February 1836

John Falconer made it through the days in very small steps.

Ada's illness had come with the first winter storm, which gripped the Carolinas for eleven days with fierce winds and hard-slung ice. Falconer had sat at her bedside, hands knotted on the coverlet, and stared at the beloved face. Ada looked as white as the snow now gathering on the window ledge. His lips felt stiff as he whispered first her name, then prayers he scarcely heard himself utter. He bowed low over his clenched fists, finally breaking the room's tense silence with a groan.

In just a year and a half, Falconer's heart had been so altered he could scarcely recall a time before Ada's love filled his days and warmed his nights. Eighteen months earlier, he and Ada had stood before the bishop in their Moravian church and said their vows. Young Matt had stood proudly at Falconer's side, delighted in his new father and overjoyed by his widowed mother's newfound happiness. Falconer touched Ada's face, with its sheen of perspiration, and wished his physical strength truly counted for something. If only he could wrest back the days now gone, peel back time, and have her smile at him once more.

And then Ada had passed with the storm. Everything had been so impossibly swift. The illness, the decline, the passage, all in less than two weeks. No one knew precisely the cause. She had slipped away from them, gentled into a slumber that did not end. The elders gathered, called it a tragic wonder, and murmured to each other how she had been so softly called home. Why was it that one so crushed, but still so strengthened, by the ferocious winds of life was now gone from them?

Telling young Matt was the most wrenching task Falconer had ever set for himself. The two clung to each other, rocking slowly back and forth. Though Matt's grief drenched Falconer's shirt, Falconer found himself unable to weep. Perhaps it was the exhaustion, for he had scarcely eaten or slept since Ada's illness had begun. He had known men who were hard stricken in the heat of battle and felt nothing until the dire threat was gone. But for him, even after it was over, the only thing that touched him at all was his son, not of his flesh but certainly of his heart. Falconer spent uncounted hours holding Matt and letting the boy weep for the both of them.

They buried Ada on a wet Tuesday morn, a fiercely cold day in February so dark the chapel bell's tolled regrets were echoed by the sky and the wind. The community of Moravians, who had known Ada all her life, shared the ceremony and the profound sorrow with stoic but no less genuine understanding, watching Falconer and Matt with eyes full of sympathy and questions. What would happen to them now?

The day after the funeral, Falconer shuttered the inn he and Ada had run and accepted the invitation of her uncle and his family. Together with Paul and Sarah Brune and their children, the two mourners might slowly find comfort in the sharing of an impossible burden.

Impossible that a woman so full of life, love, and goodness could be stricken and lost so swiftly. Impossible that Falconer could know the blessing of home and family for scarcely a year and a half. Impossible that he was expected to nurture a boy who had lost both blood parents and now had only a wounded sailor for a guardian.

The spring was slow in coming. He and Matt worked the Brune farm and prepared the land and tended the animals. Falconer, dressed in the simple homespun of the Moravian community, did the work of three men. He allowed his beard to grow in dark and rich. The good North Carolina earth worked into his hands, and the physical labor toughened him in ways the sea never had. The work and the good people proved a strong and healing balm. But what saved Falconer, what kept him rooted to the world and the day at hand, was his son.

The dogwoods finally bloomed a month and more late. The pear and apple orchards added their own white fragrance to the hills and the softening breeze. And suddenly the winter was gone. The entire world leapt into rebirth. The farming valleys were alive with the bleating of newborn lambs and the mothers' chucklings. New shoots rose from what had been empty furrows. The sun rose higher and stronger, and the men shucked their coats and worked in shirtsleeves. The entire community reveled in the hope of spring.

Evenings, when the sun dipped and the Brune family gathered upon the porch to watch the westering sun and the daily promise of glory to come, Matt nestled next to Falconer on the porch swing. It was an uncommonly wet summer, and the day's rain clouds dispersed in bands of copper and gold spread across the Salem valleys. Eventually Matt would sing, his voice at first small and fragile, but as the summer progressed, stronger, more confident.

Sometimes Sarah Brune joined in, her alto adding a lovely harmony to Matt's pure, bell-like melody. The young lad sang his favorite Moravian hymns, many of them in their original German. That did not matter in the least to Falconer, who spent the evening hours thus, his earth-stained fingers stroking the boy's fine blond head, listening to the promise of peace cloaked in sunset and song.

