Traitor to the Crown (32 page)

James looked at his mother.

Tarleton hammered his fist on the table, causing boy and mother to jump. “You do not look to her for permission,” he yelled. “I command here. When I tell you what to do, you must learn to do it.”

The boy swallowed hard but mastered his fear. “Yes, sir.”

“Very well,” Tarleton said, softening his voice. “Now come stand at my side. You will eat some of every dish put in front of me.”

James opened his mouth to protest, then looked at Tarleton’s eyes and snapped it closed.

Excellent. Tarleton would not put it past these partisan sympathizers to poison the men they served at their table. From their constant raids and ambushes, he thought them capable of anything.

But Mrs. Richardson made no unexpected change in the service of her meal. Plate after plate came out to the table. James obligingly swallowed his bites, and then she served the other men. Tarleton, who had grown weary
of corn pone and hominy, enjoyed the uncommon plea-sure of a real meal. Each bottle of wine, obligingly sipped first by James as it was uncorked, was better than vinegar. A bargain at the price he paid for it, which was nothing, though Tarleton would not give it much more credit than that. In all, he was almost enjoying himself.

As he wiped his mouth with his napkin between each course, he noticed that Mrs. Richardson watched the empty chair at the far end of the table with the avidity of a hawk. With each serving dish that made its way around the table, she obediently placed a scoop on the plate.

Tarleton did not know what she was up to, and, not knowing what she was about, he was furious. He watched her closely, looking for a clue, but could discover none. While the other men conversed in general terms about the campaign and British victories, Tarleton grew ever more sullen. He would only blink or glance away for a second, but every time he did, she found some way to clear the plate of the food she had just placed on it. Some way to empty the glass of its wine.

And none of the other men seemed to notice or, if they noticed, care.

Finally, as Mrs. Richardson stood to the side of the empty seat, ladling a spoon full of cobbler into the bowl there, Tarleton lost his temper.

He wadded up his napkin and flung it on the table so hard it knocked over his wineglass, which cracked, spreading a red stain over the linen tablecloth. He kicked back his chair and stood up.

“Madame,” he said. “If you are so eager to serve an extra seat, let me give you someone to serve.”

A boy’s chuckle echoed in the room, though James’s face, green with too much food and wine, registered only fear.

“I want no one to move or leave this table,” Tarleton snapped.

He scarcely knew his own thoughts as he stomped out the front door until his eyes lit on the grave. Then it all came together. Yes, he would rattle the widow’s cage and make her sing. He scanned the faces of the legionnaires until he saw the worst men of the lot, a pair of thieves, throat cutters who delighted in hurting men when they had the chance. Every unit in every army had a man or two of their type, Tarleton told himself, and it was for jobs like this.

“Grab some shovels, boys,” he said, pointing to the two men. “General Richardson will be joining us for dinner.”

They appeared puzzled for a second, then one whispered to the other, and they snickered like men in on a joke. In moments, they were flinging dirt aside. When they got down to the plain pine casket, they scraped the top clean and then pried the lid off. They looked up at Tarleton, disappointed.

“The silver’s not in here, sir,” the first one said.

“There’s nothing in here but the old man’s corpse,” the second one said.

“You fools,” Tarleton replied. “It’s the corpse I want. Bring it in and prop it up at the end of the table.”

Their shocked expressions transformed in a moment to the nervous laughter of men who set cats on fire to amuse themselves. The two men shrugged, and one of them reached under the general’s arms while the other wrapped up his legs. The general had been buried in his uniform, which held the pieces of him together, more or less, as they carried him up the steps and into the dining room, leaving a trail of fallen dirt and scurrying insects along the way. Kinlock and his other officers looked on in a mixture of disbelief and horror, but Tarleton heard the young boy’s chuckle again and he snapped at James.

“This is no laughing matter!”

The boy, whose eyes were wide with terror, had his hand clasped over his mouth, but not to keep from laughing.
Instead, he turned to the corner and vomited up his dinner, the acid stew of meat and cheap wine splashing all over the wall, from the chair rail to the floor.

“Sir?”

