The Bastard: The Kent Family Chronicles Read online

  Revere stepped closer, peered into Philip’s mouth. Over the smith’s neatly clubbed hair, Philip could see into the darker adjoining room. It was dominated by a brick furnace. The furnace’s partially open door revealed glowing coals that gave off pronounced heat and cast a dull red glare on crucibles, an anvil, a heap of damaged silver cups and tankards, and other paraphernalia whose purpose he didn’t understand.

  “A good tooth lost in a good cause,” Revere declared, straightening up. “I can fit you with a more than satisfactory replacement. Sit you down—” He indicated a peculiar-looking chair amid the clutter. Philip hesitated.

  “We need to talk about the price first, Mr. Revere.”

  “All right. I have a different and much higher set of charges for Tories—don’t get much trade from ’em, I confess. How much can you afford?”

  Thinking of the sharp bargaining he’d witnessed in the square, Philip put on a doubtful expression. “Oh, no more than a few pence—”

  “How few is few? Five?”

  “Three would be better.”

  “Call it four and I’ll guarantee to carve you a fine tooth no one will tell from the original. You’re lucky you broke a dog tooth—they’re easier. The price includes mounting with cement and the finest gold wire for extra permanence. I’ll whittle the new one of the very best hippo tusk, too.”

  He began rummaging through the tiny drawers of a wall cabinet, found a large, curved tooth and displayed it proudly. Then, noting Philip’s dumbfounded expression, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Isn’t a hippopotamus an animal?”

  “Of course it’s an animal. Where else d’you think a man gets a new tooth? The triangular traders bring me tusks from the West Africas regularly. I tried elephant a few times, but it yellows too fast. And sheep’s teeth are all snaggled and crooked. Difficult to work. Sit down, sir, and let me put in the wax—”

  “Wax?” Philip repeated in a somewhat strangled voice, as Revere thrust him into the chair and forced his head against a pair of pads projecting from an upright rod. Humming, Revere conducted another search under one of his counters, returned with a red chunk of the stuff.

  “Open wide, please, Mr. Kent,” he instructed, practically yanking Philip’s jaws apart. He crouched beside the chair, peered upward at the damaged canine tooth, broke off a bit of the red wax, balled it between thumb and forefinger, then pressed the wax carefully up against the tooth’s broken surface.

  A moment later he pried the wax out. He carried it to the counter, deposited it in a clay pestle and used a quill pen to scratch some figures on a scrap of paper. The paper too was put in the pestle, which was pushed aside to a place near half a dozen silver pepper pots. Philip wondered how the man could keep all his various business enterprises in order in his mind.

  “I’ll have the tooth in a week, so drop back then,” Revere said.

  “Don’t you need to take any kind of measurements?”

  “I already did.” Revere lifted a hand to point to one eye. “The most accurate measuring devices known to man—provided they’re used properly. No, sir, we’re finished—unless of course you’d like me to clean those teeth up a bit. Only costs an extra pence to make your dental equipment white and sparkling. I use a special dentifrice of my own devising. Several secret ingredients I’m afraid I can’t reveal, plus saltpeter, gunpowder, crumbs of white bread, cuttlefish bone, broken crockery—”

  Philip gulped. “You mean broken dishes?”

  “It’s all in how you grind and mix it, Mr. Kent. Does wonders in attracting the fair sex. But then you don’t have that problem, do you?”

  “Well—ah—thank you, but I don’t believe I can afford—”

  “Paul?”

  A female voice from a curtained door at the rear of the shop spun Revere around and brought Philip out of the chair. He saw a slender, dark-haired young woman in a plain frock and apron, a spot of flour whitening one cheek. She looked alarmed.

  “What’s the trouble, Rachel?” the smith asked.

  “I was just out on the stoop—there’s an awful row down the way. I fear a mob’s going to do harm to poor Johnny Malcolm.”

  Instantly, Revere untied his leather apron, flung it aside. “The crazy old wretch will get himself killed with that tongue of his. There’s been trouble brewing all morning. Someone put in the square told me a little boy accused Malcolm of upsetting his sled of kindling. Come on, Kent, let’s have a look.” Grim-faced, he hurried for the door.

