Tales from the Vatican Vaults: 28 extraordinary stories by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Garry Kilworth, Mary Gentle, KJ Parker, Storm Constantine and many more

by David V. Barrett

  I belted my borrowed robe over my borrowed shift, and headed for the privy. My hand was on the door latch before it struck me. The servants’ quarters in the White House had privies. Colonel Tayloe’s servants made do with chamber pots, like the one tucked under the table next to our bedroll. My chest clenched. The White House was nothing but a gutted husk. I felt like a husk, myself. In my whole life, I’d never been without a place.

  That was Mama’s doing, as much as the British. I pushed the thought away. Done was done. I couldn’t go back to the Madisons any more than Mama could go back to New Orleans.

  The notion was more than I could face on an empty stomach. The table held a pitcher of water, a basin and a cup, but nothing to eat. Why should it? The kitchen was just across the passage.

  It was late enough that I didn’t think anything of the passage being empty. The servants’ hall, the housekeeper’s room and the kitchen shouldn’t have been empty, though. Since I couldn’t think of a good reason why that should be, I fortified myself with a hunk of buttered bread and a gulp of cider before climbing the stairs. It was a good thing I did.

  The scene in the first floor drawing room reminded me of the one outside the White House the afternoon before. The entire household and all the minister’s guests were there, including Miss Dolley’s long-tailed red parrot, Polly. Polly’s cage sat on a table set near the screened fireplace. Everybody else huddled around the windows on the other side of the room. Most of them still wore the same clothes they’d worn in the wee hours of the morning, including the minister, Mr Sérurier.

  The smell of smoke and burnt tar greeted me at the threshold. My brain tried to tell my nose it didn’t smell any such thing. The fires in the kitchen were safely banked. I’d seen them myself not five minutes past. Besides, it was the misery month of August. The fireplaces in the upstairs rooms were all swept out and empty except for their summer screens.

  My body knew better. My mouth went cotton dry even before the housekeeper squeezed my shoulders and said in French, ‘It’s all right, dear. I’m sure your mother did everything she could.’

  The Haitian footman who’d met us at the door waved me over to a window. I didn’t want to, but I went.

  Soot browned the blue sky Mama’s storm had washed clean. The buildings housing the Navy and War Departments burned like a matching pair of firepots. The charred White House smouldered anew. Giant puffballs of thick, tarry smoke spewed from the ropewalks along the Potomac. I couldn’t see the Treasury Building or the Capitol, but more smoke rose from the south-east in the direction of the Navy Yard.

  Was this Hell? Had we died unawares and been damned to relive yesterday’s horrors for all eternity?

  I steadied myself against the window frame. I refused to succumb to an attack of the vapours. I was almost fourteen. If I was strong enough to survive yesterday the first time, I was strong enough to keep standing. I didn’t know what else I could do – other than pray Mama slept a while longer.

  They say Our Lord answers every prayer, but sometimes the answer is ‘No.’

  A terrible scream tore through the house. The pretty embroidered screen in front of the fireplace toppled to the carpet. People staggered and bumped their heads against the windows. Polly shrieked, ‘I won’t let the British take me to London. I’ll die before I let that happen. Awwwk!’

  The Tayloes’ back gate crashed against the yard’s high brick wall.

  I ducked my head out the window. I had a grim idea of what was coming. Mama was raised a lady. She never would’ve traipsed around a strange house with nothing but a robe to cover her shift. Her first thought upon waking would’ve been to retrieve her dress. In the yard that was open to the sky. The sky that boiled with soot and smoke.

  My expectations weren’t nearly bad enough. Mama stalked out of the alley into the street. Her head led the rest of her, slinging from side to side like a viper scenting prey. She’d pulled her dress over her shift, but the ties dangled loose down her back. She hadn’t bothered with a comb, much less a kerchief, and half her braids had come undone. Hanks of kinky hair puffed around her head, making her look larger than she was.

  ‘Madame Lula,’ Mr Sérurier shouted, ‘come back! The city is not safe!’

  Mama spun around to face him. Her hair thrashed like a nest of snakes. Her brows drew together in a sharp ‘V’. Her eyes were black as rifle bores. Dark stains trailed from their corners. Her lips were darker still. They curled back from her teeth in an animal snarl.

