The King's Beast

by Eliot Pattison

  “Don’t be impertinent!” the landlady snapped, punctuating her words with an angry knock of her pewter foot that brought Ishmael and Olivia back to the kitchen door. “This waif died because of you, all of you! You owe him the truth!”

  “He died because of us,” Duncan admitted, the anguish tight in his throat.

  “Because of a silly feud you started with some damned soldiers! And now look at him! All his years are forfeit!”

  “Because of some devils who would stop men from voicing their freedom, Clem,” came a deep voice. Captain Rhys had appeared at the innkeeper’s side. He put a calming hand on her arm.

  “So this poor child died because colonials can’t get the respect of some starch-necked fools in Parliament?” she asked, her voice breaking.

  “Well,” Captain Rhys answered, “it’s complicated, woman. You know the political men can be—”

  “Yes,” Duncan interrupted. “That’s exactly why he died. Because Parliament would rather strap the yoke on the common man than listen to him.”

  A tear streamed down the cheek of the woman who made light of losing a leg in battle. “Then a pox on Parliament and the cowards who inhabit it!” After a moment she collected herself. “Lizzie dear, go take a look in my Jasper’s old trunk. There may be a pair of shoes there. We can’t let the boy go barefoot to St. Peter.”

  Olivia volunteered to help the maid. As they left, Patrick Woolford nudged Duncan’s arm and motioned him toward the parlor.

  “I was in my office this afternoon,” Woolford confided. “Just before the tea hour there was a great hubbub on the parade ground. I looked out to see the big green coach with the matching Friesian horses.”

  “You mean the Earl of Milbridge’s conveyance,” Duncan said.

  Woolford nodded. “Lieutenant Nettles ran out to get inside it, but it did not move. After a few minutes he ran back, then returned with the Secretary at War, who climbed inside. The Secretary at War is not a man accustomed to being summoned, believe me. When he climbed out he seemed shaken, but before he reached the building he was shouting orders. The guards at the doors were doubled. The sleepy guard at the back door where you entered was replaced with two men with swords and pistols.”

  “I’m not sure I understand, Patrick.”

  “Duncan, they began torturing that poor boy this morning. Nettles must have sent urgent word to Milbridge afterward. Milbridge arrived midafternoon and began giving urgent orders to the Secretary at War, who called for more guards and then summoned Major Hastings to his office.” Woolford paused, seeing the question in Duncan’s eyes. “It pays to be friendly with all the clerks,” he added.

  “I still don’t follow,” Duncan confessed.

  “There is only one thing that would get Milbridge so excited. The boy gave up your name.”

  For a moment Duncan seemed to have trouble breathing, then he pushed back his fear. “Surely there could be another explanation. Matters of war.”

  “I did not tell you before, Duncan. When I first returned to England months ago, the earl summoned me to accompany him to the chambers of the secretary. He asked if I knew of a man named Duncan McCallum who resided on the frontier of New York province. I said the frontier was a vast place, that the name sounded only vaguely familiar. He frowned and said that Superintendent Johnson had responded the same way to his inquiries, but that we must make greater effort against such renegades, for this McCallum had been engaged in acts against His Majesty’s government. He said if the outlaw was still at large when I returned, it was my duty to apprehend him. There would be a large bounty paid. He pays bounties just for information about you, Duncan. You know he has spies in the colonies.

  “There was a man at Johnson Hall last year.” Woolford shook his head and looked away from Duncan but kept speaking. “An ex-soldier. You were away and Sarah didn’t want you to know. He came looking for you. In a tavern he got drunk and boasted he would soon collect the rich bounty on McCallum’s head. Sarah found out and had some Mohawk friends capture him. They tied him to a tree and made as if to kill him. Then Sarah appeared and told him that if he ever was seen within a hundred miles of Edentown the Mohawks would burn him alive. Then she cut him free. He fled, never came back.”

  Duncan clenched his jaw. He had lost track of the number of secrets Sarah had been keeping from him. “You are saying there is an order for my arrest?”

