“Then tell me why you prefer the slave quarters to my home.”
“Because I am a slave of the Judas stable, Mrs. Dawson.”
He was prepared for her anger, her rejection, but not for the pain in her deep eyes. “Walk with me at least,” she said, motioning him outside. “I am late for a daily appointment. And you well know my name is Alice.”
Trent rose from a chair on the back porch as they stepped outside, but she waved him away. “The prisoner is in my care, Mr. Trent,” she declared in a tone that brooked no protest, then led Duncan around the house onto the track that followed the river bank. She soon turned onto a steeper walkway that had once been carefully laid with brick, though its weeds and heaves showed it had fallen into disuse.
They paused at an overgrown terrace where Alice picked a handful of blossoms. “My husband was so proud of this garden. He had plans to expand it, and had written to a horticulturalist for boxwood to create a maze for the children to enjoy. Galilee was a happy place, Mr.—Duncan, though you would not credit it now.” She led him back onto the path as she spoke. “He was a devout Christian, and when he was left this estate by his great-uncle he continued with his uncle’s plan for a work farm, where debtors came for wholesome labor while they worked off their debt. On Sundays we would have an open-air church service on that little knoll in the field. Sometimes traveling troupes would stop and perform entertainments. My husband kept open accounts for all to see and gave out shares of the harvest. I still get letters from debtors who were able to renew their lives because of their time here. It heartens me, to at least know there are others with happy memories of this place.” She gazed at a little clearing at the top of the hill then paused as if to collect herself, and sank her face into the blossoms before marching forward.
It was a small graveyard, with fragrant peonies and flowering shrubs enclosing three sides, sheltering half a dozen graves.
As she arranged her flowers at two gravestones Duncan examined the others. Henry Dawson, born in 1694, died 1756, must have been the great-uncle who had founded the estate. Buried beside him were his wife and infant son, dead the same day in 1741. Two other stones, without birth years, were for Magali and Tsonai, with the smaller English names Jemma Kitchen and Quiet Sam underneath. It was extraordinary to have house servants buried with the manor family. The next stone simply said Elijah Dawson, with no dates. The stones where she arranged flowers were for Elizabeth and Jeremiah Dawson, ages four and seven, dead the same month. Duncan plucked two peony blooms and laid them by the stones.
“My babies,” Alice Dawson said. “They waved goodbye to their father with me at the dock. He never knew they died. They never knew he died.”
“But you said his body was never recovered.”
“He’s dead. I have felt it all these many months.” She wiped the dampness from her eyes, then rose to pull weeds from her husband’s marker. “And it’s God’s blessing that he never saw what Galilee has become.” She gazed down at the compound, where Trent could be seen still sitting on the porch, then grabbed his forearm and pulled him through the bushes to the crest of the hill, and pointed down the other side at the mill.
“There are two lieutenants of marines there, Mr. Hobart and Mr. Kincaid. They were quartered in the manor house but I ejected them after they took too many liberties with the housemaids. The girl Lila, their housekeeper, visits us most mornings. Sometimes I go down there to bring the soldiers fresh bread. We make conversation. The officers insist their work is secret but speaking with a widow bringing food can do no harm, surely, nor can letting her help clean their office.”
Duncan heard the invitation in her voice and stepped closer.
“Their secrets involve records and documents and testimony obtained by coercion. They go back and forth from the Ardent to the mill, arranging maps and letters. Some of the letters are from London. They boast about how Lord Grenville has taken particular notice of them.”
“Maps of what?”
“New York colony. Pennsylvania. I remember thinking how odd, that they would need such maps in Virginia. They placed marks on the maps, along what looks like roads or trails. Strange symbols are arranged along the routes, like something the Indians would use. A deer. A bird. A tree. And I saw big crosses marked at five places. Johnson Hall, somewhere called Edentown, then Shamokin, Conococheague, and Townsend’s Store. They have lists of names pinned to the wall. Some with checkmarks beside them, and four with little Xs beside them.”
