Prologue

The old woman sat alone in the shadows. A small fire burned before her.

In the sunlit clearing, a group of boys were shouting and tossing a tightly wound ball of hide. The boys did not need her help. They could go to the Elder, and he would read for them in the smoke.

She waited.

Tiring of their game, the boys wandered away toward the stream that separated the summer village from the cornfields. Their jests faded into the distance.

She waited.

The sun sought the southwest corner of the sky, the place where final rest was granted to the courageous and the loyal. The shadows grew long, claiming the clearing and the forest beyond, making them one.

She waited.

Furtive whispers and giggles came from the trees closer to the village. The old woman did not look in that direction. She knew what she would see, for she had been here many nights when the moon was full.

Two girls knelt on the far side of the small fire. The girls came to her, for the Elder would not read the smoke for the girls of this clan. The old woman smiled as she greeted Matantuck and Netop. So alike these girls were, and so different.

Matantuck wore her black hair in long braids that glistened with bear grease. A buckskin skirt covered her from waist to knee, but her budding breasts were as bare as her feet. The old woman knew what future she would read in the smoke for Matantuck. She had read the same future for all the girls of this clan—a strong husband, a son to follow his father, and a long life of happiness. The smoke had offered that future since the first morning.

"Will you read for Netop?" asked Matantuck. "She has never had her future read for her."

The old woman turned her gaze to the other girl. She was unlike any other member of their clan, for her hair was the color of maple leaves in autumn and her clothes made of homespun. Her face was of a land across the great sea, but she had taken the ways of their clan into her heart.

"I will try," the old woman replied.

As the two girls giggled, the old woman bent toward the fire’s smoke. Its scent surrounded her and lifted her from the earth, where her bones, ached to a place where she was as young as these girls who sought the counsel of the ones who have been.

A tightening across her chest frightened her, and she waited for the heart pain that had followed each time for the past ebbing and growing of the moon. It did not come. Instead she realized she was in the grip of the ones who have been, a grip that stole her will and made her their tool.

"Netop," she said, watching herself as if from a distance high above the treetops, "for you there is much sorrow and much joy. For you, there is fire. Fire to destroy, and fire to create. Your path leads through fire and then your path divides. One path only can be your future. One path only you may walk."

"One path dividing into two?" Netop whispered. "I do not understand."

The young girl’s words sent the old woman spiraling back into her own flesh, leaving the realm of the ones who have been. "Nor do I, Netop. I speak only what I am told to speak."

"But you told Matantuck about the man she would marry, a man who is handsome and brave. Why won’t you tell me of such happiness in my future?"

"I speak only what I am told to speak." Her voice quivered. The grip of those who have been demanded much from a living spirit. Never before had they held her with such power. It frightened her.

Frustration filled the young girl’s summer sky-blue eyes, but she said, "Thank you for trying to read for me."

The old woman reached out to take the girl’s hand. "Netop, I will beseech the ones who have been to tell me more, so that you might understand."

"Tonight?"

She shook her head, not wanting to admit that she was fearful of opening herself again so soon to the ones who have been. "The ones who have been will come to me when they deem the time right. Then I will share with you what they have told me."

"But when will that be?"

"The ones who have been decide that. I will seek until I find you the answers you crave, Netop."

"Thank you." She rose to her feet and signaled to Matantuck to do the same.

As the girls walked away into the shadows, the old woman stared into the flames.

And waited.

One

Smoke and fire...

Hannah Chaffee put her hand to her aching head, wondering who had spoken to her. The voice was familiar, but lost in memory. Every muscle throbbed at her simple motion. Her skin burned. Oh, no, she could not be sick. Not now. Others in the English settlement of Kickemuit had become ill during the spring, and they had slowly recovered. But others had families to help with the work and the planting. She had no one to help her in the tavern.

When her hand was drawn away, she murmured a protest, then sighed as a damp cloth was placed on her forehead. Its coolness was heavenly. She wanted to thank Mrs. Hubbard, who must have come to check on her. In the small settlement west of Plymouth Colony, Mrs. Hubbard was the only woman who did not look down on Hannah for running the tavern. What else did the rest of the women think she should do? With her father’s death, the tavern had been his only bequest. Another pulse of dismay racked her skull. She could not open the tavern if she was so ill. She must keep it open. She had promised Papa at his bedside as he died that she would. And she had, no matter how she was looked down upon by the women of the village, even as so many of their men came to the tavern to share gossip and a pint of ale. Or maybe the women hated her because the men spent many evenings at the tavern.

