The Ninth Daughter Part 8

John slewed around, blue eyes almost bulging. "Thaxter's a boy! He wouldn't know-" He broke off, realizing that Abigail knew perfectly well why a youthful clerk, be he ever so honest, could not be trusted with the task.

"Wouldn't know what questions to ask?"

John sniffed, and picked up her cloak. "Townsend's barely a handful of houses at the end of a farm-track," he said as he laid it around her shoulders. "I doubt they have such a thing as an inn. I don't like to think of you hunting for shelter there, or in the woods between it and Wenham, if it should come on to snow."

"And I don't like to think of the man who killed Perdita Pentyre coming to the same conclusion that I have, that Rebecca might have taken shelter with her maid."

Though it was Abigail's lifelong contention that in America any woman could travel alone through the countryside without fear of robbery or a.s.sault-a situation unthinkable in the Home Country-during the final week of November such a solitary excursion was inadvisable for other reasons. The harsh northeast winds and threat of snow that had made John insist that she take the escort of his clerk likewise precluded shortening the trip to the settlement of Townsend by taking one of her uncle Isaac's little coastwise trading vessels as far as Salem. Moreover, Thaxter's mother had kin in western Ess.e.x County, and had provided him with clear instructions for getting to Townsend, whence they could inquire for Kemiah Moore's farm.

From Boston north to Salem the road was well-traveled and reasonably well-kept, along the dunes and salt gra.s.s above the pounding gray sea. The public stage had already ceased its journeys for the winter, and the coach from Ports-mouth wasn't due for another day. An occasional postrider with newspapers or letters overtook their horses, or a city-bound farm-wagon with salt meat and the autumn's cheeses broke the monotony, but for the most part there were only the brown fields inland to look at, swept by wind sharp as broken oyster sh.e.l.ls.

Being related to the Quincys, Thaxter had from childhood absorbed huge quant.i.ties of miscellaneous information about other merchant families with which his own uncles and cousins had to do, and proved a ready source of information about Richard Pentyre. "Everybody in town thinks he's English," the young man remarked over midmorning bread, cheese, and smuggled tea at the Lion in Lynn. "With those coats he wears, and spending ten pounds on wigs and powder to put on them. But he was born here-in that very house in Prince's Street where he lives now, for all his parents went back to London when he was but a little tot, and sent him and his brother to Cambridge with all the sons of English lords, and only his bachelor uncle stayed on here. But he's a Ma.s.sachusetts man, back four generations on both sides, and his grandfather was one of the preachers who had a hand in hanging witches hereabouts. Bet the Parliament n.o.bs who think he's so civilized don't know that that one!" one!"

Abigail chuckled, recalling her glimpses of Richard Pentyre, in his a la mode coats of French brocade, and his immaculately powdered wigs tinted a stylish lavender. Not for him Not for him, she thought, the voyages that had made his rival Charles Malvern hard: his was a pleasant, long-nosed face just losing the freshness of a prolonged youth the voyages that had made his rival Charles Malvern hard: his was a pleasant, long-nosed face just losing the freshness of a prolonged youth. Vindictive Vindictive, Lisette Droux had said, and clever by the sound of it-and by Thaxter's present accounts of the man's manipulations of his relations.h.i.+p with the Governor. Would he have had the wits to decipher the admittedly simple code that Rebecca used to set up meetings with his wife?

More disturbingly, would Lieutenant Coldstone?

And what would those Crown officials, those voters in Parliament, make of this world, she wondered, as they mounted their rested horses, and left the prosperous town of Lynn behind. She was used to thinking of Boston as a great city, with its crooked streets and thronged wharves. Even as a lawyer's wife, she was able to purchase dress goods as fine as any lawyer's wife in London if she had a mind, and paint her rooms in bright fas.h.i.+onable hues like Naples yellow and Dutch pink. The education John had obtained at Harvard was equal to any on offer at Oxford or Cambridge, and in the city's bookstores she could find novels by Fielding and Richardson, plays by Voltaire and Shakespeare, the poetry of Pope and the philosophical writings of Locke.

