1812: The Rivers of War (44 page)

Now, a smile came. “An old and decrepit lecher, at that, too worried about his capacities to do more than leer at a distance.”

Driscol flushed. There was just enough truth in that statement to make him uncomfortable. He wasn’t, in fact, a lecher—and he knew full well that his
capacities
were still those of a young man. Still, he couldn’t deny that the Cherokee girl aroused him, in ways he found hard to understand, much less explain.

Sheer beauty was part of it, of course. The athletic grace of her body even more than the face. Perhaps it was the combination—or, rather, the contradiction. Tiana Rogers was
exotic
. Half white, half Indian, never seeming one or the other to

Driscol. The same with her bearing. At one moment she could act like a princess, the next like a hoyden, the next like a …

Farm girl? Squaw?

And where, precisely, did one end and the other begin? He’d heard her brother John praise her talents at gutting and dressing a deer. His mother had possessed similar, plebian skills. So had Maureen.

It was that confusion, not lust, which had kept him so constantly off balance around her. He simply didn’t know what to make of her. Had he not been so attracted to the girl, of course, none of it would have mattered. Given that he was, he’d reacted the way Patrick Driscol usually reacted to being puzzled.

That thought finally allowed him to smile. Houston, he suspected, would accuse him of sulking in his tent. Not because of a conflict with a king, but because Patrick Driscol
resented being
confused. Kings he could deal with. Nothing easier, at least in theory. Just cut their throats and bleed them out.

Alas, such well-worn and simple tactics were quite unsuited to this problem.

He tried to find the words to explain, as best he could. Fortunately, a welcome interruption came. Houston strode into the room, followed by Secretary of State Monroe and John Ross.

The captain was smiling cheerfully, as he so often was. And, as it so often did, the smile warmed Driscol. His brother had smiled like that, before he died on the road from Randallstown to Antrim, and had been tossed into the sandpit by the Sassenach. Such a smile would never come to Patrick Driscol—and might not have, being honest with himself, even if his life had been different. But seeing it on Houston’s face reminded him of all the many families in the world that had not been destroyed.

“Mr. Monroe’s made me a proposition, Patrick—and it involves you.”

After he’d heard what Houston had to say, all of Driscol’s earlier bleak thoughts returned. Rude though it might be, he went back to staring out the window. For a moment, his sentiments were so hostile that he was unable to speak.

Perhaps I shouldn’t speak at all, he thought. What’s the point?
He’d probably just rain his own chances, small as they were already with an arm now missing.

But a lifetime’s stubbornness wouldn’t let him remain silent.

He reminded himself that a man who advocated letting the blood from monarchs should at least have the courage to speak the truth to a secretary of state. And face the prospect of being broken from the ranks with the same unyielding courage he’d faced lines of Sassenach muskets.

So he turned back and looked at Monroe. “Fine words, Mr. Secretary. I’m sure they came from you, even if young Sam here gave them a heady and enthusiastic lilt. But I’m no great believer in airy sentiments.”

He pointed into a corner of the room. “I’m sure you didn’t notice him when you came in. But you might ask yourself why Henry Crowell is huddling over there.”

Everyone turned to look in the corner, where the black wagon driver was sitting. Just as startled as everyone else had been by Driscol’s words, Crowell’s eyes were wide.

“Oh, aye,” Driscol said, half snarling. “It’s not safe right now for a freedman in the city. Any man with a black skin. It seems there are rumors of a slave insurrection, and half the soldiery is out there charging about to put it down.” The rest, he did snarl: “While the Sassenach, needless to say—the ones who
did
burn and loot and plunder—make their escape with no pursuit.”

He kept the finger pointing, as steadily as a musket. “So Henry Crowell, who brought the munitions which held the enemy at bay, cowers here in a corner. Not knowing, even, what’s happened to the wagon which is his sole means of earning a livelihood. And slavemasters give speeches about the glories of republicanism in the chamber below, and come up here to propose schemes for bringing just settlements to the Indians. Well, there’s nothing I can do about it. But I fail to see why Patrick Driscol should lend himself to the furtherance of the lies and hypocrisies of gentlemen.”

