Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone

95

Pozegnanie

SHE SAT, UNOBTRUSIVE IN the shadows. Head bent, the soft shush of her charcoal lost in the clearing of throats, the rustle of clothing. But she watched them, in ones and twos and threes, as they ducked under the open tent flap and came to the general’s side. There each man paused to look on his face, calm in the candlelight, and she caught what she could of the drifting currents that crossed their own faces: shadows of grief and sorrow, eyes sometimes dark with fear, or blank with shock and tiredness.

Often, they wept.

William and John Cinnamon flanked her, standing just behind on either side, silent and respectful. General Lincoln’s orderly had offered them stools, but they had courteously refused, and she found their buttressing presences oddly comforting.

The soldiers came by companies, the uniforms (in some cases, only militia badges) changing. John Cinnamon shifted his weight now and then, and occasionally took a deep breath or cleared his throat. William didn’t.

What was he doing? she wondered. Counting the soldiers? Assessing the condition of the American troops? They were shabby; dirty and unkempt, and in spite of their respectful demeanor, few of the companies seemed to have any notion of order.

For the first time, it occurred to her to wonder just what William’s motive in coming had been. She’d been so happy at meeting him that she’d accepted his statement that he wouldn’t let his sister go unaccompanied into a military camp at face value. Was it true, though? From the little Lord John had said, she knew that William had resigned his army commission—but that didn’t mean he’d changed sides. Or that he had no interest in the state of the American siege, or that he didn’t intend to pass on any information he gained during this visit. “I was a soldier,” he’d said. Clearly he still knew people in the British army.

The skin on her shoulders prickled at the thought, and she wanted to turn round and look up at him. A moment’s hesitation and she did just that. His face was grave, but he was looking at her.

“All right?” he asked in a whisper.

“Yes,” she said, comforted by his voice. “I just wondered whether you’d fallen asleep standing up.”

“Not yet.”

She smiled, and opened her mouth to say something, apologize for keeping him and his friend out all night. He stopped her with a small twitch of fingers.

“It’s all right,” he said softly. “You do what you came to do. We’ll stay with you and take you home in the morning. I meant it; I won’t leave you alone.”

She swallowed.

“I know you did,” she said, just as softly. “Thank you.”

There was an audible stir outside. The procession of shuffling soldiers had stopped. She sat up straight and felt the two men behind her shift. She caught a low murmur from William.

“This will be General Lincoln, I expect.”

John Cinnamon made an inquisitive huffing noise but said nothing, and an instant later the tent flap was pulled well back and a very fat, stocky man in full Continental uniform, complete with cocked hat, limped in, followed by a close-packed group of officers in a variety of uniforms. It had begun to rain, and a welcome breath of cool, damp air came in with them.

She slipped her sketches into the writing desk and took out a few fresh sheets, but didn’t return to her work right away; she didn’t want to draw attention to herself. This … this was history, right in front of her.

Her heart had been quiet through the evening, but now it sped up and began to thump heavily, in an unpleasant way that made her worry that it was about to run amok. She pressed a hand hard against the placket of her stays, and mentally uttered a fierce Stay! as though her heart were a large, unruly dog.

The general stopped short beside the body, coughed—everyone did, the smell was growing worse, despite the cool night—and slowly removed his hat. He turned to murmur something to the man at his shoulder—a Frenchman? She thought Lincoln was speaking French, though very awkwardly—and she caught another whiff of rain and night, and saw the droplets that he shook from his hat make spots in the shadowed dust.

Lincoln beckoned three of the men forward. French, said the objective watcher in the back of her mind, and her pencil made rapid strokes, rough indications of embroidery, epaulets, full-skirted blue coats, red waistcoats and breeches …

The three men—naval officers?—stepped forward, one in front, his lavishly gold-laced hat held solemnly to his bosom. She heard William make a low humming noise in his throat; was this Admiral d’Estaing himself?

She leaned forward a little, not sketching now but memorizing, storing away the play of firelight through the tent’s wall on the officer’s face, the pitter of rain on the canvas above. The admiral—if that’s who he was—was slender but round-faced, jowly, but with oddly childlike wide eyes and a plump little mouth …. He murmured a few words in formal French, then leaned forward and placed a hand on General Pulaski’s chest.