Witchy Winter

by D. J. Butler

  Wilkes nodded. “After you have finished bearing witness to Brother Onas, you may have a career ahead of you as a second-story woman.”

  “I don’t know whether I can do this,” Kinta Jane said, but Wilkes said nothing, and they arrived at the door.

  “It’s the actor again,” one of the men said. He wore a surly expression and his teeth were dark yellow behind blistered lips.

  “Gottlieb said to let the actor in, and to let Gottlieb know of his arrival.” The second guard’s eyes were deeply bloodshot, as if from too much wine.

  The third guard had a nose the size of an onion, pitted all over with tiny indentations. He stepped aside, belching, and Wilkes led Kinta Jane into Horse Hall.

  The yellow-toothed guard followed them. “Wait here. I’ll go find Miss Fussypants.” He walked away.

  The entryway into which they arrived was two stories tall and had passages branching left and right; presiding over the intersection was a painting of a man in very fine clothing, and from much less detailed woodcuts, Kinta Jane guessed the subject’s identity immediately.

  “That’s Thomas Penn.”

  “The Emperor.”

  “Brother Onas.”

  “I didn’t give him that name.” Wilkes trotted up the stairs. Kinta Jane followed.

  “You don’t wish this person Gottlieb to find us.”

  “I think the Emperor hopes to trap me. I wore out my welcome the last time I was here.”

  “You wish to see Thomas.”

  Wilkes nodded. “But not in chains.”

  On the second story of Horse Hall, Isaiah Wilkes turned down an angular side passage that connected them with a smaller staircase in the corner of the building. He took this up another floor, crossed the central hall to a different staircase, and then descended.

  Kinta Jane said nothing.

  “My apologies for the route. I have spent some time here in disguise, finding the least obvious paths to the Emperor’s offices.”

  “In disguise as what?”

  Wilkes smiled. “Various things. A footman. A soldier. A cook. Even, once or twice, as an actor.”

  “But you are an actor.”

  “Oh, yes.” He stopped at a door. “Here we are.”

  He entered without knocking and on tip-toe, and Kinta Jane found herself inside a library; the high walls were lined with a fortune of books, and writing tables and divans were scattered about the deeply carpeted floor.

  Two men sat hunched over a news-paper. One was the emperor Thomas, dressed in Italian silk shirtsleeves. The other was a fat man, old, bald, and wrinkled, whose face seemed familiar.

  The fat man tapped a particular paragraph on the news-paper with a pair of spectacles, pointing it out. “And if the Landgrave is able to attend Mrs. Hancock’s soirée, we should absolutely expect his attendance at the Assembly.”

  “Expect it?” Thomas snorted. “Given his cousin’s death, the landgrave may be the only Elector from Chicago who will attend in person. I should command it.”

  “Say rather encourage it. I’ll have a man follow him the day before, and on the morning of, we’ll send a footman bearing a signed personal invitation to appear.”

  “I don’t know that he values my signature so highly. For that matter, I don’t know that the Elector can read English.”

  “We’ll have the invitation printed in German and English both. And for the footman’s safety, of course, we’ll send him accompanied by four armed guards. Philadelphia can be so dangerous these days.”

  “Indeed, it can,” Isaiah Wilkes said, stepping into plainer view. He bowed to each man in turn. “Your Imperial Majesty. Mr. Franklin.”

  Kinta Jane bowed with him, mouthing the same titles and names. Franklin? But of course! The old man couldn’t be the Lightning Bishop, who was dead, but he could be Ben Franklin’s son. Or grandson, more likely.

  “The player,” Franklin said. “Has the Emperor summoned you?”

  “Gottlieb let me in,” Wilkes said. “He told me he believed you needed entertaining, and hoped I could do it in a sufficiently allegorical fashion to meet the Emperor’s tastes.”

  “Allegorical fashion?” Thomas snorted. “Good heavens, you’re thinking of another man.”

  “No, Brother Onas,” Isaiah Wilkes said. “I’m thinking of you.” He opened his arms wide, spread-eagling himself as if he were a living facsimile of the letter T.

  “The man believes he is Jesus,” Thomas muttered to Franklin. To Wilkes he said, “I’ve had enough. I’ve been more than expressive in my gratitude, and this Brother Onas business in particular has become tiresome. Now I suggest you run.” The Emperor raised his voice to a shout. “Gottlieb!”

  Kinta Jane drifted to the side. It was the habit of a New Orleans entertainer, positioning herself so as not to be between the combatants when violence was imminent.

  “Behold!” Isaiah Wilkes cried. “The three wounds of William Penn!”

  He slapped himself on the chest with his right hand. To Kinta Jane’s surprise, a flower of bright red blood blossomed in his white shirt, right where’d struck himself, in the sternum.

  “What in the hell?” Thomas Penn barked.

