Before the laughter had a chance to fade Byrne turned to Michael, his voice low. “Say you want to march with them. Say it, man. Be quick.”

  Michael hesitated only a moment. Christopher had just saved his life. Of that he was sure. He might be doing it again. “Gentlemen,” he said loudly, and the laughter faded as they stopped to listen. “Gentlemen, I’d admire to march with you, if you’ll have me.”

  The men cheered. “Welcome,” Lop-ear roared, “to the cause of liberty!”

  The wagon with its effigies began to move through the crowd, who split to let it by and fell in behind it. Waiting was over. They were full of vigor and liberally laced with alcohol and jovial shouts. Placards appeared, proclaiming Liberty, or the Rights of Englishmen, or Damnation to the Stamp Act. Here and there, ominously, torches flared into light, and cutlasses were taken from beneath coats. With gathering strength they marched down Broad Street to the Bay.

  Michael leaned over to speak for Christopher’s ear alone. “As soon as we’ve gone a little way I’ll slip off. Thanks. I owe you my life.”

  Christopher glanced quickly around before answering. “You do, and we’ll neither of us escape the tar and feathers. Look you. There are hundreds round us. If you want to repay me, see this thing through.” He straightened and marched along as solemnly as the rest.

  Michael took his own look round. There were hundreds, and more joining as they went. And Lop-ear and Blacksmith seemed as occupied with Byrne and Fallon as with shouting and sign-waving. It might be his imagination, and Christopher’s too, but it was no time to find out. He marched.

  The jostling men, flooding the street from side to side, turned down the Bay behind the wagon. The church bells kept their muffled knell. Householders doused their lights as the seething torchlit mob approached.

  When the men crowded onto Tradd Street, doubling back toward the center of the city, Michael began to wonder. They seemed to be moving with a purpose. “Where are we bound?” he called to Christopher over the tumult.

  A gap-toothed ruffian with one eye answered him in a drunken shout. “Saxby’s house!”

  “Saxby? What in God’s name for? He’s in England.”

  Instantly Lop-ear and the blacksmith appeared. From somewhere Lop-ear had acquired a cutlass, and the other had a bludgeon as long as his arm. “Question is, are you with us, or against us?” Around them men turned to hear his answer.

  “I’m here, aren’t I,” he snapped. Most of them read the heat in his voice as fervor and turned away. Lop-ear, though, gave him a sharp look before melting back into the mob.

  The wagon stopped in front of a house set flush with the street. The halt was disorderly, those at the rear trying to push their way forward, pressing to be at the front. Michael was jammed between the one-eyed man and two drunken sailors, with not even room to lift a hand. Slowly, with shouts of “Quit pushing, damn you,” and “Stop shoving or I’ll carve your guts,” the churning ceased. An eerie silence fell over them all.

  The men from the wagon stalked to the house door, two dozen bullyboys hard at their heels. “Open! Open! Deliver the paper! Open!”

  Finally the door opened a crack, and they poured through, slamming it back against the wall. Shouts drifted out into the silent evening, and the sound of furniture overturning and glass breaking. A woman screamed, and the echo of it stayed in the air long after the cry was gone.

  The mob fed on it, gorged on it. A low, animal growl ran down the street. The hair on the back of Michael’s neck began to rise. Axes were brandished in the air, and iron bars. The sailors pressed against him managed to raise belaying pins. And all the while they growled, a deep, guttural sound that came from a level less than human.

  Those who had gone inside came out, and stood in silhouette against the lighted hall.

  “There’s no stamped paper here.”

  A moan, almost of disappointment, answered.

  “Burn it!” came a scream.

  “There’s no paper!”

  The sober-dressed men moved into the crowd, soothing, quieting. Here one clapped a man on the shoulder and spoke in another’s ear. There one pushed down a raised club, speaking quietly and quickly. Bit by bit the mob began to change. Smiles broke out. They had something else to focus on, now.

  He looked for Christopher. Byrne was smiling, as if all was as it should be. The way he knew it would be. He was talking quietly to the men around him, turning their scowls to anticipatory smiles.

