Speaks the Nightbird

"Where do you want me, Magistrate?" Green inquired, with more than a little sarcasm in his voice.

"You may also wait outside. I'll ask you to return if it's necessary."

The two men left, and Buckner positioned his cane so as to give himself balance on the stool. He swallowed nervously, his knotty fingers working together, his face gaunt and blotched with the dark spots of advanced age.

"Are we ready to begin?" Woodward asked of Matthew, and the clerk dipped his quill and nodded. The firsr thing was for Woodward to stand and offer the Bible to Buckner, instructing him to place his right hand upon it and swear before God that he would tell the truth. Buckner did, and Woodward put the Good Book aside and settled himself back in his chair.

"Your full name and age, please, for the record."

"Jeremiah Buckner. I shall be sixty-and-eight year come August."

"Thank you. Mr. Buckner, how long have you been a citizen of Fount Royal?"

"Ever since it begun. Five year, I reckon."

"You're a farmer, is that correct?"

"Was. My son brung Patience and me here to live with 'em. He did some farmin'. Wasn't no good at it, though. Two year ago, he an' Lizabeth lit out, took the boys. Gonna come back an' fetch us, once they's settled."

"Yes, sir, thank you," Woodward said. "So you and your wife occupy a farm? On which street?"

"Industry."

"And what is your source of income?"

Buckner wet his lips with his tongue. "Patience an' me get by on the lovin' kindness of our fellows, sir. Our farm ain't worth nothin'. Just got a roof o'er our heads, that's all. But when Ezra comes to get us, everythin'll be paid back. I'll swear that on the Lord's Book, too. He writ me a letter, come by the post rider from Charles Town. Said he was lookin' for some good land up Virginia way."

"I see. Now I presume you have an accusation to make concerning Madam Howarth?"

"Well ..." Buckner glanced quickly through the bars into the next cell.

"Sir?" Woodward said sternly. "Look at me, please, not at anyone else. If you have an accusation to make, now is the proper time."

Matthew waited in the silence that fell, his quill poised. On the paper was written every utterance up to the moment, penned in the code of shortened words, abbreviations, and alphabetic memory-devices of his own creation.

Buckner stared at the floor. A blue vein at his temple throbbed. With an obvious effort he opened his mouth and spoke. "She . . . the witch . . . she come to me. In the night. She come to me . . . naked, she was. Wearin' a . . . serpent 'round her neck. A black serpent, with yella eyes. Like hers. She come to me, stood right at the foot of my bed, and Patience sleepin' a'side me."

"You're referring to Rachel Howarth?"

"She's the one."

"You have that down?" Woodward asked his clerk, but he needn't have because he knew Matthew's ability. Matthew just nodded grimly and dipped his quill once more.

"May I speak?" Rachel asked sharply.

"No, you may not!" The answer was delivered with an even-sharper point. "I told you, I'll have no disruptions in my court!"

"I would just like to say that I—"

"Madam!" Woodward shouted, and his raw throat paid the price for it. "One more word and the gag shall be delivered!"

Matthew had been scribing all this down as well. Now he stared at her, his quill's nib resting at the end of a letter, and he said quietly, "It would be wise not to speak further. Believe me."

Her mouth had already begun to open to test the magistrate's will. Now, however, she paused in her intent. Woodward waited, his fists clenched in his lap and his teeth gritted behind his lips. Slowly Rachel Howarth closed her mouth and then seated herself on the bench.

Woodward returned his full attention to Buckner. "When did this event occur? Was it before or after the murder of Daniel Howarth?"

"After. I believe Daniel had been laid down a week or two, so I reckon it was early February."

"All right. Tell me then, as clearly as you recall, exactly what happened."

"Yes sir." Buckner spent a moment putting it together in his mind, his head lowered. "Well ... I don't recollect so good as I used to, but that kinda thing you don't forget. Me and Patience went to bed just like usual that night. She put out the lamp. Then ... I don't know how long it was ... I heard my name spoke. I opened my eyes. Everythin' was dark, and silent. I waited, a'lis-tenin'. Just silent, like there was nothin' else in the whole world makin' a sound but my breathin'. Then ... I heard my name spoke again, and I looked at the foot of the bed and seen her."

"By what light, if there was none?" Woodward asked.

"Well, I've put my mind to that but I can't answer it. The winda's were shuttered, 'cause it was might cold outside, so there wasn't no moonlight. But she was there, all right. I seen her, clear as I see you."

"You're positive it was Rachel Howarth?"

"I am."

Woodward nodded, staring at his hands spread out on the desktop before him. "And what else transpired?"

"I was scairt half out of my wits," Buckner said. "Any man would've been. I started to wake up Patience, but then that woman—the witch—said I wasn't to. She said if I woke up Patience I would be sorry for it."

"But your wife wasn't roused by Madam Howarth's voice?"

"No sir. I've puzzled on that, too, but I can't make no sense out of it. Patience slept deep as usual. Only thing I figure is that the witch put a conjure on her."

Matthew heard the woman give a muffled grunt of frustration; he was tempted to lift his head to glance at her, but the quill demanded his absolute concentration.

"All right. Then what occurred?"

"The witch . . . said I was to keep her visit a secret. Said if I spoke it to anyone, they would be killed on the spot. Said I was to meet her two nights hence, in the orchard behind my house. Just said be there betwixt midnight and two, she would find me."

"Madam Howarth was nude, you say?"

"Yes sir, she wore not a stitch."

"But she had a serpent around her neck?"

"Yes sir. Black, it was. With yella eyes."

"Had you latched your doors and windows before retiring to bed?"

Buckner nodded. "We had. Never used to, but . . . with somebody a'killin' Reverend Grove and then Daniel like that . . . Patience felt easier with the latches throwed after dark."

"Therefore in your estimation there was no possible earthly way for Rachel Howarth to have entered your house?"

"Well sir . . . after she was gone, I lit the lantern and checked them latches. They was all still throwed. Patience woke up and asked me what I was doin'. I had to tell her a lie, say a barkin' dog stirred me up. She went on back to sleep, but I couldn't near close my eyes."

"I can understand," Woodward said. "Tell me this, then: exactly how did Madam Howarth leave your house?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Oh? You didn't see her leave?"

"Soon as she told me where to meet her . . . she was just gone. Didn't fade nor nothin', like you might think a phantasm would. She was there and then not."

"And you immediately lit the lantern?"

"I think so. Maybe it was a minute or two. It was kinda hazy what I did just after she left. I believe I was still conjured, myself."

"Uh . . . Magistrate?" The voice made Matthew jump, the quill scrawling across two neat lines above it before he could rein it in.

"Yes?" Woodward snapped, looking toward the gaol's entrance. "What is it?"

"I've brought your tea, sir." Winston carried a wicker basket with a lid. He came into the cell, put the basket down upon the magistrate's desk, and opened it, revealing a white clay teapot and four cups, three of the same white clay but the fourth a dark reddish-brown. "Compliments of Mrs. Lucretia Vaughan," Winston said. "She sells pies, cakes, and tea from her home, just up Harmony Street, but she graciously offered to brew the pot free of charge. I felt it my duty, however, to inform her that the witch would be drinking as well, therefore Mrs. Vaughan asks that Madam Howarth use the dark cup so that it may be broken into pieces."

"Yes, of course. Thank you."

"Is there anything else I might do for you? Mr. Bidwell has put me at your disposal."

"No, nothing else. You may go, and thank you for your assistance."

"Yes sir. Oh . . . one more thing: Mrs. Vaughan would like Madam Howarth herself to break the cup, and then she asks that you gather the pieces and return them to her."

Woodward frowned. "May I ask why?"

"I don't know, sir, but it was her request."

"Very well, then." Woodward waited for the other man to leave, and then he removed the teapot from the basket and poured himself a cup. He drank almost all of it immediately, to soothe his throat. "Tea?" he offered Buckner, but the farmer declined. Matthew took a cup, taking care not to spill any upon his papers. "Madam Howarth?" Woodward called. "I should be lacking in manners if I failed to offer you a cup of tea."

"Lucretia Vaughan brewed it?" she asked sullenly. "I wonder if it's not poisoned."

"I have drunk some that I would swear was tainted, but this is quite good. I'd daresay it's been a while since you've had a taste." He poured some into the dark cup and handed it to Matthew. "Put this through the bars, please."

Matthew stood up to do so, and the woman rose from her bench and approached. In a moment Matthew found himself face-to-face with her, the compelling amber eyes staring fixedly at him. Curls of her thick ebony hair had fallen across her forehead, and Matthew was aware of tiny beads of sweat glistening on her upper lip, due to the gaol's damp heat. He saw her pulse beating in the valley of her throat.

He pushed the cup through; it was a tight fit, but it did scrape between the bars. She reached to accept it, and her fingers pressed across his. The sensation of her body heat was like a wildfire that burned through his flesh and flamed along the nerves of his hand. He let go of the cup and jerked his arm back, and he didn't know what his expression had revealed but the woman was looking at him with curious interest. He abruprly turned his back to her and resumed his place.

"Let us continue," Woodward said, when his clerk was once more situated. "Matthew, read back to me the last question and answer, please."

"The question was: And you immediately lit the lantern? Mr. Buckner's reply was: I think so. Maybe it was a minute or two. It was kind of hazy what I did just after she left. I believe I was still conjured, myself."

"All right. Mr. Buckner, did you later that day inform your wife of what had occurred?"

"No sir, I did not. I was a'feared that if I told her, the witch's curse might kill her on the spot. I didn't tell nobody."

"Two nights hence, did you go to the orchard at the prescribed time?"

"I did. Betwixt midnight and two, just as the witch commanded. I got out of bed slow and quiet as I could. I didn't want Patience hearin' and wakin' up."

"And when you went to the orchard, what transpired?" Woodward sipped at a fresh cup of tea and waited for the man to respond.

This question obviously troubled Jeremiah Buckner, as the farmer shifted uneasily on his stool and chewed at his lower lip. "Sir?" he at last said. "I'd . . . beg not relare it."

"If it has to do with Madam Howarth, I must insist that you relate it." Again, Buckner shifted and chewed but no words were forthcoming. "I would remind you that you have taken an oath on the Bible," Woodward said. "Also, that this is a station of the law just as much as any courthouse in Charles Town. If you're fearful of your safety, let me assure you that these bars are solid and Madam Howarth cannot reach you."

"The walls of my house are solid, too," Buckner muttered. "She got through 'em, didn't she?"

"You came here to testify of your own free will, did you not?"

"Yes sir, I did."

"Then you will leave here with your testimony incomplete if you fail to respond to my questions. I need to know what occurred in the orchard."

"Oh Lord," Buckner said softly; it was a supplication for strength. He bowed his head, staring at the floor, and when he lifted it again the lamplight sparkled from the sheen of sweat on his face. "I walked into the orchard," he began. "It was a cold night, and silent. I walked in, and directly I heard ... a woman laughin', and another noise too. Somethin' that sounded . . . sounded like a beast, a'gruntin'." He was quiet, his head once again lowered.

"Go on," Woodward said.

"Well... I followed them sounds. Followed 'em, deeper in. I 'member I stopped to look back at my house. It seemed such an awful long way off. Then I took to walkin' again, tryin' to find the woman. Wasn't a few minutes passed 'fore I did." Buckner paused and took a deep breath, as if fortifying himself for the rest of it. "She was a'layin' on her back, under one of them apple trees. She was a'layin' with her legs spread wide, 'bout to split her down the middle. And on top a'her was . . . that thing I seen. It was goin' at her, like the drivin' of a spike. It was a'gruntin' ever'time it come down, and she had her eyes closed and was laughin'."

"A thing?" Woodward said. "What kind of thing?"

Buckner looked directly into the magistrate's eyes, his jaw slack and the sweat gleaming on his forehead. "It was somethin' that . . . kinda 'sembled a man, but ... it had a black hide, and leathery. I couldn't see its face ... I didn't want to. But it was big. A beast the likes I'd never set eye on before. It just kept poundin' her. That woman's legs open wide, and that beast comin' down a'top her. I saw its back movin' ... it had some kinda spines or the like up and down its backbone. Then all a'sudden it whipped its head side to side and let out an awful moan, and the woman gave a cry too. It got up off her . . . must'a been seven, eight feet tall. I could see . . ." Buckner hesitated, his eyes glazed with the memory of it. "I could see the woman was all bloody, there in her private parts. The beast moved away, and then . . . then somethin' else come out of the orchard, and it got down on its knees a'side her."

"What was it?" Woodward had gripped his teacup in his hand, his palm damp.

"I don't know. It had white hair and a child's face. But it was a dwarf-thing, its skin all gray and shrivelled like a dead fish. It got down on its knees a'side her. It leaned its head down, and then . . . then a terrible long tongue slid out of its mouth, and ..." He stopped, squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "Can't say," he gasped. "Can't say."

Woodward took a drink of tea and put the cup down. He restrained himself from casting a glance in Rachel Howarth's direction. He could feel Matthew tensed and ready to resume his scrivening. Woodward spoke quietly, "You must say."

Buckner released a noise that sounded like a sob. His chest was trembling. He said painfully, "I'll be damned to Hell for these pi'tures in my head!"

"You are acting as a proper Christian, sir. You were an observer to these sins, not a participant. I would ask you again to continue."

Buckner ran a hand across his mouth, the fingers palsied. The hue of his flesh had become pasty, and dark hollows had taken form beneath his eyes. He said, "That dwarf-thing . . . looked like a child. White hair. A failed angel, is what I thought. All shrunk up when it was cast in the Pit. I saw it. . . saw that tongue come out . . . saw it wet and shiny, like raw beef. Then . . . that tongue went up in the woman. In her bloody parts. She took to thrashin' and cryin' out, and the tongue was a'movin' inside her. I wanted to hide my face, but I couldn't near move my arms. I had to stand there and watch it. It was like . . . somebody was a'makin'

me watch it, when I wanted to hide my face and call to God to take them sights away." His voice cracked, and for a moment Woodward feared the old man would collapse into sobbing. But then Buckner said, "When that thing . . . slid its tongue back out again . . . there was blood all over it. Drippin' blood, it was. And that woman grinned like she was a new bride."

"Matthew?" Woodward's throat felt so constricted that clear speaking had become an effort of will. "Are you getting all this?"

"If I weren't," Matthew answered tersely, "I would have to be deaf."

"Yes. Of course. This represents a new threshold in your experience of clerking, I am sure." Woodward used his sleeve to mop the moisture from his face. "It certainly opens a new door for me, one that I might wish had remained latched."

"Then there was the third one," Buckner said. "The one that was man and woman both."

Neither Woodward nor Matthew moved nor spoke. In the silence they heard Buckner's hoarse breathing. Through the open roof-hatch came the sound of a crow cawing in the far distance. Matthew dipped his quill into the inkwell and waited.

"Let us not say," spoke the magistrate, "that in our interview we failed to turn over all rocks, regardless of what might be coiled underneath them. Tell us of the third creature, Mr. Buckner."

twelve

BUCKNER'S EYES WERE SHINY now, as if these sights had burned the vision from them. "It came out of the orchard, after the dwarf-thing had gone," he related. "I took it to be a naked woman at first. Taller than most women, though, and terrible thin. She—it—had long dark hair. Brown or black, I couldn't say. The thing had tits, I seen 'em clear enough. Then I seen what else it had, and I near staggered and fell." Buckner leaned his head forward, the veins standing out in his neck. "Stones and a yard. Right there where a woman's basket oughta be. That yard was ready for work, too, and when the witch seen it she smiled so wicked it near froze my heart. The creature laid down a'side her, and then she started to . . . started to lickin' the creature's spike."

"By 'she,' you are referring to whom?" Woodward asked. "Her. In the cage there. The witch, Rachel Howarth."

"All right." Woodward again mopped the sweat from his face. The walls of the gaol seemed to be closing in on him. The one saving grace was the open hatch, through which he could see a square of gray clouds. "Continue."

"There was just. . . more sin and vileness after that. The witch turned over, on her hands and knees, so her rear quarters was showin'. Then that half-man, half-woman took its spike in hand and squatted down atop her. I saw . . . things no Christian should e'er have to witness, sir. I tell you, before I seen them sights I was all right in the head. Now I ain't. You ask my Patience. She'll tell you, I'm no good for nothin' no more."

"This creature that was half-man and half-woman penetrated Madam Howarth with its penis?"

"Yes sir. The creature pushed its yard in from behind."

"Let us move past those particulars," Woodward said, his face blanched. "What was the aftermath of this incident?"

"The what, sir?"

"The aftermath. What happened after the creature had ..." He paused, seeking the proper word, "... finished?"

"It got up off her and walked away. Then the witch stood up and took to dressin' herself. All a' sudden I heard my name spoke, right up next to my ear, and I whipped 'round to see who it be."

"And did you see?"

"Well ... I was mighty scairt. There was a man standin' behind me . . . but I don't think he had no face. 'Cept a mouth. He did have a mouth ... I 'member that. He said, 'Jeremiah Buckner, run home.' That's all. I must'a done what he said, 'cause next thing I knew I was a'layin' in bed, sweatin' and shakin'. Patience was hard asleep, conjured most likely. I heard a cock crow, and I knew then that the demons of the night was passin'."

"Did you in the morning, then, tell your wife what had happened?"

"No sir, I didn't. I was shamed to tell Patience such things. And I was scairt, too, that the witch might kill her for hearin'. I didn't tell nobody, not even after I heard what Elias Garrick seen. Then Lester Crane told me Stephen Dunton seen such a thing-— them three creatures with the witch, 'cept they was doin' their wickedness inside the house where the Poole family used to live, right next to Dunton's farm. Still I held my tongue."

"What made you decide to tell what you'd seen?" Woodward asked. "And who did you tell?"

"I decided . . . after they found them poppets in the witch's house. I went straight to Mr. Bidwell and told him all of it."

"I should like to speak to Mr. Dunton," Woodward said to Matthew. "Make a note of that, please."

"Cain't," Buckner said. "He took his family and they left, back two month ago. Dunton's house since burnt down. Lester Crane and his brood lit out 'bout the same time."

Woodward paused for a moment, ordering his thoughts. "Did you know Daniel Howarth?"

"Yes sir."

"What kind of man was he?"

"Oh, he was but a youngster. Maybe forty, forty-five year old. Big man, he was. Took a right demon to lay him low, I'll grant you!"

"Did you have occasion to see Mr. Howarth and his wife together?"

"No, not much. Daniel kept to hisself. Wasn't a social kind of man."

"And what about his wife? Was she social?"

"Well ... I don't know about such. Daniel and that woman been here maybe three year. He had a sizable piece a' land, bought it from a Dutchman named Niedecker. That man's wife had passed in childbirth, the child died too, so he decided to give it up. Daniel was always a quiet man. Never needed much help at anythin', seemed like." Buckner shrugged. "The woman . . . well, mayhap she did try to be social. But it just caused a stir."

"A stir? What kind of stir?"

"Look at her, sir. If you can bear it, after what I've told you. She's betwixt a nigger and a Spaniard. Would you care to share a pew with her?"

"The witch attended church?" Woodward raised his eyebrows.

"That was 'fore she took to witchcraft," Buckner explained. "She only come to church two or three Sabbaths. Wouldn't nobody sit near her. Them Port'a'geeze got a whiff about 'em."

"So she was not welcome in church, is that correct?"

"She could do and go as she pleased. Wasn't nobody gonna stop her from enterin' Our Lord's house. But I recall the last time she showed up, somebody—and I know who it was, but I ain't sayin'—pelted her with a rotten egg a'fore she could come in. Hit her right a'side the face. You know what she done?"

"What?"

"She sat down in a pew with that egg smellin' as it did, that mess all in her hair, and she nary made a move 'til Reverend Grove said the last Praise and Amen 'bout four hours later. 'Course, he did rush it some, that smell in the church as it was."

Matthew was aware of a movement from the corner of his eye. He looked up as he finished scribing the last line—and there was Rachel Howarth, standing next to the bars, her teeth gritted and an expression of sheer ferocity on her face. Her right arm was lifted and swinging forward, a gesture of violence that made Matthew shout, "Magistrate!"

The shout itself most possibly caused Woodward to lose the remaining few hairs on his scalp. He twisted his head around as well, and Buckner gave a garbled cry of terror and raised a hand to protect his face from what he was sure would be Satanic flame.

There was a loud crack! at the end of the woman's blow against the bars. Fragments of dark reddish-brown clay fell into the straw. Matthew saw that in her right hand was the cup's grip, the rest of it smashed to smithereens.

