CHAPTER 8.
“Can we make our excuses early, Favian? I have someone I’d like to meet at another place.”
“We’ll see how it goes, Will.” The President’s mansion, a very large Georgian country house, was well alight, and echoed to the sound of music. Favian wondered if anyone present knew that the “Staten Island Reel” that was pouring out the windows was originally a song of American pirates, who, like Captain Kidd, had used Staten Island as a hideout one hundred and fifty years before.
Burrows, still in semirespectable civilian dress, carried a bundle on his saddle; this he gave to the servants at the door, along with his hat and cloak. Favian handed over his cloak and cocked hat, then walked with Burrows into Madison’s presence.
The ceremonial East Room was decorated with the flags of the British captures that had flown over the Navy Ball a few days before. Most of the Cabinet were absent, but the secretaries of war and state were present, as well as the European consuls and a representative selection of both houses of Congress. A reception line had begun to form in front of Mr. and Mrs. Madison, and Favian and Burrows joined it. Any citizen could shake hands with his President. The line was delayed while a Philadelphia merchant subjected Madison to a graceless and seemingly endless peroration about some new kind of bomb-carrying balloon, meant to break the British blockade, which he proposed to inflict upon the military at only a modest profit to himself, the machine’s inventor. Madison, dressed in a battered black coat, withstood the narrative with far more grace than Favian expected, referred the merchant to Dr. Eustis, the Secretary of War, and pointedly turned to shake the hand of the next man in line, leaving the inventor with no option but to touch the hand of the incomparable Dolley— dressed in a yellow satin gown with a pink cloak and, again, the white-plumed turban— and then withdraw, seeking Eustis among the revelers.
Madison remembered Favian and congratulated him on his promotion. “Thank you, sir,” Favian said. “Allow me to present Lieutenant William Burrows, who has been made lieutenant commandant of the brig Enterprise.”
“Mr. Burrows, it is always a pleasure to meet one of the brave men fighting to drive British tyranny from the seas.”
“I hope I shall do the appointment honor, Mr. President,” Burrows mumbled, his gaze directed toward the vicinity of the President’s shoes.
“Captain Stewart is here tonight, gentlemen,” Madison said. “His Constellation is almost ready for sea.”
“A lucky ship, with a good captain,” Favian said. “I trust the British will soon have cause to regret Captain Stewart’s abilities.”
Madison agreed and turned to the next man in line. Favian stepped on to the smiling Dolley.
“I regret I have nothing more to lay at your feet, madam,” he said, “but my loyalty to the nation.”
Dolley Madison beamed at this declaration, which Favian had invented that afternoon and had been saving for the right moment.
“Congratulations on your appointment, Master Commandant,” she smiled. “I hope I shall have the opportunity to decorate myself again with the symbols of your victories.”
“I pray I may have that honor. British ensigns complement your coloring so well.” Dolley Madison beamed again. Favian turned to Burrows. “May I introduce Lieutenant Commandant Burrows, just appointed to the Enterprise.”
“It is a pleasure, Mr. Burrows.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Burrows looked completely miserable. Favian, recalling that Burrows might suddenly break into another strange fit of laughter, took his friend in tow and, strewing compliments, left the presidential circle. “Can we leave now?” Burrows asked.
“No, not at all. There is work to be done here.”
“Favian, how can you do it?” demanded Burrows. “All those flowery phrases! I can’t talk to these people at all. Never learned the language.”
“Then it’s high time you did. We can help the Navy at this party. The Secretary of the Treasury is not present, and we must find as many people of influence as we can and convert them to the Navy’s cause while Gallatin is away.” Albert Gallatin, the brilliant Swiss-born treasury secretary, was a vigorous opponent of the Navy, and had worked under Adams to prevent the Navy from being built at all, and under Jefferson and Madison to keep it weak and in harbor.
“I don’t think I would be any help to the Navy’s cause in my present state,” Burrows said. “That champagne had me dancing all afternoon, but now I feel flat as a summer flounder. Perhaps I should fortify myself with a glass of punch. Complimenting the President’s lady like that! You’d think you’d been to school at Versailles!”
“It requires but wit, education, and manners,” Favian said. “If you are deficient in these categories, simply hang at my elbow, nod when I speak, and look agreeable.”
They made their way to the punch bowl, where they met Thomas Tingey and his fiancée, and were soon joined by Charles Stewart.
“I’ve been informed of your new commands,” Tingey said, smiling proudly. “It was I who suggested rerigging Experiment and Enterprise as brigs. Mr. Hamilton took my suggestions to heart, and I think you’ll find them an improvement. No booms getting in the way of the guns, and you’ll be able to back and fill to keep station. They’ve been given eighteen-pound carronades as well. You’ll find them able to capture any enemy of their class.”
