Chapter 58: Artesia

I also found Artesia in the city, now proudly-wed to a long-time suitor, who was, much to my surprise, a high ranking Tory functionary. She had rejected her hastily betrothed and dubiously patriotic, pseudo-diplomatic fiancé. I do not think that the dark-haired beauty cared a whit for politics, but she certainly did enjoy wine, wealth and swiving. And she enjoyed herself and being loved and cared for. Willful was the word for Artesia, and she almost always had her way.

I saw her one day in the park, recognized her at once at fifty yards, took a short cut and bumped into her on the far side. Said, "Pardon," and held her arm. She looked up at me and squealed, suddenly clamping a hand to her wide-open mouth. I pulled her into the first tavern I found, sat her down, watched her peel off her hood and cape and found myself aroused again by her healthy, vibrant beauty, her rich and bumptious charms which crouched, beautifully framed, in a dress that likely cost more money than I would ever see. She breathed out sexual attraction like a flower broadcasting pollen, and soon every man in the room envied me and desired her. It just oozed out of her somehow. I think she actually smelled of coitus. I know it was the first thing I thought of.

"I'm married, you big horse," was the first thing she told me, lifting her lovely chin and trying to look very serious, her eyes gleaming evilly. "He's a banker," was the second. "And a wastrel," was the third. "And perhaps a thief. I'm not sure. Several men said he was. And perhaps a whoremonger." She sniffed and looked like a girl again instead of the proper matron she was attempting to portray. "I made a mistake, maybe. I think I did, a big mistake." She tapped her fingers on the table top so I could admire her rings, ; her chest swelled nearly popping her jugs free of her ornate gown. My palms itched.

We talked and drank, with my mind on the nearest bed, imagining her face in passion, her lush body writhing under me, flailing about on the end of my blood-lengthy and hopefully-tireless spear. She explained that the American diplomat, her intended when I had last seen her, had turned out to be a milksop of a momma's boy with little interest in women and with no control over his family's sizable fortune. She suspected, in fact, that he had a long-concealed predilection for young boys. She had kept his engagement present, a dark red jewel currently displayed between her gorgeous, upright, but tightly confined breasts. It almost disappeared in their shadowed cleft, glowing like a beast's eye from the dark cavern I was aching to explore.

"My husband's forty-five I think, about that, fifty perhaps. From a very good local family with several farms out along the river, hundreds of acres, perhaps a thousand, and immense land claims in the West, a score of slaves. We've known each other for some time, family connection really. I knew his first wife, a good woman, died in childbrith. And he's on the right side, the winning side, there's that to say for him. Are you still in that foolish, rag-tag army?"

I nodded, picturing her wearing just the ruby and begging me for more, legs kicking in the air, bruised mouth a gape.

"I suppose you're here as a spy or something. You know you are going to lose," she said flatly as if there were no argument. She finished her second small glass of sherry and raised an eyebrow, adjusting the lace at her chest which needed no attention.

"How?" I asked, covered one of her bejeweled hands with mine. "Are they going to occupy every town, every hill, every farm and forest? Will they put us all in chains, sell us as slaves, repopulate the land from Canada or Africa?" I stroked her wrist.

"Your government's gone, you overgrown fool, vanished, lord knows where this time," she said, waving for a refill with her free hand. "Except for that fluke at Trenton, your mighty general's lost every battle. The old fox, what a joke that is. We have the world's greatest navy, the finest army, European proven, foreign auxiliaries that are merciless." I noticed the 'we' in her brave speech, regretted it, but heard the truth of her list.

"But we will still win, my dear." I reached out and took her other hand. She did not withdraw it. "The redcoats will get tired and go home. Some of the Germans may even stay here, the few survivors. France and Spain, perhaps Holland, will help us, Russia too. Then what will happen to the Tories? And to you?" With a long fingertip I flicked the big stone on her warm chest. She pulled her hands free and glared at me, shook her curly head, poured down her wine and licked her lips, tired of the argument.

"Would you like to see my new home?"

We walked the brick streets under the leafless trees with her hand hooked to my elbow and her high, hard breast rubbing my forearm, her large ruby appearing and disappearing as it bounced oer the hills. We came to a tall, brick building with heavy shutters, marble cornices, third-floor dormers and a peaked roof. It had an iron fence all around it. "Come in," she said, pulling on my arm.