In July, the church elders came and spoke with him about the Moravian community's only inn, still in disuse after all these months. They carefully talked of widows in Salem who needed a good man. They gently challenged him toward finding hope in spite of the world's woes. Falconer stood with them, nodding and accepting their words, trusting their wisdom. But in truth, what occupied his mind was the sudden realization that he had never wept. As he watched their horse-drawn rigs return to the village, he wondered if he would ever feel anything else besides this pervasive numbness.

That night as they sat on the porch, Falconer, his voice low, asked Matt if he wanted to return and reopen the inn. Matt buried his head in Falconer's chest. Falconer did not raise the subject again.

Two days later Falconer went alone into Salem. He met with the elders and arranged for a young couple who had helped with the inn's chores to take over as innkeepers for him. While he discussed the list of duties with them, townspeople approached Falconer, appearing as though drawn from the sunlight and the summer heat. Although they saw him and Matt every Sabbath, they took his visit with the elders as a sign. Even without Ada's sanctioning presence, they quietly welcomed him fully into their fold.

August arrived with a blistering heat, and the rains subsided. The deep-blue dome of the sky presided over an increasingly parched land. Falconer shared the community's fear of a lost harvest. They all began stocking what they could for a long winter of grumbling bellies. Breakfasts were reduced to grits and fatback, noon fare became biscuits and whatever fruit they found lying upon the ground, and the evening repast might be a simple stew from a farm animal no longer able to feed. The Brune house garden was harvested and replanted, and every dawn Matt joined the other children drawing buckets from the well to water the vegetables by hand. Falconer ate his simple breakfast to the dry squeaking of the well handle, paired with his silent entreaties for intervention from the Almighty.

Falconer found the Sabbath worship a time of both peace and confusion. He was glad he had never felt a need to become angry with God. Why this had not happened, he could not say. As he sat and listened to the community choirs join in song, or bowed his head in prayer, he felt the faintest glimmers of divine peace enter his wounded breast. On the homeward journey, though, Falconer stroked his beard and wondered if he would ever waken from his largely empty inner state.

The first week of September, after six scorching weeks without rain, the skies darkened. The wind whipped up clouds of precious earth and flung them in billowing waves across the valley. The dry leaves of corn and wheat and tobacco rattled in thirsty anticipation. Shriveled apples and pears dropped like nature's drumbeats upon the parched earth. And then the rain came.

The entire Brune family raced about the muddy front yard. Falconer stepped off the front porch and tilted his head to the sky. He felt a hand slip into his and looked down at Matt. The boy's hair was matted to his forehead and turned so pale it looked silver. Falconer felt his face stretch in unaccustomed lines, the action so foreign it took him a long moment to even recognize it as a smile. The rain had washed away the impossible distance, and Ada appeared once again to Falconer in the clear eyes, in the upturned face, in the rain that poured in pewter rivulets over his head. Ada was still there. She had not completely left him.

Falconer swept the boy into his arms. Matt's own arms came up and around Falconer's neck. The two stood in the rain without speaking. The boy's cheek rested upon Falconer's beard as they watched the Brune family dance and laugh and frolic in the wet joy and the new hope.

* * *

Two weeks later a stranger arrived, asking about Falconer. The Salem community counted Falconer as one of their own. None would give up information about a fellow Moravian without first making sure the attention was welcome. These were, after all, evil times.

Some time earlier, the North Carolina capital had moved from the coastal community of New Bern to Raleigh. The stated purpose was to extend the government's reach further inland. Even so, much of the state had fallen into administrative chaos. Brigands ruled many of the smaller Carolina roads. The Moravians were called enemies by the newly elected state administration, which disliked how the Salem community took in escaped slaves and formed a vital link in the Underground Railroad. And Falconer had done more than most to further this work. All the proceeds from his share in a Carolina gold mine had gone to purchasing slaves and spiriting them away. A plantation he had acquired in Virginia became yet another stop on the Freedom Train line northward. No, this was not a time to be open with an outsider—not until they had taken his measure.

