City of Glory

by Beverly Swerling

  Preservation nodded in Agnes’s direction. “It’s all right, Miss Agnes. Go get the captain what he wants. I’ll keep an eye out.”

  Why not? Irish the captain might be, but not a bad sort as men went. That’s why it had been in her mind to say he was there when Dr. Turner came t’other night. Never got the chance what with him and Miss Delight quarreling the way they was mostly doing these days.

  “Rum, woman. For the love o’ Holy Mary and all the saints.”

  She didn’t hold with Catholic idolatry, but the poor man surely to God looked in need of that tot of rum. “I’ll be back before you can blink,” she promised, heading for the stairs.

  Something was wrong with the mantua maker this morning. She had pricked Delight with her pins three times. Now, as she gathered a length of turquoise-colored silk tight below Delight’s breasts to show how the fabric would drape when the dress was made up, there was a fourth offense. “Ouch! You must be more careful, madame. Please.”

  “I’m so sorry. I can’t seem to…” The woman glanced at the caped and hooded figure who had accompained her to the fitting. So slight of…that it was easy enough to take him for a girl. Her assistant, she’d said. Newly hired. God forgive her, what else could she say? She was a widow with three small children and the one-eyed pirate had threatened to kill them all if she didn’t cooperate. But Delight Higgins was her best customer, and sometimes the young women as worked in the place had frocks made as well. How would she survive and feed her family if she lost the custom of the Dancing Knave?

  The mantua maker gathered all her courage. “I thought to see your other chucker-out today, Miss Higgins. Mr. Clifford. And his whip.” It was the only thing she could think to say. Perhaps if this so-called assistant who had been wished upon her understood how well guarded these premises were, he would call off the pirate’s plan. “I believe his wife was asking about having a gown made.”

  “His wife? I no longer employ Vinegar Clifford, but I never heard he had—” Delight broke off. The mantua maker was jerking her head in the direction of the assistant. Over and over. It was extraordinary. The girl, meanwhile, was ignoring the bolts of cloth and peering out the window. After a moment she started to open it. “Here, you! Stop. I do not wish to—”

  The figure in the cape spun around, throwing back the hood of the cape and revealing himself to be not a girl but a man holding a pistol. “Don’t matter much what you wish. Not just now.”

  Delight turned to the door. Preservation was just outside. If she yelled—

  “You call out and I’ll shoot,” the man with the pistol said. Tammy Tompkins had never before held a pistol, much less shot one, and he had no idea if his aim would be true enough to kill the mulatto woman. But like Tintin had said, that didn’t matter none long as she thought otherwise. “Come over here. Beside the window. Come on. Move.”

  Delight looked once more at the door, then at the pistol in the hands of the stranger that beckoned her forward. She moved toward him, the half-pinned turquoise-colored silk trailing after her.

  “You,” Tompkins jerked his head at the mantua maker, “get that stuff off her.”

  The seamstress’s hands were shaking too badly to do as he asked. She fumbled with the pins, sobbing under her breath. “It’s all right,” Delight said, softly. “Do as he says.” If she were to have any opportunity to fight the birders for her freedom—and Delight was quite sure that was what this was; a robbery would proceed in a quite different fashion—she would much prefer to be in her corset and pantaloons than tangled in a bolt of silk.

  Tompkins glanced out the window. “Now,” he called softly to the man below. Tintin tossed up the rope ladder. Tompkins expertly grabbed one end while maintaining his hold on the pistol, still pointing it at Delight.

  “I’m a free woman. I have papers that say so,” she said. “The magistrates have to approve the taking. They won’t approve me.”

  “No concern of mine.” Tompkins had fixed one end of the ladder to the leg of a heavy chest. “Either you climb down so’s you get to the bottom with both arms and legs in one piece, or I toss you out and you take your chances. Choice is yours.”

  “Miss Higgins.” The mantua maker stretched out her arms, and words bubbled out of her, a stream of remorse: “I’m so sorry, Miss Higgins. They were going to kill my babies. I couldn’t say no. I—”

  “It’s all right. I understand.” Delight was at the window. She saw Tintin standing below, grinning up at her. “You. I might have guessed.”

