Part 1 (1/2)

The ninth daughter.

by Barbara Hamilton.

For Gene L. with thanks

One

A bigail Adams smelled the blood before she saw the door was open.

In November, Boston didn't reek the way it did in summer, especially down here in Fish Street. The coppery blood-stink cut the more prosaic pong of fish-heads and privies from the moment she stepped through the gate into Tillet's Yard, the way the single thread of gore seemed to shriek at her against the gray of the wet morning, trickling down Rebecca Malvern's doorstep.

For that first instant, Abigail thought: One of the cats One of the cats.

Or maybe Nehemiah Tillet's cook had been clumsy, gutting a chicken.

Only then did she see the open door.

The British- Her marketing basket slipped from her hands and she gathered her skirts, strode to the place, heart in her throat.

Rebecca- It wasn't the first time blood had been shed in Boston. Before Abigail's eyes flashed the red-spattered snow of King Street, three and a half years ago now but alive in her mind as if it were yesterday. For an instant she heard again the shouting of the King's soldiers and the mob, smelled powder-smoke thick in the air.

Rebecca's broadsides against the King and the King's troops were absolutely scathing. If someone told them who she was, and where she could be found- If someone told them who she was, and where she could be found- Abigail froze in the doorway, hand pressed to her mouth.

Her first impression was that the whole floor of the tiny kitchen had been flooded with blood. It pooled in the hollows of the worn bricks, overspilled the threshold. Yet it wasn't the first thing that slashed her mind, seized her eyes.

A woman lay facedown close to the overturned table. Gray dress, dark hair; skirt and petticoats turned up to her waist. Her bare b.u.t.tocks and thighs were crisscrossed with knife slits. One shoe of fine green leather had been kicked off, lay on its side like a tiny wrecked boat against the irons of the hearth.

”Rebecca-”

Abigail's vision grayed.

The British- Then against her will the words came to her mind-or Charles Malvern?

He wouldn't! She groped for the doorframe, thoughts momentarily frozen at even a mental accusation of such a thing. Charles Malvern was a pinchpenny, moneygrubbing Tory, violent of temper and outspoken in his opinion that the Crown had every right to kill traitors where they stood. Yet surely, She groped for the doorframe, thoughts momentarily frozen at even a mental accusation of such a thing. Charles Malvern was a pinchpenny, moneygrubbing Tory, violent of temper and outspoken in his opinion that the Crown had every right to kill traitors where they stood. Yet surely, surely surely, he would never do this to the woman who had walked out of his bed and house.

Would he?

Someone had.

Not Charles! Not Rebecca-!

Abigail took a deep breath, feeling as if her knees would give way. Stepped across the great pool of gore on the threshold, stumbled to the side of . . .

Not Rebecca. The words that had sprung to her mind as a frantic plea to G.o.d suddenly rearranged themselves, and she thought, with an odd calm, The words that had sprung to her mind as a frantic plea to G.o.d suddenly rearranged themselves, and she thought, with an odd calm, No, in fact, it No, in fact, it isn't isn't Rebecca Rebecca.

Or at least, that isn't Rebecca's dress.

She dropped to her knees.

Dear G.o.d, forgive me for feeling relief. It was certainly some poor woman who had been used this way. It was certainly some poor woman who had been used this way.

Hands shaking with reaction and guilt, she reached to turn the woman over to see her face, then made herself draw back.

John-her beloved, self-important, irascible John, the hero of her heart, husband of her bosom, and occasional bane of her existence-was forever coming home from the colony courts fuming at the imbecility of police constables who dragged furniture about in burgled houses, who stepped on footprints left by thieves, who casually tossed out broken dishes or torn rags or any of a thousand things by which, he said, any reasonable man could reconstruct who, exactly, had broken into someone's barn or rifled someone's strong room. Nincomp.o.o.ps! Nincomp.o.o.ps! (This observation was usually made at the top of his lungs and accompanied by hurling his wig against the kitchen wall.) (This observation was usually made at the top of his lungs and accompanied by hurling his wig against the kitchen wall.) You'd think the lot of them were in the pay of horse thieves themselves! You'd think the lot of them were in the pay of horse thieves themselves!

Abigail took a deep breath, folded her arms on her knees, and bent her body to try to see the woman's face.

She was obliged to straighten up again and swallow hard. Not only the woman's backside and thighs had been slashed, but her face, from what Abigail could see of it, had, too. It was difficult to be sure, because of the blood that covered it from her cut throat.

But the dress at least certainly wasn't Rebecca's. Her friend had, in truth, owned gowns as fine as that heavy gray silk with its sprigs of pink and green. But she had left them in her husband's house, when she had walked out of it for good in April of 1770. In the three and a half years since then, the frock Rebecca had worn when she left had gone the way of all flesh, replaced by whatever castoffs her friends, or the parents of the pupils she taught, cared to give her.

