Timewatch (28 page)

“I wished to talk with you privately,” said Susanna without preamble, pointing to a chair opposite her.

She looked strained, but her voice was as firm as ever. “You have set me thinking about what will happen to my son at my demise. I am in good health, but it is not given to any of us to know the hour of our passing.”

She paused and gave Marjory a keen look as she asked, “Have you more information pertaining to me or my son?”

Marjory shook her head. “Only what I told you yesterday,” she said.

“Are you still persuaded of the opinion that I am too hard on Peter?”

“It is not for me to say, but surely you do not wish your property to go to strangers?”

“Not to these folk with their pious cant,” muttered Susanna. “I have had a deal of trouble to bite my tongue all these years, but hard necessity has taught me the virtue of keeping my true opinions to myself. At least these Puritans respect my hard work and the fact that I have built up a thriving business of my own, where I owe nothing to anyone.

“Now as to the situation at hand; I have been acquainted with you for over twenty years, Goody Matthews. You are reported to be an honest, hardworking woman, but this is the first time I have heard of this Sight of yours.”

“It is a gift, one which I have seldom shared with others for fear it might be misunderstood.” That was true, at least.

“Wise, very wise, but what made you decide to share your, ah, insights with me?”

“A great compulsion was laid upon me to speak to you of this,” said Marjory carefully. “And,” she said, looking straight at Susanna, “I am very glad I did.”

Susanna's mouth worked, and for a few moments she was unable to speak. Mastering her emotion, she said, “No one has ever spoken so truthfully to me.”

“Because they fear you.”

“But you do not.”

“True, I respect you. You have succeeded in making a good life for yourself and your son. It must have been very difficult.”

“Indeed it was.”

“Sometimes it is difficult to allow one's self to love,” said Marjory, half to herself.

“Love is something one hears little of around here,” said Susanna. “More like judgment and damnation. But I digress. You advise me to help my son so he may marry?”

“It would seem advisable.”

“For the good of the nation to come, you say.” She leaned back in her chair. “I shall think on what you have told me.”

And with that she would have to be satisfied. Marjory wouldn't know what Susanna had decided until the Morgan family returned to the 20th century or, if Susanna decided not to help Peter, the Morgans would not return, would never be born.

She felt sorry for Peter. With luck, he might get to choose his own bride, although Susanna, no doubt, would have a great deal to say about it, as she had a great deal to say about everything.

Marjory stood up.

“You are leaving? Will you not stay for some tea?”

Marjory shook her head. She felt a sudden urgency to go home. “Thank you, but I must leave. I'm glad we talked.” Hesitating, she added, “I would appreciate it if our conversation went no further than your ears.”

Using her cane to balance herself, Susanna stood up and said, “To whom would I mention it? Godspeed, Goody Matthews.”

Marjory rose. With what she knew to be a certainty, she said, “I doubt we will talk again.”

CHAPTER 34

“You did what?”

“Mother, the mare broke her leg. I had to shoot her.”

Susanna thumped her cane on the floor. “The mare was only eleven years old, good for another few years at least. I will need to buy another animal to replace her. Do you suppose that money can be plucked from trees?”

Peter hung his head, just as he used to do when he was a child. Susanna wanted to hurl her cane at him. Then he looked at her calmly and said, “Not at all, Mother.”

Well, well, what was this? Was Peter finally standing up to her?

“Go on,” she urged. “I can see you want to say more.”

He was chewing his bottom lip, another signal that he wanted to say something. Would he do it or lapse into his usual subservient attitude? Part of her wanted him to do so, and another part wanted him to stand up for himself.

“Well, son, do have the kindness not to keep me waiting. I am old and could die at any minute.”

She looked for an expression, no matter how fleeting, of joy at her words, but there was none, only a newfound firmness. “As you wish, Mother. I have worked faithfully for you for many a year. Now it seems time that you provide me with an income that will enable me to marry and provide for a family.”

“And if I don't? Then what?”

Would he threaten her? Accuse her of witchcraft? That was the scene in her dream.

Peter's mouth opened and then closed. Then he looked her full in the face—something he never did—and said firmly, “I will continue to work for you. After all, you are my mother and are all I have in this world.”

Susanna turned away so that he would not see the tears that had sprung to her eyes. A painful silence ensued.

“Mother?”

Her throat closed up as a surge of love for Peter threatened to overcome her. Her son, her only kin now. Her dream of Peter accusing her of witchcraft must have been false, maybe inspired by the mayhem wreaked in Salem. What had Tituba, the minister's slave, wrought, telling stories of witchcraft to impressionable young girls like Ann Putnam? Ann and others had accused hundreds of men and woman and even a child of five years of being Satan's servants. Nineteen of these poor wretches had been hanged.

She cleared her throat. “I think we may come to some arrangement. You have been a faithful son.”

She could hardly bear the sudden look of joy on Peter's face. “But there must be no slacking in your work, Peter,” she warned.

“Of course not, Mother. And I thank you.”

She waved away his thanks. “I will give you money to buy another mare. I hear that Goodman Johnson has one for sale. You might visit him tomorrow. Oh, and I will pay you a monthly wage—nothing exorbitant—but enough to keep you and a wife and any children you may have.”

Peter could hardly contain his joy. “Again I give you thanks, Mother. There is a girl in Salem …”

“That hotbed of witches! Not that I believe in all the nonsense that's been going on there.”

“There is a rumor that the governor's wife has been accused of being a servant of Satan,” said Peter.

“Humph! A fine order of things when people of quality are subjected to that sort of thing! Mark my words, this nonsense will be coming to an end soon. The governor's wife, indeed!”

