So he turned back and looked at Monroe. “Fine words, Mr. Secretary. I’m sure they came from you, even if young Sam here gave them a heady and enthusiastic lilt. But I’m no great believer in airy sentiments.”
He pointed into a corner of the room. “I’m sure you didn’t notice him when you came in. But you might ask yourself why Henry Crowell is huddling over there.”
Everyone turned to look in the corner, where the black wagon driver was sitting. Just as startled as everyone else had been by Driscol’s words, Crowell’s eyes were wide.
“Oh, aye,” Driscol said, half snarling. “It’s not safe right now for a freedman in the city. Any man with a black skin. It seems there are rumors of a slave insurrection, and half the soldiery is out there charging about to put it down.” The rest, he did snarl: “While the Sassenach, needless to say—the ones who did burn and loot and plunder—make their escape with no pursuit.”
He kept the finger pointing, as steadily as a musket. “So Henry Crowell, who brought the munitions which held the enemy at bay, cowers here in a corner. Not knowing, even, what’s happened to the wagon which is his sole means of earning a livelihood. And slavemasters give speeches about the glories of republicanism in the chamber below, and come up here to propose schemes for bringing just settlements to the Indians. Well, there’s nothing I can do about it. But I fail to see why Patrick Driscol should lend himself to the furtherance of the lies and hypocrisies of gentlemen.”
Driscol’s pale eyes were cold, but all the hot, boiling anger surfaced in the words. “Oh, aye, it’s always class that tells, isn’t it? You’ll ladle praise onto a stinking Sassenach general for his gallantry. But let me ask you, Mr. Secretary, when you were governor of Virginia, did you ladle the same praise onto the man named Gabriel when you hung him? And if not, why not? What crime was he guilty of, other than opposing the tyranny of his so-called betters, with arms in hand?”
The anger was all encompassing, now. The cold, pale eyes moved to John Ross.
“And you, Lieutenant. What is your complaint? That the white man won’t let you remain on your plantations, lording it over your own slaves?” He jerked his head toward the Rogers brothers. “Just a few hours ago, they were telling me—boasting, to call things by the right name—that most of your chiefs have plantations as fine as any white men. Your Major Ridge, I’m told, is a great man—and nothing proves it so much as his twenty slaves. So you, too, are nothing but lordlings who, like all lordlings since the dawn of time, seized their status by theft and murder and then used the plundered goods to prove the status. And now—now—have the unmitigated gall to claim that you are the victims of injustice.”
He turned away. “Be damned to all of you. Do what you will. But do not ask me to give it my blessing, much less my active participation.”
His eyes searched the city below. Looking for a dwelling wretched enough that he might be able to afford it—on whatever income a discharged lieutenant might have.
Sergeant, he reminded himself. His promotion to lieutenant had not been approved as yet by the War Department. And now, of course, surely wouldn’t be.
CHAPTER 30
Monroe glanced at Houston. For the first time since he’d met him, the young captain was obviously at a complete loss for words. In fact, he was almost gaping like a fish. Whatever else he’d expected from Driscol, clearly enough, Houston hadn’t anticipated that coldly furious tirade.
No, not tirade, Monroe cautioned himself. It was the lieutenant’s harsh words—the tone, even more than the words themselves—that had infuriated some part of Monroe. That part of him which was Virginia gentry by birth, and whose status had grown great with time.
Yet the fact remained that Driscol had said nothing which, in substance if not with the same pitiless condemnation, Monroe hadn’t heard said time and again. He’d even said as much himself.
It was indeed true, as Driscol had charged, that as governor of Virginia, Monroe had had to sentence the leaders of a slave insurrection. Would-be insurrection, to be more accurate, since—as was usually true in such cases—informers had revealed the slaves’ plans before they could set them into motion. Monroe had been astonished, at the time, at the hostility which his lenient policy had generated from most of his fellow gentlemen. He’d hung the leader Gabriel and several others, because as governor he was charged with maintaining public order and existing laws and property relations. But that had seemed enough, to him, for the purpose. To go further would have been simple cruelty—yet that had been precisely what many others wanted. Why? For no better reason than Driscol’s very accusation—they’d been gentlemen, aggrieved by the impudence of slaves, demanding vengeance for their injured dignity.
