The Golden Minute

by John Birmingham

  Twice Bowditch pressed her back into the cover of an alley, hiding her behind his bulk. She heard the crunch of many boots, marching in lockstep, a very different sound from the lonesome, often uncertain tread of a night-watchman going about his rounds.

  “Redcoats,” Bowditch explained after their first encounter. “I would attest a whole company of the bloodworms to be abroad this eve.”

  That took the pleasurable edge off her Hideo Kojima fantasy.

  Cady stayed low and kept quiet after that. The second encounter was even closer. They emerged from a narrow walkway between two buildings and almost stumbled into a couple of soldiers leaned against a wall, smoking pipes. Piles of foul-smelling human waste littered the alley, masking the scent of their tobacco, and the soldiers had been very quiet, probably not wanting to be caught slacking off. Bowditch, walking ahead of Cady, stopped dead and she almost blundered into him. He gently pushed her back into the shadows as he addressed the troopers.

  “Hail fellows and well met,” he said loudly.

  She heard the startled reactions of the men, and the clatter of their equipment as they stood to challenge him. Fading back into the darkness, Cady tried to understand the exchange between the men.

  “God-a-mercy, old heart!”

  “Who goes there?”

  “First of the argosy, Dorchester.”

  “Not of the Herald then?”

  “Pah, that boggard wrack. Curse them and that waghalter of a magistrate for these dibbles, eh.”

  “Curse ’em all, me old belamy.”

  Bowditch produced a small flask from within his jacket, and offered the men a swig. They thanked him profusely and were soon gulping and swearing and laughing at the foolishness of officers and gentlemen; but all of it in the hushed tones of friendly co-conspirators. Cady retreated further into the shadows as deeply and quietly as she could. She waited for Bowditch to break off.

  Ten minutes later she worried that he was going to stand there getting his drink on with these assholes until the sun came up. She was freezing and had no idea how Bowditch could stand the cold in his wet clothes. The longer they talked and drank, the harder it was to follow their conversation, and eventually she stopped trying. After an uncomfortable wait, the soldiers thanked him again for his kindness and warned that he should steer clear of the other patrols and the city watch, before resuming their own circuit of the streets. Bowditch watched them for another minute before ducking back into the cut-through.

  “Mistress? Are you there?”

  “No. I’m the popsicle formerly known as mistress,” Cady groused, emerging from behind a barrel where she had taken cover.

  “We are nigh home, but my new chums tell tales of this blustering fellow Granville who would inquest the entire city for you. He has it that you are a witch most puissant.”

  His voice was not accusing, but Cady was instantly on guard. She could feel the weight of the Sabre in her pocket and had to resist the urge to reach for it immediately.

  “Uhuh. And what say you, Lieutenant? Do you think me a witch?”

  He laughed so loud it startled her.

  “You are a spitfire and a hellion. But witches are a warty, cittern-headed lot and you, mistress, are so fair that if I were to write the beauty of your eyes, and in fresh numbers number all your graces, the age to come would say, 'This poet lies; such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces’.”

  He removed his hat and bowed with a flourish.

  It sounded like he’d been practicing his lines, and Cady didn’t know whether she was supposed to applaud or swoon.

  Instead she settled for not macing him.

  “Okay then,” she said, “let’s go.”

  They ghosted across a wide street, ducked into another narrow alleyway on the far side, felt their way through that unlit passage, and came out onto another major avenue, this one less densely built up. It curved gently around to the west, sweeping past a large open area overlooked by a high line of hills that blocked out the stars. Directly across from them, lamps burned behind the windows of a long, whitewashed building, which seemed to glow in the moonlight. Cady saw figures moving in a room downstairs, the space lit in a golden glow by at least two fireplaces. Muted voices and laughter drifted to her ear through the cold autumnal darkness. She desperately wanted to warm herself in front of a fire.

  “Is that it?” she whispered.

