by Bob Mayer
Geert made a signal and the boy hustled back with full mugs.
“So,” Geert said. “Not all are lost. The others will show up?”
“Some of them,” Mac said.
“Keeping secrets,” Geert said. “Very smart. All is intrigue. King John, King Ferdinand, Queen Isabella, the Pope trying to dip his hand in. And speaking of—”
Mac had one hand on the hilt of his dagger as there wasn’t room for the rapier. The Swiss Guard took the seat at the other corner of the table, his back to the room, his focus on Mac and Geert. He was a big man, over six feet. He had two scars on his face, evidence of past violence.
“You are Franciscans? From the Friary?” His accent was one Mac couldn’t place, his Latin barely understandable.
“No,” Geert said. “You work for the Pope and don’t know what a Franciscan looks like?”
The Guard shrugged. “You priests are all the same to me.” He nodded at Geert. “You have been here a while. You,” he indicated Mac, “are new. Why are you here?”
“Why should I tell you?” Mac asked in response.
The Guard looked bored. “My sergeant sent me to ask. I go back to him without an answer? He will not be happy. Then I will not be happy. I would like to be happy.”
“Wouldn’t we all?” Mac said. He was dealing with a Roland: dumb, but dangerous. “Maybe you tell us why you’re here and we figure things out? Why we’re all here?”
The Guard shrugged. “We’re here to get the report of the man, Columbus. Bring it to Rome.”
Mac hadn’t expected an immediate, direct response.
“Is Columbus on the ship?” Mac asked.
“He was on it in Lisbon,” the Guard said. “He sailed from there on it. We have not seen anyone get off the ship. So he is on it.”
Mac was back-pedaling in the face of Roland simplicity. He tried to think of an explanation why he was here that wouldn’t reveal his true mission, explode this simpleton’s brain, and keep from getting stabbed.
Geert beat him to it. “We are here to pray for the safe return of all the sailors from this town.” He reached into a pocket on his robe and pulled out a small bag of coins, which he jiggled. “They have paid us for our services.”
The Guard laughed. “Priests.” He spit. “Pimps and whores. But the town has their own priests from the Priory. You are strangers. Why would they bring in strangers to pray?”
Mac and Geert exchanged glances. A good question to which they had no answer.
The Guard leaned forward. “My sergeant told me, to tell you, to leave. He is under orders to protect Columbus and protect the report. Strangers make my sergeant nervous. He doesn’t like being nervous. He sees danger everywhere and you two, whatever you are, who should not be here, make him nervous.” The Guard stood. “If we see you again, we will kill you. We have the Pope’s blessing for that.”
There was a ripple of excitement as a man appeared at the entrance. The news flew across the room: The Pinta had been sighted.
“Our prayers have been answered,” Geert exclaimed.
The Guard thumped a heavy fist onto the table. “Now answer my sergeant’s prayer and leave the town.”
Thermopylae, Greece, 480 B.C.
“WHERE WERE YOU JUST NOW?” Leonidas reached down from the top of the wall and gripped Scout’s hand, pulling her up and over.
“I spoke to Pandora,” Scout said.
“And you’re still alive,” Leonidas said, “so I take it that it didn’t go badly. Did it go well?”
“I don’t know. I must speak to her again shortly.”
“How did you get past my sentries? They would not fail in their duty.”
“They did not,” Scout said. “I am a priestess of the Delphic Oracle. We can do much that men cannot see.” Scout felt like a fool saying that, but she had to stay in character. And one shouldn’t feel like a fool when standing on a rampart of stone and dead warriors.
They climbed off the wall. Leonidas put an arm around her shoulder, an unusual gesture for the King.
“You are shivering,” he said. “Come to the fire.”
They went to their spot in the camp. Scout held her hands out, warming them. Lightning flickered, followed by thunder, but the storm had stalled off the coast, neither approaching nor passing.
