Grey ignored the implied flattery—if that’s what it was, and he thought it was—and carefully deposited the caterpillar onto the leaves of what looked like an edible bush.
“You looked for the priest,” he said with certainty.
Percy laughed with what sounded like genuine pleasure, and it occurred to Grey with a small shock that of course he knew Percy’s mind, and Percy his; they had been conversing, through the veils of statecraft and secrecy, for many years. Of course, Percy had likely known to whom he was talking, and Grey hadn’t.
“Yes, I did. He was dead—murdered. Killed in the street at night while hurrying to give the last rites to a dying parishioner, such a terrible thing. A week after the disappearance of Amelie Beauchamp.”
This was beginning to rouse Grey’s professional interest, though the private side of him was still more than wary.
“The next thing would have been the comte—but if he was capable of killing a priest to keep his secrets, it would have been dangerous to approach him directly,” Grey said. “His servants, then?”
Percy nodded, mouth quirked at one corner in appreciation of Grey’s acuity.
“The comte was dead, too—or he disappeared, at least; he had a reputation as a sorceror, oddly enough—and he died a good ten years after Amelie. But I looked for his old servants, yes. I found a few of them. For some people, it really is always about money, and the assistant coachman was one of those. Two days after Amelie disappeared, he delivered a carpet to a brothel near the Rue Fauborg. A very heavy carpet that had about it a smell of opium—which he recognized, because he had at one point transported a troupe of Chinese acrobats who came to entertain at a fete at the mansion.”
“And so you went to the brothel. Where money …”
“They say water is the universal solvent,” Percy said, shaking his head, “but it isn’t. You could plunge a man into a barrel of freezing water and leave him for a week, and you would accomplish much less than you might with a modest quantity of gold.”
Grey silently noted the adjective “freezing,” and nodded to Percy to continue.
“It took some time, repeated visits, different attempts—the madam was a true professional, meaning that whoever had paid her predecessor had done so on a staggering scale, and her doorkeeper, while old enough, had had his tongue torn out at an early age; no help there. And of course none of the whores had been there when the infamous carpet was delivered, that being so long before.”
He had, however, patiently traced the families of the present whores—for some occupations run in families—and managed after months of work to discover an old woman who had been employed at the brothel and who recognized the miniature of Amelie that he had brought from Trois Flèches.
The girl had indeed been brought to the brothel, in the middle stages of pregnancy. That had not mattered particularly; there were patrons with such tastes. A few months later, she had been delivered of a son. She had survived childbirth but died a year later, during a plague of influenza.
“And I could not begin to tell you the difficulties of finding out anything about a child born in a Paris brothel forty-odd years ago, my dear.” Percy sighed, employing his handkerchief again.
“But your name is Perseverance,” Grey noted with extreme dryness, and Percy glanced sharply at him.
“Do you know,” he said lightly, “I believe you are the only person in the world who knows that?” And from the expression in his eyes, that was one too many.
“Your secret is safe with me,” Grey said. “That one, at least. What about Denys Randall-Isaacs?”
It worked. Percy’s face shimmered like a pool of quicksilver in the sun. In half a heartbeat, he had the perfect blankness back in place—but it was too late.
Grey laughed, though without humor, and stood up.
“Thank you, Perseverance,” he said, and walked away through the grassy graves of the nameless poor.
That night, when his household was asleep, he took pen and ink to write to Arthur Norrington, to Harry Quarry, and to his brother. Toward dawn, he began, for the first time in two years, to write to Jamie Fraser.
BATTLE OF BENNINGTON
General Burgoyne’s camp
September 11, 1777
The smoke of burnt and burning fields hung over the camp, had done so for days. The Americans were still withdrawing, destroying the countryside in their wake.
William was with Sandy Lindsay, talking about the best way to cook a turkey—one of Lindsay’s scouts having just brought him one—when the letter arrived. It was likely William’s imagination that a dreadful silence fell upon the camp, the earth shook, and the veil of the temple was rent in twain. But it was very shortly apparent that something had happened, nonetheless.
There was a definite change in the air, something amiss in the rhythms of speech and movement among the men surrounding them. Balcarres felt it, too, and stopped in his examination of the turkey’s outspread wing, looking at William with eyebrows raised.
“What?” said William.
“I don’t know, but it isn’t good.” Balcarres thrust the limp turkey into his orderly’s hands and, snatching up his hat, made for Burgoyne’s tent, William on his heels.
They found Burgoyne tight-lipped and white with anger, his senior officers in clusters round him, speaking to one another in low, shocked voices.
Captain Sir Francis Clerke, the general’s aide-de-camp, emerged from the press, head down and face shadowed. Balcarres caught at his elbow as he passed.
“Francis—what’s happened?”
Captain Clerke was looking noticeably agitated. He glanced behind him into the tent, then stepped aside and moved out of earshot, taking Balcarres and William with him.
“Howe,” he said. “He’s not coming.”
“Not coming?” William said stupidly. “But—is he not leaving New York after all?”
“He’s leaving,” Clerke said, his lips so tight it was a wonder he could speak at all. “To invade Pennsylvania.”
