Lights twinkled in the scattered houses along Reedy Branch. Cow bells clanked as children drove the animals home through the dusk.
‘You think it’s right,’ asked Trigg – curiosity rather than disgust in his voice – ‘for doctors to go cuttin’ up a dead man?’
‘When I sit down to play that new mazurka we’re going to try out tonight,’ returned January mildly, ‘won’t you be glad I’d played through it a couple of times this morning on a real piano, rather than just watching somebody else play it from thirty feet away?’
‘So you cut up dead men?’
‘Cut up live ones, too,’ said January. ‘They were glad I’d had the practice.’
Trigg laughed shortly. They crossed an elegant circle, laid out like a dropped carpet in the midst of the fields, and ahead of them saw the handsome residence of the British Minister against the woods along Rock Creek. Cressets burned in front of its shallow steps, and a red carpet had been laid from its door to the carriage block, in defiance of the wet clouds rapidly obliterating the stars.
‘First time I went into surgery,’ January added quietly, ‘I wished I’d been able to pay the hundred and fifty francs that was the going rate – that was my rent for six months! And half the time we did get to Courveche’s “gatherings” I’d have paid that much again – if I’d had it! – just to have a cadaver that was fresh.’
‘Now that,’ protested Trigg with a grin, ‘is more than I want to know about that!’
The Mudwall brothers joined them then, and the talk turned to other matters as they crossed through the open field beside the Minister’s house and circled around to the warmth and light of its kitchen door. But during the course of the evening, as January played German quadrilles and light-footed waltzes, and watched the top couple in the country dances work its way down the set and back, the horror of those evenings in Louveciennes barns and ruined cottages out in Passy returned to him, the sickening reek and the peculiarly slimy touch of rotting flesh beneath his fingers.
And he remembered, in coming and going from the dissections – and mostly he and the other students had to spend the night in a hayrick or a stable, since the city barriers weren’t open again until first light – he would sometimes see the anatomy assistant Courveche in quiet converse in the shadows with furtive, unshaven men whose peasant clothing always smelled of grave-mold.
Looking out at the sweeping silk skirts, pink and gray and bronze and green – at the gentlemen with their pomaded hair and embroidered waistcoats – at Henry Clay who owned five hundred slaves, and Dolley Madison who had fled from Washington before the invading army that he, Benjamin January, had helped defeat in New Orleans – at all those others, young and old, hungry for fame or sick of its demands …
Each was after all only a set of lungs, a pair of kidneys, a tangle of guts and arteries and nerves.
Bring me the fairest creature northward born, says the dark prince of Morocco to Portia in The Merchant of Venice; and let us make incision … to prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine …
January could himself attest that he had never seen the smallest difference between a white man’s flesh and a black man’s, between the blood and organs of a vaunted ‘European’ and those of the men they’d said were ‘childlike’, ‘animal’, and happy in their slavery.
After every dissection, he recalled, he’d gone to confession, and the priests had told him that what he’d done was a grave sin. Every time, he had argued that for every dead man he cut up – and they’re dead, they’re DONE with those bodies! – his chances of saving a living man’s life or arm or eye or livelihood increased a dozenfold.
It doesn’t matter, the priests always said. We must accept on faith that the councils of the Church know more than we do of these matters …
The way Congress knew more about slavery than did a man chopping cotton in some other man’s field?
He turned his heart back to the music, light and precious as fairy gold, lest by looking into the darkness, he should come to hate humankind.
ELEVEN
And, of course, with a third of the nation’s men out of work and the possibility of war looming with Britain, all anyone talked of that night, in the ballroom at least, was Sunday’s defeat by the Invaders of the Washington Warriors of Democracy.
Most of the Warriors were there, from Royall Stockard down to Chilperic Creighton, the seventeen-year-old scion of a local planter family who clearly demonstrated by the cut and color of his waistcoat that he wanted to be Royall Stockard when he grew up, and all of them protesting that they had been robbed. Since Messrs Gonesse and Lenoir – clerks of the French Ministry and co-captains of the Invaders – were likewise present, it took all the combined tact and authority of Senator Clay and Mr Oldmixton of the British Ministry (Sir Henry Fox being, for the most part, absent in the gambling-room) to prevent violence. Only the unilateral promise by Secretary of the Navy Dickerson that any man who issued a challenge would be fired from his position in disgrace warded off a series of duels being arranged at a later date.
