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them?”
    “They’ll be whipped. The incorrigibles have their toes chopped off.” There was nothing apologetic in his voice. Barbara was silent, digesting his words.
    The pug ran toward them with something dark and hairy in his mouth. Oh no, thought Barbara. The pug was shaking it back and forth, and it hung limply, obviously dead.
    “What’s he caught?” Spotswood said, interested, rising to his feet. “I had no idea pugs could hunt. Here, boy. Here!”
    Harry laid his trophy at Spotswood’s feet and sat back on his haunches, panting, pleased with himself. Spotswood bent down and picked up his own wig.
    Barbara laughed and clapped her hands for the dog to come to her.
    “Good dog!” she said to him. “Mighty hunter. Savage one.”
    Spotswood pushed a stick into the ground near the fire and set the wig upon it to dry. It reminded Barbara of the rotted heads of traitors hanging above the city gate of Temple Bar in London. The heads that hung there now belonged to the nobles who had supported the Pretender’s invasion attempt in 1715—a frightening year, that, with the old Queen dead; a new, foreign King, disliked; and invasion.
    “The Seneca rip off the crown and hair of the head of an enemy and wear it on a thong at their side,” Spotswood said. “The trophy is called a scalp. It looks rather like that wig. More dried blood and loose skin, of course.” He extended his arm. “Feel this.”
    She rubbed two fingers over the soft sleeve of his coat. The coat was ornately embroidered with peak shells, purple and white.
    “A buck’s skin, softened and dried over smoke by a Seneca Indian maiden. You insult a man here by calling him buckskin. It means he is an oaf, an ignorant, a man of the backwoods, half savage.”
    I must send Grandmama a buckskin gown, all worked in these pieces of shell, she thought, and Tony a coat like this, and something for Jane’s children. Jane was her closest, her dearest friend. Tony was her cousin, the present Duke of Tamworth. He loved her. She sighed, and the Governor heard.
    “You must be exhausted, Lady Devane, after this day we’ve had. Your maidservant has made a bed for you in the shelter. We’d best sleep, for we’ll make an early start in the morning. Good night.”
    “Pleasant dreams, Governor.”
    On the other side of the fire, he wrapped himself in a blanket and, with his back to her, lay down on the ground, as if it were a feather bed. She considered him. Yesterday, he’d worn a satin coat and white stockings, had silver buckles on his shoes; there had even been a black silk patch shaped like a quarter moon on his cheek. One must be ready for anything here, she thought.
    There was a sound. A rustle. A slave in ragged breeches, on the other side of the fire, glanced at her and then quickly away, pointing to the fire. He was adding wood to it. That must be his task, thought Barbara, to add wood all the night. In another moment, he was gone. It seemed to her she heard music. She settled the dogs, sleeping themselves, against Hyacinthe, and walked along the bank of the creek until she saw the slaves’ fire. They were around it, and one of them held something to his mouth. It made a light, flutelike sound. She took a step forward, and the slaves stood, one after another. The music stopped.
    “May I join you?” she said. “The music you make is so beautiful.”
    They made a place for her among them. She sat down, bunching her skirts in about her knees. The slave played a short pipe, cut carefully from wood, hollowed out, holes for sound carved. It must be dear to him, she thought, to have survived the storm. A craftsman, she thought, a musician, here in Virginia’s wilds. There was something haunting and piercing about the tune he played. She looked up to the sky and its hundreds of bright, shining stars, little pinpoints of light in the darkness, order in the chaos.
    Go, and catch a falling star, she thought; get with child a mandrake root. The lines were from