Accidental Warrior: The Unlikely Tale of Bloody Hal

by Colin Alexander

  “What I can be sure of is that if I give you the two guilders now, I’ll never see you again. You bring me to the right person, then I’ll pay you the two guilders.”

  The Pincher spat again, this time close to Hal’s feet. “Sure. I bring ye there and ye get what ye want and then ye don’t pay me. I get paid first.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll give you one now and the other when you bring me there.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  “Not now!” The Pincher stomped one foot. “I said I’ll find ye one. Not that I’d take ye there now. What do ye think, that people run around advertising that they know Magicals? Crazy Provi!”

  “I told you I’m not a Provi.”

  “Who cares? You’re a soldier, aren’t ye?”

  Hal supposed so. “If not now, when?”

  “Give me two days. I’ll even give ye the guilder back if I don’t find someone. Deal?”

  “Deal. Now, how do I find you?”

  “Ye don’t. Ye couldn’t. Come to the docks day after tomorrow. I’ll find ye.” The Pincher held out a grimy hand for the coin.

  • • •

  Two days later was Sunday and the weather had worsened. It was much colder again, and light snow was falling by the time Hal reached the docks. This time, the area was almost deserted. Ships lay at anchor, but there was no sign of activity around them. Already, the snow had covered the ground and whatever was stacked on it. Hal stamped his feet to keep warm, but that was useless. The cold seemed to come up through the soles of his boots while, at the same time, it worked its way down his collar and between the front fastenings of his cloak. If he stood in one place, he was going to freeze solid.

  He began circling the dock, much as a guard would. Taken at a brisk walk, it was enough to keep him warm. He had made two circuits, and was part way into his third, when the sound of voices caught his attention. At first he thought they might be thieves, big or small, out to steal whatever had been left lying around on a cold, snowy Sunday. If that was the case, Hal had no intention of interfering. Safeguarding the docks was not his job. On the other hand, it might be the Pincher. Holding his breath, and with his hand on the sword hilt, Hal edged forward. In front of him was a large warehouse, its sign painted over in the colors of the Provisional Government but not well enough to completely obscure that it had once belonged to a patroon named Arndt. The voices were coming from around the side of that building.

  Hal pressed himself against the wall of the warehouse, then worked his way over to the corner of the building and peered down the street. Two figures stood just past the warehouse’s far end. One of them was the Pincher. The other was an adult, judging by the boots and sword sheath visible below the heavy hooded cloak, although a fairly small one. The face was hidden beneath hood and scarf, the voice inaudible at the distance, but when the figure reached out to hand something to the Pincher, Hal had to suppress a gasp. The arm was covered by a leather sleeve, the hand gloved, but he could see pink ribbon twisted in the sleeve’s fringe. Bel!

  Bel, who was planning to overthrow the Provis, who had business in Nieuw Amsterdam. The only times he had seen Bel, violence had gone before or followed after.

  The two gave no sign they had noticed him and, given Bel’s parting words to him, it was probably best if he was not seen. Hal retreated to the area near the piers and stood in the open, waiting for the Pincher.

  About fifteen minutes later, the boy came around the corner of the warehouse. He walked directly over to Hal, his insouciant grin seeming out of place in view of the cold and the snow that was collecting on his hair.

  “Hello, soldier! Better give me my guilder. I’ve found the person to tell you about Magicals.”

  Hal looked at him skeptically. “I’ll give you the money when I’ve met the person. That’s what we agreed on and that’s what we’ll do.”

  “Right, right. That we did. Well, I’m all right with that. Come along, soldier. I’ll take you to old Anna.”

  “Wait a minute,” Hal said. “Who knows about this?”

  “Who knows?” the Pincher parroted back. “Nobody knows. Why should anybody know? Nobody’s interested in payin’ to know what ye do.”

  “So you didn’t tell anybody? Nobody came with you?”

  “Jesus Christ on a stick, soldier!” The Pincher kicked up a cloud of snow with his boots. “This is Sunday. Half the town is in church and the other half is too cold to come out. I haven’t seen anybody all morning. Now, are ye comin’?”

