He and the others hadn’t been abroad in the city for long before he realized how wrong he had been.
Though the streets remained covered with a thick layer of snow that made them only barely passable, Ethan soon found himself in a broad stream of men, women, and children filing through the lanes toward Boston’s Neck. The farther he, Kannice, and Kelf walked from the Dowser, the more people he saw. They came from the North End and Cornhill, the waterfront and the South End, all converging on Marlborough Street. There, they continued in silence, with grim purpose, bathed in the golden light of late afternoon. By the time they reached the corner of Orange Street and Essex, where stood the famed Liberty Tree, they numbered at least a thousand.
A large sign had been erected near the tree. On it were several biblical quotations that someone-Adams perhaps-had deemed appropriate for the occasion.
“Though Hand join in Hand, the Wicked shall not pass unpunish’d,” read one.
And another said, “Thou shalt take no satisfaction for the life of a MURDERER-he shall surely be put to death.”
As it turned out, the men and women who had walked with Ethan, Kannice, and Kelf to the Liberty Tree represented but a fraction of those who had come to honor Christopher Seider. A far greater number of people awaited them along Orange Street south of the tree. Adams and his allies had already begun to arrange the procession that would march through the city streets. Hundreds of schoolboys had been lined up in twin columns, their cheeks red with the cold. Behind them, flanked by six more boys-pallbearers, it seemed-lay on the snow a small, wooden coffin with Latin inscriptions painted in silver lettering along its sides and at its head. A cluster of perhaps three dozen men, women, and children stood next in line. Many of them wept openly, and when Ethan walked past, he heard snatches of conversation in German. He gathered that these were Seider’s parents, relatives, and friends.
Behind these unfortunate souls, the rest of the mourners, already numbering in the hundreds, had taken their places. Ethan thought that with all those he had seen on his way to the Liberty Tree, the number of marchers would exceed two thousand.
In the distance, at the very rear of the procession, more than two dozen carriages and chaises waited for the parade to begin, their horses snorting clouds of vapor in the twilight air.
As Ethan, Kannice, and Kelf made their way toward the back of the procession, they passed one luminary after another. Joseph Warren and James Otis had joined the throng, as had Paul Revere and Benjamin Church, Benjamin Edes and John Hancock. Samuel Adams walked the length of the column, calling encouragement and instructions to those he passed, while his cousin, the lawyer John Adams, stood with a woman Ethan assumed was his wife, appearing somewhat awed by what Samuel had wrought.
Near the back of the line, they found Diver and Deborah, who greeted them with solemn expressions and made room for them. If Diver took any satisfaction in being right about the size of the assembly, he gave no indication of it. He shook Ethan’s hand and Kelf’s, gave Kannice a quick kiss on the cheek, and then stood facing forward, his chin raised, his hands clasped in front of him.
Ethan continued to look around, amazed at what he was witnessing. It was a sight as humbling as it was spectacular. Adams had outdone himself. Ethan could only imagine what Thomas Hutchinson would think of this display. No doubt he would think it a spectacle and nothing more, a cynical attempt to turn tragedy to political gain. Ethan had resolved to be here because of what he had seen four days before on Middle Street, but he had expected that he would feel much the same. As the procession began, however, as he strained to see those six boys lift Christopher Seider’s coffin onto their shoulders and plod through the snow, he understood how wrong he had been about this as well.
It took some time before Ethan and the rest of those near the back of the column could begin walking. Even as he started to tread through the snowy lane, he guessed that by the time the carriages rolled forward, the first of the lads leading the parade would be near the center of Cornhill.
Kannice walked beside him, tears coursing down her cheeks, no doubt as moved as he by the city’s outpouring of grief and resolve. He took her hand.
Still more people had gathered along the side of the street to watch the procession as it followed Orange, Newbury, Marlborough, and Cornhill Streets up to the Town House. It then snaked through the North and South Ends before turning back toward the Neck, and the burying ground where Christopher Seider’s body was to be interred. As the sky darkened and night fell, those lining the lanes handed torches to the marchers so that the procession became a river of light flowing through the city.
But as the coffin passed once more within sight of Murray’s Barracks, where so many British soldiers were billeted, Ethan felt a conjuring pulse in the street. He halted, forcing his friends to do the same. The men walking behind stumbled into them.
“What is it?” Kannice asked.
Ethan opened his mouth to answer, but then shut it again, his heart hammering in his chest. He hadn’t noticed at first because several of the people around him carried torches. But Uncle Reg had appeared by his side, and was eyeing him, his eyes as brilliant as the brightest flames.
“I didn’t summon you,” Ethan whispered. “Why are you here?”
Before Reg could offer any sort of answer, Ethan heard shouts from up ahead.
“What are the lobsters doing now?” one of the men behind him said.
Diver looked back. “Let’s go find out.”
Several of the men started forward, Diver among them.
Ethan made to follow, but Kannice still held his hand.
“Ethan-”
“I need to go with them,” he said.
Kelf still stood on Kannice’s other side, although he was watching Diver and the others, and appeared to be on the verge of following. “Kelf, can you get Kannice back to the Dowser?”
“What? Well, I suppose, but Ethan-”
“Please,” Ethan said.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Kannice said, staring after the men who had gone forward.
“I don’t either. But I don’t think it’s safe in the street right now. I think you should go back.”
“But the funeral.”
He stepped closer to her, and whispered, “I’ve just felt another conjuring, and my ghost is here; I don’t know why. Please do as I ask, Kannice.”
“I’ll not be scared off the streets by whoever’s doing this,” she said, keeping her voice low despite the fierce expression on her face.
“You’re right. You shouldn’t have to be. And you know I’d never let anything happen to you. But in protecting you from a spell, I might let others come to harm. Neither of us wants that. Please,” he said again.
She hesitated, doubt creeping into her eyes. At last she nodded. “Yes, all right.”
“Maybe you should take her back, Ethan. Diver and them others might need help, and I think we both know who would be more valuable in a fight.”
At another time, Ethan might have found this amusing. Kelf was as large as a Dutch merchant ship and as strong as any man he knew. But he had no idea that Ethan could conjure.
“I’m hoping to prevent a fight,” Ethan said, “not tip the balance of one.”
The barman glanced once more in the direction of the raised voices. Ethan wanted to scream at him to make up his mind, but he kept silent, and at length Kelf said, “Aye, all right. I’ll take her. You watch yourself, though.”
“I will. Thank you, Kelf.”
With one last quick look at Kannice, and what he hoped was a reassuring smile, Ethan started after Diver. All of those mourning Christopher Seider had done at last what shovels had failed to do: much of the snow was packed down, making the lanes passable.