  The minister gasped. The rest of the folk in the room seemed to have forgotten how to move. No one so much as twitched until Mama disappeared up Seventeenth Street.

  ‘Mon Dieu,’ Mr Sérurier groaned. He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than Mama or French John. His hair was still dark. But when he tried to cross himself, he couldn’t. His hands shook like a grandfather’s.

  I disentangled myself from the crowd and curtsied as best as I could. ‘Sir.’

  He eyed me suspiciously, probably wondering how far this little apple fell from Mama’s tree.

  ‘Might I ask a favour?’

  He nodded. It was a small, shivery thing he would’ve been embarrassed to see.

  ‘Could you send a servant to find French John? Mr Sioussat, I mean. The White House Master of Ceremonies. Please. He’s the only one who can calm Mama when she gets like this.’

  ‘He can do that?’

  ‘Most of the time, sir.’

  ‘The man must be a magician,’ he muttered in French, not realising I understood. In English he said, ‘Yes, of course. Jupiter, you know where he lives.’

  The Haitian servant bowed by way of agreement.

  ‘Mama will be wanting some words with the British commanders,’ I said. ‘Do you have any notion where they might be found?’

  ‘They set up camp at Capitol Hill. General Ross could be anywhere this morning, but he may call here later.’ The minister’s cheeks burned an embarrassed pink, which was funny considering who he was talking to. ‘I suspect Admiral Cockburn will be at the offices of The National Intelligencer. He cherishes a grudge against the newspaper.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll start there.’ I bobbed another curtsey. ‘Thank you again for your hospitality, sir. I’ll collect our things when I get back.’

  ‘When you get back? Child, you can’t leave. Your town is occupied by a hostile army. Nearly five thousand British troops are camped within the city limits. There are more Englishmen here than there are Americans.’ His lips thinned, as if he didn’t relish what he had to say next. ‘By now their discipline is growing lax. You are a pretty girl. Do you understand what I am saying?’

  I squared my shoulders. ‘I do, sir. But she’s my mama.’

  It didn’t take me more than a minute to dress, but when I opened the back gate Major L’Enfant and his dog were waiting for me in the alley. The only changes in his appearance from the night before were the wilted tricorn atop his bedraggled wig, and the sword hilt poking out from under his worn blue coat.

  He held up his hand. ‘Of the protestations, I will not hear! I my commission would disgrace if I you permit to proceed alone.’

  For all my brave words to the minister, I was scared of going after Mama. Not because I was afraid of her. Hot as her temper was, she never lost her reason. I was afraid of what I’d meet along the way. It wasn’t just the British. There were bound to be looters and other dangerous characters about, and on account of the Black Laws, I couldn’t carry a knife to defend myself. But of all the people in the house, why did it have to be Major L’Enfant who came after me? I needed to run. More than that, I needed somebody who could stand up to trouble, not a frail old man who insisted on speaking a language he didn’t fully comprehend.

  Still, I dared not forget my white folk manners, or I’d be in a worse state than I was now.

  ‘What you think, Mademoiselle Thérèse, paint your whole face. Major L’Enfant, he is old. Un-firm. He cannot walk. There you are wrong. I make the petitions to
the Congress, so always I am walking up the Capitol Hill and down the Capitol Hill. And the streets – I know them best. I put them where they are. I know all the short ways.’

  I thanked him kindly and quickened my steps. As soon as I was sure no one in the house could see us, I’d run. If anybody asked why I left him behind, I’d say it was an accident. Being so worried about Mama, I never realised what I’d done. The quality expected black folk to go stupid when things went wrong. I’d learned that lesson young and been using it to my advantage ever since.

  I hadn’t counted on the dog. He raced ahead of me as I turned up the street, and barked at me to go back, like I was a sheep for herding.

  ‘See my dog, even he knows the short ways, he. The newspaper, he is down the Pennsylvania Avenue at Seventh Street, no? The short way is at the south of the White House wall, not at the north of the New York Avenue. This way we arrive at your mother before she goes.’

