himself, and his family, at risk of imprisonment or death made her ashamed she had ever thought him weak. “Has he said more?” she asked. “Why he sent me away?”
He shook his head. “Beyond crossing words with his good wife? Only that he would give you time to reflect on the life you may be choosing.” He traced a lingering finger across the prominence of her collarbone.
Relief that Daniel had not spoken of the red book overwhelmed her, and she lowered her chin. She held up her empty palms, like a supplicant, to show him she had brought nothing with her on her arriving, for she had nothing. He pulled her head roughly to his chest, and then he lifted her up, carrying her into the recesses of a far stall.
The hay was newly set, both green-smelling and fusty from the mold of summer. He set his back against the wall and pulled her to him. Her gestures were reticent, shy, and he kissed her gently until she had caught fire and pressed her mouth between his lips. She straddled his lap, understanding that his great weight would burden her, and helped him pull up the bulk of her skirt and shift which then lay like a gray curtain around them. She placed his hand over her breast and willed herself to slow her own motions. She brought her forehead to rest on his, her eyes opened and watchful. There were no whispered pleadings or sentiments offered to justify their actions, but a voiceless question had formed on Thomas’s face and she said, “Yes.” “Yes,” she said to him and settled her hips more insistently on his.