Chapter 9

Chapter 9

We wait down the dirt path from the grand rebel mansion. The ladies have been wandering together outside in the courtyard since the church bell struck seven o’clock. I raise my sword and call my knights forward. Twenty of my men ride behind me in grand costume, holding lances and shields. My vest is of white satin with pink, puffy sleeves strapped with black and silver lace. The hose I wear are such a brilliant white they nearly glow in the twilight.

A pink scarf drapes on my right shoulder, fastened with a grandiose white bow and ending with long silver fringes that hang low on my left hip. My sword belt is embellished, my garters are decorated with pink and silver bows with fringes and my wide, buff leather boots scrunch lazily around my ankles.

The best part of my costume is the white, satin hat with large red, black and white plumes I wear turned up in the front atop my curled hair, which is tied back in a silver ribbon. My men spent a week’s wages on similar costumes of pink, white, and silver. As we halt, in tight formation, in front of the clapping ladies, I have my trumpeter announce me.

I call out, “We are the Knights of the Blended Rose.” I pause for their cheers. “We droop when separated.”

Laughter echoes out around us. I have my trumpet ring again to announce the other group of Knights behind us, dressed in black satin with orange and gold lace.

Just as regally their leader announces, “We are the Knights of the Burning Mountain”—more applause—“I burn forever.”

The ladies all cheer and laugh. The Knights now dismount to find their Turkish Maidens. I saw mine from down the dirt lane. She dazzles in her gauze turban, with a gold and silver silk veil streaming out and around the bottom of her face, revealing only her large dark eyes. Her veil drapes beautifully over the long-sleeved, white, silk dress with the pink satin sash around her waist. Last, but not least, a large bow, with fringe, on her left side matches her knight.

I bend on one knee to her. “Sweet maiden, I beg you to give me your favor for the tournament.”

She laughs at my theatrics, but plays along. “Any knight who can design me a dress such as this always has my favor.”

As the other men get their ladies, I escort Peggy to lie on one of the many couches we brought out into the garden and clap for the servants to bring out the exotic fruit we acquired from the West Indies. I jump back on my Narragansett Pacer and march my team out under the triumphant arches we built as the trumpets sound. We salute each other and the ladies call out our names.

I hear Peggy’s clear voice. “Knight André, my Thorny Rose!”

I laugh at her silliness, as all the knights salute each other with our lances out. We charge each other and joust without anyone getting thrown. Some resort to firing off their pistols—although I feel it ruins the ambiance.

The women clap, and I shout, “I reconcile with happy compromise! I see we are all winners tonight!”

We all take our women inside. Peggy and I go in first and her breath catches. I have transformed the old mansion into a one hundred, eighty-foot, wall-to-wall castle: decorated the triumphal arches, painted murals on every wall, and forced enlisted men to stand in the corners of the rooms as statues in full armor. Large arrangements of wildflowers grace every table and shelf candelabras are placed all around and lit with sweet, aromatic, bayberry wax candles. Even the lustres over the long dining table glow. Classical music fills the house, and I’ve been sure to provide the orchestra with every sheet of music I can get my hands on.

Peggy gasps. “You did all this?”

“Oh, me and my army.”

She laughs. “Finally! I have never seen them so busy.”

“We have gone whole hog.” I point the large pig flayed and being hand-turned in the large fireplace. I ask a servant to be sure to start the tea service.

Small hands grab my waist, and I turn to find three women surrounding me. “Lt André, paint us please!”

I smile and Peggy gives me a look—quite possibly of jealousy— before she finds something to entertain her while I appease these young women by cutting silhouettes of them. After each frenzied fury of my sharp scissors, each girl beams at my interpretation of her and gives me a kiss on my cheek in payment. By the time I search for Peggy, she is dancing with a short knight, and I decide to assert myself on my maiden by cutting in and spinning her off to the cantata.

She grins. “In the greatest respect for your masculinity—”

“Oh, it is never a good thing to follow after that.”