When word finally came to Falconer that a well-dressed stranger was asking for him, he saddled his horse and rode into Salem town to his own inn. As he approached it, he saw the man, who turned out to be no stranger, seated on the very same bench Falconer had used for his own morning devotions when he and Ada ran the establishment.

"Hello, Reginald," he called as soon as he recognized his visitor.

The owner of Langston's Emporium, along with any number of other business ventures, squinted against the morning sun.

"Falconer?" The man closed the Bible in his lap and stood.

Falconer slipped from the saddle and roped the horse to the railing. Reginald Langston lost his footing as he stepped off the front stoop, his eyes round as he approached the taller man. "Is that really you?" he asked, his voice sounding shocked.

"Have I changed so much?"

"Have you ... Don't you see yourself in the mirror?"

"The Brunes don't own a looking glass."

Reginald stepped in close enough to grip Falconer's wrist. His fingers did not come close to connecting. "As I live and breathe. It is indeed you."

Falconer accepted the other man's handshake, realizing he was not the only one that had changed. Reginald Langston had always been ready with a smile and a laugh, large in girth and trusting in nature. Instead of the dark broadcloth suits preferred by most Washington men of stature, Reginald wore doeskin trousers tucked into boots of fine English leather, a soft brown traveling coat, and a waistcoat with gold buttons. But not even these fine clothes could mask the weariness and the worry in his gaze, or his features sagging with far more than the months since their last meeting. Falconer took note of the two armed men who shadowed Reginald, far enough away not to intrude, yet there and ready just the same.

Reginald took a step back and said, "I can't tell you how sorry I am about Ada. I only heard over breakfast."

Falconer directed a nod toward the packed earth. "I am sorry I did not write."

Reginald waved that away. "How long has it been?"

"She left us in February."

"How are you, my man?"

Falconer looked up. "Coping. Sometimes more than that."

"And the boy?"

"He's just gone ten. A strong, fine lad. He no doubt has kept me as sound as you find me."

"Might I pay my respects to your wife?"

"Of course."

Reginald ordered his men to stay behind. The two obviously were not pleased, but did as they were told. The day was harvest fair, a faint hint of breeze out of the north, not cool so much as comfortable. The village was empty of men and many women, as almost everyone used the good weather to bring in the crops. Even so, Falconer felt unseen eyes upon them as they proceeded through the village's heart.

At the gravesite Reginald said a silent prayer. Then, "She was an extraordinarily fine woman."

Falconer nodded and pointed at the weather-beaten cross beside her own. "I had her put to rest beside her first husband. I felt it was important for our boy."

"You amaze me," Reginald said quietly. "Can we sit here for a moment?"

The bench they selected was the same one where Ada had spent long, lonely days, staring at the cemetery and her first husband's grave, before meeting Falconer. Ada had brought him here twice. The first visit had been upon the day of his return from jail, where he had been incarcerated for buying, then freeing, a group of slaves. She had told him of her own lonely struggle and the multitude of hours she had sat and yearned for what her heart could not even name. The second time was the evening before they were to wed. They had sat in this very spot for almost an hour. Then she had risen and smiled and embraced him. Falconer's heart lurched as he remembered her arms around his neck, his whispered words in her ear. He sighed and almost imperceptibly shook his head.

When Reginald finally spoke, it appeared to Falconer as a response to an unspoken question. "Were it not for my own dire need, I would not dream of asking anything of you now. One look is enough to know of your woes, my dear friend. But ask I must."

"Is it something to do with ... with Serafina?" Falconer found it uncommon strange that he now had to search to recall the name of a woman whom he had dearly loved, though never claimed as his own.

"My dear friend, not at all. Perish the thought. No, the lovely lady is fairly trembling with joy. She and her husband both. Though I must say the two of them are more than upset with your lack of communication."

"I'm sorry, but I could not bring myself to answer her letters."

"And now I see the reason why. She will be very sad to learn the reason for your silence." Reginald fumbled with a button to his waistcoat. "She should be delivering their first child any day now."

"Please tell them I wish them every joy." Falconer waited a moment, and when Reginald did not speak, he pressed gently, "So it is not Serafina."

"No. It is myself. And my dear wife, Lillian. We are at our wit's end, I tell you. Our wit's end." Reginald Langston became agitated, and he rose and began pacing before the bench. "Lillian had a son by her first marriage. You knew she was widowed, of course."