  ‘It’s not safe.’ I shuddered at the thought. ‘Since they stopped work on the canal, the shacks have been taken over by ruffians, and the field is full of snakes. It’s worse after it rains. They all come to the path to dry off. Not just rat snakes, either, but copperheads and worse.’

  ‘Mademoiselle, you are not travelling alone. We are two, and I have the arms.’ He patted his sword. ‘As regarding the snakes, they rather prefer the wet than the smoke. If not, my dog, he gives chase the plus of excellence.’

  I couldn’t argue that. Nor could I accuse the major of holding me back. He marched along smartly, while I was feeling the pinch of my not-quite-dry shoes. Not that I dallied any. I was certain villains lurked behind every clump of brush.

  Only they didn’t. No ne’er-do-wells accosted us. No snakes lolled on the path. I thought I saw the curve of what might have been a trail at the edge of the brown grass, but the marks could’ve been hours old. The ground had been too dry to hold the rain, and thanks to the fires, there was more dust about than yesterday.

  More dust, but less of everything else. There were no people, no birds, no animals. Even the bugs whined quieter than usual, like they were drugged by the smoke drifting off the ropewalks.

  Pennsylvania Avenue was more of the same. Somebody occupied the houses along the street. Their shutters hadn’t opened themselves. But if anyone was looking out those windows, they kept themselves well behind the curtains.

  They hadn’t even picked up after the storm. The fancy poplar trees growing on either side of Pennsylvania Avenue dropped branches if you looked at them funny. Mama’s gale shredded their tops and sheared away whole limbs. Lightning had cracked at least one tree right down the middle. The two halves splayed against the trees to either side. One good shove and the houses behind them would have been tinder. Branches as wide around as my arm lay higgledy-piggledy across the roadway. Any one of them would’ve brought traffic to a dead stop. But there wasn’t any traffic, nor any expectation of same, or surely somebody would’ve moved those boughs and pushed the piles of fallen leaves closer to the sidewalks.

  The hush was unearthly. You would’ve thought the whole city, down to every brick and blade of grass, was holding its breath. The steamy air was heavier than a wet wool blanket. But it was the dread that was likely to smother me. I couldn’t shake the notion I was walking through a daytime nightmare. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it was. If I tried hard enough I could wake from any dream, no matter how frightening. But the itch of perspiration under my borrowed shift and pinch of my shoes left no room for pretending it was anything but real.

  I blinked the sweat out of my eyes. I should’ve packed a hat in my pillowcase or at least borrowed one from the minister’s housekeeper. Between the heat and the midday sun, the ground shimmered like a reflection in a wind-stirred pool. The glimmers made me doubt my sight. There couldn’t be a trail of bare dirt running in a straight line down the centre of the avenue. Then I noticed the major’s dog, which had been walking ahead of us, had moved to the side, circling entire branches rather than crossing those stretches of naked earth.

  I glanced at Major L’Enfant. He shrugged, buttoned his coat away from his sword, and forged ahead. Despite the dog, I found myself walking in the track. The bare patches seemed to match my stride.

  Which was only natural, considering who made them. Mama bore down on the crossing of Seventh and Pennsylvania, where The National Intelligencer had its office, like a ship-of-the-line. Clumps of wet, green leaves skittered out of her way as if their sprigs had feet. Heavy branches tumbled to the side without her lifting a finger to move them.

  I called after her, but we were too far away. I told the major, ‘I need to catch her.’

  I doubt he heard. Staring at the branches, he slowed to a shuffle, and then stopped altogether. I felt sorry for him. He didn’t deserve to be smacked in the head with something so strange when he only wanted to help. But I couldn’t spare the time to soothe or explain.

  The British had cleared the crossway at Seventh and used the green wood to start a smoky fire. A score of soldiers milled about the blaze. A lucky half dozen stood guard. They were the furthest from the fire and unlikely to need their shiny red rifles for more than show. Aside from Mama, Major L’Enfant and me, the British had the street to themselves. Like everybody else in town, the people in the neighbouring houses were hiding as hard as they could.

  A pair of red-faced redcoats tended to the flames. The remainder of the soldiers scooted between the print shop and the fire, feeding it with books, papers, bits of furniture and the wooden frame of the printing press. They’d already broken most of the windows facing the street, but every now and then the jangle of breaking glass echoed from inside the house.