If she had not promised Papa that she would keep the tavern open, she would have left it and the settlement right after his death, for she tired of being denounced by the town’s pastor and so many others in Kickemuit. But a promise was a promise, and she could not break it.

"Wake slowly," a woman whispered.

The words wound through Hannah’s head, as soothing as the cloth. She did want to wake slowly. Too many mornings, after too many long nights serving rum and ale, she had had to force herself to rise from bed. To linger was delicious.

"You have been very ill, but you shall be better soon," continued the woman’s consoling voice.

Yes, she would be better soon. She must be. She must make sure the tavern was open. Now, more than ever, when rumors of war were whispered every night in the tavern, the men needed a place to come and talk. Papa had told her so often that talking like that could be the very thing to make the anger dissipate, so an uneasy peace was maintained between the English settlers and the Wampanoag.

"Can you open your eyes?"

Hannah was certain she could. How difficult could such a simple, commonplace motion be? She concentrated on her eyelids, silently ordering them to rise. Even the thought added to the ache in her head.

Light struck her eyes. Dull light filtered through an uncaulked wall. She started to frown, but halted when pain stabbed right behind her forehead. Blinking, she tried to focus her eyes.

They widened as she lifted her heavy arm to touch the wall beside her. Bulrushes crackled as her fingers brushed them. She followed the woven mats up the curved wall to the top of the dome. It was so far above her head that she knew instantly she was lying on a low bed only a few inches off the ground.

A weeto! She had not been in one of the Wampanoag summer homes since before Papa had become ill with the wasting sickness. Not since before...before he died. Another beat of pain scored her, but this came from within her heart.

"You are awake!" The woman’s voice was filled with relief.

Hannah choked back her amazement as she realized the woman was speaking in the language of the Wampanoag. How was this possible? The Wampanoag village was forbidden to all the English settlers, even to her. Yet she was within a weeto, and the woman used the words which Hannah had learned at the same time she learned English.

Nothing made sense. She sought in her memory, but the last thing she could recall was telling Zeke Arliss last night she would not marry him. He had asked at least once a week since her father’s death earlier in the spring. Dear Zeke was a friend, but she did not want to wed the balding tanner, even though the match would have turned the scorn in the settlement to acceptance. Or would he be ostracized as well because his wife worked in the tavern? So often he came to the tavern, knowing she would listen to the tales of his day. And he most definitely needed a wife. Last night, the button on one knee of his breeches had been undone and his stocking sagging. Another button was missing from his waistcoat. But, if that had been last night, how had she come here?

Forcing her head to turn on the soft pile of pelts took more strength than she had anticipated. She stared up into a wrinkled face. The totem engraved into the old woman’s cheek was lost among lines of age. This woman seemed no bigger than a child as she knelt by the bed. Necklaces made of shells and beads fell across her naked chest.

Who was she? Hannah had never seen her before this moment, and she had been certain she knew everyone in the Wampanoag village that shared the peninsula with the English settlement of Kickemuit. The women in that village had come to appreciate English homespun and always wore shirts over their buckskin skirts.

"Who—?" Her voice creaked like the leather hinges on the door to her bedroom.

A broad smile matched the joy in the old woman’s eyes as she put her hand on Hannah’s. "Dearest child, welcome home."

"Home?" She moaned as the word impaled itself in her head. No, she would not surrender to this pain. She had to know what was going on. Nothing made sense. "This isn’t my home."

"You do speak our words."

"Yes, but where am I?"

"Do not strain yourself with questions now." The old woman lifted the cloth from Hannah’s head. Dipping it into a bowl by her side, she twisted the buckskin before smoothing it back over Hannah’s forehead. Cool drips ran along Hannah’s cheek as the old woman said, "You must rest, Seaki."

"Seaki? I am—"

"You are Seaki. Ousamequin, he whom you have come to call brother, brought you to be my daughter." Her smile was genuinely warm.

Hannah could not return it as she tried to sort out the confusion in her head. Her brother was not named Ousamequin. When she and her father had been adopted into the Wampanoag clan in thanks for helping nurse their friends through smallpox, she had already known each of the siblings and many cousins she gained, for they had been her friends since she had been the first English child born in Kickemuit. Ousamequin? No, her brother was Ashpelon.

