Chains (19 page)

The captain fought the smile that played at the corner of his lips. “Our task is to occupy the city. We'll let the Highlanders hunt them down. Tell the men to take over the
barracks and prepare Washington's headquarters for Major General Robertson.”

“Yessir.” The soldier saluted again but did not move.

“What is it now, Jennings?” asked the captain.

“Begging pardon, sir, but I've not been informed as to the whereabouts of Washington's headquarters. If I was to be given that information, I could pursue my obligations with greater speed.”

“I don't know where it is,” Captain Campbell said with irritation. “Use your noggin, man. Ask the tavern keeper.”

“You want the Kennedy mansion, sir,” I said. “Just beyond the end of Battery, facing the Bowling Green.”

“What did you say?” the captain fired at me.

My knees were shaking under my skirt. “The Kennedy mansion, sir, that was General Washington's main headquarters. Number 1, Broadway. His wife stayed up at the Mortier House. But he kept headquarters straight thataway”—I pointed west—“and more army offices were in City Hall.” I pointed north, up Broad Street.

“Very good,” he said. “There you have it, Sergeant. Proceed.”

The sergeant yelled to his unit as he walked away from us. The waterfront was awash in red now as boatloads of soldiers disembarked. Shouted orders filled the air, along with nervous laughter and the sound of British boots on the cobblestones. A few more boats were on their way in, with the first boats headed back for more. The occupation was well and truly begun.

“You are correct, young miss,” Captain Campbell said to me. “You are useful. But we do not want troublemakers in camp. What is the meaning of the mark on your face?”

I touched the raised scar and decided that honesty was
my only course. “This stands for Insolence, sir. When my mistress sold my little sister, I tried to run away. She is five years old, sir. My sister, not my mistress.”

He blinked and cleared his throat. “Regrettable. And understandable. I have a younger sister myself. Your mistress, am I to assume she supports the rebel cause?”

“No, sir,” I answered. “Our house is Tory. My master was driven out of town by the Patriot leaders. My mistress is much cheered by your arrival. She wants to hire a proper staff so she can entertain again. She'll not miss my services one bit.”

The words tumbled out before I measured them. The captain's mouth hardened, and I knew I had stepped wrong.

He tugged on his sash. “I cannot accept your service, child. We only employ slaves run away from rebel owners.”

I did not hear him right. “Pardon me?”

“Gentlemen docking, sir!” cried a soldier on the wharf.

Captain Campbell turned as the men tossed thick ropes from the dock to the occupants of the next boat. It contained only four soldiers, each manning an oar. The rest of the passengers were men dressed in expensive civilian clothes.

“When they're ashore, escort them into the tavern for a celebration,” the captain said loudly. “Issue the tavern keeper an Office of Forage certificate. Warn him, Sergeant, he is not to ask the gentlemen for payment, unless he wants to spent this night in irons. They are our guests.”

“Yes, sir!” came the enthusiastic response.

As we had been talking, ordinary city folk had begun to creep out of their houses. Now there was a full crowd gathered, the Tories of New York who had been awaiting this days for months, years. Cheers were heard in the
distance. The arriving soldiers were greeted by townsmen who shook their hands and patted them heartily on the back. I recognized a few faces—the reverend and his wife and a few people who had called at the Lockton home.

Captain Campbell bent toward me. He spoke quickly and quietly. “I do not hold with slavery, but I cannot help you. We do not interfere with Loyalist property. Return to your mistress.”

A loud “Huzzah!” from hundreds of throats came from the Battery as the American flag was pulled down. A drummer started beating time, and the Union Jack rose to the top of the flagpole, accompanied by whistles and shouts from the lobsterbacks and Loyalist New Yorkers, who took off their hats in respect. A woman in the crowd snatched the American flag out of the hands of the British soldiers and stomped it under her boots. The men laughed.

The
ratatatating
of the drumsticks rattled through me, setting my teeth to shaking and waking the bees who had lately gone to sleep in my brainpan.

He couldn't take me. He would not.

I was chained between two nations.

