Sup with the Devil (35 page)

“You didn’t try to buy them through someone else?”

He looked at her blankly. “Someone else?”

“A Mrs. Lake?”

He frowned a little, fishing through his memory for the name, then shook his head. “I mean only to hold them until I’ve had a chance to go through them—”

“You have not done so yet?”

“No, m’am. I—since the books came to my hand, I’ve been in Boston more than I’ve been here, helping His Excellency. The only times I’ve come to Cambridge have been to help my students prepare for the examinations, to drill with the Volunteers . . . and to”—he stammered just slightly on the words—“to be of service to a . . . a private pupil who has suffered a great loss . . .”

And if you were wealthy
, she reflected, looking into those deep-set brown eyes,
she would be fainting in YOUR arms
. . .

“Please.” Ryland swallowed hard. “Please tell no one of what I did. I will make the money good . . . There’s treasure out there somewhere, I know there is. His Excellency’s records of the colony speak of—of old Whitehead . . . I know he must have left some . . .”

“And do they speak,” asked Abigail, “of this stone fortress of his? Or of where he might have held land?”

Ryland shook his head. “He held none, m’am. I’ve looked through all His Excellency’s records. He had a sort of stronghold on the coast up above Lynn, but that was all, and ’twas burned by the Navy in King William’s War. ’Twas thought the old man’s books were all destroyed then—he was well known as a scholar. So I was surprised to hear that they’d survived here.”

“As indeed you might be. Does anyone know you have these other books?”

“Not that I know of, m’am.”

“Then keep it that way,” she said softly. “And if any man approaches you about them, deny it, or invent a tale that you’ve passed them along to the Governor. Mrs. Seckar spoke of them as cursed,” she finished. “And ’tis true; ill things have befallen those who’ve had them in keeping. And I only hope and trust,” she murmured, as with a deep bow Mr. Ryland took his leave, “that you survive the possession of them once our friends discover nothing in those books of ours but chemical formulae and notes concerning the treatment of horses’ piles.”

 

 

T
hey set forth quietly from the Golden Stair at half-past eleven that night: John and Abigail, Revere and Katy, crossing the Common on its northern side by the slitted glimmer of a single dark-lantern held low. The new moon had set early. By wan starlight the world was formless, trees like black thunderheads and the fine brick houses of the village’s worthies no more than dim cutouts of dark against darkness. Abigail carried the wrapped package of books in her arms.
Accursed things
, she thought . . .

Was it only that
love of money is the root of all evil
? Mr. Joseph Ryland had, from the moment she had met him, impressed her with his integrity: even his devotion to the King’s cause sprang not from place-seeking, but from dread of civil war. The fact that he would embezzle money from his benefactor, lie to him, then take advantage of his collection of the colony’s old documents to hunt for the location of the treasure, only for money . . .

Sally Woodleigh’s lovely face floated for a moment in Abigail’s thoughts.

He is young.
And beneath that steady exterior, she sensed in the young bachelor-fellow the capacity for passion—for Sally as for the cause of his King.

The dark bulk of the college buildings rose to their right as they moved on into the open field of the Harvard Yard, where the young men ran their footraces on bright spring days and played at ball, and where the hay was harvested in June. A single lamp glimmered, high in some uncurtained room, like a dim gold star in the blackness, and a stirring of night-breeze brought the smell of the college stables. Revere had brought a long, forked stick with its straight end sharpened; this he drove into the ground in the center of the yard, then hung one of the lanterns on it, above the level of the tops of the long grasses that in some places grew thigh-high. At the foot of this, Abigail laid the wrapped package of the books.

Please, God, let all be well
. . .

She was trembling as John took her hand in his, and together they retreated back toward the college, her cloak and skirts flapping around her ankles, the yellow smudge of the closed-down lantern-beam bobbing on the ground before them in the dark. Her thoughts seemed to have narrowed, running in a blind circle of fear and hope and agony.

Charley. Dear God, keep him safe
.

Stillness and the watching sparkle of the distant stars. John shut the lantern-slide and they stood in the darkness among the trees along the wall of the college barn, where Fairfield had met with goodness only knew how many young ladies in his short career. Nothing below the level of the sky was visible, save that single light out in the midst of the Yard. John’s breath was a steady whisper beside her, and his arm circled her waist, his strength surprising. Katy’s hand stole into Abigail’s free one, chilled in the night. A bird cried somewhere in the trees.

Then silence.

The distant light went out.

Abigail’s breath caught. She started forward; John’s arm tightened around her: “Give them a moment to get away from him.”

But she knew if Charley had the freedom of his own limbs he’d immediately start looking for them, would get lost in the long grass . . .

Then a rifle-shot cracked, like thunder in the darkness. Then another and another. Abigail gasped as if cold water had doused her—somewhere a man cried out . . .

She tore the lantern out of John’s hand and the two of them were running, running toward where the light had been. John shouted, “Nab—!” and his hand caught hers in the darkness, and then, “
Charley!
”

“Charley!” she screamed. “Charley, we’re here—!”

Shouting ahead of them, in the direction of the Sever orchards, and another gun fired, and then, thready in the blackness, a child’s wail, “Ma!”

“Stay where you are!” shouted John. “Stay where you are and GET DOWN!”

“Ma!”

