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“None of your business, sir,” William said, as courteously as possible, and gathered his reins. “Good day to you!”
The old man’s face tightened, as did his hand on the staff, and William turned sharply, lest the old bugger mean to try to strike him with it. He didn’t, but William noticed, with a small sense of shock, that two fingers of the hand that grasped the staff were missing.
He thought for a moment that the old man might mount and come after him, but when he glanced back, the man was still standing by the road, looking after him.
It made no real difference, but, moved by some obscure notion of avoiding notice, William put the bear’s claw inside his shirt, where it hung safely concealed next to his rosary.
COUNTDOWN
Fort Ticonderoga
June 18, 1777
Dear Bree and Roger,
Twenty-three days and counting. I hope we’ll be able to leave on schedule. Your cousin Ian left the fort a month ago, saying that he had a wee bit of business to take care of but would be back by the time Jamie’s militia enlistment was up. Ian himself declined to enlist, being instead a volunteer forager, so he’s not technically AWOL. Not that the fort’s commander is really in a position to do anything about deserters, save hang them if they’re silly enough to come back, and none of themdo. I’m not sure what Ian’s doing, but I have some hope that it may be good for him.Speaking of the fort’s commander, we have a new one. Great excitement! Colonel Wayne left a few weeks ago—doubtless sweating with relief as much as with the humidity—but we have come up in the world. The new commander is a major general, no less: one Arthur St. Clair, a genial and very handsome Scot, whose attractiveness is considerably enhanced by the pink sash he affects on formal occasions. (The nice thing about belonging to an ad hoc army is that one apparently gets to design one’s own uniform. None of this stuffy old British convention about regimentals.)General St. Clair comes with outriders: no fewer than three lesser generals, one of them French (your father says General Fermoy is rather fishy, militarily speaking), and about three thousand new recruits. This has substantially heartened everyone (though placing an ungodly strain on the latrine facilities. The lines are fifteen deep in the mornings at the pits, and there is a severe shortage of thunder mugs), and St. Clair made a nice speech, assuring us that the fort ca
Mama
BRIANNA HAD CLOSED the book, but her hand kept returning involuntarily to the cover, as though she wished to open it again, in case it might say something different.
“What’s twenty-three days past June eighteenth?” She should be able to reckon that—she could do things like that in her head—but nervousness had deprived her of the ability to compute.
“Thirty days hath September,” Roger chanted quickly under his breath, rolling up his eyes to the ceiling, “April, June—right, June’s got thirty days, so twelve days from the eighteenth to the thirtieth, and ten more makes it the tenth of July.”
“Oh, dear Lord.”
She’d read it three times, looking again wouldn’t make a difference; still, she opened the book once more, to the page with John Burgoyne’s portrait. A handsome man—“And doesn’t he just know it, too!” she said aloud, making Roger frown at her in consternation—as painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, he was in uniform, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, standing against a dramatic backdrop of gathering storm clouds. And there it was on the next page, plain in black and white.
On the sixth of July, General Burgoyne attacked Fort Ticonderoga with a force of some 8,000 regulars, plus several German regiments under the Baron von Riedesel, and a number of Indians.
WILLIAM FOUND General Burgoyne and his army somewhat more easily than the Hunters had discovered General Washington’s whereabouts. On the other hand, General Burgoyne was making no attempt to hide.