Circle of Spies

by Roseanna M. White

  Walker reached out and took the paper. “Is this the message?”

  “His address. Will you be able to read it?”

  A perfectly valid question for someone to ask a Negro man, even a free one. But Walker couldn’t help but snort a laugh. “You do realize I was Stephen Arnaud’s best friend, right? Owner of all those books you’ve been reading?”

  “Good. I can’t risk paying Herschel a visit today, not when I have to meet the others. If you could find him, though, and tell him to change Lincoln’s route at the last minute. That’s all it will take to foil them.”

  “I can handle that.” Going to Washington hadn’t been in his plans for the day, but no doubt Marietta would agree that this was more important than the trip to the hospital the womenfolk had planned. “Gotta ask, though…you really trust me with this?”

  Osborne shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m short on allies, and I can’t ask Marietta to help here.”

  Walker tucked the folded paper into his pocket to examine when he had light. Then he paused. “You trust her these days?”

  A beat of silence was the only response he could discern in the low light. “Don’t you?”

  “Yeah. But we’ve known each other all our lives.” He knew the old Yetta, not just the socialite. The woman so long slumbering under the mask of hurt—and the determination not to feel the hurt.

  How much of her did Osborne know? He shouldn’t trust the mask…and if she’d lowered it, then they had some talking to do, him and her.

  Osborne hummed, low and quick. “One minute I think I have her figured, and then the next…”

  “It ain’t too hard.” He buttoned up his coat and fished thick gloves from his pockets. “The way she seems to be…well, that’s my fault.”

  He could all but hear her screaming at him in his head, telling him he had no business letting Slade in on the secret no one else knew, aside from themselves and Cora. And maybe he didn’t. Maybe it was just the lack of sleep forcing the words past his lips.

  But he couldn’t shake the feeling that this man would respect her the more if he knew all she’d been willing to give up, once, to follow her heart.

  “Your fault.” The measured, flat tone of caution possessed Osborne’s voice. “How so?”

  “I hurt her.” Walker tugged his gloves on, welcoming the insulation from the cold March air. “We’d been planning to run off together. Go north and get married.”

  Though shadows cloaked Osborne’s face, they sure didn’t do anything to mute the surprised inhale.

  Walker smiled into the darkness. “I know. Wouldn’t think it of her, would you? Fine, rich white girl like her willing to give up everything for a quadroon whose life goal was to work with horses.”

  “No. I wouldn’t have.” Osborne’s voice was quiet as a thought.

  “No one did. Look, I’ve been judged all my life for my mixed blood and the fact I ain’t got a father. Most folks don’t know my mama was attacked, and if they did, they wouldn’t care.” But it was something he’d never been able to get past. Something he sure couldn’t let Cora and her unrequested babe go through alone when he found her sobbing in a horse’s stall. “Yetta never judged. Never looked at me like I was less.”

  The breath whispered back out. “What happened, then?”

  “I told Stephen. He talked me out of it.” Though his companion wouldn’t be able to see, he shook his head. “Looking back, I know it was the right decision. But I didn’t handle it right. I was going to take off and not tell her, and when she caught me leaving—well, we both said things we shouldn’t have. I broke her heart, Oz, plain and simple.”

  “You’re the one she was trying to hurt by marrying a slave owner.”

  Sounded right, but not coming from him. “She told you that?”

  “Yeah.” He turned but didn’t walk back through the door. “Why are you working here if it ended so badly?”

  “Stephen. He made me promise when he signed up that I would watch out for her. He never trusted the Hugheses. He made her promise to provide me a job.”

  “Right.” He laughed again, nearly silently. “Marietta and her unexpected good deeds. And here I was surprised she wanted to volunteer at the hospital today with Barbara.”

  Walker’s quiet laugh joined Osborne’s. “Me too. Yetta and the sight of blood don’t mix, though I doubt she admitted that to Barbara.”

  Osborne didn’t reply to that, but when he went to the door, he paused again, a silhouette against the scrap of moonlight seeping through the clouds. “I could use your prayers today.”

