Accidental Warrior: The Unlikely Tale of Bloody Hal

by Colin Alexander

  A shadow detached itself from the deeper darkness across the street and Hal froze. The shadow came toward him. It was a tall man, hooded and cloaked.

  “I wondered if you would ever come.” The hoarse whisper from the shadow could have served as a shout.

  “Give me your name before anything else is said.” Hal thought he sounded foolish, but he could not think of anything else.

  “I am Prometheus.” The man walked up to Hal. “You have something for me.” He held out a hand.

  “Yes, and you have money for me.”

  “First, I will see what you have brought.” He lifted a covered lantern and opened the shutters to expose the oil lamp inside.

  By its light Hal could see half a face under the hood. A wool scarf covered the lower half, but the eyes and upper half looked like ten Eyck’s. The man gave no sign, however, that he recognized Hal. Hal opened his mouth for a greeting, but another shout came first.

  “’Ware you! That’s the soldier went to Bel! He knows!” It was the Pincher’s voice.

  With an oath, the man swung his free hand into Hal’s jaw. It was like being hit with a brick. Hal’s knees buckled. He could not keep from falling and the ground slammed into his back. Before he could even try to regain his feet, a hiss of metal warned him of a sword being drawn. The lantern, fallen to the street as well, showed the man had a sword raised to strike. Hal guessed, rolled left. The sword rang against the ground where his head had been a moment before. An instant later, the sword struck down again, but again he had pulled his head away. He kicked out with a foot. The bottom of his boot met a shin. There was a howl from above. Hal reached for his own sword. It was buckled under the greatcoat. His fingers fumbled for the hilt, but he could not draw it. The sword was trapped by the coat. He tried to gain his feet, still struggling to pull the sword free. A heavy boot slammed into his ribs. The air flew out of him and he fell back to the ground, a sharp pain in his side. He could not stand, could not even crawl. Above him the man raised his sword for another strike. His feet scrabbled for purchase on the street—slipped on loose trash—left him helpless.

  The sword thrust never came. Dimly, Hal was aware of something protruding from the man’s chest. Then he saw it. There was a sword rammed through from the man’s back. The man’s knees bent, he dropped down on them, then fell on his face next to Hal.

  Standing there, bloody sword in hand, was Bel.

  “Are you wounded?” she asked.

  Hal drew an experimental breath. His ribs hurt, but not badly enough to be broken. “No,” he managed to get out. It was an effort to get his legs under him, and an even bigger effort to stand up. “Thank you for saving my life. Again.”

  She paid no notice. “Next time, don’t fasten a coat on top of your sword.” She did not look at him. Instead she worked to flip the body over with her foot.

  Hal blushed, grateful that she couldn’t see it in the dark. He wanted to see the man’s face. “My God, is that Fons?”

  “Fons?” The surprise was clear in her voice. “No, it’s not Fons.” With the body on its back, she reached down to pull away the scarf, then brought the lantern over. “This is Jacob ten Eyck, not Fons. His brother, younger by a year.”

  Hal stared into the dead face. In the bad light, he would have mistaken it for Fons. “Oh, God. Did you know this was going to happen?”

  “Not like this. Please believe that. I did not use you as bait. Jacob and Fons have been among our leaders since the beginning, but lately they’ve quarreled over who will have the family lands after the fighting is over. That, and other things. When you came with the story of betrayal, I was sure it was Jacob that had made a deal with the Provis. No one will listen to me, though. No one but Fons, and I could not tell him this. You will understand that.”

  Hal thought of the large man he had seen argue with Fons after Nieuwmarkt, and the man in the street with the Pincher: Jacob ten Eyck. “How . . . how did this happen tonight?”

