The Demon Redcoat

by C. C. Finlay

  “Which way?” Proctor asked.

  “This way,” Lydia said, leading him off the road.

  The woods were unlike those Proctor knew in America. There was no underbrush filling the forest floor, no thickets of wild berries or brush piles covered with vines. Instead, the ancient trees rose high above, providing a roof so thick that only a slight carpet of grasses grew beneath. The trees were not quite laid out in rows, but they were regularly spaced, as if they had been carefully selected over time while their brothers and sisters were cleared away. Even the roots had room to stretch out, half exposed, along the surface. Proctor saw piles of deer scat here and there, but the profusion of wild animals of all sizes that he’d expected when he entered the woods was nowhere to be seen. It was like thinking he was going into a crowded tavern and instead finding himself in an empty church. But there was something peaceful and restorative about it at the same time. Although they had chosen the forest as a place to talk, instead they found themselves walking for a long time in silence.

  “I belong nowhere,” Lydia said.

  “What?” Proctor asked, shaken from his own worries for Deborah and Maggie.

  “Except maybe Deborah’s farm,” she said. “I felt at home there, like I belonged in my own right, equal to everyone else.”

  “We all belonged there,” Proctor said. Dogs barked in the far distance. The direction was indiscernible because of the way sound was amplified and distorted by the open space beneath the trees. “I feel better now that I’m out in the fresh air,” Proctor said. “Maybe another day or two of rest, and then we’ll leave for London to search for the Covenant.”

  “Of course,” Lydia said. “We’ll do what ever you want.”

  “What exactly is that supposed to mean? Isn’t that our plan?”

  Before she could answer, the dogs barked again much closer. They stopped and searched the trees, but couldn’t see them. “What do you think that is?” she asked.

  “Some hunters,” Proctor offered, not really thinking about the question.

  “I don’t think Englishmen are allowed to hunt in their forests,” she said. “The deer belong to the king. I saw some men out here yesterday.”

  “Let’s head back to the inn,” Proctor said, looking around.

  “I think that’s a wise idea.”

  They turned and started walking back the way they’d come. Proctor thought they were headed in the right direction, but it was difficult to tell because of the uniformity of the trees and the landscape. The dogs barked more furiously, and without saying anything to each other Proctor and Lydia started walking faster.

  “Where’s the road?” he asked.

  “Just a little farther that way,” she said.

  He shook his head in understanding. He had overestimated the fullness of his recovery. His stamina was pressed by the exertion, and he had no breath left for talking.

  “There she is,” yelled a man behind them.

  Proctor glanced over his shoulder to see a group of men with a pack of leashed hounds. The dogs erupted in a frenzy of barking, and the men gave pursuit.

  “Run,” Proctor gasped.

  Lydia pulled up her skirts and started to run and he stumbled after her as fast as he could go, though he didn’t know why the men were chasing them. He was dizzy and couldn’t concentrate. He reached in his pocket for Deborah’s lock of hair, but it felt slippery and tainted in his fingers. He thought he saw the road up ahead and, through the trees, the rambling rooftop of the inn.

  Over his shoulder, he saw the hunters unleashing the hounds.

  He tripped over a root and went sprawling on the ground. Lydia turned back at the sound, then looked up and saw the dogs. There was a wild fear in her eyes like he had never seen, and then she left him and ran. He had risen to his hands and knees when the dogs reached him, nipping and barking, and he cowered, covering his head.

  Not twenty yards away, they cornered Lydia as well.

  There were four men, one with a shotgun tucked under his arm and the others carrying pistols. They were not ragged or desperate enough to be outlaws, though they were clearly men who lived on the rough side of order. A fifth man accompanied them for the dogs. He gathered them up and returned them to their leashes while the other four guarded Proctor and Lydia.

  “See, I told you I saw her out here,” one of the men said smugly.

  “I think there’s a mistake,” Proctor said.

  “Oh, there is, and you made it,” the man said, jabbing the barrel of the shotgun at him.

