Huncks drew a small pistol from inside his jacket.
Balty stared. “Where did you get that?”
“Levy. If things happen, stay close.”
“Things? We’ve just come from a sumptuous dinner with the Governor, for God’s sake.”
“Just keep your wits about you. If the word ‘wits’ applies in your case.”
They passed through the town gate. No salutes this time, only sullen stares from guards. New Amsterdam was quiet. Even the silence seemed tidy and Dutch.
The carriage continued past the fort and turned onto Pearl Street. Huncks’s eyes darted about, surveilling. Across the street from the Horn of Plenty stood six soldiers, milling about in a way that struck Huncks as contrived. They watched the carriage approach, then looked away in unison.
Huncks murmured, “Look sharp.”
They went in. The innkeeper looked at them, nodded curtly, then glanced into the tavern room. Four soldiers sat at the table nearest the entrance. They looked at Balty and Huncks as their comrades outside had, and turned away. There were no drinks on their table.
They started up the stairs. On the landing below their room, Huncks motioned to Balty to stop. There was a window facing the back. Huncks opened it and peered out. The yard was deep, extending twenty-five or so yards to the back wall. Sheds, a bird coop, crates, barrels, oddments, all neatly arrayed in the Dutch way. Six feet below the window, a slanted roof protruded. Huncks motioned to Balty and pointed. “There’s our way out. Can you swim the river?”
“Certainly not,” Balty said, as though the question was not only outlandish but in bad taste.
“D’you remember the garden he showed us on the way out?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“If we’re separated, look for me there. But let’s stay together.” Huncks drew a dagger from his boot and gave it to Balty.
“What’s that for?”
“To pare your nails.” Seeing the look on Balty’s face, Huncks put his hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be all right, old boy.” He winked. “Be English.”
They climbed the stairs to their room. Huncks inserted the key and opened the door.
Deputy Koontz sat at the table, Huncks’s fort diagram spread out in front of him. A guard in the far corner pointed his pistol.
“Finally, you arrive,” Koontz said with weary heartiness, as if greeting tardy mates.
“A good evening to you, sar,” Huncks said. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
“Your dinner with the Heneral was good?”
“Very good indeed. Have you come to tuck us in?”
Koontz held up the drawing. “The servant girl is finding this, here in your room.” Koontz held it to the candlelight and regarded it. “My compliments. It’s good. So many informations. Cannons, troops, ships.”
“May I arsk, what is it?” Huncks said.
Koontz smiled. “It’s late in the night for games.”
“Whatever it is, sar, it weren’t in this room when we left to dine with your Governor.”
Koontz folded it and tucked it away. He stood and looked about the room.
“What a pity you must change from this room to the one before, in the fort. It’s not so nice.”
“If the item in question was indeed found in our room, it were put here. So as to create an unfavorable impression.”
Koontz said to the guard, “Hij liegt.” He’s lying. The guard nodded.
“So now we go,” Koontz said.
“As yer honor commands.” Huncks made a little bow of courtesy and stood back to allow Koontz a path to the door. “If yer honor will lead the way.”
Koontz passed. The guard paused and gestured at Huncks to walk ahead of him. Huncks made another bow, this one deeper. As he came up, he yanked the pistol from the guard’s hand. The guard lurched forward. Huncks brought the butt down on his head, dropping him. Koontz wheeled to find himself staring at the muzzle.
“Ik spreek nederlands,” Huncks said, adding, “Helaas voor jou. You shouldn’t have told him I was lying, or I’d have come along peaceable like. And we’d have got all this sorted out with your General. But now it’s late for that. Sit.”
“You cannot get away. I have men everywhere.”
“So we saw, coming in. But being innocent of this farce of yours, we thought nothing of it. Now, if you please, sit.”
Koontz sat.
“Marster Balthasar. Take yer knife and cut that nice clean bed linen into strips with which to tie the feller lying on the floor. Nice and tight. Not forgetting to gag him. Good thing you arsked the innkeeper to change the sheets or what a narsty taste he’d have in his mouth.”