  The pirate simply bowed. Delight looked once more at the door of the parlor, then at the pistol, then at the rope ladder. It was frayed and covered in barnacles, but it was a far sight safer than being thrown to the ground by the man with the pistol. She sat on the window ledge and swung her legs over the edge.

  The screams brought the women who had been sleeping on the floor below racing up the stairs in their nightdresses. The other chuckers-out as well. Finbar O’Toole, dressed only in trousers and boots, came out of the little bedroom in time to see them all converging on the doorway a few paces from his. “What’s happening? What’s the matter? Damn, if you ladies would stop yelling and make some sense, might be we could—”

  Actually, it was only one woman doing most of the howling. “I couldn’t help it! I swear to Almighty God! They were pirates and they were going to kill my babies. I couldn’t help it!”

  The others were clustered around her, offering comfort and questions in equal measure. O’Toole pushed his way into the heart of the melee. “Holy Mary and all the saints, couldn’t help what?”

  “She’s the one as let ’em in,” Agnes said.

  “Let who in?”

  “Them as got Miss Delight, from the sound o’ it.”

  “Blackbirders?” It was the first explanation that came to O’Toole, and he had little doubt it was the correct one.

  “Has to be,” Agnes confirmed. Amid all the tumult her voice was strangely calm. “She lived in deadly fear of ’em, and now they got her.”

  Preservation Shay had been into Delight’s private parlor and come out again. “A rope ladder,” Preservation said. “That’s how they got her out o’ there and down to the ground without me knowin’ a thing ’bout it.”

  “Pirates they were. And the one in there had a pistol,” the mantua maker said between her sobs. “There was nothing I could do.”

  Nothing more rotten than blackbirders. Delight Higgins didn’t deserve that. Same time, it weren’t nothing to do with him. O’Toole slid along the wall to the door of the room he’d been in for the past three days and finished dressing, then came out, went down the stairs, and exited by the front door. In the tumult no one thought to ask him to settle his bill before he left.

  Aboard Le Carcajou, Noon

  Delight told herself it was no different from the first time, behind the necessary out back in Hanover Square when she was ten. Or the second when she was thirteen and a coureur des bois who was setting bear traps in the Nova Scotia woods caught her instead, and forced himself on her on a winter day so cold her thirteen-year-old screams seemed to hang visible in the frozen air, then left her to die.

  She didn’t die then and she would not die now.

  Tintin had not waited until they were aboard his ship, using her in the dinghy while the one who had forced her out of the window at the point of his pistol rowed across the river and—God help her—whistled “Old Zip Coon.”

  Her hands were roped tight together, so there was little point in fighting. For now she could do nothing except plan and wait, and watch for an opportunity. She made herself go limp, saying nothing, feeling nothing.

  “Alors, mademoiselle, is that how you pleasure the men who pay for your cunny?” Angered by her blank expression, and rag doll compliance, he slapped her face over and over, getting, it seemed, more satisfaction from that than from her body.

  Do what you want, you cannot touch me.

  Except for Joyful, none of them touched her. Whether she pret
ended passion to entertain them or lay perfectly still, she was not present when they used her. Tintin was the same. They were all the same.

  “Here is another one for the caves when we are home,” he said when he dropped her on the deck. “She’ll bring a good price, non? Stand up, nigra whore. Let them get a look at you.”

  Hindered by her bonds, she didn’t do it fast enough, and he kicked her twice, the expression in his eyes showing how much he enjoyed it. “Welcome aboard Le Carcajou, mademoiselle. I am sure you will enjoy our hospitality.” Then, to the others, “It is warm today, non? Cannot one of you gallant gentlemen help the lady to be more cool?”

  One of the pirates used his cutlass to cut away what was left of her corset and pantaloons. “High yellow all over,” he said after walking right around her, making an exaggeratedly slow tour of inspection. “Captain Tintin is correct, she’ll bring a good price on the block.”