"I am done with my tea," Rachel said. She opened her hand and dropped the largest bit of the cup into their cell. "That is how Lucretia Vaughan wanted it returned, is it not?"

"Yes, it is. And thank you, Matthew, for your help in emptying my bladder. Will you collect those pieces for me, please?" The magistrate blotted his face with his sleeve and attempted mightily to control his galloping heart. Matthew had to bend down on his knees and reach into the woman's cell to gather up all the shards. She stood over him, an intimidating presence to begin with but now—due to farmer Buckner's tale—absolutely fearsome, even though Matthew had the benefit of clear-headed reasoning.

"Wait," she said as he started to rise. Her hand came down and plucked up a small piece he'd missed. "Take this one, too."

She placed it in his outstretched palm, which he immediately withdrew between the bars.

Woodward put the fragments into Madam Vaughan's basket. "Let us continue, please, though my mind is as shambled as that broken cup." He rubbed his temples with both hands. "Matthew, do you have any questions for the witness?"

"Yes, sir, I do," he answered readily, and then he prepared to scribe his own inquiry. "Mr. Buckner, how long have you depended on that cane?"

"My cane? Oh . . . eight, nine year. My bones are poorly."

"I understand that you were terrified that night in the orchard. Terror can strengthen a man's legs, I know. But when the person behind you said, 'Jeremiah, run home,' did you actually run?"

"I don't know. But I must'a, 'cause I got back to my bed."

"You don't recall running? You recall no pain to your legs?"

"No," Buckner said. "I don't recall."

"By which door did you enter your house?"

"Which door? Well... I reckon the back door."

"You don't remember which door?"

"Jus' two doors," Buckner said with a snort. "Back 'n front. I was behind the house, so I must'a gone in the back un."

"Was it cold that night?" Matthew asked, as he dipped the quill once more.

"It was February, like I say."

"Yes, sir. But my question to you is: was it cold that night?"

"Sure it was. Had to be cold, a February night!"

"You don't know for certain whether it was cold or not? You don't recall it being cold?"

"I'm not on trial here, am I?" Buckner looked to the magistrate for help. "What's he poundin' the nail for?"

"Is there some point to this, Matthew?"

"\es, sir, there is. If you'll bear with me?"

"All right, then." Woodward nodded. "But please remember that Mr. Buckner is a witness, not a defendant."

"Mr. Buckner, when you rose from bed to go outside in the cold February night, did you pause to put on any outer garments?"

"Outer garments? What're you goin' on about?"

"A coat," Matthew said. "A cloak. A hat. Gloves. Surely you paused to at least put on shoes."

Buckner scowled. "Well... of course I put on shoes!"

"And a coat?"

"Yes, I reckon I put on a coat too! Do you think me a fool?"

"No, sir, I do not. But you don't sound very certain about those details. Tell me this, then: when you heard the cock crow, were you lying in bed with your shoes and coat still on?"

"What?"

"You testified that you were lying in bed, sweating and shaking. Did you pause at some point to remove your shoes and coat before you got into bed?"

"Yes." It was said with faint conviction. "I must'a."

"You don't recall?"

"I was scairt. Like I said, scairt half dead!"

"What about your cane?" Matthew asked. "You did take your cane outside with you, did you not?"

"I did. I cain't hardly get 'round wirhout it."

"Where did you put your cane when you returned from the orchard?"

"I . . . put it. . ." He pressed his fingers against his mouth. "I put it... in the corner next to the bed, I reckon. Where it always is put."

"Then that's where it was when morning came?"

"Yes. Right there in that corner."

"Where did you put your coat and shoes?"

"I . . . took off my coat, and laid it and my shoes ... at the foot of the bed, I believe."

"That's where they were the next time you had need of them?"

"Wait," Buckner said, his forehead deeply creased. "No. I must'a hung up my coat on the hook by the front door. That's where it was."

"By the front door? Yet you entered by the back door? Was there a lantern lit within the house, or was it dark?"

"Dark. I don't recall no light."

"You were—as you put it—scared half dead, a witness to demonic wickedness, and yet you walked from one side of the house to the other in the dark to hang your coat on its proper hook?" Matthew held up a finger before Buckner could respond. "Ah! You did so because you didn't wish your wife to know you'd been outside, could that be correct?"

"Yes, it could." He nodded vigorously. "That must be the why of it."

"Sir, if you had decided to do so, why did you believe you took it off and laid it at the foot of the bed? Is it so unclear in your mind where you left your coat?"

"I was conjured! Must'a been. Like I say, after what I seen I ain't right in the head no more."

"Mr. Buckner?" Matthew stared forcefully into the man's eyes. "You have given us a story of amazing details, seen without the benefit of illumination. Why is it, then, that your grasp of details is so hazy both before and after the incident in the orchard?"

Buckner's face tightened. "You think I'm lyin', don't you?"

"Mr. Buckner," Woodward spoke up, "no one has said that."

"Don't have to say it! I can read it in these damn questions you're askin' me! All this 'bout coats and shoes, and did I have my cane and whatnot! I'm a honest man, you can ask anybody!"

"Please, sir, there's no need for an outburst."

"I ain't no liar!" Buckner had fairly shouted it. He hobbled to his feet and pointed at Rachel Howarth. "There's the witch I seen with them three demons from Hell! I seen it was her, no mis-takin' it! She's evil to her black heart, and if you think I'm lyin' she's conjured you, too!"

"Sir," Woodward said quietly, trying to calm the man. "Please. Won't you sit down and—"

"No, I will not! I won't be called a liar, not even by a magistrate! God knows I'm tellin' the truth, and He's the only judge matters!"

"In Heaven, yes," Woodward said, feeling a bit wounded by this last remark. "In the courts of Earth, however, justice is the responsibility of mortals."

"If justice is served, that witch'll be dead 'fore another day goes past!" Buckner had white spittle on his lips, his eyes enraged. "Or hav'ya already decided it's the town that dies and the witch that lives?"

"I still have a few questions to ask, sir." Woodward motioned toward the stool. "Won't you sit down?"

"I've had a fill of this! I ain't answerin' nothin' more!" The old man abruptly turned and walked out of the cell, leaning heavily on his cane.

Woodward also stood up. "Mr. Buckner! Please! Just a few moments longer!" His entreaties were in vain, however. Buckner stalked away and was gone from the gaol altogether.

"He can be convinced to return," Matthew said. "He'll listen to Bidwell."

"I only had two or three more questions to ask." Woodward cast a dark glare at his clerk. "What was the meaning of badgering the man like that?"

"I don't think I was badgering, sir. I was clarifying."

"You took that man to task, Matthew! You just as well said you believed him a liar!"

"No, sir," Matthew replied evenly, "I never said such a thing. I simply desired to know why he couldn't recall some specific details, when other specifics were so very clear. I should think he would remember putting on and removing his coat and shoes, no matter what kind of fright he'd experienced."

"Well, the man's not a liar!" Woodward vowed. "Confused, possibly. Frightened, certainly. But I don't believe him the stripe of man who would make up such phantasms, do you? I mean . . . dear God, if he was concocting such a tale, I'd fear his mind was diseased beyond all salvation!"

There came a laugh. Matthew and Woodward looked into the next cage. Rachel Howarth was sitting on her bench, her back against the rough wall and her head uptilted.

"You find this amusing, madam?" Woodward inquired.

"No," she said. "I find it sad. But as I am far past tears, I must laugh instead of weep."

"Laugh or weep as you please. This is damning evidence."

"Evidence?" Again, she laughed. "What evidence is there? An insane tale told by an old man? Oh, there is some truth in what he told you."

"Are you admitting your concordance with the Devil, then?"

"Not at all. I'm admitting that I attended church on three Sabbaths, and the third time I sat with a rotten egg in my hair. But I was not going to give them the pleasure of watching me run home, or seeing me sob like a wounded child. That's the only truth in Buckner's story."

"Of course you would deny the incident in the orchard. I wouldn't expect you to do otherwise."

"What was the point of it, then?" She turned her amber gaze upon him. "If I am such a witch, why did I choose to invite Buckner to watch my . . . indiscretions? Why would I not want to do such things in private?"

"I don't know, madam. Why did you not?"

"Evidently, according to Buckner, I can walk through latched doors. Why am I still here in this cage, then?"

"It would be an admission of witchcraft to leave this gaol."

"And allowing Buckner to witness that profanity was not an admission?" She shook her head. "If I really were a witch, I'd be much more clever than that."

"Oh, I think you're clever enough. Besides, madam, who is to say you do not leave this gaol at night, and roam where you please with your master? Possibly you inhabit some spectral world of which God-fearing citizens dare not imagine.'"

"You might ask your clerk tomorrow morning," Rachel said. "He'll find out tonight if I have the power to walk through walls."

"I doubt that you would show any such power while Matthew is present," Woodward parried. "Again, it would be an admission of guilt that would lead to your appointment at the stake."

She suddenly stood up. "You must be as insane as the rest of them! Do you honestly think, after what you heard today, that I am not going to burn? There are other witnesses—other liars— yet to speak against me, I know. But who will speak for me? No one. Oh, they hated me here before they took me to be a witch, so they made me into one, the better to hate all the stronger!"

"They made you into a witch? How could you be made into what you are not?"

"Hear me well, Magistrate. Someone murdered Reverend Grove and my husband, and then fashioned me into the blackest witch south of Salem. Someone made poppets and hid them in the floor of my house. Someone spread these filthy lies about me, so that now the people here don't know their own minds!"

"I believe Mr. Buckner," Woodward said. "I've seen liars before, in many courtrooms. I've seen them spin webs from which they cannot escape. Mr. Buckner may be confused about some small details, due to his advanced age and the experience of that night, but he is not lying."

"If he's not lying," Rachel answered, "then he's either in need of an asylum or he's been cursed by some witch other than the one I am painted to be. I never set foot in his house or that orchard. I swear it before God."

"Beware your mouth, madam! A bolt of holy fire might end your games."

"If it would be a quicker death than the stake, I would welcome it."

Matthew said, "There's a simple way to end all of this. Madam, if you would recite the Lord's Prayer, I think the magistrate might consider your case in a different light."

"I'll speak for myself, thank you!" Woodward said. "After what I've heard here today, I think even a recitation of the Lord's Prayer might be a trick provided by this woman's master!"

"I will save you the wondering," Rachel said, "because I refuse to speak such a thing that has no meaning in this town. Those who babble the Lord's Prayer day and night would be first to grin when I'm set afire. Like Lucretia Vaughan, for instance. Oh, there's a fine Christian example! She would've given Christ on the cross a drink of vinegar and called it honey!"

"She was kind enough to provide you a cup for tea. I didn't find it vinegared."

"You don't know her as I do. I believe I know why she wanted the cup broken and returned. Ask her yourself. You might be enlightened."

Woodward busied himself by putting the teapot and the remaining cups back into the basket. "I think that will do for today, Matthew. I'm off to visit Dr. Shields. On Monday morning we shall resume our interviews."

"I'd suggest, sir, that our next witness be Mrs. Buckner. I have some questions I'd like to pose."

"Do you, now?" Woodward paused, his cheeks showing a flame. "Who is presiding over this court, you or me?"

"You are, of course."

"Then shouldn't I be the one who determines the next witness? And since I do not have any questions for Mrs. Buckner, I suggest Mr. Garrick come to court on Monday morning."

"I understand that you are the authority in this court, as in any other," Matthew said, with a slight bow of his head, "but shouldn't Mrs. Buckner be asked to describe her husband's mental state during the period of time that—"

"Mrs. Buckner should be left alone," the magistrate interrupted. "She was asleep during both incidents her husband related. I daresay Mr. Buckner has never told her what he saw. Would you bring a decent Christian wife into this gaol, within earshot of Madam Howarth?"

"She would be brought into any other courtroom."

"At the discretion of the judge. In my opinion, she has nothing to add, and indeed might even suffer harm by being called to appear."

"Magistrate," Matthew said quietly, "a wife knows her husband. I would like to learn whether Mr. Buckner has had . . . shall we say . . . delusions of any kind in previous years."

"If you're saying that what he witnessed was a delusion, remember that it was a delusion shared by another person. Stephen Dunton, wasn't that the man's name?"

"Yes, sir. But as Mr. Dunton is no longer present, we only have Mr. Buckner's word."

"Sworn on the Bible. Delivered in a rational manner. Told in as stomach-churning detail as I ever hope to hear. His word is good enough for me."

"But not good enough for me," Matthew said. The rawly honest thought had left his mouth before he could constrain it. If Woodward's teeth had been false, they might have dropped to the floor. The silence stretched, as the magistrate and his clerk stared at each other.

Woodward's throat was ravaged, his air passages swollen, and his bones aching in the damp, close heat. He had just heard a reliable witness relate a story of both fascination and horror that brought a woman—a human being, even if she was a notorious witch—nearer the stake. He felt sick to his very marrow, and now this audacity added to his freight was enough to lay him low. "You've forgotten your place," he rasped. "You are a clerk, not a magistrate. Not even—though you seem to wish it—an attorney. Your duty is as a scrivener, not a questioner. The former you do very well, the latter undoes you."

Matthew didn't respond except for the flush of shame on his face. He realized that he'd spoken completely out of turn and was better off embracing silence.

"I will ascribe this incident to our surroundings and the miserable weather," Woodward decided. "Therefore we shall put this behind us like gentlemen. Agreed?"

"Yes, sir," Matthew said, though he still thought it was appropriate—no, vital— to interview Buckner's wife.

"Very good, then." Woodward picked up the basket in preparation of leaving. "I'll ask Mr. Green to come in and move you to one of the cells over there." He nodded toward the opposite cages. "I would prefer that you not be in such close proximity to Madam Howarth."

"Uh ... I'd like to stay where I am, sir," Matthew countered quickly. "I'd appreciate the benefit of the desk."

"Why? You won't be needing it."

"It. . . makes the place seem not such a cage."

"Oh. Yes, I see. Then I'll have Madam Howarth moved."

"There's no need for that, sir," Matthew said. "The distance of one or two cages hardly matters, if indeed she employs such witchcraft. And I do have this." He held up the leatherbound Bible. "If this isn't strong enough to protect me, nothing can."

The magistrate paused, glancing from his clerk to Rachel Howarth and back again. This whole situation—Matthew being forced to remain in this wretched place with a woman who'd known such wickedness—gnawed at his nerves. Who knew what Matthew would witness in the dead of night? He damned himself for passing sentence on the boy, but what other choice had there been? It crossed his mind to occupy one of the other cages for the night, on some pretext of keeping an eye on Madam Howarth's activities, but he knew Bidwell and everyone else would see through the flimsy gauze and realize him to be quite less the taskmaster than he appeared.

At the bottom of his pond, far down from the light of public inspection, he was afraid. Fearful of Rachel Howarth, and of what she might do to the boy. Fearful also that once he left Matthew alone with this Devil's doxy, the boy might never again be the same. The witch's pleasure would be in destroying innocence, would it not?

"I shall be all right," Matthew said, reading some of these thoughts in the magistrate's anguished expression. "Just go to Dr. Shields and ask for a tonic."

Woodward nodded, but still he couldn't bear to leave. The time, however, had come. "I'll return this afternoon and see to you," he said. "Can I bring you anything? Books from Mr. Bidwell's library?"

"Yes, that would be fine. Any books will do."

"I'm sure you will be fed before long. If you're displeased at the meal, I'll be glad to bring you—"

"Whatever the meal is, it will be good enough," Matthew told him. "Just go see Dr. Shields."

"Yes, I shall." Woodward turned his attention to the woman, who had resumed sitting on her bench. "Your actions toward my clerk will be watched and noted, madam," he said sternly. "I strongly suggest you keep your distance."

"My actions needn't cause you worry," she replied. "But the rats in here are not subject to strong suggestions."

There was nothing more that Woodward could do. Matthew would have to fend for himself, and the Lord God be with him. Woodward, basket in hand, left the gaol. In another moment Green entered, closed and locked the door of Matthew's cage, and then he too retreated.

Matthew stood at the bars, staring up toward the open hatch. His fingers were gripping the iron. The sound of the cell's door being shut had made him think of the iron gate clanging at the almshouse, and sickness roiled in his stomach.

"You've not been in here very long to feel the loss of freedom," Rachel said quietly. "What is your sentence?"

"Three days."

"An age!" She gave a harsh laugh that sounded biting. "I've never been in a gaol before. At least, not on this side of the bars."

"Neither had I. It's not so bad here, in the daylight. But the darkness is not kind."

"Three days," Matthew repeated. "I can bear it."

"What kind of foolishness is this?" Her tone had sharpened. "Do you think I don't know you've been placed in here to spy on me?"

"You're wrong. I am here because I . . . offended the blacksmith."

"Oh, of course you did! Well, what shall I do to conjure you tonight? Shall I become a raven and flit from cage to cage? Shall I dance a jig on the air, while Satan plays the fiddle? Ah! Why don't I turn you into a piece of cheese and let the rats tear you apart! Would that impress your magistrate?"

"I'm sure it might," Matthew said evenly. "But it would do neither of us any good, for if I were crumbs by dawn you would be ashes by noon."

"Some noon I shall be ashes. Why should it not be tomorrow?"

Matthew looked through the bars at Rachel Howarth, who had drawn her legs up beneath herself. "Not all in this town believe you to be a witch."

"Who does not?"

"One, at least. As for the name, I don't feel I should betray the confidence."

"One." She smiled thinly. "That one is not the magistrate, is it?"

"No."

"Well then? It is you?"

"I have an open mind on such subjects."

"And your magistrate does not?"

"Magistrate Woodward," Matthew said, "is a man of honor and conviction. No matter his reaction today, he will act in a tempered fashion. You'll notice no flames around your feet yet, and after Mr. Buckner's tale I think the magistrate might be justified in lighting the torch."

"Buckner!" Rachel spoke it like a spit. "He's insane. I was neither in his home nor in the orchard. I hardly know the man; perhaps I've spoken a dozen words to him altogether."

Matthew walked over to his desk and began to arrange the papers into a neat stack. "He seems to know you well enough. After your display here yesterday, I must wonder if your natural inclination is not to shed your clothing and walk the town."

"I shed my clothing for my husband," she said. "No one else. Certainly not in public, and certainly not... for the vile purposes Buckner imagined."

"Was that it, then? The imaginings of an old man?"

"Yes! Of course."

Matthew located a particular sheet of paper and read from it. "Regarding the incident in the orchard, Mr. Buckner says as follows: I didn't tell nobody, not even after I heard what Elias Garrick seen. Then Lester Crane told me Stephen Dunton seen such a thing— them three creatures with the witch, 'cept they was doin' their wickedness inside the house where the Poole family used to live, right next to Dun-ton's farm." He looked up at her. "How could it be the imaginings of two men, at two different times and two different places?"

She didn't answer; her face seemed darker and she stared straight ahead.

"The testimony of Elias Garrick on Monday morning will add more sticks to your pyre," Matthew said. "Are you aware of what he's going to say?" There was no reply. "I take it that you are. Then we shall hear from a child by the name of Violet Adams. I have no knowledge of what she will testify. Do you?" Silence met his question. "Whatever it is, it will be doubly damning coming from a child. The magistrate is very sensitive to the testimony of children, and I would advise you to hold your tongue when she is speaking."

"No matter what lies she spews?" Rachel asked, still staring blankly ahead.

"No matter if she swears she witnessed you in a privyhouse accommodating three hundred and three demons. Keep your tongue shackled."

"You might care to know," Rachel said, "that the child's mother is the person who anointed my head with such a perfumed present before the church. Constance Adams made no secret of her feelings toward me." Rachel's head turned, and her eyes found Matthew's. "You're the magistrate's clerk, sworn to abide by his law. If you're not here to spy for him, then why are you in the least interested in what I might say or not say?"

Matthew continued straightening the sheets of paper. When he was done, he returned them to the box and closed the lid. It had taken him that long to formulate an answer. "I have a curiosity for puzzles," he said, refusing to meet her gaze. "I am satisfied only when all the pieces fit to perfection. In this instance ... I feel there are many pieces that have been forced into the wrong positions, and thus are ragged of edge. There are missing pieces that must be found. There are pieces that seem to be correct . . . but are, to me at least, of false shape. That is my interest."

A long silence followed, during which Matthew set about cleaning the quill. Then, "Do you think I am a witch?" Rachel asked pointedly.

"I think," he replied after some deliberation, "that this town is the host to a very cunning evil. Whether it is demon or man, it does seem Satanic. More than that, I can't say."

