Page 119 of Dark Tides
“They say it is to dance. John Sassamon came just to warn me, he told me to warn you. He showed me a village that’s arming and building defenses, a Norwottuck village, just over the river, as close as Hatfield, and they are arming and building a palisade that wouldwithstand cannon. I swear they’re stockpiling weapons, perhaps even muskets. He showed me, so that I should tell you what I’ve seen with my own eyes. He asked that you pass it on to the men you know on the Council. I’ve seen him many times this autumn and winter; and he’s clearly traveling for the Massasoit. He’s talking to kinsmen and tribes, it certainly looks like they’re mustering. If the governors don’t meet with him and make a treaty about leaving the Indian lands alone, I’m afraid it will be war.”
The two older men, who had made war on their own people up and down England, and even in Ireland, looked bleak. “A war of the Pokanoket and their allies against us would be deadly,” Edward judged.
“It would undo all our work,” John Russell said. “We’ve told Boston, we’ve told Plymouth before. But we’ll have to warn them again. We’ll have to make them understand. They might survive a war with the Pokanoket in the cities; but we would not!”
“And which side would you take, Ned?” William challenged him. “You and your Indian friend? Aren’t you and he both in the same boat? Warning both sides against the other? You can’t spend your life crossing from one side of the river to the other. You’re going to have to choose.”
DECEMBER 1670, VENICE
Sarah woke after strange haunted dreams of her aunt Livia as a monster of stone, as a sculpted sea serpent, as a white marble widow, as a disinterred goddess, and came downstairs, pale and dark-eyed, to have breakfast in the salon served by Mamma Russo, who was not as charming as she had been the night before. The marble-floored salon was cold, the whole house was chilled stone built on icy water.
Sarah tried to throw off her unease, and spent the morning wrapping the smaller statues in scraps of sheep fleece, and then sewing them into a coarse sailcloth, and handing them to the Russos’ servant, who crated them for her: building little cages of wood around the irregular shapes. She could not rid herself of the sense of working among a mortuary: every now and then she looked around, and the sightless eyes were watching her. Even the little stone animals seemed to silently yearn for a sun that had been lost.
At four, as the light from the warehouse window darkened and the canals gleamed with gondola lanterns reflected on their still waters, the whole family gathered together in the first-floor dining room for their evening meal: the mother of the family, Signora Russo; her handsome adult son; her little son; and the sulky daughter, Chiara. Sarah, as guest, took the foot of the table opposite Signor Russo, and when the children withdrew after dinner and his mother put a bottle of brandy before him, she set three glasses and sat with him and Sarah, as if Sarah were a gentleman guest, a man of quality, who should be served with honor.
“You enjoyed yourself today among the antiquities?” the young man asked her.
She did not tell him that she had looked for him all day, and had been wishing he would stroll into the storehouse and flirt with her.
“Yes,” she said. “They are all things of such beauty, I kept looking around and surprising myself.”
“One day I shall take you to the feather market, and we can visit a milliner’s also. You might like to see how they work here. They make masks as well as hats, their speciality is masks and crowns and fantastic headgear, and beautiful creations which cover the face and the hair, for those ladies who wish to be unknown.”
“You would take me?” Sarah asked, and felt her face warm in a blush as he smiled at her.
“It would be my pleasure,” he said.
“When I first arrived, I saw some ladies in masks and standing very tall on pattens, so high that they had to be held up by maids.”
“Those are our courtesans,” he said. “The courtesans of Venice on their chopines. Pattens, as you say, but so tall they are almost like stilts. Very expensive, very famous, very beautiful.”
Sarah felt herself flush hotter. “I didn’t know. In London, of course, especially at court there are…”
He took a sip of his wine. “The whole world knows of the London court, and the ladies who whore for the king. But you are not of that world?”
“No,” she said, falling back on her usual excuse. “I don’t know anything about it. I’m just a milliner.”
“I believe that Signora Nell Gwyn was just an orange seller. But it didn’t prevent her making her fortune from favor. D’you never think of that life? You have such beauty that you would surely be a success?”
Sarah knew she was blushing furiously. “No,” she said. “My mother is a woman of great…” she could not find the words. “Great…”
“A puritan, in fact,” he helped her.
“Yes,” she gasped. “Very respectable. I would never…”
“But you like pleasure? You like beautiful things?”
“Yes I do…”
“And you hope to marry? You are betrothed perhaps?”
“I have no thoughts of marriage.” Sarah tried to compose herself. “I’ve just finished my apprenticeship. I have to make my own way in the world. I cannot afford any luxuries.”
“You call a husband a luxury?” he laughed.
“In my world, a lover or a husband is a luxury,” she managed to say. “And one I can’t afford.”
“I toast you!” he said, raising his glass to her. “A young beauty who thinks of men as expensive luxuries. Indeed, you come from a country which has turned everything upside down. The English throw down their kings and then bring them back, raise young women who cannot afford to marry! What a novelty! Bless you, Bathsheba Jolie!”
