is... the dirt beneath Paine's floor is the same dirt that fills the cemetery graves. I know you have a Bible and consider yourself a Christian.'
'Yes, that is right. Oh... one more thing, ' Winston added before Matthew could turn to leave. 'How are we to explain Paine's disappearance? And what shall we do to find his killer?'
'The explanation is your decision. About finding his killer... from what I understand, Paine dabbled with other men's wives. I'd think he had more than his share of enemies. But I am not a magistrate, sir. It is Mr. Bidwell's responsibility, as the mayor of this town, to file the case. Until then...' Matthew shrugged. 'Good night.'
'Good night, ' Winston said as Matthew departed. 'And good swimming to you.'
Matthew went directly to Bidwell's house, to the library shutters he'd unlatched, opened them, and put the lantern on the sill. Then he carefully pulled himself up through the window, taking care not to overturn the chess set on his entry. Matthew took the lantern and went upstairs to bed, disappointed that no evidence of a pirate's hoard had been found but hopeful that tomorrow—or later today, as the fact was—might show him some path through the maze of questions that confronted him.
When the rooster choir of Friday's sunrise sounded, Matthew awakened with the fading impression of a dream but one very clear image remaining in his memory: that of John Goode, talking about the coins he'd discovered and saying May's got it in her mind we're gon' run to the Florida country.
He rose from bed and looked out the window at the red sun on the eastern horizon. A few clouds had appeared, but they were neither dark nor pregnant with rain. They moved like stately galleons across the purple sky.
The Florida country, he thought. A Spanish realm, the link to the great—though English-despised—cities of Madrid and Barcelona. The link, also, to Rachel's Portuguese homeland.
He recalled Shawcombe's voice saying You know them Spaniards are sittin' down there in the Florida country, not seventy leagues from here. They got spies all in the colonies, spreadin' the word that any black crow who flies from his master and gets to the Florida country can be a free man. You ever heard such a thing? Them Spaniards are promisin' the same thing to criminals, murderers, every like of John Badseed.
Seventy leagues, Matthew thought. Roughly two hundred miles. And not simply a two-hundred-mile jaunt, either. What of wild animals and wild Indians? Water would be no hardship, but what of food? What of shelter, if the heavens opened their floodgates again? Such a journey would make his and the magistrate's muddy trek from Shawcombe's tavern seem an afternoon's idyll.
But evidently others had made the journey and survived, and from much greater distances than two hundred miles. May was an elderly woman, and she had no qualms about going. Then again, it was her last hope of freedom.
Her last hope.
Matthew turned away from the window, walked to the basin of water atop his dresser, and liberally splashed his face. He wasn't sure what he'd been thinking, but—whatever it may have been—it was the most illogical, insane thought he'd ever had. He was surely no outdoorsman or leatherstocking, and also he was proud to be a British subject. So he might dismiss from his mind all traces of such errant and unwise consideration.
He shaved, put on his clothes, and crossed the hallway to look in on the magistrate. Dr. Shields's latest potion was evidently quite powerful, as Woodward still dwelled in the land of Nod. A touch of the magistrate's bare arm, however, gave Matthew reason for great joy: sometime during the night, Woodward's fever had broken.
At breakfast Matthew sat alone. He ate a dish of stirred eggs and ham, washed down with a strong cup of tea. Then he was out the door on a mission of resolve: to confront the ratcatcher in his well-ordered nest.
The morning was pleasantly warm and sunny, though a number of white-bellied clouds paraded across the sky. On Industry Street, Matthew hurried past Exodus Jerusalem's camp but neither the preacher nor his relations were in evidence. He soon came to the field where the maskers had made their camp, near the Hamilton house. Several of the thespians were sitting around a fire over which a trio of cooking pots hung. Matthew saw a burly, Falstaffian fellow smoking a churchwarden pipe while conversing with emphatic gestures to two other colleagues. A woman of equal if not greater girth was busy with needle and thread, darning a red-feathered hat, and a more slender female was at work polishing boots. Matthew knew little about the craft of acting, though he did know that all thespians were male and therefore the two women must be wives who travelled with the troupe.
