Flight of the Sparrow (30 page)

It is the first time he has hinted that her loyalties may be divided and she reacts with a fury that she realizes only later is proof
that his question has struck close to the bone. “How can you question my loyalty?” she snaps, throwing down her sewing and rising from her bench. “Have I not suffered enough but now I must be accused of disloyalty—
by my own husband!?
” She wants to throw something heavy across the room.

“Mary!” He leaps from his chair. “Calm yourself! I have not accused you of anything! I merely asked you a question.”

“’Tis a vile question, then,” she says, backing away from him. She thinks of James. She sees that her hands are trembling.

“Perhaps you could prove your loyalty by meeting with Increase. He would like to discuss his project with you directly.”

She looks into her husband’s face and in that moment comprehends that she has no choice. Her husband has cleverly maneuvered her into this position. “Very well,” she says slowly. “I will talk with him. But I make no promises. I must allow myself to be led by the Lord.”

His eyes narrow. And then he smiles. “Of course you must,” he says. Not for the first time, she is struck by the thought that Joseph believes there is no difference between God’s will and his own.

•   •   •

M
ary sits with Increase Mather in his parlor, surrounded by his books. He smiles at her kindly. “How fare you, sister?” he asks. “Are you content with your lodgings in Mr. Whitcomb’s house? Are you well treated?” His benevolence seems genuine, yet she remains cautious.

“Well enough.” She thinks of the whispers and narrow-eyed glances of the women during Sabbath worship. She thinks of her husband’s reluctance to touch her. “I praise God that our children have been restored.”

“And that you are reunited with your husband?” he prompts, still smiling.

She looks at him and unexpectedly her vision blurs. Then,
suddenly, she is in tears, confessing a detail that she thought would never pass her lips. “My husband has not touched me,” she sobs, pressing her fingers to her eyes. “Not since my return.”

Increase sways back in his great chair, as if her words are a blow to his body. His fists curl over the carved knobs of the chair arms and knead the smooth wooden grooves. A shaft of sunlight suddenly wedges through the diamond windowpanes, then as suddenly shivers and disappears. Mary feels a responsive pang in her chest, prompted as much by her own plight as by the strange play of light.

“Have you done aught to offend him?” His voice is still kindly, though his question is not. “Have you not tried the womanly arts to bring him to you?”

She bows her head and looks into the black cup of her hands. “I have tried everything, sir. He thinks me tainted.”

He says nothing. She feels his silence like some great-jawed monster lurking in the shadows, its tongue extruding between gleaming teeth, waiting to swallow her. Increase leans forward; she hears the dry buzz of his sleeves as they scrape the chair arms. His question seems to come from a great distance. “
Be
you tainted, woman? Have all your protestations been a mockery of truth?”

She keeps her head bowed. She does not speak. Cannot speak.

“Your silence condemns you,” he says quietly, and sinks back in the chair, letting his head loll against the top rail. “But though you be stained, I warrant it is your own action that defiles you. The savages do not know Christ. They are devils.”

“Not all are devils.” She still cannot bring herself to look at him.

“Ah.” He sighs. In the fireplace a log burns through and falls, sending a shower of sparks across the hearth. “You are right. Yet a good Indian is so rare as to be an irregularity.” As he shifts again, sideways this time, his head tips forward so his solemn gaze rests on her once more. “But what has that to do with you, woman? You must confess your defilement and seek redemption.”

“I was not defiled by the Indians,” she says, her voice a hoarse croak in the darkening room. The cast of light coming through the window tells her that clouds have rolled in and a storm is brewing over the harbor. “No one defiled me but myself.”

Increase frowns. “You confess that you have defiled yourself?”

She can think only of James, of the compassion she saw so often in his eyes, the many kindnesses he showed her. Of lying beside him in his wetu, of feeling his dark gaze upon her. She recalls stepping into his embrace, and the way she clung to him as he held her in his arms. She thinks of how her heart was pierced so painfully on the day she was ransomed that she could barely manage to look at him. Yet look she did, for she could not bear to walk away without a final glance.