"Perhaps the back door," I suggested, looking at the ornate entrance with its brass lamps and heavy hardware.

"Fool," she said and pulled me up the steps. Once inside, she dismissed the black servant after giving him her silk-lined cloak. She shook out her hair and made my gnarled root tremble. When I was with her, I was almost always aroused. It was tiring and trying. "You don't know how many times I've thought of you," she said. "Almost every morning. It's terrible for a married woman to have such a mad bull in her memory, one with a huge and tireless cock like yours." She squeezed my arm, and I grappled at her breast, but she twisted away, laughing silently, her nipple hard.

"Where's your new husband?" I asked.

"Probably in his study. Come. I'll introduce you."

She pushed open a door before I could say anything and tugged me into a library with a tall desk, rows of leather-bound books and heavily curtained windows. The man at the desk blotter turned around, took off his spectacles and said, "Yes." He did not bother to put down his long, dark pen. His look was impatient and imperious.

"This is a man who once worked for us, for my family, out in the country. He's a good laborer, looking for a job, excellent with horses," Artesia improvised on the spot, pointing at me as if I were a signboard. Nothing flustered her.

Her husband was a tall, thin man with a short wig, sallow skin and skinny legs in silk hose. He was wearing dark, well-cut clothes, a very fancy waistcoat, carefully tied neckcloth and short, shiny boots with small, silver buckles. His face with thin, smallpox scarred, and his nose long and also pock-marked. He looked at me as if I were a long-dead fish.

"I had to let the other man go," Artesia rambled on.

"Your affair," said her husband with a wave. "You manage the house." He turned back to his desk. Artesia took me to the back yard where we found a lank man chopping wood lethargically.

"Give him a crown," she said, nudging me with her hip. I produced one and handed it to the man. "Come back in a week, Jim, sober," Artesia said to him, and he knuckled his forehead and disappeared. "Chop," said the luscious girl leaning forward to make sure I had a good view of her mammalian charms and dangling jewel. "You sleep up above the shed and get meals at the back door. You can do your stupid spying for a week from here, but then you've got to be gone. I owe you, at least that much. We'll be quits then."

I bent to kiss her but she turned away in the shade of the shed's doorway. "None a'that," she said. "It's just for past favors."

"You mean you're faithful to him despite what you said?"

"Of course. I made vows." She looked surprised. "I keep my word."

"And his vulgar lordship back there, you think he's not got a lady friend or two stashed in this big burg? At his age? At his station? You said he was a crook, that he was filthy rich, some boys perhaps, catamites."

"Course not," she said. "He loves me like a fool, lets me spend outrageously. And those are just rumors. He does have enemies. Don't judge others by your own lack of morals, you big oaf."

Properly chastised, I chopped the rest of the cord wood and went off into the city on my rounds. Now I added a question about her husband to my list and soon found that she had married one of the best minds, biggest manipulators and busiest lotharios in Torydom. He, I was told, was a thinker and planner for the occupation and the Howe brothers as well as procurer of services, women and supplies, a betrayer of friends, and, I was also told, he was a skimmer, a whoremaster and keeper of mistresss uncounted as well as of several sets of account books.

On Saturday, I followed him to two outlying addresses, wondering at his powers of recovery as he visited those slaternly women for an hour each before stopping for a meal. Children played about in the yards of both hovels. Then, along with a stubby naval officer, he spent the afternoon with another girl down near the river, all three secluded in one small room, and that evening bedded down briefly with a very young and lissome lass, whose specialty, I was told, was cock sucking and ball licking, and then settled in a fancy bordello with a well-known courtesan boasting a reputation for pleasing men of exotic and abnormal tastes. He spent the night with her. They ranged in age from sixteen to fifty or so and, obviously, in their expectations and demands. He simply had himself carried in a sedan chair from one assignation to another in the city. I suspected that along the way, he used opium. I knew the smell.

Sunday, the fifth day of my promised week, after a series of lonesome and celibate nights in the loft, I gave my report to the lovely Artesia along with my guess that her beloved had more females than I had found, based on the reports I had gathered, and that he was a crook on a major scale, a thief and embezzler. I also told her that most people said he was very smart, very cruel and very dangerous. I urged her not to confront him, but to seek advice from others in the loyal hierarchy and to pass along my suspicions in secret.

