Original Death (11 page)

Chapter Five

T
he iron hole. Duncan could not fathom what the reference meant, but the provosts who escorted him clearly were pleased with the prospect. They shoved him out of the fortress, not reacting when a handful of men in kilts threw stones at him. When the last stone, a sharp blow to his knee, caused him to stumble, his guards simply swung down their muskets, bayonets at the ready. He struggled to his feet with a clanking of chains. As they passed a stable, a man pitched a forkful of manure at him, eliciting a growl from a provost only when some landed on his boot.

They marched to the edge of town then onto a rough road before turning into a narrow gully through a gate of timbers where another squad of provosts stood guard. The twisting gully quickly darkened as they descended, the walls growing close together, until they suddenly rounded a turn and faced a large opening in the rock wall.

A shiver ran down Duncan's spine as he saw the gate of stout iron bars. A guard stepped out of the gloom to open the gate, casting a glance of contempt at Duncan, then shoved him into the cave so hard he fell onto his knees.

As the gate slammed behind him, a soldier with a hard, sour face appeared from a side chamber and pointed Duncan to a low stool. He set a lantern on the ground as Duncan sat down, then lifted a hammer and a short iron punch. With two quick taps he released the pins from Duncan's manacles and hung the chains on a peg.

Duncan's relief at having the chafing metal off his ankles quickly faded as the guard gestured him into the murk of the descending tunnel. Lanterns hung from support beams every ten paces. After ten lanterns, the tunnel made a sharp turn and the guard paused to stuff two pieces of what looked like raw wool up his nostrils. As they rounded the corner the stench of human filth struck Duncan like a physical blow.

“Two levels,” the guard explained as he pushed Duncan forward. “No one goes into the main tunnel without permission. No one disturbs the candles, no one upends the pisspots, no one fights with another prisoner. Break those rules and ye get sent to the bottom level. Half the men there get carried out in shrouds. The stench be so thick in the bottom ye can carve a slice and eat it for breakfast. And try to go into the old mine beyond the second level and the mountain will kill ye,” he added as he halted at the low entrance to a side chamber. “Took three bodies out of here last week,” the guard added. “Which means ye might be able to find a blanket.” He gestured Duncan through the low arch. “God save the king,” he said with a mock salute.

A dozen specters looked up as Duncan entered the dimly lit chamber, the pale, hollow faces of emaciated prisoners. He had seen such faces before, when he had been imprisoned in Edinburgh and on the prison ship that had transported him to America. They were drained of strength, drained of hope. Some wore vestiges of uniforms, others just filthy grey tunics. This was no holding cell, no simple brig where soldiers were disciplined. This dungeon was of a kind Duncan did not know existed in America.

The chamber, at least twenty paces long and ten wide, was lit by only three stout candles resting on squarish boulders evenly placed along the center. The prisoners sat in small groups on filthy straw pallets along the near end. They offered no greeting, just watched Duncan with empty
eyes as he retrieved a moth-eaten blanket from a pile inside the entrance. Nearby, two men eyed him, muttering to one another, then each tossed a button on the floor between them. He carried the blanket to an empty place along the far wall and was beginning to fold it into a cushion when it seemed to move. He dropped it. The blanket was crawling with lice.

One of the two prisoners at the entry gave a victorious guffaw and swept up the buttons.

Duncan kicked the blanket away and moved farther down the chamber, settling down against the cold wall near the third candle. He could see now the small alcoves at the end of the cavern where miners had once chiseled out iron, and the waste buckets in them, and he understood why the prisoners gathered at the far end.

His head sagged. It felt like he hadn't had real sleep in days. The despair that seized him seemed to block all conscious thought, but it fought a losing battle with his exhaustion. He touched his belt and realized that in their haste the provosts had not searched him thoroughly, seizing only his obvious weapons. In a pouch on his belt he found one of the fragrant chips of cedar wood he kept for Conawago's spirit fires. He pulled up his knees, crossed his arms over them, and cupped the cedar under his nose as he surrendered to his fatigue.

