The Constable's Tale (29 page)

D’Brienne mounted and said good-bye, until later, go with God, and added a small bow with a flourish of his hand, which Harry thought a little fancy. Then d’Brienne rode off into the night, leaving Harry to wonder what the Frenchman would really say to Montcalm.

The city looked dead. Smoke and the dry smell of blasted stone hung heavy in the air. Streets devoid of people. Torches unlit, windows dark. Almost every building he saw showed some kind of damage. In extreme cases, what might have been houses or shops or government buildings were little more than piles of rubble. He had heard that the lower town, the village at the foot of the cliff, had suffered even worse treatment. By his guards’ manners, pulling and shoving
as they walked along, he gathered they considered him personally responsible for it all.

They came to a squat one-story stone structure, comparatively unscathed, with barred windows. A proper jail. One of his escorts went inside. Harry took what he guessed would be his last opportunity and bolted.

Despite his shackles, he was able to get two streets away before being brought down by the soldier who proved swiftest of foot. This one was immediately joined by the other two, and they all began punching and kicking but with such a fury that at first only a few blows landed squarely. Harry curled up. His last conscious thought to protect his knife wound from more damage.

Sensing daylight through his eyelids, he cracked them open. Hovering over him, as if in a dream, was Maddie McLeod. A look of concern on her beautiful face.

*

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to save you.” Still groggy, sore in numerous places.

“Well, you’re doing a first-rate job. That’s a horrid cut on your stomach.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks. At least I don’t think so.”

He lifted his head enough to look around. He was stretched out on a mattress consisting, by its uneven feel, of straw sewn up in a muslin sack. About a dozen others were stacked in a corner of the stone-walled cell. It was spacious and, except for them, empty. A single outside window secured with iron bars.

Maddie looked disheveled in a thin cotton gown on top of a petticoat. At-home lounging clothes, the same ones she was kidnapped in, Harry guessed. Her hair looked as if it had not seen a brush since about then.

Before Harry could clear his head enough to ask any smart questions, a soldier admitted into the room a middle-aged officer who
looked not much better-fed than the rest. He had courtly manners and a good knowledge of English. A surgeon, he said, sent at the request of the Chevalier d’Brienne. He cleaned and dressed Harry’s wound, inquired about the lady’s well-being, then bid adieu, bowing and edging toward the door, backside first.

The soldier returned with discs of hard biscuit and a bowl of water with a dipping ladle. He said something that Maddie interpreted as, “We regret that we are out of wine at the moment.”

“Richard Ayerdale has turned into a beast,” Maddie said as soon as they were alone again. “I’m afraid your instincts about him were correct.”

“I’m not one to gloat. But I am rarely wrong about judging people.” The words were beyond recall by the time he remembered about d’Brienne.

Maddie said, “On our voyage from Boston I confessed to Richard about my grandfather’s financial condition. I had been wrestling with this and concluded that we should begin our marriage on a truthful footing. At first he seemed only stunned, but then he began behaving like a wild animal. I honestly was afraid to be around him. If the lack of a dowry was to be the deciding factor as to our wedding, he could have just told me and departed in peace when we landed. But he was so angry that I could barely even make out what he was saying. Mostly accusing me, in the most impolite terms, of dishonesty. He threw in a few nasty remarks about the Scotch race as well.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“As it turned out, no. After several minutes of abusive language, he rushed out of our cabin. When I saw him an hour later, it was as if nothing had happened. He was a perfect gentleman again. It was the oddest thing.”

“Before you go further, I have something to tell you that I guess you still don’t know.”

Harry enlightened Maddie about Ayerdale’s finances. The news left her speechless but only for a moment.

“So we were each looking to the other for salvation. How perfect.”

“You shouldn’t be too hard with yourself. If I’ve learned anything during these past four weeks, it is that we all do what we have to do.”

“Harry, that is so brilliant. You really should find a publisher. Share that wisdom with the world.”