She chokes back the memory, licks her lips and tastes salt. “My thoughts,” she whispers. “I was defiled not by flesh, but by my own desire.” She looks up and finally meets his gaze. “It is not what you think,” she says. “The Indians. Their ways are different from ours, but they are not born of the Devil. They are most often chaste and kind—”

“Sister Rowlandson!” The words die in her throat as he rises from his chair. “What you say—if it be true—is of no consequence.”

She rocks back on the bench. “What would you have me say? An untruth?”

“The only words that matter are those that God ordains.” His voice ripples above her, like the disturbed surface of a pond. “I understood you came to discuss the writing of an account of your captivity. For the glorification of God. To show a lost people the chastening rod of His love. The question that lies before us has nothing to do with heathen ways!” His finger stabs the table, as if a manuscript already lies there, waiting to be read, when she has not written a single word. “It is plain that the Lord has used Indians as His rod. The question before us is”—he leans forward and down, so
that his face is uncomfortably close to hers—“will you not record your story so that God may be glorified? That a lost people may perceive the mercy of His chastening love?”

She rises slowly, facing him. He is not a tall man, shorter than her husband, only slightly taller than she, and very thin. “I have not yet decided, sir,” she says. “I wait upon the guidance of the Lord.”

There is nothing he can say to this, no way to refute what she has claimed—the full authority of God over them all.

“Pray, sit down.” His voice has softened. It is almost melodious. He has immense control of his tone, more than any other minister she has heard. “Perhaps you do not fully understand why I bid you write this book.”

She sinks back onto her bench.

“You have suffered a great ordeal,” he says, sweetness and compassion now emanating from him, the sweetness of Christ. His collar is starkly white against his dark brown coat. “Yet it is not your story alone, but ours—all of us here in New England.” His arm sweeps out to encompass the room. “It is
God’s
story—the story of a covenant people lost in the wilderness. As you were lost.” He pauses; he seems to be waiting for his words to penetrate. Perhaps he expects some reaction on her part, some word or gesture to indicate she understands. But she says nothing.

“Do you not see, Sister Rowlandson?
You
are the emblem for all of us. Your story is our own, writ small.” His voice rises. “Your ordeal is a testament to God’s mercy. To His promise of redemption.” To her surprise he sighs; his shoulders sag. “We have suffered beneath His rod for many months. The Indians have slain hundreds of our people.” He pauses. “It is never easy to discern God’s will. Yet we know He keeps His covenants. So I ask you to write this account that we might all better understand His purposes.” He peers at her again. She wonders if his eyes are failing, if he has difficulty seeing her in the dim house light. “You are well now, are you not?” Again,
the soothing voice, the tone that softens the stone in her heart. “You have recovered from your tribulation? You and your children have a roof over your heads? All the earthly comforts?”

“Aye,” she says.

He nods gravely. “And your husband—surely he is seeking another parish?”

“Yes, I trust he is.” And she does trust—she must have trust, for she has no evidence. Since her return Joseph has done little but brood when he is in her presence. The rest of the time he seeks other company, going out at all hours visiting, calling it ministry though she knows it is escape from the spiritual captivity that her return has imposed upon them both. She recognizes it, for doesn’t she, of all people, know captivity? Isn’t she most intimate with all of its deceits and cunning ways?

“So”—Increase says, leaning forward once again; she feels his movement as a shift in the air, as if a cold cloth has been pressed to her face—“you will demonstrate God’s will? His glory?”

“I fear I cannot, sir,” she says, “until I understand His way.”

“Then I shall tell you how it is to be done.” His voice is very low. “You will write down the particulars of your ordeal and I will make of them a testimony. You must leave it to me.”

A bitter taste comes into her mouth as she understands his intent—he means to take her story from her and shape it into something she will not recognize. He is requiring her to relinquish her experience to him—just as she relinquished the body of her dead child to the Indians. Nausea flows through her and, with it, a stubborn anger is born.

“I will pray for the Lord’s guidance,” she says carefully.

