City of Dreams (110 page)

“Here we are.” Roisin added a heaping spoonful of honey to the willow bark brew and stirred it until it was entirely dissolved. Nearly the half of what honey she had, but never mind. Raif would get her more. Amazing Raif. He could find anything, though God alone knew how.

“Here, let me put my hand behind your head so you can drink this.” She lifted him slightly and held the cup to his scabbed-over lips. A thin china cup, such as the gentry drank from. The only one she had, and she couldn’t remember where she’d found it. Only thank God she had, because it was easier on Morgan’s wounded mouth than pewter would be. “Good. Very good. You’ve drunk the whole thing. Rest a moment, and I’ll get you something else.”

She let him lie back and foraged through the hole in the ground that passed for her larder. “I’ll send food and drink and everything you might need immediately,” his mother had said when they parted.

“Send nothing,” Roisin insisted. “It’s too dangerous. I’ll meet her”—nodding toward Bridget—“tomorrow morning. Outside the Exchange Market. She can give me a few things. Only as much as will fit in my basket, mind.”

Squaw DaSilva knew Roisin was right. “Very well. Enough for a day or two. Then you’ll meet again.”

But Roisin wouldn’t meet Bridget until tomorrow. Tonight she had only her own resources. “I’ve a bit of johnnycake.” She unfolded the square of cloth she’d wrapped it in. “And a sliver of rabbit.” She turned to smile at him. “It’s a supper of sorts.”

“Your hair,” he whispered. “You’re not wearing a mobcap. Not when you came to … to that place either. I thought I’d dreamed it. All your red hair showing.”

“And don’t you sound more like yourself by the minute? As for my hair—” Roisin pushed her curls back. “Mobcaps are out of fashion. No one wears them these days. Now, your supper.”

She fed him the tiny quantity of food slowly, making him chew each bite, and not giving him the next bit until he had.

“I haven’t …” Morgan whispered. “All the while, on the
Jersey
… never tasted any meat.”

“Tomorrow,” she promised. “You’ll have more. Your mother will get us some.” His eyes turned cold. “Ah, dear God, let it lie, Morgan. No quarrel with her means anything now. Anyway, it’s not just the Squaw who’ll get us things. Clare’s married now, these past five years. Wanted me to live with her, leave this place. But I couldn’t do that. Not while the British are here. Have to protect Cuf’s—” She saw the way he looked when she mentioned Cuf’s name and broke off. Foolish to remind him of all that.

“Clare has a set of fine twins, Molly and Jonathan they are. Two years old. Only she never bred except that once. Popped out a boy and a girl in one go and must have decided that would do her. She hasn’t gone back to the birthing bed since.” Morgan smiled and it joyed her heart. “’Course Clare always does exactly as it pleases her to do. Her husband lets her lead him around by the nose and loves it. He’s a funny-looking little fat man. Cousin of yours, Raif Devrey. Do you remember him? A wonder for coming up with what’s needed no matter what. Here, the last of the johnnycake. Chew it well.”

“Never had anything to do with the Devreys,” Morgan said. “Except—” He broke off, looked agitated. “Except— What’s his name, Roisin?”

“Hush, Morgan, hush. You’ve been through a terrible time. Later you’ll remember everything. Now you’ll rest.”

Rest. How long since he’d rested in a place that didn’t stink. Smelled like Roisin, this place did. Sweet. Must be that little room above the taproom where she and Cuf … Cuf. Roisin was his. Cuf’s woman. Cuf was fighting, she said. With Washington’s army.

“I am a captain serving in the army of the Continental—”

“You’re a vertiginous rebel and you turn my stomach.” General Howe staring at him with such hatred as he’d seldom seen. And the ashes of New York not yet cold. “And you are quite probably an arsonist.”

“The rules,” Morgan muttered. “I told him about the rules.”

“Ssh, Morgan. It’s all right now. We’re safe. There are no rules here. Sleep.” She stroked his hollow cheeks. “Sleep.”

“There are conventions, sir. A captured officer is permitted to find quarters in—”

“Not you, Captain Morgan. Not bloody you. I am well acquainted with your exploits. You’re a pirate, Captain Morgan, so we’ll put you back on a ship. I’ve a fine one for you. We call her the
Jersey.”

