OF CABBAGES AND KINGS
HE WALKED TO THE road just before dawn, declining help from Prudence and Patience, though they insisted upon coming with him, in case he should fall flat on his face, be stricken with sudden paralysis, or step into a gopher’s hole and twist an ankle. They had no great opinion of his powers but were well mannered enough to keep a distance of a foot or so on either side, their hands hovering like small white butterflies near his elbows, pale in the half dark.
“There’s not so many wagons coming in, these last few days,” Patience observed, in a tone somewhere between anxiety and hope. “Thee may not find a suitable conveyance.”
“I should be satisfied wi’ a dung cart or a wagon filled with cabbages,” he assured her, already glancing down the road. “My business is somewhat urgent.”
“We know,” Prudence reminded him. “We were under the bed when Washington appointed you.” She spoke with a certain reserve, as a Quaker opposed to the practice of war, and he smiled at her small, serious face, long-lipped and kind-eyed like her mother’s.
“Washington is nay my greatest concern,” he said. “I must see my wife, before . . . before anything else.”
“Thee has not seen her in some time?” Prudence asked, surprised. “Why?”
“I was detained upon business in Scotland,” he said, deciding not to observe that he’d seen her but two days ago. “Is that a wagon coming, d’ye think?”
It was a drover with a herd of swine, in fact, and they were obliged to scuttle back from the roadside with some haste, in order to avoid being either bitten or trampled. By the time the sun was fully up, though, regular traffic had begun to flow along the road.
Most of this was coming from Philadelphia, as the girls had told him: Loyalist families who could not afford to leave by ship, fleeing the city with what they could carry, some with wagons or handcarts, many with no more than what they could convey on their backs or in their arms. There were also British soldiers in groups and columns, presumably assisting the exodus and protecting the Loyalists from being attacked or looted, should Rebel militia suddenly come out of the wood.
That thought reminded him of John Grey—who had been mercifully absent from his mind for several hours. Jamie ruthlessly pushed him out again, muttering, “Aye, stay gone,” under his breath. But a reluctant second thought occurred to him—what if Grey had been released by the militia at once and had already made his way back to Philadelphia? On the one hand, he would see to Claire’s safety; he could trust the man for that. But on the other . . .
Aye, well. If he walked into the house and found Grey there with her, he’d just take her away with him and say nothing. Unless . . .
“Does thee still suffer from the horseradish, Friend Jamie?” Patience asked politely. “Thee snorts quite fearful. Perhaps thee had best take my hankie.”
In the woods outside Philadelphia
GREY WOKE ABRUPTLY to full daylight and a musket barrel jabbed into his belly.
“Come out of there with your hands up,” said a cold voice. He got his good eye sufficiently open as to see that his interlocutor wore a tattered Continental officer’s coat over homespun breeches and an open-collared shirt, topped by a slouch hat turned up with a turkey feather through the brim. Rebel militia. Heart in his throat, he crawled stiffly out of his refuge and rose, hands in the air.
His captor blinked at Grey’s battered face, then at the fetters, strips of muslin bandage hanging from the rusted links. He withdrew the musket slightly but didn’t lower it. Now that Grey was on his feet, he could see several other men, as well, all peering at him with extreme interest.
“Ah . . . where did you escape from?” the officer with the musket asked carefully.
There were two possible answers, and he chose the riskier option. Saying “gaol” would have likely led to them leaving him alone or, at worst, taking him with them but leaving him in irons; either way, he’d still be wearing fetters.
“I was put in irons by a British officer who took me up as a spy,” he said boldly. Entirely true, he reflected, so far as it goes.
A deep hum of interest ran among the men, who pressed closer to look at him, and the prodding musket barrel was withdrawn altogether.
“Indeed,” said his captor, who had an educated English voice, with a slight Dorset accent. “And what might be your name, sir?”
“Bertram Armstrong,” he replied promptly, using two of his middle names. “And may I have the pleasure of knowing your own name, sir?”
The man pursed his lips a little but answered readily enough.
“I am the Reverend Peleg Woodsworth, Captain of the Sixteenth Pennsylvania, sir. And your company?” Grey saw Woodsworth’s eyes flick toward his liberty cap with its bold motto.
“I haven’t yet joined a company, sir,” he said, softening his own accent just a little. “I was on my way to do so, in fact, when I ran afoul of a British patrol and shortly thereafter found myself in the straits you see.” He raised his wrists a little, clanking. The hum of interest came again, this time with a distinct note of approval.
“Well, then,” Woodsworth said, and lifted his musket to his shoulder. “Come along with us, Mr. Armstrong, and I think we might be able to relieve your straits.”