The Golden Flask (42 page)

The man greeted the young lieutenant's inspection
of his tattoos and scalp lock with a prodigious and very
beery burp.

"Inside, quickly, both of you," ordered Daltoons.
"Drunken fools."

At this, van Clynne's dander stood up.

"We are neither drunk nor fools, sir," declared the
squire, who was in fact a far distance from being inebri
ated, no matter how off-key his singing had been.

"Speak for yourself," said Egans. "I am drunker than a cat in an herb garden."

And with that, he fell forward into Daltoons's arms.

"Being Dutch, I naturally assumed he could hold his beer," said van Clynne after he and the lieutenant had delivered the man to a bed upstairs. "But perhaps the
strain of the night has been too much on his humors."

"I don't know if we should trust him."

"You can trust him," said van Clynne. "And he will be a valuable agent to you. He is, after all, Dutch."

"You have admitted yourself he was raised by the
Iroquois and served the British."

"The latter was due to a profound misunderstanding,
which I have rectified," declared van Clynne. "As for
the former, the federation is a powerful one, but varied
in its nature. Many of its nations are indeed on our side. The Oneida are very much inclined toward us."

This was not so much a lie as a slight shading of the
notion of neutrality.

"We'll see what Culper has to say about it," said
Daltoons finally. "In the meantime, Jake is still miss
ing."

"Tut, tut, he will arrive as appointed," said the Dutchman, walking toward the chair where he had spent the previous night. Having done a full day of
work, he decided he would reward himself with a good
nap. "And undoubtedly he will insist on carrying on with his plan, though I have already solved the problem. Be sure to wake me on the morrow."

"Wake yourself," said Daltoons. "I have details to
see to. There are barely three hours till dawn. We will
have to kidnap Bauer ourselves if Jake does not show up. I half hope he will not come easily."

"Always with the fisticuffs," complained van Clynne,
drifting off. "You youngsters must learn the great Dutch art of finesse."

Chapter Thirty-six

Wherein, Jake and Alison reach the ferry – nearly.

F
or a man who
knew he was likely to die in twelve short hours, Jake walked toward the Brooklyn shoreline with an easy step indeed.
Granted, the knowledge
that he would rise soon after being hit by the bullet
added to his confidence, but he might nonetheless be
taken as proof of the old proverb construing peace on those who face their demise mightily. The smile on his
face was due to the thoughts of how he would fool
Bauer when he was revived; there is little so amusing as
making a complete ass of your enemy with the aid of a
child's pretend game.

"It's colder than last night," said Alison, turning around just as they reached the road that led down to the ferry. "Why are the nights so cold when the days are hot?"

"Ssshh," said Jake, whose mood suddenly turned as
heavy as the bag he was carrying. "Those are Loyalist
rangers."

"How do you know? They have no uniforms."

"It's not much of a guess. Who else would be armed
here? Pretend you are helping tie this bag."

Alison did as she was told. The road they were on
led down into the cluster of buildings near the ferry
landing, which was still a few turns away. If there were
rangers here, it was a good bet there would be many more guards at the ferry itself.

Why? Yesterday's escapees would be leaving New
York, not trying to sneak back into it. Was something
else going on, or was the patrol merely the result of an overanxious subaltern, bored with his normal assign
ment?

"We need to do a little reconnaissance," Jake told Alison as he pulled her to one side to allow a man
leading two sheep to pass by. "Do you think you could
walk around the quay?"

"If you mean spying, I have been waiting all day for
some chance at adventure."

He took hold of her arm. "This is deadly serious, Alison. They'll kill us if they find out who we are."

"I'm not a child."

The strong glance from her eyes shone with some
thing he had not detected there before, a look that did not retreat. It was more than bravery. Jake wondered
if, in changing her dress, Alison had made the transfor
mation from girl to woman.

"We will stop, as if for supper," he told her. "While I
talk up the customers in these taverns, you go down to
the ferry and assess the guard. Try to discover why
there are so many, but do not make yourself conspicu
ous."

"Do you think they are after us?"

"Probably not," said Jake. "They would have no rea
son to look here. Still, it's best not to take chances —
even if they would be looking for a young ruffian, not a
pretty young woman."

Her answer was a slight but definite blush on her cheek.

"The danger is not that they will recognize you," Jake warned, "but that they will try to take advantage
of you. Stay as far from the guards as practical; ask the
women and children what is going on."

"It's you who should be careful," said Alison.

