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They kill Hercules first, which seems a mercy, all things considered.
The newspapers don't say how they rooted him out; a slip of the tongue, maybe, or a note passed to the wrong soldier, or just a counterspy in the ranks – a friend who wasn't a friend, a neighbor who saw how the tide was turning and decided to catch it before it slipped away.
Regardless: it's a footnote, one in a list of names below a poem about the weather and above a Mr. Keswick's advertisement that his pig has birthed. Marlow, Mitcham, Morley, and then Mulligan, Hercules, one in a cluster of traitors to the Crown, shot Tuesday morning a little ways outside of Fort Frederick. Captured in Manhattan; brought to Albany by redcoats. Sons of Liberty extinct on the island.
Their prison is in Westchester County, so this is technically true.
They've been left to their own devices, more or less. A couple of enlisted men come by every so often to check on them, deliver food and water, toss a newspaper into a cell if they're lucky; they usually are, and the cell is usually Alexander's. He reads it aloud, if he's got the voice for it. He's good at it. Rhetoric lessons, you know; so useful.
The redcoats don't bring them better food, or blankets, or creature comforts. The newspapers aren't meant to be an act of pity. They're meant to help them count the days down.
It's quite kind of them. Alexander could really like them, if they weren't going to kill him.
He's in his own cell, the one farthest from the door. Laurens is next to him; they've killed Harrison, and McHenry, and Smith, and Tilghman has turned King's evidence to join his family in Maryland, which does for the aides-de-camp. Lafayette is - well, one assumes in another prison, deep in a diplomatic morass and trying to keep his wife from being expatriated. No word of Burr, which means either that he's flitting around Pennsylvania, trying to pick up the pieces of these broken rebels, this broken rebellion –
– or , more likely, that he's floating down the Allegheny, with his skull smashed like an egg and his eyes wide and bloody and sightless.
The third and last prisoner is in the cell across from Alexander. Which is the cell nearest the door, because he is the next scheduled to die.
"Nate Hale got last words," says Laurens. His voice is soft and rusty.
"Nate Hale was a two-bit sneak from Coventry," Alexander says.
"That's what I'm saying," says Laurens. "You give a Connecticutian last words, you give last words to someone like him." He jerks his thumb towards the cell nearest the door. "You ask a redcoat, any redcoat, he'll tell you."
There's thudding from above: footsteps. Laurens grins, thin and white against the dirt on his face. "Speak of the devil."
It's some nameless corporal who Alexander's seen before - short with red hair, is why Alexander remembers him. He's carrying a kettle: dinner. If Alexander closes his eyes and breathes deep, he can pretend he smells pork cooking.
"Corporal," Laurens calls, and Alexander closes his eyes; they're not cruel men, these redcoats, tolerant in their victory, but they don't enjoy disturbances in the routine. It unsettles them.
"Corporal," shouts Laurens again, and the redcoat stops before the cell nearest the door, tips the kettle until a piece of cold pork and ship's biscuit tumble onto the straw.
The prisoner inside doesn't look at the food, because he never does. The redcoat pauses anyway, hefting the weight of the kettle to one hip, and says, not looking at Laurens, "What?"
"We were wondering," says Laurens – Alexander winces – "if there'll be a chance for last words. For us prisoners."
Now the corporal turns towards him. His sharp face is a mixture of amusement and something else – disgust, maybe, or worse: pity.
"You've heard, then," he says. "Who was it told you?"
There's a long, long beat. Alexander's heart has begun hammering in his chest.
"Told us?" says Laurens.
The corporal stares at him, his pale eyes blank and amused. "Told us, what?"
In his corner of his cell, Alexander closes his eyes. If they're taking that attitude – well. This can't be good.
"Told us, sir," says Laurens, quiet.
The corporal sniffs, strides over to his cell and tips the kettle. "Lord North's come from Parliament. His ship docked yesterday afternoon. He's going to Philadelphia."
The kettle comes swinging towards Alexander next, and he scrambles off the little wooden bench in his cell, snatches up the pork and ship's biscuit from the straw and brushes at them. No worms today, not even the ends of them. They really must be taking pity.
"He doesn't want to spend too long here," the corporal adds dispassionately. "Rushing the order of events. That one's scheduled for the morning."
Then he's up the stairs, before they can speak.
Alexander doesn't turn to Laurens, doesn't ask which prisoner that one means. He knows. They both know who Lord North came all the way from England to see executed. It's the prisoner nearest the door.
He says, his throat tight, "Last words, sir?"
There's a silence.
Then the General says, "Yes. I suppose so."
.
