Authors: Donna Thorland
Charlestown was half abandoned. The British regulars had retreated through the tiny enclave on their demoralized march from Lexington, and taken their frustrations out on the colonists by looting the larger homes. The further threat of a naval bombardment had driven anyone whose business could be relocated to flee.
The Three Cranes was housed in an ancient, rambling structure that claimed to be the first governor’s mansion in the colony. The main building showed three overhanging gables to the street, like a flight of birds, Sarah supposed, if you were in a fanciful frame of mind. She was not. Tired, hot, and hungry, she wanted only to find the landlord, draw on Sparhawk’s credit, and get her father a soft bed and a hot meal.
Piles of broken furniture and smashed tableware, indicating that the house built for John Winthrop had not escaped the retreat unscathed, flanked the entrance. Inside, the taproom was cool and dark. The furnishings were sparse—no doubt a product of the looting—but it was the sort of place sea captains liked: old-fashioned and unfussy, with its Turkey work chairs, sanded floors, and green baize curtains.
The inn remained one of the few lively centers of urban life. The patrons were an uneasy mix of naval officers, Redcoats, and locals. No one, at that moment, was certain exactly to whom the town belonged. Except the landlady, Mrs. Brown, whose ideas on that subject were fixed.
“If Captain Sparhawk had an arrangement with my husband, then you must take that up with him,” she said when Sarah asked for credit on his account.
“And where might I find your husband?” Sarah asked.
“Canada,” said the landlady. “With our serving maid. He said he was fleeing the king’s troops, but the truth is that he got the girl with child and decamped. If you plan on seeing him, you may bring him his shirts. He wrote asking for them. And you may tell him he’ll have nothing else out of me or this house.”
“Where,” put in Benji, “might we find Captain Sparhawk?”
The landlady shrugged. “I’ve not seen him these three months.”
Sarah felt a prickle of unease. Sparhawk should have reached Boston before them.
Benji drew her into a corner, out of hearing of their father and Ned. Mr. Cheap trailed after them, his gaunt face a study in bland neutrality.
“Father must have a bed tonight,” Benji said.
Sarah knew it. The Wards had slept rough the past two days, and her father’s hands were curled into rheumatic claws. He needed a soft mattress and a warm drink, and they had no money for either. Their last meal had been breakfast the previous day. That had been only apples and cider, quickly soured in an empty stomach.
“How bad is our situation?” she asked. The fact that Benji had considered turning to a man who had offered his sister protection indicated that things were dire indeed. Now that the man was not to be found . . .
“There is a connection I can call upon,” said Benji tentatively. “A naval officer I knew in London. We are not on the best of terms at the moment—politics, don’t you know—but if I can slip across the river and find him, I believe he would help a friend in distress. There is only one complication.”
“What?” she asked.
“I did not come directly home after the
Desdemona
docked. I spent some time in Boston.”
She had figured that much out already. “Tell me.”
“I was working with the printers.”
“You? Printing?” She had a difficult time imagining her dashing brother with ink on his fingers.
“Good Lord, no. Smuggling. Parliament has been urging Gage to make arrests. The general, it seems, is too temperate for his masters in London. But we could not afford to lose the presses if he decided to act. I helped Edes and Gill and Thomas and that lot to move their equipment out of the city. Along with a couple of British cannons that used to defend the North Point. Somehow Gage got wind of the business and raided Edes’ shop. Several of us managed to get out. Those who didn’t are in jail on charge of treason and sedition. Gill and Thomas got clean away for certain. Edes has fled to the countryside. His son had more nerve. He’s taken the small press and gone underground to keep on printing. It is possible, though, that the British have got my name. If I am wanted for treason, my friend will have little choice but to do his duty and arrest me.”
“Then you cannot take the risk,” Sarah said.
Benji turned to look at Abednego, huddled on a bench in the corner. “I would not suggest it if there were any other way. I promise I shall do my best not to get hanged.”
“Go, then,” interjected Mr. Cheap, who had been listening in silence. “Red’ll not last another night in the open.”