Balty went about it.
“Now then, my dear Deputy, if you’d kindly hand over the item, so that I might have a look at it.”
Koontz gave Huncks the drawing. Huncks examined it as if it were unfamiliar, frowning.
“It is good, I must say. A most commendable rendering. Who’s the artist? Was it yourself?”
“It was found in this room,” Koontz said.
“Not so loud, if you please. Where in the room exactly were it found?”
“On the floor.”
“The floor? How careless. Where on the floor?”
Koontz pointed.
Huncks smiled and shook his head.
“Darlin’ Deputy Koontz. It’s one thing to accuse us of being spies. But to accuse us of leaving an incriminating diagram of yer fort on the floor like a tossed hankie—it’s insoolting.”
Koontz made no reply.
“Come,” Huncks said. “Surely you see what’s going on, sar. It were planted. Someone shoved it under the door. Didn’t even need to fuss with the lock. What time did the servant girl bring your attention to this miraculous discovery?”
“Six. Maybe after.”
“Six. Well, now, aren’t that convenient? Inasmooch as we departed to sup with the General at five. Whoever slid it under the door would’ve known we was gone. And the only people who knew that were the innkeep. And yerself.”
“You are accusing that I am putting this?”
Huncks wondered: Might Koontz be protecting the regicides without Stuyvesant’s knowledge? Why would he? Hatred of King Charles I? Or that most prosaic but reliable of motives—money?
Balty looked up from trussing the guard and saw Huncks holding the pistol behind his back, casually. His fingers fiddled with the pistol’s mechanism.
“No,” Huncks said, “I can’t believe it were yerself who done it.”
Huncks turned to show Koontz the back of his head, clotted with blood.
“Marster Balthasar and I were assaulted this arternoon. Down there, in the street. It weren’t no robbery. I recognized the fellow, y’see. We encountered him in New Haven. Him and his Indian accomplice. They’re protecting the men we seek. The regicides, that is.”
“We know nothing of your rehicides,” Koontz said petulantly.
Huncks nodded.
“Indeed, sar, I’m beginning to believe that you don’t. But don’t it interest you that we was assaulted, on your own streets, by these men? Do it not suggest to you that the regicides are here?”
Koontz held up his hands in frustration.
“We are many people here! Almost two thousands! We are a port. All the time, people coming, going.”
“Point taken. Point taken. Well then, Deputy Koontz, where does this leave us? Friends or foes?”
“Friends do not point guns to each other.”
“Point taken again. So were I to return this pistol to you, would you accept what I’ve told you and call it quits? And sit down and have a drink?”
Koontz stared. “Yes. I accept what you say.”
“Well then,” Huncks said, “friends it is.”
He handed Koontz the pistol. Koontz took it, cocked the hammer, and pointed it at Huncks.
“Oh, Deputy Koontz. You disappoint me.”
Huncks reached inside his jacket, as if for a weapon.
Koontz pulled the trigger. The hammer snapped against the frizzen and into the pan, sparkless.
“You disappoint me again, sir,” Huncks said, dropping the accent. “An officer of your experience, not noticing that the flint’s been removed. Tsk.”
Huncks took the useless weapon from the blushing Deputy.
“It seems we must proceed as foes. I’d have preferred otherwise.”
A clump of boots came up the stairs and stopped on the landing.
Huncks put a finger to his lips and pressed the muzzle of his own pistol, flint intact, to Koontz’s forehead.
A voice called out. “Plaatsvervanger?” Deputy?
Huncks whispered, “Answer him. Remember, Ik spreek nederlands.”
“Wat?” Koontz said.
“Allemaal goed?” All good?
Huncks nodded.
Koontz said, “Ja.”
Huncks whispered, “It was a mistake.”
“Het was een vergissing.”
Silence. The voice called, “Smit! Bent u er?” Smit! Are you there?
“You sent him to the fort. To fetch some papers.”
“Ik stuurde hem naar het fort. Voor sommige documenten.”