  Philip followed the smith into the January sunshine. At the house where he’d seen a few people earlier, he now saw a crowd three or four times the size. An angry crowd. Taunts were being exchanged with a cadaverous, white-haired old man who leaned from a second-floor window, brandishing a pistol in one hand and a broad-axe in the other.

  Revere and his companion trotted toward the crowd. Philip noticed three men running up, from the other direction, carrying a ladder.

  “This Malcolm’s a friend of yours, Mr. Revere?”

  “Far from it. Crazy Johnny’s a senile, vile-tempered fool. Likes nothing better than to bait people with his impudent and provocative jibes. Trouble is, he’s a flaming Tory. In this neighborhood, that’s not safe. The Sons of Liberty got blamed once before when some rowdies chastised him—”

  As the two approached the edge of the crowd, the old man with the weapons shrieked down, “Ah, go to Hades, the lot of you! I’ll push over that little wart’s sled any time I damn please. His father helped drown the King’s tea, don’t think I don’t know that. If I split the sprout’s head, I’d get ten shilling sterling from the Governor. Twice that for the rest of you Yankee traitors—!”

  The old man’s voice was shrill. Spittle flew from his mouth. Philip disliked the fellow on sight. But at the same time, he realized the unfairness of the odds against Malcolm.

  Revere shouldered into the crowd. “Let him alone. Let the old lunatic rant—”

  Scowling faces swung toward the smith and Philip. “Tend to your cream pots, Revere. He bullied the boy, and he’s no high son of liberty, either.”

  “But he’s touched in the head. He can do no one any real harm—”

  Revere’s argument produced no response except for more yells directed at the old man in the window:

  “Have a care with your nasty tongue, John Malcolm!”

  “Aye, don’t forget you were treated to the tar and feathers once before. If you don’t shut up, we’ll do it again—properly, this time.”

  Malcolm howled, “You say I was tarred and feathered and that it wasn’t done in a proper manner? Damn you, let me see the man that dares to do it better!” He spat down on the crowd.

  A coarse-faced woman cursed and wiped her forehead. That incited the mob to rage. There were cries for the ladder. Before Philip knew it, the ladder was jammed against the front of the house. Two burly men started climbing it, one after another.

  “Stay away!” Malcolm screeched. “I’ll shoot!”

  “He’s too daft to aim straight,” someone jeered.

  “Or load it right,” another voice added. “Go get him!”

  Revere fought through the press, grabbing arms, shoulders.

  “Dammit, if you’re friends of liberty, leave off baiting a helpless enemy!”

  “Get out of here!” someone bawled. Philip watched Revere stagger from a fist that struck hard into his belly.

  Pushing, Philip tried to go to Revere’s aid. All around, he saw twisted mouths, vicious eyes, threatening hands. One, raw-knuckled, knocked him in the side of the head. He stumbled. Someone else struck the small of his back, hard.

  One of the men on the ladder had already dived through the second-floor window, from which shrill yelps of fright now issued. The sunlight and the blows blinded Philip as he struggled to fight off those who pounded him, slammed boots against his shins. Somewhere near the house, Revere was down, exclaiming in anger. But the mob howled louder:

  “Tar and feathers!”

  “Tar a
nd feathers for liberty!”

  “We’ll show the fucking lobster-lover—!”

  Suddenly Revere burst through a break in the crowd, staggering. A bruise showed on his forehead. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. His clothing was dirtied and torn. Men grabbed at him from behind. Revere swung a quick, clumsy punch that drove the leading attacker back, clutching his nose and spitting curses.

  Revere reached Philip: “Run for it. They’re madmen—”

  “Yes, you’d better run, God damn you!” screamed the woman who’d been spit on. “You’re no friend of Englishmen’s rights, Revere!”

  “And you don’t understand the meaning of the term!” he shouted back.

  Oaths. Another frenzied rush at Revere and Philip. A rock flew. Then more. Philip’s ear stung painfully as one of the missiles hit him. All at once the hate-filled faces blurred out of focus and he saw Roger Amberly. A mob of Roger Amberlys, screaming, reaching, threatening— His rage and revulsion matched Revere’s.

