beside him on one of the room’s battered benches. This man jumped to his feet as Abigail and her party entered. “He’s still breathin’, sir—” He was an elderly man, with an accent of Ireland and a palsied quiver to his hands. Abigail couldn’t imagine what help he’d have been had the layabouts—or the murderer himself for that matter— decided to rush the place and finish what the unknown assassin had begun. “I can’t wake him.” The room stank of blood, rum, and the burned hair that presumably the old man had used as makeshift vinaigrette. Someone— Muldoon?—had covered Coldstone with the young officer’s military cloak, to which had been added one of the constables’ greatcoats.
Abigail said, “Open the shutters,” which had been closed, presumably out of fear that the crowd would break the grimy glass. Compliance by the constables with this request didn’t help matters much. The windows were small and set high. Given the general dimness of the morning, not a great deal was visible in the gloom. Every lantern the Watchhouse possessed had already been lighted and pressed into service around Coldstone on the table, giving his body the curious appearance of some arcane sacrifice laid on an altar. His wig, smeared with mud, lay on one end of the bench. In the frame of his short-cropped pale hair his face seemed white as bleached wax, his brows—which normally appeared rather mouse-colored—now almost black by contrast. Under the cloak his coat had been pulled off his left shoulder and arm, and his shirt cut away and torn up to make a dressing.
“Bullet’s lodged, sir—m’am—” The elderly constable divided a doubtful glance between his commander, the artillery officer, and Abigail. “Bled somethin’ horrible, he has—”
Thaxter bent over to look, and said, “Damn,” and Abigail put in, “I hope some of that rum that I smell was used to cleanse the wound?”
“’ Twas, m’am,” affirmed the elderly constable. “I did a trifle of work with the surgeons, back durin’ the war.”
“Who knew about the message that you sent Lieutenant Coldstone, m’am?” asked the officer, speaking for the first time.
“No one,” insisted Abigail. “That is, the message I sent was not the one that he received last night. I sent mine first thing this morning and doubt that it has reached Castle Island even yet. And in it I asked merely that he might name a place and time for our interview, in some public place, as my husband is from—Lieutenant!” As she had spoken, her hand had been on Coldstone’s wrist, feeling for the swift, thready pulse; so it was she felt his arm move, even as she heard the agonized intake of his breath. “Give me that rum.”
The elderly man pressed it into her hand. Coldstone coughed on the sip she gave him, and turned his face aside, a sentiment for which she could scarcely blame him. “Can you hear me, Lieutenant?”
His eyelids flickered, and he nodded. The Watchhouse door opened and yet another constable entered, carrying—Abigail was delighted that someone had shown this much sense—a couple of blankets, obviously fetched from the town Almshouse at the end of the Mall—and a number of billets of firewood.
“Did you see anything of the man who shot you?” Abigail asked, and the artillery officer stepped up beside her, with the air of one who would have put her bodily out of his way, if he could have.
“One of the damn Bostonians learnt Mrs. Adams had sent for you,” he said, leaning over Coldstone, “and lay in wait.”
Abigail opened her mouth to protest yet again, then shut it. The man clearly had his own ideas of what had happened, and it would be useless to argue.
“You lie quiet, sir. You’ve taken no mortal hurt. We’ve sent for the surgeon—”
Abigail backed away and slipped through the door. Thaxter was talking softly with Muldoon; Paul Revere was nowhere to be seen. Muldoon asked, “How is he, m’am?”
“That artilleryman says the Lieutenant isn’t mortally wounded—Who is he, anyway?”
“Him? One of the officers at the South Battery. When himself went down a couple of the herd-boys came runnin’, an’ one went to fetch the Watch whilst t’other helped me get the Lieutenant here. The constables must’ve gone for the nearest officer they could think of. Before we even tried to shift him I packed the wound with everythin’ I could lay hand to—” Abigail noticed for the first time that Muldoon was missing his neckcloth. “But he’s lost a fair river of blood. What was it made you send to ask for a meetin’ here, m’am, if you don’t mind me askin’? There’s not someone watchin’ your house, is there?”
