All is Fair in Love and War

30

Lee smelled worse than Hickey, which was something I found very surprising. While the latter stank of old beer and body odour, the stench that clung to Lee was a more potent stink of dog piss, both new and old.

We escaped Bridewell through the door I had entered earlier that night. I wondered at their leaving the warden's body in Hickey's cell - surely he would be found in the morning and a prison-wide lockdown would commence?

Unless, of course, Hickey and Lee had already found a replacement: someone who was sympathetic to their cause, someone who knew of the warden's death and did not care.

Connor stood no chance, if that was the case.

Panic would get me nowhere, not as a side gate was opened - and Lee slipped the guard a coin for his silence - and I was bundled into the street. Hickey's grip on my arms was tight, preventing me from even thinking of struggling. I was completely at the mercy of the Templars.

I didn't even know what Lee had done to Connor. When he had rejoined us, he was quiet and cold as ever - but there had been no blood on him. I held onto that fact: that, whatever had happened, Connor was still breathing. They wanted him alive so he could be hanged; he was alive now.

Anxiety was a curse with which I was familiar, and it burrowed into my skin like a tick, sucking the marrow from my bones. It was a smoke that filled my lungs and I could not cough it out; a black mass that surrounded me so I could not see.

It was Lee who led us through the dark, silent street - not one soul peeped from their window; no noise stirred the night save for the occasional hiss from a cat. As Bridewell disappeared into the night behind us, so, too, did my hope.

Hickey whispered furiously with Lee, and his voice was too low and gruff for me to understand him, though I thought I heard the words France and one of their recruits, and I managed to piece together what they were saying. Hickey feared that we would enlist the help of the French, given the heritage of a certain recruit, Chapheau.

After the siege of Boston ended in March - due to Washington's seizure of Dorchester Heights outside the city, the claiming of British artillery by Henry Knox, and the subsequent retreat of the British under the command of General William Howe - after all of this, France began to express interest in the war.

Hickey's apprehension continued until we reached an inconspicuous door hidden beneath vines of sweet honeysuckle. He opened it and pushed me through with a grunt. The hallway that stretched before me was long and dark, and I hesitated. What awaited me at the end of this corridor? Certainly there were only two manners in which I may leave this place: dead, or barely alive.

My moment's hesitation caused Hickey to shove me again, and I stumbled forward, gritting my teeth to prevent myself from rounding on him and clawing his eyes out. I was doing this for Connor, and no one else.

When Lee closed the door behind us, Hickey made me walk forward. The air in this corridor was close and warm, and I felt like I couldn't breathe deeply enough.

A sharp prod to my shoulder blades and a gruff, "In here," was Hickey's indication for me to turn, so I pushed open the door on my left.

The room that unfolded before me was small and dark. Heavy curtains drawn over the single window inhibited the entrance of moonlight, which darkened the room so that the only source of light came from one solitary candle on the desk at the far end of the room.

My heart began to hammer in my chest when a dark figure behind the desk moved, but thoughts of Connor kept me rooted in place. My Ratonhnhaké:ton, locked in the dark. If this would help me get him out of there, I would do it thrice over.