“It should, unless he’s even more of a paragon of virtue than they say he is. Why do you need to see him, anyway? The passes are probably bein’ handled by some major workin’ for the Provost-Marshal.”
Keeping my face frozen into a widow’s mask, I worked on ignoring all the people I passed. We’d been walking for nigh on an hour and not much of Richmond proper was left. Soon we’d be out of town and into the danger zone. “Because I don’t want to waste time arguin’ with a lackey if it turns out he wants to be troublesome. Better to go straight to the top and get a signed order nobody can challenge. We can’t afford to risk lettin’ Romulus get caught in Army red tape. The longer he lingers in some trench the more danger he’s in.” I touched my imaginary dress where the Stone lay hidden. “And while I’m there, I want to see if my Stone goes cold. Find out just how high up the Merchantry mages go in this war.”
“Makes sense, exceptin’ that your general’s up in the thick of the action right now, judgin’ by the noise.”
He had a point. Now we stood twice as close to the point of contact as before. The din of cannon and muskets hit me like an angry slap in the face. Granted, my hearing made it much louder than it was, but still I felt it rather than heard it. It no longer sounded so much like thunder as it did standing inside of a giant steamship engine going over a waterfall.
“Not much we can do about that now,” I told him. “Just keep goin’ and try to make somethin’ happen. If we throw up our hands and sit, hopin’ for a miracle…”
“Disappointment is likely to ensue,” Jasper muttered, finishing my thought. We were starting to sound like an old married couple.
Richmond lay behind us. Ahead Nine Mile Road, a narrow dirt path starting to go a little bit muddy with the light rain, ran over rolling fields into a line of trees. Somewhere beyond them and to our right raged the fighting, near the Williamsburg Road. A few houses, some shacks and a handful of nicer, more substantial dwellings, sat scattered along our way. None looked to be occupied by their owners. Lots of the front yards were full of officers on horseback, consulting maps or peering through spyglasses. One property had been turned into a hasty storage depot for ammunition boxes and such. I saw no civilians at all. Everybody’d skedaddled when the guns had started, if not before.
We kept on going. After a few more minutes we came upon Battery Number Five that the plump soldier had mentioned. It looked out to the east on a vast field of stumps, where a small forest had been cleared to make a good field of fire, as well as to build the bastion itself. The Rebs had made it of earth reinforced with logs. Gabions, giant wicker baskets filled with dirt, lined the outside wall to absorb shells. Shaped like a star, the fort squatted low, over fifty yards across. Each point of the star could reinforce another, so that an enemy reaching, or even breaching, a wall would take crossfire from other areas of the bastion. Lee’s troops had porcupined it with cannon, threatening the north, east, and south. A couple hundred men manned the guns, ready to deal death to any attacker. They were supported by at least one regiment of infantry, standing alert with shiny bayonets fixed on their muskets. I’d read about this type of defense in Harper’s Weekly not too long before. Trying to force your way into Richmond along this stretch of road would make for a bad and bloody day.
I resisted the temptation to drive their commander crazy by waving and giggling at them all with my saucy glamour. Best to keep your head down, kiddo, and not draw attention till you have to. Maintaining my pace, I plodded down the road, expecting at any moment to be challenged by somebody from the fort or a cavalry patrol. Nobody did so. I guessed that the bastion’s defenders had their own worries and left that sort of thing up to the scouts. Passing the fort with a sigh of relief, I checked on how my real self was doing. Most of the wooziness from Jasper’s vile whiskey had gone. My feet didn’t stumble or slide, nor did my stomach heave. That’s good. Need a clear head here directly, I expect. But now I felt so thirsty that my tongue seemed to swell up. Guzzling the last of the water from my canteen, which I’d poured into my tin cup so that it would look less suspicious, me dressed so fine and civilian-like, I felt a lot better. Except for the fierce headache that had just started, I gave myself reason to hope that I might survive my youthful brush with intemperance.
“So far, so good,” I said to Jasper, eyeing the road in front of me. Stumbling into a hole in my weakened condition wouldn’t be good. The fort lay a few hundred yards behind us. Somewhere near ought to be the Dabbs house, if that Provost sergeant’s information was to be trusted. He’d been accurate enough about the battery.