  “Indeed,” Bowditch confirmed. “How now, mistress? Should we lodge? Captain Garvey promises that you will have your share of the Herald’s prize money. Fortune enough to rent this whole hostelry a year or more.”

  Cady considered this new information. She still had a strip of silver ingots rolled up in a sock and jammed deep into her pocket, but she was wary of eating into her capital if she didn’t have to. If three failed start-ups had taught her anything it was: don’t run out of money. And complimentary microwave burritos aren’t a substitute for profit. But mainly the thing about the money.

  “That’s cool,” she said, before quickly adding in translation, “I mean that’s as may be, Lieutenant. But I have few coins on my person right the now.”

  “Then I must sign for your room, mistress. I can resolve such an account for the ship upon my authority as first officer. Indeed, I insist.”

  She was hoping he’d say that.

  “Then I thank you, sir,” Cady said, “I shall not forget your kindness.”

  She hoped that sounded Jane Austen enough for this try-hard Mister Darcy.

  “It is not simply a kindness,” Bowditch said. “The captain bid me vouchsafe you to your rendezvous, and the magistrate Granville is turning the whole of the town over, like a night-sneak tossing mattresses as he searches for you. It would be best if your name and presence were never recorded in the register.”

  “Good point,” she said. “But how will Mary find me?”

  “I trust to that lurking knave de Klerk. He seems a tightly devious fellow. And having drawn you here, I would not wonder to find him inside, waiting on us all the ready.”

  If he was, she’d bet every one of her little silver ingots that he was an Apprentice, luring her away from her protectors and into a trap, and Cady would have to hose him down with pepper spray on general principles. She didn’t share that plan with Bowditch, however. She’d just tell him she was getting even for de Klerk being such an asshole about everything. The lieutenant seemed the sort of puffy-shirted Hornblower to think that a spiffing fucking notion.

  Besides, she could tell he was crushing on her, and that’d make him a hell of a lot easier to deal with.

  “Go see if there’s room at the inn, then, Lieutenant. I’ll wait here and try not to freeze or fall into the clutches of some villain while you’re gone.”

  Bowditch hurried across the street, almost breaking into a run, and disappeared inside. Cady heard warm laughter, singing and conversation as he opened the door. It cut off immediately as he closed it behind him. She shivered in the dark and cold, jumping from foot to foot to keep her blood moving. She was nervous, not just about this meet-up, or ambush, or whatever the hell it was. Cady knew from Smith’s stories, and from her own experience, that if she drew that much attention to herself the Apprentices would soon follow. She was double plus certain this Granville asshole was one of them. But even putting that aside, there was the problem of being a woman in a world that was like a magic fucking kingdom for incel rim-weasels and MRA douchebros. It was like another shitty remake of Tron, if Tron was all about getting trapped in the YouTube comments on one of Anita Sarkeesian’s Feminist Frequency videos.

  This place sucked and Cady wanted out.

  She wasn’t sure how yet, because she hadn’t had time to think deeply since she’d heard the first shots back in that field outside of Salem. But she was determined to break this problem down and solve for getting her ass back to a civilized century before somebody set her on fire for having a mole in the wrong place or daring to look sideways at the fucking patriarchy.

&nbs
p; The sound of revelry signaled Bowditch returning as he slipped out of the tavern again. He glanced up and down the street, as though it wasn’t completely deserted, before hurrying across to where she hid.

  “There is no sign of Mistress Bradbury or her factotum anywhere,” he said. “But that is not to be caviled if she wished to remain at large from Magistrate Granville. I have rented lodgings for two nights and the serving wenches draw a hot bath for my… lady,” he looked embarrassed before stammering on. “I thought it best to p-present you as my companion. The lobsterbacks will not attend to the bruckled intrigues of a merchantman. I do apologize for the trickery, but…”

  He was starting to babble.

  Cady laid a cool hand on his injured arm and he almost jumped away.

  “It’s fine. We both know that I’m not your companion. Don’t we?”