"Who are you?" Maybe if she could be certain of one fact, she could guess how she had come here when she should be in her own room over the tavern in Kickemuit.

"Quiapen, your mother."

"My mother?" She had not thought this could get any more baffling, but she had been wrong. Her English mother had died so many years ago Hannah could no longer recall her face. Her adopted Wampanoag mother was years younger than this bent woman. She tried to push herself up to sit. With a groan, she fell back into the pelts.

"You are distressing yourself, daughter." Fur tickled Hannah’s chin as the old woman tucked a bearskin around her and smiled. "You must rest. You have been ill."

Rest? Not until she had some answers, but where to begin? She took a deep breath, then asked, "What clan lives in this weeto?"

"Attuck-quoch."

Hannah ignored the pain that clawed at her skull as she managed to sit up. The clan of the deer? This was all wrong. Her adoptive family was of the clan of Mishquashin, the fox. Cradling her head in her hands, she whispered, "Where am I?"

"The village of Acoomemeck. You—" Her kind voice broke into laughter as light pierced through Hannah’s eyes when the door flap opened. "Come and sit higher up while you welcome your cousin home. Seaki is awake!"

All the questions Hannah wanted to ask went unanswered as she was surrounded by a half dozen people, each one eager to greet her and wish her well on her recovery. Quickly she realized she had been brought here to replace Quiapen’s dead daughter. But why? Although it had long been the way of the Wampanoag to take captives into their clans to fill empty places in families, that explained nothing. She should not be a captive. She should be welcomed as the member of an allied clan.

She looked past the women to scan each male face. They were all too young to be warriors. Where was Ousamequin? Why had he brought her here?

When the clatter of voices battered her head, she was unable to silence her moan. Quiapen shooed the others out of the weeto, then came back to the low bed platform. Hannah wanted to ask the questions plaguing her, but she was given no chance as a bowl was held to her lips. The luscious smell of herbs surged over her, and she drank. As sleep enfolded her, she gave herself gladly to the surcease of pain and the questions no one had answered.

***

The aroma of venison cooking and the sizzling of juices on hot stones tempted Hannah to open her eyes. Her stomach rumbled, and she wondered when she had last eaten. Breathing a prayer as she turned her head on the pelts, she was astounded to discover the pain had eased. She touched her forehead. The fever was gone. Her chemise clung to her body with sweat. She must be getting well.

A fire pit was set in the center of the earthen floor. It could have been the familiar weeto of her adopted family, save there were only two bed frames along the curved walls, and the cooking pots were piled neatly in one corner.

Her eyes widened when she saw the ceremonial mantle hanging at the back of the weeto. The work was exquisite, for the pattern of a fox’s face was embroidered with beads into the deerskin. Fox tails at its hem would brush against the legs on every step. It was a handsome garment, and only a warrior could claim it.

But what was it doing here if this was the home of the clan of the deer? Nothing made sense.

"How do you fare, child?" Quiapen whispered as she came to kneel by the bed frame.

"I shall be fine."

"When you have rested more."

"No, I must learn—oh!" As she struggled to sit, cold droplets oozed down Hannah’s back, lathering her chemise more tightly to her skin, but the weeto no longer wobbled before her eyes. She smoothed her homespun skirt over her knees and frowned. It was tattered and burned. She always was careful near the hearth. What had happened? She had to know.

She placed her feet on the floor and stood. Pain raced up her left leg, blinding her with hot tears. She leaned her hands against the saplings beneath the curved wall and tried to catch her breath. Every motion added to the torment.

"Seaki, you push yourself too hard. You are a stubborn child." Compassion filled Quiapen’s voice as her gnarled hands settled on Hannah’s shoulders. "Sit, and let me bring you some succotash to ease your empty stomach."

"Yes..." She would agree to anything to escape this agony. She put her hand on Quiapen’s arm and winced as another heated blade of pain slashed up her leg.

Quiapen slid her hand over Hannah’s to steady her. "Let me help you. I will—" Her fingers bit into Hannah’s arm as a hint of breeze rushed into the weeto. "Maugin!"

Hannah tried to turn and collapsed onto the bed. She stared at the man in the low doorway. His sleek black hair drifted past his shoulders, bound only by a beaded band across his forehead. Two eagle feathers—each a symbol, she knew, of an enemy slain in battle—hung from the band. Draped over his left shoulder, a buckskin mantle, which was decorated with embroidery edged with dyed porcupine quills, accented his lean strength. Even without the feathers, she would have guessed him to be a respected warrior, for he carried himself with pride.

