by Eric Flint
Well enough. It struck him as a reasonable bargain. If she'd accept the missing limb, he'd accept the fact that she didn't care about it.
"And what may I do for you, Miss Rogers?"
"You still haven't answered my question, Lieutenant. Neither one, in fact."
Driscol tried to remember the first question. He couldn't. Couldn't remember the more recent one, for that matter. It was a bit frightening, the way the woman could muddle his mind.
She wasn't smiling impishly, though. Smiling, yes, but the undertones seemed a bit melancholy. Without warning, she changed the subject.
"Can you teach me to dance? Like this, I mean. I don't dare go out there and start dancing the way we do at the Green Corn ceremony."
Driscol stared at the city's upper crust, busy with their elaborate... whatever it was. A quadrille, he thought. He wasn't sure.
"No, I suppose not. They'd be scandalized."
He was having a hard time—a very hard time—keeping his eyes on the dance instead of Tiana. Somewhere, somehow— Driscol suspected the subtle hand of the secretary of state at work—Tiana had managed to get herself outfitted in a real gown. It was the first time he'd ever seen her in clothing designed to be decorative, rather than utilitarian, and he'd been struck by her beauty even in such.
Dolley Madison had transformed fashion in Washington, ever since her husband had become president. She favored French fashions, in particular what the French called the "Empire" style. That was their own, somewhat more flamboyant version of the Greek Revival fashions that had swept Britain for the past few years.
Tiana's gown was a fairly typical example. White in color, very simple in design, it was patterned after the flowing lines of ancient Greek robes. The soft muslin fabric clung to her body and was so thin it was almost sheer. For all the fancy lacework and geometric designs that decorated the hems—also patterned on ancient Greek models—the gown was basically a very expensive nightgown.
Anywhere except at a formal ball, Tiana would have been wearing a chemisette underneath for modesty. But here, she wasn't, and the low-cut square décolletage and the high waist of the gown emphasized her very feminine figure. She wasn't an especially bosomy woman, but with her size and firm musculature, it hardly mattered. The bare flesh of her shoulders and upper chest was...
Dazzling. All the more so because the long and slender lines of the gown as a whole made her stand out even more than she would have anyway. Tiana was the tallest woman there—and made no attempt to hide the fact.
Dolley Madison was perhaps thirty feet away and having a conversation with several other women. Tiana glanced at them and smiled wryly. Then, stroked fingers through her long black hair.
"At least I'm not wearing a turban, like they are. As if they were Cherokees! I think I scandalize these people enough as it is."
Driscol felt a moment's anger, as he always did when confronted by hypocrisy. The scandal wouldn't be caused by Tiana's Indian heritage. Full-blooded Indians had been appearing at fancy affairs in European dress for two centuries now, in Europe as well as America, and no one thought anything of it.
But Tiana was obviously a half-breed. Her hair, her skin color, her features—the blue eyes that were so startling against those prominent cheekbones and dark complexion—all these were signs, to a gentry that preferred to think otherwise, that the lines they drew around themselves blurred at the edges.
It was mostly a southern gentry, too, which made it all the worse. None of those proper Virginia and Maryland matrons wanted to be reminded that, often enough, some of the children of their slaves had a readily recognizable father.
He could feel himself starting to slip into an old, familiar bleakness. Vileness, everywhere he looked. But Tiana's little laugh pulled him out.
"But that's not what I'm worried about!" Again, she sniffed. It was quite an impressive sniff, too; no proper matron could have done better. "I don't care what those people think. It's when I got back! The Green Corn Festival is a religious affair, you know. Well, no, you probably didn't. But it is. If my people found out—" She shivered slightly. "I'd never hear the end of it."
Driscol realized again how little he knew about the Cherokees, or any other Indian tribe. "Well, look on the bright side. They wouldn't be able to say much of anything to you, for a few years. You'll be in school up here. By the time you get back, they might have forgotten."
She shook her head. "I'm not going to school. I'm going back with you and Captain Houston next month."
Driscol's startlement must have been obvious. "Ah."
"Didn't Sam tell you?"
He tried to control the sudden excitement that filled him. Confusion also. He'd been assuming that in a few weeks, after he left for New Orleans, he wouldn't see Tiana again for...
Who was to say? Months, at the very least. Quite possibly forever.
He'd become reconciled to the fact. Even relieved, in some ways. Now, realizing that he'd be in the woman's company, indefinitely, he didn't know what to think.
Or do.
Or feel.
Well, that last was a lie. He knew exactly how he felt. He'd never been so thrilled in his life.
"No," he said, almost choking out the word. "He didn't."
"I'm not surprised." Her eyes moved across the crowd. Not for long, since Houston was easy to spot.
Driscol couldn't determine what was in those eyes. Sadness? Anger?
