CHAPTER 7
Socrates,
I noticed when I gave you your meal that you’d cleaned and tidied all of the clippings and roots in the drying room, and even created labels for them. I must remind you that you’re supposed to be staying off of your ankle, but I give you my thanks, as Sarah is always chiding me about the mess. Were you fibbing when you said you didn’t know much about botany?
—M
Dear Marlie,
No need to thank me. I have a restless mind, and whatever activity I can find to distract it is a blessing not a bother.
My ankle is much improved thanks to your skillful care.
My botanic knowledge mostly lies in which plants to avoid (poison ivy) and which berries not to ingest (learned through harsh experience). The Illustrated American Botany, and your drawings in the margins, helped with much of the categorization. You’ve a deft hand.
Your Obedient Servant,
Socrates E.M.
P.S. I’ve noticed you spend much of your time in your workspace. I hope you do not remain about for my sake. I don’t want to impose on you any further than I already have.
S.E.M.,
If you flatter my drawings I can only assume you are in need of Lynch’s Clear Vision tonic, and shall get it to you posthaste.
I linger in my rooms because leaving them has become a gauntlet I’d rather not face. As your Epictetus would say, the world beyond my rooms is not in my control. Melody has begun receiving callers, and she can’t have someone who looks like me but wears fine clothes and doesn’t do the serving walking about. There is also the problem of Cahill, the Captain of the Home Guard, who has settled in to his comfort and delights in disturbing mine. I try to remain optimistic that my increased time up here will result in great advances in my work.
Since we’ve touched on the topic of imprisonment, how did you end up at Randolph?
Y.O.S.,
M
Dear M,
I’m sorry to hear about your current circumstances and must admit that the news of Cahill living under your roof is distressing. The man is dangerous, and I hope you are rid of him shortly.
I have quite the knack for getting captured and have been imprisoned at no fewer than three Confederate facilities during my two years of enlistment. Randolph was by far the most amenable, for reasons of location and access to literature. The first time I was captured was while heading home on furlough to meet my brother Malcolm’s bride. The prisoner exchanges were still occurring then and I was deemed valuable enough to be traded to my freedom, though not for some months. The second, after a fort I was stationed at was taken by Rebel forces. This last time, I was captured while making my escape from the second prison. I would view it all as unlucky if I didn’t find the war deeply unpleasant and entirely ridiculous.
Your Obedient Servant,
Socrates E.M.
S.E.M.,
What do you find ridiculous about the war? Is it not noble to want to keep our country united? Or to fight for the freedom of an enslaved people?
Y.O.S.,
M
Dear Marlie,
I believe the war to be ridiculous because I believe this nation to be ridiculous. The very basis of our nation, the Declaration of Independence, states that it is self-evident that all men are created equal. And yet every aspect of our law and political climate have stated otherwise by creating a hierarchy between white, colored, and native, rich and poor. Thus, this nation was inherently divided, from its very conception. To pretend otherwise is illogical. To add to this foolishness, the Southern legislatures secede on the basis that their rights have been infringed upon, when the only right being disputed is whether to hold other men in bondage for something as inconsequential as the color of their skin. Thus, I argue that our nation is ridiculous, and has always been so.
Don’t take this to mean that the war isn’t worth fighting. It is an honorable fight against the most despicable facets of human nature. I can expound upon this subject for much longer, but I trust you understand me.
Your Obedient Servant,
Socrates E.M.
P. S. How is it that a woman of your standing was allowed to enter the prison? I am forever grateful for this, but also even more perplexed now that I understand your familial situation.
Dear S,
If you understand my familial situation, do tell. I’ll be honest when I say it leaves me quite perplexed.
You have siblings, correct? Well, I suppose I have two, but it has gone unspoken. Sarah brought me here and called me family, and that is what I’ve remained. I have never been called “my dear sister” or even “my maddening sister.” Funny how such a small thing as being given a proper title can seem large when given enough time to reflect on it. I would say it’s silly, but it would also be silly to sell a tonic without a label and assume everyone knew what malady it healed.