Tarleton spun back. His two throat cutters were having a hard time propping up the corpse. Every time they set it up in the chair, it tilted to one side, leaving them to catch it before it spilled to the floor. They held it at uneasy arm’s length between them.

“God damn it,” Tarleton cursed like a man possessed. “God damn every man of you, if you do not do as I command.”

The corpse’s arms dangled to either side. He grabbed it by the wrists and pulled it forward, elbows across the table, and pushed the chair in so that it couldn’t fall over. The head leaned forward, falling on one arm, like a drunk asleep at the table. Putrid flesh fell out of an eye-socket. White maggots squirmed like tears down a desiccated cheek.

“That’s all—now get out,” Tarleton said. The two men fled, pausing in the doorway to look back. “I said, get out!”

They shut the door behind them.

Tarleton walked calmly back to his seat at the head of the table. He picked up his napkin and wiped the dirt from his hands. Then he pulled down the front of his coat and tugged the cuffs of his sleeves back into place. He took his seat and cleared his throat.

“James,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” the boy said weakly, still huddled in the corner.

“I still expect you at my side.”

“Yes, sir.” The boy trembled as he shuffled over to Tarleton’s side, staring at a spot on the ceiling so he wouldn’t have to look at the table.

Richardson’s widow stood next to her husband’s body,
squeezing her hands to stop them from shaking. If Tarleton had entertained a notion that it might not be the general in the grave, one glance at the corpse disabused him. Even in death, the imprint of the general’s features matched his son.

“You wished to serve someone in that seat,” Tarleton told the widow. “I pray you continue.”

Anger flashed across her features and hardened into resolve. She picked up a serving bowl and unceremoniously dumped a large wooden spoonful of potatoes on the plate. The bowl rattled when she dropped it on the table. She stood there rigidly staring straight ahead over the top of Tarleton’s head.

Yes
, said a boy’s voice.
Yes, that’s it, push her now, push her.

Tarleton decided to push her.

“Feed him,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “Go on and give him a spoonful.”

Her chin trembled and her lips narrowed, but her hand was steady as she lifted a spoonful of potatoes to the dead man’s mouth. She placed the spoon to the lips, held it there a second, and then put it down again. When she was done, she resumed the same rigid stance as before.

Tarleton slammed his fist on the table and the plates jumped. Kinlock and the other officers twitched in their seats, but said nothing.

“I said, feed him. Feed him the whole thing.”

Yes
, said the voice.
Yes, yes.

Dutifully, she did as she was told. She stabbed the spoon into the potatoes, scraped it off on the dead man’s mouth, then did it again.

His officers began to shift in their seats and clear their throats.

Tarleton was furious. He reached for the plate of mutton and tossed it down to her end of the table, spilling
half its contents. “He looks like he needs some meat on his bones. You better feed him some meat.”

She set the spoon down and without a word, picked up a fork and knife. After cutting a small piece of meat, she placed it on the fork and shoved it into the dead man’s mouth. The metal scraped against the teeth as she pulled it out again empty. Kinlock winced at the sound. She took up the knife and began to cut another piece.

Rage shot through Tarleton. Could nothing shake her? He kicked his chair back and stood to yell at her again when a new voice, a man’s voice, spoke.

Enough.

The room was frozen. Kinlock and the other officers had their faces turned toward Tarleton, or the corpse, or their eyes averted entirely, but their eyes, what ever direction they faced, were still and unblinking. Beside him, James stood with his chin elevated, caught in mid-sob.

Richardson’s widow stood at the far end of the table as still as ever, but, as Tarleton watched, she tilted her head toward her dead husband’s body.

A blond boy in the regulars’ red coat stood on the opposite side of the general, mirroring the position of James at Tarleton’s side. He had food stains on his shirt. His hair was a wild, unruly tangle of knots. His eyes glittered with an unearthly fire.

He placed his hand on the dead man’s shoulder, and the corpse moved, animated by the spirit of the general, visible behind the bone and rotting flesh. Tarleton jumped.
What was this?

“God forgive me, all my sins,” Kinlock whispered.

James screamed and turned away, hiding his face. The widow covered her mouth, choking off a sob.

Don’t tell them anything, my beloved
, the corpse said.