“Tell them to wait for you downstairs.”
“Wacht op mij beneden.”
“You’ll buy drinks.”
Koontz grinned strangely.
“Ik koop drankjes voor ons.”
Silence. Boots descending stairs. Huncks kept the gun to Koontz’s head until the footfall ceased. He and Balty tied Koontz to his chair. Huncks balled a fistful of bedsheet.
“Who’s protecting them? Stuyvesant? Or you?”
“This is all a nonsense,” Koontz said sullenly.
Huncks smiled. “I wonder what we’d find if your room was searched? Eh? English guineas? Well, it’s been lovely.”
Huncks stuffed the gag in his mouth and secured it with a strip of bedsheet. He tipped Koontz and the chair backward onto the floor. He replaced the flint in Koontz’s pistol and gave the smaller one to Balty.
“Now what?” Balty asked.
“Where there are no alternatives, there are no problems.”
“What?”
Huncks slowly opened the door. The landing was empty. They exited the room with the two trussed Dutchmen, and crept slowly down the stairs. On the bottom step, Huncks held up a hand and listened. Voices, from the far end of the landing, murmuring. Huncks tucked his pistol into his jacket and indicated to Balty to do the same. He whispered, “Laugh.”
Huncks laughed. Loudly, bellowingly. On his happiest, drunkest day, Falstaff had never laughed so hard. Balty followed.
They stepped out onto the landing. The two soldiers stood before them with drawn swords.
Huncks addressed them as though delighted. “Ah, there you are! Good!”
The soldiers stared.
“Speak English?”
One of them replied, “I speak.”
“Good. Deputy Koontz sent us to get more gin.” Huncks mimed a bottle to the lips. “Gin?” He pointed downstairs. “Drink? Gin, to take upstairs.”
The soldiers advanced.
Huncks drew his pistol. “Wie wil eerst sterven?” Who wants to die first?
He motioned to the floor.
“Lie down.” The soldiers lay down on their stomachs. Balty took their swords.
“Now what?”
“Stop saying that.”
“Should I get more linen to tie them up?”
“No time.”
Huncks stood between the men. “Sorry about this, chaps.” He clubbed each on the back of the head and pointed at the window.
Balty clambered over the sill and dropped to the slanted roof below. The tiles were slimy. His feet went out from under him. He slid on his back, feet first, flailing, and sailed off the edge. On the way down, his foot caught on something. He felt a fierce wrench in his ankle, and landed on a slumbering pig.
The pig, unaccustomed to serving as a nocturnal cushion for defenestrated humans, squealed vehemently. Balty lay facedown in pig muck, dazed, ankle aflame in pain, trying, as Huncks had so often urged him, to gather his wits.
From above he heard a torrent of curses as a second Icarus fell from the sky. Huncks was heavier than Balty, so his trajectory was shorter, but his landing—on a recumbent sow—was no less porcine. Her ululations joined the squealing in progress.
Balty felt his arm being yanked. Huncks was growling at him to get up.
Balty stood on one foot. When he put weight on the other, he collapsed.
He tried again but fell back into pig muck. Huncks bent and grabbed him by the wrist, then slung him over his shoulder and staggered off.
The back door of the inn flew open. The night filled with Dutch curses. Weaving under his burden, Huncks stumbled toward the far end of the yard. It seemed very far away. The shouting behind them grew louder and was joined by the barking of dogs.
Huncks trudged on, tilting to and fro. Summoning all his reserves of strength, he made it to the end of the yard, to a wall about the height of a man. Huncks backed away and then lumbered toward it. He pitched Balty over the wall like a sack of potatoes. In the next instant, with fangs snapping at his ankles, he heaved himself over.
They lay, gasping and aching, on the deserted street. Huncks looked in both directions. At the southern end, he saw one of the fort’s bastions. At the other end, what looked to be the canal.
“That way,” Huncks said, pointing at the canal.
“It’s no good, Huncks. Go.”
