Eye of the Raven (30 page)

"What exactly," Duncan asked in a brittle voice, "did you do?"

"Flew some kites with wires into jars of brass dust. Charted individual tolerances to negative and positive flows. Energized open wounds. There were some possums brought back to life, a lot of frogs." The scientist looked up. "Dr. Franklin killed a turkey once with a flux machine," he added earnestly, though Duncan was at a loss as to whether this was an apology or a justification.

"Then why leave a proving ground as fertile as Shamokin?" Conawago wanted to know.

"I was going to stay until Townsend came back from the mountains. There was a man called the French bear. He had a lot of influence with some of the chiefs. I explained the French were in competition with us English for advancement in the sciences, and that it was their duty to help their English allies. But he told them I was experimenting with ways to extract the spirits from Indians."

Duncan lifted a candle in a pewter holder and explored the shadows of the parlor. Scattered about tables and chests were more Leyden jars. On a work table near the window were pieces of cork being carved into oval shapes, beside a spool of silk thread, with four completed spiders identical to the one Johantty treasured. In the winter, the youth had said, he could make the spiders dance.

"Testaments to our science," Marston explained. "Teaching instruments I give to the uninitiated." He saw Duncan's confusion and gestured to the adjoining table. "The largest jar still has a charge."

Still uncertain, Duncan lifted one of the cork spiders by the thread glued to its back and held it over the brass rod extending from the jar. The legs began to move as they approached the jar, jerking up and down when he placed it directly over the rod.

"When it is cold and dry you can rub fur or wool together to much the same effect," Marston said.

Duncan stared at the little spider in fascination, moving it in and out of the invisible flux field. But as he did so a vision of Johantty sprang into his mind, Johantty somberly, desperately, playing his graveside drum, followed by an image of Stone Blossom weeping over her ruined island shrine.

He lowered the spider and took a seat in a chair beside Marston. "Did you first meet Skanawati at his village or at Shamokin?"

Marston's head jerked up, and he stared suspiciously at Duncan. "Who are you?"

"Friends of the Iroquois. They have too few in Philadelphia."

Marston pursed his lips, then slowly nodded. "I met him at Shamokin." His voice trembled as the scientist spoke of the Onondaga chieftain. "He was fascinated by my work, brought several of his clan to watch. He beseeched me to return with my equipment to his village."

"Did you.

"It was full of smallpox," Marston explained. "He thought if I ran electrical charges through the infected it might help them. I knew there was no hope, but I couldn't say no. He wanted to pay me in furs, but I refused. They all had such desperate hope in their faces when I touched them with my jars. Beautiful children. Old men and women, even some warriors built like bulls who had lost all their strength. Eight out of ten weren't going to survive the week. I didn't argue any more with the French bear. Not long after, I packed up my equipment and came home."

"But Skanawati knew how to find you."

"I gave him a piece of paper with my address on it, then placed the Iroquois signs on my door. His people moved me. I had seen too many Indian drunks and beggars on our streets. The city becomes like a trap to them. The missionaries fill them with grand ideas about the equality of all men, the tavernkeepers fill them with rum. Some are kept at the alehouses to perform tricks like tamed bears, throwing tomahawks, shooting arrows and such. Most die of drink, or of some European disease. I wanted to do what I could.... "

Townsend and Marston, in their own peculiar way, had been friends of the Iroquois, Duncan realized. It was perhaps not so great a coincidence that Townsend's partner had appeared at the Broken Jug tavern, for that was where the two had met in the first place, nor too great a coincidence that Marston had recognized Conawago and gone to help him.

As his guests digested his troubling words Marston seemed to reflect on Duncan, his brow knitting. "At the tavern, McCallum, it wasn't Conawago who seemed to be in danger, but you."

"There is a gentleman now residing here who seems to think I am in bond to him. A man who knows my face was unexpectedly in the tavern tonight."

Marston frowned. "The law is not sympathetic to those who flee from indenture."

"The bond was transferred to his daughter. She takes a liberal view of my obligation. But he has sworn otherwise in an affidavit. He is a vindictive man, and I caused him much shame last year."