Abigail explained for what felt like the dozenth time that she had had nothing to do with the message that had brought Coldstone to the Common, then asked, “Where was he shot from? The bushes below the Powder- Store?”
“Got to be, m’am. ’Tisn’t an inch of cover that would hide a man any closer. And further off, Robin Hood himself couldn’t hit at the distance, not if he had a telescope and a magic gun from the King of the Fairies.”
“And of course anything resembling tracks would have been trampled out by this time by Sam Adams’s pet mob—”
The sergeant took his eyes off the little knots of men still moving about in the vicinity long enough to give her a quick grin. “Wouldn’t be no tracks anyway, m’am. The ground’s like flint. Well, here’s someone in a hurry,” he added, as a horse burst at a clattering canter from the bare trees of the Mall. “Let’s hope ’tis the surgeon—”
“It isn’t, though.” Abigail shaded her eyes. “It’s Mr. Adams.”
How she knew it at this distance she wasn’t sure—he was riding a horse unfamiliar to her—but sure enough, when he came a little closer, she identified the caped gray greatcoat and mud-spattered top boots. She lifted her arm to wave, and he drew rein beside her and flung himself from the saddle to catch her in his arms. “Nab, are you all right?”
“I’m well—”
“I can’t leave you for half an hour before you’re arrested—and for murdering a British officer—!”
“As I have explained to all those gentlemen in the Watchhouse,” sighed Abigail, “I had nothing to do with it. But someone went to a good deal of trouble to see to it that the British think I did. I’m beginning to know how poor Harry feels! Now
Several of the assorted stevedores, layabouts, smugglers, and such, appeared as if by magic from the copse and the hillside as the three crimson-coated riders drew near, but there was not even shouting. The absurdly young officer saluted Muldoon and left his escort on guard outside; John—no coward but no fool, either—stepped back and nodded in the direction of the copse at the foot of the hill.
Abigail shook her head. “You go,” she whispered. “I’ll be all right.”
“There’ll be trouble, if they try to arrest you—”
“They won’t try to arrest me. They haven’t a leg to stand on—and if I know Mr. Revere, reinforcements are already on their way.”
When she reentered the Watchhouse, the youthful surgeon was examining the wound by the clustered light of the lanterns, but at least, Abigail reflected, he didn’t suggest that his patient be bled, puked, or given emetics to regulate the balance of his bodily humors.
“We should get him to the camp before I attempt to remove the ball,” he said, straightening up at last. His speech, like Coldstone’s, was that of the gentry class: Abigail wondered if his parents, like the Lieutenant’s, had not been quite able to afford professional training for their son and so had apprenticed him to an Army surgeon instead. Looking around him, he registered a moment’s surprise at the sight of a woman in the place, then stepped over to her and bowed. “Lieutenant Dowling, m’am, at your service . . . Can you tell me, if there is some herb—some poultice that the local midwives use—as a sovereign for cleansing a dirty wound, or as a febrifuge? I have often found these old remedies to be of great use, but unfortunately I only know them for the Indies.”
“Willow-bark tea will bring down a fever,” Abigail began.
The artillery officer broke in, “Really, Lieutenant Dowling, do you think that’s wise?” And in a lower voice, “’ Twas this woman who lured Lieutenant Coldstone into the trap! Her husband is the head of the Sons of Liberty!”
Exasperated, Abigail snapped, “Mr. Adams is nothing of the kind! You’re thinking of the
And in a thread of a voice, Lieutenant Coldstone added, “’ Tis true.” His hand stirred toward her. “Mrs. Adams—”
“Hush,” said Abigail. “Lie quiet. They’ll be taking you back to the camp—” For the soldiers that young Lieutenant Dowling had brought with him now entered, with a makeshift litter of poles.
Coldstone shook his head. “My sergeant—?”
