The King's Beast

by Eliot Pattison

  “They apparently have a deeper hold on secrets of the Sons than we thought,” Mulligan put in sharply.

  Duncan studied the two men, and the way Thomson now looked at Mulligan, as if for an answer. “They knew of Ezra’s mission for the Covenant,” Mulligan stated. “They knew of your mission for the incognitum. Both arranged out of London.” The New York tailor fixed Thomson with a troubled gaze. “We have a spy working against us, Charles.”

  Thomson held his head in his hands. “Many think the Sons drift too far from the king,” he said, looking up. “We can’t retreat in fear of them, else they will succeed.”

  “Why do you suddenly think that affects Pierre’s voyage to London?” Duncan pressed.

  “A rider came from the west, bringing a letter from Reynolds in Pittsburgh, in which he states suspicions that our enemies are moving in coordination against our campaigns for both the Covenant and the incognitum, despite great efforts by Franklin and ourselves to keep them separate. And also news from Lancaster that a tinsmith’s shop was burned down.”

  Duncan hesitated, recalling that Mathias had mentioned the fire, which had occurred the night before the murderers’ accomplice had left town. “And?”

  “Not long afterward, your wagons were set upon.” Thomson quickly quieted the alarm on Duncan’s face. “All is well. But it may mean you were right, Duncan, that we face the same enemy on every front. Not just fleeing in front of the bones but also following them.”

  Thomson paced along his broad window with his hands behind his back. “You’re not known as a man who retreats, McCallum,” he said in a chagrined tone. “Samuel Adams says you were the Sons’ strong back along the frontier.”

  “All the more reason I must return to the frontier. Under no circumstances will I go to London.”

  “You want to return to the frontier because of an auburn-haired siren,” Mulligan groused.

  Duncan was on his feet in an instant, struggling to keep his fists at his sides. “You are speaking of my betrothed! Go no further, sir, or I will meet you outside!”

  Mulligan raised his hands in surrender. He slowly lowered them, then fixed Duncan with an intense stare. “My mistake. I apologize, sir. She is more beautiful than any siren. Never would I disparage Miss Ramsey. And since you refuse to go to London, perhaps you can help me with other efforts of the Sons. New York is a town of many freedom-loving artisans. And if I could get your intended to New York town I could have her dining with the adjutants, even General Gage himself.”

  The abrupt change in tone, and subject, caused Duncan to hesitate. “You would use Sarah to cajole the supreme military commander in North America?”

  “If he is not soon convinced to pull his troops out of Boston, there will be a catastrophe, I am certain of it. We need more time to appeal to reasonable minds in London. Sarah is more informed about events in what Gage calls the field than any woman I know, and he speaks much more freely with the fairer sex than with men. She is easily capable of engaging, then enchanting Gage. And she has a name.”

  A shiver ran down Duncan’s back. “Meaning what, pray tell?”

  “Gage is a friend of her father’s,” Mulligan explained. “They belong to the same club in London. He has invested in certain of her father’s enterprises.”

  “Sarah has broken with her father.”

  “I am confident the great lord would not have shared that embarrassing news. General Gage does not know that. But he does know about angry Massachusetts villages building their own arsenals outside of Boston, and his advisers push him to deploy more troops so they can seize the arsenals. The Sons are pressing for a rational political dialogue, not irrational deaths. We need more time. Franklin needs all the help we can give him. You said the killers were probably soldiers. You will never find them here. But Gage may know. In fact, he may have dispatched them himself, in which case we shall discover them all the sooner with Miss Ramsey’s help.”

  Duncan gazed at Mulligan, his heart a leaden weight. The world indeed did not know the details of Sarah’s breaking with the pompous, diabolical, too-powerful Ramsey of the House of Lords. Ramsey had so loathed what Sarah had become during what he called her Iroquois captivity that he had once planned to have London surgeons quiet her by excising part of her brain. Ramsey had done everything in his power to separate Duncan and Sarah, and had proven he would not hesitate to have Duncan killed if given the chance. But Duncan would not speak of such things. “Sarah is already helping the cause of the Sons more than you know,” he said instead. “She has turned Edentown into a covert post office for the Sons, and hosts the newspaper that is the voice of liberty on the frontier. Now she is embarking on manufacturing to support your Covenant.”

