Camp Follower: A Mystery of the American Revolution (59 page)

Calliope
snorted and shook her head, as if she'd smelled something foul.
 
Helen halted, of a sudden aware of her
isolation and how far she'd traveled from the road.
 
A primordial chill not of winter's making chiseled her
spine.
 
A crow cawed.
 
Her heart pulsed in her ears.

Treadaway
emerged from behind trees and strolled toward her.
 
A smile crawled across his mouth that she hadn't seen him wear in
twelve years: the satisfaction of a procurer who'd made a premium sale.
 
She spun around to run for the road and drew
up short, retreat blocked by a pistol held in the hand of a red-eyed, stubble-jawed
Maximus Prescott, not ten feet before her.

"Excellent
work, Treadaway.
 
At least one of you
men can follow orders.
 
As for you, you
bloody whore, they're going to give you my property."
 
A muscle in the attorney's cheek
twitched.
 
"I should have killed
you years ago."
 
He cocked the
pistol.
 
"Guess who betrayed you to
us?
 
Your very own 'brother,' Lieutenant
Fairfax.
 
Now that's justice."

Chapter Fifty-Nine

A DUN-COLORED
BLUR pounced upon Prescott with a wink of steel and a child's warrior scream.
 
He howled in pain, Rebecca's knife embedded
in his thigh, and flung her off him into the leaves.
 
"Rebecca!"
 
Helen's desolation echoed through the wood.
 
Prescott yanked out the knife, flung it down near Rebecca, and
took aim at her.
 
Helen's denial drowned
in the report of the pistol.
 
The girl
shrieked and convulsed, chest bloody.

Her mind blank
with survival, Helen dropped Calliope's reins and sprinted for the road.
 
The men overtook her.
 
She kneed Treadaway in the groin, doubling
him over, and swung for Prescott's face.
 
His nose popped blood.
 
Rage
roared from him.
 
He seized her hair and
dragged her deep into the copse.
 
"Treadaway, on your feet!"

She chomped
into Prescott's hand.
 
Bone
crunched.
 
He released her hair and
slapped her face, sending a dazzle of stars through her vision.
 
She sprawled near the twitching, moaning
Rebecca, and through the demon's twirl of forest, saw a bloody-nosed Prescott
descend for her, teeth bared.
 
His
second slap split her lip.
 
She clawed
his face.
 
He punched the pit of her
stomach, and agony danced her around.
 
Then the lion's maw of earth swallowed her whole.

***

The first time
she came around, her face and stomach were afire, so she didn't fight the slide
back into oblivion.
 
But the second
time, perplexity drove her past the throbbing in stomach and face.
 
That queer noise behind her, an animal in
pain, mewling, bleating.

On her side
among dead leaves, cold numbing face, shoulder, and hip, she tried to roll
over, alarmed when her limbs didn't respond.
 
She was bound, ankles and wrists, her wrists behind her back.
 
Pain in her bruised stomach checked her
attempt to right herself.
 
She coughed
at dust and mold.
 
The forest spun
again.
 
She collapsed.
 
Rebecca lay still about fifteen feet
away.
 
Helen shuddered.

The mewling
noise revived.
 
Elemental horror blasted
her.
 
A human was in pain.
 
Teeth chattering, she struggled to peer
behind.
 
All she saw was trees.
 
The forest gyrated, an arm clothed in
scarlet caught in the spin.
 
She sank
into the leaves again to allow pain and dizziness to abate.

A man's moans
ratcheted up into full-scale sobbing, his voice distorted with agony.
 
Horror raked Helen.
 
That was Maximus Prescott suffering.
 
Memory flashed the image of the arm clothed
in scarlet, and more cold than she could ever imagine impaled her bones.
 
Guess who betrayed you to us?
 
Your very own brother...

Gods, no.
 
Now she remembered the significance of
Camden.
 
Fairfax's informants had
spotted Prescott near Camden.
 
How
stupid could the attorney and Treadaway have been?
 
Fairfax hadn't just betrayed her to them.
 
He'd used her as bait for them.
 
Now he was indulging himself with two spies
from Epsilon.

Her
"brother" had bound her, and she awaited his pleasure.
 
"Epsilon, Mr. Prescott."
 
She heard no impatience in Fairfax.
 
Rather, his voice coaxed, soothed.
 
Then he did something to elicit another
scream from the attorney.
 
The urge for
self-preservation and flight smothered her rational mind.
 
She thrashed against her bonds, raising more
dust, catapulting herself into coughing.

Afterward, she
lay recovering her breath, her stomach and face hurting more than ever.
 
Leaves rustled.
 
Hair on the back of her neck rose.
 
A glance over her shoulder rewarded her with the sight of Fairfax
watching her, his face radiant, angelic, while he cleaned the blade of his
knife on a piece of cloth.
 
Even bound,
she leapt several inches in terror.
 
"Damn you, don't touch me!"

Puzzlement
trickled into his expression, and he ambled to her.
 
She screamed; Prescott mewled.
 
She never believed that she and the attorney could agree on something.

Knife sheathed,
Fairfax crouched and hoisted her into a sitting position.
 
She tried to find her footing.
 
The world twisted.
 
He picked leaves from her hair and jacket and settled her mobcap
back on her head.
 
"You've looked
better, darling, but it's nothing a bath and rest cannot mend."
 
He caressed her face, the metallic stench of
blood on his hand.

She shrank from
him.
 
Horror and revulsion beat through
her, demanding that she flee.
 
She
glared at him with as much hatred as she could summon.
 
