- The roadway between Yorktown and Williamsburg, Friday, 28 March 1755

By midmorning, the mist had lifted. The sky remained pale and the road steamed where the sunlight reached it. The road stretched around a bend into the woods. Pike’s horse moved its ears forward. Faint voices carried from beyond a bend: men calling numbers, the clinking of metal, and the cracks of branches cut under tension.

Pike pulled on the horse’s reins and slowed the chair.

As they slowly approached, a survey party occupied the road ahead. One man stood beside a compass mounted upon a staff. Two others worked the Gunter’s Chain through the undergrowth at the road’s edge. The Gunter’s Chain was usually a long iron chain composed of 100 individual iron links connected by small rings. A fourth man carried thin wooden marking pins that allowed them to move the chain back and forth without losing an accurate measure. Their horses had been tied beneath pines in the distance, and an axe rested against a tree whose bark bore several fresh cuts in the bark.

The surveyor was a narrow man in a plain dark coat. He wore no wig, and his brown hair was tied severely behind him. A few stray hairs that had loosened fluttered in the light breeze. His face possessed the stillness of a person who disliked wasted motion. He looked up as the chair approached.

Pike stopped without being instructed. “How long?” he called.

“As long as the line is required,” the surveyor replied.

Pike muttered something Julian did not hear.

One chain carrier stood near the compass. The other moved forward through the brush until the iron chain stretched between them. The chain consisted of many linked lengths with handles at either end.

The surveyor looked at the compass, which had small metal lengths sticking up with tiny slits in them. The surveyor lined the slits up with a whiteish colored ranging rod sticking up a ways in the distance, along the line of chains. Julian could understand how they could survey vast tracks of land, but lacked the knowledge of how many chain links equaled a foot.

When the chain became taut, the distant chain carrier leaned down to place a pin, which was near the chair. Julian watched the man’s hand. The pin entered the ground several inches beyond the end of the chain. The carrier stood.

The surveyor looked directly at the pin. Then he lowered his eyes to the field book held open in his left hand and recorded the measurement. Julian waited for a correction. None came.

“He has placed your mark beyond the end of the chain,” Julian said. The distant carrier looked toward the surveyor. The surveyor closed his field book around one finger. “Did you address me or my man, sir?”

“I addressed an error, not your man,” pointed out Julian.

“Then you should take care, if it is any of your business,” scowled the surveyor.

Julian glanced at the chain. It crossed part of the road and disappeared into weeds on either side. The iron links were black with use. “A measurement extending beyond its instrument belongs to anyone expected to believe the measurement.”

Pike exhaled through his nose.

The surveyor regarded Julian more carefully. “You have newly arrived, then?” asked the surveyor.

“Is it so apparent?” asked Julian.

“Your coat is clean,” snubbed the surveyor.

Julian looked at the mud already stippling the lower skirts of his jacket. “Relatively.” A faint sound came from the trees to the north. Not laughter exactly, but something near it.

A black man stood beside a bay horse just beyond the survey party. He was broad-shouldered, plainly dressed, and several years older than Julian. A rope’s coil hung from his saddle. His gaze moved from the misplaced pin to Julian and then to the surveyor. Unlike the workers, he did not appear to belong to the party.

The surveyor’s expression tightened. “Bell,” he said, “have you business here?”

“Only the road, Mr. Pym.” The man’s voice was measured and unhurried.

“Then use it,” snarled Mr. Pym.

“I had intended to. But alas, you have stretched iron across it,” retorted Bell.

Pike leaned toward Julian and spoke under his breath. “Cyrus Bell,” he informed Julian.

“Should I know him?” asked Julian.

“Depends on what you need carried, crossed, tracked, measured, or remembered,” whispered Pike. Bell heard Pike speaking. His eyes shifted briefly toward Pike, but revealed no offense.

The surveyor, Mr. Pym, opened his field book again. “The ground falls unevenly,” he told Julian. “A chain measured across Virginia soil does not lie as it would upon an English lawn.”

“Distance suffers from nationality?” poked Julian.

“Practical men allow for terrain.” Mr. Pym looked slightly annoyed by this young upstart questioning his business practices.

“By adding to it?” jabbed Julian.

Mr. Pym’s chain carriers stared studiously elsewhere. Mr. Pym’s face reddened slightly. He seemed as if he wanted to scream at this outsider.

Bell rested one hand upon his saddle. “A chain is generally most useful when it remains one length,” he said.

Mr. Pym looked at him. “You were not hired for an opinion.”

“No, I was not,” said Bell.

“Then your opinion has no owner, Bell” snarled Pym.