"Neither can I," she said. "But no matter who—or what— cut my husband's throat and masqueraded as me in these filthy performances, I'll be the one to burn for it." Matthew couldn't deny her statement. That conflagration now seemed very near indeed.

Lies upon lies, Mrs. Nettles had said. What she needs is a champion of truth.

Just as truth was sparse here, Matthew thought, so were champions. He was a clerk, nothing more. Not a magistrate, not an attorney . . . certainly not a champion.

He was certain of one thing, though; it had become clear to him, after the sickening ordeal of Buckner's testimony and the magistrate's forceful reaction. At the conclusion of these interviews, Woodward would be compelled to immediately order Rachel Howarth put to death. She would burn to the bone in a matter of days after that order had been read to the prisoner. And whose hand would scribe the sentence of death?

Matthew's own, of course. He had done it several times before; it was nothing new.

Except in this instance, he would go to his own grave pondering the pieces that did not fit, and agonized over the missing why.

He finished cleaning the quill and put it and the inkwell into the box, and then the box went into one of the desk's drawers— which Winston had obviously cleaned out before carting to the gaol, since the desk was absolutely empty—to await further need.

Then he stretched himself out in the straw—which was fresh thanks be to Mr. Green—closed his eyes, and tried to rest. It came to him only after a moment that he had reclined as far as possible from the bars that stood between his cage and Rachel Howarth's, and that in his right hand he gripped the Bible across his chest.

thirteen

BY THE TIME THE MAGISTRATE reached Dr. Shields's infirmary, which was a chalkwhite painted house on Harmony Street, he felt as if he were walking in a fog cloud. This dazed, opaque sensation was more than his physical distress; it was his mental burden, as well.

Woodward had just left the house of Lucretia Vaughan. Mrs. Vaughan had been summoned to the door by a lovely blonde girl of sixteen or thereabouts, whom the elder lady had introduced as her daughter Cherise. Upon returning the basket containing teapot and cups, Woodward had inquired why Mrs. Vaughan had wished the reddish-brown cup to be broken to pieces by Rachel Howarth.

"Surely you understand, being a sophisticated man of the city," Mrs. Vaughan had said, "that now the cup is much more valuable than before."

"Valuable?" he'd asked. "How is it that fragments of a cup are worth more than the whole?"

"Because she broke it," came the reply, which only further puzzled the magistrate. It must have shown on his face, because Mrs. Vaughan explained, "After the witch is put to death and Fount Royal is steadied again, the citizens of this town might wish to possess some token of the terrible ordeal we have been strong enough to endure." She gave a smile that Woodward could only describe as chilling. "It will take time, of course, but with the proper presentation the bits of broken cup might be sold as charms of good fortune."

"Pardon me?" Woodward had then felt the fog closing in around his head.

"I chose the nearest hue to blood-red that I could find," Mrs. Vaughan said, her tone of voice that of a sharper to a dimwit. "The blood of the witch. Or the scarlet tears of the witch. I haven't yet settled on one or the other. It's a matter of imagination, do you see?"

"I . . . fear my imagination isn't as developed as yours," Woodward said, a thick knot seemingly clogged in his throat.

"Thank you for returning these so promptly. At the appropriate time I can advertise that the pieces of cup broken by the witch were given to my own hand by the magistrate who executed her." Mrs. Vaughan now exhibited a slight frown. "Tell me—what's to become of the straw poppets?""The straw poppets?" he'd echoed.

"Yes. Surely you'll have no need of them after the witch is dead, will you?"

"Excuse me," Woodward had said. "I really must go."

And so he found himself—fogheaded under the gray-plated sky—reaching for the bellcord at Dr. Shields's door. Above the door, a sign painted in the medical colors of red, white, and blue announced this to be the shop of Benj. Shields, Surgeon Barber. Woodward pulled the cord and waited, and presently the door was opened by a portly, broad-faced woman with curly dark brown hair. He introduced himself, asked to be seen by Dr. Shields, and was admitted into a sparsely appointed parlor, the most notable feature of it being a gilded birdcage that held two yellow canaries. The woman, whose ample figure was contained by a beige dress and apron that might have served as a settler's tent, went through a door at the other side of the room and Woodward was left with the birds.

But not for very long, however, as within a minute or two the door opened again and the doctor appeared, his clothing a white blouse with sleeves rolled up, a wine-colored waistcoat, and charcoal-gray breeches. He wore his round-lensed spectacles, his long hair trailing over his shoulders. "Magistrate!" he said, and offered his hand. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"Would that pleasure was the purpose," Woodward answered, his voice—though quite husky—now in a fragile condition. "I fear I've been visited by ill health."

"Open your mouth, please," Shields instructed. "Angle your head back a bit, if you will." He peered in. "Oh my," he said, after the briefest of inspections. "Your throat appears quite swollen and aflame. You're in some pain, I would presume."

"Yes. Very much."

"No doubt. Come with me, let's have a better look."

Woodward followed the doctor through the door and along a hallway, past one room where there stood a basin of water, a chair, and a leather strop to keen the razor for the barbering duties, and past a second room that held three narrow beds. A young female with a plaster bandage around her right arm and her torpid face discolored by bruises lay in one of the beds, being fed a bowl of soup by the woman who'd admitted Woodward. He realized it must be Noles's unfortunate wife, who'd suffered the wrath of his carpet-beater.

A door into a third room further down the hallway was opened, and Shields said, "Sit there, please," as he motioned toward a chair positioned near the single window. The magistrate seated himself. Shields opened the shutters to let in the misty gray illumination. "My soul rose at the dawn," the doctor said, as he turned away to prepare the examination. "Then it fell back to earth and resides now in a puddle of mud."

"Myself the same. Will a full day of sun never again shine on the New World?""A debatable question, it seems."

Woodward considered the room into which he'd been led. It appeared to be both the physician's study and his apothecary. On one side of the chamber stood a timeworn desk and chair, next to which was a bookcase of what looked to be old medical tomes, by their thickness and the dark solemnity of their bindings. Opposite those furnishings was a long workbench built to the height of Dr. Shields's waist. Atop the bench, which had perhaps a dozen small drawers with ivory pulls constructed along its length, was a glassblower's nightmare of arcane bottles, beakers, jars, and the like, along with a set of measuring scales and various other instruments. On the wall, too, were mounted shelves that held more bottles and jars, many of the vessels murky with fluids and potions.

Shields scrubbed his hands with soap in a waterbowl. "You've just recently come into this condition? Or was it bothersome before you reached Fount Royal?"

"Just recently. It began as a slight soreness, but now ... I can hardly swallow."

"Hmmm." He dried his hands upon a cloth and then opened one of the bench's drawers. "We must go down into your throat." He turned toward the magistrate again, and Woodward saw with a start that Shields was holding a pair of clippers suitable for shearing treelimbs.

"Oh," Shields said with a slight smile at Woodward's alarm. "What I mean to say is, we must look down into your throat." With the clippers he snipped a candle in two, then laid the dread shears aside and fitted one of the candle stubs into a small metal holder with a mirror fixed behind the flame so as to amplify its light. He lit the candle from a match, then took another instrument out of a drawer and positioned the desk's chair in front of his patient. "Open wide, please."

Woodward did. Shields held the candle near the magistrate's mouth and studied the scene. "Quite raw, it appears. Are you having difficulty breathing as well?""It is a labor, yes."

"Lean your head back, let me inspect your nostrils." Shields gave a grunt as he peered up that formidable proboscis. "Yes, quite swollen there, too. The right much more than the left, but the passage of air is equally endangered. Your mouth open again."

This time when Woodward obeyed, the doctor inserted a long metal probe that at its end held a square of cotton secured by a clamp. "Refrain from swallowing, please." The cotton swabbed along the back of Woodward's throat, and the magistrate was compelled to squeeze his eyes shut and fight the urge to gag or cry out as the pain was so acute. At last the probe was withdrawn, and Woodward saw—through a veil of tears—that a pasty yellow fluid had soaked the cotton.

"I've seen this ailment before, in varying degrees of severity," the doctor said. "Your condition lies at about the midpoint. Such is the price one pays for habitation at the edge of a swamp, enduring fetid air and damp humours. This constriction and drainage is therefore inflicting extreme irritation to your throat." He stood up and laid the probe and yellow-soaked cotton on the benchtop. "I'll paint your throat with a tonic that should relieve much of the pain. I have also a remedy for the breathing obstruction." As he was speaking, he removed the tainted cotton and inserted a fresh square into the clamp.

"Thank God I can find some relief!" Woodward said. "It was sheer torture having to speak at the testimony today!"

"Ah, the testimony." Shields selected a bottle from the wall-shelf and removed its stopper. "Jeremiah Buckner was the first witness? Mr. Winston told me you were beginning with him.""That's correct."

"I know his story." Shields returned to his chair, carrying bottle and probe but minus the mirrored candle this time. "It's enough to shock the hair off a wigstand, isn't it?""I've never heard anything more sickening."

"Open, please." Shields dipped the cotton into the bottle and brought it out wet with a dark brown liquid. "This may sting a bit, but it's the rawness being soothed." He slid the probe in and Woodward braced himself. "Steady, now." The liquid-soaked cotton made contact. Woodward almost bit down on the probe, so fierce was the pain. New tears sprang to his eyes, his hands curled into fists, and he found himself thinking that this must be akin to a burning at the stake but without the smoke. "Steady, steady," the doctor said, pausing to dip the cotton into the bottle again. The contest with agony began once more, and Woodward realized his head was starting to twist on his neck in an involuntary effort to escape; thus it was akin, he thought in a fevered sort of humor, to being hanged as well as being burnt.

In another moment, though, the awful pain did begin to subside. Shields kept redipping the cotton into the bottle and swabbing liquid liberally over the back of Woodward's throat. "You should be feeling some relief by now," Shields said. "Are you?" Woodward nodded, tears streaking his face.

"This is my own mixture: Jesuit's Bark, limonum, and opium, made more firm by a base of oxymel. It's shown very excellent results in the past. I'm even considering applying for a label." He made a few more applications of the tonic and then, satisfied that the magistrate's throat was well done, sat back with a smile. "There! I wish all my patients were as sturdy as you, sir! Ah, just a moment!" He got up, went to one of the drawers, and returned with a linen cloth. "You might wish to use this."

"Thank you," Woodward croaked. He used the cloth as it was intended, to blot his tears.

"If your condition worsens in the next few days, we shall apply the tonic again at a greater strength. But I expect you'll feel much more yourself by tomorrow evening. . . . Elias Garrick is to be your next witness?""Yes."

"He's already told you his story. Why do you need to see him?""His testimony must be spoken onto the record."

Dr. Shields peered over his spectacles, looking every bit the barn owl. "I must warn you that prolonged speaking will further harm your throat. You should rest it, by all means."

"I'm seeing Garrick on Monday. I'll have the Sabbath to rest."

"Even Monday might be too soon. I'd recommend a week of as little speech as absolutely necessary."

"Impossible!" Woodward said. "I'd be a fine magistrate who couldn't speak!"

"Be that as it may, I'm simply giving you my advice." He again went to the workbench, where he put aside the probe and opened a blue ceramic jar. "This remedy will aid your air passages," he said, returning to Woodward with the jar. "Take one."

Woodward looked into the jar and saw what appeared to be a dozen or so small brown sticks, each perhaps two inches in length. "What are they?"

"A botanical remedy, from the hemp plant. I grow and cure the weed myself, as it seems to be one of the few crops that will thrive in this atrocious climate. Go ahead; you'll find it quite a useful drug."

Woodward selected one of the sticks, which had a rather oily texture, and started to slide it into his mouth, intending to chew it. "No, no!" Shields said. "It's smoked, much as one would puff a pipe.""Smoked?"

"Yes. Except for one difference: the smoke is pulled deeply into the lungs, let settle, and then slowly exhaled." Shields brought the candle over. "Put it between your lips and draw on it." The magistrate obeyed, and Shields touched the candle's flame to the stick's slightly twisted end. A thin plume of bluish smoke began to rise. "Draw it in," Shields instructed. "It will do you no good if you don't."

Woodward inhaled as deeply as possible. He felt the bitter-tasting smoke sear his lungs, and then the bout of coughing that burst forth from him brought fresh tears. He bent over, coughing and weeping.

"The first several inhalations are difficult," the doctor admitted. "Here, I'll show you how it's done." He seated himself, chose one of the hemp sticks, and lit it. Then he inhaled with a familiar ease. After a slight pause, he let the smoke exit his mouth. "You see? It does take some practise."

Even so, Woodward noted that Shields's eyes were glistening. He tried it again, and again was attacked by a coughing fit.

Shields said, "You may be taking in too much smoke. Small doses are the better.""Do you insist I suffer this remedy?"

"I do. You'll breathe so much more freely." Shields inhaled again, uptilted his chin, and let the smoke drift toward the ceiling.

Woodward tried it a third time. The coughing was not so severe. The fourth time, he coughed only twice. By the sixth inhalation, there did seem to be some lessening of the pressure in his head.

Dr. Shields had almost smoked his down to the halfway point. He regarded the burning tip, and then he stared fixedly at Woodward. "You know, Magistrate," he said after a long silence, "you're a very fine man.""And why is that, sir?"

"Because you take Robert Bidwell's bluff and bluster without complaint. You must be a fine man. By God, you must be verging on sanctity.""I think not. I'm just a servant"

"Oh, more than a servant! You're master of the law, which makes you Bidwell's superior, since he so desperately needs what only you can supply."

"But I might say the same for you, sir," Woodward answered. He inhaled deeply, let settle, and then exhaled. The smoke, as it rose, seemed to him to break apart, merge, and break apart again like the movement of a beautiful kaleidoscope. "You are master of the healing arts."

"Would that I were!" Shields gave a hollow laugh, then leaned forward to give a conspiratorial whisper: "Most of the time, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.""Oh, you're joking!"

"No." Shields drew again and the smoke spooled from his mouth. "It's quite pitifully true."

"I think your honesty has lost its brindle. I mean . . ." Woodward had to pause to collect the words. The lessening of the pressure in his head also seemed to have shaken the proper vocabulary from his brain. "Your modesty has lost its bridle, I think."

"Being a physician here ... in this town, at this time ... is a depressing occupation, sir. I have occasion to stroll past the cemetery in visiting my patients. Sometimes I feel I should set up office amid the graves, as there would not be as much travel required." He held the hemp stick between his lips and pulled rather violently on it. The amount of smoke that poured from his mouth was copious. Behind his spectacles, his eyes had become reddened and sad. "It's the swamp, of course. Human beings were not meant to live so near to such a miasma. It burdens the soul and weakens the spirit. Add upon that dismal picture the continual rain and the presence of the witch, and I cannot for the life of me see how Bidwell's town can thrive. People are leaving here every day . . . one way or the other. No." He shook his head. "Mark Fount Royal as doomed."

"If you really believe so, why don't you take your wife and leave?""My wife?"

"Yes." Woodward blinked heavily. His air passages were feeling so much clearer, but his mind seemed befogged. "The woman who admitted me. Isn't she your wife?"

"Oh, you mean Mrs. Heussen. My nurse. No, my wife and two sons—no, one son—live in Boston. My wife is a seamstress. I did have two sons. One of them ..." He inhaled in a way that struck Woodward as being needful. "... the eldest, was murdered by a highwayman on the Philadelphia Post Road. That would be . . . oh . .. eight years ago, I suppose, but still some wounds refuse the remedy of time. To have a child—no matter what age—snatched away from you in such a fashion ..." He trailed off, watching the blue smoke swirl in currents and eddies as it rose toward the ceiling. "Pardon me," he said presently, lifting a hand to rub his eyes. "My mind wandered."

"If I may ask," Woodward ventured, "why does your wife remain in Boston?"

"You're not suggesting that she come here to live, are you? Christ's Blood, I wouldn't hear of it! No, she's much better off in Boston, where the medical facilities are modern. They've tamed their salt marshes and tidepools up there, as well, so the damp humours aren't so vengeful." He took a quick sip of the hemp and slowly spewed out the smoke. "For the same reasons, Winston left his family in England and Bidwell wouldn't dream of having his wife make the voyage—not even on one of his own ships! You know, Johnstone's wife so detested the place that she returned to England and refused to make the crossing again. Do you blame her? This isn't a woman's land, that's a surety!"

Woodward, though this fog was rapidly overcoming his mind, remembered what he had intended to ask Dr. Shields. "About Schoolmaster Johnstone," he said, his tongue thick and seemingly coated with cat fur. "I have to inquire about this, and I know it must sound very strange, but . . . have you ever seen his deformed knee?"

"His knee? No, I haven't. I'm not sure I would care to, since deformation is not my area of interest. I have sold him bandages and liniment for his discomfort, though." Shields frowned. "Why do you ask such a question?"

"My curiosity," he replied, though it was more Matthew's curiosity that his own. "Uh . . . would it be unlikely that Mr. Johnstone could ... for instance . . . run or climb stairs?"

The doctor looked at Woodward as if the magistrate's senses had flown the coop."I take it that he could not," Woodward said.

"Most certainly not. Well, he might be able to climb stairs one at the time, but I think the effort would be considerable." He cocked his head to one side, his owlish eyes bright. "What are these questions about, Isaac? May I call you Isaac?""Yes, of course. And may I call you Benjamin?"

"Absolutely. So: Isaac, my friend, why these questions pertaining to Johnstone's knee?"

"A thief entered Mr. Bidwell's house early this morning," Woodward said, leaning his head forward. Smoke moved sinuously between himself and the doctor. "Whoever it was, he stole a gold coin from my clerk's room—"

"Ah, yes." Shields nodded. "The famous coin. I heard about it from Malcolm Jennings when he came to have a boil lanced."

"I encountered the thief in the hallway," Woodward continued. "He was a big man, with the strength of a bull. I fought him as best I could, but as he had caught me from behind I was at the disadvantage." It seemed more true now in his recollection that this had occurred, and who was to say it had not? "Everything happened so quickly," Woodward said. "I didn't see his face. He knocked a lamp from my hand and fled down the staircase. Of course I know Mr. Johnstone's deformity is severe, but . . . my clerk wanted to learn whether you've inspected his knee, and if he's capable of such an action."

Shields laughed. "Surely you're not serious! Alan Johnstone a thief! I should say that in all of Fount Royal there's no one who'd be less a thief! The man's from a wealthy family!"

"I presumed so, since he did attend All Souls' College at Oxford, but one never knows."

"I've personally seen his gold pocket watch, inscribed with his initials. He owns a gold ring with a ruby in it the size of a man's fingernail!" Shields laughed again, rather giddily. "A thief indeed! No, it wouldn't be possible for Alan to run down a staircase. You've seen how he depends on his cane."

"Yes, I have. But the theory that I believe my clerk is advancing—and understand, please, that he's young and his imagination roams unrestrained—is that Mr. Johnstone's knee appears to be malformed, but is in truth—his theory, now—as normal as yours or mine."

Shields blinked, took a sip of smoke, blinked again, and then his face broke into a merry grin. "Oh, you're wearing a jester's cap now, is that it?"

Woodward shrugged. "My clerk is quite serious. Therefore I had to make the inquiry."

The doctor's grin faltered. "This is the most . . . unbalanced thing I've ever heard! You can see the deformity of his knee through his stocking! He's been in Fount Royal for three years! Why in the world would it serve him to devise such a pretense?"

"I have no idea. Again, please understand that Matthew is a very intelligent young man, but that sometimes his mind is unfettered by common sense."

"I should say so!" Shields smoked his remedy some more, and so did the magistrate. Woodward was feeling quite better now, most of the pain having left his throat and his breathing passages much clearer. The movement of the smoke entranced him, and the quality of the light entering the room was like gray silk. "I will tell you something about Alan that you might find of interest," Shields suddenly confided. "About his wife, I mean." He pitched his voice a little lower. "Her name was Margaret. She was . . . how shall I say this ... of a peculiar character.""In what way?"

"A lovely woman, no doubt. But . . . her bell was somewhat cracked. I never witnessed any of her outbursts, but I heard from reliable sources that she was quite the hellion, with a penchant for throwing whatever came to hand. Winston witnessed it, one night at Bidwell's house. The woman flew into a rage and smashed a platter of chicken against the wall. And there was the other thing." Shields let his sentence hang while he puffed his hemp stick, which was beginning to burn down between his fingers. "One moment." He got up, went to the workbench, and returned with the small stub of hemp clamped in the probe as the cotton had been. He sat down again, a mischievous shine in his eyes. "Mrs. Johnstone and the husband of that poor woman in the infirmary ..." He motioned with an angling of his head in the direction of the other room. "They had a number of assignations.""Noles and Johnstone's wife?"