Monroe took a deep breath, calming and dispelling that stupid, vicious, gentleman’s anger. Driscol’s charge cut to the very soul of the nation, after all—and Monroe knew it. If most men might not wrestle with the problem of slavery, the greatest of them did. George Washington had done so, in his own austere way—and, in his will, he had freed his slaves. Thomas Jefferson, in his far more voluble—some might say, histrionic—manner, had done the same. He’d once concluded a denunciation of slavery with the words, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
And Madison, too, in his quiet manner. He’d already told Monroe that once he was no longer president, and could finally retire from public life, he hoped to convince Dolley to move to Ohio. So he could, at least in his own person, finally be rid of slavery.
The president hadn’t had much hope of success, however. His wife Dolley was Quaker-born, not southern, and had no theoretical attachment to the peculiar institution. But she also had an improvident son, and enjoyed her wealth. And slavery was profitable.
Money. In the end, Monroe knew, it all came down to that. For him, as much as any man of his class. Nothing else, nothing more. Certainly nothing more exalted. Just the endless, well-nigh irresistible seduction of Mammon—who was surely a demon.
He almost laughed, then. Leave it to Lieutenant Patrick Driscol to call a gentleman a demon worshipper, and do it to his face!
That wry thought was enough finally to bring the statesman to the helm.
“Actually, Lieutenant,” the secretary of state said calmly, “your objections strike me as speaking well for your qualifications in this mission. Very well, in fact.”
Driscol’s eyes narrowed, and his head turned partway from the window.
“You must be joking.”
“Not at all.” Monroe couldn’t convince a man who wouldn’t look at him. His years as an ambassador to France and England and Spain—failures and successes alike—had taught him that. “Please, Lieutenant Driscol, will you simply listen to me?”
Courtesy—especially when it came unexpectedly—did the trick. Driscol turned completely away from the window and faced him squarely. True, the man’s eyes were still cold, and his slightly lowered brow could have butted a bull senseless, but . . . he was listening. And Monroe knew how to talk. Far better, if not in formal speeches, than a youngster like Houston.
“All of it is a Gordian knot, Lieutenant. All threads tangled together. A republic which rests in good part on slavery—yet it is a republic. Which means, among other things, that it must respect the property of its citizens until such time as those citizens decree otherwise. Or would you have me take the power, and wield it like a despot? And if so, why do you think the end result would be better? How well did Napoleon do, after he became emperor? You served under him, I believe.”
Driscol’s jaws tightened. “So I did. I left his service . . . after some time in Spain. Just butchery, that was.”
Monroe nodded. “The contradictions continue, on and on. The United States is also a nation coming into being by robbing the lands of other nations—yet it is a nation, and one that you would see grow yourself. Why else did you come here from Europe? Did far more than that!” He pointed at Driscol’s stump. “Gave that nation your own ar
m.”
“It’ll all unravel,” Driscol growled. “See if it doesn’t.”
“Perhaps it might,” Monroe allowed. “But in what manner? I’d gladly see it unravel myself, if I could be sure all the threads wouldn’t be lost, the good along with the bad.”
“You don’t unravel a Gordian knot.”
“Precisely.” Now, finally, it was time for a smile. One of Monroe’s best—and he was good at smiling, even if he did it rarely. “A Gordian knot needs to be cut. So who better to ask than someone like you, Patrick Driscol?”
After the secretary left, a few minutes later—dragged away by his aides once they found out where he’d gone—Driscol glared at Houston.
“How in the name of creation did he talk me into this madness?”