Yet outside of Boston, the veneer of England vanished like an early frost. Abigail's girlhood as a minister's daughter had taught her how primitive were the farms that lay only a few hours' walk into the countryside, where vessels were still made from the sh.e.l.ls of pumpkins or gourds, and families slept all together in lofts above the single "keeping room" downstairs. Where a child might grow to voting age before he ever saw a clock, or a book other than the Bible. Once they reached Salem, and turned westward, this impression deepened, of traversing time as well as distance, as if they had somewhere crossed the line that separated the eighteenth century from the seventeenth. Away from the sea, and the settled lands along the coast, the woods closed in, standing as they had stood since the creation of the continent: gray and black with winter's coming, fall's tawny gorgeousness only a fading echo of yellow turning to umber underfoot.

Moreover, once one left the main road, all helpful signposts and milestones ceased. Primordial woods closed around them. The innkeeper in Salem provided an a.s.sortment of directions along with more tea, more bread, and more cheese-"You take the Danvers road, m'am, but turn off to your right about two miles past Peabody. You can't miss the track, for there's a great oak just a hundred feet down along it, to the left of the way"-but though Abigail jotted what she hoped were the main points on her whale-ivory pocket-tablets, she was disinclined to trust them. "Now, don't pay no mind to the farm-tracks you'll pa.s.s, but take the bigger way left, after Great Sellars Pond." "How far?" "Far? Lord, I don't know-how far would you say it is to the Sellars Pond Road, Jemma?" (This to his wife.) "Two miles?" "Never!-all of four . . ." "Not so far," protested a one-eyed man at another of the tables near the fire. "Old Sellars used to walk it in half an hour by his watch, and he were a fearful rapid walker. The Sella.r.s.es used to have all the land hereabouts, on royal grant. One of 'em married into the Olivers-or was it the Governor's kin?-that had their holdings all up into Wenham Towns.h.i.+p and as far as Topsford . . ." "Be sure you don't take the Topsford Road," the landlord had agreed. "If you get to the Topsford Farm Road, you've gone too far. Old Topsford, he was said to be a warlock, that could raise storms by killing a hare and throwing it in Wenham Pond."

There followed considerable discussion of whether or not the gentleman in question had actually accomplished this feat of meteorology, but no one present seemed to doubt that he could have, had he wished to do so. Neither could anyone be found headed in that direction, to guide the travelers on their way. It was early yet for dinner, and Abigail elected to press on toward Townsend, a decision she regretted some three hours later, with the threat of rain on the wind, and not the slightest idea of whether the muddy, half-frozen cart-track that disappeared into the fading winter twilight before and behind them was indeed the Topsford Road or some other. She and her companion encountered a number of great oak trees, and several small bodies of water that could have been termed ponds ponds, sloughs sloughs, or pools pools, but few signs of habitation. What they had hoped was a farm-road between rock-walled, stubbled fields petered out and disappeared into woods again. "I think that old deadlight back at Salem witched us," grumbled Thaxter.

It was close to dark when they finally stumbled into a village optimistically called Gilead, barely a hamlet cl.u.s.tered around a dilapidated log church, and begged shelter for the night. Hospitality was freely offered by the town's minister, but it had to be paid for, Abigail learned, by attendance at the evening sermon: penance enough to one raised in the dual tradition of old-style predestinarianism and well-written doctrinal argument. The Right Reverend Atonement Bargest was a firm believer in the contention that no one could be Saved who did not tremble before the Altar of the Lord, and Abigail and Thaxter spent three hours on the hard, narrow meetinghouse bench ("The House of Repentance, we call it," confided the Reverend as he escorted them to the front and center seats) while all around them the two hundred or so souls of the congregation trembled, wept, and cried out in terror at apparitions of devils that the preacher pointed to in the candlelit shadows. Thaxter quite frankly dozed off, but Abigail was sorely tried with the effort not to get to her feet in protest as the Reverend pointed and shrieked at the appearance (visible only to himself) of the Nine Daughters of Eve, emerging from h.e.l.l to prey on the souls of Righteous Men: the serpent, the nightmare, the witch, the succubus, the harlot, the Priestess of Idols, Jezebel the Queen, the dishonest handmaiden, and most iniquitous of all, the inquisitive woman whose feet are never still.

