Council of Fire

by Eric Flint

  “If you say so, Your Highness. I am in no position to judge.”

  “In any case, I accepted his rebuke, and will say nothing further about it. As for you—I would not expect you to take the time, sir. I thought I had quite offended you by my suggestion to the Marquis de Montcalm that I might let a Papist place the crown on my head. I believed that I had quite lost favor with you.”

  “A brush with death lends some perspective, Your Highness.”

  “I expect it does. Well, I accept your thanks, Revere: there is a life between us now.”

  “Yes,” Revere said. “There is. I spoke with Colonel Gridley about this, and he assured me that he would make no objection if I approached you and . . . offered my personal service to you.”

  “Personal service? Revere, I am far too junior to warrant an aide of my own.”

  “You are to be our king.”

  “I am not yet king,” Edward answered. “And in any case, as I say, I have someone in the regiment who polishes my boots and arranges my shaving brush, along with several other officers. I don’t really need an equerry, though I suppose someday I shall have to staff a royal household.”

  “I would like to be a part of that household.”

  “From what I understand, Captain, you are a businessman and a family man back in your native town. Boston will suffer without your presence, I should think.”

  “Wherever Your Highness establishes his court, I can serve. I feel it is my personal duty to you.”

  “I understand your obligation, Revere,” the prince said. “But . . . ” he was pensive for a few moments. “Very well. I will think about it. The deed is done; it cannot be undone. When this is over, perhaps there will be a place for you. It is only practicality that stays my hand. I think highly of you, Captain, and will continue to do so. Do not doubt my affection.”

  Revere bowed. “I am greatly obliged to you, Your Highness.”

  Edward smiled, and Revere felt reassured, though he knew that it was not the answer he had sought. With nothing further to say, he begged leave to go, and walked away across the field to where the New Englanders were encamped. He turned around once to see Prince Edward standing in place, watching him go.

  Chapter 48

  Best safety lies in fear

  New York

  “We could stay here,” said Mademoiselle LaGèndiere. She gestured at the bizarre contraption atop the wagon she was standing next to. “The elemental concatenator might make a difference if trouble breaks out.”

  Her tone was not as confident as the words themselves, however. Messier shook his head and put her own doubts into words.

  “Not likely, Catherine.” His expression was rueful, with a trace of apology. “If unrest does erupt here in New York, I can’t think of a weapon more poorly designed for fighting in the streets than the concatenator.”

  He was right about that, and she knew it herself. The concatenator was a magical device—say better, a mechanical aid for LaGèndiere to focus her own inherent magical skills—for combining and harmonizing the various powers of the four elements: air, earth, fire and water. In the nature of things, those elements were weakest in artificially created urban environs.

  “I see no reason for you to remain in New York,” said Boscawen, shaking his head. He gave the street they were on a quick glance, north and south, and then pointed with his chin toward the area of the city where the freedmen population was concentrated. “Gustavus told me that while the negroes are restive, he does not think they are on the verge of any sort of upheaval. He says their attitude seems to be one of waiting to see what develops given the new . . . ah, conditions.”

  LaGèndiere opened her mouth, as if to speak, but then closed it again. She had reservations about the slave Gustavus’ assessment of the situation. Although he was a slave himself, most of Gustavus’ interactions with New York’s black people had been with freedmen like Minerva and Absalom. She thought his reading of their attitude was probably accurate—but did that same attitude extend to the considerably larger population of slaves?

  She didn’t think so. She’d seen enough of the harsh treatment meted out to most slaves to doubt that what the admiral called “the new conditions” produced in them the same caution it produced in the freedmen. She was rather inclined to suppose they were encouraged to outright rebellion.

  But what did she really know about the slaves? Less than the city’s freedmen, certainly. Her reservations were simply that, being honest—reservations, not solid opinions. And the point made by Dr. Messier was certainly true. It remained to be seen how effective the elemental concatenator would be in the wilderness. She did not doubt for a moment that it would be largely useless in urban surroundings. Cobblestones, fumes, sewage and stoves were a poor substitute for the earth, air, water and fire the device was designed to affect.

