The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [49]
“That is the problem, I think,” Adrienne said. “We used to share our burdens—you, Crecy, me. Lately we've each been trying to carry it all. I'll take some of yours if you'll take some of mine.”
“I will carry anything you ask,” Hercule replied.
She regarded him for a moment; and as she had done, long ago, just after they met, she stretched up and kissed him lightly on his crooked nose. In his smile she thought she saw the memory come to him as well.
“Would you escort me to my students?” Adrienne asked. “I wish to speak with them, too.”
“But of course, Mademoiselle, of course.”
Oglethorpe, determined not to weep, watched the flames take his home.
“Why, sir?” Parmenter asked quietly, the red light playing across the hard planes of his face. “Spiking the cannons, yes, and poisoning the wells, perhaps. But this?”
“They'll get nothing from us,” Oglethorpe replied. “Nothing. If in the end we lose this war, and Azilia goes down to dust, then I will not have our enemy sitting in this house again, benefiting from my work.”
“And the assembly?”
“Yes, I should see them now. But this had to be done first.”
“To set the example.”
“Aye.”
And to set me free, Oglethorpe finished silently. To sever him from the idea of defending Azilia, which couldn't— shouldn't—be done. He had built it up once, and he could do it again. But for now, he had a bigger war to win and precious little to win it with. His attachment to the margravate would only hinder him.
The assembly hall of Fort Montgomery was less than three years old, for the old one had burned down and nearly taken the town with it. Oglethorpe would never forget that night, the soot-blackened faces, the men and women straining on the bucket line. And then the rebuilding and the celebration. They always took time to celebrate when they could in Azilia.
The assembly was thin, for many who had sat in it had died, and there had been no time for elections. Oglethorpe stood up and cleared his throat. But before he could say anything, Robert Taft stood to be recognized.
“Mr. Taft?”
“I only wish to express, Margrave, how happy we are to see you. We had thought ourselves lost, but now you have returned to us. I speak for all of us here, I think, when I say we are at your service.”
“You most certainly do not speak for all of us, Mr. Taft,” another man shouted, his long face a furious red beneath his bedraggled periwig. “For this war was not voted on by us! We should be with the Pretender, not against him. He is our king, by God, and all of our tragedies may be laid on that man.” He thrust his finger at Oglethorpe.
Oglethorpe sighed. He set his shoulders back and clasped his hands; then, removing his hat and setting it on the table, gazed across at men who had once trusted him. “How many of you are with Mr. Prescotte and feel I have embroiled you in the wrong sort of war?”
It came, he reckoned, from the confusion of yeas and nays, to be about half. He smiled grimly. “More of you will agree with him soon, for I am come here to give you some hard truths. The first is this: We are at war with the Pretender and his diabolic allies. If you think you can make peace with them and live as free men— or live at all—you are naïve and do not know what I know, and I will take no further steps to convince you. Stay here and wait for them if you please. But I am margrave, and, further, I command the army of the continent.”
“That army you destroyed?” Prescotte roared.
“If my strength is all gone, then come for me. Depose me. Try to pry my men from me, Mr. Prescotte.” He aimed a finger at Prescotte. “During all this, while good men have died, where have you been? You and all the other naysayers in the assembly, all those craving to crawl on their bellies to the Pretender and give them all we've fought for. You were on your plantation, eating corn and pork!”
“I could not leave my family alone with my slaves, not in times like these! You know that well.”
“Oh? Many planters fought with me. I myself abandoned my own plantation.”
“But you have no slaves.”
“True. But Williams did, God rest