  From the wagon the leaders produced a coffin, and lifted it on their shoulders like pallbearers. American Liberty, it said on the side in big letters. As if by signal the church bells began a slow toll. And the march fell in, in funeral time. Every man put on a solemn expression, or tried to; but laughter, quickly hushed, kept breaking over the slow footsteps of the crowd.

  Michael looked back. The door still stood open, light streaming into the street, onto the marchers as they passed. Their faces seemed fixed, gargoyles in the night. The door remained open until long after the last of them was gone.

  Up the peninsula they turned, up the length of the city, clutching their torches, fingering their cutlasses and clubs. Street by street the cortege grew, and the newcomers had no somber air. At every corner they joined, apprentices and tavern girls, laborers and blowses. They came singing and laughing and passing bottles of wine, and their festive air began to infect the entire march.

  The mob pressed on. Suddenly Michael realized where they were going. The barracks where the redcoats were. The march was heading straight for them.

  If the soldiers were forted inside the barracks, meaning to fire their muskets through the windows, there might be a chance to survive. If they were waiting in the darkness, however, waiting to move in on a fire-and-advance-by-ranks, it was likely to be the end for hundreds.

  They rounded onto the green before the barracks, the soldiers’ drillfield. Michael held back, keeping to the edge, waiting. The windows of the barracks were dark. There was no spark of light, no reflection off a gunbarrel or bayonet, nothing. It had to be fire-and-advance, then.

  The men with torches moved in the dark, and bonfires, laid beforehand, suddenly flared high. One by one the effigies were taken from the wagon and tossed to the flames. Ever louder shouts greeted each one. The last, the stamp collector, drew a howl Michael could feel in his bones. The mob shrieked, faces contorted, flushed with more than the heat of the fires. Then Michael saw a head at a barracks window, and then another, and a dozen more. Just short of taking cover he stopped. There wasn’t a musket in sight. They were just watching.

  Now the leaders began directing men in digging a hole. One of them brandished a prayer book. The rest brought the coffin closer. It appeared they would hold a funeral for Liberty.

  Out of the corner of his eye Michael saw Byrne slipping by. He caught hold of his arm. “Christopher, you knew there was no stamped paper at Saxby’s. You knew before a man went inside.”

  Byrne drew himself up, and smiled wryly. “All right, Michael. I knew. Saxby’s not even back from England yet. What of it?”

  “What of it? Why? That’s what of it. Why break into a house, tear it half apart, terrify the people in it?”

  “Power, that’s the reason. No, not what you’re thinking. Not just the power of the mob running wild. Tonight we entered the house of a prominent King’s man. We built bonfires where they toast a barracks full of redcoats. They didn’t stop us, Michael. They didn’t even try. They couldn’t. We’ll do it again. And they still won’t be able to stop us. Soon or late, the English will come to realize that it’s us who are running things here. Not William Bull in the State House, and not their redcoat soldiers, either. Us. The people.”

  “And what do you do then? What do you do when the soldiers don’t stay in their barracks, and the Royal Navy drops anchor in the harbor? What then?”

  A familiar, mocking smile flitted over Christopher’s face. “Why as to that, ask Mr. Gadsden, or perhaps Mr. Timothy, at the Gazette. What you want is not for the likes of me to be knowing.”

  Michael backed away from him. He felt cold inside, and angry, and the noise from around the fires seemed to fade. “Good God! You’re wanting it, aren’t you? You’re talking rebellion. Man, don’t you know any better? You’re Irish. You should know what rebellion brings in your bones, win or lose. And it’s seldom win, now, is it?”

  “Hsst, Michael.” Christopher looked around them quickly. “You’re talking things that should be left unsaid. See Gadsden.” He moved deeper into the darkness. His voice came, deadly serious. “There’s a tidal wave coming, Michael. You must ride it out, or be swept away.”

  Rebellion. Michael stalked away. These fools ran toward it, dancing over the precipice with never an inkling. You knew what it meant, in Ireland. You sucked it in with the milk at your mother’s breast. Families lost. Land lost. Hope lost. Raging fires in the long twilight before an endless night, that was rebellion’s harvest.

