She could hear them solemnly practicing these remarks in the next room, where Jenny was helping Silvia to get everyone dressed in what passed for their best. For today, they would reach Canajoharie.

She felt as though she’d swallowed a half pint of musket balls, these rolling heavily in her stomach. They had worried—well, she had—about encountering roving soldiers, random battles, or the men war cuts loose from society, but with the help of God, Ian’s skill at seeing things coming and avoiding them, and—no doubt—sheer blind luck, they had crossed seven hundred miles without meeting serious trouble. But today they would reach Canajoharie—and, just possibly, meet Works With Her Hands. “She was lovely. I met her by the water—a pool in the river, where the water spreads out and there’s not even a ripple on the surface, but ye feel the spirit of the river moving through it just the same.”

The musket balls dropped one by one into her entrails as she remembered Ian’s words. “She was lovely …”

And she had three children, one of whom might be Ian’s.

She closed her eyes and said a brief, fierce prayer of apology, with a request for quietness of mind and peace of spirit. She rested her hand on Oggy’s wriggling body, saying it, and the peace of spirit came at once. He was Ian’s son, without doubt, nor could she doubt Ian’s love for him—or for her.

“Ifrinn!” Ian exclaimed. She felt a sudden hot wetness bloom against the palm of her hand, and a dreadful stink filled the air. “We’ll never be away at this rate, laddie!”

As he hastily wiped and reclouted Oggy and Rachel mopped up the overflow, Ian turned suddenly, kissed her forehead, and smiled at her, his eyes tender above his tattoos.

Thank you, she thought toward God, and smiled back at her husband.

“I told thee that Friends have no doctrines, did I not, Ian?”

“Aye, ye did.” He cocked his head, waiting, and she raised a brow at him and handed him one of the wire fasteners Brianna called safety pins, with which to secure the clout.

“That does not mean that we therefore approve of all manner of behavior, merely because it’s the normal practice of others.”

“Mmphm. And, um, which normal behavior is it ye had in mind that ye willna stand for?”

“I had in mind polygamy.”

He laughed, and her spirit bloomed afresh.

THEY REACHED CANAJOHARIE in the afternoon, and Ian found them two rooms in a small, relatively clean inn and then sent a message, written in Mohawk, to Joseph Brant, one of the most powerful military leaders of the Mohawk—and a relative of Emily’s—introducing himself and asking audience. Before nightfall, an answer had come back, in English: Come in the afternoon and we will drink tea. I will be pleased to make your acquaintance.

“He’s well spoken,” Jenny observed, taking in not only the message but the paper it was written upon, which was handsome—and secured with a wax seal.