‘How many duels you think will come of it?’ whispered January, under cover of unfurling the music for the Varsoviana, and Trigg immediately said, ‘Three.’
‘That all?’ protested Phinn Mudwall. ‘I say five at least …’
‘I’ll cover that …’
‘How’ll we tell?’
‘Say, in the next two weeks …’
The musicians hastily straightened themselves up and played an opening bar, as M’sieu Pageot – chargé d’affaires of the French Ministry and, like Mr Oldmixton in the British establishment, the actual power there – took the two French ball-captains like a couple of puppies into a corner near the musicians’ bower and threatened them with murder if they behaved like schoolboys here in the very mansion of the British Minister.
‘I know Pageot’s coachman,’ whispered old Langston the fiddler. ‘I can find out from him if either of ’em gets in a duel …’
But when supper was called, and the musicians descended the narrow stair to the underground kitchen, they found there – among the flustered scullions – the young Frenchmen Gonesse and Lenoir themselves, accompanied by a long-limbed young man in an extremely American coat, and Signor Baldini, the rather youthful secretary of the Minister from the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies … last seen throwing the balls that the Warriors of Democracy had shown themselves ultimately unable to hit.
‘Monsieur Trigg?’ inquired Gonesse, a bright-eyed Gascon with extravagantly-cut lapels to his swallowtail coat and three waistcoats in different colors on underneath. ‘Have I the honor to address the Captain of the Stalwarts?’ He held out his hand.
Trigg stepped forward and shook it firmly. Behind him, Phinn Mudwall whispered, ‘Well, I’ll be dipped in shit.’
‘Might I present my colleagues, sir?’ said Trigg. ‘Mr Blair Langston; Mr Phineas Mudwall; Mr Phileas Mudwall; Mr Benjamin January. Mr January is the newest member of the Stalwarts.’
‘And I am Jules Gonesse. M’sieu Andreas Lenoir, Mr Caldwell Noyes of the Navy Department, and Signor Baldini—’
‘I had the honor, Signor –’ Trigg bowed to Baldini – ‘and the pleasure, I might add, of watching the truly excellent way that you made the Warriors look no-how last Sunday.’
‘You were there?’ Gonesse’s grin flashed in the gloom of the oil lamps. ‘M’sieu Noyes has only informed me this evening, M’sieu, of the existence of the Stalwarts. I had been told that it was against the laws of this city for men of your race to play ball.’
‘So it is,’ replied Trigg. ‘But as long as we play out on the far side of town – and as long as the city’s constabulary goes on betting on our games – they’re happy to accept our bribes just like they accept everybody else’s in this town.’
‘Pecunia non olet,’ January said, quoting the words of Vespasian, Emperor of Rome and inventor of pay toilets, and all four of their guests laughed and applauded.
‘I had the pleasure of telling our European colleagues,
’ said Noyes, in the nasal accents of New England, ‘that the Stalwarts are accounted one of the strongest teams in Washington.’
‘That’s very kind of you, sir,’ replied Trigg. ‘I think we can beat most of the other colored teams, more often than not – but not a great deal more often. It all depends on who’s having a good day.’ With the genial dignity of an ambassador – or a boarding-house-keeper – he turned to Gonesse. ‘I’m guessing you’ve learned already that every game’s a different game, and every day’s a different day.’
‘Spoken as a gentleman and a sportsman!’ Gonesse beamed. ‘Jove lifts the golden balances, that show, the fates of mortal men, and things below.’
With a slow grin, January quoted the next two lines: ‘Here each contending hero’s lot he tries, and weighs, with equal hand, their destinies.’
‘And would you and your teammates –’ Gonesse inclined his head to Trigg – ‘cast your fate into Jove’s golden balances against us, M’sieu, say … two weeks from this Saturday? Like Achilles, we seek glory, and the more worthy the opponents, the better we are pleased.’
‘Then we shall strive to please you, sir.’ Trigg bowed in return. ‘And if you gentlemen will forgive my impudence in the name of sport, my teammates and I will whip you soundly and send you back to your embassy in honorable defeat.’