She reached up a sleeve and produced several papers. “Here. Take them. I only had a moment alone in the room they use as an office. I grabbed these from a table two days ago, though I don’t really know why. It’s just that they are evil men, and I am sick of Galilee being used for evil.” She shrugged. “The papers make no sense to me. The lieutenants deal with mounds of correspondence. The Commodore writes to Lord Amherst in London. Hobart and Kincaid are always receiving letters and other papers, and paying coin to those who bring them in. Not postmen, more like bounty hunters and sneak thieves.”
Duncan put the papers inside his shirt and studied her. “Four names with X marks,” he repeated. “Patrick Woolford, Red Jacob, Peter Rohrbach, and Patrick Henry.”
“How could you possibly know?” she asked.
“My God, Alice, it was you! You sent the warning.”
“I didn’t know the significance, but those Xs filled me with foreboding. Hobart and Kincaid spoke so hatefully about Dr. Franklin, so I wrote a message to his house in Philadelphia and concealed it in a letter to a friend in Philadelphia, asking her to deliver it.”
“It was a list of men marked for death. Two of them are dead already. The other names you saw on the wall are probably the Judas slaves.”
Alice closed her eyes a moment, and when she opened them he saw moisture in them. “It has to do with the pig coming to life in my kitchen, doesn’t it?”
Duncan looked out over the river. “It has to do with a dying Mohawk grandmother and the stamp tax. It has to do with a lost god and committees of correspondence.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” Duncan admitted. “But if you wish I will tell what I know. Though I caution that it may sound like a legend out of a children’s storybook.”
“My children and I were always quite fond of old legends.” She motioned him to a flat ledge overlooking the little harbor in front of the manor house.
He spoke without interruption, of the dying Adanahoe, the theft of Blooddancer the Trickster, of the disappearance of runners and murders on the trail south, of the committees and the Kraken Club, even the little rebellion in the Conococheague Valley. At first she listened while gazing intently at Duncan, but when he described the death of the freed slave Atticus her eyes brimmed with moisture again and she stared into her folded hands with an anguished expression.
“Atticus was a house slave here,” she said, “a favorite of my husband’s. We let him buy his freedom and he was still working here to buy that of his wife and child. Gabriel hated him for that, and for always talking with Jaho and the other Indian slaves. Six months ago Gabriel sold his wife and child, and refused to say where they had gone. He banished Atticus from Galilee.”
“Are Hobart and Kincaid here now?” he asked after a moment.
“They left on the dawn tide, taking that little cutter. God help me, but I always pray they will drown in the bay.” She shrugged. “They always return in a few days.”
They walked on.
“He has a dog, old Jaho,” Duncan said. Increasingly he had a strange sense that the mysteries of Jahoska were as important as the mysteries that kept the runners at Galilee.
“I’m sorry?”
“Jahoska has a great water dog that stays in the swamp close to the shed where we sleep.”
Her gaze grew distant, and a small smile flickered on her face. “Jaho was always here, helping, teaching the young ones. He knew so much about growing things, about young plants and animals and humans.
Some called him the forest wizard. The dogs were always with him, like kin. That painting of the dog by the stairway is of my husband as a boy. The retriever in it was Chuga. Always Chuga. When one died the biggest male of the next litter was always Chuga. My husband said Jaho’s people had started the name, long before we were born, as if it were always the same dog, just in a different body. We relied on Jaho so much in the early days but he always refused to be paid. When Gabriel and the soldiers came Chuga disappeared. I thought Gabriel had killed him. Jaho refused to take their orders and was banished to the slave quarters. He was close to Atticus. Sometimes there were reports that Atticus had been spotted, speaking with Jaho. Gabriel kept calling on those dreadful pharaohs of his to capture him.”
When they returned to the track along the river, Duncan extracted the square of silk Ononyot had taken from the mill. She grimaced as he unfolded it. “His flag,” she said, “that’s what the Commodore calls it, the insignia of his military empire.” Alice caught his eye. “Titus saw you discover the portrait of the Commodore. He said you were like to faint from the shock of it.”
“It was Ramsey’s indenture that took me from a Scottish prison to America.”
“Dear God! You are bound to that monster?”
“His daughter forced him to hand over the bond and his northern estate to her. I live with her at Edentown.”
Alice noticed his choice of words. “Live with her?” She paused and turned her face toward Duncan’s. “You didn’t say serve her.”
