Ashes (17 page)

“You can only buy a small loaf for that coin,” the baker's lad said.

“That should be enough for the largest loaf, enough for six people,” I protested.

“War troubles make everything more costly,” he explained.

“Allow me.” Aberdeen pulled a small handful of shillings and pence from his pocket. “We'll take the largest loaf you have, if you please, sir.”

As if that weren't startling enough, Aberdeen then led us to a merchant that sold all sorts of sundries, and there he bought a child's toy fashioned of wood. It was a stick with a cup at one end, and a ball attached to a string on the other. The trick of the thing, he explained, was to catch the ball in the cup. 'Twas much harder to do than it seemed.

He handed it to Ruth with a dramatic flourish. “For you, Miss Ruth.”

She giggled and took it with a shy smile.

“She needs new stockings more than a child's frippery,” I said.

“Isabel don't like fun,” Ruth told Aberdeen.

“Let's go to the river,” he said. “Mebbe that will lift her mood.”

As we walked down the well-worn path, the wind swirled, bringing first the sweet smell of the bake ovens, then the stink of rotting hides and offal from the slaughtering pens, and finally, the heavy stench of fish. I had a rare longing for the smell of the ocean, the clean salt air that would sometimes roll all the way to our door at the farm where we had been children.

Ruth walked ahead of us, nibbling on the gingerbread and watching the hummingbirds, thrushes, and meadowlarks flitting through the trees. When we reached the water, she settled herself upon the grass and played with her new treasure. Aberdeen and I sat in clear sight of her, but far enough away that she could not overhear our words. It was the first truly private moment we'd had since we entered Williamsburg. I sensed that he had planned all of this. His aim was to hold a confab with me, not just to delight Ruth. Coming after his display of coin in the shops–coin that no butcher's boy could possibly have earned in a few weeks' time–I found myself mighty suspicious.

I looked around to confirm that no one could hear us and then spoke plain. “Where did you get that money?”

Aberdeen plucked a long blade of grass and chewed the end of it.

“Have you turned thief?” I demanded.

He acted as if he hadn't heard me. “You still aiming for Rhode Island when all this rot is finished?”

“Stealing will land you in jail or a grave. And yes, Rhode Island is our destination. Our home.”

“Is it true what Ruth said”–he leaned back on his elbows–“that you want the British to win?”

I narrowed my eyes, even more wary than before. “Why would Ruth say that?”

He gave a snort. “Watches you like a hawk, she do. Tells me all kinds of things about you: the way you say you ain't hungry, then give her your supper; the way you turn the other cheek when those looby laundresses are rude to you. She also says you want the British to win.”

The sun bounced off the river, throwing sparkles into the air. Ruth happily played with her new toy. She was content in that moment, smiling. The calm peace on her face recollected the way she'd looked as a small child, before our lives became fear-filled and muddled.

“Does she say why she's mad at me?” I asked.

He ignored my question again. “Is that true? Do you favor the British cause?”

I studied him close. He'd grown a bit over the summer too. There was a fine cut on his chin and a patch of whiskers by his ear, signs that he'd begun to shave his face with a thin-bladed knife or the sharpened edge of an oyster shell. His shirt was new and his sling gone, for his broken collarbone was healed. If he'd been nine when Ruth arrived at Riverbend, then he was fourteen years old now, a difficult age in the best of circumstances.

“Did you rob a Frenchman?” I asked. “That butcher you claim to work for?”

He spoke quieter. “I work for the army, Isabel. I count the enemy's men and guns. I listen outside tavern windows when they are muddy in drink.” He again patted the coins in his pocket. “The army pays good money for secrets.”

“You're a spy?”

He nodded, excitement glowing in his face.

“You are an addlepated lackwit,” I said. “I was a spy once. It ruined our lives.”

“Mayhaps you chose the wrong side.”

“I chose the same side as you and Curzon.” Saying his name aloud caused a bewildering ache in my chest. I cleared my throat. “I spied on the British on the orders of a Patriot captain who promised to help Ruth and me escape New York. He betrayed us. They'll betray you, too. Might as well put your legs in chains right now.”

Aberdeen eyed me calmly. “Didn't say I spied for the Patriots.”

I paused as the meaning of his words sank in.

“You work for”–I whispered the last words–“the British?”

He grinned.

“They're just as bad!” I declared.

“Slaves running to the British get freed,” he argued.

“Only if owned by Patriots,” I added. “Loyalist slaves are returned.”

“So you lie to them. They won't know, not around here. The redcoats just want hard workers. Fight for them, and you get to be your own master.”

“They don't fight for us,” I insisted. “Neither army does.”

“Now you're just talking foolishness,” he said. “You and Ruth need to join me, you do. When we win, we gonna sail to Scotland. Gonna find the city what's got the same name as me, like in that newspaper you showed me.”

His eyes were filled with dreams of glory, an affliction common to boys who had never been soldiers.

“They promise you that?” I stood and shook out my skirts, too upset to stay at the side of such a fool. “Did they promise that they had jobs for me, for someone like Ruth?”

“You need to listen–” he started.

“Army promises are only useful in the privy, when you need to wipe your backside.”

“Sit yourself down.” He nodded his head slow, as if I were a child and he were a wise, old granddad. “You're just sore on account of being so tired.”

I wanted to pitch him in the river. “Come, Ruth,” I called. “We must go.”

Aberdeen stood up and spoke quickly. “You did me a good turn, helping me come this far. So listen: First chance you get, head to Yorktown. Half day of walking and you come across rice fields. Once past them, cut through the woods on the left side. Go through the woods to the river, walk downstream to the town.”

“We're not going to Yorktown.”