Women jauntering about the countryside instead of staying home to care for their husbands and children, he implied, would come to no good end. s.h.i.+vering in her damp cloak, her feet freezing and her thighs cut by the narrowness of the bench on which she sat, Abigail was much inclined to agree with him.

After the sermon was done-it was now pouring rain-the Reverend Bargest arbitrarily a.s.signed a member of his congregation to offer the travelers hospitality, and released them to supper and a bed. As they followed their host to one of the two dozen or so log-built houses within the town's old palisade-like disused barracks, most of them, their upper floors shuttered and dark-Abigail could feel the disapproving gazes of the congregation on her back. "Have you not a husband nor a home?" one of the littler girls of her host's family asked her, as the cold supper of corn pudding and mola.s.ses was set on the table-and her elder sister swept her away with a hissed admonition and a glance of sullen dread.

Evidently only the word of "the Hand of the Lord," as they reverently termed their minister, kept Abigail and her escort from being ejected supperless into the road.

Toward the end of the meal the Hand of the Lord made his reappearance with a glowering young man whom he introduced as Brother Mortify. "He shall guide you to Townsend in the morning. It isn't far-five miles or so." He smiled charmingly-he had silky white hair and aston is.h.i.+ngly well-preserved teeth for a man in his sixties-and clapped Brother Mortify on the shoulder. "I shall pray for the lessening of the rain, that you may be sped upon your way." For a man who forty minutes previously had been in seizures of terror at the sight of invisible demons appearing out of the back of the House of Repentance, he seemed to have made a remarkable recovery. Abigail's hosts were lavish in their praise for "the Chosen One's" sermon, and the Chosen One nodded grave acknowledgement. I have only done my duty I have only done my duty, his twinkling dark eyes seemed to say. Don't I do it well? Don't I do it well?

In fact the rain had had ceased when in predawn darkness the family waked to a frugal breakfast of cold corn pudding and skimmed milk, and Brother Mortify presented himself to put Abigail and Thaxter on their way. "Not many take this way," was his only comment, when they had to dismount and lead their horses over a stream where the bridge had rotted to nothing. "They're G.o.dless, in Townsend-as in other places." He cast a meaningful glower at the travelers. ceased when in predawn darkness the family waked to a frugal breakfast of cold corn pudding and skimmed milk, and Brother Mortify presented himself to put Abigail and Thaxter on their way. "Not many take this way," was his only comment, when they had to dismount and lead their horses over a stream where the bridge had rotted to nothing. "They're G.o.dless, in Townsend-as in other places." He cast a meaningful glower at the travelers.

"And they're they're the only ones saved and blessed, I suppose," muttered Thaxter, when their escort finally turned back and the handful of weathered gray buildings that const.i.tuted Townsend could be descried through the gray trees. "I wouldn't have believed it, in this day and age." He brushed the last fragments of hay out of his hair and scarf-wool. Despite the raw iciness of the night, he'd slept in the barn. Abigail, who had shared a bed with three of the girls of the family in the boarded-up upper floor of the house, wished propriety had permitted her to do so as well. the only ones saved and blessed, I suppose," muttered Thaxter, when their escort finally turned back and the handful of weathered gray buildings that const.i.tuted Townsend could be descried through the gray trees. "I wouldn't have believed it, in this day and age." He brushed the last fragments of hay out of his hair and scarf-wool. Despite the raw iciness of the night, he'd slept in the barn. Abigail, who had shared a bed with three of the girls of the family in the boarded-up upper floor of the house, wished propriety had permitted her to do so as well.

"You were born in Boston, weren't you?"

Thaxter nodded. "Born and raised. And Lord, I don't know how people live in the countryside-I mean out here, not in civilized places like Weymouth or Medford. I didn't know places like that still existed."

Abigail sighed. "They exist a good deal closer to Boston than Ess.e.x County. They've been feuding in Braintree for years over who got chosen for minister-families who used to be friends not speaking a civil word to one another-and there isn't a county in New England, where a town hasn't split itself off from its parent settlement, because part of the congregation doesn't believe in precisely how the other part conceives salvation. Now with these new preachers coming through, these Evangelists, as they call them-this Awakening they speak of-it's as if all the old arguments over who shall be saved and who d.a.m.ned are all being argued again.

