Chains (22 page)

Madam reigned over her end of the table with the occasional flutter of her fan, the wave of hair above her brow threatening to crash at any moment. Lady Seymour, the only other woman present, looked like an elegant spider wrapped in her black lace shawl. Her eyes were lively in the candlelight and her cheeks had color in them for the first time in weeks. The officer next to her was the size and shape of Edward, the shaggy bull who lived down the road from us in Rhode Island. The man did not have a ring in his nose, but he laughed with an impatient snorting sound.

I hurried up and down the stairs with the remaining trays of soup, then the roasted tongue and mushrooms. The serving girl cut the meat on Lady Seymour's plate before setting it down so that the weakness of her arm would not hinder her. The young soldier who was appointed wine steward danced around the backs of the guests, keeping their glasses full. The conversating flowed as fast as the wine—the taking of Fort Washington, news from London, plans for a fox hunt. At this last, an officer joked that the next fox would be a tall sort from Virginia, by the name of
George Washington. That caused hearty laughter all around and glasses raised.

A serving girl hissed at me to go back to the kitchen.

When I entered the room a half hour later, my arms shook under the weight of the tray. The cook had prepared enough to feed a battalion: pheasant stuffed with figs, stewed oysters, potted larks, greens cooked with bacon, pickled watermelon rind, and buttered parsnips. The pheasant smelled good. I had hopes that some might find its way into the scraps bucket.

By the time I lugged in the dessert tray—rice pudding, lemon biscuits, two creamed pear tarts, and an iced cake—the fire was blazing and the room much warmer. Lockton had freed the top buttons of his waistcoat, and two of the officers had loosened their lace neck cloths. The heat had softened the glue of Madam's left mousy eyebrow, and it had begun to free itself from her face. She did not notice this. The serving girls and wine steward watched the progress of the eyebrow and fought to keep the smiles from their faces.

The voices of the men were loud and booming, as if the wine they drank affected their hearing. I handed a plate of tart to one of the serving women, who carried it to the table and set it in front of Colonel Hawkins.

“So how many rebel prisoners did your men bag, Colonel?” asked Master Lockton.

I passed another dish of tart.

The colonel shook his head. “Near three thousand of the devils. Wish we could have shot them all.”

My hand shook as I reached for the third.

“Why so?” Lockton asked.

“We've no place to put them.” The colonel pushed the
tart to the side and reached into the bowl of shelled almonds in the middle of the table. He tossed a few into his mouth and crunched loudly.

“I thought you were using the Bridewell,” Lockton said. “That should provide ample space.”

The General snorted and shook his head. “The prison is so stuffed, the walls are ready to burst. We've had to pack them into the sugarhouses and the confiscated churches, too.” He reached for more nuts. “It's a right nuisance. Never thought we'd have so many.”

“I'd say so many prisoners are a badge of honor for your men and the King,” Lockton said.

The colonel raised an eyebrow. “We do not need a badge of honor. We need a decent plague to take them off our hands.” The men around the table chuckled. “The expense of feeding them will be staggering.”

“The rebels planted the seeds of war, let them enjoy their harvest.” Lockton ate a forkful of tart. “Force the local Patriots to feed them.”

“I say shoot 'em,” growled the man who looked like Edward the bull. “'Course then we have to dispose of the bodies. Messy work, that.”

“Waste of ammunition,” the colonel said. “And some members of Parliament would fuss like wet hens. No, I predict a cold winter will dispatch most of them in a natural way.”

Lady Seymour spoke up. “What if the rebels decide that turnabout is fair play? We need to care for them so they do not harm their British captives.”

“With all due respect, ma'am,” the man said with a smile, “the rebels would first have to capture a prisoner. Given their blunders, it is an unlikely prospect.”

Lady Seymour nodded gravely. “What of the prisoners they took after their victory at Breed's Hill?”

The table fell very still at that. Talk of what happened at Breed's Hill in Boston was as rude as stating that Madam's false eyebrow was about to fall off. But Lady Seymour was the wealthy, elderly widow of a British lord, incapable of social error, so all pretended she had not said a word.

