The Constable's Tale (25 page)

Harry nodded. He had heard stories about British Army discipline.

“Seems it don’t even enter their thoughts to make a fuss about it. They is more scared of their officers than they is of the enemy. I figure that’s why they is such bad news on the battlefield. An officer tells a
lobsterback to stand upright and stock-still in front of people shooting at him, and he’ll do it. I tell you, it’s unnatural the way they act.”

“Guess there’s no law against locking up Americans.”

“I’m lucky they didn’t shoot me. They must have decided that killing colonials don’t look so good when it come to getting more militia to join the war. Though they don’t seem to know what to do with us when we get here. I don’t know why they even bother. Look like the only thing to them lower than an American soldier is a red-skinned Indian.”

“True enough, on both accounts,” said a man who had paused in his wanderings long enough to hear what they were saying. “The only time a Briton respects an Indian is when that Briton is on the sharp side of a tomahawk.”

He was tall and bony, in his midthirties, Harry guessed. Cheeks covered with a dark beard about the same state of growth as Abel’s. He introduced himself as Ambrose Rutland, a schoolmaster from Massachusetts. He was spending his fourth day in jail for spreading demoralizing thoughts among his colony’s detachment accompanying Wolfe’s army. The ones that Major Browning would have been joining had he survived his trip home from the ball, Harry guessed. In view of Rutland’s polished way of talking, Harry briefly wondered if he should place himself on Rutland’s left-hand side to show deference. Instead, he just introduced himself and asked in a sociable way what exactly had gotten Rutland in trouble.

“I made the mistake of openly questioning the harsh tactics General Wolfe is employing against the French. The cruelty of destroying an entire city. We’ve heard reports that not a house or a shop has been left untouched by cannonballs. And they’ve laid waste to the countryside by fire and sword. There have been atrocities, Mister Woodyard. Atrocities beyond the bounds of civilized behavior. I found I could not keep quiet about this. I might have escaped censure, for the only people hearing me was other Massachusettians. But word got out I was spreading sedition.”

“We is lucky we both didn’t hang,” said Abel.

“Ah, well.” Rutland said something in a foreign tongue. Without waiting to be asked, he said, “Latin. ‘Once let out, what you have said cannot be taken back.’”

A disturbance near the staircase interrupted their conversation. In the poor light, Harry could just make out two soldiers struggling to haul down a large cooking pot.

“Wonder what kind of soup they have for us today,” said Abel. “The food ain’t that bad here, if you like soup.”

“By the way, Abel,” Harry said a few minutes later as they stood in line, “I’ve given some thought to what you told me when I came in.”

“What’s that?” said Abel.

“About you needing lessons on how to behave yourself.”

“Well, if you’re not too busy sometime.”

“I was wrong. You don’t need any lessons from me.”

*

It rained all night and continued past daybreak. The soldiers who had brought in soup came back and set out hard biscuits and buckets of water that smelled of river, then a sergeant called the names of five Britons to be quick-stepped upstairs and back to their units. As soon as they were gone, six more offenders made their way down. All gathered around them to hear the latest news. The young general had left on a frigate to join a redcoat host several miles upriver, where they were keeping an eye on a large French camp on the opposite side. Wolfe still seeming to brood on where to make his second and final attempt of the year to bring down Montcalm. The bearer of this tiding was a middle-aged corporal who seemed to be taking his four-day sentence for filching rations from an officer’s kit as just another unfortunate episode in a soldier’s life.

“If he has any ideas on where to attack, he ain’t sharing them, even with his brigs, is what I hear,” said the corporal. “I heard it said he’s all but given up and is ready to sail out of this putrid hole. Can’t be soon
enough for me. But I’m sure he’ll make one more try, just to satisfy honor.” He said the last words with a snigger.

Harry thought this valuation of Canada, which jibed with Goldie Gottschalk’s, too harsh. He generally had found the surroundings pleasant enough except for the smoke, which lay over the land like a shroud. Certainly that was not Canada’s fault. He wondered what Noah would have made of the landscape here. It was far more varied than the flatness of coastal North Carolina. Harry also liked the weather. Though rainy, it was cool for the time of year. People made fun of Governor Dobbs’s complaints about New Bern’s climate, especially in summer, but in truth summer was not Harry’s favorite time, either.

