by Death
"Pity about that. If the rebels had decided to try returning, you'd have had them cold."
Nash reddened. "If they return, I'm sure the Suffolk Militia will be able to deal with them."
This was met with the kind of silence in which much is said. It was well known that the loyalty of Suffolk County was at the best, debatable, and that's what we were all thinking, including, belatedly, Nash.
"I'd like to see this Knox fellow," I said, before things got too embarrassing.
He'd already agreed that I could have my private talk, though he would have guards standing ready outside. The memory of the two escapees last fall was with him, and even if he'd been made to forget who had helped them, he was not inclined to take further chances. Now he fairly leaped at my offered distraction and issued orders for the man to be removed and brought in from the blockhouse.
"Where will you interview him?" asked Norwood.
I deferred to Nash, who said, "This room will suit, I think. The door is stout and the window too small for a fellow his size to squeeze through. Just remember that we'll be just out here if you want help with him."
I thanked him and then retired to a dark corner so Knox wouldn't see me until it was time. Not that it was necessary; I could make him talk no matter what. This was for the benefit of the others.
Soon four large soldiers marched Knox inside, their heavy steps thundering throughout the inn along with the clank and clink of chains. They shoved their charge in with me and came out again, slamming the door.
He was not in the best of condition. His tough face bore some truly colorful bruises, and one eye had swollen shut. He moved stiffly, evidence of more bruising along the rest of his body. His clothes were more ragged than before and much dirtier. He dragged over to the table in the center and dropped wearily into a chair. I had no pity for him. He and his cronies had been all too ready to kill me, and they'd certainly killed others. If I could prevent them from continuing, well and good; I was glad of the privilege.
I stepped from the shadows and slipped into a chair opposite him with the table in between. Folding my hands before me, I looked at him and waited.
Though there were plenty of candles lighting the place, recognition came slowly to him. The last time he'd seen me, I'd been in roughly the same plight he was in now, injured, and with other people deciding his fate. A change of clothing and posture had made a significant difference in my appearance.
" 'O're you?" he asked with a ghost of belligerence. There wasn't sufficient force in his voice for it to be a demand.
I studied him long, then said, "Jonathan Barrett."
The color draining out of his face made the bruises seem that much worse. His one good eye grew wide and his mouth sagged and the breath went right out of him as though I'd hit him hard in the belly.
"I-I didn't ever want t' 'urt you, mister-" he began.
"Never mind that, I'm not interested in your excuses. All 1 want is for you to listen to me."
"Listen?"
I leaned closer. "Yes... listen..." I went on, speaking steadily, calming him, putting him in a state that would make him very eager to answer any question at all.
His expression went slack, as they all did. It was a disturbing kind of vacuity, as though I'd stolen his soul, leaving behind a breathing but utterly empty vessel of a body.
Ignore it, I thought. "Now you're going to tell me all about your friends Ash, Tully, Abel, and Seth." I left out Drummond, confident that the fellow was applying himself to more constructive pursuits by now.
"Tell you..."
Now that I had him in such a helpless state, it was hard to keep my emotions in check. I sensed that if I allowed myself to let loose of any shard of my anger at this point, the results for Knox would be very distressing, indeed.
"Everything," I said, putting all my concentration into it until my head began to hurt and I had to ease off.
"Wha... ?"
He'd need guidance. I couldn't expect to get useful information from him unless I came up with specific questions. Well, I had no end of those; which one first?
Before I could draw breath for it I was interrupted by the abrupt sound of glass breaking, very close. My eyes shot to the small window. One of the panes was gone; bits of it lay on the floor below. The row had made me jump and after that I froze, staring. Nothing happened for what seemed like a long time, but could only have been a second or two. I started to move, though I had no idea exactly what I was going to do. Go to the window and look out, perhaps. I was too startled to call to the soldiers outside. There was no time, anyway. The brief two seconds passed and then came the hard, harsh bang of a pistol being fired.
Knox instantly slumped forward.
1 must have yelled. The door flew open and men crowded in, but it was all over. They found me with my back pressed hard against the wall, as if trying to melt right through it. They wouldn't have been far wrong, either.
Knox was sprawled over the table with a terrible hole on one side of his skull and his brains and blood spilling out a much larger one on the other. Questions were shouted at me. All I could do was point at the window and one bright lad finally got the idea and bellowed something to Nash. A lot of confusion followed as some went to peer through the opening and others left to run outside.
The bloodsmell was everywhere, all but choking me the way it filled the room. One image impressed itself upon my overtaxed brain: the stream of blood flowing across the table and falling over its edge to the floor. I clearly heard the soft drip-drip-drip of it as it formed a ghastly puddle almost at my feet.
Then Father was suddenly there, looking as sick and horrified as I felt, but there, and dragged me out, thank God.