There are no windows in most of the redcoat prisons in the colonies, but Alexander's gotten lucky: all the New York prisons are old sugar houses, used as refineries before the King's soldiers began their occupation. This one's in the woods, not far from Yonkers proper. In the early days it was overcrowded – stinking, too, and crawling with bugs – but now they nearly have the place to themselves, and Alexander can hear the sparrows singing in the branches, when things are quiet.
They're quiet now. The light from the windows has gone from white to gold to red, and the shadows of the branches are growing larger, spreading grey fingers out onto the floor.
"Start with the past, then," says Laurens. "The – the French-Indian War. Or – "
Alexander runs a hand through his hair. "We want to bring up the French-Indian War? For god's sake, he was a redcoat."
"But a damn good soldier," says Laurens stubbornly, "and a patriotic one, and we can talk about that, can't we, who's a patriot, who's just pretending to be one, who's really a traitor to their country – "
"I wasn't a good soldier," says the General, who still isn't looking at them.
Laurens blinks. "Sorry, sir?"
"I wasn't a good soldier," the General says again, sounding very patient and very far away. "A good killer, maybe. The Half-King used to call me Conocotarious – the Town-Burner. Did you know that?"
"I didn't, sir," says Alexander.
"Nor did I," says Laurens, sounding subdued.
"Fourteen of my men died from friendly fire in one day," says the General. "I never did wear a red coat, though I tried my best to earn one. Whenever I was in command, I commanded Virginians, not British men. I burnt down Iroquois villages and they called me useful and sent me home."
Outside, the tree branches slap the thick glass of the window: tick-tick. Tick-tick.
"I suppose I was useful," says the General, almost gently.
"Are those last words, sir?" says Alexander. "That you suppose you were useful?"
The General stretches his arms behind his back, cracks his neck from side to side. In the absence of powder, his hair has gone dull and brown, curls limp over the back of his neck. "Was I?" he says. "Would Lord North think so?"
"Does Lord North think," says Laurens, "or does Lord North just exercise his tongue so he can better lick the East India Company's – "
"Careful," says Alexander dryly. "You're no Adams."
"Too right I'm not," says Laurens. "Adams was hanged months ago. Difference between me and him is, they can't keep me quiet, because I'm not dead yet."
"You can refuse to keep quiet all you like," Alexander snaps, "but we've still lost the war."
"We've lost the war," says Laurens, "but I can still refuse to keep quiet."
"I don't suppose I was useful," says the General.
Alexander closes his eyes, breathes until his heartbeat slows. "That's not true, sir," he says, eventually.
"It won't do for last words," the General says. "It might be the sort of thing a patriot says, but not a Continental."
Outside the window, a grosbeak twitters. "Something about this war, then," says Laurens.
"There's certainly no more Continental thing to reference," Alexander says, and ignores Laurens' glare.
"My military prowess?" says the General. "My tremendous victories?" He sounds almost amused. "Am I to be a rooster, laughed at in London for strutting my way towards the farmer's knife?"
"You shouldn't be," says Alexander, and, "You won't be," says Laurens. They look at each other; Laurens continues: "Hale said he regretted he just had one life to give for his country - they admired that, sir, in England. Pride's not a small thing, sir."
"Pride's not a small thing, indeed," the General says. "Certainly too large to fit into the coffin."
"'The evil that men do lives after them,'" says Alexander, "'the good is oft interr'd within their bones.'"
The General raises his eyebrows. "Julius Caesar? Am I such a tyrant?"
"John would rather you be your own Antony, sir," Alexander says. "Unless I mistake his meaning." Laurens smiles at him, quick and grateful, and Alexander looks away.
"And speak at my own funeral, then," says the General, and holds up a warning hand when Laurens opens his mouth. "I understand your meaning, gentlemen, and I am not averse to it. But I won't mock myself by boasting of deeds I didn't do, or glory I never earned."
"Who says you didn't earn glory, sir?" says Laurens. Alexander sneaks a glance at him - his nostrils are flared, his knuckles white. "Who says you weren't - weren't worthy of songs and stories and plays?"
The General hums under his breath; Alexander can't tell whether it's agreement or skepticism.
Enough, then. "Who says glory is earned," says Alexander, "and not taken? You can lose every battle you fight, sir, and say the right words, and you'll be written down as an angel for as long as you like. That's glory just as real, and glory more than Lord North will get in a hundred lifetimes."
"More glory or honor than Lord North is not a difficult task," says Laurens. Alexander laughs without meaning to, and is startled at the feeling of it in his chest: it's been a long time.
"So I talk of this war," says the General. "About what - the battles I lost? My capture? The deaths of my men?"
"About what it meant, sir," says Laurens. "About what they died for. About why all of this will be written about, in the centuries to come."
"And if it means nothing?" the General says.
"I don't believe that, sir," Laurens says quietly, "and nor do you."