Benji nodded to Cheap, pecked Sarah on the cheek, then strode out the door.
Sarah turned to look at the corner where her father sat huddled on a hard bench. That such a tower of strength had come to this. He should be comfortable, painting his models and plotting improvements to his ship. Not shivering in a drafty corner with nothing in his belly for two days. A private room, a hot drink, a cushioned chair—if only she could give him these things. Micah had offered them. Out of pride, she had refused. And her father was the one to suffer.
“I could take Ned over to the market and get us some bread, maybe a jug of something for your father,” Mr. Cheap suggested.
“By ‘get’ you mean ‘steal,’ Mr. Cheap. No.”
“Why not?” Ned asked.
She had not noticed him approach. “Because picking pockets is a charming sleight of hand if you are rich, but it will get you thrown in jail if you are poor.”
Cheap nodded. “Then I’ll head down to the docks and try to turn an honest coin with a few hours’ work.”
Work would be difficult to find. The harbor had been blockaded for a year, with nothing but the most necessary supplies coming in or out. No trade, no cargo, no work. And the few jobs that were available were taken by the soldiery in their spare time.
Mr. Cheap left. Sarah sat down next to her father and worked on mending the hem of her skirt. She did her best to avoid the notice of Mrs. Brown, but the woman scowled every time her eyes fell on the raffish Wards. The hours passed. Her father scarcely stirred. Ned made forays into the street a few times, to see if Benji or Mr. Cheap might be on the way back, and the crowd changed several times over.
First there had been the tradesman in the morning, wearing homespun and wool, breakfasting or talking business—which everyone agreed was bad—over coffee. Next had come the gentlemen in silk waistcoats and clocked stockings, merchants and traders, discussing their ransacked homes and warehouses and the likelihood that Governor Gage would indemnify them for the damage his hooligan Redcoats had done. The taps were open and flowing by late afternoon, and the common room slowly filled with army and navy officers—and quickly emptied of locals.
And still neither Benji nor Lucas Cheap returned.
• • •
Sparhawk went directly from the
Preston
to Province House, where the colony’s acting military governor, “Granny Gage,” resided. It was a massive antique structure, much improved over the years, but the steep slate roof and elaborate brickwork told of its Tudor origins.
James did not know Thomas Gage personally, though he had been introduced, recently, to his beautiful American wife, whose exotic good looks were said to come from a Turkish grandmother. It was she whom he asked for, gossip be damned, when he discovered the hall of Province House crowded with petitioners, the long row of chairs against the left wall occupied by army officers in red and the row on the right by local merchants in sober suits of worsted. Some of the officers were injured. Those who could not find seats paced the tiles.
Sparhawk joined them. He ignored their outraged looks when a servant appeared a few minutes later and led him up the wide branching staircase and into a long reception room graced with a Dutch tiled fireplace and appointed in matching green and cream upholstery.
The woman who entered, who had rebuffed his overtures with regal grace the last time they met, was as beautiful as he remembered, with her high clear brow and fine skin. And she was as elegant in her striped peach sack-back gown as the pretty chamber. He was only surprised to discover that her glamour had no effect on him; it could not displace the appeal of Sarah Ward.
Margaret Gage cast a skeptical eye upon Sparhawk. He bowed and said, “Forgive me, but I craved admittance to your husband’s presence, and had no appointment. I have presumed upon our acquaintance, but I believe that the nature of my business will persuade you to forgive me.”
“That will depend,” said Margaret Kemble Gage, “on what you mean to tell my husband.”
It was a betrayal: of the confidence of his commanding officer; of the service; and because he knew the consequences of his actions, it was a betrayal of Sarah Ward, whom he might be in no position to help.
But not a betrayal of his country; he was certain of that. “Admiral Graves has ordered me to take command of the guns on the
Somerset
and burn Charlestown.”
• • •
Ned returned from his latest exploration of the neighborhood surrounding the Three Cranes, looking warily over his shoulder. “A man offered me money to go down an alley with him,” he said. “I think he might have followed me back.”
This was all they needed. “Sit down beside Father,” Sarah said, “and stay there.”