The dead woman's dress, and the layers of blood boltered petticoats obscenely visible piled up on her back, were new.

And her hands were not Rebecca's hands.

Abigail had spent the first six months of Rebecca's new freedom salving and binding cuts, blisters, burns, and sc.r.a.pes while Rebecca learned to do her own cooking and her own was.h.i.+ng, she who had never wielded anything more harsh than a quill pen in her pampered life. Rebecca's hands were short-fingered and covered with wrinkles, though she was over half a decade younger than Abigail's thirty years. These days, Rebecca's hands were perpetually stained with ink from the poetry and political pamphlets she wrote at night, and with chalk from teaching a dame school to earn enough to buy herself bread. This dead woman's hands were as Rebecca's hands once had been: soft and white, each nail pampered like those of a Spanish in fanta.

Abigail sat back, and breathed again. Not Rebecca. Not her friend.

But in that case-?

Sick shock, as her eyes went to the door of the little parlor. No- No- She made herself rise, and reached it in two steps. The little house that had been built behind Tillet the linendraper's shop had begun its life as a storage building, with the kitchen tacked onto one side and a bedroom and an attic added on top; Abigail liked to say that her daughter Nabby's dolls were more s.p.a.ciously housed. The parlor was dim, its single window that looked onto the alleyway shuttered tight, but as she stepped into it Abigail's straining eyes could see nothing out of place, no humped dark shape in any corner.

She opened the cas.e.m.e.nts inward and shot the bolt of the outer shutters, pushed them back in a sharp sprinkling of last night's raindrops; turned swiftly and saw- Nothing out of the ordinary. The parlor looked as it always did. The door to the stairway above stood open. As Abigail crossed to it-two steps-she noticed the puddle of rainwater on the floor beneath the window. ”Rebecca?”

Dear Heaven, what if he's still in the house?

He. The one who did that- She went to the hearth, took up the poker, and noted as she did so the ashes heaped there, untidy, no sign of the fire having been banked for the night. Too much wood burned Too much wood burned, she thought. Why would she have sat up so late? Why the parlor, and not the warmer kitchen where she usually worked? Why would she have sat up so late? Why the parlor, and not the warmer kitchen where she usually worked? Every candle on the mantelpiece was burned short. Every candle on the mantelpiece was burned short.

No smell of blood in the stairwell. Every tread creaked. If he was here I'd have heard him . . . If he was here I'd have heard him . . .

Still her hands were cold with fright as she came out into the minuscule upstairs hall. Barely a foyer between stairways, with the door of Rebecca's chamber to her left, open into shuttered darkness.

The attic trapdoor at the top of its ladder was shut. Abigail strode to the bedroom door, peered inside. ”Rebecca?”

Narrow bed neatly made. Nothing-her mind evaded a specific. Nothing untoward untoward on the floor. The attic's tiny window would be shuttered and there was no bedroom candle on the sewing table by the bed. After a moment's hesitation, Abigail climbed the attic ladder, opened the trap, and put her head through. ”Rebecca!” on the floor. The attic's tiny window would be shuttered and there was no bedroom candle on the sewing table by the bed. After a moment's hesitation, Abigail climbed the attic ladder, opened the trap, and put her head through. ”Rebecca!”

Mr. Tillet-or, more truly, Mrs. Tillet, who appeared to use her husband as a sort of hand puppet for the transaction of legal business-rented out this house behind the main premises, but reserved the attic for the storage of Tillet family property: boxes of old account books, crates of chipped and disused dishes, sheets that had been turned too many times to be of any use to anyone yet that Mrs. Tillet would not surrender to the ragbag. A set of carpenter's tools against which Mr. Tillet had lent one of his sons-in-law money, and had foreclosed upon. Only dark shapes in darkness as Abigail looked around her, yet the smell of dust was thick, and she saw no mark of hand or knee in the thin layer of it around the trap.

The Tillets, she thought as she descended. Yet the Tillet house had been quiet. Even with the Tillets gone-What had Rebecca said yesterday? A family wedding in Medford?-surely Queenie the cook would have summoned the Watch, if Rebecca came beating on her door last night- In the pouring rain? Would Queenie have heard her? The cook slept in the west attic of the big L-shaped house, Abigail recalled. The cook slept in the west attic of the big L-shaped house, Abigail recalled. Would I have stood there, pounding the door and shouting, with the man who perpetrated this horror still in my house? Would I have stood there, pounding the door and shouting, with the man who perpetrated this horror still in my house?