"Correct. And quite bold about it, as I recall. Many knew what was going on—including Noles's wife. In time someone told Alan, but I think it came as no surprise to him. Well, Margaret despised Fount Royal anyway—she made no secret of that—and so Alan took her back to England to live with her parents. She was of wealthy stock too—her father was in the textile business—but I believe she was a trifle overbred. A few months later, Alan returned here and the matter was forgotten."

"Adultery is a serious offense," Woodward said. "Did he not wish to press charges?"

"I honestly think he was relieved to be rid of the woman. She was a menace to his reputation, and certainly lacking in decorum. Alan is a quiet, thoughtful man who keeps to himself for the most part, but he does have a cutting wit."

"He must be a dedicated teacher, to have returned so soon to Fount Royal."

"That he is. He's taken it upon himself to educate not only the children here, but many of the farmers who can't read. And of course the salary Bidwell pays him is hardly enough to buy a needle and thread, but as I say the schoolmaster has money of his own."

Woodward nodded, drawing once more on his hemp stick; it had burned quite well down, and he could feel its heat between his fingers. In fact, he felt very warm all over now, and was perspiring. This was a good thing, he thought. It must mean that he was sweating out the bad humours. His eyes felt heavy-lidded, and without much prompting he could lie down and take a nap. "What about Winston?" he asked."What of him?""I mean, what do you know about him?"

Shields grinned, smoke leaking between his teeth. "Am I on the witness stand, sir?"

"No, and I don't intend to sound like a magistrate. I'd simply like to know more about the people here."

"I see," Shields said, though from his tone of voice it was clear he still believed court was in session. After a pause of deliberation, he said, "Edward Winston is a loyal mule. You know that Winston was Bidwell's office manager in London, don't you? He's an excellent administrator, organizer, and bean counter. He, too, keeps quite to himself. I think in his case he's a bit uncomfortable around people. But it was his idea to bring the maskers here."

"The maskers?"

"Yes. The actors, that is. Bidwell's fond of the theater. For the past three summers, a travelling company has come to enact a morality play. It does seem to bring some culture and civilization out here in the wilderness. At least, the citizens have something to look forward to every year. They come in mid-July, so it's a pity you won't be present to see them." Shields took one last puff and realized he had reached the end of his stick. "Then again," he said, "Fount Royal may not be here in mid-July, either."

"What of Nicholas Paine?" Woodward asked. "Do you know him well?"

"Nicholas Paine," the doctor repeated. He smiled slightly. "Yes, I do know him well."

"He seems an able man." Woodward was thinking of that term Paine had used: black-flagger. "What do you know of his history?""I know he has one. A history, I mean."

"I'd call that a cryptic remark," Woodward said when Shields lapsed into silence.

"Nicholas is a very private man," Shields offered. "He has been a jack-of-all-trades. Was a seaman for a number of years, I understand. But he's not open to discussing his past at much length.""Is he married? Does he have a family?"

"He was married, when he was a younger man. His wife perished from an illness that caused her to suffer fits until she died."

Woodward had lifted the small stub to his mouth for a final inhalation; now, however, his hand froze. "Fits?" he said. He swallowed thickly. "What kind of fits?"

"Convulsions, I suppose." The doctor shrugged. "Some form of fever, most probably. Or the plague. But it was long ago, and I'm sure Paine wouldn't care to speak about it. In fact, I know he would not."

"The plague," Woodward repeated. His eyes had become glazed, not entirely from the bitterly compelling smoke of his remedy.

"Isaac?" Shields, noting the other man's vacant stare, touched the magistrate's sleeve. "What is it?"

"Oh, forgive me." Woodward blinked, waved some of the fumes away from his face, and brought himself back to his surroundings. "I was thinking, that's all."

Shields nodded, a sly smile twisting his mouth. "Yes. Thinking of whom you might ask questions about me, is that correct?""No. About something else entirely."

"But you are planning on inquiring about me, are you not? It would only be fair, since you've pumped the well concerning the schoolmaster, Mr. Winston, and Mr. Paine. Ah, I believe you're done with that! May I?" He took the burnt-down stub from Woodward's hand and placed it, along with the remnant of his own, into a small pewter jar, which he then closed with a hinged lid. "Are you feeling better now?""Yes. Remarkably so."

"Good. As I said, you might have to repeat the treatment according to your constitution. We shall see." Shields stood up. "Now allow me to escort you to Van Gundy's tavern for a cup of his excellent hard cider. Also he has a stock of peanuts on hand, as I'm feeling quite hungry. Will you join me?""I would be honored."

When the magistrate stood from his chair, his legs almost betrayed him. His head was swimming and strange lights seemed to dance behind his eyes. But the pain in his throat had all but vanished, and his breathing was miraculously cleared. The doctor's remedy, he thought, was surely a wonder drug.

"Sometimes the smoke does play tricks with the balance," Shields said. "Here, take my arm and a'tavern we shall go!"

"A tavern, a tavern!" Woodward said. "My kingdom for a tavern!" This struck him as riotously funny, and he began to laugh at his own wit. The laughter was a little too loud and a little too harsh, however, and even in his lightened state of mind he knew what he was trying to cloak.

fourteen

WITH THE FADING of the light, the rats grew bold. Matthew had heard their squeakings and rustlings all the afternoon, but they'd not yet made an appearance. He'd been relieved to find that the rodents had not emerged to attack either his lunch or supper—meager beef broth and two slices of black bread, humble but stomach-filling—but now, ever since Green had closed the roof hatch and left only a single lantern burning on its hook, the creatures were creeping out of their nooks and crannies to claim the place.

"Watch your fingers," Rachel told him, sitting on her bench. "They'll give you a bite if you try to strike them. If one crawls on you tonight, it's best to lie perfectly still. They'll be sniffing at you, that's all."

"The one that bit your shoulder," Matthew said. He was standing up, his back against the wall. "Was it only sniffing?"

"No, I tried to get that one away from my waterbucket. I found out they can jump like cats, and I also learned they're going to have your water no matter what you do."

Matthew picked up his own bucket of water, which Green had recently filled from a larger container, and he drank copiously from it. Enough, he hoped, to quench his thirst for the night.

Then he placed the bucket on the floor in the opposite corner, as far away from his bed of straw as possible.

"Green only brings fresh water every other day," Rachel said, watching him. "You won't mind drinking after the rats when you get thirsty enough."

Another quandary had presented itself to Matthew, far worse than the problem of the rodents and the waterbucket. Green had also brought in a fresh bucket to be used for elimination. Matthew had realized he was going to have to pull down his breeches and use it—sooner or later—right in front of the woman. And, likewise, she would be using her own without benefit of a shade or screen. He thought he might endure two more lashes added to his sentence if he could have at least a modicum of privacy, but it was not to be.

Suddenly a dark shape darted from a small crevice in the wall of Matthew's cell and went straight for the bucket. As Matthew watched, the rodent—black-furred, red-eyed, and as long as his hand—climbed swiftly up the bucket's side and leaned over its rim to lap the water, its claws gripping the wood. A second one followed, and then a third. The things interrupted their drinking to chatter like washerwomen trading gossip at the common well, and then they broke ranks and squeezed their bodies again into the crevice.

It was going to be a very long night.

Matthew had several books on hand, courtesy of the magistrate, who'd brought the tomes from Bidwell's library that afternoon, but as the light was so meager there would be no reading tonight. Woodward had told him he'd had an interesting conversation with Dr. Shields, and would reveal more when Matthew was set free. Now, though, Matthew felt the walls and bars closing in upon him; without proper light by which to read or write, and with rats scratching and scurrying in the logs, he feared he might lose his grip on his decorum and shame himself before Rachel Howarth. It shouldn't matter, of course, because after all she was an accused murderess—and much worse—but still he desired to present himself as a sturdy oak, not the thin willow he felt to be.

It was warm and steamy in the gaol. Rachel cupped her hands into her waterbucket and dampened her face, washing off the salty perspiration that had collected on her cheeks and forehead. She cooled her throat with the water as well, and paid no heed when two rats squeaked and fought in the corner of her cage.

"How long is it that you've been here?" Matthew asked, sitting on his bench with his knees pulled up to his chin. "This is the second week of May, is it not?"

"Yes."

"I was brought here on the third day of March."

Matthew flinched at the very thought of it. No matter what she might have done, she was made of sterner stuff than he. "How do you stand it, day after day?"

She finished bathing her throat before she replied. "Do I have any choice but to stand it? I suppose I could become a gibbering fool. I suppose I could break down, fall to my knees, and confess witchcraft at the boots of fine Mr. Bidwell, but should I go to my death that way?"

"You could recite the Lord's Prayer before him. That might win you some mercy."

"No," she said, and she aimed those fierce amber eyes at him, "it would not. As I told you, I refuse to recite something that has no meaning in this town. And my recitation of it would change no one's mind about my guilt." She cupped her hands again and this time let the water flow through her wild mane of ebony hair. "You heard what the magistrate said. If I spoke the Lord's Prayer, it might be a trick of the Devil to save my skin."

Matthew nodded. "I grant you, you're right. Bidwell and the others have made their opinions about you, and nothing will shake them."

"Except one thing," she said firmly. "Discovering who really murdered the reverend and my husband, and who plotted this evil against me."

"Discovery is only half the solution. The other half would be the presentation of proof, without which discovery is hollow."

When Matthew was silent again he was aware of the noises the rats were making, so he chose to speak in an effort to keep his mind busied. "Who would have cause to commit those crimes? Do you have any idea?"

"No."

"Did your husband anger someone? Did he cheat someone? Did he—"

"This is not about Daniel," she interrupted. "It is about me. I was chosen as the object of this farce because of the very reasons I was hounded from their church. My mother was Portuguese, my father a dark Irishman. But I have my mother's color and her eyes. They mark me as surely as a raven among doves. I alone am of this color, here in this town. Who would not look upon me as someone different. . . someone to be feared, because I am different?"

Matthew had thought of another reason, as well: her exotic beauty. He doubted that a woman more comely than Rachel Howarth had ever set foot in Fount Royal. Her nigrescent coloring was surely objectionable to many—if not most—in this society of pallid whitebreads, but that very same hue was as the burnished flesh of a forbidden fruit. He'd never in his life seen anyone the equal of her. She seemed more proud animal than suffering human, and he thought that this quality too could stir the fire of a man's lust. Or fan the crackling embers of another woman's jealousy.

"The evidence against you," he said, and quickly amended himself: "The apparent evidence against you is overwhelming. Buckner's story may be riddled with holes, but he believes what he said today to be true. The same with Elias Garrick. He firmly believes he witnessed you in . . . shall we say . . . intimate accord with Satan."

"Lies," she said.

"I have to disagree. I don't think they're lying."

"So you do believe me to be a witch, then?"

"I don't know what I believe," he said. "Take the poppets, for instance. They were found under a floorboard of your kitchen. A woman named Cara—"

"Grunewald," Rachel said. "She pinched her husband's ear for speaking to me, long before any of this happened."

"Madam Grunewald saw the location of the poppets in a dream," Matthew continued. "How do you account for that?"

"Simply. She made the poppets and put them there herself."

"If she hated you so deeply, then why did she leave Fount Royal? Why did she not stay to testify before the magistrate? Why did she not satisfy her hatred by remaining here to watch your execution?"

Now Rachel was staring at the floor. She shook her head.

Matthew said, "If I had made the poppets and hidden them beneath the floorboard, I would make certain to be in the crowd on the day of your departure from this earth. No, I don't believe Madam Grunewald had a hand in creating them."

"Nicholas Paine," Rachel said suddenly, and looked again at Matthew. "He was one of the three men who broke down my door that March morning, bound me with ropes, and threw me into the back of a wagon. He also was one of the men who found the poppets."

"Who were the other two men who took you into custody?"

"Hannibal Green and Aaron Windom. I never shall forget that dawn. They dragged me from my bed, and Green locked his arm around my throat to stop my screaming. I spat in Windom's face and got a slap for it."

"Paine, Garrick, James Reed, and Kelvin Bonnard discovered the poppets," Matthew said, recalling what Garrick had said on the night of their arrival. "Can you think of any possible reason Paine or any of those others might have fashioned them and hidden them there?"

"No."

"All right, then." Matthew saw another dark streak go across the floor. He watched the rat climb up the side of the waterbucket and drink. "Let us say that Paine, for whatever reason, did make the poppets and put them under the floorboard. Why should it be Madam Grunewald who saw their location in a dream? Why should it not be Paine himself, if he was so eager to present physical evidence against you?" He pondered the question and thought he might have an answer. "Did Paine have . . . uh . . . a relationship with Madam Grunewald?"

"I don't think so," Rachel replied. "Cara Grunewald was as fat as a pig and had half her nose eaten away by the pox."

"Oh." Matthew pondered some more. "Less reason she should leave Fount Royal, then, if she had made the poppets and knew you to be falsely accused. No, whoever fashioned them is still here. Of that I'm positive. A person who would go to the effort of such deceit would make sure he—or she—had the satisfaction of watching you die." He glanced through the bars at her. "Pardon my bluntness."

Rachel said nothing for a while, as the rats continued to squeak and scurry in the walls. Then, "You know, I'm really beginning to believe you've not been sent here to spy on me."

"You should. I'm here—unfortunately—on a criminal offense."

"Involving the blacksmith, did you say?"

"I entered his barn without permission," Matthew explained. "He attacked me, I injured his face, and he desired satisfaction. Therefore the three-day sentence and three lashes."

"Seth Hazelton is a very strange man. I wouldn't doubt that he attacked you, but what was the reason?"

"I discovered a sack hidden in the barn that he desired not to have brought to light. According to him, it was full of his wife's belongings. But I think it was something else altogether."

"What, then?"

He shook his head. "I don't know, but I do intend to find out."

"How old are you?" she asked suddenly. "Twenty years."

"Have you always been so curious?"

"Yes," he answered. "Always."

"From what I saw today, the magistrate doesn't appreciate your curiosity"

Matthew said, "He appreciates the truth. Sometimes we arrive at it from different routes."

"If he chooses to believe what's claimed about me, he is lost in the wilderness," she said. "Tell me why it is that you—a clerk—seem to grant me more innocence than does a learned magistrate of the law."

Matthew thought about this point before he gave a reply. "Perhaps it's because I never met a witch before."

"And the magistrate has?"

"He's never tried a witch, but he does know judges who have. I think also that he was more impressed by the Salem trials than I, since I was only thirteen years at the time and still in an almshouse." Matthew rested his chin upon one of his knees. "The magistrate has in his sphere of learning all the accumulated knowledge of English law," he said. "Some of that knowledge is built on a framework of medieval belief. As I am a lowly clerk and have not yet been immersed in such knowledge, I do not hold so strongly to its conceptions. You should realize, however, that Magistrate Woodward is indeed a liberal jurist. If he were entirely of the medieval mind, you would be burnt by now."

"What's he waiting for, then? If I'm going to burn anyway, why hear these witnesses?"

"The magistrate wants to give you an opportunity to answer all the charges. It's the proper way of procedure."

"Damn the procedure!" Rachel snapped, and she stood up. "Damn the charges! They're all lies!"

"Profanity will not help your position," Matthew said calmly. "I'd suggest you refrain from it."

"What will help my position?" she demanded, approaching the bars. "Shall I fall on my knees and beg mercy for crimes I haven't committed? Shall I sign over my husband's land and all my possessions and swear upon the Bible that I shall never bewitch the citizens of Fount Royal again? Tell me! What can I possibly do to save my life?"

It was a good question. So good, in fact, that Matthew was unable to supply an answer. The best he could manage was: "There is some hope."

"Ah, hope!" Rachel said bitterly. Her hands curled around the bars. "Perhaps you're not a spy, but you're a liar and you know you are. There is no hope for me. There never was any hope, not since that morning I was dragged from my house. I am going to be executed for crimes I have not committed, and the murderer of my husband will go free. Where's the hope in that?"

"Hey, there! Quiet down!" It was Hannibal Green, thundering from the entrance. He came into the gaol, bearing a lantern, and behind him trudged the filthy, ragged figure Matthew had last seen by the light of a burning house. Gwinett Linch had his ratsack at his side, a cowhide bag over his shoulder, and his sticker in his hand.

"Brought you some company," Green rumbled. "Gonna clean this hole up a bit."

Rachel didn't respond. Tight-lipped, she returned to her bench and sat down, then she covered her head and face with her cowl again.

"Which one'll do ye?" Green asked of the ratcatcher, and Linch motioned toward the cage opposite Matthew's. Linch entered the cell and used his foot to brush aside the layer of dirty straw from the floor in a small circle. Then he reached into a pocket of his breeches and his hand emerged to throw a few dozen dried kernels of corn into the circle. Again his hand went into his pocket, and then a number of small pieces of potato joined the corn kernels. He produced a wooden jar from the cowhide bag, out of which he shook a brown powdery substance around the circle's perimeter. The same brown powder was shaken here and there in the straw, and applied at the base of the cell's walls.

"You gonna need me?" Green asked.

Linch shook his head. "I mi' be a while."

"Here, I'll give you the keys. You can lock up when you're done. Remember to put out the lantern."

The exchange of the keys was made, after which Green hurried out. Linch shook more of the brown powder into the straw, making trails between the corners of the walls and the circle.

"What is that?" Matthew inquired. "Some kind of poison?"

"It's most ground sugar," Linch answered. "With a teech of opium mixed to it. Got to get them rats drowsy, slow 'em down some." He returned the lid to the wooden jar and put it back in the cowhide bag. "Why? You thinkin' of robbin' my job?"

"I think not."

Linch grinned. He was listening to the squeakings and squealings of the rats, which had obviously caught scent of the feast that was being offered to them. Linch put on his deerskin gloves and then with smooth familiarity removed the piece of wood that secured the single blade at the end of his sticker. From his bag he brought out a fearsome appliance that had five curved blades, much like small scythes, and this he twisted into position on the sticker's tip. Two metal clips were forced into grooves to lock the ugly implement, and then Linch regarded it with obvious pride. "Ever see such a thing, boy?" he asked. "I can strike two or three at a time with this. Thought it up myself."

"An artful device, I'm sure."

"A useful device," Linch corrected. "Hazelton fashioned it for me. He's an inventor, once he puts his mind to a task." He cocked his head toward a rustling in the corner.

"Ah, listen to 'em! Fightin' to eat their last meal!" His grin widened. "Hey, witch!" he called to Rachel. "You gonna give me a tumble 'fore you burn?"

She didn't dignify his request with a reply or even a movement.

"You get over close to her, boy, and stick out your cock," Linch said. "She mi' suck it for you." He laughed as Matthew's face bloomed red, and then he pulled the cell's bench next to the cleared-off circle. When it was situated as he pleased, Linch left the cell to pluck the lantern from its hook and he brought it into the cage with him. He put it down on the floor a few feet away from the circle, then he sat upon the bench with his legs crossed beneath him and the five-bladed sticker held in a two-handed grip. "Won't be long now," he announced. "They're gettin' 'em-selves a taste of that sweet stupidity."

Matthew saw the ratcatcher's luminous pale gray eyes glitter in the dim candlelight. They might have been the icy eyes of a specter rather than those of a human being. Linch spoke again, in a low, soft, almost singsong cadence: "Come out, come out, my dames and dandies. Come out, come out, and taste my candies." He repeated it twice more, each time becoming softer and more song than speech.

And then, indeed, a large black rat did enter the deadly circle. It sniffed at a piece of potato, its tail twitching; then it grabbed up a corn kernel between its teeth and fled for the darkness again.

"Come out, come out," Linch sang, all but whispering. He stared at the circle, waiting for the rodents to appear in his field of vision. "Come out, come out, and taste my candies."

Another rat appeared, grabbed up a corn kernel, and fled. But the third rat that entered the circle moved more sluggishly, and Matthew knew it must be feeling the effects of Linch's sugared opium. This benumbed rodent chewed on one of the potatoes for a moment, then stood up on its hind legs to stare at the candleflame as if it were a celestial light.

Linch was very fast. The sticker whipped down in a blur of motion and there was a high-pitched squeal as the rat was impaled. At once Linch snapped the small beast's neck, then plucked the carcass from its blade and made a deposit in his sack. All of this had taken only a very few seconds, and now Linch held the sticker ready again and he was softly singing. "Come out, come out, my dames and dandies. Come out, come out, and taste my candies ..."

Within a minute, Matthew had witnessed two more executions and a near-miss. Linch might be disgusting, Matthew thought, but he was certainly proficient at his task.