“Good for you, maybe,” Jasper moped. “The whiskey’s all gone and I have a headache.”
“What do you mean you have a headache? I’m the one with the hangover. You’re a disembodied spirit moochin’ off my intake.”
“Oh, don’t I wish that was true.” He sounded genuinely miserable. “Seems when the rules changed my energy got even more mingled with yours than before. Believe me, right now I feel your pain.”
I tried to conceal my delight from him, not sure if that was even possible now. “Honest? You ain’t just joshin’?”
“Do I sound like I’m joshin’?” What he sounded like was a kid with the influenza.
“Hard to tell with you, boyo.” I made a nasty spike out of the cup, grit my teeth, and jabbed a little finger onto it.
“Ow!” he yowled. “What’re you doin’?”
Sucking on my finger, I let out a muffled laugh. “Just checkin’ on your veracity.”
“Well, check it some other way. Don’t have to poke me full o’ holes. Darn!”
“You know, to be strictly accurate, you just stabbed yourself.”
He let out a growl. “Go ahead. Have your fun. Your next favor’s gonna be a doozy.”
“Good luck comin’ up with somethin’ worse than the first two. If I understand you right, you’ll feel every bit of it right along with me.”
“That may be, but my evil creative imagination can dream up things that’ll gratify me but horrify you.”
His tone of voice made him sound like one of those stage villains out to have his way with the ingénue. I didn’t much care for it, but right then I had bigger worries, like the butternut-clad soldier standing in front of me with his hand raised. Stopping as ordered, I stood as sweet and pretty as I could manage.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” he drawled. “I’m ‘fraid you can’t go any further.”
Pouting, I stuck my hip out and put a hand on it. “Can’t I?”
“General Lee’s strict orders. No civilians in the battle zone.”
I gave him a soft little laugh. “And good for you, followin’ your orders so well. But what makes you so sure I’m a civilian, Captain…um---?”
The soldier, who couldn’t have been more than five years older than the real me, flushed red as I ran my poked finger across my bottom lip. Boys are all the same. Sweet silly old hound dogs. “Uh, Private, ma’am. Private Sawyer.”
“My mistake, Private. I am positively blinded by your command presence.”
“Not at all, Miss---?”
“Mahoney. Alaena Mahoney.” I’d been thinking for a while about what name to use. My Grandma had been a Mahoney, from Belfast. Easy to remember in a pinch. And I used her pet name for my Ma for the same reason.
“You ain’t a civilian, Miss Mahoney? Pardon me for sayin’ it, but I sure don’t recall seein’ anybody in the army as purty as you and no mistake.”
Yep, a girl can sure get used to this. Might have to think about changin’ outta these overalls some day, when all this quest business is done with.
I let him wiggle for a second while I gave him a brilliant smile, then I really turned on the charm. “Why, aren’t you just the most splendid thing on two legs! A lady could get used to hearing such a handsome man talk like that. Turn my head, you will. But to be serious for just a moment, Mr. Sawyer. I have an important message to deliver to our great and good General Robert E. Lee.” I touched his sleeve
just like I’d done to the lawyer in town. “Personally.” He whimpered like a famished dog staring at a bone.
And that was how, two minutes later, I found myself being escorted into Confederate headquarters like the Queen of Sheba.
24/ Robert E. Lee
Tyrell grinned at me and touched his hat brim with a finger. The instant I saw him the Stone froze solid. Then the shooting began.
The Widow Dabbs lived in a fine white two-story frame house with green shutters. I saw no sign of her, so I guessed she’d been moved into Richmond like the other civilians. As with some of the earlier dwellings we’d passed, the front lawn served as observation post, map reading center, and officers’ lounge. Not a lot of that happened in the rain. Most everybody stayed inside, except for a pair of glum sentries and a lieutenant in a gum overcoat sitting on top of the roof, eye jammed into a huge telescope. Every now and then he’d holler some military gibberish like ‘enfilade’ or ‘flying battery’ down to a sergeant in a second-floor bedroom. That man would scribble hasty notes and slap them into the hand of a private, who’d dash down the stairs and deliver them to a clump of officers crowded around a map. Then they’d make noises like a bunch of high-ranking chickens, clucking and babbling. Every few minutes a messenger would blast up on a sweaty snorting horse to gasp out something that would set them a-fussing all over again. No sooner would they send him back with a written or oral command then another would arrive to make them all flutter some more. If that makes for efficient military maneuverin’ then my name’s Horace Greeley. But heck, they’re all generals and colonels, so what do I know?