We laugh, as she continues. “I dare say you dance with the grace of a woman.”

I laugh again—laughing comes so easy with her. “Well, if you said I dance like you I should think of it as quite a compliment, for I have found many women to be poor on their feet.”

Just then the cantata ends, and the minuet begins. I freeze as Peggy searches for the problem. “Wretched Minuet! I never handed them this sheet music.”

She giggles. “Such hatred for such a gentle rhythm?”

I take her by the arm and lead her onto the balcony as a servant carries a tray of champagne to us. I reach for two glasses and hand her one.

She brings it to her lips as I hold mine in the air. “To King George the III.”

“To the King,” she says, and we both sip, then hang our arms on the balcony, overlooking the garden maze.

I stiffen at a sound in the distance, and Peggy startles.

“It’s the pickets coming closer,” I deduce. “They’re swarming like sharks around the city. It won’t be long before we’ll have to leave it to them.”

She slumps at this sad news and, as we listen to the slight gunfire in the background of the sickeningly happy minuet, it seems as though worlds are colliding. She straightens sharply. “I don’t believe it.”

She squeals and hands me her champagne glass, almost dropping it in her haste.

“What is it?”

“My patriot!” she whispers loudly as she runs back into the mansion. I turn with both glasses in hand and stare down at the figure of a man coming from the woods across the garden. He hops over the hedges and jogs up right beneath me. The man stops and looks up, but his identity is concealed under a knight’s helmet. His has come in a plain costume of black satin with no embellishment, except a simple sword. Peggy opens the door under me and I imagine them running to embrace, as everything is quiet for the next few moments and then the door shuts. I decide to make my way back inside when the balcony curtains rustle and, to my surprise, Peggy and her tall man stand before me.

“This is Lt. André.” Peggy glows in the half-moon light. I put my hand out to him, the ample sleeve lace cascading down from my wrist to my knuckles.

The man brings his hand up to lift the steel flap, and I can’t believe it when I see the indigo eyes of the man I had shared a bedroll and bombard with.

He bypasses my hand and picks up one of my bows, searching, and asks, “Where’s your little weasel?”

Peggy laughs at my surprise and blurts, “He told me to seek you out. I wish I could have told you!”

I feel slightly foolish for the setup but try not to show it.

He looks my costume up and down. “I like your…pink…bows.”

Peggy pulls him away to the dance floor with a luminous grin. I take out the sheet music I had held for our last dance but decide it’s better spent now. I make my way to the orchestra and instruct them for the next song. I watch from the archway, and it’s worth it when I see her gasp and search the room for me as Pachelbel’s Canon begins. She finds me and smiles then gazes back at Smith, and they float around the room like those without the hindrance of feet. He dances her out the open French doors and into the garden where they still dance alone. At the end of the song, they kiss, and for the first time in long time, I feel the hole Honora left within me.

I must stop watching the happy couple and decide to go back inside to see what the general is up to. I catch him as he heads up the stairs, rather wobbly, with not one, but two giggling women at his side. I shout up to him, “I would think that the British were trying to depopulate America!”

Everyone laughs within earshot.

Clinton turns, sways a bit, and shouts, “This Brit intends to father a bastard for every rebel he has killed.”

The crowd laughs three times as hard.

A shout comes from outside. “The British fortification near German town is up in flames!”

We dash to the windows as the drummers around Philadelphia sound the alarm. Cannons boom out in different directions, and Clinton sobers quickly and yells, “All men to your horses.”

Dozens of silkened and bowed men jump on their steeds and pull out their guns as Clinton reassures the ladies, who are beginning to fret. “These are only fireworks that we’ve arranged for the merriment of the party.”

I ride off, looking back quickly to see Peggy standing alone in the garden, her knight having disappeared with the cannon fire. We ride all the way to the pickets where Kentucky riflemen hide, trying to pick each one of us off our horses. We’re forced to retreat back to the city.