‘Eh bien!’ The French captain beamed. Eph Norcum back in New Orleans, January reflected, would have struck Trigg for being ‘uppity’. ‘So you say, sir! But the master of all victories is fate!’
The skinny New Englander Noyes applauded again, almost glowing with triumph. An abolitionist, January recalled suddenly, was what Bray had called him a few nights ago. And as such, merely in bringing the game about he had challenged the southern Democrats, be they clerks or planters’ sons.
There was – he knew immediately – going to be trouble.
News of the upcoming game reached the white folks’ supper room even before the dancing resumed. January could feel it as they took their places on the dais again, like the heat-dance above fire on a day too bright to clearly see the flames. Could hear it in the crackling sotto voce whispers; see it in the way Congressman Stockard grabbed the sleeve of this teammate or that. But he was also aware of Congressional secretaries, clerks and assistants stepping behind curtains and into doorways to exchange money and write down wagers: Damned foreigners – goddam insult …
Luke Bray’s voice surged from the door of the gambling-room: ‘Hell yes, they can beat ’em! We was goddam robbed by them Frenchy cheats—!’
Florid-faced Senator Buchanan led Mrs Bray from the dance-floor with as much gallantry as if he hadn’t been ‘married’ for years to the darkly handsome Senator King from Alabama: ‘Your husband seems to be more than usually exercised over a game of ball, M’am.’
‘My husband is drunk.’ Her lovely peridot gaze touched the door of the gambling room with distaste. ‘And it isn’t merely a game of ball, sir. It’s the honor of America.’ Contempt glinted from her words, as from the facets of a diamond.
Three hours later, as the musicians ascended the kitchen stair to take their leave into the foggy blackness, the honor of America manifested itself in the form of Bray, leaning heavily on Congressman Stockard’s arm as he staggered down the driveway and into the yard. ‘Trigg!’ Bray yelled, and almost veered under the hooves of a departing carriage. ‘Trigg, goddamit, you gotta let my boy Mede into that team of yours!’
‘Luke, for God’s sake—’ Stockard was laughing.
‘I mean it!’ insisted Bray. ‘Mede – where’s that boy?’
One of the Ministry servants dodged among the carriages at a trot, Ganymede Tyler at his heels. The young valet’s breath puffed softly in the light of the lantern over the kitchen door: ‘I’m here, sir—’
‘You gonna join the Stalwarts.’ Bray grabbed the startled Mede by the shoulder and thrust him at Trigg. ‘Best goddam thrower in the District,’ he announced. ‘I take him out to help me practice, and he can throw fast, slow, whichever way, an’ put that ball wherever he wants. Can’t NOBODY hit what my Man Friday throws! Just goes WHOOSH! Right past ’em!’
His extravagant demonstration nearly spun him off his own feet.
‘I heard all that and more, sir,’ replied Trigg. ‘But the fact is, sir, you know it’s only free men that’s on the Stalwarts.’
‘Told you that, Bray.’ Stockard shook his curly head, obviously well aware that after a certain point in the evening there was only so much you could tell Luke Bray. ‘You know there’s no slave nigger ball teams.’
‘How about if I set him free, then?’ demanded Bray. ‘That satisfy everybody?’
Ganymede, who had borne the discussion of his prowess and slave status with a kind of embarrassed detachment – more, January suspected, on behalf of his master than himself – now froze as still as an animal startled in the woods, and January heard the hiss of his indrawn breath.
‘Set him free!’ stated Bray, still more loudly, and yanked his arm away from his friend’s supporting hand. ‘That’ll show them cheatin’ foreign nancy-boys! They want to play niggers, we’ll give ’em niggers! Show ’em even our niggers can beat cheatin’ foreign arse-suckin’ nancy-boys!’
Mede turned startled eyes on Trigg: wide, shocked, and wild with a hope that he dared not utter.
Trigg shrugged casually. ‘I guess we’ll take him if he’s free.’
‘Don’t be a damn idiot, Luke! That nigger’s worth two thousand dollars if he’s worth a dime—’
‘And what’s the good name of America worth, hunh?’ Luke swiveled on his friend, chin thrust belligerently. ‘Two thousand dollars? Ten thousand dollars?’