  Thomson and Mulligan exchanged a meaningful glance that Duncan could make no sense of. Mulligan gave a shrug, as if to reject Duncan’s arguments. “I know Miss Ramsey not well, but well enough to know she would not want you to make such a decision for her. And buttons will be made whether she is in Edentown or not.”

  The only thing preventing Duncan from giving full voice to his anger at the man was the high opinion that John Hancock and Samuel Adams had of the New York tailor. His Boston friends had warned Duncan of Mulligan’s acerbic, even manipulative nature, but had encouraged him to get to know the tailor better. “His shop supplies uniforms to every senior officer in Gage’s headquarters,” Hancock had told Duncan, “and he makes sure he is the personal tailor to every colonel and general. Like a valet. And every gentleman confides to his valet.”

  Duncan kept his voice impassive. “I shall broach your suggestion to Sarah, and we shall—”

  “They are here!” Thomson suddenly cried, interrupting Duncan. “Praise the Lord, they have arrived!” He grabbed his hat and darted outside. Through the open door Duncan saw Ishmael wearily climb down from one of the big blue Conestoga wagons he had last seen in Pittsburgh. His left arm was in a bloodstained sling.

  “Bad fall,” was all Ishmael would say when Duncan asked about his injury, and the young Nipmuc hurried away to help Dumont down from the second wagon. The French scholar seemed about to drop from exhaustion, and Thomson rushed to escort him inside, calling to his houseboy for tea, then more loudly for brandy. Only two of the three teamsters Duncan had seen with the wagons in Pittsburgh were still with the convoy, though three more escorts climbed down, all strangers in their late teens. They wore dark homespun clothing and straw hats and stared wide-eyed at the buildings surrounding them.

  “Sons of farmers, from Lancaster,” Ishmael explained. “Palatine Germans, only one with any English. Mrs. McCrae insisted on them, after our difficulties, though she said I had to pay their parents in advance. Ten shillings for each,” Ishmael said apologetically. “But steady workers, and happy to do night watch. They pretend to be soldiers, saluting and marching around the perimeter with ax handles on their shoulders.”

  Duncan raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t cut your arm falling down,” he stated. “What difficulties?”

  Ishmael led Duncan to the far side of the team, to avoid eavesdroppers, then began to remove the harness. “We were followed after the Harris ferry on the Susquehanna. Someone had to have been waiting for us there. The more I think about it the more certain I am of it. It would be the easiest way to intercept us, since the ferry only runs in the daylight and our two wagons would be so conspicuous.”

  “But they didn’t just follow,” Duncan guessed.

  “That night after leaving Harris Landing, just a few miles from Lancaster, gunpowder starting exploding around us. Not guns or bombs; I discovered afterward it was just pots of powder to make bright flashes to spook the teams. The horses broke their picket line and fled. Dumont and I stayed with the oldest teamster while the others ran after the horses. The intruder seemed to think we all had fled to the horses. He was bringing demijohns of turpentine into the camp when we accosted him.”

  “Turpentine?” Duncan asked.

  “I think he meant to burn everything, though
Dumont insists he was a thief since no one in their right mind would destroy such priceless treasures. He’s probably right, but I don’t see how the thief expected to haul off two big wagons without his own teams. I tried to capture him but he slashed at my arm with his belt knife. A fast brute, with a jagged scar on his cheek. The old teamster drove him off me with blows of a whip, though the fool got himself stabbed deep in the shoulder for his trouble. His spirits rose considerably, though, when Mrs. McCrae demanded that he stay with her for a month to heal the wound. When she learned we were the ones you said to expect, she declined the coins I offered, saying her castle was always open to help a Highlander.”

  “Where was Dumont during this great battle?” Duncan asked.

  Ishmael draped the harness over his shoulder, then turned with a grin. “The professor jumped up on the seat of the nearest wagon, swinging a frying pan over his head and shouting ‘On ne passe pas!’ over and over, whatever that means.”

