Chains (24 page)

The books called to me. My fingers itched to touch them. It had been months since I dug into the story of Robinson Crusoe.

I glanced toward the counter. The men were arguing friendly-like about a fellow named Hume. They both had their faces planted in the same pamphlet. When I trod on a squeaky board, they did not even look up.

I reached up to a bookshelf and flipped my way through the books standing at attention. The titles were near as long as books themselves:
Treatise on the Propagation of Sheep, the Manufacture of Wool, and the Cultivation and Manufacture of Flax,
by John Wily, or
Cato Major, Or His Discourse of Old-Age: With Explanatory Notes,
by M. T. Cicero, or
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral,
by Phillis Wheatley, and countless tracts containing sermons and advice.

My fingers backed up.

Momma told me about Miss Wheatley. She was kidnapped in Africa, sold in Boston, and wrote fancy poetry that smart people liked. She had visited London in England. She had been an enslaved girl but was a free woman.

I took the slim book off the shelf and opened the cover. I had never read a poem. What if I lacked the skill? What if I were caught?

Might as well throw myself in the river.

Bang!

The closing door startled me so I near dropped the volume. I quickly set it back on the shelf and approached the counter.

“Can I help you?” asked the young man who stood behind it.

“Yes, please, sir.” I handed him the list. “From the Lady Seymour.”

“I hear she's been poorly,” he said as he looked over the list.

“Yessir, but she is strong enough to sit by the fire now and has a powerful urge to read.”

He nodded. “She's a good customer. I am glad she's on the mend.”

He quickly assembled everything on the list—The
Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, History of the Roman Republic, Volume One,
and
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker—and
pulled out a large sheet of paper to wrap them in.

As he worked the scissors, he paused. “You knew that boy, didn't you?”

“Pardon me?”

He continued cutting. “Bellingham's boy, red hat. Quick talker.” He creased the paper with his finger. “He brought you here once, in May. Pointed to you out the window. Convinced me to hand over two fresh-baked rolls. Told me you were like to die from hunger if I didn't help.”

He smiled at the memory.

“I'm sorry, sir,” I said. “I didn't mean to take your food.”

He pulled off a length of twine. “You didn't. One of the advantages of courting the baker's daughter is all the bread a man can eat.”

He had not yet commented on my looking at the books. I feared he might try and trip me up, get me to say something
I ought not, but saw no other choice than to be polite. “I hope your lady is well, sir,” I said.

He concentrated on tying a bow. “So do I. She fled with her father to a village in Pennsylvania. Place called Hatboro. They make hats there. Clever, don't you think?”

He tried to smile, but his eyes were downcast and melancholy.

“Perhaps 'tis safer there,” I said.

“Aye,” he said, finishing the bow, “with plenty of young men eager to protect her. But that's a tale for another day.”

He kept the package in his hands, lost in thought.

“Master Lockton will settle his aunt's account at the end of the week,” I said.

“Oh, aye.” He gave me the package and waited as I settled it in my basket. “I hear tell you're one of them who feeds the lads in the Bridewell.”

A sizzling log in the hearth popped suddenly and I jumped. “Not me, sir. Begging pardon, but someone is mistaken.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “That there mark on your face makes you hard to forget, lass.”

The heat from the hearth filled the room and made it hard to breathe. My eyes darted to the windows and I fought the urge to run. It felt like all of New York was watching me.

He leaned forward, put his elbows on the counter, and lowered his voice tho' we were the only people in the shop. “You tell them boys in the jail to hang on. There's plenty of us out here trying to help.”

“Sir?”

He removed a slim volume from under the counter. “This is for you. Don't let your mistress see it.”

“I cannot read, sir,” I lied.

He snorted once as he quickly wrapped the book. “Of course you can't.” He pushed the package to my side of the counter. “All who love liberty should commit the words to heart.”

“I can't take it,” I started. “I cannot pay—”

“I only have a few left and those I should burn,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Read it. Pass it on. And keep feeding the lads.”

I bobbed once and hid the parcel in my pocket under my apron. As soon as I could stand close enough to a fire, I'd get rid of it. The last thing I needed was more trouble on account of independence.

