The Messenger (35 page)

I was going to have to send Hannah through the lines. I couldn’t see any other way around it. A man alone on horseback in the countryside had every reason to be accused of spying. Even if I weren’t arrested, I was certain to be interrogated. But Hannah had a chance.

Fanny said she had worked for the Sunderlands at their country home, out toward Germantown. Perhaps Hannah could make a case for going to check on it. Or she might be able to contrive to visit some friends in that direction. There had been word of a skirmish out near Bristol. If General Washington’s troops were still in the vicinity, it might make for the quickest exchange.

The plan was fraught with danger, but it was the only option I had. Hannah was the only person I could trust. Now I just had to arrange to speak to her, without of course going about actually arranging it.

I spent the afternoon trying to figure out how to be circumspect about our meeting, but it only succeeded in making me testy. Who ever heard of a spy who refused to meet with her spymaster? If I needed to speak with her, I would. Her principles be hanged!

Hannah

“Jeremiah.” My heart lifted when I saw him in front of Pennington House fifth day morning as I went to call on Betsy. He seemed to be . . . was he waiting for me?

“I don’t have time for explanations or for one of your scoldings. I need you to deliver a message for me.”

A scolding? I hadn’t intended to say anything at all! “Thee might have waited until seventh day.” My words came out a bit stiffer than I had meant them.

“It’s not for the sergeant.” He gestured for me to start walking. Doll followed along behind us. “I need you to take a message through the lines.”

“Through—?”

“And then I need you to find someone who can deliver it to General Washington.”

Through the lines. He wanted me to leave the safety of the city for the danger of the battle lines? “And how do thee propose I do that?”

“Your family has a summer house. Out toward Germantown.”

“We do. But I have to tell thee that—”

“You can say you’re going there to visit.”

Of all the insufferable—! When I saw him, I had been going to tell him that I had left the Meeting, but it seemed he wanted to do nothing but order me about. “There’s nothing there. The Hessians stole everything they could find inside it. And then the patriots tore it apart for firewood.”

“Then . . . is there someone you could visit, outside the lines?”

“No one that would make any sense to go see.”

“You might just have to make something up.” He was watching me carefully.

“If thee want me to do something, I must do it honestly or not at all.”

He choked on a laugh. “You’re a spy! There’s nothing honest about it.”

“Hush! Someone might hear thee. I will take the message, but I will do it on my terms.”

“Fine. Meet me behind the tavern, at the stables, tomorrow at ten of the clock. I’ll have John sign a pass for you.”

“Tomorrow, then.” I only wanted this business to be done. The messages passed, the prisoners escaped, these furtive meetings finished. I wanted to be able to talk—truly and honestly—with Jeremiah about things that had nothing to do with causes and intrigues.

His eyes seemed to soften as he looked down at me. “I’ve held the message for too long already. This is the only way.”

I nodded. “Until tomorrow.”

I waited the next morning by the corner of the stables, in the shadows. Doll waited with me. She was shaking her head and mumbling to herself. “Pure foolishness if you ask me! Leaving the city to ride out there among those soldiers.”

Jeremiah soon appeared. “I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t truly need someone.” At least he was less surly this morning. “Usually . . . there’s supposed to be an egg-girl.”

“A what?”

“A girl at the market. To carry the messages. But she’s not able to do it anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because she can’t.” The way he’d closed up his mouth precluded any questions. “And I can’t. A man on horseback between the lines? I’d be arrested before I’d gone a mile. I wouldn’t ask you, but there’s no other way I know of to get a message out of the city.”

He handed me a pass. I tucked it into my pocket as the stable boy led a horse down the aisle toward us. I didn’t know I had backed away from it until I rammed right into Doll. “I’m not very fond of horses.”

“This is Queenie.”

Queenie.

“As in Charlotte.”

I could not help but raise a brow.

“She never was very handsome, but I could never fault her for loyalty. And she’s my gentlest one.” The horse didn’t look any more impressed to see me than I was to see her. “She may look old, and she is, but it makes it more unlikely that a soldier will want to take her from you.”

My knees began to tremble. “Soldiers take horses?”

“They’ve been known to.”

“But they won’t take this one?” If his face was any indication, they just might. “I think, perhaps—” I was starting to feel a bit light-headed.

“If any of the sentries tries to make you dismount, then just let them have her. She’s not worth your life.”

“What?” I reached back toward Doll and she caught my hand. “Thee said thee had a plan. But thy plan involves trying to talk my way through the lines, searching through the woods for General Washington’s men, and then praying that no one takes my horse. That doesn’t seem like a plan to me.”

“What is it that you want? You want me to tell you that nothing’s going to happen to you? You want me to tell you that no one will catch you? That you’ll never be detained or questioned or hanged! I wish I could. I wish I could find all those men that—” He broke off as he glanced at Doll. “I want nothing more than to see all this over and done and—” His words caught again and he took a deep breath. Reached out for my other hand. “I once promised to keep you safe, and I wish to God that I could, but you’re a spy. It’s an occupation not without danger.”

“Do not yell at me. Thee cannot fault me for having fear.”

