The Demon Redcoat

by C. C. Finlay

  The chaise was large enough to seat four. Gordon and Digges sat on one side, and Proctor and Lydia took the other. Digges covered his mouth to stifle a yawn and stretched his legs so that they pressed up against Gordon, who didn’t seem to notice. Lydia squeezed all the way over to one side and stared out the window. Proctor was prepared for the same rough ride he had experienced in getting from Spain to France, but the springs were excellent and the ride the smoothest he had ever known.

  “St. George’s Field,” Gordon said to no one in par tic-u lar. “Because George is the patron saint of England, and also our king, eh? Eh?”

  “You mean the saint is a focus,” Proctor probed. The Covenant meant to use the empire as a focus. It seemed that Gordon was doing the same thing.

  “Is that what I mean?” Gordon asked, whirling his finger to include the four of them. “All four of us share a talent—you know what I speak of. But do we also share a purpose, do we share a solemn purpose? That is what I mean to know.”

  Proctor tensed at the gesture with the fingers, taking it for a spell, but nothing happened. “What exactly is your purpose?” he asked.

  “To save a king—to save a country,” Gordon said. He leaned across the carriage into Proctor’s face. “What exactly is your purpose?”

  Proctor had no desire to help King George. He was a tyrant who had stolen the liberties of the people in America. But he didn’t think he could argue that. He stared Gordon in the eyes. “My purpose is to stop the Covenant.”

  “You think we want different things,” Gordon said. “You’re suspicious. Tell me, Mister Brown, who do you think the Covenant are?”

  “They’re a group of witches—”

  “Sorcerers, conjurers, warlocks?”

  “Yes …”

  “Like the four of us?”

  “No, not like the four of us,” Proctor snapped. What was Gordon trying to do? “The Covenant means to make a world empire, so that they might channel power toward themselves to achieve immortality.”

  “But that makes no sense,” Gordon said. “Immortality is already yours if you wish it. You only need to accept Christ as your savior and repent your sins.”

  “Why have I become the sudden object of your concern?” Proctor asked. “I thought we were talking about the Covenant.”

  “I’m merely speaking of generalities,” Gordon said, leaning back in his seat. “Are you a Catholic, Mr. Brown?”

  “No.”

  “Thomas is a Catholic.”

  “Was a Catholic,” said Digges. “Now I’m just another orphaned soul.”

  “But either way, my point is, you understand the Catholic mind,” Gordon said to Digges. “Do Catholics look first to their king or to their pope?”

  “The pope,” Digges replied.

  Turning back to Proctor, Gordon said, “You must understand that my first encounter with the Covenant was with a priest—a Jesuit, one of the soldiers of the pope. For him, the Roman church and the Covenant pursued the same goal, the universal subjugation of all people to a single will. Who is England at war with, Mister Brown?”

  “America—”

  “No!” Gordon snapped angrily again. “That is the narrow view of the provincial. England is at war with France. America could not fight without French support. America would have lost the war already without French money, French weapons, French soldiers and sailors. But do not fool yourself—France has no love of freedom or America.”

  That might be close to the truth. Proctor had seen enough in Paris to convince him of that. French ministers paid attention to Franklin because he played their game, but they ignored Adams easily when he didn’t.

  Gordon’s face lit up. He could tell that he had struck a chord of doubt.

  “And by France we mean popery,” Gordon said. “Spain joins France because they are fellow papists. Which gives us the problem of Ireland. Ireland is part of Britain, but it is full of papists. If we emancipate the Irish and welcome them into the British army, they will, at the first opportunity, declare their true allegiance to pope over king and join France in overthrowing the Crown. So tell me what good it will do America to give up one king for another. The French king will share neither language nor religion with Americans, nor have any respect at all for their freedom. America can serve England willingly or end as a slave to France. That is the choice you face!”

  Proctor began to see how Gordon’s talent worked. The points in his arguments did not move forward in a line so much as they spun in circles like a whirl pool. His method was to keep talking until he hit upon a point that drew a reaction. Then he would take the reaction and amplify it.

