space would be seeded by the bones of some future generation.
They descended, Rachel walking a few paces behind Matthew as he cleaved a path through waist-high grass. Her wedding dress made a rustling sound, and small thorny pods stung her legs and clung to her hem.
As the sun continued its climb, the day warmed. Matthew and Rachel walked through a forest of gigantic, primeval trees where the hot sun was bright one second, streaming between the limbs seventy feet above, and the next second the shadows were dark green and as cool as caverns. Here they saw their first true wilderness creatures: four grazing does and a huge, watchful buck with a spread of antlers easily five feet across. The does lifted their heads to stare at the two humans, the buck gave a snort and bounded between his charges and the intruders, and then suddenly all the animals turned and vanished into the green curtains.
Not very further on, Matthew and Rachel again stopped at the edge of light and shadows. 'What are those?' Rachel asked, her voice tensing.
Matthew approached the nearest oak. It was a Goliath of a tree that must've stood a hundred feet tall and had a trunk thirty feet around, but it was by no means the largest in these ancient woods. Lichens and moss had been pulled away from the trunk.
Carved into the bark were man-shaped pictograms, swirling symbols, and sharp-edged things that might have been the representations of arrowheads. Matthew saw that it was indeed not the only trunk so adorned; a dozen more trees had been carved upon, displaying the figures of more humans, deer, what might have been the sun or moon, and waved lines that possibly stood for wind or water, among a variety of other symbols.
'They're Indian signs, ' Rachel said, answering her own question, as Matthew ran his fingers over a head- high symbol that seemed to either be a frightfully large man or a bear. 'We must be in their territory.'
'Yes, we must.' Ahead of them, in that vast shadowy forest, were a few more carved trunks beyond the main line of decorated trees, and then beyond those the oaks were unadorned. Matthew consulted his map and compass once again.
'Perhaps we should change our route, ' Rachel suggested.
'I don't think changing our route would suffice. According to the compass, we're moving in the proper direction. I also think it would be difficult to say what was Indian territory and what was not.' Uneasily, he looked around. A breeze stirred the leaves far overhead, making the shadows and sunlight shift. 'The sooner we get through here, the better, ' he said, and he started walking again.
In an hour of rigorous travel, during which they saw thirty or forty more grazing deer, they emerged from the green forest into a wide clearing and in so doing were greeted with an amazing sight. Nearby a hundred wild turkeys the size of sheep were pecking in the grass and brush, and the intrusion of humans startled them to ungainly flight. The wind of their wings fanned the clearing and made a sound like the onrush of a hurricane.
'Oh!' Rachel cried out. 'Look there!' She pointed, and Matthew's sight followed the line of her finger to a small lake whose still water reflected blue sky and golden Sol. 'I'm going to rest here, ' she told him, her eyes weary. 'I'm going to take a bath and wash the gaol smell off me.'
'We should keep moving.'
'Can we not make our camp here for the night?'
'We could, ' Matthew said, judging the sun's progress, 'but there's still plenty of light. I didn't intend to camp until nightfall.'
'I'm sorry, but I must rest, ' she insisted. 'I can hardly feel my legs anymore. And I must bathe, too.'
Matthew scratched his forehead. He, as well, was just about worn to a nubbin. 'All right. I think we might stay here for an hour or so.' He slipped the bag's strap off his chafed shoulder and retrieved the soapcake, offering it to her further amazement. 'Never let it be said I did not bring civilization to the wilderness.'
At this point in their relationship, which seemed more intimate than the wedded state, it was nonsense for Matthew to walk into the dark line of woods and afford Rachel privacy. Neither did she expect it. On the edge of the lake, as Matthew reclined on his back and stared up at the sky, Rachel took off her shoes and the faded bridal dress and waded naked into the water to her waist. She turned her back to the shore and soaped her private area, then her stomach and breasts. Matthew glanced once... then again... a third time, more than a glance... at her brown body, made lean by gaolhouse soup. He might have counted her ribs, if he'd chosen. Her body was womanly, yes, but there was a hardness of purpose to it as well, a purity of the will to survive. He watched as she walked deeper into the water, chillbumps rippling across her taut skin even as the sun soothed her. She leaned over and wet het hair, then soaped a lather into it.