Private Sawyer, duly chastised for disobeying his orders and bringing me into Lee’s headquarters, stood back at his post near the road, getting rained on again. Perhaps as a reward, the drizzle showed signs of ending soon. So did the battle. Most of the heavy artillery fire had already tapered off, leaving just the occasional rattle of muskets. From what I could overhear, which with my ears was pretty near all of what they said, the Yankees had pulled back after finding out that the Williamsburg Road hadn’t been abandoned after all. They’d heard rumors of a Rebel flanking movement and hoped that the defenses had been stripped to send men around to the north. When that proved untrue McClellan moved his reconnaissance brigade back to where it’d started. General Lee had been up at the battle line since the guns had first started dueling. One of the couriers brought word that he was on his way back, now that things were quieting.
They’d not known how to react to me, women at headquarters being as rare as oars on a duck. Their first reaction had been to send me packing, rain or no rain, but Southern chivalry won out over military logic. Instead they plopped me on a comfy wing chair in a corner of the drawing room and tried to question me as to just what I thought I was doing. That didn’t last long. By now I’d learned how powerful this glamour could be. Turning the tables on them, I complimented every man in range on his hospitality, good looks, military genius, and general Confederate adorability. In three minutes my feet were up on a footstool, I’d been given a towel for my wet face, and hot coffee filled my cup. I felt like a prize racehorse being readied for the big event.
One colonel managed to recall that there was still a war on. “Miss Mahoney, you say you have a private message for General Lee when he returns?”
I nodded, sipping my coffee and nibbling on a sweet roll somebody’d found for me. Great! I’m starvin’.Tyrell has all of our supplies on his horse. “I do, indeed.”
“And you can’t tell any of us because…?”
“Because she hasn’t bothered to invent it yet,” said Jasper to me, snickering.
I tried to ignore him and focus on my new character. Out with Mary Williams, in with Alaena Mahoney. “Ooh, aren’t you just bursting with inquisitiveness! Believe me, I would dearly love to share my news with all of you and get out of harm’s way. Really, I would. Not to disparage the fine company in which I find myself, of course. But the party who entrusted the information to me insisted that he was on a mission of extreme delicacy for the good general. His instructions were quite clear: from my lips to General Lee’s ears only. The information is that sensitive.” To help my cause I lingered on ‘lips’. The poor man’s brain visibly shut down for a second. Is it really that easy to turn men into marionettes? Have to keep that in mind.
“Uh…well, then…,” he stammered. “Perhaps we’ll just let you sit there a spell. The general’s on his way, according to his aide.”
“You are the soul of kindness, sir,” I purred with a warm smile and a wink. He shuffled off to look at the map, eyes a bit crossed.
I must use this power only for good.
“You must use this power to get us the heck outta here,” Jasper insisted.
“Don’t fret,” I thought to him, keeping an eye on the room. “Things’re goin’ perfect so far.”
“So far. Let’s not push it. Get hold of Romulus and let’s go.”
“You know that’s not all we’re here for. Relax. Have some more coffee.” I sipped out of the cup, feeling the brew warm my insides. Real coffee, too, not one of those awful chicory substitutes.
“Mmm,” he sighed. I could almost feel his toes wiggle, if he’d had any. “I like this stuff. You’re rechargin’ your magick again. That sweet roll ain’t hurtin’, neither.”
Most of the whiskey had cleared from my head. The coffee and food dimmed the headache, too, and quieted my upset stomach. I could almost take a nap. That’d be real nice. I caught myself before I let that happen. Falling asleep and then being awakened by General Lee could easily lead me to say the wrong thing. And I’d only get this one brief chance to speak to him, I felt sure of that.
