Marcus shook his head. His examination had confirmed what he already suspected: The only thing about the marquis’s condition that warranted immediate treatment was his aristocratic blood and high rank. The marquis was a fortunate man—far more so than Will Norman.

Marcus felt eyes on him, heavy and watchful. He looked up and met de Clermont’s stare. Shippen was sputtering about surgical methods and patient outcomes—the man had an unholy fondness for the knife—but it was Marcus, and not the esteemed doctors, who held the chevalier’s attention.

“No.” The single word from de Clermont cracked through the room. “You will not treat the Marquis de Lafayette, Dr. Shippen. Ruin the life of the man in the kitchen with your knives and saws, but the marquis will be seen to by Dr. Cochran.”

“I beg your—” Shippen blustered.

“It is a minor wound, Dr. Shippen,” Dr. Otto interjected. “Let your poor surgeons, Dr. Cochran and me, see to the marquis. Your greater skills are needed elsewhere. I believe the boy with the bad knees was recruited from General Washington’s estate.”

This got Shippen’s attention.

“My son is cleaning his wounds and is waiting to assist.” Dr. Otto stepped aside and swept a shallow bow.

“Indeed.” Shippen pulled on the edge of his waistcoat and straightened his wig, which he had worn to the field in spite of its impracticality. “A Virginian, you say?”

“He is one of the new riflemen,” Dr. Otto said, nodding. “Let me take you through.”

As soon as the doctors were clear of the room, everyone who remained swung into action. Cochran asked for lint, ointment, and a probe while he examined the marquis’s leg.

“You know better than to bait a quarrelsome animal when he has his dander up, Matthew,” Cochran said. “Hand me the turpentine, Doc.”

“So you are a doctor, just like the Dutchman said.” De Clermont studied Marcus with unblinking eyes.

“He could be,” Cochran said, swabbing at the marquis’s wounds, “were he given your education, taught Latin, and sent to medical school. Instead, Mr. Chauncey has absorbed more knowledge than most of Dr. Shippen’s students through an occult means that he will not divulge.”

De Clermont looked at Marcus appraisingly.

“Doc knows his anatomy and basic surgery, and has a good grasp of medicinal simples,” Cochran continued, as he carefully cleaned the hole in Lafayette’s leg. “His artillery company gave him the title Doc after the army withdrew from New York. Bodo captured him at Morristown and Mr. Chauncey reenlisted for a three-year term in the medical department.”

“So you’re a New Yorker, Mr. Chauncey,” de Clermont said.

“I’m a man of the world,” Marcus muttered, trying not to sneeze as Cochran applied fluffy lint to the wound. Man of the world, indeed. He was a cat with nine lives, and nothing more.

“We must get the marquis to safety, John,” de Clermont said. “The future of the war might depend on it. Without him advocating for the Americans, it will be hard to get the arms and supplies that you will need to beat the British army.”

Marcus’s job here was done. There were sick and wounded men outside. And Vanderslice was right: The battle was drawing dangerously near. He headed for the door.

“You’ll stay with the marquis, Chauncey,” de Clermont ordered, stopping Marcus in his tracks.

“I must see to Lieutenant Cuthbert,” Marcus protested. Cuthbert was still waiting for treatment and would not be left behind, even if Marcus had to carry him.

The Marquis de Lafayette stirred. “The Virginian. Where is he?”

Dr. Otto and Dr. Frederick appeared, carrying another stretcher bearing the wounded soldier from Virginia, still with both legs and still unconscious.

“Do not trouble yourself, Marquis,” Dr. Otto said cheerfully. “Dr. Shippen and Dr. Rush have gone somewhere out of the range of the British guns. For the better preservation of the wounded.”

“For the better preservation of the wounded,” Dr. Frederick solemnly repeated, though his lips twitched.

“If we remain here, our next operating theater will be inside a British prison,” Cochran warned. “Load those we can transport onto the wagons, Doc. Which way did Shippen and Rush go, Bodo?”

“Back to Philadelphia,” Dr. Otto replied.

Marcus wondered how long they would remain there.

Les Revenants, Letters and Papers of the Americas

No. 2

Matthew de Clermont to Philippe de Clermont

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

23 September 1777

Honored Father:

I am with our friend, who has been shot in battle. He tells me that it was the most glorious moment of his life, to shed blood for liberty. You must forgive him his enthusiasms. If you could tell his wife, madame the marquise, that her husband’s spirits are high and that he is in no discomfort, I know that it would ease her mind. She will have heard every sort of account—that he is maimed, that he is dead, that he will die from infection. Assure her that none of these are true.

The medicine is savage here, with few exceptions. I am overseeing Lafayette’s care personally, to make sure that they do not kill him with their cures.

I have passed your letters on to Mr. Hancock, who is here in Bethlehem along with most of the Congress. They were forced to leave Philadelphia when the British took the city. Washington needs supplies if he is to succeed—ammunition, guns, horses. More than that, he needs experienced soldiers.

I must go and see to a controversy. The people of this town are very pious, and do not welcome the army and its soldiers.

In haste,

your devoted son,

Matthew

17

Name

SEPTEMBER 1777

“No, Mr. Adams. It will not do,” the chevalier de Clermont said, shaking his head.

Marcus, along with the rest of the medical corps, was standing aside and waiting for the politicians to make a decision about the expansion of the hospital. Congress had decamped north from Philadelphia to the town of Bethlehem to avoid being captured by the British. A flock of women in dark clothing, each one wearing a white ruffled cap on her head, watched the proceedings with open hostility. So, too, did the leader of Bethlehem and its Moravian religious community, Johannes Ettwein.

“We must make sacrifices in the name of liberty, Chevalier. Each one of us, according to our station.” John Adams was as sharp-tongued as Ettwein and just as quick to anger.

“There are four hundred sick and wounded soldiers occupying the house belonging to the single brethren.” Ettwein was puce with irritation. “You seized our wagons to transport supplies. You are eating the food from our tables. What more must we do?”

As they stood at the corner of Main and Church Streets, Dr. Otto said something in German. One of the women snorted, then quickly disguised it with a cough. De Clermont’s lips twitched.

The more time Marcus spent with Lafayette, the more he became fascinated by the chevalier de Clermont. There seemed to be no language the man didn’t speak—French, English, Latin, German, Dutch—and nothing he could not do, from taking care of horses to examining wounds to conducting diplomacy. But it was his air of calm authority that made him indispensible at the moment.

“You cannot displace so many women, many of them elderly, Mr. Adams,” de Clermont pronounced, as if the decision were up to him and not Dr. Otto, the medical officers, or the members of Congress. “We will have to find another way to house the ill and the wounded.”

“It does not seem chivalrous to discommode the ladies, Mr. Adams,” the Marquis de Lafayette said from the wheeled chair he called La Brouette. The chevalier de Clermont had constructed it out of an ordinary wooden chair he’d found in the Single Brethren’s House when it became necessary to move from the Sun Inn. De Clermont had prescribed rest and a good diet for the marquis—neither of which could be found at the tavern, which had been utterly taken over by Congress and couriers ferrying messages. The chevalier had found everything the marquis required a few doors away from the Sun Inn at the house of the Boeckel family—including skilled nurses in the form of Mrs. Boeckel and her daughter, Liesel. When not in use, La Brouette was parked by the fire in the Boeckels’ parlor, where it received more visitors than Lafayette.