Others, however, clearly had known that this was no fire. They arrived on the street carrying weapons—mostly cudgels, although a few bore cutlasses and even broadswords. Ethan heard glass shatter, and straining to see over the heads of those around him, realized that some of the men were attacking the Brazen Head tavern, which belonged to William Jackson, a well-known violator of the nonimportation agreements.
Some in the throng shouted at the lone soldier, daring him to use his weapon.
“Fire!” several called. “Damn you, fire!”
They pelted him, and swarmed near him, only to retreat again as the man jabbed his bayonet at them. Other spectators pleaded with the man to hold his fire, and with the boys who were molesting him to leave off and let the man be.
A disturbance to the west, back toward Murray’s Barracks, attracted Ethan’s notice.
Shouts of “Make way! Make way” echoed off shop fronts and homes, and several more soldiers, grenadiers, judging by the high, bear-fur hats that they wore, hurried past him, no doubt intent on giving aid to their solitary comrade. They pushed through the onlookers, making no effort to be gentle about it. A few slashed with their bayonets at those they passed, drawing cries of pain and outrage, and more than a bit of blood.
They joined the young man in front of the Customs House, and leveled their weapons. With them was an officer Ethan remembered from eighteen months before, when he was hired by the Customs Board to learn what had befallen the sailors and soldiers aboard HMS Graystone, a sloop that had sailed into Boston Harbor as part of the occupying fleet.
He remembered the army captain’s name as Preston—Thomas Preston. He was tall, gaunt, with a rough, sallow face and a manner to match. But he acted with practiced efficiency, barking orders to the men so that they positioned themselves in a tight arc at the mouth of the narrow lane between the Customs House and the Royal Exchange tavern. Once they were set to his satisfaction, he paced in front of his men, eyeing the mob with manifest uneasiness. They were still only ten or so, including the captain, against a mob many times larger.
The boys and men gathered around the Customs House gave no indication that the appearance of more armed men had done anything to cool their appetite for confrontation. If anything, the arrival of the men, and the manner in which they had forced themselves through the crowd, had further inflamed the passions of those surrounding them.
Ethan wanted to be away and quickly. But he had yet to find Diver, and he feared leaving his friend to whatever plans Ramsey had for him. His fears only increased when he recognized several of the men standing with Preston from the brawl at Gray’s Rope Works a few days before.
He sensed that Preston wished to lead the men away, back toward Murray’s Barracks. But the crowd, which had advanced and retreated like the tide, pressed forward again, blocking their way.
“Damn you, you sons of bitches, fire!” a voice rang out. “You can’t kill us all!”
“Fire and be damned!” called another.
Preston raised his hands and spoke to the young men closest to the soldiers, his voice raised.
“Go home now, lads!” he said. “Lest there be murder done!”
His words were met with jeers and more taunts. Snowballs and ice rained down on the captain and his men. Some in the crowd were close enough to Preston and his men to strike the barrels of the soldiers’ muskets with their sticks. Ethan heard the ring of wood on steel.
From the near side of King Street, closer to the Town House, came more voices, some shouting that a magistrate had come to disperse the mob. And Ethan did see one skulking figure who dodged salvos of ice chunks and ran away down Pudding Lane.
Turning back toward the Customs House, Ethan caught sight of a familiar face: youthful, framed by dark curls. He stood a good deal closer to the soldiers than did Ethan, in the middle of King Street, a few yards behind a tall mulatto man.
“Diver!” Ethan called.
His friend showed no sign that he had heard.
But someone did, and it seemed that this was what Ramsey and whoever was working with him had been awaiting.
The spell that roared in the stone and ice beneath his feet dwarfed even the most powerful of the conjurings Ethan had sensed in recent days. He glanced