"Nor did Mulligan," says Alexander. "Nor did Burr. Nor did Adams, or Mercer, or Schuyler."
"And if it meant something, then – well, defeat has never meant destruction, sir," Laurens says. "Not for Hector or Brutus or Jeanne d'Arc. They die, but what they dreamed and hoped for, it lives as long as it's spoken of."
The shadows have spread wholly over the floor, and the red light is faded, the wind died down. Alexander can hardly hear the branches any more, scratching against the walls.
He says, "Well."
"Alexander," says Laurens, warning in his voice.
"Troy fell, John," says Alexander. "Joan burned. The Republic ended. No dream Brutus or Cassius dreamed could keep a single tyrant away from the throne."
"It did," says Laurens. "It could. One single tyrant."
Alexander spreads his hands. "So he put it off, then. He earned a few more months for his dream – a year, maybe. He'd not guaranteed his republican government's safety. He'd not won it back from history."
"And is that not enough?" says Laurens. "One month - one day scraped out and made to be better than the next? Is it not better than nothing?"
"It's better than nothing," says Alexander, "but it isn't enough."
Laurens looks left and right, gestures at the cell walls around him. "I think I know that as well as you, Alexander."
"I don't know if you do, if you're going to cling to – " Alexander says, and regrets it immediately.
Laurens blinks slow, like a snake. Then he says, "To what."
"To false hope," says Alexander, doesn't look at him. "To some idea of meaning that gets you through the day. Because you can't cope with the idea of – of. Of all of this, this rebellion, this great experiment, having failed."
"And sitting in your cell spouting off about the fall of the Roman Republic makes you better than me," says Laurens. "Makes you smarter. Better able to cope. Less dead. Very good, Hamilton. I can see why you got top marks at Kings."
"I didn't mean it like that," says Alexander. His voice sounds tired to his own ears.
"Feel free to give me another choice, Alexander," says Laurens. "Clinging to false meaning - all right, that's out. What does one do instead, when one's enlightened oneself past all that silly uneducated hope? What's the other option?"
Alexander runs a hand through his hair, stares at the floor. "I don't know," he says, and he can hear the roughness in his own voice, can hear what months of captivity and hard bread and stale water and no sun have done to him. "I don't know, John, all right? I just – I can't moralize. I can't do it and be honest. I can't take a life lesson away from all this. It's not fair to ask."
There's silence from the other cell. Alexander dares to glance over, and has to look away immediately: Laurens' eyes are very soft, and very sad.
"Say I talk of the war," says the General, and Alexander startles; he'd almost forgotten the man was there. "Say I talk of the war – forget morals or no morals, say I speak of those who died for this, speak of what they thought they died for, say their names are honorable. That's good, yes?"
"Yes," says Alexander, when the silence has stretched long enough that it's clear Laurens won't speak.
"And me?" says the General. "What did I fight for? Is my name worth praising? Do I write myself down in the lists of the honorable dead?"
A beat. Alexander says, "I don't think any of us can tell you what you fought for, sir."
"My land," says the General. "My money. My business. Martha."
They say nothing. The General says, lightly, "Are those fine and noble enough for the Revolution's champion? Will they put this into song and story, the hero who killed to make a little more money from the patch of land his slaves worked?"
"And the rule of law, sir," says Laurens, "and self-determination. I'm not – you know my feelings on manumission, sir. But. But we fought together, nevertheless – "
"And does that make me more noble?" the General inquires. "Or the cause more noble? Or does it tarnish you to have stood side by side with me?"
"Like as not it does, sir," says Laurens, and glares at Hamilton to stop him speaking. "Like as not – I don't have an answer for that either. I think you did fight for things that were noble, much as you may deny it in a dark cell at the end of it all, but I do think I was made worse by fighting for your slaveholding. I cannot excuse myself from it."
"But you fought by my side nevertheless," says the General.
"Yes, sir, I did," says Laurens, "and I'd do it again. And I can only pray that history may condemn me for it."
The General does not speak for a while. Then he says, "Suppose I did have noble motives, once. But by the – at the end of everything, do not suppose that I dreamed of Jefferson and Franklin and Adams' liberty when I slept. I fought for my wife, Laurens. I fought to see Martha safe and by my side."
"I think your wife is as noble a motive as any," says Alexander.
"Greater love hath no man than this," says Laurens, and Alexander catches his glance towards him, and smiles a small smile in return.
"So it may be," says the General. "And yet Martha is dead."
There's a long silence. Laurens says, "Yes, sir."
"Is this, then, a reason to give into despair of the cause?" says the General. "God knows I did not – God knows I kept fighting, even after I saw her shot with my own eyes. Was this a noble thing to do?"
The wind has picked up again; the branches tap the window harder, tock-tock, tock-tock.
