Traitor to the Crown The Patriot Witch

by C. C. Finlay

  She stood, took a step forward, and collapsed, her body shaking as she vomited. Although her stomach was empty, she heaved again and again, dry spasms that racked her body. Proctor touched her forehead—she was burning with a fever.

  “Where's Jolly?” she asked, wiping her mouth.

  He followed her gaze and saw the open door. Outside, the boom of cannons echoed from across the bay.

  “This isn't over yet, is it?” Proctor asked.

  Numbly, Deborah shook her head.

  Chapter 23

  Proctor looked at the room—the broken drawing, the tipped candle, the pile of dusty rags. He lurched to his feet, kicked over the other four lights, scattered the salt, and stamped out the lines of blood.

  Without the candles, the room was dark again, lit only by the glow of the coals in the hearth.

  He turned back toward Deborah. The curve of her face glowed red in the light. He held his arms open to her, pleading, as the blood ran from his cuts and dripped from his palms. “Isn't that enough?” he asked. “The widow's dead—won't that break her spell?”

  Deborah tried to sit up again, but fell back dizzy, leaned against the wall.

  “My mother used to say that the good we do dies with us, but the evil lives long after. She was talking about magic, and this is evil, so evil.” She looked at the body of the stable boy, who lay there openmouthed, surprised. “I think this could live much longer.”

  Outside, the cannons boomed again.

  “What can we do?” he said.

  “You have to go,” she said. She turned her head frantically around the room, crawled to the stable boy and took hold of his shirt, then let go. “You have to go warn them.”

  “Warn who?”

  “The militia.” She tugged off her jacket and scrambled across the floor, groping in the near dark until she found the widow's knife. “They won't have a chance unless you do. Come here.”

  He knelt beside her. “What?”

  “Hold out your arms,” she said, slashing her lightweight jacket into strips. “Let me bind them up.”

  Her hands were steady as she wrapped the cloth around his arm and knotted it. She pulled the sleeve down to his wrist when she was done. “There, that'll pass in the dark.”

  “It itches—”

  “A healing spell, the best I can do, I'm sorry it's not more. Give me the other arm.”

  He didn't want to interrupt her spell, but as soon as she tugged down his other sleeve, he asked, “What difference will a warning make?”

  “You're right. A warning's not enough.” She sat back, wiping her face, smearing dark lines of his blood across her cheeks. Looking at the scattered pieces of the spell, she said, “The fear—they won't feel any fear, that part of her spell was interrupted, never completed. But we have to counter the rest of it.”

  Proctor thought of Pitcairn's golden medallion, the one he'd received from the widow. “We could make charms, something to keep them safe.”

  “But then we'd have to get them there, to the men.”

  “I can do that,” he said, looking around the room for something to charm. He saw the lead ball the widow had dropped on the floor—he didn't want to touch that. But the bag of flints still sat by the door. He ran to it and pulled out a handful of lead balls.

  “Can we make these into charms?”

  “Those will work,” she said. “They'll work perfectly, countering the ball she used for her spell.”

  Outside, the ship's cannons boomed again. From the commons nearby, they heard the British regulars answer it with a huzzah.

  “We don't have much time,” he said.

  “Give them to me.”

  He poured the musket balls into her cupped hands, which dropped from the weight. Wrapping his own hands around hers, he helped lift them to her mouth. She whispered into the gap at her thumbs.

  “May Thy light shine on these simple balls of lead. If it be Thy will, let them become shields of life rather than takers of life, let no man who bears them fall before his appointed time.”

  Light flowed down her arms and into her hands. Proctor's skin tingled and all his hair prickled. Inside their cupped hands, the balls glowed for a moment like coals.

  Sweat beaded on Deborah's forehead and her eyes blinked, unfocused. It passed, and she leaned back to support herself against the wall.

  “Are you all right?” Proctor asked. “Should I find a doctor?”

  “I'm fine,” she whispered.

  “You don't look fine. I'm worried.”

