'Depart, ' Woodward said. 'Your presence delays our work.' He glanced irritably at Matthew, who stood at the foot of the bed. 'The quill and paper! Now!' Matthew turned away to get the document box that also held sheets of clean paper, the quill, and the inkjar.
Bidwell went to the door, but before he left he had to try once again. 'Tell me this, then: should I have the stake cut and planted?'
Woodward squeezed his eyes shut at Bidwell's dogged disregard for propriety. Then he opened them and said tersely, 'Sir... you may accompany Matthew to read my decree to the accused. Now please... leave us.'
'All right, then. I'm going.'
'And... Mr. Bidwell... please refrain from dawdling in the hall.'
'My word on it as a gentleman. I shall be waiting downstairs.' Bidwell left the room and closed the door.
Woodward stared out the window at the gold-tinged sun-illumed morning. It was going to be beautiful today, he thought. A more lovely morning than he'd seen in the better part of a month. 'Date the decree, ' he told Matthew, though it was hardly necessary.
Matthew sat upon the stool beside the bed, using the document box as a makeshift writing table propped on his knees. He dipped the quill into the ink and wrote at the top of the paper May Seventeenth, Sixteen-Ninety- Nine.
'Ready it, ' Woodward prodded, his eyes fixed on the outside world.
Matthew scribed the preface, which he had done enough times in enough different circumstances to know the correct wording. It took him a few moments and a few dips of the quill: By Decree of the Right Honorable King's Appointed Magistrate Isaac Temple Woodward on This Day in the Settlement of Fount Royal, Carolina Colony, Concerning the Accusations of Murder and Witchcraft to Be Detailed As Follows Against the Defendant, a Woman Citizen Known Hereby As Rachel Howarth...
He had to stop to work out a kink in his writing hand. 'Go on, ' Woodward said. 'It must be done.'
Matthew had an ashen taste in his mouth. He dipped the quill again, and this time he spoke the words aloud as he wrote them: 'On the Charge of the Murder of the Reverend Burlton Grove, I Find the Aforesaid Defendant—' He paused once more, his quill poised to record the magistrate's decree. The flesh of his face seemed to have drawn tight beyond endurance, and a heat burned in his skull.
Suddenly Woodward snapped his fingers. Matthew looked at him quizzically, and when the magistrate put a finger to his lips and then motioned toward the door Matthew realized what he was trying to communicate. Matthew quietly put aside his writing materials and the document box, got up from the stool, went to the door, and quickly opened it.
Bidwell was down on one knee in the hallway, busily buffing his right shoe with his peacock-blue sleeve. He turned his head and looked at Matthew, lifting his eyebrows as if to ask why the clerk had emerged so stealthily from the magistrate's room.
'Gentleman, my ass!' Woodward hissed under his breath.
'I thought you were going downstairs to wait, ' Matthew reminded the man, who now ferociously buffed his shoetop and then heaved himself up to his feet with an air of indignance.
'Did I say I would race there? I saw a blemish on my shoe!'
'The blemish is on your vow, sir!' Woodward said, with a measure of fire that belied his watery constitution.
'Very well, then! I'm going.' Bidwell reached up and adjusted his wig, which had become somewhat tilted during his ascent from the floor. 'Can you blame me for wanting to know? I've waited so long for it!'
'You can wait a little longer, then.' Woodward motioned him away. 'Matthew, close the door.' Matthew resettled himself, with the box on his knees and the writing materials and paper before him.
'Read it again, ' Woodward said.
'Yes, sir.' Matthew took a deep breath. 'On the Charge of the Murder of the Reverend Burlton Grove, I Find the Aforesaid Defendant—'
'Guilty, ' came the whispered answer. 'With a stipulation. That the defendant did not actually commit the murder... but caused it to be committed by her words, deeds, or associations.'
'Sir!' Matthew said, his heart pounding. 'Please! There's absolutely no evidence to—'
'Silence!' Woodward lifted himself up on his elbows, his face contorted with a mixture of anger, frustration, and pain. 'I'll have no more of your second opinions, do you hear me?' He locked his gaze with Matthew's. 'Scribe the next charge.'
Matthew might have thrown down the quill and upset the inkjar, but he did not. He knew his duties, whether or not he agreed with the magistrate's decision. Therefore he swallowed the bitter gall in his throat, redipped the quill—that bastard weapon of blind destruction—and spoke again as he wrote: 'On the Charge of the Murder of Daniel Howarth, I Find the Aforesaid Defendant—'
'Guilty, with a stipulation. The same as above.' Woodward glared at him when Matthew's hand failed to make the entry. 'I should like to finish this sometime today.'
Matthew had no choice but to write down the decree. The heat of shame flared in his cheeks. Now, of course, he knew what the next decision must be. 'On the Charge of Witchcraft... I Find the Aforesaid Defendant —'
'Guilty, ' Woodward said quickly. He closed his eyes and rested his head back down on the stained pillow, his breathing harsh. Matthew heard a rattling sound deep in the magistrate's lungs. 'Scribe the preface to sentencing.'
Matthew wrote it as if in a trance. By Virtue of the Power Ascribed to Me As Colonial Magistrate, I Hereby Sentence the Aforesaid Defendant Rachel Howarth to... He lifted his quill from the paper and waited.
Woodward opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. A moment passed, during which could be heard the singing of birds in the springtime sunlight. 'Burning at the stake, as warranted by the King's law, ' Woodward said. 'The sentence to be carried out on Monday, the twenty-second of May, sixteen-ninety-nine.
In case of inclement weather... the earliest necessary date following.' His gaze ticked toward Matthew, who had not moved. 'Enter it.'
Again, he was simply the unwitting flesh behind the instrument. Somehow the lines were quilled on the paper.
'Give it here.' Woodward held out his hand and took the document. He squinted, reading it by the light that streamed through the window, and then he nodded with satisfaction. 'The quill, please.' Matthew had the presence of mind—or rather the dignity of his job—to dip the quill in the inkjar and blot the excess before he handed it over.
Woodward signed his full name and, below it, the title Colonial Magistrate. Ordinarily an official wax seal would be added, but the seal had been lost to that blackhearted Will Shawcombe. He then returned the paper and the quill to Matthew, who knew what was expected of him. Still moving as if enveloped in a gray haze, Matthew signed his name beneath Woodward's, along with the title Magistrate's Clerk.
And it was done.
'You may read it to the defendant, ' Woodward said, avoiding looking at his clerk's face because he knew what he would see there. 'Take Bidwell with you, as he should also hear it.'
Matthew realized there was no use in delaying the inevitable. He slowly stood up, his mind yet fogged, and walked to the door with the decree in hand.
'Matthew?' Woodward said, 'For whatever this is worth... I know you must think me heartless and cruel.' He hesitated, swallowing thick pus. 'But the proper sentence has been given. The witch must be burned... for the good of everyone.'
'She is innocent, ' Matthew managed to say, his gaze cast to the floor. 'I can't prove anything yet, but I intend to keep—'
'You delude yourself... and it is time for delusions to cease.'
Matthew turned toward the man, his eyes coldly furious. 'You are wrong, sir, ' he added. 'Rachel is not a witch, she's a pawn. Oh yes, all the conditions for a burning at the stake have been met, and all is in order with the law, sir, but I am damned if I'll let someone I know to be innocent lose her life on hearsay and fantasy!'
Woodward rasped, 'Your task is to read the decree! No more and no less!'
'I'll read it.' Matthew nodded. 'Then I'll drink rum to wash my mouth out, but I will not surrender! If she
