Charlie bent over the fallen stones and said softly, “And like a louse, you infest it.”
He heard a soft chuckle. Wolfgang was grinning as he slid his hands under a slab.
“You don’t speak, but you understand, don’t you?” Charlie whispered.
The German nodded. Together, they lifted the carved slab between them. Lightning flashed again, nearer than before, catching in the ornate stonework and filling with woods with light.
Between them, first digging a firepit and then erecting the stones upon it, they finished the oven before Parkes returned. He came leading a horse laden with several sacks, followed by a sullen, silent little man who supervised the firing of the oven and then sat down to mix up and knead several loaves by its fitful light. Rain fell, first lightly and then in torrents; as the oven heated, steam rose from the stones and mixed with the general humidity. Charlie was given the task of stoking the flames. The heat was disagreeable and the rain was too persistent to ever allow the flames to dry him. Finally the cook pushed him aside and shoved half a dozen loaves into the granite maw, and the slab that served as a door was wrestled into place. As soon as the first faint smell of cooking bread pervaded the night, the captain told the cook to return to camp before he was missed. The man stalked angrily away, obviously wishing he’d been invited to join the meal. The horse went with him.
There was no other focus for their evening now but the oven and the loaves within it. The four stood around the radiant crypt, Charlie feeling mildly proud of the accomplishment, thinking it a neat trick that might be repeated for the benefit of the Patriot Army, if he ever happened to rejoin his regiment, and if circumstances were ever dire enough to require it.
“You can stop slavering,” the captain admonished him. “None of those loaves will be wasted on a prisoner of war. We’ve retained some crusts for that purpose.”
Parkes chuckled.
“I wouldn’t want it anyway,” Charlie forced himself to say, although he was sorely disappointed by this inevitable news. “That’s dead man’s bread. It’s probably cursed.”
“Superstitious lout,” the captain said. “Well, suit yourself, as necessity would have it.” He drew a few crusts out of his coat pocket. “Here, these have served me well during the campaign. They were probably baked the day before your cowardly Washington fled across the river.”
At that, Charlie could restrain himself no longer. He had no rationality to hold him in check, and little enough reason to live in any case. He struck the crumbs from the captain’s palm and, in continuance of the same gesture, threw his hands around the officer’s neck. As Charlie throttled him, a feeling of satisfaction filled him. Even as the captain choked and sputtered, Charlie knew that Parkes was creeping up behind him.
He heard the click of a musket lock, but he didn’t care. The barrel poked him in the kidney.
“Release him!” Parkes hissed.
Thunder and lightning crashed and blazed in the same instant. The captain’s eyes looked like wet marble, bulging but not yet sightless; there was still a strong fire of triumph in them.
“Go ahead, Parkes,” Charlie said over his shoulder. “Kill me.”
“Parkes!” the captain croaked.
The hammer hit the pan with a dull sound. Nothing. Rain must have soaked the powder. Charlie laughed miserably and thrust the captain away from him. He was outnumbered by an army.
The captain stood rubbing his throat, glaring at Charlie in the orange glow. His hand trembled on the hilt of his sword. Parkes cursed the useless musket, then threw it aside and strode to the oven.
“Bread must be ready,” he said. “Can’t let it burn, can we?” The captain glared at Charlie a moment longer, then let go of his sword and gestured at the oven. “Get it out then,” he said.
“After we eat, this prisoner goes to the camp. I’ve been treating him too carelessly. He may have military secrets that would be some use to us. I’ll see if we can’t arrange for Indians to draw them out of it.” He smiled at Charlie. “They’re excellent torturers, you know.”
Parkes urged Wolfgang to open the oven. The German wrapped his hands in his thick blue coat, then shoved the heavy door aside. It fell sizzling on the grass. A blaze of heat rushed out at them, seeming to glitter for a moment like the starry flecks that Charlie had seen in the inscriptions. The loaves were golden, perfect. He swallowed his saliva and sank back, turning away from the torment of sight and smell.
“Watch him, Parkes,” the captain said.
“Aye, sir. No foolish moves, boy, or we’ll have an entire army down on you.”
Wolfgang stooped into the oven and batted out one loaf, two, catching them in the folds of his coat. These were delivered to Parkes, who seemed unable to wait for them to cool. The rain had abated, so he swept the top of one of the untouched granite crypts and set the loaves down. Soon the oven was empty. Charlie refused to look at the bread; instead his eyes were drawn to the melting air inside the kiln. The lower slab was the one with inscriptions on it. The heat seemed to gather where the darkness had been before, glowing out of the lines and letters, sketching them on his eyes. Even when he looked away, into the dark woods, he could see them burning there. In fact, they seemed to continue to grow, looping out in bright extensions of the carved vines, threading through the shadowy trees, tangling everything in fire.
Parkes sighed. “The smell is heavenly. I can’t wait any longer, Captain.”
“It’s your own tongue you’ll burn. Go ahead.”
Parkes lifted a loaf to his mouth and tore off a bite that should have suffocated him. He chewed it happily, and when he opened his mouth, steam escaped, even in the warm air.
“Delicious, captain,” he gasped. “I commend it to your appetite.”
“Ah.” The captain took up a second loaf and ripped off a handful, chewed slowly and thoughtfully, glancing sidelong at Charlie. “Like a piece, boy?” he said through his food. “I bet you would. It’s good bread. The best I’ve eaten. A growing boy needs good fare like this. But a rebel like you deserves only to waste away. You might as well watch me eat, boy. It’s the closest you’ll get to a meal tonight.”
“What about you, Wolfgang?” Parkes said. “You worked hard, you must be hungry. Go ahead.”
The German was crouching by the stove. Now he rose and retrieved two loaves.
“Ah,” said Parkes, “I knew you must be ravenous. A big fellow like you.”
But with a swift double-gesture, Wolfgang tossed one loaf to Charlie and raised his carbine with the now-free hand, aiming it at the captain.
“Damn you!” the captain cried, struggling to his feet. “I knew you were trouble from the first. You’re a criminal, aren’t you? Faced with imprisonment or military service, eh? Well, you’ll be rotting in a cell before this war is over—that, or rotting in the earth.”
“If so, I wouldn’t be the first criminal turned soldier… captain.”
These words from the German were utterly shocking to Charlie, who sat with the hot loaf of bread clenched in both hands, not yet daring to eat. Shocking because they were delivered with a clear English accent.
Charlie was not the only one surprised by the German’s speech. The captain sputtered and turned to look one way, then the other. At last he faced Wolfgang again. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that you’re a murderer.”
“If you call killing in battle murder, then I suppose I am.”
Wolfgang smirked. “What would you call killing a defenseless girl? Valor?”
“Who are you?” the captain said.
“I am justice, your nemesis, sealer of your fate. I entered that room after you’d left it. I found my sister dead. No one would have believed me had I accused an officer of such a crime, and you were sailing the next day. I thought that if I followed you, I might someday have a chance to avenge her far from the English courts, which would only protect someone of your class. I sailed as a mate on a ship of the line, and once here it was easy enough to steal a blue coat. Even easier to get you to take me on. You’re so eager for slaves, you’d accept any story.”