Friday, June 19th 1812, 12:30 a.m.
New York City

It was a fine, quiet night, the balmy warmth of early summer a comfort, not the fiery curse it would become in a few weeks. There were no street lamps in Canvastown— hard by Hudson's River, got its name when it burned down at the start of the Revolution and the locals took to living in tents—but bright stars and a full moon. That plus the pair of coaching lamps swinging either side of the small black shay provided light enough for the single horse, an ageing piebald, to make its way.

The two men in the rig had been playing billiards at McDermott's Oyster House. On their way home now, cue sticks wedged either side of the shay's single seat, reliving the game by talking about it. “Ah, but if that last carom had succeeded I'd have won again, making it six games to five, so you needn't—” The speaker, who held the reins, broke off. A knot of men stood some twenty yards ahead, a short distance from the intersection of Greenwich Street and George, where the shay must make the turn to head back to the better neighborhood downtown.

There were five of them—dressed in the leather breeches and homespun shirts that marked them as laborers—and they were ominously quiet, and standing in a tight circle, focused on something or someone in their midst.

The shay belonged to the man who wasn't driving, Barnaby Carter, a coachmaker by trade. “Just put on a bit of speed and shoot past them,” he said. “Old Rufus won't let us down.” The piebald heard its name and snorted and tossed its head.

The driver was Joyful Patrick Turner, doctor and ship's surgeon, due to go back to sea the following day. He heard his friend's suggestion and later told himself it was exactly what he'd intended to do. Just shoot past the men ahead. Neither he nor Barnaby were spoiling for a fight. As for the woman standing in the men’s midst, whores—called hot-pockets in Canvastown—were one of the area 's prime attractions; though this woman held a small valise, the sort people packed for a journey, and a whore was unlikely to troll the streets for custom carrying a change of clothing. All of that aside, Joyful reined in because of what he heard. “All right then, whose going to be first?” spoken in a tone that was mean and menacing.

Joyful stood up, keeping the reins taut in one hand. “Leave her be.”

“Couple o' gents,” one of the toughs muttered to his companions, then, to the men in the rig, “Your kind comes to Canvastown looking for pleasure. No harm in us having ours.”

“There's plenty of hot pockets available. I don't think this lady chooses to be bothered.”

“Ain't no lady.” The man closest to the shay offered a nearly toothless smile. “This here's a mongrel bitch as you might find in any kennel got broken into when the master wasn't looking. A helping of coon mixed in with some white. A runaway most likely. When we're done we'll be takin' her to a magistrate. See if there's a reward. So you gents best be minding your own concerns and driving yourselves straight on by.”

“I don't think we shall do exactly that.” Joyful pitched his voice at the woman, hoping she would take his meaning and prepare herself. Indeed, she was staring straight at him, with an extraordinary intensity that seemed unrelated to her situation. He stared back for a second, maybe two, then a movement at the edge of the circle caught his eye.

Barnaby had seen it as well. “One of them's got a knife,” the coachmaker murmured.

“Probably more than one”, Joyful said. “Hang on.” He cracked the reins over the horse's rump. The piebald plunged forward. For a sickening moment the shay tilted dangerously to one side, then righted itself and surged ahead. The ruffians fell back, intent on avoiding the horse's hooves. The woman stood her ground. Joyful stretched out his hand, but instead of taking it she remained motionless.

Joyful yanked on the reins, forcing the horse to pull up slightly, then leaned down and swept the woman into the shay. Some of the would-be rapists threw themselves at the rig. Joyful planted his boot firmly on the knuckles of one and he fell away. He was conscious of Barnaby using his cue stick to fend off another. He loosed the reins slightly. The horse sensed he was being given his head and charged straight ahead. Joyful kept his left arm around the woman's waist, hugging her to him to keep her in the shay. In seconds they had to make the turn onto Greenwich Street or drive straight into a stone fence backed by a thick stand of trees. “Hang on!” he shouted again, tightening his grip on the woman while using his other hand to tug the horse's head to the right. The animal neighed loudly and half reared, confused and frightened. Joyful pulled harder. The horse gave in to the demands of the bit and changed direction, hauling the shay behind him in a sharp turn. Another of those sickening lurches, this one seeming to last forever, until finally the small carriage righted itself and they were hurtling down Greenwich Street, Joyful and Barnaby both laughing aloud in triumph.