  The Pincher was a liar. But what could he do about it? If he told the Pincher what he’d seen, the boy would just run off and he’d have nothing. Anyway, why would the Pincher’s conversation with Bel have anything to do with him?

  “Right,” Hal said. “You lead, and just be sure I don’t see anyone following us. If I do, I’ll chop you in two before anything else happens.” Hal loosened his sword in its sheath, although from the smirk on the Pincher’s face, he was not impressed.

  They set off down the same street where Hal had seen the Pincher with Bel. He saw nobody tailing them; either they were skillful at hiding themselves or, more likely, no one was there. The Pincher led him away from the docks, back into the residential areas, then turned north. Even though it was past noon by this time, there were still very few people about. The snow continued to fall. They reached the main wall of the city, where the wide-open gate was loosely guarded by a squad huddled around the fire in the guardhouse. The buildings north of the wall were smaller than those to the south, and sported fewer emblems of wealth such as metal fixtures or stained glass. The Pincher did not take any care to disguise their route, but there was little risk of Hal memorizing it. With the narrow, twisting streets and the unfamiliar and undistinguished buildings covered in snow, Hal was lost as soon as the city wall was out of sight.

  Eventually, they stopped at a two-story row house that looked no different from a dozen others they had passed. Smoke curled from chimneys along its length. The Pincher went to the stairs leading to one of the doors, took them in one bound, and pounded on the door. When there was no immediate response, he beat on it again, then kicked it at the bottom. “Hey, Anna,” he called out, “where are you?”

  A few minutes later, the door creaked open. An old woman stood in the doorway. Her hair, thin and stringy, was completely white. She was wrapped in a shapeless cloth robe that did not hide how thin she was.

  “Is this the soldier you said you’d bring?” she asked. “The one who wants to hear about my Magical?” Her words were a little hard to understand, probably because there were almost no teeth in her mouth.

  “This is the one,” the Pincher replied. Turning to Hal, he said, “This is old Anna, like I said. She’ll tell you about Magicals, like I said. Just like I promised, right?”

  Hal looked at the old woman with a sense of unease. A strong wind could blow her away, what with her hollow cheeks and the stoop in her back. But her eyes were sharp and focused on Hal. Maybe, her mind was all right.

  “Fine,” Hal said. “Let’s go inside and talk.”

  “A moment please, brave soldier,” said the Pincher. “I’d like my money now. Just in case ye don’t come out alive,” he added with a grin and a wink.

  Hal reached into his purse, found a coin and handed it over. “Good enough. Let’s see what I’ve bought.”

  Old Anna led them to the back of the house. Inside, it was mostly dingy and where it was not dingy, it was bare. The floorboards showed a worn track down the middle and gray dust coated the rest. The fire was in a room at the back of the house, although it was not much of a fire, just two burning logs. Anna sat on a wooden chair by the fire while Hal found a backless stool across the room and brought it over for himself. The Pincher sprawled on the floor.

  “My name is Hal Christianson. The Pincher here said you could tell me about Magicals.”

  “Oh, my, yes,” said Anna. “I can tell you. You’re hunting one, aren’t you?” />
  “After a fashion,” Hal said.

  Anna nodded her head. “Of course you are. Why else would a soldier be asking about Magicals? Well, now, it’s my Magical you want to hear about. That was many years ago, mind you. I’m an old woman.” She paused, perhaps disappointed that Hal neither disputed her assertion nor congratulated her on the achievement. “As I said, it was many years ago, I don’t know the exact number. I lived on a farm then, up north along the Hudson, with my parents. I was out in the barn, pulling some hay down from the loft to feed the cows. I say that because I was minding my work, you see, not looking around outside, or anything like that. Anyway, I heard a noise at the barn door, so I turned around, thinking it was Pa.”

