Eye of the Raven (5 page)

"I need to see him."

"You are hardly in a position to make demands."

"Surely you understand, Major, that the entire balance of power in the war depends on maintaining relations with the tribes."

Latchford leaned back in his chair. His hand curled around the butt of the pistol again, as if he were reconsidering whether to shoot Duncan. "His majesty's troops have won the war in North America," he rejoined.

"His majesty's troops won the last season of battles," Duncan countered, "after losing so many before. They are now spread thin over a thousand miles of frontier, mostly along the border of French Canada. Any fool who can read a map knows the real prize of this struggle is the western lands. All the army has done so far is win the right for the king to compete for them. Lose the Iroquois and you'll spend the next five years fighting in the New York and Pennsylvania colonies with no chance of winning the Ohio territory."

"You speak of matters far removed from our little outpost."

"When Lord Amherst hears the news," Duncan said, referring to Britain's military commander on the continent, "your little outpost will be the center of his attention."

"News?"

"Trying a prominent leader of the allied tribes for murder could destroy the alliance. Instead of a buffer of Iroquois warriors protecting the settlements we would have an army of the best fighters in America turned against us. You won't be able to march a hundred paces past your gate without fear of a tomahawk in your skull."

"This man in the brig is an Iroquois chieftain?"

"Conawago has visited Europe, has medals from the king, is a valued intermediary among all the tribes of the eastern forest. He is the most highly educated Indian you will ever meet. Trained by Jesuits. At home in European courts."

"But he is no chieftain." The major sipped his tea, studying Duncan with new resentment. "Is he even an Iroquois?"

Duncan glanced out the window again, trying to control his emotions.

"I am ordered to have that militia in the field," Latchford declared, casually swinging the pistol about, pausing for a moment as the barrel faced Duncan. "And I always obey orders. You and your friend have strained relations between Pennsylvania and Virginia to the breaking point. Someone is going to hang. Someone is going to hang in the next twenty-four hours."

"And what will your commanding officer think when the truth comes out later?"

Latchford pursed his mouth in annoyance. "The truth?"

"I was at the dead man's side minutes after he was attacked. He was not shot. He was nailed to a tree, his heart was mutilated. This was no random killing. This was a ritual performed for a broader audience."

Worry flickered on Latchford's face. "Ridiculous."

"Conawago is innocent.

"A small army of witnesses will say otherwise."

"All they saw was Conawago leaning over a dying man. He was trying to help him."

The major offered another icy grin. "Witnesses will say otherwise," he repeated.

Duncan put a hand on the back of the chair in front of him. "Who was he? The dead man?"

"The captain? Winston Burke? Commander of the militia? Second son of the greatest landowner in the valley of the Shenandoah. His father is a member of the House of Burgesses. We will have a hanging and get on with the work of war," Latchford declared in a matter-of-fact tone. He aimed the pistol at Duncan and pulled the trigger, sneering as Duncan flinched at the spark of the empty weapon.

Duncan worked at a quick, efficient pace among the sick and wounded. Van Grut followed him to assist the orderlies as he progressed along the cots and pallets, changing bandages on wounds and amputations, inquiring when sulfur had last been burned to fumigate the wards, chastising men over the need to keep their wounds clean, even sending an orderly out to gather moss and pine sap when he was told poultices were in short supply. He knew from experience that the fates of such patients were mostly sealed by the time they arrived. Those with flesh wounds would live, those with wounds in the abdomen would almost always die.

He watched as Van Grut became engrossed explaining how to lance a boil, then quickly slipped through a door in a shadowy corner that seemed shunned by the others.

On a table in the center of the narrow, windowless chamber Captain Winston Burke lay now in peaceful repose. By the light of a single candle at the head of the table, Duncan could see that the commander of the Virginia militia had been cleaned of the blood that had stained him, a small ornate dagger placed in the hands crossed over his belly. His long brown hair had been gathered at the back with a fresh blue ribbon. His light blue waistcoat, fastened over his chest, was faced with buff, the makeshift uniform he had seen on the other officers in the Virginians' camp. His brown woolen britches showed little wear, except for the long jagged tear along the right thigh, mottled with the darker brown of dried blood.

