Speaks the Nightbird

Speaks

the

Nightbird

ROBERT

MCCAMMON

TO HUNTER GOATLEY

Think where man's glory most begins and ends

And say that my glory was I had such friends. —William Butler Yeats

one

CAME THE TIME when the two travellers knew night would catch them, and shelter must be found. It had been a joyful day for frogs and mudhens. For the human breed, however, the low gray clouds and chill rain coiled chains around the soul. By the calendar the month of May should by all rights and predictions be charitable if not merry, but this May had entered like a grim-lipped miser pinching out candles in church.

Waterfalls streamed through the thick branches that interlocked forty feet above the road. The leaves of ancient oaks and elms, and the needles of the lofty pines, were more ebon than green, the huge trunks bearded with moss and blotched by brown lumps of fungus the size of a blacksmith's fist. To say that there was a road beneath those branches would be taking liberties with language: it was a canchre-colored mudhole emerging from the mist and disappearing into the mist.

"Steady, steady," said the wagon's driver to the pair of laboring nags as they pulled southward, breath steaming and skinny flanks trembling against the weight of wooden wheels through slop. He had a small stinger of a whip close at hand, but he declined to use it. The horses, which along with the wagon had been afforded him from the municipal stable of Charles Town, were doing all they could. Beneath the wagon's soaked brown burlap canopy, and behind the raw pinewood plank that occasionally fired splinters into the travellers' rear ends, were two unmatched trunks, a valise, and a wig box, all four pieces of luggage bearing scars and gouges that betrayed lives of undignified shipment.

Thunder rumbled overhead. The horses struggled to lift their hooves in the muck. "Get up, there," the driver said, with not a smudge of enthusiasm. He gave the reins a half-hearted flick, his hands protected by a pair of gray cloth gloves, then he sat without further comment as raindrops fell from the furled edges of his black, mud-spattered tricorn hat and added more soggy bulk to his raven's-hue fearnaught coat."Shall I take them, sir?"

The driver glanced at his fellow sufferer, who was offering to hold the reins. By no idylls of the imagination could the two be called bookends; the driver was fifty-five years of age, the passenger fresh of twenty. The older man was big-boned and had a heavy-jowled and ruddy face, with thick and bristling gray eyebrows set like ramparts over deeply cast ice-blue eyes that were as congenial as newly primed cannon barrels. His nose—as a polite Englishman might say—was well-dimensioned. A forthright Dutchman might say its owner had bloodhound in his lineage. The driver's chin was also a sturdy piece of sculpture, a square bulwark scored with a cleft that could have sheltered a small musket ball. Usually his face was scraped clean by scrupulous passes of the razor, but today the salt-and-pepper beard was making an appearance.

"Yes," he said. "Thank you." He passed the reins over, one of the many times they'd exchanged this duty in the past hours, and worked some feeling back into his fingers.

The younger man's lean, long-jawed face had courted more candle glow than sunlight. He was thin but not frail, rather sinewy like a tough garden vine. He wore square-toed shoes, white stockings, olive-green breeches, and a short, tight-fitting brown jacket made of cheap kerseymere over a plain white linen shirt. The knees of his breeches and the elbows of his jacket had been patched at least as often as the older man's clothing. On his head was a dun-colored woolen cap, pulled down over finely textured black hair that had recently been cropped close to the scalp to combat an infestation of lice in Charles Town. Everything about the younger man—nose, chin, cheekbones, elbows, knees—conveyed the impression of sharp angles. His eyes were gray, flecked with dark blue, the colors of smoke at twilight. He did not urge on the horses nor spank them with the reins; he only intended to guide. He was if anything a stoic. He understood the value of stoicism, for already in his life he'd endured such trials as might break someone who did not.

As he worked his hands, the older man mused that if he saw fifty-six after this ordeal then he should put aside his vocation and become a Samaritan in thanks to God. He was not cut from the crude frontier cloth. He considered himself a man of taste and refinement, an urban denizen ill-suited to pierce this wilderness. He appreciated clean brickwork and painted fences, the pleasing symmetry of manicured hedges, and the solid regularity of the lamplighter's rounds. He was a civilized man. Rain was down his neck and in his boots, the light was fading, and he had but a single rusty saber in the wagon with which to protect their belongings and their scalps. The village of Fount Royal lay at the end of this mudtrack, but that was cold comfort. His task at that place would not be a gentle one.

But now a touch of mercy! The rain was tapering off, the sound of thunder more distant than before. The older man thought that the worst of the storm must be moving over the ocean, which they'd glimpsed as a frothy gray plain through brief breaks in the forest. Still, a nasty drizzle continued to sting their faces. The hanging folds of mist had curtained the treelimbs, giving the forest a phantasmagoric pall. The wind had stilled, the air thick with a swampy green smell.

"Carolina spring," the older man muttered, his husky voice carrying the melodic accent of well-bred English generations. "There'll be many new flowers in the graveyard come summer."

The younger man didn't answer, but inwardly he was thinking that they might perish on this road, that a stroke of evil could befall them and they'd vanish from the face of the earth just as Magistrate Kingsbury had vanished on this same journey not two weeks ago. The fact that wild Indians haunted these woods, along with all manner of savage animals, was not lost on his imagination. Even with its lice and plague deaths, Charles Town looked like paradise compared to this dripping green hell. The settlers of Fount Royal must be insane to stake their lives and fortunes on such a territory, he'd decided.

But what now was Charles Town had itself been wilderness twenty years ago. Now it was a city and a thriving port, so who could say what Fount Royal might become? Still, he knew that for every Charles Town there were dozens of other settlements that had been devoured by misfortunes. Such too might be the eventual fate of Fount Royal, but at present it was the physical reality of someone's hard-worked dream, and the problem there must be tended to like any problem of a civilized society. But the question remained: why had Magistrate Kingsbury, en route from Charles Town to Fount Royal on this same—and only—road, never reached his destination? The older man had supplied a number of answers to the younger's inquiry—that Kingsbury had run afoul of Indians or highwaymen, that his wagon had broken down and he'd been set upon by beasts. But though the older man had the nose resembling a bloodhound's, it was the younger man who had the bloodhound's instinct. Any lingering scent of a question was strong enough to keep him pondering in pale candle glow long after the older man had retired and was snoring in his bedchamber."What's that?"

A gray-gloved finger pointed toward the mist ahead. In a moment the younger man saw what his companion had spied: the pitch of a roof off to the right side of the road. It was the same dark green and wet black as the woods, and might be as ruined a place as the trading post at which they'd expected to rest the horses and break bread in early afternoon, but instead had found only charred timbers and collapse. But there on the roof before them was a pretty sight: a stone chimney flying a flag of white smoke. The mist moved, and the rough-hewn lines of a log cabin took shape.

"Shelter!" said the older man, with exultant relief. "God's grace on us, Matthew!"

It was a fairly new structure, which explained why it hadn't been marked on the map. The nearer they got, the stronger was the smell of freshly axed pinelogs. Matthew noted, perhaps ungraciously, that the cabin's builder had not been the most skilled nor neatest of craftsmen. Copious amounts of red mud had been used to seal the cracks and chinks in crooked walls. The chimney was more mud than stones, spitting smoke through its fissures. The roof sat at a precarious angle, like a tilted cap on the head of a blowzy drunk. The cabin was unadorned by any paint or decoration, and the small narrow windows were all sealed by plain plankboard shutters. Behind the cabin was an even more slovenly looking structure that must be a barn, beside which stood three swaybacked horses in a fenced enclosure. A half-dozen pigs snorted and grumbled in the nasty mire of a second pen nearby. A red rooster strutted about, followed by a number of wet hens and their muddy chicks.

A stake had been driven into the ground beside a hitching rail. Nailed to the stake was a green pinewood placard with the words Tavern Ye Trade scrawled on it in thick egg-white paint.

"A tavern too!" the older man said, taking the reins from Matthew as if his hands could speed them to that hitching rail any faster. "We'll get a hot meal tonight after all!"

One of the horses back by the barn began nickering, and suddenly a shutter opened and an indistinct face peered out. "Hello!" the older man called. "We're in need of shel—"The shutter slammed closed.

"—ter," he finished. Then, as the horses made their last slog to the rail, "Whoa! Hold up!" He watched the shutter. "Inhospitable for a tavern-keeper. Well, here we are and here we'll stay. Right, Matthew?""Yes, sir." It was said with less than firm conviction.

The older man climbed down from his seat. His boots sank into the mud up to his ankles. He tied the reins to the hitching post as Matthew eased himself down. Even losing two inches to the mud, Matthew was taller than his companion; he stood ten inches over five feet, an exceptionally tall young man, whereas his companion was a more normal height at five feet seven inches.

A bolt was thrown. The cabin's door opened with dramatic flourish. "Good day, good day!" said the man who stood on the threshold. He wore a stained buckskin jacket over a brown shirt, gray-striped breeches and gaudy yellow stockings that showed above calf-high boots. He was smiling broadly, displaying peglike teeth in a face as round as a chestnut. "Come in and warm y'selves!"

"I'm not certain about it being a good day, but we will surely enjoy a fire."

Matthew and the older man scaled two steps to the porch. The tavern-keeper stepped back and held open the door for their entry. Before they reached him, both wished the pungence of the pinewood was stronger, so as to mask the appalling smell of their host's unwashed body and dirty clothes. "Girl!" he hollered to someone inside the tavern, just as Matthew's left ear got in the path of his pewter-melting voice. "Put another log on that fire and move y'self quick!"

The door closed at their backs and gone was the light. It was so gloomy in the place that neither of the two travellers could see anything but the red glimmer of fitful flames. Not all the smoke was leaving through the chimney; a duke's portion of it had made its home in the room, and hung in greasy gray layers. Matthew had the sensation of other shapes moving around them, but his eyes were blurred by smoke. He felt a knotty hand press against his back. "Go on, go on!" the tavern-keeper urged. "Get the chill out!"

They shuffled closer to the hearth. Matthew banged into a table's edge. Someone—a muffled voice—spoke, someone else laughed and the laugh became a hacking cough. "Damn ye, mind your manners!" the tavern-keeper snapped. "We got gentlemen among us!"

The older man had to cough several times too, to relieve his lungs of the tart smoke. He stood at the flickering edge of the firelight and peeled off his wet gloves, his eyes stinging. "We've been travelling all day," he said. "From Charles Town. We thought we'd see red faces ere we saw white."

"Yessir, the red demons are thick 'round here. But you never see 'em 'less they wants to be saw. I'm Will Shawcombe. This is my tavern and tradin' post."

The older man was aware that a hand had been offered to him through the haze. He took it, and felt a palm as hard as a Quaker's saddle. "My name is Isaac Woodward," he replied. "This is Matthew Corbett." He nodded toward his companion, who was busy rubbing warmth into his fingers.

"From Charles Town, do y'say?" Shawcombe's grip was still clamped to the other man's hand. "And how are things there?"

"Livable." Woodward pulled his hand away and couldn't help but wonder how many times he would have to scrub it before all the reek was gone. "But the air's been troublesome there these past few weeks. We've had hot and cold humours that test the spirit."

"Rain won't quit 'round these parts," Shawcombe said. "Steam one mornin', shiver the next."

"End a' the world, most like," someone else—that muffled voice—spoke up. "Ain't right to wear blankets this time a' year. Devil's beatin' his wife, what he is."

"Hush up!" Shawcombe's small dark eyes cut toward the speaker. "You don't know nothin'!"

"I read the Bible, I know the Lord's word! End a' time and all unclean things, what it is!"

"I'll strop you, you keep that up!" Shawcombe's face, by the flickering red firelight, had become a visage of barely bridled rage. Woodward had noted that the tavern-keeper was a squat, burly man maybe five-foot-six, with wide powerful shoulders and a chest like an ale keg. Shawcombe had an unruly thatch of brown hair streaked with gray and a short, grizzled gray beard, and he looked like a man not to be trifled with. His accent—a coarse lowborn English yawp—told Woodward the man was not far removed from the docks on the river Thames.

Woodward glanced in the direction of the Bible-reader, as did Matthew, and made out through the drifting smoke a gnarled and white-bearded figure sitting at one of several crudely fashioned tables set about the room. The old man's eyes caught red light, glittering like new-blown coals. "If you been at that rum again, I'll hide you!" Shawcombe promised. The old man started to open his mouth for a reply but had enough elder wisdom not to let the words escape. When Woodward looked at the tavern-keeper again, Shawcombe was smiling sheepishly and the brief display of anger had passed. "My uncle Abner," Shawcombe said, in a conspiratorial whisper. "His brain pot's sprung a leak."

A new figure emerged through the murk into the firelight, brushing between Woodward and Matthew to the edge of a large hearth rimmed with black-scorched stones. This person—slim, slight, barely over five feet tall—wore a patched moss-green woolen shift and had long dark brown hair. A chunk of pinewood and an armload of cones and needles were tossed into the flames. Matthew found himself looking at the pallid, long-chinned profile of a young girl, her unkempt hair hanging in her face. She paid him no attention, but moved quickly away again. The gloom swallowed her up.

"Maude! What're you sittin' there for? Get these gentlemen draughts of rum!" This command had been hurled at another woman in the room, sitting near the old man. A chair scraped back across the raw plank floor, a cough came up followed by another that ended in a hacking gasp, and then Maude—a skinny white-haired wraith in clothes that resembled burlap bags stitched together—dragged herself muttering and clucking out of the room and through a doorway beyond the hearth. "Christ save our arses!" Shawcombe hollered in her miserable wake. "You'd think we never seen a breathin' human before in need of food or drink! This here's a tavern, or ain't you heard?" His mood rapidly changed once more as he regarded Woodward with a hopeful expression. "You'll be stayin' the night with us, won't you, sirrah? There's a room right comfortable back there, won't cost you but a few pence. Got a bed with a good soft mattress, ease your back from that long trip."

"May I ask a question?" Matthew decided to say before his companion could respond. "How far is Fount Royal?"

"Fount Royal? Oh, young master, that's a two, three hour ride on a good road. The weather bein' such, I'd venture it'd take you double that. And dark's comin' on. I wouldn't care to meet Jack One Eye or a red savage without a torch and a musket." Shawcombe focused his attention once more on the older traveller. "So you'll be stayin' the night then?"

"Yes, of course," Woodward began to unbutton his heavy coat. "We'd be fools to continue on in the dark."

"I suspect you have luggage in need of cartin'?" His smile slipped off as his head turned. "Abner\ Get your arse up and fetch their belongin's! Girl, you go too!"

The girl had been standing motionlessly with her back against a wall, her face downcast and her bare arms crossed over her chest. She made no sound, but walked at Shawcombe's drumbeat toward the door, her feet and legs clad in knee-high deerskin boots. "Ain't fit for a pig out there!" Abner complained, holding firm to his chair.

"No, but it's just right for a hog like you!" Shawcombe countered, and daggers shot from his eyes again. "Now get up and get to it!" Muttering under his beard, Abner pulled himself to his feet and limped after the girl as if his very legs were stricken by some crippling disease.

Matthew had wanted to ask Shawcombe who "Jack One Eye" was, but he hated the thought of that girl and the old man—the girl, especially—struggling with the heavy trunks. "I should help." He started toward the door, but Shawcombe gripped his arm.

"No need. Those two sops sit 'round here too long, they get lazy. Let 'em stir a bone for their supper."

Matthew paused, staring into the other man's eyes. He saw something in them—ignorance, pettiness, pure cruelty perhaps—that sickened him. He had seen this man before—with different faces, of course—and he knew him to be a bully who revelled in power over the weak of body and feeble of mind. He saw also a glint of what might have been recognition of his perceptions, which meant Shawcombe might be more intelligent than Matthew had surmised. Shawcombe was smiling slightly, a twist of the mouth. Slowly but forcefully, Matthew began to pull his arm away from Shawcombe's hand. The tavern-keeper, still smiling, would not release him. "I said," Matthew repeated, "that I should help them."

Shawcombe didn't surrender his grip. Now at last Woodward, who had been shrugging out of his coat, realized some small drama was being played out before him. "Yes," he said, "they will need help with the trunks, I think."

"Yessir, as you say." Shawcombe's hand instantly left the young man's arm. "I'd go m'self, but my back ain't no good. Used to lift them heavy bales, port a' Thames, but I can't do it no—"

Matthew gave a grunt and turned away, walking out the door into the last blue light and what was now blessedly fresh air. The old man had hold of Woodward's wig box, while the girl was around behind the wagon trying to hoist one of the trunks up on her back. "Here," Matthew said, slogging through the mud to her. "Let me help you." He took hold of one of the leather handles, and when he did the girl skittered away from him as if he were a leper. Her end of the trunk smacked down into the muck. She stood there in the rain, her shoulders hunched over and the lank hair covering her face.

"Ha!" Abner chortled. In this clearer light, his skin was as dull gray as wet parchment. "Ain't no use you talkin' to her, she don't say nothin' to nobody. She's one step out of Bedlam, what she is.""What's her name?"

Abner was silent, his scabby brow furrowing. "Girl," he answered. He laughed again as if this were the most foolish thing any man had ever been asked, and then he carried the wig box inside.

Matthew watched the girl for a moment. She was beginning to shiver from the chill, but yet she made no sound nor lifted her gaze from the mud that lay between them. He was going to have to heft the trunk—and the second one as well, most likely—in by himself, unless he could get Abner to help. He looked up through the treetops. The rain, strengthening now, pelted his face. There was no use in standing here, shoes buried in the mire, and bewailing his position in this world; it had been worse, and could yet be. As for the girl, who knew her story? Who even gave a spit? No one; why then should he? He started dragging the trunk through the mud, but he stopped before he reached the porch.

"Go inside," he told the girl. "I'll bring the other things."

She didn't move. He suspected she'd remain exactly where she was, until Shawcombe's voice whipped her.

It was not his concern. Matthew pulled the trunk up to the porch, but before he hauled it across the threshold he looked again at the girl and saw she had tilted her head back, her arms outflung, her eyes closed and her mouth open to catch the rain. He thought that perhaps—even in her madness—it was her way of cleansing Shawcombe's smell off her skin.

two

MOST INCONVENIENT," Isaac Woodward said, just after Matthew had looked under the straw-mattressed pallet of a bed and found there to be no chamberpot. "An oversight, I'm sure."

Matthew shook his head with dismay. "I thought we were getting a decent room. We'd have been better served in the barn."

"We won't perish from one night here." Woodward motioned with a lift of his chin toward the single shuttered window, which was being pelted by another heavy downpour. "I dare say we would perish, if we had to continue out in that weather. So just be thankful, Matthew." He turned his attention back to what he was doing: getting dressed for dinner. He'd opened his trunk and taken from it a clean white linen shirt, fresh stockings, and a pair of pale gray breeches, which he'd laid carefully across the bed so as not to snag the material. Matthew's trunk was open as well, a clean outfit at the ready. It was one of Woodward's requirements that, wherever they were and whatever the circumstances, they dress like civilized men for the dinner hour. Matthew often saw no point in this—dressing like cardinals, sometimes for a pauper's meal—but he understood that Woodward found it vitally important for his sense of well-being.

Woodward had removed a wigstand from his trunk, and had placed it upon a small table which, along with the bed and a pinewood chair, comprised the room's furnishings. On the wig-stand Woodward had set one of his three hairpieces, this one dyed a passable shade of brown with curling ringlets that fell about the shoulders. By the smoky candlelight from the hammered-metal lantern that hung on a wallhook above the table, Woodward examined his bald pate in a silver-edged hand mirror that had made the journey with him from England. His white scalp was blotched by a dozen or more ruddy age spots, which to his taste was a thoroughly disagreeable sight. Around his ears was a fragile fringe of gray hair. He studied the age spots as he stood in his white undergarments, his fleshy belly overhanging the cinched waistband, his legs pale and thin as an egret's. He gave a quiet sigh. "The years," he said, "are unkind. Every time I look in this mirror, I see something new to lament. Guard your youth, Matthew. It's a precious commodity."

"Yes, sir." It had been said without much expression. This topic of conversation was not unfamiliar to Matthew, as Woodward often waxed poetic on the tribulations of aging. Matthew busied himself by shrugging into a fresh white shirt.

"I was handsome," Woodward wandered on. "Really I was." He angled the mirror, looking at the age spots. "Handsome and vain. Now just vain, I suppose." His eyes narrowed slightly. There were more blotches this time than the last time he'd counted them. Yes, he was sure of it. More reminders of his mortality, of his time leaking away as water through a punctured bucket. He abruptly turned the mirror aside.