“Nothin’ outta the Stone, I see,” Jasper observed.
“Nope. Not cold, not glowin’, not dancin’ a jig. All’s quiet on the evil front.”
“Fine by me. Wouldn’t do much for your stealthiness to have to use Morphageus in here.”
I smiled to myself. “Can you imagine the letters home if we had a fight right now?”
Jasper imitated some hapless Alabama major writing home. “‘Dearest Mabel. You’ll never believe the amazin’ occurrence I had the misfortune to witness yesterday. A veritable paragon of Irlann femininity whupped up on the flower of Confederate manhood with a glowin’ sword. I swear it’s true, as I live and breathe.’”
“Let’s just keep our wits about us so I can live and breathe. We may have to change things in a hurry if our plans go wrong. Listen.”
I told him what I wanted to do and asked if it’d be possible.”
“Oh, sure,” he told me. “It’s possible. Cost you a little extra, though.”
I’d been afraid of that. “What?”
He paused for dramatic effect. “Is that a bottle of sherry on the sideboard?”
“No! Are you crazy? I am not drinkin’ again, even to save my own skin.”
“Or Romulus’?”
That brought me up short. Darn you, Jasper. “OK, but just one---”
He giggled. “Just joshin’. I don’t need the headache any more than you do. Bring on the sweet rolls!”
And that’s why crumbs covered my lap when the head of the Army of Northern Virginia stomped in, mud on his boots and his fine gray coat.
You’ve seen photographs of Robert E. Lee and maybe you think you have some idea about him. Trust me, you don’t. I controlled a room full of men with a magickal spell. He did it with…well, I can’t rightly say what he did it with. Class, maybe? Presence? Bearing? Whatever he had, I knew Verity didn’t have it, not without the Legacy Stone, Morphageus, and every Marshal of the Equity to be found in Northern America. As soon as he entered the room I sat up straighter, just like when my school’s headmaster had burst in last year looking for the student who’d nailed him into the outhouse (it’d seemed like a good idea at the time).
Taller than most, but not President Lincoln’s height, General Lee looked to be about fifty years old, maybe a bit more. Though he didn’t go pas
t Abe in altitude he sure had him beat in looks. The room was jammed with strapping young lieutenants and captains in their twenties but you only looked at the general. His hair and beard had turned gray, to be sure, but that only made him seem more like King Arthur searching for a Round Table to sit at. A lifetime of soldiering, from the Mexican War to commanding at West Point, had made him into a weathered oak, all the weaknesses worn away. His eyes sparkled with a fire that I’d see in many people after that day. It came from seeing men fight one another, from smelling powder burn, and from hearing steel smash against steel.
I’m sure I stopped breathing for a second. Later on it came to me just why. Here stood the sort of man I’d always thought Pa would be, if we hadn’t lost him.
I touched my chest, in that awe-struck way you do when something just amazes you, but also because I wanted to check the Stone’s reaction to him. Now that I’d felt such a strong pull toward him, I really wanted to know if Lee used dark magick to control the Confederate army, if the Honourable Merchantry had a mage in at the top.
Nothing. Not a peep from the red rock around my neck. General Lee did it the old-fashioned way. That didn’t mean he wasn’t a Merchantry man, but at least he was no black sorcerer.
Stuck in my corner, I made no immediate impression on him. Okay with me. I needed to get my thoughts--and my lies—together. He put on spectacles and bent over the map, which must’ve been hard to see in the fading light. Although the rain had pretty much all stopped, the dark clouds that’d brought it remained, making it darker in the sitting room than usual for just past six o’clock. An aide lit a lantern and hung it up to help his general read. The room got real crowded. More aides and brigade commanders, men who’d accompanied Lee when he’d ridden out to the sound of the guns, pushed their way inside. My sensitive nose began to get overwhelmed with the smell of unwashed bodies, sweat, gun smoke, mud, manure, and everything else that went with a hard day’s soldiering.
“A sharp fight, but those people are right back where they started,” Lee said, almost to himself. His voice had a soft quality with a strong core, like a saber resting in its velvet scabbard. It sure did suit him.
Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) Page 24