  “No. I asked to see such an order, on the pretense that it should be distributed on the frontier. As I expected, there is none. The secretary said this was more in the way of a private matter for the earl, that some outlaws must be dealt with discreetly for the sake of the government, and the earl had authority over those who handle such things for the king. I wasn’t going to tell you. As far as I knew you were safe in Edentown surrounded by Mohawks and protected by Sarah. But Milbridge is a merciless devil enamored of his own powers, which the king sees fit to keep increasing. There is talk that he will be the next Secretary at War.”

  “And now I am in his city.”

  “No one will challenge what he does. If his tentacles wrap around you no one will ever see you again. What he feels for you is beyond loathing. His hatred is an obsession. You took his daughter. You took his dream for his own colony west of New York. Then you took away one of his plantations and his title in the Virginia militia.”

  “He made a very poor admiral of the Virginia sea,” Duncan said.

  “This is nothing to joke about. He has estates now in the Carolinas, in Yorkshire, in Kent, in the West Indies. He has so many palaces and lodges he probably can’t remember them all and so many kept women he doubtless forgets their names. He’s had three wives who suffered terrible accidents when he grew weary of them. He has only two obsessions that will never fade. His never-ending lust for power and his never-ending lust for your head on a spike.”

  “Sarah’s father is not my business here. I will avoid him and be gone soon.”

  “My God, Duncan, you are not listening! If he wants them at his command, Hastings and Nettles and their black-hearted company are his! Now that he has reason to believe you are here, everyone connected with you will be targeted. Do not force me to have to tell Sarah her father killed you. I will stand by you. I will continue to lie to the War Council to protect you. But do not be dismissive of the threat, I beg you. You put Ishmael at risk. You put Olivia at risk. You put this poor boy at risk. If you keep going without more care, you will put Franklin and his household at risk.”

  “And Conawago?” came an anguished voice from the shadows. Ishmael had been listening. “Was Conawago at risk?”

  “Ishmael,” Duncan said, “you shouldn’t—”

  “Is my uncle in Bedlam because of you, Duncan?”

  Duncan turned to Woolford, who grimaced and looked away.

  “Was he in Bedlam because he was a friend of yours? If Milbridge had agents making inquiries on the frontier about Duncan McCallum, then surely he would have learned that your closest companion was Conawago!”

  “Ishmael,” Duncan said, struggling for words. “I can’t—I won’t—I don’t know,” he finally admitted.

  Ishmael’s face clouded with rage. He stormed past Duncan to the inn’s front door, slamming it behind him.

  Duncan worked in morbid silence over the body of the link boy, cleaning the wounds and sewing up a long gash in his upper arm where a blade had pierced him. He pushed down his emotion as he worked but it welled up with a silent sob as he tied a knot in the thread and looked at the ruin of Robbie’s face. The boy was dead because of him. The grief ripped at his heart, and he slipped outside, bracing himself against the wall as he took in deep gulps of the cool night air to steady himself. When he finally returned, Mrs. Laws was using the needle and thread to repair the dead boy’s ragged clothes. He murmured a farewell to Woolford, who agreed to escort Olivia back to Craven Street, and silently followed them onto the front steps. Ishmael was nowhere to be seen. He had lost Robbie and now might be losing Ishmael.

 
; The Nipmuc’s words bore down on him with a terrible weight. He believed it unlikely that Milbridge had known of his connection with the tribal ambassador who had arrived in London but he could not entirely dismiss the possibility. He knew that Sarah’s father had lawyers, minor officials, magistrates, and more nefarious agents in his pay, in both England and America. He had invested much in an effort to double the term of Duncan’s indentured servitude, frustrated only when John Adams stepped in at Sarah’s request. He had killed Sarah’s Iroquois father. His men had enslaved Duncan and many natives and Sons of Liberty on his tobacco plantation in Virginia. There were no depths to which he would not stoop, and the more Duncan considered the torment Conawago was suffering, the more he knew it could be true that his friend was being punished because of Duncan.

  He helped carry Robbie’s body into the stable, where a trestle table covered with a sheet awaited him. The dead boy would be visited by his friends in the morning, then sewn into the sheet. Mrs. Laws called into the shadows for more lanterns and stools, but no one replied.

  “Mr. John’s gone, this hour and more,” Lizzie explained. “He and Xander gathered a dozen of the boys and they stole off into the night.”

