Speaks the Nightbird

cup and Rachel paced back and forth in her cage.

Nicholas Paine returned carrying a bundle wrapped with white cloth. Instantly Rachel stopped her pacing and came to the bars to watch. Paine placed the bundle on the desk before Woodward and started to open the cloth.

'A moment,' Matthew said. 'Was that how you originally found the objects?'

'The cloth is original, yes.'

'It was not bound up?'

'It was just as you see it. And here are the poppets, just as they were.' He opened the cloth and there were four small figures formed of straw, sticks, and what appeared to be red clay. The poppets were human-shaped, but bore no attempt at facial features; the red clay of their heads was smooth and unmarked. Two of the figures, however, had thin black ribbons tied around the sticks that would represent the human throat. On closer inspection, Woodward saw that the stick-throats had been gashed with a blade.

'I assume those two were meant to be Reverend Grove and Daniel Howarth,' Paine said. 'The others must have been victims of enchantment, or maybe people who would've been murdered had we not captured the witch.' Rachel made a sound of disgust, but was wise enough to hold her tongue.

'You can deny it all you please!' Paine turned toward her. 'But I myself found these under a floorboard in your kitchen, madam! Under the very boards that your husband walked upon! Why did you murder him? Because he found you doing witchcraft? Or did he catch you servicing your master?'

'If they were hidden in my house, someone else put them there!' Rachel replied, with considerable heat. 'Maybe you did! Maybe you murdered my husband, too!'

'I'm sure he had nothing I wanted!'

'But he did!' she said. 'He had me.'

Paine's face froze with the last vestige of a mocking smile on his mouth.

'I can think of a reason you might have fashioned those poppets and hidden them in my house,' Rachel went on, her face pressed against the bars and her eyes afire. 'Do you not think I noticed the way you looked at me, when you thought Daniel didn't see? Do you not think I felt you devouring me? Well, Daniel saw it too! He told me, less than a week before he was murdered, to beware of you because you had a hungry stare and you were not to be trusted! Daniel may have been a stern and quiet man, but he was a very good judge of character!'

'Obviously he was,' Paine said. 'He married a witch.'

'Look at the magistrate,' Rachel commanded, 'and tell him about your affair with Lucretia Vaughan! Oh, everyone in Fount Royal knows it but Mr. Vaughan, and he knows it too in his heart but he's too much a mouse to make a squeak! Tell him about your affair with Blessed Pearson, and your dalliance with Mary Summers! Go on, look him in the face and admit it like the man you wish to be!'

Paine did not look at the magistrate. He continued to stare at Rachel even as he let out a laugh that—to Matthew's ears— sounded a bit strangled. 'You're not only a damnable witch,' he said, 'but you're raving insane as well!'

'Tell us all why a handsome, healthy man like yourself has never married! Isn't it because you're only pleased to possess what belongs to other men?'

'Now I know you're insane! I've never married because I've spent my life in travelling! I also prize freedom, and a man's freedom is destroyed when he gives it up to a wife!'

'And while you have no wife, you are free to turn wives into wenches!' Rachel said. 'Mary Summers was a respectable woman before you got your hands on her, and now where is she? After you killed her husband in that duel, she perished of sorrow within a month!'

'That duel,' he answered coldly, 'concerned a point of honor. Quentin Summers splashed wine in my face at the tavern and called me a card cheat. I had no choice but to call him out.'

'He knew you were having your way with his wife, but he couldn't catch you! He was a farmer, not a duellist!'

'Farmer or not, he was given the first shot. He missed. If you'll recall, I only wounded him in the shoulder.'

'A bullet wound in this town is a death sentence! He just took longer to die than if you'd shot him through the heart!'

'The subject of my visit here, I believe, is to display the poppets.' Paine turned his gaze toward the magistrate. 'Which I have done. Do you wish to keep them, sir?'

Even if Woodward's voice hadn't been so diminished, it would have been altogether stolen by the accusations and statements that had just flown like wild birds in a storm. It was going to take him a while to absorb all of this, but one thing stood out in clear relief in his mind.

He remembered Dr. Shields saying in regards to Paine: He was married, when he was a younger man. His wife perished from an illness that caused her to suffer fits until she died. Why, then, did Paine contend he had never been married?

'Magistrate? Do you wish to keep the poppets?' Paine repeated.

'Oh! Uh . . . yes, I do,' Woodward answered, in his tortured whisper. 'They shall become the court's property.'

'Very well, then.' He fired a look at Rachel that, were it a can-nonshot, might have cleaved through the hull of a warship. 'I'd beware that one and her nasty tongue, sir! She holds such a grudge against me I'm surprised my murder wasn't on her list of crimes!'

'Face the magistrate and deny that what I've said is the truth!' Rachel all but shouted.

Woodward had endured enough of this discord. For want of a better instrument, he picked up the Bible and slapped it down against the desk's edge. 'Hush!' he said, as loudly as he could; instantly he paid the price in pain, and tears welled up.

'Madam Howarth?' Matthew said. 'I think it wise to be silent.'

Paine added, 'I think it wise to begin cutting the stake for her execution!'

This sarcastic remark bruised Matthew's sense of propriety, especially following on the heels of such heated wranglings. His voice tightened. 'Mr. Paine, it would interest me to know if what Madam Howarth claims about you is true.'

'Would it, now?' Paine put his hands on his hips. 'You're overstepping your bounds, aren't you, clerk?'

'May I speak for you, sir?' Matthew asked Woodward, and the magistrate didn't hesitate to nod his assent. 'There, Mr. Paine. My bounds are more clearly defined. Now: are these claims true or false?'

'I didn't know I was to be a witness today. I might've worn a better suit.'

'Your delay in answering,' Matthew said, 'delays the outcome of this trial. Shall you be instructed to sit down and swear truth on the Bible?'

'You might instruct it, but I doubt you could enforce it.'

'Yes, I'm sure you're correct. I'm no duellist, either.'

Paine's face had taken on a reddish cast. 'Listen to me! I didn't want to fight that man, and if he'd insulted me in private I would have let it go! But he had to test me in public, right there at Van Gundy's! What could I do but call him out? He had the choice of weapons, and the fool chose pistols instead of blades! I would've given him a single cut and called it done!' He shook his head, his expression taking on a hint of regret. 'But no, Summers wanted heart's blood. Well, his pistol misfired and the ball hardly rolled out of the muzzle! Still, that was his shot. Then it was mine. I aimed for the meat of his shoulder, which I squarely hit. How would I know he was such a bleeder?'

'You might have fired at the earth,' Matthew said. 'Isn't that acceptable when the first shot misfires?'

'Not by my rules,' came the chill reply. 'If a man aims a weapon at me, whether it's a pistol or a dagger, he must account for it. I've been stabbed between the ribs before and shot through my leg; so I hold no sympathy for anyone who tries to do me harm! No matter if he is a farmer!'

'You suffered these wounds during your career at sea?' Matthew asked.

'The stab, yes. The shot . . . was a later incident.' He stared at the clerk with fresh interest. 'What do you know of my career at sea?'

'Just that you were a seaman aboard a brigantine. Mr. Bid-well told me. A brigantine is a fast ship, isn't it? In fact, brigantines are the vessels of choice by pirates, are they not?'