All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Edited by Beth Meacham

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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New York, NY 10010

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Tor^® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN 0-812-50924-2
EAN 978-0-812-50924-3
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-3041

First edition: August 1998
First mass market edition: May 1999

Printed in the United States of America

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

To Mark and Margaret,
for whom all heartfires
burn bright

Acknowledgments

Several books were of incalculable value in developing the story of Alvin’s search through America for patterns he might use to build a community that is both strong and free. Most important was David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (Oxford University Press, 1989, 946 pp.), a brilliant, well-defended exposition of a non-reductionist theory of the origins of American culture; in its pages I found both detail and rich causal reasoning, greatly helping me take this book from plan to page. William W. Freehling’s Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776–1854 (Oxford University Press, 1990, 640 pp.) gave me details of life, obscure historical characters, and the economic and political realities of Charleston in the 1820s, which I could then distort into my American “Camelot.” Carl J. Richard’s Founders and the Classics: Greece, Rome, and the American Enlightenment (Harvard University Press, 1994, 295 pp.) provided me with the attitudes of educated American leaders toward the Greek and Roman classics that were a part of traditional education at the time.

As so often before, I thank Clark and Kathy Kidd for providing me with a retreat where I could jump-start this book.

Thanks also to Kathleen Bellamy and Scott J. Allen for help above and beyond the call of duty; to Jane Brady and Geoffrey Card for their collection of data from the earlier books.

As Alvin wanders through the world, it is his wife who provides his harbor; this, my wife, Kristine, also provides for me. All my stories are told first to her.

Contents

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Maps

Chapter

1 Gooses

2 A Lady of the Court

3 Painted Birds

4 Stirred-Up

5 Purity

6 Names

7 Accusation

8 Basket of Souls

9 Witch Hunt

10 Captivity

11 Decent Men

12 Slaves

13 Judgment Day

14 Revolt

15 Fathers and Mothers

1

Gooses

Arthur Stuart stood at the window of the taxidermy shop, rapt. Alvin Smith was halfway down the block before he realized that Arthur was no longer with him. By the time he got back, a tall White man was questioning the boy.

“Where’s your master, then?”

Arthur did not look at him, his gaze riveted on a stuffed bird, posed as if it were about to land on a branch.

“Boy, answer me, or I’ll have the constable ...”