Witchy Winter

by D. J. Butler

  “And Aanik? Is Aanik a child of your god?”

  “Yes.” Chigozie blurted out the answer quickly, because he dared not hesitate.

  In his heart, he was less certain.

  * * *

  Thomas knelt on the cold stone. He had been kneeling for a long time; an hour, he would guess, though by the direction of its ghostly occupant, Shackamaxon Hall contained no clocks. Gottlieb would intercept callers for His Imperial Majesty; it was a role at which he excelled, and a tiny power he loved to exercise.

  Thomas had long since mastered the skill of kneeling for long periods of time.

  He couldn’t summon his grandfather, William Penn. Thomas had occasionally consulted with wizards—his chaplain, Ezekiel Angleton, but also university professors, Polites, and others—as to how to do it, but the consultations were always indirect. He didn’t want anyone to know he asked his grandfather’s advice.

  Thomas Penn must be his own man.

  Powerful, benevolent, and free.

  And yet, who wouldn’t ask for the guidance of William Penn, if he could get it? For all that John Penn and Bishop Franklin had pieced together the Philadelphia Compact, the true founder of this Empire—of Pennsylvania—was William Penn, Penn who had treated with the Indians, the Dutch, and the Germans, Penn who had built the Slate Roof House, Penn who had founded the dynasty of which Thomas was now the scion.

  So Thomas would kneel in Shackamaxon Hall and wait.

  He pressed his forehead to the cold stone.

  “Thomas, my servant.”

  The voice clanged through the hall, discordant and brutal. How William Penn had ever made so many treaties of peace and won so many men’s hearts with such a voice, Thomas didn’t know. He raised his eyes to the dais. He didn’t look at the Shackamaxon Throne, but only at the mail-clad feet of the Presence sitting upon it.

  “We tighten the noose upon the Ohio, grandfather.”

  “I have seen thy works, Thomas. They are mighty.”

  “The Ohio hasn’t yet rebelled. Perhaps I grip it too tightly.”

  “Choke it tighter, Thomas. They will find the means to rise. A queen seeks to lead them.”

  Thomas’s blood chilled. “One of the half-breeds.” He couldn’t bring himself to admit that Hannah’s whelps were his kin.

  “Sarah.”

  “Will the Ophidians accept her?”

  “I cannot see that yet,” the Presence said. “But she is determined, and she has arrived in her father’s city. Christmas may tell. Are thy forces properly arrayed?”

  “Yes,” Thomas said. It was mostly true. “Our marauders are destroying their food supplies. What food they have, they buy from us, at prices that humble them and shatter their coffers.”

  “More, Thomas,” the shade said. “Bring thou additional forces to bear.”

  “I have order to maintain elsewhere in thine Empire, grandfather.”

  “If the queen achieves her throne, thou must be prepared to crush her. In the field, and also in the Assembly.”

  “I shall publish a Summons.”

  “Excellent, my son.”

  Son?

  Thomas raised his eyes. It was involuntary, a jerk of surprise, but his own brash blasphemy horrified him.

  But the Presence was gone.

  Thomas rose slowly, and found he was shaking.

  His grandfather had called him my son. That recognition made it hard to think of anything else, but he forced himself.

  If the Ohio rose, Thomas could publish a Summons, convene the Assembly of Electors, and authorize a Levy of Force. That would give him command of forces raised by all the powers of the Empire, an important step toward convincing the Assembly to grant him additional powers.

  But Thomas didn’t want to wait until Sarah Elytharias had taken her father’s throne to begin raising a larger army. He wanted the army ready in time.

  Christmas might tell, his grandfather had said.

  Did Temple Franklin’s planted assassin give him a pretext? He considered. Electors were unnecessary for a mere trial for murder, even if the murder was politically motivated. And as of yet, even under torture, the Ophidian hadn’t implicated any of the Ohioan powers. The would-be murderer was Snakeborn, and that was all.

  But taxes.

  Electors always cared about taxes. He would publish a Summons, to propose an increase in Imperial tolls and tariffs. All the Electors would come.

  By their greed, their unwillingness to fund their collective Empire of which he was at the head, he would have them.