When he finally reined in enough to slow them some and allow for getting the woman settled safely between them, the thing Joyful found most remarkable was not her beauty—though she was unquestionably beautiful, as well as being the mulatto the toughs had said she was—but that she was still staring at him. And that he had the distinct impression she'd not stopped doing so since the first moment she saw him.

Late the following afternoon word reached the city that in the Federal District of Washington, on Thursday, the 18th of June, 1812, Congress had declared war on Great Britain. Dr. Joyful Patrick Turner gave up his berth on a merchant ship and offered his services as surgeon to the navy of the United States.

Monday, November 15th
New York City, 4 p.m.

The snow fell in large single flakes that lasted a moment then melted to nothingness, but the air was cold and getting colder. Early for it, but there was a real storm brewing. Joyful smelled the tang of it on the afternoon air.

The smells of good cooking as well. Most folks had their dinner about now, not three the way it was in the old days. An extra sixty minutes to work. That was always the way of things in New York. Do more, do it faster, get richer. But even here a man had to quit at some point to fill his belly. Ann Street—a jumble of shops and residences like most thoroughfares in the oldest parts of the city—was closed up tight, so silent Joyful could hear the ring of his boots on the cobbles.

The house he was headed for was at the end of the road, built of wood like most of its neighbors, and like them it was four windows wide and three stories tall, with a dormered roof and two chimneys. There was a sign beside the front door. Andrew Turner, M.D., it said, Physician. And below, in smaller letters, Surgery Also Performed. Joyful hesitated a moment, then lifted the knocker.

****

The room they were in served as both Andrew’s study and his consulting chamber. Sometimes—spread with oiled cloths to protect the furnishings from spurting blood—it was where he performed his surgeries. Square, paneled in oak that had mellowed gold over the years, it had one wall lined with cupboards and drawers that held the medicaments and bandages and instruments for blistering and bleeding and cupping that were the arsenal of a physician, as well as the flutes and probes and straight and curved knives and big and small saws of the cutting trade. Andrew Turner was the only medical practitioner in the city to also advertise a surgeon’s skills, much less sometimes encourage his patients to submit to the knife. Joyful had never believed there was room for two such hybrids in the city. That’s why he went to sea.

Andrew had not quarreled with that choice. It was Joyful’s recent decision to stop doctoring altogether—God's truth, Joyful, what will you live on?—and take a room in a boarding house on Greenwich Street rather than continue to lodge with his cousin as he had in the past, that caused the trouble between them.

Andrew seemed to want to pretend the argument had not happened. “Perishing cold out there.” He thrust a poker into the mix of logs and coals in the fireplace. A funnel of sparks rose up the chimney.

“A storm coming I think,” Joyful said.

Andrew grunted. “My joints say the same.”

His cousin had still seemed young and vigorous when Joyful first met him. Now, seventy-three with his hair gone entirely white, Andrew looked fragile and gaunt with age. He gestured to a decanter of brandy on a small table between the windows. “Pour us each a tot, Joyful. Then come over here and warm your bones.”

Joyful covered the bottom of two bulbous snifters with spirit, but carrying two glasses at the same time was beyond him these days. He brought one to his cousin, then went back to claim the second before returning to the leaping flames and offering a toast. “Your health, sir.”

“And yours.”

Joyful took a deep swallow, enjoying the flash of warmth that went from his throat to deep in his belly, then set the drink on the mantel. He had to consciously resist the urge to extend his hands over the coals. Instead he put a foot on the brass fender surrounding the hearth.

“Let me see that.” Andrew reached out and lifted Joyful’s left arm, the one that ended in a black leather glove to substitute for the hand that had been blown away. “The glove’s clever.” Andrew ran his hand along the sleeve of Joyful’s black cutaway coat. “Got straps keeping it on, have you?”

“Yes. I had the rig made by a blacksmith a couple of weeks ago. Taking a while to get used to the weight of the thing, but all in all, it seems to work quite well.”

