Oh, God. Ben . . . He’d been nursing the hope that the grave was empty.
Patting and probing, he made out the rounded shape and took a deep breath, feeling for the edge of the shroud. Had it been stitched? No, the edge was loose.
He’d thought of bringing a torch but had dismissed the idea, not wanting to risk detection. On the whole, he was glad he hadn’t. He wiped dirt from his hands onto his breeches and peeled the burlap gently back, grimacing as it stuck to the skin beneath. It came loose with a grisly, rasping sound, and he nearly dropped it and ran. But he steeled himself and touched the dead man’s face.
It wasn’t as awful as he’d thought it might be; the body seemed largely still intact. How long will a man lie i’ the earth ere he rot? What had the gravedigger said in reply—nine years? Well, then . . . He’d seen Hamlet with Ben and Adam, in London. . . .
William fought back an insane urge to laugh and felt gently over the dead features. The nose was broad and stubby, not Ben’s sharp beak—but no doubt the process of decay . . . He slid his fingers over the temple, thinking to see if a presentable lock of hair might—and stopped dead, not breathing.
The corpse was missing an ear. Bloody hell, it was missing both ears. He felt again, both sides, unable to believe it. But it was true—and the ears had been missing for some time; even with the nasty slack feel of the decaying flesh, the ridges of scar tissue were distinct. A thief.
William sat back on his heels and tilted up his head, letting out a huge breath. He felt dizzy, and the stars made little pinwheels in his vision.
“Jesus,” he breathed, flooded with relief, gratitude, and creeping horror. “Oh, Jesus, thank you! And, oh, Christ,” he added, looking down at the invisible stranger in Ben’s grave, “now what?”
A CRACKLING OF THORNS
September 18, 1778
Philadelphia
IWAS HAVING A pleasantly incoherent dream involving autumn leaves and fireflies. The fireflies were red, rather than green, and were floating down through the trees like live sparks, and where they brushed against the yellow leaves, the edges browned and curled as the leaves caught fire. Smoke curled upward through the trees, lazy against an evening sky, pungent as tobacco, and I was walking underneath, smoking a cigarette with Frank . . .
I woke muzzily, thinking how nice it was to see Frank again, followed abruptly by Dreams don’t smell, do they? along with I don’t smoke, and then—
“Jesus! We’re on fire!” I sat up, panicked and wriggling to get out of the sheets. Smoke was already thick in the loft, drifting layers above my head, and Jamie was coughing, grabbing my arm and dragging me free before I could locate all my limbs.
“Quick,” he said, hoarse as a crow. “Dinna wait to dress, come down!”
I didn’t dress, but did seize my shift and pulled it over my head as I crawled toward the edge of the loft. Jamie had the ladder over the edge as I reached it and was already started down, shouting in a loud, cracked voice.
I could hear the fire. It rattled and crackled, and the ashy smell of burning paper and the stink of singed buckram was thick in the air.
“In the shop,” I gasped, catching up with Jamie in the kitchen. “It’s in the shop. The Bibles are burning—the typefoundry . . .”
“Get the weans.” He ran across the kitchen, shirttails flying, and slammed shut the door that led into the printshop, from which smoke was fuming in clouds. I ran the other way, into the room that served Fergus and Marsali as living and sleeping quarters, with a smaller loft above, where the children and Jenny slept.
That door was shut, thank God. The smoke hadn’t yet reached them. I flung it open, shouting, “Fire! Fire! Get up, get up!” and ran for the ladder to the loft, hearing Fergus swear behind me in French and Marsali’s confused “What? WHAT?”
My hands were sweating and slipped on the smooth wooden rails of the ladder.
“Jenny! Germain!” I bellowed—or tried to. Smoke was drifting here, too, high up under the roof, and I was coughing, my eyes and nose running.
“Jo-hoan!”
There was one small bedstead, two little humps under the bedclothes. I ran to the bed, flinging back the covers. Joan and Félicité were curled together, Félicité’s nightdress rucked up to show her little bottom. I grabbed her by the shoulder, shaking her and trying to speak calmly.
“Girls, girls! You have to get up. Right now. Do you hear me, Joan? Wake up!”
Joan’s eyelids were fluttering, and she was coughing, turning her head to and fro to escape the smoke, eyes stubbornly closed. Félicité normally slept like the dead, and tonight was no exception; her head wobbled like her rag doll’s when I shook her.
“What? What is it?” Jenny was struggling out of the quilts on her pallet in the corner.
“We’re on fire!” I shouted. “Hurry—help me!”
I heard a cracking noise from the kitchen and a scream from Marsali. I didn’t know what had happened, but in desperation I grabbed Félicité bodily out of bed, still shouting at Joan to wake up, for God’s sake!
I felt the vibration of the ladder against the loft and Jamie was there, snatching Joan up out of the bed.
“The lads, where are the lads?” he asked urgently. In the frantic need to wake the girls, I’d forgotten Germain and Henri-Christian. I looked round in an urgent daze; there was a thin mattress on the floor, flattened and dented by bodies, but no sign of the boys.
“Germain! Joan! Henri-Christian!” Marsali’s face popped up over the edge of the loft, pale with fear. “Félicité!” In an instant, she was with me, taking Félicité from me. The little girl was coughing and whining, starting to cry.