  Walker aimed his feet toward the tack room, because he certainly wasn’t about to take one of Hughes’s trains to Washington. “You have them.”

  A moment later the doorway was empty. Walker shook his head and fetched a saddle. It only took him a few minutes to rouse a horse, get her ready, and slip back upstairs to kiss Elsie’s slumbering cheek and whisper to Cora that he would be gone a few hours.

  Rather than head straight out of Baltimore Walker headed for the familiar house he always associated with grandfathers—his own and the Arnauds’. Grandpa Henry and Gram Em would be warm in their bed above the Lane carriage house, but somehow he wasn’t surprised to see a light burning in the drawing room window of the main house. And he wouldn’t have come if he hadn’t mostly expected just that.

  Thad Lane met him at the kitchen door with a cup of coffee. “I’ve been up praying. Where are you headed, Walk?”

  “Washington, for Osborne. He says the KGC is planning to kidnap Lincoln today if they can.” He took a sip of the steaming coffee and breathed a happy inhale. “He wants me to let one of his friends know.”

  Mr. Lane nodded and took a sip of his own coffee. “Better not linger too long here, then.”

  Walker shifted from foot to foot. “I just wanted to make sure…do you want me to leave it to Pinkerton’s men? Or I could stick around the city for the day.”

  “No.” As usual, Mr. Lane’s answer was quick as confidence but soft as wonderment. “This is their job, and they’re doing it. Ours is to help where we can quietly. If we get too involved, they’ll start asking questions we don’t want to answer.”

  A sigh worked its way up and out. “But we could do more, Mr. Lane.”

  “We always could do more. That doesn’t mean we always should.” His smile made wrinkles fan out. “Much as we all like to be the hero, this one isn’t for us.”

  “But—”

  “The Culpers saved a president once. We have prevented the Knights from their tasks many times over the last few years. But this…” He took a sip of his coffee, his gaze somewhere past Walker’s shoulder. “This one is for Oz to handle.”

  Walker savored the warmth from the mug, though he was none too sure about the advice. “You’ve taken to him awful fast.”

  Mr. Lane chuckled. “Maybe. But I have a feeling he will be around for a while, so why withhold my approval?”

  Maybe he wasn’t fully awake yet. “How long you think this job will keep him here? I figured a few months at the most.”

  “I’m not talking about the job.” Mr. Lane met his gaze and grinned. “You haven’t noticed the way they look at each other? Oz and Mari?”

  Walker nearly choked on the sip of coffee he’d just taken. “I noticed how he looks at her. How has she been looking at him?”

  Now his host’s gaze went soft, yet it focused on him like artillery. “The same way she used to look at you.”

  He had known? Walker pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course he had known. Thaddeus Lane knew everything that went on in his family. “I guess we oughta pray this isn’t as big a mistake as that was, then.”

  He wasn’t about to make a judgment as quickly as Mr. Lane did.

  “You have a nice cold ride to fill with prayers.” The old man gripped Walker’s shoulder. “Take the coffee.”

  “Thanks.” He slipped back outside and onto his horse, willing the sun to come up and warm him. Pointing the mar
e’s nose in the right direction, he set his thoughts toward prayer.

  As dawn touched its rose-gold fingers to the horizon, he wished Stephen were here to talk to. If ever he needed his friend’s placid eyes and ready laugh, it was…always. Now, yes, but every other now between Gettysburg and today too. Some folks you just never stopped missing. Never stopped needing. Marietta was lucky to be able to call up his face, his words whenever she pleased. Walker’s memories were fuzzy around the edges, but still sharp enough to slice.

  When the first buildings of Washington appeared in the distance, he took the slip of paper from his pocket and read the direction in the soft morning light. Then he just stared at the hand—quick and efficient, but with the flourish of an educated man. Walker could write like that too, having taken his lessons beside the Arnaud boys, but he never chose to. It didn’t make sense for him. He’d learned early on that a man with any black in him had better not put on airs, not in the South. That would get him nowhere but on the kitchen table, his anxious mother patching up his wounds.

