Now there was room on the barrow for the making of a double bed, with a blanket, the second tarp, and his brother’s goatskin coat as the coverings. Finally Franklin placed the pot of kitchen mint at the end of their bedding, just beyond the reach of her feet. He climbed in next to Margaret, his two knives at his side, the hunting bow and arrows within reach. He stretched out, fully clothed, trying not to miss his supper or feel the unexpected cold, as all too quickly the forest yielded to the darkness that it loves.
Margaret was asleep again but breathing evenly. He joined her without difficulty. The day was failing, and there was nothing else to do. Either sleep or lie awake and shiver. He should not complain that Sister Sun had denied him candles and warmth for this night when she had already provided so much daylight for free, and so much fine, unseasonable heat. And there they slept, back to back, the pale-faced shaven woman and the younger man, in their great wooden wheeled bed, between the canopies of trees, like children in a fairy tale, almost floating, almost out to sea. So, finally, some happiness.
A cold night had burdened the trees in frost, the season’s first, and stiffened the standing water and the pools of mud with a glazing of ice. The couple had slept well. Margaret was the first to stir. She woke alarmed. All she remembered at first was that everything was either dead or up in flames. She could not remember what had happened the previous afternoon, after Ferrytown, or how they’d ended up enveloped by such unexpected woodland. It took her a moment to focus her eyes, as usual. The distance always looked as if it needed a wipe, and she had trouble telling faces from afar. But she could soon see and appreciate what Franklin had set up for them the night before: the clearing in the wood, the barrow as a bed, the tarps and coat that kept them warm, the familiar pot of herbs, still flourishing in spite of everything, at her feet. She sniffed the frosty air. Her nostrils were clear. Her body seemed to ache a little less. Her hands and throat were reassuringly cold.
There was a moment of unease, or at least apprehension, when she saw Franklin at her side, in bed with her to all intents and purposes. She’d never even been kissed by a man other than a relation. Until a few days previously, when Franklin had massaged her feet, she had hardly been touched by one. She understood that these were pressured times when conventions and proprieties didn’t count for much. She felt as well that Franklin was most likely a man to trust. His laugh — how it shook his whole body down to his knees and fingertips, rather than simply creasing his face, how it seemed to loosen him and soften him — was attractive and unexpectedly womanly. She had seen him weeping, too, the day before, and that had been heartening in ways she could not begin to understand. He was a decent boy, she thought. A little nervous, possibly, and kinder and gentler than his size might suggest. She probably owed her life to him. He had become her plague-removing pigeon in her imagination. And she allowed that she might owe her future life to him. But these were only daydreams and too comforting. For the moment, at least, she needed to be tougher, to chasten herself as coldly and as bluntly as she could and to acknowledge how grave her situation was, Franklin or no Franklin. Ferrytown was history. Her family were ancestors. Her home was ash. Any chance she had was in the east, beyond the ocean. Most of her countrymen and countrywomen had already realized that. Her journey there had already begun. That was clear, and nonnegotiable. She’d have to make the best of it.
Margaret pulled on her sandals and swung her legs over the side of the barrow. She ought to test her strength, she had decided, before her fellow woke. The trees were noisy with a rising wind and the susurrus of leaf fall. The ground was soft and reluctant to bear her weight, but she succeeded in taking a dozen steps around the barrow, touching anything she recognized. The pot of mint was heartening. She was relieved by how strong she felt: not strong enough to walk a great distance, perhaps, but sufficiently robust to busy herself around the clearing, checking what provisions they had got, what clothes he’d brought for her, what food and drink there was. There was no sign of her cedar box with its three talismans. Franklin had put it somewhere safe, no doubt. She was surprised only to find the platters and the silver wedding cup, touched to see that he had packed a comb and brush for her, and glad to discover the flagons of juice. This was juice that she had squeezed herself from apples and berries.
By the time she’d drunk more than her share from one of the flagons — her thirst was still not satisfied — Franklin was awake and sitting up in their shared bed just watching her.
“I’ve decided,” she said, resolving as she spoke that she would, at the very least, take him as a brother.
“Decided what?”
“Decided that I’ll call you Pigeon. That’s my name for you. Franklin sounds too dignified.”
“You think that I’m not dignified?”
“Not with that limp. How is your knee today?”
“It’s better than it was…”
“And I’m better than I was as well, so then…you see?”
“So then, what should we do?”
“We eat, of course. You have a bow. Shoot something for our breakfast. Suddenly I’m starving.”
While Franklin was out of sight in the forest, though hardly silent, Margaret stretched their coil of rope between two trees and hung the net from it. She would fish for birds and with any luck would have food already cooked when he returned. His catch could be their supper. She found the spark stone and the pouch of tinder, but there was nowhere dry enough on the ground for her to start a fire. So she emptied the mint plant from its pot, that doorstep friend from her old home, and replanted it in the heavy silver cup, which had been a showpiece heirloom in her family for a hundred years and more but never used before. Now the plant had to be the best-appointed mint in America. She firmed it in with extra, muddy soil around its tangle of stringy roots, then smelled her hands. That made her even hungrier.
The empty plant pot was big and strong, and glazed enough to withstand heat. Margaret was an old hand at striking fire. Soon — a dozen chit-chits at most — she had a flame and then a smoky oven in which to cook their breakfast. She was an old hand at fishing for birds as well, although the first few captives were too small to pluck and cook. But by the time the sun was high enough to offer some heat to the day in exchange for a little steam, Margaret had netted a fair-sized quail and a bird that she could not remember seeing before, dappled brown and black but fat and edible. She broke their necks and snapped off their wings, trying not to think either of home or of her dream birds. She split the carcasses open with Franklin’s knife. It was not easy or pleasant to pull out the bones or tug away the skin and feathers. Rather than spoil the breakfast with down and fluff, she threw away good meat among the inedible waste. The forest is always glad of carrion. The remainder, all clean breast, she wrapped in the greenest leaves she could find. Now she had only to construct a spider trivet out of twigs and hang the bird meat from it over the pot fire, where it could cook in smoke.
Franklin didn’t come back empty-handed, but he hadn’t found the chance to use an arrow either. Rather than disappoint Margaret, he had spent too much time and effort lifting fallen logs to see if anything tasty was living underneath. The logs were mostly light and flaky, but the overnight frost had iced them in and made them almost unshiftable. He’d had to rock them free. But all his efforts did not produce as much as a snail. He had mushrooms, though. Mushrooms he could trust as safe. And a few nuts. He was disappointed to have failed as a hunter while she, evidently, had managed so easily to trap fresh meat.