Crow Hollow by Michael Wallace Read Free Book Online Page B

James said.
    Peter fell silent. Thank God for that.
    “Now listen to me,” James said to the crowd.
    “No, we will not,” Reverend Stone said. “We have listened quite enough.”
    Stone pushed his way through the crowd. Samuel Knapp was with him, the short man red faced and huffing. A taller man with long, flowing hair came in behind them. As Knapp and Stone cleared away the mob, this man approached.
    “Goodman Knapp says you have papers, a commission from the king,” the man said. “Do you have them on you?”
    “Who are you, sir?” James said in as cold a voice as he could manage.
    “I am William Fitz-Simmons, the deputy governor. And as God is my witness, if this commission from the king is false, I shall see both of you hanged.”

C HAPTER F IVE
    James stood in front of the three men with his hands bound behind his back. They’d taken his dagger and stripped open his jerkin and undershirt, then groped him from head to toe to check for other weapons. He had none. They had not rummaged through the pockets in his great cloak, thankfully.
    The three men—Reverend Stone, Deputy Governor Fitz-Simmons, and the self-proclaimed Indian killer Samuel Knapp—sat together in the front pew, while James stood where Stone had been delivering his sermon less than an hour earlier.
    Peter remained unbound and sat two pews back. Knapp had argued strenuously that they should tie up the Indian too, but he was overruled by Stone and Fitz-Simmons. Apparently they believed that Peter’s Quaker pacifism would master his savage nature.
    Fitz-Simmons laid the king’s commission, still unopened, across his lap. He wore a gold signet ring on his right middle finger, twisting the ring back and forth while he stared down at the king’s wax seal.
    “Why haven’t you broken the seal?” Fitz-Simmons asked.
    “Why should I?” James asked. “That is King Charles’s emblem. Nobody else has questioned my orders. Or are you claiming that it’s a forgery?”
    “What else would we expect from the likes of you?” Knapp said.
    James gave him a withering look. “You, sir, are a fool.”
    Fitz-Simmons stroked the seal with one finger. “It’s not a forgery. But it may well be a fraud.”
    “How so?” Reverend Stone asked. He looked less angry than the other two, more thoughtful, though it had been his services that James and Peter had disrupted.
    “For all we know,” Fitz-Simmons said, “it’s an order to buy a thousand hogsheads of barley in New York. Or letters of marque to attack Spanish shipping. It could be anything, or nothing at all.”
    James snorted as if that were the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. Inside, he was pleased. After the initial threat, the seizure of his weapon, the way they’d rudely tied his hands and groped him, he’d wondered if he’d underestimated the boldness of these Puritans. They acted as if monarchy had never been restored, as if the Roundheads still held sway over England.
    But the way the deputy governor fondled the orders, but didn’t dare break the seal, was emboldening.
    “The point is,” Fitz-Simmons continued, “you carry secret orders and rely on their secrecy to work your purposes. I say there’s nothing here.”
    “Then go ahead, defy me. Defy the king. Break the seal. If you are right, if the orders amount to nothing, what risk do you face? But if you’re wrong . . .”
    “He’s bluffing,” Knapp said. “I can see it in his face.”
    “What do you know of bluffs?” James said.
    “I know plenty.”
    James raised his eyebrows. “Why, are you a card player? What is your game, Knapp? All fours? Pharaoh? I thought gambling was illegal in Boston. I thought this was a Godly land.”
    Knapp sprang to his feet, eyes bugging. Fists clenched, he made as if to spring at James, but Fitz-Simmons and Stone grabbed his arms and forced him back to his chair.
    “Let him come,” James said. “I’ll smash his face in.”
    Knapp strained against the grip of the other two men.