He glanced around the chamber, which was used as a storeroom for the infirmary, the shelves on two walls bearing a few large jars of spirits and vinegar, smaller jars of dried rhubarb, powders of Algaroth and Peruvian bark, small crocks of ointments, and a few linens. He slipped a roll of linen bandages into his belt. Far outnumbering the stocks of medical supplies were rolls of canvas, beside spools of heavy naval thread. Duncan closed his eyes a moment, fighting dreadful memories of his voyage across the Atlantic, of the Scots he had sewn inside such shrouds, once joyful men who had slowly rotted away after being condemned to the king's prison ship, their primary offense being the Highland blood in their veins.

His head jerked up as the sound of a deep, shuddering sigh raised gooseflesh along his spine. He turned with a wrench of his gut to the dead man, as if Burke were about to rise from his repose, then realized the sound came from the darkened rear of the chamber. Lifting the candle, he stepped toward the shadows. A middleaged man in a threadbare uniform of an infantryman was sprawled in a rocking chair, a bottle of rum in one hand, dead drunk.

Duncan turned back to the corpse and paced around the table, touching an elbow, a knee, a wrist. Rigor mortis had begun. He worked quickly, stretching the torn cloth over the thigh wound to study the long ugly gash. The blade had been heavy and sharp, from a hand ax or tomahawk. Despite the Virginian's other wounds, this had been the one that killed him, this was where his lifeblood had drained away. Pressing the flesh back further, he noted the dark central flow in the pattern of its dried blood and the way the wound narrowed where it had cut the artery, then he straightened and pushed up the sleeves to examine Burke's arms. There was none of the bruising that would indicate a struggle, only a raised, jagged scar nearly three inches long, just below the left elbow, still pink from having been recently formed.

Glancing up with increasing discomfort at the man in the chair, he quickly searched the single pocket sewn into the right side of the waistcoat, finding a flint striker but none of the coins that would have been carried there. He studied the waistcoat itself. It had been expertly tailored, of fine wool, using elegant silver buttons with crossed swords embossed on them. But the upper four buttons had been cut away. Only the top four. The killer had been stealing the valuable buttons and been interrupted. Had Duncan and Conawago been so close that they had frightened him from his gruesome work? He glanced back at the figure in the rocking chair, extracted his own knife, and quickly cut away the button that had been covered under the folded hands, stuffing it into his belt pouch.

He studied the silver dagger, which the dead man held like a trophy. The silver wire of its handle said it had been more an object of adornment than of utility. Wealthy fathers often bought second sons commissions, and sometimes commemorated the event with such a token.

Twisting the dagger free from the stiffening hands, he tugged at the handle. It would not come free of its sheath. He set it down to study the hands themselves. A man's hands could tell as much about him as his face. Every trade had its distinctive pattern of calluses and wear, sometimes its own coloration. A professor in his medical college had once traced an unidentified corpse back to a cobbler's shop from the calluses at the tips of his fingers and heels of his hands, as well as the stains along the outside edge of each hand, marks made by the shoemaker's tacks and the dyes of the leathers the man had held steady at his workbench.

He had almost forgotten the terrible wound on the left hand until he pulled the right one away from it, exposing the mangled flesh. The handsome Burke, a man in his prime, with the soft hands of a man of stature and wealth, had been nailed to a tree. The jagged, ugly hole in the palm gave a glimpse of bone and muscle, the back of the hand still showed a smudge of color from the bark of the tree. He paced around the corpse once more as the burly drunk in the corner began to snore, now examining the discoloration at the man's temple. The skin was slightly abraded, the tissue underneath showing the shading of a contusion that had not bloomed to full color because death came so soon after the blow. Duncan lifted the lantern, holding it over each wound in sequence, the head, the thigh, the hand.

"All the doctors I know tend to the living," came a low, whimsical voice from behind him.

Duncan sprang about to see Johan Van Grut pushing the door shut behind him.

"I did what I could for those in the wards."

"And now you minister to the dead?"

Duncan paused. There was no alarm in the Dutchman's eyes, only intense curiosity. "I do not wish to mislead you, Johan. I was arrested and deported before finishing the final phase of my training. I was still learning how to minister to the living, but my professor said I was perfect with those who had already passed over."