  Duncan smiled at the image of the Frenchman Ishmael had painted. The scholar wasn’t fit for the rigors of the frontier but Duncan admired his spirit. “You shall not pass,” Duncan translated. “An old French battle cry.”

  “Our attacker was fierce but when our fight took him close to the wagon and Dumont bounced the iron skillet off his skull, he had his fill. When the teams came back an hour later we broke camp and went on into Lancaster. Watchmen at the edge of town stopped us and said they were looking for a scoundrel who broke one of the boundary stone markers while riding north. A farmer witnessed it a few days earlier and had just reported it. The stranger was trotting along and suddenly halted as he spied a marker stone in the field, then he dismounted, paced around it several times, then with a big rock shattered the marker stone as if Mason and Dixon had offended him somehow. The farmer marked the position with a post, then brought the pieces to town. The watch asked if I had seen such a man, with a jagged scar on his cheek. I told them of our encounter, though what bones and stones have in common I cannot imagine. Nothing to do with us. Just a mean-spirited bully and highwayman, the watch said, and despaired of catching him. In any event I continued on into town, for by then I was too weary to help them. Then a boy climbed out of a tree and said Mrs. McCrae was expecting us.”

  “She makes a fine stew. Or perhaps brews it, given all the ale mixed into it.”

  As Ishmael dropped some coins in the hand of a groom who had arrived from the nearby stable, he nodded. “I was almost jealous of our injured man when he heard he was staying the month with her. Except those working in the tavern began raving about how he could join them in celebrating the transit of Venus, whatever that is. Sounds like some pagan ritual.”

  Duncan grinned once more. “Yes, one led by an unruly tribe called the American Philosophical Society.”

  “ ‘His nose like a Hanging Pillar wide / and Eyes like shining Suns.’ ” The more Charles Thomson read, the more dramatic his voice became. “ ‘His Arms like limbs of trees twenty foot long.’ ”

  Hercules Mulligan noisily set his cup on his saucer to interrupt. “Charles, it’s just a fanciful poem,” he protested.

  The devout, ever-earnest Thomson gave no sign of hearing. “Fingers with bones like horse shanks and as strong,” he continued. “ ‘His Thighs do stand like two Vast Millposts stout’!” He looked up with a victorious gleam and pointed to the huge bone Duncan had recovered from the mud pit, now taking up most of Thomson’s dining table. “Can you doubt it? The proof is before us! Here sits the very thigh bone!”

  “A poem written a hundred years ago,” Dumont retorted.

  “Never in life!” Thomson shot back. “ ’Twas but sixty years ago,” he corrected, gesturing to the dusty tome he had retrieved from a high shelf. “Written by a renowned member of the clergy and attested to by no less a man than that most pious of Massachusetts governors, Cotton Mather himself! There are precious few who have seen such bones but Mather was one.”

  The group had spent hours unloading the precious cargo into Thomson’s parlor, kitchen, and back stoop. They had agreed that no more than twenty of the relics would be shipped to Franklin, and by mutual agreement Thomson, Mulligan, Dumont, Deborah Franklin, Duncan, and Ishmael had each selected the ones they thought should travel to London with the French scholar. While settling on the final twenty, Dumont had made what now seemed a blunder by suggesting that they apply scholarly criteria to their final choices, to provide for an orderly process in solving the mystery of the incognitum. Thomson took offense, saying the mystery had been solved long ago by men of God, then called for his young servant for a stool so he could retrieve the book, which he had passed around the company with an evangelical fervor.

  The poem was called “The Gyant of Claverack,” and its inspiration had been a huge tooth found in 1705 on the banks of the Hudson, which the leading lights of Boston had declared to be from a member of a giant human race. The biblical scholars, who also ran the most prominent schools, had invoked the tooth as evidence that the native tribes were the remnants of a race of giants which had fallen from grace and been punished by the Great Flood.

  “There are those, Mr. Thomson,” Deborah Franklin said in a patient, moderating tone, “who are inclined to think these bones came from great beasts such as have been seen in Africa. When brave men finally cross this continent, they will no doubt find them.”

  Thomson frowned. “When all the bones are assembled we shall see, madame,” he replied with stiff politeness.

