Speaks the Nightbird

he wasn't feeling well, and his mind was indeed somewhat disordered, but. . . what a strange thing to say.

Matthew had certainly never thought of the magistrate as his father. His guardian, yes; his mentor perhaps. But father? No. Not to say that Matthew didn't feel an affinity for the man. After all, they'd been working and living together for five years. If Matthew had not been performing his duties in a satisfactory manner, he felt sure he never would have lasted so long in the magistrate's employ.

And that's what the arrangement was, of course. An employment. Matthew had hopes to continue his obligation for as many years as Woodward needed him, and then perhaps to make a study of law himself. Woodward had told him he might even make a magistrate someday, if he decided to enter that field.

Father? No. There were so many things that Matthew didn't know about the magistrate, even after five years. What Woodward's past had been in London, and why he'd come to the colonies. Why he refused to talk about this mysterious 'Ann' he sometimes mentioned when he was enthralled in a bad dream. And the great significance of the gold-striped waistcoat.

Those were all things a father would explain to a son, even one secured from an almshouse. They were, likewise, things of a highly personal nature that an employer would not discuss with his employee.

After a short while the music came to a melodic conclusion. Matthew stared toward the swamp and the sea, both veiled by night, then he dtew the shutters closed, returned to bed, and found sleep waiting.

When he awakened—with a jarring, frightful start—he knew immediately what had roused him. He could still hear the echo of a tremendous blast of thunder. As it receded, dogs began to bay and bark all across Fount Royal. Matthew turned over, intending to return to the land of Somnus, and was no sooner drifting in that direction when a second thunder cannon went off seemingly above his head. He sat up, unnerved, and waited for the next detonation. The flash of lightning could be seen through the shutters' slats, and then the entire house quaked as Vulcan hammered on his forge.

Matthew got up, his bruised back considerably stiff, and opened the window to view the storm. It was an uncertain hour somewhere between midnight and dawn. The lanterns were all extinguished down in the servants' village. No rain had yet begun to fall, but the wind was thrashing through the forest that stood at the swamp's edge. The lightning flared again, the thunder spoke, and Matthew heard the dogs answer.

He was thinking how Fount Royal might conquer the Devil, only to be washed away by God, when something caught his attention. A furtive movement, it was, down amid the Negro shacks. He peered into the dark, watching that area. In another moment the lightning streaked overhead once more, and by its fierce illumination he saw a figure depart the corner of a house and begin to walk briskly toward Fount Royal. Then the night rolled in again, like ocean waves. Matthew was left with the impression that the figure was a manor, at least, had a masculine stride —wearing dark clothes and a monmouth cap. Had there been something swinging from the right hand? Possibly, but it was difficult to say. Also impossible to determine was if the person had been white-skinned or black. The next bolt of lightning revealed that the figure had gone from the window's viewpoint and thus out of Matthew's sight.

He closed the shutters and latched them. How very peculiar, he thought. Someone skulking around the servants' village in this slim hour, taking care—or certainly it appeared—not to be seen. How very, very peculiar.

Now: was this his business, or not? An argument might be made for either position. It was not unlawful for a person to walk where they pleased at whatever time they pleased . . . but still, it seemed to Matthew that the blacksmith was not the only person in Fount Royal who might have something to hide.

The boom and bluster of the storm—which yet held its torrents in check—in addition to this new intrigue made Matthew anything but sleepy. He scraped a sulphur match across a flint-stone and lit the lamp he'd been afforded, then he poured himself a cup of spring water from the clay pitcher atop the dresser and downed it. The water, he'd already decided, was most certainly the best thing about Fount Royal. After his drink he decided to go to the library and fetch a book with which to beckon sleep, so he took the lantern before him and ventured out into the hallway.

The house was silent. Or so Matthew thought, until he heard a faint voice speaking somewhere nearby. He stopped, listening; more thunder came and went, and the voice was quiet. Then it began again, and Matthew cocked his head to judge its origin.

He knew that voice. Even though it was muffled by the thickness of a door, it was recognizable to him. The magistrate, a heavy sleeper, was speaking to his own demons.

Matthew approached the man's room. The voice faded and became a snore that would have shamed a sawblade fighting iron-wood. As the next peal of thunder rang out, the snoring seemed to increase in volume as if in competition with nature's cacophony. Matthew was truly concerned for Woodward's health; indeed, the magistrate had never allowed illness to prevent him from doing his work, but then again the magistrate was rarely under the weather. This time, however, Matthew felt sure he should seek assistance from Dr. Shields.

The snoring abruptly stopped. There was a silence, and then a groan from beyond the door. 'Ann,' the magistrate said. 'Ann, he's hurting.'

Matthew listened. He knew he should not. But this, he thought, was somehow a key to the man's inner torment.

'In pain. Pain.' The magistrate drew a quick, rattling breath. 'Ann, he's hurting. Oh dear God . . . dear God . . .'

'What's going on in there?' The voice, spoken so close to his ear, almost made Matthew leap not only from his nightshirt but the very skin his bones were bound up in. He twisted around, his mouth agape—and there stood Robert Bidwell, wearing a robe of crimson silk and holding a lantern.

It took Matthew a few seconds to regain his voice, during which the thunder crashed mightily again. 'The magistrate,' Matthew managed to whisper. 'He's having a difficult night.'

'He's snoring down the house, is what he's doing! I could sleep through the storm, but his noise trepanned my skull!'

Even as Bidwell spoke, the magistrate's snoring began anew. It was never so loud and disagreeable as this, Matthew knew; probably it was due to his ill health.

'My bedroom's next to his,' Bidwell said. 'I'm damned if I can get a wink!' He reached for the doorknob.

'Sir?' Matthew grasped his wrist. 'I would ask that you leave him be. He'll snore again, even if you disturb him. And I do think he needs his rest for tomorrow.'

'What about my rest?'

'You won't be interviewing the witnesses, as the magistrate will be.'

Bidwell made a sour face. Without his lavish and expensive wig, he seemed a diminished presence. His hair, the color of sand, was cropped to the scalp. He pulled his arm away from Matthew's grip. 'A second-rate citizen in my own house!' he fumed.

'I thank you for your understanding.'

'Understanding be damned!' He flinched as Woodward sputtered and moaned.

'Hurting,' the magistrate said. 'Dear God . . . hurting . . .' His voice was overcome once more by the darktime sawing.

Bidwell released the breath from between his teeth. 'I suppose he ought to see Dr. Shields, then, if he's suffering so grievously.'

'He's speaking to a dream,' Matthew explained.

'A dream? Well, he's not the only one in Fount Royal with evil dreams! Satan plants them in the mind like bad seeds!'

'It isn't something new. I've heard him this way on many occasions.'

'My pity on your ears, then!' Bidwell ran a hand across his coarse-cut hair, his vanity making him realize how much an opulent wig added to his stature. 'What're you doing up? Did he awaken you?'

'No, it was the thunder. I looked out my window and saw—' Matthew hesitated. Saw what? he asked himself. A man or woman? Negro or white? Carrying something or not? This news might add to Bidwell's impression of him as a wolf-crier. He decided to let the matter pass. 'The storm approaching,' he said.

'Ha!' Bidwell grinned. 'You're not as smart as you fancy yourself, clerk!'

'Pardon?'

'Your window faces the sea. The storm's approaching from i he west.'