  When he passed through Carver’s gates on Church Street his weary steps dragged on the carriage path toward the stables. A rustle in the shrubbery brought his head up. Mr. Carver stepped out of the shadows. They looked at each other silently. Finally the older man spoke.

  “There was trouble tonight, Michael. Were you part of it?”

  “I was there. I wasn’t part of it.”

  “Come inside.” He sounded tired as well, or perhaps sad.

  Michael followed him noiselessly into the study. A pool of candlelight caught the front edge of the desk. Carver sat behind it, his face in shadows. The light lay like a barrier between them.

  “What happened?”

  Slowly at first, as he skirted around Christopher’s involvement, then in quicker, sharper tones, Michael told of George Saxby’s house and the bonfires, until the feel of the mob was in the room and their howls seemed to echo behind the walls. He stopped abruptly, and they both seemed poised for a moment, listening to fading cries of anger.

  “So, it has begun. I had hoped—” Carver’s voice stopped.

  Michael felt a strange desire to reassure him. “They’re hooligans, sir. A mob. Just a mob.”

  “It always begins with a mob, Michael,” the old man said softly.

  “It does, and often enough, when it’s all over, it ends with one, too.”

  Carver made a sound in the darkness. “My father used to tell me when I was a boy that next year will not be like this year.” He shook his head. “It’s faster now. Tomorrow won’t be like today. No, more than that. The next hour will not be like this hour. At times I expect the earth to open momentarily and swallow everything I know.”

  “A tidal wave. Someone said tonight it’s a tidal wave, and we must ride it out or be swept away.”

  The old man nodded. “And who can ride a tidal wave? No mortal man. We can only continue to live our lives as best we can.” Carver shifted in his chair. “I’m having a reception next Thursday evening. I had some thought of canceling it, given what’s happened, but I won’t. My daughter informs me that I am most particularly to invite you.”

  “Sir?” Michael’s head came up in the darkness. “Of course, I must refuse.”

  “You will come, Michael. Times are changing. Faster then we can catch hold of, perhaps. You’ll come. You’ll be my guest.”

  “Then it will be my pleasure, sir,” Michael said levelly.

  Carver rose and leaned into the light, his hand outstretched. “Until the wave catches us.”

  Michael stepped into the light and took the hand firmly. For the first time since he had met him the merchant looked his age, and more. “Until the wave catches us.”

  “Good night, Michael.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  It was cool outside. Michael stood gazing into the darkness. He had begun in trade and, even more of a wonder, Elizabeth had taken notice of him. Two parts of his dream, both happening on the same day, both happening long before he had any right to expect. And yet, they might have come too late. He looked up to her window, but the house was a dark mass looming against the night.

  A tidal wave, and they would all be swept away.

  9

  When Michael returned to his room the afternoon of the party, Christopher Byrne was waiting for him.

  “There’s been talk about you, lad. You shouldn’t be avoiding us.”

  Michael took his best black suit from the clothespress. It was true; he’d avoided Byrne, and the daily street crowds, and even Dillon’s. “What kind of talk?”

  “You should be with us, Michael.” Christopher swung his feet down off the table with a thump. “It’s a time for choosing sides. There’ll be no neutrals in this.”

  “I should be with you? Like last night? For God’s sake, man, Henry Laurens is as much against the stamps as you, even though he is against Gadsden’s mob.”

  “I’d nothing to do with that,” Christopher said swiftly.

  “It was your crowd, just the same. Forcing their way into his house with lampblacked faces, disguised as sailors. When he started calling names in spite of it, they were quick enough to leave. A sham and a farce. A member of the Assembly, and treated so.”

  Christopher shifted uncomfortably. “Perhaps it was an excess. Michael, listen to me.”

  Michael threw the suit on the bed and whirled to face him. “No, you listen. I’m not in this, not on either side. I’ve my own life to lead, and it doesn’t include being pulled down for a rebellion, no matter how grand and glorious it seems on the surface. I’m not in it, and that’s that.”