“Indeed, sir,” Favian said neutrally. “I hope I shall be able to enjoy the benefit of your innovations.” He had caught Burrows’s grimace: Tingey had taken two of the fastest cruisers on the seven seas and rerigged them with an unsuitable sail plan, overgunned them with heavy weaponry, and made them sitting ducks for any smart-sailing frigate, sloop of war, or sail of the line to come along and blow them out of the water. If he was captured, Favian would know whom to blame.
“I propose a boarding party, gentlemen,” Favian said. “We may take Congress by storm while Gallatin’s away, and spend some of his precious money for him.”
“A splendid idea, Markham,” Stewart said. “But you and I are strangers to this city— I suspect Captain Tingey will have to give us the benefit of his experience, yes?”
Tingey was happy to oblige. For the next few hours Tingey wandered through the room with his fellow officers, performing introductions, acquainting them with the powerful and influential. Most of the men Favian spoke to were surprisingly open to the ideas presented by the naval advocates— surprising, because these men had in large part been responsible for the shortsighted, incompetent naval policy of the last twelve years. Perhaps the Army’s appalling defeats, and the Navy’s successes, had caused them to reconsider their ideas.
Somewhere in the course of the busy evening Favian lost track of Burrows. Favian had been introduced by Tingey to a gaunt, somewhat wild-eyed legislator from South Carolina named John Calhoun, of whom Favian had never heard, but who, Tingey assured him, was a leading war hawk and a close comrade of the speaker, Henry Clay, who had led the fight to declare the war in the first place. Having been assured that the bill authorizing the four new ships of the line and the six new frigates would assuredly pass, Favian urged upon Calhoun the need for smaller cruisers, sloops of twenty guns or so which could stay at sea for months, raiding enemy commerce, and yet be ready to defeat enemy ships of the same class.
“I think you will find my views in agreement with those of a countryman of yours, one Lieutenant Burrows,” Favian said, and turned to discover Burrows had left his station at Favian’s elbow and was standing among a group of men and ladies near the punch bowl. “I’ll introduce you, sir, if you’ll step this way,” Favian said, and escorted Calhoun toward the busy bowl of punch.
A roar of laughter came from the group around Burrows. Favian was surprised to hear Burrows’s droll voice coming from the midst of the laughter. “ ‘Mr. Burrows,’ Captain McNeil says, ‘I shall thank ye to keep yer fingers out of the rations we give to the rats!’” Another burst of hilarity came from Burrows’s audience.
“Mr. Calhoun, may I present Lieutenant Commandant Burrows, of the—” Favian began,
“Oh, hi, J.C.,” Burrows said laconically. “I heard you finally married Floride.”
“Last year,” said Calhoun.
“Congratulations, I suppose,” Burrows said. “Though I hesitate to be commend marrying men, lest it encourage the regrettable diminution of my bachelor friends.”
“You should not despair,” Calhoun said. “Marriages are made to create little bachelors— and little spinsters, as well.”
“We were speaking,” Favian said, trying to turn the subject back to naval expansion, “of the need for a new building program.”
“Oh, aye,” Burrows said. “More small ships, like the Wasp and the Hornet. And fewer captains like Daniel McNeil.” This last sent the crowd roaring again. Favian realized with horror that Burrows had been entertaining his audience with stories of the Navy’s most appalling captain, hardly the sort of tales suitable to set official Washington on a shipbuilding spree.
“Master Commandant Markham here can tell you more McNeil stories,” Burrows said. “His first voyage to the Mediterranean was on McNeil’s Boston. Never sailed within a hundred leagues of Tripoli, isn’t that right?”
“He’s out of the service now, of course,” Favian said.
“I’ve told these ladies and gentlemen about McNeil’s stranding his lieutenants in France, and kidnapping French officers to take their places,” Burrows said.
“I think the story’s exaggerated.”
“Pish! You were there, you’ve told me about it often enough.” He turned to his audience. “McNeil afterwards said that his officers’ dinner-table conversation was dull, and he thought the conversation of Frenchmen might be an improvement. When his three lieutenants were ashore in Toulon, McNeil weighed anchor and sailed out of port, taking French officers by force as he left, so that he could have a good chat. They didn’t serve either, because he stranded them in Africa. He never communicated with Commodore Morris, rarely wrote to the Navy Department, and sailed about the Mediterranean at will.”
“We did capture four grain barges heading for Tripoli,” Favian added.
