Byzantium Read online

  I ceased paddling.

  “The Order?” I asked. I stared at Josiah’s back and waited for him to tell me I had misheard.

  “Yes, the Order,” he said. “You’ll be the first.”

  I was struck by the pure shock of the honor. The Order! Then, with a jolt, I remembered. My mind thrilled with visions of Dorothea. I saw her, waiting for me in her father’s cabin. Bainbridge’s thundered words the night of my last visit resounded in my head. I had him. One of the greatest sins, according to The Book of Truths, was to break an oath. He couldn’t refuse me now.

  Once we returned to Port Hebron, the others, tired from the sortie, drifted back to their cabins and cottages with a few mumbled salutations. But I couldn’t rest. I rushed across the island to the Bainbridge farm and arrived just as dawn broke. I didn’t pause to knock but stepped into the cabin and went straight to Dorothea, who stood at the fire boiling oats. “William!” she said. “You can’t be here. My father.”

  Just then Bainbridge emerged from behind one of the hanging blankets, risen to take his breakfast. “Mr. Ames,” he said when he saw me, his voice cold as the gray ice that had covered the island’s roads and paths all through winter, so many forgotten months ago.

  “Remember your oath, Mr. Bainbridge,” I burst out.

  He drew his face into a blank of confusion.

  “The night you forbade me to court Dorothea, you said you would allow me to propose to her the day I was raised to the Order.”

  “A figure of conver—”

  “You made an oath, Mr. Bainbridge, an oath and a bargain. I have fulfilled my end. This night I was raised to the Order. Now you must let me offer myself to Dorothea.”

  Dorothea looked to her father. “Is it true?” she asked.

  Bainbridge ignored her. Hoping, I imagine, to trap me in a lie, he asked how I’d accomplished such a feat. I told him the version of the story I and the others had sworn to, then added that he could ask Josiah himself if he doubted me. Bainbridge groaned and sat. He put his hand to his forehead and seemed to be deliberating. “Very well,” he finally said.

  I knelt at Dorothea’s feet, and before I could pose the question or even wonder what she might say, she nodded. Her pale cheeks blushed and her dark eyes filled with tears. How strangely the Lord had worked to unite us! Her father stormed out of the cabin, but I was too delighted to pay him any mind. I took hold of Dorothea’s hand and kissed it, saying now it was truly mine I would never let it go.

  AS WE CROSSED THE SPINE OF JULY, high summer reached the island. Side-wheelers began putting in each day, taking on the cordwood we sold them for the run east through the Straits or south to Chicago, and fishing boats arrived in our waters to pack their holds with trout and sturgeon. With the demand on barrels I had few hours free from Pickle’s work yard, but those few I spent with Dorothea. Now we were betrothed we were allowed to walk together. Her father absented himself whenever I appeared, and Dorothea and I strolled along the edge of the potato field and sketched our lives, I telling her how someday I would open my violin shop, she telling me how she longed to sail the lakes, to have a boat and explore the wild coasts. In our fantasies we built our house, we named our children, we stood at the rising of the kingdom. Our thoughts were littered with promise. She would close her eyes as we talked and curl her mouth into a grin, resting her cheek on my shoulder. Afterward she would lead me into the wood and let me put my lips to hers, let me touch her cheek and hold her in my arms. My fingertips trembled against her flesh, and I felt again what I had felt the night of my conversion: the island growing within me, the future coming as it should.

  Most of my visits passed like this, but on occasion Dorothea would be caught in a dark study. Once I found her sitting in her small flower garden with her arms tight around her skirts, clutching her folded legs to her chest, staring off above the birches. Rather than jump up when she heard me approach, as she usually did, she refused even to turn.

  “Dory.”

  No answer.

  I sat beside her, asked about the garden, tried any number of ways to gain her attention until at last she seemed to rise back to herself. She presented me with a smile, and asked if we could go for a walk. Then we strolled and talked as usual, though she ignored my inquiries about the state in which I had found her.

