Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) (31 page)

I gave him a soft little laugh. “And good for you, followin’ your orders so well. But what makes you so sure I’m a civilian, Captain…um---?”

The soldier, who couldn’t have been more than five years older than the real me, flushed red as I ran my poked finger across my bottom lip. Boys are all the same. Sweet silly old hound dogs. “Uh, Private, ma’am. Private Sawyer.”

“My mistake, Private. I am positively blinded by your command presence.”

“Not at all, Miss---?”

“Mahoney. Alaena Mahoney.” I’d been thinking for a while about what name to use. My Grandma had been a Mahoney, from Belfast. Easy to remember in a pinch. And I used her pet name for my Ma for the same reason.

“You ain’t a civilian, Miss Mahoney? Pardon me for sayin’ it, but I sure don’t recall seein’ anybody in the army as purty as you and no mistake.”

Yep, a girl can sure get used to this. Might have to think about changin’ outta these overalls some day, when all this quest business is done with.

I let him wiggle for a second while I gave him a brilliant smile, then I really turned on the charm. “Why, aren’t you just the most splendid thing on two legs! A lady could get used to hearing such a handsome man talk like that. Turn my head, you will. But to be serious for just a moment, Mr. Sawyer. I have an important message to deliver to our great and good General Robert E. Lee.” I touched his sleeve just like I’d done to the lawyer in town. “Personally.” He whimpered like a famished dog staring at a bone.

And that was how, two minutes later, I found myself being escorted into Confederate headquarters like the Queen of Sheba.

24/ Robert E. Lee

Tyrell grinned at me and touched his hat brim with a finger. The instant I saw him the Stone froze solid. Then the shooting began.

The Widow Dabbs lived in a fine white two-story frame house with green shutters. I saw no sign of her, so I guessed she’d been moved into Richmond like the other civilians. As with some of the earlier dwellings we’d passed, the front lawn served as observation post, map reading center, and officers’ lounge. Not a lot of that happened in the rain. Most everybody stayed inside, except for a pair of glum sentries and a lieutenant in a gum overcoat sitting on top of the roof, eye jammed into a huge telescope. Every now and then he’d holler some military gibberish like ‘enfilade’ or ‘flying battery’ down to a sergeant in a second-floor bedroom. That man would scribble hasty notes and slap them into the hand of a private, who’d dash down the stairs and deliver them to a clump of officers crowded around a map. Then they’d make noises like a bunch of high-ranking chickens, clucking and babbling. Every few minutes a messenger would blast up on a sweaty snorting horse to gasp out something that would set them a-fussing all over again. No sooner would they send him back with a written or oral command then another would arrive to make them all flutter some more.
If that makes for efficient military maneuverin’ then my name’s Horace Greeley. But heck, they’re all generals and colonels, so what do I know?

Private Sawyer, duly chastised for disobeying his orders and bringing me into Lee’s headquarters, stood back at his post near the road, getting rained on again. Perhaps as a reward, the drizzle showed signs of ending soon. So did the battle. Most of the heavy artillery fire had already tapered off, leaving just the occasional rattle of muskets. From what I could overhear, which with my ears was pretty near all of what they said, the Yankees had pulled back after finding out that the Williamsburg Road hadn’t been abandoned after all. They’d heard rumors of a Rebel flanking movement and hoped that the defenses had been stripped to send men around to the north. When that proved untrue McClellan moved his reconnaissance brigade back to where it’d started. General Lee had been up at the battle line since the guns had first started dueling. One of the couriers brought word that he was on his way back, now that things were quieting.

They’d not known how to react to me, women at headquarters being as rare as oars on a duck. Their first reaction had been to send me packing, rain or no rain, but Southern chivalry won out over military logic. Instead they plopped me on a comfy wing chair in a corner of the drawing room and tried to question me as to just what I thought I was doing. That didn’t last long. By now I’d learned how powerful this glamour could be. Turning the tables on them, I complimented every man in range on his hospitality, good looks, military genius, and general Confederate adorability. In three minutes my feet were up on a footstool, I’d been given a towel for my wet face, and hot coffee filled my cup. I felt like a prize racehorse being readied for the big event.

One colonel managed to recall that there was still a war on. “Miss Mahoney, you say you have a private message for General Lee when he returns?”