He made to get up off the mattress, but the movement revealed new areas of pain. He gently let himself back down.

Maddie continued her tale. Their arrival on Île d’Orléans. Assignment to a handsome house not far from Wolfe’s own commandeered mansion, a gesture of deference to a distinguished American visitor. Her discovering a letter among Ayerdale’s belongings that exposed him as having secret dealings with the enemy.

“Reverend Fletcher also must be working for the French,” Maddie said.

“Why do you think that?” Just wanting to hear whatever story Giles might have told.

“He made no effort to prevent my being carried away. He did seem a bit embarrassed to have me watching him watching me being trussed like a Christmas goose by two redskinners. Before they were finished he left the room. When we get back to the camp we must report him as well.”

“It’s more complicated than that, Maddie.”

Harry told her of Fletcher’s real identity and how he had recruited Ayerdale to betray his French masters and work for King George. This second revelation seemed to take the rest of the wind out of her.

“But what game is this Giles deSavoy playing now? Why did he permit Richard to cross over to the French, with me as his captive?”

“Your fiancé has been tasked to give false information about where General Wolfe intends to attack, in hopes of drawing Montcalm’s forces to that location and away from the real place. He almost certainly has delivered this message by now. The battle could begin at any moment, if deSavoy is guessing right about the timing. But not where Montcalm now has been led to believe.”

Harry tried to get up again. This time, with Maddie’s help, he pressed through the pain and gained his feet. After walking around, trying out his limbs, he remembered that in the excitement of the previous evening, he had forgotten to eat supper.

He plucked a biscuit from the metal tray and took a tentative bite. It was strangely pleasing. Not as hard as it looked, at least not on the inside.

Maddie screamed. Harry looked up in time to see her spitting and throwing a biscuit across the room, causing a small explosion of crumbs in the corner where it landed.

“Worms,” she said in a quivery voice.

Harry took a closer look at his own biscuit. A severed half of a weevil was wriggling underneath the top crust. As if waving hello.

“The people of Quebec are starving,” Harry said. “Wolfe has burned all their farms.”

“Well, this is the first time I’ve been served worms. I’d rather take my chances on starvation.”

Harry continued eating, trying to set a good example. After a few minutes Maddie got over her revulsion enough to pick up another biscuit and begin picking through it, flicking away moving pieces. Despite Harry’s continued assurances that the worms would be good for her.

“About Richard’s new identity,” she said after some further reflection. “Does this mean I have to start thinking of him as a hero again?”

“No.”

*

The rest of the day passed quietly. A light drizzle settling outside. Harry slept fitfully. He got off his bed again around midafternoon and asked Maddie what she did for a toilet. She pointed him toward a wooden door, smaller than the main one to the cell, and in the shadows at the far end. It opened into a narrow, oblong chamber ventilated by another barred window. A single wooden bench ran along the length of one
wall, three holes about the size of watermelons cut into the top. The smell was not too bad.

That evening the surgeon came back to check on Harry’s dressing. The man was in a mixed mood. Friendly enough but not trying to hide his unhappiness over what had been done to his city, which, as it turned out, was his place of birth. He likened Quebec to a broken shell. Hardly any residents left; most either dead or run away. And the few that remained no better off than those living in ruined houses and makeshift shelters in the countryside. Dreading the onset of winter. Only one company of
troupes de terre
occupied the citadel, a place of last refuge should Montcalm’s army have need of it.

“Where is the general?” Harry said in a conversational way. Thinking to get some idea of where Ayerdale might be.

“Montcalm is sleeping with his boots on and horse saddled at his house just down the river at Beauport, along with more than half his army. The rest are upriver at Cap-Rouge. Though I have noticed Beauport has been reinforced over the past twenty-four hours.”

“You needn’t tell us all this,” Maddie said.

The officer waved his hand. “By the time you are released it will be over. God willing, all of this misery soon will be over.”

He pronounced satisfaction with the way Harry’s wound was healing and made another gallant exit. Harry waited until he was sure he was gone and what he had to say could not be overheard.