Houston had recovered his own equilibrium by now, along with his good cheer. “Patrick, you can’t be that iron-headed. Do you think a man has the career he’s had—with the presidency still to come, most like—if he doesn’t know how to talk people into things?” He placed an arm over Driscol’s shoulder and gave him a friendly, reassuring little shake. “Think of it this way. You can always console yourself with the knowledge that you were swindled by an expert.”
Driscol grunted. The sound was half sour, half . . .
Not.
“It’s an interesting idea, I’ll give it that. The core of it’s yours, I assume? Monroe’s too much the proper gentleman to have come up with it, even leaving aside his English heritage. Only a daft Irishman would think this scheme could work.”
The lieutenant’s pale eyes moved to John Ross. Always a sergeant’s, those eyes, never an officer’s. “You won’t have agreed, of course.”
Hesitantly, Ross shook his head.
“No, of course not. So far I don’t see where”—he shot Houston an apologetic glance—“it’s fundamentally any different from what’s been proposed many times before. We move across the Mississippi—and you take our land.” He shook his head again, this time more firmly. “It’s simply not just. It’s our land, and you can’t even claim the right of conquest. We’ve been your allies, most of the time.”
Houston was a little afraid that the Cherokee’s bluntly stated opposition would deter Driscol. Instead, it seemed to have just the opposite effect.
“Oh, it’s justice you want from the white man, is it? Well, it’s good to see the Irish have no monopoly on blithering idiocy. You might as well expect an Irishman to get justice from a Sassenach, as so many did and do. Let me explain something to you, my proud young Cherokee. Looking for justice from the mighty is the work of fools. You’d do far better to look for redress in the form of vengeance. Or haven’t you figured out yet that’s really Houston’s scheme?”
Ross’s eyes widened.
So did Houston’s.
“I never—”
Then Sam realized what Patrick meant. At which point, his eyes widened still further.
“I know the stories,” Driscol continued, “even if I can’t cite the verses. So, tell him, Sam. Tell him what finally happened to the Trojans, in the end.” His eyes swept the room. “Tell all of them. Henry, too. He’s got as much right to know as any.”
Everyone was staring at Houston, now. He cleared his throat. “Well, it’s just a story . . .”
“They’re all just stories,” Driscol rasped. “Which means one’s just as good as another—if people act by it.”
“Well, ah . . . true enough. According to the poet Virgil—he was a Roman, not a Greek—some of the Trojans survived and fled to Italy. After many adventures. And . . . they founded Rome.”
“The whole story.”
Sam sighed. Driscol was glaring again. He was so glad he’d never been a soldier who’d had to serve with Driscol as his sergeant. The man was a veritable troll!
“Well, yes. And in the end, of course, the Romans conquered the Greeks. So the Trojans got their vengeance. Mind you, it took about a thousand years, and there were a lot of twists and turns.”
There was silence, for a moment.
Then, suddenly, James Rogers laughed. “That’s ridiculous!” He held up the war club that seemed to be inseparable from him, practically an extension of his arm. “I can fight as well as any Cherokee. But the idea that we’d ever be able to conquer the Americans. It’s just ridiculous. There are too many of them. Kill one, and ten more step forward in their place.”
But Sam could finally see what Driscol was hinting at. “A thousand years, remember. With lots of twists and turns. And then the Greeks turned the tables again, because the Romans all wound up speaking Greek and quoting Greek philosophers.”
James shrugged. “So?”
“So ‘conquest’ is a word with many different meanings.” But Ross was the key here, not the Rogers brothers, so Sam turned to him. “Here’s how it is, John—and I’ll do my best to talk you into it. You and all the others, in the time to come. Stay where you are, and you’ll be crushed out of existence. There’s no way around it. But move—move yourselves, like men, rather than being driven like beasts—and you stand the chance of forging something powerful out there. Something which can shape its own destiny.”
“And who knows?” Patrick added. “You may end up shaping your enemy, too. Create a nation powerful enough, in a place you can do so, and over time you’ll begin changing the nature of your neighbors.” He looked a bit uncomfortable then. “Now that it’s all over, I’ll admit that Robert Ross seemed a fine enough fellow. Of course, he was born in Ireland.”