Driscol’s pale eyes were cold, but all the hot, boiling anger surfaced in the words. “Oh, aye, it’s always class that tells, isn’t it? You’ll ladle praise onto a stinking Sassenach general for his gallantry. But let me ask you, Mr. Secretary, when you were governor of Virginia, did you ladle the same praise onto the man named Gabriel when you hung him? And if not, why not? What crime was he guilty of, other than opposing the tyranny of his so-called betters, with arms in hand?”

The anger was all encompassing, now. The cold, pale eyes moved to John Ross.

“And
you
, Lieutenant. What is
your
complaint? That the white man won’t let you remain on your plantations, lording it over your own slaves?” He jerked his head toward the Rogers brothers. “Just a few hours ago, they were telling me—boasting, to call things by the right name—that most of your chiefs have plantations as fine as any white men. Your Major Ridge, I’m told, is a great man—and nothing proves it so much as his twenty slaves. So you, too, are nothing but lordlings who, like all lordlings since the dawn of time, seized their status by theft and murder and then used the plundered goods to prove the status. And now—now—have the unmitigated gall to claim that you are the victims of injustice.”

He turned away. “Be damned to all of you. Do what you will. But do not ask me to give it my blessing, much less my active participation.”

His eyes searched the city below. Looking for a dwelling wretched enough that he might be able to afford it—on whatever income a discharged lieutenant might have.

Sergeant
, he reminded himself. His promotion to lieutenant had not been approved as yet by the War Department. And now, of course, surely wouldn’t be.

Monroe glanced at Houston. For the first time since he’d met him, the young captain was obviously at a complete loss for words. In fact, he was almost gaping like a fish. Whatever else he’d expected from Driscol, clearly enough, Houston hadn’t anticipated that coldly furious tirade.

No, not tirade
, Monroe cautioned himself. It was the lieutenant’s harsh words—the tone, even more than the words themselves—that had infuriated some part of Monroe. That
part of him which was Virginia gentry by birth, and whose status had grown great with time.

Yet the fact remained that Driscol had said nothing which, in substance if not with the same pitiless condemnation, Monroe hadn’t heard said time and again. He’d even said as much himself.

It was indeed true, as Driscol had charged, that as governor of Virginia, Monroe had had to sentence the leaders of a slave insurrection. Would-be insurrection, to be more accurate, since—as was usually true in such cases—informers had revealed the slaves’ plans before they could set them into motion. Monroe had been astonished, at the time, at the hostility which his lenient policy had generated from most of his fellow gentlemen. He’d hung the leader Gabriel and several others, because as governor he was charged with maintaining public order and existing laws and property relations. But that had seemed enough, to him, for the purpose. To go further would have been simple cruelty—yet that had been precisely what many others wanted. Why? For no better reason than Driscol’s very accusation—they’d been gentlemen, aggrieved by the impudence of slaves, demanding vengeance for their injured dignity.

Monroe took a deep breath, calming and dispelling that stupid, vicious, gentleman’s anger. Driscol’s charge cut to the very soul of the nation, after all—and Monroe knew it. If most men might not wrestle with the problem of slavery, the greatest of them did. George Washington had done so, in his own austere way—and, in his will, he had freed his slaves. Thomas Jefferson, in his far more voluble—some might say, histrionic—manner, had done the same. He’d once concluded a denunciation of slavery with the words,
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever
.

And Madison, too, in his quiet manner. He’d already told Monroe that once he was no longer president, and could finally retire from public life, he hoped to convince Dolley to move to Ohio. So he could, at least in his own person, finally be rid of slavery.

The president hadn’t had much hope of success, however. His wife Dolley was Quaker-born, not southern, and had no theoretical attachment to the peculiar institution. But she also had an improvident son, and enjoyed her wealth. And slavery
was
profitable.

Money
. In the end, Monroe knew, it all came down to that. For him, as much as any man of his class. Nothing else, nothing more. Certainly nothing more exalted. Just the endless, well-nigh irresistible seduction of Mammon—who was surely a demon.