"It wasn't so long ago-I've talked to people who were children at the time-that grown men in Salem, leaders of the community, let themselves be scared like medieval peasants into killing twenty people, on the strength of accusations by a pack of spiteful girls. We think we've come so far toward Enlightenment and Reason, yet even in Boston, rational men who read the newspapers still think a Catholic woman is some kind of devil-wors.h.i.+per, who would steal her husband's money to give over to the Jesuits."

The young man looked startled. "Well, with Catholics, that's different," he said. "I mean, they do do have to do as their Pope tells them, whatever it is, don't they?" have to do as their Pope tells them, whatever it is, don't they?"

Abigail remembered Catherine Moore as a large, calm, good-looking woman in her late thirties whom she had met several times at the Brattle Street Meeting, walking behind Rebecca and Charles Malvern. Rebecca, Abigail recalled, had never asked her maid to carry either her cloak or her Bible, as so many wealthy ladies did. Odd, she thought, in one who had been waited on by slaves every day of her life. In the early days of the friends.h.i.+p Rebecca would always speak of Catherine's unwavering loyalty in the gathering nightmare of spying and distrust that her marriage had become. Unless the friends.h.i.+p is extraordinary Unless the friends.h.i.+p is extraordinary, Lisette Droux had said, it is too easy for confidence to turn into anger it is too easy for confidence to turn into anger. And, I would rather be a good maid than a good friend I would rather be a good maid than a good friend. Catherine Moore, Abigail guessed, in the three years she had served Rebecca Malvern, had managed both.

The woman who came out of the dairy when Abigail and her escort rode into the yard at the Moore farm seemed to her, at first glimpse, to be the elder sister, or an aunt, of the woman she had known in those days. She stooped a little, and her face was weather-beaten; the few strands of hair visible beneath her cap were cinder gray. Only at second look did Abigail recognize her as Rebecca's maid, by her soft little half smile. "Can I help you?" she asked, and the voice-which Abigail had only heard once or twice-was the same.

"Mistress Moore?" She let Thaxter help her from the saddle, her stout boots squis.h.i.+ng in half-frozen muck. "I'm Mrs. Adams-"

"Of course!" Mistress Moore's benevolence warmed to delight. "My lady's friend. What brings you here to this"-her mouth quirked, half deprecating, half amused-"this wilderness?" And then, her dark eyes changing as she realized how great a distance her visitor had come on purpose, "My lady is all right, is she not? Tell me all is well." As she said this another woman came out of the dairy behind her, probably just over twenty, Abigail guessed, but looking older, weather-beaten, and tired, with the rounded belly of midterm pregnancy.

"What is it-?"

"News of Rebecca," said Catherine softly, and then glanced back at Abigail. "Isn't it?"

Abigail said, "I'd hoped to find her here."

Thirteen

Though it was only an hour or two past sunup, Catherine's sister-in-law-her brother's third wife-brought them into the big sand-floored keeping room of the log farmhouse, and cut bread and cheese, b.u.t.ter, and cold meat for them. "From all I've heard, those Gilead folk are as stingy with the G.o.dless, as they call us, as they are with their own children. For the good of their souls, they'll tell you," she added with a sniff. "Sit you down, Mrs. Adams, and rest. You look like you've had a cold ride and no mistake."

A crippled boy of perhaps fourteen-wizened and wasted as a little old man-who was working a spinning wheel next to the fire nodded a greeting to them, and added a few billets of wood to the blaze.

Catherine Moore's face contracted in horror when Abigail spoke of what she'd found in Rebecca's house Thursday morning. "Who would do such a thing? And why why?"

Abigail shook her head. " 'Tis what I'm trying to learn. 'Twasn't a madman just wandered in from the street, we do know that," she added. "The other woman-Mrs. Pentyre, a merchant's young wife-was lured there, with a note forged in Rebecca's hand . . . Rebecca didn't know Mrs. Pentyre before Mrs. Pentyre's marriage, did she? Her name would have been Parke in those days, Perdita Parke, of New York."

Mistress Moore shook her head, baffled.