  It was after one of these appearances of her shadow—for that is how I called it to myself—that I was asked to Josiah’s home. His cottage, the finest on the island, sat apart from town, to the north, and was surrounded by a picket fence and flanked by two six-pounder cannons. Despite being raised to the Order, I’d never been asked to the cottage before, and had spoken to Josiah only a few times since the night of the sortie—mostly in the Temple, where, as the Order’s sole member, I performed my one duty, standing guard in a velvet tunic beneath the Arch of the Blood while Josiah prayed.

  When I arrived, Josiah’s wife, Celia, showed me into his office and brought us glasses of honeyed milk. She was a gray-faced woman five years his senior and rarely left the cottage. It was said, under breath, that the money from her first husband’s estate had laid the foundation for our colony. Josiah was at work, writing. Uncertain what to do with myself, I sipped from my glass and looked about the room. Behind Josiah hung a map of the island showing Port Hebron as Zion—the completed Temple, the grid of streets stretching across the island to house the 144,000—and below the map stood shelves of plant specimens, which, I’d heard, Josiah regularly sent to a professor at Union College. The study’s window faced onto the harbor, and mounted on its sill was a brass telescope, pointed toward the open lake beyond the bay. The harbor had grown yet busier in the last weeks. Soon, Josiah had told us, the federal gunboat that patrolled the upper lakes was to put in. He was expected to go down and greet her captain.

  My eyes had made it as far as a snake coiled in a jar—it sat on the floor, directly beneath the telescope—when the scratching of Josiah’s nib stopped and he looked up and said, without preface, “I’ve learned you are to be married to Dorothea Bainbridge. Is this true?”

  I was a trifle surprised, but lost no time in answering. “It is.”

  “I take an interest in all my charges,” he said, “and you especially. I owe you my life.”

  Josiah drank from his honeyed milk, then proceeded to study me with his gaze. I grew nervous. His eyes pierced mine. The pages of my soul lay open before him. He was testing me somehow, though I wasn’t sure why.

  When I thought I could stand this gaze no longer, he rose and gave me his holy blessing. “In The Book of Truths it is written that a man must not become too attached to the things of this world,” he said as he walked me to the door. With that, our meeting was ended, and I left his house as confused over the visit’s purpose as when I had entered.

  MY NEXT SEVENTH DAY I was assigned to work on the Judge’s House, which was being built, as commanded in Josiah’s revelation, atop the low slope of Mount Nebo, the island’s highest point. The house’s plans called for a long five-roomed cottage with a high tower at one end. From the top the Judge, whom Josiah told us to expect daily, would be able to see over the treetops. I enjoyed working on the Judge’s House. It was only a mile from the Bainbridge farm, and at the end of the day I would walk there and spend the entire evening with Dorothea.

  I was helping a pig farmer named Morris nail planks to the floor of the cottage’s porch when Josiah came riding up on his dappled gray. He spoke to our foreman, a man named Pearson, then clicked his tongue and spurred his horse down the southern path, toward New Nazareth. Not long after that we ran out of nails. It was too late in the day to fetch more from Port Hebron, so Pearson gathered us together, gave a prayer of thanksgiving for our labor, and let us go early. The others started their walk back to town, but I set off toward the Bainbridge farm.

  I would be an hour early, and I delighted myself with thoughts of Dorothea’s surprise. Perhaps I would find her in the garden, wee
ding away the clover, or in the cabin, tending a stew over the fire. I would sneak behind her, wrap her in my arms, and whisper in her ear.

  By the time I reached the Bainbridge farm a fine rain was falling. I paused to pick some dandelions, then took the track through the birch wood and into the potato field. When I came to the clearing, I stopped. Josiah’s dapple stood outside the cabin, head down, nibbling at grass. My skin prickled. I thought of Dorothea’s shadow and the meeting with Josiah, and a sick chill shuddered through me. I tried to calm myself, to quell the fumbling realization. I recalled Bainbridge’s rumored candidacy for eldership, told myself Josiah had come simply to consult with him. But then the cabin door opened, and Josiah walked out. Dorothea stood behind him. Her braids were undone, her dress loose.

  My reason gave way like a shattered pane. Josiah and Dorothea hadn’t yet seen me, and I made to run to the cabin. Before I could, I was grabbed from behind. It was Bainbridge. He put his hand over my mouth and held me down hidden in the brush while Josiah rode away.

