The Judge Hunter

by Christopher Buckley

  Huncks looked at Balty and shrugged. The Cincinnatus of Long Island could not be budged.

  “Why you hate Dr. Pell?” Balty asked. “Won’t you even open his letter to you?”

  “I would open it, sir, only to wipe my arse with it.”

  “Pity. He wrote it on his very best paper.”

  Underhill seemed amused. “Who are you, sir?”

  “Balthasar de St. Michel, at your service.”

  “That’s a frilly name. Are you French?”

  “Half. But no—English. Every inch. And the King’s good servant. As we are all, here.”

  “We are in New Netherland here, sir.”

  “For the time being.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “When Colonel Nicholls accomplishes his mission—even if he must without the support of the legendary Captain Underhill—where we sit will become England.”

  Underhill shrugged. “I’ve lived under more flags than I can count.”

  “Why do you so disesteem Pell? Because of Fort Mystick? Surely that was many years ago.”

  A flash of steel came into Underhill’s eyes. “Anne Hutchinson was the best woman I have ever known.”

  “Yes,” Balty said. “I hear she was . . . marvelous.”

  “Pell transacted business with her murderer.”

  “I gather buying land from the Indians is rather tricky. On our way here, the boat person explained how the Mannie-tockies or whatever they’re called sell the same parcel of land to different buyers.”

  “I was called on to avenge Anne’s death.”

  “Yes, I hear that was a great success. Pound Ridge?”

  Underhill stared into the distance.

  Balty soldiered on. “Dr. Pell himself speaks admiringly of how you—”

  Huncks nudged Balty. Stop talking.

  Underhill seemed to have gone into a trance. Either that, or was drunk—a distinct possibility, the Madeira being Winthrop’s.

  “Captain?” Balty asked.

  “Mm? Where were we?”

  “There was one other matter we rather hoped you might be able to help us with . . .”

  * * *

  Next morning, Mrs. Underhill gave them a fine breakfast. Before they tucked into it, she asked Balty and Huncks to join her in a Quaker moment of silence. Balty and Huncks stood awkwardly, hats in hand, staring at the ground. The Cincinnatus of Long Island was still abed, nursing “a cold” that had come over him the day before. Thankful stood off at a distance beneath a large chestnut tree.

  Soon the horses were saddled. Time to go. Mrs. Underhill hugged Balty and Huncks and told them to take care in New Amsterdam, whatever their business there was. Evidently, Thankful hadn’t told her about the regicide hunt. She said not to worry about Thankful. She could remain at Killingworth for her accouchement. After that, she’d see to it that she and her child found a good home in Vlissingen among the Friends there.

  Balty and Huncks stared. Accouchement? Child?

  Balty walked through the field to where Thankful stood under the large tree. Huncks kept back.

  “Another pretty dawn,” he said.

  “Yes.” Her back was to him. She lifted the hem of her apron and dabbed at her eyes.

  “Well you’ve made a good impression on Mrs. Underhill.”

  “She is very kind.”

  “She says she’ll get you squared away in Vlissingen or Flushing or whatever it’s called. So many names, here. It’ll be nice for you there. Among your own people.”

  She nodded.

  “Thankful . . . you should have said.”

  She turned to him. Her eyes were wet. “I wanted to tell thee. But I could not find the words. Forgive me.”

  “Dear Thankful, there is nothing to forgive.”

  She turned away from him and forced a laugh. “I am very silly this morning.”

  “There’s something I’ve been trying to tell you. But . . .”

  “About your wife.”

  “Ah. So. You know.”

  She turned to him, smiling. “How could a handsome, charming man like thyself not have a wife? What is her name?”

  “Her name? Ah. Her name . . .” His mind went blank.

  Thankful laughed. “Balty. Thou cannot have forgotten her name!”

  “Esther,” he said triumphantly.

  “Queen of the Persians. Wife of Ahasuerus. Is she pretty?”

  “I . . . suppose.”

  Thankful reached and adjusted Balty’s collar. “She will be happy to have thee back. I should, were I she.”