"I know she writes to you-she often speaks of how she treasures your letters. Was there anyone that she spoke of, any friend, any person to whom she might have gone for refuge? Or any name, any circ.u.mstance, that by any any stretch of the imagination might be connected with what happened?" stretch of the imagination might be connected with what happened?"

Catherine sat for a moment, her head tilted to the side, thinking hard though the moment they had seated themselves her hands had taken up sewing on a child's dress from out of her workbasket, automatically, as if no second must-or could-be left idle. "Nothing," she said, and setting aside her work, went to the old-fas.h.i.+oned box-bed built into the wall near the great hearth. From the cupboard beneath it she brought out a lap desk, from which she took a packet of letters. "Mostly she wrote of her pupils, and their progress; of your kindness to her; of her labors at learning to cook and keep house, and that Tillet woman trying to turn her into a sewing-slave for her own profit. Once she wrote of her husband, and even then wouldn't say a word against him."

A look of wearied bitterness flickered in her eyes, swiftly put aside. What had Malvern said of her, Abigail wondered, that had made it impossible for her to find work as a maid in Boston?

Catherine went on, "She said she understood, how he would mistrust her, and blamed herself that he refused to give her any share of her father's money. Myself," she added grimly, "I blame that old skinflint, for along with 'holding' the income 'in trust,' he's also lending and investing it at 2 percent, and would have been happy enough if she died, so the property would come to him outright and absolutely. Two thousand acres along the Chesapeake?" She sniffed. "He should have thanked her for keeping it in their family when he was too cheap to lay out for it, not punished her. To say nothing of saving her father from a life of beggary." blame that old skinflint, for along with 'holding' the income 'in trust,' he's also lending and investing it at 2 percent, and would have been happy enough if she died, so the property would come to him outright and absolutely. Two thousand acres along the Chesapeake?" She sniffed. "He should have thanked her for keeping it in their family when he was too cheap to lay out for it, not punished her. To say nothing of saving her father from a life of beggary."

She turned her face away, and pressed her hand to her lips, as if what Abigail had told her had only just begun to sink in. Abigail saw how her hand, once the fine deft hand of a quality lady's maid, had grown brown, and rough with calluses, the fingers beginning to deform with arthritis.

"May I take these?"

"Of course. If you can find anything in them to help, you are welcome." Outside the thick, uneven gla.s.s of the ill-leaded window a horse and wagon could be discerned, drawing up in the yard. A moment later a boy and a young man strode in, halted uncertainly when they saw Abigail, then went to the cold corner of the big room where all this time the youthful Goodwife Moore had been chopping and mixing the meat and fat of what was clearly a recently slaughtered pig for sausage. The murmur of their voices joined the whirr of the spinning wheel, the drifting smell of sage, as a sort of background scrim, a reminder to Abigail of her own duties and children neglected at home while she wandered to and fro in the world. Now she is without, now in the streets . . . Now she is without, now in the streets . . . Catherine took up her sewing again. Catherine took up her sewing again.

"Did she ever write to you about politics? About her political friends?"

"Not in so many words, no." Catherine's breath went out of her in a sigh. "I knew-Well, you know what a poison that was, between Mr. Malvern and her. Myself . . ." She shrugged. "I'm as loyal as the next woman, I suppose, but it strikes me as only reasonable, that the King nor Parliament neither can understand what goes on here, and what we need. But that's a matter of men of education, men who're trained to it, not for a plain woman-and not meaning disrespect, not for a lady who's trying to get on with her husband, and build a home for him and his children. But she never would see it that way. And as time went on, and Miss Tamar told lies about her to divide her from her husband, it was a refuge to her, though it only made the situation worse."

Sadly, she shook her head, and Abigail pursed her lips and reminded herself that an indignant demand about whether men who made their money out of Crown offices were more to be trusted in government than the plain men and plain women whose pockets were picked by those trained and educated gentlemen, would only lead the discussion far astray. She asked instead, "Did she speak about the Sons of Liberty?"

"I knew she was thick with them." The maidservant sounded grieved. "I feared . . . But surely," she said, looking up from her needle, "surely not one of them would have caused her harm, no matter how heated this politics got. 'Tis only politics, when all's said."

