The Redcoat Chase

by Clifford, Riley

  It was the gardener again, in a hurry. Frederick followed him to the marble staircase. He had to take two steps at a time to keep up, then fall back far enough that the man wouldn’t see him. The stairwell unfolded into more enormous rooms.

  Frederick trailed the gardener through another central hall, then a lavish sitting room and a handsome antechamber that unfurled into a drawing room. The softly lit lamps, complete sets of sparkling crystal, and intricate rugs beneath their feet — the British would make mincemeat of all of it in no time. Where was the president?

  Frederick noted how the wallpaper changed from mint green to powder blue to a blush pink, and now the walls shimmered coral and gold. They’d reached the first lady’s wing. Through an arched entrance, he spied a salon that boasted a view of the street.

  Down the hall, Frederick could hear metal clattering to the floor. The voice of the gardener came through brusquely. Frederick pressed his ear to the door. Could he hear the president’s voice inside, too?

  The door opened sharply, and Frederick stumbled to the floor of what appeared to be the silver room. Cased in glass, the famed silver made even the shadows glimmer. Frederick cowered on the floor, the crystal cabinets showering prisms of light onto the gardener and the woman standing beside him, the first lady.

  Frederick recognized Dolley Madison from lithographs in the papers. She was wearing a pink lace frock and her face was made up. Frederick was suddenly aware of his muddied knees. With her large rings and white ruffled cap, not even a British invasion could hamper this lady’s style. Even with her life on the line, Dolley Madison was dressed for the victory party.

  But she was not about to pause for admiration.

  “Well,” Dolley exclaimed, “so this is the vagrant from the garden.” Turning to the gardener, she said, “I’ll handle this. I need you to return to the watch, and thank you for the updates.”

  “You s-s-see . . . ,” Frederick stammered. He’d been expecting the president, and he found himself slightly tongue-tied in the presence of such beauty.

  Some of the crystal cases gaped open where contents had been removed, as if the President’s House had already been burglarized. At the center of the silver room, a large leather trunk sat open on the table. The plates and goblets and platters missing from the room’s cases were carefully arranged inside it.

  “Are you just going to stand there?” Dolley asked him. “Speak! State your purpose.”

  “Ma’am, I must speak with your husband at once,” Frederick said, regaining his voice. “I come with urgent news.”

  “My husband has left, as has everyone who serves the president. Any news you have should be directed to me. Are you here with an estimated time of the British arrival? My gardener was just on the roof and spotted them in the distance — we have one hour.”

  Frederick felt his face and shoulders drop — all of this work. Here he was, actually in the President’s House, but the president was not even there to take the news he’d traveled so far to deliver. But if he failed . . .

  Dolley returned to packing her silver. There was one last crystal cabinet to be unloaded, its glass door edged in gold. With the speed of five people, she inspected the silver pieces, wrapped them in cheesecloth, and deposited them into the leather trunk.

  “Madam First Lady,” Frederick began.

  “Dolley,” Dolley said. “And if you’re going to stay, you may as well be of some use. I need you to help me pack the contents of this console. I’d sooner die than let those redcoats see as much as one ounce of this silver.”

  Frederick began moving pieces, though he was slower than she was. His hands had never cupped such wealth, and he was afraid he would break something. The silver felt cool to the touch, and Frederick thought this is what lakes would feel like if they could be magically solidified.

  “If you see any strange markings on them, please show me,” Dolley said.

  Frederick cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak.

  “Yes, yes, out with it,” she cried. “There’s a war approaching, or haven’t you heard?”

  “I’m from a village outside the district, near — near Bladensburg,” Frederick sputtered. “A s-soldier came to our door today while my parents were out. He died on our kitchen table, but he had a message for the president, about, er, secret affairs.”

  “What kind of secret affairs?” Dolley asked without taking her eyes off the silver, crossing the room in what looked like three strides back to the trunk.

