A Wicked Way to Burn Read Online Free

killing soldiers under a white flag!”
    A loud chorus again agreed with the smooth speaker; most of them knew Peter Lynch, the local miller, well. He continued when the flood of voices ebbed away.
    “They were damned fools ever to trust Montcalm. They might have guessed he’d let his redskins get at our soldiers, with or without a truce, and rob them of everything they had—right down to the shirts on their backs! We all know those who survived saw a good many scalps taken that day, too. Saw women stripped, and worse—watched infants’ heads break open against the stockade walls! Saw more killed as they lay in their beds, burning with fever. And after that, the ones left were marched two hundred miles, all the way up to Montreal, to be sold for slaves! Well, we learned from that, all right. The whole world has learned of it by now, to their eternal disgust, so I don’t want to hear any more damned lies about how a Frenchman can
ever
be trusted!”
    “Cowards, every one of ‘em!” cried the drunken man beside the miller, who went by the name of Dick Craft.
    “Well, Peter, some of the things you’re saying,” began another, “weren’t exactly as you say….”
    Peter Lynch lowered his voice and looked around with a meaningful squint. “But there’s worse than those who fight in plain sight, as I just described. Spies, I’m thinking of now. Some of them are still in these parts, looking for mischief, and mayhem! Aye, they’re waiting … watching for ways to get back at decent folk who let ’em be, more’s the pity. Ready to go after ’em, even though hostilities be over.”
    “It’s a terrible truth,” Dick Craft shouted, shaking his wooden tankard in the air. “And I hope to God none of us forgets it in
this
lifetime!”
    Several listeners fervently agreed, while a few others belched. Thus encouraged, the drunkard continued.
    “If they plan to hang around, stealing what’s ours, then maybe we’ll help ’em up into the treetops with a rope or two! Or—or maybe we’ll be having ourselves a feather party—what do you say to that, Jack Pennywort? We’ll bring along our own f-feathers, and some nice, warm tar, we will! What do you say to that, now?”
    The daft-looking man sitting next to him took a sharp nudge in the ribs, and nodded with a simple smile. “Might there be,” he ventured, “some ale, Peter, for after?”
    Interrupted from wiping his nose on his sleeve, the miller leaned over and cuffed the man with an enormous hand, as a laughing Dick Craft jerked back out of the way, almost upsetting himself. Once righted, Dick managed to fling a challenging glance over his shoulder into a corner, where a younger man sat near the red-cloaked stranger, glowering at what was being said.
    Although he might have been taken by his dress for a local farmer, several details about this guest who sat in shadow marked him as something more unusual. For one thing, long black hair fell in waves down the sides of hisface, without the constraint of a ribbon. For another, his smooth skin had a deep olive glow. And his dark eyes were startling in their intensity. Set almost flush with high cheekbones, they shone out in the limited light, like a cat’s. Taken all together, one might have guessed that this was a Frenchman, with perhaps some Iroquois blood flowing in his veins. Though several men had glanced his way as the miller kept on, the young man’s full lips remained together, and he held himself remarkably still.
    Phineas Wise scratched his beard and frowned at the miller and his friends. Lynch had a few years and inches, and a good many pounds, over the youth he seemed to be tormenting. Although Peter had admittedly gone to fat lately … probably the result of a growing appetite for all sorts of things. As he gathered up some empty vessels, the taverner spoke cautiously.
    “Wartime’s one thing, boys. But now, thank the Lord, that’s all over. And there’s no law against being brought up to speak