The bees swarmed again behind my eyes, making the scene grow dim and distant. The sun was nearing the horizon, casting long shadows across the wharf. I was a ghost tied to the ground, not a living soul.

“All ashore, sir,” called the soldier tying up the last boat.

“All ashore, Corporal,” the captain acknowledged. “I want patrols assembled immediately to keep watch in the streets, and sentry fires built on every corner.”

“Yes, sir!”

The gentlemen who had arrived in the boat walked toward us, talking with great excitement. One of them was
painfully familiar. He called to me before I could flee.

“Sal?” called Master Elihu Lockton, thinner from his exile, eyes bloodshot and wary. “Is that you?”

I dropped into a curtsy and dared not say a word.

He studied on me with suspicion. “What are you doing here?”

Sergeant Jennings approached. “The tavern is open if the gentlemen would care to drink to victory.”

Lockton waved to his companions. “I shall join you shortly.” As the gentlemen hurried to the tavern, his eyes traveled from my head down to my shoes and back. “What news, Sal?” he asked. “How do you come to be here?”

I pulled Madam's list from my pocket and prayed he would not look inside my basket. “Come to market, sir,” I whispered.

“Ah. What is this?” He took my chin in his fingers, turning it so that the last rays of the sunset fell on my scar. “Is the
I
for ‘illustrious' or perhaps ‘impertinent'?”

My face burned both in the scar and where his lavender-smelling fingers pinched my skin. The bees flew through me and told me to grab Campbell's sword and run it through Lockton's belly.

And then what? And then what?

“I suspect it stands for Insolence,” Captain Campbell said calmly. “'Tis a common brand among the people of Boston.”

Lockton laughed at the small joke and released me. “Now we'll call her Insolent Sal, a very saucy gal.”

The captain smiled and put his hand on the hilt of his sword. “I should have known she was attached to your household, sir. She greeted me in the name of the King and thanked me for rescuing the city from the rebels.”

They both looked at me.

“We prayed for liberation,” I said.

“Even our slaves have become political,” Lockton said. “How quaint.”

“Do you wish to accompany your servant home to greet your mistress?” the captain asked.

Lockton shook his head. “Not at the moment. Go on home, Sal. Tell Anne I shall be along after I've lifted a few glasses in celebration.”

The two men headed for the tavern as the sun finally dropped out of sight.

I must have gone to Mason's and bought the items on Madam's list, tho' I remember it not. My body moved through the streets, past sentry fires and redcoats carrying torches down suspicious alleys and into abandoned houses. Around me was the sound of the victors celebrating and the smell of meat they roasted for their supper.

Around me, all was darkness.

OH, THE HOUSES IN NEW YORK, IF YOU COULD BUT SEE THE
INSIDES OF THEM! OCCUPIED BY THE DIRTIEST PEOPLE ON
A CONTINENT … IF THE OWNERS EVER GET POSSESSION
AGAIN, I AM SURE THEY WILL BE YEARS IN CLEANING THEM.
–A LETTER FROM NEW YORK IN THE
MORNING CHRONICLE
AND LONDON ADVERTISER
NEWSPAPER

The British army paraded up Broadway the next day, cheered by Loyalists all wearing a red ribbon or flower in their hats in support of the King. I did not see this, of course. I overheard the report that Madam gave the master as they ate supper that eve with their houseguests, the two officers who had moved into the bedchambers on the top floor.

The highest-ranking men of the British army had taken over the empty rebel mansions. Lower-grade officers had moved in with Loyalist families who had suitable furniture and staff, such as the Locktons. Only we didn't have a staff. Becky had vanished, her rooms at the Oliver Street boardinghouse abandoned. I was the only servant in the house.

It mattered not. My bones were hollow sticks; my brainpan empty.

I cooked a chicken and roasted potatoes and carrots. I left the chicken over the fire too long because Madam ordered the silver polished and the table linens ironed in honor of her guests. The bird was so dry it near splintered the tongues of the officers. Madam let loose on me in the kitchen after the gentlemen had taken Master Lockton to Ashley's Tavern for a night of beer drinking and pipe smoking.

