Cedar smoke wafted from several large, shallow bowls along the perimeter of the central plaza, the scented air calling in the spirits. There were poles arranged around the clearing, many of them intricately carved with turtles, beaver, bears, and other signs of the Haudenosaunee clans. The plaza itself was in fact a shallow bowl of packed earth, with flat tiers rising like concentric rings broken by an aisle that led directly into the largest of the longhouses. It was the simplest of amphitheaters, perfectly designed for public speaking. Duncan had met an old Dutch trader months before who spent an evening speaking with him of his years with the woodland tribes. The Iroquois leaders were not feared warriors, the Dutchman had declared, but feared orators, known for breaking entire woodland nations with the force of their words.
There was a rigid liturgy in all Council meetings, Conawago had explained to him. There would be no business conducted until the members had expressed respect to the spirits and gratitude for what was known as the Iroquois Peace. Deceased chiefs, some gone for centuries, would then be praised, and the ancient laws of the League invoked, the most sacred of which was that war may never be fought among tribes of the League. It was on this last point that the speakers now lingered, Conawago explained in a whisper. The Mingoes were, in the view of the Council, a subordinate tribe of the federation, yet under the self-proclaimed half-king they were acting apart, without the blessing or authority of the Council. As the old chiefs began the second hour of oration, a wiry, leather-faced elder dominated the discussion, an Oneida named Custaloga. He was one of the few on the Council who had served as a war chief, decades earlier, then become a peace chief, now second ranking on the Council. The old man, easily as old as Conawago, had a noble, refined air about him, and those on the Council and those who sat behind them listened in rapt silence as he spoke of past glories of the League.
“Hearken while your grandchildren cry.” Duncan did not understand all the words the wise old sachem spoke, but he knew those and recognized them again and again in Custaloga’s speech. The sachems who made up the council, and the old matrons sitting behind them, with whom the sachems frequently conferred, were clearly distraught. The federation, so powerful for hundreds of years, was starting to show age and decay.
There was a strange fierceness in the old man’s voice, and Duncan saw now that whenever he paused he glanced at an aged woman sitting close by. In the last century, the League had been hit hard by enemies from the North. Entire Iroquois settlements had been annihilated, and the French and northern tribes had laid ambushes that had killed scores of Iroquois warriors. The town where they sat now was not the original Onondaga Castle. Another one, another capital town, had been destroyed, most of its inhabitants massacred, in a surprise attack by the Hurons. Custaloga and the senior chief, Atotarho, had been there, had witnessed the near toppling of the federation. Over half of the Haudenosaunee population had been lost, entire towns obliterated, many loved ones captured and taken into slavery by Huron and other enemy tribes.
Nearly every member of the Council spoke, and as they entered into the third hour, with the sun sinking low, Duncan found his gaze wandering, seeing now Ishmael walking with Kass along the palisade wall, where sentries armed with muskets walked. The big braziers that burned cedar, lit whenever the Council was convened, were being supplemented with more fires and pinepitch torches. Young braves carried firewood inside the adjacent lodge, where the main Council fire, the perpetual hearth of the League, was kept burning. Their day’s labor finished, Iroquois families were filing in through the gate, settling in the growing shadows around the Council ring. The faces of young and old alike seemed fixed with the same expression of solemn anxiety.
Conawago touched Duncan’s arm. A group of newcomers, one of them wearing European clothes and a wide-brimmed black hat, had appeared in the shadows and were urgently speaking among themselves. As he watched, all but two retreated toward the river landing. The remaining two approached the Council ring. One of them, wearing a doeskin shirt with ornate quillwork, was being urged into the ring by his companion, a tribesman who wore the cut-down blue jacket of a British navy officer. Custaloga rose and paced around the ring, pointing to the newcomer. “It is the nephew of Custaloga,” Conawago whispered. “He has been living among the Senecas, in the West. He is called Black Fish, once a mighty warrior.” The man being brought into the ring no longer had the appearance of a great warrior. His belly bulged out, his face was aged beyond his years. Yet as Custaloga related Black Fish’s history and his blood ties with those present, then draped a strand of white wampum over his nephew’s hand, he was greeted with sober deference.
The man spoke too fast for Duncan to follow, but he saw Conawago’s face tighten as he listened. “Black Fish has visited all the major settlements of the League to explain that he has the same dream every night,” Conawago explained. “Such a dream will be taken as an important sign by the tribes, one that can never be ignored.” As Duncan leaned closer the old Nipmuc began translating the man’s exact words.
“Now is the time of night that the graves gape wide and let forth the ghosts!” Black Fish exclaimed in a louder orator’s voice, raising his face toward the rising moon.
Conawago’s translation ended as Black Fish’s speech grew more animated, and even louder. The Nipmuc stared in mute surprise, worry etching his face. The middle-aged warrior was shouting now, leaping about and swinging his arms, jerking his body and crying out in pain from invisible wounds. He was acting out a terrible struggle. As he finished he dropped to his knees and raised his hands toward the heavens and began repeating the same phrases over and over. Duncan needed no translation. “The Revelator is sent by the gods! The Revelator is our father!” he cried out. “The Revelator is sent by the gods! The League will die without the Revelator!” He shouted louder and louder, flailing his arms against his chest as if possessed until finally collapsing onto the ground.
The man in the blue jacket rushed forward to help Black Fish to his feet and escort him away. His speech had sapped all his strength. Conawago studied him intensely as he disappeared among the onlookers. Duncan saw that the other elders watched as well, most with deep alarm on their faces.
“His story spreads around to every Iroquois hearth, exciting all those who hear it,” Conawago explained. “Black Fish has been there, to the other side, Duncan! Sometimes he is abruptly summoned and falls down and is instantly transported there, always to the same place. At first he wanders in a thick fog but then spirits of the long dead find him and take him to a huge bark lodge.” Conawago paused, gazing into the fire. He was clearly troubled by Black Fish’s message. “In it sits Dekanawidah and the other great chiefs who were the founders of the Iroquois League, and his heart fills with joy. But then the ghost of a huge Englishman approaches the founders from behind, raising a sword, intending to stab the ancient one, to kill the first god. Black Fish then sees behind the intruder the shapes of the other original spirits, lying dead with knives in their hearts. Spirits. The spirits have been killed! Suddenly a man runs past Black Fish and wrestles the Englishman. It is the half-king, and he beats down the Englishman and shouts out that he will save the founders from the other English demons, shaped like humans but with horses’ heads, who approach through the mist. Then the spirits declare that the half-king is their revelator, who shall speak for them on earth. Dekanawidah declares that if the League does not listen then the places they hold sacred, the places that connect the Iroquois to the other side, will be destroyed. That which cannot fall will fall. That which cannot burn will burn. And when all the original spirits die, the gates to the other side will be closed forever. ”