  “My name is Proctor Brown. I’m from the Bahamas and this”—he hesitated before he said the next words—“is my slave, Lydia.”

  All five of the men laughed. They had heard his hesitation and it confirmed something they suspected. “If she’s your slave, then show us your papers,” the smug one said.

  “What?”

  “Show us your papers of ownership,” the smug one said. “We checked into you. We know you’re staying at the Maypole Inn. We’ll follow you back there while you get the papers.”

  “I’ve … I’ve been ill,” Proctor said. “We didn’t expect to be here so long. I don’t have the papers with me.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” the smug man answered with a jerk of his thumb at Lydia. “This here’s valuable property. If you’re a gentleman, you won’t mind producing a surety for her until her papers can be produced.”

  Proctor could not tell if the man was serious or bluffing. He didn’t know the laws in England. He looked at Lydia to see if they had any money left, but he already knew the answer before he glimpsed the frightened zeros in her eyes. If they had been at the inn for weeks without word from Digges, they were broke and running up a tab.

  The smug one saw the exchange and recognized it for what it was. He laughed again; they all laughed. “Let me tell you a story,” he said. “What I think happened. You can tell by her nice dress that she was a house slave. That’s good fabric. Nobody dresses their slaves like that unless they value them. Now look at you, on the other hand. Your clothes are plain and threadbare and twenty years out of fashion. You aren’t a gentleman, and I’d be surprised if you ever owned anything more than what you’re carrying on your back right now.”

  “That’s not how it is,” Proctor said.

  The man thumped Proctor’s chest with the barrel of the shotgun. All the amusement was gone from his face, replaced by greed and anger. “I’m telling the story, so you’re going to shut up and listen. I figure she was somebody’s house slave somewhere, and maybe you worked in the stables, mucking out the stalls. You decided to run away together.”

  The dogs grew restless, yipping and tugging at their leashes.

  The leader looked at Proctor and Lydia as if sizing up their differences in age and station. “I guess there’s no accounting for affection. So you show up here with some wild story about the Bahamas, and that would have been just fine if you were passing through on your way to someplace else, but then you fell sick, and she can’t produce any papers or letters for you, and nobody knows anything about you.”

  He expected some kind of confirmation from Proctor, but Proctor was busy calculating their chances of escape. He and Lydia needed not only to throw off these men, but also to make sure they didn’t follow or spread an alarm. And then the two of them would need some kind of coin when they continued on their way. The only solution he could come up with involved leaving all five men dead in the woods, rifling their pockets, and hoping for the best. He thought he could lift and aim the guns, then pull the triggers, but the noise would draw everyone from the village.

  When Proctor didn’t respond, the smug one continued. “So this is how it’s going to be. If you tell us who she belonged to, we’ll find them and return her for the reward, and we won’t say anything about you. You can go free on your way. If you don’t say anything, then we have to go to the trouble of finding papers for her so we can sell her. And that’s more work for us, so after we do it, we turn you in for a thief.
” He looked at Proctor’s hand, with its neatly missing finger. “Which maybe you already are, and in that case you’re just as likely to go to the hangman as to jail.”

  Proctor looked at Lydia and saw that she held her power at the ready. He drew on his own. The dogs barked and struggled to get free, and he wondered if they could sense it. He would have to try to use the guns as bludgeons. His plan was to strike down the leader first, and then the other men with guns, leaving the houndsman for last.

  “Are you going to say anything?” the leader asked. Proctor wanted him to step forward and thump him in the chest with the gun one more time. It would be easier to redirect if it was already in motion, and the man would be less prepared to stop it.

  Proctor spit at his feet. That finally did it—

  “Oh, hey, hello!” called a voice from off through the trees. “Look, I think they’re over here.”

  A small group of men came strolling through the woods. Proctor recognized the shorter one in front as Digges. The second man was tall, Proctor’s height at least, but thin and sallow. His hair was long, lank, and red. He was obviously a gentleman of some sort, because only a gentleman would dare dress so peculiarly, matching red plaid trousers with a black velvet coat. He was flanked by a pair of servants.

