Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (87 page)

THEY’D FINISHED THE MOST
urgent printing jobs and got everyone fed lunch—Germain and Jem had come back from their rounds with two loaves of day-old bread from the bakery and a bowl of shrimp fricassee from Mrs. Wharton’s ordinary.

“Mrs. Wharton says she wants the bowl back, Mam,” Germain said, conscious of his dignity and responsibilities as a bearer of the printed word.

“I’m thinking we’ll have melon tonight—they’re in season—and if they’re good, I’ll buy an extra one for ye to take back to her wi’ her bowl,” Marsali assured him. “Now—the wee yins have just been fed; they’ll sleep for an hour or two. You and Jem look after Mandy while we do the marketing, and I’ll make ye bridies for your supper.”

Mandy was miffed at not being allowed to go to the market with the Big Girls, but was substantially mollified by being given her own composing stick and a bag of type with which to spell out words, along with the assurance that Auntie Marsali would print whatever she made up onto a sheet of paper that she could keep.

“And if either of you try to get her to spell bad words, I’ll tell both your fathers and you won’t sit down for a week,” Brianna said to Jem and Germain. Germain looked piously offended at the notion. Jem didn’t bother, merely raising his brows at his mother.

“She knows every bad word I do already,” he pointed out. “Shouldn’t she ken how to spell them right?”

Familiar with Jem’s techniques, she refused to be drawn into philosophical discussion, and instead patted him on the head.

“Just don’t give her any ideas.”

“FISH LAST,” MARSALI
said as they made their way down toward the seafront. “Vegetables and fruit usually come in early in the morning, so we’ll have to take what we can get at this time o’ day—but fish dinna keep the same hours as farmers do, so boats come in anytime they’ve got a decent catch, and our chances are still good. Besides, we dinna want to carry fish longer than we have to, not in this weather.”

Fergus had brought home a sack of potatoes and a braid of onions before breakfast, these taken in payment from some of his customers. Beans and rice were kept in large quantities in the pantry. For now, they meant to scavenge the produce markets for whatever fresh stuff was available, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine while doing so.

Late in the day as it was, the market was still busy, but not thronged as it likely had been at dawn. They made their way through stalls and wagons and the cries of vendors trying to get rid of the last of their wares and go home, sniffing the mingled scents of sun-warmed flowers, garlic, summer squash, and fresh corn in the ear.

“What are ye askin’ for your okra?” Marsali inquired of one young gentleman, fresh off the farm, judging from his smock and apron.

“A penny a bunch,” he replied, scooping up a bunch tied with string and holding it under her nose. “Picked fresh this morning!”

“And rode here under a load of potatoes, from the looks of them,” Marsali said, poking critically at a bruised green object. “Still, they’d make gumbo…. Tell ye what, I’ll take three for a penny, and ye’ll be on your way home the sooner.”

“
Three
for a penny, she says!” The young farmer reeled, the back of his hand pressed dramatically to his forehead. “Madam, would you see me ruined?”

“It’s your choice, no?” Marsali said, clearly enjoying the show. “It’s one more penny than ye’ll get if ye dinna sell it at all, and I dinna think ye will, sae bashed as it is.”

The girls, who had plainly seen their mother bargain merchants out of their stockings before, were shifting from foot to foot and looking round for more interesting fare.

Félicité suddenly perked up.

“Mam! There’s a new wagon comin’ in! And he’s got
melons
!”

Marsali at once dropped the questionable okra and hurried after her daughters, who had sped ahead to get a good place by the wagon the moment it stopped.

“Sorry,” Bree said apologetically to the young farmer. “Maybe later.”

“Hmph,” said the young man, but he had already turned away, lifting a bunch of limp green onions aloft in one hand, okra in the other, shouting, “Gumbo tonight!” at an oncoming pair of shoppers with half-empty baskets.

People—mostly women, though there were a few men, apprentices or cooks by their grease-stained smocks—were gathering quickly, pushing to get their hands on the melons first. Joanie and Félicité had bagged a good spot by the tailboard, though, where the melon farmer’s son was minding the wares. Marsali and Bree reached the girls just in time to prevent a large woman in a bonnet from shoving them out of the way.

Brianna poised herself with her bottom pressed firmly against the wagon and prepared to repel the competition, while the girls stood on tiptoe next to her, sniffing ecstatically. Bree drew a deep breath herself and gave an involuntary small moan of delight. The smell of a hundred ripe, fresh-picked melons was enough to make her light-headed.

“Mmm.” Marsali inhaled strongly and shook her head, grinning at Brianna. “Enough to knock ye over, no?” She wasted no more time in sensual wallowing, though, but put a hand on Joanie’s bony little shoulder.

“D’ye remember how I told ye to pick a ripe melon,
a nighean
?”

“Ye knock on it,” Joanie said, but doubtfully. Nonetheless, she reached out and tapped gingerly on a rounded shape. “Is that one good?”

Marsali rapped the same melon, sharply, and shook her head. “It’s one ye’d buy if ye meant to keep it for a few days, but if ye want one fit to eat for supper—”

“We do!” chorused the girls. Marsali smiled at them and rapped her knuckles lightly against Félicité’s forehead.

“It should sound like that,” she said. “Not hollow—but like what’s inside is softer than the outside.”

Joanie giggled and said something in Gaelic that Brianna interpreted as a speculation as to whether her sister’s head was filled with parritch. Her own maternal reflexes inserted a hip between the sisters before mayhem could ensue, and she reached into the wagon at random and scooped up a melon, inviting Joanie to try it.

Ten minutes of haggling and controlled chaos later, they made their way out of the scrum, carrying eight prime melons among them. The rest of the vegetables and fruit were acquired with relatively little incident, and after casting her eye over her hot and visibly wilting party, Marsali declared that they would sit down by the river and eat one of the melons, as a reward for their labors.

Brianna, who had a knife on her belt, did the honors and a blessed silence descended, broken only by slurping noises and the spitting of seeds. The atmosphere was liquid; her clothes clung to her and perspiration ran in trickles from her bundled hair down the back of her neck and dripped from her chin.

“How does anybody live here in the summertime?” she asked, wiping her face on a sleeve and reaching for another slice of melon.

Marsali shrugged philosophically.

“How does anybody live through the winter in the mountains?” she countered. “Sweat’s better than frostbite. And here, there’s plenty of food year-round; ye’re no livin’ off venison shot six months ago and pickin’ mouse droppings out of what corn ye’ve saved from the squirrels.”

“That’s a point,” Brianna admitted. “Though I’d think the army eats a good deal of what’s available, don’t they?” She nodded toward a column of marching Continental soldiers, coming down the street toward the drilling ground at the edge of town, muskets over their shoulders.

“Mmphm.” Marsali waved to the officer at the head of the column, who took off his hat and bowed to her as they passed. “I feel a deal safer wi’ them here, and they’re welcome to whatever they need.”

Something in her tone made Brianna’s scalp itch, and she thought suddenly of the fire in Philadelphia. Her mother said that no one knew whether it had been an accident or…

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.