“Yes, sir,” I said, hurrying for the door. “Thank you, sir.”

He raised his finger to his lips in a last warning. “Shhhhhh!”

THE DISTRESS OF THE PRISONERS CANNOT BE
COMMUNICATED IN WORDS. TWENTY OR THIRTY DIE EVERY
DAY; THEY LIE IN HEAPS UNBURIED; WHAT NUMBERS OF MY
COUNTRYMEN HAVE DIED BY COLD AND HUNGER, PERISHED
FOR WANT OF THE COMMON NECESSARIES OF LIFE! I HAVE
SEEN IT! THIS, SIR, IS THE BOASTED BRITISH CLEMENCY!
–LETTER WRITTEN FROM NEW YORK DESCRIBING
PRISONERS CAPTURED AT FORT WASHINGTON

Lady seymour regained her strength by the day. I was no longer allowed to spend warm hours in her bedchamber. She took her breakfast and dinner alone but joined the rest of the company for supper each night. Madam was saddened by her husband's aunt's return to health.

The next week passed in a kitchenstorm of flour and sugar, for Christmas was fast approaching. Madam's list of required delicacies was endless: gingerbread, pies of brandied peaches and preserved cherries and mincemeat, macaroons, blancmange, Jordan almonds, sugar candy, as many kinds of cake as there were fingers on both hands. I was the dogsbody in charge of keeping the oven stoked with wood and the
ashes cleared out, fetching forgotten ingredients from the market, and beating eggs, ten at a time, till my arm was near to fall off.

Two of the soldierwives got into a terrible squabble the day the woodpile froze. Hannah told Mary it was her turn to fetch home the buckets from the Tea Water Pump and Mary said, no, 'twas Hannah's turn. Back and forth they went, the words getting hotter as their tempers grew shorter.

“I went yesterday,” Mary said loudly as she poured boiling water into a basin. “You know that for a fact because you told me my nose was the color of a cherry when I came in.”

Hannah shook her head as she scrubbed the floor. “No, no, no, that was two days ago. Yesterday I slipped on the ice and fell on my backside. Near broke my tailbone, I did. Could barely come up the steps this morning.”

“Yer a lying codface, you are,” Mary said.

Hannah threw the brush in the bucket and water splashed on the floor. “Who you calling a liar?”

Sarah, the bosslady, came through the door just as Mary rounded the table, her hands balled up into fists. Sarah was getting close to her time and had a bit of a temper herself. She slammed the door so hard the whole house shook. “Shut yer gobs!” she shouted. “I'll report the pair of you to the colonel if you don't straighten up. There'll be no more brawling or caterwauling in this kitchen.”

“But—,” they both said.

Sarah leveled such a glare at the pair of them I thought their hair would catch fire. And I suddenly saw a way clear to my own purposes.

“Begging pardon, Miss Sarah, ma'am,” I said meekly.

“What do you want?” she said, her eyes still on the other women.

“I can fetch the tea water,” I volunteered.

Mary shook her head back and forth. “Oh, no, she won't. She'll tarry at the shops to get out of her own chores. Make one of the men do it, I say.”

“I'm the first one awake to build up the fires,” I explained. “The shops are still closed then. I'll dash up to the pump and be back before the sun comes up.”

Sarah gave me a suspicious look. “Why would you take on extra work, special with it being so cold and dark in the morning?”

“I was raised in the country, miss. Too much time inside makes me feel poorly. I like walking in the fresh air, even if it is cold.”

'Twas mostly a lie, but the Tea Water Pump was right close to the prison. Fetching water would give me a chance to check on Curzon every day.

Hannah picked up her scrub brush and knelt on the floor again. “Let her go, I say. Saves us the trouble of freezing our tails off.” She dipped the brush in the bucket. “Don't know what possessed me to follow my Jimmy to this godforsaken colony.”

The next morning found me headed up island long before the sun rose. When I knocked on the guardhouse door of the prison, it was opened by a soldier I'd never seen before, a short man with black hair, sky blue eyes, and a scowl.