He nods. “Ask your husband to come to me,” he says. “I have word of a parish that might have need of him. And I will also encourage him to resume his marital duties—”

“No!” She cuts him off, alarmed. “He must not know I told you
of this difficulty between us. It would shame him beyond bearing!” She reaches toward Increase, beseeching him. “Pray, promise me you will say nothing. ’Tis best left in the Lord’s hands, is it not?”

He folds his hands together and places them on the table. Mary finds herself staring at them. They look more like a massive fist than hands in prayer. “I will give you that promise, if you will give me one.”

She waits for him to continue, but he seems to be waiting for her assent. Finally, she dips her head in a submissive nod.

“Promise me that you will not only pray on this project but that you will ask the Lord’s blessing upon it. That you will ask Him to open your heart to it.”

She looks up at him. “I will do what I can, sir.” She sees from his expression that he knows she has promised nothing. Yet they both smile in the pretense that she has agreed.

•   •   •

J
oseph badgers her with questions about the meeting. Did Increase persuade her of the rightness of the endeavor? When will she begin to write her narrative? How long will she delay?
When she explains that she has agreed to pray on the matter, he informs her that he will pray, too—pray that she will perceive the wisdom of the project. Pray that she will quickly perceive that the salvation of New England depends on her compliance.

She does pray—or tries to. But God is silent. If she is procrastinating in her duty, as Joseph suggests, God has not yet seen fit to correct her, or soften her heart toward the project. Or toward her husband.

Nor does she see any sign that God is softening Joseph’s heart toward her.

•   •   •

B
y summer, all of Boston is saying that the hostilities are nearly over; the Indians are beaten. All that remains is that the last of the rebels be rounded up and punished. Many are captured and
executed. Among them are Praying Indians. Mary thinks often of James. She wonders if he has been arrested, if he will be hanged. Or worse.

Joseph decides that she should attend the executions of those Indians judged guilty of treason. “It will benefit you to see justice brought upon our enemies,” he says. “I warrant it will settle your mind.”

“Nay, Joseph, I beg you not to require this new duty of me.” She looks at him, struggling to keep her face from revealing her horror. “I have witnessed sufficient suffering during my captivity. I would not look upon any more.”

“’Tis those guilty of causing all the suffering who will be hanged,” he assures her.

“While some are surely guilty,” she says carefully, “many have only committed the crime of being born Indian. Which, surely, is no crime at all.”

“But they are the very ones who defiled you,” he says. “You must agree that the gallows is too merciful for them.”

“No one defiled me!” she cries. But he bids her hush and will not listen. Despite her pleas, he is not moved. So she obeys and accompanies him to the hangings, standing beside him as witness, watching the guilty as they are dragged up the gallows ladder to the platform. She hears them cry out their final words; she watches them drop into the air and hang twitching at the end of the long ropes.

Yet she refuses to cheer with the crowd or join Joseph in his prayers of thanksgiving. The spectacle sickens and haunts her. When she walks past the common, where the heads of the condemned are speared on pikes, she turns away from the sight, lest it stop her heart.

•   •   •

T
he governing council declares an amnesty for any Indians willing to repent their association with Philip and come to Boston. When Mary hears this news, she feels a flutter of excitement—something close to joy. “God is merciful,” she says to
Joseph, and asks him what he knows of the amnesty. She wants to know how it will work. Will the Indians be allowed to return to their homes? Will some test of loyalty be exacted?

“I cannot say I favor this declaration,” he tells her. “It seems to me it puts us all at risk. Fortunately, the period of the amnesty is short. And”—he gives her a meaningful look—“I have heard that each Indian who accepts amnesty must bring in a dozen others with him. Then he will be indentured to an English family. That, or serve with a militia unit until the Indian threat is over.”

Mary feels a tightening in her own neck. “Enslaved?” she whispers. All she can picture is James shackled in chains. She shakes her head, as if it might remove the image from her mind.

“Nay, I said
indentured
,” Joseph replies. “You will find some comfort in that, I warrant,” Joseph says. “For every Indian restored, an English family’s lot will be improved.”