Chapter 4: Virtue

The third girl from that trip southward was much more of a surprise and not such a happy one. She called to me from the doorway of a merchant's shop near the waterfront, and since few people in that town knew my name, I quickly responded. At first, I thought she was a boy, a slim, rather short boy, but she was as it turned out very much a young woman.

"I'm Virtue Y--," she said. "Don't you remember me, me and my sister and our poor mother? They call me Trudy."

It came back slowly including the fact that her father was a turncoat officer that I would have gladly killed on sight. "You work here?" I asked, looking down at her and still trying to get my thoughts together.

"Indentured," she said, "well, apprenticed, much the same thing."

"How did that happen?"

"Long story," she said and then she raised her voice. "Mr. Johnson, all right if I go get something to eat?"

"Don' be long," came a voice from the dark interior.

She took my elbow and hurried us along to a tavern where she was known, ordered some meat pies and ale and then poured out her tale, looking very sad as she did. Her father, she said, had sent her mother to Jamaica with another British officer and then had tried to force himself on her older sister, Jeanne. The sister had disappeared, and her father had apprenticed her after trying to rape her.

"Where did he go?" I asked, very confused.

"You understand," she said, "he's not really our father, but I did think he and mother were married. My father died when I was an infant."

"You haven't seen your sister?"

"Not for three, almost four years," she said. "I think she must be dead. He told me she threw herself in the river."

"Have you seen him?"

She nodded. "But he didn't recognize me."

"That's not surprising. You look like a boy of twelve instead of a young woman of, what, sixteen?"

"Nearly seventeen," she said with a smile as our food arrived.

"Is he still in town?"

She nodded again, taking a big bite. "Dressed plainly, in mufti, looks like a farmer I suppose or a drover."

"You think he is spying for them, for the British?"

"Oh yes," she said. "Can't think of why else he would be around."

"Turncoat and spy," I said, "they'll hang him twice."

She smiled. "I'd like to watch."

"Where you work, do they think you are a boy?"

"Yes. I drop my voice and curse a bit. I've even jollied a few bar maids; could have bedded more than one if I'd wished." She laughed and looked about to see who was listening for her laugh was musical and hardly male.

"Where can I find him?" I asked.

"Not sure," she said. "I've seen him around the government offices, on that wide, brick street in the middle of town, often walking with some other man."

'I'm not sure I'd recognize him now. It's been a while."

"We close at sunset," she said, leaning back and looking at me levelly. "I can go into town with you, maybe we'll be lucky. Are you still in the army?"

"Headed south in a day or two."

"That soon," she said, "I had hoped..."

I took her hand under the table. "I'm remembering you now, how brave you were back in that barn."

"I'll talk to Mr. Johnson. Maybe he'll let me run an errand or something."

So an hour or so later, we were in the middle of the city, sitting on a bench in the shade and watching people pass by. I told her a few stories, and we were very comfortable together, like old friends.

"I'd like to be a girl again," she said. "But I'm afraid."

"Of men?"

She nodded. "Of being raped. You can't know what that's like." She shuddered.

When the sun as setting and we had seen no one who resembled her step-father, I took her to a tavern and bought us some stew.

"Where do you sleep?" she asked as I lit a clay pipe.

I smiled at her through the smoke, thinking of Faith and the little girls at their tavern. "Various places," I said.

"I've a bed at the store," she said. "Not very big, but if..." she hesitated and her eyes widened. "It's him," she whispered.

I glanced where she was staring and saw a well-fed man in a buff coat and tri-cornered hat. He was with two other men, both Continental officers in short wigs and dress uniforms.

"What's his name?"

"George," she said, "George Morgan."

"I think you will get your wish," I said. "Is there a pier behind this place?"

She nodded and smiled. "I'll wait there."

I walked toward the table, stopped behind my quarry, put a hand on his shoulder and faced an overfed captain. "Gentlemen," I said, getting their attention and feeling the shoulder under my hand stiffen. "Are you aware that George here is an officer in the enemy's army, a turncoat and a traitor as well as a spy?"

The man under my hand began to rise and I pushed him back down.

"You must be mistaken," said the officer facing me.

"No, I'm sorry to say you have been deceived. He's a spy and anything you have told him has reached Clinton almost immediately."

"By damn," said the man in my grip. "It's a lie."

"What happened to Jeanne?" I asked him.

"None of your business," he said.

I turned his arm up into the middle of his back and smashed his face down on the table, then pulled him upright, his nose bleeding furiously. "Tell them," I demanded, twisting his arm to the point where it would break free if I went another inch. I could hear his shoulder begin to tear apart.

He made a throat sound, and I bashed his face again on the table top. "Stop, please stop," he sobbed, nodding and dripping blood as I continued to dislocate his shoulder. "It's true, you fools," he spat at the officers across from him. "If you have any sense, you'll jump this man and join me on the winning side."