“God sends us too many visitors,” Sister Magdalene said.
“God sends us only what we can handle,” Brother Andrew said, giving her a comforting smile. “You must forgive us. Sister Magdalene has been hard at work for many hours, washing the sick soldiers’ clothes.”
“They were crawling with vermin,” Sister Magdalene said, “and worn nearly to shreds. There is nothing to replace them with. If God wants to help us, He should send us breeches.”
“We must be thankful for his mercies, wife.” Brother Andrew patted her hand. He opened his mouth to speak again, but his body was racked with a deep cough.
“That sounds like asthma,” Marcus said with a frown. “I know a tea made of elderflower and fennel that might help your breathing.”
“It is only the hill,” Brother Andrew replied, stooped over with the effort to clear his lungs. “It always brings on my cough. That, and the cold mornings.”
“Doc can fix you up,” Vanderslice said. “He healed all of the Associators last winter, when we were fighting together.”
Sister Magdalene looked at Marcus with interest. “My Andrew’s back aches after a coughing fit. Do you have something that might ease it?”
Marcus nodded. “A liniment, applied with warm hands. The ingredients are all in the apothecary’s shop.”
“There is no need to concern yourself with me, when you have so many patients already,” Brother Andrew said. “All I need is rest.”
Brother Andrew and Sister Magdalene preceded them through the open door into the millworks. The scent of wood shavings filled the dusty air, and Brother Andrew’s coughing resumed.
“You shouldn’t be sleeping here,” Marcus protested. “This air will make the cough worse.”
“There is nowhere else,” Sister Magdalene said, sounding weary. “They took our house from us to accommodate the prisoners. I could go to the sisters’ house, but that would mean leaving Andrew, and we are used to being together now.”
“Magdalene does not trust the visitors across the river, or the guards in the waterworks,” Brother Andrew explained. “She fears they will take me from the Brethren and sell me to a new master.”
“You are not free, Andrew,” Sister Magdalene said fiercely. “Remember what happened to Sarah. The Brethren sold her quick enough.”
“She was not a member of the congregation, as I am,” Andrew said, still wheezing. “That was different.”
Sister Magdalene did not look convinced. She helped her husband to a chair by a tiled stove. A small mattress was in the corner behind the stove, neatly covered with a clean blanket. A few personal items—a cup, two bowls, a book—were placed nearby.
“I will take care of my husband, Brother John,” Sister Magdalene said. “Go back to the hospital, to the sick soldiers.”
“I will pray for you, Brother Andrew,” John said.
“I am already in God’s care, Brother John,” Brother Andrew replied. “Pray for peace instead.”
* * *
—
MARCUS WAS WORKING alongside Bethlehem’s apothecary, Brother Eckhardt, in the small laboratory behind his shop facing the town square known as der Platz. Today the army’s wagons were moving from their riverside camp and through the town to their next destination, transforming an already busy thoroughfare into a public highway.
When he returned last night from the mill, Marcus had been told he would be staying with the Ettweins and sharing a room with John. De Clermont and Dr. Otto had undertaken a lengthy negotiation with Brother Ettwein to get Marcus removed from the Single Brothers’ House and away from the soldiers so that he did not unwittingly carry some contagion to the marquis’s bedside. Marcus’s new hosts were a pious family, and Brother Ettwein was not only the chief intermediary between the Moravians and the colonial army but also the town’s minister. This meant that the rafters echoed with both prayers and complaints. Marcus found the peace and quiet of the apothecary’s house soothing in comparison.
He stood at a clean wooden table with an array of pottery jars before him. Each one was labeled with its contents—mallow and almond oil and sal ammoniac. A bottle of spirit of lavender was at his elbow.
“That is not for Brother Lafayette,” Brother Eckhardt observed, studying the medicines on the table. He was a tall, elderly man with spindly legs, spectacles perched on a beak of a nose, and stooped shoulders, which gave him the look of a strange marsh bird.
“No. This is for Brother Andrew,” Marcus said, mixing some more oil into the brass bowl. “He was coughing last night.”
“Put some nightshade in it, too.” Brother Eckhardt handed Marcus another pot. “It eases spasms.”
Marcus took the pot, grateful for the advice, which he filed away for future reference. He had known Brother Eckhardt for only a few hours, but there was no doubt the man had a prodigious knowledge of medicines.
“A bit more mallow, too, I should think,” said Brother Eckhardt after giving the contents of Marcus’s bowl a good sniff.
Marcus added more dried pink flowers to the mortar and pounded them with the pestle.
“I will make some salve for Sister Magdalene’s hands, and you can take that to the mill when you go,” Brother Eckhardt said. “The bleach and soap she uses are very strong, and her hands crack and bleed.”
“I noticed.” Marcus had seen the evidence of hard labor on the woman’s skin. “Sister Magdalene doesn’t seem happy, washing for the soldiers.”
“Sister Magdalene is often unhappy,” Brother Eckhardt said mildly. “She has been since she arrived, I am told. She was a girl then, and sent here from Philadelphia by her master, who later freed her.”
“And Brother Andrew?” Marcus asked, his mind as busy as his hands.
“Andrew belongs to the Brethren,” Brother Eckhardt replied, “and is a member of our Congregation. He and Sister Magdalene were married some time ago. They are part of our community, and live and work alongside us under God.”
Alongside you, Marcus thought, going back to his work, but still not fully among you.
Marcus was troubled by the distance between the community’s language of brotherly love and equality and the fact that the Brethren owned slaves. It had bothered him in Hadley, too, and in the army, that men could espouse the ideals of liberty and equality in Common Sense and yet still treat Zeb Pruitt or Mrs. Dolly like they were lesser beings.
Shouts and a huge crash punctured the quiet of the laboratory.
“What was that?” Brother Eckhardt said, pushing up his spectacles. He ran outside, Marcus following.
A wagon had broken down outside the Sun Inn, just where the road began its descent toward the creek. The Brethren streamed out of houses, workshops, and barns to see what the fuss was about. The last remaining members of Congress stood outside the Sun Inn, surveying the damage. Even the chevalier de Clermont and the Marquis de Lafayette were there to witness the spectacle, thanks to La Brouette.
As Marcus and Brother Eckhardt drew closer, one voice could be heard above the noise of the crowd.
“I told you this would happen!” John Adams waved his arms in the air as he approached the listing wagon. “Did I not say you would need a team of oxen to safely move the statehouse bell down the hill, and stouter chains to stop the wheels? No one ever listens to me.”
“Should I take the marquis back to the Boeckels?” Marcus asked de Clermont. All of this excitement could not be beneficial for their patient.
“I fear that not even Adams and his oxen could pull Gil away,” the chevalier replied with a sigh. “Wait here. I’ll go see to the wagon. It will draw all the traffic to a halt, if left where it is.”
De Clermont joined the throng around the broken wheel. Marcus could see the chain that had done the damage, a length of it wrapped around one of the spokes and the rest of it lying in the road.
“I fear this is a bad sign,” Lafayette said mournfully. “First the crack. Now this. Do you believe in omens, Doc?”
“I do,” said a soft voice.