Speaks the Nightbird

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'Come in and set y'selves!' Shawcombe brayed as Woodward and Matthew came into the main room. If anything, the smoke from the hearth seemed thicker and more sourly pungent. A few candles were set about, and Maude and the girl were at work over a pot that bubbled and steamed on a hook above the red coals. Shawcombe was on his feet with a wooden tankard of rum in one hand, motioning them to a table; his balance, or lack of same, indicated the liquor was finding its target. He blinked and let out a low whistle that rose in volume. 'Lord fuck the King, is that gold you're wearin'?' Before Woodward could draw back, Shawcombe's dirty hand had snaked out and fondled the glittering waistcoat. 'Ah, that's a fine piece of cloth there! Maude, look at this! He's wearin' gold, have you ever seen the like?'

The old woman, revealed by the firelight to have a face like a mask of cracked clay under her long white hair, peered back over her shoulder and made a noise that could have been either mangled English or a wheeze. Then she focused again on her cooking, stirring the pot and snapping what sounded like orders or criticism at the girl.

'You two look the birds!' Shawcombe said, grinning widely. His mouth appeared to Matthew like a wet-edged cutlass wound. 'The gold bird and the black bird! Ain't you the sights!' He scraped back a chair from the nearest table. 'Come on, sit down and rest your feathers some!'

Woodward, whose dignity had been affronted by this performance, pulled out his own chair and lowered himself into it with as much grace as he could muster. Matthew remained standing and, looking Shawcombe directly in the face, said, 'A chamberpot.'

'Huh?' The grin stayed, crooked, on Shawcombe's mouth.

'A chamberpot,' the younger man repeated firmly. 'Our room lacks one.'

'Chamberpot.' Shawcombe took a swig from the tankard, a rivulet of rum dribbling down his chin. His grin had vanished. The pupils of his eyes had become dark pinpoints. 'Chamber fuckin' pot, huh? Well, what do you think the woods are for? You want to shit and piss, you go out there. Wipe your arse with some leaves. Now sit down, your supper's 'bout ready.'

Matthew remained standing. His heart had begun beating harder. He could feel the raw tension in the air between them, as nasty as the pinewood smoke. The veins in Shawcombe's thick neck were bulging, gorged with blood. There was a defiant, churlish expression on his face that invited Matthew to strike him, and once that strike was delivered the response would be triplefold in its violence. The moment stretched, Shawcombe waiting to see what Matthew's next move would be.

'Come, come,' Woodward said quietly. He grasped Matthew's sleeve. 'Sit down.'

'I think we deserve a chamberpot,' Matthew insisted, still locking his gaze with the tavern-keeper's. 'At the very least a bucket.'

'Young master'-—and now Shawcombe's voice drooled false sentiment—'you should understand where you are. This ain't no royal palace, and you ain't in no civilized country out here. Maybe you squat over a fancy chamberpot in Charles Town, but here we squat out behind the barn and that's how things is. Anyway, you wouldn't want the girl to have to clean up behind you, would you?' His eyebrows lifted. 'Wouldn't be the gentlemanly thing.'

Matthew didn't answer. Woodward tugged at his sleeve, knowing this particular skirmish wasn't worth fighting. 'We'll make do, Mr. Shawcombe,' Woodward said, as Matthew reluctantly surrendered and sat down. 'What may we look forward to supping on this evening?'

Bang! went a noise as loud as a pistol shot, and both men jumped in their chairs. They looked toward the hearth, at the source of the sound, and saw the old woman holding a hefty mallet in one hand. 'Eyegots at 'am bigun!' she rasped, and proudly raised her other hand, two fingers of which pinched the long tail of a large, crushed black rat that twitched in its death throes.

'Well, toss the bastard!' Shawcombe told her. Both Woodward and Matthew expected her to throw the rat into the cookpot, but she shambled over to a window, unlatched the shutter, and out went the dying rodent into the stormy dark.

