Charles Town.
Rachel spoke, her face still shielded. 'You have done what you could. For that I thank you.' Her voice, though weakened and listless, yet held a full measure of dignity.
'Listen to me!' Matthew stepped forward and grasped one of the bars with his free hand. 'Monday is still a distance off—'
'A small distance, ' she interrupted.
'A distance, nevertheless. The magistrate may have issued his decree, but I don't intend to stop my inquiries.'
'You might as well.' She stood up and pushed the cowl back from her face. 'It is finished, whether you accept it or not.'
'I don't accept it!' he shouted. 'I never shall accept it!' He shut his mouth, shamed by his loss of control; he stared down at the dirty floor, searching within himself for any semblance of an articulate response. 'To accept such a thing... means I agree with it and that is impossible. I can never, as long as I live, agree with this... this wrongful execution of an innocent victim.'
'Matthew?' she said softly, and he looked at her. They stared at each other for a moment. Rachel approached him but stopped well short of the bars.
She said, 'Go on about your life.'
He found no answer.
'I am dead, ' Rachel told him. 'Dead. When I am taken on Monday to be burned, my body will be there for the flames... but the woman I used to be before Daniel was murdered is no longer here. Since I was brought to this gaol, I have slipped away. I did have hope, at one point, but I hardly remember what it felt like.'
'You mustn't give up hope, ' Matthew insisted. 'If there is one more day, there is always—'
'Stop, ' she said firmly. 'Please... just stop. You think you are doing the right thing, by encouraging my spirit... but you are not. The time has come to embrace reality, and to put aside these... fantasies of my life being spared. Whoever committed these murders is too smart, Matthew. Too... demonic. Against such a power, I have no hope and I wish to cease this pretending. It does not prepare me for the stake, and that above all else is what I must do.'
'I am close to learning something, ' Matthew said. 'Something important, though I'm not sure yet how it relates to you. I think it does, though. I think I have uncovered the first strands that form a rope, and the rope will lead me to—'
'I am begging you, ' she whispered, and now there were tears in her eyes though her face displayed no other betrayal of emotion, 'to cease this playing with Fate. You can't free me. Neither can you save my life. Do you not understand that an end has been reached?'
'An end has not been reached! I'm telling you, I have found—'
'You have found something that may mean something, ' Rachel said. 'And you might study it until a year from Monday, but I can't wish for freedom any longer, Matthew. I am going to be burned, and I must—I must— spend the time I have left in prayer and preparation.' She looked up at the sunlight that streamed through the hatch, and at the cloudless azure sky beyond. 'When they come for me... I'll be afraid, but I can't let them see it. Not Green, not Paine... especially not Bidwell. I can't allow myself to cry, or to scream and thrash. I don't want them sitting in Van Gundy's tavern, boasting over how they broke me. Laughing and drinking and saying how at the end I begged for mercy. I will not. If there is a God in Heaven, He will seal my mouth on that morning. They may cage me and strip me, dirty me and call me witch... but they will not make me into a shrieking animal. Not even on the stake.' Her eyes met Matthew's again. 'I have a single wish. Will you grant it?'
'If it's possible.'
'It is. I wish you to walk out of here and not return.'
Matthew hadn't known what to expect, but this request was as painful—and as startling—as a slap across the face.
Rachel watched him intently. When he failed to respond, she said, 'It is more than a wish, it is a demand. I want you to put this place behind you. As I said before: go on about your life.' Still he couldn't summon an answer. Rachel came forward two more paces and touched his hand that gripped the bar. 'Thank you for your belief in me, ' she said, her face close to his. 'Thank you for listening. But it's over now. Please understand that, and accept it.'
Matthew found his voice, though it was near perished. 'How can I go on about my life, knowing such injustice was done?'
She gave him a faint, wry smile. 'Injustice is done somewhere every day. It is a fact of living. If you don't already know that to be true, you are much less worldly than I thought.' She sighed, and let her hand fall away from his. 'Go away, Matthew. You've done your best.'
'No, I haven't.'
'You have. If you need me to release you from some imagined obligation to me... there.' Rachel waved her hand past his face. 'You are released.'
'I cannot just walk out of here like that, ' he said.
'You have no choice.' Again, she levelled her gaze at him.
'Go on, now. Leave me alone.' She turned away and went back to her bench.
'I will not give up, ' Matthew said. 'You may... but
over toward her waterbowl. She cupped her hand into it and brought water to her mouth.
'I won't, ' he repeated. 'Do you hear me?' She pulled her hood over her head, shrouding her face once more, and withdrew into her mansion of solitude.
Matthew realized he might stand here as long as he pleased, but Rachel had removed herself to a sanctum that only she could inhabit. He suspected it was the place of reflection—perhaps of the memories of happier times —that had kept her mind from cracking during the long hours of her imprisonment. He realized also, with a twist of anguish, that he was no longer welcome in her company. She did not wish to be distracted from her inner dialogue with Death.
It was indeed time to leave her. Still he lingered, watching her immobile figure. He hoped she might say something again to him, but she was silent. After a few moments he went to the door. There was no movement or response from Rachel. He started to speak once more, but he knew not what to say. Goodbye seemed the only proper word, yet he was loath to utter it. He walked out into the cruel sunlight.
Shortly the smell of charred wood drifted to his nostrils, and he paused at the pile of blackened ruins. There was hardly anything left to attest that it had ever been a schoolhouse. All four walls were gone, and the roof had fallen in. He wondered if somewhere in the debris might be the wire handle of what had been a bucket.
Matthew had almost told Rachel about his findings of last night, but he'd decided not to for the same reason he'd decided to withhold the information from Bidwell: for the moment, the secret was best kept locked in his own vault. He needed an answer to the question of why Winston was spiriting infernal fire from Charles Town and using it to set flame to Bidwell's dream. He also needed from Winston further details—if the man could supply them—of the so-called surveyor who'd come to Fount Royal. Therefore his mission this morning was clear: to find Edward Winston.
He inquired from the first person he saw—a pipe-smoking farmer carrying a flasket of yellow grain—as to the location of Winston's house, and was informed that the dwelling stood on Harmony Street just shy of the cemetery. Matthew started off to his destination, walking at a brisk pace.
The house did stand within a stone's toss of the first row of grave markers. Matthew noted that the shutters were sealed, indicating that Winston must be out. It was by no means a large dwelling, and probably only held two or three rooms. The house had been painted white at some point in the past but the whitewash had worn off, leaving a mottled appearance to the walls. It occurred to Matthew that—unlike Bidwell's mansion and some of the sturdier farmhouses—Winston's abode had an air of shoddy impermanence akin to that found in the slave quarters. Matthew continued up the walk, which was made of packed sand and hammer-crushed oyster shells, and knocked soundly at the door.
There was but a short wait. 'Who is it?' came Winston's voice—rough-edged and perhaps a bit slurred—from within the house.
'Matthew Corbett. May I please speak with you?'
'Concerning what?' This time he was making an obvious effort to disguise what might be termed an