  “It was revelation,” he whispered into my ear. “It was revelation. I tried to run you off.”

  As soon as Josiah was gone, Bainbridge let me go. I pushed myself from him, then turned to look at him.

  “She’s his,” Bainbridge said. He shook his head and covered his eyes with his palm. I’d never imagined he could be so abject. “That’s why I sent you off. The Lord chose her as one of Josiah’s royal concubines, like King David had. He told me we must keep it secret. Then you, with that damned oath. I begged him for a release, to let you marry Dorothea, but he said you can’t stop revelation.”

  I left Bainbridge and went straight to the cabin. Dorothea had gone back inside and I found her at the table. She was staring at the wall, her face drawn into a familiar absence. I called her name, but she didn’t turn. Her mother sat beside her, holding her hand and stroking her hair.

  I had entered intending to shout, but my heart shivered and the words wouldn’t come.

  TWO WEEKS LATER the federal gunboat Superior was spotted on the horizon. It was now September, a year since my arrival. Summer had begun to ease itself from the lake. Save for one night, I hadn’t ventured farther than Pickle’s work yard. I had skipped the Sabbath services, had stayed at home on my seventh day. After discovering the truth, I contemplated returning to Baltimore. My father would welcome me back to his shop, and I could take up my old life again. I packed my things into a single bag, counted and recounted the dollars I had left: enough for passage to Detroit. But my rage boiled and wouldn’t let me leave. At night, in his corner of the cabin, Pickle mumbled his prayers on my behalf.

  Already two ships had put in, the Chicago steamer Lady of the Lakes and a fisherman called Sutton’s Fancy, but the sighting of the Superior, with her promise of uniformed sailors, a troop of marines, and a band of fife and drum, caused a stir. Hebronites and passengers from the Lady of the Lakes, who’d come ashore while she took on wood for her engines, crowded the docks to watch as the gunboat came past Apostle’s Point. I went down to the water, too, but kept back from the others. Stacks of cordwood lined the shore in rows, and from just beyond the end of these I could see the entire breadth of the bay. The sun shone brightly, turning the waves to diamonds, bleaching the sky of its blue. On the docks some of the men held children on their shoulders and waved their hats in salute. Gentile women giggled and pointed at the boat from beneath their parasols. Their pink ribbons and white summer dresses gleamed.

  The tableau of cheerfulness was too much. I looked away, and that’s when I saw the whiskey traders. Two of them stood among the cordwood stacks. They were got up in broadcloth suits and had trimmed their beards, but I recognized the wildness in them, recognized the slouch that bespoke discomfort with civilized clothes, the brute dullness in their eyes that came from their animal life of sin. Unlike everyone else, they were turned away from the boat and looking toward town, their hands in their pockets.

  The one night I had strayed from Pickle’s cabin, it had been to go to them. I had taken a canoe and paddled across to the near islands until I saw the glow of one of their camps. They took me captive once they spotted me, held a knife to my throat, pushed me down against the sand. Their eyes glinted in the firelight as they leaned over me. I had not tried to hide, and they asked me what I was playing at. When I told them I had killed their fellow, one of them called for rope. I shouted that I sorrowed for it now. It wasn’t a lie, the dead trader’s face haunted my dreams. And I said that I regretted having let Josiah live. Curses fell from the hollows of their mouths. Bits of elkhorn hung from the one who brought the rope. They pulled me to the water, made to push me under, but I kept shouting. I told them about the press of the late-summer traffic and the commotion of the federal ship’s arrival. There they would have their chance, I said. At that, they released me, and I slipped into Pickle’s cabin just before dawn. He stirred when I entered, but didn’t wake.

  Now I watched the whiskey traders among the cordwood stacks. From Josiah’s house one of the six-pounders fired a salute. I turned in time to see him step from his front door. He was to come down to the dock to receive the gunboat’s captain in a short ceremony. Following the cannon’s salute, the Superior’s band struck up a military air. As she came into harbor, the melody carried over the chuffing of her engine and the slap of her side paddle wheel. The men on the pier hurrahed.