“Tell us everything,” said the boy in the red coat. “We know that you know the Salem witches. We are calling all of them—calling you—to our service.”

“I’ll never serve you,” she said.

“What’s going on here?” Tarleton asked.

They ignored him. He had gone from the man orchestrating this gross charade to a mere observer, and he didn’t understand how or why. He had the feeling that he recognized the boy, that the boy had been his shadow since New York. But as hard as he tried, he could not call any of those memories to mind.

“Who would have thought you would be willing to serve a corpse,” said the boy. He laughed, a sound wrong in its cheerfulness. He reached out and scooped a handful of potatoes off the corpse’s chin and smeared them on the woman’s shoulder. “And yet, you did exactly that, didn’t you?”

“Go to hell,” she said.

“Why go to hell, when I can bring hell here? Consider that I can consign your husband’s soul to an eternity of torment if you do not do as I ask.”

I can suffer anything
, the dead man said.
Do not aid this beast.

“God alone holds power over the afterlife,” she said. “He will not allow it.”

Tarleton felt sick. The enormity of what he had just done caught up with him. He was a soldier, yes, and war sometimes called for brutal and extraordinary measures. But this was unnatural, this was not who he was. He had been used by a demon. The smells of the room rushed in on him—the cheap wine, the vomit, the corpse—and he felt polluted.

The boy in the red coat shrugged. “If that’s what you want to believe, fine. I cannot change your mind in that.” With a smile, he skipped around the table. The corpse’s head swiveled in the dead socket of its neck, looking to the wife, to the son.

The boy went behind James, draped his arms over the other boy’s shoulders, and grinned, cheek-to-cheek.
James shrieked again and began to tremble, unable to move.

“No,” the mother said.

You wouldn’t
, said the spirit in the corpse.

“But I’m so lonely,” said the boy in the red coat. “I could use a playmate. Someone just like me. And what does it matter what I do in this world? God holds power over the afterlife—He will not allow any harm to befall the boy’s soul. Would He?”

The woman reached out her hand, and the corpse reached up and clasped it. She shook her head in mute protest.

The boy took a step back and laughed.

Tarleton swung his fist with all his strength. The backhanded blow connected knuckles to jaw and knocked the boy in the red coat against the wall. He grabbed the boy by the lapels of his jacket and shook him like a terrier with a rat.

“I want all this undone,” he screamed. “I want all evidence of this wiped away, do you hear me?”

The boy wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing blood from his lip to his ear. His eyes glittered like the tips of sabers.

“If you’re sure that’s what you want,” he said.

Tarleton blinked and he found himself outside the house. Richardson’s widow huddled with her children as torches were set to the farm house, the summer kitchen, and the out house. His men were driving all the farm animals into the barn—the cattle, the pigs, even the chickens and geese. When they were done, they barred the doors shut and set that on fire too.

“Sir,” Kinlock asked. He had a confused expression, as if he were forgetting something. “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?”

I want all the evidence wiped away
, said a boy’s voice.

Tarleton looked to see where it came from and saw
nothing. “Yes,” he said. He must never show a weakness or doubt in his decisions. “They’ve been giving aid to the rebels. We saw proof of that. We can leave the neighborhood now, and know they’ll render no more aid when we’ve gone.”

“Yes, sir,” Kinlock said. But there was a doubt behind his words. At some level, he knew that he was not asking about the barns and the stores.

Despite the sureness in his own voice, Tarleton felt tremors of doubt shiver through him. The cattle lowed mournfully and the hogs squealed in terror as the barn burned. The corncribs and the granaries, all of it was set aflame. Great clouds of black smoke rose, stinging Tarleton’s eyes and blotting out the sun. He turned away and wiped tears from the corners of his eyes.

That’s when he saw a woman walking toward the house.

She came down the oak-lined road, alone, wearing no more than a plain gray dress, but glowing like a torch brighter than the burning flames beneath the clouds of smoke. She walked through the anxious horses of his men, and they shied away from her. She walked past his men, and they shielded their eyes and turned away their heads. She walked through the rain of sparks and ash until she stood in front of Tarleton.