  Balty moved closer. “Thankful, I—”

  She put a finger to his lips. “No.” She stood on tiptoes and kissed him on the forehead, then inspected his attire as a wife might, brushing away flecks of dirt and straightening his belt. “Stay close to Huncks. He will keep thee safe.”

  “The child,” Balty said. “Whose is it?”

  “Mine, Balty. The child is mine.”

  “Well, none of my business.”

  Thankful looked over at Huncks, who stood watching them, holding the horses.

  “Go on, or the Colonel will be cross with both of us.”

  Balty turned and walked away. She called after him, “God keep thee, Mr. Balty.”

  Balty and Huncks mounted their horses in silence and set off for Breuckelen.

  – CHAPTER 34 –

  August 4th. Escorted from my house in Seething Lane by Downing’s dogsbody Whelk and his fellow meazel. Not, God be thanked, to the Tower, however “convenient.” But instead to my Lord Downing’s residence, and there left in a dank and ill-furnished room for three hours, and no refreshment.

  Finally brought before my Lord Downing, who greeted me most sourly, uttering my name as if the saying of it was distasteful to the tongue.

  “Oh, Mr. Pepys. Alas.” And so forth, etc, with great sighings and shakings of the head.

  I expostulated at my rendition hither, and with some asperity asked to know why I was being treated in such a rude manner.

  My lord exprest not one scintilla of miff on my behalf and what’s more said I should be glad that our interview was not taking place in the Tower, that being “the customary venue for the interrogation of traitors.”

  Blenching and gathering my wits as best I could, I asked why he, who could surely attest to my love of King and country, should apply this odious word to myself.

  He said in the labored, impatient tone of one explaining the ordering of celestial orbs to a mental defecktive that the word denoted one who “sells his country’s secrets to his country’s enemies.”

  Feeling as though I had been cuffed full in the face was at pains to formulate some coherent reply.

  My lord now rehearsed the particulars of my purported treachery, to wit, first, that I had undone the seal on his confidential dispatch to Colonel Nicholls whilst in the process of delivering it to him in Portsmouth.

  “It seems, Pepys, that you are well named. You are Mr. Peeping Pepys,” he said, pleased with this facile japery.

  He continued, accusing me of selling the “Nicholls intelligence” to the West India Company at Amsterdam, “for the sum of forty gold ducats.” Adding, by way of twisting the blade already deep in my bowels, “Even Judas settled for thirty pieces. And of silver!”

  By now I was having difficulty breathing and felt pains in my cheste, I stammered that yes, perhaps I had accidentally seen the contents of his Nicholls dispatch, the seal having come detached owing to moisture. But stoutly averred that I had not bartered my knowledge of Col. Nicholls’s business to the Hollanders for gold; nor discussed it with anyone save my Lord Sandwich. (It seeming time to come clean on that much.)

  Upon this he became tigerish and pounced: “Aha! So now you admit it was yourself who bruited the King’s secret in a Chelsey bordello!”

  So exercised was he, I feared he might any moment summon the executioner to have my head off there and then.

  I croaked that yes, I had vouchsafed my concerns to my Lord Sandw
ich, he being the King’s most trusted admiral, and I being the Navy’s Clerk of the Acts. But wherein was the treachery?

  Feeling myself on steadier ground, I prest him to tell me why I stood accused of mongering secrets to Holland.

  “Are you not in possession of forty Dutch ducats? How came you by those?”

  I said that a debt had been recently repaid to me but that I had not noticed that the gold pieces were of Dutch coining. Gold is gold, is’t not?

  My lord gave a wave of his lace kerchief and said, “ ’Tis not for me, Mr. Peeping Pepys, to decide your guilt or innocence. That shall be for judge and jury to decide at your tryal.”

  “Tryal?” I said, feeling my knees now very weak.

  “Meanwhiles, you are remanded to the Tower and shall remain there at his majesty’s pleasure.”

  Whereat he rang his dreadful little silver bell. Never has such a wee tinkling chime sounded like the very bells of hell. Whelk and his fellow brute entered, each seizing an arm, whereat my gullet again emptied propulsively upon their persons, much disconcerting them.

  – CHAPTER 35 –

  Being English

  Balty and Huncks stood on the Breuckelen side of the East River and looked across to the island of Manhatoes.

