My only hope as we move into these darker times is that the war will uncover some quality in one or other of us (I dare not hope all) that will disprove my pessimism. I don't wish to say that war is ennobling, you understand; I don't believe that for a moment. But I do believe it may strip us of some of the pretensions that are the dubious profits of peace-the airs and graces that we've all put on-and return us to our truer selves. To our humanity or our divinity; or both.

So, I'm ready. The pistol lies on one side of my desk, and my pen lies beside it. I intend to sit here and go on writing until the very last, but I can no longer promise you that I'll finish this story before I have to put my pen aside and arm myself. That only everything of mine now seems like the remotest of dreams: one of those pretensions of peace that I was talking about a few paragraphs back.

I will promise you this: that in the chapters to come I won't toy with your affections, as though we had a lifetime together. I'll be as plain as I know how, doing what I can to furnish you with the means to finish this history in your own head should I be stopped by a bullet.

And-while I'm thinking of that-maybe this isn't an inappropriate place to beg mercy from those I've neglected or misrepresented here. You've been reading the work of a man learning his craft word by word, sentence by sentence; I've often stumbled, I've often failed.

Forgive me my frailties. And if I am deserving of that forgiveness, let it be because I am not my father's son, but only human. And let the future be such a time as this is reason enough to be loved.

I was in a fine, maudlin mood when I wrote the last portion of the preceding chapter; with hindsight it seems somewhat premature. The barbarians aren't here yet, after all. Not even a whiff of their cologne. Perhaps I'll never need the gun Luman gave me. Wouldn't that be a fine old ending to my epic? After hundreds of pages of expectation, nothing. The Gearys decide they've had enough; Galilee stays out at sea; Rachel waits on the beach but never sees him again. The din of war drums dwindles, and they finally fall silent.

Clearly Luman doesn't believe there's much likelihood of this happening. A little while ago he brought me two more weapons; one of them a fine cavalry saber, which he'd polished up until it gleamed, the other a short stabbing sword which was owned, and presumably used, by a Confederate artilleryman. He'd worked to polish this also, he told me, but it hadn't been a very rewarding labor: the metal refused to gleam. That said, the weapon possesses a brutal simplicity. Unlike the sword, which has a patrician elegance, this is a gutting weapon; you can feel its purpose in its heft. It fairly begs to be used.

He stayed an hour or two, chatting about things, and by the time I got back to writing it was dark. I was making notes toward the scene in which Garrison Geary visits the room where Cadmus died-and was thoroughly immersed in the details-when there was a knock on the door and Zabrina presented herself. She had a summons for me, from Cesaria.

"So Mama's home?" I said.

"Are you being sarcastic?" she said.

"No," I protested. "It was a simple observation. Mama's home. That's good. You should be happy."

"I am," she said, still suspicious that I was mocking her earlier dramas.

"Well I'm happy that you're happy. There. Happy?"

"Not really," she said.

"Why the hell not?"

"She's different, Maddox. She's not the woman she was before she left."

"Maybe that's all to the good," I said. Zabrina didn't remark on this; she just tightened her lips. "Anyway, why are you so surprised? Of course she's different. She's lost one of her enemies." Zabrina looked at me blankly. "She didn't tell you?"

"No."

"She killed Cadmus Geary. Or at least she was there when he died. It's hard to know which is true."

"So what does that mean for us?" Zabrina said.

"I've been trying to figure that out myself."

She eyed the three weapons on my desk. "You're ready for the worst," she said.

"They were a gift from Luman. Do you want one?"

"No thank you," she said. "I've got my own ways of dealing with these people if they come here. Is it going to be Garrison Geary, or the good-looking brother?"

"I didn't realize you were following all this," I said. "It could be both."

"I hope it's the good-looking one," Zabrina said. "I could put him to good use."

"Doing what?"

"You know very well," she said. I was astonished that she was being so forthright, but then why shouldn't she be? Everybody else was showing their true colors. Why not Zabrina?

"I could happily have that man in my bed," she went on. "He has a wonderful head of hair."

"Unlike your Dwight."

"Dwight and I still enjoy one another when the mood takes us," she said.

"So it's true," I said, "you did seduce him when he first came here."

"Of course I seduced him, Maddox," she said. "You think I kept him in my room all that time because I was teaching him the alphabet? Marietta's not the only one in the family with a sex drive, you know." She crossed to the desk and picked up the saber. "Are you really going to use this?"

"If I have to."

"When was the last time you killed a man?"

"I never have."

"Really?" she said. "Not even when you were out gallivanting with Papa?"

"Never."

"Oh it's fun," she said, with a gleam in her eye. This was turning into a most revelatory conversation, I thought.

"When did you ever kill anyone?" I asked her.

"I don't know if I want to tell you," she said.

"Zabrina, don't be so silly. I'm not going to write about it." I watched her expression as I said this, and saw a fucker of disappointment there. "Unless you want me to," I added.

A tiny smile appeared on her lips. The woman who'd once told me-in no uncertain terms-that she despised the notion of appearing in this book had been overtaken by somebody who found the idea tantalizing. "I suppose if I don't tell you and you don't write it down nobody's ever going to know…"

"Know what?" She frowned, nibbling at her lip. I wished I'd had a box of bonbons to offer her, or a slice of pecan pie. But the only seduction I had to hand was my pen.

"I'll tell it exactly as you tell it to me," I said to her. "Whatever it is. I swear."

"Hm…"

Still she stood there, biting her lip. "Now you're just playing with me," I told her. "If you don't want to tell me then don't."

"No, no, no," she said hurriedly. "I want to tell you. It's just strange, after all these years…"

"If you knew the number of times I've thought that very thing, while I was writing. This book's going to be full of things that have never been told but should be. And you're right. It's a strange feeling, admitting to things."

"Have you admitted to things?"

"Ohhhh yes," I said, sitting back in my chair. "Hard things sometimes. Things that make me look pretty bad."

"Well this doesn't make me look bad, exactly…" I waited, hoping my silence would encourage her to spit it out. The trick worked. "About a year after Dwight came to live with me," she said, "I went out to Sampson County to find his family. He'd told me what they'd done to him, and it was… so horrible. The cruelty of these people. I knew he wasn't lying about it because he had the scars. He had cigarette burns all over his back and on his butt. His older brother used to torture him. And from his father, different kinds of scars." She seemed genuinely moved at her recollections of the harm he'd been done. Her tiny eyes glistened. "So I thought I'd pay them a visit. Which I did. I made friends with his mother, which wasn't very difficult. She obviously didn't have anyone to talk to. The family were pariahs. Nobody wanted anything to do with them. Anyway, she invited me over one night. I offered to bring over some steak for the menfolk. She said they'd like that. There were five brothers and the father, so I brought six steaks and I fried 'em up, while they all sat in the backyard and drank.