Several men cleared their throats and reached for their wine. Madam lifted her goblet.

“I am told there are plans to reopen the John Street theater,” she said loudly. “This heralds a return to civilization and order.”

Her eyebrow flopped into the rice pudding. The man seated to her right coughed loudly into his napkin. The wine steward's face turned the color of a plum, and a serving girl bit down on her lip to prevent a laugh.

Madam avoided looking at her pudding. “A toast,” she said with a wobbling voice.

“A toast to civilization!” Lockton added. “I've heard plans for a cricket club, too.”

As the men roared in approval, I carried the tray loaded with the dirty supper dishes down the stairs. On my return trip upstairs I carried two pots of coffee. My trips up and down the stairs continued until my knees threatened to fold up and quit, bringing dishes down, carrying more delicacies and hot drinks up. Down, up, down, up, a hundred miles of stairs in one night.

As the candles guttered out and were replaced with new, Madam and Lady Seymour retired to their bedchambers and Lockton's business companions left to play billiards at the King's Head tavern. The officers requested more coffee, lit their pipes, and unrolled their maps across the tablecloth,
stained now with splashes of turtle soup, butter, wine, and candle wax.

The serving girls moved down to the kitchen, where kettles of water were put on to boil for the washing of the dishes. The cook was long departed, and Sarah dozed on a kitchen chair, her swollen feet propped up on a pillow.

I picked up the enormous bowl of table scraps and headed out the back door. Miss Mary Finch always mixed table scraps with muck and spread the smelly mess on her garden come spring, but the Locktons weren't much for growing things, not when the markets were so close to hand. Scraps here were dumped down the privy.

I closed the door behind me and stopped. The cold air took my breath away. The sky was a black curtain; the stars, ice chips whittled by an old knife. I wrapped the shawl tighter across my shoulders and pulled it high to protect my neck.

Through the kitchen window I could see two of the women squabbling about who would wash and who would dry. The second floor windows glowed with candlelight shadowed by the shapes of the officers circling around the map.

I shuddered and my teeth banged together. Water would turn solid tonight. It was a bad night to be without a blanket.

Would they truly allow prisoners to freeze to death?

The soldierwives stopped arguing, and the men lit fresh candles. The stars wheeled above me and inside, deep inside, something turned. I could not name it nor recognize its form. I drew in a cold breath and blew it skyward. The air came out of me in the shape of a cloud. It drifted above the rooftop and dissolved into the stars.

Would they let him starve?

The stars said not a word.

The back door banged open and I jumped. “Don't tarry,” said Sarah. “You need to dry the last of them glasses afore you lay yourself to sleep.”

“Yes, ma'am. As soon as I finish this.”

I quickly carried the scraps bowl out into the yard, walking past the privy, all the way back to the stable wall where straggly holly bushes grew. I glanced quick at the house to make sure no one was watching, then pulled aside the prickly branches of the bush and set the bowl down within it. I covered the bowl with my apron. On my way back to the house, I loaded my arms with firewood. I doubted she'd notice that I left the bowl outside, not with me bringing in extra wood.

I took another deep breath of the frozen air before I opened the door, confused that I should be so awake after such a long day. I frowned as my thoughts tumbled and multiplied.

I had been invaded. A dim plan had hatched itself in my brainpan without my consent, and I did not much like it.

YOUNG MEN, YE SHOULD NEVER
AGAIN FIGHT AGAINST YER KING!
–SCOTTISH SERGEANT SCOLDING REBEL TROOPS
AFTER THE DEFEAT OF FORT WASHINGTON

I had to wait three days to sneak up to the prison.

My chance came when Madam received an invitation from a friend who had moved into an abandoned rebel mansion in Greenwich Village, north of the city line. Madam smiled in triumph as she read the note, then told me to clean her best shoes. After the midday meal, the soldierwives helped Lady Seymour and Madam into the carriage. I brought out foot warmers filled with hot coals and heavy blankets to lay over the women for the air was crackling and cold.