“Tell the guards that you and Ruth can sew and cook. Talk fancy-parlor good. I know you can.”

“I don't trust the British,” I said.

“So you staying here?”

“Now, Ruth!” I called. “Don't want to make the widow angry at us.”

Aberdeen leaned forward. “You'll stay here and support the rebels?”

“I don't trust the Patriots, either,” I said. “The winner of this ridiculous war matters not to me.”

“The battle's coming, Isabel,” he insisted. “You must choose a side.”

I
T IS POSSIBLE THE SLAVE MAY HAVE FALLEN INTO YOUR HANDS, THO' HE HAS PRACTICED EVERY
S
TRATAGEM TO CONCEAL HIMSELF BY DENYING HIS
M
ASTER'S NAME, & CHANGING HIS OWN & HIS DIALECT; BUT THE MARKS ON HIS SHOULDERS CANNOT BE REMOVED.

–L
ETTER FROM
J
UDGE
E
DMUND
P
ENDLETON TO
V
IRGINIA CONGRESSMAN
J
AMES
M
ADISON, WHO LATER BECAME THE FOURTH PRESIDENT OF THE
U
NITED
S
TATES

T
HE CHURCH BELL WAS TOLLING
eleven of the night as I closed the back door of the tavern. I wove my way past the maze of damp laundry in the courtyard. The final day of the army's presence in Williamsburg had brought more work than anyone had counted on. I was tired of being tired, and I was cold to the bone. All I wanted to do was to sleep without worrying about my sister or Aberdeen or any soldiers at all. I picked up a few sticks of wood for the fire, already thinking about how lovely it would feel to lie down.

As I entered the laundry, something crunched under my foot. I knelt and squinted in the half-light. Muddy boot prints dirtied the floor. Man size. Kate or Elspeth had allowed one of their soldiers to visit and had been too lazy to clean up after him.

I'd wash the floor in the morning.

Ruth snored loudly. I cleared the ashes from the hearth and set them in a tin bucket, another task left undone by the lazy girls. There were a few scraps of unburnt paper in the ashes, which was odd. Mayhaps Elspeth had had her lad start the fire. The buffoon must have used newspaper instead of hot coals.

I stacked kindling, then added smoldering coals from the wash kettle fire to set them ablaze. I sat on the stool in front of the fire and took off my shoes and stockings. The loud crackling and popping of the wood made Ruth stir in her sleep, but she did not wake. Few could best her when it came to sleeping.

As the flames rose, I looked about the laundry. The dried boot prints tracked across the floor several times, then retreated to the door. 'Twas a pity these girls did not seek the affection of fellows accustomed to scraping their boots before they entered a place.

Then my eye caught the glint of something stuck between the floorboards: a small button carved from shell. I did not remember seeing one like it on any of the washing we'd cared for. It most resembled the few that Missus Serafina had given Ruth in her haversack. Ruth cherished those buttons, as she did all things given to her by the old couple. She would never have treated them with such neglect.

I searched and found a second shell button in the corner, along with a scattering of dried seeds. Such was the power of my fatigue that I sat dumbfounded in the firelight, staring at the tiny objects in my hand for several moments before the truth of their origin crashed upon me like thunder.

I leapt to my feet, dashed the length of the building, and scrambled up the small ladder to the loft in the north end of the room. I felt my way in the gloom past the crocks of soap, vinegar, and lye, taking care not to overturn or break anything, searching for our haversacks. They were not where I had carefully stored them on a high shelf, but shoved into a nest of tattered wicker baskets.

I slung the haversacks over my shoulder, quickly made my way back to the firelight, and dumped out the contents. Ruth's sack contained a gourd, buttons, pins, and the embroidered handkerchief that Miss Serafina had given her, along with the stockings that no longer fit, wrapped around the cloth doll.

My haversack was a complete jumble. My hatchet and knife were both there but had been thrown in carelessly. More upsetting was the state of my collection of seeds; I'd collected and protected them so carefully over the years, carrying them for thousands of miles safe in the dampproof pockets I'd fashioned out of oilcloth. Less than half were safe in their covering. The rest were heaped together at the bottom of the sack.

Ruth rolled onto her back. Her hand opened, showing another shell button in her palm. She must have done all of this, but why? Was she going to be mad at me forever?

Then I realized what was missing. Our free papers.

Gone!

In defiance of Widow Hallahan's rules I lit a candle and carried it back to the loft, heart in my throat. I picked through the pile of broken baskets, moved aside the dusty spinning wheel, and peered into the soap crocks. I unrolled moldy, ancient rugs. I emptied a crate of old rags and balls of twine.

All I found were mouse droppings and a few tiny bones.

I returned to the hearth. It couldn't have been Ruth. Could it? She knew our position here was perilous. She knew those papers were our only security. That is to say, I thought that she knew it. Had she tucked them under her pallet? Hidden them in her pocket? Had I, in my own fog of fatigue, moved them and forgotten it?

A gust of wind crept in under the door. The fire sputtered. I absently used the tongs to rearrange the wood so that it would burn better.

Paper.
Paper!

I overturned the tin bucket of ashes and spread them on the hearthstones, then plucked out the singed bits of paper. Two were smudged with the marks of dirty fingers. The third showed the careful script of my handwriting. I'd written
clared to be fr
.

“Wake up!” I shook Ruth roughly. “Did you do this?”

She blinked, sleep-muddled, and sat up on her pallet.

“Did you use the paper in my haversack to start the fire?”

She gazed out the window. “'Tis not morning.”

“Morning or night, it matters not!” I picked up the shell button that had fallen from her hand. “You took down the sacks and you played with the buttons.”