  “I set a trap, arranged a little play where Jacob would have a part. I told him we had a traitor in our midst, a man who would sell us to Harmsworth, and I told him one of the Provis close to Harmsworth knew who that was and was willing to sell us the name of our traitor. In these troubled times, when even a brother would sell a brother, he believed it. He was eager to buy that name and eager to be the one to meet with the Provi! A soldier would be used to bring the contact name and pass the money. I picked you because I trust you.” She sounded sincere to Hal, but he wondered if, perhaps, she had had no other choice. “A letter with the name of the Provi contact is in your envelope,” Bel continued. “The man with that name knows nothing, of course; he is just a convenient target, one the Provis can ill afford to lose. Jacob would have killed him. Or would have tried to. That would have settled it for me, proof that Jacob was our traitor. It would probably have sufficed for Fons, too. However, I had not planned for the Pincher.”

  Hal shook his head to clear it. He could not fit it together. “Why was the Pincher here, anyway? Why did he yell out that I was the one?”

  Bel shrugged. “I can’t be sure. He did odd jobs for Jacob, as he did for me. Maybe Jacob had him come as a lookout, or maybe Jacob used him to contact the Provis when he betrayed us. I would guess that when he saw you, he decided he was safer if you were dead. He might have thought that Jacob would pay him for it afterward.”

  It seemed like a lot of guesswork. “We can find him, make him tell us.”

  Bel shook her head. “I tried. He is too fast, faster even than I am, and he knows these streets and hiding places. The time I wasted chasing him almost got you killed.” She looked away from Hal. “I have seen how skilled you are with a sword; I assumed you would have no difficulty with Jacob if it came to that. But you were surprised and could not draw . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “Oh, God.” Hal did not want to dwell on how close it had been. A reputation he did not deserve had almost gotten him killed. He swallowed hard, felt pain. The side of his jaw hurt where Jacob had hit him. It did not feel right. Hal tried to put that out of his mind. “What do we do with him? We can’t just leave him in the street.” Even dragging a dead body would divert his thoughts.

  “In this part of town? For sure, we leave him.” Bel laughed. “There was a fight and a murder in the street, and have you seen any sign of interest? The Watch doesn’t come here after dark. They’ll come in the morning and pick up any bodies. He’ll just be one of them.”

  They walked back through the darkened street to the bush. Bel picked out a path through the brambles that led to the wall. Hal scanned from side to side, looking for the Pincher, although he could not think of any reason the boy would follow them. Most likely he was still running for his life. He would be happier if the Pincher disappeared forever.

  The postern gate was just as Hal had left it before. Before he went through, Bel put a hand on his arm.

  “We may ask another thing of you, Hal.”

  “What?”

  “Just wait. We shall see.” She turned and vanished into the night.

  25

  Outbreak

  HAL HUNG AROUND Fort Stuyvesant for the next two weeks with a level of agitation that was increasingly hard to hide. Part of the problem was that he had too little to do. Johanna was not going out to Martin Wycliff’s. Whether that was her idea or Martin’s, Hal didn’t know. Maybe it was Gustavus’.

  As well, Anderson seemed to have lost interest in drilling. Yes, the weather was frigid, but up to this time, Anderson had appeared to regard drilling as a near-religious experience. Perhaps he had been told something about the upcoming revolt, and that was why he had changed his routine. Except, of course, it would make more sense to drill even harder if there was a fight coming.

  Finally, Annelise seemed to have vanished. She no longer came to his room at night, and because Johanna never went out, she did not come to announce those trips either.

  Despite all the time on his hands, Hal did not leave the fort either. Even
looking for leads to Magicals did not interest him. He did not want to go looking for the Pincher. If anything, he worried that the Pincher was out there looking for him, awaiting an opportunity to slip a dagger between his ribs. Of course, while the Pincher might well prefer a dead Hal to a live one, the likelihood of him risking his own safety in an attack on a much larger man was, if not zero, close to it.

  The only action was an increase in the number of Provi soldiers. The Lifeguards’ barracks was full, and Anderson’s men told stories of soldiers being quartered in the city.

  On the evening of March second, after Hal had returned from dinner at the Swedes’ mess, there was a familiar knock on his door. It had been long enough since he had seen Annelise that he was curious why she had stayed away, but no sooner had he opened his door than she thrust a folded paper into his hand without meeting his eyes, and fled back down the corridor. It was the same heavy brown paper as the previous note from Bel. The seal was unbroken. Hal stared in the direction of Annelise’s flight for several long minutes. Don’t trust the messenger, he thought. But the message? He broke the seal and opened the sheet.

