Studying the compound through the window, Duncan compared it to the map. Though it was labeled Palace of Husbandry, the barn was located as shown on the map, as were the summer kitchen, the forge, the spinning shed, and all the other existing structures, though the map held three times the number of buildings that currently stood outside, including a church, a courthouse, and a jail. But the house was different. The house they stood in was much smaller than the three-winged mansion on the map.
When Duncan turned, Reverend Arnold was standing by the window, staring toward a plot of land beyond the barn, where whitewashed stakes outlined a broad rectangle. Duncan glanced at the map again. It was the site of the yet-unbuilt church.
“The vicar has informed me of your good service on the ship. You brought my daughter back from the dead.” Ramsey seemed to struggle to keep emotion out of his voice, and Duncan understood why he had chosen not to have the conversation in public upon his arrival. “She is so much like her mother. Uncannily like her mother. I will not forget how well you performed that day. You shall be repaid.” He stepped to a silver tray on a low table by the window and poured a cup of tea from a delicate porcelain pot painted with violets, handing it to Duncan.
Ramsey seemed to think that Duncan had saved Sarah for him, that in leaping into the black, churning sea, he had merely been performing his duty to his patron. “Miss Ramsey and I were not meant for the sea that day,” he ventured.
“Truly God has marked her,” Ramsey said, regaining the poise in his voice. “The first lady of Edentown will be needed for many tasks. The church choir must be organized, a flag for the courthouse designed and sewn. Naming of babies. The kitchens. The cellars. The gardens. The seasonal festivals. All the families will look to her. There are things only a Ramsey woman can do.” In his mind, Duncan realized, Ramsey was running not the town that existed outside but the one in the drawing. His gaze drifted back to the map. The current house wasn’t wrong, he saw now, it was merely the base. The wings still had to be constructed, on either side. The only thing not on the map was the palisade wall being built along the northern woods.
“Miss Ramsey seemed most anxious for her reunion,” Duncan observed. He glanced out the window toward the little island. Though he could not see it, he knew the Evering effigy was staring right at the house. Before he had left the hemlock, he had paced around the tree and had found small, wrapped bundles of fur and a strange arrangement of deer antlers, more than a dozen of them, tied with vines in a circle. Now that his fear had subsided, he realized they could have been offerings, that perhaps in the world of those who had made it, the effigy wasn’t meant to frighten but to serve as a shrine.
“She was sorely missed. She is a builder of empire.”
Duncan sipped his tea, replaying the words in his mind. Just as Ramsey spoke of the Edentown in his mind, not the muddy reality outside his door, the patron seemed to be speaking of a different Sarah. “Should she not take time to recover from her illness before she embarks on carving up continents?”
“Fortunately,” Arnold interrupted, “she is in better health than we’ve seen in a year. Destiny waits for no one.”
Ramsey stepped to the window and surveyed his budding empire. “But first we must eliminate all shadows from our midst.”
Duncan’s belly tightened as Ramsey fixed him with a meaningful gaze.
“Lord Ramsey desires your report,” Reverend Arnold explained. “The record must be completed. The first case for Edentown’s magistrate must present an intellectual and moral pillar, a pristine example of logic and science.”
“Surely you understand I have had no opportunity for inquiries.”
“What possible need is there for further inquiries?” the vicar pointed out. “The evidence has all been assembled, the killer apprehended. All that is needed is the proper organization of your thoughts and the lifting of a quill.”
“My logic and science have not pointed to Mr. Lister,” Duncan said, swallowing hard. “As you say, the record must be complete. There are questions I might ask the army,” Duncan suggested, trying not to look conspicuous as he watched for Ramsey’s reaction. “There was a general who asked about the death of Evering. He seemed to think that his death had some connection to military matters.”
Ramsey withdrew into himself a moment, then helped himself to snuff from a silver box on the side table and paced in front of the window facing the river. “You told General Calder it was none of his concern,” he said without breaking stride. Duncan thought it was an invitation, but Ramsey continued in his imperious tone. “You told him the Company is an enterprise of Edentown. You reminded him Edentown is mine, by royal charter. You vowed to yourself that the Company would emerge victorious.”
Duncan could see an ox team working the field closest to the barn. He had an overwhelming desire to be among the prisoners, plowing the earth, hauling stones, cleaning stalls ankle-deep in manure, anywhere but playing the rag puppet to such a man. “The killer is still at large among us,” Duncan said. “I think he or an accomplice killed an old Indian at the ferry inn.”
“Impossible,” Ramsey said. “As I told Captain Woolford when he mentioned it, Indians are always dying. It is a sign of our victorious God. Do not be distracted from your duties.”
“General Calder,” Duncan said, “believed I should be interested in a battle where many of our Indian allies died. At Stony Run.”
It was not exactly alarm Duncan saw in the look that passed from Ramsey to Arnold, but something like a wary resentment, as if Calder had just stolen a point in some game between them. And Calder had used Duncan to make the score.
“The Indian who died at the inn had the name of our ship,” Duncan continued. “He was trying to pass a secret to someone in the Company. Or someone he expected to be with the Company. A man who would kill Evering over a secret would have little hesitation in killing an old Indian. It could not have been Mr. Lister, for he was in chains.” Ramsey and Arnold grew very quiet, Arnold staring out the window, Ramsey at his map. “You say you will repay me for saving your daughter, sir. I ask that you release him on his parole.”
“Impossible.”
“On my own covenant then. He is an old man who will not stray far.”
“And what recompense will you offer when he kills again?” Arnold inquired.
“I pledge my indenture. If you find me mistaken, then put me in chains mucking out the horse stalls for seven years.”
Ramsey replied with a silent frown, then stepped closer to his map. “In England,” he offered with a gesture toward the drawing, “towns and their populations have become such random, disheveled things. Here we have the opportunity to correct all mistakes.” He fixed Duncan with a sober gaze. “Our century stands at the culmination of civilization. We are its ambassadors.”
The lord’s library, Duncan decided, was the most treacherous terrain he had yet encountered in the New World. He noticed small numbers in the lower right corner of each building sketch, the house bearing the numeral 3. Examining the numbers of each sketch and the status of the new construction, he recognized the sequence. “The very last structure to be built in your utopia is the courthouse,” he observed.
Reverend Arnold seemed to welcome the comment. “Next is the house of God. What need hath man for the courts and legislation when he has a church and the Decalogue?” he asked, using the High Church reference for the Ten Commandments.