  “Well.” Christopher rose slowly, and paused at the door. “There’s more to this than paper, lad. More than a cutpurse mob. You know it, and I know it. I said there’ll be no neutrals, and there won’t. Choose a side before it’s chosen for you.”

  The door closed quietly behind him. Michael began to brush his suit. They wouldn’t be content with silence. Now they must come after him. Well, he was no part of it, nor would be. He brushed harder. No part of it.

  Critically Elizabeth examined herself in the drawing-room mirror. Blue velvet always gave her eyes a vivid color, and it was cut just low enough, no longer a child’s high neck, nor yet as low as half those that would be worn to the party. Not low enough to excite her father, but low enough for what was to be done. At the thought she tingled with anticipation.

  Tonight she’d be a woman, though a youthful, innocent one. Innocent enough to pique this Michael Fallon’s interest, but woman enough not to put him off. Instinct told her that innocence was more the way with this man than flaunting. She’d make him want to protect her. Elizabeth smiled.

  Her father came in, nodding at the flower arrangements and the gleaming brass. “Excellent, Elizabeth. The room couldn’t look better.” His gaze took in her dress, and he hesitated.

  She caught the hesitation; before he could speak she was straightening his collar, though it didn’t need it. Nothing, she knew, made a man feel at once the center of attention and yet off balance so well as having a woman straighten his clothes. “There. We mustn’t have you disarrayed when the guests will be arriving any minute.”

  “What? Yes, of course.” He’d lost the moment, he realized, without knowing quite how. Still, it was just as well. She was becoming a woman, and it wasn’t too soon for her to dress it. She could well be married within a year. “That reminds me. Mr. Fourrier sent a note. He and young Justin may arrive quite late.”

  “Justin,” she said blankly.

  “Yes, child. Justin. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. It’s just—well, after what happened I thought he would absent himself.”

  “Not come? Don’t you want him here, Elizabeth?”

  “Of course I do, Papa,” she said quickly. “Don’t be silly.” The bell rang, and Seth passed on his way to answer it. “Come, we must greet them.”

  He gave her his arm with a frown. It wouldn’t disappoint him greatly if she turned from Justin Fourrier. But they’d been as much as betrothed for years. Elizabeth had seemed at least content with it, sometimes eager. How could she grow so cool, so fast?

  The first guests entered. He covered his thoughts with a smile and a greeting.

  Michael waited till well after dark before leaving his room. He’d arrive fashionably late, neither the first to come nor the last, and he’d arrive by the front door. If Carver wanted a guest, not a servant, that was what Michael would give him.

  When Seth opened the door, he gaped at Michael for an instant; then he took his hat with a broad grin and led him in. He made the announcement in a ringing voice: “Mr. Michael Shane Fallon.”

  A number of the guests turned. Some stared, on recognizing him; others simply examined his clothing critically. He was, he knew, a crow among peacocks. More than one woman, though, fluttering her fan a little more rapidly, thought him a hawk among jays. A buzz started as they asked who he might be, a shocked buzz when they were told.

  Carver came to greet him immediately. “Michael. I’m glad you came.”

  “My pleasure, sir.”

  Elizabeth laid her hand on her father’s wrist. “I’m sure you know my daughter, Elizabeth,” he said, a twinkle in his eye.

  Michael made an elegant leg to her. “I have had the pleasure of meeting your charming and beautiful daughter, sir. Miss Elizabeth.”

  “Perhaps you’d be so kind as to get me a glass of punch, Mr. Fallon,” she said, smiling. From the corner of her eye she saw her father’s surprise. “We must make him feel at home, Papa.”

  “Indeed. For now I leave him to you.”

  Elizabeth smiled up at him after her father had gone. “You heard my father, Mr. Fallon. You’re in my care.”

  “I believe it’s customarily the other way round, Miss Elizabeth. I’ll fetch you the punch, now.”

  She held out her hand. “I’ll go with you.”

  Hesitating just a second, he took it on his arm. Her touch was like a flame. He ladled punch for both of them, hardly able to think; she was standing so close. “It’s a lovely party,” he said, and cursed the inanity of it.