Chapter 3: Prisoners

"Now this woman I'm sending you to, she is a good friend of mine, a lady of my generation." The Madam looked frazzled which was unusual.

I nodded.

"She and her granddaughters have been doing our work. Haven't produced much, but they are surely good rebels."

I nodded again, waiting for the message.

"She has asked for help; so go along and do what you can, whatever she wants. I'm not sure what has happened."

I knuckled my forehead because it annoyed her and went, curious.

The woman she had sent me to was stately and worried. Her home was a well-maintained farmhouse set in some fine looking land, most apparently lying fallow, on the northern reaches of Manhattan Island.

She welcomed me, looked at the note I had brought and made a stern face. "You are hardly what I expected," she said. "The girls simply did not come home. Two days, actually two nights ago, they went out with some officers, men we knew and trusted, but they have not come home. No word or threat. They've vanished. I've asked everyone who should know and got ignorance in return."

"What can you tell me?" I asked, not knowing where to start.

She showed me a pair of ivory miniatures, lovely youngsters, fair haired and smooth of face. "These were done a few years back. Grace is now sixteen," she said, handing me one gold frame, "and her sister is eighteen. Her name is Hope. They are about my height and wear their hair very long these days, often twisted up on their heads."

"And the men they went out with?" I asked.

She told me both their names and their regiment, a pair of unseasoned lieutenants, from good homes so she said. She was very concerned, and it showed.

A full day of pumping my usual sources brought nothing, but that evening one of my regulars said she had laid a British officer who crowed about his company acquiring a pair of young harlots. "He claimed they were choice morsels, barely ripe, and rebels to boot."

That regiment was using one of the old barracks with a stone building for officers' quarters. My late-night nosing about stirred up one or two sentries but got me no useful information until almost dawn. Then a girlish squeal from an open window quickened my blood. Slaps and sobs followed and then another outcry and a moan.

The unguarded cellar door gave to my prying blade. I stumbled through the basement, up the stairs, found the backsteps and ran toward the noise of grunting and pounding. I stayed pressed against the wall as someone yelled, "Shut that bitch up, can't you!"

I stepped into the hall just in time to see a light-haired girl in a white shift being dragged toward the front of the building by an officer in just a long-tailed shirt who was keeping his hand clamped over her mouth. She saw me and her eyes widened. I followed them very quietly until he yanked her into a small bedroom and turned to close the door, only to find me and my big bayonet. He died quietly, with barely a gurgle, as I drove my long blade up through the middle of his chest. I pulled it out and eased him down with my hand still over his mouth while the girl stood, hands to her face, staring at me.

"Grace?" I said.

She nodded.

"Where's your sister?"

She pointed at the ceiling. "That's where the younger ones are," she said. "Up there, a whole pack of them, like hounds."

I stepped over the dead man and put my arm around her. "Your grandmother is very worried," I said. She hugged me, trembling.

"Lock the door," I said. "I'll knock once, pause, and then twice."

"But there are four or five of them up there," she said, looking at me, gnawing her lip.

"Maybe they're sleeping," I said, conjuring up a smile of confidence I did not feel.

She nodded and then glanced at the body in its pool of blood. I closed the door and listened to her lock it. Then I found the way to the attic. I could hear men snoring in other rooms and hoped I might be right about what I would find on the upper floor. I mounted the steps slowly and as quietly as I could, but before I reached the top, a young man in boots and britches swung about the railing and ran down toward me. He jerked to a halt in front of me and managed to gasp out, "What?" before I grabbed him and broke his neck, treating him as I had many chickens back home. It snapped with a loud crack, and I paused, listening.

I sat his limp body on the steps and continued up to the garret, one big, low-ceilinged room where the girl sat, tied to a post and three men lay sprawled on cots, soundly sleeping. I put my finger to my lips and cut her free. We descended the steps, and I helped her make it over the corpse, surprised by her heft and pleased by her feel. Like her sister, she wore only a shift. Her skin was warm and smooth, her body well matured.

I knocked, Grace opened the door and the young women embraced. I hurried them along the hall, down the back steps and then on into the dank cellar. We paused there as noises and then shouts came from above. Feet pounded, men yelled at each other, and there seemed to be general pandemonium going on. The three of us huddled in a dark corner.