About midmorning, he heard his name called out. He was surprised to see one of the soldiers who had taken him to jail.

“Well, I asked around and found the place you said your man Fletcher was staying. He weren’t there, so I scratched out a note, said you were here in the church jail, and wanted to see him. Just wanted to let you know.”

“You don’t know what this means to me,” said Harry. And, in fact, the man likely had no idea how it was to have every hope pinned on the whim of a stranger who had no reason to go out of his way.

“Oh, and here’s a letter for you. Just got here yesterday. A friend in the mail office heard me talking about you and your name sounded familiar. He remembered seeing this, but he didn’t know where it was supposed to go.”

Harry was already opening the envelope. It was Toby’s handwriting.

CHAPTER 25

9: Spit not in the Fire, nor Stoop low before it neither Put your Hands into the Flames to warm them, nor Set your Feet upon the Fire especially if there be meat before it.

—R
ULES OF
C
IVILITY

August 14, 1759

New Bern, North Carolina

Dearest Husband
,

I was Glad to get yr. Letter of August 8th inst. & was hoping you would be back before I could reply. May you be safe & well Home again before this finds its way into yr. beloved hands. But if not, I hope it finds you in Fair Health and Good Cheer. Wee planted out our Colliflowers soon after you left and sowed Carrots and Turnep Seed laft week, and transplanted Brocoli to ftand. Yesterday Wee
sowed some lots of Onion feed and Rhadish & Lettuce, Garden Cresses & a little white mustard. Martin says you fo much like Peas in the Fall so Wee will fow fome of them bye-and-bye. Also fome Fpinatch. It has been very dry here. Don’t be worried but wee had a little excitement ye other night when a Lightning Bolt fet a Tree afire in the Turpentine Orchard down near ye Creek. It was full of fap and burned like a torch & might’ve burnt down ye Whole Orchard except Martin had posted fome Men to keep a Watch for just such a Thing and when they faw it there they blew their horns and got fome Neighbors over to help our boys put it out before it did too much Damage. Martin expects Wee will have 1 or 2 hundred barrels of turpentine ready to ship before long and more before ye Season is thru’. He is overfeeing the diftillery at ye Creek himself, which he says takes every bit as much care as making a Good Whisky.

I fuppose you have no way of Knowing what a Difturbanfe your leaving New Bern without ye Blefings of Judge McLeod and his Courthouse Circle has Caused. No need to Dwell on that now, but there can be little Doubt that ye longer you ftay away, ye more Trouble there is likely to be. I am not Upbraiding or intending to Upfet you, my Dear, but only Letting You Know how ye land lies here. I am certain that whatever decifions you are Making, are ye Correct Ones.

Longing for yr Safe Return. Every Day is a Misery without You.

Yr. Loving Wife, Toby Woodyard

SHE HAD ADDRESSED IT TO HARRY IN THE CARE OF PETER BURKE IN
Boston, whose name she must have gotten from someone in New Bern who knew Noah. Somehow it had passed from hand to hand, ship to ship, followed in Harry’s wake all the way to the Saint Lawrence.

“You see? You see?” Harry said, waving the letter in front of the soldier. “This letter proves who I am. It is addressed to me, Henry Woodyard, and it’s from my wife, Toby Woodyard, of New Bern, North Carolina.”

The soldier shrugged. “That’s something you need to take up with the general. If we’re not at war by the time he gets back. Good luck to you, mate.”

Reading by the cold light of a cellar window, he felt injured by Toby’s words. Especially the endearments. They were reminders of how he had betrayed her, both physically with Jacqueline and mentally, in the case of his feelings for Maddie, confused as they might be. He knew that Toby could only be wondering what he was up to, dashing off on the trail of an old love. He felt suddenly unworthy of the woman who waited for him and had a renewed longing to be back at her side.