  “Very well,” she said. “Let’s be off, then. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

  No sooner had Admiral Boscawen gotten back to naval headquarters than he received the news he’d most dreaded.

  “Governor De Lancey is calling out the militia,” Lt. Pascal informed him. The young officer nodded toward the black man standing next to him. “Gustavus just returned with the news.”

  “Returned from where?” Boscawen demanded. He was only idly curious as to the answer. Mostly, he’d asked just to gain himself a little time to think.

  The scowl on his face must have been ferocious, however. The slave stepped back half a pace, his expression visibly alarmed.

  The admiral waved his hand in a reassuring gesture. “I am not angry with you, Gustavus. I simply don’t understand how you could have gotten the news before I did.” His next handwave indicated the streets outside. “My couriers are quite alert and efficient. They would have brought me word of Governor De Lancey’s decision as soon as he informed them of it.”

  Relaxing, a little smile came to Gustavus’ face. “Begging the admiral’s pardon, but I’m sure there was at least one slave present in the governor’s chamber when De Lancey gave the order to his own adjutants. He—maybe she—would have spread the word as soon as possible. From there . . . ”

  He shrugged. “There are a lot of slaves in New York, and they have their own communication networks. Which—meaning no offense—are probably the most efficient, at least within the city limits. Fastest, for a surety.”

  Boscawen took off his hat and ran fingers across his scalp. He thought Gustavus was probably right.

  “And you found out from one of the city’s slaves,” he concluded.

  “Two, actually.” Gustavus waved his own hand in the direction of the streets outside. “They accosted me almost as soon as I left the headquarters. They are quite frightened, Admiral.”

  As well they might be, Boscawen reflected grimly. At the best of times, colonial militias were notoriously undisciplined—and New York’s were no exception. The mere rumor of slave unrest could bring militiamen to a state of mixed fear and fury that could—that had, not more than a generation earlier—produce the most horrible and bestial behavior.

  He put his hat back on his head. “What triggered De Lancey’s decision? Do you know?”

  Gustavus shook his head. “No, sir. None of the slaves knew, either. But it could have been . . . ” He shook his head again. “Almost any sort of rumor would do, given the tensions in the city since the Sundering.”

  He was probably right about that as well, thought Boscawen.

  “Well, I don’t see where there’s much we can do, beyond securing our own headquarters.” The admiral was now regretting his decision to send most of his available troops with Saunders’ expedition.

  But there was no way to recall those troops now, so there was no point dwelling on the matter.

  “Have you spoken to Minerva or Absalom?” Boscawen asked Gustavus.

  The slave shook his head. “Not in two days, Admiral. Do you want me to seek them out?”

  “Yes, do. Perhaps they might have some important tiding
s.”

  Not likely, of course. As impressed as Boscawen had been by the two, in the end they were simply freedmen. No more powerful, really, than any slave in the city.

  Judging from the dubious look on his face, Gustavus shared the same opinion. But the young slave made no protest. A moment later, he was gone.

  The trip to the freedmen’s district was a nerve-racking business. As yet, Gustavus could see no signs of the militia’s mobilization. But, clearly, word had spread. New York’s streets were almost empty of traffic. White people had scurried for cover, not just negroes. He only encountered an old male slave and a middle-aged white woman. The slave shuffled past, ignoring Gustavus completely. From the distance of a block away, the white woman spotted him coming, uttered a small cry of distress, and hurried away.

  What did she think he might do? Here, in broad daylight?

  She probably had no clear idea herself; no coherence to her terror. She was just following Laertes’ advice to his sister Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Danish play:

  Be wary, then. Best safety lies in fear.