“But it was by accident. You never went to Tripoli, so you never could have been looking for them. Eventually the department orders caught up with him and brought him home, and he was eased out of the service.” Burrows gave a laugh. “Favian and I were both singularly unlucky in having McNeil as our captain during our first voyages as midshipmen, I was with him in his old command, the Portsmouth corvette, and had to endure his company only to Guiana and back, but poor Captain Markham had the pleasure of his acquaintance all the way to the Mediterranean.”
“Is this McNeil a typical product of the Navy?” asked John Calhoun, a question Favian had been dreading.
“Indifferently so,” Burrows said with a shrug. “The sea breeds eccentricity. The loneliness of command, I sup—”
“There is no such man in the service now, Mr. Burrows,” Favian said quickly.
“No, the Army’s got most of the madmen now, I think,” Burrows said. “But let me tell you fine people about Captain Dacres’s hat. He was the British captain of the Guerrière— a talented captain, as those men go, young for the command of a thirty-eight— and before the war he met Captain Hull of the Constitution. He and Hull got to arguing the merits of their frigates, and each bet the other his hat on the results of a contest between the two. ’Twas a joke at the time, but when Old Ironsides beat the Guerrière, and Dacres came aboard to give Hull his sword in defeat, Hull refused the sword, but he said, ‘I’ll trouble you, Captain Dacres, for that hat!’”
Burrows’s audience, which had enlarged somewhat, burst into laughter. Burrows waited for an opening, then deftly continued. “Captain Hull must have been a sight. He’s a portly fellow, y’know, and when he gave the order to fire they say he split his breeches clean up the backside!”
Favian watched in surprise as Burrows’s audience dissolved into laughter and well-bred titters. It seemed as if Burrows had overcome his shyness in remarkably quick time, and also that his approach was perhaps more suitable to a New Year’s celebration than Favian’s higher-pitched appeals had been. Favian had been attempting to justify an increase in the Navy in terms of British prizes taken. Burrows, with a few drawling anecdotes, had somehow succeeded in making the Navy popular. Most of the administration and Congress were intelligent men, but they had no direct knowledge of the sea; the Navy had been an abstract to them, and, like all unknowns, somehow threatening— they had seen the Navy budget increasing for a number of years, and saw nothing concrete to show for it, not realizing that the Navy’s primary function was to prevent unpleasant occurrences. Once they’d reduced the Navy budget, unpleasantness had begun to occur in plenty, which seemed to justify their original distrust of the service. These men had to know the service better to know that it was not full of imperialist adventurers eager to engage the United States in wars with every power in Europe; to know that it contained dozens of competent, tested officers, veterans of Preble’s attacks on Tripoli or Truxtun’s battles in the West Indies, who were eager to take command of whatever ships these congressmen voted them, and were both capable and prepared to win victories.
Favian listened as Burrows spun a few more anecdotes; then Burrows excused himself for a chat with his acquaintance Calhoun, and Favian found himself inheriting his friend’s audience. He told them some Stephen Decatur stories, then began lamenting the Navy’s lack of cruisers, illustrating his point with anecdotes of his father and uncles during the Revolution, and of naval exploits during the wars with France and Tripoli.
“But why cannot privateers perform the tasks of these sloops of war?” asked a rotund congressman.
“Sir, privateers function well as commerce raiders,” Favian answered, his professional reflexes working automatically to create the illusion that his mind was dwelling entirely on the subject and that the congressman was an object of utter fascination. “But they cannot be expected to successfully engage enemy cruisers or convoy escorts, or provide prompt transportation for dispatches abroad or to our allies. They cannot deliver ambassadors to their destinations, or provide security for our merchant convoys. These tasks only a Navy ship can perform. Also, Navy ships can make extended voyages— into the Indian Ocean, or the Pacific, say— where there are no friendly ports, and where they could raid successfully for months at a time. Such a distance from home they’d have to destroy their prizes rather than bring them back over such a space of ocean. Privateers cannot be expected to destroy their prizes; prize money provides a privateer’s livelihood. Privateers cannot sail very far from a friendly base, but Navy ships can. If we have enough sloops of war to spare, we can raid the East Indies and destroy the East India fleets. That will bring pressure on the British government to bring the war to a conclusion favorable to the United States.”
The congressman nodded. “You sound as if you do not expect the British to give us a favorable peace otherwise. Don’t you think we’ll have Canada in a year’s time?”
“I am not an Army man, sir,” Favian said carefully. “Canada is not my department. I know only what the Navy can do if we are given the right ships.”
There were a few more questions, and then Favian found himself talked out. He excused himself and poured himself a substantial cup of punch.
“Burrows seems to have made himself a success,” said a voice. It was redhaired Charles Stewart, nodding toward Burrows, who was surrounded by another roaring crowd.