While there may be ambiguity about my standing in this family, there is none where the world at large is concerned: People who do not know me assume I have neither family nor “a situation,” and barely afford me the title of woman. For further discussion, please reference your letter about the inherent ridiculousness of this nation.
Yours,
M.
Marlie,
I know man is perhaps the most ignorant creature in all of creation, so I will not comment on how violently I disagree with any assessment of you that doesn’t hold you in the highest esteem.
I have a dear older brother and a maddening younger sister, and, while never explicitly discussed, I assume that to them I am the confounding middle brother. I also have a sister-in-law now, but my tour of Confederate prisons has prevented me from making her acquaintance as yet.
Yours,
E.M.
P.S. If I might bother you once more for the necessary, I’d be obliged.
Ewan was anxious as the door pushed open, and not just because he’d drunk too much from the canteen Marlie had provided him with and his need was truly pressing. He’d spent many nights at Randolph Prison fighting fantasies of Marlie, trying his best not to dishonor her. He’d fended off thoughts of the curve of her breast, and how her shoulder would feel cupped in his palm as he pulled her toward him. But his physical desire for her had been the least dangerous thing, it seemed.
Reading the notes scrawled in her botany books—equations and comparisons with other texts, her own thoughts on how something could be improved—showed him she was a rigorous thinker just as much as their exchanges did. Hearing the toneless hum that was usually followed by the tinkling of glass bottles and tubes made him ache to see what her face looked like as she concentrated on her work. Glancing at the base of the door to his refuge a thousand times a day after noticing that first slip of paper peeping through, in search of the next note . . . that was a sensation Ewan had never experienced. Agitation was no stranger to him, but the feeling that consumed him in those spaces—sometimes hours, sometimes minutes—when he awaited her response seemed some kind of retribution for the pain he’d caused others. That Marlie was smart enough to know better than to create evidence of his stay but continued to slip scraps of paper into the room anyway made it all the worse.
He should have been focused on getting to Tennessee, back to the work his superiors had insisted he was made for. Instead he was passing notes and mooning over Marlie like a teenaged fool. He’d read all the old newspapers piled in a corner: Union morale was low, and victories were few and far between. What information had gone undiscovered while Ewan had puttered about in prison? He couldn’t think on it. He found he also couldn’t think on what he’d be returning to once his ankle healed and he made his way back North. Perhaps that’s why thoughts of Marlie had become such a fixation.
He climbed through the door carefully, favoring his good ankle, and squeezed past the desk and there she was. It was only when he realized that she wore her nightgown and a wrapper that he wondered at the time. Time of night was all he allowed himself to think of, not how seeing her in such a state was a new stroke of intimacy between them.
“I’m sorry to disturb you again,” he said. He tried to think of what his brother, Malcolm, would say; something witty and dashing and perhaps slightly provocative. “I’ve got a rather small bladder, it seems.”
She looked at him with raised brows and he understood immediately that Malcolm would not have said such a thing. Speaking with Marlie was comfortable in a way he hadn’t experienced with anyone else before, but that didn’t mean he could do it without making a hash of it.
“It’s no bother,” she said, gracing him with a polite smile. “I was working on something. I haven’t slept well these last three nights, and having a bit of company wouldn’t hurt.” She tucked some papers into a leather portfolio and placed them into a drawer. Her hair was down, curls brushed out into a thick, downy blanket that floated past her shoulders.
“I’m sure my presence plays some part in your lack of sleep,” he said. Now that he looked at her, he could see that darkness shadowed the delicate skin beneath her eyes. His thumb pressed into his pants, a much rougher caress than the one he imagined sweeping over her face.
She led him to the WC, stopping in the doorway to her bedchamber. “Between Melody and Captain Cahill, and a war raging in the surrounding woods, I have quite enough to keep me up nights. A Union soldier in the drying room is an interesting diversion at this point, which tells you all you need to know about the goings-on outside these rooms.”