"Yes." Falconer remembered Reginald's wife had previously been married to an earl, rather a scoundrel of English society who had squandered his money on ill-fated ventures.

"Byron was to succeed to his late father's titles, but Lillian had sold them," Reginald went on. "She was penniless and heavily in debt and had no choice. Byron, however, failed to understand either the need or the deed. He was always a difficult son, impetuous and rather a snob. Very much like his late father, so Lillian tells me. The boy ran through his inheritance in a few short years. Also Lillian had left him quite a nice London town house, which he mortgaged. Without telling his mother, I hasten to add. And he spent all that as well."

"Gambling?" Falconer wondered. Another wayward son of wealthy parents.

Reginald clearly was reluctant to speak ill of the lad. "Does it matter?"

"I really cannot say until I know the problem."

"Then, yes. Gambling and vile women, by all accounts. He loved the trappings of power and accepted none of the responsibilities. He went before the magistrates once too often. A duel over a married woman, though married to neither of the men dueling, as it happened. Lillian begged for my help, which of course I gave. Our London partner, as you know, is Samuel Aldridge, a former diplomatic agent and a man of considerable influence. And of course you know Gareth and Erica Powers. Through their intervention, we managed to have the lad released. On one condition. Byron was to leave his past, his ways, and his London life behind. Samuel arranged for him to take a position of assistant manager at a new trading outpost."

Falconer realized he was already caught in the hunt. Not by the story. But by Reginald's need. For this was what Falconer knew he could never refuse. He could not say no to a friend. Falconer asked, "Where?"

"Marseilles. Do you know it?"

"The harbor. The port. I've not been further inland than the seaman's market fronting the quayside." He could smell the place now.

"Never been there myself. But our office is on the main avenue leading up from the port." Reginald had not stopped his pacing before Falconer's bench. "Byron arrived as scheduled. He worked there for six months. That is, he came in occasionally, mostly to collect his wages."

"He kept to his past ways," Falconer surmised. When Reginald continued to pace in silence, Falconer picked up the story for him. "He did no work. He lived for the night and dark deeds. He again got into debt."

Reginald stopped pacing and stared at the nearest gravestone.

Falconer said quietly, "He owed money to the wrong man."

"So we have been informed," Reginald agreed, his voice low.

"Is Byron alive?"

"We were desperately afraid that he was not. We heard conflicting rumors. He had taken up with vile merchants, he had been found in an alley—nothing that could be confirmed even by our own agents."

Falconer waited for a time, then asked more softly still, "What have you learned?"

"A letter arrived from Samuel. He was approached by a missionary's wife, that is, his widow. She appeared in London. Traveling from Algiers. She claims to have seen Byron. Not merely seen him. Been shown him, like ... like a prize heifer."

"Or a slave."

Reginald stared at him, his gaze hollow. "According to this woman, he had been sold to a North African brigand by the name of Ali Saleem." Though Falconer's intake of breath was very soft, Reginald caught it nonetheless. "You know him?"

"The name. Every seaman who traverses the southern Mediterranean has heard of Ali Saleem. He is the last of the Barbary pirates."

"So I have been informed. This Ali Saleem let the poor woman go, even arranged transport back to civilization, upon receipt of her oath to pass on this information. The brigand has offered to release Byron for gold. Quite a large amount of gold."

Falconer rose to his feet. "I must speak with my son."

Reginald's face was grim with old woes. "I will not have you doing this out of any sense of indebtedness. You owe me nothing. No matter what we might have said in the past. We are friends. I release you from any promise you might have made to me. Do you hear what I am saying?"

Falconer gripped the other man's arm. He turned Reginald around and guided him through the cemetery gates. "You are a friend, Reginald."

The man said miserably, "I wish I had not come." Falconer's squeeze on his arm was the only answer.

Falconer left Reginald at the inn's front entrance and rode his horse back out to the farm. Keeping his horse to an easy pace, he lifted his hat to a pair of women returning from the fields, his thoughts all the while racing far and wide. He tried to rein in the blood surging through his veins. He tried to pray.

But all the while, his mind turned over and again to a single reality.

Though they were six days' hard ride inland, his nostrils were filled with the scent of the sea.