  Osborne didn’t put on airs either. Maybe his clothes were nice, but he only had a couple sets of them. Maybe he dined in the big house, but from what Cora said, he was careful to keep his distance from the masters. He was a hired man. One who lived on his wits, not on his daddy’s bank account.

  Walker could respect that. It didn’t mean the man was right for Marietta, but…it wasn’t a mark against him, his common-stock origins. More one in his favor, to Walker’s way of thinking. She needed someone who could see beneath the pretty. He wasn’t sure Osborne could, but Mr. Lane was usually right about these things.

  The streets of Washington soon surrounded him, and he put aside all thoughts but finding the right building. He eventually did, an aging boardinghouse near the Capitol, and by then enough people were out and about that his knock on the back door was quickly answered by a woman who looked as old as the building.

  She motioned him into the warm kitchen. “Morning. What brings you here?”

  Walker swept his hat off his head with a smile. “I’m looking for Fred Herschel, ma’am.”

  “He just came down for breakfast. I’ll fetch him.”

  No offer of coffee or food, but that was all right. Walker was grateful for the warmth from the stove and eager to be back on his way. So he was glad when a man sauntered into the kitchen, still wiping his mouth with a napkin. His stopped when he spotted Walker. “What can I do for you?”

  He didn’t see anyone else lingering about, but wisdom dictated a quiet tone and vague words. “Your friend Oz sent me. Said to tell you to change the route today, and at the last minute. There’s trouble afoot.”

  Herschel measured him for a long moment, though a brief smile at last touched the corner of his mouth. “I suppose I shouldn’t worry too much about your being on the other side.”

  The very thought drew a breath of laughter from Walker’s lips. Even if his mind were twisted enough to want to join the Knights of the Golden Circle, they wouldn’t ever take anyone whose blood was part Negro. “No, sir.”

  “Tell him to consider it done.” Without another word, the man pivoted and sauntered back out.

  Walker had gotten up at four, in the black of a frigid night, for a thirty-second exchange?

  It was easy to see where Herschel and Osborne would get along.

  Twenty-Two

  I’m so glad you could join me today, Mari.”

  Marietta summoned a smile that she hoped convinced Barbara she was glad too, though she had a difficult time forcing her gaze from the window of the carriage. “As am I.” Mostly. Though her stomach threatened to heave at the mere mention of a hospital. Heaven help them all if they asked her to change a bandage.

  But being always in the company of a woman so very good and selfless made her determined to try something other than rolling bandages and stitching sashes. Something to quiet this twisting in her chest she didn’t understand.

  “Are you all right? You look…perplexed.”

  “Do I?” Try as she might to laugh that away, it was no doubt true. Part of her was eager to arrive at the hospital at which Stephen had once volunteered, which she had not seen since it was a family home. Part of her recoiled at the imagined sights and smells.

  And part of her was none too sure her confusion had a whit to do with that. Sighing, she gave up on the familiar streets leading to the edges of Baltimore and focused on her friend. “I feel strange, Barbara.” She splayed a gloved hand over her chest. “An urgency, almost, though I cannot understand why.”

  “Hmm.” Barbara’s gaze went unfocused for a moment, and then her usual serene smile touched her lips. “It sounds as though the Spirit may be asking you to pray.”

  With a long blink and a tongue that seemed unable to wrap itself around words, Marietta shook her head, slowly. Not in rejection but in shock. “But why would the Lord ask me to pray?”

  Her friend chuckled and reached across the space between them to grasp her hand. “It is all part of your burgeoning relationship with Him.”

  Was it? She held fast to Barbara’s fingers. “I have spent hours lately studying the Scriptures, sermons, dwelling on what Stephen once told me, and still I…” Unable to meet her friend’s guileless eyes, she resorted to the window again. “During the day, I feel as though I am finally beginning to understand. Then when Dev shows up for dinner, it is as though chains are cuffed to my wrists and ankles. How does one escape one’s past, Barbara? How?”