“It is not the cold that makes you shake,” Leonidas said, moving to the other side of the small fire, looking at her in the flickering light.
“It is the cold,” Scout said, without any conviction.
Leonidas smiled sadly. “It is not bad to admit fear. Many think Spartans have no fear. As if we weren’t humans but rather some species born out of rock. I told you of phobologia, our fear training. Where we master our muscles and reactions. That doesn’t mean we don’t fear. Rather we have been trained to act in spite of it. And,” Leonidas continued, “there are worse things than fear.”
Scout looked up from the fire. “Such as?”
“You saw,” Leonidas said. “When we departed Sparta. Our wives did not wish us well or even that we return.”
The data was there. “’On your shield or with it’.”
Leonidas nodded. “Do you know why they say with shield and not with our xiphos or spear?”
Of course she did. “No.”
“A Spartan who drops his sword or spear only disarms himself. A Spartan who drops his shield exposes the man in the shield wall to his left. Leaves him open to the enemy. That is the greatest disgrace. It is punishable by immediate death.” Leonidas stared at her, eyes glinting in the firelight. “Cowardice. Failing one’s comrades in battle. That is unforgiveable.” He paused. “As is treason. Betraying one’s comrades and betraying Sparta.”
Scout understood the implication. “I have to learn what Pandora has planned.”
Leonidas shook his head. “Gods and oracles. As if we were all just pieces in their game. I wish I understood what the game is? What the purpose of all this is?”
“Defending Sparta,” Scout said. “And in doing so, saving Greece.”
“Noble concepts,” Leonidas said. He sighed, so deeply, Scout sensed it was down to his soul. “I die soon. The way a Spartan should die. In battle. But . . .”
His voice trailed off.
“Why do you doubt?” Scout asked.
“That is a good question,” Leonidas said. “I’ve never doubted before. If I had ever showed doubt or weakness, I would not be King.” He shifted his gaze, looking around the camp. “Every man here, every Spartan, is judged immediately after birth by a committee of elders. Those who are infirm, sickly, who do not appear to be able to develop into a warrior, are taken to a hill and left to die.”
“And the baby girls?”
“The same. They are evaluated in a similar way, except in terms of being able to bear warriors. When the boys see their seventh year after birth, they are taken from the family to live in the agoge. Where we live until we see our thirtieth year. The agoge remains a part of us until we die.
“In our late teens, we are sent out into the wild, naked, with no weapons. No supplies. For two weeks.” A faint smile. “The lucky ones go in summer. The unlucky, winter. But each season has dangers. We must not only survive, we must kill a helot to prove we can kill. After all, what good is a warrior who can’t kill a person?
“Then at our twentieth year, we become a citizen. We can marry, but must still live in the agoge and train. After all that, after all my victories as King, I should not doubt. Especially now, as I face my greatest battle.”
“Why do you?”
“Because of you,” Leonidas said.
Scout felt a hand squeezing her heart.
“I don’t think you are a priestess of the Delphic Oracle either.”
Scout remained still.
Leonidas continued. “I do not believe you are the Cyra of Delphi I traveled with these past weeks. You look like her, but you are not her. Something has changed. You have changed. During the night. Your questions about what you should already know, what you wit
nessed, indicate that. But more so, it’s a feeling. The one a good soldier gets before walking into an ambush. The awareness of something amiss.”
He waited, but Scout gave no reply.
“You do not deny it,” Leonidas said.
“Do you think I am an ambush?” Scout asked.
Leonidas was still as a statue. Scout fought to remain as still.
The Spartan King finally spoke, answering her questions with his own. “Can you tell me who you are?”
“I can not.”
“Can you tell me why you are here?”
Scout sighed and he took that as a no.
Leonidas drew a callused hand through his beard. He looked to the east. “Dawn is still a few hours away. Your time to meet Pandora has come.” He indicated the wall. “I will see you over the wall. But when you return, if you return, I need truth. A man about to die deserves that.”