“Aye. Becoming a commander seems to have done him good.”
“And the Navy, I’ll warrant.”
Favian nodded. “Tingey was boasting earlier about the changes he’d wrought in our little boats,” he said. “I’d rather have the schooner rig hack again, whether we can back and fill or not.”
Stewart agreed. “The Experiment is my old boat, you know,” he said. “I knew how well she could handle. The brig rig will ruin her, I’m sure.” He shook his head sadly. “You may be putting your head into the lion’s mouth, my lad.”
Favian felt a touch on his arm; it was Archibald Hamilton. “Pardon me for intruding, gentlemen,” he said. “I wonder if I may speak to Captain Markham privately.”
“With your permission, Charles?”
“Of course.”
Hamilton drew Favian away from the others and spoke in a low voice. “I was wondering if you could help me get my father away,” he said. “He’s taken a drop too much. I’ve had the carriage brought around, and my mother’s waiting, but he won’t leave.”
Favian turned and saw Secretary Hamilton, ruddy faced, in a circle of legislators; a glass was in his hand, and one arm was thrown around the shoulders of a sour-looking William Burrows. It looked as if the arm had been thrown around Burrows less in comradeship than for support.
“I’ll do my best,” Favian said. “Get his hat and coat.”
He made his way to the secretary, hearing him declaim, in a loud voice, “That’s right, Burrows! Give us the ships we’ll be needing, and we’ll finish the war without the blasted Army, and without the blasted interference of Doctor blasted Eustis!” The laughter that followed this denunciation of the secretary of war was decidedly strained, but Hamilton chose to continue. “I’ve always said,” he declared, “that one American sailor can whip five— no, ten— Englishmen, and at least a hundred Mahometan Turks!”
“Pardon me, sir,” Favian said, wondering if the secretary was going to obliterate, by a few minutes’ impolitic inebriation, all that he, Burrows, and Stewart had achieved in the course of a night’s earnest legislative influencing.
“I was wondering, sir, if Lieutenant Burrows and I might speak with you privately,” Favian said. Burrows glared at Favian with resentment at being thus press-ganged.
“Of course, m’boys,” Hamilton said jovially. “Always ready to talk to the brave men who serve, who serve—” The Secretary, in the act of making an expansive gesture with one arm, had swung himself off-balance; Favian intervened to prevent Hamilton from toppling over.
“That’s all right. Lean on me, sir. Shall we get some air, sir? I think it will do me good.” With Favian on one arm and Burrows on the other, and without waiting for Hamilton’s assent, the Secretary was propelled out of the East Room at a rapid pace.
“Air, d’you say?” Hamilton drawled. “Just what we need. You’ve been doing good work tonight, gentlemen. Let me just refill my glass...”
“I was wondering, sir, if it might be possible to get my orders early on the second of January, sir, so that I could set out on the stage to Baltimore and thence to Portsmouth as soon as possible. It will take me at least a month to travel overland, and then of course I’ve got to have traveling expenses. I’m not sure the money advanced me by Commodore Decatur’s agents will stand me the journey.” Favian felt the words tumbling out as he ran his sentences together so that Hamilton wouldn’t have an opening to speak; he sped the Secretary through the lobby and out onto the porch, Archibald Hamilton stood by the door of the coach. Still spilling words, his own incoherence increasing, Favian and Burrows propelled the Secretary, as politely as they could, into his carriage. Archibald Hamilton swiftly leaped inside, shutting the door.
“If you would take care of that, sir, we’d be greatly obliged,” Favian finished, seeing his breath frost in front of his face.
“My hat and coat,” said the secretary, completely befuddled.
“Sorry you’re leaving so soon. I think we’ve done well by the Navy tonight. Young Mr. Hamilton has your coat. Thank you, sir, for all you’ve done.” Archibald Hamilton called out to the coachman, and the carriage swayed off through the muddy ruts as words continued to spill from Favian like water from a chain pump.
“Can we leave now?” Burrows asked, as the carriage slipped down the muddy drive.
“Before the New Year? I thought you were finding your feet quite well.”
“It was easy enough, once I discovered I didn’t need your gift of courtly speech. I’m disappointed in our political superiors— I truly am. They’re as interested as any shellback in service gossip. Let’s step inside and get our cloaks. It’s cold.”
“I think we should say our farewells to Stewart and Tingey.”
“Just so we don’t have to shake hands with the President again. Don’t know why we had to do it in the first place.”