"Might I know his name?"

"Ramsey."

Marston's jaw dropped. "Bestowed with the title of Lord? Cousin to the king?"

"A distant cousin."

The scientist sagged. "You pick your enemies well. Since he arrived last year Ramsey has bought his way onto the council of the city, has the governor's ear. His house is like a palace, he is one of Philadelphia's self-declared royalty. If he knows you are in the city he will have men on every street."

"We will flee soon," Conawago said. "We only seek a Shawnee named Red Hand here."

Marston shook his head. "As I said, the Indians come and go. And when in the city most stay in the shadows."

"We can linger but a day," Conawago cast an apologetic glance toward Duncan. "Our real business waits in Lancaster."

Marston cocked his head. "Lancaster?"

"The treaty conference. Where Skanawati awaits trial. We mean to keep the rope from his neck."

Marston's face darkened with the news. He opened his mouth several times but seemed unable to find words. Finally he rose, pulled a news journal from a table under the window, and dropped it onto Duncan's lap. It was an edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, dated the day before. The first page was nearly filled with notices of ships arriving and departing, listing their cargos and ports of call. There was only one headline. Treaty Conference Adjourned to Philadelphia for Hanging of Iroquois Murderer.

When he spoke, Marston's voice was tight with emotion. "He dies as soon as a Philadelphia judge hears the evidence and confirms the sentence. A formality. He has two, maybe three days."

Duncan stared numbly at the paper and did not see Marston leave, only saw him return, carrying glasses and a bottle, which he wordlessly uncorked. "Let us have full explanations, all around," Marston offered solemnly as he poured out the claret.

Duncan and Conawago told their story first, starting with their discovery of Captain Burke and proceeding through their tour that afternoon of watchmakers, interrupted only by the appearance of a serving woman in a dark blue dress and apron who left a tray of ham and bread. As he listened Marston ate, then cleaned his spectacles on a napkin, looking up with a worried expression as they finished.

"The governor of the province had demanded a treaty," he observed, "and convinced the general that the success of the British military in the north would be meaningless without a settlement of the many issues around the western lands. When Magistrate Brindle reported that the Indian delegations threatened to decamp over the imprisonment of Skanawati, the governor then invited all the delegations to Philadelphia. There he could personally court the Indians, attempting to repair the damage they say Brindle has done. The governor this very night has hosted a dinner for the chiefs in the state house. But the Virginians worry him as much as the tribes. They still thirst for vengeance."

"The governor understands the tribes. Surely he will arrange for appropriate condolences for Skanawati to be freed," Conawago said.

"And break with the Virginians? It will be a hollow accord indeed if that is the price. As bad as that Virginia land company may be, they are private owners. If they do not succeed, the Virginian governor will press official claims, in the name of the crown colony. Do not forget Pennsylvania is but a proprietary colony, while Virginia is held in the name of the king."

Duncan pushed down his bile. He was well-acquainted with the way men's lives could be ruined when those in power invoked distant kings and proprietors. "Magistrate Brindle is a reasonable man," he offered. "If only I could speak with him."

"It is all out of his hands now. And were he to be seen speaking with you, a fugitive from justice, his own office would be jeopardized. He may be an honored judge, but Ramsey is on the council that reigns over Philadelphia and has the governor over to dine frequently."

"Operating in the shadows, you mean, like the Indians," Duncan shot back.

Marston sipped at his claret. "You speak of codes on trees," he said with the scientist's curiosity. "Tell me of them." He listened in rapt attention to Duncan's description, then brightened. "The pigpen code!" he exclaimed. "Boxes and three-sided squares? Open triangles and dots?"

Duncan leaned forward excitedly. "You know it?"

Marston's enthusiasm ebbed. "Know of it. Called the pigpen because it is a matrix onto which the alphabet is overlaid, like a mass of pens, some enclosing empty spaces, some dots. But I don't know the arrangement, nor the details of the code."

Duncan sighed with disappointment. "But in Philadelphia there are people who know such codes, other learned men?"

"Assuredly. But their codes are secret, and a man's use of such codes always so as well."