  She leaned into the question, making it more of an insistence.

  “But of course. Do the hazelwoods shake with the wind? Come. We must be off these streets before the next round of the watch.”

  He shyly took her by the arm, and Cady allowed herself to be led across the wide, pebbled avenue. She saw the oil lamps of a patrol half a mile away and the sound of a watchman’s rattle drifted over them on the breeze.

  She gently prized herself out of Bowditch’s grip as they entered the tavern, half-expecting that there would be a piano player and he’d stop and everyone would look… but none of that happened. They passed through a small anteroom, offering a glimpse of the saloon, which was half full of drinkers and merrymakers. A small party sang along to a cheery tune played on a wooden flute by a black guy standing by the nearest fireplace. She realized with an unpleasant sense of helplessness that he was probably a slave. Assholes did that here.

  It was hard to make out many fine details of the room through the thick blue haze of smoke from tallow candles, tobacco and open hearths. No one paid them any heed. They all assumed Bowditch had simply checked in with a whore. She could not help resenting the presumption, but by then they were already through the entry hall and climbing the uneven stairs to the second floor where their rooms awaited.

  “You are in here, my mistress,” Bowditch said quietly, opening a door and gesturing for her to enter.

  Cady waved him in ahead of her.

  He seemed pleased and ducked inside beneath the lintel. The room was small and poorly lit by two candles. More light seemed to come up from the barroom, leaking through the gaps in the floorboards. She could hear the music and dull roar of drunken banter below. A small fire burned in a tiny iron stove, providing a welcome and surprising warmth, and best of all a giant tub stood filled with steaming water in the center of the room.

  A bath.

  Cady groaned with anticipation and might even have swooned like a real damsel, had Bowditch not suddenly wrapped both arms around her and started nuzzling at her neck.

  “Oh my darling. Alone at last.”

  “The fuck?” she gasped.

  “And we shall,” he said thickly as Cady struggled in his arms. “I will graze on your lips, and if those sweet hills be dry, stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.”

  Sex poems? He was rubfucking her and doing sex poems?

  “Bowditch!”

  “Yes, say my name now. Cry it out for only me and the hungry night to hear.”

  He mistook her struggle to free herself for play, until Cady stamped on his foot. The heel of her boot crashed down onto his toes and he yelped in pain, jumping away.

  “What am I? The skank from Outlander?” she spat at him, but of course he did not understand. His face was a rictus of confusion, hurt pride and the first flicker of outrage.

  “But you invited me in. You led me here!” he protested.

  “No, I didn’t. Remember? We had no choice. De Klerk forced me off the ship.”

  “But no one forced you to ask for my companionship.”

  A hot wave of anger crashed through Cady’s better judgment.

  “I didn’t want companionship,” she shot back at him. “I needed protection. Unless you hadn’t noticed,” she plunged on, talking faster and louder and completely dropping out of period character. “This place is a rolling rape wagon of alpha creeps who want to fuck me, and not after some Netflix and a back rub.”

  Bowditch clearly had trouble translating her outburst, but there were a couple grace notes he managed to pick up.

  “I would not presume upon your maidenhead if you had not fed my eager sword with your willing flesh.”

  “What?”

  The color which had drained from his face when she stomped his toes rushed back, giving his expression a dark and baleful aspect. Muscles bunched along his jawline and his chest heaved quickly as he took his breaths in rapid, shallow succession.

  “I have met your kind before. You are no witch. But neither are you the grieving widow.”

  He seemed to be getting his anger under control. His breathing slowed and his voice lost its serrated edge of anger and dismay. He even smiled.

  “You make scant remembrance of your husband and splay not the customary doleful lamentations of the widow newly made. You hide not the enticements of your womanhood and never deign to blush away the attentions of a suitor.”

  Bowditch seemed to gain confidence with every word, and he advanced on her with the certainty of a man who knows he is right because there couldn’t be another option.