"I do go on, don't I?" he asked, and he gave Matthew a hint of a smile. "No need to answer. There'll be no self-incrimination here tonight. Ah! My pride!" He reached into his trunk and brought out—very carefully and with great admiration—a waistcoat. But by no means an ordinary one. This waistcoat was the dark brown color of rich French chocolate, with the finest of black silk linings. Decorating the waistcoat, and glinting now in the candlelight as Woodward held it between his hands, were thin stripes woven with golden threads. Two small and discreet pockets were likewise outlined with woven gold, and the waistcoat's five buttons were formed of pure ivory—a rather dirty yellow now, after all the years of use, but ivory just the same. It was a magnificent garment, a relic from Woodward's past. He had come to breadcrumbs and briars on several occasions, facing a bare larder and an even barer pocketbook, but though this garment would procure a pretty sum in the Charles Town marketplace he had never entertained a notion of selling it. It was, after all, a link to his life as a gentleman of means, and many times he'd fallen asleep with it draped over his chest, as if it might impart dreams of happier years in London.

Thunder boomed overhead. Matthew saw that a leak had begun, over in the corner; water was trickling down the raw logs into a puddle on the floor. He had noted as well the number of rat droppings around the room and surmised that the rodents here might be even larger than their urban cousins. He decided he would ask Shawcombe for an extra candle, and if he slept at all it would be sitting up with the lantern close at hand.

As Matthew dressed in a pair of dark blue trousers and a black coat over his shirt, Woodward pulled on his stockings, the gray breeches—a tight squeeze around the midsection—and then his white blouse. He thrust his legs into his boots, which had been scraped of mud as much as possible, and then put on and buttoned up his prized waistcoat. The wig went on, was straightened and steadied with the aid of the hand mirror. Woodward checked his face for stubble, as he had shaved with the benefit of a bowl of rainwater Shawcombe had brought in for their washing. The last piece of apparel to go on was a beige jacket—much wrinkled but a sturdy traveller. Matthew ran a brush through the cropped and unruly spikes of his black hair, and then they were ready to be received by their host.

"Come in and set y'selves!" Shawcombe brayed as Woodward and Matthew came into the main room. If anything, the smoke from the hearth seemed thicker and more sourly pungent. A few candles were set about, and Maude and the girl were at work over a pot that bubbled and steamed on a hook above the red coals. Shawcombe was on his feet with a wooden tankard of rum in one hand, motioning them to a table; his balance, or lack of same, indicated the liquor was finding its target. He blinked and let out a low whistle that rose in volume. "Lord fuck the King, is that gold you're wearin'?" Before Woodward could draw back, Shawcombe's dirty hand had snaked out and fondled the glittering waistcoat. "Ah, that's a fine piece of cloth there! Maude, look at this! He's wearin' gold, have you ever seen the like?"

The old woman, revealed by the firelight to have a face like a mask of cracked clay under her long white hair, peered back over her shoulder and made a noise that could have been either mangled English or a wheeze. Then she focused again on her cooking, stirring the pot and snapping what sounded like orders or criticism at the girl.

"You two look the birds!" Shawcombe said, grinning widely. His mouth appeared to Matthew like a wet-edged cutlass wound. "The gold bird and the black bird! Ain't you the sights!" He scraped back a chair from the nearest table. "Come on, sit down and rest your feathers some!"

Woodward, whose dignity had been affronted by this performance, pulled out his own chair and lowered himself into it with as much grace as he could muster. Matthew remained standing and, looking Shawcombe directly in the face, said, "A chamberpot."

"Huh?" The grin stayed, crooked, on Shawcombe's mouth.

"A chamberpot," the younger man repeated firmly. "Our room lacks one."

"Chamberpot." Shawcombe took a swig from the tankard, a rivulet of rum dribbling down his chin. His grin had vanished. The pupils of his eyes had become dark pinpoints. "Chamber fuckin' pot, huh? Well, what do you think the woods are for? You want to shit and piss, you go out there. Wipe your arse with some leaves. Now sit down, your supper's 'bout ready."

Matthew remained standing. His heart had begun beating harder. He could feel the raw tension in the air between them, as nasty as the pinewood smoke. The veins in Shawcombe's thick neck were bulging, gorged with blood. There was a defiant, churlish expression on his face that invited Matthew to strike him, and once that strike was delivered the response would be triplefold in its violence. The moment stretched, Shawcombe waiting to see what Matthew's next move would be.

"Come, come," Woodward said quietly. He grasped Matthew's sleeve. "Sit down."

"I think we deserve a chamberpot," Matthew insisted, still locking his gaze with the tavern-keeper's. "At the very least a bucket."

"Young master"-—and now Shawcombe's voice drooled false sentiment—"you should understand where you are. This ain't no royal palace, and you ain't in no civilized country out here. Maybe you squat over a fancy chamberpot in Charles Town, but here we squat out behind the barn and that's how things is. Anyway, you wouldn't want the girl to have to clean up behind you, would you?" His eyebrows lifted. "Wouldn't be the gentlemanly thing."

Matthew didn't answer. Woodward tugged at his sleeve, knowing this particular skirmish wasn't worth fighting. "We'll make do, Mr. Shawcombe," Woodward said, as Matthew reluctantly surrendered and sat down. "What may we look forward to supping on this evening?"

Bang! went a noise as loud as a pistol shot, and both men jumped in their chairs. They looked toward the hearth, at the source of the sound, and saw the old woman holding a hefty mallet in one hand. "Eyegots at 'am bigun!" she rasped, and proudly raised her other hand, two fingers of which pinched the long tail of a large, crushed black rat that twitched in its death throes.

"Well, toss the bastard!" Shawcombe told her. Both Woodward and Matthew expected her to throw the rat into the cookpot, but she shambled over to a window, unlatched the shutter, and out went the dying rodent into the stormy dark.

The door opened. A wet rat of another breed came in trailing a blue flag of curses. Uncle Abner was soaked, his clothes and white beard dripping, his boots clotted with mud. "End 'a the damn world, what it is!" he pronounced, as he slammed the door and bolted it. "Gonna wash us away, d'rectly!"

"You feed and water them horses?" Shawcombe had previously commanded Abner to take the travellers' horses and wagon to shelter in the barn, as well as tend to the three other sway-backed steeds.

"I reckon I did."

"You bed 'em down all right? If you left them nags standin' in the rain again, I'll whip your arse!"

"They're in the damn barn, and you can kiss my pickle if you're doubtin' me!"

"Watch that smart mouth, 'fore I sew it up! Go on and get these gents some rum!"

"I ain't doin' nothin'!" the old man squalled. "I'm so wet I'm near swimmin' in my skin!"

"I believe I'd prefer ale," Woodward said, remembering how his earlier taste of Shawcombe's rum had almost burned his tongue to a cinder. "Or tea, if you have it."

"Myself the same," Matthew spoke up.

"You heard the gentlemen!" Shawcombe hollered at his hapless uncle. "Go on and fetch 'em some ale! Best in the house! Move, I said!" He took a threatening two steps toward the old man, lifting his tankard as if he were about to crown Abner's skull with it, in the process sloshing the foul-smelling liquor onto his guests. Matthew shot a dark glance at Woodward, but the older man just shook his head at the base comedy of the situation. Abner's soaked spirit collapsed before his nephew's ire and he scurried off to the storage pantry, but not without leaving a vile, half-sobbed oath lingering in his wake.

"Some people don't know who's the master of this house!" Shawcombe pulled a chair over and sat without invitation at their table. "You should pity me, gents! Everywhere I look, I have to rest my eyes on a halfwit!"

And a halfwit behind his eyes too, Matthew thought.

Woodward shifted in his chair. "I'm sure running a tavern is a troublesome business."

"That's God's own truth! Get a few travellers through here, but not many. Do some tradin' with the trappers and the redskins. 'Course, I only been here three, four months."

"You built this place yourself?" Matthew asked. He had noted a half-dozen sparkles of water dripping from the shoddy roof.

"Yep. Every log and board, done it all."

"Your bad back allowed you to cut and haul the logs?"

"My bad back?" Shawcombe frowned. "What're you goin' on about?"

"Your bad back that you injured lifting the heavy bales. Didn't you say you worked on the river Thames? I thought your injury prevented you from carrying anything like ... oh ... a trunk or two."

Shawcombe's face had become a chunk of stone. A few seconds passed and then his tongue flicked out and licked his lower lip. He smiled, but there was a hardness in it. "Oh," he said slowly, "my back. Well ... I did have a partner. He was the one did the cuttin' and haulin'. We hired a few redskins too, paid 'em in glass beads. What I meant to say is . . . my back's in pain more when it's wet out. Some days I'm fit as a fiddle."

"What happened to your partner?" Woodward inquired.

"Took sick," came the quick response. His stare was still fixed on Matthew. "Fever. Poor soul had to give it up, go back to Charles Town."

"He didn't go to Fount Royal?" Matthew plowed on. His bloodhound's instinct had been alerted, and in the air hung the definite smell of deceit. "There's a doctor in Fount Royal, isn't there?"

"I wouldn't know. You asked, I'm answerin'. He went back to Charles Town."

"Here! Drink 'til your guts bust!" Two wooden tankards brimming with liquid were slammed down in the center of the table, and then Abner withdrew—still muttering and cursing— to dry himself before the hearth.

"It's a hard country," Woodward said, to break the tension between the other two men. He lifted his tankard and saw, distressingly, that an oily film had risen to the liquid's surface.

"It's a hard world," Shawcombe corrected, and only then did he pull his stare away from Matthew. "Drink up, gents," he said, uptilting the rum to his mouth.

Both Woodward and Matthew were prudent enough to try sipping the stuff first, and they were glad at their failure of courage. The ale, brewed of what tasted like fermented sour apples, was strong enough to make the mouth pucker and the throat clench. Matthew's eyes watered and Woodward was sure he felt prickles of sweat under his wig. Even so, they both got a swallow down.

"I get that ale from the Indians." Shawcombe wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "They call it a word means 'snakebite.'"

"I feel soundly bitten," Woodward said.

"Second swaller's not so bad. Once you get halfway done, you'll be a lion or a lamb." Shawcombe took another drink and sloshed the liquor around in his mouth. He propped his feet up on the table beside them and leaned back in his chair. "You don't mind me askin', what business do you have in Fount Royal?"

"It's a legal matter," Woodward answered. "I'm a magistrate."

"Ahhhhhh." Shawcombe nodded as if he understood perfectly. "Both of you wear the robes?"

"No, Matthew is my clerk."

"It's to do with the trouble there, am I right?"

"It is a matter of some concern, yes," Woodward said, not knowing how much this man knew about the events in Fount Royal, and unwilling to give him any more rope with which to bundle a tale for other travellers.

"Oh, I know the particulars," Shawcombe said. "Ain't no secret. Message riders been back and forth through here for the last couple a' months, they gimme the story. Tell me this, then: you gonna hang her, burn her, or cut her head off?"

"Firstly, the accusations against her must be proven. Secondly, execution is not one of my duties."

"But you'll be passin' the sentence, won't you? C'mon! What'll it be?"

Woodward decided the only way to get him off this route was to run the distance. "If she's found guilty, the penalty is hanging."

"Pah!" Shawcombe waved a disapproving hand. "If it was up to my quirt, I'd cut her head off and burn her to boot! Then I'd take them ashes and throw 'em in the ocean! They can't stand salt water, y'know." He tilted his head toward the hearth and hollered, "Hey, there! We're waitin' for our suppers!"

Maude snapped something at him that sprayed an arc of spittle from her mouth, and he yelled, "Get on with it, then!" Another swig of rum went down his hatch. "Well," he said to his guests' silence, "this here's how I see it: they ought to shut Fount Royal down, set fire to everything there, and call it quits. Once the Devil gets in a place, ain't no remedy but the flames. You can hang her or whatever you please, but the Devil's took root in Fount Royal now, and there ain't no savin' it."

"I think that's an extreme position," Woodward said. "Other towns have had similar problems, and they survived—and have flourished—once the situation was corrected."

"Well,Iwouldn't want to live in Fount Royal, or any other place where the Devil's been walkin' 'round town like he's made hisself at home! Life's damn hard enough as it is. I don't want conjures bein' put on me while I'm sleepin'!" He grunted to emphasize his point. "Yessir, you talk pretty, but I'll wager you wouldn't care to turn down an alley and see ol' Scratch waitin' in the dark! So my advice to you, sir—lowly tavern-keeper that I am—is to cut the head off that Devil's whore and order the whole town burnt to the ground."

"I will not pretend that I know any answers to mysteries—holy or unholy," the magistrate said evenly, "but I do know the situation in Fount Royal is precarious."

"And damn dangerous too." Shawcombe started to say something else, but his open mouth expelled no words; it was obvious to Woodward and Matthew that his attention, made imprecise by strong drink, had been diverted from the matter of Fount Royal. He was admiring the gold-threaded waistcoat once more. "I swear, that's a fine piece a' work," he said, and dared to run his grimy fingers over the material again. "Where'd you get that? New York?"

"It . . . was a present from my wife. In London."

"I was married once'st. And once'st was enough." He gave a gruff, humorless laugh. His fingers continued to caress the fabric, much to Woodward's discomfort. "Your wife is in Charles Town?"

"No." Woodward's voice had thickened. "My wife ... remains in London."

"Mine's at the bottom of the bloody Atlantic. She died on the passage, shit herself to death. They rolled her up and rolled her over. Y'know, a waistc't like this . . . how much is somethin' like this worth?"

"More than any man should have to pay," Woodward said, and then he pointedly moved his chair a few inches away from Shawcombe and left the tavern-keeper's fingers groping the air.

"Clear room! Watchyer elbows, there!" Maude slapped two wooden bowls, both filled with a murky brown stew, onto the table in front of Shawcombe and the magistrate. Matthew's bowl was brought by the girl, who set it down and quickly turned away to retreat to the hearth again. As she did, her clothes brushed his arm and the wind of her passage brought a strong scent to Matthew's nostrils: the scent of an unwashed body, yes, but another odor that overpowered the first. It was musky and sweetly sour, a compelling pungency, and it hit him like a fist to the chest that it was the aroma of her private region.

Shawcombe inhaled deeply, with a raucous noise. He looked at Matthew, whose eyes had widened slightly and were still tracking the girl. "Hey, there!" Shawcombe barked. "What're you gawkin' at?"

"Nothing." Matthew averted his gaze to the stew bowl.

"Uh huh."

The girl returned, bringing with her their wooden spoons. Once more her skirt brushed his arm, and he moved it with a twitch as if his elbow had been hornet-stung. That smell wafted to his nostrils. His heart was beating very hard. He picked up his spoon and realized his palm was damp. Then he realized Shawcombe was staring intensely at him, reading him like a broadsheet.

Shawcombe's eyes glittered in the candlelight. He wet his lips before he spoke. "She's a fair piece, do y'think?"

"Sir?"

Shawcombe smiled slightly, a mean and mocking smile. "A fair piece," he repeated. "You fancy a look at her oyster basket?"

"Mr. Shawcombe!" Woodward grasped the situation, and it was not acceptable to him. "If you don't mind—"

"Oh, you both can have a go at her, if you please. Won't cost you but a guinea for the two of you."

"Certainly not!" Woodward's cheeks had flamed. "I told you, I'm a married man!"

"Yeah, but she's in London, ain't she? Don't mean to tell me you got her name tattooed on your cock now, do you?"

If the storm had not been raging outside, if the horses had not been in the barn, if there were anywhere else in the world to spend this night, Woodward might've gotten to his feet with all the dignity he could summon and bade farewell to this coarse-minded lout. What he really wanted to do, deep in his soul, was to strike an open-handed blow across Shawcombe's leering face. But he was a gentleman, and gentlemen did no such things. Instead, he forced down his anger and disgust like a bucketful of bile and said tersely, "Sir, I am faithful to my wife. I would appreciate your understanding of that fact."

Shawcombe replied by spitting on the floor. He riveted his attention on the younger man again. "Well, how 'bout you then? You care for a toss? Say ten shillin's?"

"I ... I mean to say—" Matthew looked to Woodward for help, because in truth he didn't know what he meant to say.

"Sir," Woodward said, "you force us into a difficult position. The young man . . . has lived in an almshouse for much of his life. That is . . ." He frowned, deciding how to phrase the next thing. "What you must realize is . . . his experience is very limited. He hasn't yet partaken of-—"

"Great sufferin' mother!" Shawcombe broke in. "You mean he ain't never been fucked?"

"Well... as I say, his experience hasn't yet led him to—"

"Oh, quit that foamin' at the mouth! He's a fuckin' virgin, is that what you're tellin' me?"

"I believe your way of expressing that is a contradiction of terms, sir, but . . . yes, that's what I'm telling you."

Shawcombe whistled with amazement, and the way he regarded Matthew made the younger man blush blood-red. "I ain't never met one of your breed before, sonny! Damn my ears if I ever heard such a thing! How old are you?"

"I'm . . . twenty years old," Matthew was able to answer. His face was absolutely on fire.

"Twenty years and no pussy? How're you able to draw a breath without bustin' your bag?"

"I might ask how old that girl is," Woodward said. "She's not seen fifteen yet, has she?"

"What year is this?" Shawcombe asked.

"Sixteen ninety-nine."

Shawcombe began counting on his fingers. Maude brought to their table a wooden platter laden with chunks of brown cornbread, then scurried away once more. The tavern-keeper was having obvious difficulty with his digital mathematics, and finally he dropped his hand and grinned at Woodward. "Never you mind, she's ripe as a fig puddin'."

Matthew reached for the snakebite and near guzzled it.

"Be that as it may," Woodward countered, "we shall both pass on your invitation." He picked up his spoon and plunged it into the watery stew.

"Wasn't no invite. Was a business offer." Shawcombe drank some more rum and then started in on his stew as well.

"Damnedest thing I ever heard!" he said, his mouth full and leaking at the corners. "I was rogerin' the girls when I was twelve years old, m'self!"

"Jack One Eye," Matthew said. It had been something he'd wanted to ask about, and now seemed as good a time as any to get Shawcombe's mind off the current subject.

"What?"

"Earlier you mentioned Jack One Eye." Matthew dipped a chunk of cornbread into his stew and ate it. The bread tasted more of scorched stones than corn, but the stew wasn't at all objectionable. "What were you talking about?"

"The beast of beasts." Shawcombe picked up his bowl with both hands and slurped from it. "Stands seven, eight feet tall. Black as the hair on the Devil's ass. Had his eye shot out by a redskin's arrow, but just one arrow didn't stop him. No sir! Just made him meaner, is what they say. Hungrier, too. Swipe your face off with a claw and eat your brains for breakfast, he would."

"Jack One Eye's a fuckin' bear!" spoke up Abner, from where he stood steaming by the hearth. "Big one, too! Bigger'n a horse! Bigger'n God's fist, what he is!"

"Hain't no burr."

Shawcombe looked toward the speaker of this last declaration, stew glistening on his grizzled chin. "Huh? What're you sayin'?"

"Sayin' he hain't no burr." Maude came forward, silhouetted by the firelight. Her voice was still a mangled wheeze, but she was speaking as slowly and clearly as she could. This subject, both Woodward and Matthew surmised, must be of importance to her.

'"Course he's a bear!" Shawcombe said. "What is he, if he ain't no bear?"

"Hain't jus' a burr," she corrected. "I seen 'im. You hain't. I know 'hut he is."

"She's as addle-brained as the rest of 'em," Shawcombe told Woodward with a shrug.

"I seen 'im," the old woman repeated, a measure of force in her voice. She had reached their table and stood next to Matthew. Candlelight touched upon her wizened face, but her deep sunken eyes held the shadows. "I 'as at the door. Right they, at the door. Me Joseph was comin' home. Our boy too. I watch 'em, comin' out of the woods, over the field. Had a deer hangin' 'tween 'em. I lift up me laneturn, and I start ta holler 'em in . . . and all suddens that thang behind 'em! Jus' rose up, out of nowhar'." Her right hand had raised, her skinny fingers curled around the handle of a spectral lantern. "I try ta scream me husband's name . . . but hain't get nothin' out," she said. Her mouth tightened. "I try," she croaked. "I try . . . but God done stole me voice."

"Most like it was rotgut liquor stole it!" Shawcombe said, with a rough laugh.

The old woman didn't respond. She was silent, as rain battered the roof and a pine knot popped in the hearth. Finally she drew a long ragged breath that held terrible sadness and resignation. "Kilt our boy 'fore Joseph could tarn 'round," she said, to no one in particular. Matthew thought she might be looking at him, but he wasn't certain of it. "Like take his head off, one swang o' them claws. Then it fell on me husband . . . and weren't nothin' to be dun. I took a'running, threw me laneturn at 'im, but he 'as big. So awful big. He jus' shake them big black shoulders, and then he drag that deer off and leave me with what 'as left. Joseph 'as a-split open from 'is windpipe to 'is gullet, his innards a-hangin' out. Took 'im three days ta die." She shook her head and Matthew could see a wet glint in her eye sockets.