The rats that were entering the circle now showed signs of lethargy. Feasting on the sugar and opium had clearly robbed them of much of their survival instinct. A few of them still had the speed to escape Linch's blades, but most perished before they could turn tail. Several died so bewildered they didn't even squeal as they were pierced.

After twenty or more executions there was quite a lot of rodent blood in the circle, yet the rats kept coming, too drug-fogged to be daunted from the promise of such treats. Every once in a while Linch would repeat in that soft, singsong tone his little ditty about dandies and candies, but it was such an easy massacre that it seemed a waste of breath. Down came the sticker, and rarely did Linch misjudge his aim. Soon the ratcatcher was killing them two at a time.

In forty minutes or so, the number of rodents began to subside. Matthew presumed that either Linch had killed the majority of gaolhouse rats, or that at last the odors of blood and carnage were strong enough to warn them away even through the numbing effects of the—as Linch had put it—"sweet stupidity." The ratcatcher, too, seemed thoroughly fatigued by the slaughter, which had bloodied his gloves and bulged his sack.

One small gray specimen, weaving around like a drunken lord, entered the circle. As Matthew watched, intrigued not by the grisly spectacle but by Linch's speed and surety of dispatch, the little rat nibbled at a kernel of corn and then began to chase its tail with ferocious intent. Around and around it went in a mad spin, with Linch's sticker poised above it waiting to strike. At last the rat gave up the chase and lay on its belly as if exhausted. Matthew expected the sticker to flash down and a blade to bite deep, but Linch stayed his hand.

The ratcatcher gave a long, weary sigh. "You know," he said quietly, "they ain't such terrible creatures. Got to eat, just like anybody. Got to live. They came over on the ships, same as the people did. They're smart beasts; they know that where the people are, that's where they'll find food. No, they ain't so terrible." He leaned over and touched a finger to some of the sugared opium he'd scattered on the floor, and then he pressed the finger to the rat's mouth. Whether it ate the offering or not,

Matthew couldn't tell, but the rodent was far too stupified to flee.

"Hey, watch this trick," Linch said. He reached over, picked up the lantern, and began to move it in a slow, sinuous circle above the gray rat. The rodent just lay there, seemingly uninterested, its body stretched out next to a gnawed lump of potato. Linch kept the movement slow and steady, and presently Matthew saw the rat's tail twitch and its head angle up toward the mysterious glow that was circling its theater of night. A minute passed. Linch kept moving the lantern around and around, with no discernible reduction or addition of speed. The candlelight glinted red in the eyes of the rat, and ice-white in the eyes of the ratcatcher.

Linch whispered, "Up, my pretty. Up, up, my pretty." The rat's tail continued to twitch, its eyes followed the light, but otherwise it remained stationary.

"Up, up," Linch whispered, again almost in a singsong cadence. "Up, up, my pretty." The lantern went around and around again. Linch bent his head toward the rodent, his untamed brows knitting with concentration. "Up, up," he spoke, a compelling note entering his voice. "Up, up."

Suddenly the rat gave a shiver and stood on its hind legs. Balancing on its tail, it began to circle with the progress of the lantern, like a tiny dog begging for a bone. Matthew watched with absolute fascination, realizing the rat in its bewildered state was transfixed by the candle. The rodent's eyes were directed to the flame, its stubby front legs clawing at the air as if desiring union with that which made such a strange and beautiful illumination. Who knew what the rat was seeing—by benefit of the sugared opium—there at the center of the fire?

"Dance for me," Linch whispered. "A reel, if you please." He circled the lantern a bit faster, and it seemed the rodent turned faster as well, though this might have been Matthew's imagination. Indeed, one might imagine the rat had become a dancer in accord with Linch's command. Its hind legs were shivering, about to collapse, yet still the rat sought communion with the flame.

"Pretty, pretty one," Linch said, in a voice as soft as a touch of mist on the cheek. And then he brought the sticker down, not hurriedly but rather with an air of resignation. Two of the blades pierced the rat's exposed belly and the rodent stiffened and shrieked. It bared its teeth and gnashed at the air, as most of its brothers and sisters had done in their death agonies. Linch put the lantern aside, broke the rat's neck with a quick jerk of his right hand, and the bloody carcass went into the sack with the others.

"How'd you like that?" he asked Matthew, his grin wide and expectant of praise.

"Quite impressive," Matthew said. "You might find employ in a circus, if you would spare the life of your partner."

Linch laughed. He removed a dark-stained cloth from his bag and began to clean the sticker's five blades, which meant the executions had come to an end. "I was in the circus," he said as he blotted away the blood. "Nine, ten years ago back in England. Used rats in my act. Dressed 'em up in little suits, made 'em dance just as you saw. They have a taste of ale or rum—or stronger—and a candle makes 'em think they're seein' God. Whatever God is to a rat, I mean."

"How come you to leave the circus?"

"Didn't get on so well with the bastard who owned it. I was makin' the lion's share of money for him, but he was payin' me lamb's wages. Anyhow, the plague's got so bad over there your audience is all ribs and teeth." He shrugged. "I found me a better way to earn my livin'."

"Ratcatching?" Matthew realized he'd spoken it a shade distastefully.

"Gainful elimination of pests," Linch answered. "Like I told you, every town's got to have a ratcatcher. If there's anythin' on earth I know about, it's rats. And people, too," he added. "I know enough about people to be happy I spend most of my time with rats." He shook the heavy sack full of carcasses. "Even if they are dead ones."

"A delightful sentiment," Matthew said.

Linch stood up, the ratsack attached to his belt. He returned the bloodied cloth to the cowhide bag and slipped its strap around his shoulder. "I been here near two years," he said. "Long enough to know this is a good town, but it ain't got a chance while that witch stays alive." He nodded toward Rachel in her cage. "Ought to take her out come Monday mornin' and finish her off. Put her out of her misery and the rest of us out of ours, too."

"Has she done anything against you?" Matthew asked.

"No. Not yet, I mean to say. But I know what she's done, and what she's like to do 'fore it's over." He held the sticker in his right hand and picked up the lantern with his left. "If I was you, boy, I'd watch my back tonight."

"Thank you for your concern, sir."

"You're so very welcome." Linch gave a mocking bow. When he had straightened up, he narrowed his eyes and looked around the cell. "Believe I've cleaned the place might fairly. Maybe a few more still hidin', but none much to worry about. I'll say good night to you and the witch, then." He left the cell and started off, still carrying the lantern.

"Wait!" Matthew said, his hands clenching the bars. "Aren't you going to leave the light?"

"What, this stub of a candle? Ain't an hour of burnin' left in it. Anyway, how am I supposed to see to lock up? No, I'm takin' it with me." Without a further word Linch walked out of the gaol and the darkness was total. There was the sound of a chain rattling as Linch secured the entrance, and then the awful silence descended.

Matthew stayed exactly where he was for a minute or more, still gripping the bars. He stared toward the gaol's doorway, hoping beyond hope that Linch, or someone, would return with a lantern, because this darkness was a brutally terrible thing. He could smell the blood of rats. He felt his nerves starting to unravel like axe-hacked ropes.

"I told you," Rachel said in a quiet but very calm voice. "The darkness is bad. They never leave a lantern in here at night. You might have known that."

"Yes." His voice sounded thick. "I might have."

He heard her stand up from her bench. He heard her footsteps through the straw. Then there came the rustling of her sackcloth gown and the scrape of a bucket. What followed next was the noise of a stream of water.

One problem, he realized grimly, had been solved.

He would have to bear the dark, though it was almost beyond endurance. He would have to bear it anyway, because if he did not fight its pressure upon his mind, then he might scream or weep, and what good would come of those actions? Surely he could bear it for three nights, if Rachel Howarth had borne it for three months. Surely he could.

From the logwall behind him he heard a squeaking and scurrying. He knew full well that now had come the night that would test his mettle, and if his mettle be found cracked he was lost.

Rachel's voice suddenly came from just beyond the bars that parted them. "Try to sleep, if you can. There's no use in standing up all night."

At last Matthew reluctantly loosened his grip on the iron and made his way past the desk to the place in the straw where he'd decided to sleep. That had been before the light had been taken, of course. He knelt down, feeling around to make sure no rats were waiting to attack him. There were none, though they sounded alarmingly near. He lay on his side and curled himself up into a tight ball, his arms around his knees. It seemed eons until the dawn.

He heard the woman lie down in the straw. Then silence reigned, except for the rodents. He clenched his teeth together and squeezed his eyes shut. Perhaps he made a noise of despair—a gasp, a moan, something—but he wasn't sure.

"May I call you Matthew?" Rachel asked.

It wasn't proper. Wasn't proper at all. He was the magistrate's clerk, and she the accused. No, such familiarity was not proper.

"Yes," he said, his voice strained and near cracking. "Good night, Matthew."

"Good night," he answered, and he almost said Rachel but he closed his mouth before the name could emerge. He did speak it, though, in his innermost voice.

He waited, listening. For what, he did not know. Perhaps the buzz of a luminous, witch-directed fly. Perhaps the cold laughter of a demon who had come to visit for obscene purposes; perhaps the sound of raven's wings flitting in the dark. None of those sounds occurred. There were just the furtive noises of the surviving rodents and then, a while later, the soft breathing of Rachel Howarth in sleep.

What she needs is a champion of truth, he thought.

And who in this town could be that champion but himself? But the evidence . . . the apparent evidence . . . was so damning.

Damning or not, there were so many questions. So many whys, he could scarce list them all in his mind.

One thing was certain: if the woman was not a witch, someone in Fount Royal—perhaps more than a single person—had gone to great and evil effort to paint her as one. Again the question: why?

In spite of his trepidations, his body was relaxing. He felt sleep coming nearer. He fought it by going over in his head the testimony of Jeremiah Buckner. At last, though, sleep was the victor, and he joined Rachel in the land of forgetting.

fifteen

THE POWER OF GOD was the subject of Robert Bidwell's lecture at the Anglican church on Sabbath morn, and during its second hour—as Bidwell paused to drink a cup of water and renew his vigor—the magistrate felt his eyes drooping as if drawn down by leaden weights. It was a sensitive situation, as he was seated in the front pew of the church, and thus being in the seat of honor Woodward was subject to the stares and whispers of the congregation. Such would not be worrisome to him if he were in firmer health, but as he'd slept very poorly and his throat was once more ravaged and swollen, he might have chosen a rack-and-wheel over the torture of this predicament.

Bidwell, to be so eloquent and forceful face-to-face, was a wandering wastrel at the pulpit. Between half-cooked pronouncements simmered long pauses, while the congregation steamed in the close, hot room. To add even more injury, Bidwell didn't know his Good Book very well and continually misquoted what to Woodward were passages every child had memorized by the age of baptism. Bidwell asked the congregation to join him in prayer after prayer concerning the well-being and future of Fount Royal, a task which became truly laborious by the fifth or sixth amen. Heads nodded and snores grumbled, but those who dared to sleep were slapped awake by the glove that Mr. Green—who was acting just as much gaol-keeper here as at the gaol—had fixed to a long wooden pole capable of reaching the cheek of any sinner.

At last Bidwell came to his dutiful conclusion and went to his seat. Next arose the schoolmaster, who limped up to the pulpit with his Bible beneath his arm, and asked that there be another prayer to secure the presence of God among them. It went on for perhaps ten minutes, but at least Johnstone's voice had inflection and character and so Woodward was able—with an effort of will—to avoid the glove.

Woodward had risen from his bed at first light. From his shaving mirror stared the face of a sick man, hollow-eyed and gray-fleshed. He opened his mouth wide and caught sight in the glass of the volcanic wasteland his throat had become. Again his air passages were thickened and blocked, which proved that Dr. Shields's remedy was less a cure than a curio. Woodward had asked Bidwell if he might see to Matthew before the beginning of Sabbath service, and a trip to Mr. Green's house had secured the key, which had been returned to him after its use by the ratcatcher.

Fearing the worst, Woodward discovered that his clerk had actually enjoyed a better rest in the harsh straw than he himself had endured at the mansion house. Matthew had had his tribulations, to be sure, but except for finding a drowned rodent in his waterbucket this morning he'd suffered no lasting harms. In the next cage, Rachel Howarth remained cloaked and impassive, perhaps a pointed response to Bidwell's presence. But Matthew had come through the first night without being transformed into a black cat or a basilisk, and seemed to have undergone no other entrancements, as Woodward had feared might happen. Woodward had vowed he would return again in the afternoon, and so had reluctantly left his clerk in the company of the cloaked harridan.

The magistrate had expected to smell the dust of a hundred dry sermons when the schoolmaster took the pulpit to speak, but Johnstone was at ease before the congregation and therefore earned more ears than had Bidwell before him. In fact, Johnstone was quite a good speaker. His message was faith in the mysterious ways of God, and over the course of an hour he skillfully wove that topic into a parallel with the situation faced by the citizens of Fount Royal. It was clear to Woodward that Johnstone relished public speaking, and used his hands in grand gestures to illustrate the verses of scripture that were his emphasis. Nary a head nodded nor a snore sounded while the schoolmaster held forth, and at the end of Johnstone's lesson the prayer that followed was short, concise, and the final "Amen" delivered like an exclamation point. Bidwell rose to say a few more words—perhaps feeling a bit upstaged by the schoolmaster. Then Bidwell called upon Peter Van Gundy, proprietor of the tavern, to dismiss the service, and at long last Mr. Green rested his glove-on-a-pole in a corner as the congregation took their leave of the sweatbox.

Outside, beneath the milky sky, the air was still and damp. Beyond Fount Royal's walls mist hung low over the forest and draped the taller treetops with white shrouds. No birds sang. As Woodward followed Bidwell to the carriage where Goode waited to drive them home, the magistrate's progress was interrupted by a tug on his sleeve. He turned to find Lucretia Vaughan standing there, wearing her somber black Sabbath gown as did the other women, yet hers had a touch of lace decorating the high bodice that seemed to Woodward a bit ostentatious. Behind her stood her blonde daughter Cherise, also in black, and a slim man of short stature who wore a vacant smile and had equally vacant eyes.

"Magistrate?" the woman said. "How goes the case?"

"It goes," he answered, his voice little more than a raspy croak.

"Dear me! You sound in need of a salt gargle."

"The weather," he said. "It disagrees with me."

"I'm very sorry to hear that. Now: I would like—that is, my husband and I would like—to offer an invitation to our table on Thursday night."

"Thursday? I'll have to wait and see how I'm feeling by then."

"Oh, you misunderstand!" She flashed him a bright smile. "I mean an invitation to your clerk. His sentence will be done by Tuesday morning, as I hear. He'll receive his lashes at that time, am I correct?"

"Yes, madam, you are."

"Then he should be up to joining us on Thursday evening. Say at six o'clock?"

"I can't speak for Matthew, but I will pass your invitation along."

"I would be oh so grateful," she said, with a semblance of a curtsey. "Good day, then."

"Good day."

The woman took her husband's arm and guided him along— a shocking sight, especially on the Sabbath—and the daughter followed a few paces behind. Woodward pulled himself up into the waiting carriage, lay back against the cushioned seat across from Bidwell, and Goode flicked the reins.

"You found the service of interest, Magistrate?" Bidwell asked.

"Yes, very much."

"I'm pleased to hear it. I feared my sermon was rather on the intellectual side, and most of the citizens here are—as you know by now—charmingly rustic. It wasn't too deep for them, was it?"

"No, I think not."

"Ah." Bidwell nodded. His hands folded in his lap. "The schoolmaster has an agile mind, but he does tend to speak in circles rather than to a point. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Yes," Woodward said, realizing what Bidwell desired to hear. "He does have an agile mind."

"I've told him—suggested to him—that he keep his message more grounded in reality than abstract concepts, but he has his own way of presentation. I myself find him somewhat tiresome, though I do try to follow his threads."

"Um," Woodward said.

"You would think that, being a teacher, he might be also a better communicator. But I suspect his talents lie in other areas. Not thievery, however." He gave a brief laugh and then attended to the straightening of his ruffled cuffs.

Woodward was listening to the creak of the wheels when another sound intruded. The signal bell at the front gate's watch-tower began to ring. "Hold, Goode!" Bidwell commanded, and he looked toward the tower as Goode reined in the horses. "Someone's approaching, it seems." He frowned. "I can't think of anyone we're expecting, though. Goode, take us to the gate!"

"Yes sir," the servant answered, and he maneuvered the team around to change direction.

On this afternoon, Malcolm Jennings was again atop the watchtower. A group of citizens had already assembled to see who the visitor might be. As Jennings saw Bidwell's carriage stop on the street below, he leaned over the railing and shouted, "A covered wagon, Mr. Bidwell! Young man at the reins!"

Bidwell scratched his chin. "Well, who could it be? Not the maskers; it's way too early yet for them." He motioned toward a rawboned pipesmoker who wore a straw hat. "Swaine, open the gate! You there, Hollis: help him with the timber!"

The two men Bidwell had spoken to drew the latching log from its position of security and pulled the gate open. When the gate was drawn wide, the covered wagon Jennings had announced rumbled across the threshold, hauled by two horses—a piebald and a roan—that appeared but several ragged breaths away from the pastepot. The wagon's driver reined in the team as soon as the vehicle had cleared the entrance, and he surveyed the onlookers from beneath a battered brown monmouth cap. His gaze settled on the nearest citizen, which was John Swaine. "Fount Royal?" he inquired.

"That it is," Swaine answered. Bidwell was about to direct a question of his own about who the young man might be, when suddenly the wagon's canvas was whipped open with the speed of revelation and another man emerged from the interior. This man, who wore a black suit and a black tricorn hat, stood on the seat plank next to the driver, his hands on his hips, and scanned the vista from left to right with the narrowed eyes of an arrogant emperor.

"At last!" The thunder of his voice made the horses jump. "The Devil's own town!"

This statement, delivered so loudly and imperially, sent a terror through Bidwell. Instantly he stood up in the carriage, his face flushed. "Sir! Who might you be?"

The dark eyes of this new arrival, which were hooded with flesh in a long-jawed, gaunt face that seemed a virtual patchwork quilt of deep lines and wrinkles, fixed upon Bidwell. "Who might thee be?"

"My name is Robert Bidwell. I am the founder of Fount Royal, as well as its mayor."

"Mine condolences, then, in thy time of tribulation." He removed his hat, displaying a shockpate of white hair that was much too unruly to be a wig. "I am known by the name God hast given me: Exodus Jerusalem. I have come many a league to this place, sir."

"For what reason?"

"Need thou ask? I am brought here by the might of God, to do God's bidding." He returned the tricorn to his head, his show of manners finished. "God hast compelled me to this town, to smite thy witch dead and do battle with demons infernal!" Bid-well felt weak in the knees. He had realized, as had Woodward, that the gates had been opened to allow the entrance of a travelling preacher, and this one sounded steeped in the blood of vengeance.

"We have the situation in hand, Mr. . . . uh . . . Jerusalem. Well in hand," Bidwell said. "This is Magistrate Woodward, from Charles Town." He pointed a finger at his companion. "The witch's trial is already under way."

"Trial?" Jerusalem had snarled it. He looked across the faces of the assembled citizens. "Dost thou not know the woman is a witch?"

"We know it!" shouted Arthur Dawson. "We know she's cursed our town, too!" This brought up a chorus of angry and frustrated voices, which Woodward noted made the preacher smile as if he were hearing the sweet refrains of chamber music.

"Then of what need is a trial?" Jerusalem asked, his voice becoming something akin to a bludgeoning instrument. "She is in thy gaol, is she not? But whilst she lives, who may say what evil she performs?"

"One moment!" Bidwell hollered, motioning with both arms for the onlookers to settle themselves. "The witch will be dealt with, by the power of the law!"

"Foolish man!" Jerusalem, a human cannon, blasted at the top of his leathered lungs. "There is no power greater than the law of God! Dost thou deny that God's law is greater than the law of fallen Adam?"

"No, I do not deny it! But—"

"Then shall thou depend upon the law of fallen Adam, knowing it to be tainted by the Devil himself?"

"No! I mean ... we have to do this thing the correct way!"

"And allowing evil to live in thy town for one more minute is, in thy opinion, the correct way?" Jerusalem grinned tightly and shook his head. "Thyself hath been blighted, sir, along with thy town!" Again his attention went to the assembly, which was growing larger and more restless. "I say God is the truest and purest of lawgivers, and what doth God say in regards to witchcraft? Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!"

"That's right!" George Bartow shouted. "God says to kill a witch!"

"God doth not say tarry, nor wait upon the tainted law of humankind!" Jerusalem plowed on. "And any man who serveth such folly is doomed himself to the brimstone pit!"

