Chapter Seventeen
In his Scottish prison, before being thrown onto his prison ship, Duncan had spent a week loosening the mortar of a single stone with a stolen nail, then calculated he had but to loosen another five hundred such stones and he would be free. Now as the prison wagon wound its way through the hills and valleys north of Philadelphia he could not help but consider again the many ways he might escape. His conveyance was merely a modified farm wagon, made for transporting livestock, the wooden slats on its sides susceptible to splintering with a well-directed kick, the roof planks weak with knotholes.
But each time he tested the wood he caught sight of Magistrate Brindle riding close, between the wagon and the Virginian soldiers, as if to protect Duncan and Skanawati. Brindle