“But—” Balcarres darted an appalled look toward the entrance to the tent, then back at Clerke.
“Exactly.”
The true proportions of the disaster were revealing themselves to William. General Howe was not merely cocking a snook at General Burgoyne by ignoring his plan, which would be bad enough from Burgoyne’s point of view. By choosing to march on Philadelphia rather than coming up the Hudson to join Burgoyne’s troops, Howe had left Burgoyne essentially to his own devices, in terms of supply and reinforcement.
In other words, they were on their own, separated from their supply trains, with the disagreeable choice of continuing to pursue the retreating Americans through a wilderness from which all sustenance had been stripped—or turning round and marching ignominiously back to Canada, through a wilderness from which all sustenance had been stripped.
Balcarres had been expostulating along these lines to Sir Francis, who rubbed a hand over his face in frustration, shaking his head.
“I know,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me, my lords—”
“Where are you going?” William asked, and Clerke glanced at him.
“To tell Mrs. Lind,” Clerke said. “I thought I’d best warn her.” Mrs. Lind was the wife of the chief commisary officer. She was also General Burgoyne’s mistress.
Whether Mrs. Lind had exerted her undeniable gifts to good effect, or whether the general’s natural resiliency of character had asserted itself, the blow of Howe’s letter was swiftly encompassed. Whatever you want to say about him, William wrote in his weekly letter to Lord John, he knows the benefit of certain decision and swift action. We have resumed our pursuit of the Americans’ chief body of troops with redoubled effort. Most of our horses have been abandoned, stolen, or eaten. I have quite worn through the soles of one pair of boots.
In the meantime, we receive intelligence from one of the scouts to the effect that the town of Bennington, which is not too far distant, is being used as a gathering place for the
American commissary. By report, it is lightly guarded, and so the General is sending Colonel Baum, one of the Hessians, with five hundred troops to capture these much-needed supplies. We leave in the morning.
Whether his drunken conversation with Balcarres was in part responsible, William never knew, but he had discovered that he was now spoken of as being “good with Indians.” And whether it was owing to this dubious capacity or to the fact that he could speak basic German, he found himself on the morning of August 12 deputed to accompany Colonel Baum’s foraging expedition, this including a number of dismounted Brunswick cavalry, two three-pounder artillery pieces, and a hundred Indians.
By report, the Americans were receiving cattle, funneled out of New England, these being collected in quantity in Bennington, as well as a considerable number of wagons, these full of corn, flour, and other necessaries.
It was, for a wonder, not raining when they set out, and that alone gave the expedition a feeling of optimism. Anticipation of food increased this sense significantly. Rations had been short for what seemed a very long time, though in fact it had been only a week or so. Still, more than a day spent marching without adequate food seems a long time, as William had good cause to know.
Many of the Indians were still mounted; they circled the main body of soldiers, riding ahead a little way to scout the road, coming back to offer guidance through or around places where the road—no more than a trace at the best of times—had given up the fight and been absorbed by the forest or drowned by one of the rain-swollen streams that leapt unexpectedly out of the hills. Bennington was near a river called the Walloomsac, and as they walked, William was discussing in a desultory way with one of the Hessian lieutenants whether it might be possible to load the stores onto rafts for transport to a rendezvous downstream.
This discussion was entirely theoretical, since neither of them knew where the Walloomsac went nor whether it was navigable to any extent, but it gave both men a chance to practice the other’s language and so passed the time on a long, hot march.
“My father spent much time in Germany,” William told Ober-Leftenant Gruenwald, in his careful, slow German. “He is of the food of Hanover very fond.”
Gruenwald, from Hesse-Cassel, allowed himself a derisive twitch of the mustache at mention of Hanover, but contented himself with the observation that even a Hanoverian could roast a cow and perhaps boil some potatoes to accompany it. But his own mother made a dish from the flesh of swine and apples, beswimming in red wine and spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon, that made his mouth water only to remember.
Water was running down Gruenwald’s face, sweat making tracks in the dust and dampening the collar of his light-blue coat. He took off his tall grenadier’s headdress and wiped his head with a giant spotted kerchief, sodden from many earlier employments.
“I think we will maybe not find cinnamon today,” Willie said. “Maybe a pig, though.”
“If we do, I will him roast for you,” Gruenwald assured him. “As for apples …” he tucked a hand into his tunic and withdrew a handful of small red crab apples, which he shared out with William. “I haff a bushel of these. I haff–”
Excited yips from an Indian riding back down the column interrupted him, and William looked up to see the rider throw back an arm, gesturing behind him and shouting, “River!”
The word enlivened the sagging columns, and William saw the cavalry—who had insisted upon wearing their high boots and their broadswords, in spite of their lack of horses, and had suffered in consequence—draw themselves up, clanking loudly with anticipation.
Another shout came from the forward line.
“Cow turds!”
That caused a general cheer and much laughter among the men, who hastened on with a quicker step. William saw Colonel Baum, who did still have a horse, turn out of the column and wait on the roadside, leaning down to speak briefly with the officers as they came past. William saw his aide lean close, pointing up a small hill opposite.