His narrowed eyes twinkled like twin stars. The symbol of a fox was tattooed on his left cheek, and she guessed the mantle with the fox on it must be his. Muscles moved smoothly across his bare abdomen and along his legs, which were naked from his knee-high leggings to the cloth covering his loins. The scents of the tanned buckskin of his cloak along with the heavy odor of bear grease in his hair washed over her, no longer bringing the comfort of familiarity they had when she was a child.

This was the clothing of a man who traveled through the forest. She dampened her lips when she saw the weapons in his hand and slung across his back. If he had been hunting, why did he not carry a bag to bring meat back to the weeto? He should be presenting it to the old woman for her to prepare. But why was Quiapen of the deer clan in this weeto?

Nothing made sense.

Shrugging off the quiver, he leaned his flintlock against the door. Three boys followed him in, chattering like crows circling a cornfield. A fleeting smile teased his lips as he patted the cheek of one of the lads, then turned to Quiapen. The old woman touched his arm with a fondness that spoke of a long friendship.

"Do you bring good tidings?" called one of the boys. "Are the English scurrying about like ants whose hill has been disturbed?"

"English?" Hannah asked. "What has happened?"

The man named Maugin crossed the weeto in a pair of steps and drew Hannah to her feet. "Who are you?"

"Hannah Chaffee." Trying to ignore the pain in her leg and how her head spun, she whispered, "That is my English name. Among the Wampanoag, I am called Hannah Netop."

His eyes became obsidian slits. "Hannah Netop? You are that Englishwoman?"

Before Hannah could answer, Quiapen said, "You mistake her for another, Maugin. You call her ‘Netop,’ but she is not a friend. She is my daughter Seaki."

Hannah gasped when Maugin flinched. Looking from Quiapen’s smile to his suddenly blank face, she whispered, "What is happening?"

He ignored her questions as he said to Quiapen, "This is not She Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken."

The short woman put her hands on her round hips and stuck her chin out at him in defiance. "This is the one who has come to be my daughter Seaki."

Hannah studied one stern face, then the other. She had guessed correctly. She had been brought here to replace Quiapen’s child who had died. From the moment of death until the deceased was replaced by one adopted into the clan, that person’s name must never be spoken. That would be disrespectful of the dead. Hannah understood that tradition. She just did not understand what she was doing here.

Maugin frowned at her, then at Quiapen. "You are confused. I have heard of this woman. She is—"

"My daughter Seaki."

"—of the settlement the English call Kickemuit," he continued as if Quiapen had not interrupted. "What is she doing here?"

"Ousamequin brought her to soothe an old woman’s grieving heart."

"Ousamequin? He brought her here?"

Hannah asked, "Will you answer my questions?"

His scowl did not waver. "I wish to listen to Quiapen now, not to you."

"Then do not listen to me." She tried to pull away. He held her with no apparent effort, so she added, "But I shall speak my mind. What is happening? You carry weapons, but bring no food. Why?"

"Because I have not been hunting meat."

Hannah stared at him, not wanting to voice the appalling, unspeakable suspicion in her head. For the past two months, men had been coming into the tavern with only one subject on their minds—when the peace between the English and the Wampanoag would be broken and where. "Is there war?"

His voice remained even, but she heard the tension as he said, "You shall remain silent, Hannah Netop."

Quiapen snapped, "Do not speak to my daughter that way! You have always treated my family with respect."

"Your family?" He laughed tersely. "She is of the clan of Mishquashin. Tell her, Hannah Netop."

"I thought you wished me to be silent." Hannah winced as he released her and she put weight on her left ankle. An ember of fiery pain burst in it. She dropped onto the bed. Tears filled her eyes. Biting her lip and grasping her leg as if her fingers could be a tourniquet to curb the agony, she tried to silence the sobs that would disgrace her.

"What is wrong, daughter?" gasped Quiapen.

"My ankle," she whispered. "It hurts."

"How did you hurt it?" the old woman asked.

"I don’t know. I—" She faltered when her eyes were caught by Maugin’s. If he thought she was lying, he was wrong. Putting her hand to her temple, she willed to come forth the memories of the time between bidding Zeke good night and waking in this weeto. "I really do not know."

"My poor child!"