  If she’d ever seen the play, which was unlikely. Gustavus was familiar with the bard’s work because his master treasured the plays and poems and encouraged his slave to read them. He’d even taken Gustavus to a couple of performances—Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra—although the slave had been required to stand in the pit rather than share his master’s box. (Required by custom, not by Pascal himself.)

  The problem—what Gustavus feared, in that moment—was not the advice given by a brother to a sister. It was the observation made by Antony’s friend Enobarbus, in the second of the plays Gustavus had seen:

  To be furious is to be frighted out of fear.

  For the moment, fear might reign. But it wouldn’t be long before fury took its place—fury, and the savagery that came with it.

  Happily, Gustavus made it to Minerva’s boardinghouse without any trouble. When he was let in by the servant girl Grace, he was not surprised to see that Absalom was already there.

  “Yes, we know,” Absalom said, before Gustavus could get a word out. “The whites are getting ready to run wild again. I don’t suppose your precious Admiral Boscawen can put a stop to it?”

  Gustavus shook his head. “He would if he could, but he sent almost all of his soldiers north with Admiral Saunders’ fleet.”

  “Stupid,” said Absalom, scowling.

  “Be fair,” countered Minerva. “He had no way of knowing De Lancey would call out the militia based on nothing more than rumor, and New York is not the only place he’s responsible for.”

  Absalom’s scowl didn’t lighten a bit. Clearly, he was in a less charitable mood than Minerva was.

  “It won’t be the same massacre it was last time,” he said, his tone cold and harsh. “The slaves have nothing but their bare hands—some kitchen tools, at most—but the freedmen have been arming themselves.”

  “With what?” Gustavus asked skeptically. “You’re not allowed to possess firearms. Nor swords or any sort of real military equipment. How much can you do with axes and shovels?”

  “No, Absalom’s right,” said Minerva. “Things are different now that our ancient magic is returning. If need be, I myself can—” She broke off abruptly, shaking her head. It was not so much a gesture of negation as one of distaste.

  “That’s an ugly business, that is,” she said. “I won’t use my powers except as a last resort, but others won’t be as hesitant.”

  “Some won’t hesitate at all,” said Absalom. “Like that Jupiter. They say he can summon demons, at least those that are afraid of him.”

  “Who says?” asked Gustavus, dubiously. He wasn’t very familiar with New York’s slaves, but he was a slave himself and knew how prone such people were to believing rumors. Being fair about it, slaves were deliberately kept as ignorant of the world as possible. His own situation as Lieutenant Pascal’s slave was highly unusual. Plus, as a sailor, he had seen a great deal more of the world than most of the slaves in the city. With a few exceptions, they saw nothing much beyond their immediate places of labor—cleaning homes, cooking in kitchens, working in small shops, and always restricted to as small a portion of New York as was feasible. It was no wonder most of them were superstitious and prone to believing tall tales.

  Still . . .

  There was magic spreading through the world, Gustavus knew. And he remembered enough of his upbringing to know that the peoples in Africa possessed power over witchcraft. Some of them, at any rate—especially blacksmiths. In the part of western Africa that he came from, there was widespread worship of Ogun, the god of iron and war. His people did not consider Ogun an evil god, but he was certainly a fierce one. Those men who knew how to create and shape iron had a special affinity for Ogun and could summon his aid at times. In the folklore of Gustavus’ own people, that aid generally took useful forms. But here, across an ocean and after a great sundering of the world . . . who could say what asking for Ogun’s aid might produce?

  Land of the Five Nations

  They had discussed the matter for two days and nights, with scarcely a break to attend to personal needs. The clan mothers of the Iroquois were nothing if not sturdy.

  It was easy enough to say no. The Tadodaho was against the idea of relighting the Council Fire. It had been extinguished by medicine, he had said, and it would be medicine to bring it back to life. The Fire was the place where clan chiefs and clan mothers came to settle differences and smoke the pipe of peace, to bury hatchets and cover graves—it had been so for hundreds of seasons, uniting the nations against internal threats and external ones, making big wars into small ones and small ones into peace.

