“Name’s Galen,” Marcus croaked. “Galen Chauncey.”
The chevalier de Clermont tipped water into his mouth again. This time, a few spoonfuls made their way down Marcus’s raw gullet and into his stomach. The effort left him gasping. As quickly as it had gone down, however, the water came back up. His body wanted no part of it.
A cool, damp cloth wiped the crust from his eyes and traveled down to remove the residue of bile and water from his mouth and chin. Someone rinsed the cloth with fresh water before it mopped at his cheeks and stroked softly across his brows.
“Ma?” No one else had ever touched him with such tenderness.
“No. It’s Matthew.” His voice, too, was tender. Surely this wasn’t the same chevalier de Clermont who had cowed Dr. Shippen and silenced John Adams?
“Am I dead?” Marcus wondered aloud. If they were all gone to hell, then tonight would make better sense. Marcus didn’t remember that any of the vivid descriptions of the netherworld Reverend Hopkins had shared from the Hadley pulpit on Sundays had included an army hospital, but the devil was nothing if not creative.
“No, Doc. You’re not dead.” De Clermont pressed the dipper to Marcus’s mouth. This time, Marcus sipped and swallowed—and the water stayed put.
“Are you the devil?” Marcus asked de Clermont.
“No, but they’re on very close terms,” Russell replied.
Marcus saw that de Clermont’s companion was no longer wearing a hunting shirt or buckskins. Now the man was dressed in the smart red uniform of a British regimental.
“You’re a spy.” Marcus pointed a trembling finger.
“Wrong man, I’m afraid. It’s Matthew who gathers the intelligence. I’m just a soldier. The name is John Russell, Seventeenth Regiment of Light Dragoons. Death and glory boys. Formerly John Cole, First New Hampshire Regiment.” Russell patted the breast of his coat, which gave off a strange crinkling sound like it was full of paper. “Come, Matthew. There’s a war to finish.”
“Go. You’ve got the terms of surrender,” de Clermont said. “I’ll sit with Doc.”
“Why did the brotherhood wait so damn long to do something? We might have been spared this whole summer of campaigning—not to mention saved this boy’s life.”
“Ask my father.” De Clermont sounded as weary as Marcus felt. “Or Baldwin, if you can find him among the jaegers.”
“Oh, well. It’s no matter. If not for war, what would creatures like us do each spring?” Russell asked with a snort.
“I don’t know, John. Plant gardens? Fall in love? Make things?” De Clermont sounded wistful.
“You’re a sentimental old fool, Matthew.” Russell extended his right arm. De Clermont took it, clasping it at the elbow. It was an oddly old-fashioned farewell, one that seemed more appropriate to armored knights and Agincourt than to Yorktown’s battlefield. “Until next time.”
With that, Russell vanished.
* * *
—
MARCUS’S GRASP OF TIME and place loosened further after Russell’s departure. His fevered dreams were filled with odd, sharp fragments of his past, and he found it increasingly difficult to answer the chevalier de Clermont’s questions.
“Is there someone I should write to?” de Clermont asked. “Family? A sweetheart you left back home?”
Marcus shuffled through the ghosts of Hadley who haunted his waking hours: kindly Tom Buckland and his caring wife; Anna Porter, probably married by now; old Ellie Pruitt, probably dead; Joshua Boston, who had enough worldly cares without Marcus adding to them; Zeb Pruitt, his hero, who could barely read. His friends in the Philadelphia Associators had moved on with their own lives. For a moment, Marcus considered writing to Dr. Otto, who had given him a chance at a better life.
“No family,” Marcus said. “No home.”
“Everyone has a family.” De Clermont’s expression was thoughtful. “You are a curious man, Marcus MacNeil. What made you give up your name? When I met you at Brandywine, you were already Doc. And Galen Chauncey is an assumed name if ever I heard one.”
“Am a Chauncey.” Marcus found talking exhausting but would force himself to do so on this important point. “Like my mother.”
“Your mother. I see.” De Clermont sounded as though he understood.
“Tired.” Marcus turned his aching head away.
But the chevalier kept asking him questions. Whenever Marcus’s delirium abated, he answered them.