"He's rousting them!" Bidwell said to the magistrate, and then he called out, "Wait, citizens! Listen to—" but he was hollered silent.

"The time of God's judgment," Jerusalem announced, "is not tomorrow, nor is it the day after! The time is now!" He reached back into the wagon, and his hand emerged clamped to the grip of an axe. "I shall rid thee of thy witch, and afterward we shall pray for God's blessing upon thy homes and families! Who amongst thee will lead me to mine enemy?"

At the sight of the axe, Woodward's heart had started pounding and he was now on his feet. He gave a shout of "No! I won't have such a—" blasphemy against the court, he was going to say, but his tormented voice collapsed and he was left speechless. A half dozen men yelled that they would lead the preacher to the gaolhouse, and suddenly the crowd—which had grown to twenty-five or more—-seemed to Woodward to have been seized by a raging fit of bloodlust. Jerusalem climbed down from the wagon, axe in hand, and surrounded by a veritable phalanx of human hounds he stalked down Harmony Street in the direction of the gaol, his long thin legs carrying him with the speed of a predatory spider.

"They won't get in, the fools!" Bidwell snorted. "I have the keys!"

Woodward managed to croak, "An axe may serve as a key!" He saw it, then, in Bidwell's face: a smug complacency, perhaps, or the realization that Jerusalem's blade might end the witch's life much quicker than the flames of the law. Whatever it was, Bid-well had made his decision on the side of the mob. "Stop them!" Woodward demanded, sweat glistening on his cheeks.

"I tried, sir," came the reply. "You witnessed that I tried."

Woodward thrust his face toward Bidwell's. "If the woman's killed I'll charge every man in that crowd with murder!"

"A difficult charge to prosecute, I would think." Bidwell sat down. He glanced toward the preacher's wagon, where a dark-haired woman of slim build and middle years had emerged from the interior to speak with the young driver. "I fear it's out of my hands now."

"But not out of mine!" Woodward climbed down from the carriage, his blood aboil. Before he could take out after the preacher and the pack, he was stopped by a voice that said, "Magistrate, suh?" He looked up at Goode.

The Negro was offering a thin lash that usually sat in a leather pouch next to the driver's seat. "Protection 'gain the wild beasts, suh," he said.

Woodward accepted the lash, fired a glance of disgust at Bid-well, and then—aware that time was of the essence—turned and ran after Preacher Jerusalem and the mob as fast as his suffering bones would allow.

The voracious stride of Jerusalem's legs had already taken him halfway down Harmony Street. Along the way he had attracted more moths to his bonfire. By the time he made the turn onto Truth Street, the crowd trailing him had swelled to forty-six men, women, and children, four dogs, and a small pig that was scurrying about to avoid being trampled. Chickens fluttered and squawked, feathers flying, as the mass of shouting humanity and barking mongrels passed in their vengeful parade, and at the forefront Exodus Jerusalem—his sharp-boned chin thrust forward like the prow of a warship—brandished his axe as if it were a glorious torch.

Within the gaol, Matthew and Rachel heard the oncoming mob. He stood up from his bench and rushed to the bars, but Rachel remained seated. She closed her eyes, her head tilted slightly back and her face damp with perspiration.

"It's some kind of uproar!" Matthew said; his voice cracked, for he knew full well what it must mean: the citizens of Fount Royal were about to attack the gaol.

"I might have known"—Rachel's voice was calm, but it did tremble—"they would kill me on a Sabbath."

Outside, Exodus Jerusalem spied the chain that secured the entry, and lifted his axe high. When it came down upon the chain, the iron links held but sparks flew like hornets. Again he lifted the axe, and again it fell with tremendous strength. Still the chain held, however, though two of the links had received severe damage. Jerusalem braced himself, gave a mighty swing, and once more sparks flew. He was lifting the axe for a fourth and what might be a final blow, as one link was near parting from its brothers, when suddenly a figure came out of the mob and raised a walking-stick up across Jerusalem's arms.

"What is this?" Schoolmaster Johnstone demanded. He wore the wine-colored suit and black tricorn that had served him at church. "I don't know who you are, sir, but I ask you to put aside that axe!"

"And I do not know who thee may be, sir," Jerusalem said, "but if thou stand between me and yonder witch, thee must answer for it to God Almighty!"

"Stop him, Johnstone!" Woodward pushed through the crowd, his breathing ragged. "He intends to kill her! "

"That's right!" Arthur Dawson, who stood at the front of the mob, cried out. "It's time to put her to death!"

"Kill her!" shouted another man, standing beside Dawson. "We're not gonna dawdle no longer!"

The crowd responded with more shouts and cries for the witch's death. Jerusalem said loudly, "Thy people have spoken!" and he brought the axe down again, even more furiously than thrice before. This time the chain broke. Johnstone, hobbling on his bad knee, grabbed at the preacher's arm in an attempt to get the axe away from him. Woodward attacked him from the other side, also trying to gain possession of the axe. Suddenly someone caught Woodward around the throat from behind and pulled him away from the preacher, and another citizen struck at Johnstone's shoulder with a closed fist. The magistrate twisted around and flailed out with the lash, but now the mob was surging forward and several men were upon Woodward before he could use the lash again. A fist caught him in the ribs, and a hand seized the front of his shirt and near tore it from his back. A sea of bodies lifted him from his feet and then he was thrown down to the ground amid the shoals of dangerous boots. He heard thuds and grunts and knew Johnstone was striking in all directions with his cane.

"Go on! Into the gaol!" someone yelled. A boot narrowly missed stomping Woodward's wrist as he tried to gain his footing again.

"Stand back!" he heard a man shout. "Stand back, I said!" There was the sound of a horse's whinny, followed by the sudden jarring crack of a pistol shot. At that noise of authority, the crowd fell back and at last Woodward found space to pull himself up.

He saw Johnstone on the ground, the schoolmaster's body blocking Jerusalem's entrance to the gaol. Johnstone's tricorn hat lay crushed at his side and the preacher stood over him, Jerusalem's own hat also knocked awry but the axe still in his grip-

"Damn, what a sorry sight you are!" Gunsmoke swirled over the head of Nicholas Paine, who had ridden his chestnut stallion into the midst of the vengeful congress. He held aloft the pistol he'd just fired. "What is this insanity?"

"It's no insanity, Nicholas!" spoke an older man Woodward recognized as Duncan Tyler. "It's time for us to come to our senses and put the witch to death!"

"The preacher's gonna do it!" Dawson said. "One blow from that axe and we're free of her!"

"No!" Johnstone had regained his hat, and now he was trying to stand but was meeting great difficulty. Woodward reached down and helped his Oxford brother to his feet. "We agreed to honor the law, like civilized men!" Johnstone said when he was balanced on his cane.

Paine stared disdainfully at Jerusalem. "So you're a preacher?"

"Exodus Jerusalem, called by God to set thy town on the righteous path," came the reply. "Dost thou not wish it to be so?"

"I wish for you to put down that axe," Paine said, "or I'll knock your damn brains out."

"Ah, here is a bewitched soul!" Jerusalem yelled, his gaze sweeping the crowd. "He threatens a man of God and protects the whore of Satan!"

"I look at you, sir, and see only a common fool attempting to enter Fount Royal's gaol without the proper authority, a situation to which I am held accountable," Paine replied, with what seemed to Woodward marvelous restraint and dignity. "I'll ask you once more to put down the axe."

"Nicholas!" Tyler said, and he grabbed hold of Paine's breeches leg. "Let the man do what has to be done!"

"I have the power of God in me!" bellowed the preacher. "No evil shall stand against its justice!"

"Don't let him do it, Nicholas!" Johnstone implored. "It wouldn't be justice, it would be murder!"

Paine moved his horse, breaking Tyler's grip. He guided his mount through the crowd that stood between him and Jerusalem and pulled up barely three feet from the man's daggerblade of a nose. Paine leaned toward him, the saddle's leather creaking. "Preacher," he said quietly, "my next word to you will be presented at your graveside." He let the solemn promise hang for a few seconds as he and Jerusalem engaged in a staring duel. "Magistrate, will you please accept the gift of the preacher's axe?"

"I will," Woodward rasped, and carefully held out his hand. He was prepared to jump aside if Jerusalem took a swing at him.

Jerusalem didn't move. Woodward saw a muscle twitch in the preacher's gray-grizzled jaw. Then a smile that was part sneer and most mockery stole across his face, and in truth that smile was more fearful to look upon than the preacher's expression of righteous anger. "Mine compliments to thee," Jerusalem said, as he turned the axe around and placed its wooden handle into the magistrate's palm as gently as mist might settle to the earth.

"Go home, all of you!" Paine commanded the assembly. "There's nothing more to be seen here!"

"One question for you, Nicholas Paine!" shouted James Reed, who stood next to Tyler. "You and I both saw them poppets in the floor of her house! You know what she's been doin' to this town! Are you bewitched, like the preacher says? You must be, to turn aside an axe from killin' her!"

"James, if you were not my friend I'd have to strike you down!" Paine shouted back at him. "Now listen to me, every one of you!" He wheeled his horse around so he was facing the crowd, which by now numbered near sixty. "Yes, I know what the witch has done to us! But this I know, as well, and mark it: when Rachel Howarth dies—and she will—her wicked life shall be ended by the torch of legal decree, not by a preacher's axe!" He paused, almost daring any man to speak out against him. There were a few halfhearted shouts from the crowd, but they dwindled and perished like little fires. "I too believe she should die for the good of Fount Royal!" he continued. "As long as she lives, there is great danger of further corruption. Some of you may wish to leave before she burns, and that is your right and privilege to do so, but . . . listen, listen!" he commanded another heckler, who fell silent.

"We're building more than a town here, don't you understand that?" Paine asked. "We're building new lives for ourselves, in what will someday be a city! A city, with a courthouse of its own and a permanent magistrate to occupy it!" He scanned the crowd from one side to the other. "Do we wish to say in the future that the very first trial held in Fount Royal was interrupted by a preacher's axe? Let me tell you, I have seen mob justice before, and it is a sight to sicken a dog! Is that the first timber we wish to lay for our courthouse?"

"There'll be no courthouse!" Reed hollered. "There'll be no town, no city, nothin' here but ruins unless she's put to death!"

"There'll be ruins aplenty if she's hauled out and murdered!" Paine answered, just as vehemently. "The first thing to fall to ruin will be our honor! That I've seen men lose as well, and once lost they are as weak as scarecrows against the wind! We have agreed to allow Magistrate Woodward to carry out the trial and sentencing, and we cannot now give over that task to Artemis Jerusalem!"

"Exodus Jerusalem, if thy please!" The preacher had an astounding gift, Woodward rhought; he could mimic thunder with hardly an effort. "I would remind thee, citizens," Jerusalem stormed on, "that the Devil's tongue is formed of silver!"

"You!" Paine snapped at him. "Shut . . . your . . . hole."

"Best heed my hole, or thou shalt perish in one that has no bottom!"

"I think yours has no bottom!" the schoolmaster said. "Or perhaps it's your bottom that's become confused with your top!"

Woodward knew this statement could not have been delivered with better timing or in better elocution on the Shakespearian stage. Its effect was to visibly cause the preacher to stumble in his search for a suitable riposte, his jaw working but no words yet formed; and at the same time, it urged laughter from several persons who had a moment earlier been scowling. The laughter rippled out across the crowd, breaking the aura of solemnity, and though most did not crack a smile, the mood of all had definitely been changed.

To his credit, Exodus Jerusalem recognized the value of a dignified retreat. He made no further entreaties to the assembly, but rather crossed his slim arms over his chest and glowered at the ground.

"Go home!" Paine presently repeated to the citizens. "The afternoon's entertainment has ended!"

Glances were exchanged, words were spoken, and the mob found its passions diminished. At least for today, Woodward thought. The crowd began to drift apart. The magistrate saw that Bidwell sat in his carriage just up the way, his legs crossed at the ankles and one arm resting across the seatback. Now, as it was apparent Rachel Howarth would not die this afternoon, Bidwell got down from the carriage and began to approach the gaol.

"Thank you, Nicholas," Johnstone told him. "I dread to think what might have happened."

"You." Paine was speaking to the preacher, and Jerusalem looked up at him. "Did you really intend to go in there and kill her?"

"I intended to do just what was done," he answered, his normal voice much more restrained. "What? Cause a commotion?"

"Thy citizens know Exodus Jerusalem has arrived. That is well enough for now."

"I think we've been honored by the performance of a thes-pian," Johnstone said.

He saw Bidwell approaching. "Robert, here stands someone you should meet."

"We have met." Bidwell frowned as he regarded the broken chain. "There's work for Hazelton, I see. //his injury permits it." His eyes speared the preacher. "Damage to the property of Fount Royal is a serious offense, sir. I would say the payment of a guinea should be in order."

"Alas, I am simply a poor travelling man of God," Jerusalem replied, with a shrug. "The Lord provideth food, clothing, and shelter, but English gold not a pence."

"You're a beggar, you mean!"

"Oh, not a beggar. A diviner, if thy will. I divine that my stay here shall be of great importance."

"Your stay here? I think not!" Bidwell said. "Nicholas, will you escort this man to the gate, make sure he boards his wagon and—"

"One moment." Jerusalem lifted a long, thin finger. "I have journeyed here from Charles Town, whence I learned of thy plight. The witch is being discussed there on the streets. A visit to the council office also told me thy have need of a preacher."

"The council office? In Charles Town?" Bidwell's brow wrinkled. "How did they know we don't have a minister?"

"They know of Grove's murder," Johnstone supplied. "It was all written out in the requesr for a magistrate that Nicholas and Edward carried to them."

"That may be so, but they received rhat letter in March. The council presumes we haven't found a minister to replace a man who was murdered last November?" His frown deepened. "It seems to me someone has loose lips concerning our business."

"Dost thou have a preacher or not?" Jerusalem asked.

"We do not. But we don't need one at the present time, thank you."

"Oh, it is quite apparent thou dost not need a preacher." Jerusalem gave a slim smile. "A witch in the gaol and Satan in the town. God only knows what other wickedness thrives. No, thou dost not need a preacher. Thou art in need of a second coming." His dark, flesh-hooded eyes in that grotesquely wrinkled face pierced Bidwell. "Thy fellow on horseback dost make a pretty point concerning laws, houses of court, and cities. But let me ask this: who speaketh here over the dead and the newborn?"

"Whomever wishes to!" Paine answered.

"Yet whomever wishes cannot walk into thy gaol and deliver the stroke of an axe? Is the life of a witch to be valued more than the burial services of thy Christian citizens and the redemption of thy little infants? Thou sendeth the dead and the newborn alike off on journeys of dark despair without proper blessings? The shame of it!"

"We'll find a minister after the witch is dead!" Bidwell said. "But I won't have anyone in my town who within five minutes of their arrival causes a near-riot! Nicholas, would you please show this man to the—"

"Thou shalt weep bitter tears," Jerusalem said, so quietly that it caught Bidwell by surprise. "Dost thou not know the power of a witch to rise from the grave?"

"From the grave? What are you jabbering about?"

"When thou dost kill the witch and bury her without the proper rite of sanctimonity, thou shalt be jabbering aplenty thyself. In mortal terror, I might add."

"Sanctimonity?" Johnstone said. "I've never heard of such a thing!"

"Are thee a preacher, sir? Dost thou have experience with witches, the Devil, and the demons of night? I have administered the rite over the graves of the notorious witches Elizabeth Stockham, Marjorie Ballard, and Sarah Jones, as well as the infamous warlocks Andrew Spaulding and John Kent. In so doing, I sealed them into the depths of Hell where they might enjoy the ticklings of the eternal fires. But without such a rite, sirs, thy witch will flee the grave and continue her wickedness as a phantasm, hellhound, or . . ." He shrugged again. "Who can say? Satan has a creative mind."

"I think it's not only Satan whose mind is creative," Johnstone said.

"Wait!" A sheen of sweat had begun to glisten on Bidwell's face. "You mean to say the witch could be put to death and we'd still not be rid of her?"

"Not," Jerusalem said grimly, "without the rite of sanctimonity."

"That's pure nonsense!" the schoolmaster scoffed, and then he said to Bidwell, "I suggest you run this man out of town at once!"

From his pained expression, Bidwell was obviously caught on the horns of a dilemma. "I've never heard of such a rite," he said, "but that's not to say it doesn't exist. What's your opinion, Magistrate?"

"The man has come here to cause difficulty," Woodward croaked. "He's a flame in a powderhouse."

"I agree!" Paine spoke up.

"Yes, yes, I also agree." Bidwell nodded. "But what if such a rite is needed to secure the witch's phantasm in her grave?"

"It most surely is, sir," Jerusalem said. "If I were thee, I should wish all possible precautions to be taken."

Bidwell reached for a handkerchief from his pocket and blotted the moisture from his face. "I'll be damned!" he finally said. "I'm feared to let him stay and feared to make him leave!"

"If I am made to leave, it is not only thee who should be damned but thy entire enterprise." Jerusalem, with theatrical drama, motioned with a sweeping gesture across the vista of Fount Royal. "Thou hast created a most pleasing town here, sir. The work that hast gone into its creation is most evident. Why, building that fortress wall must have consumed untold energies, and these streets are far better laid than those in Charles Town. I did note, in passing, that thy cemetery is also well laid. It would give a sadness to God for all that work to have been done, and all those souls to have perished, for naught."

"You can dismount the podium now, preacher," Johnstone told him. "Robert, I still say he should go."

"I must think on it. Better to err on the side of God than against Him."

"Whilst thee is thinking," Jerusalem said, "might I view mine enemy?"

"No!" Woodward said. "Certainly not!"

"Magistrate," he answered in a silken voice, "from the sound of thee, I should say the witch hath already struck thee ill. Might she also hath struck ill your judgment?" He turned his attention again to Bidwell. "I request to view her, please. So that I may know the depth of Satan's infestation in her soul."

Woodward thought that Bidwell looked near fainting. The master of Fount Royal had come to his weakest moment. He said, "All right. I cannot see the harm in it."

"I can!" Woodward protested, but Bidwell moved past him and pulled open the gaol's door. Jerusalem bowed his head slightly to acknowledge Bidwell's gesture and then walked inside, his boots clumping on the boards.

At once Woodward followed him, desirous to contain whatever damage the preacher might do. Bidwell entered too, as well as Johnstone, while Paine seemed to have come to the end of his interest in the matter and remained on horseback. The gaol's dim interior was illuminated only by the milky light that came through the roof's hatch, which Woodward himself had opened that morning.

Matthew and Rachel had heard the commotion, Paine's speech, and the voices of the men outside the door, so they knew what to expect. Exodus Jerusalem first paused before Matthew's cage and peered through the bars. "Who art thee?"

"My clerk," Woodward said, his voice all but vanished.

"He is present to keep watch o'er the witch?"

"I'm present," Matthew said, "because I have been sentenced for three days due to an incident I regret."

"What?" Jerusalem pursed his lips. "A magistrate's clerk hast become a criminal? This too must be the witch's doing, to undermine the trial." Before Matthew could reply, Jerusalem's head swivelled toward the other cell and his gaze fell upon Rachel, who sat on her bench with her sackcloth cloak pulled around her but her face exposed.

There was a long silence.

"Ah, yes," Jerusalem said at last. "I see a deep pool of sin in that one." Rachel gave no reply, but she did return his stare.

"Look how she glowers," Jerusalem said. "Like a hot flame, eager to burn mine heart to a cinder. Wouldst thou delight in flying me to Hell on the wings of a crow, woman? Or wouldst thou be content to drive nails through mine eyes and split mine tongue in two?" She didn't answer, choosing to shift her gaze to the straw. "There! Dost thou see? The evil in her quakes before me, and she cannot bear to look longer upon mine face."

"You are half right, " Rachel said.

"A taunt, it seems! She's a witty bitch." Jerusalem walked past Matthew's cell and stood next to the bars of the other cage. "What is thy name?"

"A witty bitch," she answered. "You have already named me."

"Her name is Rachel Howarth," Bidwell said, standing behind the preacher. "Needless to say, she is very uncooperative."

"They always are." Jerusalem curled his long, slender fingers around the bars. "As I say, I have had much experience with witches. I know the evil that hath eaten their hearts and blackened their souls. Oh yes, I know." He nodded, his eyes fixed on Rachel. "This one hath committed two murders, is that correct?"

"Yes. She first murdered our Anglican reverend and then her own husband," Bidwell answered.

"No, thou art wrong. This witch became the bride of Satan when she spilled the blood of a reverend. She hath also bewitched thy crops and the minds of thy citizens?"