Bell’s expression did not alter. “That does not make the matter untrue.” For a moment, no one moved. Mr. Pym’s face was red hot and looked like he was going to rage.

Julian sensed a dispute older than his arrival and larger than the pin in the soil. Pym’s hand remained on the field book. Bell stood at ease, but his horse had turned one ear toward him, awaiting a command.

Pike broke the silence. “Might we pass?”

Mr. Pym gestured to his carriers; the chain slackened. One man lifted it from the road while the other retrieved the pin beyond the chain - and placed it in a leather pouch. The error disappeared without correction.

Pike started the horse. As the chair passed, Julian looked down at the field book. He caught only a few marks: a bearing, the number of chains, and what might have been the name ‘Rooke’ written near the top of the page.

Mr. Pym closed the book. “Mr. Harcourt,” he said in a tone of warning.

Pike’s reins tightened. Julian turned. He had not given his name.

Mr. Pym’s face remained composed. “Virginia may disappoint you,” he continued. “It is larger than the rules brought here to govern it.”

Julian looked from the field book to the man holding it. “Rules are seldom troubled by size, Mr. Pym. Only by the men who find them… inconvenient.” Pike drove on.

Cyrus Bell remained at the roadside. As they passed him, he gave Julian neither greeting nor warning. His gaze rested instead upon the survey pin that had disappearing into the carrier’s pouch.

A quarter mile later, Pike said, “You ought not antagonize Silas Pym. He is not a temperate man.”

“I merely observed a misplaced marker,” explained Julian.

“Men have been shot for observing less,” frowned Pike.

“Then the colony’s ammunition problem has been overstated,” joked Julian.

Pike did not smile. “Mr. Pym surveys for Colonel Rooke, and is most dangerous.”

Julian looked back, but the bend of the road had hidden the party. “Does everyone in the Colony work for Colonel Rooke?”

“Not everyone,” said Pike.

“Only those I meet?” asked Julian.

“Give it time,” Pike responded lightly.

The road worsened as the day advanced. At one low place, water filled the wheel ruts deeply enough that Pike guided the horse onto the shoulder. The right wheel sank at once. The chair tilted.

Julian caught the edge with one hand and his dispatch box with the other. Pike cursed the road, the horse, the wheel, and a former Royal governor whose responsibility for the event was not immediately apparent. They climbed down. The wheel had settled near its hub in reddish mud. Pike pushed from behind, while Julian pulled at the shaft. The horse objected to every proposed solution.

After several useless attempts, hoofbeats approached from the east. Cyrus Bell rode into view. He stopped. Pike wiped mud onto his coat. “The road is soft,” scoffed Pike.

Bell looked at the buried wheel. “So, it has informed you.”

He dismounted and handed Pike his reins. Without asking permission, he took a short-handled shovel from behind his saddle and cut away the mud in front of the wheel. He then placed a flat section of split timber beneath it and tied his rope from the chair’s axle to his own horse’s saddle.

Julian assisted, though Pike repeatedly advised him not to ruin his lovely coat.

The two horses pulled together. The chair lurched free with a sucking sound that nearly drew Julian’s boot from his foot. Bell untied the rope. Julian reached for his purse.

Bell saw the movement. “Keep it, you owe me nothing.”

“You have saved us considerable labor,” said Julian.

“I saved the horse’s health,” replied Bell matter-of-factly.

“The horse has no purse with which to pay,” said Julian.

“Which is likely why he still has friends.” Pike turned away, concealing either a cough or amusement.

Julian let his hand fall. “Then accept my thanks, please.”

Bell studied him for a moment. “’Thanks’ cost less than money.”

“Usually,” laughed Julian to himself.

“And are often worth the price.” Bell returned the shovel and rope to his saddle.

Julian glanced eastward, where the survey party remained out of sight. “Was the pin misplaced deliberately, Mr. Bell?”

Bell put one foot in the stirrup. “A gentleman ought to take care with questions that contain their preferred answer.”

“That is a remarkably indirect response.”

“It may be the only kind that gets a man home.” Bell mounted. “Your uncle asked straighter questions.” Bell added, “Near the end.”

Julian’s attention sharpened. “You knew Thomas?”

“I knew what he wanted measured,” said Bell.

“What was that?” asked Julian.

Bell gathered his reins. “The difference between the land men own and the land their papers claimed.” Before Julian could ask another question, Bell turned his horse westward.

“You are going to Williamsburg?” Julian called.

“For now,” said Bell.

“Then perhaps we shall speak again,” hoped Julian.

Bell looked back once. “That will depend upon what you ask.” He rode ahead, passing from sunlight into the shadow of the trees.

Pike watched him go. “Bell knows every creek between the two rivers.”