  She paused for a moment as though she needed to assemble her memories. “It wasn’t though, not my Pa, I mean. There was a man standing there, all right, but nobody I’d ever seen before. His skin was dark, almost like your boot leather. Now, there are people like that from the Indies in town, but none like that in our farm towns on the Hudson when I was a girl. For certain, I’d never seen one and nobody who lived in our town had seen one either. He was dressed queer, too. His clothes looked very fine. I have an eye for needlework and I couldn’t believe the stitching, and the colors too. Just very strange. I stood there, let me tell you, like Lot’s wife. He saw me, though, and that’s when the sounds started coming out of his mouth.”

  “Sounds?” Hal asked.

  “Words, I suppose. They sounded almost like English, but not quite. Your accent is bad, soldier, but this, well, I couldn’t make it out. The minister told me later it was probably a curse and I was just lucky that it didn’t take. That’s probably because when he started talking, I screamed and ran for the side door. I made it, too, and ran for the house, yelling for my Pa the whole way. By the time Pa got down to the barn it was gone, of course, but it left tracks. Odd prints. We went for the soldiers and they tracked it and caught it.”

  “They caught the Magical? What happened then?”

  “They killed it, of course.”

  “You mean they burned him?”

  “No!” Anna looked shocked. “They may burn witches and so forth in Massachusetts, but not here. This is civilized country. I don’t know how they killed it, but they wouldn’t have burned it.”

  A great comfort, I’m sure. “Do you know anything about where the Magicals come from or how they get here?”

  “Of course I do. They’re agents of Satan sent here straight from the gates of hell. You’re a brave man to be hunting one yourself.”

  Hal sighed. “Did you talk to the Magical at all before they killed him?”

  “Christ my Savior, no!” she cried. “I’m not tainted at all.” She looked terrified.

  “I never thought you were,” Hal said, to reassure her.

  “I thank ’ee for your confidence,” she said. “Tell me, do you know what your Magical looks like?”

  “No,” said Hal. “I don’t. He could look like anyone.”

  “That’s what they say,” Anna said. “I think that’s illusion, though. I think they really will look dark, like mine, if you could see them for real. I say that because I don’t think it was expecting me to be there, so I got to see it like it really was. You might remember that.”

  “I will,” Hal assured her. “And now, let me thank you for your time and your story. I think it’s time I was back at the fort.”

  “Luck to you, soldier,” said old Anna.

  Hal looked around the house and saw how empty it was, with almost no furniture to speak of, the anemic fire, and no sign of food out for a meal despite the time of day. “Wait a moment.” He fished two small coins from his purse. Without looking to see what they were, he pressed them into Anna’s hand. “Thanks for your story.” She gave him a shaky smile that showed no teeth.

  “Hey,” said the Pincher, “she wasn’t supposed to get paid.”

  “It’s my money,” Hal said. “I decide how to spend it and I’m paying for the story.”

  “Well then I ought to get more.”

  “You got what you bargained for, right? That’s all you get.” Hal clenched his right hand in a fist. The Pincher looked at it and nodded.

  Outside, the snow continued. Hal expected the boy to bolt as soon as they were out the door, but the Pincher tagged along behind him.

  “Well, all right, I got what I asked for, but ye can’t blame me for asking for more,” the Pincher said grudgingly. “Ye got what you wanted, though. I told ye, I’d deliver what ye need.”

  “Look,” Hal said over his shoulder, “I heard a nice story from a nice old lady. However, for all I know, that was some poor lost stranger who made the mistake of surprising her and got killed as a result. I’m sure she believes she saw a Magical, but I’ve got no way of knowing if that’s true.”

  “What are ye talking about? Ye paid for that story.”

  “I know I paid for it.”

  “Why would ye pay for it if ye don’t believe it?”

  “I don’t think you’d understand, Pincher, I really don’t. Now, can you help me find the path back to the main gate? These streets are like—” He choked back the word ‘spaghetti.’ “They’re like a ball of string.”

  “Sure, I can get ye there. Pay me two coppers?”

  Hal turned to glare at the Pincher. “I think I’ll keep the money and be lost, thank you very much.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll take ye to the gate. But ye’ll let me know when ye need something? Ye know I can get it, right?”