"My Lord!" Woodward said. "Wasn't there a neighbor to come to your aid?"

"Naybarr?" she said, incredulously. "Hain't no naybarrs out 'chere. Me Joseph 'as a trapper, dun some Injun tradin'. Tha's how we live. What I'm tellin' you is, Jack One Eye hain't jus' a burr. Ever'thin' dark 'bout this land . . . ever'thin' cruel and wicked. When you think your husband 'n son are comin' home and you liftin' a light and 'bout to holler 'em in. Then that thang rises up, and all sudden you hain't got nothin' no more. Tha's what Jack One Eye is."

Neither Woodward nor Matthew knew how to respond to this wretched tale, but Shawcombe, who had continued slurping stew and pushing cornbread into his mouth, had his own response. "Aw, shit!" he cried out and grasped his jaw. His face was pinched with pain. "What's in this bloody bread, woman?" He reached into his mouth, probed around, and his fingers came out gripping a small dark brown object. '"Bout broke my tooth on this damn thing! Hell's bells!" Realization had struck him. "It is a fuckin' tooth!"

"I 'spect it's mine," Maude said. "Had some loose 'uns this mornin'." She grabbed it from his hand, and before he could say anything more she turned her back on them and went to her duties at the hearth.

"Damn ol' bitch is fallin' to pieces!" Shawcombe scowled. He swigged some rum, swished it around his mouth, and started in on his supper once more.

Woodward looked down at a chunk of cornbread that he'd placed in his stewbowl. He very politely cleared his throat. "I believe my appetite has been curtailed."

"What? You ain't hungry no more? Here, pass it over then!" Shawcombe grabbed the magistrate's bowl and dumped it all into his own. He had decided to disdain the use of his eating utensils in favor of his hands, stew dripping from his mouth and spattering his shirt. "Hey, clerk!" he grunted, as Matthew sat there deciding whether to risk chewing on a rotten tooth or not. "You want a go with the girl, I'll pay you ten pence to watch. Ain't like I'll see a virgin ridin' the wool every day."

"Sir?" Woodward's voice had sharpened. "I've already told you, the answer is no."

"You presumin' to speak for him, then? What are you, his damn father?"

"Not his father. But I am his guardian."

"What the hell does a twenty-year-old man need with a fuckin' guardian?"

"There are wolves everywhere in this world, Mr. Shawcombe," Woodward said, with a lift of his eyebrows. "A young man must be very careful not to fall into their company."

"Better the company of wolves than the cryin' of saints," Shawcombe said. "You might get et up, but you won't die of boredom."

The image of wolves feasting on human flesh brought another question to Matthew's mind. He pushed his stewbowl toward the tavern-keeper. "There was a magistrate travelling to Fount Royal from Charles Town two weeks ago. His name was Thymon Kingsbury. Did he happen to stop here?"

"No, ain't seen him," Shawcombe answered without pause in his gluttony.

"He never arrived at Fount Royal," Matthew went on. "It seems he might have stopped here, if he—"

"Prob'ly didn't get this far," Shawcombe interrupted. "Got hisself crowned in the head by a highwayman a league out of Charles Town, most like. Or maybe Jack One Eye got him. Man travellin' alone out here's a handshake away from Hell."

Matthew pondered this statement as he sat listening to the downpour on the roof. Water was streaming in, forming puddles on the boards. "I didn't say he was alone," Matthew said at last.

Shawcombe's chewing might have faltered a fraction. "You just spoke the one name, didn't you?"

"Yes. But I might not have mentioned his clerk."

"Well, shit!" Shawcombe slammed the bowl down. The fury had sparked in his eyes again. "Was he alone or not? And what does it matter?"

"He was alone," Matthew said evenly. "His clerk had taken ill the night before." He watched the candle's flame, a black thread of smoke rising from its orange blade. "But then, I don't suppose it really matters."

"No, it don't." Shawcombe darted a dark glance at Woodward. "He's got an itch to ask them questions, don't he?"

"He's an inquisitive young man," Woodward said. "And very bright, as well."

"Uh huh." Shawcombe's gaze turned on Matthew again, and Matthew had the distinct and highly unsettling sensation of facing the ugly barrel of a primed and cocked blunderbuss. "Best take care somebody don't put out your lamp." Shawcombe held the penetrating stare for a few seconds, and then he started in on the food Matthew had pushed aside.

The two travellers excused themselves from the table when Shawcombe announced that Abner was going to play the fiddle for their "entertainment." Woodward had tried mightily to restrain his bodily functions, but now nature was shouting at him and he was obliged to put on his coat, take a lantern, and venture out into the weather.

Alone in the room, rain pattering from the roof and a single candle guttering, Matthew heard Abner's fiddle begin to skreech. It appeared they would be serenaded whether they liked it or not. To make matters worse, Shawcombe began to clap and holler in dubious counterpoint. A rat scuttled in a corner of the room, obviously as disturbed as was Matthew.

He sat down on the straw mattress and wondered how he would ever find sleep tonight, though he was exhausted from the trip. With rats in the room and two more caterwauling out by the hearth, it was likely to be a hard go. He decided he would create and solve some mathematics problems, in Latin of course. That usually helped him relax in difficult situations.

I don't suppose it really matters, he'd told Shawcombe in regard to Magistrate Kingsbury's travelling alone. But it seemed to Matthew that it did matter. To travel alone was exceptional and—as Shawcombe had correctly stated—foolhardy. Magistrate Kingsbury had been drunk every time Matthew had seen the man, and perhaps the liquor had enfeebled his brain. But Shawcombe had assumed that Kingsbury was alone. He had not asked Was he alone or Who was travelling with him. No, he'd made the statement: Man travellin' alone . . .

The fiddling's volume was reaching dreadful heights. Matthew sighed and shook his head at the indignity of the situation. At least, however, they had a roof over them for the night. Whether the roof held up all night was another question.

He could still smell the girl's scent.

It came upon him like an ambush. The scent of her was still there, whether in his nostrils or in his mind he wasn't sure. Care for a toss?

Yes, Matthew thought. Math problems. She's ripe as a fig puddin'. And definitely in Latin.

The fiddle moaned and shrieked and Shawcombe began to stomp the floor. Matthew stared at the door, the girl's scent summoning him.

His mouth was dry. His stomach seemed to be tied up in an impossible knot. Yes, he thought, sleep tonight was going to be a hard go.

A very, very hard go.

three

MATTHEW'S EYES OPENED with a start. The light had dwindled to murky yellow, the candle having burned itself to a shrunken stub. Beside him on the harsh straw, Woodward was snoring noisily, mouth half ajar and chin flesh quivering. It took Matthew a few seconds to realize that there was a wetness on his left cheek. Then another drop of rainwater fell from the sodden ceiling onto his face and he abruptly sat up with a curse clenched behind his teeth.

The sudden movement made a rodent—a very large one, from the sound—squeal in alarm and scurry with a scrabbling of claws back into its nest in the wall. The noise of rain falling from the ceiling onto the floor was a veritable tenpence symphony. Matthew thought the time for building an ark was close at hand. Perhaps Abner was right about it being the end of the world; the year 1700 might never be marked on a calendar.

Be that as it may, he had to add his own water to the deluge. And a bit more as well, from the weight of his bowels. Damned if he wouldn't have to go out in that weather and squat down like a beast. Might try to hold it, but some things could not be constrained. He would relieve himself in the woods behind the barn like a civilized man while the rats did their business on the floor beside the bed. Next trip—God forbid—he would remember to pack a chamberpot.

He got out of the torture apparatus that passed as a bed. The tavern was quiet; it was a slim hour, to be sure. Distant thunder rumbled, the storm still lingering over the Carolina colony like a black-winged vulture. Matthew worked his feet into his shoes. He didn't have a heavy coat of his own, so over his flannel nightshirt he donned the magistrate's fearnaught, which was still damp from Woodward's recent trek behind the barn. The magistrate's boots, standing beside the bed, were clotted with mud and would bear the administrations of a coarse hog's bristle brush to clean. Matthew didn't want to take the single candle, as the weather would quickly extinguish it and the wall-dwellers might become emboldened by the dark. He would carry a covered lantern from the other room, he decided, and hope it threw enough illumination to avoid what Woodward had told him was "an unholy mess" out there. He might check on the horses, too, while he was so near the barn.

He placed his hand on the door latch and started to lift it when he heard the magistrate cease snoring and quietly moan. Glancing at the man, he saw Woodward's face wince and contort under the freckled dome of his bald head. Matthew paused, watching in the dim and flickering light. Woodward's mouth opened, his eyelids fluttering. "Oh," the magistrate whispered, very clearly. His voice, though a whisper, was wracked with what Matthew could only describe as a pure and terrible agony. "Ohhhhh," Woodward spoke, in his cage of nightmares. "He's hurting Ann." He drew a pained breath. "Hurting he's hurting oh God Ann . . . hurting ..." He said something more, a jumble of a few words mingled with another low awful moan. His hands were gripping at the front of his nightshirt, his head pressed back into the straw. His mouth released a faint sound that might have been the memory of a cry, and then slowly his body relaxed and the snoring swelled up once again.

This was not something new to Matthew. Many nights the magistrate walked in a dark field of pain, but what its source was he refused to talk about. Matthew had asked him once, five years ago, what the trouble had been, and Woodward's response had been a rebuke that Matthew's task was learning the trade of judicial clerking, and if he did not care to learn that trade, he could always find a home again at the orphans' refuge. The message— delivered with uncharacteristic vinegar—had been clear: whatever haunted the magistrate by night was not to be touched upon.

It had something to do with his wife in London, Matthew believed. Ann must be her name, though Woodward never mentioned that name in his waking hours and never volunteered any information about the woman. In fact, though Matthew had been in the company of Isaac Woodward since turning fifteen years old, he knew very little about the man's past life in England. This much he did know: Woodward had been a lawyer of some fame and had found success in the financial field as well, but what had caused his reversal of fortune and why he had left London for the rough-hewn colonies remained mysteries. At least Matthew understood from his readings and from what Woodward said about London that it was a great city; he'd never set foot there, or in England either, for he'd been born aboard a ship on the Atlantic nineteen days out of Portsmouth.

Matthew quietly lifted the latch and left the room. In the darkened chamber beyond, small flames still gnawed at black bits of wood in the hearth, though the largest of the coals had been banked for the night. Bitter smoke lingered in the air. Hanging from hooks next to the fireplace were two lanterns, both made of hammered tin with small nail-holes punched in the metal for the light to pass through. One of the lanterns had a burnt candle stuck on its inner spike, so that was the illuminator Matthew chose. He found a pine twig on the floor, touched it alight in the remains of the fire, and transferred the flame to the candle's wick.

"What are you about? Eh?"

The voice, cutting the silence as it did, almost lifted Matthew out of his shoes. He twisted around and the lantern's meager but spreading light fell upon Will Shawcombe, who was sitting at one of the tables with a tankard before him and a black-scorched clay pipe clenched in his teeth.

"You up prowlin', boy?" Shawcombe's eyes were deep sunken and the skin of his face was daubed dirty yellow in the candlelight. A curl of smoke oozed from his mouth.

"I . . . have to go out," Matthew replied, still unnerved.

Shawcombe drew slowly on his pipe. "Well," he said, "mind your legs, then. Awful sloppy out there."

Matthew nodded. He started to turn toward the door, but Shawcombe spoke up again: "Your master wouldn't want to part with that fine waistc't, would he?"

"No, he wouldn't." Though he knew Shawcombe was baiting him, he couldn't let it go past. "Mr. Woodward is not my master."

"He ain't, huh? Well then, how come he tells you what you can do and what you cain't? Seems to me he's the master and you're the slave."

"Mr. Woodward looks out for my interest."

"Uh huh." Shawcombe tilted his head back and fired a dart of smoke at the ceiling. "Makes you cart the baggage, then he won't even let you dip your wick? All that shit about wolves and how you ought to be guarded. And you a twenty-year-old man! I'll bet he makes you scrape the mud off his boots, don't he?"

"I'm his clerk," Matthew said pointedly. "Not his valet."

"Does he clean his own boots, or do you?"

Matthew paused. The truth was that he did clean the magistrate's boots, but it was a task he did without complaint. Some things over the years—such as organizing the judicial paperwork, keeping their living quarters in order, darning the clothes, packing the trunks, and arranging sundry other small affairs—had fallen to Matthew simply because he was much more efficient at taking care of details.

"I knew you did it," Shawcombe went on. "Man like that's got blue blood in his veins. He don't want to get them hands too dirty, does he? Yeah, like I said, he's the master and you're the slave."

"You can believe what you like."

"I believe what I see," Shawcombe said. "Come over here, lemme show you somethin'. You bein' a slave and all, you might well want to have a look." Before Matthew could decline and go on his way, Shawcombe lifted his right fist and opened it. "Here's somethin' you ain't never seen before and ain't like to see again."

The lantern's light sparked off the surface of a gold coin. "Here!" Shawcombe offered it to Matthew. "I'll even let you hold it."

Against his better judgment—and the urge to pee pressing on his bladder—Matthew approached the man and took the coin from him. He held it close to the lantern and inspected the engraving. It was a well-worn piece, much of the lettering rubbed off, but at its center was a cross that separated the figures of two lions and two castles. Matthew could make out the faint letters Charles II and Dei Grat around the coin's rim.

"Know what that is?" Shawcombe prodded.

"Charles the Second is the King of Spain," Matthew said. "So this must be Spanish."

"That's right. Spanish. You know what that means, don't you?"

"It means a Spaniard was recently here?"

"Close. I got this from a dead redskin's pouch. Now what's a redskin doin' with a Spanish gold piece?" He didn't wait for Matthew to venture a guess. "Means there's a damn Spanish spy 'round here somewhere. Stirrin' up some trouble with the Indians, most like. You know them Spaniards are sittin' down there in the Florida country, not seventy leagues from here. They got spies all in the colonies, spreadin' the word that any black crow who flies from his master and gets to the Florida country can be a free man. You ever heard such a thing? Them Spaniards are promisin' the same thing to criminals, murderers, every like of John Bad-seed."

He swiped the coin from Matthew's hand. "If you was to run to Florida and your master was to want you back, them Spaniards would jus' laugh at him. Same's true of somebody done a stealin' or a murder: get to Florida, them Spaniards would protect him. I tell you, once them blackamoors start runnin' to Florida by the scores and gettin' turned into free men, this world's gonna roast in Hell's fires." Shawcombe dropped the coin into the tankard, which still had liquid in it, judging from the sound of the wet plop, then sat smoking his pipe with his arms crossed over his chest. "Yeah," he said with a knowing nod, "a Spanish spy's out there, payin' the redskins to get up to some mischief. Hell, he might even be livin' in Fount Royal, an Englishman turned black-coat!"

"Possibly." Matthew's need for relief was now undeniable. "Excuse me, I have to go."

"Go on, then. Like I say, watch where you step." Shawcombe let Matthew get to the door and then said, "Hey, clerk! You sure he wouldn't part with that waistc't?"

"Absolutely sure."

Shawcombe grunted, his head wreathed with blue pipe smoke. "I didn't think so," he said in a quiet voice.

Matthew unlatched the door and went out. The storm had quietened somewhat, the rain falling now as misty drizzle. In the sky, though, distant lightning flashed through the clouds. The mud clasped hold of Matthew's shoes. A half-dozen steps through the mire, Matthew had to lift up his nightshirt and urinate where he stood. Decorum, however, dictated that he relieve his bowels in the woods behind the barn, for there were no leaves or pine needles nearby with which to clean himself. When he finished, he followed the lantern's glow past the barn, his shoes sinking up to the ankles in a veritable swamp. Once beyond the forest's edge, he gathered a handful of wet leaves and then crouched down to attend to his business. The lightning danced overhead, he was soaked, muddy, and miserable, and all in all it was a nasty moment. Such things, however, could not be rushed no matter how fervently one tried.

After what seemed an eternity, during which Matthew cursed Shawcombe and swore again to pack a chamberpot on their next journey, the deed was completed and the wet leaves put to use.

He straightened up and held the lantern out to find his path back to the so-called tavern. Once more the waterlogged ground opened and closed around his shoes, his knee joints fairly popping as he worked his legs loose from the quagmire. He intended to check on the horses before he returned to the so-called bed, where he could look forward to the magistrate's snoring, the rustling of rats, and rainwater dripping on his— He fell.

It was so fast he hardly knew what was happening. His initial thought was that the earth had sucked his legs out from under him. His second thought, which he barely had an eye-blink of time to act upon, was to keep the lantern from being extinguished. So even as he fell on his belly and the mud and water splashed around him and over the magistrate's fearnaught coat, he was able to lift his arm up and protect the light. He spat mud out of his mouth, his face aflame with anger, and said, "Damn it to Hell!" Then he tried to sit up, mud all over his face, his sight most blinded. He found this task harder than it should have been. His legs, he realized, had been seized by the earth. The very ground had collapsed under his shoes, and now his feet were entangled in something that felt like a bramble bush down in the swampy muck. Careful of the lantern, he wrenched his right foot loose but whatever held his left foot would not yield. Lightning flared again and the rain started falling harder. He was able to get his right leg under him, and then he braced himself as best he could and jerked his left leg up and out of the morass.

There was a brittle cracking sound. His leg was free.

But as he shone the lantern down upon his leg, Matthew realized he'd stepped into something that had come out of the earth still embracing his ankle.

At first he didn't know what it was. His foot had gone right through what looked like a mud-dripping cage of some kind. He could see the splintered edges, one of which had scraped a bleeding gouge in his leg.

The rain was slowly washing mud off the object. As he stared at it, another flash of lightning helped aid his recognition of what held him, and his heart felt gripped by a freezing hand.

Matthew's anatomy studies did not have to be recollected to tell him that he'd stepped into and through a human-sized rib cage. A section of spinal cord was still attached, and on it clung bits of grayish-brown material that could only be decayed flesh.

He let out a mangled cry and began frantically kicking at the thing with his other shoe. The bones cracked, broke, and fell away, and when the last of the rib cage and vertebrae had been kicked loose Matthew crawled away from it as fast as the mud would allow. Then he sat up amid leaves and pine needles and pressed his back against a tree trunk, the breath rasping in his lungs and his eyes wide and shocked.

He thought, numbly, how distraught the magistrate was going to be over the fearnaught coat. Such coats were not easy to come by. It was ruined, no doubt. A rib cage. Human-sized. Ruined beyond all hope of cleaning. Damn this rain and mud, damn this wild land, and damn Shawcombe and the chamberpot he should have had.

A rib cage, Matthew thought. Rain was running down his face now. It was cold, and the chill helped him organize his mind. Of course, the rib cage might've belonged to an animal. Mightn't it?

The lantern was muddy but—thank providence!—the candle was still burning. He stood up and made his way over to the broken bones. There he knelt down and shone the light upon them, trying to determine what animal they might've come from. While he was so occupied, he heard a soft slithering sound somewhere to his right. He angled the lantern toward it and in a few seconds saw that a gaping hole some four feet across had opened in the boggy ground; the slithering sound was mud sliding down its sides.

Matthew thought it might have been what had collapsed under his feet and caused him to fall, for the earth itself was rebelling against this incessant downpour. He stood up, eased to the edge of the hole, and directed the lantern's light down into it.

At first he saw what looked like a pile of sticks lying in the hole. Everything was muddy and tangled together into an indistinct mess. The longer he stared, however, the more clear came the picture.

Yes. Horribly clear.

He could make out the bones of an arm, thrown across what might've been a half-decayed, naked torso. A gray knee joint jutted up from the muck. There was a hand, the fingers shriveled to the bones, grasping upward as if in a begging gesture for help. And there was a head, too; mostly a mud-covered skull, but some of the flesh remained. Matthew, his mouth dry of saliva and his heart pounding, could see how the top of the skull had been crushed inward by a savage blow.

A hammer could've delivered such a death, he realized. A hammer or a rat-killing mallet.

Perhaps there were more corpses than one in that burial pit. Perhaps there were four or five, thrown in and entangled together. It was hard to tell how many, but there were a great number of bones. None of the bodies seemed to have been buried with their clothing.

Hey, clerk! You sure he wouldn't part with that waistc't?

Matthew felt the earth shift and slide around his feet. There was a noise like a dozen serpents hissing and, as the ground began to collapse around him, Matthew saw more human bones being pushed up to the surface like the muddy spars of ships wrecked on vicious shoals. Dazed as if locked in a nightmare, Matthew stood at the center of the sinking earth as evidence of murders revealed themselves under his shoes. Only when he was about to be sucked under into an embrace with the dead did he turn away, pulling his feet up and struggling toward the barn.