“Considered a hook? It would let you do some things. Not carry two drinks at a time perhaps, not as good as a hand, but useful.”

“No hook,” Joyful said. “Make me feel like a pirate.”

He expected Andrew to smile at the weak joke. Instead the older man frowned. “Your father was a pirate for a time.”

“A privateer,” Joyful said. “That’s not exactly the same.”

“Depends,” Andrew said with a shrug. “Are you still determined to give up the practice of medicine?”

“Yes. As I’ve already said, I don’t believe I have much choice.”

“There’s a great deal of doctoring can be done with one hand.”

“But not,” Joyful said, “a great deal of surgery. Convincing the gentlefolk of New York to go under the knife of a one handed cutter is a daunting prospect. Particularly when they can find the best surgeon in Christendom right here on Ann Street.”

“You flatter me.”

“No,” Joyful said. “I do not.”

This time Andrew did smile. “Very well, you do not. But I shan’t be the best much longer, lad. I’m getting old.”

“Hold out your hands,” Joyful said. “

“There’s no need—”

“Next to mine,” Joyful extended his good right hand. After a moment Andrew stretched out both his beside it. Joyful let a number of seconds go by. “Not a tremor,” he said after almost a full minute. “Rock steady as you’ve always been. Not so old yet. And if we stayed this way for a while longer, I daresay mine would be the hand to start trembling first. I know my place in the hierarchy of things, Cousin Andrew. In New York with two hands I was the next best thing after you. In the service, far and away the best. Now...” He shrugged and allowed his arm to drop to his side.

“I take it then that you’re still decided on becoming a Canton trader.”

“I am. I was raised in the Canton trade. It’s the one thing other than medicine I know.”

“Have you talked to your Devrey cousin about the fact that you mean to go into competition with him? I fancy he won't like it much."

Joyful tossed back the last of his brandy, and shook his head when Andrew motioned toward the decanter. “No thanks, not just now. And word is that Bastard Devrey has too many problems of his own to be worried about me.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that too. But this China trade business... There’s nothing you can do until after the war is over, is there?”

“Nothing much,” Joyful agreed.

Andrew stood up and went to the window. The short winter day was ending, the dusk deepening. “Come over here, Joyful.” His tone had changed. “Look out and tell me what you see.”

“Houses, Cousin Andrew." The view held no surprises and he answered before he actually reached the other man's side, though once at the window he obediently peered into the street. “The homes of upstanding Americans like yourself.”

“Not just Ann Street, beyond it what do you see? Not just with your eyes, with your mind and heart.”

Ah, perhaps that was what this was about. “The Manhattan forests and streams and hills you and your damnable Common Council mean to destroy with a grid of streets and avenues,” Andrew said. “Fit for a population as great as China’s.”

Andrew chuckled. “Not quite that many, but nearly.”

“You don’t sound upset by the prospect.”

“I’m not. And given your present state of mind, neither should you be. More people means more business. That’s what you’ll need for this new venture of yours, isn’t it? An increase of business?” Andrew reached up and took hold of the curtains but didn't pull them shut. “Light that oil lamp over there, lad. And the one by the fireplace." He waited until Joyful had thrust a taper into the fireplace and did as he was bid, then the older man continued, still without turning to the room now warmly lit by the two lamps. "I risked my skin for the Revolution, Joyful. “Now...” Andrew's voice trailed away as he pulled the curtains closed and turned to face the younger man.

“Now what, Cousin Andrew? Your note said a matter of urgency. I admit I’m curious.”

“Yes, I expect you are. But you’ll have to be patient a few moments more. I mean to do this in my own way, Joyful. Let’s sit down again.” And when they were both in the chairs beside the fireplace, “Tell me what you know of the Fanciful Maiden?”

“Only that she was a fine sloop. And a very fortunate privateer back in the 1750s. And that my father captained her.”

“Nothing specific about the voyage of 1759?”

Joyful thought for a moment. “Nothing specific, no.”