  Time to emulate Grueby and feel no passion at all. Better to deflect the argument a different direction.

  “I see your point,” Proctor said. “So you mean to save your king by opposing him?”

  “Our king,” Gordon insisted. “He is, and will remain, our king. The war with America is foolish. You colonists may be in a state of rebellion and reject His Majesty’s authority, but he does not reject you. You are like the prodigal sons. The prodigal sons of liberty. King George is still your right and lawful ruler, and he will slay the fatted calf on your return. Oh yes, he will. Everything I do, I do to help the king.”

  All those words and no answer to my question, thought Proctor.

  Gordon flopped back in his seat and stared pensively out the window. They were crossing one of the great bridges that spanned the Thames. Large and small boats, moved by sail and paddle, traveled both ways along the river. The bridge was crowded with men crossing the same direction as the carriage. Gordon stared at all the hats topped by blue cockades. “I have no prejudice against papists,” he said sulkily. “They should have every right shared by the rest of us, excepting where it touches on religion.”

  “Hey,” called a voice from outside. A group of black men, tradesmen by their dress, made way for the carriage to pass. An older fellow, with a face that was pitted and scarred, elbowed his younger companion in the ribs and pointed in the window at Lydia. “Look at her—good enough to ride in a carriage! Hey, beautiful.”

  Lydia frowned, covered her face with her hand, and turned away.

  The ugly tradesman’s laugh echoed as the carriage rode past.

  Gordon tapped Digges on the knee. “Did you see that? They were wearing the blue cockade. Do you think we’ll have twenty thousand?”

  “Twenty, surely.”

  “Forty?”

  “Likely,” Digges said.

  “Unless we have twenty thousand, there will be no point.” Gordon’s long thin face seemed pulled by worry. “Forty thousand marchers would be better.”

  “Forty thousand is an army,” Proctor said, boggling at the number. “Why do you believe forty thousand will help the king?”

  “Why do you think it won’t?” Gordon snapped.

  “Please,” Digges said, resting a hand on Gordon’s thigh.

  “No, I’m tired of his ungrateful questions.” He pushed Gordon’s hand aside and jabbed his finger at Proctor. “My in formants, who have been in contact with members of the Covenant, with the very inner circle of the Covenant—can you say the same?—tell me that a spell is planned to bring His Majesty under their power.” He tapped his chest. “I can stop them. We meet in St. George’s Fields. Forty thousand men will hear me speak for the good of England and the good of the king.”

  Proctor had his hand in his pocket, where he rolled the lock of Deborah’s hair around and around his fingers. He needed to replace the ribbon, something more plain and suited to her, and not tainted by the touch of the Countess Cagliostro. But every time he thought of it—like now—it was too inconvenient to tend to. “It’s a focus,” he said.

  “Yes, it’s a focus,” Gordon said. “Men, with their passions inflamed, bring their will to a single focus. The petition, signed by over a hundred thousand men. The blue cockades. St. George’s Fields, part of the king’s demesne, as old as England itself. Our patron saint. Our current monar
ch. The march. All for the good of our country, for the good of our king. And all of you will help me.”

  Digges sat up. “What? How?”

  “As a focus,” Gordon said. “Think of the lenses in a telescope, each one in focus, to magnify the light of the star in the distance. I want you to stand in the middle of the crowd to magnify my light.”

  “I’ll do it,” Digges said. He looked to Proctor and Lydia for confirmation.

  Lydia said nothing. Her only reply was a tight smile, lasting just a second, and moving no farther on her face than the corners of her mouth.

  Only Gordon had not been speaking to Digges and Lydia—Proctor was sure that he was speaking specifically to him. Proctor was the most powerful witch of the three. At least it explained why Gordon had brought them along. It was a last-minute addition to his plans.

  “I wish I’d had more time to prepare or to think about it,” Proctor said.

  “But I thought you wanted to destroy the plans of the Covenant,” Gordon said.