“You are right, Mother. The accusations must cease soon.”

Peter actually smiled at her then. It had been many a year since he had done that. She found that she was actually enjoying that and the way he was squaring his shoulders. Why had it taken her so long to see how like his father, Paul, he was, the only man—beside her father and once Jeremy—who had ever loved her.

But she had pushed away the few men who had ventured to court her. She had assumed that they all wanted her money more than they had desired her and would take away her freedom to act as she pleased. And now Peter was all she had. But at least he had proved himself to be someone she could trust and, she admitted to herself, even someone she could love.

If what Goody Matthews had told her was correct, there would be grandchildren, some of whom would become instrumental in building a great nation. What more could an old woman ask for?

With a feeling of satisfaction, Susanna sat down in her favorite chair (the only stick of furniture belonging to Paul that she had originally brought with her) and began to daydream of a life encompassing her descendants, who would go on to become great men and women.

CHAPTER 35

Bryanna looked at the body of her son lying on the pallet and tried to brush aside the sense of guilt disturbing her. While Bran had consented to allowing his body to be used temporarily by another, he had not known of her ultimate purpose. But there was no help for it. She had consulted her oracles that all said the same thing: negative forces would try to wipe out her line. If she could not stop them, Bran would die and history would take quite a different path from what had to be.

The boy moaned; his eyelids fluttered, then opened.

“Bryanna?” he asked uncertainly as he looked at her with those blue eyes that had always produced in her an aching tenderness for her son.

“You are safe here now with me,” she replied to the spirit in Bran's body.

The boy, a man now of 16 years, sat up. She repressed the urge to take him in her arms and hold him close the way she used to when Bran was very young, before she had sent him away to be fostered. To be reared so in another family led to lasting friendships. The bonds of kinship in these children became as strong as that of birth parents. They learned to trust and respect their foster family and later became more apt to exchange information and even form political alliances with them. Now Bran—or rather his future self—had returned.

“I thought I died,” he said, putting a hand wonderingly to the small of his back.

“You did die, or at least the host body you were in, died. Do not distress yourself. Only the body dies; the spirit is immortal and incarnates over and over again. Now there is much to discuss but before we do, have you need of food or drink?”

The boy nodded. “I feel a little weak.”

“You will find wine and food over there.”

He stood up and walked a little unsteadily over to the table where he began wolfing down the meat and little barley cakes she had prepared earlier.

“Where am I?
When
am I this time?” the young man asked, his mouth full of food.

“You are in the body of my son, Bran. We live here in Vernemeton, a Druid sanctuary in Alban.”

The boy still looked a little dazed. Then his face cleared. He must be receiving Bran's memories.

The boy stopped eating. “Oh, yeah. Now I remember where I am this time. You're my mother—and a Druid, too.”

“Yes, and you, my son, are a Druid in training.”

Her foster father, the Archdruid, had spent years preparing her for her holy calling, imparting to her the ancient wisdom that few—even Druids—were given to know. She had learned that one could connect directly with the One God without the intervention of priests. Some of the gods worshipped by the Keltoi were merely aspects of the One God, while others represented very human aspects of humanity. An example of such was Teutalis, the god of war. The One God, she had learned, desired humanity to live in peace and harmony with each other.

But the Keltoi still clung to their old ways. It would take a giant upheaval to pry them loose from their old beliefs. That time was fast approaching.

She nodded. It was important to tell him enough, but not too much. Choosing her words with care, she said, “Here in our sanctuary, the chieftains of many of the tribes will be attending a very important ceremony.”

Now that the spirit from the future was here, her son would not be part of that ceremony at the feast of Beltane honoring Bel, the god of fire and light, on the first of May—not if she could help it.

She went on, “Many of the chieftains believe that the tribes must unite now in order to expel the Romans.”

“What will happen if they don't?”

“The sacred groves will be cut down and the sanctuaries defiled, Druid influence will be broken, and Alban will become just another outpost of the Roman Empire.”

“Why would they bother the Druids? I thought they were holy people, not warriors.”

She smiled sadly. This young one was so naive. He knew nothing about the all-pervasive influence that the Druids exercised on their people, an influence that extended from legal to spiritual matters.

“You must understand that a Druid is not just a priest; he also acts as a judge, a teacher, a healer, and a counselor to the king, who must obey his edicts. If one is to destroy the will and heart of the people, one must destroy the Druid priesthood.

“The Romans also fear that Druids are fomenting resistance to them. It is true that some rebels have found sanctuary on Mona, a trading depot and a most holy Druid center.

“But they have another reason for wanting to destroy us. The Romans know that we Druids control the flow of gold from the Wicklow Hills of the sacra insula, Ireland, all through this realm and across the channel dividing us from the tribes of Gaul and others.

“The Romans have a madness for gold. They do not think of it as we do, a metal out of which can be fashioned things of beauty, the most beautiful of which we use in rituals and offerings to the gods. They would seize this gold for themselves, but first they must smash the power of the Druids.”

She paused. Here was the delicate part. “Would you be willing to follow my counsel?”

Under her intense scrutiny, the boy flushed. She could see the conflict going on within him. In the end, as she had known he would, he nodded cautiously.

Smiling at him she said, “Rest now. We will speak again tomorrow.”

It was a journey that her oracles had told her would have fateful consequences, she reflected as she walked out of the dwelling where she had resided for so many years.

CHAPTER 36

Watching Bryanna's retreating back, J.J. wanted to shake information out of her the way you'd shake apples off a tree, but he suspected it wouldn't work that way. She knew far more than Bran did. J.J. sensed that her plans ran deep and that she was keeping them to herself, sharing only what she thought he should know.