Newburgh, New York, 1783 A.D.
EAGLE STOOD OUTSIDE THE CLOSED door leading to Washington’s office, having little clue what he was to do. Nancy’s instructions had indicated he was to be some sort of waiter, but he wasn’t sure of the protocol. Just walk in? Knock?
Hercules came bustling by, carrying a tray with bread on it. Eagle could hear muffled voices from the room, but nothing distinct.
Hercules came back out and poked Eagle in the ribs. “What are you standing out here for? I know you’re a field man and not used to inside, but you got common sense. Get in there. Fill the wine. The beer. The water. Otherwise stand in the corner. And don’t say nothin’. And don’ act like you hear nothin’. Cause you don’t hear nothin’. You don’t see nothin’. Understand?”
Eagle nodded and went in, discreetly checked the wine glass in front of Washington, full, the beer mug in front of the other man, also still full, water glasses, still full, and went to the darkest corner. Washington’s office was inside a one-story log building. Much like dozens of other log plank buildings haphazardly scattered about the cantonment. There were also numerous tents of varying sizes.
The download informed him that there were over five thousand troops here, with about five hundred family members. This was what was left of the majority of the Continental Army, with men drifting away every day to go home, now that the fighting was over and there had been no pay for eight months. In fact, many of the officers were using personal funds to pay for food and supplies for their soldiers. Not only weren’t the soldiers being paid, the officers knew that the promise Congress had made in May 1778, right after the awful winter at Valley Forge, of a pension of half their pay once they were discharged, was now an empty one.
The country had a fundamental problem: Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress had no power to tax. It had to ask the states for funds; which was rarely forthcoming. The previous year a delegation of officers had been deputized to appeal to Congress about the pay issue. Their appeal was rejected. The issue had simmered all winter, with officers and troops confined to the Newburgh Cantonment and mostly indoors, with little else to discuss while the winter raged outside.
“Let me talk to the officers,” the other man in the room said. He wore a blue uniform, the left sleeve empty and pinned to his lapel. His one hand rested on a black, leather-bound book.
Washington was seated behind a wood table, leaning back, legs stretched out, staring out a window toward an open field where some troops were drilling without much enthusiasm. Eagle figured the speaker was Colonel Caldwell and—
Eagle stiffened as the facts from the download belied what he was seeing: James Caldwell was killed on 24 November, 1781. Shot by an American sentry after he refused to have a package he was carrying inspected. The sentry was hanged for murder just two months later. The suspicion was heavy that he had been bribed to kill Caldwell. By whom or for what reason, the download had a gap.
Prior to his death, the British had dubbed Caldwell the High Priest of the Rebellion. His church was burned down and he’d taken up arms, flanking his Bible with pistols on the podium whenever he preached. Up until he was killed.
But here he was.
Washington glanced over at Caldwell. “Put the fear of God in them, James?”
“It works when all else fails.”
“Money works,” Washington said. “If Congress would follow through on the promises it made my officers, we wouldn’t have this issue.”
“If Congress had followed through on half its promises,” Caldwell said, “our country would be in much better shape, General. I fear the states will spin off once a treaty is signed with Britain. We’ll have thirteen weak, bickering siblings instead of a nation. And what of the west? There are agitators already whispering about starting their own little kingdoms. That Sevier fellow in North Carolina over the mountains is acting like he wants his own country.” He shook his head. “You said you would not go to the meeting, because you didn’t want to sanction it with your presence. Who is to speak then?”
“I was thinking General Gates. His adjutant wrote the damn letter of discontent. And Gates is already at the New Building.”
“You mean the Temple?”
Washington chuckled. “You spend more time in there than anyone, I will admit that.”
Caldwell wasn’t put off so easily. “Gates? Sir, he actively went against you in ’78. Tried to get you replaced. You place too much trust in those who have proven themselves unfit. Camden was a disaster. He should have been court-martialed.”