  “It's just the widow's magic still swimming in me, and all of it tainted like bad water,” she said. “Look.”

  Her hands were open. The lead balls had been transformed into tiny skulls, the irregularities in their surface forming the divots of eyes and noses, lines scored like teeth.

  “These will work,” she said, thrusting them at Proctor. “They will protect whoever carries them.”

  He took them and turned them over in his palm in amazement. The enormity of the task ahead hit him then, and he shoved the little skulls into his pocket. “All I need to do now is find a thousand more. At which point, I will be so weighted down that when I try to swim across the bay, I will sink to the bottom, unable to rise.”

  “There are enough to protect the officers. They're in the most danger from her spell. You must find a way to the battlefield and give them these charms. Protect them.”

  Proctor nodded and rose. She was right, of course. He offered her his hand to help her up.

  She shook her head. “I'm too weak to go anywhere right now. You'll have to do it on your own.”

  “But—”

  “You can do it.” Her voice was weak, but full of conviction. She beckoned him close, and he knelt beside her to hear her better.

  Placing her hand on his, she leaned her mouth up to his head.

  “Keep one charm for yourself,” she said, her lips brushing his ear. And then she kissed his cheek.

  He felt himself blush. “Do I look like the sort of fellow who's going to put himself in the way of danger?”

  Before she could answer, before he could change his mind, he ran out the door.

  Cool air washed over him, blessedly fresh.

  Cannons boomed at his back and he jumped—the sound traveled clearer out here, the cannons seemed closer. The noise came across the water, from Charlestown, not from the militia lines at Roxbury.

  He looked toward the road. Down at the bottom of the hill, British troops marched in formation, the lights they carried glinting off their bayonets. They were headed into the city, not toward The Neck, which meant a staging area for boats. That made sense—the colonials were no match for the Royal Navy.

  So he had to get to Charlestown, and the quickest way there was through The Neck.

  He smelled horse manure, and where there was horse manure, there had to be horses. He spun around until he saw the stables—so large that at first he took them for an inn or another home.

  Inside, they were nearly deserted. He walked from stall to stall, trying not to think of the curly-haired stable boy, never mind the restlessness of the horses. There was a sturdy animal in the first stall, the kind he'd like to have on the farm, but it nipped at his hand. If he had more time, that wouldn't be a problem. The horse in the second stall was a gelding that looked to run like the wind, but the cannons boomed again and it whinnied and shied from him. The sorrel mare in the third stall was swaybacked, built more like the plow horse than the gelding, but she'd have to do.

  He spotted the tack at the far end of the stable. He had it in his hands and was carrying it back to the stall when he realized he had nowhere to ride to—if there was a battle to-night, they wouldn't let anyone cross The Neck. Assuming he could talk or force his way through the town gate, by the time he rode the miles around through Roxbury and Cambridge, it might already be too late.

  He hurled the saddle down in frustration, and kicked up the straw.

  There must be some other way—


  He spotted it by the door. He sprinted over and took the broom in his hands, then thrust it between his knees, like a child playing horsey.

  “Up!” he said, trying to focus. “Up, up, into the air!”

  The broom did nothing.

  “Giddyup?” he said, adding a hop.

  The mare in the third stall stamped at the ground and craned her neck toward him.

  “What're you looking at?” he asked.

  The horse snorted.

  He leaned the broom against the wall. Maybe he needed a stronger focus—

  The door slammed open—a British junior officer stepped in, lean, with a long chin and his hat in his hand. His face was as red as his coat. Proctor balled his fists, prepared to knock down the officer and make his escape before an alarm was raised.

  “Stable boy!”

  Caught in mid-step, Proctor said, “Yes?”

  “That's yes, sir, you insolent colonial trash,” he said, noticing the saddle on the floor with an air of disgust. “Colonel Jack's horse just threw a shoe. We're requisitioning one of these.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Saddle up the best horse and bring it down to the boats or I will return and see you whipped.”

  As he turned to go, Proctor called out to him, “I'm sorry, but which boats where?”