  He left Shackamaxon Hall physically drained, but with a light heart and a quick step.

  His grandfather had called him my son!

  Gottlieb met him beneath the Jupiter Thomas painting. Outside, the glittering darkness of Philadelphia peeped in through the tall windows; the shade of William Penn generally appeared at night, though there were exceptions.

  This was often where Gottlieb waited for Thomas, to report on any events that had occurred during his sequestered meetings, and Gottlieb waited now. At the front door to Horse Hall stood Imperial soldiers, blue-clad backs turned to Thomas, muskets at their sides.

  All as should be, except that with Gottlieb waited a visitor.

  It took Thomas a moment to recognize the man. “You’re the actor,” he said.

  Stripped of his war paint and dressed in a long gray coat, the player looked like a Philadelphia burgher. He might be here to petition for the extension of some monopoly, or the waiver of a stamp duty. His long locks were curly but combed and oiled, his forehead was high, and his eyes were clear and gray, his hands clean, his boots fashionably knee-high.

  And he was singing a lively tune.

  I left my girl unhappily

  When she swore she’d never marry me

  I asked, she said she’d rather she

  Were handfast to a toad

  So I took my shilling from the King’s army

  And I left for the hills, all the world to see

  My fifty new best mates and me

  All marching up the road

  And I’m over the hills and gone, boys

  Over the hills and gone

  The fire burns high, the devil drives

  I must be moving on

  For any other man, Thomas would have chased the fellow out of Horse Hall before he finished a verse. For the man who had climbed the Walnut Street Theater’s proscenium arch to rescue him, and who had also rescued Temple Franklin, Thomas stood respectfully and listened to two more verses.

  This basket hilt and an old Brown Bess

  Were the price of my soul in Inverness

  The sergeant swore it’d be my death

  If I fell out of line

  That line, it didn’t hold too tight

  When those highland boys hove into sight

  The Necromancer’s Jacobites

  All rushing down the pine

  The earth is still but a cold wind blows

  Down come the rooks and the carrion crows

  Are those men or corpses? No one knows

  An army forged in hell

  So it’s down with my blade and my old Brown Bess

  And I’m over the hills, back to Inverness

  On my heels comes the prince of death

  Ring the funeral bell

  “The Battle of Prestonpans,” Thomas said, when the final chorus faded from the marble walls. He applauded gently. “The great return of the Necromancer, and his final victory before the House of Spencer could rally and defeat him on Culloden Moor. Is it from a piece you perform with the players?”

  “I’m working this song into an opera.” The actor’s eyes sparkled. “To date, I have mostly performed the piece on street corners, to encourage as many shillings as possible to leap into my hat.”

  “The life of a player.” Thomas took the hint and reached inside his waistcoat to dig out the small purse he carried around. “I have six Philadelphia guineas here,” he said, weighing them in his hand and then holdin
g them out. “It’s not the reward you deserve, but perhaps you can sing a few fewer songs on street corners this winter. And labor at the opera instead. I take it the work will be heroic?”

  “Tragic, I think.” The actor took the coins and bowed. “In that the Necromancer, twice defeated by John Churchill and his descendants, has only ever fled, and hasn’t been destroyed.”

  “A metaphor for death, surely. Undefeatable. Ever-present. Only pushed back by we free men who struggle to raise civilization from the mire, one brick at a time.”

  The actor smiled faintly. “I would give a great deal to be certain that’s all the Necromancer is.”

  “Certainty is elusive in this life,” Thomas said. “But I’ll tell you this. Philadelphia is the city built by William Penn.”

  “Oh indeed,” the actor agreed. “And Thomas. Don’t forget Thomas.”

  “Feel the power of the maryaj-loa. Feel the Brides speak to you.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Is the houngan bishop still in his lair?”

  “Really,” Ravi said, “you must ask me questions I can answer.”

  Ahmed Abd al-Wahid glared at the Jew hard enough that he feared laying an evil eye on his astrologer. They were speaking Arabic. “I’ll be more in a mood for word games, son of Isaac, when we’ve repaid the chevalier, a head for a head.”

  “When did precision become a game, son of Ishmael?”