"Enough," Maugin grumbled. He knelt beside Hannah and flipped a section of her skirt aside.

She slapped his hand. Pushing her skirt back into place, she glowered at him, her fury at this stranger’s presumption overwhelming her anguish. He reached for her skirt again. With a curse, she grabbed the knife from his belt. She raised it between them. Its brass blade flashed in the light from the fire pit.

"Leave me alone," she ordered softly. "Whatever touches me, you shall lose!"

Laughter met her words. Not from Maugin or Quiapen, but from the young men in the weeto. She did not lower her gaze from Maugin’s amused eyes. If she faltered, even for a moment, he might—

Her wrist was caught in a vise of flesh. She fought to hold the knife up. It wobbled in her numb fingers. His expression did not alter as the blade dropped to the ground beside him.

"Why do you fear help?" he asked calmly.

"I do not want you touching me." She winced, then went on, "If there is war—"

"Why do you pretend not to know what you should know very well, for your village bore the brunt of the attack?"

"The Wampanoag village or Kickemuit?"

"Kickemuit."

She pressed her hand over her mouth. "Dear God, no!"

"No gods can halt what men have done to claim this land, Hannah Netop of the clan of Mishquashin."

Quiapen said, "Maugin, her name is—"

"Something we should not concern ourselves with while we tend to her injuries." He arched a single ebony brow toward Hannah. "Can I check your ankle without losing my fingers?"

She nodded, hoping no color marked the heat of embarrassment across her cheeks. She had insulted Maugin. He was as confused as she was.

The brawny length of his arm brushed her thigh as he pushed her torn skirt aside again. Hannah heard Quiapen gasp with dismay, but could not draw her eyes away from Maugin’s as he looked up at her. Potent emotions stormed in his eyes. She could not guess what he was thinking, save for his shock of discovering her here. That she understood too well.

She recoiled when he touched her ankle, but his fingers were gentle. Even so, her leg ached worse than her head had in the midst of the fever.

When he turned to Quiapen, Hannah’s shoulders sagged. She was free from his compelling gaze. She looked down at her left ankle. It was swollen and a furious purple and black. How had she hurt it? She must have been fleeing Kickemuit and the attack. Had anyone else needed to escape? Again her breath caught. Had anyone there died?

Before she could ask, Quiapen said, "No, I did not check her ankle." She wrung her hands as she bent to stare at the discolored skin. "I thought only of easing the fire on her skin. I will not lose her again."

"You have no need for a cripple to fill your hours with more work." He picked up his knife.

Fear congealed within Hannah. "Maugin, don’t kill me."

"Kill you?" He laughed without humor. "The Wampanoag do not slay their own."

She hesitated, then said, "Forgive me. I thought, if there is war—"

"Why do you doubt the truth?"

"I do not want to believe what you say."

"That does not make it less truthful."

"No."

"Nor does it make it less truthful that the Wampanoag do not raise their weapons against their own people."

"I thought," she whispered, lowering her eyes, "things might have changed."

"Some things must never change."

"But—"

"That can wait until your ankle is tended to." He sliced through the piece of buckskin that Quiapen had been using to cool her forehead. He cut it into several strips. Dipping them in a bowl of water by the bed platform, he wrapped the pieces around her ankle loosely, for, as it dried, the buckskin would shrink and provide support for her ankle.

"Speak to me of what you have seen, Maugin. Tell me of the war." Hannah almost choked on the words.

"You are lucky to be alive, for nothing remains of your tavern but cooling ashes."

She searched her mind. No trace of memory confirmed his words. Touching the scorched mark on her sleeve, she blinked back tears.

He slipped the knife into its sheath on his beaded belt, then lowered her ankle carefully to the earth. "That should help."

"Thank you." As she looked into his eyes, which were even with hers, she whispered, "I am sorry if I offended you with my unthinking words."

"A warrior does not slay the innocent or the foolish."

"That," Quiapen chided, "is no way to speak to your wife."

"Wife?" Hannah stiffened. "Whose wife?"

"Mine, Quiapen seems to believe," Maugin said, frowning at the old woman.

"No!" cried Hannah. Suddenly she understood what she should have from the beginning. Unsettled, and her brain slowed by the fever, she had not seen the truth right in front of her.