He fought his way through the rain in the direction of the tavern. The immediacy of his mission gave flight to his heels. He slipped and fell once again before he reached the door, and this time the lantern splashed into a puddle and the candle went out. Red mud covered him from head to toe. When he burst through the door, he saw that Shawcombe was no longer sitting at the table, though the tankard was still in its same position and the bitter-smelling pipe smoke yet wafted in the air. Matthew restrained the urge to shout a warning to the magistrate, and he got into the room and latched the door behind him. Woodward was still stretched out and soundly asleep.

Matthew shook the man's shoulders. "Wake up! Do you hear me?" His voice, though pinched with fright, was strong enough to pierce the veil of the magistrate's sleep. Woodward began to rouse himself, his eyelids opening and the bleary eyes struggling to focus. "We have to get out!" Matthew urged. "Right now! We've got to—"

"Good God in Heaven!" Woodward croaked. He sat upright. "What happened to you?"

"Just listen!" Matthew said. "I found bodies out there! Skeletons, buried behind the barn! I think Shawcombe's a murderer!"

"What? Have you lost your senses?" Woodward sniffed the younger man's breath. "It's that damn Indian ale, isn't it?"

"No, I found the bodies down in a hole! Shawcombe may have even killed Kingsbury and thrown him in there!" He saw the magistrate's expression of bewilderment. "Listen to me! We have to leave as fast as we—"

"Gentlemen?"

It was Shawcombe. His voice beyond the door made Matthew's blood go cold. There came the rap of knuckles on the wood. "Gentlemen, is all well?"

"I think he means to kill us tonight!" Matthew whispered to the magistrate. "He wants your waistcoat!"

"My waistcoat," Woodward repeated. His mouth was dry. He looked at the door and then back to Matthew's mud-splattered face. If anything was true in this insane world, it was that Matthew did not lie, nor was he servant to flights of fantasy. The shiny fear in the younger man's eyes was all too real, and Woodward's own heart began beating rapidly.

"Gents?" Now Shawcombe's mouth was close to the door. "I heard you talkin'. Any trouble in there?"

"No trouble!" Woodward replied. He put a finger to his lips, directing Matthew to be silent. "We're very well, thank you!"

There was a few seconds' pause. Then: "Clerk, you left the front door open," Shawcombe said. "How come you to do that?"

Now came one of the most terrible decisions of Isaac Woodward's life. His saber, as rusted and blunt as it was, remained in the wagon. He had neither a dirk nor a prayer to protect them. If Shawcombe was indeed a killer, the time had arrived for him to deliver death. Woodward looked at the room's single shuttered window and made the decision: they would have to leave everything behind—trunks, wigs, clothing, all of it—to save their skins. He motioned Matthew toward the window and then he eased up out of the damp straw.

"What's got your tongue, boy?" Shawcombe demanded. His voice was turning ugly. "I asked you a question!"

"Just a moment!" Woodward opened one of the trunks, lifted a pair of shirts, and put his hands on the golden-threaded waistcoat. He could not leave this, even with a murderer breathing down his neck. There was no time to work his feet into his boots nor grab his tricorn hat. Grasping the waistcoat, he straightened up and motioned for Matthew to unlatch the window's shutter.

Matthew did. The latch thunked out of its groove and he pushed the shutter open into the falling rain.

"They're comin' out the winda!" Uncle Abner yelled, standing just beneath it. Matthew saw he was holding a lantern in one hand and a pitchfork in the other.

Behind Woodward, there was a tremendous crash as the door burst inward. He twisted around, his face bleached of blood, as Shawcombe came across the threshold with a grin that showed his peglike teeth. Behind him, Maude carried a double candlestick that held two burning tapers, her white hair wild and her wrinkled face demonic.

"Oh, oh!" Shawcombe said mockingly. "Looky here, Maude! They're tryin' to get gone without payin' their bill!"

"What's the meaning of this outrage?" Woodward snapped, putting on a mask of anger to hide his true emotion, which was raw and naked terror.

Shawcombe laughed and shook his head. "Well," he said, lifting up his right hand and inspecting the mallet with which Maude had earlier crushed the black rat, "the meanin' of it, you bloody ass, is that you and the clerk ain't goin' nowhere tonight. 'Cept Hell, I reckon." His eyes found the prize. "Ahhhhh, there 'tis. Give it here." He thrust out his grimy left hand.

Woodward looked at the dirty fingers and then at the waistcoat he held so dearly. His gaze returned to Shawcombe's greedy hand; then Woodward lifted his chin and took a long breath. "Sir," he said, "you'll have to kill me to take it."

Shawcombe laughed again, more of a piggish grunt this time. "Oh, indeedy I'll kill you! " His eyes narrowed slightly. "I 'spected you'd go out like a mouse 'stead of a man, though. 'Spected you might give a squeal like that other little drunk titmouse did when I whacked him." He abruptly swung the mallet through the air past Woodward's face, and the magistrate flinched but did not retreat. "Gonna make me take it, huh? All-righty then, ain't no skin off my bum."

"They'll send someone else," Matthew spoke up. "From Charles Town. They'll send—"

"Another fuckin' magistrate? Let 'em, then! They keep sendin' 'em, I'll keep killin' 'em!"

"They'll send the militia," he said, which was not nearly as fearsome as it sounded and was probably untrue anyway.

"The militia!" Shawcombe's teeth gleamed in the murky light. "They're gonna send the militia all the way from Charles Town? But they didn't come lookin' for Kingsbury or none of them others I laid to rest, did they?" His grin began to twist into a snarl. He lifted the mallet up to a striking position. "I think I'm gonna kill you first, you skinny son of a bi—"

Woodward made his move.

He whipped the waistcoat sharply across Shawcombe's eyes and rushed the man, grabbing his wrist before the mallet could begin its descent. Shawcombe hollered a curse and Maude started shrieking, a sound that surely scared the wall-dwelling rats into flight. Shawcombe's left hand came up—a fist now instead of a palm—and smacked into the magistrate's chin. Woodward's head rocked back, his eyes clouding, but he kept his grip on Shawcombe's right wrist. 'Abner! Abner!" the old woman was yelling. Woodward fired his own blow at Shawcombe's face, a fist that grazed the man's cheekbone when Shawcombe saw it coming and twisted to avoid it. Then Shawcombe clamped his free hand around the magistrate's throat and squeezed as they fought in the little room, one trying to get the mallet into action and the other intent on restraining it.

They staggered back against the bed. Shawcombe's eye caught a movement to his side and he looked in that direction a second before Matthew slammed him in the head with one of the magistrate's boots he'd picked up from the floor. Another swing of the boot struck Shawcombe on the shoulder, and now Matthew could see a glint of desperation in the man's eyes. Shawcombe, who had realized that the magistrate was more formidable than he appeared, gave a roar like an enraged beast and drove his knee upward into Woodward's genitals. Woodward cried out and doubled over, clutching himself. Suddenly the mallet was free. Shawcombe lifted it high, a two-handed grip, in preparation to bash in the back of the other man's skull.

"No!" said Matthew. The boot was already swinging forward, and with every ounce of strength he could muster, Matthew hit Shawcombe across the bridge of the nose with its wooden heel.

The noise of the blow was like an axeblade striking oak; somewhere in it was the crunch of Shawcombe's nose breaking. Shawcombe gave a strangled cry and stumbled backward, intent on grabbing at his wounded face instead of seeing the color of the magistrate's brain. Matthew stepped forward to wrest the mallet away, but suddenly he was attacked by the shrieking old hag, who grabbed at his coat collar with one hand and with the other shoved the candleflames toward his eyes.

Matthew reflexively struck at her, hitting her in the face, but he had to retreat to get away from her, and now Abner was coming into the room with his lantern and his pitchfork.

"Kill 'em!" Shawcombe whined, a nasal sound; he'd met the wall and slid down to the floor, his hands clamped across his face and the mallet lying beside him. Blood, black in the ochre light, was leaking between his fingers. "Abner! Kill 'em both!"

The old man, rain dripping from his beard, lifted the pitchfork and stepped toward Woodward, who was still groaning and trying to straighten himself up.

Matthew was aware of the open window behind him. His mind worked, faster than his body could react. He said, "Thou shalt not kill."

Abner stopped in his tracks. He blinked as if stunned. "What?"

"Thou shalt not kill," Matthew repeated. "It's in the Bible. You do know the Lord's word, don't you?"

"I . . . the Lord's word? Yeah, I reckon I—"

'Abner! Goddamn it, kill 'em!" Shawcombe bawled.

"It's in the Bible, is it not? Mr. Woodward, would you go out the window, please?" The magistrate had tears of pain streaming down his face. He'd regained enough sense, however, to realize he should move quickly.

"Shit! Lemme up!" Shawcombe tried getting to his feet, but both eyes were already turning purplish and starting to swell. He had a harder time than he'd expected finding his balance, and it yet eluded him. He sank back down to the floor. "Maude! Don't let 'em get out!"

"Gimme 'at damn pigsticka!" Maude grabbed the pitchfork and tugged at it, but Abner resisted her.

"The boy's right," Abner said; his voice was calm, as if a great truth had been revealed to him. "It's in the Bible. Thou shalt not kill. That's the Lord's word."

"Ya damn fool! Give it 'ere!" Maude tried, unsuccessfully, to wrench the pitchfork out of his hands.

"Hurry," Matthew said, as he helped the magistrate over the windowsill and out. Woodward fell into the mud like a flour sack. Then Matthew started climbing out.

"You ain't gettin' far!" Shawcombe promised, his voice tight with pain. "We'll hunt ya down!"

Matthew glanced back into the room to make sure Maude didn't have the pitchfork. Abner was still holding on to it, his face furrowed with thought. Matthew figured the old man wouldn't remain in that state of religious piety much longer, though; he was as much of a murderer as the other two, and Matthew had only rolled a stone in his path. Before Matthew let go of the sill, he saw another figure standing in the doorway. It was the girl, her face pale, the dark and dirty hair hanging in her eyes. Her arms were clasped around herself, a protective gesture. He had no idea if she was as mad as the rest of them, or what would become of her; he knew for certain, though, that she was beyond his help.

"Go on and run like a dog!" Shawcombe taunted. The blood was dripping between his fingers to the floor, his eyes becoming narrow, puffed slits. "If you're thinkin' to get that sword was in your wagon, it's done been got! Damn blade ain't sharp enough to cut a fart! So go on and see how far ya get!"

Matthew released the sill and jumped down into the mud beside Woodward, who was struggling to his feet. Maude began flailing Abner with curses, and Matthew knew they'd better put as much distance between them and the tavern as they could before the pursuit started. "Can you run?" he asked the magistrate.

"Run?" Woodward looked at him incredulously. "You might ask if I could crawl!"

"Whatever you can do, you'd best do it," Matthew said. "I think we should get into the woods, first thing."

"What about the horses and the wagon? We're not just going to leave them here!"

"There's no time. I expect they'll be after us in a few minutes. If they come at us with an axe or a musket—"

"Say no more." With an effort, Woodward began slogging toward the woods across the road from the tavern. Matthew followed close at his side, watchful in case he staggered.

The lightning flashed, thunder clapped, and rain fell upon their heads. Before they reached the forest, Matthew looked back at the tavern but saw no one yet following. He hoped Shawcombe had lost—at least for the moment—the desire to rouse himself and come out in this storm; he doubted if the old man and woman were very self-motivated without him. Probably Shawcombe was too busy dealing with his own pain to inflict it on anyone else. Matthew thought about going back for the horses, but he'd never saddled and bridled a mount in his life and the situation was volatile. No, he decided, it was best to head into the forest and follow the road in the direction they'd been going.

"We left everything," Woodward said disconsolately as their feet sank into the quagmire of mud and pine needles at the forest's edge. "Everything! My clothes, my wigs, my judicial robes! Dear Christ, my waistcoat! That animal has my waistcoat!"

"Yes, sir," Matthew answered. "But he doesn't have your life."

"And a sorry thing that will be, from this day forward! Ahh-hhh, that man almost made me a soprano!" He peered into the utter darkness that lay ahead. "Where are we going?"

"Fount Royal."

"What?" The magistrate faltered. "Has that man's madness impressed you?"

"Fount Royal is at the end of the road," Matthew said. "If we keep walking, we might be there in a few hours." An optimistic appraisal, he thought. This swampy earth and the pelting rain would slow them considerably, but it would also hinder their pursuers. "We can return here with their militia and retrieve our belongings. I think it's our only choice."

Woodward was silent. It was indeed their only choice. And if he could get his waistcoat back—and see Shawcombe kicking at the end of a noose—it would be worth a few hours of this vile indignity. He could not help thinking that once a man fell into the pit of disfavor with God, the hole was bottomless. He had no shoes, his balls were bruised and aching, his head was naked to the world, and his nightshirt was sopping and covered with mud. But at least they did both have their lives, which was more than he could say of Thymon Kingsbury. Execution is not one of my duties, he'd told Shawcombe. Well, that just might have to be amended.

He would come back here and get that waistcoat if it was the last thing he did on this earth.

Matthew was moving a little faster than the magistrate, and he paused to wait for Woodward. In time, the night and the storm swallowed them up.

four

AT LAST THE AFTERNOON SUN had cleaved a path through the clouds and shone now on the drenched earth. The weather had warmed considerably, compared to the chill of the night before. This was more like the usual May, though the clouds—dark gray and swollen with more ghastly rain—were still looming, slowly converging together from all points of the compass to overtake the sun again.

"Go on," said the heavyset, lavishly bewigged man who stood at a second-floor window of his house, overlooking the vista. "I am listening."

The second man in the room—which was a study lined with shelves and leather-bound books, a gold-and-red Persian rug on the pinewood floor—sat on a bench before a desk of African mahogany, a ledger book open in his lap. He was the visitor here, however, as the bewigged man had recently lifted his 220-pound bulk from his own chair, which stood on the other side of the desk facing the bench. The visitor cleared his throat and placed a finger upon a line written in the ledger. "The cotton plants have again failed to take root," he said. "Likewise the tobacco seedlings." He hesitated before he delivered the next blow. "I regret to say that two-thirds of the apple trees have been blighted."

"Two-thirds?" said the man at the window, without turning away from the view. His wig, a majesty of white curls, flowed down around the shoulders of his dark blue, brass-buttoned suit. He wore white ruffles at his sleeves, white stockings on his thick calves, and polished black shoes with silver buckles.

"Yes, sir. The same is true of the plum trees, and about half of the pears. At present the blackcherries have been spared, but it is Goode's opinion that a parasite of some kind may have laid eggs in all the fruit trees. The pecans and the chestnuts are so far unblemished, but the fields have been washed to the extent that many of their roots are now aboveground and vulnerable to harm." The speaker halted in his recitation of agricultural maladies and pushed his spectacles up a little further on his nose. He was a man of medium height and stature, also of medium age and appearance. He had light brown hair, a lofty forehead, and pale blue eyes, and he bore the air of a wearied accountant. His clothes, in contrast to the other man's finery, consisted of a plain white shirt, brown cloth waistcoat, and tan trousers.

"Continue, Edward," the man at the window urged quietly. "I am up to the hearing."

"Yes, sir." The speaker, Edward Winston, returned his attention to the items quilled in the ledgerbook. "Goode has made a suggestion regarding the fruit trees that he felt important for me to pass to you." Again, he paused.

"And that suggestion is?"

Winston lifted his hand and slowly ran two fingers across his mouth before he went on. The man at the window waited, his broad back held straight and rigid. Winston said, "Goode suggests they be burned."

"How many trees? Only those afflicted, yes?"

"No, sir. All."

There was a long silence. The man at the window pulled in his breath and let it slowly out, and when he did so his shoulders lost their square set and began to sag. "All," he repeated.

"Goode believes that burning is the only way to kill the parasite. He says it will do no good in the long run to destroy only the trees presently showing ill. Furthermore, he believes that the site of the fruit orchards should be moved and the earth itself cleansed with seawater and ashes."

The man at the window made a soft noise that had some pain in it. When he spoke, his voice was weak. "How many trees are to be burned, then?"

Winston consulted his ledger. "Eighty-four apple, fifty-two plum, seventy-eight blackcherry, forty-four pear."

"And so we start over yet again, is that it?"

"I fear it is, sir. As I always say, it's better to be safe than sorry."

"Damn," the man at the window whispered. He placed his hands on the sill and stared down through red-rimmed hazel eyes at his endangered dream and creation. "Is she cursing us, Edward?"

"I don't know, sir," answered Winston, in all candor.

Robert Bidwell, the man at the window, was forty-seven years old and scarred with the marks of suffering. His deeply lined face was strained, his forehead furrowed, more lines bracketing his thin-lipped mouth and cutting across his chin. Many of those markings had afflicted him in the past five years, since the day he had been presented with official papers deeding him 990 acres on the coast of the Carolina colony. But this was his dream, and there before him, under the ochre sunlight that slanted through the ominously building clouds, lay his creation.

He'd christened it Fount Royal. The reason for the name was twofold: one, to thank King William and Queen Mary for their fount of faith in his abilities as a leader and manager; and two, as a geographic waypoint for future commerce. Some sixty yards from the front gate of Bidwell's house—which was the sole two-story structure in the community—was the fount itself: an oblong-shaped spring of fresh, cold aquamarine-colored water that covered an expanse of nearly three acres. Bidwell had learned from a surveyor who'd been mapping the area several years ago and who'd also plumbed the spring that it was more than forty feet deep. The fount was of vital importance to the settlement; in this country of salt marshes and stagnant black ponds, the spring meant that fresh water would always be in abundance.

Bulrushes grew in the spring's shallows, and hardy wildflow-ers that had endured the intemperate chill grew in clumps on the grassy banks. As the spring was the center of Fount Royal, all streets—their muddy surfaces made firmer by sand and crushed oyster shells—radiated from it. The streets were four in number, and had been named by Bidwell: Truth ran to the east, Industry to the west, Harmony to the north, and Peace to the south. Along those streets were the whitewashed clapboard houses, red barns, fenced pastures, lean-to sheds, and workshops that made up the settlement.

The blacksmith toiled at his furnace on Industry Street; on Truth Street stood the schoolhouse, across from the general store; Harmony Street was host to three churchhouses: Anglican, Lutheran, and Presbyterian; the cemetery on Harmony Street was not large, but was unfortunately well-planted; Peace Street led past the slave quarters and Bidwell's own stable to the forest that stood just short of the tidewater swamp and beyond that the sea; Industry Street continued to the orchards and farmland where Bidwell hoped someday to see bounties of apples, pears, cotton, corn, beans, and tobacco; on Truth Street also stood the gaol, where she was kept, and near it the building that served as a meeting-house; the surgeon-barber was located on Harmony Street, next to Van Gundy's Publick Tavern; and a number of other small enterprises, scattered about the fledgling town in hopes that Bidwell's dream of a southernmost city might come to fruition.

Of the 990 acres Bidwell had purchased, little more than two hundred were actually built upon, tilled, or used as pasture. A wall made of logs, their uptilted ends shaved and honed by axes into sharpened points, had been constructed around the entire settlement, orchards and all, as protection against Indians. The only way in or out—notwithstanding the seacoast, though a watchtower built in the forest there was occupied day and night by a musket-armed militiaman—was through the main gate that opened onto Harmony Street. A watchtower also stood beside the gate, allowing its militiaman a view of anyone approaching on the road.

So far in the existence of Fount Royal, the Indian element had offered no trouble; in fact, they'd been invisible, and Bidwell might have questioned whether there were indeed redskins within a hundred miles, if Solomon Stiles hadn't discovered strange symbols painted on the trunk of a pinetree during a hunting expedition. Stiles, a trapper and hunter of some regard, had explained to Bidwell that the Indians were marking the wilderness beyond the tree as territory not to be trespassed upon. Bid-well had decided not to press the issue, though by the royal deed all that land belonged to him. No, best to let the redskins alone until it was time to smoke them out.

Looking down upon the current decrepit condition of his dream hurt Bidwell's eyes. There were too many empty houses, too many gardens gone to weed, too many broken fences. Un-tended pigs lay about in the muck and dogs wandered, snapping and surly. In the past month five hard-built structures—all deserted at the time—had been reduced to piles of ash by midnight fires, and a burnt smell still tainted the air. Bidwell was aware of whom the residents blamed for these fires. If not her hand directly, then the hands—or claws, as the case might be—of the infernal beasts and imps she invoked. Fire was their language, and they were making their statements very clear.

His dream was dying. She was killing it. Though the bars of her cell and the thick walls of the gaol confined her body, her spirit—her phantasm—escaped to dance and cavort with her unholy lover, to plot more wreckage and woe to Bidwell's dream. To banish such a hydra into the judgment of the wilderness was not enough; she had plainly said she would not go, that no power on earth could make her leave her home. If Bidwell hadn't been a lawful man, he might have had her hanged at the beginning and been done with it. Now it was a matter for the court, and God help the judge who must sit in attendance.

No, he thought grimly. God help Fount Royal.