  It was probably a good thing Hal had the Pincher along. He was so lost in his thoughts that even had he known the way, he would have missed it. Old Anna was unsettling. Anyone thought to be a Magical would probably be killed, never mind that the folk around Nieuw Amsterdam were too civilized to burn them. Dead was dead. He thanked his luck that Tom Pyke had warned him to watch what he said back in Gap. Whether Pyke had really thought he was a Magical he was still unsure, but Pyke was dead, so that was not important. The point was, Magicals were rare events. Had to be. Anna had seen one, or thought she had, decades ago and she remembered it as a very special event. It was quite possible that no one knew enough about Magicals to tell him if there was a way back home.

  22

  A Warning

  HAL WENT BACK to the docks whenever he had enough free time and tried the same tactics he had used with the Pincher with several other children, but accomplished nothing except losing his money. He thought about asking the Pincher to try again, but decided that Anna and her story were probably the best the Pincher could do. He tried telling shopkeepers he was hunting a Magical, but that made them shoo him out of their shops even faster than during his first inquiries. Annelise had no other ideas and did not want to talk about Magicals at all. And then Johanna went shopping again.

  She had mentioned to Wycliff that she had seen someone’s wife wearing a particularly fine scarf and wished she could find a similar one to buy. Wycliff had immediately claimed to know the best shop in town for scarves. That led to a call for the carriage and off they went, Hal sitting up front next to the driver. At the shop, Wycliff took Johanna inside to look at the selection. The coachman lit a foul-smelling pipe that made Hal decide he did not want to keep him company. He walked down the street to get clear of the smoke. A block ahead of him he spotted a small figure: the Pincher. Hal had no question it was him.

  What was an urchin like the Pincher doing in a part of town filled with shops for the wealthy? Robbery, was Hal’s first thought. But then, the Pincher was joined by another figure. This time, it was not Bel. This was a large man, the size of Fons ten Eyck. His back was to Hal, but when he bent down to hear what the Pincher had to say, Hal could see from his beard that it was not Fons. Something small changed hands. Money? Hal could not see clearly. The man straightened again and walked off. The Pincher tucked away whatever he had been given and disappeared around a corner. What was going on? There was no obvious answer and no time to search for one; Johanna ca
me out of the store twirling a scarf and it was time to go.

  The next day started in ordinary fashion. Annelise rapped on his door to tell him to meet Johanna at Gustavus’ apartment and take her to visit Martin Wycliff. The ordinariness ended, however, at Wycliff’s door. Martin met them at the door, his hair unkempt, strain visible on his face. Once inside, he did not take Johanna into the front room. Instead, he paced back and forth in the foyer.

  “This is bad, really bad,” Wycliff said. “This is very bad.”

  “What is so bad, Martin?” Johanna asked. “Why do you look so upset?”

  “I’m not upset. Well, maybe I am.” He ran his hand through his hair, leaving it just as disorganized afterward as before. “I think we need to talk.”

  “All right. Tell me what’s wrong, Martin. Is there another girl?” Johanna’s face showed that she was already convinced of that.

  “No, no. It’s nothing like that.” Johanna’s face smoothed out at the statement, but Wycliff sighed and shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again. “Can we get rid of the guard?”

  “Get rid of the guard? It’s just Hal, Martin. He is in my father’s service.”

  “I don’t care. It’s bad enough having him around every time I see you. I’m not going to talk about this in front of him.” He turned to Hal but didn’t make eye contact. “Wait for milady outside.”

  The peremptory dismissal made Hal want to mess up Wycliff’s hair with his sword. He looked at Johanna for support.

  “Do what he says, Hal. I’ll be just as fine with you outside as I am with you in the kitchen.”

  Johanna might have felt that it made no difference for Hal to wait outside but, as boring as the kitchen was, at least it was warm. Outside, stamping his feet in cold slush, Hal’s mind developed evil thoughts for Wycliff and even some uncharitable ones for Johanna. Fortunately, she was only inside for about ten minutes. Then she came rushing out looking, if anything, even more upset than Wycliff.