No, Abigail thought. It isn't politics. It isn't politics. She recalled things Rebecca had told her, things Cousin Sam had said. A man probably wouldn't kill over politics, but he would kill to protect himself, if there were treason in the wind. She recalled things Rebecca had told her, things Cousin Sam had said. A man probably wouldn't kill over politics, but he would kill to protect himself, if there were treason in the wind.

A reasonable man, she corrected herself. The man who wielded that knife was no reasonable man.

But would a madman forge a note? Think to dispose of the chaise? Turn the horse free onto the Commons? Why had he not then disposed of the body as well?

Would a madman take Rebecca's "housekeeping" book of codes? Or had Rebecca done that herself when she'd fled, to keep it from falling into the murderer's hands?

Am I looking at madness here? Or treason? Or something else?

At this point Goodman Moore came in, shaking the morning dampness from his hat and glaring suspiciously at his sister and her guest. Both women rose, and Catherine said, "Kem, this is Mrs. Adams, from Boston, a dear friend to my Mrs. Malvern-"

"And is she a Papist, too?"

Exasperated, Abigail said, "Does not anyone anyone in Ma.s.sachusetts believe that a conversion can be sincere? Mrs. Malvern took instruction and satisfied the elders of the Brattle Street congregation, in order to be confirmed. I am honestly curious as to what a woman-or a man, for that matter," she added, thinking as well of Orion Hazlitt, "must do, to convince people that she or he has indeed changed faith." in Ma.s.sachusetts believe that a conversion can be sincere? Mrs. Malvern took instruction and satisfied the elders of the Brattle Street congregation, in order to be confirmed. I am honestly curious as to what a woman-or a man, for that matter," she added, thinking as well of Orion Hazlitt, "must do, to convince people that she or he has indeed changed faith."

Catherine's brother regarded both women before him with a kind of chilly contempt, as if confronted with the idiot child of someone he didn't like. "Faith a'nt something you change. If this woman were truly one of the Saints, she would have been born into a family of the Congregation, where her earliest steps would have been put on the path. She wasn't."

"Now, you can't say-" began Abigail indignantly, and Goodman Moore reared his head back slightly, as if shocked that any woman would contradict him with his thought not yet fully revealed in all its glory.

Abigail bit her underlip and reminded herself that this man had sweated to grow the corn and cut the wood that went to make the bread she had just eaten; heaved fodder and mucked out cowsheds, that she might have milk.

"Conversion-" He shook his head heavily, like a bear with a fly in its ear. "Conversion, all you get is those G.o.dless heathens over Gilead way, with all their nonsense about knowing G.o.d-as if that's that's going to do a body a single jot of good!-and working toward salvation . . . going to do a body a single jot of good!-and working toward salvation . . . Working Working? Pah! Salvation must be given given a man, through no strength of his own . . . a man, through no strength of his own . . . And And laying claim to old Sellars's fields that should rightfully have gone to the Townsend Congregation! Even so did King Ahab conspire to seize the vineyard of Naboth, and seek to do harm unto the Prophet of the Lord who spake against his conspiring-!" laying claim to old Sellars's fields that should rightfully have gone to the Townsend Congregation! Even so did King Ahab conspire to seize the vineyard of Naboth, and seek to do harm unto the Prophet of the Lord who spake against his conspiring-!"

By which Abigail deduced that-as in so much of Ma.s.sachusetts politics-the disputed fields loomed a good deal larger in her host's mind than the Gilead congregation's doctrinal divagations.

Both Catherine and her brother pressed Abigail to remain and share their early, farm-style dinner, but neither were surprised or offended when she declined. Though it was only midmorning, Abigail well knew that last night's rain would have rendered the roads nearly impa.s.sable, and the going would be slow. She had no desire to spend a second night from home, and John, she knew, would worry if she weren't back by the time the town gates were shut and the ferry ceased to run.