"Edward," BidweU said, "what is our present population?"

"The exact figure? Or an estimate?"

"An estimate will do."

"One hundred or thereabouts," Winston offered. "But that will change before the week is done. Dorcas Chester is ill onto death."

"Yes, I know. This damp will fill up our cemetery ere long."

"Speaking of the cemetery . . . Alice Barrow has taken to bed as well."

"Alice Barrow?" Bidwell turned from the window to face the other man. "Is she ailing?"

"I had cause to visit John Swaine this morning," Winston said. "According to Cass Swaine, Alice Barrow has told several persons that she's been suffering dreams of the Dark Man. The dreams have so terrified her that she will not leave her bed."

Bidwell gave an exasperated snort. "And so she's spreading them about like rancid butter on scones, is that it?"

"It seems to be. Madam Swaine tells me the dreams have to do with the cemetery. More than that, she was too fearful herself to say."

"Good Christ!" Bidwell said, the color rising in his jowls. "Mason Barrow is a sensible man! Can't he control his wife's tongue?" He took two strides to the desk and slapped a hand down upon its surface. "This is the kind of stupidity that's destroying my town, Edward! Our town, I mean! But by God, it'll be ruins in six months if these tongues don't cease wagging!"

"I didn't mean to upset you, sir," Winston said. "I'm only recounting what I thought you should know."

"Look out there!" Bidwell waved toward the window, where the rain-swollen clouds were beginning to seal off the sunlight once again. "Empty houses and empty fields! Last May we had more than three hundred people! Three hundred! And now you say we're down to one hundred?"

"Or thereabouts," Winston corrected.

"Yes, and how many will Alice Barrow's tongue send running? Damn it, I cannot stand by waiting for a judge to arrive from Charles Town! What can I do about this, Edward?"

Winston's face was damp with perspiration, due to the room's humid nature. He pushed his spectacles up on his nose. "You have no choice but to wait, sir. The legal system must be obeyed."

"And what legal system does the Dark Man obey?" Bidwell planted both hands on the desk and leaned toward Winston, his own face sweating and florid. "What rules and regulations constrain his mistress? Damn my eyes, I can't watch my investment in this land be destroyed by some spectral bastard who shits doom in people's dreams! I did not build a shipping business by sitting on my bum quaking like a milksop maid." This last had been said through gritted teeth. "Come along or not as you please, Edward! I'm off to silence Alice Barrow's prattling!" He stalked toward the door without waiting for his town manager, who hurriedly closed his ledger and stood up to follow, like a pug after a barrel-chested bulldog.

They descended what to the ordinary citizens of Fount Royal was a wonder to behold: a staircase. It was without a railing, however, as the master carpenter who had overseen the construction of the stairs had died of the bloody flux before its completion. The walls of Bidwell's mansion were decorated with English pastoral paintings and tapestries, which upon close inspection would reveal the treacheries of mildew. Water stains marred many of the whitewashed ceilings, and rat droppings lay in darkened niches. As Bidwell and Winston came down the stairs, their boots loudly clomping, they became the focus of Bidwell's housekeeper, who was always alert to her master's movements. Emma Nettles was a broad-shouldered, heavyset woman in her mid-thirties whose hatchet-nosed and square-chinned face might've scared a redskin warrior into the arms of Jesus. She stood at the foot of the stairs, her ample body clad in her customary black cassock, a stiff white cap enforcing the regimented lie of her oiled and severely combed brown hair.

"May I he'p you, sir?" she asked, her voice carrying a distinct Scottish burr. In her formidable shadow stood one of the servant girls.

"I'm away to business," Bidwell replied curtly, plucking from a rack on the wall a navy blue tricorn hat, one of several in a variety of colors to match his costumes. He pushed the hat down on his head, which was no simplicity due to the height of his wig. "I shall have toss 'em boys and jonakin for my supper," he told her. "Mind the house." He strode past her and the servant girl toward the front door, with Winston in pursuit.

"As I always do, sir," the madam Nettles said quietly an instant after the door had closed behind the two men, her flesh-hooded eyes as dark as her demeanor.

Bidwell paused only long enough to unlatch the ornate white-painted iron gate—six feet tall and shipped at great expense from Boston—that separated his mansion from the rest of Fount Royal, then continued along Peace Street at a pace that tested Winston's younger and slimmer legs. The two men passed the spring, where Cecilia Semmes was filling a bucket full of water; she started to offer a greeting to Bidwell, but she saw his expression of angry resolve and thought it best to keep her tongue sheltered.

The last of the miserly sunlight was obscured by clouds even as Bidwell and Winston strode past the community's brass sundial, set atop a wooden pedestal at the conjunction of Peace, Harmony, Industry, and Truth streets. Tom Bridges, guiding his oxcart to his farmhouse and pasture on Industry, called a good afternoon to Bidwell, but the creator of Fount Royal did not break stride nor acknowledge the courtesy. "Afternoon to you, Tom!" Winston replied, after which he had to conserve his wind for keeping up with his employer as Bidwell took a turn onto the easterly path of Truth.

Two pigs occupied a large mud puddle in the midst of the street, one of them snorting with glee as he rooted deeper into the mire while a mongrel dog blotched with mange stood nearby barking his indignation. David Cutter, Hiram Abercrombie, and Arthur Dawson stood not far from the pigs and puddle, smoking their clay pipes and engrossed in what appeared to be stern conversation. "Good day, gentlemen!" Bidwell said as he passed them, and Cutter removed his pipe from his mouth and called out, "Bidwell! When's that judge gettin' here?"

"In due time, sir, in due time!" Winston answered, still walking.

"I'm talkin' to the string puller, not the puppet!" Cutter fired back. "We're gettin' tired a' waitin' for this thing to be resolved! You ask me, they ain't gonna never send us a judge!"

"We have the assurances of their councilmen, sir!" Winston said; his cheeks were stinging from the insult.

"Damn their assurances!" Dawson spoke up. He was a spindly red-haired man who served as Fount Royal's shoemaker. "They might assure us the rain will cease, too, but what of it?"

"Keep walking, Edward," Bidwell urged sotto voce.

"We've had a gutful of this dawdlin'!" Cutter said. "She needs to be hanged and done with it!"

Abercrombie, a farmer who'd been one of the first settlers to respond to Bidwell's broadsheets advertising the creation of Fount Royal, threw in his two shillings: "The sooner she hangs, the safer we'll all sleep! God save us from bein' burnt up in our beds!"

"Yes, yes," Bidwell muttered, lifting a hand into the air as a gesture of dismissal. His stride had quickened, sweat gleaming on his face and darkening the cloth at his armpits. Behind him, Winston was breathing hard; the air's sullen dampness had misted his spectacles. With his next step, his right foot sank into a pile of moldering horse apples that Bidwell had just deftly avoided.

"If they send us anybody," Cutter shouted as a last riposte, "it'll be a lunatic they plucked from the asylum up there!"

"That man speaks knowingly of asylums," Bidwell said, to no one in particular. They passed the schoolhouse and next to it Schoolmaster Johnstone's house. A pasture where a small herd of cattle grazed stood next to Lindstrom's farmhouse and barn, and then there was the meeting-house with a flagpole before it from which drooped the British colors. Just a little further on, and Bidwell's pace hastened even faster; there loomed the rough and windowless hardwood walls of the gaol, its single entrance door secured with a chain and iron lock. In front of the gaol was a pillory where miscreants who thieved, blasphemed, or otherwise incurred the wrath of the town council found themselves bound and sometimes pelted with the same substance that currently weighted Winston's right boot.

Past the gaol, a number of houses with barns, gardens, and small fieldplots occupied the last portion of Truth Street. Some of the houses were empty, and one of them had dwindled to a charred shell. Weeds and thorns had overtaken the forlorn gardens, the fields now more frightful swamp than fruitful earth. Bidwell walked to the door of a house almost at the very end of the street and knocked solidly while Winston stood nearby, blotting the sweat from his face with a shirtsleeve.

Presently the door was opened a crack and the grizzled, sunken-eyed face of a man who needed sleep peered out. "Good afternoon to you, Mason," Bidwell said. "I've come to see your wife."

Mason Barrow knew full well why the master of Fount Royal was at his door; he drew it open and stepped back, his black-haired head slumped like that of a dog about to be whipped. Bid-well and Winston entered the house, which seemed the size of a wig box compared to the mansion they'd recently left. The two Barrow children—eight-year-old Melissa and six-year-old Preston—were also in the front room, the older watching from behind a table and the younger clinging to his father's trouser leg. Bidwell was not an ungracious man; he removed his hat, first thing. "She's to bed, I understand."

"Yes sir. Sick to the soul, she is."

"I shall have to speak to her."

"Yes sir." Barrow nodded numbly. Bidwell noted that the two children also looked in need of sleep, as well as in need of a good hot meal. "As you please." Barrow motioned toward the room at the rear of the house.

"Very well. Edward, come with me." Bidwell walked to the open door of the other room and looked in. Alice Barrow was lying in the bed there, a wrinkled sheet pulled up to her chin. Her eyes were open and staring at the ceiling, her sallow face gleaming with sweat. The room's single window was shuttered, but the light was strong because seven tallows were aflame, as well as a clay bowl full of pine knots. Bidwell knew it was a remarkable extravagance for a farmer such as Mason Barrow, whose children must be suffering due to this surplus of illumination. As Bidwell stepped across the threshold, a loose plank squeaked underfoot and the woman looked at him; her eyes widened, she sucked in her breath as if she'd been struck, and shrank away from him deeper into the confines of the bed.

Bidwell immediately halted where he stood. "Good afternoon, madam," he said. "May I have a word with you?"

"Where's my husband?" the woman cried out. "Mason! Where's he gone?"

"I'm here!" Barrow replied, standing behind the other two men. "All's well, there's naught to fear."

"Don't let me sleep, Mason! Promise me you won't!"

"I promise," he said, with a quick glance at Bidwell.

"What's all this nonsense?" Bidwell asked him. "The woman's feared to sleep?"

"Yes, sir. She fears fallin' asleep and seein'—"

"Don't speak it!" Alice Barrow's voice rose again, tremulous and pleading. "If you love me, don't speak it!"

The little girl began to cry, the little boy still clinging to his father's leg. Barrow looked directly into Bidwell's face. "She's in a bad way, sir. She ain't slept for the past two nights. Cain't abide the dark, not even the day shadows."

"This is how it begins," Winston said quietly.

"Rein yourself!" Bidwell snapped at him. He produced a lace-rimmed handkerchief from a pocket of his jacket and wiped beads of sweat from his cheeks and forehead. "Be that as it may, Barrow, I must speak to her. Madam? May I enter?"

"No!" she answered, the damp sheet drawn up to her terror-stricken eyes. "Go away!"

"Thank you." Bidwell walked to her bedside and stood there, looking down at her with both hands gripping his hat. Winston followed behind him, but Mason Barrow remained in the other room to comfort the crying little girl. "Madam," Bidwell said, "you must desist in your spreading of tales about these dreams. I know you've told Cass Swaine. I would ask—"

"I told Cass 'cause she's my friend!" the woman said behind her sheet. "I told others of my friends too! And why shouldn't I? They should know whatIknow, if they value their lives!"

"And what is it that makes your knowledge so valuable, madam?"

She pushed the sheet away and stared defiantly up at him, her eyes wet and scared but her chin thrust toward him like a weapon. "That whoever lives in this town is sure to die."

"That, I fear, is only worth a shilling. All who live in any town are sure to die."

"Not by his hand! Not by fire and the torments of Hell! Oh, he told me! He showed me! He walked me through the graveyard, and he showed me them names on the markers!" The veins in her neck strained, her brown hair lank and wet. She said in an agonized whisper, "He showed me Cass Swaine's marker! And John's too! And he showed me the names of my children!" Her voice cracked, the tears coursing down her cheeks. "My own children, laid dead in the ground! Oh, sweet Jesus!" She gave a terrible, wrenching moan and pulled the sheet up to her face again, her eyes squeezed shut.

With all the candle flames, the pine knot smoke, and the humidity seeping in, the room was a hotbox. Bidwell felt as if drawing a breath was too much effort. He heard the rumble of distant thunder, another storm approaching. A response to Alice Barrow's phantasms was in order, but for the life of him Bidwell couldn't find one. There was no doubt a great Evil had seized upon the town, and had grown in both murky day and blackest night like poisonous mushrooms. This Evil had invaded the dreams of the citizens of Fount Royal and driven them to frenzies. Bidwell knew that Winston was correct: this indeed was how it began.

"Courage," he offered, but it sounded so very weak.

She opened her eyes; they had become swollen and near-scarlet. "Courage?" she repeated, incredulously. "Courage again' him? He showed me a graveyard full of markers! You couldn't take a step without fallin' over a grave! It was a silent town. Everybody gone ... or dead. He told me. Standin' right at my side, and I could hear him breathin' in my ear." She nodded, her eyes staring straight through Bidwell. "Those who stay here will perish and burn in Hell's fires. That's what he said, right in my ear. Burn in Hell's fires, forever and a day. It was a silent town. Silent. He said Shhhhhhhh, Alice. He said Shhhhhhhh, listen to my voice. Look upon this, he said, and know what I am." She blinked, some of the focus returning to her eyes, but she still appeared dazed and disjointed. "I did look," she said, "and I do know."

"I understand," Bidwell told her, trying to sound as calm and rational as a man at the bitter end of his rope possibly could, "but we must be responsible, and not so eager to spread fear among our fellows."

"I'm not wantin' to spread fear!" she answered sharply. "I'm wantin' to tell the truth of what was shown me! This place is cursed! You know it, I know it, every soul with sense knows it!" She stared directly at one of the candles. The little girl in the other room was still sobbing, and Alice Barrow said with small strength in her voice, "Hush, Melissa. Hush, now."

Bidwell, again, was lost for words. He found himself gripping his tricorn with a force that made his fingers ache. The distant thunder echoed, nearer now, and sweat was crawling down the back of his neck. This hotbox room seemed to be closing in on him, stealing his breath. He had to get out. He abruptly turned, almost bowling Winston over, and took the two strides to the door.

"I saw his face," the woman said. Bidwell stopped as if he'd run into a brick wall. "His face," she repeated. "I saw it. He let me see it."

Bidwell looked at her, waiting for the rest of what she had to say. She was sitting up, the sheet fallen aside, a terrible shiny anguish in her eyes. "He was wearin' your face," she said, with a savage and half-crazed grin. "Like a mask, it was. Wearin' your face, and showin' me my children laid dead in the ground." Her hands came up and covered her mouth, as if she feared she might let loose a cry that would shatter her soul.

"Steady, madam," Bidwell said, but his voice was shaky. "You must tend to reality, and put aside these visions of the netherworld."

"We'll all burn there, if he has his way!" she retorted. "He wants her free, is what he wants! Wants her free, and all of us gone!"

"I'll hear no more of this." Bidwell turned away from her again, and got out of the room.

"Wants her free!" the woman shouted. "He won't let us rest 'til she's with him!"

Bidwell kept going, out the front door, with Winston following. "Sir! Sir!" Barrow called, and he came out of the house after them. Bidwell paused, trying mightily to display a calm demeanor.

"Beg pardon, sir," Barrow said. "She meant no disrespect."

"None taken. Your wife is in a precarious condition."

"Yes, sir. But . . . things bein' as they are, you'll understand when I tell you we have to leave."

A fine drizzle was starting to fall from the dark-bellied clouds. Bidwell pushed the tricorn down on his head. "Do as you please, Barrow. I'm not your master."

"Yes sir." He licked his lower lip, plucking up the courage to say what was on his mind. "This was a good town, sir. Used to be, before . . ." He shrugged. "It's all changed now I'm sorry, but we cain't stay."

"Go on, then!" Bidwell's facade cracked and some of his anger and frustration spilled out like black bile. "No one's chaining you here! Go on, run like a scared dog with the rest of them! I shall not! By God, I have planted myself in this place and no phantasm shall tear me—"

A bell sounded. A deep-tolling bell. Once, then a second and third time.

It was the voice of the bell at the watchman's tower on Harmony Street. The bell continued to sound, announcing that the watchman had spied someone coming along the road.

"—shall tear me out!" Bidwell finished, with fierce resolve. He looked toward the main gate, which was kept closed and locked against Indians. New hope blossomed in his heart. "Edward, it must be the judge from Charles Town! Yes! It has to be! Come along!" Without another word to Mason Barrow, Bidwell started off toward the junction of the four streets. "Hurry!" he said to Winston, picking up his pace. The rain was beginning to fall now in earnest, but not even the worst deluge since Noah would've kept him from personally welcoming the judge this happy day. The bell's voice had started a chorus of dogs to barking, and as Bidwell and Winston rushed northward along Harmony Street—one grinning with excitement and the other gasping for breath—a number of mutts chased round and round them as if at the heels of carnival clowns.

By the time they reached the gate, both men were wet with rain and perspiration and were breathing like bellows. A group of a dozen or so residents had emerged from their homes to gather around, as a visitor from the outside was rare indeed. Up in the watchtower, Malcolm Jennings had ceased his pulling on the bell-cord, and two men—Esai Pauling and James Reed—were readying to lift the log that served as the gate's lock from its latchpost.

"Wait, wait!" Bidwell called, pushing through the onlookers. "Give me room!" He approached the gate and realized he was trembling with anticipation. He looked up at Jennings, who was standing on the tower's platform at the end of a fifteen-foot-tall ladder. "Are they white men?"

"Yes sir," Jennings answered. He was a slim drink of water with a shockpate of unruly dark brown hair and perhaps five teeth in his head, but he had the eyes of a hawk.

"Two of 'em. I mean to say ... I think they be white."

Bidwell couldn't decipher what that was supposed to mean, but neither did he want to tarry at this important moment. "Very well!" he said to Pauling and Reed. "Open it!" The log was lifted and pulled from its latch. Then Reed grasped the two wooden handgrips and drew the gate open.

Bidwell stepped forward, his arms open to embrace his savior. In another second, however, his welcoming advance abruptly stopped.

Two men stood before him: one large with a bald head, one slender with short-cropped black hair. But neither one of them was the man he'd hoped to greet.

He presumed they were white. With all the mud they wore, it was difficult to tell. The larger—and older—had on a mud-covered coat that seemed to be black under its earth daubings. He was barefoot, his skinny legs grimed with muck. The younger man wore only something that might serve as a nightshirt, and he appeared to have recently rolled on the ground in it. He did wear shoes, however filthy they might be.

The mutts were so excited by all the commotion that they began to snarl and bark their lungs out at the two arrivals, who seemed dazed at the appearance of people wearing clean clothing.

"Beggars," Bidwell said; his voice was quiet, dangerously so. He heard thunder over the wilderness, and thought it must be the sound of God laughing. His welcoming arms fell heavily to his sides. "I have been sent beggars," he said, louder, and then he began to laugh along with God. Soft at first it was, and then the laughter spiraled out of him, raucous and uncontrollable; it hurt his throat and made his eyes water, and though he ardently wanted to stop—ardently tried to stop—he found he had as much power over this laughter as if he'd been a whirligig spun by the hand of a foolish child. "Beggars!" he shouted through the wheezing. "I . . . have . . . run ... to admit beggars!"

"Sir," spoke the larger man, and he took a barefooted step forward. An expression of anger swept across his mud-splattered features. "Sir!"

Bidwell shook his head and kept laughing—there seemed to be some weeping in it as well—and he waved his hand to dismiss the wayfaring jaybird.

Isaac Woodward pulled in a deep breath. If the night of wet hell had not been enough, this crackerjack dandy was here to test his mettle. Well, his mettle broke. He bellowed, "Sir!" in his judicial voice, which was loud and sharp enough to silence for a moment even the yapping dogs. "1 am Magistrate Woodward, come from Charles Town!"

Bidwell heard; he gasped, choked on a last fragment of laughter, and then he stood staring with wide and shocked eyes at the half-naked mudpie who called himself a magistrate.

A single thought entered Bidwell's mind like a hornet's sting: // they send us anybody, it'll be a lunatic they plucked from the asylum up there!

He heard a moan, quite close. His eyelids fluttered. The world—rainstorm, voice of God, green wilderness beyond, beggars and magistrates, parasites in the apples: ruin and destruction like the shadows of vulture wings—spun around him. He took a backward step, looking for something to lean against.

There was nothing. He fell onto Harmony Street, his head full of cold gray fog, and there was cradled to sleep.

five

A KNOCK SOUNDED on the door. "Magistrate? Master Bidwell sent me to tell you the guests are arrivin'."

"I'll be there directly," Woodward answered, recognizing the housekeeper's Scottish brogue. He recalled that the last time he'd heard a knock on a door, his life had been near snuffed. Of course the mere thought of that wretch wearing the gold-striped waistcoat was enough to make him fumble in buttoning the clean pale blue shirt he had recently put on. "Damn!" he said to his reflection in the oval wall mirror.