Perhaps neither. The fact that Driscol thought all people were essentially the same beneath the skin didn't mean they all thought alike. Otherwise, why would he have spent half his lifetime in the single-minded pursuit of slaying his English "brethren"?
"I only came here on a whim, really," she said softly. "Call it a childhood's fancy."
Driscol knew about the girl's oft-proclaimed intentions with regard to Houston. James and John Rogers had been with him through most of the battle, and they were fond of joking. Indeed, they joked about most everything.
Tiana studied Houston for a bit. He was swirling everywhere, passing from one dancing partner to another, and obviously enjoying himself immensely.
"There's no place for me here," she said, even more softly. "I want to go home."
Driscol's mind went back. "Then why did you ask me if I could teach you to dance?"
Her eyes came to him. Still with that same look in them he couldn't quite fathom. "I'm not a white girl, Patrick Driscol. What you call 'romance' is a silly business to me. I fancied Sam Houston for a time, because he's a man to fancy. But if you think for one moment I'm going to pine away"—again, that majestic sniff—"I'd as soon waste my time pining over the moon, when there's a harvest to gather or a deer to be dressed. Not likely, ha!"
Finally, he understood. They were simply calm eyes, accepting. Not liking what they saw, perhaps, but accepting it nonetheless.
"Can you read?" he asked. Not thinking, until he blurted the words, that she might be offended by them.
Fortunately, she wasn't. "Oh, yes. Quite well, the Moravians tell me."
"Ah. But I imagine you prefer prose to poetry?"
The little smile widened. "For a man who insists he's no gentleman, Patrick Driscol, you dance more than any gentleman I can imagine."
Much more Tiana-like, the smile was now. "Why did I ask you if you could teach me to dance? The simplest reason of all. I wanted to hear what your answer would be. Not because I cared, one way or the other, about the dancing."
"Ah." It occurred to Driscol that if he said "ah" one more time, he'd never hear the end of it. Or, still worse, might—because he'd never hear that voice again at all.
Either prospect was suddenly unbearable. His mind cast wildly about, for an instant, until it found a safe and secure refuge in...
Patrick Driscol. Where it damn well properly belonged.
"No," he said gruffly, "I can't teach you to dance. But I do have a social obligation I've been remiss in carrying out. I was wondering, Miss Rogers, if you'd do me the pleasure of accompanyin
g me?"
"I'd be delighted."
He extended his arm. Alas, the wrong one. He still hadn't quite adjusted. Probably because the bloody blasted thing still felt like it was there. It hurt enough, anyway.
She grinned at him. "I'd look like a proper fool, being led around by a stump."
"Sorry." He swiveled, bringing his right arm into position. A moment later, her hand tucked into his elbow, he led her toward the door.
No one noticed them leaving. All eyes were on Sam Houston.
General Ross was out of surgery, and awake.
"And your own defense was most gallant as well, Lieutenant," he said pleasantly. Ross cocked his head on the pillow, studying Driscol. "I suspect we've met before. Have we?"
Driscol cleared his throat. "In a manner of speaking, sir. I was across the field at Corunna. And, ah..."
Ross chuckled drily. "Took part in the very vigorous pursuit afterward. You have the look of a relentless man."
Driscol must have looked uncomfortable. Ross chuckled again, very drily, glancing at his heavily bandaged shoulder. "I had a feeling that volley was targeted. You, I presume."
"Ah. Yes, sir." Before he'd ushered them in, the doctor had told Driscol that Ross would most likely survive. But he'd need to spend months recovering, and would never really be able to use that arm very well again.
And...
Patrick Driscol would do it again. In an instant.
Looking into Ross's eyes, he knew the man understood. So, a crack that one gentleman officer had started, and a gentleman politician widened, was widened still farther by a third. And this one a Sassenach general, to boot.
Driscol began to fear for his soul.
"I was surprised at the time by the professional quality of the Capitol's defense," Ross went on. "Not to detract anything from Captain Houston—a very estimable young man—but that wasn't his doing."
"Ah. No, sir."
Ross nodded. "Good. I feel much better. It's embarrassing to be repulsed so decisively by an inexperienced militia officer. Now, at least, I'll be able to say I was defeated by one of Napoleon's veterans. Even if he was a lieutenant."
"Ah. I'm not exactly a lieutenant, sir. That's a field rank, which still hasn't been confirmed by the War Department. Properly speaking, I'm still a sergeant."
"Better still!" Ross actually grinned. "One of the emperor's sergeants. A lot of trolls, everyone knows it. Fearsome brutes."
They both chuckled, then.
"Belfast, from the accent?"
"Not the town, sir. But, yes, County Antrim."
"I see." Ross was back to studying him. "I'm from County Down," he said abruptly. "Not far south of there."
Driscol didn't know what to say, so he said nothing.
Again, Ross seemed to understand. "But I went to Trinity College, and you did not."
"No, sir. My family was not Church of England."