I nodded, sipping my coffee and nibbling on a sweet roll somebody’d found for me.
Great! I’m starvin’.Tyrell has all of our supplies on his horse.
“I do, indeed.”

“And you can’t tell any of us because…?”

“Because she hasn’t bothered to invent it yet,” said Jasper to me, snickering.

I tried to ignore him and focus on my new character. Out with Mary Williams, in with Alaena Mahoney. “Ooh, aren’t you just bursting with inquisitiveness! Believe me, I would dearly love to share my news with all of you and get out of harm’s way. Really, I would. Not to disparage the fine company in which I find myself, of course. But the party who entrusted the information to me insisted that he was on a mission of extreme delicacy for the good general. His instructions were quite clear: from my lips to General Lee’s ears only. The information is that sensitive.” To help my cause I lingered on ‘lips’. The poor man’s brain visibly shut down for a second.
Is it really that easy to turn men into marionettes? Have to keep that in mind.

“Uh…well, then…,” he stammered. “Perhaps we’ll just let you sit there a spell. The general’s on his way, according to his aide.”

“You are the soul of kindness, sir,” I purred with a warm smile and a wink. He shuffled off to look at the map, eyes a bit crossed.

I must use this power only for good.

“You must use this power to get us the heck outta here,” Jasper insisted.

“Don’t fret,” I thought to him, keeping an eye on the room. “Things’re goin’ perfect so far.”

“So far. Let’s not push it. Get hold of Romulus and let’s go.”

“You know that’s not all we’re here for. Relax. Have some more coffee.” I sipped out of the cup, feeling the brew warm my insides. Real coffee, too, not one of those awful chicory substitutes.

“Mmm,” he sighed. I could almost feel his toes wiggle, if he’d had any. “I like this stuff. You’re rechargin’ your magick again. That sweet roll ain’t hurtin’, neither.”

Most of the whiskey had cleared from my head. The coffee and food dimmed the headache, too, and quieted my upset stomach
. I could almost take a nap. That’d be real nice.
I caught myself before I let that happen. Falling asleep and then being awakened by General Lee could easily lead me to say the wrong thing. And I’d only get this one brief chance to speak to him, I felt sure of that.

“Nothin’ outta the Stone, I see,” Jasper observed.

“Nope. Not cold, not glowin’, not dancin’ a jig. All’s quiet on the evil front.”

“Fine by me. Wouldn’t do much for your stealthiness to have to use Morphageus in here.”

I smiled to myself. “Can you imagine the letters home if we had a fight right now?”

Jasper imitated some hapless Alabama major writing home. “‘Dearest Mabel. You’ll never believe the amazin’ occurrence I had the misfortune to witness yesterday. A veritable paragon of Irlann femininity whupped up on the flower of Confederate manhood with a glowin’ sword. I swear it’s true, as I live and breathe.’”

“Let’s just keep our wits about us so I can live and breathe. We may have to change things in a hurry if our plans go wrong. Listen.”

I told him what I wanted to do and asked if it’d be possible.”

“Oh, sure,” he told me. “It’s possible. Cost you a little extra, though.”

I’d been afraid of that. “What?”

He paused for dramatic effect. “Is that a bottle of sherry on the sideboard?”

“No! Are you crazy? I am
not
drinkin’ again, even to save my own skin.”

“Or Romulus’?”

That brought me up short.
Darn you, Jasper.
“OK, but just one---”

He giggled. “Just joshin’. I don’t need the headache any more than you do. Bring on the sweet rolls!”

And that’s why crumbs covered my lap when the head of the Army of Northern Virginia stomped in, mud on his boots and his fine gray coat.

You’ve seen photographs of Robert E. Lee and maybe you think you have some idea about him. Trust me, you don’t. I controlled a room full of men with a magickal spell. He did it with…well, I can’t rightly say what he did it with. Class, maybe? Presence? Bearing? Whatever he had, I knew Verity didn’t have it, not without the Legacy Stone, Morphageus, and every Marshal of the Equity to be found in Northern America. As soon as he entered the room I sat up straighter, just like when my school’s headmaster had burst in last year looking for the student who’d nailed him into the outhouse (it’d seemed like a good idea at the time).