Despite their prompt departure, this almost came to pa.s.s in any case. The rain had been worse toward the coast, and as she and Thaxter slogged their way toward the main Danvers road the half-frozen mora.s.s grew deeper, the horses' hooves sliding in it and the clerk dismounting half a dozen times to sc.r.a.pe the b.a.l.l.s of half-frozen clay from the beasts' feet. Icy wind blew into their faces as they reached Salem in time for an early dinner, and though the main road was a little better, it was still closing in on evening when the travelers sighted Winnisimmet's roofs through the trees. "If the ferry's closed down for the night, I'll hang myself," muttered her escort gloomily, as he dismounted once again on the last slope of Chelsea Hill to clear what seemed like monstrous clay boots from his horse's feet. "There isn't an inn on this side of the water that I'd spend a night in." Which wasn't entirely fair, reflected Abigail-but she could sympathize. Across the bay, she could see Boston's tall hills, and the dark spread of houses around their feet. Closer, the British cruiser c.u.mberland c.u.mberland moved among the little islands, silent as a dark bird. Allegedly it had been sent to "defend" the town, but everyone knew that like the British regiments on Castle Island, the s.h.i.+p was truly there to put down the kind of insurrection that had shaken the city six years ago, when the King had taken control of colonial officials away from the colonial a.s.semblies and into his own hands, and had eliminated jury trials for anyone even suspected of smuggling: a wide category, in Ma.s.sachusetts. moved among the little islands, silent as a dark bird. Allegedly it had been sent to "defend" the town, but everyone knew that like the British regiments on Castle Island, the s.h.i.+p was truly there to put down the kind of insurrection that had shaken the city six years ago, when the King had taken control of colonial officials away from the colonial a.s.semblies and into his own hands, and had eliminated jury trials for anyone even suspected of smuggling: a wide category, in Ma.s.sachusetts.

No lights twinkled yet in any window, nor in the nearer dwellings of Winnisimmet.

She leaned down to pat the wet, steaming neck of her horse. "Well, I won't spur these poor fellows to a gallop to make the last ferry," she said. "Always supposing we could. We-"

Flat and soggy in the wet air, a shot cracked out. A horse burst from the woods nearby, running loose with empty saddle and trailing reins; among the trees themselves, a dim confusion of shouts. Abigail turned in her saddle and glimpsed something red in the brown shadows of the woods, a single British soldier bringing up his musket like a club as half a dozen men closed in on him.

Abigail exclaimed, "For shame!" and spurred toward the woods. Thaxter scrambled into his own saddle to follow. Hard as old Balthazar had been ridden all day, the animal responded n.o.bly, and Abigail raised her voice in a shout, "Get away from him, you louts!" before she had any clear idea of what she'd do if those louts didn't. They seemed to be, she could see as she got closer, the rougher types who made up the rank and file of the Sons of Liberty: the poorer cla.s.s of farmer, out-of-work laborers from the docks of Boston, and two big lads who looked like apprentices playing truant from their work. Such young men followed Cousin Sam and Andy Mackintosh in the violent street battles by which the North End boys and the South End boys celebrated "Pope's Day"-the anniversary of the Catholic Plot to blow up England's Parliament in 1605. At the moment, instead of tearing effigy monks and priests to pieces, they seemed bent on doing the same to the redcoat, who was standing-Abigail saw now-over a fallen comrade in a dark cloak.

She raised her voice again, shouted, "Leave them be!" and the men stopped, more startled than actually obedient. She spurred through them and to the side of the two soldiers, Thaxter galloping up in support, and the men, as she'd expected they probably would, scattered back into the trees. A couple of them shouted "Tory b.i.t.c.h!" and similar sentiments, but none of them was ready to attack a woman-particularly not one who came escorted. Someone threw a rock at them, which missed by yards. Ignoring this completely, Abigail dropped from her horse at the soldiers' side.

"Is he badly hurt?" She pulled away the dark cloak that covered the fallen man's crimson coat, and saw to her surprise that it was Lieutenant Coldstone. Looking up quickly, she met young Sergeant Muldoon's quick glance, before he returned his attention to the darkening woods around them.

"Dunno, m'am-Mrs. Adams. Him and the horse fell together-"

Abigail was already feeling beneath the red coat, and pushed back the stiffly powdered white wig to run her fingers through the young officer's short, fair hair. It was silky as a child's.

"No blood. He may only have been stunned by the fall. Thaxter, help me get this man on my horse. You did well, Sergeant, not to fire at your attackers. The last thing we need right now is another murder trial."

"I did fire, m'am," admitted the Sergeant. "I think the powder's damp."