They walked into the East Room just as a cheer went up: Anno Domini 1813 had arrived. It proved impossible to leave just yet, for President Madison led a toast, hoping the New Year would prove a happy and triumphant one for the republic, and that her armed forces would triumph over tyranny. This sentiment was publicly appreciated by the French consul, who proclaimed another toast to the glory of the Emperor Napoleon, who at last report had captured Moscow, and would soon (doubtless) triumph over the Tsar and his treacherous anglophile advisors, uniting the Continent once more against perfidious Albion. Democratic-Republicans drank heartily to the toast; most Federalists scowled and looked down into their drinks— to them he was “Bonaparte the usurper,” not “the Emperor Napoleon.”
Congressman Calhoun toasted, in advance, the certain capture of Canada in the coming year; Captain Tingey led a toast to the Navy; Dr. Eustis led one to the Army. Charles Stewart drank to Isaac Hull, and Favian, who knew a cue when he heard one, led another to Decatur. Burrows stumbled through a salute to David Porter, who had captured the Alert. Hopeful toasts were drunk to a few of the Army’s generals, those who had distinguished themselves by somewhat less disgraceful conduct than the majority. But by that time most of the crowd had ceased to pay attention; so Mrs. Madison interrupted the chorus of toasts to announce the first song of the New Year: “Hail, Columbia.” At this point Favian relented to the insistent tugging of Burrows on his sleeve and, after collecting cloaks, hats, swords, and Burrows’s bundle, followed his friend from the President’s House.
“This way,” Burrows said, after they had called for their horses. He was leading Favian in the direction of the Navy Yard. “There is someone I would like you to meet.”
“Who is this august personage, Mr. Burrows?”
“A most distinguished member of the college of musicians, Mr. Markham. So distinguished, in fact, that we shall have to disguise ourselves as members of his guild, utilizing the bundle which I have thought to bring with us.”
“My God! What’s that smell?” Favian groped for his handkerchief, held it to his nose.
“The slave market,” Burrows said. “Within spitting distance of the President’s mansion. A national disgrace.”
“Don’t they bathe them, for God’s sake?”
“Slaves are bathed and oiled on the day they’re sold. Until then it’s a waste of water.” Burrows looked resentfully at the cold silhouette of the warehouse where the slaves awaited purchase by their new masters. “How many of our fathers, d’you think, expected slavery to flourish in the national capital of a free country, a quarter of a century after the Constitution was ratified?” Burrows asked.
“I shouldn’t think the New England men did,” Favian said. “You’re from South Carolina; you should know the southern men better than I.”
“It’s an embarrassment, being from a slave state,” Burrows said. “The institution should have died out by now, but as long as there’s a frontier we’ll be needing slave labor to clear it. Easier than soiling white men’s hands.”
“For the last four years it’s been illegal to import slaves. Surely that will slow down the traffic.”
“It might,” Burrows said. “But it also makes the slaves already here more valuable. It’s going to take a larger investment to buy slaves now, and the planters will be unwilling to forego such an investment once it’s been made. The only thing that’s slowed the growth of slavery has been that it was so easy to go bankrupt— after making such a huge capital investment just in labor, a few bad harvests could wipe a planter out. But now they have a new type of cotton called Mexican upland — resistant to the rot that wipes out cotton crops. Mexican upland and the cotton gin are beginning to make slavery pay.
“Mark my words,” Burrows said, “Cotton will be the main cash crop in the South in another generation. Perhaps our great-grandchildren will see the end of slavery— we never shall.”
“That’s pessimistic, Will.”
“I know South Carolina too well, Favian.”
They had passed the slave market. Favian returned his handkerchief to his sleeve. Perhaps Burrows was right. The founders of the American republic had looked upon slavery with an attitude similar to that of Burrows: It was an embarrassment, but still a reality that had to be dealt with. The Constitution provided that the importing of slaves would cease twenty years following ratification; after importing ceased, it was assumed slavery could be gradually extinguished. It was believed that slaves would be needed to open up the wilderness, after which the need for their labor would be over. But the Louisiana Purchase had opened up enormous tracts of land, much of it suitable for slave-run plantations; and now, if slavery was beginning to pay, the institution might well last longer than the American founders had ever intended.
“That Calhoun you met tonight— he’ll be part of the problem,” Burrows continued gloomily. “John Calhoun came from upcountry, where there aren’t many slaves— or many rich men, for that matter. But now he’s married into the tidewater, and soon he’ll be their voice, a slave owner himself. I’ve seen it happen to others; it’ll be sad to see it happen to J.C. A man with his gifts could make slavery seem almost respectable.”
“I’m surprised. Will, to hear you speak against your state’s institutions.”