  “Mari.” Her tone, gently insistent, bade Marietta look at her again. When she did, she had a feeling Barbara saw everything with her solemn, accepting gaze. All her guilt, all her sin, all her fear. “You have prayed for forgiveness from your sins. Have you prayed for freedom from their bonds?”

  “Freedom?” It wasn’t a word one could toss around lightly these days. “How am I to pray for freedom when I have slaves under my roof? Would that not make me the biggest hypocrite in the state?”

  Barbara chuckled and squeezed her hand. “Not by far. As wretched as I believe physical slavery is, men and women of greater faith than mine are on the opposite side of this war.” She drew in a deep breath, her expression as conflicted as Marietta had ever seen it. “Stephen and I spent much time trying to reconcile the differing views with a similar faith. And then at last we realized we didn’t have to, because God so very rarely tells us what society should do—rather, He tells us how we, as believers, should behave in whatever society to which we belong.”

  Their eyes met again, and again Barbara’s smile shone forth. “Never once in the Bible does God speak either for or against physical slavery. But spiritual slavery—that is a topic He addresses time and again. Over and over Paul pleads with the early church to embrace the freedom of the soul that Christ offers. You must do that, Mari. You must cling, not just to cleansing, but to freedom.”

  Stephen had said something similar once. Not just salvation, but redemption. Redemption again—God had not just taken her sins from her, He had purchased her. And she could not be both God’s and Dev’s, not when their wills were in opposition.

  The carriage rocked to a halt, and she looked out again to see the once-familiar mansion previously called Maryland Square. Her breath stuck in her chest. This was where she had met Lucien, at a ball in the spring of 1860, before the Steuarts’ property had been seized because of their Confederate sympathies. Now, rather than rolling acres of gardens, long barrack-like buildings flanked it, row upon row of yellow walls and black roofs. A wooden sign read Jarvis US General Hospital.

  There would be no music spilling from the windows, no gaiety within the halls. Marietta pulled her cloak tight and reclaimed her hand from Barbara’s so she could grip her reticule. So much had changed in their world in the last five years. It was only fitting that this, too, should be so different.

  “Do you still get ill at the sight of blood?”

  Marietta’s head snapped back toward her companion, and she found her grinning. “Stephen ment
ioned that?”

  “It came up when we first met. That is why I never asked you to join me.”

  She drew in a bracing breath when Pat opened the door and offered her a hand down. “I don’t know if it will or not. I have avoided it so long. I suppose we shall see.”

  Barbara followed her out and patted her arm. “You can begin by helping the men with their correspondence.”

  “Perfect.” Dictation was something she could do all but in her sleep. She would give half her attention to the men laid out upon the rows of cots…and the other half could focus on praying for Slade.

  Slade didn’t have to feign an anxiousness to match his companion’s. As he stroked the nose of his horse, he looked from the street to Booth. The afternoon had ticked away, an hour gone and then two. With each passing minute, the spring wound tighter.

  Seven of them had ridden out that afternoon from the boarding house John Surratt’s mother owned. They had taken up their positions along Lincoln’s route with each detail planned, every contingency explored.

  All except this one—that the president didn’t come this way at all. Lord, let that be what happened. Let Hersh have changed the route.

  But he couldn’t know, not for sure. He and Booth were stationed at the last point, with the carriage meant to convey Lincoln to Richmond as fast as the horses could fly. They had seen no one all afternoon.

  “He must have been delayed setting out for the review, that’s all.” Booth still held his riding crop, his horse’s flank quivering every time he slapped it to his palm.

  He’d made the same observation at least fifteen times in the past two hours. Slade had long ago given up responding to it. Instead, he gave his horse one last pat on the nose and turned to the table they had claimed when they first arrived at the tavern on the outskirts of Washington.

  Anything could have happened. Maybe Hersh had sent guards instead of changing the route. Maybe Lincoln did come along this road, Surratt and Atzerodt had jumped out at him as planned, and a gunfight had ensued. Mr. Lincoln could be injured or killed. Hersh could be too. Exactly what Slade had hoped to avoid.