  Frederick took a breath before taking the big leap. “He spoke to me about what your husband will understand to be a classified Cahill matter.”

  Dolley gasped. She’d finally stopped moving.

  “Are you aware of these matters?” Frederick asked, unsure whom he was allowed to speak with about Madrigal affairs. “I really must get word to your husband.”

  “I am the Cahill,” Dolley whispered, though there was no one around to hear. “It is I to whom your message should be directed. James has no idea — and if word ever gets to him . . .”

  “You?” Frederick exclaimed.

  “How do I know you’re not a spy?” Dolley cried. “You haven’t even properly introduced yourself.”

  “My name is Frederick Warren, madam, an honor to make your acquaintance,” Frederick declared. No turning back now — Ramsay’s message! “There is a dangerous man disguised as a British operative headed this way. General W.”

  Dolley looked at him as if he were crazy, before her face paled as white as the house they were in. “General V, you mean.” Dolley gasped, one hand rising to her throat. “I have to find the map!”

  “The messenger was not making sense when he died,” Frederick explained, recounting the words Ramsay had moaned on his deathbed about the map and Gideon’s ring. “‘The color of old age. The roots of our father.’”

  Dolley sank into a chair without seeming to realize that she’d been standing. “The map to Gideon’s ring. The map is hidden in this house, somewhere. Not even I know where it is. General V can’t be allowed to find it — if he does, the Vespers will rise to power, and we’ll never know freedom again.”

  After so much motion, her stillness signaled despair like none other Frederick had seen. He thought of his mother that morning, clutching him close.

  Shouldn’t he make a break for home, as fast as he could, to keep himself safe? He recalled the promise he’d made to his mother — that he would run at the first sign of the British.

  Technically, his job here was finished. Frederick could leave knowing that he delivered Ramsay’s message, and the mission was complete. But if the Vespers won, they would strike down Madrigal agents, and his family would never be safe. They’d always be hunted, and they could all end up like Ramsay.

  His parents were vulnerable right now. They’d left him for Madrigal business. What if they were falling into a killer’s trap?

  Frederick’s mission was only just beginning.

  “The British are forty-five minutes out, madam,” the gardener called.

  If they stayed here, it could mean their lives. If they left, the Vespers could find the hidden map and uncover Gideon’s ring. It was so awful Frederick almost laughed. The way that horror, when pressed too close, can look funny.

  “Well . . . ,” Frederick said, jolted from his nightmare. Except the nightmare was ongoing, and he was wide-awake. “We should search another room, as this one is just about finished. What’s the most valuable thing you have left?” Frederick asked.

  He looked at the first lady directly for the first time, across the table. They were in it together now.

  Dolley hadn’t spoken for a while, but she responded without even thinking now. “General Washington’s portrait in the state dining room. I couldn’t possibly leave until it’s secured,” Dolley said.

  “Forty-four minutes,” the gardener called, bustling through the halls. They hauled the trunk packed with most of the room’s contents down with gardener, to be sent away for safekeeping
with the others. The rest of the silver they would try to return for in what little time they had left.

  Downstairs, the portrait shone like a beacon in the dining room. The long table gleamed with polish, and the chairs stood proudly beside it, like a row of soldiers waiting at attention.

  The oil on canvas depicted a regal Washington holding a sword in one hand and stretching his other arm magnanimously outward, his palm upturned. The president was dressed in a rich black coat and leggings, a red velvet chair behind him and an inkwell and quill at his side. The colors were vivid and majestic, the reds plush and soft-looking, the likeness of his face so real it felt that the man might walk out of the painting at any moment. His face, in fact, possessed a glow, his eyes that lifelike sparkle.

  Before Frederick could speak, the first lady’s eyes filled up with tears. With all of the Vesper threats, Frederick had forgotten all that Dolley was losing at the hands of the British, too. This country that had fought proudly, this house that stood as a testament to independence. Now to be dismantled by the British they’d once defeated.

