“That I can do for you. So much for lessening my work, though.”
“It is important.”
“What is twenty-one? She said there would be excellent company, twenty-one.”
“Did she now?”
“Eadan,” I whispered, as we walked along, “that was a message, too.”
We stopped at a stall to look at straw baskets a woman had for sale. “Have we need of a basket, wife?” he asked me. He raised his voice. “How much is this one?”
I said, “It seems we have much to carry and I shall not know how to take it all.” I was sure by my tone that he knew I meant I could not take his subterfuge.
The woman at the stand put down her basketwork as if having customers annoyed her. She took the basket from Cullah’s hands, turned it about, and said, “Two shillings and sixpence.”
He answered, “That’s a fair price, I suppose. Have you any others at that rate?”
“Choose the one you want and I shall give you a price, sir.”
“Would you sell them all for twenty-one pounds?”
She carried on as if he had just haggled her out of the sixpence. “It’ll be three shillings, then. And that’s one got buttons on it. It’ll do nicely for your lady, there.” She smiled at me.
Buttons? What basket was made with buttons? I frowned in return and tried to force myself to retain composure if I could not smile, for here, suddenly, I knew it was some kind of code they spoke to each other.
“Three shillings, then,” Cullah replied. “That seems fair.” He reached into his pocket and put the coins in her rough hands. I cringed as his fingers touched her palm, so blackened with her work that her fingertips and chopped nails seemed to have chewed their way through filth to emerge rusty-pink from black gloves.
We walked on. “Three shillings for a two-shilling basket?” I asked. “Twenty-one pounds for the lot?”
Cullah took the basket from my hands and then said, “Hold this, dear wife,” and handed it back. Then he removed his kerchief from his neck and folded it, placing it in the basket. As he did so he leaned close to me. “The extra coin is payment for her services. The woman is a widow and sells only a few baskets a week. Eating is a good inducement to keeping loyal. Excellent company means that there will be British officers at the Reveres’ soiree. Twenty-one is the wharf where a ship laden with buttons will dock some night this week. Buttons are kegs of black powder. The basket seller will pass the word to a man in the committee named MacGregor, a Presbyterian from Enniskillen. Now you know all. Are you satisfied?” Cullah took the basket from my hands as if we had performed some ritual. “There,” he proclaimed a bit too loudly. “This will work wonderfully. Fine purchase, wife.”
Satisfied? I was struck dumb.
“Now, since we are on the subject,” he went on, his voice barely audible. “It is high time you and I had an understanding, wife. Though my pa and I came from supporting King James and the Jacobite cause, we, you and I, and our kin, are Protestants. You must know your own father was, never mind the rest back in Lincolnshire.”
“I know not what my father believed. I know not what I believe.”
“I need your promise that your belief includes something broader. In the Lexington Committee of Safety, there are Christian men, churchmen who are Romanish but hiding it, some who are Quakers and hiding it, two Lutherans, hiding also; some are, good God, Baptists, and some are drunkards. There is even one who claims himself to be a disciple of Charles Wesley, and was transported here for that. It matters not how they call upon their God. It matters that we trust each other.”
“Trust and watch,” I added.
He smiled at me but the look in his eyes was of guile, not of humor. “Do you know something I should know?”
“I know this, husband. When it was convenient, I was Catholic. You are paying that woman to keep quiet? That tells you nothing about her loyalty. Whoever comes with a larger purse will have it next. When it bought me another biscuit, I learned my Catholic prayers and said them cheerfully. If I had been held by Gypsies or Indians I would have done no less. If a child without real malice can do such a thing, a man or woman with a motive can do more.”
He squinted as if that were difficult to hear, then picked up the handles of the basket and we started down the road. He said no more. We walked slower. I began to hum to myself, the tune of “If I Wast a Blackbird.”
“Do not sing that song,” Cullah said, “unless you are in danger.”
“That is a sign, too? You men have some things to learn. The women I know have more subtle signs.”