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“You don’t sound content yourself,” persisted Robert, increasingly disturbed by Elizabeth’s sharp tone. Though he knew she had a temper, she had never lost it with him, nor had he ever known her to grumble.

“I
am
content,” she snapped, then shook her head with a half-laugh. “Oh Rob, don’t act so downtrodden. You’re very good to me. Women have moods, my stomach’s queasy, and in truth I think I’m breeding.”

“What?” he whispered, drawing back. “What did you say, Bess?”

She laughed outright at his dazed face, thinking that any other husband would have guessed. “I said I’m almost sure I’m with child, and you needn’t look shocked, my dear, we’ve been married eight months, so the Court won’t have us up for lewd questioning, should the babe come early.”

“Do you want it?” he said, swallowing.

“To be sure I want it. I always wanted more babies.”

“But the dangers. I can’t bear to think of you in pain or danger.”

“If I’m not afraid, you needn’t be,” she said. “The second comes easy. Look at Aunt Margaret, she near died last time, she’s way over forty and yet whimpers not at bearing her seventh.”

“Aye, that’s true,” he said, reassured as Elizabeth’s decisive strength always reassured him. “I suppose it will be pleasant for us to have a baby. Though I can’t imagine it.”

“You’re good to Joan,” she said, looking at him kindly. “And will dote on your own. Now, Rob, shouldn’t you be hurrying out to the fields? Aren’t the men cutting corn today?”

He started and nodded. He finished dressing and went out, while Elizabeth thought it was fortunate that his servants had been farm lads in the old country and had enough knowledge to tend the Feake crops, for Robert certainly had not. He was as ignorant of husbandry, cattle care, or land-clearing as she was herself, but she at least understood gardening and the stillroom, and she had been used to the partial supervision of a manor, while he apparently knew no skills but his former craft. Sometimes she wondered why he never seemed to miss that or wish to exercise it. He had given her a fine gold neckchain and an exquisitely chased silver ladle for wedding presents, and both he himself had made in London, so that she knew his ability. There were, of course, no materials in Watertown for him to set up as gold- or silver-smith; also it was clear that he no longer wished to have anything to do with trade, but she thought it odd that the thin sensitive fingers should lie idle of an evening when he might have tinkered with their pewter or made tools as most other men did here.

But her thoughts never dwelt long on Robert when he was not with her. While she dressed herself in her one cool gown of rose tiffany, bundled her hair into a kerchief and tied on a workaday apron, she thought again of Margaret whose babe was due in a fortnight, which meant it had been conceived almost as soon as they landed from the
Lyon
and inescapably brought to Elizabeth an image of her uncle in a grotesque light. Impossible and revolting for her to imagine him in any act of intimacy, and she felt an irrational anger too on Margaret’s account, though the feeling was unjust. Margaret, incredible as it seemed to Elizabeth, truly loved her John and delighted in submission. And she has God too, Elizabeth thought a trifle wistfully, a God whom she believes watches over and loves her.

This meditation was brusquely interrupted by Joan, who had learned to unlatch the door, and ran into the bedchamber crying, “Mama! Mama! Injuns!”

There had been rumours of unrest amongst the Indians lately, nothing definite, but the Feakes’ neighbour, Captain Patrick, had told them that he and Underhill were on the alert. Elizabeth was not given to worry; moreover she had become friendly with several of the local Indians who lived across the river in their village, called Nonantum, so that the note of fear in the child’s cry scarcely disquieted her, but she was startled when she hurried down to the kitchen and found two strange Indians standing on the hearthstone smoking English pipes and gazing fixedly at the terrified Sally, who was huddled over the spinning wheel trying with shaking hands to twist a length of broken yarn.

“What are you doing here?” cried Elizabeth to the Indians, pushing Joan behind her and wishing Robert and the men were working the home lot today instead of their fifteen acres by the Common.

The two Indians swivelled their beady, black gaze from Sally, and contemplated Elizabeth with the same detachment. She saw by their face tattooings, the quality of their fringed buckskin breeches, their many wampum necklaces, and the amount of red-dyed deer hair and feathers in their roached scalplocks that both must be some sort of chief. One carried an English pike, and the other taller more handsome Indian a stone tomahawk with an elaborately painted wooden handle. This Indian also wore with great dignity a mantle of woven turkey feathers.

“What do you want?” cried Elizabeth again. “How dare you enter my house?” And she made shooing gestures towards the door.