He almost laughed, then. Leave it to Lieutenant Patrick Driscol to call a gentleman a demon worshipper, and do it to his face!

That wry thought was enough finally to bring the statesman to the helm.

“Actually, Lieutenant,” the secretary of state said calmly, “your objections strike me as speaking well for your qualifications in this mission.
Very
well, in fact.”

Driscol’s eyes narrowed, and his head turned partway from the window.

“You must be joking.”

“Not at all.” Monroe couldn’t convince a man who wouldn’t look at him. His years as an ambassador to France and England and Spain—failures and successes alike—had taught him that. “Please, Lieutenant Driscol, will you simply listen to me?”

Courtesy—especially when it came unexpectedly—did the trick. Driscol turned completely away from the window and faced him squarely. True, the man’s eyes were still cold, and his slightly lowered brow could have butted a bull senseless, but… he was listening. And Monroe knew how to talk. Far better, if not in formal speeches, than a youngster like Houston.

“All of it is a Gordian knot, Lieutenant. All threads tangled together. A republic which rests in good part on slavery—yet it is a republic. Which means, among other things, that it must respect the property of its citizens until such time as those citizens decree otherwise. Or would you have me take the power, and wield it like a despot? And if so, why do you think the end result would be better? How well did Napoleon do, after he became emperor? You served under him, I believe.”

Driscol’s jaws tightened. “So I did. I left his service … after some time in Spain. Just butchery, that was.”

Monroe nodded. “The contradictions continue, on and on. The United States is also a nation coming into being by robbing the lands of other nations—yet it is a nation, and one that you
would see grow yourself. Why else did you come here from Europe? Did far more than that!” He pointed at Driscol’s stump. “Gave that nation your own arm.”

“It’ll all unravel,” Driscol growled. “See if it doesn’t.”

“Perhaps it might,” Monroe allowed. “But in what manner? I’d gladly see it unravel myself, if I could be sure all the threads wouldn’t be lost, the good along with the bad.”

“You don’t unravel a Gordian knot.”

“Precisely.” Now, finally, it was time for a smile. One of Monroe’s best—and he was good at smiling, even if he did it rarely. “A Gordian knot needs to be cut. So who better to ask than someone like you, Patrick Driscol?”

After the secretary left, a few minutes later—dragged away by his aides once they found out where he’d gone—Driscol glared at Houston.

“How in the name of creation did he talk me into this madness?”

Houston had recovered his own equilibrium by now, along with his good cheer. “Patrick, you can’t be that iron-headed. Do you think a man has the career he’s had—with the presidency still to come, most like—if he doesn’t know how to talk people into things?” He placed an arm over Driscol’s shoulder and gave him a friendly, reassuring little shake. “Think of it this way. You can always console yourself with the knowledge that you were swindled by an expert.”

Driscol grunted. The sound was half sour, half …

Not.

“It’s an interesting idea, I’ll give it that. The core of it’s yours, I assume? Monroe’s too much the proper gentleman to have come up with it, even leaving aside his English heritage. Only a daft Irishman would think this scheme could work.”

The lieutenant’s pale eyes moved to John Ross. Always a sergeant’s, those eyes, never an officer’s. “
You
won’t have agreed, of course.”

Hesitantly, Ross shook his head.

“No, of course not. So far I don’t see where”—he shot Houston an apologetic glance—“it’s fundamentally any different from what’s been proposed many times before. We move across the Mississippi—and you take our land.” He shook his head
again, this time more firmly. “It’s simply not
just
. It’s our land, and you can’t even claim the right of conquest. We’ve been your
allies
, most of the time.”

Houston was a little afraid that the Cherokee’s bluntly stated opposition would deter Driscol. Instead, it seemed to have just the opposite effect.

“Oh, it’s justice you want from the white man, is it? Well, it’s good to see the Irish have no monopoly on blithering idiocy. You might as well expect an Irishman to get justice from a Sassenach, as so many did and do. Let me explain something to you, my proud young Cherokee. Looking for justice from the mighty is the work of fools. You’d do far better to look for redress in the form of vengeance. Or haven’t you figured out yet that’s really Houston’s scheme?”

Ross’s eyes widened.