The door opened. A wet rat of another breed came in trailing a blue flag of curses. Uncle Abner was soaked, his clothes and white beard dripping, his boots clotted with mud. 'End 'a the damn world, what it is!' he pronounced, as he slammed the door and bolted it. 'Gonna wash us away, d'rectly!'

'You feed and water them horses?' Shawcombe had previously commanded Abner to take the travellers' horses and wagon to shelter in the barn, as well as tend to the three other sway-backed steeds.

'I reckon I did.'

'You bed 'em down all right? If you left them nags standin' in the rain again, I'll whip your arse!'

'They're in the damn barn, and you can kiss my pickle if you're doubtin' me!'

'Watch that smart mouth, 'fore I sew it up! Go on and get these gents some rum!'

'I ain't doin' nothin'!' the old man squalled. 'I'm so wet I'm near swimmin' in my skin!'

'I believe I'd prefer ale,' Woodward said, remembering how his earlier taste of Shawcombe's rum had almost burned his tongue to a cinder. 'Or tea, if you have it.'

'Myself the same,' Matthew spoke up.

'You heard the gentlemen!' Shawcombe hollered at his hapless uncle. 'Go on and fetch 'em some ale! Best in the house! Move, I said!' He took a threatening two steps toward the old man, lifting his tankard as if he were about to crown Abner's skull with it, in the process sloshing the foul-smelling liquor onto his guests. Matthew shot a dark glance at Woodward, but the older man just shook his head at the base comedy of the situation. Abner's soaked spirit collapsed before his nephew's ire and he scurried off to the storage pantry, but not without leaving a vile, half-sobbed oath lingering in his wake.

'Some people don't know who's the master of this house!' Shawcombe pulled a chair over and sat without invitation at their table. 'You should pity me, gents! Everywhere I look, I have to rest my eyes on a halfwit!'

And a halfwit behind his eyes too, Matthew thought.

Woodward shifted in his chair. 'I'm sure running a tavern is a troublesome business.'

'That's God's own truth! Get a few travellers through here, but not many. Do some tradin' with the trappers and the redskins. 'Course, I only been here three, four months.'

'You built this place yourself?' Matthew asked. He had noted a half-dozen sparkles of water dripping from the shoddy roof.

'Yep. Every log and board, done it all.'

'Your bad back allowed you to cut and haul the logs?'

'My bad back?' Shawcombe frowned. 'What're you goin' on about?'

'Your bad back that you injured lifting the heavy bales. Didn't you say you worked on the river Thames? I thought your injury prevented you from carrying anything like ... oh ... a trunk or two.'

Shawcombe's face had become a chunk of stone. A few seconds passed and then his tongue flicked out and licked his lower lip. He smiled, but there was a hardness in it. 'Oh,' he said slowly, 'my back. Well ... I did have a partner. He was the one did the cuttin' and haulin'. We hired a few redskins too, paid 'em in glass beads. What I meant to say is . . . my back's in pain more when it's wet out. Some days I'm fit as a fiddle.'

'What happened to your partner?' Woodward inquired.

'Took sick,' came the quick response. His stare was still fixed on Matthew. 'Fever. Poor soul had to give it up, go back to Charles Town.'

'He didn't go to Fount Royal?' Matthew plowed on. His bloodhound's instinct had been alerted, and in the air hung the definite smell of deceit. 'There's a doctor in Fount Royal, isn't there?'

'I wouldn't know. You asked, I'm answerin'. He went back to Charles Town.'

'Here! Drink 'til your guts bust!' Two wooden tankards brimming with liquid were slammed down in the center of the table, and then Abner withdrew—still muttering and cursing— to dry himself before the hearth.

'It's a hard country,' Woodward said, to break the tension between the other two men. He lifted his tankard and saw, distressingly, that an oily film had risen to the liquid's surface.

'It's a hard world,' Shawcombe corrected, and only then did he pull his stare away from Matthew. 'Drink up, gents,' he said, uptilting the rum to his mouth.

Both Woodward and Matthew were prudent enough to try sipping the stuff first, and they were glad at their failure of courage. The ale, brewed of what tasted like fermented sour apples, was strong enough to make the