"Meaning," the Dutchman asked in a slow, uncertain voice, you are a reader of the dead?"

"A corpse can be like an open book." He quickly demonstrated what he had learned thus far, pointing to the deep wound on the thigh and the punctured hand.

"Mother of God!" Van Grut exclaimed as Duncan laid open the mutilated palm. "He was crucified!"

"I have seen many violent attacks," Duncan continued as he unfastened the buttons over Burke's chest, "but never have I seen such a piercing, nor the likes of this," he declared as he pulled open the shirt.

The color drained from Van Grut's face as he saw the gear wheel in the dead man's chest. The fear on his face, however, quickly migrated to confusion. "It was not the cause of his death," he observed. "Then why mark the body so?"

"It was done while he yet lived. See how the blood has flowed into the adjoining skin."

"Are there more?" the Dutchman asked with a grisly fascination.

"More?"

"Gears. In Germany once I saw a mechanical woman in a glass box who lifted her hand and waved. Clockmakers in Zurich had constructed her for a prince. People often ran in fear when they saw her. Others dropped to their knees and prayed for her."

The words strangely disturbed Duncan. "Burke was flesh and blood."

"But if he died this way, was he not becoming a machine in the end?"

Duncan stared at Van Grut, not entirely comprehending, then lifted the dagger and with effort jerked the blade free of its scabbard. He twisted the blade in the light, showing a dark red line that ran along its edge, more red that covered its tip. It had been blood that had glued the blade into its case. With the tip of the blade he began to pry up the gear.

"McCallum!" the Dutchman protested. "You know not what you meddle with! We must study the gear's function. In Germany I was told the clockmakers started with a living woman. What if you find another gear connected underneath?"

Gooseflesh rose along Duncan's spine. For a moment he froze, caught up in his companion's irrational fear, then with a wet sucking sound he pried the gear out of the breastbone.

"May the hand of God smite you demons!"

The hoarse disembodied voice sent both Duncan and Van Grut leaping back, gazing in horror at Burke's bloodless face. The Dutchman seemed about to seize the gear to place it back in the chest when a specter emerged from the darkness.

"Unhand the dead, you thiefl" the shadow boomed, and one massive hand seized Duncan's wrist as a second rose toward his throat.

A sign of relief escaped Van Grut as he raised the candle. "Corporal, you're drunk!"

The burly man from the rocking chair hesitated, then dropped his hands and stiffened as if an officer had addressed him. "No drop will e'er prevent me from protecting them what gave their lives for blessed King George."

Duncan recognized the thick northern accent and saw now that a Bible was tucked in the waist of the man's britches.

"Mr. McCallum's a medical man," Van Grut explained.

The soldier, tottering slightly now, eyed Duncan suspiciously. "Beg pardon, sir, but this one's beyond servicing."

"In Yorkshire," Duncan ventured, "There are those who sit with the dead and absorb their sins so they can pass on to heaven. It is an honored profession."

The corporal paused as if he had to consider his answer. "It was how my mother, poor widow as she was, kept bread in our mouths. She died all twisted and gnarled for it." He shrugged. "I know most of the dead I sit with. Ye catch the flavor of a man's sins, well enough, when ye sit with his body through the night. Not for me to play a hand in the fate of their soul, just want them to know they ain't alone. As to why I do it, back home a man with but one root lives on alms until the winter, then dies frozen in the gutter." He tapped his right leg and for the first time Duncan saw the worn oaken stump that extended from his britches. "Lost it to a French cannonball two years ago. They keep me on the roster because I do that which no one else will do."

"Like getting drunk with the dead?"

"The dead be perfect company with a bottle. N'er disagree, n'er take a drop, always listen and-" the corporal added with a perverse gleam, "after the first hour or two they sing right along with ye." He punctuated his explanation with a belch, then reached down and carefully straightened Burke's shirt. "A soldier's got to be strong all the way to the end, especially if there be enemy in earshot. I remind them they still be in battle until their final breath. Chin up and mind the colors. N'er let the French frogs see ye weak."