“And every boundary?” asked Julian.

“He knows where men say they are,” clarified Pike.

“That was not what I asked,” said Julian.

“No,” Pike said. “It seldom is,” said Pike.

They resumed the journey. Julian’s coat was no longer clean. He found that he minded that fact less than he thought he would have expected.

Shortly after noon, Pike stopped near a small ordinary where they ate bread, cold meat, and something introduced as cheese - which possessing the consistency of softened wax. The common room also held three other travelers, a merchant’s clerk, and a militia officer speaking loudly about General Braddock.

The officer claimed that the British regulars would sweep the French from the Ohio Territory countryside before summer. One traveler disagreed and said “No army could move cannon through the western forests.” The merchant’s clerk said “Powder, wagons, and provisions would matter more than courage.”

Pike ate without joining the argument. Julian listened intently.

In England, the colonies had been described as ‘possessions. In the ordinary, they sounded like men standing in a darkened room, uncertain how far the walls extended and increasingly convinced that someone beyond them intended violence.

A folded newspaper lay on the table. The masthead read The Virginia Gazette. Beneath it were foreign reports, commercial notices, official announcements, advertisements for imported goods, property, services, and people.

One advertisement described an indentured servant who had departed before completing his term. Another offered a reward for the capture of an enslaved man who had escaped from a plantation. A third announced the services of a music teacher newly arrived in Williamsburg. Julian read the page twice.

The colony presented itself in print as a collection of things lost, things sold, things owed, and people whose movement required explanation. Pike tapped the table. “If you mean to bring that along, pay the keeper.”

Julian folded the Gazette. “Is information not freely circulated here?”

“Not by printers,” said Pike.

Julian left coin enough for the paper and food.

York Road, the path they had been traveling on, showed a sign changing the name of the road to Woodpecker Street as they neared the city of Williamsburg, the capital city of Colonial Virginia. The afternoon light had strengthened and then begun to soften.

Woodpecker Street passed houses more frequently and enclosed lots. Workshops appeared between dwellings, and riders traveled in both directions. A wagon loaded with flour moved eastward, while another carrying empty barrels creaked west.

At midday, the first clear view of the Capitol building came suddenly.

The brick building stood at the eastern end of the town, formal and symmetrical. Both wings were circular in shape joined by the connecting structure above the passage. There was a chest-high wall of bricks that enclosed the courtyard that was now empty. It closed off the long perspective of the main street, with sincere and deliberate authority, as though Williamsburg had been arranged to make government the first thing seen by anyone arriving from Yorktown.

The Capitol building was the home of the House of Burgesses, elected from local citizens to pass laws of the Colony, and the Governor’s Council, the upper house and advisory body to the Royal Governor appointed by the King of England. The House of Burgesses were elected from local citizens and businessmen, while the Governor’s Council were important citizens appointed by the Royal Governor and the King.

Julian could see beyond the Capitol building, the famed Duke of Gloucester Street stretched - the main street, as Pike described it, running west through the town from the Capitol to the edge of town. Many buildings lined both sides at irregular intervals: houses, shops, taverns, offices, fenced gardens, sheds, kitchens, stables, and work yards. Far in the distance, partly obscured by haze and trees, rose the College of William and Mary.

Between the Capitol and the College laid the capital city of the Royal of the Colony of Virginia. Julian had expected something far larger. He had not expected something so concentrated. The city packed a lot of buildings in a small area, most made of brick and some of wood. There were three taverns farther along the route as well.

Pike slowed among pedestrians and horses. “That’s the Capitol,” he said unnecessarily.

“I recognized the ambition,” admired Julian.

North of it stood the Public Gaol or jail, enclosed and ominously severe. East of Capitol Square, a smaller brick building housed the colony’s records, Pike explained. Men entered and left carrying bundles, boxes, and folded documents. Julian’s attention was fixed upon that building.

Thomas Harcourt had spent much of his life inside that building or in offices connected with it. Patents, commissions, deeds, court papers, and official correspondence passed through those rooms. Land became ownership there. Testimony became record. Errors became precedent, if preserved long enough.

A gentleman on a dark horse emerged from near the records building accompanied by two other riders. He was broad-shouldered and richly, but soberly dressed, with a gray wig, dark red coat, and silver at his shoes and wrists. He sat his horse easily. Men greeted him as he passed, and he acknowledged each with practiced attention.

Pike lowered his voice, “Colonel Rooke.” Julian looked on in disinterest.

Rooke turned his head. For one improbable instant, his gaze met Julian’s through the movement of the street. He spoke to his companions, handed one of them a folded paper, and guided his horse toward the chair.

“Mr. Harcourt, I presume?” asked Colonel Rooke, not expecting an answer.