The taller one blew a cloud of tobacco smoke through his nostrils, and said, “Want Mr. Oldham - my friend.”

“Well, you won’t find him here,” said Elizabeth, relieved to hear English. “His house is up the river about a mile.”

“He not there,” said the Indian. “We look. Oldham where?”

“I haven’t the least idea,” snapped Elizabeth, who barely knew John Oldham, a famous Indian trader, seldom at his house in Watertown. “Who are
you?”
she said, lifting her chin and frowning

“Me,” said the tall one after a moment, “Miantonomo, Big Sachem Narragansetts. This - “ he pointed to the other Indian, “English call James Sagamore - live near.”

“Oh, to be sure,” Elizabeth cried, still uneasy but enlightened. Patrick had told her that a great chief of the Narragansetts had recently been to see Winthrop in Boston, ostensibly to ask for an alliance against the fierce Pequots whose lands adjoined the Narragansetts to the west. Winthrop had entertained the Sachem, his squaw, and twelve braves hospitably, but there was doubt as to the real purpose of the visit. James Sagamore Elizabeth had also heard of, since he and his brother John ruled the Massachusetts tribes from Watertown to Salem. It seemed wise to pacify such prominent chiefs, and Elizabeth decided she had been discourteous. She managed a nervous smile. “I’m sorry I can’t help you to find Mr. Oldham. But could I offer you something to drink, it’s so warm?”

Miantonomo grunted, while the muscles relaxed around his glittering jet eyes. James Sagamore yanked a stool from under the table, settled himself on it, and said, “Beer.”

“Get beer, Sally,” Elizabeth hissed over her shoulder, not removing her gaze from the Indians. The girl scurried out towards the spring. She came back staggering from the weight of a small wet keg. Behind her through the door waddled a fat, befeathered squaw, wearing a red English petticoat, and nothing above it except strings of wampum which flopped between her pendulous brown breasts. She gave Elizabeth what seemed to be a friendly salute, then seated herself on the bench near James Sagamore and eyed the beer keg expectantly.

“Your woman?” Elizabeth asked, looking from one to the other of the men. Definitely relieved now, she felt inclined to laugh.

“No,” said Miantonomo. “She belong no man. She squaw sachem. She
rule
many men.”

Oh, thought Elizabeth, a female chief. I’m honoured but I hope there aren’t more of them. Though the hearth fire was low, yet it made the kitchen sultry, and the Indian smell was overpowering. She pulled the bung from the keg and, letting beer flow into a big pewter tankard, offered it to Miantonomo, who drank deeply and passed the tankard to the others. Elizabeth prayed they would go, but James Sagamore put his pipe back in his mouth, while his eyes roamed around the whitewashed walls where the Feake firearms rested on wooden pegs. There were two muskets, a pistol, and a carbine. Powder horns hung beneath each. Robert had taken the fowling piece with which he was an indifferent shot, but he sometimes got wild fowl or small game.

“Guns,” said James Sagamore, speaking for the first time. “I want. You sell.”

Elizabeth’s heart jumped. She did not need the memory of Captain Peirce’s advice to Eliot on the
Lyon,
nor the knowledge that selling firearms to the Indians was an offence punishable by flogging and branding, to appreciate the danger of her position. I must keep my head, she thought, and instinctively turned to Miantonomo. “I cannot sell any guns, you know that, Sachem,” she said speaking very distinctly. “The white Governor has forbidden it. He would be
angry.”

Miantonomo nodded slightly but said nothing. James Sagamore got up and, walking to the nearest musket, ran his stumpy finger down the barrel. “I take,” he said, and glanced at the silent sachem; in a wheedling voice he added to Elizabeth, “I give you beaver.”

Elizabeth shook her head, while her thoughts jumbled. Were there more of them outside? If she pretended to send Sally to the spring again, would they let the girl go, and where
was
the nearest help? Or would it be better to pretend to bargain?

“The guns are my husband’s. My man’s,” she said, edging towards Sally, who had grabbed Joan and was hiding with her behind the spinning wheel. “I can’t sell. My man would beat me terribly.”

James Sagamore shrugged, unmoved by this plea. He lifted the musket from its pegs. He also reached for the powder horn. “I take,” he said, but the watchful Miantonomo spoke in rapid guttural Indian. The Sagamore hesitated. The squaw said something too. Soon all three Indians were obviously arguing, and Elizabeth bent close to Sally, “Are there more savages outside?”