Andrew sighed. “I rather hoped Morgan had told you. It would have made this easier.” He reached inside his breast pocket, withdrew what appeared to be a small, much folded letter, and put it on the low table between them. Dark now, the room full of shaded corners where the ghosts of the past could lurk, but enough light from the lamps for Joyful to see that nothing was written on the outside of the paper. No sealing wax either, though a faint red stain indicated that once there had been.

“This is for you,” Andrew said. “It’s your legacy.”

“I don’t understand. I had my father’s legacy some years past.” A trunk of personal effects and a pouch containing coins worth two thousand pounds. Put into his hands in 1809, seven months after Morgan Turner died, by a merchant captain called Finbar O’Toole. Fourteen years old I was when I fought in the Revolution, and if it weren’t for your da looking after me I’d o’ been dead in a month. Told him I’d bring you this. Weighs exactly what it did when he gave it me. Night afore he died that was, and t’ain't a gram lighter now than it were then.

“You had part of your father's legacy in '09," Andrew said. "This bit made a detour. Go on, take it. It's yours.”

Joyful leaned forward and used his right hand to unfold the paper while it still lay on the table—he’d learned many such tricks over the past two months—then picked it up. The creases and the ink faded to the color of rust made it difficult to read, but there was no doubt it was written in his father’s hand.

“Indulge me, Joyful,” Andrew said softly. “Read it aloud.”

“Seventy-four degrees... thirty minutes west of Greenwich, just south of... twenty-two, no, twenty-four degrees north. Twice around thrice back.” He stared at the thing a moment or two longer, than looked up. “The first part's navigation coordinates, but leading to where? As for the last, it's gibberish.”

“I’ve never been entirely sure where the coordinates lead, except that they're in the Caribbean. But they're clear enough for a clever seaman to find his way. As for the rest, the bit you’re calling gibberish, if I were a younger man I’d assume the words would make sense once I got to wherever it is. If I were your age, I'd go after it.”

“After what?”

“The treasure.”

“You’re saying... This note, it’s a sort of treasure map?”

“That’s what I think, yes. I can’t be certain mind, but I believe your father wrote these directions with the intention of going back and getting what he’d buried, and that he never did.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

“I said I wasn't sure. But the Maiden was in the Caribbean in ‘59, and she never again sailed there. Then there was the Revolution, and Morgan was a British prisoner for almost three years. That’s how he lost an eye.”

“I know." What he knew was that Morgan Turner had been a fighting man, and that all through the war Andrew allowed everyone to believe him a Tory, while he spied for Washington in the heart of the British stronghold that was New York, where he could have been discovered and hung for treason at any moment. "My mother said my father was not the same after his time as a prisoner. He couldn’t concentrate, forgot things.”

“There was a good deal worth forgetting. You’ve wanted stories since I’ve known you, Joyful. The family history, what we did when we had to choose, your father and me, the others. Most of the tales are too black for telling. It wasn’t pretty getting to where we are, to independency. You have to have been here, to have lived through it, to understand.”

“I’ve seen battle, Cousin Andrew. I know it’s never pretty.”

Andrew swirled the remaining brandy in his glass, then finished it in a single swallow. “As I said, the Maiden was the most successful privateer afloat, but that one time, that strange voyage, she came back with only Morgan and his first mate and a crew of three. And the hold dead empty. Morgan said they hadn’t taken a single prize, that this time the investors hadn’t earned a penny. Since the Maiden had made most of the men who invested in her a good deal richer than they’d been before, they accepted that this time fortune hadn’t smiled. Except for the few who said Morgan lied. There were rumors that because one of the investors in that voyage was Squaw DaSilva’s—“ Andrew broke off. “You know about my aunt, your grandmother?”

“Jennet Turner DaSilva. Whoremistress to the city and my father’s mother. I know.”

“Jennet was many things, not all of them what they seemed, but she was undoubtedly the best hater I’ve ever known. Forgiveness wasn’t in her vocabulary. She detested Caleb Devrey with a rare passion, and he was indeed one of the investors in that voyage. He thought she didn’t know that, but it appears she did. And so did Morgan. It’s not difficult to believe he would rather bury the profits of that cruise than see Cousin Caleb reap any gain from it.”

“He’d have been taking an incredible risk.”