Ewan kept his facial expression blank, composed, at the sound of Cahill’s name, despite the flare of anger, and the familiar wash of shame when he remembered the feel of the man’s body caving beneath his blows.
Although Ewan loved the Greeks, he had never been a fan of their Fates, and it seemed they held him in the same esteem. For Cahill to show up first at the prison, and now at the place that had provided him sanctuary, seemed like something out of the old tales, with grim adversaries who could not evade a final reckoning with their nemesis. Ewan reminded himself that although Cahill embodied the toxic hatred that now stained the nation, smiting him would do nothing to help mend the country. It didn’t stop him from wanting to do it all the same.
Marlie turned back to her work, and Ewan made quick use of the WC. He had rigged a way out of the room on his second night there: a pallet with wheels that he could slide under the desk and push it away. He was proud of the work; Marlie would appreciate such a device. He absently wondered if telling her that would lessen her stress or increase it. It would create less work for her, not having to monitor his needs, but it might disturb her to know he could enter her room at any time—not that he would abuse her trust in him. Ewan fastened his trousers and decided to keep quiet unless she asked specifically.
He tried to keep his focus blinkered as he passed through her room on his way back to her work space, but he was overly observant by nature, and he couldn’t help but notice all the small, intimate details that marked the room as specifically Marlie’s. Her toiletries lay scattered over a dressing table, bottles of perfumes and jars of oils. The dress she had worn that day was folded over the back of a chair, as if she had been too tired to hang it. A white apron with streaks of green where she’d rubbed her fingers against it had slid to the floor. A sachet of dried rose petals rested on her pillow, and a silver-backed hairbrush lay in the middle of the bed.
He thought about her hair, how soft and inviting it looked, and imagined how it would feel to gather it into his hands. His fingers curled against his palms as he limped back into her work space. She stood at the window, peering out as she finished plaiting her hair into a single braid. Ewan smelled flowers as he stepped closer to her, and realized the enticing scent of wisteria was from the oil she used to smooth her hair down.
“There are militiamen about,” she said, nodding her chin toward the window. “Cahill’s Home Guard. I feel silly and ungrateful—I’ve lived a life of luxury compared to so many, no matter their race—but each day I feel as if I lose another part of my home, and I resent that. I just have to remind myself that no matter how dire the reports in the papers, the North will prevail and all will be well.”
The certainty in her voice pricked at Ewan. How could she say such a thing with surety? She could lose more than her home with Cahill about, and luck could not ensure her safety.
You could, he thought. His hands curled into fists as a sense memory of the same fists pummeling Cahill until his knuckles were raw and he couldn’t tell if the blood was Cahill’s or his own; a macabre blood brothers’ oath.
Ewan could take it no longer.
“Please be careful of Cahill, Marlie,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. The beginnings of a headache gathered between his eyes. “Fortune is no shield against men of his ilk.”
Men such as me.
“I admit that I find his behavior troublesome, but he wouldn’t harm me in my own home,” she said. “I’m a Lynch.”
Her voice wavered—she was less certain in the Lynch name than in Lincoln’s, it seemed. It was the only thing standing between her and Cahill, so Ewan had to hope it would be enough. He remembered the expression on Cahill’s face as he’d sat tied to a chair. He hadn’t said a word as Ewan had punched and pricked and poked, his calculated efforts fraying as Cahill remained silent.
“You murdered those men in cold blood, without their weapons, without respect,” Ewan bit out, holding his anger at bay. “I will know who gave you the information about the Negro battalion, and I will know what else they’ve told you.”
“What men?” Cahill asked. The question was casual, despite the sweat streaking down his abraded face.
“The detachment of Negro—”
Cahill’s loud, sharp laughter shocked Ewan into silence. The man had been emotionless throughout the interrogation, but now he shook with laughter. Tears welled in his eyes, though they were still emotionless.
“I didn’t kill any men, son,” Cahill said. “I killed a bunch of animals playacting as soldiers that needed to be put down. It had to be done to preserve the purity of this country. Of the American people.”