He was a young boy again, running over the hills in defiance of his father's stern command to stay at home. His mother had sent him to his room, saying it was no business for children, but she had not known that Duncan had learned to drop out of the upstairs window. As he peered around a tree trunk, he was filled with pride at having reached the men at the grove of trees undetected, and he was about to race to his father's side when the company suddenly went silent. A terrible inhuman cry rose from the tallest tree, then a riderless horse galloped away. As the company parted for it, Duncan saw the man swinging from the limb, struggling with his noose as his face turned blue. The cattle thief had taken a long time to die.

A low, steady voice crept into his consciousness, a new voice singing one of the net hauling shanties of his youth. He lifted his head, his eyelids
heavy, to see another gentle old Scot cleaning his net on a twilit beach. He shook his head to clear his vision. He wanted to be asleep. His waking world was nothing but nightmare.

He paused, studying the figure before him, and realized he was no longer dreaming. The man was not as old as he had imagined, but he wore the kilt of a Scottish regiment over his brawny legs. He was holding the corner of the blanket Duncan had cast away over the naked flame of the candle. The other prisoners lay on their pallets at the far end of the cell, most of them snoring.

The soldier glanced at him. “I do me best work at night,” he said, as if to explain himself.

Duncan's throat felt dry as a bone. “How—how do you know it's night?” he asked as he rose to approach the man. The scent of singed wool hung about him.

“The wee ones tell us,” the big man answered good-naturedly, with a vague gesture toward the cell's entry. “Y'er going to get cold, lad,” he declared, and stooped over his task. He was slowly passing the fabric of the blanket over the flame. Duncan heard tiny popping sounds as the lice were burnt away.

“
Tapadh leat
,” Duncan said, thanking the man in Gaelic.

The prisoner looked up with a grin. “
Se do bheatha
,” he replied. “I love to hear the little buggers pop.”

Through his pain and despair, Duncan recognized the man's accent. “My grandfather would say those of the outer isles had salt and peat in their voice. Never in my wildest imagination would I have thought to meet a man from Stornaway.”

The man's face brightened. “Be that an echo of the western coast on yer own tongue?”

“My clan is McCallum, of the western coast and the Hebrides. My grandfather and I used to fish the waters of the Minch off Lewis when the weather was fair,” Duncan replied, referring to the western isle for which Stornaway was the main port.

“Macaulay,” the man offered. “Corporal William Macaulay of the 78
^th
. Fraser's Highlanders.” He finished at a corner of the blanket, then rose to hand it to Duncan. “Free of the wee beasties for a day or two.”

“Long enough then,” Duncan replied, trying to keep his voice level.

Macaulay hesitated, then noticed the twine around Duncan's upper arm. “By the blessed saints,” he muttered. “I'm sorry, lad.”

Duncan followed his gaze. “I didn't ask what it meant.”

“T'is the mark of the king's rope, son. Surely the provosts mentioned the gallows.”

“It was a colonel named Cameron who did most of the talking. There is supposed to be a trial.”

Macaulay cocked his head. “But the army don't hang civilians. Ye need a magistrate for that.”

“I've done tasks now and again for Woolford's rangers. It was enough for them.”

The big Scot sighed and shook his head heavily. “So what was it? Spilled your ale on our priggish colonel's boots?”

Duncan met Macaulay's level gaze. “They claim I killed a corporal of the 42
^nd
.”

The soldier's eyes narrowed.

“I found him in a pool of blood. I was hoping to help him, but he was already gone. It was just my bad fortune that a patrol happened by.”

“What corporal?” The warmth had gone out the big Scot's voice.

“His name was MacLeod.”

Macaulay muttered a curse. “Jock MacLeod of the 42
^nd
? The bare-fisted champion of the regiment? Not likely.” He shrugged. “He'd never be taken by a child like ye. No offense lad.”