His efforts to expose Ayerdale as a liar and a spy were no further along than that night at the ball in Massachusetts Bay. Now that he considered the matter, they had come to less than nothing, except a possible explanation for Ayerdale’s disappearance from camp. It fit the pattern of his previous perfidy, leaving suddenly on the eve of a fight. As for Maddie, her fate was almost certainly out of Harry’s hands. What remained was the mystery of why she had gone missing along with Ayerdale. Could she somehow have become entwined in Ayerdale’s crimes? It had been ten years since Harry had seen her, and in the intervening time she had traveled the length and breadth of the European continent. Met many sorts of people, including Ayerdale himself. Even spent time in France. Maybe she had even gotten involved with the Scotch would-be prince, the one reportedly planning his second invasion of England, possibly with the aid of the French king. Could Maddie herself somehow have turned coat? Whatever the case, the reality was that Harry was now cooped up in a cool, damp, poorly lit church basement in Canada. Powerless to do anything but complain.

He folded the letter, handling it as gently as holy writ, and tucked it into his pocket. There his fingers rubbed up against a metal object.

The badge.

Harry had time on his hands. Nothing to do but wait until General Wolfe returned from his scouting expedition upriver.

Time to work on a puzzle.

Ambrose the schoolmaster had some writing materials in his knapsack and was happy to lend them out. In the watery window light, positioning the brooch for as good a view as he could get, Harry began scribbling. He continued until daylight faded, then resumed at sunup. Crumpling sheets and dropping them to the floor as he filled them up with chains of letters that spelled nothing.

*

“I didn’t know you could write Latin,” said Ambrose, stopping by at midmorning to see what Harry was doing. Harry was just about to throw away another sheet decorated with crosshatches and random-looking letters.

“I don’t,” said Harry.

“Well, you’ve written out a proper Latin phrase.” Pointing a finger at Harry’s latest result at the bottom of the paper. “
LEVIUSQUAMAER
. It means ‘lighter than air.’ Except your Latin is all run together. No spaces between the words.”

Harry stared at what Ambrose was looking at. It was the same group of letters he had made three weeks earlier using the name of Ayerdale’s plantation as the key word. He had just gone through the exercise a second time using
Rosewood
, thinking he may have made some mistake in his previous attempt, since what it had produced looked like nonsense.

He now remembered where he had seen the phrase before.
Levius quam aer
was the family motto cut into the stone pillar at the entrance to the Ayerdale plantation. Though
light
and
airy
were not what came to mind when Harry thought about Rosewood.

His thoughts flew back to the night he and Noah had sat inside the Campbell house. The bodies of Edward and Anne Campbell on the floor, resting in caked pools of their own blood. Little Andy Campbell’s lifeless form outside in the yard. Harry recalled his guesswork, his invented account of how the crime might have unfolded.
A storm-battered traveler seeking shelter. The Campbells opening their home, as was the custom. Then, trouble. A dispute or something discovered that the traveler needed to keep secret. Violence. The turmoil so unexpected that the Campbells had had no chance to defend themselves. Edward the first to die, since he was the most able. Throat slashed. Then Anne stabbed. Last, little Andy, shot in the back outside as he tried to escape. The baby spared, maybe out of some speck of humanity buried deep inside the killer despite the horror he had just committed. The bodies positioned to make it look like Indians’ work. Then, bad luck for the murderer. A piece of finery he was wearing, a Freemason’s pin, separating from his clothing during the struggle. Sent skittering, unnoticed, across the floor. Coming to rest underneath the baby’s crib.

And now a name to go with the badge.

“It has a pretty ring,” Ambrose said. “‘Lighter than air.’ Does that phrase have some special meaning to you?”

“It bloody well does,” said Harry.

*

Another batch of prisoners made a clatter on the steps as they marched out. A single replacement came in and, needing scant urging, revealed the latest subject of discussion in the camps. Wolfe had finished his scouting upriver and was now back in his island quarters. Still no word as to when or where he might decide to attack.

Harry climbed the steps and banged on the door until a guard opened it to see what was the matter. “I have to talk to General Wolfe,” he said. “I have urgent information for him.”

The guard promised he would let General Wolfe know. Leaving Harry once again to marinate in a puddle of doubt and impotence.

That afternoon he had a visitor. It was the friendly soldier who had left the message for Fletcher. “I brought something for you,” he said. He reached into his rucksack and pulled out a piece of salt pork. “Try
not to show it around. This lot would trample their granny for a taste of bacon.”