"The war ought to have ended," the General says, "and the world ought to have stopped turning. Surely Martha's body was enough weight for one day to bear, one week, one year. I expected there would be a ceasefire, that every soldier would lay down their weapons. It ought to have been so."
Alexander hears his sigh in the darkness. "And then the redcoats saw her body and took advantage of my agitated state to push me through half of New Jersey. And that night the sun set, even though it ought not to have. And I ate dinner, and slept, and woke, as if those were things that it was all right to do when Martha was dead. And I seemed to be the only one who knew that the world was off its axis, and would never spin straight again."
Laurens says, "Sir – "
"Don't say you're sorry," says the General mildly. "It was more than four months ago, and I have done my grieving. I say this only to explain how I cannot call Martha a noble motive that I fought for, nor say I am a noble man because of her."
"Can we never say," says Laurens, "that the memory of the dead makes us greater? That it inspires us?"
"We can," says the General. "But it is not a fair thing to ask from them. They cannot consent to give their legacies over to our inspiration."
"Whether you will have Martha in it or no," says Alexander, "you can speak of yourself in your own speech. You can say that you are glad you fought, sir."
Another silence. Alexander adds, "If it is true."
A huff of laughter from the General. "It is true," he says. "I cannot say whether I will think the same when the noose is around my neck. But here in this cell, I am glad I fought. If the soul is mortal, then I am glad this is what mine did in its time."
"All right, Laurens," says Alexander.
"I'm sorry?" says Laurens.
"Your other choice," Alexander says. "If you decide that hope is false, and so is meaning. If historians aren't enough. Perhaps you can be, in a cell in the dark, glad you fought."
There is silence from Laurens, for a while. "I don't think I shall be," he says, eventually. "I think I do believe in the long and kind view of history, for what little comfort that will give my corpse. But if that fails me, then I will thank you for it."
A rustle in the dark; he's laying down on the straw. "And you, sir?" Alexander hears him say. "Which do you choose?"
There is silence. After some time, Alexander says, "He's asleep."
"We should be, too," says Laurens.
"All right," says Alexander, and listens to the branches for a long, long time.
.
The sun wakes him, as it has every morning for a month. It pools in a corner of his cell, bright among the straw, and Alexander sits up, rubs the sleep out of his eyes.
"You're awake," says Laurens.
"Well done," says Alexander dryly. "So are you."
"I didn't sleep," Laurens says. "Will he be allowed last words?"
Alexander blinks. "What?"
"I asked the redcoat," Laurens says, "he never answered. He told us that the General – that Lord North was here, and he left. He didn't say whether the General could speak or not."
A beat, two. Alexander says, "Surely – "
"No," says Laurens, "not surely. That's it. We don't know."
And then there are footsteps on the stairs, and the General is blinking his eyes open, sitting up in his cell.
There are four or five redcoats. One is carrying a length of rope, one a black cloth that must be for the hood; the others just have muskets laden over their shoulders, and hard eyes.
The cell unlocks. The General pushes himself to his feet, slow, a mountain rising. He ignores the corporal's proffered hand, but accepts the rope, when it goes around his wrists.
Then all Alexander can see is the back of Washington's head, and his shoes, as he walks up the stairs before the redcoats.
There's a noise from beside Alexander. Laurens is on the side of his cell closest to him; his fingers are stretching through the bars, just far enough for Alexander to touch the tips.
Alexander catches them, curls them into his palm. If he sits down at this wall of the cell he can almost touch Laurens' body, hear him breathing.
"Alexander," Laurens whispers. His fingers are hot in Alexander's hand, and he's staring forward.
"Here I am," Alexander says, presses closer.
"Make this different," says Laurens. "Make this not have happened."
Alexander breathes, listens to the ticking of the branches against the window. Then he says, "Close your eyes."
He doesn't know if Laurens does or not; he closes his, watches the darkness behind them. "Once upon a time," he says, "there was a General, a George Washington, who fought a war for freedom. A hero's war, with glory, and with honor. And though the foes he faced were well-trained and fierce, his soldiers were braver and fiercer, and they had right on their side, which was best of all."
"And did they win?" says Laurens.
"And they won," says Alexander. "Some of them died, but the war was won, and they got what they were fighting for. They made a country of their own, and Washington was the ruler of it."
"And he was good," Laurens says. If the bars didn't prevent it, Alexander thinks Laurens would be leaning his head on his shoulder, like a child.
"He was good," says Alexander. "He was good, and the people loved him, and when he died on his farm his wife was with him. And the country lived on after him, even though he was in his grave."
"For how long?" Laurens says, so quietly Alexander can barely hear him.
Alexander doesn't open his eyes. "For ever. For always. Happily ever after."
"Did it?" says Laurens.
"Yes," says Alexander. "That's how stories go."