The Ninth Daughter

Had Bargest told him, You’re a Weapon in the Hand of the Lord, but for God’s sake don’t go crazy and cut the woman to pieces like you did those others . . . ?

A Weapon in the Hand of the Lord.

Was Sam? Was she herself, as Lisette Droux had hoped?

“I dreamed—I don’t know even if this really happened,” whispered Rebecca. “I dreamed I saw him through the kitchen door, standing above her body . . . Blood all over his hands—”

“Don’t—”

She shook her head, pressing on as if driven to purge the scene from her thought. “Blood all over his hands, and he looked down at them, at her, as if he knew not for a moment how it had got there. Then he looked up, and in my dream I swear I saw the light of Heaven, falling from far-off on his face, and he cried, Why have you done this to me? Why did you create me this way? Abigail, why would God create a man that way? Will he be punished—is he now in Hell—for being as God made him?”

Abigail murmured, “Only God knows what was in his heart.”

“That’s no answer.” Her brown eyes blazed with anger, with helplessness—with a passion, Abigail thought, that would never let her rest.

“No more than ’tis to say, The man was born a monster, for reasons no one knows. But ’tis the only answer God gave Job, when he spoke to him out of the whirlwind. And poor Orion was not the worst monster in the case.”

She looked up as John walked into the kitchen, passed through it catching up his hat and greatcoat, and on out into the yard. “I see Lieutenant Coldstone has come to call,” she remarked.

An instant later, Thaxter appeared in the hall doorway. “Mrs. Adams? Lieutenant Coldstone is here.”

“Is there a fire in the parlor?” She tidied up the legal notes, the morning papers with their account of the drowning of the East India Company’s precious tea. “Well, I suppose ’twill warm up soon—Pattie, would you bring us some coffee? Lieutenant,” she greeted him, as she and Rebecca entered the small—and icily cold—chamber where the officer was trying to warm his hands before the newly kindled hearth. “I’m sorry Mr. Adams is away —”

“You astonish me, Madame,” said Coldstone drily. “Your servant, Mrs. Malvern. I hope you are recovered? And yourself, Mrs. Adams—”

“Have you come to question me instead, about the events of last night? I assure you I’ve only just finished reading the Gazette’s account of them—”

Somberly, the young man replied, “My business is justice, m’am, and the law. What took place last night was an act of insurrection, nothing less. I came only to see how you go on. And I must say,” he added, with a bow that took in both women, “I am extremely pleased to see you looking well. You especially, Mrs. Malvern. And I came to inform you,” he went on quietly, “that the body of Orion Hazlitt was found yesterday evening, in a wood not far from Salem. He had been dead about a week, shot through the head.”

“God have mercy on him.” Rebecca put her hand again, briefly, to her lips. “He had to be stopped—and I think that only death could have stopped him—but he did save my life. And yours, Abigail. It should count for something.”

“Were the world just,” replied Abigail softly, “it might. Thank you, Lieutenant. How is Sergeant Muldoon?”

For the first time an expression of human warmth cracked the young man’s face, and he smiled. “Recovering—and cursing at the regimental sawbones for keeping him in quarters. The ball broke his collarbone, but did little other damage beyond the loss of blood—and the lad’s tough as boot leather. I cannot say I was particularly pleased to get word from you that you’d kidnapped him as you did, but following Hazlitt that night, when he fled Castle Island, I was glad that it was Muldoon you were with.”

“So that’s how you turned up so pat,” remarked Abigail. “I wondered how you knew where Gilead was. Even some tribes of Indians,” she added wryly, “got lost looking for the place.”

Coldstone’s face stiffened. “In fact, it was Miss Fluckner who alerted me to the fact that Hazlitt had come out to Castle William,” he said. “With so many true citizens of the Crown on the island, it was easy enough for anyone to conceal himself among them, which I suppose is what he counted on. He could have come upon Pentyre at any time, stabbed him, and disappeared into the crowd. He had this upon him.” From the pocket of his cloak Coldstone took a long, thin-bladed knife, of the kind stationers sell, to cut open the pages of books. It had been sharpened to a razor keenness. Abigail turned her eyes from it, remembering not only Perdita Pentyre’s mutilated body, but the fact that Hazlitt had also slaughtered Zulieka Fishwire’s cats.

Such men will continue killing . . . Coldstone had said.

God made me what I am, but I chose to fight for our rights . . .

God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind and said, Things are this way because I am the Lord. There seemed nothing else to say.

“Miss Fluckner knew you were working with us?”

“Her father’s butler wrote her,” said Coldstone. “She came to me Thursday night, with her maid, soon after I got your note. They told me the maid had just seen the man who was pursuing her, there, on the island, in the fort. She pointed him out to me, but he was already making his way to the dock. I think he must have learned somehow that the game was up—”

Sons of Liberty on Castle Island, Orion had whispered feverishly to her. Watching for me . . .

Thank you, Sam. “So you followed him—”

“I knew that if he had killed his mother,” said Coldstone, “the only place left for him to go, was back to this Gilead that you spoke of in your note to me. And he would lead us there.”

Pattie came in with coffee, but Coldstone shook his head. “I will not stay, Mrs. Adams,” he said, rising and taking up cloak and hat. “At the risk of sounding ungentlemanly, I fear you are still far from well, and will not further trespass. And, I must still visit Griffin’s Wharf, and see what damage was done.”

“None, I hear.” There was a note of slightly triumphant malice in Rebecca’s voice. “Not so much as a hatch cover broken. They were, I understand, quite well-mannered Indians.” His face a mask, the British officer bowed over her hand, and over Abigail’s in turn. “Nevertheless,” he said, “the Governor has sent a complaint to Parliament. I fear there will be hell to pay.”

Abigail said, “There always is.”