  The four men holding Proctor and Lydia prisoner quickly hid their guns beneath their coats. “Lord Gordon,” the leader said. The others ducked their heads and echoed, “Lord Gordon, sir—Good to see you—Hello, sir.”

  “Good day,” Gordon said. “It’s good to see you too. I recognize some of your faces from the last meeting of the Protestant Association. Will you all put blue cockades in your caps and join me in the march on Parliament?”

  “Planning to do that, sir.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You can count on us.”

  “Excellent,” Gordon said. “I am on my way to London now, in fact.” He sized up Proctor as he spoke, staring absently for a second at Proctor’s pocket, then glanced from Digges to Proctor to the group of ruffians. “So what exactly do we have here?”

  “We caught this runaway slave and this thief,” the leader said, jerking a thumb at Proctor and Lydia.

  “Oh, he’s not a thief,” Digges said.

  “He’s not a thief,” Gordon said. “He’s …”

  “He’s Mister Brown from the Bahamas,” Digges said. “And this is his slave, Lydia.”

  “But you all know as well as I that slavery is illegal in England,” Gordon said, his face registering concern and surprise. “The court case of James Somersett settled—”

  “We know no such thing, and never heard of no Somersett,” the leader of the ruffians said. His coat slipped open and his gun showed.

  Gordon’s man stepped in front of him. His face showed no sign of concern or worry, but made it clear to the ruffians that they could not, and would not, threaten his master. Proctor glanced at the ruffians to see if they would back down.

  The leader, at least, refused to be cowed. “There’d be no abolitionists if there was no slavery, now would there?” he said. “What do Sharp and Wilberforce go on about freeing the slaves for, if there’s no slavery?”

  “Sometimes men exaggerate a situation to make a point,” Gordon said.

  “So His Lordship is suggesting that the Catholic threat has been exaggerated—”

  “No, I’m suggesting no such thing, of course not—popery is a danger to every free man in England,” Gordon said at once, smiling. When he smiled, Proctor felt like a lamp had been lit just for him. Though Gordon spoke in a low voice, Proctor could hear every word as though it were whispered for him alone. “Would you be satisfied if the gentleman provided a surety for his conduct and that of his companion?”

  “Well, that’s the problem in a nutshell, isn’t it?” the leader said. “They’re running up a bill at the Maypole with no apparent means of paying it. So you look at them, and she’s dressed well enough, but his clothes are worn to rags. We’ve searched their room, and there’s not a shilling in any crack in the floor. We’ve emptied their pockets too, and unless money’s made of lint, they don’t have any.”

  Proctor squeezed the lock of Deborah’s hair in his fist. There might still be a fight.

  “We’ll settle his account and pay the surety for him,” Digges whispered to Gordon.

  “Oh, absolutely, we’ll provide the surety for him,” Gordon insisted. He glanced again at Proctor’s pocket. “After all, they’re all coming to London with us for the march on Parliament.” He patted his own pockets, then glanced at his two servants, who made no response. To Digges, he said, “Thomas, I’m terribly sorry, do you mind?”

  “Of course not,” Digges replied. He opened up the purse that Franklin had given him, now visibly lighter, and counted out enough coin to buy the silence of five men.

  Once all assurances were made, and the men departed, Gordon turned to Proctor.

  “We’re going to London with you?” Proctor asked. He had still not relaxed.

  Gordon clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Thomas tells me that we share a common enemy. I am on my way to London to see if I can wreck their plans.”

  Chapter 16

  It was all too easy to suit Proctor. Digges, who seemed to trust no one, trusted Gordon. And Gordon not only claimed to know of the Covenant but had been working for at least two years against their plan to take control of England.

