The spymaster obviously realized he was under arrest. His hand flew to his cheek. He noted the blood coating his fingers. Then he glanced down at the drawer, inferring that Hannah had knocked him out. His eyes traveled wildly to the dresser where his recorder had been only moments before. “How did you do this?” he shouted at the girl.
She responded by burying her face against Sister Ruth’s shoulder.
“There, there. Don’t listen to him,” the woman stroked her hair. “The diviner will sort everything out.”
“This is the devil’s work! Mother Rachel was right. You are a demon in human form!” Joshua screamed and struggled against his captors. “A demon!”
The sentries turned a deaf ear to his accusations as they dragged him from the room.
Chapter 41—Nailed
Joshua ran a washcloth under the tap in his bathroom sink. He soaked it in cold water, wrung it out, and gingerly dabbed the blood off his cheek. He needed an icepack for the throbbing bump on the side of his head, but there was no way to get one now. He was a prisoner in his own room. The spymaster returned to the sitting area and threw himself disgustedly into a chair. His hand-picked guards had dragged him here and then gone off to report to the diviner. When he’d tried to follow them down the corridor, he found two other sentries posted at the door who shoved him unceremoniously back inside. The indignity of it all!
He transferred the cold washcloth from his cheek to the bump on his head. The dizziness he felt was only partly due to his injury. He still didn’t know how Hannah had done it. One minute, he stood facing her, the next he was slumped unconscious on the floor. He tried to remember the sequence of events leading up to that moment. He heard her cry out for help which seemed pointless given her isolated location. Nobody else was quartered in that wing of the compound. And yet, he could have sworn he felt a man’s hand grip his head and drive it into the wall. Only two men besides himself ever visited Hannah. One was the diviner, and he wouldn’t have had the physical strength to knock Joshua out. The other man was Daniel, and he was overseas at the moment.
Mother Rachel, during her ramblings, had insisted she heard a disembodied male voice answering Hannah’s call for assistance. She’d also insisted that the girl was in league with the devil—that she’d cast a spell over Father Abraham and planned to bring down the entire brotherhood. Joshua attributed the old woman’s dire predictions to overmedication, but now he was starting to think she might be right. Nothing short of supernatural intervention could have saved Hannah. One moment, he had her exactly where he wanted her and then the next... he didn’t.
The door to his chamber swung open. Joshua winced as he turned his head sharply to see his father looming above him.
“Leave us,” the diviner instructed the guards.
They stepped back outside, shutting the door behind them.
The spymaster attempted to rise.
His father pushed him back down in his seat, exhibiting a surprising amount of force for one so frail.
“What were you doing in my wife’s quarters?” the diviner demanded.
“I... uh... sometimes visit her,” Joshua hedged. “Daniel does too,” he added defensively.
“Daniel has never tried to choke her!”
“I was trying to get her to speak.”
The diviner stamped the floor with his cane. “By cutting off her air supply?”
“She can talk. I heard her. She screamed for help. Mother Rachel heard her too.” Joshua knew he sounded desperate, but he had to let his father know the facts.
The diviner glowered furiously at his son. “How dare you use my principal wife’s mental vagaries to excuse your own conduct? Mother Rachel is temporarily unbalanced. Nothing she says can be trusted.”
“I had proof. I took a voice recorder with me. Now it’s missing. Hannah must have destroyed it.” Joshua despised his own rising sense of panic. The argument sounded flimsy even to him.
“Of course, it’s easy to shift the blame to a helpless girl who can’t speak.”
“But she can speak!” Joshua sprang from his chair. “I went to her chamber to prove that!”
The diviner grabbed his son by the collar. “I’ll tell you the real reason you went to Hannah’s chamber. Her beauty is a dangerous enticement to any man, and you were tempted by it. Perhaps you thought you could seduce her—persuade her that a man in his twenties would make a better lover than an aged husband long past his prime.”
“What?” The spymaster gawked stupidly at his father.
“It was a perfect opportunity to prey on an innocent afflicted child. Who could she tell if you were to shame her?”
“What?” Joshua repeated again, appalled by his father’s fevered accusations.
Abraham forged ahead. “Oh, but she resisted mightily as a true wife should. The scratches on your cheek are proof of that. And you were well-served for your vile behavior. If she hadn’t struck you with that drawer, you would have had your way with her.”
“I would have done no such thing! Hannah has bewitched you and clouded your judgment.”
Without warning the diviner slapped his son hard across the face, causing the gashes on his cheek to ooze blood.
“Don’t lie to me! If anyone is in league with the devil, it’s you! Only a man possessed by demons would attempt to rape his own father’s wife!”
Abraham turned aside and shouted, “Guards!”
The two sentries instantly returned.
Focusing his attention on his son, the diviner said, “Gather your personal possessions. These men will escort you to the Fallen city where they will leave you to find your way in the world as best you can.”
“I’m being excommunicated?” Joshua asked in shock. He’d been instrumental in banishing many others from the brotherhood. It was inconceivable that the same fate now awaited him.
“You are dead to us from this day forward,” Abraham pronounced.
Joshua tried one final plea. “But Father, you need me to