  Equally plain was the smith’s humiliation. He didn’t want to flee from the crazed crowd. But neither did he want to lose his life in a hopeless struggle. Prudence won out. Dragging Philip by the arm, he dodged a chunk of brick, and the two retreated toward the stoop of the Revere house. A cheer went up from the mob. Almost immediately, there was another—

  Disarmed, the pathetic Malcolm was dragged from his front door by the two who had entered to capture him. Malcolm’s shrieks sounded incoherent now, mortally terrified—

  Rachel Revere was waiting on the stoop. She let out a little exclamation of alarm when she saw her husband bleeding. He thrust her hand aside, watching the mob rampage across North Square, dozens of hands supporting a flailing, wailing Malcolm high in the air.

  “Animals,” Revere seethed. “God damn animals. To wreck our cause with their savagery—!”

  “I thought Mr. Adams sometimes called up mobs,” Philip panted, his head still buzzing from the blows he’d taken.

  “There’s not a man in that pack who wears a liberty medal!” Revere snarled. “All they want is cruel sport.”

  Philip wondered about the truth of Revere’s first remark. The second one certainly seemed true, though. The mob had grown till it numbered hundreds. Shoppers and sellers alike left the stalls to follow, laughing and chattering. The head of the column, and the hapless Malcolm, were finally out of sight on the far side of the square. It seemed to Philip, squinting into the January sun, that above the hubbub, he heard the old man scream in agony. But he couldn’t be sure.

  He was sure of one thing. The cheerful morning was ruined.

  vii

  By nightfall, Crazy Johnny Malcolm’s fate was the talk of Boston. Philip sat over supper at the Green Dragon, listening in disgust to a group of apprentices gleefully retelling how the old man had been loaded into a cart, wheeled to a nearby wharf, stripped down to his belt and painted with tar.

  Next, feather pillows had been slashed open, the contents emptied over Malcolm’s body. Until early afternoon—four hours or more—he was exhibited throughout the town, people in the crowd pulling the cart. He was displayed at the Liberty Tree, then on the Neck. There, somehow, tea was produced. The victim was forced to toast the health of all eleven members of the royal family. Philip could imagine the added pain that had caused. Describing it, the apprentices roared.

  But quarts of tea forced down his throat on the Neck hadn’t been the end of Malcolm’s dark day. There was more parading. To the tree again, and King Street, and Copp’s Hill. At these locations, a new element was added. Whips. Malcolm was flogged unmercifully, until the mob wearied at last, and abandoned him.

  “A proper sight he was, too.” The apprentice chortled, spreading his hands. “The tar an’ the whipping took off hunks o’ skin this big. First he pissed his pants. Then he yelped a while. But when we finished with him, he looked froze, an’ stiff as a log.”

  Stomach turning over, Philip threw coins on the table and stalked out of the Dragon. The apprentices never even noticed his glare.

  Ben Edes was as dismayed as Revere had been. The Malcolm incident, he said, was the kind of thing that only firmed the resolve of the British ministers—and the King—to deal severely with the colonials. What right had animals to be treated as anything else?

  Early the next morning, Samuel Adams appeared in person with copy freshly penned for a notice. He too proclaimed outrage. But as Philip started to pull type for the announcement, he pondered the sincerity of Adams’ wrath.

  Anne had told him quite a lot about the troubled period of the last ten years. Savaging mobs had roamed before—and she knew for a fact that Adams had at least been indirectly involved in their formation. Had Adams adopted his new, more scrupulous attitude out of changed convictions? Or just from the practical realization that violence—for the present—brought no useful end?

  Whatever the reason, Adams’ words, printed and hammered to the Liberty Tree by sunset, declared the position of the Sons of Liberty:

  BRETHREN AND FELLOW CITIZENS

  This is to Certify, That the modern Punishment Lately Inflicted on the ignoble John Malcolm was not done by our Order. We reserve that Method for Bringing Villains of greater Consequence to a Sense of Guilt and Infamy.

  Joyce Jun’r.

