Speaks the Nightbird

Matthew shook his head. 'You're absolutely wrong.'

'I have heard enough cases. To know how blinding is the fire of temptation. And how hot it burns.' Woodward massaged his throat once more. 'My voice is near its end, but this I have to tell you,' he whispered. 'There was once a merchant. An eager, industrious young man. His business . . . required him to rise early and thus to bed early. But one evening ... he stayed awake past his usual hour . . . and in so doing he heard the wondrous singing of something he'd never heard before: a nightbird. The next night, he managed to stay awake later ... to hear more of the bird's song. And the following night. He became so ... so intoxicated with the nightbird's voice that he thought only of it during the day. Came the time when he spent all the night listening to that song. Could not carry out his business during the sunlit hours. Soon he turned his back altogether on the day, and gave himself over to the nightbird's beautiful voice . . . much to the sad end of his career, his health . . . eventually his life.'

'A fine parable,' Matthew said curtly. 'Is there a point to it?'

'You know its point. A parable, yes, but there's great truth and warning in it.' He gave Matthew a piercing stare. 'It is not enough to love the nightbird's song. One must also love the nightbird. And . . . one must eventually fall in love with the night itself.'

'You mistake my motives. I am simply interested in—'

'Helping her,' Woodward interrupted. 'Finding the truth. Being of service. However you choose to phrase it . . . Rachel Howarth is your nightbird, Matthew. I'd be no guardian if I saw you in danger of being consumed by the darkness and failed to warn you.'

'Consumed by the darkness?' Matthew raised his eyebrows. 'I think that's an overstatement, sir.'

'I think it's an understatement.' Woodward gazed up at the ceiling, his strength almost expired. He felt as if his body were a cumbersome clay jar being baked over a fire, his true self trapped within it and yearning for a breath of clean, cool air. 'That woman has entranced you, for her own purposes. She wants nothing more of you . . . than to help her escape the stake . . . which would be a sin that would forever mark you in the eyes of God.'

Matthew stood up, unwilling to listen to such nonsense. It occurred to him to stalk out of the room, but he did not because he knew the magistrate was sincere and also that he would regret such rashness. 'Sir? May I ask you a question, and request that you think hard on it before you answer?'

A nod gave him permission.

'Do you honestly—with all your heart and soul—believe that Rachel is a witch?'

'Your question ... is weighted on the side of emotion,' Woodward answered. 'I have responsibility to uphold and carry out the law. The evidence tells me she is a witch . . . therefore I must apply the law in its strictest measure.'

'Put aside the robe for one moment, and then reply.'

'I am satisfied,' came the firm response. 'Yes, there are missing details. Yes, there are questions I would have answered, and more witnesses interviewed. But ... I must proceed on what I have. And what I have . . . obvious to both of us ... is testimony and physical evidence any judge would rule sufficient to burn her. She knows it. She must find a way to escape . . . and that involves you.'

'I'd think Satan would free her, if she were really his servant.'

'Servants are cheap,' Woodward said. 'I think ... it suits Satan's purpose to stand aside and let his nightbird speak.'

Matthew started to parry the thrust, but he realized it was no use. They had come to an impasse, and beyond it they could not travel together.

'I will continue to read through the documents,' the magistrate offered. 'I would not wish to present my decree with any undue haste.'

'May I read what you've already gone through?'

'As you wish.' Woodward picked up the sheaf of papers and put them into his clerk's hands. 'Beware, though ... no further words on this matter. Do you hear me?'

'Yes, sir,' Matthew said, though the agreement had a bitter taste.

'And you'll not return to see Madam Howarth?'

This was a more difficult point. Matthew didn't have to ponder it. 'I'm sorry, but I can't promise that.'

The magistrate pursed his lips and released a forlorn exhalation. He too, however, had realized the limits of Matthew's obedience. 'Your choice,' he whispered. 'I pray to God it is a wise one.' Then he motioned toward the door. 'Go. I need my rest.'

'Yes, sir.' Matthew stared at Woodward for a moment, studying the angles and planes of the man's face.

'What is it?' Woodward asked.

'I have to ask this, sir. Did you come to the almshouse in search of a clerk, or a replacement for your son?'

'My son . . . could never be replaced.'

'I'm aware of that. But you and I both know you might have secured an experienced clerk through a legal office. I had to ask, that's all.' He turned and went to the door.

'Matthew?' Woodward pushed himself up on his pillows, his face bleached with pain. 'I don't know ... if I came looking for a son or not. Perhaps I did. But I do know I wanted to shape someone. I wanted to . . . protect someone ... to keep him clean, from this filthy world. Do you understand?'

'I do,' Matthew replied. 'And I wish to thank you for your concern on my behalf. If you hadn't removed me from that place, I dread to think what might have become of me.'

Woodward eased himself back down. 'The whole world is before you. You have a bright future. Please . . . beware those who would destroy it, I beg you.'

Matthew left the room with the sheaf of papers under his arm, and in his own room he lit a candle, washed his face with cool water, and then opened the shutters. The light was almost gone, but he looked out across the slaves' quarters toward the watchman's tower and the swamp beyond. It seemed to him now that one might wander into a morass at any time, anywhere, without warning. There were no easy answers to any question in this world, and it seemed that year after year the questions grew more complicated.

He did believe that the magistrate had entered the almshouse searching for a son. How it must agonize Woodward now, to think he might lose another one to the corruption of circumstance. But as much as Matthew felt for the magistrate, he would not—could not-—turn away from Rachel. He might be a substitute for a son, yes . . . but he was also a man, and he must do what he thought to be the correct thing.

Which meant fighting to prove her innocence, right up to the moment of her execution.

Nightbird or not, she had indeed spoken to him. He heard her even now, suffering in the darkness of her cage. What was he going to do tomorrow, when the magistrate asked him to prepare the decree of death and sign it as a witness beneath Woodward's seal?

He set the candle down and reclined on his bed—carefully, as the stripes on his back were hot. Then he began reading the court documents in the hope that something in them would lead him to a fact that had been overlooked, and that single fact might be the key to Rachel's freedom.

But he feared it would not be there.

Time was very short now. If Satan indeed dwelled in Fount Royal, Matthew presumed he must be grinning. Or if not Satan...then the grin belonged to someone else. A true fox, as Mrs. Nettles had said.

But even the most crafty fox left a trace of its passage, Matthew believed. It was up to him to find it, with all the bloodhound instincts in his possession. If they failed him, Rachel was lost, and he himself was damned to a fate he considered worse than the flames of Hell: the struggle with unanswerable questions that would haunt him to his grave.

twenty-three

SATAN SAID, 'I have a gift for thee.' Matthew could not speak or move; his mouth was frozen shut, his body rigid. He saw, however, in the leaping crimson firelight that Satan indeed wore a black cloak with six gold buttons arranged three by three. A hood covered the fiend's head, and where his face should have been was only deeper darkness.

'A gift,' Satan repeated, in a voice that sounded much like that of Exodus Jerusalem. He opened his cloak with long-fingered, bloodless hands, exposing the gold-striped waistcoat he wore beneath it. Then from the confines