he declined. She had made it clear she did not want his presence there, and as much as it pained him, he must respect her wishes.
He returned to the house, found Mrs. Nettles, and asked if he might have some lunch. After a quick repast of corn soup and buttered bread, he ascended the stairs to his room and settled in a chair by the open window to contemplate his findings and to finish reading through the documents.
He could not shake the feeling, as he read the answers to the questions he had posed, that a revelation was close at hand. He only dimly heard the singing of birds and sensed the warmth of the sun, as all his attention was focused on these responses. There had to be something in here—something small, something overlooked—that might be a key to prove Rachel's innocence. As he read, however, he was distracted by two things: first, the bellring-ing and braying voice of a public crier announcing the magistrate's decree even in the slave quarters; and second, the sound of an axe chopping timber in the woods between the mansion and the tidewater swamp.
Matthew reached the end of the documents. He had found nothing. He realized he was looking for a shadow that may or may not exist, and to find it—if it was discoverable—he must concentrate on reading between the lines. He ran a weary hand over his face, and began once more from the beginning.
twenty-eight
ISAAC WOODWARD INHABITED A REALM that lay somewhere between twilight and Tartarus. The agony of his swollen throat had spread now through his every nerve and fiber, and the act of breathing seemed itself a defiance toward the will of God. His flesh was slick with sweat and sore with fever. Sleep would fall upon him like a heavy shroud, bearing him into blessed insensibility, but while he was awake his vision was as blurred as a candle behind soot-filmed glass. In spite of all these torments, however, the worst was that he was keenly aware of his condition. The deterioration of his body had not yet reached his mind, and thus he had sense enough to realize he was perilously close to the grave's edge.
'Will you help me turn him over?' Dr. Shields asked Matthew and Mrs. Nettles.
Matthew hesitated, his own face pallid in the light from a double candleholder to which was fixed a circle of reflective mirror. 'What are you going to do?'
Dr. Shields pushed his spectacles up on the bridge of his nose. 'The afflicted blood is pooling in his body, ' he answered. 'It must be moved. Stirred up from its stagnant ponds, if you will.'
'Stirred up? How? By more bleeding?'
'No. I think at this point the lancet will not perform its necessary function.'
'How, then?' Matthew insisted.
'Mrs. Nettles, ' the doctor said curtly, 'if you'll please assist me?'
'Yes sir.' She took hold of Woodward's arm and leg on one side and Shields took the opposite side.
'All right, then. Turn him toward me, ' Shields instructed. 'Magistrate, can you help us at all?'
'I shall try, ' Woodward whispered.
Together, the doctor and Mrs. Nettles repositioned Woodward so he lay on his stomach. Matthew was torn about whether to give a hand, for he feared what Dr. Shields had decided to do. The magistrate gave a single groan during the procedure, but otherwise bore the pain and indignity like a gentleman.
'Very well.' Dr. Shields looked across the bed at Mrs. Nettles. 'I shall have to lift his gown up, as his back must be bared.'
'What procedure is this?' Matthew asked. 'I demand to know!'
'For your information, young man, it is a time-tested procedure to move the blood within the body. It involves heat and a vacuum effect. Mrs. Nettles, would you remove yourself, please? For the sake of decorum?'
'Shall I wait outside?'
'No, that won't be necessary. I shall call if you're needed.' He paused while Mrs. Nettles left the room, and when the door was again closed he said to Woodward, 'I am going to pull your gown up to your shoulders, Isaac. Whatever help you may give me is much appreciated.'
'Yes, ' came the muffled reply. 'Do what is needed.'
The doctor went about the business of exposing Woodward's buttocks and back. Matthew saw that at the base of the magistrate's spine was a bed sore about two inches in diameter, bright red at its center and outlined with yellow infection. A second, smaller, but no less malignant sore had opened on the back of Woodward's right thigh.
Dr. Shields opened his bag, brought out a pair of supple deerskin gloves, and began to put them on. 'If your stomach is weak, ' he said quietly to Matthew, 'you should follow Mrs. Nettles. I need no further complications.'
'My stomach is fine, ' Matthew lied. 'What... is the procedure?'
The doctor reached into the bag again and brought out a small glass sphere, its surface marred only by a circular opening with a pronounced curved rim. The rim, Matthew saw with sickened fascination, had been discolored dark brown by the application of fire. 'As I said before... heat and vacuum.' From the pocket of his tan waistcoat he produced the fragrant piece of sassafras root, which he deftly pushed to the magistrate's lips. 'Isaac, there will be some pain involved, and we wish your tongue not to be injured.' Woodward accepted the tongue- guard and sank his teeth into the accustomed grooves. 'Young man, will you hold the candles, please?'
Matthew picked up the double candlestick from the table beside Woodward's bed. Dr. Shields leaned forward and stroked the sphere's rim from one flame to the other in a circular motion, all the time staring into Matthew's eyes in order to gauge his nerves. As he continued to heat the rim, Shields said, 'Magistrate, I am going to apply a blister cup to your back. The first of six. I regret the sensation, but the afflicted blood will be caused to rise to the surface from the internal organs and that is our purpose. Are you ready, sir?'
Woodward nodded, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Shields held the cup's opening directly over the flames for perhaps five seconds. Then, rapidly and without hesitation, he pressed the hot glass rim down upon Woodward's white flesh a few inches upward from the virulent bedsore.
There was a small noise—a snake's hiss, perhaps—and the cup clamped tightly as the heated air within compressed itself. An instant after the hideous contact was made, Woodward cried out around the sassafras root and his body shivered in a spasm of pure, animal pain.
'Steady, ' Shields said, speaking to both the magistrate and his clerk. 'Let nature do its work.'
Matthew could see that already the flesh caught within the blister cup was swelling and reddening. Dr. Shields had brought a second cup from his bag, and again let the flames lick its cruel rim. After the procedure of heating the air inside the cup, the glass was pressed to Woodward's back with predictable and—at least to Matthew—spine-crawling result.
By the time the third cup was affixed, the flesh within the first had gone through the stages of red to scarlet and now was blood-gorged and turning brown like a maliferous poison mushroom.
Shields had the fourth cup in his gloved hand. He offered it to the candle flames. 'We shall see a play directly, I understand, ' he said, his voice divorced from his actions. 'The citizens do enjoy the maskers every year.'
Matthew didn't answer. He was watching the first brown mushroom of flesh becoming still darker, and the other two following the path of swollen discoloration.
'Usually, ' the doctor went on, 'they don't arrive until the middle of July or so. I understand from Mr. Brightman—he's the leader of the company—that two towns they customarily play in were decimated by sickness, and a third had vanished altogether. That accounts for their early arrival this year. It's a thing to be thankful for, though, because we need a pleasant diversion.' He pressed the fourth blister cup onto Woodward's back, and the magistrate trembled but held back a moan. 'My wife and I used to enjoy the theater in Boston, ' Shields said as he prepared the fifth implement. 'A play in the afternoon... a beaker of wine... a concert on the Commons.' He smiled faintly. 'Those were wonderful times.'
Matthew had recovered his composure enough to ask the question that at this point naturally presented itself. 'Why did you leave Boston?'
The doctor waited until the fifth cup was attached before he replied. 'Well... let us say I needed a challenge. Or perhaps... there was something I wished to accomplish.'
'And have you? Accomplished it, I mean?'
Shields stared at the rim of the sixth cup as he moved it between the flames, and Matthew saw the fire reflected in his spectacles. 'No, ' he said. 'Not yet.'