"Sir?" Mrs. Nettles inquired beyond the door.

"I said I'd be there directly!" he told her again.

She said, "Yes sir," and walked with a heavy gait along the corridor to the room Matthew occupied.

Woodward completed the task of buttoning his shirt, which was a bit short at the sleeves and more than a bit tight across the belly. It was among a number of clothes—shirts, trousers, waistcoats, stockings, and shoes—that had been collected for himself and Matthew by their host, once Bidwell's fainting spell had been overcome and the man made aware of what had happened to their belongings. Then Bidwell, realizing his providence was at hand, had been most gracious in arranging two rooms in his mansion for their use, as well as gathering up the approximately sized clothing for them and making sure they had such necessities as freshly stropped razors and hot water for baths. Woodward had feared he'd never be able to scrub all the mud from his skin, but the last of it had come off by the administrations of a rough sponge and plenty of elbow oil.

He had previously put on a pair of black trousers—again, a shade snug but wearable—and white stockings and a pair of square-toed black shoes. Over his shirt he donned a pearl-gray silk waistcoat, loaned to him from Bidwell's own wardrobe. He checked his face again in the mirror, lamenting that he would have to meet these new people in a bareheaded and age-spotted condition, as a wig was such a personal item that asking the loan of one was out of the question. But so be it. At least he still had a head upon his neck. If truth be told, he would rather have slept the night away than be the centerpiece at Bidwell's dinner, as he was still exhausted; but he'd slumbered for three hours after his bath, and that would have to do until he could again stretch himself out on that excellent feather-mattressed four-poster behind him.

As a last precaution he opened his mouth and checked the condition of his teeth. His throat felt somewhat parched but nothing that a draught of rum couldn't satisfy. Then, smelling of sandalwood soap and lemon-oil shaving lotion, he opened the door of his spacious room and ventured out into the candle-illumed hallway.

Downstairs, he followed the sound of voices into a large wood-panelled room that stood just off the main entrance vestibule. It was arranged for a gathering, the chairs and other furniture shunted aside to afford space for movement, a polite fire burning in a white stone hearth as the rainy night had turned cool. A chandelier made of antlers hung overhead, a dozen candles flickering amid the points. Bidwell was there, wearing another opulent wig and a velvet suit the color of dark port. He was standing with two other gentlemen, and as Woodward entered the room Bidwell interrupted his conversation to say, "Ah, there's the magistrate now! Sir, how was your rest?"

"Not long enough, I fear," Woodward admitted. "The rigors of last night haven't yet been eased."

"The magistrate tells a remarkable tale!" Bidwell said to the other gentlemen. "It seems he and his scribe were almost murdered at a tavern on their way here! The rogue was evidently well versed in murder, isn't that right sir?" He lifted his eyebrows, prompting Woodward to take over the story.

"He was. My clerk saved our skins, though that's all we came away with. By necessity, we abandoned our belongings. Oh, I look forward to the morrow, Mr. Bidwell."

"The magistrate has asked me to send a party of militia there in order to regain his worldly goods," Bidwell explained to the two others. "Also to arrest that man and bring him to justice."

"I'll be going, too," Woodward said. "I wouldn't miss seeing the expression on Shawcombe's face when the iron's slapped on him."

"Will Shawcombe?" One of the gentlemen—a younger man, perhaps in his early thirties—frowned. "I've stopped at his tavern before, on my trips back and forth to Charles Town! I had my suspicions about that man's character."

"They were well founded. Furthermore, he murdered the magistrate who was on his way here two weeks ago. Thymon Kingsbury was his name."

"Let me make introductions," Bidwell said. "Magistrate Isaac Woodward, this is Nicholas Paine"—he nodded toward the younger man, and Woodward shook Paine's outstretched hand— "and Elias Garrick." Woodward grasped Garrick's hand as well. "Mr. Paine is the captain of our militia. He'll be leading the expedition to secure Mr. Shawcombe in the morning. Won't you, Nicholas?"

"My duty," Paine said, though it was obvious from the glint in his iron-gray eyes that he might resent these plans of arrest being made without his representation. "And my pleasure to serve you, Magistrate."

"Mr. Garrick is our largest farmholder," Bidwell went on. "He was also one of the first to cast his lot with me."

"Yes sir," Garrick said. "I built my house the very first month."

"Ah!" Bidwell had glanced toward the room's entrance. "Here's your scribe!"

Matthew had just walked in, wearing shoes that pinched his feet. "Good evening, sirs," he said, and managed a wan smile though he was still dog-tired and in no mood for convivialities. "Pardon my being late."

"No pardon necessary!" Bidwell motioned him in. "We were hearing about your adventure of last night."

"I'd have to call it a misadventure," Matthew said. "Surely not one I'd care to repeat."

"Gentlemen, this is the magistrate's clerk, Mr. Matthew Cor-bett," Bidwell announced. He introduced Matthew to Paine and Garrick, and hands were again shaken. "I was telling the magistrate that Mr. Paine is the captain of our militia and shall be leading—"

"—the expedition to secure Mr. Shawcombe in the morning," Paine broke in. "As it's a lengthy trip, we shall be leaving promptly at sunrise."

Woodward said, "It will be a pleasure to rise early for that satisfaction, sir."

"Very well. I'll find another man or two to take along. Will we need guns, or do you think Shawcombe'll give up without violence?"

"Guns," Woodward said. "Definitely guns."

The talk turned to other matters, notably what was happening in Charles Town, and therefore Matthew—who was wearing a white shirt and tan trousers with white stockings—had the opportunity to make quick studies of Paine and Garrick. The captain of militia was a sturdy-looking man who stood perhaps five-ten. Matthew judged him to be in the vicinity of thirty years; he wore his sand-colored hair long and pulled into a queue at the back of his head, secured with a black cord. His face was well balanced by a long, slender-bridged nose and thick blond brows that settled low over his gunmetal gray eyes. Matthew surmised from Paine's build and economy of motion that he was a no-nonsense type of man, someone who was no stranger to strenuous activity and probably an adept horseman. Paine was also no clotheshorse; his outfit consisted of a simple gray shirt, well-used leather waistcoat, dark brown trousers, gray leggings, and brown boots.

Garrick, who listened far more than he spoke, impressed Matthew as an earthy gentleman who was probably facing the dusk of his fifties. He was slim and rawboned, his gaunt-cheeked face burnt and weathered by the fierce sun of past summers. He had deeply set brown eyes, his left brow slashed and drawn upward by a small scar. His gray hair was slicked with pomade and combed straight back on his skull, and he wore cream-colored corduroy trousers, a blue shirt, and an age-buffed waistcoat that was the bright yellowish hue of some spoiled cheese Matthew once had the misfortune to inhale. Something about Garrick's expression and manner—slow-blinking, thick and labored language when he did deem to speak—made Matthew believe that the man might be the salt of the earth but was definitely limited in his selection of spices.

A young negress servant appeared with a pewter tray upon which were goblets—real cut glass, which impressed Woodward because such treasures of luxury were rarely seen in these rough-edged colonies—brimming with red wine. Bidwell urged them all to partake, and never did wine flow down two more appreciative throats than those of the magistrate and his clerk.

The ringing of a dulcet-toned bell at the front door announced the arrival of others. Two more gentlemen were escorted into the room by Mrs. Nettles, who then took her leave to attend to business in the kitchen. Woodward and Matthew had already made the acquaintance of Edward Winston, but the man with him—who limped in his walk and supported himself on a twisted cane with an ivory handle—was a stranger.

"Our schoolmaster, Alan Johnstone," Bidwell said, introducing them one to another. "We're fortunate to have Master Johnstone as part of our community. He brings to us the benefit of an Oxford education."

"Oxford?" Woodward shook the man's hand. "I too attended Oxford."

"Really? Which college, may I ask?" The schoolmaster's elegant voice, though pitched low and quiet, held a power that Woodward felt sure would serve him well securing the respectful attention of students in a classroom.

"Christ Church. And you?"

"All Souls'."

"Ah, that was a magnificent time," Woodward said, but he rested his eyes on Bidwell because he found the schoolmaster more than a little strange in appearance. Johnstone wore a dusting of white facial powder and had plucked his eyebrows thin. "I remember many nights spent studying the bottom of ale tankards at the Chequers Inn."

"I myself preferred the Golden Cross," Johnstone said with a slight smile. "Their ale was a student's delight: very strong and very cheap."

"I see we have a true scholar among us." Woodward returned the smile. "All Souls' College, eh? I expect Lord Mallard will be drunk again next year."

"In his cups, I'm sure."

As this exchange between fellow Oxfordians had been going on, Matthew had been making his own cursory study of Alan Johnstone. The schoolmaster, slim and tall, was dressed in a dark gray suit with black striping, a white ruffled shirt and a black tri-corn. He wore a simple white wig, and from the breast pocket of his jacket protruded a white lace handkerchief. With the powder on his face—and a spot of rouge highlighting each sharp cheekbone—it was difficult to guess his age, though Matthew reasoned lie was somewhere between forty and fifty. Johnstone had a long, aristocratic nose with slightly flared nostrils, narrow dark blue eyes that were not unfriendly but rather somewhat reserved in expression, and the high forehead of an intellectual. Matthew glanced quickly down and saw that Johnstone wore polished black boots ;ind white stockings, but that a misshapen lump on his right leg served him as a knee. When he looked up again, he found the schoolmaster staring into his face and he felt a blush spreading across his cheeks.

"As you're interested, young man," Johnstone said, with an uplift of his finely plucked eyebrows, "it is a defect of birth."

"Oh . . . I'm sorry. I mean ... I didn't—"

"Tut tut." Johnstone reached out and patted Matthew's shoulder. "Observance is the mark of a good mind. Would that you hone that quality, but be a shade less direct in its application."

"Yes, sir," Matthew said, wishing he might sink through the floor.

"My clerk's eyes are sometimes too large for his head," Woodward offered, as a poultice of apology. He, too, had noted the malformed knee.

"Better too large than too small, I think," returned the schoolmaster. "In this town at this present time, however, it would be wise to keep both eyes and head in moderation." He sipped his wine, as Woodward nodded at Johnstone's sagacity. "And as we are speaking of such things and it is the point of your visit here, might I ask if you've seen her yet?"

"No, not yet," Bidwell answered quickly. "I thought the magistrate should like to hear the particulars before he sets sight on her."

"Do you mean particulars, or peculiars?" Johnstone asked, which brought uneasy laughter from Winston and Paine but only a slight smile from Bidwell. "As one Oxford man to another, sir," he said to the magistrate, "I should not wish to be in your shoes."

"If you were in my shoes, sir," Woodward said, enjoying this joust with the schoolmaster's wit, "you would not be an Oxford man. You would be a candidate for the noose."

Johnstone's eyes widened a fraction. "Pardon me?"

"My shoes are in the custody of a murderer," Woodward explained, and then proceeded to paint in detail the events at Shawcombe's tavern. The judge had realized that such a tale of near-tragedy was as sure a draw to an audience as was a candle-flame to inquisitive moths, and so began to bellows the flame for all it was worth. Matthew was intrigued to find that in this go-round of the tale, the judge was certain from the beginning that Shawcombe was "a scoundrel of evil intent," and that he'd made up his mind to guard his back ere Shawcombe sank a blade into it.

As the clay of history was being reshaped, the doorbell again rang and presently Mrs. Nettles reappeared escorting another guest to the gathering. This gentleman was a slight, small-boned man who brought to Matthew's mind the image of a bantam owl perched atop a barn's beam. His face was truly owlish, with a pale pursed mouth and a hooked nose, his large pallid blue eyes swimming behind round-lensed spectacles and arched brown brows set high on his furrowed dome. He wore a plain black suit, blue shirt with ruffled cuffs, and high-topped boots. His long brown hair— streaked with gray at the temples—overhung his shoulders, his head crowned by an ebon tricorn.

"Dr. Benjamin Shields, our surgeon," Bidwell announced. "How goes it, Ben?"

"An unfortunate day, I fear," the doctor said, in a voice very much larger than himself. "Forgive my tardiness. I just came from the Chester house."

"What is Madam Chester's condition?" Winston asked.

"Lifeless." Shields removed his tricorn and handed it to Mrs. Nettles, who stood behind him like a dark wall. "Sad to say, she passed not an hour ago. It's this swamp air! It clogs the lungs and thickens the blood. If we don't have some relief soon, Robert, our shovels will see much new work. Hello!" He strode forward and offered his hand to Woodward. "You're the magistrate we've been waiting for. Thank God you've finally come!"

"As I understand it from the council in Charles Town," Woodward said after he'd shaken the doctor's hand, which he noticed was more than a little cold and clammy, "I am actually the third magistrate involved in this situation. The first perished by the plague back in March, before he could leave the city, and the second . . . well, Magistrate Kingsbury's fate was unknown until last night. This is my clerk, Matthew Corbett."

"A pleasure, young man." The doctor shook Matthew's hand. "Sir," he said, addressing Woodward again, "I care not if you are the third, thirteenth, or thirty-third magistrate involved! We just want this situation resolved, and the sooner the better." He punctuated his statement with a fiery glare over the rims of his spectacles, then he sniffed the air of the aroma that had been creeping into the room. "Ah, roasted meat! What's on the table tonight, Robert?"

"Toss 'em boys in peppercorn sauce," Bidwell said, with less vitality than a few moments previously; he was pained by the death of Dorcas Chester, a grandly aged lady whose husband Timothy was Fount Royal's tailor. Indeed, the cloth of things was unravelling. The doctor's remark about the work of shovels also made Bidwell think—uncomfortably so—of Alice Barrow's dreams.

"Dinner will be a'table presently," Mrs. Nettles told them, and then she left the room, carrying the doctor's tricorn.

Shields walked to the fireplace and warmed his hands. "A pity about Madam Chester," he said, before anyone else could venture off into new territory. "She was a fine woman. Magistrate, have you had much of a chance to inspect our town?"

"No, I haven't."

"Best hurry. At this rate of mortality, Fount Royal will have to soon be renamed Grave Common."

"Ben!" Bidwell said, rather more sharply than he'd intended. "I don't think there's any purpose in such language, do you?"

"Probably not." Shields rubbed his hands together, intent on removing from them the chill of Dorcas Chester's flesh. "Unfortunately, though, there's much truth in it. Oh, the magistrate will find out these things for himself soon enough; we may as well speed his knowledge." He looked at the schoolmaster, who stood nearby. "Alan, are you finished with that?" Without waiting for a response, he plucked the half-full wineglass from Johnstone's hand and took a hearty swallow. Then he fixed his baleful gaze full upon Isaac Woodward. "I didn't become a doctor to bury my patients, but lately I should wear an undertaker's shingle. Two last week. The little Richardson child, bless his soul, was one of them. Now Dorcas Chester. Who shall I be sending off next week?"

"This does no good," Bidwell said firmly. "I urge you to restrain yourself."

"Restrain myself." The doctor nodded and gazed into the glass's shallow pond of red wine. "Robert, I've restrained myself too long. I have grown weary of restraining myself."

"The weather is to blame," Winston spoke up. "Surely these rains will pass soon, and then we'll—"

"It's not just the weather!" Shields interrupted, with a defiant uplift of his sharp-boned chin. "It's the spirit of this place now. It's the darkness here." He drank again, finishing off the glass. "A darkness at noon the same as at midnight," he said, his lips wet. "These sicknesses are spreading. Sick of spirit, sick of body. They're linked, gentlemen. One regulates the other. I saw how Madam Chester's sickness of spirit robbed her body of health. I saw it, and there wasn't a damned thing I could do. Now Timothy's spirit has been blighted with the contagion. How long will it be before I'm attending his demise?"

"Pardon me, sir," Garrick said, before Bidwell could deliver a rebuke. "When you say the sickness is spreadin' ... do you mean ..." He hesitated, as he fit together exactly what he desired to say. "Do you mean we're facin' the plague?"

"Careful, Benjamin," the schoolmaster cautioned in a quiet voice.

"No, that's not what he means!" Bidwell said heatedly. "The doctor's distraught about Madam Chester's passing, that's all! Tell him you're not speaking of plague, Ben."

The doctor paused and Matthew thought he was about to announce that plague indeed had come to Fount Royal. But instead, Shields released his breath in a long weary sigh and said, "No, I'm not speaking of plague. At least, not plague caused by any physical power."

"What the good doctor means, I believe," said Johnstone to Garrick, "is that the town's current spiritual. . . um . . . vulnerability is affecting the physical health of us all."

"You mean the witch is makin' us sick," Garrick said, thick-tongued.

Bidwell decided it was time to stop these floodwaters, ere the dam break when Garrick—who was a proficient farmer but whose intellect in less earthy things was lacking—repeated these musings around the community. "Let us look to the future and not to the past, gentlemen! Elias, our deliverance is at hand in the magistrate. We should put our trust in the Lord and the law, and forbid ourselves of these destructive ramblings."

Garrick looked to Johnstone for translation. "He means not to worry," the schoolmaster said. "And I'm of the same opinion. The magistrate will resolve our difficulties."

"You put great faith in me, sirs." Woodward felt both puffed and burdened by these attentions. "I hope I meet your expectations."

"You'd better." Shields had put aside the empty glass. "The fate of this settlement is in your hands."

"Gentlemen?" Mrs. Nettles loomed in the doorway. "Dinner's a'table."

The banquet room, toward the rear of the house next to the kitchen, was a marvel of dark-timbered walls, hanging tapestries, and a fieldstone fireplace as wide as a wagon. Above the hearth was the mounted head of a magnificent stag, and displayed on both sides of it was a collection of muskets and pistols. Neither Woodward nor Matthew had expected to find a mansion out here on the coastal swampland, but a room like this—which might have served as the centerpiece in a British castle—rendered them both speechless. Above a huge rectangular table was an equally huge candlelit chandelier supported from the ceiling by thick nautical chains, and upon the floor was a carpet as red as beef-blood. The groaning board was covered with platters of food, principal among them the roasted toss 'em boys still asizzle in their juices.

"Magistrate, you sit here beside me," Bidwell directed; it was clear to Matthew that Bidwell relished his position of power, and that he was obviously a man of uncommon wealth. Bidwell had the places already chosen for his guests, and Matthew found himself seated on a pewlike bench between Garrick and Dr. Shields. Another young negress servant girl came through a doorway from the kitchen bringing wooden tankards of what proved to be—when Woodward tried a tentative sip, remembering the bite of the Indian ale—cold water recently drawn from the spring.

"Shall we have a prayer of thanks?" Bidwell asked before the first blade pierced the roasted and peppercorn-spiced chicken. "Master Johnstone, would you do the honors?"

"Surely." Johnstone and the others bowed their heads, and the schoolmaster gave a prayer that appreciated the bounties of the table, praised God for His wisdom in bringing the magistrate safely to Fount Royal, and asked for an abatement to the rains if that was indeed in God's divine plan. While Johnstone was praying, however, the muffled sound of thunder heralded the approach of another storm, and Johnstone's "Amen" sounded to Matthew as if the schoolmaster had spoken it through clenched teeth.

"Let us sup," Bidwell announced.

Knives flashed in the candlelight, spearing roasted toss 'em boys—a title rarely used in these modern days except by sportsmen who recalled the gambler's game of setting dogs upon chickens to bet upon which dog would "toss" the greatest number. A moment of spirited jabbing by Bidwell's guests was followed by tearing the meat from its bones with teeth and fingers. Hunks of the heavy, coarse-grained jonakin bread that tasted of burnt corn and could sit in a belly like a church brick found use in sopping up the greasy juices. Platters of steaming beans and boiled potatoes were there for the taking, and a servant girl brought a communal, beautifully worked silver tankard full of spiced rum with which to wash everything down the gullet.

Rain began to drum steadily on the roof. Soon it was apparent to Matthew that the banquet had drawn a number of unwelcome guests: large, buzzing horseflies and—more bothersome—mosquitoes that hummed past the ears and inflicted itching welts. In a lull of the idle conversation—which was interrupted quite frequently by the slapping at an offensive fly or mosquito—Bidwell took a drink from the rum tankard and passed it to the magistrate. Then Bidwell cleared his throat, and Woodward knew it was time to get to the heart of the matter.

"I should ask you what you know of the situation here, sir," Bidwell said, with chicken grease gleaming on his chin.

"I know only what the council told me. In essence, that you have in your gaol a woman accused of witchcraft."

Bidwell nodded; he picked up a bone from his plate and sucked on it. "Her name is Rachel Howarth. She's a mixed breed, English and Portuguese. In January, her husband Daniel was found dead in a field with his throat cut."

"His head almost severed from the neck," the doctor added.