Quiapen of the clan of Attuck-quoch would share the weeto of Maugin of the clan of Mishquashin if Quiapen’s daughter had become Maugin’s wife. Now Quiapen claimed Hannah was to replace her daughter...and Maugin’s wife. This could not be happening! Her heart faltered as she realized she must be sitting on Maugin’s bed, the bed he would expect her to share with him. She would not be his wife! She could not be his wife. They were of the same clan, prohibited to wed as if they were brother and sister. Pushing herself to her feet, she swayed.

He stood. His arm slipped around her waist. She pushed on his shoulders, then shrieked as she put weight onto her left foot. Darkness nibbled at her eyes, and she fought for breath when the cool, rough length of his bare skin brushed her. Leaning against him, for she could not stand alone, she rode out the wave of pain like a ship tossed on a vicious sea. The aroma of his skin flavored every breath she took, and, beneath her ear, she could hear his heart beating more slowly than hers.

His thumb under her chin tipped her face up toward his. She wanted to avoid his ebony eyes, but his gaze held her. She must look away. She tried and failed, for her gaze was drawn back to his as he swept his arm under her knees and lifted her off her aching foot.

"I wish to speak with my wife alone." Maugin paid no attention to the jests and chuckles of his young cousins as they bent to go out the door. If they thought he wished to be alone with Hannah Netop—What a foolish name that was!—so he could seduce her, they were mistaken. Yet...

His gaze wandered along her slender form, which was so intriguingly revealed by her limp and torn English dress. Unrestrained, her red hair tumbled, tangled and enticing, to pool behind her on the bed as he set her on it again. Her left cheek was shadowed by dirt or a bruise, but it only accented the gentle curves of her face. Although her chin was raised in defiance, dismay and puzzlement had stolen the brightness from her blue eyes.

She was lovely. As his fingers recalled her satiny skin against them, desire swelled across him. How easy it would be to press her into his bed and forget in her softness the horror of the war.

He walked away and closed the door flap. Sitting in front of the bed platform again, he watched as a jumble of emotions flew across her face. She was frightened and confused. The latter he understood all too well, for not a single of the reasons he had been given for setting off on this war was enough to bring an end to the peace the English and the Wampanoag had enjoyed for more than fifty years.

When Metacomet, the leader of the Wampanoag, had called his allies to his village earlier in the spring, Maugin had known the English had been wise not to trust him. Although they once had given Metacomet the name of King Philip as a sign of friendship, that amity had been crushed beneath the heels of those who craved to control all the land between the sea and the land of the Iroquois. Metacomet wanted war, so he could reclaim the lands the English had negotiated away through treaties with his father. The target of his fury was the small English settlement which was only a short walk from his own village. He had wanted Kickemuit destroyed as a warning to the rest of the English. Most especially, he had wanted to obliterate the tavern which the English had forced its owner, whose English name was Hannah Chaffee, to close to the Wampanoag. He had derided her as Hannah Netop, who no longer deserved to be named "friend" by the Wampanoag.

All of Maugin’s efforts to entreat the warriors to heed the advice of cooler heads had been futile. The war had come. Its first victim had been the English tavern, but that did not explain why Hannah Netop had been brought a hard day’s walk from Kickemuit to his village.

He frowned. Not a year had passed since he had blackened his face with charcoal to mourn for She Whose Name Could Not Be Spoken as he watched her corpse placed within the ground in a grave as barren of life as the void within him.

"Maugin, tell me what you have seen," Hannah Netop whispered, drawing his eyes back to her baffled frown.

He was startled. He had not guessed her first words would be of her concern for others. He had thought she would continue to argue that she could not be his wife. "I must speak to my sachem before anyone else."

"Did you see what happened to my tavern and my Wampanoag family…and my English neighbors?"

Had he heard a hesitation in her voice before she spoke of her neighbors? Why would she care less for them? She had obeyed their edicts to close the tavern to her Wampanoag clan. "Your home is here now, it would seem."

Her hands moved toward him, then pulled back tightly against her breast. "You know that I cannot be Quiapen’s daughter."

"And my wife Seaki."

"I am Hannah Chaffee!"

"You have many names, Hannah Netop." He laughed, but halted when he saw it further disconcerted her. "Soon you will have no name but Seaki of the clan of Attuck-quoch."

"The adoption rite has not been celebrated. There is still time to end this with the truth that I am of your clan. You know that I am Hannah Netop of the clan of Mishquashin."