“I’m a republican, Favian,” Burrows said shortly. “Not a Democratic-Republican, but a republican with a small r. There are many of us left in the South; Calhoun was one, and may be still. But we’re diminishing. It goes against my grain to see men abused under an institution like slavery. I’ve seen the slave markets in Tunis, where it’s Americans and Christians they’re selling. I don’t see the difference. If we allow black slavery here, we can’t very well object to it in Tunis or Tripoli just because the slaves are white... Here’s the place. Down this alley.”
In an alley the horses were left munching into their feed bags, while Favian was persuaded to doff his coat, cocked hat, neckcloth, and cravat. The boots would have to stay. He exchanged his uniform for a plain cloth cap, ragged jacket, and scratchy wool scarf. Favian’s uniform, along with his sword, was rolled in Burrows’s bundle, along with Burrows’s round hat and swallow-tailed coat. Favian tried to remember a quotation about Haroun al-Rashid, the caliph who legendarily used to amuse himself by dressing up as a commoner and wandering about Baghdad; but the cold night and the hearty series of toasts drunk earlier had driven the verses from his mind, and he was perfectly happy, after the transformation was complete, to follow Burrows into a nearby tavern.
It was called The King’s Head, the signpost outside showing a gruesome but still recognizable George III hanging from a noose. Inside the tavern it was dark, lit only by a roaring fire in the hearth and a few old battle lanterns, probably acquired from some Revolutionary privateer. Favian cracked his head against a low beam seconds after he entered. Seeing stars and feeling his throat on the verge of clamping shut against a pall of tobacco smoke as thick as gunsmoke on United States gun deck, Favian was led to a back table by Burrows. He sat on a rough bench.
Burrows produced a hand-carved pipe and some coarse tobacco from a pocket, filled the pipe and lit it, adding volumes to the cloud of tobacco already shrouding the room. A frowsy woman in a dirty apron brought beer without being asked, and left without waiting to be paid. Favian, recovering his vision slowly, glanced about him.
The inhabitants were obviously in the final stages of a New Year’s debauch. A gang of inebriated shellbacks was playing at dice in a corner; others reclined with girls on their laps; still others were comparing tattoos and swapping yarns over mugs of beer or ram.
“There’s the man I wanted you to meet,” Burrows whispered, directing Favian’s attention toward a man moving slowly through the throng, in the direction of the dazzling fireplace. He looked forty, though if he were a seaman he could be younger, since the life tended to cut up a man’s looks. He wore a leather cap, his light-colored hair in an old-fashioned queue, and carried a fiddle. He stepped up to the fire, set the fiddle in rest below his chin, and tuned briefly. A drunken growl of approval, and some applause, came from the crowd.
Favian sipped his beer. Burrows put his feet up on the table. The fiddler plucked the strings experimentally, then set to work. Favian recognized the opening bars of “Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine.” It did not take much longer to realize that the playing was brilliant.
It seemed to be a Bonaparte medley, perhaps in honor of the United States’s co-belligerent— maybe the fiddler was a Republican. “Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine” was followed in swift succession by “Bonaparte’s Advance,” “Bonaparte’s Retreat,” and “Madam Bonaparte.” The tunes began to interweave with one another; it seemed on occasion that the fiddler was playing at least two separate tunes at once.
Most of the room was on its feet, mad with hornpipes and reels, the tavern shaking as the feet stamped in rhythm, punctuated by occasional crashes as one of the more comatose members of the crew plunged earthward, falling among the benches and tables like a Homeric warrior in his ringing bronze armor. Favian saw Burrows leap up and join the dancing throng, heard his high-pitched yells echoing weirdly from the beams, a strange mingling of Indian war cries and fox hunter’s yipping. One of the women dropped breathlessly from the dance and came staggering toward Favian’s table.
“Buy me a cup of the bob smith, Jack?”
Oh, Christ, Favian thought, knowing this was not going to lead in any constructive direction. He nodded; the woman gave a signal across the room to one of the tavern workers and dropped herself on the bench next to Favian. She was a heavy, shapeless woman, wearing a heavy apron over a sack of a dress. A number of her teeth seemed to be missing. “My name’s Dulcey. Just been paid off, Jack?”
Favian shook his head. “Signing aboard the Constellation,” he said. The waitress brought two cups of whiskey and this time waited to be paid. Dulcey observed Favian’s purse with interest.
“That’s a nice purse, Jack. I like them cuffs, too. You’ve got a fine linen shirt, eh?” Her hand slipped easily onto Favian’s thigh. He sipped his beer, hoping somehow to conceal from Dulcey the fact that her caresses were producing the opposite of arousal. Inspiration struck.
“My wife sews small,” he said. “She made the shirt.”
