How Nathan Archer Came to be a Prince of the Land of the Flowers
As told by Kate Archer
to Sharon Lee
You might be wondering how it was that Nathan Archer came to be one of the Sasanoa. The short answer is, he was born in the Land of the Flowers, and raised up in the house of Aeronymous, a Sea Ozali of some considerable standing.
That’s the short answer. The longer answer — well, that’s a tale.
Now, what you have to understand first off is that the Archers have been on this land a long, long time. Not as long as the Pepperidges, but — long enough. Some would say, too long.
There’s various stories in the family about how the Archers came to be caretakers of the land. Chief Glooskap lost it in a game of dice to the first of the name to settle here — that’s one. Another says, no, it was given in return for a favor — and a third still says the other two are hogwash, and what John Archer had done was to marry Glooskap’s daughter, with the land being her wedding portion.
Any of those might be probable, though the giving and losing of land would’ve been an idea more comfortable with Irish-born John than Glooskap. What Gran says — and I think she has the right of it, myself… What Gran says is that John Archer loved this land so much that the land loved him back, and gave itself willingly into his keeping, and the keeping of all Archers thereafter.
Gran’s also got it in her head that John took a Pepperidge to wife, thereby insuring the immediate continuation of Archers, and beginning the long alliance of the families. I’m not about to argue the point with her.
However it came about, the end result of is that the Archers are tied to the land, bound and intent on insuring its well-being, placing their own safety a distant second to that goal.
That’s how it was in the beginning, anyway. Over time, the blood thins and honor with it — humans are like that — and around about 1868, it was looking like the Archers had hit ebb tide.
It wasn’t entirely their fault. The Civil War had an appetite for Archer men — not one came back. The wives — widows — they remarried and moved away, taking their little boys, their daughters, and as much of the family silver as they could carry with them. They weren’t of the blood anyway, most of ‘em. The one’s who were left, who were of the blood, they numbered five: Miss Elizabeth and Miss Caroline Archer, maiden ladies of some considerable age; Grampa Richard Archer, who was even older; Daniel Liberty Archer, a babe in arms — and Lydia.
Lydia was twenty-four years old, a spinster with no prospects. She wasn’t bad-looking by the standards of the day, more your strapping, sensible Maine girl who in better times would’ve made some lucky fella a fine wife. The war, though, it had thinned out the available men in town — Archers Beach was a town by then. For every man that came back, there were three women to choose from, and even being an Archer of the Archers, living in the starting-to-run-down house that was held in trust for her baby brother, Lydia never stood a chance.
She cared about that, I’m pretty sure, else what she did that September doesn’t really make sense. There’s only so much personal sacrifice that a good steward of the land can be expected to make, and while placing your life between danger and the land. On the other hand, she may not have understood what she was getting herself —
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END OF SAMPLE
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