  Its outline was dominated by a signal tower, fort, two windmills, an ornate gabled house, and the inevitable gallows. Balty had seen many gallows, but none as forbidding as this one. As if reading his thoughts, Huncks said, “Let’s try not to end up on that.”

  Before they left Killingworth, Captain Underhill had told them “Don’t skulk, or lurk about in the shadows like a pair of cutpurses or wharf rats. Make a show of being English.”

  Balty asked, “How does one make a show of being English?”

  “Act superior. Imperious. Look down on everyone. The moment you get off the ferry, demand to be taken to the Governor. Wave your commission at him.” (Underhill had not bothered to read it himself, nor the letter from Dr. Pell.) “Puff out your chest like a bantam cock. Tell him, ‘Look here, my good man—you hiding these rascals Whalley and Goffe? If you are, hand ’em over or you shall taste his majesty’s wrath!’ ”

  Underhill may have declined to join in the Battle for New Amsterdam, but a regicide hunt seemed to warm the cockles of his monarchist heart.

  “Never had much liking for the first King Charles. He made a bit too much show of being English. Still, bad business, regicide. And even worse manners.” He added, “Here’s something to keep in mind about Old Petrus—he’s a dreadful snob. Drop a lot of flossy names. Spent much time at Court?”

  “Well . . .”

  “No matter. Put on airs. As his majesty said to me just the other day—that sort of thing. He’ll slurp it up like soup. Thing is, Old Petrus actually likes the English. When he was a young officer in Curaçao, he had this English chum, John Ferret or Farret. They were inseparable. Don’t know if it extended to buggery. Rather not speculate. When Farret or Ferret went home, they wrote each other endlessly. In verse! Heroic couplets by the furlong. The old boy’s got a soft spot for us in that hard Hollander heart of his. God knows why. Mind, he won’t hesitate to swing you from his gibbet if he learns you’re scouting for an invasion force. But if you convince him you’re there to sniff out regicides, like as not he’ll treat you cordial enough.”

  Huncks said, “Whalley and Goffe would be under his protection, surely.”

  “Not much happens in New Amsterdam without Old Petrus knows of it. But he’s not just going to hand them over to you. When that English squadron sails into his harbor, he’ll have himself two fine hostages for the negotiating.” Underhill grinned. “Or four.”

  * * *

  They crossed by the Breuckelen ferry. Huncks nudged Balty as it approached the Manhatoes landing. He pointed—soldiers, rather a lot of them.

  “Seems they’re expecting someone. Let’s hope it’s not us.”

  Balty felt a queasiness that for once had nothing to do with the motion of the boat.

  The ferry docked. Huncks said, “Be English.”

  Balty took a deep breath and picked out the soldier with the most metal and braid on his uniform and addressed him as a duke would one of his tenant farmers.

  “I say? Hoy! You, there! Yes, you. Do? You? Speak? English?”

  The soldier regarded him sternly. “Ja.”

  “Good. Then conduct me to your Governor, Peter Stuyvesant. I have business with him. Urgent. You understand urgent?”

  The soldier stared.

  “Come, man. I don’t have all day.”

  Soldiers gathered round.

  “What business you have?” said the one Balty had addressed. “For the Heneral?”

  Balty reached into his satchel for his commission. Three bayonets pricked at his chest.

  “If you please. I only wish to show you my papers. Don’t you want to see my papers? Papers? Look here, do you speak English or not?”

  A bayonet lifted Balty’s satchel by the strap. The soldier opened it. Balty’s commission, looking the worse for wear, was located and unrolled. The soldiers peered.

  One with even more metal and braid arrived. He read the commission, looked at Balty, scowled. Looked at Huncks, scowled.

  “Come.”

  Balty and Huncks followed. Four soldiers fell in behind. They proceeded through the crowded waterfront, drawing stares.

  New Amsterdam was tidy in the Dutch way. They crossed a bridge over a canal that, in another city, would have been a miasmic stew of detritus and offal.

  On their left loomed the elegant gabled house they’d seen from the Breuckelen shore. To their right, they saw the fort, square with bastions at the corners. Inside was a hive of activity: soldiers and workers everywhere, barrels rumbling over cobbles, baskets of cannonballs being hoisted to the ramparts, soldiers drilling, stacks of muskets being carried here and there.

