New York - The Novel

talking to Stuyvesant by the fort, Meinheer van Dyck,” remarked Springsteen.
    “You may meet her any minute,” said Steenburgen.
    Van Dyck cursed inwardly. Yesterday the plan had seemed easy enough. His men would unload his boat and the Indian canoe. The Indians would wait to return with the tide. That would give him time to show Pale Feather around the little town and give her some Dutch cookies—the happy culmination of the brief time they’d spent together. Then the Indians would take her safely back upstream, and he’d go home to his wife and children.
    Normally, even if Margaretha heard that he was at the wharf, she’d know he needed to deal with business at the warehouse first, and she’d wait for him at the house. He hadn’t counted on her being down at the fort.
    Well, he’d keep his promise to his daughter, but he’d have to be careful.
    “Come, Pale Feather,” he said.
    It wasn’t easy keeping an eye out for his wife while he showed Pale Feather around. But she seemed quite happy. He found he was quite proud of the town. You couldn’t deny that Stuyvesant had improved the place. The broad, muddy bankside had been partly cobbled. Even in the busiest area, close to the market, the houses with their high, stepped gables had spacious, well-tended gardens behind. Moving up the east side, they crossed over the small canal and came to the city hall, the Stadt Huys. This was a big building with a central doorway, three rows of windows, another two in the steep mansard roof, and a widow’s walk on the roof above. It stood together with a group of other buildings, like so many Dutch merchants, gazing stolidly out at the East River. In front of the Stadt Huys was a double stocks for punishing malefactors. He had to explain to Pale Feather how people were locked in the stocks to be humiliated.
    “Over there,” he pointed along the bank, “we also have a gallows where people are choked to death with a rope for more serious offenses.”
    “My people have no such custom,” she said.
    “I know,” he answered kindly. “But we do.”
    They had just paused in front of a tavern where some sailors were drinking when from round the corner, strolling toward them in her loose gown, and with a pipe in her hand, came Margaretha van Dyck.

    Margaretha gazed at her husband and the little girl. It was only a few minutes since Meinheer Steenburgen’s wife had told her that van Dyck was in town. It might have been her imagination, but when the woman had imparted this news, Margaretha thought she’d seen a little glint in her eye—the sort of look one might give to a wife whose husband has been seen with another woman—and this had put her on her guard.
    Would Dirk do such a thing to her, in public? A sudden cold fear had seized her, but she had controlled herself, and smiled at the woman as though she’d been quite expecting her husband that day anyway.
    And here he was with an Indian girl. Not a mistress, anyway. But a girl who looked … a little pale for a pure Indian, perhaps.
    “You’re back,” she said, and embraced him briefly. Then she stepped back.
    “Yes. We were unloading at the storehouse.”
    Did he look nervous? Perhaps.
    “Your trip was successful?”
    “Very. So many pelts I needed an Indian canoe as well, to get them all back.”
    “That’s good.” She stared at Pale Feather. “Who’s the girl?”
    Dirk van Dyck glanced at Pale Feather and wondered: Did she understand what they were saying? He suddenly realized that he did not know. Some of the Indians spoke Dutch, but he had always spoken to his daughter in her native tongue. He said a silent prayer.
    “She came with the Indians in the canoe,” he answered coolly. “One of the Turtle clan.” Among the local Indians, the clan, or phratry, passed down the female line. You belonged to your mother’s clan. “I am friendly with the Turtle clan.”
    Margaretha eyed Pale Feather thoughtfully.
    “You know the mother?”
    “No.” Van Dyck shook his head. “She’s dead.”
    “The child looks half-caste.”
    Had she guessed? He felt a stab of fear, and quickly fought it down.
    “I think so too.”
    “The father?”
    “Who knows?” He shrugged.
    His wife sucked on her pipe.
    “These Indian women are all the same.”
    It was strange, van Dyck considered. Despite their Calvinistic Church, Dutch women quite often had lovers before they were married, and it was tolerated. But because some of the Indian women, whose people had