"Yes."

"Conjecture," Matthew had to say. "So far unproven."

Jerusalem looked sharply at him. "What sayest thou?"

"The evidence is not yet complete," Matthew said. "Therefore the charges against Madam Howarth are still unproven."

"Madam Howarth, didst thou say?" Jerusalem gave a slight, chilly smile. "Thou dost refer to the witch with respect?"

Woodward managed to speak: "My clerk has a liberal mind."

"Thy clerk may well have a diseased mind, made infirm by the power of this witch. It is quite dangerous to leave him here, in such close quarters. Wouldst there not be another place to confine him?"

"No," Bidwell said. "Nowhere else."

"Then the witch should be confined elsewhere. In strict solitude."

"I would have to protest that action," Matthew said quickly. "As the trial is taking place here, it is Madam Howarth's right to be present during the questioning of witnesses."

The preacher was silent, staring at Matthew. Then he said, "Gentlemen, I fear we are witnesses to the corruption of a young man's soul. No clean Christian wouldst protect the rights of a witch." He let that sentence linger before he went on. "It is a witch's evil desire to drag into Hell as many persons as demonically possible. In the Old World, entire towns were burned to the ground and their citizens hanged because they were corrupted by a single witch."

"That may be so," Matthew replied, "but this is the New World."

"Old World or New, the eternal battle between God and Satan remaineth the same. There is no middle ground. Either thou art a Christian soldier on one side ... or a pawn of the Devil on the other. Where dost thou stand?"

It was a nice trap, Matthew realized. He also, for the first time, realized the convolutions of warped logic that had been brought to bear against Rachel. "If I say I stand on the side of truth," he answered, "does that make me a soldier or a pawn?"

Jerusalem gave a quiet laugh. "Now here, gentlemen, thy see the beginnings of Adam's fall: to emulate the serpent, first in thought, then in word, and finally in deed. Young man, be wary. Executions allow no such slippery maneuvers."

"If you please!" Woodward rasped. "My clerk is not on trial!"

"Thy clerk," Jerusalem said, "may no longer be truly thine." He directed his attention once more to Rachel. "Witch!" he said, with the thunder returning to his voice. "Hast thou willed a spell on this young man's tender soul?"

"I've willed no spell on any soul," she replied. "Tender or otherwise."

"Time shall tell, I think. Oh, thou art a brassy whore, full of lies and enchantments! But thou art caged now, art thy not? And every day's dusk is one less day remaining for thy sin to take root!" He looked at Bidwell. "This one shalt not go easy to the gallows, that is a surety."

"Her death will be by burning," Bidwell told him. "The magistrate's decreed it."

"Ahhhhh, burning." Jerusalem spoke it with such reverence it might be the very balm of life. "Yes, that would be suitable. Still, even ashes need the rite of sanctimonity." He gave Rachel another chilly smile. "Enemy mine," he said, "thy face changeth from town to town, but thou art always the same." Then, to Bidwell again, "I have seen enough now. Mine sister and nephew wait for me. Art we free to camp on some available plot of land?"

"Yes," Bidwell said, with only a minor hesitation. "I'll direct you."

"I'm against it!" Johnstone spoke up. "Is there nothing I can say to dissuade you, Robert?"

"I think we need Jerusalem as much as we need the magistrate."

"You'll think differently when he sets off another riot! Good day to you!" Johnstone, obviously angry and frustrated, limped out of the gaol with the aid of his cane.

"Alan will come 'round," Bidwell said to the preacher. "He's our schoolmaster, but he's also a sensible man."

"I trust thy schoolmaster is not being led astray in the same fashion as this clerk. Well sir, I am at thy disposal."

"All right, then. Come with me. But we'll have no further . . . uh . . . disturbances, I hope?"

"Disturbance is not mine cause, sir. I am here in the cause of deliverance."

Bidwell motioned for Jerusalem to proceed from the gaol, and then he followed. Just short of the doorway, he turned back toward Woodward. "Magistrate? I suggest you come along, if you wish to ride in my carriage."

Woodward nodded. He cast a sad-eyed look at Matthew and said weakly, "I shall have to rest, and so won't be back before the morning. Are you all right?"

"I am. You should ask Dr. Shields for another tonic, I think."

"I plan to." He stared grimly at Rachel. "Madam?" he said. "Do not believe that because my voice is weak and my body impoverished that I shall not continue this trial to the best of my ability. The next witness will be heard on schedule." He took two steps toward the door and hesitated again. "Matthew?" he said, in an agonized whisper. "Take care that your senses not become as feeble as my health." Then he turned away and followed Bidwell.

Matthew sat down on his bench. The arrival of Exodus Jerusalem added a highly combustible element to this tinderbox. But Matthew found himself most presently concerned about the magistrate's failing health. It was clear that Woodward should be abed, under the care of a physician. And certainly he shouldn't be spending any time in this rank gaol, but his pride and sense of duty dictated that he see this trial through without delay. Matthew had never known the magistrate to be so fragile of voice and spirit, and it frightened him.

"The magistrate," Rachel suddenly said, "is very sick, isn't he?"

"I fear he is."

"You've been serving him a long time?"

"Five years. I was a child when I met him. He has given me great opportunity to make something of myself." Rachel nodded. "May I be forward?" she asked. "As you please."

"When he looks at you," she said, "it is a father looking at a son."

"I'm his clerk, nothing more," Matthew answered curtly. He clasped his hands together, his head bent down. There was a hollow pain in the vicinity of his heart.

"Nothing more," he said again.

sixteen

NEAR FOUR-THIRTY on Monday morning, the lamps were lit in Robert Bidwell's mansion. Soon afterward a negress servant girl emerged from the house into the drizzling rain and quickly walked to the home of Dr. Shields on Harmony Street. Hers was an errand of urgency, and she wasted no time in ringing the bell at the doctor's door. Within fifteen minutes—long enough for Dr. Shields to dress himself and gather the necessary implements into his carrying case—the doctor was hurrying through the rain, his tricorn hat pulled low over his eyes and water dripping from the curled brim.

He was admitted to Bidwell's house by Mrs. Nettles. Bidwell was in the parlor, still wearing his silk nightclothes, an expression of deep concern on his face. "Thank God!" Bidwell said when Shields crossed the threshold. "Upstairs! Hurry!"

Mrs. Nettles climbed the stairs with the speed of a mountain goat, all but carrying the diminutive doctor in the wake of her black skirt. Before Shields reached the magistrate's closed door, he could hear the man gasping for air. "A pan of hot water and a cloth!" he commanded Mrs. Nettles, who relayed the order to a servant girl. Then Mrs. Nettles opened the door and Shields entered the chamber, where three lamps had been lit around the bed. Instantly Shields picked up one of them and shone the candlelight onto Woodward's face. What he saw made him flinch, if only imperceptibly.

The magistrate's face was the yellowish-gray hue of old parchment. Darker hollows had formed beneath his eyes, which were glassy and wet with the labor of breathing. But by no means was the effort going well; crusted mucus had all but sealed his nostrils, and a foam of saliva had gathered in the corners of his gaping mouth and glistened on his chin. His hands gripped the sodden sheet that lay around him, beads of sweat standing on his cheeks and forehead.

"Be calm," was the first thing that Dr. Shields could think to say. "It's going to be all right."

Woodward trembled, his eyes wild. He reached up and caught the sleeve of Shields's coat. "Can't breathe," he gasped. "Help me."

"I shall. Mrs. Nettles, will you hold this lamp?" He gave it to her and quickly shrugged out of his coat. He took his tricorn off as well, and put his leather carrying case atop a stool next to the bed.

"I heard him cry out." Bidwell had entered the room, and stood near the door. "Wasn't but a little while ago. I had the girl go fetch you as soon as I realized he was so ill."

Shields had removed a small blue bottle and a spoon from the case. He shook the bottle well and then proceeded to pour some oily dark brown liquid from it onto the spoon. "You did the proper thing. Magistrate, drink this please." He poured the liquid into Woodward's mouth, then loaded up the spoon again and repeated the dose. The magistrate, who was just on the edge of panic, could neither taste nor smell anything but he was aware of the thick fluid sliding down his tortured throat.

His chest hitched as he fought to find air, his fingers once more entwined in the sheets. "Am I . . . am I dying?"

"No! Of course not! Lie easy now. Mrs. Nettles, might I have that lamp, please?" He took it from her and held the light toward Woodward's mouth. "Open as wide as you can, magistrate."

Woodward did, the effort making a tear run from each eye.

Shields held the lamp as close as possible to the magistrate's face and peered down into the man's throat.

First of all, there was the smell. Shields knew the sickly sweet odor of pestilence, and here it was on the magistrate's breath. The candlelight showed him what he had already expected to find, yet much worse: the interior of Woodward's throat was red—blood-red, the red of seething caverns in the infernal landscape of Hell. Down in the folds of crimson flesh, which had swollen to such a degree as to almost completely close together over the esophagus, were ugly yellow blisters of pus and yellow streaks where previous blisters had burst. It was like viewing a platter of raw meat that had become infested with vermin, and Shields knew the pain of such a condition must be absolutely horrendous.

"Mrs. Nettles," he said, his voice tight, "please go and hurry the hot water. Also fetch me a drinking cup with two hands of salt in it."

"Yes sir." Mrs. Nettles left the room.

"Easy, there," Shields said, as the magistrate began to groan with the effort of breathing. "We shall have your air passages cleared directly." He clasped his free hand to Woodward's shoulder to give him some measure of comfort.

"Ben?" Bidwell came to the bedside. "He will live, won't he?"

"Yes, yes!" Shields had seen the magistrate's watery eyes tick toward Bidwell. "This is a serious condition, but treatable. No need to be concerned with mortality here." He looked at Bidwell over the rims of his spectacles. "The magistrate will be abed for quite some time, however."

"What do you mean, 'quite some time'? Exactly how long?"

"I can't say. A week, perhaps. Two weeks." He shrugged. "It depends on the strength of the patient."

"Two weeks?" Bidwell had spoken it in a tone of horrified amazement. "Are you saying he can't continue the trial for two weeks?"

"I am, yes. Please keep your voice down; it does no good to heighten the magistrate's discomfort."

"He can't stay in bed! He has to finish the trial and have Rachel Howarth burned and done with!"

"Impossible, Robert. I doubt he's able to sit upright in a chair, much less pose questions to witnesses."

Bidwell pushed his face toward the doctor's, whorls of red flaring in his cheeks. "Then make him able!"

Woodward—though his throat was afire, his lungs starved for air, and his very bones and tendons ached as if stretched on a medieval torture wheel—was not oblivious to the words being spoken about him, even if the pressure in his ears muffled the voices. "I can do my job!" he roused himself to whisper.

"I will suspect delirium has set in if you repeat such a declaration," Shields told him sternly. "You just lie there and quiet yourself."

Bidwell grasped the doctor's arm. "Come here a moment." He guided Shields over to a far corner of the room and stood with his back toward the magistrate. Bidwell pitched his voice low, but he might have been shouting for the force of it: "Ben, listen to me! We can't afford to let him lie in bed for two weeks! Not even one week! Did you know that Winston told me we lost three more families after that house burning the other night? One of them was the Reynolds clan, and you know Franklin had vowed he wouldn't let a witch run him off his farm! Well, Meredith talked him into going and now it's empty over there! He was the last tobacco planter! Do you realize what that means?"

"I do," Shields said, "but that does not alter the fact that Magistrate Woodward is gravely ill."

"We are scraping bottom, and our sails are near collapse. In two more weeks, we may have a ghost town! And who will come to live here, with those bastards in Charles Town spreading tales of the witch far and wide?"

"My sentiments are with you, Robert, but—"

"Give him something," Bidwell said.

"Pardon me?"

"Give him something to get him on his feet. Something strong enough to allow him to finish the trial. Surely in your bag of tricks there's a potion to shock a man out of bed!"

"I'm a doctor, not a magician."

"You know what I mean. Give him drugs powerful enough to stand him up."

"I have no stimulants. I have only opium, which is a calming drug. Besides, I just gave him a dose of opium in that tonic."

"Ben, I am begging you. Get that man on his feet, no matter what it takes!"

"I can only do what I'm able."

"You can do much more," Bidwell said, his face only a few inches away from the doctor's. "How much money would you like to be sent to your wife?"

"What?"

"Your wife. A seamstress in Boston. Surely she is in need of some money? And your ledger at Van Gundy's tavern has become quite heavy, I understand. I shall be glad to erase your debt and arrange that your thirst for rum not be interrupted. Be a good friend to me, Ben, and I shall be a good friend to you."

"I . . . can't just—"

"Who is this magistrate to us, Ben? A tool, that's all! Only a tool. Brought here for a specific purpose, just as any shovel or axe." He heard the door opening and glanced around as Mrs. Nettles entered, bringing a drinking cup with the salt in it, followed by a servant girl carrying a pan of steaming water and a clean white cloth. "Money for your wife and all the rum you please," Bidwell whispered to the doctor, his eyes fierce. "All you need do is patch the tool well enough to work."

Shields had a reply on his lips, but he paused before he spoke it. He blinked slowly, a pulse beating at his temple, and then he said in a wan voice, "I . . . must see to my patient." Bidwell stepped out of his way.

"Hold the pan steady," Shields directed the servant girl. The water had just come off the fire, and so was near scalding. Shields took the drinking cup and dipped it in, then used the spoon to stir the salt until the mixture was well clouded. His hand hesitated near the blue bottle. His eyes narrowed, but only Bidwell saw it. Then the doctor picked up the bottle and poured most of its contents into the cup. He stirred the mixture again, after which he put the cup to Woodward's mouth.

"Drink," he said. Woodward accepted the liquid and swallowed. What ensued next, when the hot salt water came into contact with the ravaged flesh and ripe blisters, was not a pretty moment. The pain that ripped through Woodward's throat was blinding in its savagery, and caused him to convulse and cry out in a grotesquely mangled voice that Bidwell feared would wake the citizens before the first rooster's crow. The servant girl fairly jumped back from the bedside, almost spilling the pan's contents, and even stalwart Mrs. Nettles retreated a pace before she could steady her courage.

Tears streamed down the magistrate's cheeks. He shuddered and looked up through his reddened eyes at Dr. Shields.

"I'm sorry," the doctor said, "but you'll have to drink again."

"I can't," Woodward whispered.

"The salt must do its work. It will be painful, yes, but not as much so. Here, clasp my hand and hold tight. Robert, will you grip his other hand?"

"Me? Why me?"

"If you please," Shields said, not without some vexation, and Bidwell with great reluctance took the magistrate's other hand. "Now," Shields said to the magistrate, "you must hold the salt water in your throat for as long as possible and allow it to burn the infection. Are you ready?"

Woodward gasped a breath. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again to the blurred world. Knowing there was no other way, he nodded and stretched open his mouth.

Shields poured some more of the opium-spiked brine onto Woodward's whitened tongue. Again, when the salt touched its nemesis, Woodward groaned and convulsed but he did hold the water in his throat as long as he was humanly able, the sweat shining slickly upon his face and scalp.

"There, that's very good," Shields said when Woodward had swallowed. He put aside the cup and soaked the cloth in the hot water, then wrang it out and immediately put it over Woodward's face. The magistrate trembled, but the sensation of the hot cloth against his flesh was of no consequence after what he'd just endured. Shields began to vigorously massage Woodward's cheeks through the cloth, to open up the sinus passages through a combination of heat and friction. He paused in the massage to attack the crusted mucus that blocked the magistrate's nostrils, his fingers still working through the cloth. The heat had softened the obstructions, and Shields was successful in breaking loose most of the clots. He returned to massaging Woodward's face again, concentrating on the areas on either side of the nose. In another moment he removed the cloth, dowsed it in the pan of hot water and then applied it once more to the magistrate's face, continuing the hard pressure of his fingers on the areas that he knew must be severely inflamed and swollen deep beneath the flesh.

Quite suddenly, his brain still reeling from the pain he'd suffered, Woodward realized he could breathe again through his nostrils. His air passages were slowly opening. His throat simply felt dead but that was a far better cry than before. He drew a breath in through his nose and mouth, inhaling steam from the cloth as well.

"An improvement!" Shields said, his fingers tirelessly working. "I think we're bringing the swelling down."

"God be praised!" Bidwell exclaimed.

"God may be praised," Shields told him, "but the magistrate's blood has been fouled by the swamp's evil humours. It's the thickening of the blood that's caused the closure of his throat and sinuses." He peeled the cloth away from Woodward's face, which now was as pink as a boiled ham, and put it into the pan. "Your breathing is easier?"

"Yes." Woodward's voice, however, had been reduced to a whisp and a rattle.

"Very good. You may lay the pan aside and step out of my way," he told the servant girl, who immediately obeyed. "Now," he said to the magistrate, "you realize this condition will most likely recur. As long as your blood is so thickened to affect the tissues, there's danger of the air passages again closing. Therefore ..." He paused to remove from his carrying case a small pewter bowl, its interior marked by rings that indicated a measurement of ounces. Also from the case Dr. Shields brought a leather sheath, which he opened to display a number of slim rectangular instruments made from tortoiseshell. He chose one of them and unfolded from the tortoiseshell grip a thin blade two inches in length.

"I shall have to bleed you," he said. "When was the last time you were bled?"

"Many years," Woodward answered. "For a touch of fever."

"A flame, please," Shields requested. Mrs. Nettles opened a lamp and offered the burning wick. The doctor put the blade of his lancet into the fire. "I'll make the cuts behind your left ear," he told Woodward. "Therefore I shall need you to overhang your head off the bedside. Will you help him, Robert?"

Bidwell summoned the servant girl, and together they got Woodward's body turned on the bed so his head was in the proper position. Then Bidwell retreated to the door, as the sight of blood made his stomach queasy and the jellied eels and oysters he'd consumed for dinner seemed to be locked in combat down below.

"You might wish to bite on this." Shields put into Woodward's right hand a piece of sassafras root that still held the fragrant bark. Woodward couldn't help but note that it was marked by the grooves of previous teeth. Still, it was better than gnashing on his tongue. He put the sassafras into his mouth and fixed his teeth upon it.

The blade was ready. Shields stood beside the magistrate's head with the lancet poised at the point he wished to open, just at the base of Woodward's left ear, and the pewter bleeding bowl held beneath it. "Best to grasp the sheet and keep your fists closed," he suggested. Then he said quietly, "Courage, sir," and his hand designed the first cut.

Woodward stiffened and bit into the sassafras root as the hot lancet pierced his flesh. To the doctor's credit, the first cut was done quickly. As blood began to drip into the bowl, Shields made a second incision and then a third. Now the crimson drops were falling faster, and Shields refolded the lancet's blade back into its tortoiseshell grip. "There," he told the magistrate. "The worst is over." He took the root from Woodward's mouth and put it into his pocket, all the while holding the bleeding bowl directly beneath the three leaking wounds.

All that could be done now was wait. The sound of the blood dripping into the widening pool at the bowl's bottom was terribly loud to Woodward, who closed his eyes and also tried to close his mind. Bidwell, still standing at the door, had watched the procedure with a kind of sickened fascination, though the process of bleeding was certainly nothing novel and he himself had been bled several years ago when he'd been suffering stomach cramps.

Shields used the pressure of his fingers on the area behind Woodward's ear to keep the wounds open. In a few moments Shields said, "Mrs. Nettles, I shall need a pan of cool water and another cloth, please. Also a cup of rum would do the magistrate well, I think."

Mrs. Nettles directed the servant girl to get what Dr. Shields had requested. The blood kept falling, drop after drop, into the red pond.

Bidwell cleared his throat. "Magistrate? Can you hear me?"

"He hears you," Shields said, "but let him be. He needs no bothering."

"I only wish ro ask him a question."

Woodward opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. Up there he could see a brown waterstain. "Go ahead," he rasped.

"What did he say?" Bidwell asked, coming nearer to the bed.

"He said to ask your question," the doctor told him, looking down at the bowl to see that almost two ounces of life's fluid had so far been collected.

"Good. My question, sir, is this: what time will you be able to commence the trial today?"

Woodward's eyes found the face of Dr. Shields above him.

"What say you?" Bidwell stood beside the bed, keeping his gaze averted from the dripping blood. "This afternoon, perhaps?"

Woodward swallowed thickly; the raw pain in his throat was returning with a vengeance. "I . . . don't know ... if I can—"

"Actually," Dr. Shields spoke up, "you might consider returning to your task, sir. Lying abed too long does no soul any goodB He glanced toward Bidwell, and Woodward saw the other man's face doubly reflected in the doctor's spectacles. "We wish to keep your circulation from stagnating. It would also do you good, I think, to put your mind to proper use."