How she found her way in the whole blackness of the Harvard Yard she didn’t know, but the jolting lantern-beam showed her Revere’s forked stick, the quenched lantern, and Charley huddled down next to the stick—not in fear, but trying to untie the short piece of rope that fastened him by one ankle to the upright wood. Somewhere in the darkness men were shouting, a confusion of sounds—
Get him! Hold him! Tory bastard!
The child stood up at the sight of their lantern, held out his arms, and Abigail and John both fell to their knees, catching him tight—

“Are you all right?” gasped Abigail. “Are you—”

The soft skin pressed her cheek, miraculously, blindingly.

“I wasn’t scared,” said the boy cheerfully. “I knew you’d get me.”

In the blackness behind them, two more shots rang out.

 

 

A
t John’s insistence—obeying his direct order was one of the most difficult tasks in their relationship so far—Abigail remained in their room at the Golden Stair, lying beside the sleeping Charley while John waited in the common room downstairs for Sam to put in an appearance. On the walk back to the inn, Paul Revere swore with such softvoiced fury at his fellow Son of Liberty that Abigail was inclined to believe that he hadn’t been in on the plot, but cold rage at them all nearly stifled her.

“How dared he?” she began, when she and John carried their son up to the chamber, “How
DARED
he—?”

John stroked Charley’s head—the boy had fallen asleep in Abigail’s arms before they’d even reached the Common—and breathed, “Later, Nab. Look to the boy.”

Sick rage filled her: at herself, at them, at the world. At the Sons of Liberty. At Sam.

Listening—for their room at the Golden Stair was close to the staircase that led down to the common room—she heard when the Sons of Liberty came in: the sarcastic voice of Mrs. Squills asking, would Mr. Congreve care for some assistance in arresting them all for breaking the curfew?, and then the low-voiced rumble of explanations, arguments, accounts. Twice Abigail almost fell asleep only to jolt awake again from dreams of panic, dreams in which she reached the lanternstaff in the middle of Harvard Yard and there was no child sitting beneath it, or dreams in which the child beneath it—

She shook her head, forcing the image away in panic.
He’s well. He’s truly all right. He wasn’t even frightened, he says . . .
Oddly, she believed him. His body bore no signs of mistreatment, just a little bruising on his wrists where he’d been tied—no worse, so far as she could tell by the candle-glow, than he got from some of his rougher games with Johnny. (Despite the strictest orders all the children had not to play any game that involved tying each other up . . .)

If Dubber Grimes and his minions hadn’t been shot out of hand by the Sons of Liberty, she supposed she owed them a plea of clemency for that.

The voices faded.

John’s tread on the stair.

His dim shape in the light of the candle in his hand as he opened the door. She could see he carried the package of books beneath one arm.

“Did they take them?”

He set the light down on the small table beside the bed, barely large enough for the candlestick and the package he bore. It was still wrapped all around in string, the big red globs of sealing wax uncracked. “Two of them,” he said. “The scar-faced man—Grimes, I think his name was—and the man they called Newgate Hicks. Both are dead, shot in the scuffle—”

“And I suppose Sam didn’t give a thought to the fact that we might want to ask these gentlemen who was paying them for their services? Whether it was the Governor or Mr. Pugh or—”

“Sam is furious. Of course he wanted to know who the true culprit is.”

“You astound me.” Abigail heard the shrewish shrillness that cracked her voice but couldn’t help herself. “I didn’t think Sam had a thought in his mind except finding this accursed treasure, if there is a treasure, no matter what it costs . . . just like whoever it is who is behind this attempt. And will be behind the next one.”

She was aware that she was trembling, almost sick with reaction to shock, with anger. She reached out, ran her hand over the package of books—

Then looked up at John and said, knowing it for the truth, “Were the books even in this package?”

“No.” He sat on the bed at her side, and when she threw his hands off her—furious with him as with the others—and ripped at the thick paper, the heavy seals, he persisted and took from her the half-revealed copies of some of Sam’s old Greek textbooks. Drew her against him, held her close. “’Tis all right,” he said softly. “’Tis all right, Portia. ’Tis done.”

“It isn’t,” she whispered, and leaned her head on his shoulder.

“It is for tonight.”

A
bigail was calmer when she and John descended to breakfast the following morning, but the anger she felt, though colder, was no less real. Years of milking cows and doing farm-chores had made of them both early risers; they were halfway through Mrs. Squills’s porridge, eggs, and coffee before Revere joined them.

While she and John were still alone, Abigail inquired, “Does Sam have the true books here with him? Or was he so sure he could get away with his trick that he didn’t even bring them?”

“He has them,” said John. “He’s staying at the Indian’s Head—”

“For fear I may have glimpsed him yester’even and guessed what he was about?” She poured a dollop of cream from the pitcher into her coffee, a drink of which she was not truly fond, but Mrs. Squills would serve no tea.

“For fear you’d stab him in his sleep afterwards, I think.” John spoke lightly, but Abigail could see him watching her sidelong. He knew she was still very angry indeed.

Revere felt it, too, she could tell, when he descended the stair and greeted her, and—though happily married to his lovely Rachel—flirted a little with Mrs. Squills as she brought out hot bread and more coffee. “Is the boy well?” he asked, and John nodded.