“None taken. It's welcome to find at least one man in Albany who believes me.”

“And my testimony will count like Bibles before the bastards who will judge ye.”

Duncan fingered the piece of twine. The vow to hang him the next
day had seemed so remote, just another of his terrible dreams. But the twine made it real. The pain of his beating, the desolate cavern prison, the promised noose. He had come to Albany in search of the truth and a boy he had never met. But he had really come to die. His father had been summoning him to the gibbet, to join the rest of the clan. This was the ending of his short and tormented days. He had to find a way to write a letter to Sarah Ramsey, to let her know she should wait no more.

Macaulay, seeming to sense his strange paralysis, took the blanket out of Duncan's hands and draped it over his back. Then he settled onto the floor on the opposite side of the candle, holding his open hands toward the flame as if it were some comforting hearth.

“Jock was a Lewis man too. He loved the war,” Macaulay said in a soft voice. “He was fond of reminding me that the men of Lewis were descended from Vikings, that we were meant to die in battle, with a weapon in our hands.”

“He had a sword in his hand when I found him. His fists were bloody.”

“Amen,” Macaulay said with a satisfied nod. “Tell me about it lad. Tell me all.”

Duncan began with the morning of the terrible day of death, speaking of his discovery of the dead dispatch rider in the water.

The big Scot spat a curse when he heard it was another trooper wearing the plaid. “A sad waste of life. Always the Highlanders, eh?”

“I'm sorry?”

“'Tis always the Highlanders who pay the butcher's bill in this army.” He shook his head and stared into the flame for a moment. “But what of Jock? Where was this settlement he fell in?”

Duncan continued his story, telling how an entire village was slain, even how he had come searching for the Nipmuc orphan who had gone to the river witch.

“Hetty the Welsh sorceress,” Macaulay said. “When I was young ye wouldn't go near such a fearful hag without clutching a piece of iron in your hand.” Superstitions ran deep in the Hebrides.

Both men remained silent, staring into the solitary flame. A moth appeared and circled over the candle.

“The Highland troops,” Duncan asked at last. “They are all supposed to be in the North.”

“One company from each regiment was held back for the western campaign up the great lake to the Saint Lawrence to steady the fresh troops coming up the Hudson, called up from the Indies. Orders are expected to go west with Cameron to Oswego any day.”

Duncan gestured to the other prisoners, several of whom wore kilts. “Some of them sit in the iron hole.”

Macaulay spat a curse. “Some don't lick the boots of English officers quick enough.”

Duncan tried to clear his mind, to consider what had transpired in the general's office. “A soldier works hard for his shillings,” he observed. He had not forgotten the general's despairing gaze upon the dead man's pay chit, nor how he had angrily flung it into the fire despite it being presented as evidence against Duncan.

“Not in this man's army,” Macaulay rejoined. “Nigh a year without pay.” His face darkened. “We didn't come all this way to be English slaves.”

Duncan shivered again and glanced about the cold, dark chamber. “This place is a chamber of torture. How do you stand it?”

“I was raised in a black house, lad,” the soldier said, referring to the houses of unmortared black stone common in Scotland's western isles, known for their cold and damp.

“How long have you been in here?”

“Just yesterday. But I've been a guest before.”

“For insubordination?”

“This time for taking a sick friend's place on sentry duty without asking permission. Then not groveling when an English officer expressed his disapproval.” Macaulay shrugged, then stood, stretching. “Get some sleep. Ye'll need your wits about ye tomorrow. Tell them ye want a rasher of bacon and a piece of apple pie from the officer's mess.”

“I'm sorry?”

“They'll come a couple hours before yer trial. They'll clean ye up, make ye presentable for the English prigs who will condemn ye. They always give a man his request for a meal before . . .” Macaulay hesitated. “Before such things,” he finished awkwardly, then moved away.