“Indeed. If he’d been found out, if they could have proven anything, they’d have strung him up from the nearest tree, and cut him down before he was dead so they could hang him a second time. But that wouldn’t have stopped Morgan. Not in those days. Especially not if the thing could cause Cousin Caleb harm.”

“In God’s name,” Joyful whispered, “How could you all have hated each other so much?”

“I didn’t hate Caleb. I’d no reason too. If your father wanted to tell you his reasons, he’d have done so while he was alive. Just accept that they were sworn enemies.” Andrew leaned forward and tapped the note lying on the table. “That’s why I believe this is the answer to the puzzle of the voyage of ‘59.”

“Did my father give it to you?”

“He did not. I took it from Caleb Devrey’s—”

“But if Caleb had it, if he knew what had been done and where the profits were, why didn’t he go after them?”

“You didn’t let me finish. I took it from Cousin Caleb’s dead hand. My assumption is that by the time he got this—however he got it—it was too late for him to do anything with it. And if you're wondering, he died of natural causes. A malign tumor in his belly I suspect, though he was never my patient.”

“I see. Cousin Andrew, forgive me, but I have to ask. Did my father know you had that paper?”

Andrew didn’t avoid Joyful’s gaze. “No, he never did.”

For a time the two men sat in silence, the enormity of all the old hatreds and betrayals a heaviness between them. Finally Joyful said, “This treasure... If it exists, you could have gone after it any number of times over the years. Why didn’t you?”

“I had many excuses. No opportunity, no knowledge of seafaring, no captain I’d trust... The plain truth is, I always knew it wasn’t mine to claim.”

Joyful stood up, the tension making his chest tight and every muscle quiver. “But it is mine. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? The blood legacy belongs to me.” His heart was pounding and he could feel the sweat running down his back.

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“Why now? In good Christ’s name, Cousin Andrew, why now?”

Andrew took a deep breath. “Because,” he said, “I believe the Union, everything your father and I and so many others fought for, to be in peril.”

It took a few moments for Joyful to take this in. “Are you speaking of the United States?” he asked finally.

Andrew nodded.

“But we’ve bested the British in a number of battles this year, and even if they do invade New York, we—”

“I’m not talking about the redcoats, Joyful. I’m talking about a far worse danger. The kind that comes from within. Betrayal fueled by greed.“

“I don't under—”

“You must have heard the talk. New England and New York to secede, become a separate country.”

“Well... Yes, I suppose I have. A word here and there. But surely it's not serious. War is a fountain of rumors, always has been.”

“Indeed. And ninety-nine times out of a hundred it's talk and nothing more. But sometimes it's real. An opportunity to divide and thus destroy this republic.”

Joyful started to say something but Andrew held up his hand. “Let me finish. Those few men promulgating this notion of disunion are the men with the most to gain. Men of business. Traders. Federalists with the most power.”

“I always thought you counted yourself a member of that party.”

“A Federalist, perhaps. Back in '84 when the war ended I saw what so-called ordinary folk can do if you give them enough power. Right here in New York, the very people we'd struggled and died to make free appointed themselves judge and jury and dispensed what they called justice on the Common. In front of screaming crowds no less. Women hamstrung so they'd never walk again, men tarred and feathered so they skinned themselves alive when they tried to clean up... The rabble disgusted me then and they still do. I believe in a strong central government, Joyful, led by educated and thoughtful men. I do not believe in money being the arbiter of all. Business and profit are fine in their place. They cannot be the ultimate goal of a nation.”

“It's not my intention to profit at the expense of my country, Cousin Andrew.” The words sounded pretentious enough to make Joyful feel slightly foolish saying them. Nonetheless, they were true.

“I know that, lad. That's why I have decided to stake your venture into trade. I believe you will be an honest businessman, a leaven among the thieves, if you will. I'm not wealthy, and what I could offer you from my own resources would be hardly enough to make a difference.” He nodded toward the paper which still lay on the table in front of the fire, squinting at the faded words that might or might not lead to treasure. “That's my contribution. Take it, Joyful, and take them on. Beat the bastards back. Don't let them destroy what we gave so much blood and innocence to gain.”

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