  “Not all the bones are from the same creature,” Duncan offered, drawing a vigorous nod from Dumont. Duncan stepped to the skull with two large fangs extending from its upper jaw, then pointed to the great tooth on the table. “That tooth did not come from this jaw,” he stated.

  Thomson frowned again. “Is it true that the great Bone Lick where you recovered these has plumes of choking sulfur gas?”

  “True.”

  “And nothing grows anywhere on the Lick?”

  “Because,” Duncan explained, “the springs bring up salt and other minerals. It is what drew these animals there, what still draws buffalo and deer.”

  “You miss the point,” Thomson protested. “Sulfur is the smell of brimstone. The Lick is a reminder from God. Our theologians say He annihilated the original savage giants and the fallen men to start the human race over. But he left the Lick to show us what he had done, and what the entire planet will become again unless we shape ourselves to his will. It is a little sliver of Hades, left to remind us of the narrow path of righteousness. Blessed are those who hear the word and obey.”

  It was Dumont who broke the awkward silence. “The king of France will be most unhappy,” he declared in an oddly mischievous tone. He was gazing with obvious pleasure at a vertebra that was nearly as large as those Duncan had seen in whale skeletons in the Hebrides. Dumont noticed his companions’ confusion. “He places great store in the word of his natural philosopher Monsieur Buffon, who heads what the sovereign calls his collection of curiosities. Buffon has long dismissed the Americas as being of no interest to natural philosophy. He claims to have proven that all its species are inferior in size and health to those of the Old World. But this”—he tapped the vertebrae—“will prove the old fool wrong! I shall confront him and witness his embarrassment for myself.”

  “Nonsense! It proves nothing!” Thomson’s voice thickened. “Have you not listened? The Great Flood washed over the Lick before it was scoured with brimstone. A whale may well have been stranded there.”

  Duncan was not the only one to see the heat rising in Dumont’s face.

  “And there you have it!” Deborah Franklin interjected. “A reflection of the exhilarating debates inspired by these amazing objects! No doubt that is why my Benjamin so urgently desires them, for he does so love to keep guests entertained with lively dialogue! Ancient incognitum and electricity! How the sparks will fly!” she added, drawing subdued laughter.

  They had agreed on most of the London-bound treasures when Duncan noticed that
Ishmael was missing. He found the exhausted Nipmuc fast asleep at the kitchen table with his head cradled on a folded arm, his other arm, now bandaged, extended on the table. Duncan had cleaned and stitched the wound, futilely advising Ishmael to keep it in a sling for a few days. Thomson readily consented to have his kitchen boy escort Ishmael to the Preston House, where Sarah would find him a bed as she waited for her shipment from Lancaster.

  Dumont posed a question that, to Duncan’s surprise, no one in Philadelphia had considered. “What happens to the rest of the collection after I leave for London?” the Frenchman asked.

  “The Society shall have it, of course,” Thomson asserted.

  “Prithee, Charles, to which of the societies do you refer?” Deborah Franklin asked. Her companions were well aware of the friction between the American Philosophical Society and the American Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge, both of which were actively preparing for the coming transit of Venus. She gave an awkward laugh as she saw the cloud she had raised on Thomson’s face. “I am a poor arbiter, gentlemen, since my Benjamin founded the Philosophical Society, though certainly the proponents of Useful Knowledge have done valuable work. All have expressed great interest in the incognitum.”

  “Perhaps then our bones will provide the impetus for the two to merge,” Duncan suggested.

  “The Philosophical Society has earned a place at the forefront of the colony,” Thomson declared with uncharacteristic vigor, then darted to his desk, where he extracted a crudely printed sheet. He held up the sheet, with the heading APS AGENDA, and handed it to Duncan, who read it with Mulligan leaning over his shoulder. The agenda items from the last Society meeting were all phrased as questions.

  First: Who is more important to Pennsylvania, the farmer or the merchant?

  Next: Should colonies print their own money and send taxes to London in provincial currency?

  Then: Is the electrical phantasm stored in a Leyden jar derived from the air or from the metal?

  The fourth: Should women be admitted to Councils of State?