It mattered not.

When Madam finished scolding me, I set to my evening chores; cleaning out the ashes from the bedchamber fireplaces and carrying them outside, bringing in the firewood and laying the fires in case the night turned cold, turning down the beds, cleaning up from supper, and sweeping the floor.

When I finally laid down to sleep, I set Ruth's doll beside my head. I had stopped kissing it good night. I did not say prayers.

My bones were hollow and my brainpan empty.

Madam ran me like a donkey all the next day, then demanded that I stay awake all night to make rolls for breakfast because the bakers in town were rebels, and they had fled. I did as she ordered and ruined two perfectly fine batches of dough. I threw them down the privy and baked cornbread deep in the night for that was one thing my hands knew how to bake.

The cornbread burned to charcoal when I fell asleep, head on the table.

It mattered not.

Three mornings after the invasion, a message was delivered to the master as I served the coffee. I set the note on a small silver tray and carried it into the drawing room.

The officers were in the middle of excusing themselves from the table, buttoning up their coats and putting on their hats. After the master said his “good days” to them, he opened the note.

“A social invitation?” Madam asked. “Or business?”

“Neither,” Lockton said. “It's a desperate plea.” He handed the note across to his wife. “Aunt Seymour is in need of our Sal. All of her Dutch girls fled, and she is without servants.”

Madam snatched the paper from his hand. “Surely she can do for herself. We have company. Why should we go without a servant?”

“We have only two men lodging here. Somehow Aunt has managed to take on a dozen Hessian brutes. She requires our assistance.”

Madam gave a little shudder. “Hessians.” The hired soldiers from Germany had a fearsome reputation. She crumpled the paper. “I will not perform housework like a common wench. Tell her to hire someone.”

“The times demand sacrifices, Anne. Just for a week or so. Women will soon come to the city looking for work, and you and our aunt will be able to hire a full staff.”

Madam scowled into her cup. “You favor her over me, Elihu. It's unseemly.”

Lockton wiped his mouth with his serviette. “The loan of the girl is the least we owe her. I hope you regret your decision to send away the sister. Even small hands would be helpful now.”

His mention of Ruth so startled me I near dropped the tray.

Madam bit back the hot words in her mouth, picked up her serviette, and cleaned off her chin. “You will clean the kitchen and prepare the dinner, girl, then you will take
yourself to the house of Lady Seymour and do what she requires of you.”

Lockton shook his head. “No, Sal. You will leave immediately.”

I took a clean apron and Ruth's doll with me to Lady Seymour's house. In truth, I did not walk there quickly. In truth, I dawdled something fierce. Folks said that Hessian soldiers were fire-breathing monsters who walked about with swords drawn and blood on their chins. I figured that would be as bad as Madam.

I was near correct.

They did not breathe fire, tho' they spat when they talked. Nor did they walk about waving their swords, tho' some sported knives in their boots. None had blood on their chins, except when they ate rare-cooked meat. I found it hard not to stare at the enormous mustachios that sprouted under their noses, especially when the men combed and waxed them, and twirled the ends.

Their speech sounded like they were swallowing rocks, but Lady Seymour understood them. She learned the German from her husband, she said, same way she learned the Dutch. There were all manner of secrets locked in that old skull.

When I served them supper my first night, a couple of them said
“Danke”
to me. Lady Seymour explained that
danke
is German-talk for “thank you.” She told me not to be afeard, that they were just soldiers far away from home. A couple of them were fond of her cat, she pointed out. How could men who liked cats be bad? She tolerated them fair enough, except for the muddy boots on the furniture and
when they spread butter on their bread with their thumbs. That made her gasp and go pink in the face.

I practiced saying “
danke
” when alone.

The work at the Seymour house was every bit as tiring as it had been at Madam's, more so because there were more mouths to feed and boots to clean and basins to fill and linens to wash and coats to beat free of dust. Lady Seymour made sure I et a proper meal three times a day and let me sleep in the tiny attic bedchamber on the bed where I laid after my time in the stocks. It was hot up there, but there were no mice nor worms on the floor when it rained.