The driver snapped the whip above the heads of the horses, and the carriage rolled away. The soldierwives waited until it was out of sight, then dashed off to visit their own friends. When they were gone, the house stood empty for the first time in months.

I lined my shoes and cap with newspaper to keep out the wind and emptied the leftovers hiding under the holly bush into a bucket that I covered with an old rag.

*   *   *

I stood across the street from the Bridewell Prison and pondered hard.

Don't do this. Don't do this.

All around the Commons folks went on their business, soldiers rubbing the cold out of their fingers, women wrapped in long cloaks and thick shawls. They walked over the ground where the gallows had been built last summer, where they hung the traitor Hickey. Back in August the Patriots had torn it down to use the wood for the barricades. The British had built their own hangman's platform at the opposite end of the Commons. It could kill three people at a time.

The ashes in my soul stirred.

Don't do this.

Men stood at the windows of the prison, calling out to those who passed by. Few folk looked in their direction, pretending that the noise came from the throats of the crows circling overhead.

Go back. 'Tis not your affair.

The whispers in my brainpan grew louder as I crossed the street.

Madam will beat you bloody, he's not your concern, it's not your place. Go back, go back before it's too late.

The crows cawed and wheeled and beat their shiny black wings against the wind-whipped clouds. They saw everything. I stopped in front of the iron-studded oak door and frowned.

He freed me from the stocks. He is my friend. My only friend.

With that, the ashes settled and shushed. My arm lifted light as a feather and pounded the door knocker.

A giant guard opened up. “Wot do ye want?” he growled. He looked like he had been fashioned by setting boulders atop boulders; his hands were iron mallets and his face rough-carved out of granite. He was a mountain clothed in a lobsterback uniform.

“'Nother do-gooder,” he grunted, when I explained my mission. He lifted the corner of the rag that covered my bucket and sniffed. “You got anyfink tasty in there?”

“Scraps, sir. The mistress normally feeds them to the pigs, but she's a good soul and told me to bring them for the prisoners,” I lied.

He grunted, peered into the bucket, and poked through it with a finger. “Rice pudding?”

“Yes, sir.”

The guard crossed the room, took a bowl down from a shelf, and used a spoon to dish the rice pudding from the bucket. “And you're kin to this boy you seek?” he asked.

“My older brother, sir,” I lied. “Always was a stubborn cuss. Made Momma cry herself to sleep at night.”

“Why ain't yer mother here then?”

“She's dead, sir.” That much was true.

The guard was more interested in rice pudding than my patchwork story. He shoveled several spoonfuls in his mouth and chewed while looking me over.

“Come on then,” he said, taking a ring of keys from a hook on the wall. “I'll give ye a little time.”

The sound of his key turning in the lock brought back my time in the City Hall dungeon with the madwoman and the rats. Despite the cold, a trickle of sweat inched down my backbone. We walked down a hall lined with four doors on each side and at the end, a staircase. He stopped at the last door on the right and unlocked it.

“'Ere we go,” he said.

The cell was little bigger than the one I had been confined in. It was filled with men and boys milling around like nervous cattle herded into a goat pen. There was no fire burning, nay, not even a hearth where it could burn. A short man dressed in black peered out of the cell's one window, stuck in the middle of the outside wall. The man's collar was flipped up to protect his neck, his hat was pulled down, and his hands were stuck in his armpits for warmth. The window had bars across it, but no glass. It was an empty hole open to the rain, wind, and snow.

All turned to stare as we entered.

“Girl come to see her brother,” the guard said.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said as he started to close the door. “What about my bucket?”

He smiled. “Needs further inspection.”

No one said anything nor moved until the guard finished relocking the door and his footsteps echoed down the hall.

“You'll be wanting him in the corner,” said the short man by the window. “Show her.”

A few of the prisoners stepped to the side so I could see a bundle of rags on the floor. Curzon was lying on the stones, with no blankets covering him nor a pallet under him, not even straw. His leg was still wrapped in the bloody bandage, his lips were dry and cracked. He clutched his hat in one hand.