  “Bien sûr, but for now she belongs to us.” Tintin kicked aside the bits of Delight’s clothing that had dropped to the deck. “Take her below. Enjoy yourselves. There are only two rules. She must remain alive and”—he paused—“more or less intact. And she must come to understand what she is, so she gives us no trouble in front of the magistrates. Alors mes amis, laissez les bons temps roule, eh?”

  New York City,

  the Astor Mansion, 12:30 P.M.

  The surveyor had been speaking for ten minutes. The marksman said nothing, just looked grim. Astor had interrupted only once or twice, seeking clarification concerning the American deployment, whether both men had actually seen Madison and his cabinet leave the battlefield unharmed (they had) and whether they knew where he was headed. “I heard talk of Maryland,” the surveyor said, “but I believe the final choice was Virginia.”

  “That’s where Mrs. Madison was headed as well.” The marksman’s first words. “The president’s man, the one they call French John, he was to drive her carriage. I heard him say he would head for Alexandria.”

  “A good thing. Road’s likely to be clearer that way,” the surveyor said.

  “So?” Astor asked. “This you know for certain, Mr. Randal?”

  “Not for certain, Mr. Astor. But it’s an informed guess.”

  Astor was inclined to credit it. John Randal was the man charged by New York with surveying the entire island, and laying out the numbered streets and avenues of the city to come. In the matter of directions and roads he was unlikely to make a mistake. As for his reliability as a spy, that remained to be proven. “The prize the redcoats are after next is Baltimore,” Randal said.

  “Not New York?”

  “I don’t suppose so, sir. If New York were seriously on their list, a goodly portion of the fleet wouldn’t have put itself in such danger warping up the Potomac.”

  “‘Warping’?” Astor looked puzzled. “I do not know this word.”

  “They were in shallow waters, sir.” The marksman took over the explanation. “The only way they could get their gunboats within range of the Federal District was to drag them upriver on ropes. It’s a miserable job, dangerous, and no telling how well the ships will survive it.”

  “So, did they shell the District?”

  “Not that we saw, sir. It was burning all right, no doubt about that. Set the sky alight. But fairly certain it was the army set the fires.”

  It came to the same thing. Everything they had labored so hard to construct on that drained swamp. All gone. Du lieber Gott…What could he do? And which was he trying to protect, his money or the nation? In the end, it didn’t matter. He could do little about what was happening miles away in Washington and Baltimore. Here in New York he might have influence.

  How would people react? That was the critical question. Mr. Randal looked—resigned. Ja. An educated, logical man, one accustomed to making the lines meet and the road run straight. The marksman? Quentin Hale III, younger, more emotional. Family owned a huge estate up near Albany; all the same, less learning from books, more connected to the ordinary people of the city, the mechanics and laborers. The ones Blakeman must have on his side if his scheme was to work. Security will not be a problem, Mr. Astor. Take my word for that. So, Mr. Blakeman, we will see.

  Astor nodded toward the rolled-up canvas that had been left at the door to the study when Ah Wong showed the two men in. “What is that?”

  For answer Hale strode across the room and got the painting and unfurled it. “Mrs. Madison was determined not to leave it for the enemy to deface, sir. There wasn’t time to get the frame off the wall. We had to cut the portrait free.”

  “It was her express wish that General Washington’s portrait be brought here to New York for safekeeping, Mr. Astor.” The surveyor’s tone was approving. “I admit I tried to talk her into leaving it behind, in the interest of getting her sooner away, but Mrs. Madison was adamant.”

  Astor took a few steps closer to the unrolled painting. “Ja,” he said after a time. “A good idea, Mrs. Dolley. A very good idea.” He walked to the bellpull and tugged on it. “Into the streets you will go, gentlemen, to tell the city what has happened. Tell them everything you saw. Be sure to tell the newspapers as well. In fact, go first to them. Ah Wong,” jerking his head toward the servant who had hurried into the room, “will show you out.”

  The marksman started to reroll the painting. “That,” Astor said, “you will leave with me. For safekeeping, like Mrs. Dolley said. Ah Wong, come back to me as soon as our callers have left.”