“You know, Maddie, it’s not so much what we know about the French and their deployments that’s the problem. It’s what they know about us. They know we know Ayerdale is working for them. At least that’s what they think he’s doing.”

Fear rose in Maddie’s eyes as she caught his logic.

“And how can they let us go free to spread the knowledge of Richard’s treachery?” she said, completing his thought. “It would be simpler just to kill us.”

*

They were up at sunrise the next day. Hungry again by the time their keeper came around with more biscuits and water.

Harry spent the morning trying to figure a way to get out. He went over every inch of the cell. Digging through the stone slab floor was out of the question. The bars over the window were thick and by all appearances indestructible. The tiny door window was not even large enough for a head to pass through. But through it Harry could see part of a guard desk. A set of keys hung tantalizingly from a spike in the wall.

He parsed the latrine in detail, thinking it might empty into a sewer outside. Or have another ventilation opening. If so, he would be willing to give it a try. There was a good chance Maddie would not go along, but this drawback proved not to matter. As best as he could make out, there was nothing below but a deep, dark, and entirely enclosed pit. Not completely odor free but surprisingly inoffensive: a tribute to either French engineering skills or the cell’s present low occupancy condition. All the scoundrels having been let out to fight, he guessed.

The rain outside stopped but the sky remained sullen. It was noticeably colder, prompting him to wonder what inmates did for heat in the winter. He was thankful he had taken his wool jacket for the river crossing.

Someone had given Maddie a blanket. Standing idly underneath the window, eyes downcast, she pulled it close around herself, then looked up and caught him staring at her.

“What are you looking for, old witch?” She smiled.

Harry briefly wondered if she had slid into madness. Then he remembered. It was a game she had made him play when she was a child and he a self-conscious teenager. They would take turns being the witch.

“My darning needle?” he said, wondering if he recalled the reply correctly.

“Is this it?” She parted the blanket, pulled her petticoat up to her knee, and displayed one foot.

He shook his head.

She showed him the other foot. He shook his head again. She put forward one of her palms.

Harry said, “Somewhere in here, I think I’m supposed to say yes and start chasing you around the room.”

“And what if you caught me?”

He felt his face flush and tried to think of something entertaining to say. Something friendly, playful, but not presuming too much.

“Dance with me,” she said, getting him off the hook. Before he could complain there was no music, she said, “I shall sing.”

Letting her blanket fall away, she curtseyed and began humming a brisk tune. Harry made an awkward bow, trying to remember how to begin. The last time he had danced had been at his wedding. Several eras ago as it now seemed.

She offered both hands, which he grasped without thinking. He bowed and she curtseyed again and motioned for Harry to drop one of his hands but keep hold of hers with the other. They turned and faced the pretend orchestra, he following her lead. Some of the judge’s drills coming back. A skipping step to the left, one to the right. His unpracticed stepping more of a series of stumbles. She lifted his hand, did a twirl under his arm, and motioned for him to switch hands and perform his own twirl. And so they went, circling and turning and stepping forward and back to the rhythm of Maddie’s silvery vocalizations. Harry got better as they went along. He even remembered the name of this dance. The Allemande. But he had forgot how it ended until it did. With him holding Maddie. Both of them slightly out of breath. Lips close enough to touch.

She relaxed her arms and turned away.

“It’s too bad our times didn’t match up,” said Harry.

Maddie made an ambiguous sound in her throat.

“I was in no position to marry anyone, much less somebody like you,” he said.

“Like me?”

“You know. Above my station.”

“‘Station?’ Oh, Harry. When did you ever begin talking like that?”

“Since your grandfather taught me how the world really works. It’s not anything like what I was raised to think.”

“I liked how you used to think. We could have been happy together.” She sat down on her cot. “We could have made our own station, if that’s what you want to call it.”

“That’s not the idea I got from you when we last talked, at Natty’s house. Besides, you were only thirteen.”

“My love for you was all grown up.”