“Aye - “ gasped the girl. “By the river.”

Elizabeth breathed hard and saw that now having put the musket on his stool, James Sagamore was fingering the carbine. “I take,” he said, putting the carbine beside the musket. He glanced at the sachem and added reluctantly, “Will pay more beaver.”

“Leave him have ‘em, mistress,” wailed Sally. “Leave him or they’ll murder us all!”

“No, they won’t!” said Elizabeth, fear suddenly giving way to fury. “You can’t take those guns and you know it!” she cried, stamping her foot. “This is English land, I won’t sell and if you steal you know what’ll happen to you! We have many soldiers, right near. I’ll call my husband, you can’t stop me, I gave you beer, I made you welcome, this is an outrage!” She flew at the astonished Sagamore and jerked the carbine from his hand, while Miantonomo gave a grunt that was very like a laugh.

At the same moment the door swung open and a loud voice boomed, “Here, here - what’s all this?” Captain Daniel Patrick, fully armed and in helmet and breastplate, stepped over the sill. He stared from the shaking Elizabeth to the three Indians. He saw the musket on the stool and the carbine in Elizabeth’s hands. “Trying to get firearms?” he asked.

“That one was - “ she panted, pointing to James.

“So, James, me greasy slubber, ye’re up to your old tricks, are ye? I thought as much. I’ve been keeping an eye on ye, followed your trail downriver to here. Did they threaten you?” he asked of Elizabeth.

She shook her head. “N-no. Not really, but they wouldn’t go, and James kept taking down the arms.”

“Buy. Not steal,” interrupted Miantonomo quietly.

Patrick turned to the sachem. “I marvel to see
you
in this, Your Highness,” he said with deference, eyeing the chief narrowly. “You Narragansetts protest great friendship for us, at Plymouth they trust ye, as they do your royal uncle Canonicus, and Governor Winthrop is your netop - your friend.”

The sachem bowed. “I
am
English friend. And am friend to Oldham who know our people well. I seek him.”

“But ye let James Sagamore try to get firearms, and terrify women!”

Miantonomo opened his hands in a wide gesture. “He not under
my
rule and we have peace with Massachusetts tribes.”

“Aye,” said Patrick quickly, “Well, be off with ye. You too, me dark-skinned beauty,” he said to the squaw sachem who was curiously twirling the spinning wheel, while Sally glared at her. “And don’t try this game with any other planters, d’ye hear?” he added to James Sagamore, who looked sheepish and waggled his head.

The three Indians walked outside while Patrick followed to watch them rejoin a small party of their braves who were squatting on the river bank. The Indians all boarded waiting canoes, and Patrick came back to Elizabeth who had collapsed on the stool.

“Were ye much ‘frighted, sweetheart!” he asked, putting his big freckled hand on her shoulder. “Though from what I heard ye gave ‘em a good tongue-lashing,” he chuckled, and poured himself some beer.

“Thank God you came,” she said. “I
was
frightened, I didn’t know what to do.” She gave him a trembling smile. She liked the bluff, auburn-haired Patrick, who had a way with women, but she also liked his wife, Anneke van Beyeren, who was placid, and pretty, and the only one of her neighbours Elizabeth found congenial.

“There’s no great harm in the Indians, if ye treat ‘em right,” said Patrick, wiping the beer froth from his bushy red moustache. “Some’re tricky like that James, some’re real gentlemen like Miantonomo - but ye know, Bess, I own to a sly fancy for the rogues. They put me in mind o’ the wild Irish tribes I was raised in.”

“Do they?” said Elizabeth faintly. Usually she was interested in Patrick’s stories of his boyhood, and flattered that he trusted her with many details which would have horrified the Bay Colony, but she was still shaken. She distastefully sipped some beer and nibbled on a corn flatcake.

“Aye,” he said, reaching for a flatcake. “
I
know what it is to have the English come stravaging an’ strutting, to claim your own rightful lands! I mind me father, when the bloody English Protestants first o’erran Ulster, spat on our churches and called us slaves. Ha! There was good Irish fighting in those days. I mind once when the O’Neills - “ He checked himself, and banged his first on the table. “Whist, Danny, my lad, ye’re a blabbermouth fool I Ye’re in English pay now, and ye’ve taken English oaths, Protestant oaths. And ye do what the Governor says!”

Elizabeth laughed. “Oh, Dan, I fear you’re a sad hypocrite.”