  Frederick worried about her — a crack was surfacing in her polished veneer.

  “Do you think it’s possible —” Frederick ventured.

  “Silver is the color of old age,” Dolley began, allowing some of her optimism to return to her voice, and they looked up at America’s first president, with his distinguished gray wig.

  “Roots of our father,” Frederick continued. “Father, as in father of the country!”

  “But there’s no map on it!” Dolley cried.

  “No map that we can see,” Frederick corrected. “Let’s remove the portrait, and then we can really inspect it. I think this has to be it, right?!” Frederick could feel the hope building inside him, as if hope alone could make something true. “The frame looks heavy.”

  “The frame is not important,” Dolley said, her cheeks flushing with fresh and hurried excitement. “Only the painting matters. We need to make haste if we’re going to get it out of the building.”

  Frederick scanned the room for something that would break the wood. As fast as he could, he sprinted back the way he had come toward the garden, through doomed room upon room.

  In the garden, Frederick found a wooden-handled ax near the gardener’s shed. The ax’s head shone brightly in the sun. The surface of the metal was scratched up, and markings crisscrossed its surface. The British would be just outside the city now.

  It was almost dark, and the temperature was still beastly, but Frederick was scarcely outside long enough to break a sweat before dashing back through the wide halls of the President’s House. Frederick tried to retrace his steps so as not to lose himself in the grand maze.

  Back in the dining room, Frederick let his momentum carry him up to the painting, and when Dolley nodded, he took a swing at the wooden frame, careful not to miss and hit the painting instead. The frame was gilded with gold flakes, the wood intricately engraved. It looked heavy and sturdy on the wall.

  He missed the wood altogether, swinging around in a circle. Embarrassingly, the only thing the ax hit was air.

  Dolley covered her mouth to stifle a laugh, and then nodded at him urgently to try again.

  Frederick lined up in front of the painting, pulled his arms back, and took a hard long swing, never taking his eyes off the frame as he swung his arm around.

  WHACK.

  A satisfying sound, he’d hit the sweet spot of the wood. Standing back to look at his work, Frederick saw that the frame was split in a corner, cleaved in two.

  The first lady cheered. “Don’t worry, Frederick, I won’t tell the guards. We’ll tell everyone French John did it,” she said, and began to gingerly peel out the still beautifully intact painting from the shattered frame. This symbol of the republic, the first president — saved only minutes before the British defaced it.

  As she pulled the rest of the canvas from its backing, the wood fell away from its hold on the wall. They held the painting at each end, as if it were a sacred scroll. George Washington stared up at them, his wig brushed and powdered. His painted face half-smiled approvingly. Father of the country, of course!

  “Color of old age, roots of our father,” Frederick whispered, like the words to an enchanted spell. “This is it!”

  Frederick and Dolley had only taken a moment to search the painting, their backs to the door, when they heard someone behind them.

  “We’ll take that for you,” came a grizzled voice with a clipped British accent.

  Dolley and Frederick swung around. It was General V, glowering from the entrance to the dining room. His scar scowled at them from his forehead.

  Oh, no, it’s actually him! Frederick could only manage one thought: escape.

  General V was still in British uniform, and everything about him was long and thin, pointy as a dagger. His body looked painfully stretched, and he sported a thin crooked mustache. He had a gun pointed straight at Dolley’s heart.

  “Mrs. Madison,” he purred, advancing toward her, “I don’t believe we’ve met.” His smile grew more twisted with each step.

  Dolley trembled as he neared, the room growing smaller around her. “The British army? You’re here?”

  “Only our Vesper riders, my dear. The rest of the army is expected” — and here he leaned close to Dolley’s face, pausing for emphasis — “presently.”

  Dolley reached back and slapped his cheek, hard, defiance wrinkling her forehead.

  Frederick braced himself, his heart racing uncontrollably.

  Gun in hand, the general raised his arm to strike her back.

  Without thinking, Frederick inserted himself between them, and fast.