Julian removed his hat and nodded, “Colonel Rooke. It is a pleasure to finally meet you. My father speaks well of your reputation.”

Rooke’s expression was one of measured welcome. “The pleasure is mine. You have your father’s face.”

“I have been accused of that,” replied Julian.

“And Thomas’s manner, unless I am mistaken,” noticed Rooke.

“That accusation is only more recent,” smiled Julian.

Rooke smiled. It was a practiced and convincing smile, neither too broad nor too intimate. “I had expected your ship yesterday.”

“So had the captain. The river declined to cooperate with us,” blamed Julian.

“Virginia often does that.” The phrase recalled Mr. Pym’s defense of the misplaced pin.

Rooke’s horse shifted slightly. The colonel controlled it with the smallest movement of his hand on the reins. “I regret that business obliges me to leave town this afternoon,” he said. “Otherwise, I would insist that you dine with me. You must permit me to call upon you tomorrow.”

“At my uncle’s house?” asked Julian.

After a fractional pause, Rooke stated, “If you mean to stay there.”

“I had.” Julian had loved his uncle and was itching to uncover what had happened to him. He believed not in the ‘accident’ story he had been told.

“Thomas had not kept it in comfort during his final months,” noticed Rooke.

“Comfort was not among my father’s instructions,” chided Julian.

“No. Sir Reginald has always preferred economy in other men,” stated Rooke.

Julian looked at him more closely. Rooke’s face revealed only mild amusement. “You knew my father well?” asked Julian.

“We have corresponded,” said Rooke.

The sealed letter inside Julian’s coat seemed to press against his ribs. “I carry something for you.”

Rooke’s measured facial expressions lightened, ever so slightly. “So, I understand.” Rooke made no move to receive it. “Tomorrow will be soon enough. You have traveled far, and written business should not be conducted in a road.”

Julian nodded. Julian wondered how Rooke knew of the letter’s existence and immediately answered his own question: ‘his father had told him’.

Behind the colonel, a clerk hurried from the records office and stopped upon seeing them. The man carried a volume wrapped in canvas. Rooke glanced at him once, and the clerk retreated beneath the building’s eaves.

“Hiding something?” Julian asked himself. “Did you know my uncle well?” Julian asked Colonel Rooke.

Rooke’s expression altered. The warmth remained, but grief, or a credible imitation of it, entered his eyes. “I knew him well, for more than twenty years.”

“Then perhaps you can tell me how he died?” asked Julian. The street noise seemed momentarily to recede. Pike stared at the horse’s harness.

Rooke answered without haste. “Your uncle fell from a bridge after dark.”

“I know that,” said Julian.

“You asked how,” explained Rooke.

“Yes, but that is not what I meant by it,” said Julian.

“Thomas had become troubled. He had worked too long among damaged papers and old disputes. He began seeing design where there was error, and conspiracy where there was only confusion. He turned to drink,” answered Rooked.

“What sort of conspiracy?” asked Julian.

Rooke looked toward the Public Records Office. “Land.” One word, spoken quietly.

Then the Colonel returned his gaze to Julian. “In Virginia, Mr. Harcourt, land produces more quarrels than tobacco, religion, and women combined. Thomas began to believe every disputed boundary concealed a deliberate theft.”

“Did it?” Julian tried not sound surprised, but he failed.

Rooke smiled again, though this time the smile did not reach his eyes. “Tomorrow.” He inclined his head.

“Welcome to Williamsburg, Mr. Harcourt,” he said with a mock salute. Rooke turned his horse and rode east with his companions. The clerk carrying the canvas-wrapped volume waited until the colonel had passed, then crossed quickly toward a side entrance of the Capitol.

Julian watched both men disappear. Pike started forward. “You might have waited a day before asking Colonel Rooke whether or not he killed your uncle.”

“I asked how Thomas died,” explained Julian.

“Some men hear the question beneath the question,” explained Pike.

“Colonel Rooke did not appear offended,” Julian said.

“That is why I should worry,” explained Pike.

They entered the main street. The town’s activity increased as they moved west from the Capitol. Signboards swung above doors. Servants carried baskets between kitchens and houses. A blacksmith’s hammer rang from a work yard. Dogs crossed without regard for rank or traffic.

Near the Raleigh Tavern, men gathered beneath the sign and crowded the entrance. Some wore sober coats of lawyers and clerks. Others were dressed for travel. Pike explained that the General Court would begin on the tenth of April, and that would cause Williamsburg’s population to swell during the public times.

Julian looked at the tavern’s doorway. “Where law gathers, drink follows?”

“Usually arrives first,” explained Pike.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3: The Printer