  When it happens tonight, make certain that the Swedes stay out of it and that Gustavus and his daughter are safe. We depend on you to see that no harm comes to either one.

  As before, it was signed, Bel’s Horse.

  Hal’s first move was to rip the paper into tiny shreds and burn them in his lantern. Now what? What was happening tonight that he was supposed to keep Sergeant Anderson and his troopers out of? What was he supposed to protect Gustavus and Johanna from? He stared out the window in the direction of the barracks. The message had to mean the revolt was going to start tonight. That much was obvious. Whether Bel wanted to keep the Nya Sverige troops from joining the Provis, or was more concerned that they not be caught in the middle, did not matter just then. They needed to not be in the barracks; they needed to be somewhere out of the way. There was a place that might fit those requirements. He just had to get them there.

  Quickly, he dressed again in his uniform and buckled on his sword, and this time he made sure that he could draw it. The night was cold but he was sweating heavily by the time he reached the barracks. The walk had given him plenty of time to think of what could go wrong, beginning with Anderson not believing the story he had put together. It was too late to back out, though. He found Anderson’s bed and shook the sleeping form. Anderson came awake fast, his hands circling Hal’s throat before Hal could get a word out. Then Anderson recognized him.

  “God dammit, Woodsey!” Anderson shouted. “Come in on me like a thief in the night and one of these days, I’ll kill you. I’ll be sorry afterwards, but it will be too damn late for you.”

  Hal rubbed at his throat where Anderson had gripped it. “I’m sorry.”

  “Forget being sorry,” Anderson ordered. “Why are you here? And it better be good.”

  Hal swallowed hard. If Anderson did not believe him, if he went directly to Gustavus, Hal was done for. Don’t think that, he told himself. Anderson was not going to wake up Gustavus in the middle of the night.

  “Something is going on tonight. I don’t know what. Gustavus wants your troops at the bastion near the East River. There are very few Provis there; it’s almost wide open. Gustavus wants you to hold it.” Well, Hal thought, there had been very few troops there when he had gone to that fateful meeting with Jacob ten Eyck. Hopefully, it had remained neglected. It was certainly out of the way.

  Anderson sat bolt upright. “To the main city wall? And reinforcing the Provis? What attack are the Provis expecting?”

  “I didn’t say anything like that!” In fact, that was far too close to the truth. “I don’t know what’s happening. Just do what Gustavus wants.”

  The sergeant stared at him. Hal could guess what must be going through Anderson’s mind. Anderson wanted to know what Hal knew, wanted to order Hal to tell him. But Hal lived in Fort Stuyvesant with Gustavus, saw Gustavus almost every day, was Gustavus’ favorite soldier.

  “If that is Gustavus’ order, I’ll have it done,” Anderson said. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll tell me what this is all about.”

  “Tomorrow it is. You have my word.” That might not even be a lie.

  Anderson was rousing the troopers before Hal was out the door of the barracks.

  Dealing with Gustavus and Johanna would not be so simple. He could hardly barge into their apartment in the middle of the night and announce that he was there to protect them. Protect them from what, precisely? Think, of something, Hal told himself as he ran back toward the entrance to the fort.

  The blast hit just as he passed the guards at the doorway. A thunderclap was followed by a rushing sound and a hail of dirt, stones and brick from above. The building shook, enough that Hal lost his footing. He landed hard on the stone floor, and he was not the only one. All but one of the guards at the entryway were down, scrambling to regain their feet. Cries came from outside.

  Hal ran back to the courtyard to see chaos. Men ran back and forth in no apparent order and in various states of undress. A column of smoke rose to the east, lit by flames from below. Brick from the unrepaired wall of Fort Stuyvesant tumbled onto the ground. Hal’s ears were ringing.

  God in Heaven, what had happened?