"You used me to bait Prescott and
Treadaway!"

"You don't
recognize the brilliance of the scheme?"

"You lout,
they almost killed me!"

"Nonsense.
 
You disabled Treadaway to unconsciousness
and worked over Prescott's face magnificently.
 
Double gouges down one cheek, his nose crooked at the oddest angle
—"

"Kill
him."

"I
shall."

"He's a
rebel spy.
 
Execute him.
 
Shoot him.
 
Treadaway, too."

"You
wouldn't be so quick to dispense mercy if you'd heard what Prescott confessed a
few moments ago."
 
He paused for
effect.
 
"Agatha Chiswell was your
mother-in-law, yes?"

Helen started,
picturing Silas's mother in Boston, even though she'd been dead for several
years.
 
"Surely you aren't going to
tell me she was a rebel spy!"

"She
circumvented inheritance laws and set some land aside for you.
 
A thousand acres just outside Boston, from
what Prescott tells me.
 
Prime location,
quite valuable."

She gaped.
 
"Why haven't I heard about it?"

"Badley
and Prescott intercepted every one of her letters inviting you to visit her and
claim your gift.
 
For years, they've
been trying to figure out how to swindle you out of the land so they can
contribute it to the rebel cause.
 
Their
obstacle has been that the dowager Chiswell stipulated you must claim it in
person.
 
No matter how well they forged
your signature, neither of them resembles you in person.
 
Ironic.
 
You needn't have lived like a pauper.
 
You've a bit of wealth."

Disbelief
punctured Helen's revulsion.
 
"But
I don't have it.
 
Agatha Chiswell is
dead."

"The land
is still available, but you must claim it in person."

She knew that
the rise of her anger mobilized her expression, fed Fairfax's elation.
 
For years, she and Enid had scraped by,
suffered in winter from too little firewood — but far worse, she'd missed a
relationship with her mother-in-law.
 
Not that she'd felt great warmth for the old lady the one time they'd
met, but Badley and Prescott had stolen that opportunity from her forever.

"Badley
and Prescott decided to kill you when Widow Hanley's copy of the will exposed
their crimes."
 
Angelic beauty
recaptured Fairfax's face.
 
"Prescott deserves what I have planned for him, wouldn't you agree?"

Her stomach
burned.
 
Prescott had stolen and
squandered her husband's estate, murdered three men, and tried to kill her and
Jonathan.
 
She wanted him dead — but
tortured to death?
 
She firmed her
voice.
 
"Execute him.
 
Torturing him is pointless.
 
I've served my purpose as bait.
 
Let me be on my way."

"Don't be
absurd.
 
Rebel patrols are sweeping the
road.
 
I could never forgive myself if I
allowed you to fall into their hands.
 
Your only way out of here is with me, and I promise I shall get you
safely out as soon as I've finished with Prescott and Treadaway.
 
Besides, when an oracle appears in a man's
life, it's a message from the gods of his pending greatness, so he'd best take
care of her, pamper her."

Oracle?
 
What was Fairfax talking about?
 
Perplexity tugged at the corners of her
mouth.
 
"I'm an oracle?
 
How do you figure that?"

He traced her
lower lip with his forefinger.
 
"Laudanum and wine.
 
Visions."

Exactly what
she'd told him after their encounter with Marion's men.
 
So that was why he'd stolen her
laudanum.
 
Stunned, she opened her mouth
to clarify what she'd meant by visions.

"'Something
horrible is going to happen to the Legion.' You said that before Yule.
 
Morgan has decimated the Legion, making your
journalist's story worthless in London.
 
As a prophetess, you're far too reserved with your gift.
 
Why waste yourself at journalism?"

She shut her
mouth and lowered her gaze.
 
If she
rectified his misconceptions, he'd have no use for her except brief carnal
dalliance.
 
She was witness to his
torture of Prescott.
 
He couldn't afford
to release her when his goal to attain a seat in Parliament hinged upon his
performance in the colonies.

For the time,
let him believe she could prophesy.
 
Before he plied her with that first glass of laudanum-dosed wine, she
must escape, or the extent of her ability as an "oracle" would be
obvious.

He tilted her
chin, scrutinized her face, and leaned forward as if to kiss her but stopped
just a few inches from her mouth.
 
She
felt sweat pop out on her forehead.
 
For
a second, it wasn't Fairfax leaning over her but Treadaway.
 
Appalled, nauseated, she blinked and shook
her head, dislodged the vision.

He steadied her
head in his hands and brushed his lips to the uninjured side of her mouth.
 
Revulsion hammered away at her.
 
Play his game.
 
Give him what he wants
.
 
She prayed that pretense wouldn't demand that she sleep with the
hate-filled seven-year-old.

Agony looked
like acquiescence to Fairfax.
 
When he
drew back to study tears on her cheeks, base victory sparked his eyes.
 
"You've greatness ahead of you, Helen.
 
Trust me to help you develop it.
 
I shall be your teacher."
 
A reptilian smile wrung his lips.
 
"Your new
professor
."

Another blast
of horror stranded breath in her throat.
 
What had happened to Jonathan?
 
"No, no, you didn't."

Bored, he
pushed up to his feet.
 
"Mr. Quill
was likely separated from you in the skirmish and thought you'd headed south
without him.
 
Forget him.
 
It's time you moved on to better
things."

A man's scream
penetrated the copse, followed by Treadaway's voice, shrill with horror.
 
"Ah, god, Prescott — barbarians!
 
Halloo!
 
Help!
 
Help!
 
Untie us!"