“I suspect they rejoice to see you forsake matters here to serve your own shire instead. As for myself, I feel a light has gone out with your leaving.”
“You flatter me.”
“Nay, Alexander Renick, I speak truth.”
“Then let us dispense with surnames and all the rest.”
Their eyes met and held. Oh, she was nearly undone. First he’d touched her. And now her name on his lips sounded like a song. She sought some response, but the well of her heart was too full for words.
“Till we meet again, Selah.” With a low farewell, he moved away from her just as his aunt sought her out.
“How fare you this joyous wedding day?”
“Very well, Widow Brodie. And you?”
She looked at the bouquet in Selah’s hands. “A portent, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.” Widow Brodie’s expression was so hopeful she daren’t say otherwise. “Care for a cup of punch?” At the woman’s nod, Selah ladled more of the dwindling drink.
Voices rose near the garden’s gate fronting the street as several members of the council gathered there. Selah’s alarm swelled. The governing body of James Towne was increasingly divided and bitter, and even amiable occasions such as these were cause for rancor and confrontation.
Thankfully, Xander was at the opposite end of the garden, speaking with her father near her mother’s prized weeping willow. Other guests milled about, the four acres offering pleasant distraction, each bed meticulously weeded and watered and cossetted to showcase every color of the rainbow. At the garden’s heart, her mother held court, answering questions about certain plants, dispensing advice over which herb was best paired with poultry and which waylaid gout, what thrived in Tidewater soil and what was best left in the Old World.
“So good to speak with you, my dear,” Widow Brodie said in parting. “I think I shall walk about before I go. This lovely plot is the talk of all Virginia, and rightly so.”
Selah pushed back the wayward slip of hair Xander had righted. Wooziness again smote her. Perhaps she made too much of the gesture. A friend might have done the same. She took a steadying breath and fought for composure. Her stays felt damp in the noonday sun, the sky as sapphire a hue as the newly arrived silk on their shelves.
The reception was waning now, most wedding delicacies devoured. Cecily and Phineas spoke with a few lingering guests as most left to seek the shade of their own homes and workplaces. Selah’s gaze returned to Xander now leaving the garden by way of a back street, avoiding the knot of cantankerous men still clustered near the main road. Wise, he was. And bent on a dozen different things that eluded her.
Especially this matter of a bride.
12
At sennight’s end, Ustis sat at the head of the table and admired the salted ham Izella placed in front of him. “Our table is bereft of Cecily but about to welcome Watseka.”
“Watseka?” Shay was at full attention.
“It means ‘pretty girl’ in Potawatomi.”
“Shall we simply call herPretty Girl?”
“Perhaps we shall ask what she prefers,” Ustis replied, taking up a knife and fork to carve the meat. “She shall arrive in a fortnight.”
“So, the council has decided,” Candace said.
Grieved by the lament in her mother’s tone, Selah awaited her father’s answer as she poured small beer. For once, Shay was more interested in Watseka’s coming than his supper plate.
“Indeed, the decision has been made, dear wife. With Xander overseeing the exchange, all is in hand. For that we can be thankful.”
Shay looked toward their mother as if to allay her fears. “Surely God is in this. ’Tis my dream to go where few have trod, distant though it may be.”
“Distant, aye. To Menmend, an encampment few but Xander have seen or lived to tell about. The Powhatans’ most recent stronghold.” To his credit, Ustis never skirted the hard details. Had his years of misery in early James Towne enabled him to speak the unvarnished truth? “A few other youths will also participate in the peace exchange, lads from Bermuda and Flowerdew Hundred and Middle Plantation.”
“How old is Watseka?” Selah took her usual place, Cecily’s yawning empty beside her.
“That wasn’t spelled out,” Ustis replied. “I only know that none of the settlement families are willing to send any but young indentured orphans, though the Powhatans are sending sons and one daughter. Watseka is said to be from the Pamunkey tribe, one of the many grandchildren of Chief Opechancanough.”
“I strive to remember such an exchange is sorely needed,” Candace said. “Much like Xander and Mattachanna’s marriage bringing a prolonged peace, which bore much fruit.”