  Admiral Cockburn sat tall in the saddle of the same white nag he’d ridden the night before. He’d positioned himself next to the tree at the corner of the street, but it was the wrong time of day to catch any shade. A straw-hatted sailor squatted nearby, poring over trays of type. Every so often he’d fling one of the letters into the fire.

  Mama stomped up to within a few feet of the admiral’s horse before one of the guards thought to bar her way with his rifle. She slapped it aside.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she shouted.

  Admiral Cockburn lifted his eyebrows. Unlike the folks at the Tayloe house, he showed no alarm at Mama’s wild appearance. Instead, he doffed his hat and bowed from the saddle as if she were a white woman.

  ‘Nothing to be concerned about, madam. Your property is safe. My sole purpose here is to cure a certain publisher of lying and dealing in vulgarity. He can’t very well slander me without a printing press . . .or any “Cs”.’ He snorted a few times. Laughing, I think.

  Mama stamped her foot. ‘No, you fool man—’

  ‘Mama!’ I ran up and grabbed her arm. She shrugged me off.

  ‘—why are you still in this city, when God Himself told you to pack up your army and go?’

  The sailor’s head jerked up. His hat shadowed most of his face, but there was no mistaking the snap of his jaw when he closed his mouth. He dived for cover behind the admiral’s horse as if Mama was shooting bullets instead of words.

  The soldier closest to Mama took a step back, looking to Admiral Cockburn for direction. The admiral squinted at Mama, as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard aright.

  ‘I can assure you, madam, no such message has been delivered. I believe I would’ve noticed an instruction from On High. However, my time in your fair city has been woefully devoid of prodigies.’ He made a point of sighing. ‘No presidents. No angels. No burning bushes or pillars of fire – except, of course, the ones we lit ourselves.’

  ‘Oh, what about last night’s storm? You didn’t notice how it put out all those fires you worked so hard to set?’

  Something flickered across his face at the words ‘worked so hard to set’, but a scowl sent it packing. ‘It rained,’ he said. ‘Happens all the time in England. The fact that the storm put out the fires was unfortunate. But that’s what water does. Nothing sup
ernatural about it.’

  Mama gawped. ‘But . . . but . . .’

  Mama had no words. Anyone still looking for harbingers of Judgement Day could’ve stopped right there. I had more important things to do.

  ‘Time to go,’ I said. ‘You remember what French John said about the English and Napoleon. It’d take more than a storm to impress them.’

  I prayed she wouldn’t mention voudou. Anything but that. I could’ve cried with relief when Major L’Enfant trotted up behind her, looking every bit as purposeful as before. I signalled him to take her other arm. The two of us together might be able to drag her away.

  The major’s dog chose that moment to greet the admiral’s horse, who thought it only neighbourly to nose him in turn. When the horse dipped its head, Mama caught sight of the sailor behind it. She charged forward, taking me with her.

  ‘Benjamin Stone! I thought it was you with that lantern. But I told myself no. My Benjamin had the refinement of a gentleman and the commission to match. Or did you lose that in a card game, too?’

  My Benjamin. That’s what she called him. My earlier foreboding wrapped itself around me and squeezed my ribs like stays drawn tight.

  Admiral Cockburn glanced from Mama to the sailor. ‘Barnes, do you know this woman?’

  ‘Barnes?’ she jeered. ‘That’s not what you called yourself in New Orleans. Of course, you weren’t a common tar in New Orleans.’

  She knew him from New Orleans. The tightness in my chest grew worse as he straightened from his crouch. He was tall, though not so tall as some. Mama always liked them tall. She was a woman of stature herself. And in the navy. She had a powerful hankering for the water – streams, rivers, oceans and the wonders that lay beyond.

  He removed his hat and held it over his heart as if to add the power of oath to his words. I suppose his features were pleasing. I couldn’t see him that way. I was too busy comparing his silky black hair, cut just long enough to show a slight curl, to the much longer hair of the same texture and wave pinned under my kerchief. I saw his nose and the arch of his brows every time I passed a glass. But most of all, I saw his eyes, those pale grey eyes, twin to my own.