  “I’ll stay with the boy,” Captain Rhys offered. “Someone should keep vigil.”

  “We’ll take watches, Captain,” Darby said. “I’ll relieve you.”

  “We’ll fetch some tea for you,” Mrs. Laws suggested, “and in the morning Lizzie and I shall set out food for a proper wake.”

  “And the choir,” Lizzie said. “The boys will want to sing him something. Robbie dearly loved to sing, such a soft gentle voice.”

  Duncan slipped away, out into the street, making a circuit around the block, then climbing up to their rooms when he still could not find Ishmael. The young Nipmuc had not come back. Ishmael’s bed was still made, and Duncan sat on it for several brooding minutes before venturing into the cramped passage that led to the roof. The little flat at the base of the roof was empty. Knowing Ishmael’s propensity for climbing he studied the roof itself, confirming no one sat on the peaks of the gables, then descended to the street.

  He was sitting on the inn’s front steps when the city’s steeples struck midnight. The deep voice of a parish watch called out from a block away. “Mid of night and the sky is fair,” came the hourly call of time and weather that would be echoed by watchmen all over London. He looked into the sky, painfully recalling the many nights he had discussed the stars with Conawago, then turned toward the east, toward Ludgate Hill.

  He stayed in the shadows along the edge of the Strand, then Fleet Street, politely declining offers from link boys and night women. Twice he ducked into alleys and watched the street to confirm there was no one to worry about.

  St. Paul’s chuchyard held several sleeping bodies covered with blankets or cloaks. To his surprise a beggar was stationed by the entrance, wearing a tattered cassock. “Alms for poor,” he chanted, “alms for your soul.” Duncan suspected the alms would be going to a local alehouse but still dropped a ha’penny into what looked like a church collection plate.

  He felt insignificant as he stepped into the cavernous nave. Huge lanterns hanging along the walls cast flickering shadows, lending movement to the pious statues below them. A woman sat in a pew, weeping. A cleric knelt on a prayer bench in a small chapel to the side. Duncan paused in the crossing, the centermost point under Christopher Wren’s massive dome, and looked up toward the narrow, silvery windows high overhead. He recollected an enjoyable meal at the Neptune during which Mrs. Laws and Sinner John had described the remarkable features of the building.

  The narrow, curving stairs grew darker as he climbed, lit only by the moon’s rays that seeped through the windows at the landings. He reached the walkway around the base of the dome, called the Whispering Gallery, then climbed ever upward to a narrow door that led out to the narrower Stone Gallery. He made one circuit of the walkway, then located yet another even narrower stairway and climbed again, emerging onto what the innkeeper had called the Golden Gallery, the small topmost level at the base of the lantern-like pinnacle. His despair deepened as he found this walkway empty as well. Then he noticed a small ladder built into a sliding track for workmen needing to access the lantern-shaped cap of the dome. He stretched high to pull the ladder down and climbed up, discovering a surprisingly wide ledge that was invisible from below.

  The solitary figure sat with his legs dangling over the edge. Regretting that he was not as fearless about heights as his tribal friends, Duncan sat against a column near the Nipmuc, but did not speak. A cool breeze had cleared the haze over London. The gibbous moon washed the city with its metallic glow, silhouetting the steeples, towers, and high palace roofs above the densely packed houses. In the distance, two miles away, he could make out the towers of Westminster. The lonely call of a nighthawk echoed below them. From the river came the sound of distant bells as ships marked the watch.

  “London seemed a miracle when I first saw it,” Ishmael suddenly said, “a wonder of the modern world. But it doesn’t feel like it anymore. I never would have believed men could banish nature the way they have here. In America, in Philadelphia or Boston or New York, you are always close to trees and a quarter hour’s walk can always take you to farmland or forest. We shouldn’t be surprised there is so much cruelty in this place. Men are adrift here. They’ve cut their roots to the land. It is the earth that gives strength to a man’s heart, that enriches his spirit. Without that what is a man? An empty shell, kept busy with coffee shops, gossip, and fancy ribbon sellers.”

  Duncan had no reply. He followed Ishmael’s gaze to the long, ominous-looking structure several blocks away, bifurcated by a tower.

  “If these English had not cut their roots to the true things,” Ishmael said, “there would be no need for a place like Bedlam.”