Thought I’d die on the
Jersey,
didn’t you, General? Might have, except for the fact that one of the guards had served with me aboard the
Fanciful Maiden.
Turned Tory, but didn’t forget the old days. Extra food sometimes, a little ale …
“He helped, Roisin. Helped for a long time …”
“Got a chance to get you off this hell ship, Cap’n sir. Overcrowded we is. Though how they’d decide so in a place like this I can’t be saying. Anyway, they’s movin
’
some of the prisoners to jail on the morrow. I’m gonna put you in with ’em, sir. Live through the journey, maybe you’ll have a chance.”
“God bless his soul, Roisin … Helped me …”

“Then God will surely bless him. Odd, isn’t it, how sometimes there’s more help than you think. Andrew Turner now, you may not believe it, but I think …” She let the words trail away. The willow bark tea and the food had done their work. His eyes were closed and she could tell from his breathing that he slept.

Roisin took up the single candle she’d lit earlier and carried it a few feet away to the far corner of the tented space. One thing she’d resisted was sleeping in the same dress she wore by day. She had only one frock, but she aired it overnight and slept in a homespun shift and a woolen shawl. She draped herself in the shawl now, then slipped the dress off underneath.

There was a well not far away, and each morning Roisin drew a bucket of its brackish water and stored it near the flat rock that served for a table. Now she took the small square of homespun that was her washing cloth, dipped it in the bucket, and sponged all parts of herself, afterward rubbing her skin dry with a corner of the shawl. Holy Virgin, if this war is ever over, let me live long enough to have at least one more proper hot bath beside a proper fire. And if I could have a piece of scented soap, I’d count myself ready to die and go to heaven.

“Roisin.”

She heard his whisper and turned to him, clutching the shawl over her nakedness. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“I was a bit, but I woke. I … Please, the water …”

“Ah, it’s not fit to drink. I’ve a few swallows of ale. Or I can make you a tisane.”

“No, I don’t mean that. I … Could I wash a bit?”

“Holy Virgin, I never thought … Of course. Of course.”

She grabbed the bucket of well water and carried it to where he lay and knelt beside him. “That first night I ever saw you,” she whispered while she dipped the washing cloth and rung it out and sponged his face and hands and arms. “Mistress Flossie told me how you liked nice things, clean things. Nearly scrubbed the skin off me while she did it.”

“That’s good,” he murmured. “The water on my face, it feels so good.”

“Tomorrow, if you like, I’ll get hold of a blade and shave off that filthy beard.”

He lifted his hand to it. “Yes, I’d like that.” Then, sounding suddenly more like the man she’d known than anytime in these last miraculous and terrible few days, “How beautiful you are. Still.”

The shawl had slipped off her while she cared for him and she had completely forgotten that she was naked. “Not like I was,” she whispered, looking down. “It’s all sags and droops now.” She reached for the shawl and wrapped herself in it once more.

“Beautiful,” he said again.

Roisin had planned to sleep across from him, near the tent flap, so she’d hear if something untoward happened. But the idea that anyone would miss a prisoner from one of the sugarhouses, much less come looking for him here, was preposterous. Then again, so was everything that had happened these past few days.

So was the notion that she had some kind of propriety to maintain in the face of so much loss and misery.

“Here,” she said, lifting the blanket she’d spread over him. “I’ll help to keep you warm.”

Morgan turned to her. Unthinking, with nothing but instinct to guide him out of the fog that much of the time gripped his brain, he pressed his mouth to her breast, closing his bruised lips around the nipple.

So they passed the night.

The whip cracked for the seventeenth time. “Talk, ye bloody bastard. Talk!” Cunningham wiped the sweat from his face and turned to the boy who was watching. A soft-faced boy, too young for even a proper beard. And terrified. It showed in his eyes.

“More salt,” the provost marshal said. “Get it from out back.” The boy ran to do as he was bid and Cunningham leaned down, closer to the naked man fixed to the long bench. “Not much skin left on this side o’ yer frame. And when the next lot o’ salt comes and I drizzle it over them wounds …”

The man groaned, but so quietly it almost couldn’t be heard.

“And when that’s done, we’ll undo them chains and roll yer wretched self over. Interestin’ what a whip can do to a man’s prick and balls. Very interestin’. This, this ain’t nothin’.” Cunningham raked his fingernails down the flayed flesh of the victim’s back.