“What do you think—” he said, turning to Gruenwald, and was startled to find the ober-leftenant staring at him blank-faced, his jaw hanging open. The man’s hand loosened and fell to his side, and the mitred helmet fell and rolled away in the dust. William blinked and saw a thick worm of red snake its way slowly down from under Gruenwald’s dark hair.
Gruenwald sat down quite suddenly and fell backward in the road, his face gone a muddy white.
“Shit!” said William, and jerked suddenly to an awareness of what had just happened. “Ambush!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Das ist ein Überfall!!”
There were shouts of alarm rising from the column, and the crack of sporadic firing from the woods. William grabbed Gruenwald under the arms and dragged him hastily into the shelter of a group of pine trees. The ober-leftenant was still alive, though his coat was wet with sweat and blood. William made sure the German’s pistol was loaded and in his hand before taking his own pistol and dashing toward Baum, who was standing in his stirrups, shrieking directions in high, shrill German.
He caught only a word here and there and looked urgently round, to see whether he could tell what the colonel’s orders were from the actions of the Hessians. He caught sight of a little group of scouts, running down the road toward him, and ran to meet them.
“Goddamned lot of rebels,” one scout gasped, out of breath, pointing behind him. “Coming.”
“Where? How far?” He felt as though he were about to run out of his skin, but forced himself to stand still, speak calmly, breathe.
A mile, maybe two. He did breathe then, and managed to ask how many there were. Maybe two hundred, maybe more. Armed with muskets, but no artillery.
“Right. Go back and keep an eye on them.” He turned back toward Colonel Baum, feeling the surface of the road strange under his feet, as though it wasn’t quite where he expected it to be.
They dug in, hastily but efficiently, entrenching themselves behind shallow earthworks and makeshift barricades of fallen trees. The guns were dragged up the small hill and aimed to cover the road. The rebels, of course, ignored the road, and swarmed in from both sides.
There might have been two hundred men in the first wave; it was impossible to count them as they darted through the heavy wood. William could see the flicker of movement and fired at it, but without any great hope of hitting anyone. The wave hesitated, but only for a moment.
Then a strong voice bellowed, somewhere behind the rebel front, “We take them now, or Molly Stark’s a widow tonight!”
“What?” said William, disbelieving. Whatever the man shouting had meant, his exhortation had a marked effect, for an enormous number of rebels came boiling out of the trees, headed at a mad run for the guns. The soldiers minding the guns promptly fled, and so did a good many of the others.
The rebels were making short work of the rest, and William had just settled down grimly to do what he could before they got him, when two Indians came springing over the rolling ground, seized him under the arms, and, yanking him to his feet, propelled him rapidly away.
Which was how Lieutenant Ellesmere found himself once more cast in the role of Cassandra, reporting the debacle at Bennington to General Burgoyne. Men killed and wounded, guns lost—and not a single cow to be shown for it.
And I haven’t yet killed a single rebel, either, he thought tiredly, making his way slowly back to his tent afterward. He thought he should regret that, but wasn’t sure he did.
Deserter Game, round II
Jamie had been bathing in the river, sluicing sweat and grime from his body, when he heard remarkably odd swearing in French. The words were French, but the sentiments expressed were definitely not. Curious, he clambered out of the water, dressed, and went down the bank a little way, where he discovered a young man waving his arms and gesturing in an agitated attempt to make himself understood to a bemused party of workmen. As half of them were Germans and the rest Americans from Virginia, his efforts to communicate with them in French had so far succeeded o
nly in entertaining them.
Jamie had introduced himself and offered his services as interpreter. Which is how he had come to spend a good bit of each day with the young Polish engineer whose unpronounceable last name had quickly been shortened to “Kos.”
He found Kos both intelligent and rather touching in his enthusiasm—and was himself interested in the fortifications Kościuszko (for he prided himself on being able to say it correctly) was building. Kos, for his part, was both grateful for the linguistic assistance and interested in the occasional observations and suggestions that Jamie was able to make, as the result of his conversations with Brianna.
Talking about vectors and stresses made him miss her almost unbearably but at the same time brought her somehow nearer to him, and he found himself spending more and more time with the young Pole, learning bits of his language and allowing Kos to practice what he fondly imagined to be English.
“What is it that brought ye here?” Jamie asked one day. In spite of the lack of pay, a remarkable number of European officers had come to join—or tried to join—the Continental army, evidently feeling that even if the prospects of plunder were limited, they could bamboozle the Congress into granting them rank as generals, which they could then parlay into further occupation back in Europe. Some of these dubious volunteers were actually of use, but he’d heard a good bit of muttering about those who weren’t. Thinking of Matthias Fermoy, he was inclined to mutter a bit himself.
Kos wasn’t one of these, though.
“Well, first, money,” he said frankly, when asked how he had come to be in America. “My brother the manor in Poland has, but family no money, nothing for me. No girl look at me without money.” He shrugged. “No place in Polish army, but I know how to build things, I come where things to build.” He grinned. “Maybe girls, too. Girls with good family, good money.”
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