He frowned. She was right, although already Quiapen had welcomed her as a replacement for his dead wife. Another pang of pain cut through him as fiercely as a flintlock ball. He had spoken his wife’s name. To interfere with the adoption would curse the memory of the woman he had believed would sleep by his side for many years to come.

She clenched the edge of the bed platform. "Maugin, I saw your reaction to Quiapen’s announcement. Even if we were not members of the same clan, you wish this no more than I do. Give me a chance to rest my ankle. Then I shall leave."

"Where will you go?"

"Home."

"Home? It is gone."

"Kickemuit—"

"Your home was burned, I have heard."

"Burned? You must let me leave, so I can see that for myself," she whispered, clearly distraught at the news.

"And then what?"

"My neighbors would not turn me away." She lowered her eyes, and he wondered if she was afraid that she was wrong. No Wampanoag warrior had boasted of torching the building. Maybe one of the English had seen a chance to rid the settlement of the tavern that had been the flashpoint of so much anger.

He shook his head. "Many wait in the woods who would see you dead."

"The English—"

"I do not speak of them."

"Then speak of the Wampanoag. As you reminded me, the Wampanoag do not kill their own people."

"But are you of the Wampanoag still?"

Her face blanched. "What do you mean?"

"Our leader Metacomet has decreed your adoption into the clan of Mishquashin was a mistake. With the coming of war, he would gladly see you dead as an Englishwoman."

She smiled coldly. "And what will he think when he hears of me being adopted again?"

Rising, he put his hands on her shoulders. "You were captured. A captive can be adopted or put to death. Which would you prefer?"

Hannah fisted her hands at her sides. "Do you wish me to say I would select death over being your wife? That is not so. I would choose life. Once my ankle is healed, I shall leave you, so you may seek another wife."

"You know the ways of the Wampanoag well."

"I know I need not do more than leave this weeto to end this unwanted marriage between us."

"Then who will have you? Who will guard you when so many wish you dead?" He leaned her back against the buckskin on the bed platform. "No Wampanoag, and certainly no Englishman."

As his hands slipped along her shoulders to frame her face, she stared up at him. She wanted to deny his words, but knew they were true. She also wanted to deny the flush of heat rushing through her from beneath his fingertips. It was even more impossible. Was it the fever returning, or—No, she did not want to think that his touch could awaken such sweet fires. He was a stranger, a man she knew nothing of, a man who would be her husband if nothing was done to halt this adoption.

"The English settlers will welcome me home," she whispered.

"Or are they glad you have vanished? You no longer present a voice of restraint when they want this war as much as Metacomet."

Hannah looked away from his direct gaze again. Too many among the English would be celebrating that the tavern had been destroyed, and she was gone along with it. Or would they? She and the tavern had been despised by many of the English, but the Wampanoags were even more hated...and feared. She shuddered. That she had been adopted into a Wampanoag clan had been another reason for many to abhor her, but she would not deny what she had been. That would mean disavowing everything her fathers—both English and Wampanoag—had taught her about thinking first and always of her obligation to her family.

"I cannot say with certainty what the English thought when they discovered the tavern was burned to the ground."

His eyes narrowed, and she suspected he was well aware of the simmering hatred toward the tavern and her from every side. "It matters little, for you are English no longer. It would seem you are Seaki, my wife." He stood and went to the door.

"Maugin?"

He turned, and again she saw the flash of grief in his eyes. His abrupt anger had come from the frustration of unending heartache, she feared. Holding out her hand to him, she whispered, "Kutchímmoke."

He flinched when she spoke the traditional phrase of sympathy. "You know too much of our ways, Hannah Netop."

"I know I am sorry to remind you of your sadness at the death of She Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken."

He pressed her hand to his cheek and knelt again by the bed platform. "You do not remind me of it, for it never strays from my heart." Glancing at the door, he murmured, "With the coming of war, more will die. This sorrow will infect the land, stealing the joy from every heart."

"It must be stopped. Or is it too late?"

"That I must learn. This victory was easy, but will others be?" Again he stood. He took a deep breath and released it slowly through his clenched teeth. "Stay here while I get an explanation from Ousamequin." He put his hand on her shoulder. "Do not be foolish and try to flee. Quiapen does not need to mourn her daughter’s death again."

"I am no fool, Maugin," she whispered, but she was unsure if he heard her, for he walked out, letting the flap fall back across the door to leave her alone with a single question.

Why couldn’t she remember the attack on Kickemuit?