  They spent several days at the inn, in which Proctor learned no more than this. Digges settled their account. Gordon gave a stirring speech to the whole of the village assembled before the inn, in which he spoke in grand but vague terms about their great cause, the dire threat from popery, and the need to halt Catholic emancipation for the sake of England—“even if we must wade through blood to do it.”

  The last part worried Lydia. “Blood and fire, that’s what Magdalena promised me,” she said.

  “I took it for more of a warning than a promise,” Proctor said. And then, lowering his voice, he added, “I didn’t know that slaves were—well, not slaves—in England. I’m so used to hearing about English tyranny, and the Crown making slaves of us all, that …” He trailed off. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, no, don’t you apologize for that,” Lydia said. “A woman’s only free if she can pay her way. Believe me, when you were sick, I pleaded the ignorance of servitude and sang about your riches, and it bought us time for you to heal.”

  “What if I hadn’t recovered?” he asked.

  She looked away from him and waved off the question. “Never considered that a possibility.”

  He let it go because he had quickly grown obsessed with Gordon. They hired horses—again from Franklin’s purse—and rode to London, where they stayed at Gordon’s house on Welbeck Street. It was as fine a home as Proctor had ever been in: three stories of fine brick, finely proportioned, anchored by four chimneys, one at each corner of the house, and lit by a row of five large windows across each level. There was a door framed by windows on the first floor, and a balcony at the window on the second. But inside, the house seemed hollow—room after room filled with any odd end of furnishings as though the owner were indifferent to the effort. The library, which sat at the front of the house for light—other houses butted up against either side, making those rooms darker—was filled with an assortment of volumes as odd as the furniture. Beautifully made books that had never been opened jumbled haphazardly with old volumes falling apart at the binding, and all of them covered with dust. It left Proctor with the impression that Gordon’s life was lived outside his home, and that the secret to his thoughts remained in his head and not in his papers.

  From the window of his bedroom, Proctor watched the chimney sweeps walk the streets, their long brushes sooting the dawn light. Digges might be blinded, but Proctor could see the truth: Gordon was hiding not only the extent of his talent for rousing strong passion, but his plans for using it; and though Gordon claimed to be fighting the Covenant, it was just as possible that he served them.
Proctor was going to follow Gordon, either to the Covenant or until he revealed his plan to defeat them.

  He felt his heart racing with anger and a desire to crush the Covenant, and he recognized it as the lingering effects of Gordon’s attempts to excite him about the morning’s march on Parliament.

  There was a firm knock at the door. Proctor pulled it open and saw Gordon’s man, Grueby, standing there with several items of clothing draped over his arms.

  “His Lordship sends a change of clothes for you,” he said flatly. Proctor was coming to realize that Grueby’s lack of inflection or expression made him useful to Gordon, who did not seem to always control the passions that he roused in people. A man without passion was the only kind he could depend on. The only sign of emotion that Grueby showed was in the angle of his hat: a floppy blue cockade—the sign of the Protestant Association—was affixed to the brim, but Grueby turned his hat around to keep it behind him.

  Proctor looked at the plaid trousers—they were the same kind that Gordon wore. “Must I wear these?”

  “It’s your choice,” Grueby said. “If you want your companion kidnapped and sold to a sugar plantation in Jamaica, that’s fine by me.”

  “No, I mean—is there nothing else?”

  “No,” Grueby said. “It’s this or nothing. We don’t have much here in the way of clothes.”

  Proctor believed that. With a reluctant sigh, he changed his clothes. The pants rode high on his ankles. Combined with the long black velvet jacket, it only made him feel sillier. He supposed that was what it felt like to be a gentleman—you could dress like a fool and nobody laughed.

  He was folding his old pants when another knock at the door was followed by the announcement that it was time to leave. Grueby came in, checked the pockets of Proctor’s old clothes, and frowned as he carried them away. Then Gordon was downstairs yelling that it was time to leave, and suddenly everyone—including Proctor but excepting Grueby—was running in a mad panic to get in the carriage to ride to St. George’s Field.