  They stood in a rented apartment in a cheap hotel al-Muhasib had scouted out and chosen for the view its windows gave of the garish gambling and drinking house owned by Etienne Ukwu. The hotel’s name was the Onu Nke Ihunanya, a West Africk name such as you wouldn’t see in Paris or in Cairo. Igbo? Abd al-Wahid didn’t care. He had rented the hotel’s entire floor, and the girl the chevalier had sent them was in the room next door.

  The lights in both rooms were completely out, but for a single flickering taper—Abd al-Wahid hadn’t asked of what unsavory fats the taper was made, but it sputtered and reeked as it burned—standing over a book of astrological charts through which Ravi pored. Though the sun had set outside, many people were taking advantage of the cool New Orleans winter to revel in and around the casino. The street below was lit by torches, and bonfires at the street corners.

  “I must warn you, it’s about to become a blood sport.”

  “Cool your rage, Slave of the One,” Ravi said. “Here’s another question you might have asked me: not is he in his lair but have you seen him leave?”

  “Have you wondered, O picker of grammatical nits, why I am prince-capitaine, a leader of men, and you are a mere slave, engaged for his knowledge and skills?”

  “Surely it’s not because I am a Jew. I’ve served the order faithfully, along with many other followers of Musa the Lawgiver.”

  “It’s not because you are a Jew.”

  “And it’s not because of your staggeringly superior wit.”

  “I wouldn’t entirely discount that possibility, O child of Judah. And yet, it wasn’t the consideration I had in mind.”

  “Then it must be because you’re tall. I’ve read the stories of the Nine Worthies, and the great warriors and kings of all ages, and I’ve noticed that either their height isn’t mentioned, or they’re identified as being tall. King Saul, for instance: ‘from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people.’ Even Adam was said to be a giant.”

  “I am indeed tall. But my other great virtue, O Talmudical haggler over points of no relevance, is that I get things done.”

  “Indeed.” Ravi nodded solemnly. “This is why the Caliph sent you to bring back Talleyrand.”

  “Talleyrand’s head,” Abd al-Wahid corrected the magician. “Which has been sent to him.”

  “You must feel anxious for the fact that we haven’t yet killed the young bishop. And in the meantime, our ally-patron the Chevalier of New Orleans lies on his sickbed, pale and oozing from the curse of his enemy.”

  “Anxiety is not the precise word. I feel shame. The poet says what you seek is seeking you, and I hope that young Bishop Ukwu is seeking to place himself into my hands. Nevertheless, I will act as if he is in fact trying to elude me.”

  “I should point out that in what I said to the chevalier, I might be mistaken.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said the curse wasn’t from God. But of course, I could be wrong. The Torah tells of many curses from God. Infertility, plague, famine. Even hemorrhoids. Why not the sickness of the chevalier?”

  “Organize the men,” Abd al-Wahid said. “I’ll check on the witch.”

  “Yes, Prince-Capitaine.”

  Abd al-Wahid hesitated in the door. “O Jew?”

  “Yes?” Ravi looked up from his book again.

  “Cease picking nits. The fact that you’ve been circumcised once already does not mean I cannot circumcise you again.”

  “Perhaps you’re a leader of men because of your unparalleled ability to devise uncomfortable and shameful punishments, Prince-Capitaine.”

  Abd al-Wahid entered the room next door.

  The girl’s door wasn’t locked; mamelukes stood watch at both staircases that accessed this top floor, and Abd al-Wahid had both paid and threatened the hotel manager into a promise of silence.

  She knelt before an altar.

  The girl was young, no older than fifteen. Her skin had the mellow caramel coloring of a person of mixed race, commonly called Creoles by the people of New Orleans. She wore a white scarf wrapped around her head like a turban, and a white shawl. Her eyes were dark and, when they looked at Abd al-Wahid, piercing. She might have fit in well in the Caliph’s harem, or in the prince-capitaine’s own seraglio, waiting for him in Cairo.

  He chose not to think of his seraglio, or for that matter his garden, or his children.

  What you seek is seeking you, the poet said.

  The witch had arrived with a calling card from the chevalier, on which was printed simply son nom est Marie, and the initials GLM.