“I am bound to her. My body and my heart.” He looked across the wide river. “If Ramsey finds me he will destroy me. He has vowed more than once to kill me.”
“It is why you denied your name in front of Dr. Lloyd,” she observed, then her face darkened. “You must go, Duncan!” she urged. “The lieutenants ordered the servants to start scrubbing the house and lay the dance floor outside by the portico for the ball. In a week’s time they said. Run now. I can see that you are not pursued for a few hours.”
“I cannot. I came to help the others.”
“Then you are a fool, Duncan McCallum. After he arrives with more of his bullies you’ll have no chance.”
He kept walking. “Do you know the bay?” he asked when she caught up with him.
“Of course. When we were first married my husband and I sailed it for nearly a month in celebration.”
“To the south is the wide ocean. To the north is the Susquehanna. Is it navigable all the way to the river? I need a map of the entire Chesapeake,” he explained when she nodded. “Of the ports and towns. I want to understand where the lieutenants go.”
She asked no questions. “There is one in the library. I could copy it by hand.” A skein of geese flew overhead, low enough to hear their wings, and they paused until the birds glided onto the river.
“He bathes me,” she suddenly said.
“I’m sorry?”
She looked away as she spoke. “When he stays here. The first visit, after Ramsey proclaimed that he was the new owner, my maid was washing my back as I sat in a tub in my chamber. Suddenly he was there, ordering her away.” She paused, burying her face in her hands for a moment, then collected herself and continued, fixing her gaze on the geese now. “Every night he is here I must sit in a tub and he bathes me. Then he dresses me and makes me lie beside him in bed, in my nightgown. That’s all. Nothing else. He is not capable of more.”
They stood alone, in painful silence.
“He vowed to send me to die on his plantations in the Indies,” Duncan said at last.
Her head slowly came up. “Why ever would he do such a thing?”
“Because I thwarted his plans to make his own fiefdom in the north. Because I have the affection of his daughter, which she will never give to him.”
“Surely all children have occasional difficulties with their parents.”
“She was captured as a child and was raised by the Iroquois, a child of the forests. When she finally returned she would not conform to his notions of the dutiful daughter. He tried and failed to beat the wildness out of her. He tracked down and killed her Iroquois father. He made plans to send her to surgeons in London who said they could tame her by removing part of her brain.”
Once more tears welled in her eyes. “Surely you can’t stay, Duncan. Please don’t stay. You still have a chance . . .”
He gripped both her shoulders. “I will not tremble again before that monster.”
“But you heard Dr. Lloyd. He’s coming to the woods.”
Duncan hesitated. “The woods?”
“It’s what Ramsey calls this place sometimes, to mock it, because everything is so rustic here.”
Duncan gazed at her in confusion, then pulled out the little flag again. “The castle and the woods!” he exclaimed.
“I don’t understand.”
“Something a friend said. A riddle from Shakespeare. The men at Galilee will die when the castle comes to the woods. It meant when Ramsey finally arrives at Galilee.”
THAT NIGHT HE HUDDLED WITH MURDO AND WEBB OVER THE letters Alice had provided.
“Hogsheads and firkins for September delivery,” Webb said in a puzzled tone as he read the first. “Nothing but an order to a cooper from one of the plantation owners in the House of Burgesses.”
“Mr. Dickinson sends congratulations on the betrothal of his niece,” Murdo read. “He will make mention to the governor.” Ross paused. “Dickinson is a member of the Philadelphia committee,” he explained. “But there is nothing secret here.”
They quickly examined the others, one of which was a letter from a judge to a nephew in the College of William and Mary, another a complaint from a merchant in Boston named John Hancock to a banker in New York. Duncan paused over the last of the papers, signed by William Johnson at Johnson Hall. It was a list sent to an Albany merchant for trunnel nails, pots of glue, six cones of sugar, a box of ginger, and four copper teapots, a favorite of the Iroquois.
“Why would the Krakens care about such trivialities?” Murdo asked. “Why pay coin for them?”
