Speaks the Nightbird

'Is this a matter you wish to talk about?' Woodward asked. 'No sir. It's my problem, and mine alone. I will find a way to solve it. I will.'

'What?'

Matthew looked into the magistrate's face. Woodward no longer wore his wig and tricorn, his appearance much aged since that day he'd driven Matthew away from the almshouse. A light rain was falling through the thick-branched trees, steam hanging above the muddy track they were following. Ahead of them was the wagon Paine drove.

'Did you say something, Matthew?' the magistrate asked. I will, he thought it had been.

It took Matthew a few seconds to adjust to the present from his recollections of the past. 'I must have been thinking aloud,' he said, and then he was quiet.

In time, the fortress walls of Fount Royal emerged from the mist ahead. The watchman on his tower began to ring the bell, the gate was unlocked and opened, and they had returned to the witch's town.

 seven

IT WAS DARK-CLOUDED and cool, the sun a mere specter on the eastern horizon. From the window of his room, which faced away from Fount Royal, Matthew could see Bidwell's stable, the slaves' clapboard houses beside it, the guard tower, and the thick pine forest that stretched toward the swamp beyond. It was a dismal view. His bones ached from the continual damp, and because of a single mosquito that had gotten past the barrier of his bed-netting, his sleep had been less than restful. But the day had come, and his anticipation had risen to a keen edge.

He lit a candle, as the morning was so caliginous, and shaved using the straight razor, soap, and bowl of water that had been left in the hallway outside. Then he dressed in black trousers, white stockings, and a cream- colored shirt from the limited wardrobe Bidwell had provided him. He was blowing out the candle when a knock sounded at his door. 'Breakfast is a'table, sir,' said Mrs. Nettles.

'I'm ready.' He opened the door and faced the formidable, square-chinned woman in black. She carried a lantern, the yellow light and shadows of which made her stern visage almost fearsome. 'Is the magistrate up?'

'Already downstairs,' she said. Her oiled brown hair was combed back from her forehead so severely that Matthew thought it looked painful. 'They're waitin' for you before grace is said.'

'Very well.' He closed the door and followed her along the hallway. Her weight made the boards squeal. Before they reached the staircase, the woman suddenly stopped so fast Matthew almost collided into her. She turned toward him, and lifted the lantern up to view his face.

'What is it?' he asked.

'May I speak freely, sir?' Her voice was hushed. 'And trust you na' to repeat what I might say?'

Matthew tried to gauge her expression, but the light was too much in his eyes. He nodded.

'This is a dangerous day,' she said, all but whispering. 'You and the magistrate are in grave danger.'

'Of what nature?'

'Danger of bein' consumed by lies and blasphemies. You seem an able-minded young man, but you nae understand this town and what's transpirin' here. In time you might, if your mind is na' poisoned.'

'Poisoned by whom? The witch, do you mean?'

'The witch.' It was said with more than a hint of bitterness. 'Nay, I'm na' speakin' of Rachel Howarth. Whatever you hear of her—however you perceive her—she is na' your enemy. She's a victim, young man. If anythin', she needs your he'p.'

'How so?'

'They're ready to hang her,' Mrs. Nettles whispered. 'They'd hang her this morn, if they could. But she does na' deserve the rope. What she needs is a champion of truth. Somebody to prove her innocent, when ever'body else is again' her.'

'Madam, I'm just a clerk. I have no power to—'

'You're the only one with the power,' she interrupted. 'The magistrate is the kind of man who plows a straight furrow, ay? Well, this field's damn crooked!'

'So you contend that Madam Howarth is not a witch? Even though her husband was brutally murdered, poppets were found in her house, she can't speak the Lord's Prayer, and she bears the Devil's marks?'

'Lies upon lies. I think you're a man of some education: do you believe in witchcraft?'

'The books on demonology are well founded,' Matthew said.

'Hang the books! I asked if you believe.' Matthew hesitated; the question had never been posed to him. Of course he knew the Salem incident, which had occurred only seven years ago. He'd read Cotton Mather's Memorable Providences and Richard Baxter's Certainty of the Worlds of Spirits, both of which secured witchcraft and demon possession as fact. But he'd also read John Webster's The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft and John Wagstaffe's The Question of Witchcraft Debated, and both of those volumes held that 'witchcraft' was either deliberate fraud or that 'witches' were insane and should be bound for an asylum rather than the gallows. Between those two poles, Matthew hung suspended.

'I don't know,' he said.

'Mark this,' Mrs. Nettles told him. 'Satan does walk in Fount Royal, but Rachel Howarth's na' the one beside him. Things that nae want to be seen are plentiful here. And that's God's truth.'

'If you believe so, why don't you speak to Mr. Bidwell?'

'What? And then he'll be thinkin' I'm bewitched too? Because any woman or man who speaks up for Rachel Howarth would have a noose ready for—'

'Mrs. Nettles!' came a shout from the bottom of the stairs. 'Where's Mr. Corbett?' It was Bidwell and he sounded quite irritated. 'We're awaiting our breakfast, woman!'

'I'm at your mercy!' she whispered urgently to Matthew. 'Na' a word about this, please!'

'All right,' he agreed.

'We're here, sir!' Mrs. Nettles called to the master of the house, as she started toward the staircase again. 'Beg pardon, the young man was late a'risin'!'

Their breakfast was slices of ham and cornmeal porridge, biscuits and locally gathered honey, all washed down with mugs of strong amber tea. Matthew was still full from last night's dinner of turtle soup, turtle steaks, and cornbread, so he ate only sparingly. Woodward, who'd awakened with a raw throat and clogged nostrils after a restless night, drank as much tea as he could and then sucked on a lemon. In ravenous appetite, however, was Bid-well; the master of the house consumed slice after slice of ham and a whole serving bowl full of porridge, as well as a platter of biscuits.

At last Bidwell leaned back in his chair, expelled air, and patted his bulging stomach. 'Ahhhh, what a breakfast!' His gaze fell upon an unclaimed soul amid the carnage. 'Magistrate, are you going to finish that biscuit?'

'No, sir, I'm not.'

'May I, then?' Bidwell reached for it and pushed it into his mouth before an assent could be made. Woodward swallowed thickly, his throat very painful, and afforded himself another drink of the tart tea.

'Magistrate, are you not feeling well?' Matthew asked; it would have been difficult not to notice the man's pallor and the dark circles beneath his eyes.

'I didn't sleep very soundly last night. The mosquitoes here seem to favor me.'

'Tar soap,' Bidwell said. 'That's what you should bathe in this evening. Tar soap keeps them away. Well . . . most of them, that is.'

'I thought the insects were particularly greedy in Charles Town.' Woodward scratched at a reddened welt on the back of his right hand, one of a dozen bites he'd suffered already this morning. 'But your mosquitoes, sir, have no compare.'

'You have to get used to them, that's all. And the tar soap does help.'