She choked that thought off.
“Do you have much trouble? With Loyalists, I mean?”
“Can we open another, Mam? Pleeease?” Joan and Félicité were shiny-faced with melon juice, but looking hungrily at the remaining heap.
“Speak o’ the devil,” Marsali muttered, but not to her daughters. Her eyes were fixed on a pair of men who had come out of a tavern on the far side of the street. They were young but full-grown and looked like workmen, their clothes rough and grubby at the edges, and one carried a canvas sack over one shoulder. They paused outside the tavern, looking up, and Brianna saw that they were inspecting the sign, this being a piece of canvas tacked over the original sign.
The canvas bore a rather unskilled rendering of a soldier in white wig and enormous epaulets sporting huge loops of yellow lace, and a caption informing passerby that this tavern was The General Washington. Bree had just time to wonder what the original name of the place had been, prior to the occupation of the city, before the young man with the bag had reached into it and emerged with a handful of ripe tomatoes. He shoved these into his companion’s hands, scooped out another handful of tomatoes for himself, and hurled them at the sign overhead, bellowing, “God save the King!” at the top of his voice.
“God save the King!” his friend echoed. His aim was less sure than the first young man’s, and two of his tomatoes splattered against the front wall of the tavern, while another fell to the roadway and smashed on the cobbles.
A corner of the canvas sign had come loose under the assault and now flopped down, revealing enough of the sign underneath as to make it a good bet that the place had previously been known as The King’s Head.
“I’ll find out their names, Mam. So you can put them in the paper,” Joanie said in a business-like voice, and hopping to her feet started purposefully across the street.
“Joanie! Thig air ais an seo!” Marsali also leapt to her feet, just in time to seize Félicité by the arm and keep her from following her sister. “Joanie!”
Joanie heard and hesitated, looking back over her shoulder, but the young vandals, who had rearmed themselves with more tomatoes, heard too. Flushed with excitement, they ran across the street, flinging tomatoes wildly at Joanie, who screamed in panic and raced for her mother.
“Back off!” Brianna shouted at the top of her own voice, just in time to catch a tomato smack in the middle of her chest, where it exploded in a splotch of red juice and slimy seeds. “What do you morons think you’re doing?”
Marsali had shoved the girls behind her and was standing her ground, fists clenched at her sides, white with fury.
“How dare ye attack my daughter?” she bellowed.
“Ain’t you the printer’s wife?” one young man asked. He’d lost his cap and his hair was standing up in matted spikes, sweat streaming down his face from heat and excitement. He narrowed his eyes at Marsali, then her girls. “Yes, you are! I know you, damned rebel bitch!”
“Friggin’ mudlarks,” his friend said, panting. He wiped his brow on a sleeve, then pushed the sleeve up, showing a reasonably brawny arm. “Let’s throw ’em all ’n the river. Teach the printer to mind his manners.”
Bree drew herself up to her full height—she had a good four or five inches on both young men—and took a step forward.
“You little pipsqueaks clear off,” she said, as menacingly as she could. They looked at her, surprised, and burst into laughter.
“Another rebel bitch, eh?” One young man grabbed her by the arm, fast and hard, and at the same moment, the young man with the bag let it drop off his shoulder and, gripping the strap, swung it and hit her on the side of the head.
She lost her balance, staggered, and fell. Squishy contents notwithstanding, the bag was heavy, and her nose and eyes watered from the sudden impact. The young men were hooting with laughter. The girls were both yelping and Marsali was trying to keep them behind her, hovering in obvious hopes of being able to kick one of the miscreants. She wasn’t able to get close to them before one had stooped and grabbed Brianna’s ankles, yanking her legs up.
“Grab her shoulders!” he shouted at his friend, who promptly did just that.
They half-dragged, half-carried her down the bank, behind the screen of willows that edged the river. She was struggling but couldn’t breathe. Her lungs didn’t work and she couldn’t find purchase with hands or feet from which to strike them.
“Buinneachd o ’n teine ort!” There was a sharp cry, and the man holding her shoulders dropped her.