Matthew sat up and pulled his knees to his chin. His thorn-cut face had blushed at the image in his mind: that of his own hands, moving over the curves and hollows of Rachel's body as if they too were explorers in a new territory. A winged insect of some kind buzzed his head, which helped to distract him from that line of thought.
After her hair was washed and she was feeling clean, Rachel's attention returned again to Matthew. Also returned was her sense of modesty, as if the gaol's grime had clothed her from view and now she was truly naked. She knelt down in the water, up to her neck, and approached the shore.
Matthew was eating half of a slice of ham from the food package, and had set aside the other half for Rachel. He saw she intended to emerge from the water, so he turned his back. She came out of the lake, dripping, and stood for a moment to dry herself, her face offered to the sun.
'I fear you'll have to invent a falsehood when you enter a Spanish town or stockade, ' Matthew said, painfully aware of how near she stood. 'I doubt even the Spanish would care to grant sanctuary to an accused witch.' He finished the ham and licked his fingers, watching her shadow on the ground. 'You should claim yourself to be an escaped household servant, or simply a wife who sickened of British rule. Once they know your country of birth, you should have no troubles.' Again that insect—no, two of them—buzzed around him, and he waved them away.
'Wait, ' she said, picking up her wedding dress. 'You're speaking only of me. What about you?'
'I am helping you reach the Florida country... but I'm not going to stay there with you.' Rachel let this revelation sink in as she put her dress back on.
He had seen her shadow don the garment, so he turned toward her again. Her beauty—the thick, wet black hair, the lovely proud face and intense amber eyes—was enough to quicken his heart. The nightbird was even more compelling by day. He sighed and chose to stare at the ground once more. 'I'm an Englishman, ' he said. 'Bound by the conventions and laws of English life, whether I like them or not. I couldn't survive in a foreign land.' Matthew managed a brief, halfhearted smile. 'I should be too longing for boiled potatoes and roast beef. Besides... Spanish is not my tongue.'
'I don't understand you, ' she said. 'What kind of man are you, who does what you've done and expects nothing in return?'
'Oh, I do expect something, make no mistake. I expect to be able to go on living with myself. I expect you will return to Portugal, or Spain, and rebuild your life. I expect to see Magistrate Woodward again and plead my case before him.'
'I expect you'll find yourself behind stronger bars than held me, ' Rachel said.
'A possibility, ' he admitted. 'A likelihood. But I won't stay there long. Here, do you want this?' He held up the portion of ham for her.
She accepted it. 'How can I tell you how much this means to me, Matthew?'
'What? One half slice of ham? If it means so much, you can have a whole—'
'You know what I'm saying, ' she interrupted. 'What you've done. The incredible risk.' Her face was grim and set, but tears glistened in her eyes. 'My God, Matthew. I was ready to die. I had given up my spirit. How can I ever repay such a debt?'
'It is I who owe the debt. I came to Fount Royal a boy. I left it as something more, ' Matthew said. 'You should sit down and rest.'
She did sit down, and pressed her body against his as if they sat crushed by a crowd of a thousand people, instead of just alone in this God-made, Devil-touched land. He started to move away, discomforted by his own reaction to her closeness, but she gently grasped his chin with her left hand.
'Listen to me, ' Rachel said, in what was nearly a whisper. Her eyes stared into his own, their faces only parted by a few inches of inconsequential air. 'I loved my husband very much, ' she said. 'I gave him my heart and my soul. Even so, I think... I could love you the same... if you would allow it.'
The few inches of air shrank. Matthew did not know who had first leaned toward the other, but did it really matter? One leaned and one met, and that was both the geometry and poetry of their kiss.
Though Matthew had never before done this, it seemed a natural act. What was most alarming was the