"Here-" Abigail held up a hand as Thaxter shoved his own horse pistol into his pocket and made to lift the Lieutenant. She took her pin-box from her skirt pocket, selected the longest, and drove the point hard into the unconscious man's leg just below the knee. Coldstone's leg jerked and he turned his head, gasped, "d.a.m.n it-!"

"Very good," approved Abigail, as Thaxter helped the fallen man to sit. "He hasn't broken his neck." She replaced the pin in her box. "Are you all right, Lieutenant?"

He was already scanning the woods around them.

"Gang of hooligans, sir," reported Muldoon. "They made off-"

"Can you stand, sir?" Thaxter had risen to his feet and had his pistol at the ready again, though, Abigail reflected, his powder was almost certainly damp as well. She was astonished the attackers had managed to get off a shot. He held down his left arm for the Lieutenant to take hold of, and Coldstone rose, a little shakily, to his feet, and immediately staggered.

"Where's my horse?" he asked. "She came down on my ankle, it feels like-"

"She was well enough to leave the woods at a gallop," Abigail said. "Sergeant-?"

Muldoon shook his head, and waved vaguely in the direction his own mount had gone.

"The innkeeper at the Fish-Tail will advertise a reward," said Abigail. "I think the sooner you two are back in Boston, the better off you'll be. The ferry's stopped running by now-" She glanced worriedly at the gray overcast above the leafless trees.

Thaxter made a noise of disgust as he brought his horse around for Coldstone to mount. "The cook at the Fish-Tail's got to have done for twenty men at least-"

"The ferry will oblige us, in the King's name." Coldstone's face turned wax white when Muldoon boosted him into the saddle, but his expression of arctic calm did not alter. "Thank you, Sergeant." He took the wig that Muldoon picked up for him, but didn't put it on; it was covered with mud and leaves. So was his hat, but he did don that. It fit ill, without the wig. "I trust my sergeant and I will be able to command a bed among the men at the battery, if the weather worsens before we can cross back to the Castle. I am much obliged to you, Mrs. Adams. I guessed you to be formidable, but did not realize you were so fearsome in combat."

Boosted up by her clerk, Abigail settled herself in her saddle. "It does not do to underestimate Americans, Lieutenant. I'm surprised," she added, as they reined back toward the road, and the dim yellow lights of Winnisimmet beginning to speck the darkness, "that they chose to attack you in daylight, so close to the town. You haven't been picking out quarrels with the local worthies, I hope?"

"If by 'picking out quarrels,' you mean, investigating rumors of treason and sedition," replied Coldstone, "I fear that I have, m'am. As you should well know. And, I am not surprised in the least, that such men would lie in wait for an officer of the King."

"He's right, m'am," added Sergeant Muldoon diffidently. "Town's like a nest of hornets, it is."

Coldstone glanced quellingly down at his henchman, but Abigail heard something in the big Irishman's voice that made her ask, "Why is it like a nest of hornets, Sergeant? What's happened? We've been away," she added, turning back to Coldstone.

The officer sniffed. "Have you, indeed? Then you have missed a great deal of excitement. Yesterday the Dartmouth Dartmouth put in from England, with the first s.h.i.+pment of the East India Company's tea." put in from England, with the first s.h.i.+pment of the East India Company's tea."

Fourteen

Friends! Brethren! Countrymen! That worst of Plagues, the detested tea s.h.i.+pped for this port by the East India Company, is now arrived in the Harbor; the hour of destruction, or manly opposition to the machinations of Tyranny, stares you in the Face; every Friend to his country, to Himself, and to Posterity, is now called upon to meet at Faneuil Hall, at nine o'clock this day, at which time the bells will ring to make united and successful resistance to this last worst and most destructive measure of Administration. Boston, Nov. 29, 1773.

Movement stirred in every shadow, as Abigail and Lieutenant Coldstone rode down Prince's Street beneath the high darkening shadow of Copp's Hill. Though chilly night now covered the city, every alleyway, every courtyard, every intersection jostled with men as if it were noon on market day, and against the dim lights of every tavern door shadows appeared. Voices muttered from within these establishments, grim voices, not the cheery riot of card players and sailors on their sprees, and the murmur of men's talk grumbled in the night like the fretting of the sea on rocks.