"Yes!" Bidwell said. "My sentiments exactly!"

"However," the doctor amended, "I would not suggest you sit in that putrid gaol without some protection from the vapors. Robert, do you have a coat that might fit the magistrate?"

"If not, I can find one."

"All right. I'm going to prepare a liniment for you that should be smeared liberally upon your throat, chest, and back. It will stain your shirt and coat beyond hope, so give them up for lost. I wish you to wear a scarf around your throat after the liniment has been applied." He looked at Mrs. Nettles. "The magistrate will require a diet of soup and pap. Nothing solid until I give the word. Understood?"

"Yes sir."

"I'll send a servant to inform Elias Garrick he won't be needed at the gaol until . . . what time would you say, Ben?" Bid-well asked with all innocence. The doctor didn't answer, but instead watched the blood that continued to collect in the cup. "What say, Ben?" Bidwell lifted his eyebrows.

Woodward heard Dr. Shields give a heavy sigh. Then the doctor answered, "Two o'clock would be sufficient. Depending, of course, on the magistrate's desire to return to his task."

"Well, that's most of nine hours from now!" Great exultation was evident in Bidwell's voice. "Surely you can be rested and ready to continue the trial by then, Magistrate?"

"I'm not sure. I feel so poorly."

"Well of course you feel poorly at the moment, but a few hours of sleep will do wonders for you! Isn't that right, Ben?"

"He may feel stronger later in the day, yes," Shields said, with lackluster enthusiasm.

Bidwell grinned broadly. "There you have it! I should want to get out of this room and do something constructive, myself."

Woodward was hurting and his mind was fogged, but he knew precisely what Bidwell's prime interest in his health concerned. He was of the opinion that the sooner he completed the trial and delivered sentence, the sooner he might quit this swamphole and return to Charles Town.

"Very well," he managed to say. "If I am able, I'll hear Mr. Garrick at two o'clock."

"Wonderful!" Bidwell almost clapped his hands with joy; his obvious disregard for the magistrate's condition earned him a dagger of a glance from Dr. Shields, but he paid no heed. "I'll make certain Elias is at the gaol promptly on the hour."

Shortly afterward, the servant girl returned to the room with the pan of cool water, a cloth, and a cup of rum. When Dr. Shields saw that nearly four ounces of blood had dripped into the bowl, he said, "Mrs. Nettles, help me sit him up, please." Together they got the magistrate up to a sitting position. "Lean your head forward," Shields instructed him, and he immersed the cloth into the water and pressed it tightly against the incisions. "I have a brown jar in my case," he told the servant girl. "Fetch it out and open it." Shields scooped out some of the thick amber-colored ointment—a mixture of honey, pine oil, and hogsfat— and smeared it over the wounds. He repeated the process, and in so doing sealed together the edges of the cuts.

Woodward was light-headed. He felt sick to his stomach, but his breathing was so relieved that he didn't care. "Drink this down," Shields said, holding the rum cup to the magistrate's lips, and Woodward finished it off with three gulps. His throat flared again as the liquor scorched it, but after the rum was consumed he did feel so much the better.

"You should sleep now," Shields said. "I'll go directly and make up the liniment." He gave the bleeding bowl to the servant girl. "Dispose of this and return the bowl here when you're done." She accepted it, but held it at arm's length. Shields returned the lancet to the leather sheath. "We will have to bleed you again tonight," he said to Woodward, "lest the condition recur." Woodward nodded, his eyes glazed over and his mouth numb. Shields turned his attention to Bidwell. "He should be looked in upon every hour. I'll return at ten o'clock to apply the liniment."

"Thank you, Ben," Bidwell said. "You're a true friend."

"I do what has to be done," Shields replied, returning his implements and medicines to the carrying case. "I trust you will do likewise?"

"You may rely on me."

"Magistrate, lie down and keep this cloth pressed against the incisions, as there may be some leakage."

"Mrs. Nettles," Bidwell said, "will you see the doctor out?"

"No need." Shields closed his case and picked it up. Behind his spectacles, his eyes were dead. "I know the way."

"Thank you for your help, doctor," Woodward whispered. "I do think I can sleep awhile." He heard the first cock crow outside.

Shields left the room and went downstairs. At the bottom of the staircase he was stopped by the servant girl who had attended him. She said, "Doctor, suh? Will you be needin' this?"

"Yes," he replied, "I think I shall," and he took from her the jug of rum she had uncorked. Then he continued on his way, out into the somber gray light and chilly drizzling rain.

BEFORE HANNIBAL GREEN arrived at the gaol with the prisoners' breakfast of biscuits and eggs, Matthew and Rachel received another visitor.

The door, its broken chain yet unmended by the blacksmith, was opened and there entered a slim black-suited figure, carrying a lantern with which to illume the murky confines.

"Who is that?" Matthew asked sharply, as the person's stealthy approach alarmed him. He'd awakened to a ragged chorus of rooster crows a short time previously, and had just finished relieving his bladder in his waste bucket. He was still in a bleary state, which caused him to fear for a few seconds that Satan himself had come to visit Rachel.

"Quiet, clerk!" came the stern reply. "Tis not thee I have business with." Exodus Jerusalem, his prune of a face painted ruddy gold by the candlelight, wore his tricorn hat pulled low over his forehead. He passed by Matthew's cage and aimed the light toward Rachel. She was washing her face from her water bucket, her ebony hair wet and slicked back.

"Good morning to thee," the preacher said. She continued as if no one had spoken. "Well, thou canst be mute if thee please. But thou should not play at being deaf, as I have some words of interest."

"You're not supposed to be in here," Matthew said. "Mr. Green is—"

"The entry was not locked, was it? And as a commander in the army of God, I have a right to visit the battlefield, do I not?" He cast Matthew a bone-freezing stare, and then looked again upon Rachel. "Witch Howarth?" he said, his voice silken. "I had a very enlightening dinner with Mr. Bidwell and the magistrate last night." He felt no need to reveal that he had for the most part invited himself to dinner at the mansion, and had taken his sister and nephew there with him. While he had feasted at the banquet table, his relatives had been seated at the smaller table in the kitchen where Mrs. Nettles ate. "Mr. Bidwell was a genial host," Jerusalem went on. "He entertained me with the particulars of thy offenses."

Rachel began to wash her arms. "Thou hast committed murders and vile wickedness," the preacher hissed. "So vile it dost take mine breath away."

Something about Jerusalem's voice made Matthew speak up. "You should remove yourself from here. You're neither needed nor wanted."

"Of that I am sure. As I said, clerk, I have no business with thee, but take care lest thy haughty demeanor draw down misery." Jerusalem dismissed Matthew with a slight lifting of his pointed chin. "Witch Howarth?" he implored. "Thy motives intrigue me. Wouldst thou tell me why the Devil hast embraced thee so fondly?"

"You're half crazed," Rachel said, without looking at him. "And the other half is a raving lunatic."

"I shouldn't think thee would fall to the ground and kiss my boots. But at least we have moved beyond the silence of a stone. Let me pose this question, Witch Howarth: dost thou not know the power I possess?"

"Power to do what? Make an ass of yourself!"

"No," he replied calmly. "The power to free thee from thy prison."

"What? And walk me to the stake?"

"The power," he said, "to banish Satan from thy soul, and therefore save thee from the stake."

"You're mistaking your power with that belonging to Magistrate Woodward," Matthew said.

Jerusalem ignored him. "I will tell thee a tale," he offered to Rachel. "Two years ago, in a new settlement in the Maryland colony, a young widow by the name of Eleanor Peyton found herself in the same predicament as thee. Cast into a cage, she was, on accusation of witchcraft and the murder of her neighbor's wife. The magistrate who heard her case was a right true man of God, and breached no affronts by the Devil. He sentenced Madam Peyton to be hanged by the neck. But on the night before her gallows dance, Madam Peyton confessed her sins and witchcraft to me. She sank to her knees, spoke the Lord's Prayer in a reverent voice, and begged me to oust Satan from her soul. The Evil One caused her breasts to swell and her private parts to water, and these afflictions I attacked by the laying on of hands. Her salvation, though, did not come easily. That night it was a tremendous battle. The both of us struggled mightily, until we were drenched in sweat and gasping for God's air. At last, just before the dawn, she threw her head back and released a scream, and I knew it was the sound of Satan tearing loose from the depths of her innermost being." He closed his eyes; a slight smile played across his mouth, and Matthew imagined he must be hearing that scream.

When Jerusalem's eyes opened once more, some trick of the candlelight gave them a reddish glint. "At first light," he said to Rachel, "I pronounced Madam Peyton freed of the Devil's claws, and therefore petitioned the magistrate that he should hear her confession before the torches were flamed. I said I would stand as a witness for any woman who embraced Christianity and engulfed it with such passion. The end result was that Madam Peyton was banished from the town, yet she became a crusader for God and travelled with me for some months." He paused, his head cocked to one side. "Art thou listening to my tale, Witch Howarth?"

"I think your tale exposes you," Rachel answered.

"As a man who careth deeply for the right ways of women, yes. Thy breed is so easily led astray, by all manner of evil. And thus thy breed leadeth men astray as well, and woe be to the tribe of Adam."

Rachel finished washing and pushed the bucket aside. She lifted her gaze to the preacher. "You seem to know a great deal about evil."

"I do. Both from without and within."

"I'm sure you are most interested in the ins and outs, especially concerning my breed."

"Thy mockery is well aimed, but falls short of the mark," Jerusalem said. "In my youth—indeed, for most of my life—I myself walked the dark path. I was a thief and blasphemer, I sought the company of doxies and revelled in the sinful pleasures of fornication and sodomy. Indeed, I ruined the souls of many women even as I revelled in their flesh. Oh yes, Witch Howarth, I do know a great deal about evil."

"You sound prideful of it, preacher."

"My attraction to such matters was a thing of birth. I have been told by many doxies—and good widows, too—that my member is the largest they have ever seen. Some admitted it took their breath away."

"What kind of ministry is this?" Matthew asked, his face flushed by Jerusalem's indecent claims. "I think you'd better leave, sir!"

"I shall." Jerusalem kept staring fixedly at Rachel. "I want thee to know, Witch Howarth, that my gift of persuasion is undiminished. If thou desireth, I may do the same for thee that was done for Madam Peyton. She now lives a virtuous life in Virginia, all the sin having been squeezed from her bosom. Such release may be given to thee, as well, if thou but sayeth the word."

"And I would be spared from the stake?"

"Without a doubt."

"After which you would recommend that I be banished from my land and home, and you would offer me a place alongside yourself?"

"Yes."

"I am not a witch," Rachel said forcefully. "I do not follow a dark master now, and I will not follow a dark master in the future. My word to you is: no."

Jerusalem smiled. The lantern's light glinted off his teeth. "The magistrate has yet to pass sentence on thee, of course. Perhaps thou hast hopes to sway the man through this boy?" He motioned with a nod toward Matthew. Rachel just glowered at him. "Well, thou dost have some time to think upon it. I would not linger too long, though, as I expect the timber will be laid for thy fire within a few days. Wouldst be a terrible pity for thee to burn, being so young and so badly in need of a Christian sword."

He'd no sooner finished his last word when the door opened and Hannibal Green entered carrying a lantern and a steaming bucket full of the biscuit-and-eggs mush that would be their breakfast. Green stopped in his tracks when he saw the preacher. Exodus Jerusalem had made a strong impression on him yesterday afternoon. "Sir?" he said, rather meekly. "No visitors are allowed here unless Mr. Bidwell approves it. That's his rule."

"The Lord God approves it," Jerusalem said, and offered a warm smile to the giant gaol-keeper. "But as I do not wish to violate the earthly rules of Mr. Bidwell, I shall immediately withdraw."

"Thank you, sir."

On his way out, Jerusalem placed a hand upon Green's shoulder. "Thou hast done a fine job guarding the witch. A man cannot be too careful in dealing with the likes of her."

"Yes sir, I know that. And I thank you for the 'preciation."

"A thankless task, I'm sure. Thou art a good Christian fellow, I can tell." He started to move on, then paused. "Oh. I am speaking this night at seven o'clock on the subject of the witch, if thou shouldst care to attend. It shall be the first of a series of sermons. Dost thou know where I am camped? On Industry Street?"

"Yes sir."

"If thou wouldst serve God, please inform your brother and sister citizens of the time. Also, please let it be known that I live from hand to mouth on the blessings of Christ and what may find its way into my offering basket. Wouldst thou serve God in such a way?"

"Yes sir," Green said. "I would. I mean ... I will."

Jerusalem turned his face toward Rachel once more. "Time is short for repentance, Witch Howarth. But redemption may still be thine, if thou dost desireth it." He touched a finger to the brim of his tricorn, and then made his departure.

seventeen

MATTHEW WAS SHOCKED at his first sight of the magistrate, just before two o'clock. Woodward, who entered the gaol supported between Hannibal Green and Nicholas Paine, wore a long gray overcoat and a rust-colored scarf wrapped about his throat. His face—which glistened with sweat and was a few shades lighter than his coat—was cast downward, mindful of his walking. He took feeble steps, as if he'd aged twenty years since Matthew had seen him yesterday afternoon.

When Green had brought the midday meal, he'd explained to Matthew that the course of the trial had been delayed because the magistrate had fallen very ill during the night, but what he heard from Paine was that Elias Garrick was scheduled to appear at two o'clock. Therefore Matthew had expected to see the magistrate under the weather, but not become a near invalid. He realized at once that Woodward should be in bed—or possibly even at Dr. Shields's infirmary.

"What are you bringing him in here for?" Matthew protested, standing at the bars. "The magistrate's not healthy enough to sit at court today!"

"I'm following Mr. Bidwell's orders," Paine replied, as he steadied Woodward while Green unlocked the cell. "He said to bring the magistrate here."

"This is an outrage! The magistrate shouldn't be forced to work when he's hardly strong enough to stand!"

"I see no one forcing him," Paine answered. Green got the door open and then helped Paine walk Woodward through. A strong, bitter medicinal odor also entered.

"I demand to see Bidwell!" Matthew had almost shouted it, his cheeks reddening as his temper rose. "Bring him here this minute!"

"Hush," the magistrate whispered. "That hurts my ears."

"Sir, why did you allow yourself to be brought here? You're in no condition to—"

"The work must be done," Woodward interrupted. "The sooner the trial is ended . . . the sooner we may leave this wretched town." He eased himself down into his chair. "Hot tea," he said to Paine, his face pinched with the effort of speech.

"Yes sir, I'll get you some directly."

"But not from Mrs. Vaughan," Woodward said. "I'll drink any tea but hers."

"Yes sir."

"Mr. Paine!" Matthew said as he and Green started to leave the cell. "You know the magistrate has no business being here!"

"Matthew, settle yourself," Woodward cautioned, in his raw whisper. "I may be somewhat ill . . . but I have my responsibilities. You have your own. Be seated and prepare for our witness." He glanced through the bars into the next cage. "Good afternoon, madam." Rachel nodded at him from her seat on the bench, her face grim but well composed. Paine and Green left the cell and made their way out of the gaol.

"Sit and prepare," Woodward repeated to his clerk. "Mr. Garrick will soon be here."

Matthew knew there was no point in further argument. He put the Bible in front of Woodward, then opened the desk drawer into which he'd placed the box of writing supplies and placed it atop his own desk. He sat down, lifted the boxlid, and removed the quill, inkwell, and paper, after he began to massage his right hand to warm it for the exertion that was to follow. The noise of Woodward's husky, labored breathing was going to be a considerable distraction. In fact, he didn't know how he could concentrate at all today. He said, "Sir, tell me this: how are you going to ask questions of Mr. Garrick when you can hardly speak?"

"Mr. Garrick will do most of the speaking." Woodward paused, securing a breath. His eyes closed for a few seconds; he felt so weak he feared he might have to lay his head down upon the desk. The pungent fumes of the liniment that even now heated his chest, back, and throat rose around his face and up his swollen nostrils. He opened his eyes, his vision blurred. "I will do my task," he vowed. "Just do yours."

In a few minutes Edward Winston entered the gaol with Elias Garrick, who wore a dark brown suit that appeared two sizes too small and bore fresh patches on the elbows and knees. His gray hair had been combed back against his scalp with glistening pomade. Garrick looked fearfully into the cell at Rachel Howarth, prompting Winston to say, "She can't harm you, Elias. Come along."

Garrick was motioned toward the stool that had been positioned before Woodward's desk. He sat down upon it, his gaunt-cheeked face cast toward the floor. His sinewy hands clasped together, as if in silent supplication.

"You're going to be fine." Winston placed his hand on Gar-rick's shoulder. "Magistrate, you can understand that Elias is a bit nervous, with the witch in such close proximity."

"He won't be kept long," was Woodward's rasped reply.

"Uh . . . well sir, I was wondering, then." Winston raised his eyebrows. "What time should I bring Violet Adams?"

"Pardon?"

"Violet Adams," Winston said. "The child. Mr. Bidwell told me to fetch her later this afternoon. What time would be agreeable?"

"One moment!" It was all Matthew could do to keep his seat. "The magistrate's only seeing one witness today!"

"Well. . . Mr. Bidwell seems to think otherwise. On the way to get Elias, I stopped at the Adams house and informed the family that Violet was expected to testify this afternoon. It was Mr. Bidwell's wish that the trial be concluded today."

"I don't care whose wish it was! Magistrate Woodward is too ill to—"

Woodward suddenly reached our and grasped Matthew's arm, squeezing it to command silence. "Very well," he whispered. "Bring the child ... at four o'clock."

"I shall."

Matthew looked incredulously at the magistrate, who paid him no attention.

"Thank you, Mr. Winston," Woodward said. "You may go."

"Yes sir." Winston gave Garrick a reassuring pat on the shoulder and took his leave.

Before Matthew could say anything more, Woodward picked up the Bible and offered it to Garrick. "Hold this. Matthew, swear him to truth."

Matthew obeyed. When the ritual was done and Matthew reached out to take the Good Book, Garrick pressed it against his chest. "Please? Might I keep a'hold of it?"

"You may," Woodward answered. "Go ahead and tell your story."

"You mean what I already done told you?"

"This time for the record." Woodward motioned toward Matthew, who sat with his quill freshly dipped and poised over the paper.

"Where do you want me to start?"

"From the beginning."

"All right, then." Garrick continued to stare at the floor, then licked his lips and said, "Well . . . like I done told you, my land's right next to the Howarth farm. That night I was feelin' poorly, and I waked up to go outside and spew what was makin' me ill. It was silent. Everythin' was silent, like the whole world was afeared to breathe."

"Sir?" Matthew said to the farmer. "What time would you make this to be?"

"What time? Oh . . . two or three, maybe. I don't recall." He looked at Woodward. "Want me to go on?" Woodward nodded. "Anyways, I went out. That's when I seen somebody crossin' the Howarth cornfield. Wasn't no stalks that time of year, y'see. I seen this person walkin' in the field, without no lantern. I thought it was awful strange, so I went over the fence, and I followed 'em behind the barn. That's when . . ." He stared at the floor again, a pulse beating at his temple. "That's when I seen the witch naked and on her knees, tendin' to her master."

"By 'the witch,' do you mean Rachel Howarth?" Woodward's frail whisper had just about vanished.

"Yes sir."

Woodward started to ask another question, but now his voice would not respond. He had reached the end of his questioning. He looked at Matthew, his face stricken. "Matthew?" he was able to say. "Ask?"

Matthew realized the magistrate was giving over to him the reins of this interview. He redipped his quill, a dark anger simmering in him that Bidwell had either forced or persuaded the magistrate to imperil his health in such a fashion. But now that the interview had begun, it should be finished. Matthew cleared his throat. "Mr. Garrick," he said, "what do you mean by 'master'?"

"Well. . . Satan, I reckon."

"And this figure was wearing exactly what?"

"A black cloak and a cowl, like I done told you. There was gold buttons on the front. I seen 'em shine in the moonlight."

"You couldn't see this figure's face?"

"No sir, but I seen . . . that thing the witch was suckin' on. That black cock covered with thorns. Couldn't be nobody but Satan hisself, owned somethin' like that.

"And you say Rachel Howarth was completely naked?"

"Yes sir, she was."

"What were you wearing?"

"Sir?" Garrick frowned.

"Your clothes," Matthew said. "What were you wearing?" Garrick paused, thinking about it. "Well sir, I had on ... I mean to say. I . . ." His frown deepened. "That's might odd," he said at last. "I can't recall."