  He stood there, numb to the cold and the noise, trying to think. Another sound added itself to the cacophony. A popping that came from nowhere in particular, but everywhere at once. Gunshots!

  A man in a Provi uniform came running toward the door at full speed, his mouth open, his eyes as wide as his mouth. Hal tackled him, then used his size to pin him up against the wall. The man’s eyes darted back and forth, not seeing Hal at all.

  “God dammit, man, what is going on?” Hal shouted at him to no avail, then slapped him, openhanded across his face. With that, the man finally focused on Hal. He brought a hand up to wipe the blood from his split lip. “What happened?” Hal demanded again.

  “The Lifeguards. The barracks. Blown up. Must have had a mine under it. Not possible, but must have. Parts of bodies everywhere. No one came out. Now Dutch soldiers fighting English soldiers. My captain was shot in the back.” The man slumped to the ground.

  Oh, my God, the barracks! Did that include the building with Anderson’s men? Had Anderson gotten them out of there in time? No way to know, not without going back there. Soldiers shooting soldiers, Dutch, probably some of them anyway, against the English. How to tell who was on which side?

  That was what Gustavus and Johanna needed protecting from: an attack on the fort.

  Hal’s first thought was to run to their apartment, tell them to stay inside and then guard the door. After all, why would the Provis, or the rebels, bother a guard in the uniform of Nya Sverige, the merchant or his daughter? But as he climbed the stairs to their apartments, he began to doubt that reasoning. Not ten paces from the staircase were the bodies of a Provi soldier and one of the servants, both marked with multiple stab wounds. Hal recognized the servant’s face, now as gray as his hair. If someone would kill an inoffensive old man, someone who could not possibly be a threat, how safe would the Swedes be? Hal drew his sword and started to run.

  The corridor in front of Gustavus’ apartment was empty and silent, but Hal did not find that reassuring. It was better than finding a squad of men breaking the door down, but that was about all.

  “Gustavus! Johanna! Are you all right?” Hal beat on the door with his free hand. “Johanna!”

  “What is going on out there?” Gustavus’ voice came from the other side of the door. Hal heard the sound of the bolt being drawn back. The door opened to reveal Gustavus, incongruous in his embroidered nightclothes, an oil lamp in one hand, a cocked pistol in the other. “Hal! What is happening?”

  Hal shoved his way past Gustavus, then turned back. “Close the door! Bolt it!”

  Gustavus complied. “What is going on?” he demanded.

  “Harmsworth thought he knew when the revolt was planned, but it’s happening n
ow! The barracks is destroyed and there’s fighting all over, even inside the fort.”

  By the flickering oil lamp, Hal could see Gustavus’ face turn grim. “Who is doing the killing?”

  “I don’t know right now. Dutch Provi soldiers are fighting English ones, other rebels, too, don’t know who. Is Johanna all right?”

  As if in answer to his question, she appeared at the far end of the front room. The diaphanous gown she wore barely hid the figure beneath it; she had forgotten to pull on a robe. Hal’s heart jumped.

  “What are you doing here?” That brief question, that single stressed pronoun, drove home to Hal what he had denied through the months of their association. He was the help. That was all. Nothing more than that.

  “There is fighting here, even in the fort, and Hal is here to guard us. Where else would you expect him to be?” Gustavus switched to Swedish and added a few more sentences.

  Johanna said nothing. Instead, her face said eloquently that she had just realized what she was wearing—or not wearing—and that Hal was looking directly at her. She did not scream. It was more like a squeak. Then she fled back to her room.

  Gustavus turned to Hal. “My daughter is not accustomed to this sort of trouble, I am afraid. I will need only a moment to prepare and I will see to her. Then we can leave.”

  “Leave?” That did not sound like a good plan. “I would think we are safer here.”

  Gustavus looked as though he would upbraid Hal for having the temerity to question his decision, but said instead, “I’m afraid not. Everyone in the fort knows I occupy this apartment. Sooner or later, someone will decide that we will make good hostages, or that we would aid the other side, whichever that is. They will be wrong, but that will not help us. I fear we shall miss Captain Hayry tonight.”