“You can't come in,” he said after I explained my errand. “Regulations been changed.”

“Tell her 'bout the windows,” called another soldier warming himself by the fire.

“The regulations permit civilians to deliver food and sundry provisions.”

“But not firewood,” added the man at the hearth, yawning.

“But not firewood,” repeated the first man. “There will be regular patrols round the perimeter of the building to ensure that civilians do not tarry overlong in conversation with the prisoners.”

“And we'll be checking on the grub you give 'em,” said his companion.

“Guards will inspect all civilian donations,” the first man said formally. “If you deliver contraband items, you will be imprisoned yourself.”

I shivered once. “Are scones and jam contraband?”

“Not yet.”

Back outside, I walked around the front of the building, trying to figure where Curzon's cell lay. Some prisoners were already awake, their hands and arms wrapped in rags sticking through the bars of the window.

Curzon's cell lay to the back of the building. I rounded the corner and stopped. This was where the burial pits were dug. The pits were just a little smaller than the cells, dug down the height of a grown man. One of them had already been filled with bodies and covered again with dark mud. Two lay open and empty, sprinkled with snow like sugar on a cake. I did not know how many bodies would fit in each.

I shivered again and pulled my cloak tight, then turned my back to the graves and counted the windows,
two, three, four,
until I came to the window I hoped led to Curzon's cell. The eastern sky had brightened enough for me to see all around, but the inside of the prison was dark.

I stepped up to the building. The bottom of the window was just above the top of my head. I stood on tiptoe and stretched my hands up to the bars. “Hello?” I called in a hushed voice. “Curzon? Anyone?”

The nasty fellow who had tried to steal my bucket on my first visit, Dibdin, leaned his face against the bars. He had a blanket around his shoulders and Curzon's hat upon his head. “Won't let you in no more, eh?”

“They changed the rules. Can you fetch my brother, please? Sir?”

“He's sleepin'.”

I wanted to pull the bars apart, snatch the hat from his head, and thrash him with my fists and shoes, but that was impossible. I forced honey into my voice, and a humble tone. “Well, then, may I please speak to your sergeant?”

“Sarge is dead.” He turned his head and spat. “I'm in charge now. I'll take the victuals you brought.”

I started to reach into the bucket to hand the scones through the bars, but stopped. “How do I know my brother's not dead, too? Wake him up, please.”

Dibdin opened his mouth but closed it without a word. His hunger was stronger than his temper, it seemed. He turned to someone in the cell. “Get the black boy over here.”

A moment later, Curzon appeared at the window. He was shaking so badly he could barely stand, his eyes half-closed, teeth chattering. He had no blanket around him and there were puke stains on the front of his shirt. His gold earring was missing, too.

“Curzon! Curzon!” I hissed. “What ails you? What can I do?”

He did not hear me, or could not. He was insensible of his own name and where he was.

Dibdin joined Curzon at the window. “Terrible, ain't it, how fevers and pox tear through this place?”

There was hollow laughter in the cell.

“Give him his hat back,” I said. “And a blanket. Is he getting his rations?”

He did not answer me. That was an answer in itself. The prison was not a place of shared hardship anymore; it was a hole of desperation.

“You bloody beast,” I swore. “How dare you let him starve?” The words flew out of my mouth without pause.

“Who are you to reprimand me, girl?” he snarled, putting his face up to the bars. His breath stank of rotting teeth, and snot pooled at the edge of his nostrils. “He's a slave. He will not be treated same as free men.” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “But you can remedy that,” he said. “With ease.”

I tried to keep my voice steady. “How so?”

Curzon was seized by a fit of coughing so violent I feared his ribs would crack. He choked on his spittle and fought for breath, then finally relaxed back into his stupor, leaning against the window.

Dibdin glanced back at the other men in the cell before continuing. “Our Captain Morse is on parole, lodged at the Golden Hill Tavern, we hear. Go there, tell him the men have fever and pox. One of our lads, Bridgebane, has a father in Piscataway with money and influence. If the captain can get word to him, Bridgebane's father could arrange for a proper physician to attend us here.”