“It’s a shirt for a gentleman. Where’s your wife, then?”
“Alexandria. She’s a housemaid.” That was just across the Potomac; he hoped Dulcey would realize he had not come to the tavern in search of carnal pleasures. At least it made her hesitate long enough for rescue to come. The medley of reels had ended, replaced by a lament Favian recognized as “The Hills Are Quite Silent,” a song about a young man abducted by a press-gang on his wedding night and forced to serve in the Royal Navy. Except for a few dancers with female partners, against whom they leaned more for support than out of ardor, the dance floor cleared swiftly, and Burrows returned to land with a delighted exclamation into Dulcey’s lap.
“Willy, m’dear!” Dulcey shouted, her face split in a gap-toothed grin. “You haven’t found a berth yet? Your friend’s goin’ aboard Constellation.”
“Th’ Navy, that’s the best berth next to a privateer,” Burrows nodded, his arm going around Dulcey’s shoulders. “Give me m’beer; I’m dry as a beached cuttlefish.”
Favian passed him the mug, and Burrows drank. “Puritan Willy, if it’s a privateer you want, you should go to Baltimore,” Dulcey offered. “Cap’n Pasteur is shippin’ men aboard Snap Dragon. Some o’ the lads left last week, hopin’ to find berths aboard her.”
“She’ll have her complement by now,” Burrows said. “But I think I’ll make m’way to Baltimore and see if I can find another.”
“What’s yer name, Jack?” Dulcey said, turning to Favian. “Are you as puritan as your friend?”
“My name’s Favian.”
“It isn’t! What kind o’ name is that?”
“Latin. It means ‘man of understanding.’”
“It don’t! D’you know the Latin, then?”
“Nay, o’ course not,” Burrows interrupted. “That’s what the sky pilot on th’ Constitution toid him.”
Favian, who was about to quote Horace, decided to keep his mouth shut. Seamen who quoted the classics might be more than a bit suspicious. He had not come prepared with explanations.
The fiddler concluded his lament, and with his fiddle still tucked under his chin he doffed his cap and made the rounds of the tables, the applauding sailors throwing silver. Burrows dipped into his pocket for a contribution.
“Lazarus!” he called as the hat passed. “Join us for a cup of bob smith.”
“Aye, gladly,” the fiddler said in a croaking voice. “Good to see thee again, Willy.”
The fiddler made his rounds of the tables, then settled onto a stool across the table from Burrows. Favian pushed his whiskey to the man, who drank.
“You play a brave fiddle, Lazarus,” Burrows said. “Your lament brought tears to many an eye.”
“And so it should,” Lazarus said. His keen blue eyes flickered over the crowd. “There are many here who have felt the hands of the press on their shoulders. Who is thy friend?”
“Favian, a Navy man.”
“Those are dainty cuffs sticking from that old jacket,” Lazarus said, his blue eyes flicking from Favian’s wrists to his face. “Methinks thy jacket does not suit thy long limbs, Navy man.”
“It keeps away the cold,” Favian said, shrugging.
“I don’t see that coat on thee, Navy man. I see a blue coat with gold buttons, and a cocked hat and sword.”
“You dream, surely,” Burrows said. Favian forced a grin.
“It’s a dream I’ll drink to,” he said.
“I know what I know,” Lazarus said confidentially. He touched his forehead with a burly finger. “I have powers” he said in a coarse whisper. Favian felt a chill in spite of the warm air. The man’s voice held conviction, even if his talk was nonsense. Lazarus’s keen blue eyes held on him.
“Should we call you a Navy man, I wonder?” he grated. “I think you are not the Navy’s, Favian. And I think you are not your own. You will become a schoolmaster in time, I suspect. But I see you in the earth at the end, buried in a uniform you never honored.”
Favian’s eyes locked with the fiddler’s, and he felt the hair at his nape rise. Why, he wondered, did this local lunatic fill him with horror?
“Enough of your powers, for God’s sake,” Dulcey complained. She waved to a barmaid, her gesture nervous. “It gives me shivers,” she said.
The fiddler’s eyes turned to her. “Dost thou not know, silly wench, that I use my powers every time I tuck the fiddle beneath my chin? Dost not know that no fiddler can use his art without Old Nick’s bidding, or how my powers were given by Old Nick himself, dancing on Virgin Hill beneath the sickle moon?”
Dulcey shivered again. “Tell us, Lazarus,” said Burrows. The barmaid arrived with another round of whiskey, and Burrows paid.
“On Virgin Hill,” Lazarus repeated, smacking his lips as he noisily sipped the potation. “I was one-and-twenty, and I was thought to have promise as a fiddler, so old Jimmy Davis took me to meet his Master.”