  “The North Battery, and hurry, we're due to embark in half an hour.”

  “All right,” Proctor said.

  Lifting his rifle butt, the officer started forward to strike Proctor, probably to make him obey more quickly.

  “It'll be harder to do your bidding if I'm lying bloody on the floor,” Proctor said.

  The officer stopped. “Half an hour—if the colonel has already crossed, you must send the horse after him.”

  The boats were the quickest way across, maybe the only way. Once there, he'd have to find some way to escape the British and reach the colonial lines without being shot.

  The officer was running out the door to rejoin his company on the road. He left the barn door open behind him. The cadence of drums drifted into the room, and then the cannons boomed again, echoing over the water.

  Proctor toyed with the notion of saddling up the edgy horse, hoping it might throw its rider. Instead, he went to the third stall and stroked the neck of the mare. “How would you like to go for a ride?”

  The horse shook her head as if she understood. In the next stall, the gelding shuffled restlessly and batted the stall door.

  “Maybe next time for you,” Proctor said as he went to work with the saddle, double-checking each buckle and stay until he was satisfied with it.

  When he was done with the work, the mare sidled up next to him, expecting to be mounted. Proctor shook his head and took her by the bridle instead. “I better lead you to the boats—we don't want to get there too soon.”

  The horse nudged his hand for a treat.

  Proctor rubbed her muzzle. “I'll have to owe you a carrot.”

  The strength of the horse lent Proctor power as they walked to the docks. The wounds on his arms throbbed, and his head still felt muzzy, his legs weak. Somehow he had to push all that down and keep on going.

  It helped that the city was wide awake, with lights in every window and people lining the streets as if it were a parade. The closer he came to the battery, the more the road was packed, slowing his progress. Other boys led horses to other officers or ran forgotten equipment to ordinary soldiers. A plump young woman in an apron, red-cheeked from crying, walked alongside the troops, holding a newborn infant in her arms and encouraging him to say good-bye to his papa.

  Proctor started asking for directions. “Where's Colonel Jack? I'm supposed to meet him at the boat.”

  He repeated the question several times before a squat sergeant with a scar across his face answered him. “He's at the docks—they should be embarking now, if they haven't gone already.”

  Proctor dallied just enough to give the boats time to depart. As he neared the water, the boom-boom of the cannons shelling Charlestown grew louder. Across the dark bay, the masts of the Lively lit up in orange relief each time fire jetted from her sides. One boom sounded when the cannons fired, and another when the shells hit, sending up debris and flames onshore. Even across the water, he could see fires spread from one wrecked home to another.

  He fell into a line where he saw other horses, making his way down to the shore. Barges loaded with twenty-five or thirty soldiers pushed off and disappeared into the darkness; others came back empty but for the sailors rowing.

  His turn came, and he stepped up to the boat. Soldiers pushed past him, jostling the mare in their hurry to board. Cannons boomed at the same instant, and she snorted, pulling away from Proctor.

  A sailor in a striped shirt was supervising the boarding. He saw Proctor struggling to calm her, and yelled, “Who's her officer?”

  “Colonel Jack,” Proctor said

  “He's already gone over.”

  “I'm supposed to take him this horse.”

  “If he went over without one, he can do without,” the sailor said. He held out his hand to block Proctor, and used the other to wave the next group of soldiers aboard.

  “If I don't get this to him, his lieutenant is going to come back and beat my hide.”

  “It's your hide, not mine,” the sailor said, shoving a hesitant soldier forward. “Keep moving.”

  The cannons boomed again and the sound of a great beam cracking echoed across the water.

  “Please, sir,” Proctor begged.

  One of the officers waiting to board stepped forward. “You better give him a hand,” he told the sailor. “I saw Colonel Jack's horse back up on the main road—it threw a shoe.”

  The sailor tossed up his hands in submission and stopped the line, ordering the soldiers off the boat. “Keep her to the center and keep her still,” he ordered Proctor.

  “Will do,” he said.

