“Why don’t you sit with me?” he asked.

Sanne was everywhere and on all of their minds that morning, including Adelia’s. She thought then of what her patroness had said when she had found her looking out of the window one afternoon. “Are you watching him?” she had asked.

When the younger woman admitted she had been, Sanne had said, “He will come to you. You will see. He only needs a bit more time.”

Adelia had not believed her, as she had already given him what she thought was all the time anyone could need, until she began to consider herself unwanted and ruined. When he asked her to sit with him that morning, though, she accepted his invitation so easily he thought she had been waiting for it, and that perhaps Sanne had said something to her after all.

Adelia sat down across from him, and the two of them had breakfast together that morning, and every morning in the future, from that day forward.

ten

The inland roads of the southern colonies were as strange to Rennton as the ice sheets of Greenland, and — knowing the business of their ports — he picked his way across them with as much care. After inquiring about until he found someone who knew the way to Berkeley, he hired a coach to take them as far as Edenton, where they stayed the night. In the morning, after presenting his papers, he secured passage to Bath. Once they arrived he purchased a horse for not too much money, but the dealer was unscrupulous and the beast only survived as far as the Indian fort. From there, man and boy had no choice but walk the remainder of the way.

It was five days through the wilderness, with the trail sometimes becoming nothing more than a footpath in the woodlands. How coaches came that way, if any ever ventured out there, one would be hard pressed to say. When the boy grew too tired to continue, Rennton at first would pick him up and carry him upon his shoulders, but the third time that Caleum cried weariness and requested this treatment, his guardian bid him to toughen up. “I’m not your mule,” the man said to his charge. “Now see if your legs aren’t a little hardier.” The boy responded dutifully after that, and even when his feet began to blister over and shred he refrained from complaining for the rest of the trip.

Nights they made camp in the naked air, and in the morning both were stiff from the cold and did not want to move from their pallet. Rennton invariably ventured forth first and boiled water on the camp embers for the few loose tea leaves he would throw into a pot. The two then ate hard biscuits and charqui saved from the ship before setting out on their campaign again. At midday they had the roasted carcass of a hare Rennton had caught two days earlier, when they first started out. “It isn’t much,” Rennton told him, “but safer than we would have been otherwise.”

All the while the boy did not object, and when they finally entered Berkeley he did not mention his aching stomach that felt as if a timeless hunger had settled there, until Rennton noticed a tavern and said he figured it was all right for them to enter inside.

After ordering food, they asked the serving girl for directions to a place called Stonehouses and were happy to see it was well known. “Who are you?” Content asked him, coming over to their table after the girl had given them directions, for he still minded the bar himself some days.

“I am a stranger here and at your mercy,” is all Rennton would answer, being as suspicious of Content as the other man was of him.

“You say you and your boy walked from the fort?”

“Aye.”

“Well, no need of paying for the supper. I’ll see if someone can take you on the rest of the way.”

Content then sent for a young man who worked for him and told him to hitch a wagon and drive the strangers out to Merian’s place.

The boy had been quiet since the ship docked, asking few questions, not even where they were going. He had hoped they were meeting his parents, but now he could not contain himself and asked Rennton where he was taking him. “Your father’s house,” the man answered the child, making the boy wonder that his father had a house he did not know about. “No, your father’s father,” Rennton explained. “I imagine it will be much the same.”

It was not.

When they pulled up in the wagon, Jasper Merian sat in the cold air on the porch as if he had been waiting on a visitor, and Rennton could tell right away he was at Purchase’s people’s place because of his carriage. When he announced his business and told of their journey there, Merian was very aloof with him but invited them indoors nonetheless. He next gave Magnus the note Rennton had given him, and Magnus read it over. After he finished it he went in his pocket and retrieved a handful of coins. “This is for your trouble and expenses,” he said handing Rennton the monies.

Rennton looked at the coins and they were a large sum indeed, far more than enough for his troubles. Why, if he wanted he could take the rest of the season off from the ocean. The house itself was more than he had ever known of any Negro to possess, save for the African kings, who everyone in his business knew were fatter with wealth than anyone else in the world.

“You are welcome to stay for dinner, but if you need to get back I can have a horse saddled for you that should serve better than the one you lost on the journey out,” Merian told his guest.

“I would be happy to stay on for dinner, if it’s no bother,” Rennton answered, as he was tired deep within himself.

The boy was pleased to hear this response, for he did not understand yet that he was to stay there and was glad to have time in one place instead of moving on immediately.

“Hello, Caleum,” Magnus said, going to greet the latest Merian to make his way onto the land. “I’m Magnus, your uncle, and this is your grandpa.” The boy shook hands with his uncle very precisely, then did the same with his grandfather.

Adelia, who had come from the back by now, gave the boy a great hug when he came to greet her. He was comforted by this warmness but also confused by all the attention he was receiving. “You must be tired from your trip,” she said. “You’ll feel better after a rest.”

Indeed, both Rennton and Caleum looked frightful from the voyage, and both were appreciative for the chance to restore themselves a bit. Magnus showed Rennton a room where he could sleep, and told him he could have a bath if he liked. Rennton declined, however, not being in the habit or wanting to imperil his health, even as he was tempted by the idea of such luxury.

Adelia had water raised from the well and heated in the kitchen, then poured into the laundry basin in the basement. When she took Caleum’s shoes off, she was shocked to see the condition his feet were in and nearly went off in search of the man who had let him walk such a way. Instead, she put ointment on his wounds and commended Caleum for being so brave.

When Magnus returned from showing Rennton his room, Merian was still in the parlor. “I wonder how they made that trip out here on the trail they did without getting killed,” Magnus wondered. “It was madness of him.”

“No more madness than when you walked here,” Merian reminded him. “Or when I did.”

“Both of us grown men who knew our own ambition and limits,” Magnus replied. “Not a six-year-old barely out of swaddling.”

“Well, it pleased the Lord to bring both of you,” Merian said, “just as it pleased Him to call Sanne home.”

Magnus at first thought to argue with his father but checked himself, not wanting to excite Merian into one of his more unpredictable moods. He saw the good wisdom of this when he looked at Merian and realized clearly his advancing age, as if he had all of a sudden willed the years to hurry on their course with him.

“Sanne would have given anything to see that child,” Merian said. “It broke her so to lose Purchase.”