Washington was back to watching the troops. He waved a hand without much vigor. “We’ve had enough of the past, James.”
Caldwell leaned forward. “Sir. Hamilton is playing this. Surely you know that? Leveraging the Army against Congress to advance his agenda. I fear he will destroy all in order to achieve his own goals.”
“Hamilton is a man of contradictions,” Washington said. “He is very smart. Smarter than both of us. I don’t waste time trying to unravel his machinations. I just watch for them.” He reached out, fingers grasping, found the water glass and took a deep drink, putting it back down, still focused out of the building. “Hamilton and his cronies are indeed leveraging some of the officers. They play a bigger game than funding the army. They want a stronger Federal government. Not, as you said, thirteen bickering siblings. Hamilton also wants a Federal bank. I’m sure he sees himself at the head of it.
“But you know,” Washington mused, “he might just be right about that issue. Time will tell. We need peace first. True peace before we can tackle so many of the issues confronting us. And I fear—” he glanced in Eagle’s direction for the first time, and then back at the soldiers—“that there are some that will have to be put off for a future generation. Country first.”
Eagle didn’t need the download to confirm that line of thought amongst most of the Founding Fathers. They were, mostly, very smart men, some brilliant. Most knew intellectually that slavery was a doomed institution. Many even objected to it on moral grounds. But it was a reality and to fight that battle before the country was on solid footing threatened to divide the northern colonies from the southern before they were even joined.
The issue had been put off and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those men would pay the price in blood during the Civil War. Eagle wanted to speak up, to warn of that storm over the horizon, of the hundreds of thousands who would die, white men. Of the millions of blacks who would live their lives as slaves before that great war would decide the issue.
Caldwell interrupted Eagle’s dark musings. “Hamilton is a dangerous man, sir. He’s a bastard and—”
“Let us not hold his birth against him,” Washington said, a slight edge to his voice. “A person’s birth is not their choice.”
Exactly! Eagle wanted to scream.
“Hamilton served me well at critical times in the war,” Washington said. “I could send him to relay a verbal order and be assured he would deliver it correctly. That is a rare talent and essential in an aide-de-camp.”
“Jefferson and Adams despise
him, sir,” Caldwell said.
Eagle had to wonder, through his anger and frustration, what agenda Caldwell was pushing. Hamilton had been, would be, instrumental in the formation of the United States. Not in the framing of the Constitution, but in the area of financing. And no country could survive without financing.
“I know they do,” Washington said. “But you and I understand something that Jefferson and Adams do not. We have faced the enemy. So has Hamilton. Such men hold a special place in my heart. As you do, my friend.
“Nevertheless, we must beware.” Washington waved a hand toward a pile of correspondence, without looking at it. “There’s a letter in there from him. He tried to enlist me in the effort against Congress. To take charge of the officers’ efforts. That is why I cannot be at that meeting. It will reflect poorly on me and send the wrong message to Hamilton and to Congress.”
“He asked that directly, sir?” Caldwell was surprised. “In writing?”
“Yes. I replied to him immediately. Informed him I would not introduce the army into this matter of a central government. Down that path lies a dangerous forest. The army must be separate from politics.”
“The war is not over, sir,” Caldwell argued. “All assume peace is a given, but what if the British change their minds? We are counting on the same fools who cannot pay us to negotiate the peace in Paris. We should not be waiting. We should force British government to negotiate in faith. Take New York City and—”
Washington’s low murmur cut through Caldwell’s exhortations. “They have no spirit.”
“Sir?”
“The soldiers,” Washington said, nodding toward the parade field. “In some ways, this winter was worse than Valley Forge. There was little spirit. No common foe, other than Congress.”
Eagle came forward with a jug and began filling the glass. Washington turned his chair, wood scraping on wood. Eagle retreated back to the corner.
If he were a demon, Eagle thought, then Caldwell was a ghost. A sign of history already changed before this bubble in time.