  The mare had been transported by boat before, if only by ferry. She was hesitant to step aboard, but when Proctor backed her up and gave her a few steps' start, she hopped over the low side. The boat rocked, and he struggled to keep his balance. But she stood steady in the center as soldiers packed in around her.

  “Push off!” the sailor shouted.

  The mare snorted as the boat lurched forward onto the water, but Proctor stroked her flanks and kept her calm. Maybe he was just keeping himself calm—getting to the other shore was only the first step in stopping the widow's massacre.

  “That horse doesn't look like it fights anything, except to get into the oats,” said one man.

  The young officer, who looked all of seventeen or eighteen, laughed. “It's for Colonel Jack. He'll need a comfortable horse to set upon, all gentleman-like, as we chase the rebels back to Concord.”

  That brought a few laughs, and a group in the back of the boat shouted “Huzzah!” loud enough to make the horse snort and start forward, rocking the boat. The sailors shouted in protest, the men were shouted down by their fellows, and Proctor gripped the bridle firmly and patted her side, the way he would a plow horse after a long day.

  The horse stayed calm for the rest of the ride, even when they passed within a few hundred yards of the booming guns of the Lively. They reached the shore, and the sailors were quick to unload Proctor and his charge. The young officer thrust out his hand as Proctor climbed ashore.

  “Lieutenant Parry,” he said.

  Proctor took his hand, too surprised to make up anything. “Proctor Brown.”

  “You're no horseman—that beast must be the most gentle creature in the world, or it would never have come across for you so easily.”

  He opened his mouth to answer and Parry laughed at him.

  “Still, it shows good sense that you'd picked it for Colonel Jack. He needs a gentle creature. You, however, look like you're made for rougher work. Come call on me at The Grapes in a couple of days, after this rebellion's set to rights, and I'll find something for you in our unit.”

&n
bsp; “I'm not sure—”

  “Of course, but think it over,” Parry said. “It'll be a chance to see the world.”

  With a grin, he was gone and yelling at men who were his age and older, some much older, directing them into their line.

  Off to Proctor's left, the town of Charlestown burned in the morning's first light, columns of smoke climbing into the sky like ropes to heaven. Ahead of him, a long slope rose gradually from the water's edge to a peak that overlooked the river. The colonial redoubts, made of hastily thrown-up dirt, could be seen on the peak.

  He tugged the bridle gently, pulling the horse's face closer to his. “This is it,” he whispered. “Ride like the devil for me, and there's a soft life and all the carrots you can eat until we get you back to your master.”

  The horse nickered and bent her neck to nudge Proctor's hand and sniff his pockets.

  “After we get to safety,” he said. He put his foot in the stirrup and pulled himself up into the saddle. Tugging the reins around toward the hilltop, he kicked the horse's sides.

  The horse leapt forward and then promptly slowed to a walk. Proctor kicked her sides harder, but the more he kicked, the slower she went.

  British soldiers began to look at him. “You there,” one shouted. “What are you doing?”

  Proctor looked down. “I was commanded to deliver this horse to Colonel Jack. Do you know where he might be found?”

  “Do I look like his bloody keeper?” the man said, striding forward.

  The soldier next to him held him back. “Colonel Jack's unit has gone toward Charlestown to hold the left flank.”

  “Thank you,” Proctor said, turning his horse in that direction without waiting to be dismissed. He could find a road from Charlestown to the top of the hill. If he got that far, he could make a break for it.

  The closer they came to the sound of the cannons, and the haze from the fire, the slower the mare plodded.

  “If I used you to plow, I'd still be breaking ground when it was time to harvest,” Proctor said. She was a good horse, strong, could probably pull a carriage all day at that same pace without tiring. It just wasn't the pace he needed.

  He passed down the line of British regiments, wondering if it would ever end. There were thousands of men—thousands of the best-trained, best-fighting men in the world. As he passed face after face, some grim, some laughing, some angry, he wondered if the widow even needed her magic to help them win. He began to feel sick.