"Well, now I know you've grown up, if you're starting to worry about me. Meet me in the Peacock there."

Jake pointed at the tavern down a small side street. "If anything happens to me — "

"I'll go straight to Lieutenant Daltoons." Jake had intended on telling her to go back to the farm, but her reply was so confident — and exactly what an agent should do, in her position — that he let it pass. "Take no more than a half hour."

"I will be back before you can sneeze," she promised.

* * *

By now, the reader must be tiring of the description of every tavern and ordinary we stop at along the way. Truly, these are all of a common class, the same as any of us meet upon our daily travels. But it can only be emphasized that each has its peculiarities. The Peacock, for example, is a most curious mix of the modern and the ancient. The floor is packed dirt; one has the impression upon entering that cows recently trod there. The front room, however, is large and mounted by a balcony dressed in polished oak. At the center of the ceiling — so far overhead it must rival several European opera houses for its height — is a grand chandelier, with glass baubles pyramiding down in a style reminiscent of the finest French palace. Yet the tables below are rough-hewn from common pine, hardly squared and as level as the average mountain path. The wicker announcing the bar is wrought from common black iron — and not wrought very well, if the truth be told. On the other hand, the keeper pours his ale in magnificently tooled pewter tankards that would divert even van Clynne in a moment of thirst.

If there was an explanation for the contrasts, Jake did not seek it. When he entered the Peacock following a fruitless tour of several smaller and plainer establishments, he asked for a beer and sifted into the small crowd milling at the end of the room, ears open. Amid the usual talk of weather and crops, there were a few comments about the removal of the main elements of the British army from Staten Island, which these firm
Tories interpreted as a positive development: the damn
rebels were finally going to get theirs.

"There still seem many troops around these parts,"
Jake suggested to his neighbors as he sipped at his ale.
"It looks like a half-hearted offensive, if you ask me."

"Half-arsed, you mean," said the man next to him,
whose belly pushed the buttons of his brown waistcoat
nearly perpendicular. "Howe is as competent a general
as I am a farmer."

"You're a better blacksmith than he is, too," laughed a neighbor. "Though not by much."

"I heard there was a prison break in New York, and
they've doubled the guard," suggested Jake.

The others scoffed.

"They're always looking for someone," said a cus
tomer.

"They are trying to organize the Loyalist militia, so
the civilian authorities look for a pretext to panic," explained the blacksmith. He had a ruddy face and short, naturally curled hair; there was ever so slight a hint of Sweden in his voice, as if he had come over as a child.
"A man enters looking to settle a debt, and the guard is doubled and the shutters thrown. Haven't you enlisted?"

This was apparently meant as a joke, for the others all laughed.

"What do you do, stranger?" another man asked Jake. "You are not from here, I warrant."

"I have lately located to New York from above," said
Jake, supplying a common story. "I am an apothecary
by trade, and have been on Long Island to seek herbs."

"Manhattan weeds are not good enough for you?"
asked a thin man clad entirely in white. This initiated a round of jokes about druggists' poor cures, all of which
Jake had heard many times before. There was the cold cure that grew hair on a hen's chin; the bear who died
with a toothache that reappeared in a patient. He
laughed along and contributed his own story of a medi
cine intended for gout that transferred the stiffness to another member.

The sum of all this mirth was that Jake was stood to another beer by the company as being a good sort. Neither the beer nor the conversation brought anything tangible relating to the guards and the patrols, and Jake soon made his way to a table to await Alison.

The girl conducted her investigation with the aplomb of a seasoned veteran. Walking toward the ferry, she fell in with a group of women who were seeing a minister off after his visit to their homes. The women did not think the size of the guard unusual, and Alison soon drifted toward a young farm boy who was seeing after some pigs.

"Hello, sir, are you selling these animals?"

"Are you buying?" he answered, turning to see who had hailed him. When he caught sight of her, his wits seemed to flee. "I, a, excuse me, miss."

"No, I am not buying anything," Alison sensed her advantage and pressed it. "I am meeting a friend nearby, but I am wondering — are the soldiers out for any particular reason, or are they just bullying people?"

"Neither, I would imagine, or both," said the lad. "That is the prettiest dress I have ever seen. As is your kerchief."

She smiled and swept away. A few other encounters failed to yield any useful information, and Alison soon found herself passing directly before the guards at the ferry house. There were a few low suggestions. These were true redcoats, and as rude as any on the continent.