  Chairman of the Committee of Tarring and Feathering

  If any Person be so hardy as to tear this down, they may expect my severest Resentment.

  J. jun’r.

  For days afterward, Philip continued to speculate about the purity of Adams’ motives. In the past, how much blood had been callously scrubbed from the man’s conscience, if not actually from his palsied hands?

  One conclusion was certain. Governor Hutchinson’s denunciations of the cruelty to Malcolm only widened the split between Whig and Tory opinion, hardened attitudes on both sides. In the sanctuary of his Purchase Street study, did Samuel Adams allow himself a smile now that one more branch had been tossed onto the slow-kindling fire?

  At least one good result came from the memorable January day, though. As Revere had promised, Philip’s partial tooth, carved and polished and fastened in place, could hardly be told from the real thing. Anne said she could only see the difference between the two sections when she came near, starting to kiss him.

  And as soon as she closed her eyes, she saw no difference at all.

  viii

  The Boston Grenadier Company drilled weekly on the Common, in sleet, in bitter wind, in driving snow. Philip found himself one of the shortest members of the group, only eight or ten of whom actually owned muskets. Under Captain Pierce’s direction, the rest went through the manual of arms using the already-mentioned sticks—or, in Philip’s case, a broom handle Anne Ware happily supplied from the household kitchen.

  Standing in the corner of Philip’s cellar room, that plain, homely length of wood began to take on a kind of dreadful symbolism as the winter months ran out. Boston received word of impending royal retribution against Dr. Franklin’s delivery of the Hutchinson letters into the hands of Sam Adams. Incoming ships in February brought specific information. Franklin had been subjected to a scathing denunciation by the Crown’s Solicitor General. The good doctor had been publicly called a man lacking honor—a thief—and had been dismissed from his post as Deputy Postmaster General for the colonies.

  Marching and countermarching on the Common as winter snow gave way to March rains, Philip sometimes asked himself another question. What sort of justice would be meted out if the death of Captain Stark was ever traced directly to him? Even Edes’ newspaper had reported the “Sensational Fatality” of a Crown officer. But thus far, he had received no hint that he was in any way connected with the crime. As Anne had said hopefully, the trail might end at the point it began. In the alley where Stark died.

  As time passed and that assurance began to look like a distinct possibility, he still felt less than calm, though for quite another reason. He’d caught the prevailing mood of Boston. The entire town and
surrounding countryside, alive with drilling militia companies, was in a state of steadily increasing apprehension.

  What would be the Crown’s response to the tea affair?

  When the air turned warm again and sunlit spring broke across Massachusetts, the answer came—with force more stunning than had ever been anticipated. Except, perhaps, by those few radicals like Adams, who remained convinced that George III was Satan incarnate, and the members of the North ministry his eager acolytes.

  As Mr. Edes remarked, the events of spring proved there might be something to that novel metaphysical theory after all.

  CHAPTER VI

  The Sergeant

  i

  “I THINK, GENTLEMEN,” SAID Paul Revere as he unfolded the wrapping material, “you’ll find this appropriate to the situation. If you do, I’ll transfer it to copper at once.” He laid his drawing on the table of the Long Room.

  Handsome Dr. Warren studied it, nodded somberly. Puffing on his long-stemmed clay pipe, he stepped aside to permit Molineaux and the others to examine the artwork held down by the silversmith’s work-roughened hands. April rain pattered at the draped windows.

  Philip had never been permitted up here before. It was a measure of the trust he was now accorded by his employer that he was allowed to be present. Squeezed in behind Edes, he looked at the grim symbols Revere had inked: the Phrygian cap, one of the chief emblems of the liberty movement, done large and surrounded by a mourning wreath, the whole bordered with a pattern of skulls and crossbones.

  Edes turned to his assistant. “This will be the engraving on the front of our handbill.” He nodded toward Adams, who sat at the table’s far corner, eyes like blue agates in the lamplight. “Samuel’s prose on the reverse. There’ll be little sleep for us during the next couple of days and nights, you may count on that.”

  Dr. Warren raised his pipe to signal Revere. “It’s your intention to ride express with the news and the handbills, Paul?”