  “I know what you want. You play the teasing amourette, but you wait only to be ravished and we will forelay our pleasure no longer, my love.”

  He lifted his shirt as if to slowly strip, exposing a hard stomach, its flat planes accentuated by the shadow smudges underlining stripper-abs, lightly scarred here and there by the faded lacerations of long-healed knife wounds and sword slashes.

  Her heart thudding, feeling stupid and small for having thought she could control him, Cady was almost paralyzed by fear that this was her fault somehow. She froze… casting around for help, for an escape.

  For Smith.

  The longer she delayed, the deeper she fell into paralysis. Bowditch’s expression as he pulled the shirt over his head was a potent mix of self-satisfaction, lurid promise and triumph; all while Cady was free-falling through shame and confusion, and most horribly of all, suffused with a hot flush that felt as though it might once have flared into desire, but now burned in a giant, swirling bonfire of perverse contradictions.

  She didn’t let him get any further. As he dragged the coarse linen shirt over his head, Cady launched a kick into his groin, landing it squarely on the monstrously swollen bulge which strained the loosening string ties of his trousers and shouting at this clueless dick, “I am a married woman, sir!”

  Bowditch howled in pain and Cady fled.

  The first step was the hardest—almost impossible—as the effort of defending herself against Bowditch had drained her reserves of energy. But as he rolled on the floor, moaning and cupping his groin, Cady found the motive force to propel her from the room. She did not think about where she might run to, she just ran. Down the stairs. Through the entry hall. Out into the street.

  And there she found herself surrounded by a squad of redcoats.

  “Halt!” a man’s voice bellowed at her, loud enough to shock her out of headlong flight.

  “Dickens the deuce, Sergeant. If it not be the witch herself!”

  Cady tried to dodge away, but found herself hemmed in by a half-circle of raised muskets. The moonlight glinted off the bayonets fixed beneath their muzzles, all of them pointed at her face.

  29

  They took adjoining rooms at the tavern, but did not linger. Smith was aflame with needful impatience. He was all set to break apart the town of old Boston, board by board and nail by nail, if it meant finding Cady cached up somewhere. Koffler, as was his wont, counseled the stillness of reason and prudence.

  “You remain a wanted man, Smith,” he said. “Even if not quite the notorious fugitive Miss Cadence has become. We must proce
ed methodically, occasioning no more chaos than is necessary. Wanton disturbance can only attract the interest of our adversaries, no? We do not wish the complication of our problems with the local magistrates by the addition of our problems with the Apprentices, no?”

  The professor leaned his head in towards Smith as they spoke at the saloon bar of the Red Lion. They looked as shifty and conspiratorial as two men could, which meant they fitted the tavern’s clientele like an old boot. The taproom was crowded as evening fell, roaring with loud voices, the clatter of dinnerware, and at least three competing troubadours, each with his own following among the crowd. Smith’s lawman’s eye, however, could not fail to see those parties hunched in booths and corner tables, heads bowed together, eyes flitting over the room, while whispered conspiracies barely escaped lips pressed tightly together. He did not wonder what they connived at. It would be as it ever was in all places where men gathered; the seeking of advantage for themselves from the disadvantages of others.

  “All I wish,” Smith said, dodging Koffler’s cross-examination, “is to have Miss Cady safe again and then to light a shuck and put this consarn stretch of trail behind us.”

  “And so we shall, Marshal. With diligence and care. We must divide our efforts, covering twice the ground.”

  “Agreed,” Smith said. He sipped at a pot of dark brew, some infernal porter of ale and fortified wine. He neither cared for the taste nor stood in want of the touted medicinal properties, but most of the room was gurgling down vats of the rattlesnake juice, and he had to show willing to fit in. Not fitting in could cost a man his life. A bowl of bacon stew and bread crusts he went at with more devotion, if not actual zeal. It had been some time since he’d eaten, and he needed the forage to keep going.