John Ross just stared at him. Driscol shrugged. “Look, lad. I hate the Sassenach as much as any man. But the fact is, I speak their language. So do most Scots or Irishmen. The same language in which the Declaration of Independence was written—and humbled the bastards in their own tongue.”
He gestured toward the door through which Monroe had departed. “It was that, in the end, which convinced me. The man’s right enough about that. Let two generations pass, and the threads are all tangled up again. So now we Irishmen speak English, and the English argue with themselves about Ireland. Sometimes they even listen to Irishmen. And their cousins here in American—English, Scots, Irish, all tangled together—intrude rudely into the dispute with opinions of their own, which they mostly derived from Englishmen, but didn’t hesitate to impose by force of arms when needed.”
Patrick Driscol took a deep breath. The quite unexpected reaction of a Virginia politician had cracked, perhaps for the first time in his life, his unyielding animosity toward gentlemen.
Well, not the first time. Another Virginian named Winfield Scott had done that. But Scott had been a general, and Driscol always gave more leeway to soldiers.
“My point is this, John. After a time, it all becomes something of a family quarrel. And now, for good or ill, and whether you asked for it or not, your Cherokees have become embroiled in it.” He looked Ross up and down, then glanced at Tiana Rogers and her brothers. “And not just embroiled in the quarrel, either. You’re now embroiled in the family itself.”
Ross cocked his head. “Granted. Sequoyah’s even talking about creating our own written script. To add to all the rest—the mills, and the separate houses, and raising livestock. Yes, slaves, too. I suppose we’re adopting all the white vices, as well as the virtues. But we’re still different, and we want to stay independent.” He also glanced at the Rogerses; then, smiling a bit, down at his own hand. “Even if we’re none too fussy about who we mate with.”
Driscol snorted. “I’d say so, given the way you mate with the Scots-Irish. Pack of ruffians—and I know whereof I speak.”
Driscol flushed a bit, then. He carefully avoided looking at Tiana. All the more so, because he suspected she was grinning at him.
“Those fancy stories of the ancients, Greek and Roman both. What I think? If you could trace it all back, you’d find some sordid family dispute at the heart of them. Properly dressed up, of course, as the centuries passed. Gods and heroes, the lot. Somebody cuckolded somebody else—probably a co
usin—and they got their revenge, and then their children struck back, and they’re still arguing about it to this day even if nobody can remember what it was all about in the first place. Because it just doesn’t matter, any longer.”
He took another deep breath. “I am not a fool. I know perfectly well that my blessed Scot and Irish ancestors were a pack of brawling clansmen, mostly illiterate and always pigheaded. More than willing to kill each other and steal each other’s sheep at the bidding of some mangy clan chief whose ‘palace’ wasn’t much more than the biggest hut in the village. The English played us all for fools. Played this one against the other—most any clan chief was always willing to be bribed—”
Seeing Ross wince, Driscol snorted. “Yours, too, eh? I’m hardly surprised. And so what?—if, in the end, our demands for justice are couched in the Englishman’s tongue. More than that—are couched in English ways of thought. But not entirely, because we shape them for our own purposes. And then—”
Grudgingly: “They pay some attention. Some. Even start to think a bit differently themselves. Not because they want to, but because they’re forced to. That’s always the problem with a family quarrel. You can’t ignore the bastards, because they’re yours. Especially if they’re mean, tough bastards with a house of their own. And that’s the heart of Houston’s plan, when you get down to it. Move now, while you can still do it as a solid and intact nation, not a band of refugees. Build a house of your own now, in a place where you’ll have enough time to build it strong and big.”
Ross was following him intently, but obviously still not convinced. He stared out the window, for a moment. Then, looked back at Houston.
“It will never happen without a break, at some point. Some place, some time, where a line is finally drawn. ‘This far and no farther.’ ”