Taller than most, but not President Lincoln’s height, General Lee looked to be about fifty years old, maybe a bit more. Though he didn’t go past Abe in altitude he sure had him beat in looks. The room was jammed with strapping young lieutenants and captains in their twenties but you only looked at the general. His hair and beard had turned gray, to be sure, but that only made him seem more like King Arthur searching for a Round Table to sit at. A lifetime of soldiering, from the Mexican War to commanding at West Point, had made him into a weathered oak, all the weaknesses worn away. His eyes sparkled with a fire that I’d see in many people after that day. It came from seeing men fight one another, from smelling powder burn, and from hearing steel smash against steel.

I’m sure I stopped breathing for a second. Later on it came to me just why. Here stood the sort of man I’d always thought Pa would be, if we hadn’t lost him.

I touched my chest, in that awe-struck way you do when something just amazes you, but also because I wanted to check the Stone’s reaction to him. Now that I’d felt such a strong pull toward him, I really wanted to know if Lee used dark magick to control the Confederate army, if the Honourable Merchantry had a mage in at the top.

Nothing. Not a peep from the red rock around my neck. General Lee did it the old-fashioned way. That didn’t mean he wasn’t a Merchantry man, but at least he was no black sorcerer.

Stuck in my corner, I made no immediate impression on him. Okay with me. I needed to get my thoughts--and my lies—together. He put on spectacles and bent over the map, which must’ve been hard to see in the fading light. Although the rain had pretty much all stopped, the dark clouds that’d brought it remained, making it darker in the sitting room than usual for just past six o’clock. An aide lit a lantern and hung it up to help his general read. The room got real crowded. More aides and brigade commanders, men who’d accompanied Lee when he’d ridden out to the sound of the guns, pushed their way inside. My sensitive nose began to get overwhelmed with the smell of unwashed bodies, sweat, gun smoke, mud, manure, and everything else that went with a hard day’s soldiering.

“A sharp fight, but those people are right back where they started,” Lee said, almost to himself. His voice had a soft quality with a strong core, like a saber resting in its velvet scabbard. It sure did suit him.

“Yes, sir,” agreed the colonel who’d questioned me earlier. “Heintzelman’s Corps, probing for a weakness. Guess he found out that there isn’t one in this army.”

Everyone laughed but Lee, who still managed a small smile. I felt like a guest at somebody else’s family reunion, watching all of the young men cluster around the revered patriarch in search of praise, wisdom, or both. We didn’t have reunions at our house, there being just Ma and me.
Now there’s just me. Hope that ain’t permanent.

Lee stood up from the map table and tucked his spectacles in a pocket. Taking a sandwich somebody offered him, he said, “I wish I shared your optimism. That would leave me less anxious about tomorrow’s attack. Have we heard from General Jackson today?”

A baby-faced major stepped forward, not much past twenty. “Yes, sir. He expects to have his corps ready in the morning. They’re moving now.”

“I dearly hope they aren’t too worn out from all that fast marching from the Valley. I fear he pushes them too hard sometimes.”

“General, he hasn’t let us down yet. His Foot Cavalry will give Little Mac a bloody nose, you wait and see.”

“Well, waiting is all I can do now. I just---”

Lee paused. A heavy silence fell over the room, as if everyone held their breath to hear what he’d say next. I was curious, too, seeing as how he stared straight at me with a surly frown.

My colonel broke the tension. His face said that he hoped Lee didn’t bust him to Private for admitting me. “Ah, sir, this is Miss Mahoney. She claims to have a message for you and you alone.”

The Rebel leader handed the sandwich over to whoever had given it to him. “Does she?”

“She does.” Lee looked decidedly unhappy and the colonel felt that displeasure radiating his way. “We…agreed that she should stay till you returned. The information is highly sensitive.”

“So she says.” I got a hard glare from the general. I tried my winning smile on him, but that just made him scowl some more.
Okay, so much for my magical man-control. Now what?

When in doubt, brazen it out. I stood up, brushed the crumbs from my overalls, and stared right back at him. Instead of my delicate charm, I switched to hard-edged spymistress. “I do say, sir. Your men were right to admit me, civilian or no. I did not ask for this assignment, but here I am, ready to do you and yours a great service, I think. Shall we go somewhere and talk or shall I walk back to Richmond and catch my train to New Orleans?”