  By one o’clock the broadsides were up all over the city. Redcoats burn Federal District! Executive Mansion destroyed! By half after, at least one newspaper had managed to get an extra edition on the streets: “Your Capital is taken! In six days the same enemy may be at the Hook!”

  Joyful was headed for Hanover Square to see Jonathan, who was just the sort of greedy dimwit who might think going into the opium business with Thumbless Wu was possible, but the crowds gathering everywhere forced him back. He elbowed his way into a knot of people on Beaver Street, read the notice tacked to a large oak tree, and immediately started back to Ma Allard’s. In New York, always a town that lived much of its life on the streets, fear and anger were easily spread from mouth to mouth like a contagion.

  Greenwich Street was a bit quieter, with only a few folks gathered on the corners and in doorways, talking in hushed whispers. Doubtless they’d be noisier before long. His landlady appeared as soon as his key turned in the lock, twisting her apron in one hand and dabbing a handkerchief to her eyes with the other. “Is it true then, Dr. Turner? They say the redcoats is already in the harbor and will have us back as a colony this very night. Is it true?”

  “No, Mrs. Allard. In fact, the word is they’re not coming here at all. Baltimore is their next target.”

  “But they’ve burned Washington and—”

  “And the president and the first lady are safe. It’s only the British rattling their sabers, Mrs. Allard. We don’t need the Federal District to survive.”

  Joyful hurried up the stairs to his room. The landlady followed. “They say the city’s a powder keg, Dr. Turner. Going to blow apart and take us all to kingdom come.”

  “Maybe, madam. If so, I wish you a good journey. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” He tried to shut the door with her on the other side, but she was too quick for him, inside the room as fast as he was. Joyful turned his back on her and grabbed his medical bag. In the normal way of things he’d just take it and be gone, but what was going on now was not the normal way of things. He opened the bag and began distributing the contents about his person.

  “If it’s true, Dr. Turner…I know you said it’s not, but if it is…”

  “If what’s true, madam?”

  “If the redcoats come. I mean if they do…”

  “Yes, Mrs. Allard?”

  “Well, sir, you being a doctor and a famous hero and all, might be they’ll arrest you, or impress you into their navy, or Lord knows what else. So I was wondering if…Glory be, what are you planning to do
with all them vicious-looking things you’re after putting in your pockets?”

  “Doctoring, Mrs. Allard. Some surgery if it’s required. The city, as you put it, is a powder keg, feeding on rumors such as the notion that the British are in the harbor. Started, I’m sure, by well-meaning persons such as yourself. I am at somewhat of a disadvantage, as you might have noticed. I can be more effective if my one hand isn’t lumbered with a bag.” He shoved a wad of catgut ligatures into his left trouser pocket, the only one not already full of knives, probes, even the smallest of his saws. “That’s as much as I can carry.” He looked ruefully at the larger saws, decided it wasn’t possible to take them, snapped the nearly empty bag shut, threw it in a corner, and headed for the stairs.

  Ma Allard followed, all but shrieking his name. “Dr. Turner, please, sir.”

  “Please what? Out with it, madam, what do you want?”

  “My rent, sir. In case the redcoats make off with you. I know it’s not due till the end of the week, but I’m a poor widow has to make her way in this world…”

  Joyful found one of the gold reichsthalers in the watch pocket of his waistcoat—the only pocket too small for any medical supplies—and flipped it at her. “Prepare yourself, madam. I’d make up any extra beds you might have immediately. No doubt at least two British admirals and a general will be looking for accommodation before nightfall.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  New York City in Ferment,

  close to 2 P.M.

  THE CROWD WAS a tidal wave, a current that flowed up the island gathering numbers, purpose, and direction as it went.

  The phalanx that came from the west met the throng from the east on Broadway, and together they turned north toward the Common. Joyful was swept along by a press of bodies so powerful he had no choice but to keep moving. A man to his left spoke almost directly in his ear. “Dr. Turner, ain’t ye? As was with Commodore Perry.” The man shouted at the top of his lungs, “Got us a hero here as beat the British bastards once before!”