'Good day, young man!' one of the actors called to him, with a lift of the hand.
'Good day to you!' Matthew answered, nodding.
In another few minutes Matthew entered the somber area of deformed orchards. It was fitting, then, that this was the locale chosen for Rachel's burning, as the justice such a travesty represented was surely misshapen. He looked at a barren brown field upon which had been erected the freshly axed execution stake. At its base, ringed by rocks, was a large firemound of pinewood timbers and pineknots. About twenty yards away from it stood another pile of wood. The field had been chosen to accommodate the festive citizens and to be certain no errant sparks could reach a roof.
At first light on Monday morning Rachel would be brought here by wagon and secured to the stake. Some kind of repugnant ceremony would take place, with Bidwell as its host. Then, after the crowd's flame had been sufficiently bellowed, torches would be laid to the firemound. More fuel would be brought over from the woodpile, to keep the temperature at a searing degree. Matthew had never witnessed an execution by burning, but he reasoned it must be a slow, messy, and excruciating business. Rachel's hair and clothes might be set aflame and her flesh roasted, but if the temperature wasn't infernal enough the real burning would take hours. It would be an all-day thing, anyway, for Matthew suspected that even a raging fire had difficulty gnawing a human body to the bones.
At what point Rachel would lose consciousness, he didn't know. Even though she wished to die with dignity and might have readied herself for the ordeal as much as humanly possible, her screams would be heard from one wall of Fount Royal to the other. It was likely Rachel would perish of asphyxiation before the fire cooked her. If she had her senses about her, she might hurry death by breathing in the flames and copious smoke. But who at that agonizing moment could do anything but wail in torment and thrash at their bonds?
Matthew assumed the fire would be kept burning throughout the night, and the citizens encouraged to witness as the witch shrank away to a grisly shade of her former self. The execution stake would dwindle too, but would be kept watered to delay its disappearance. On Tuesday morning, when there was nothing left but ashes and blackened bones, someone—Seth Hazelton, possibly—might come with a mallet to smash the skull and break the burnt skeleton into smaller fragments. It was then that Matthew could envision the swooping down of Lucretia Vaughan—armed with as many buckets, bottles, and containers as she might load upon a wagon—eager to scoop up ashes and bits of bone to sell as charms against evil. It occurred to him that her intelligence and rapacity might encourage her to enter an unholy alliance with Bidwell and Preacher Jerusalem, the former to finance and package this abomination and the latter to hawk it in towns and villages up and down the seaboard.
He had to banish such thoughts, ere they sapped the strength of his belief that an answer could be found before that awful Monday dawn.
He continued westward along Industry. Presently he saw a wisp of white smoke curling from the chimney of Linch's house. The lord of rodents was cooking his breakfast.
The shutters were wide open. Obviously Linch wasn't expecting any visitors. Matthew walked to the door, under the hanging rat skeletons, and knocked without hesitation.
A few seconds passed. Then, suddenly, the shutters of the window nearest the door were drawn closed—not hastily or loudly, but rather with quiet purpose. Matthew knocked again, with a sterner fist.
'Who is it?' came Linch's wary voice.
Matthew smiled thinly, realizing that Linch might just as easily have looked out the window to see. 'Matthew Corbett. May I speak with you?'
'I'm eatin' my breakfast. Don't care for no mornin' chat.'
'It should just take a minute.'
'Ain't got a minute. Go 'way.'
'Mr. Linch, ' Matthew said, 'I do need to speak with you. If not now, then I'll have to persist.'
'Persist all you please. I don't give a damn.' There was the sound of footsteps walking away from the door. The shutters of a second window were pulled closed, followed by the shutters of a third. Then the final window was sealed with a contemptuous thump.
Matthew knew there was one sure way to make Linch open the door, though it was also surely a risk. He