The pigpen. It aptly described the morass of clues in front of Duncan.

As Duncan now lifted the carving knife and a fork to work on the ham, Marston watched with interest. "You cut with the precision of a surgeon."

"I completed three years of my medical studies at Edinburgh."

"Edinburgh! Why, it is the capital of all medical science! This is destiny!" Marston exclaimed. "You can assist me. I need-"

"The treaty," Duncan reminded him.

"Forgive me," their host apologized. "Where was I? ... The governor assumes that eventually the Grand Council of the Six Nations will come around to the compromise since they will be shamed if they go home without his bounty."

"Compromise?"

"It has been the talk of my friends' dining tables ever since we heard of the convoy reaching Lancaster. Virginia receives no land but has its revenge by the hanging. The Iroquois avoid having the covenant chain broken by agreeing that the crime was the work of one man, not an act of war. Pennsylvania maintains the peace, getting all to agree the killings were contrived by the French, emphasizing the need for us all to stay together in common cause. And confirming need for troops at Fort Pitt. That," Marston said with a bitter flourish, "is the stuff of statecraft. It is how we deal with friends of the French."

The words brought an unexpected sound from the shadows, a choked-off sob. The maid had lingered in the hallway.

"Catherine!" Marston gasped. "I meant no-" He fumbled with his words, then gestured the woman forward. She was a plain, sturdy woman in her thirties, her careworn face averted as she inched into the room.

"Do you require anything further, sirs?" she asked in a brittle voice. "Some more claret perhaps?"

She was, Duncan realized, trying desperately to control her emotions. He looked in confusion at Marston, understanding neither what had aggrieved the woman nor what caused the scientist's discomfort.

"What I would like most of all," Duncan ventured, "is to ask if you are acquainted with other serving women in the city. I am looking for an unmarried woman, the sister of Mr. Townsend."

Catherine burst into tears. "I believe, Duncan," Conawago said as he guided her to a chair, "that we have found her."

Duncan flushed with embarrassment. He should have known. Marston had taken in his partner's sister when Townsend was lost.

"As Catherine steadfastly reminds me," Marston said, "there is no proof certain that her good brother is dead."

Duncan sighed and looked away for a moment, dreading the pain of the words he had to say. "Your brother had an elegant wooden box, with a clever sliding lid and an inlaid pattern of diamonds on the front."

"I gave it to him when he finished his schooling!" Miss Townsend exclaimed.

"I have that box in my pack. It was returned to me by some Iroquois. With tribal markings scratched on the cover."

The woman quickly turned away. She brought her apron to her face.

"No one has produced his body," Marston asserted.

"I fear the wilderness swallows up bodies," Conawago observed.

The woman, Duncan reminded himself, had first reacted not when Duncan had mentioned her brother but when Marston had mentioned the French. "Many good souls have fallen in the western country these past months," Duncan said. "Captain Burke. A surveyor named Cooper and his Indian wife. Mr. Bythe."

At the mention of the Quaker's name the woman's grief disappeared. "The devil collected that one at last," she spat, and for the first time Duncan heard a hint of Irish in her voice.

"Bythe had been investigating secret French involvement in the killings," Duncan told her.

"A pox on him! My brother was no traitor! He was a leader of men, hired to assure the others it was safe and honest work. He was only being a good Christian when he helped the others get hired."

Marston handed the woman a glass of wine.

Duncan lifted one of the ladder-back chairs and sat close to her. "Mr. Bythe," he explained, "has suffered the same fate as Captain Burke. Those particular bodies I have seen. What exactly was Mr. Bythe suggesting?" Duncan asked.

The reluctant answer came from Marston. "When surveyors began disappearing there was a meeting called by justice Brindle. It was just the war, he told us, the price we all pay when kings feud. We should just stay away from the frontier until the hostilities end, he warned. But someone asked how Philadelphia surveyors were marked for death by the French, how the French could know them all. It was as if half a dozen particular birds had been scattered across the wide wilderness, someone said, yet each one found and dropped by the French. The meeting grew unruly. Men started shouting that the French were being told, the surveyors were being betrayed.