  Huncks murmured, “Definitely expecting someone.”

  Inside the fort grounds stood a large building—the Governor’s House. They went in not by the front door but one on the side. Not auspicious.

  Huncks looked about, taking in everything. Presently, they found themselves in an airy, sparsely furnished room, walls hung with official documents, charts, and maps.

  “Here sit.”

  Balty looked about disapprovingly. “I say. I asked to be taken to Governor Stuyvesant, not some barracks.”

  “Sit.”

  “My good man, I’m not sure I like your tone. May I point out that you are speaking to—”

  A bayonet jabbed Balty between the shoulder blades.

  “Sit.”

  “Very well. But this is no way to greet an emissary of the King of England.”

  The officer disappeared into an adjoining room. They heard voices from within. The conversation went on for some time.

  Presently, a thickly built, florid-faced man emerged, with more metal and braid than any of the others. In his hand was Balty’s commission.

  “Which of you iss”—he glanced at the commission—“Balthasar Sint Mykkal?”

  “Myself, sir.”

  The officer looked Balty up and down with the air of a customs inspector about to demand that he open his luggage.

  “I am Koontz. Deputy-Heneral.”

  “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Deputy-General Koontz. But with respect, my business is with his excellency, Director-General Stuyvesant. My reception here has been less than ideal. I had been under the impression that Dutch hospitality was second to none. I regret to say that this has not, thus far, been my experience.”

  Deputy-General Koontz stared, hovering between indignation and amusement at this popinjay before him. He reexamined Balty’s tattered commission.

  “You are seeking . . . these persons . . . Whalley and Hoffe?”

  “Goffe,” Balty corrected. “Indeed we are.”

  “For why?”

  “The murder of his late majesty King Charles the First. God rest his royal soul.”

>   “What makes you to think such persons are situate in New Amsterdam?”

  “Oh, I assure you, sir, I have it on the very best intelligence.”

  Huncks cleared his throat.

  “Intellihence?” Deputy-General Koontz’s eyes brightened, as if candles had been lit behind them. “Yes? From who you are acquiring this intellihence?”

  Huncks spoke up, in a voice not his own, some mongrel blend of Irish and Yorkshire.

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, yer warship, it warn’t intelligence but more, ye might say, a rumor like.”

  Koontz stared. “Rumor?”

  “Exactly so, yer warship. See, we was in Boston—up in Massahoositts. Very grim place, I calls it. Full of grim folk with long faces. So we was in this tavern, see. A groggerie, ye might call it. And well, I reckon everyone had had more than his share of grog that night. Didn’t they, Balto? So this bugger, this feller, I mean, he said he were a beaver dealer. Skins, that is. Balto here were tellin’ him how he wrangled his commission to hunt for these blokes Whalley and Goffe. Hoffe, as you calls him. You see, we’re manhoonters.”

  “Manhoonters?”

  “Indeed so. Which is to say we catches folk what are sought for by the law. And collects the reward for it.”

  “For bounty?”

  “Exactly so. So this beaver dealer, see, he tells us, ‘It’s Whalley and Hoffe yer after? Don’t yer know they’ve fled to New Hamsterdam? Them Dootch—the ’ollanders—oh, fine folk. You won’t meet finer, anywares.’ So here we are, come to New Hamsterdam. That were the intellihence what my colleague ’ere, Mr. Balthasar, were speakin’ of.”

  The candles behind Koontz’s eyes went out.

  “You are . . . ?”

  “Ayrum Uncks, at yer service, yer warship. Manhoonter, Indian fighter, and general doer of whatever needs doing. Mr. Balthasar here kindly hoyared me in Boston as his ad-jootant, him being new to this part of the world. Mind you, I prefers the toytle aide-de-camp.”

  Koontz shook his head. “These people you seek . . . I think they are not here. No. They are not. I would know.”

  “Then we’ll be thanking you for your time and your cartesy, and we’ll be on our way. Seems a bit busy here, so we musn’t take up any more of yer time. Come, Mr. Balthasar, let us leave these good Dootch folk to go about their business.”