Speaks the Nightbird

children, and I would advise you to hold your tongue when she is speaking.'

'No matter what lies she spews?' Rachel asked, still staring blankly ahead.

'No matter if she swears she witnessed you in a privyhouse accommodating three hundred and three demons. Keep your tongue shackled.'

'You might care to know,' Rachel said, 'that the child's mother is the person who anointed my head with such a perfumed present before the church. Constance Adams made no secret of her feelings toward me.' Rachel's head turned, and her eyes found Matthew's. 'You're the magistrate's clerk, sworn to abide by his law. If you're not here to spy for him, then why are you in the least interested in what I might say or not say?'

Matthew continued straightening the sheets of paper. When he was done, he returned them to the box and closed the lid. It had taken him that long to formulate an answer. 'I have a curiosity for puzzles,' he said, refusing to meet her gaze. 'I am satisfied only when all the pieces fit to perfection. In this instance ... I feel there are many pieces that have been forced into the wrong positions, and thus are ragged of edge. There are missing pieces that must be found. There are pieces that seem to be correct . . . but are, to me at least, of false shape. That is my interest.'

A long silence followed, during which Matthew set about cleaning the quill. Then, 'Do you think I am a witch?' Rachel asked pointedly.

'I think,' he replied after some deliberation, 'that this town is the host to a very cunning evil. Whether it is demon or man, it does seem Satanic. More than that, I can't say.'

'Neither can I,' she said. 'But no matter who—or what— cut my husband's throat and masqueraded as me in these filthy performances, I'll be the one to burn for it.' Matthew couldn't deny her statement. That conflagration now seemed very near indeed.

Lies upon lies, Mrs. Nettles had said. What she needs is a champion of truth.

Just as truth was sparse here, Matthew thought, so were champions. He was a clerk, nothing more. Not a magistrate, not an attorney . . . certainly not a champion.

He was certain of one thing, though; it had become clear to him, after the sickening ordeal of Buckner's testimony and the magistrate's forceful reaction. At the conclusion of these interviews, Woodward would be compelled to immediately order Rachel Howarth put to death. She would burn to the bone in a matter of days after that order had been read to the prisoner. And whose hand would scribe the sentence of death?

Matthew's own, of course. He had done it several times before; it was nothing new.

Except in this instance, he would go to his own grave pondering the pieces that did not fit, and agonized over the missing why.

He finished cleaning the quill and put it and the inkwell into the box, and then the box went into one of the desk's drawers— which Winston had obviously cleaned out before carting to the gaol, since the desk was absolutely empty—to await further need.

Then he stretched himself out in the straw—which was fresh thanks be to Mr. Green—closed his eyes, and tried to rest. It came to him only after a moment that he had reclined as far as possible from the bars that stood between his cage and Rachel Howarth's, and that in his right hand he gripped the Bible across his chest.

 thirteen

BY THE TIME THE MAGISTRATE reached Dr. Shields's infirmary, which was a chalkwhite painted house on Harmony Street, he felt as if he were walking in a fog cloud. This dazed, opaque sensation was more than his physical distress; it was his mental burden, as well.

Woodward had just left the house of Lucretia Vaughan. Mrs. Vaughan had been summoned to the door by a lovely blonde girl of sixteen or thereabouts, whom the elder lady had introduced as her daughter Cherise. Upon returning the basket containing teapot and cups, Woodward had inquired why Mrs. Vaughan had wished the reddish-brown cup to be broken to pieces by Rachel Howarth.

'Surely you understand, being a sophisticated man of the city,' Mrs. Vaughan had said, 'that now the cup is much more valuable than before.'

'Valuable?' he'd asked. 'How is it that fragments of a cup are worth more than the whole?'

'Because she broke it,' came the reply, which only further puzzled the magistrate. It must have shown on his face, because Mrs. Vaughan explained, 'After the witch is put to death and Fount Royal is steadied again, the citizens of this town might wish to possess some token of the terrible ordeal we have been strong enough to endure.' She gave a smile that Woodward could only describe as chilling. 'It will take time, of course, but with the proper presentation the bits of broken cup might be sold as charms of good fortune.'

'Pardon me?' Woodward had then felt the fog closing in around his head.

'I chose the nearest hue to blood-red that I could find,' Mrs. Vaughan said, her tone of voice that of a sharper to a dimwit. 'The blood of the witch. Or the scarlet tears of the witch. I haven't yet settled on one or the other. It's a matter of imagination, do you see?'

'I . . . fear my imagination isn't as developed as yours,' Woodward said, a thick knot seemingly clogged in his throat.

'Thank you for returning these so promptly. At the appropriate time I can advertise that the pieces of cup broken by the witch were given to my own hand by the magistrate who executed her.' Mrs. Vaughan now exhibited a slight frown. 'Tell me—what's to become of the straw poppets?''The straw poppets?' he'd echoed.

'Yes. Surely you'll have no need of them after the witch is dead, will you?'

'Excuse me,' Woodward had said. 'I really must go.'

And so he found himself—fogheaded under the gray-plated sky—reaching for the bellcord at Dr. Shields's door. Above the door, a sign painted in the medical colors of red, white, and blue announced this to be the shop of Benj. Shields, Surgeon Barber. Woodward pulled the cord and waited, and presently the door was opened by a portly, broad-faced woman with curly dark brown hair. He introduced himself, asked to be seen by Dr. Shields, and was admitted into a sparsely appointed parlor, the most notable feature of it being a gilded birdcage that held two yellow canaries. The woman, whose ample figure was contained by a beige dress and apron that might have served as a settler's tent, went through a door at the other side of the room and Woodward was left with the birds.

But not for very long, however, as within a minute or two the door opened again and the doctor appeared, his clothing a white blouse with sleeves rolled up, a wine-colored waistcoat, and charcoal-gray breeches. He wore his round-lensed spectacles, his long hair trailing over his shoulders. 'Magistrate!' he said, and offered his hand. 'To what do I owe this pleasure?'

'Would that pleasure was the purpose,' Woodward answered, his voice—though quite husky—now in a fragile condition. 'I fear I've been visited by ill health.'

'Open your mouth, please,' Shields instructed. 'Angle your head back a bit, if you will.' He peered in. 'Oh my,' he said, after the briefest of inspections. 'Your throat appears quite swollen and aflame. You're in some pain, I would presume.'

'Yes. Very much.'

'No doubt. Come with me, let's have a better look.'

Woodward followed the doctor through the door and along a hallway, past one room where there stood a basin of water, a chair, and a leather strop to keen the razor for the barbering duties, and past a second room that held three narrow beds. A young female with a plaster bandage around her right arm and her torpid face discolored by bruises lay in one of the beds, being fed a bowl of soup by the woman who'd admitted Woodward. He realized it must be Noles's unfortunate wife, who'd suffered the wrath of his carpet-beater.

A door into a third room further down the hallway was opened, and Shields said, 'Sit there, please,' as he motioned toward a chair positioned near the single window. The magistrate seated himself. Shields opened the shutters to let in the misty gray illumination. 'My soul rose at the dawn,' the doctor said, as he turned away to prepare the examination. 'Then it fell back to earth and resides now in a puddle of mud.'

'Myself the same. Will a full day of sun never again shine on the New World?''A debatable question, it seems.'

Woodward considered the room into which he'd been led. It appeared to be both the physician's study and his apothecary. On one side of the chamber stood a timeworn desk and chair, next to which was a bookcase of what looked to be old medical tomes, by their thickness and the dark solemnity of their bindings. Opposite those furnishings was a long workbench built to the height of Dr. Shields's waist. Atop the bench, which had perhaps a