“They make no sense,” Duncan agreed, but then recalled his exchange in the smokehouse. “Except that Kincaid said Sir William will die for trunnel nails and teapots.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Judas slaves baked under the sweltering July sun, the hot wind churning dust that coated their sweating backs and parched throats. Insects worked at their eyes and ears. Impatient overseers worked at their backs. When whistles blew to call in the slave crews from the fields, Duncan and his friends were grateful for the unexpected midmorning break. But by the time they had lined up along the perimeter road behind the stable he could hear the drumbeat. A different group of overseers was coming.
The marines from the Ardent were being displayed in full scarlet plumage, marching in ranks of four to the beat of the drum, led by two mounted officers and followed by Gabriel and several of his dark riders. Duncan glanced in alarm toward the river. The cutter that had taken Kincaid and Hobart away had returned. Their soldiers paraded by the manor in front of the assembled servants and compound workers, then turned onto the northern perimeter track to pace along the assembled files of Africans.
Gabriel’s pharaohs arrived to assist Trent and Winters, slapping the Judas slaves with batons to straighten their line. The company stood in silence, sweat dripping down their faces, flies buzzing around their heads, until finally the parade arrived. Kincaid and Hobart dismounted from their thoroughbreds for closer inspection.
As he paced along the line Kincaid randomly slapped men with his riding crop, snickering when they showed signs of pain. Hobart for some reason drew his sword, resting it on his shoulder as he languidly followed Kincaid, who halted to chastise one of the Pennsylvania men for his slovenly appearance, then Ononyot for his unwashed stink. Murdo, standing beside Duncan, tightened as Kincaid approached.
Kincaid wheeled to face Duncan. He brushed his crop against Duncan’s cheeks, staring at him intensely. “How many bran
ds will it take, McCallum? How many body parts can you spare?” he sneered, then stepped aside for Hobart, who slapped his drawn sword onto Duncan’s shoulder. “You caused us a lot of trouble that day at Townsend’s.”
“You caused us a lot of trouble that day,” Duncan shot back.
Hobart’s eyes flared. He slid the blade across Duncan’s shoulder until the cold steel rested against his neck. “Why is it always the neck for traitors, James?” He was addressing Kincaid now, who had stopped at the end of the row to use his snuffbox. “Stretch it or squeeze it or slice through it. Damned uninspired, when you think of all the other possibilities. The savages at least have this one thing right. They take a week or two to kill a captive then eat his heart.” He twisted the blade and Duncan felt a trickle of blood on his neck.
“Delaware work,” came a soft voice. Old Jaho was standing in line a few feet away.
Hobart, looked up, surprised, as he felt the Susquehannock’s gaze. “You speak to me?” he asked in an oily tone.
“I was admiring the quillwork of your medallion,” Jaho declared. “The Delaware always were the best at it.” When Duncan had told him of the murders of Peter Rohrbach and his pregnant Delaware bride, a sorrowful, faraway look had settled over the old man’s face and he had retreated to his altar.
Hobart glared at the old man. Duncan now saw that under his brass gorget he indeed wore a thin strip of painted doeskin holding a medallion, its finely worked quillwork woven into the image of a fish. The lieutenant lowered his sword. “I am rather fond of it,” he replied, his voice dripping with contempt. “Trophy of war.”
“The work of a Delaware maid,” Jahoska said. The Susquehannock tilted his head for a moment, and Duncan realized he was listening to a rustling sound in the swamp reeds below the road.
Hobart and Kincaid exchanged an amused glance. “Is that what she was?” Hobart said. “A pity she was not fit for any sport. But then we had so little time.”
Jaho’s face tightened, and Duncan braced himself in case the old man tried to move toward the officer. Kincaid assumed a businesslike air. He stood in front of the company as an officer might on inspection, then drew his own sword and moved to the end of the line with a deliberate air. The first thrust of his sword came so fast Duncan would have missed it if Burns had not cried out. Duncan did not fully understand until Kincaid struck again, at Frazier this time. He was stabbing the tip of his sword into their feet. “Stand at attention, you sniveling worm!” the lieutenant growled when Hughes sank onto a knee as his foot was cut. The men beside him helped the ranger to his feet as Kincaid walked briskly along the line, drawing more groans as he quickly pierced the feet of Larkin and Joshua Townsend before wiping his blade on the britches of Morris, at the end of the line.
Blood of the Oak: A Mystery Page 29