  The general appraised Frederick, arm still raised. “And who would you be, boy?” he asked, circling around both of them, as if they were lions in the circus and he was the ringmaster.

  “Frederick Warren,” Frederick trembled, unable to come up with a false name on the spot.

  “Of Henry and Wilhelmina Warren?” General V asked.

  Frederick felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. A wave of nausea almost brought him to the floor. This horrible man knew his parents by name!

  “I don’t know whom you mean, General,” Frederick said, though General V had seen him flinch. What would he do to Frederick’s parents now? Everything was Frederick’s fault!

  General V would not be ruffled. He turned to Dolley and repeated, “ ‘Color of old age,’ what was it you said? ‘Roots of our father’? A good one, the Vesper leadership appreciates the pains you’ve taken to deliver the map.”

  Chuckling lightly, General V said, “I’ll take that from you.” With his long, spidery fingers, he reached for the canvas that Dolley clutched close to her heart. “And you will learn that no good deed,” he said, taking the painting, “goes unpunished.”

  The basement of the President’s House was a pitch-black maze. There were no windows, and Dolley and Frederick couldn’t see anything. General V had forced them down the stairs and tied them to a beam in the cellar. The rope dug into their wrists and fingers. Precious seconds were racing by, and Frederick guessed the British army had just crossed the Mall.

  “What do we do?” Dolley whispered.

  Frederick could feel blood dripping from his knees and elbows in the darkness. He’d taken the fall down the stairs hard. It could be worse, Frederick reminded himself, thinking of Ramsay’s back. Just skinned knees.

  “The painting — the map must be hidden somewhere on it, and now it’s gone! General V will know where the ring is!” Frederick whispered.

  “I don’t want to die here, Frederick,” Dolley said. Her voice was hoarse and low.

  “We won’t,” Frederick said, though he was shaking, trying to convince himself. “We won’t,” he repeated. Would General V torture them next? Would he and Dolley get caught in the flames when the British burned the house? Frederick’s mind reeled.

  “How can we get ourselves out of here?” Frederick ventured,
more thinking aloud than actually expecting an answer.

  Something crashed on the floor above them that sounded like shattered glass. Heavy footsteps pounded down the stairs.

  The door creaked open, and in the blackness, Dolley and Frederick could only see a white light floating toward them, and the sound of seething breaths, rasping closer to where they were tied.

  A lantern — the flame rose higher, and the shape of the general’s sharpened cheekbones emerged from the darkness.

  “You two!” he screeched. The lantern highlighted the shadows under his eyes and his cruel, twisting mouth. “You lied to me! And now you will pay!”

  “What are you talking about?” Dolley cried. “You have the map!”

  “Oh, you mean that hideous painting,” he said, spit flying from his mouth. Frederick could feel her shrinking behind him in the darkness. “There was no map on that saccharine piece of child’s art!”

  “But —” Dolley cried, “the color of —”

  Frederick nudged her to stop talking.

  “Yes?” General V shrieked. “What of it?! There must be something else that answers the same riddles. And you two are going to solve it. If you don’t, I am going to enjoy letting you burn.

  “My only sadness is that I myself won’t be here to see it! Maybe I’ll secure a good seat from just outside the grounds,” he said as his voice jumped a register, delighted with himself. “Now, tell me where the map is, or the fun will really heat up.” General V’s mirth fed off Dolley’s fear like smoke on cinders.

  Dolley began to cry softly, and it sounded to Frederick like she was giving up. They should have fled the President’s House when everyone warned that the British were close by.

  Frederick couldn’t think straight. How were they supposed to tell General V where the map was hidden if they didn’t know themselves? Frederick’s eyes searched for hints, but all he saw was blackness. They had to get out of this basement. That was the first thing.

  Frederick snapped. “I’ll tell you where the map is on one condition. If you let us go.” Frederick’s voice was clear, piercing the darkness. The wicked laughter stopped.