A few minutes later a tall man in a gray silk suit came in the door and scanned the crowd. He spotted Ned, and began to cross the room. Sarah stepped in front of him. “I believe you are looking for my brother,” she said.
The man considered. “The little towheaded urchin? I might be, depending on the price.”
Her revulsion was instinctual, but she knew better than to make a scene. The landlady was looking for an excuse to throw them out, and they must not give her one, not now with the sun falling and men like this prowling the streets. “There are no terms,” she said. “My brother is not for sale.”
The man merely shrugged. “Then he shouldn’t wander the docks at this hour.” He took in Sarah’s travel-stained silk dress, at odds, she knew, with her accent and deportment. “Refugees, are you? I could buy the boy a meal. There would be something for you as well.”
Her stomach turned. She had been raised in a port town, befriended by women of negotiable virtue when she was a child—and too young to be in danger when she ran wild on Salem’s safe and familiar docks. She had been the daughter of Abednego Ward, once the terror of the Caribee, and the sister of Benjamin Ward, the quiet, dangerous boy who sailed as his father’s apprentice and was known to have a sharp sword and a short temper.
But she remembered the lessons those women had imparted, when she had thought that their world could never touch hers. About choosing men from the better taverns and cleaner ships, because they were less likely to give you a pox. About having your own room to take them, safe, with friends in earshot, or else servicing them as close to a public place as possible, so they could not demand more than they had paid for or refuse to pay at all.
It is shocking what you will do for a crust of bread if your family is starving.
“No,” she said. “But thank you for your
kindness
.” She suspected it was the only sort they would be offered.
After that they stayed inside. The evening crowd changed again, all save one man, a naval officer she had spied in the corner while she was fending off Ned’s would-be seducer. She had noticed him earlier because he had striking black hair with a gilded crown of sun streaks, like Sparhawk. For a moment she had thought it might be him, but that had been wishful imagining. This man was equally tall and gracefully proportioned, but nearer forty than thirty, though it was hard to tell with sailors and their weather-beaten complexions. He sat nursing a glass of claret and reading first a book and then a newspaper. Finally the publican’s wife brought him dinner.
Sarah tried not to stare at the food, but it had been a day and a half since she had eaten anything but apples, and the brown roasted bird, the crusty bread, the soft pungent cheese, and the steaming sage dressing were impossible for her to ignore. The meal was so fragrant she could almost taste it.
And still no sign of Benji or Mr. Cheap.
The landlady brought him pudding and coffee as well, then crossed the crowded room to Sarah Ward and said, “The tap closes in an hour. You can pay for a private room, or leave. If you don’t go then, I’ll call the watch.” Then she bustled back into the kitchen.
Sarah made a quick check of the street outside. The curfew meant that law-abiding Bostonians were safely at home. With her father unwell and Mr. Cheap gone, they would be prey to the most unscrupulous element. “Ned,” she said quietly enough that her father did not hear, “stay with Father. If anything goes amiss with me, wait for Benji and Mr. Cheap to come back. Do you understand?”
Her younger brother scowled at her. “Yes. But I don’t approve.”
She took a seat well away from Ned and Abednego, and studied the room. The mechanics playing backgammon in the corner were sober New Englanders in plain-cut clothes. They were wary and suspicious, casting surreptitious looks at the table of loud army officers next to them. None of these local men were drinking enough to be a safe mark. Her skills were not of the same caliber as Mr. Cheap’s, and she knew it.
The little table of army officers was a different matter. There were four of them. They were young—“callow” was the dame school word that sprang to mind—and drinking too much for their own good. They were talking in loud, braying voices about the action at Lexington, the “despicable people” of Massachusetts, and the indecisive policies of their commanding officer, “Granny Gage.”
One of them described, in detail, how his men had come upon a farm in Menotomy. The Rebels had refused to come out. The regulars had stormed the house and put the whole place to the torch.
He spoke without regret or remorse, in the same tones with which he described the uneventful remainder of the march. Sarah could still feel, when she thought about it, the heat of the flames that had consumed her home.