"And there were other wounds on the body," Bidwell went on. Made by the teeth or claws of a beast. On his face, his arms, his hands." He returned the naked bone to his plate and picked up another that still held a bit of meat. "Whatever killed him . . . was ferocious, to say the least. But his was not the first death in such a fashion."

"The Anglican minister, Burlton Grove," Johnstone spoke up, reaching for the silver tankard. "He was murdered in a similar way in November. His corpse was found in the church by his wife. Widow, I should say. She very soon afterward left town."

"Understandable," Woodward said. "You have a minister at present?"

"No," Bidwell said. "I've been presenting sermons from time to time. Also Dr. Shields, Master Johnstone, and several others. We had a Lutheran here for a while, to serve the Germans, but he spoke very little English and he left last summer."

"The Germans?"

"That's right. At one point, we had a number of German and Dutch families. There are still. . . oh . . ." He looked to Winston for help. "How many, would you say?"

"Seven German families," Winston supplied. He swung a hand at a mosquito that drifted past his face. "Two Dutch."

"Edward is my town manager," Bidwell explained to the magistrate. "He takes care of the accounting, a position in which he served for my shipping company in London."

"Would I know the name of your company?" Woodward asked.

"The Aurora. You might've come over on one of my ships."

"Possibly. You're a long way from the center of commerce here, aren't you?"

"Not so far. My two sons are now at the helm, and my wife and daughter remain in London also. But I trust the young men to do what has to be done. In the meantime, I am busy in furthering the future of my company."

"In Fount Royal? How?"

Bidwell smiled slightly, like a cat that has swallowed the canary. "It must be apparent to you, sir, that I hold the southernmost settlement in these colonies. You must be aware that the Spaniards are not too far from here, down in the Florida land." He beckoned for Dr. Shields to pass him the rum tankard. "It is my intent," he said, "to create a city out of Fount Royal that will rival... no, surpass Charles Town as a point of trade between the colonies and the Indies. In time, I shall base my company here to take advantage of such trade. I expect to have a military presence here in the future, as the King is interested that the Spanish don't pursue their territorial greed in a northerly direction." He grasped the tankard's handle and downed a swig. "Another reason to create a naval base at Fount Royal is to intercept the pirates and privateers who regularly attack ships carrying freight from the Indies. And who should build those naval vessels, do you think?" He cocked his head to one side, awaiting Woodward's reply.

"Yourself, of course."

"Of course. Which also means the construction of docks, warehouses, lumberyards, homes for the officers . . . well, you can see the profit in the picture, can't you?"

"I can," Woodward said. "I presume you would build a better road between here and Charles Town, as well?"

"In time, Magistrate," Bidwell answered, "the councilmen of Charles Town will build the road. Oh, I expect I'll meet them halfway and we'll make some kind of compromise." He shrugged. "But it will be obvious to them that Fount Royal is better situated as a port city and naval base, and they'll need the trade I send them."

Woodward grunted softly. "Lofty ambitions, sir. I suspect the councilmen must already know your plans. That may be part of why it took so long to get a magistrate here."

"Likely so. But I'm not planning on running Charles Town out of the shipping business. I simply saw an opportunity. Why the founders of Charles Town didn't elect to build as far south as possible, I don't know. I expect it had to do with the rivers there, and their need for fresh water. But the spring, you see, gives us all the fresh water we need. Plenty enough to fill barrels for thirsty sailors from the Indies, that's a certainty!"

"Uh . . . sir?" Matthew said, scratching at a mosquito bite on his right cheek. "If these plans of yours are so clear . . . then why is it you haven't yet begun building your docks and warehouses?"

Bidwell glanced quickly at Winston. Matthew thought it was a glance of nervous communication. "Because," Bidwell said, directing a hard stare at Matthew, "first things are first." He pushed his plate of bones aside and folded his hands on the table. "It is just like the building of a ship, young man. You do not mount the mast first, you lay the keel. As it will take several years to drain the swampland and prepare the necessary details before construction of the docks can begin, I must make sure that Fount Royal is self-supporting. Which means that the farmers"—here he gave a nod of acknowledgment to Garrick—"are able to raise sufficient crops; that the cobbler, tailor, blacksmith, and other craftsmen are able to work and thrive; that we have a sturdy schoolhouse and church and an atmosphere of purpose and security; and that we have a yearly increase in population."

He paused after this recitation, and regarded the plate of bones as darkly as if they were the ribs of the burned houses that littered Fount Royal. "I regret to speak the truth," he said after a few seconds of grim silence, "but very few of those conditions have come to pass. Oh, our farmers are doing the best they can, as the weather is doing its worst, but the fight is all uphill. We have the staples—corn, beans, and potatoes—and the game is abundant. But as far as producing a commerce crop such as cotton or tobacco . . . the attempts have not met with success. We are losing our population at a rapid rate, both to illness and ..." Again, he hesitated. He took a pained breath. "And to fear of the witch," he went on. Then he looked into Woodward's eyes.

"It is my passionate dream," Bidwell said, "to create a town here. To build from it a port city that shall be the pride of my possessions. In truth, sir, I have strained my accounts to see that dream become a reality. I have never failed at anything. Never." He lifted his chin a fraction, as if daring a blow from the fist of fate. Woodward noticed that on it was a large, reddening insect bite. "I am not going to fail here," he said, with iron in his voice, and this time he swept his gaze around the table to take in the rest of his audience. "I refuse to fail," he told them. "No damned witch, warlock, nor cloven-hooved ass shall destroy Fount Royal so long as I have a drop of blood in my body, and that's my vow to all of you!"

"Your vow finds a brother in mine, sir," Paine said. "I won't run from a woman, even if she is licking the devil's buttocks."

"More like sucking his cock," the doctor said. His voice was a little slurred, indicating that the wine and rum had together overrun his fortifications. "Isn't that right, Elias?"

The attention of the magistrate and his clerk turned toward Garrick, whose weathered face had blushed a shade red. "Yes sir, it is," the farmer agreed. "I seen the witch on her knees, tendin' to her master in such a way."

"One moment." Woodward had felt his heart give a kick. "You mean to say . . . you actually witnessed such a thing?"

"I did," came the answer without hesitation. "I seen Rachel Howarth on her knees, in the dirt. He was standin' in front of her, with his hands on his hips. She had hold of. . ." He stopped, and squirmed uneasily on the bench.

"Go on," Bidwell urged. "Tell the magistrate exactly what you saw."

"It... it was . .. awful big," Garrick struggled onward, "and ... it was black and shiny. Wet-lookin', like a snail. And . . . the worst thing was that ... it ..." He glanced for help first to Johnstone and then to Shields, but both those gentlemen had chosen to stare at their plates. Garrick forced himself to look at the magistrate and finish what he'd begun. "It was covered with thorns," he said, and instantly he dropped his gaze to his own plate.

"Thorns," Woodward repeated; he felt a little lightheaded himself, whether from the rum or the impact of this testimony he didn't know.

"Mr. Garrick?" Matthew leaned forward. "What did the man's face look like?"

"His face?"

"Yes, sir. I presume you saw his face?"

"Well . . ." Garrick frowned, his eyes downcast. "I was might scared. I don't reckon I got a good look at that part of him."

"Hell's bells, boy!" Shields said, with a harsh laugh. "If you'd taken a gander at a woman sucking a foot-long black pecker covered with thorns, would you have looked at the face hanging over it?"

"I don't know," Matthew replied calmly. "I've never been in that position before."

"He was wearing a cloak and a cowl over his head. Isn't that what you told me, Elias?" Bidwell prompted.

"Yes sir, that he was. A black cloak, with gold buttons on the front. I seen 'em shine in the moonlight." Garrick paused once more; he swallowed thickly, his eyes glassy from the memory of what he'd witnessed. "Where his face was . . . was just dark, that's all. Like a hole you could look into and not see the bottom of. I was might scared, 'bout to wet my britches. I stood there, starin' at 'em. Both of 'em, right there behind the barn. Then all of a sudden he musta spied me . . . 'cause he said my name. Spoke it like he knew me. He said, 'Elias Garrick, do you like what you see?'" Garrick lifted trembling fingers and ran them across his lips. "I . . . wanted to run. I tried, but he had me rooted. He made me open my mouth. Made me say 'Yes.' Then he . . . laughed, and he let me go. I ran home, but I was too scared to wake up my 'Becca. I didn't tell her ... I couldn't bear to tell her. But I did go to Mr. Paine, and then he took me to see Mr. Bidwell."

"And you're positive the woman you saw ... uh ... in service to this creature was Rachel Howarth?" Woodward asked.

"Yes sir, I am. My farm's right next to the Howarth land. That night I had me some stomach trouble, and I woke up and went outside to spew. Then I seen somebody walkin' 'cross the Howarth cornfield, near where Jess Maynard found Daniel's body. I thought it was might strange, somebody walkin' in the dark with no lantern, so I crossed the fence and followed. Went behind the barn, and that's where I seen what I did."

"You saw the woman's face, then?" Matthew asked.

"Back to the face he goes again!" Dr. Shields scoffed.

"I seen her hair," the farmer went on. "I seen . . . well... by the time I'd got there, she was out of her clothes."

"The woman was naked?" Woodward, on an impulse, reached for the tankard. There was a single drink left in it, which he made disappear.

"Naked, yes sir." Garrick nodded. "It was her, all right. Rachel Howarth, the witch." He looked from Woodward to his host and then back again to the magistrate. "Who else would it've been?"

"No one else," Bidwell said flatly. "Magistrate, you do know your daemoniacals, do you not?"

"I do."

"The witch has all but admitted a hand in murdering Reverend Grove and her husband. She has the marks, and she cannot recite the Lord's Prayer. She has the evil eye, and—most telling of all—a number of straw poppets that she fashioned to trance her victims were found hidden beneath a floorboard in her house. Rachel Howarth is most certainly a witch, and she along with her black-cocked master have almost succeeded in destroying my town."

"Mastuh Bidwell?" The voice had come from the kitchen doorway. A man with flesh as black as polished ebony stood there, peering into the dining room. The sight of such a crow coming on the heels of the discussion was startling enough to drive spikes of alarm through both Woodward and his clerk.

"Yes, Goode! Come in, we need your talents!"

The black man entered the room. He was a carrying a wooden box and something bound in a burlap wrapping. Matthew watched as the man—white-haired and ancient but moving with strong purpose and youthful posture—set the wooden box down in a corner. His coarse-clothed suit of thin gray stripes against darker gray was damp, indicating a walk of some distance through the rain. He unwrapped the burlap, exposing a wheaten-colored violin and its bow; then he stood upon the box and began to pluck and tune the violin's strings, his lean black face tilted to one side to cup the notes in an ear. As the instrument was being tuned, two negress servants came in to clear away the plates, while a third carried a burning candle.

Bidwell had produced a golden snuffbox from his jacket. He opened it and placed a pinch into both nostrils. "Now," he said after he'd snorted, "I think she should be hanged here, instead of transported to Charles Town. I believe it will do the citizens well to see her swing, and know she's good and gone. Magistrate, I'll give you the day tomorrow, to go about your business of reclaiming your property from that villain tavern-keeper. But might you see fit to pass sentence on the following day?"

"Well. . ." Woodward looked around the table. Dr. Shields was involved in his own ritual of snuff-pinching, both Johnstone and Garrick were lighting up pipes—the former a smooth briar and the latter a corncob—from the servant girl's candleflame, and Paine had drawn a leather holder from within his waistcoat. Only Winston watched the magistrate with full attention. "Well," Woodward repeated, "I. . . don't know if—"

"Mr. Bidwell, sir?" Garrick interrupted, as one of the girls reached for his plate. "Could I ask you to let me take this here piece a' chicken home to 'Becca? She sure would like a taste of it."

"Yes, of course. Naomi, take that chicken and have it wrapped for Mr. Garrick. Put some beans and potatoes in with it as well, also a slice of the vanilla cake. Our excellent dessert shall be out shortly, gentlemen." Bidwell's eyes, still watering from the snuff's sting, swung back toward the magistrate. "Will you pass sentence on the witch day after tomorrow, sir?"

"I . . . I'm afraid I can't." He felt the beginnings of a terrible itch at the back of his neck, and placing his fingers there he found he'd been pierced at least twice by a true leviathan.

"What, then? You need another day to compose yourself?"

"No, sir," Woodward said; he saw a quick flash of flame in the other man's stare. "I am a servant of the law," he continued. "I am compelled to speak to the witch—the woman, I mean— and also to witnesses both against her and in her favor."

"There's no one here in her favor!" Winston said, rather loudly; he too was feeling the rum sway his decks. "Excepting one, and I doubt you'd be pleased to be visited by such a witness!"

"Not only that," spoke Paine, who had withdrawn from his leather holder a slim brown cylinder, "but many of the people who saw her in the act of communion with her master have already fled." He put the cylinder into his mouth and leaned toward the offered candle, touching its tip to the flame. Blue smoke puffed from his lips. "Possibly there are two or three witnesses left, but that's all."

"She's a damn witch, and I seen her with my own good eyes!" Garrick said forcefully to Woodward. "Nicholas was the one found the poppets! I was right there with James Reed and Kelvin Bonnard, we seen him bring them poppets out of the floor! She can't speak the Lord's Prayer, and she's got the Devil's marks on her! What more do you need to hang her?"

"What more, indeed?" Shields's nostrils were flecked with snuff. The brown powder had dusted his lapels. "My God, man! The sooner she dances on the rope, the better we'll all—"

Scrrrowllllll, went a noise like a cat whose tail had been stomped. So loud and disagreeable was the sound that all present jumped in their seats and one of the servant girls dropped her plates. A silence remained, punctuated only by the rain on the roof.

"Beg pardon," Goode said, staring at the floor. His bow was poised over the quivering strings. "A bad note." Without waiting for a response, he lowered the bow and began to play in earnest— quietly this time, and much more tunefully as well. Tones as sweet as butterscotch wafted through the smoky room, and as Goode played he closed his eyes to commune with the music.

Johnstone cleared his throat and removed the pipe from between his teeth. "The magistrate is correct, Robert. If the woman is to be hanged, it must be done by the letter of the law. I say bring the witnesses forward and let them speak. Let the magistrate interview Madam Howarth as well, and divine for himself whether she's a witch or not."

"Foolishness!" Garrick scowled. "It's just givin' her time to do more harm!"

"Elias, we are not uncivilized men." The schoolmaster's voice had softened. "We are in the process of building a vital city here, so the more reason not to sully its future with our present actions." He inserted the pipestem into his mouth again and drew on it, as Goode continued to display a wondrous pleasing knowledge of harmony and timing. "I suggest the magistrate handle this situation as he sees fit," Johnstone said. "How long can it take? A week? Am I correct?" He looked at Woodward for a response.

"You are," Woodward said, with a brief nod of thanks for Johnstone's smoothing of these rough waters.

Bidwell started to say something, his face blighted with frustration as well as with insect bites, but then he thought twice about it and his mouth closed. He dug out his snuffbox again and once more indulged. "Damn," he said quietly. "You're right." He snapped the box shut. "We don't want to become a mob here, do we? Then that black-cocked bastard would have the last laugh on us."

The violin's melody never faltered. Goode's eyes were still closed.

"Very well, then." Bidwell smacked the table's edge with his palm as a way of enforcing his judgment, much as Woodward would've used his gavel. "I grant you one week to interview the witch and the witnesses."

"Kindly appreciated," Woodward answered, not without a hint of sarcasm at being rushed into what he considered an odious task.

While this small contest of wills had been going on, Matthew had been interested in watching Nicholas Paine. In particular, Paine's method of partaking tobacco by lighting up a tightly rolled leaf. Matthew had seen this only twice before, as it was very rare in the English kingdom of snuff-pinchers and pipesmen; it was called, as he understood it, smoking in the "Spanish style."

Paine took a puff, released the blue smoke into the thickened air, and suddenly turned his head to look directly into Matthew's face. "Your eyes have gotten large, young man. Might I ask what you're staring at?"

"Uh . . ." Matthew resisted the urge to avert his gaze. He decided in another second that he didn't care to make an issue of this, though he didn't quite understand why his mind told him to make a note of it. "Nothing, sir," he said. "My pardon."

Paine lowered the smoking stick—Matthew thought it was called a "cigar"—and directed his attention to his host. "If I'm going to lead this expedition at sunrise, I'd best find two or three other men to go along." He stood up. "Thank you for the dinner and the company. Magistrate, I'll meet you at the public stable. It's behind the blacksmith's shop on Industry Street. Good night to you all." He nodded, as the other men—excepting Bidwell and Dr. Shields—stood as a matter of courtesy, and then he left the dining room with a brisk stride, the "cigar" gripped between his teeth.

"Nicholas seemed ill at sorts," Johnstone said after Paine was gone; he grasped his deformed knee for extra support as he eased himself onto the bench again. "This situation has gotten the best of all of us."

"Yes, but the dawn of our dark night has arrived." Bidwell looked over his shoulder. "Goode!" The black man immediately stopped playing and lowered the violin. "Are there any more turtles in the spring?" Bidwell asked.

"Yes, suh. They be some big ones." His voice was as mellow as the violin's.

"Catch us one tomorrow. Magistrate, we'll have turtle soup in our bowls for dinner. Would that suit you?"

"Very much," Woodward said, scratching another massive welt on his forehead. "I pray that all goes well with our hunting party on the morrow. If you want a hanging in your town, I'd be glad to pass sentence on Shawcombe as soon as we return."

"That might be splendid!" Bidwell's eyes lit up. "Yes! To show the citizens that the wheels of justice are indeed in motion! That would be a fine sippet before the main course! Goode, play us something merry!"

The black servant lifted his violin again and began another tune; it was faster and more lively than the one previous, but Matthew thought it was still more tinged with melancholy than merriment. Goode's eyes closed again, sealing himself off from his circumstances.

The vanilla cake arrived, along with another tankard of rum. Talk of Rachel Howarth dwindled, while Bidwell's talk of his plans for Fount Royal increased. Matthew found himself drifting, itching in a dozen places and longing for the embrace of the bed in his room. The candles burned low in the overhead chandelier. Garrick excused himself and went home, followed soon afterward by the schoolmaster. Dr. Shields, after imbibing much of the fresh tankard, laid his head upon the table and so departed the company. Bidwell dismissed Goode, who carefully wrapped the violin in the burlap before he braved the weather. Winston also began to drowse in his chair, his head thrown back and his mouth open. Woodward's eyes were heavy, his chin dropping. At last their host stood up, yawned, and stretched.

"I'll take my leave of you," Bidwell announced. "I hope you both sleep well."

"I'm sure we shall, thank you."

"If there's anything you need, Mrs. Nettles will be at your service. I trust your endeavors tomorrow will be successful." He started out of the room, then halted on the threshold. "Magistrate, don't put yourself at risk. Paine can handle a pistol. Let him and his men do the dirty work, as I require you for a higher purpose. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Good night then, gentlemen." Bidwell turned and left the dining room, and in a moment could be heard tromping up the staircase to his own quarters.

Woodward regarded the two sleepers, to make sure they were both unconscious, and then said to Matthew, "Nothing like a command performance to sharpen the wits, eh? One week to decide the fate of a woman I've never met. Even the cold-hearted murderers in Newgate prison are afforded more time than that. Well . . ." He stood up, his vision bleary. "I'm to bed. Good night."

"Good night, sir," Matthew replied. After the magistrate had trudged out, Matthew got up from the bench and retrieved the empty tankard near Dr. Shields's outstretched hand. He stared into it, recalling the tankard in which Shawcombe had dropped the gold coin. A Spanish coin, taken from an Indian. What was an Indian doing with a Spanish coin? This question had needled him all day, daring him to find an answer. It was still there, something that required clearing away before he could fully concentrate on his clerking duties and the case of the witch. Possibly Shawcombe could be persuaded to shed more light on it, before he swung.

Tomorrow was sure to be an interesting day. Mathew returned the tankard to the table, then wearily climbed the stairs to his room. Within a few minutes he was asleep in his borrowed clothes.

six

FIRST PROVIDENCE HAD BROUGHT the magistrate and his clerk to Shawcombe's wretched little tavern, and now necessity had returned them.

There stood the place, festering alongside the muddy track. As he saw it come into view, Woodward felt his guts tighten. He and Matthew were sitting in a wagon whose team of horses was guided by Malcolm Jennings, he of the hawkish eye and toothless mouth. On the left, Nicholas Paine sat easily astride a burly chestnut stallion while on the right a third militiaman named Duncan Tyler—an older man, his beard gray and face seamed with wrinkles but his attitude right and eager for the job at hand—mounted a black horse. The journey from Fount Royal had taken well over three hours, and even though the rain had ceased before dawn the sky was still pale gray with clouds. The onset of an oppressive, damp heat had caused steam to rise from the muck. All the travellers were wet with sweat under their shirts, the horses ill tempered and stubborn.

