Prologue
PART ONE
A Troubling of the Waters
1. SOMETIMES THEY’RE REALLY DEAD
2. AND SOMETIMES THEY AREN’T
3. LIFE FOR LIFE
4. NOT YET AWHILE
5. MORALITY FOR TIME-TRAVELERS
PART TWO
Blood, Sweat, and Pickles
6. LONG ISLAND
7. AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
8. SPRING THAW
9. A KNIFE THAT KNOWS MY HAND
10. FIRESHIP
11. TRANSVERSE LIE
12. ENOUGH
13. UNREST
14. DELICATE MATTERS
15. THE BLACK CHAMBER
16. UNARMED CONFLICT
17. WEE DEMONS
18. PULLING TEETH
19. AE FOND KISS
20. I REGRET …
21. THE MINISTER’S CAT
22. FLUTTERBY
PART THREE
Privateer
23. CORRESPONDENCE FROM THE FRONT
24. JOYEUX NÖEL
25. THE BOSOM OF THE DEEP
26. STAG AT BAY
27. TUNNEL TIGERS
28. HILLTOPS
29. CONVERSATION WITH A HEADMASTER
30. SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT
31. A GUIDED TOUR THROUGH THE CHAMBERS OF THE HEART
PART FOUR
Conjunction
32. A FLURRY OF SUSPICION
33. THE PLOT THICKENS
34. PSALMS, 30
35. TICONDEROGA
36. THE GREAT DISMAL
37. PURGATORY
38. PLAIN SPEECH
39. A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE
40. THE BLESSING OF BRIDE AND OF MICHAEL
41. SHELTER FROM THE STORM
PART FIVE
To the Precipice
42. CROSSROAD
43. COUNTDOWN
44. FRIENDS
45. THREE ARROWS
46. LEY LINES
47. HIGH PLACES
48. HENRY
49. RESERVATIONS
50. EXODUS
51. THE BRITISH ARE COMING
52. CONFLAGRATION
53. MOUNT INDEPENDENCE
54. RETURN OF THE NATIVE
55. RETREAT
56. WHILE STILL ALIVE
57. THE DESERTER GAME
58. INDEPENDENCE DAY
59. BATTLE OF BENNINGTON
60. DESERTER GAME, ROUND II
61. NO BETTER COMPANION THAN THE RIFLE
62. ONE JUST MAN
63. SEPARATED FOREVER FROM MY FRIENDS AND KIN
64. A GENTLEMAN CALLER
65. HAT TRICK
66. DEATHBED
67. GREASIER THAN GREASE
68. DESPOILER
69. TERMS OF SURRENDER
70. SANCTUARY
PART SIX
Coming Home
71. A STATE OF CONFLICT
72. THE FEAST OF ALL SAINTS
73. ONE EWE LAMB RETURNS TO THE FOLD
74. TWENTY-TWENTY
75. SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI
76. BY THE WIND GRIEVED
77. MEMORARAE
78. OLD DEBTS
79. THE CAVE
80. OENOMANCY
81. PURGATORY II
82. DISPOSITIONS
83. COUNTING SHEEP
84. THE RIGHT OF IT
PART SEVEN
Reap the Whirlwind
85. SON OF A WITCH
86. VALLEY FORGE
87. SEVERANCE AND REUNION
88. RATHER MESSY
89. INK-STAINED WRETCH
90. ARMED WITH DIAMONDS AND WITH STEEL
91. FOOTSTEPS
92. INDEPENDENCE DAY, II
93. A SERIES OF SHORT, SHARP SHOCKS
94. THE PATHS OF DEATH
95. NUMBNESS
96. FIREFLY
97. NEXUS
98. MISCHIANZA
99. A BUTTERFLY IN A BUTCHER’S YARD
100. LADY IN WAITING
101. REDIVIVUS
102. BRED IN THE BONE
103. THE HOUR OF THE WOLF
Author’s Notes
PROLOGUE
THE BODY IS amazingly plastic. The spirit, even more so. But there are some things you don’t come back from. Say ye so, a nighean? True, the body’s easily maimed, and the spirit can be crippled—yet there’s that in a man that is never destroyed.
PART ONE
A Troubling of the Waters
SOMETIMES THEY’RE REALLY DEAD
Wilmington, colony of North Carolina
July 1776
THE PIRATE’S HEAD had disappeared. William heard the speculations from a group of idlers on the quay nearby, wondering whether it would be seen again.
“Na, him be gone for good,” said a ragged man of mixed blood, shaking his head. “De ally-gator don’ take him, de water will.”
A backwoodsman shifted his tobacco and spat into the water in disagreement.
“No, he’s good for another day—two, maybe. Them gristly bits what holds the head on, they dry out in the sun. Tighten up like iron. Seen it many a time with deer carcasses.”
William saw Mrs. MacKenzie glance quickly at the harbor, then away. She looked pale, he thought, and maneuvered himself slightly so as to block her view of the men and the brown flood of high tide, though since it was high, the corpse tied to its stake was naturally not visible. The stake was, though—a stark reminder of the price of crime. The pirate had been staked to drown on the mudflats several days before, the persistence of his decaying corpse an ongoing topic of public conversation.
“Jem!” Mr. MacKenzie called sharply, and lunged past William in pursuit of his son. The little boy, red-haired like his mother, had wandered away to listen to the men’s talk, and was now leaning perilously out over the water, clinging to a bollard in an attempt to see the dead pirate.
Mr. MacKenzie snatched the boy by the collar, pulled him in, and swept him up in his arms, though the boy struggled, craning back toward the swampish harbor.