"It's a lie," she spat at me, "a filthy, damnable lie. Only his enemies suggested he was taking bribes and kickbacks. I've asked him. He'd never do such things, never. And he loves me in his odd way. You're just trying to get between my legs again, you filthy brute."

That was true, but I had other motives as well. Despite my warning, she took my list, said, "Wait here," and stalked into her haughty husband's library. I stood by the door and waited for the explosion or a call for help.

The first thing I heard was, "Let me see him, hear it from him."

The door slammed open and Artesia growled, "Come in." Her ripe body almost lunged out of her clothes as she stalked across the carpet to stand at her man's side, hands behind her, totally desirable, completely furious, nearly snorting in her anger.

"Now," said Harrison Lawson Lowe, Esq., with fist on hip, "what's this all about." His furious wife stood with her feet apart, glaring at me, breathing hard.

"I am a scout for Washington's army, sir," I said, having some trouble getting out the sir. " I've done your bride a favor or two in the past, up north, some time back. She was nice enough to let me work for a week from your backyard. People talked about you."

He held up his hand. "Is this true?" he asked his seething wife. She nodded. "That's treason, you stupid woman. They'll hang you."

"Oh, I don't think so, sir," I said. "I've also found out that you have been stealing from the Crown, paying off contractors, taking bribes, and hiding the proceeds in your wine cellar and the truth in those ruled books."

He yanked open a desk drawer, and a small pistol appeared in his hand as if by legerdemain, the kind women sometimes carried in their muff, a weapon of very narrow bore but a killing weapon nevertheless. His hand did not shake and there was hatred in his eyes. His face was very white and a muscle twitched beside his chin. His nostrils flared and his eyes bulged.

"And you have a taste for women, they say, including some expensive whores, which I assume, has led to your thievery. How many do you keep now?" I stepped a bit closer, never taking my eyes from his still-uncocked weapon. "Have you put Artesia's dowry into your name? Are you spending her money on your trollops?"

"Damn you," he cried, pulling his pistol to full cock and pushing his wife aside as she stepped between us, face in confused torment.

I lunged at him, almost reached his hand, and he fired into my left hip, right through my jacket and shirt tail, nicking my heavy belt and thick scabbard. It was a small caliber ball that glanced off my pelvis and gouged along my buttock. It hurt like hell. I fell to one knee, and he hit me in the face with his weapon, chopping open my forehead, cracking the bridge of my nose and dropping me to all fours, head abuzz.

Then came a crashing thump and the man fell to his back on the floor, right in front of me, his arms spread wide and feet kicking, eyes staring. A trickle of blood ran from his ear, and a dark liquid splashed down on my shoulder and his body. Artesia had hit him in the head with his heavy, cut-glass, port decanter. She had cracked his skull, making a dent as big as your fist in the side of his head just above the ear. He quivered, coughed and seemed to flow into the carpet, nearly covered with dark wine. She dropped the heavy bottle that had spilled much of its contents. It shattered and the glittering shards rattled across the floor, the only sound in the room. Muffled in my clothes, his gun had barely made a pop when it flashed.

I rose, a bit unsteady, and held the woman, blood dripping in my eyes, "You'll be a fine widow," I said. "Now listen. You've been robbed and your husband murdered. That shot is sure to bring somebody. The thief and murderer may have been your trusted handyman who has vanished along with some valuables, some silver, jewelry, something." I yanked the ruby from her chest and stuck it in my pocket. "Give me time to get out the back door and then scream so the servants will come running. That door's so thick they might not have heard the pistol."

She nodded, eyes big, chest heaving, and I kissed her, getting blood on her cheek. "I'll be back," I said, hurrying out the back with a painful limp, mopping blood out of my face, and disappearing as thoroughly as I could into the city.

I read the story in the Philadelphia paper, surely murder most foul by person or person unknown of a respected official, and went back to make my fortnightly report and get sewed up again. The hairline cut healed by itself, as did my nose, but the rear end wound had to be sewed after the ball was probed for, found and removed. I did not enjoy that process nor climbing aboard a horse or a woman for the next month or so.