  The path from Josiah’s house to the dock would lead him past me, and he appeared in good spirits as he approached, whistling and nodding, in his freshly brushed coat. A few yards beyond me he would be caught between the whiskey traders and the cordwood. His life would be in their hands. But now, again, it was in mine. I could step forward, could reach out to stop him and save our paradise, broken as it was. Or I could remain still and let it be taken.

  A buffet of wind whipped up from the lake. There was a splash, a shout, laughter—someone on the dock had dived into the water.

  It was easy. Josiah hadn’t yet noticed me. I let him pass, then turned away. I didn’t care to watch.

  I HEARD THE FIRST SHOT when I was halfway to Pickle’s cabin, then three more. By the last the gunboat’s band had ceased playing. A lone scream cut through the stilled crowd, then the air itself seemed to breathe before erupting into a confused, wailing din that spread up from the docks. Someone had lifted Josiah’s body and called now for help. Several of my brothers ran past me, on their way to the water. Celia’s blanched face emerged from the cottage amid the clamor. I recalled Josiah’s telescope and wondered if she had been watching through it.

  Pickle came in after dark, hours later. I had last seen him standing on the dock, cheering the Superior. Now his boots were caked with mud, his clothes damp with sweat and pricked with burrs. When he saw me in my corner, from which I hadn’t shifted since noon, he took a little step back. “I thought you were with the others.”

  I shook my head.

  “We chased those dogs across the island, but they got to their canoe. They’re with their fellows. Can’t you hear them?”

  I’d not noticed the sound before, but now I could make out the whiskey traders’ hoots and curses echoing over the water. Pickle sat on his bed, head bowed. Then he convulsed, and I realized he was weeping. I glanced away, at his calendar covered with x’s, at my violin hanging in the window, at the lamp glasses black with soot. He had been good to me, and I had cut him from the kingdom.

  THE FEDERAL GUNBOAT DEPARTED, the captain having claimed this was none of his affair. The other ships left soon after, and the elders shut themselves in the Temple. Some of the brethren had already abandoned their cabins and made camp on the dock to await the next steamer. By morning the news had reached across the island: God’s judgment.

  Overnight the sky had turned gray. Thick clouds pressed low against the lake, and cold seeped through the cracks in the cabin’s walls. I ignored the breakfast Pickle made, put on my black coat, and walked to the Bainbridge farm, wh
ere I found Dorothea’s father lifting their trunks onto a borrowed wagon. He saw me, but refused to meet my eye. Dorothea’s mother was in the yard, boiling their clothes. She pointed to the clothesline. Dorothea was there, hanging sheets.

  I waited for her to turn, but she ignored me. When the last sheet was hung she began adjusting the first, careful not to come near where I stood. Her manner made me anxious, but at the same time I became angry. Something promised me was being withheld.

  “You’re free,” I said. “We can marry.”

  “After what you saw? After everything?” she said. She showed me her face and it was twisted in anguish. “It’s too late.”

  “It’s not,” I said. “I promise, I’ll forget everything.” I took her, held her in my arms. “Meet me tonight at the Judge’s House,” I said. “Will you?” Only when she nodded did I let her go.

  All through the first hours of night I paced the timber skeleton of the Judge’s House. I imagined Dorothea waiting for her father to fall asleep, or writing a long letter to her mother. But as the night grew longer, I began to fear the worst. Finally I went back to the farm. It was empty, and at the sight a dizziness rippled up from my feet. I raced to Port Hebron and arrived an hour after dawn, in time to see a steamer leaving the bay. I searched among the dock camp that now spread along the shore, but Dorothea wasn’t there. After questioning a few acquaintances, I ran into Spofford, who told me he’d seen the Bainbridges board the boat. I looked out over the water and felt the bruises of my heart turn black.

  I returned to Pickle’s cabin. When Pickle came in he told me that two of the elders had fled the island, taking the sacred books and the treasury with them, and that Celia had shut herself in the cottage; Josiah’s body lay spread on the dining table, and she refused to let him be buried. I stayed at the window. At night the whiskey traders returned to the bay in their canoes. Their shouting stirred me like a summons.