  “I prefer a destruction that I can actually see,” Proctor said. “This seems very vague to me.”

  “There will be nothing vague about it. I’ll do this without you.” The carriage rolled to a stop. Gordon reached into his jacket pocket for a pair of spectacles. “The cause of freedom could use your help,” he said. He peered through his spectacles. “Know that I’ll be watching you, what ever you decide. In the meanwhile, may I ask you to wear these.”

  He pulled blue fabric cockades from his pocket, tucking one into the brim of Proctor’s hat and slipping the other through a buttonhole at Lydia’s collar.

  The carriage door opened.

  Without waiting for any response from Proctor, Gordon stepped outside.

  A crowd roared, a wall of noise, cheering and clapping. Proctor felt a tingle run over his skin. There were all kinds of power out there, magic not least among them. Gordon, with his peculiar clothes and excessive manner, made himself a focus. The power of the crowd flowed through him.

  Proctor looked at his own clothes, identical to Gordon’s—Gordon’s, in fact—and wondered if the attire was meant to help magnify Gordon’s power. Maybe the choice was up to Proctor. Was Gordon a good man, working against the Covenant, or was he a member of the Covenant himself?

  The question must have been obvious on his face. “Trust him,” Digges suggested. “I know deceit, better than most, and Gordon, though he may not reveal everything, is that rarest of things—a man with both a good heart and a great vision.”

  “Is this what America needs?” Proctor asked.

  “If Gordon succeeds with this petition, then England will not be able to draft new regiments of soldiers from Ireland,” Digges said. “That is most definitely good for America, regardless of anything else.”

  He hopped out the open door, looking for Gordon, and then disappeared into the mob that crowded around the carriage. It must be a relief, Proctor thought, for a man always hiding something and afraid he’ll be discovered to step into a mob where he might be completely anonymous. Proctor looked over at Lydia, wondering whether they should help Gordon or not.

  “Did you see him?” she asked sharply.

  “How could I miss him? He’s the almighty Lord Gordon—”

  “Not Gordon—Digges. Did you see the way he watches Gordon, the look on his face?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I think he’s a sodomite.”

  Now that she mentioned it, Digges did have a puppy-dog look as he followed Gordon around. Proctor thought about that look, about the legs touching, about the way Digges trusted Gordon.

  “It would explain a lot,” Proctor said. Like why Digges had left Mary land under a cloud of scandal. Or the way that hiding things and lying came so habitually to him—no matter who he was with, he had something to hide. Gordon might be the only man who wouldn’t judge him for being either a witch or a sodomite.

  “You’re not bothered?” Lydia said.

  Proctor thought about it and then shrugged. “Maybe at one time I would have been. But who am I to judge?”

  “I’m not talking about judging him—I’m talking about trusting him. I’m talking about taking his word on this Gordon fellow, who’s had something to hide from us since the moment he showed up.”

  “We’ve all got something to hide,” Proctor said.

  “But what you and I got to hide, we ain’t hiding from either one of those gentlemen,” Lydia answered. “Not the way they’re hiding things from us.”

  “So do we help them or not?”

  “No,” Lydia said. “That’s not the question. The question is, are they going to help us?”

  “Yes,” Proctor said. “What ever you think of Digges, he’s right about one thing. If Gordon’s protest works, the English army is weakened, and if the army is weaker, that helps the war. If the rest of Gordon’s plan works, and the Covenant is weakened, then so much the better.”

  “Sounds like you made up your mind.”

  “Yes,” Proctor said. “I guess I have. Have you?”

  “I came to help you—I got no reason to be here if I don’t help.” She scooted across the seat to the door. “If we’re going to do it, then let’s go.”

  “Thank you, Lydia. If it feels wrong at any moment, we’ll back away—we’ll just stop helping Gordon and get out of here.”

  “All right,” Lydia said.

  “But this is as close as we’ve gotten to the Covenant so far. So we’ve got to try—”

  “I said all right already. I get it. He’s going to be done talking by the time we get out there to be a telescope or what ever it was he said we was going to be.”