“What’s pure about men who can’t survive without leeching off of the work of others?” Ewan asked.
Cahill stared at him, no longer laughing. “I’m fighting for the future of this country, and so are others like me. If a darkie ain’t a slave, then there ain’t no place for him here. I did my duty, and that you don’t realize that is why the South will never subjugate itself to the yellow-bellied Northmen.”
It wasn’t his words that broke Ewan’s composure; it was his conviction. It was the way he smiled, as if pleased with himself. It was that Ewan knew no amount of logic would change a mind corrupted with ideals of racial superiority. Cahill embodied everything wrong with their country.
Ewan lunged for him.
Ewan wiped at the sweat the memory had pushed out on his brow. “I hate that he’s here in your home. I hate that war puts you in the path of men such as him. I hate that we live in a world where this illogical war is even being fought.”
Ewan had never said the words aloud.
Marlie moved away from the window, turning toward him with questions in her gaze. Ewan braced for whatever she would ask of him.
“Why did you join the army? You seem to detest everything about it, and . . . it’s hard for me to imagine you on the battlefield with a gun instead of a book.”
Ewan grimaced. In his hands, a book could be much more painful than a gun. He’d once ripped out a rich, heavy page of a book, folded it to a sharp point, and pushed it into the bed of a Reb’s fingernails until he had revealed the location of floating bombs strategically placed to disrupt the naval blockade. And he had slept soundly afterward.
He wouldn’t tell her that though.
“I don’t subscribe to zealotry based on accident of birth, but the South is wrong and the North is right, generally speaking. A man owes his country service in times of need, and when Lincoln called for volunteers I answered.” He paused, trying to convey how a path that might help the tumult in his mind had opened before him. “And I thought that the army could provide me with the kind of discipline I needed. I imagined that it would be orderly—I like order, you see.”
She likely wouldn’t understand if he told her how badly he’d wanted to believe that the drills and routine of army life would be what he needed to quell the tumultuous thoughts that sometimes rose to the surface of his mind unbidden. Thoughts that could turn to angry action if given no vent.
“You speak as if you were a wild child who needed to be brought to hand, Socrates.”
He remembered those times when his breathing exercises weren’t enough to stop from lashing out, the disappointment on his mother’s face and resentment on his father’s. “Some considered me as such,” he said.
“Am I to gather that the discipline offered was not what you imagined?” she asked. The hint of a smile tugged at her mouth; it was the slightest movement, one that telegraphed understanding, empathy, and Ewan felt it as if her lips had grazed him. He generally looked at a person’s mouth when they spoke—he’d been told his gaze was too intense often enough—and never had one been as compelling as Marlie’s. Heat coursed up the back of his neck from that simple millimeter of movement, and he regretted his lack of proper dress. His collar was limp and did nothing to hide his high color.
He cleared his throat.
“I enjoyed certain aspects—the physicality, the training, learning tactics and maneuvers. But I thought it would make me a better man, and there I was mistaken. War makes no man better, and most assuredly not me.” He thought of what he’d learned as a counterintelligence interrogator—how to make another man bend to your wishes in the quickest manner possible. As in every other part of life, there was generally one technique that produced the fastest results: pain.
That was the life that awaited him once his ankle healed and he made his way to Tennessee. When Ewan had first been imprisoned at Libby, he’d subscribed to the widely held belief that the discord would be settled quickly. It hadn’t been hope, but common sense. Fighting to maintain a practice that required the subjugation of one’s fellow man while crying freedom was preposterous. Could a great country really be laid low by such unsophisticated ideas? Ewan had thought that reason would soon prevail, but bloodshed and enmity—and certainty that each battle would be the decisive one—had stretched out day after day. The end of the war had turned into a moving oasis, ever on the horizon and always just out of reach. A crushing victory was needed for the Union to end things, and men like Ewan helped provide tacticians with information that could bring about such a victory. So he’d spend the foreseeable future hurting others and being told to be proud that he could stomach it.
“Ewan?”