Still fifty yards from the tavern, Paine lifted his hand as a signal for Jennings to halt the wagon. "Wait here," he commanded, and he and Tyler rode their horses on to the tavern's door. Paine reined his steed and dismounted. He brought his wheel-lock pistol from his saddlebag and inserted a spanner to properly wind and prepare the mechanism. Tyler got off his horse and, a readied wheel-lock pistol also in hand, followed the captain of militia up onto the tavern's porch.

Matthew and the magistrate watched as Paine balled up his fist and pounded the door. "Shawcombe!" they heard him call. "Open up!"

There was no response. Matthew expected at any second to hear the ugly crack of a pistol shot. The door was unlatched, and the force of Paine's fist had made it creak open a few inches. Inside was not a glimmer of light. "Shawcombe!" Paine shouted warily. "You'll be better served by showing yourself!" Still no response.

"They're like to get they heads blowed off," Jennings said, both hands gripping the reins and his knuckles white.

Paine put one boot against the door and kicked it wide open.

"Careful," Woodward breathed.

Paine and Tyler entered the tavern. The others waited, Matthew and Woodward expecting to hear shouts and shots. But no such things happened. Presently Paine reappeared. He held his pistol down at his side and motioned for Jennings to bring the wagon and the passengers the rest of the distance.

"Where are they?" Woodward asked as he climbed down from the wagon. "Didn't you find them?"

"No sir. It appears they've cleared out."

"Damn it!" Heat rose into Woodward's face. "That cunning bastard! But wait, there's the barn to be searched!"

"Duncan!" Paine called into the tavern's gloom. "I'm going back to the barn!" He started off, slogging through the mud, and Matthew followed at a distance respectful of any gunfire that might erupt from the barn or the forest. Matthew quickly noted that things had indeed changed: the horses were no longer in their corral, which was wide open, and the pigs were gone as well. The rooster, hens, and chicks were likewise vanished. The barn door was slightly ajar, its locking timber lying in the mud nearby. Paine lifted his pistol again. "Come out of there!" he called toward the entrance. "I won't hesitate to shoot!"

But again, no one replied. Paine glanced sharply back at Matthew as a warning to remain where he was, then he walked forward and pulled the barn door open wider. He peered in, his pistol ready for any sudden movement. He drew a breath to steel himself and walked inside.

Matthew waited, his heart pounding. Presently, Paine emerged with his pistol lowered. "Not in there," he said. "I found two wagons, but no horses."

Then they were well and truly fled, Matthew thought. Probably when Shawcombe realized his intended victims might reach Fount Royal, he knew his reign had ended. "I'll show you where Shawcombe buried the bodies," he told Paine, and led him around behind the barn toward the woods. Back there, where the water-soaked earth had given way and revealed Shawcombe's misdeeds, a small storm cloud of flies swirled above the grisly remains. Paine put one hand over his mouth and nose to stifle the smell and approached the gravepit, but only close enough for a quick look before he retreated.

"Yes," he said, his face gone pasty-gray. "I see the picture."

Matthew and Paine returned to the tavern. Tyler had opened most of the shutters, allowing the daylight to overrun Shawcombe's sorry domain. With the onset of such illumination, the rats that had been making carnival in every room put up a fierce and indignant squealing and fled for their holes, save one large individual that bared its teeth and might've attacked had not Tyler's right boot dealt the first and bone-breaking blow. Jennings was happily busying himself by collecting such items as lanterns, wooden bowls, spoons and knives, and other small utensils that could be easily carted home. Matthew found the magistrate standing in the room from which they'd escaped; the light revealed the shattered door and on the floorboards the dark brown stains of Shawcombe's blood.

"Gone," Woodward said grimly. "Everything, gone."

And so it was. Their luggage—the two trunks and the wig box, the valise containing Matthew's writing quills, inkpot, and tablet—had disappeared.

"My waistcoat." Woodward might've sunken down onto the straw pallet, but evidence of rodent habitation prevented him, even though he felt weak enough to faint. "That animal Shawcombe has taken my waistcoat, Matthew." He looked into the younger man's face, and Matthew saw that his eyes were damp with soul-deep anguish. "I'll never get it back now," he said. "Never."

"It was just a garment, " Matthew answered, and instantly he knew it was the wrong thing to say because the magistrate winced as if he'd been physically struck.

"No." Woodward slowly shook his head; he stood stoop-shouldered, as if crushed by a tremendous sadness. "It was my life."

"Magistrate?" Paine called. He looked into the room before Woodward could rouse himself to respond. "They haven't been gone very long. The fire's still banked. Did you find your belongings?"

"No. They've been taken."

"Oh, I'm sorry. You had some items of value?"

"Very much value, yes. Shawcombe took everything."

"This is a strange state of affairs," Matthew said, after a moment of thought. He went to the open window and stared toward the barn. "There are no horses here, but Shawcombe left two wagons. I presume one of those is ours. Shawcombe took our luggage and his pigs and chickens, but he left behind the lanterns. I'd say a good lantern is as valuable as a hen, wouldn't you?"

"Hey, hey! Looky what I done found!" came a happy cry from the front room. Paine hurried to see what the discovery was, followed by the magistrate and Matthew.

Jennings, who'd uncovered a burlap sack in which to deposit his booty, was holding a wooden tankard. His lips were wet, his eyes shiny. "Rum!" he said. "This was a-settin' right on that table over there! Might be a bottle 'round somewhere. We oughta hunt it down a'fore we—"

"One moment," Matthew said, and he approached the man and took the tankard from him. Without another word, Matthew held the tankard over the nearest table and upended it.

"Great God, boy!" Jennings squalled as the drink poured out. "Are you era—" Plink!

A gold coin had fallen from the bottom of the murky brown liquid. Matthew picked it up and looked closely at it, but he already knew what it was. "It's a Spanish piece," he said. "Shawcombe told me he got it off a dead Indian. I saw him drop it in that tankard."

"Let me see that!" Paine reached out for it, and Matthew gave it up. Paine walked closer to a window, the better to inspect the coin's details. Tyler stood behind him, looking at the coin over Paine's shoulder. "You're right, it is Spanish," the militia captain said. "You say Shawcombe got it from a dead Indian?"

"That's what he claimed."

"Strange. Why would an Indian be in possession of Spanish gold?"

"Shawcombe believed there was—" Matthew suddenly stopped. A Spanish spy hereabouts, he had been meaning to say. But he had the mental image of Paine lighting his cigar at the banquet last night. Smoking in the Spanish style. Who had taught Paine to take his tobacco in that fashion?

Matthew recalled, as well, something else that Shawcombe had said about this Spanish spy: Hell, he might even be livin' in Fount Royal, an Englishman turned blackcoat!

"Believed what?" Paine's voice was quiet and controlled; his fist had closed around the gold piece.

"He . . . said ..." Matthew hesitated, thinking furiously. He couldn't make out the expression on Paine's face, as the steamy light held Paine in silhouette. "He . . . believed the Indians might have found pirate's gold," Matthew finished, lamely.

"Pirate's gold?" Jennings had sniffed a new intoxication. "Where? 'Round here?"

"Steady, Malcolm," Paine warned. "One coin does not make a fortune. We've had no squall with pirates, nor do we wish to." He cocked his head to one side and Matthew could tell his brain-wheels were turning. "Shawcombe was wrong," he said. "No black-flagger in his right mind would bury his loot in redskin wilderness. They hide their gold where they can easily get to it, but it would be a poor pirate whose winnings could be found and unearthed by savages."

"I imagine so," Matthew said, unwilling to dig his grave of deceit any deeper.

"Still . . . how else would an Indian get hold of this? Unless there was a shipwreck, and somehow this washed up. Intriguing, wouldn't you say, Magistrate?"

"Another possibility," Woodward ventured, "that a Spaniard gave it to the Indian, down in the Florida country."

"No, the redskins around here wouldn't travel that far. The tribes in the Florida country would make sure to part the scalps from their skulls."

"Stranger still," Matthew spoke up, wanting to divert this line of discourse, "is the fact that Shawcombe left that coin in the tankard."

"He must'a been in an almighty hurry to get out," Jennings said.

"But he took the time to gather up our luggage and his pigs and chickens? I think not." Matthew swept his gaze around the room. Nothing was disturbed; no tables overthrown, no blood nor evidence of violence. The hearth was still warm, the cooking kettles still in the ashes. There was no hint of what had happened to Shawcombe or the others. Matthew found himself thinking about the girl; what had become of her, as well? "I don't know," he said, thinking aloud. "But I do know Shawcombe would never have left that coin. Under ordinary circumstances, I mean."

Paine gave a soft grunt. He worked the coin with his fingers for a few seconds, and then he held it out to Matthew. "This is yours, I suppose. It's most likely all the revenge you'll have from Shawcombe."

"Revenge is not our aim, sir," Woodward said curtly. "Justice is. And I must say that justice has been cheated this day."

"Well, I don't think Shawcombe's going to return here." Paine bent down and picked up the burnt stub of a candle from the floor. "I would offer to stay the night and keep watch, but I don't care to be eaten alive." He looked uneasily around at the room's shadowy corners, from which some agitated squeaking could still be heard. "This is a place only Linch could abide."

"Who?" the magistrate asked.

"Gwinett Linch. Our ratcatcher in Fount Royal. Even he might wake up with his legs chewed off in this damn hovel." Paine tossed the candlestub into one of the dark corners. Something large scuttled for safety. "I saw tack and harness in the barn. Duncan, you and I can hitch our horses to the magistrate's wagon and let them take it back. Is that agreeable to you, Magistrate?"

"Absolutely."

"All right, then. I say we quit this place." Paine and Tyler went outside to discharge their pistols into the air, because the firing mechanisms, once wound, were as dangerous as coiled vipers. Tyler's pistol fired immediately, but Paine's threw sparks and went off only after a sputtering delay.

Within a half hour, the horses were harnessed to the recovered wagon and Woodward was at the reins, following the first wagon on the swampy trail back to Fount Royal. Matthew occupied the uncomfortable plank beside the magistrate, while Paine and Tyler rode with Malcolm Jennings; he looked back at Shawcombe's tavern before they left it from sight, imagining what the place would be like in a few days—or, forbid the thought, a few weeks—of uninterrupted rodent dominion. The image of the young girl, who had seemed to be only a bystander to her master's crimes, again came to him, and he couldn't help but wonder why God could be so cruel. But she was gone to her fate—as they all were—and there was nothing more to be done. With that thought he turned his gaze from the past and aimed it toward the future.

Matthew and Woodward were alone together for the first time since their arrival at Fount Royal, as their walk from Bidwell's mansion to the public stable this morning had been escorted by a young black servant boy on Mrs. Nettles's command. It was, therefore, the first opportunity Matthew had to make remarks about their dinner companions of the night before without the ears of strangers between them.

But it was the magistrate who first grasped the chance to speak freely. "What do you make of Paine, Matthew?"

"He seems to know his work."

"Yes, he does. He seems also to know the work of. . . That term he used: a 'black-flagger' . . . Interesting."

"How so?"

"In New York some years ago ... 1 believe it was 1693 or thereabouts ... I sat at the docket on a case involving a man who had come up on charges of piracy. I recall the case because he was a learned man, a timber merchant who'd lost his business to creditors. His wife and two children had died by the plague. He was not at all the kind of man you might expect would turn to that life. I remember ... he referred to his compatriots as 'black-flaggers.' I'd never heard that term before." Woodward glanced up at the sky, making judgment on how long it might be before the thick gray clouds let loose another torrent. "I'd never heard the term since, until Paine spoke it." He returned his attention to the road ahead. "Evidently, it's a term used with respect and more than a little pride. As one member of a society speaking about another."

"Are you suggesting that Paine—"

"I'm suggesting nothing," Woodward interrupted. "I'm only saying that it's of interest, that's all." He paused to emphasize his position. Then he said, casually, "I should like to know more about Mr. Paine's background. Just for interest's sake, of course."

"What happened to the timber merchant?"

"Ex—timber merchant," the magistrate corrected. "He committed murder on the high seas, as well as piracy. He was guilty, no matter what the circumstances of his fall from grace. I ached for his soul, but I had no recourse other than to sentence him to hanging. And so it was done."

"I was going to ask you what you thought of the guests last night," Matthew said. "Take Schoolmaster Johnstone. What do you make of his face powder?"

"Such fashion is currently popular in Europe, but I've seen it in the colonies on occasion. Actually, though, I believe I have another explanation for his appearance."

"What might that be?"

"He attended Oxford, yes? All Souls' College. Well, that college had a reputation as being the plaything of young dandies and gamblers who were certainly not there for spiritual enlightenment. The core of the debauchers at All Souls' was an organization called the Hellfire Club. It was a very old gathering, closed to all but a select few within the college, those with wealthy families and debased sensibilities. Among Hellfire Club members the custom was to wear daubings of white ashes the morning after their bawdy banquets." He looked quickly at Matthew and then focused on the road once more. "There was some strange pseudo-religious significance to it, I think. As in washing their faces clean of sin, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, they couldn't powder their hearts. But perhaps Johnstone is simply aware of European fashion and wishes to mimic it, though why one would care to do so in this forsaken wilderness is beyond me."

Matthew said nothing, but he was thinking about the magistrate insisting they dress for dinner at that wretched tavern.

"It is peculiar, though," Woodward mused. "If Johnstone was a member of the Hellfire Club—and I'm not saying he was, though there are indications—why would he care to carry on its custom so long after he left Oxford? I mean to say, I used to wear a crimson jacket with green tassels dangling from the sleeves when I was a college student, but I wouldn't dream of putting on such an item today." He shook his head. "No, it must be that Johnstone has embraced the European trend. Of course, I doubt if he wears his powder in the daytime. Such would only be for nocturnal festivities."

"He seems an intelligent man," Matthew said. "I wonder why a schoolmaster who'd earned his education at Oxford would consent to come to a settlement like Fount Royal. One would think he might prefer more civilized surroundings."

"True. But why are any of them in Fount Royal? For that matter, why does anyone in his or her right mind consent to go live in a place that seems poised on the edge of the earth? But they do. Otherwise there would be no New York or Boston, Philadelphia or Charles Town. Take Dr. Shields, for instance. What prompted him to leave what was probably a well-established urban practise for a task of extreme hardship in a frontier village? Is Bidwell paying him a great deal of money? Is it a noble sense of professional duty? Or something else entirely?" Woodward tilted his gaze upward once more; his eyes had found the slow, graceful circling of a hawk against the curtain of clouds. It occurred to him that the hawk had spied a victim—a rabbit or squirrel, perhaps—on the ground.

"Dr. Shields seems to me an unhappy man," Woodward went on, and he cleared his throat; it had been moderately sore and scratchy since his awakening this morning, and he resolved to gargle some warm salt water to soothe it. "He seems also to want to drown his sorrows in strong drink. I'm sure that the high rate of deaths in Fount Royal does nothing to ease the doctor's depression. Still . . . one would hope Dr. Shields does not rely too much on the cup when he's making his professional rounds." He watched the hawk wheel around and suddenly dive for its prey, and he had the thought that death was always close at hand in this world of tumults and cataclysms.

That thought led into another, which also involved death: he saw in his mind small fingers curled around the iron frame of a bedpost. The knuckles—so perfect, so fragile—were bleached white from the pressure of a terrified grip.

Woodward squeezed his eyes shut. The sounds had almost come to him again. Almost. He could not stand hearing those sounds, even from this distance of time and place. From the deep green thicket on his left he thought he heard the shrill, triumphant cry of a hawk and the brief scream of some small animal.

"Sir?" He opened his eyes. Matthew was staring at him. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," Woodward said. "A little weary, perhaps. It will pass."

"I'll take the reins, if you like."

"Not necessary." Woodward gave them a flick across the horses' haunches to show he was in full command. "I would be just as weary riding as a passenger. Besides, at least this time we know Fount Royal is not very far."

"Yes, sir," Matthew answered. After a moment, he reached into the pocket of his trousers and took out the gold coin he'd put there. He held it in his palm and studied the markings. "I told an untruth to Mr. Paine," he admitted. "About this coin. Shawcombe did take it from the body of an Indian . . . but he told me he believed there might be a Spanish spy hereabouts who was paying the Indians for their loyalty."

"What? He said nothing about pirate's gold, then?"

"No, sir. I made that up because of the fashion in which Paine took his tobacco after dinner last night. He smoked a roll called a 'cigar.' It's—"

"A Spanish custom, yes." Woodward nodded; his eyes narrowed, a sign that told Matthew he was intrigued by this new information. "Hmmm. Yes, I understand your fiction. Very few Englishmen that I know of have taken to smoking in such a manner. I wondered about it last night, but I said nothing. But there's the question of how Paine might have become introduced to it."

"Yes, sir. Shawcombe also made mention that the Spanish spy might be an Englishman. Or at least an Englishman in appearance. And that he might be living in Fount Royal."

"Curious. What would be the purpose of such a spy? Ah!" he said, answering his own question. "Of course! To report on the progress of Fount Royal. Which may yet turn out to be known as Bidwell's Folly, I might add. But what part would the Indians play in this, that they would have to be tamed by Spanish gold?"

Matthew had already formulated this question and given it some thought. He ventured his opinion, something he was never reluctant to do: "One of Bidwell's motives behind the creation of Fount Royal is as a fort to keep watch on the Spanish. It might be that they're already much nearer than the Florida country."

"You mean living with the Indians?"

Matthew nodded. "A small expeditionary force, possibly. If not living with the Indians, then close enough to want to seek their good graces."

Woodward almost reined the horses in, so hard did this speculation hit him. "My God!" he said. "If that's true—if there's any possibility of it being true—then Bidwell's got to be told! If the Spaniards could incite the Indians to attack Fount Royal, they wouldn't have to lift a finger to destroy the whole settlement!"

"Yes, sir, but I don't think Mr. Bidwell should be alarmed in such a way just yet."

"Why not? He'd want to know, wouldn't he?"

"I'm sure he would," Matthew agreed calmly. "But for now you and I are the only ones making these suppositions. And that's what they should remain, until some proof can be found."

"You don't think the coin is proof enough?"

"No, I don't. As Mr. Paine said, one coin does not make a fortune. Nor does it give proof that Spanish soldiers are encamped out in the wilderness. But if such an idea flew out of Mr. Bidwell's mouth and into the ears of the citizens, it would mean the certain end of Fount Royal."

"Do you propose we do nothing?" Woodward asked, rather sharply.

"I propose we watch and listen," Matthew said. "That we make some discreet inquiries and—as far as we are able—monitor Mr. Paine's activities. If indeed there is a spy, he might be waiting to see what develops concerning the witchcraft case. After all, with Satan walking the fields, Fount Royal may simply continue to shrivel up and soon dissolve."

"Well, it's a damnable thing!" the magistrate snorted. "You raise these speculations, but you don't wish to act on them!"

"Now is not the time. Besides, sir, I believe we both have a more pressing engagement with Rachel Howarth."

Woodward started to respond, but sealed his mouth. The wagon's wheels continued to turn through the mud, the two horses keeping a slow but steady pace. After a spell of deliberation, Woodward cleared his throat again. "Rachel Howarth," he said. "I can't say I look forward to making her acquaintance tomorrow. What did you make of Garrick's story?"

"Very strange."

"A grand understatement, I should think. I don't believe I've ever heard anything quite like it. In fact, I know I haven't. But is it believable?"

"Unless he's one of the best liars I've ever heard, he believes it."

"Then he did see someone or something behind that barn, yes? But that act he described . . . how in the name of all that's holy could a woman perform in such a way?"

"I don't think we're dealing with a holy situation," Matthew reminded him.

"No. Of course not. Two murders. It seems reasonable that the first murder should've been a minister. The diabolic would seek to destroy first and foremost a man who could wield the sword of God."

"Yes, sir, it does. But in this instance, it appears the blade of Satan was a stronger weapon."

"I'd keep such blasphemies chained, before you're summoned to a higher court by a bolt of lightning," Woodward cautioned.

Matthew's eyes regarded the green, steamy wilderness that loomed beside the road, but his mind had turned to other sights: namely, the finding of truth in this matter of witchcraft. It was a blasphemous thought—and he knew he risked eternal damnation for thinking it—but sometimes he had to wonder if there was indeed a God who reigned over this earthly arena of fury and brutality. Matthew could sing the hymns and mouth the platitudes with the best of them, in the stiffly regimented Sabbath church services that basically consisted of the minister begging for five or six hours that Jehovah show mercy on His wounded and crippled Creation. But in his life Matthew had seen very little real evidence of God at work, though it seemed he'd seen much of Satan's fingermarks. It was easy to sing praise to God when one was wearing a clean white shirt and eating from china platters, much less easy when one lay on a dirty mattress in an almshouse dormitory and heard the shrill scream of a boy who'd been summoned after midnight to the headmaster's chambers.