Huncks staggered to his feet and tried to lift Balty, but his epic zigzag across the swine- and dog-infested yard had sapped his reserves of strength.
From the other side of the wall came shouting and barking, louder now.
“Go,” Balty said. “Don’t be a tit.”
There was a door at the far end of the wall. They heard a jangle of keys and the door rattling in its jamb.
“Go, Huncks.”
The door swung open. Soldiers tumbled out, looking up and down the street. Huncks aimed his pistol. The soldiers ducked back through the door.
“Shooting them isn’t going to help,” Balty said. “For God’s sake, just go.”
“I’ll be back. With the English Navy.”
Huncks ran toward the canal and disappeared into the darkness. The soldiers emerged with muskets and bayonets. Balty raised his arms in surrender and was swarmed by captors.
– CHAPTER 39 –
August 20th. My Lord Downing called late in the afternoon. He looked about and inspected my cell, making a face at the smell, holding his pomander to his nose and peering through the window onto Tower Green, making little noises. “Hm! Um! Umm!” etc., etc.
“Well, a fine view, Mr. Peeping Pepys. Perfect for peeping, eh?” Etc.
Made no response, being in no frame for persiflage.
My lord sat himself upon a stool—the only stool—and said in a solemn tone that he had much weighed my “matter,” and had come to the conclusion that a publick tryal would only bring infamy and shame. Not only upon my own person, but also upon the Navy itself and my Lord Sandwich, who despite his “whoreing” was still held in his majesty’s affections. Etc.
He continued, saying that as the hour of “the King’s Great Endeavor” was fast approaching, he had concluded that my scandal could only hamper England’s prospeckts with respeckt to New Netherland, and then suggested that he may have resolved upon a possible “solution.”
Keenly interested in any “solution” that would spare me living the balance of my life scratching lamentable graffitoes into walls, or having my head separated from the rest of me and made food for ravens, I indicated to my lord great eagerness to hear it.
“To deploy a naval term,” he said, “were you to ‘come about’ as to the matter of war with Holland, his majesty might incline to forgive your—let us call it out of charity—‘lapse.’ ”
“And how would I accomplish this ‘coming about’?” I asked.
Whereat Mr. Peeping Pepys gave his immediate and wholehearted assent to this solution and furthermore complimented his Lord Downing on devising such an elegant—let us call it—scaffold upon which to support his zeal for war with Odious Holland.
And lo, within the hour, Mr. Pepys made his exit across the drawbridge and under the portcullis of the Middle Tower; and never had he experienced ambulation more joyous.
– CHAPTER 40 –
Too Kind
Balty woke to the sound of his cell door opening. He’d only just dozed off. It was early, judging from the faint light coming through the barred window. The blaze of pain in his ankle had dwindled to a small fire. Luckily, no bones protruded from the skin.
Deputy Koontz entered. He looked unslept.
“How is your angle?”
“Bit throbby. Thank you for asking.”
“The Heneral has been informed.”
“I should bloody well hope so.”
“Can you walk?”
“No.”
“I will arrange for a chair to carry you.”
“A sedan chair? I’ve always wanted to have a ride in one of those. My mother—never mind. I must say, you’re being very civilized, considering what a night we’ve all had.”
Koontz sat on the stool by Balty’s pallet bed. He looked haggard.
“The Heneral must go up the river. To Fort Oranje.”
“Oh? What’s in Fort Oranje?”
“There is another trwabble with the Mohawks. Always they are making slaughters.”
“Doesn’t sound at all pleasant. I don’t envy the General, having to cope with all that.”
“Let us speak about last night. Your accomplice, Mr. Uncks—”
“Associate, if you please.”
“He speaks very well Dutch. And what variety, his accenting of English.”
“Yes. He’s quite versatile, Huncks. You rather have to be, in his line of business.” Balty quickly added, “Manhunting, that is.”
Koontz grinned slyly. “Do you know what was his mistake? What made alerted my men? When he made me to say that I would buy them drinks. Never would my men beleef that I would buy them drinks.”
The Judge Hunter Page 22