  Now her eyelids fluttered, her eyes nearly shut. Her head lay back and she swayed in a circle like a top, humming a dronelike tune that never seemed to repeat itself.

  Ahmed Abd al-Wahid was loath to interrupt any spiritual ceremony, even when it was the incantation of an infidel witch. He remained in the door to watch.

  The altar before her was a table. When the mamelukes had taken the room, the table held only a lantern. Now the lantern stood on the balcony—unlit—and the table was stacked with bones, feathers, colored powders, bottles of strong liquor and vials of other liquids, two skulls, one a man’s and the other an alligator’s, chunks of a thick, dark, crumbling substance that looked like wax but tasted sweet. Abd al-Wahid knew, because he had accepted a brick of the substance from a coffeehouse owner in the Vieux Carré, who called it shocolatl. A word from New Spain, the coffeeist had explained. Aztec or Maya, he wasn’t sure which.

  In the center of the altar stood two two-foot-tall dolls, one of a man with jet-black skin and completely white eyes. He was wrapped in a white toga and his head was swathed in more white. In his hand, he held a golden rattle, as did the other doll, which was of a woman in similar garb and equally dark skin. Between them stood a small potted palm.

  “Mmmmmm, Père Loko.” Marie prostrated herself, placing palms and left cheek flat on the smooth wooden floor. Abd al-Wahid and his mamelukes had rolled up the carpet and removed it into the hall, along with the cot and upholstered chair that had once furnished this room. Marie now pushed her face against the floor in a circle of chalked markings. They weren’t the astrological or kabbalistic signs Abd al-Wahid knew from Ravi’s work. Instead, they were a pair of ornate Xs, touching at four of their eight collective extremities. The remaining four limbs of the glyph ended in curving flourishes. Between the Xs the ground was chalked with long straight lines. Six stars surrounded the diagram. “Mmmmmm, Mère Ayizan.”

  She slid forward until she lay entirely flat, turning her head to press her small nose against the wood, and lay still
.

  Ahmed Abd al-Wahid waited.

  Had she fallen asleep? Perhaps the bishop’s countermagic protected him.

  Still he waited.

  She rose back to her knees, bowed to the two idols on the table, and then stood. She crumbled shocolatl into a tiny porcelain bowl before each statue, then picked up a short burning candle that was marked with red and white horizontal stripes. “Loko and Ayizan are cool loa,” she said. “For such an operation as you plan, cool loa are needed. They have subtle power, the power that lulls and soothes and brings eyelids down rather than the power that disembowels or shatters.”

  “I don’t care, witch.” Ahmed Abd al-Wahid arched an eyebrow. They spoke in French; he didn’t know the word loa, but it must refer to her infidel idols.

  “I’m no bokor, but a mambo. I’m an initiated priestess.”

  “I still don’t care. Is it done?”

  “As you have asked,” she said, “and as the chevalier has commanded. They’ll sleep no more than a quarter of an hour. A power there resists me, and I don’t know what it is.” She handed Ahmed the candle, and he took it. “Each of these stripes marks the passage of a quarter of an hour.”

  “Ravi!” Abd al-Wahid barked, switching back to Arabic. “We go!”

  Al-Farangi stayed in the second-floor hallway, on a chair with loaded musket and two pistols and a bare tulwar across his knees. The French mameluke favored exaggerated Egyptian and Syrian styles, so even his musket was inlaid with fine filigree, a verse of the Holy Qur’an from the seventy-second sura: we had sought the heaven but had found it filled with strong warders and meteors. It was a reference to jinn struck down by God’s shooting stars and al-Farangi would compare the fear the jinn felt of those meteors with the fear al-Islam’s enemies felt of al-Farangi.

  The Onu Nke Ihunanya had a guard, a dark-skinned man who stood in its lobby with his arms crossed over his chest and a long knife strapped to each leg.

  The square surrounding the gaming palace, tumultuous only moments earlier, was now tranquil. The movements of traffic seemed slower and calmer. The torches and corner fires burned colder, and Abd al-Wahid would have sworn their smoke smelled of the drug shocolatl.