There was another sound, not much louder than before. Big the bastard was, broad-shouldered and fair-haired. From Somerset he said. A stalwart type. But they were all stalwart. For a time. “’Course, it don’t have to be so hard. Ye wants this to be over, only thing ye has to do is tell me why Squaw DaSilva’s bloody great black carriage was outside Rhinelander’s sugarhouse this night. Yer the chief guard, ain’t ye? Ah, here’s the lad back. With the salt.”

It took ten minutes more. After the salt on his back, followed by a dozen lashes on his chest and his belly. Then, after the first one that landed on his privates, the groans turned to screams. “Enough! Enough! I’ll tell ye!”

“’Course ye will, boyo. ’Course ye will. Sing sweet as a bird, won’t ye? They al’ays do.”

Cunningham flung the whip aside. It satisfied him only up to a point, and the point came more and more quickly these days. Soon as he broke ’em, he was bored by the effect of the lashes. Except that this time there was a reason for it. “I’m waitin’, boyo. What was Squaw DaSilva’s carriage doin’ up there near Duane Street?”

“Don’t know nothin’ bout her. It was … Jesus God Almighty … Can I have some water? I can’t—”

Cunningham dropped to his knees and took hold of the guard’s fair hair, yanking his head back so the eyes, glazed with pain, were staring straight into his. “Ye thinks ye’ve felt the worst of it, ye bloody son of a bitch, think again! Next thing I’ll give ye water up yer nose and up the hole in yer arse, until ye blows up and bursts like the bag o’ shit ye be. Now talk!”

“She wanted a prisoner. Had to bring him out.”

“Squaw DaSilva? Wanted one o’ them half-dead bags o’ lice and stink? Which one?”

“Don’t know. Lying by the still, she said—” The words were replaced by gurgling in the man’s chest. A trickle of blood began from the corner of his mouth.

“Talk to me, ye son-of-a-bitch whore!” Cunningham roared. “Squaw DaSilva, who’d she want?”

“Golden ladies … Fifty of ’em. Enough for me own forge back in Somer—” Blood poured from both sides of the guard’s mouth this time. Then the silence of death and the stench of excrement as the corpse’s bowels emptied.

“Bloody son of a bitch! Bag o’ shit!” Cunningham’s chest churned with rage. A torrent of sweat poured off him. He knew the man was dead, but he banged the head on the wooden bench until the skull split and the brains oozed. “Bloody useless son-of-a-bitch whore!”

The boy saw the whole thing. He was a bugler. Twelve years old and served a year already. Been up at Stony Point and seen how terrible it was when the rebels won. Him sounding the retreat the way they told him, and the redcoats goin’ on gettin’ killed anyway. Nothin’ like this, though. Never seen nothin’ like this.

The guard’s head was mush. The provost marshal staggered to his feet, heaving with rage. Squaw DaSilva. As powerful a woman as could be found in New York. Had the ear of those in charge in the city. So why would she pay a guard to … ? Jesus bloody Christ, Morgan Turner! Somehow or other, she’d found out her son was in Rhinelander’s. Not something the Squaw would talk to Clinton about. She’d talk to him, though. To keep anyone from looking for the escaped rebel prisoner, she’d definitely talk to the provost marshal o’ the whole poxed city. Fifty golden ladies, eh? Ten times fifty. Squaw DaSilva could afford it.

Cunningham turned to the boy cowering in the corner as if seeing him for the first time. “Looks like a little rat, ye does, boyo. Well, ye ain’t had nothin’ to be feared of, not yet. Come here.”

Cunningham was naked from the waist up. He yanked at the buttons of his breeches and let them drop. “On yer knees,” he told the boy, grabbing the sides of his head. “And if I feel a single one o’ them sharp little teeth, I promise ye I’ll knock every bloody one of ’em out o’ yer bloody mouth.”

Chapter Fourteen

C
UF RODE
alone down the Broad Way, wearing the flannel jacket, homespun shirt and leather breeches that had been his particular uniform through most of the rebellion. He attempted to keep his eyes only on the road ahead of him. As for the other people milling about the town, none paid him any mind. Too preoccupied with their own griefs and worries.