“I don’t want—” His eyes were searching my face, looking for . . . something. “I wish I did not have to ask you to do this. And I do not fault you for being afraid. I’m afraid. You once told me I ought to ask for help when I needed it. I’m asking now.”

I understood then that it was frustration that fueled his anger, not I. I turned my hand in his and grasped it. “I will go. But I cannot let anyone take the horse from me. I can’t go to Germantown and back in one day without one. And if I don’t return by this afternoon, then my parents will start to search for me.”

He led the horse out into the yard and gestured for me to step up onto a large stone. The stable boy held the stirrup for me. I stepped up onto the stone, put my foot into the stirrup, and hopped, expecting to come down on the saddle. I didn’t. I slid right down the horse’s side, grabbing a fistful of Queenie’s mane as I did.

“Haven’t you ever ridden before?”

“No.” I clamped my jaw shut to trap the words I wanted to say as I stepped up into the stirrup once more.

Jeremiah ran his hand through his hair. “Just . . .” He gestured for the stable boy, who then helped to hoist me up. Once I was sitting in the saddle, Jeremiah handed me the reins. I clutched them in my hand.

The horse nickered and stamped a foot.

I heard myself gasp and grabbed for another fistful of mane.

“Hannah, I can’t let you do this. Come down.” Jeremiah stepped toward the horse.

I shook my head. “I have to do this.”

“You can’t. And I’m not trying to disparage you; it’s simply plain that you don’t know how to ride.”

“And who else is going to do it?”

“What about one of the others? Your friend Betsy, perhaps?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. There isn’t time.” I dug my heels into Queenie’s sides the way I’d seen the dragoons soldiers do and went trotting, slightly off center, out onto Walnut Street.

It wasn’t so easy to ride a horse as I had imagined. All those officers galloping in and out of the shambles on Market Street made it look easy. But it was rather too jouncy for my taste, and painful besides. I was sure to have black bruises pounded into my thighs before the day was over. The third drawback only occurred to me as I approached the first redoubt.

I didn’t know how to stop.

As I came upon a small band of men, loosely gathered about an open fire, one of them stepped onto the road with his musket. “Papers, miss.”

I began to tremble so badly that I was in danger of dropping the reins. And with the horse’s jolting gait I couldn’t have collected my wits if I’d been able to. “I can’t stop.”

He held up his hand. “Papers.”

“I can’t stop!”

“Stop!”

“Stop!” I echoed the soldier’s cry to the horse, but it didn’t have any effect. The soldier stepped into the middle of the road and made a lunge for the reins. The horse jerked her head, tearing the reins from my hands, and began a mad jig of a dance that took us sidewise down the road.

“Stop, miss!”

“I’m trying!” Only I couldn’t. We danced right past the sentry.

“I’ll have to shoot!”

As I heard the cough of a shot, I ducked, grabbing onto the horse’s mane with both hands. The horse started as if the bullet had been meant for her, and then stretched out her neck and galloped off toward a bend in the road. I didn’t mind the galloping so much; it was easier on the legs and the head than whatever the horse had been doing before. Only just as I had become accustomed to her gait, the horse slowed so abruptly I nearly pitched forward over her head.

As she settled into a walk, I decided to try to regain the reins. By grabbing at locks of the mane, I was able to pull myself forward. But about the time I’d worked my way up her neck, gained her head, and reached past it for the reins, the beast dropped its muzzle into the grass.

“Stop that!”

The horse raised its head for an instant, righting me, and flicked an ear in my direction. But then it went right back to grazing. If I could only . . . I released a hand to reach for the reins, but they dangled just out of reach. I pushed myself back to the saddle, wincing as it encountered my thighs. What had ever made me think I could be a spy?

Robert had.

But now he was dead.

If I’d left him where he was, if I’d never agreed to help Jeremiah with the escape, then perhaps he would still be alive. I’d failed at everything I’d tried and now I couldn’t even get an old horse to move.

Be still and know that I am God.

I
do
know that you are God! That was the whole problem. The whole point! He was a God that wouldn’t speak and wouldn’t listen and made me say things that nobody wanted to hear! I’d tried being still. I’d been a Friend my whole life. Being still was what we were good at. But it hadn’t helped. And now I was no longer a member of the Meeting.

Back behind us, in the distance, the
pop
of a cannon sounded.

The horse raised its head and turned to look back over its shoulder.

I used the opportunity, while its head was near, to grab at one of the reins. Caught it!

Then the earth in front of us exploded. The horse jumped and then stood stock-still, head raised, ears twitching.

If I could just get hold of that other rein . . .

As I bent forward to grab it, a swarm of flies began to buzz about us. It seemed rather strange. But as I looked out toward the wood, I saw fireflies flashing from the gloom.

At midday?

That was more than odd.

About the time I realized we were being shot at by cannon from behind and muskets ahead, the horse realized the same thing. I felt her muscles tense and then shift.

“No! Wait!”

I left my cries behind us where I’d said them. The horse didn’t even seem to remember I was on her back. With one hand grasping a rein and the other clutching her mane, I tried with all my might to hold on.