He stopped at once and replied, his eyes on the ground, obedient to the slightest word from a white man.
“It’ her’,” he said simply, pointing through the doorway of the women’s quarters. “Kitonckquêi.”
“Kitonckquêi?” Rowan yelped at the Pokanoket word for “ghost.” “You sure?”
“Sure,” he said. “Sure.”
He waited until Rowan made a gesture to release him, and then he set off at a run to catch up with the gang of slaves headed for the cane fields. The women were coming out of the hut to follow the field gangs, tying their heads with strips of old linen, some of them pulling on hats. All of them were bowed with pain, some of them hobbling from old wounds from land crabs, some of them with brands on a cheek or forehead. They flinched when they saw a white boy standing in their gardens; someone muffled a little cry that he would kick the plants over.
“Which is Kitonckquêi?” Rowan demanded. She shuddered as she said the word. “Which one calls herself Kitonckquêi?”
A ripple of fear and concern moved down the line. Someone pointed, someone said something very quietly. One woman, a hat shading her head, a young boy beside her, put the child behind her as if to shield him from the malevolent white gaze.
“I, Kitonckquêi,” she said.
Rowan waved the others to go to work, to leave them alone. Kitonckquêi pushed her boy after them, as if the grueling cane fields were safer for him than standing before a young white man. She raised her head to look at Rowan and they saw each other, for the first time. Each of them took in the straight black hair, the brown skin, the direct gaze, the unmistakable poise of a hunter: each saw another one of the People.
“Nenomous,” Rowan said falteringly in her own language, looking into the half-starved face for recognition. “I am of the People.Tow wow—I am your sister. I amSqui minneash sookenon, daughter ofSéquan wuskuhwhan.”
The woman looked at her incredulously, stared as if she would see through the signs of privilege—the boots, the clothes, the hat. She stared at Rowan’s deer-black eyes, saw that she stood, even in a man’s old boots, as a girl who has been raised barefoot, saw the slope of her shoulders and the starved thinness of her face, heard the beloved words of her own people. The words that the victors declared should never be spoken.
“I am Caskwadadas,” she said quietly.
“Why call yourself Kitonckquêi? Why name yourself for a ghost?” Rowan demanded. “Why name yourself as a dead woman?”
The woman shrugged, her spread hands indicated the tiny garden, the poor crowded hut, the desert of green cane all around them. “We are all dying here,” she said simply. “The only question is the hour of my death.”
Rowan took a breath. “I am Red Berries in Rain,” she repeated. “Granddaughter of Quiet Squirrel. We lived at Norwottuck and in summer, at the sea. Are there others of the Dawnlands here?”
“Not here,” Caskwadadas said. “There was one and he died. I haveto go,” she said, looking up the white dusty road after the field gang. “I will be beaten if you make me late.”
“I’ll come and say I delayed you…” Rowan offered.
The woman shook her head. “Better that I am not seen with you,” she said. “Alone, you pass as white, just as I pass as living.”
“But I must see you again!’ Rowan said urgently. “We are the same people. Perhaps I can help? They think I am an Englishman, that my name is Ned Ferryman. I work in the house, I can bring you food.”
“Can you bring food for my son?” For the first time she looked into Rowan’s eyes.
“Yes, I can. I will.”
“Can you come tonight?”
“Tonight, before moonrise, at the darkest time.”
The woman nodded and started after the slave gang.
“I will come,” Rowan promised. “I will bring food. You are not a dead woman. You are not alone.”
She said nothing and Rowan watched her hurry after the field gang. Her head bowed but her stride was long and smooth, the lope of a hunter.
ST. JAMES’S PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1686
The queen’s drawing room reception was a formal event held every month, for the court to spend the evening in conversation, flirtation, and conspiracy, with card tables for those who had nothing to say. Visitors from the country could be presented to the queen and meet their town friends. Young men and women entering society could be presented by parents or sponsors, make their bow to the queen, andsometimes glimpse the king, who often dropped in to see men of influence or visiting ambassadors.
Mary Beatrice had loved the drawing rooms when she was a young duchess, not much older than the girls who now came to make their curtsey to her. In those days she had been the prettiest girl in the room and the center of attention. King Charles had petted her; her husband, his brother, had kissed her hand before everyone; and even her sister-in-law, Queen Catherine, had smiled on her.
Mary Beatrice had held few drawing rooms of her own, since her coronation a year ago. With a rebellion in the north and west of the country, and bitter opposition in the heart of the city, the councillors had advised it was not safe. The king’s attention was completely claimed by his religious advisors, his new army, and—until the start of this year—his mistress Catherine Sedley, so she had not wanted to open her doors to the elite world or to hear the gossip.