I was shaking, chilled through by sudden cold. Father got me to the common room and made me sit close before the big fireplace, somehow managing to wrest a sanctuary for us from the general tumult. I shut my eyes against it, held onto him, and shuddered once.
"It's all right, laddie," he murmured just loud enough so that only I could hear him. That pulled me away from the worst of it, and soon after, either warmed by the fire or by his soothing voice, my shivering stopped.
Beldon emerged from the death room, shaking his head to confirm what we all knew, that Knox was well beyond any earthly help.
He knelt before me to peer into my eyes and asked if I needed anything. I gulped and began to laugh in his face.
Father gripped my shoulder tightly. "Jonathan, behave yourself," he said in a severe voice.
That worked, helping to steady me. "I'm all right," I said after a minute, and was reasonably sure I meant it. Another gulp and I was able to haltingly tell them what little I knew.
"My God," said Beldon. Both men were clearly shocked.
"Where's Lord James?" I asked.
Father pointed toward the outside door of the inn where many of the soldiers had gone. "As soon as he understood the situation, he was off to the hunt."
Glory-seeker, I thought. "He's welcome to it, if he doesn't get his head blown..." My eyes were drawn back toward the room, but I couldn't see anything of Knox's body because of the many other people trying to get in for a look. Just as well.
"I'm going, too," Beldon announced and hurried away. Father and I followed him.
There wasn't much wind, but it slapped enough to sting. I shivered with a cold that was more imagined than actually felt and walked around the building until I reached the little window. It was small owing to the expense of glass at the time this part of the inn had been built. It had shutters, but they'd been pushed back to let in the meager winter light and no one had bothered to close them again; otherwise the assassin might have been stymied.
I thought I caught a whiff of acrid powder on the air, but discounted it as more imagination. The breeze would have swept that away by now. Several soldiers were gathered at this spot and I recognized a few, including my sometime tutor for German, Eichelburger. He and the others were making much ado over two prizes, one a pistol, the
other a length of wood.
"What is it?" I asked in German.
He hefted the pistol, holding it so the light coming from the broken window fell upon it. I moved closer and realized I'd not been mistaken. The smell of powder lingered around the thing. "This he dropped, the killer. This"-he waved the piece of wood-"was used to break the glass."
I translated for Father and Beldon. "Where is Lieutenant Nash?"
He gestured at the empty yard around the inn and what lay beyond.
"Did anyone see who fired?"
Eichelburger shook his head. "We'll get him."
I did not suffer from his confidence and broke away to walk toward the limits of the yard. The wind carried vague sounds to me of men crashing about in the dark.
"It's hopeless," I said to Father when he caught up with me. "They can't see a thing in this. They need help."
"Good God, you're not thinking of-" But he saw that I was. "Jonathan, you've had enough for one night, you've had more than enough for a lifetime."
"Perhaps so, but I have to get out and do something."
His patience was thinning, but he was willing to stretch it a bit more. "Do you now?"
I took stock of myself. I'd been badly shaken, but was far from being a complete wreck over the unpleasantness and told him as much. "Those bastards plucked me up, carrying me off like I was just more stolen livestock, and just when I thought I might be able to do something about it, they took that away as well. Perhaps I'm being a fool wanting to find the killer of a killer, but if I have to stand idle, waiting for Nash to come back empty-handed, as doubtless he will, I shall go mad from it."
He frowned for a long time, then finally half-lifted his arms as if to give in. "You're ho fool, laddie. I know how you feel. I'd like to come along, but 'twill be better if I stay. This lot around the inn are running around like headless chickens. They're wanting some one to argue 'em calm again. Just don't let yourself be seen. The soldiers out there are liable to be skittish. And for God's sake, be careful."
I gave him my most solemn word on that point.
There had not been any fresh snow in the last day or so; the ground had been well-churned by dozens of passing feet and I wasn't enough of a skilled woodsman to tell old tracks from new under these circumstances. But I wasn't planning to trail anyone if I could help it. I walked as quickly as I could, taking the general direction of the soldiers. They were out of sight and nearly beyond hearing; I deemed it safe to let myself fade away and rise on the wind like smoke.
Practice told me about how high I was: a little above the treetops. There I took on just enough solidity to see and hoped that none of the hunters below chanced to look up.
I spotted a few of them, gray shapes on gray ground, in a hurry, yet trying to be cautious. Willing myself ahead, I saw more and more and by their movements discerned they were all part of Nash's troop. None of them was purposefully rushing forward in that way a fugitive might.
An hour passed, they searching below, me circling high above and ranging far ahead of them. Neither of us saw anything. They headed north, toward the coast, and once there covered the shoreline, but I could have told them it was useless. No boats had been launched that I had seen. Though the killer had had a good head start and just might have escaped that way, I was not inclined to think so. He'd probably gone to ground in one of any number of places. Nassau County was loyal, but there were pockets of sedition here and there that a rebel might know about. Whoever had done for Knox was probably sheltering in any of a hundred innocuous buildings between the inn and the Sound.