“Virgin Hill,” Burrows said. “That’s the Quaker graveyard in Nantucket.”
“Nantucket, aye,” Lazarus said. “The Master was there, and twelve others. The Master was tall, aye, and black; and when he spoke the earth seemed to quake. Dost thou know me, boy? the Devil asked. I do, sir, I said. Dost thou give me thy soul, if I give thee powers to make thy fiddle sing, and to see the hearts of men? he asked. I will, I said, and the bargain was made.
“Play then, said the Master, and I put bow to string, and the power flowed through my arms and my fingers, and I played the wild dance that came into my heart. The Devil danced, kicking his shoes from his cloven feet, and Jimmy Davis danced, and the others danced. Perhaps some of the graves opened, and the dead took shape and danced as well. A wild dance it was, beneath the hornéd moon.” He glared at Favian, his gaze hard and defiant, as if daring Favian to doubt his words.
“That was in the twenty-second year of the reign of King Charles,” he said, with utter conviction.
“Charles of Sweden?” Favian asked. “He hasn’t reigned that long, surely.”
“Charles of Sweden?” The fiddler laughed harshly, his croaking voice scornful. “Thou art a simpleton, boy! ’Twas in the reign of Charles Stuart, the Second, by Grace of God and General Monck King of England. A few years before they hanged the witches of Salem. And now I must earn my bread.” He drained his cup of whiskey, and threw it on the table. It rattled in the silence, and then Lazarus stood and walked to his place before the flames of the hearth.
Dulcey’s hands trembled as she raised her cup to her lips. “It’s horrible, the way he speaks,” she said. “Even if it ain’t true.”
Burrows glanced at Favian. His eyes were solemn. “It’s the utter conviction of it,” he said. “It’s the fact that he believes it. It can shake your belief in what you know to be true.”
Favian said nothing. Lazarus’s performance— and Favian knew it was a performance, nothing more— had disturbed him. Lazarus had known him for a naval officer. But then, Favian reasoned, it was not a difficult deduction for a man to make. It was no great secret that Burrows enjoyed dressing as a seaman and partaking of common seamen’s pleasures; Lazarus probably knew Burrows for who he was, even if Burrows didn’t himself realize it. It had not required any powers given by satanic forces to penetrate Favian’s hasty and unconvincing disguise.
Was it the prophecies that had made Favian so uneasy? Perhaps so. Despite a strange addition— Favian could never picture himself as a schoolmaster— Lazarus’s comments had gone to the heart of Favian’s dilemma. No, he was not entirely a Navy man; yet he was not free to be his own. Free... that seemed the heart of it. His fate, according to Lazarus, according to the Navy, was fixed; there was no possibility of any freedom of action, of taking any steps to avoid the ends of destiny. No choice. There was a plausible, horrible truth to that lack of choice. Since the age of sixteen, he’d had little option in what he’d done, in where he’d been sent, the wars and duels in which he’d fought. The battles had been determined by chance and by his superiors; one duel had been arranged by the lieutenant, the other determined by circumstance, when another chose to make remarks he knew would not be overlooked by any man who wore the uniform. As long as he wore the blue coat, Favian’s destiny was fixed, and Lazarus had simply pointed it out.
All along there had been one choice: to resign, or to stay with the Navy. Resignation meant sacrificing all the last twelve years, everything that constituted his adult life. He could not throw them away— not in wartime, when a resignation could be interpreted as a lack of courage; not with a long line of Markham ancestors looking over his shoulder, hands clasping the swords captured from their enemy...
Lazarus had begun playing “The Morning Dew.” Favian and Burrows rose, bade farewell to Dulcey, and made their way into the cold of the night.
“That’s the world in which our men live, Favian,” Burrows said. “You don’t have contact with it on the quarterdeck, not really. They don’t often let us see it. But it exists, for them. Fiddlers acquire their talents from Old Nick. That’s a superstition as old as sailing ships— older even than Lazarus claims to be. Like the one that says that bosun’s mates can never be called to hell, so they can do what they like. We should know these things live in our men’s hearts, Favian.” Burrows looked at Favian solemnly. “Perhaps it lives in ours as well,” he said. “Did you not feel a sympathetic little touch of fear when Lazarus spoke? Is that why you are so quiet tonight?”
“Why can’t a bosun’s mate be summoned to hell?” Favian asked.
Burrows shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose the story was invented by a bosun’s mate to excuse his dissipation.”
“It’s late, Will.” Favian took the nose bag from his horse and mounted the saddle. “I’ll meet you at the Navy Department the day after tomorrow. Then we’ll take the stage north.”