He looked at her, unsure what was in his eyes, but Marlie’s lips parted.
“I’m sorry. For whatever you’ve gone through.” She took a step toward him, and then her hand was resting on his shirtsleeve. The feeling that grabbed him fast at her touch was something to marvel at. He imagined that was what peace felt like: a woman like Marlie touching your arm and looking up at you, her eyes full of understanding.
But Marlie understood nothing of him. If she did, she’d neither touch him nor shelter him. She wouldn’t offer him her pity when he had reserved none for others in carrying out his duties. Ewan did not regret his work, but he couldn’t expect anyone else to accept it.
“Such is life,” he said. He stepped away toward the entry to his refuge, but the sensation of her touch lingered even then. “All this killing to prove which men can own which other men and in what capacity. If anything I’ve done has helped bring us closer to ending the institution of slavery, then it was worth it.”
He had to believe this was true.
“So, you believe the South is wrong on a moral level.”
“On every level,” he clarified. “Morality being one of the higher tiers.”
“I’ve wondered . . .” She took a deep breath. “I’ve wondered how you can idolize antiquity, and fight against slavery? Greece was a slave society, was it not?”
Her gaze met his now and Ewan felt pinned by it. This was a moment when reading others’ emotions was not an asset, because he could see the disappointment in the tightness of her mouth. That was a look he was well acquainted with.
“Yes,” he said. “But slavery wasn’t race-based there, you see.”
“But they still owned other humans?”
“That was one fault of their society, yes,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “One I do not endorse. ‘It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a certain thought without accepting it.’”
“All right,” was all she replied.
A flash of irritation at her tepid response set things off kilter in his world; was she judging him, as others had? Then he thought about the books Marlie had brought for him, the great philosophers he revered so much. She had read the books, too, had seen the blithe talk of slaves. She was free, but her people as a whole were not. How had those passages read to her? What must she think of him? He’d met enough Copperheads in the prison, and flat-out racists in the ranks of the Union army, to know that wanting to maintain the Union and wanting to end slavery were not mutually exclusive.
“I suppose I always just . . . looked past it.” He unfolded his arms. “I’ve had the privilege to pick and choose what spoke to me from those passages. To me, it is history. I was mistaken about that, though. It is not history when we fight this war. It’s just . . . I very much needed something to believe in. The Bible made me feel like a sinner, but The Enchiridion made me feel like someone, though separated by time and country and mother tongue, had understood me.”
The words surprised Ewan; he’d never had to justify himself. His behavior had always been accepted as strange, but no one had ever cared why he read and thought as he did. When people had asked before, it hadn’t really been a question, more a statement of how bizarre they found his interests.
Marlie looked at him and slowly nodded. “I suppose people find what they need where they can. I certainly feel the same way about my Illustrated American Botany. And not everything in the pages of the Bible is kind and just, either. Thank you for explaining.”
He felt peculiar, knowing he had brushed aside an element as large as slavery. It was logical: The society was long dead, living on in the words of its philosophers. But he knew American slavery to be a horrible stain upon the world. Would it be brushed away so cavalierly when people read of America in some distant future? Would it be a footnote, an aside? That thought troubled Ewan.
Something occurred to him then. “One constant throughout history is this: Every society built on slavery has fallen. I suppose that should give us hope that the Union will prevail.”
“I’ve never believed otherwise,” Marlie said. Her voice was guileless, her eyes wide and hopeful.
He looked at her a long moment and wondered if she would feel the same if she’d been in the trenches with soldiers pissing their pants, men who barely knew how to use a gun or follow a direct command. Then he remembered how each time she walked into the prison, her smile had been a beacon amidst the misery. Yes, she would feel the same, for Marlie possessed an ineffable quality that shone through even in dire situations. Ewan wondered what it felt like to give oneself over to hope, logic be damned.
Her gaze dropped to the ground and he understood he should stop staring at her and return to his hiding space. He slipped into the darkness and pushed the door closed, leaving his hand pressed against it until he felt the decisive bump of her desk meeting the wall.