"Yes. Mine was. And so I became an officer of the British army, and you became my foe. Such is the working of Providence."
They were very keen eyes, even in a man who must be throbbing with pain. Driscol had no difficulty, any longer, understanding Ross's reputation as a soldier's general. Had... Providence not ruled otherwise, he'd not have minded serving under him.
"I'm afraid I'm a bit tired, Lieutenant Driscol, Miss Rogers, so I'll have to ask you to excuse me." He smiled thinly. "Or I shall have that miser—ah, fine doctor—nattering at me again."
"Of course, sir." Driscol started to turn away, extending his arm to Tiana.
"One thing, though, Lieutenant. It seems important to tell you. We've met twice now, and—who knows?—may meet again. But we never met before Corunna."
Driscol cocked his head. "Sir?"
"What I mean, Lieutenant—Sergeant, rather, for this purpose—is that I was in Holland in 1798."
"Ah."
"You understand, had I been in Ireland, I would have obeyed orders. Whether I approved of them or not. But, as it happens, I was not there."
Driscol thought about it. And decided that was good enough.
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, General Ross. Our best wishes for your recovery."
He probably said it too stiffly. But Tiana's smile made up the difference.
Tiana was silent, most of the way back to the Capitol. That was unusual, for she was not a quiet young woman by temperament. Driscol suspected she understood that he was lost in his own thoughts, and was accepting of the fact.
When she did finally speak, of course, she made up for it.
"I warn you, Patrick. If you keep saying 'ah' all the time, I'll start making fun of you."
Chapter 31
September 18, 1814
Mobile, Florida, territory disputed between the United States and Spain
"It's definite, General," John Coffee stated as soon as he entered the room where Jackson had set up his headquarters. "We just finally got word from Major Lawrence. Fort Bowyer is still in our hands, and the enemy force was driven off."
Jackson looked up from the papers he was reading. "That explosion we heard?"
There'd been a ferocious blast of some sort coming from Mobile Bay, three days earlier when the battle was fought. They'd heard it all the way in Mobile, thirty miles off. Jackson had worried that it meant the British had seized the fort, and had blown it up—although there was no logical reason for them to have done so. Fort Bowyer was located on a sandpit commanding the entrance to the bay. If the British had seized the fort, they'd surely have manned it themselves rather than destroying it.
"It turns out that was a British vessel blowing up," Coffee replied. "The Hermes. Lawrence says a lucky shot cut its anchor cable and the ship was swept by the current right under the guns of Fort Bowyer. The enemy finally set it afire themselves, after our guns hammered it into shreds. The flames ignited the magazine."
Jackson grunted, and looked out the window across the town of Mobile. The view faced south. Jackson had picked that house for his headquarters, despite the fact that it was more modest than many in the Spanish Florida town. It gave him a good view of the direction from which the enemy would come.
The Spanish inhabitants took that as a sign that Jackson was being moderate, Coffee knew, although it was nothing of the sort. Had the finest mansion in Mobile given him a better perspective, Jackson would have sequestered it and driven out the owners with no thought at all.
But the Spanish were rather inclined to be favorable toward Jackson anyway. Not because they liked the American general who'd seized their town, which they certainly didn't. But, by now, word had spread throughout the Floridas of the conduct of British soldiers who had seized Pensacola. The British had been invited to land at Pensacola by the Spanish governor of Florida, González Manrique, to protect the town against attack after the Americans had seized Mobile.
He'd had no choice, really. Spanish claims to the Floridas were a mere legality now, and every power in the world knew it. The United States had already stripped Spain of west Florida, on the grounds that the territory was included in the Louisiana Purchase. Those were shaky grounds, legally speaking. Under the terms of Napoleon's treaty with Spain, the French emperor had had no right to sell any Spanish territory in the New World in the first place.
But that didn't matter. The Americans chose to interpret the thing as they did, and the Spanish had no real military power to oppose them. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the United States would move on to seize east Florida, which had definitely not been included in the purchase. The only way the Spanish could resist was to become—whether they liked it or not—the legal proxies for the British Empire. Britain did have the power to fight the Americans along the gulf, and was quite willing to do so.
Though they were in Pensacola as guests of the Spanish, however, the British commander Major Nicholls and his marines had behaved as if they were conquerors. They'd treated the Spanish populace far more roughly than Jackson had treated them in Mobile.
The t
hing about Jackson that so many people failed to understand, Coffee reflected, was that his flamboyant reputation for violence had both a limit and—because of that limit—often redounded unexpectedly to his credit.
The limit was simple: Jackson could be every bit as rough on his own as on anyone else. If he told his men they would refrain from any atrocities—even rudeness—then they would damn well obey him, or he'd have them shot. So, when people discovered that the terrible Jackson... wasn't actually so bad once he finally got there—could even be downright gracious and charming, if he chose—they had a tendency to flip-flop and declare him a fine fellow after all.