‘Luke, for Chrissake, you already lost seventeen hundred tonight playin’ poker—’
‘You think seventeen hundred, or twen’y-seven hundred, means fuck-all to me, compared to the honor of America?’ He jabbed Stockard’s waistcoat with his forefinger. ‘Hell, I bet fancier niggers’n him in poker games! Mede!’ He spun again, shook a finger in his valet’s face. ‘I hereby declare you free!’
Stockard rolled his eyes, as if this were a child’s game rather than a legal issue that would alter a man’s life forever.
‘Now you join up with the Stalwarts and you show those suck-arse foreigner bastards that even the NIGGERS in this country can whoop their sorry behinds!’
‘Yes, sir,’ Mede whispered. ‘I’ll do that, sir.’
‘Now go find the carriage.’ Luke Bray shoved him in the direction of the dark confusion of vehicles in the adjacent field. ‘Mrs Bray gonna kill me, keepin’ her waitin’ when she has a headache …’
‘She always got a headache, Luke,’ grinned Stockard, and Bray laughed owlishly.
‘And, Mede! Stop an’ get yourself a drink to celebrate!’
Mede whispered, ‘Yes, Marse Luke.’ The look he threw toward the musicians, still grouped in the dim glow of the oil-lamp that fell through the kitchen door, was that of a sailor overboard gazing at wreckage, hoping he could reach it before the waves drove it off again. And like men on a half-foundered ship, they could only return his gaze, praying he’d make it without the slightest ability to help.
Behind January, a quiet voice spoke behind him in the kitchen door. ‘Might I have a word with you, M’sieu, on the subject of Mr Selwyn Singletary?’
TWELVE
It was Sir Henry Fox’s secretary, Mr Oldmixton.
He’d heard the man’s voice a few minutes before from the direction of the pillared portico of the house, bidding farewell to departing guests and making witty excuses for the fact that the Minister himself had been helped up to bed some hours previously. Even in the dank gloom of the kitchen stair, Oldmixton’s exquisitely simple London tailoring was a polite rebuke to the bright waistcoats and gold watch-fobs of the American Congressmen who’d filled the house all evening.
He shook January’s hand, said, ‘Madame Viellard suggested that I take the opportunity to speak with you.’
Jan
uary had glimpsed Chloë Viellard in the ballroom, exquisite in Italian silk, under the aegis of the Adams party. Henri had very properly departed from the boarding house that afternoon with his wife, after the expedition to Gryme’s pawnshop, and an hour later his carriage had arrived – with yet another of the livery stable’s hired drivers, Esau having gone off to supper – to take Dominique to Mrs Purchase’s house in Georgetown.
‘That’s very kind of you, sir—’
They stepped out of the doorway and moved to the darkness at the far end of the loggia that stretched across the rear of the house. The Ministry servants – purchased, January guessed, from local planters – continued to move from the back door to the pump in the yard: January guessed they’d be oiling knives and washing punch-cups well into daylight.
‘Madame Viellard suggested that I give you this.’ Oldmixton produced three folded sheets of foolscap from the inner pocket of his coat. ‘It’s a copy of the report that Glover – my clerk – made up, of his enquiries for Mr Singletary along the Alexandria–Warrenton road.’
January unfolded the yellowish paper and angled it toward the reflected light from the lantern above the door. Mr Glover had made his investigations between the twelfth and seventeenth of November, in that six-week hiatus between the end of Congress’s special session and the beginning of its regular meetings in December. Appended to the notes of who he had talked to, where, and when, the clerk had added his own expenses for the journey: Dinner at the Queen of Prussia, rump steak, fish, eggs, cold fowl, pies, puddings, tea, and coffee – $1.50. Brandy and spirits free. Bed with clean sheets at Cayle’s Tavern in Orange, seventy-five cents. January wondered how much it would have been with dirty sheets.
His glance went to Oldmixton’s face again, trying to read anything behind that bland façade. It was the British Ministry that Singletary was going to visit, just before his departure from Washington on the twentieth of October.
‘You’ll see he made enquiries not only at the regular post-inns on the route – the Queen of Prussia in Warrenton and the Orange Hotel in Orange.’ A rich voice, with something of Poe’s theatrical inflection. A man who understood how to manipulate words to target or to conceal. Keep this for me, the frightened Singletary had said; don’t breathe a word to anyone …
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