Pale and tired from all my skyward exertions, I returned to Glenbriar and found Father and Beldon waiting for me at The Oak. Lieutenant Nash had come back a little earlier, just as weary and tremendously disgruntled.
"I'll hear your story of what happened, if you please, sir," he said to me.
I told him, unable to add any more details, though he very much wanted them.
"You saw nothing through the window?" he asked, just on the polite side of exasperation.
"Only a vague shape. The candles in the room made reflections on the remaining glass. I glimpsed the smoke, but that was all. At first, I couldn't believe what I'd seen or what had been done."
We were in the common room, surrounded by a few more soldiers and many more townspeople. Cold as it was, the front windows were open, and others outside had draped themselves over the sills to catch the news.
"And you found no sign of where he'd gone?" I asked in turn.
Nash frowned mightily. "My men are still looking. Lord James thought he saw something and took himself away after it."
"Not alone, I hope."
"No, certainly not."
Mr. Farr, supremely unhappy that such an awful murder had occurred in his house, pushed forward. "What I want to know is why anyone would do such a wretched thing. I run a very respectable place and this-" He clenched his hands, shaking them for want of words to express his outrage and fear.
"Revenge, possibly," said Dr. Beldon. "There are people aplenty hereabouts who would be happy to see someone like Knox in hell."
"He'd have been sent there soon as we were done with him," Nash grumbled. "First those two escapes and now this one shot before we could hang him. Mark me, I think his own rebel friends murdered him so he wouldn't betray them to us."
This inspired a rumbling murmur of agreement from the crowded room. Not one of us-least of all I-had any doubts over the viciousness of the so-called patriots who had troubled the whole county. That they should turn upon one of their own to save themselves was a dreadful and cowardly act, but not terribly surprising.
Nash was not only partial to his idea, but more than willing to act upon it. "Mr. Barrett, I'll want a complete description of the men who kidnapped you, as much as you can remember right down to the least scrap of clothing on their backs. Write it out. I want something I can pass along to my men. I'll be finding these traitors if I have to turn over every stone in the county."
May 1777
"You're more quiet than usual," observed Elizabeth. "I didn't know it was usual for me to be quiet." "It has been lately. What's been bothering you?" "Long days and short nights." For me, such a complaint had quite a bit different meaning than it did for other people. "And nothing else?"
"Waiting for Nora to reply, or at least for Oliver to send a letter. It's been ages." Plenty of time for a letter to find its way to the Warburton family in Italy and for them to pass it on to Nora. I worried that it had gone astray somehow, undelivered while I sat half a world away impatiently fuming for an answer that would never come.
"I thought it might be because of those men," she said. That was how the household had come to refer to Ash and the other cutthroats. "Why should you think that?" "Because that's when you started being so quiet." And also when I discovered Norwood's liaison with Molly Audy. I didn't like having the knowledge, and keeping it a secret was affecting my behavior with Elizabeth. I was tempted to unburden myself about it, if not to her then to Father, or perhaps even Beldon, but since that time Norwood had not gone whoring. Of that I was sure since I'd made a habit of "questioning" Molly whenever I paid my respects. At least, a whispering voice in my head said, he hadn't been whoring with her. With all the soldiers around, there were any number of camp followers about, and if not as pretty or as skilled as Molly, they were cheap. I remembered her mention of his parsimony over the price.
A little "talk" between us would clear the air and either cancel my doubts or confirm them. If the latter, then Norwood and I would have a very serious talk, indeed. But I'd been putting it off, as one does any potentially unpleasant task.
"You haven't said much about it." Elizabeth brought me back to the present with her misplaced assumption about my reticence.
"Haven't really wanted to. Or needed to," I added, looking up at her with as much reassurance as I could muster.
She met my eyes over the mound of sewing piled before her on the dining table and hopefully saw tha
t her gentle concern was appreciated, but not necessary.
"What about yourself?" I asked. "Getting nervous?"
"Only about whether I'll have this finished in time." She indicated the satin and silk she was sewing together.
"You will."
"So everyone tells me."
"The others would help if you'd let them."
She smiled and shook her head. "No, thank you. Sewing my own wedding dress has long been a fancy of mine, and I'll not ask others to share it with me."
The initial formalities had come and gone months ago. Lord James Norwood asked Elizabeth if he might petition Father for her hand in marriage and had been answered in a most positive manner. Father had granted permission in his turn, with the reluctance and pride all fathers experience when they must give up their daughters, and since then the house had been busy with preparations for the wedding. Much of it had to do with the making of many new clothes for the bride, and while Elizabeth had gratefully accepted help for her other dresses and things, she'd reserved the most important project for herself.