  It was difficult to accept a world in which it was gone. But it had been absent since medicine had extinguished it.

  “What would be the point?” Neani had asked, when the moon was already down and most of the warriors and other clan-mothers were sleeping. Only she and Osha were awake. Neani was a Cayuga clan-mother, one of the few who had come in the heat of summer at the Tadodaho’s request.

  “You know what it represents. We have gone over this point, Elder Sister.”

  “Yes. And the symbol is not enough. The Covenant is broken, and Guyasuta and Sganyodaiyo have broken it.”

  “The Covenant is not broken.”

  “Of course it is! Brother is coming to fight brother.”

  “The war-chiefs have not decided what to do.”

  “At Fort Johnson—”

  “Ah.” Osha leaned back on her hands. “Now that is a symbol. Degonwadonti would have none of the Oniate in her house. Good for her. But the warriors held their tomahawks and did not fire their bows. It has not come to war, not yet.”

  “What would you call it?”

  “Resistance.”

  “You sound like Chief Big Business himself, playing at words. Speak plainly—it is only the two of us. Tell me, what is the difference between ‘resistance’ and ‘war’? If an Oniate or some other fell thing came into the longhouse now, would you not fight it? And what is that if not war?”

  “I did not say that there will not be war. There will surely be war. But our warriors have not taken up their weapons nor trod the paths of battle. Not yet. It will be up to us to convince them.”

  “By relighting the Council Fire? With one nation absent and most of another absent with them? The Mohawk, the Oneida and the Onondaga are not all of the Haudenosaunee. Or do you say now that they are?”

  “It was always voluntary. If the Seneca choose their own way, then the Western Door is that much closer. Or do they now instruct us? No fire is a symbol of despair. We have built so much, and to cast it away dishonors the ancestors.

  “I do not wish to meet unquiet ghosts,” Osha said, shuddering very slightly. “Not since the broom-star fell. They would be even more present than ever. We owe them this much—to try and repair what is broken.”

  “Once broken it will never be the same.”

  “But that is no reas
on to grind it into dust. We should build what we can and unite.”

  “Half of the Haudenosaunee against Oniate, and Stone Coats, and—”

  “Half of the Haudenosaunee,” Osha said. “And Chief Big Business’ people as well. There are those who can be trusted. Ask Degonwadonti; she walks in two worlds.

  “It may be time for a new Covenant—a different one. When our warriors walk to battle, let them do it with a relit Council Fire. Let us honor our ancestors.”

  Neani did not have an answer to that statement. She was a dozen seasons older than Osha—sometimes she thought the younger clan-mother was impetuous and emotional, not seeing the world for what it was, rather than what it should be.

  But after a moment she reached out and took Osha’s hand. In the firelight the old hand and the young one did not look that different.

  “Let us speak to the Tadodaho together.”

  Chapter 49

  Fortune was taking a nap

  He hadn’t been born with the name Jupiter, of course. His family had given him a proper Ashanti name. But he’d been captured and sold into slavery at the age of thirteen, and the man who eventually bought him in New York didn’t even think to ask after the boy’s birth name. By then, despite his youth, Jupiter’s mighty physique was already quite evident. Since his new master was the owner of a blacksmith shop and intended to use the youngster as one of his apprentices, he’d thought naming the boy after the mightiest of the old pagan gods was appropriate.

  There was no telling what the owner thought of the name now. His corpse was lying in a corner of the blacksmith shop, along with that of his son and the older of the two black slave apprentices. Jupiter had smashed all of their heads with his hammer, as quickly and easily as a housewife might crush insects she found in her house. Thud—thud. That had done for the two white men in the shop. Jupiter had then paused for a moment to see the reaction of the two black youngsters. The older one had seized a hammer for himself, perhaps intending to avenge the death of his owner—who’d been a kind enough man, for a slave master.