  Proctor let it go.

  Lydia climbed out of the carriage and Proctor followed. He had seen maybe ten thousand men gathered at once during the battle of Brooklyn, so he thought he was prepared for Gordon’s crowd. But when he stepped out of the carriage and looked across the park, what he saw was larger than he had ever imagined. From road to road, from the platform where Gordon was speaking back to the tiny heads still trickling in from the side streets, it was a vast sea of people. Ten thousand was one small corner of that crowd. There might be fifty thousand gathered, or there might have been twice that. The blue cockade of the Protestant Association adorned every hat and cap.

  “There he is,” someone yelled. “It’s Lord Gordon.”

  Proctor spun around in order to see Gordon, and saw people pointing at him instead. That simpleton from the Maypole Inn—Barnaby—was there with his raven perched on his shoulder.

  “Hallo, hallo,” the raven croaked. “You’re a devil, you’re a saucy devil.”

  “He’s not Lord Gordon,” Barnaby told the crowd. He glowered at Proctor, as though he’d been cheated. “You’re not Lord Gordon.”

  “I never said I was,” Proctor answered.

  “But you’re wearing his clothes,” Barnaby said.

  “I needed new clothes, so Gordon loaned these to me.”

  “See,” Barnaby cried. “His Lordship’s the kind who gives his fellow man the shirt off his back—huzzah for Lord Gordon!”

  While others took up the cry of huzzah, Proctor grabbed Lydia by the sleeve and led her into the heart of the crowd. The raven leapt to the top of Barnaby’s head and flapped its wings furiously as they went past, croaking, “You’re a devil, you’re a devil.”

  “I don’t look anything like Gordon,” Proctor grumbled to Lydia.

  “You’re much thinner than you were and your color’s as poor as his,” Lydia said. “And Deborah would never recognize that mess of hair on you. Someone who knows you both would never make the mistake. But to someone who didn’t know either of you, what would they have except his height, his thinness, and his clothes.”

  “Do you think he did it on purpose, or do you think it’s by chance?” Proctor asked.

  “What happened to We’re going trust him and try to help?”

  “I’m just asking,” Proctor said.

  “And I don’t know how to answ
er,” Lydia said. “He’s not like Miss Cecily, I can tell that. But he’s not much like Deborah and the rest of you folks either.”

  “There weren’t any other clothes in his house,” Proctor said. “So I’m going to assume that it’s by chance for now.”

  “You’re the one taking the chance,” she said.

  Together they weaved and ducked through the crowd, from the road bounding St. George’s Fields past the platform where other men spoke in advance of Gordon, to the center of the mob. Bodies pressed in all around them, jostling and nervous. Proctor held on to Lydia’s wrist to keep them together, but after a short while she yanked it free.

  “I said I’ll follow you, and I’ll follow you,” she said.

  Laughter sounded nearby. Proctor cranked his head around and saw the group of black tradesmen they had passed on the road. At their head was the ugly one with the mischievous grin. He was holding out a hand to Lydia—his forearm and finger bore the scars and calluses of a man used to hard work.

  “Why you want to go follow him?” he asked. Tapping his own chest, he said, “You a free woman in England. Why don’t you come follow me? John is a rich man, master of my own shop. I’ll treat you right.”

  “You think so?” Lydia asked. She snapped her fingers under his nose, and he jerked back.

  Lydia turned away. “That’ll take care of him.”

  But ugly John’s laughter followed after them. “That’s a good trick there. Felt like my nose got stung. Come on back! I like a woman with spirit, and you got plenty of that.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “Where are we supposed to be, if we’re going to help him?”

  “About where we are, I think—the middle of the crowd.”

  “Well, let’s find some other middle,” she said. “Look for Digges or something.”

  “All right,” Proctor said, and he started pushing through the crowd toward the stage. He was sure Digges would be someplace where he could see Gordon clearly.