  “That sounds like something Conawago would say,” Duncan offered, regretting the words as he saw the pain they brought to Ishmael’s face. Neither spoke for several minutes. An owl glided past on silent wings and disappeared in the shadows of the shorter tower above the west portico. Ishmael twisted his head, trying to make it out. Owls were sometimes seen as harbingers of death, but they were also potent messengers to the spirit world. The young Nipmuc seemed troubled by the sign. “We can’t just rescue my uncle,” he said. “I know you agree. Not after what they did to Robbie. It proves they are devil walkers,” he said, referring to an old myth of his tribe about demons who stalked men and killed them to eat their souls.

  “You must rescue Conawago and get on the Galileo,” Duncan said. “I will make the devil walkers pay.”

  “And know I was a coward for the rest of my days?” Ishmael snapped. “Not me. Not now. I didn’t tell you. I went out to Charing Cross two nights ago and sat with those link boys. Robbie was there. He asked questions about the tribes. He asked what the pouch was I always carried around my neck, and I said it was my protector spirit. He asked if he could touch it, and when he did he jerked his hand away, saying he felt something like a spark. I said it meant the spirits were speaking with him, that they would protect him now too. He rejoiced and said the tribes were calling him, and since he had no family here could he could go back with us to be with the tribes. But now I know I lied. The spirits couldn’t be with him. I don’t think they have even taken notice of us.”

  Duncan had trouble speaking past the lump in his throat. “I will find another place to stay,” he said. “If Milbridge truly knows I am in London his men will be like wolves on the hunt. I can’t put those at the Neptune in danger.”

  “Noah can find a place for you.”

  Duncan nodded. “Tomorrow. I promised Dr. Franklin I would go to a textile works with him. I don’t like him traveling unprotected. Tonight I will sleep in Mrs. Laws’s hayloft.” Duncan thought a moment, then reached inside his waistcoat into the secret pocket he had sewn there. As Ishmael watched he touched the white wampum beads, the sacred beads, the truth beads, to his forehead,
then to his heart. He held them out toward Ishmael and then extended them toward the brilliant moon.

  “By the gods of the forest,” he intoned loudly, “by the gods of the sky, by the gods of the water, I swear that I will not leave London without Conawago, even if I must give my life.”

  He heard a sharp intake of breath. Ishmael was watching as the owl approached again, swooping close now as it swiveled its head toward them. It then flew directly toward the moon.

  “Duncan!” Ishmael cried with sudden excitement. “That’s a forest owl! He’s finally arrived. Your beads brought him close, and now he’s heard you, now he knows we are here. He came from the west, flying low over all those Englishmen before coming back to us. He heard your words and saw the beads! He knows his duty now. Sometimes the old ones fall asleep.”

  “I’m not sure I follow,” Duncan admitted.

  “An owl can be a bad omen, Duncan, but this one is bad for the English. He is rising to the moon now to wake the old gods. They have a lot to answer for.”

  Dr. Franklin was not well pleased that his household took Duncan’s view and insisted he not go out unescorted. “I am proceeding to the textile mill and I shall have my blackthorn shillelagh,” he argued when Duncan arrived, now wearing a cloak with a hood borrowed from Captain Rhys.

  “And I will see that he has an escort,” a soft, impish voice declared. Olivia Dumont appeared at the entrance to his sitting room. “Benjamin, mon cher,” Olivia exclaimed with an exaggerated French accent. “You are too important a personage to take casual risks. Mr. McCallum is a great frontiersman who wrestles bears and lions and the incognitum! You must heed his advice.” Duncan rolled his eyes at her. She decided she had won her argument and hooked her arm through Franklin’s. The inventor paused at the door to speak to Henry Quinn, who was unobtrusively transcribing letters at the desk in the corner of the room.

  “Those three letters to Whitehall will also need copying, one for our records here and one to be sent back to the colonies. Oh, and if you have a moment, remind Mrs. Stevenson that the new shower bath is due to arrive any day now, the one of Mr. Feetham’s patent. We will need to make room for it in the bath closet. Our expedition should conclude by noon, though we shall take luncheon before returning. Maybe the shower bath will be here when we return!”