  Wilkes slapped himself again, with his left hand this time, on the thigh. Blood appeared there, in a spatter-edged circle of dark red, and Wilkes swayed as though his knees were buckling from the pain.

  “Gottlieb!” Franklin waddled past Wilkes to the door and opened it, shouting again. “Gottlieb!”

  Wilkes struck himself again with his right hand, this time in the forehead. Blood exploded into his dark hair and ran down his forehead and face from his high hairline.

  Thomas Penn stared, fascinated.

  Wilkes returned to his spread-eagled position. “Brother Onas, hear my plea!” His voice dropped to such a groan, he sounded as though he were in a trance.

  Franklin hobbled back. “Nonsense! Folk tales! Lies! Masonic higgledy-piggledy!”

  “This is not masonic,” Thomas murmured. “I know the stories the masons tell, about the murdered bricklayer and King Solomon’s magic. This is something else. Besides, for all their theater, the masons would never use such blood props. Their carpets are too costly.”

  “No, I didn’t mean it literally.” Franklin harrumphed. “But this is the sort of errant nonsense my grandfather loved to tell me, dandling me upon his knee and terrifying me with puppets of a monster with a heron’s head.”

  Wilkes shot Kinta Jane a silent glance and raised his eyebrows.

  This was her signal. She stepped forward and began to speak.

  “Your Majesty, Mr. Franklin,” she said again. “I’ve come a long way to bear witness to you.”

  “And I’ve come far too long a way to listen to the testimony of actors and strumpets,” Thomas said. “If Gottlieb has lost his path, you’ll find I can solve my problems without his assistance.” He strode to the largest desk and took a sword belt and sword from where they had been hanging across the back of the chair. He gripped the sword’s hilt and glared at Kinta Jane.

  “He doesn’t think he’s an actor.” Franklin laughed. “Look at him. He thinks he’s a prophet, sleeping on one side for seven years, or—” he pointed at Kinta Jane “—marrying a harlot.”

  “The Heron King has crossed his bounds,” Kinta Jane said. “It’s Franklin’s Vision made flesh. Peter Plowshare is dead. The emissaries of Simon Sword have been seen on the Mississippi. I found this in New Orleans.” She held out the deaf-mute’s gold coin, the gold disc with the plow on one side and the sword on the other.

  Thomas took it, looked at both sides, and frowned at Franklin.

  “Brother Onas!” Isaiah Wilkes dropped to his knees and reached toward the Emperor. “Will you help us?”

  “The raging of the beastkind,” Thomas said to Franklin. “Could it be? Could it be Simon Sword?”

  “There’s no such person.” Franklin sniffed.

  “There is,” Kinta Jane assured him. “I’ve seen him perform magic. He ma
de the mute speak.” Suddenly, the tongue in her mouth felt enormous. “He freed the prisoners.”

  “And he gave balm to the afflicted.” Franklin laughed. “Is this Simon Sword you speak of, or Jesus?”

  Kinta Jane’s face burned.

  Tears streamed down Isaiah Wilkes’s face. “Your ancestor William Penn stood against Simon Sword with his brothers. Your grandfather John Penn founded the Conventicle with the Lightning Bishop, to stand as a bulwark against Simon Sword’s return, which Franklin saw coming. They made those preparations against this very day! Can you do less than they, Your Majesty?”

  “Good heavens,” Franklin drawled. “It is exactly the same nonsense my grandfather used to tell me.”

  Thomas turned to his comrade, drawing his long saber from its scabbard and resting the naked blade on his own shoulder. “Then he may have told it to others. Such as this player here. Others may believe it. Must believe it.”

  “Others do believe it,” Franklin assured him. “It’s still nonsense.”

  “But it may be useful nonsense,” Thomas said. “What if…Electors believed it?”

  “You mean: what if a sufficient number of Electors believed it, that they would be moved to vote you additional power and money? What if the Pacification of the Ohio were not merely a question of suppressing some rebel Ophidians on the borders of the Empire, but were about the return of the legendary destroyer, Simon Sword?”

  Kinta Jane was shocked at the cold calculation in Franklin’s voice.

  Thomas shrugged. “Yes. Well…what if?”

  Franklin nodded. “We’ll need more credible witnesses than these. Naturally, those can be hired. Shreveport and the Memphites and some of the others have been complaining about the beastkind, so they’ll add credibility even if they say nothing about this Heron King fairy tale.”

  “Brother Onas,” Isaiah Wilkes begged. “Will you rise? Will you take up your sword and shield?”

  Franklin looked at Wilkes, and then back to Thomas. “We do have one problem.”

  “Noted.” Thomas Penn’s voice was dry and matter-of-fact, but Kinta Jane heard murder in its flat tone.

  She threw herself toward the door, grabbing Isaiah Wilkes’s long hair as she passed. “Run!”

  She pulled the actor back and he fell from his knees onto his rump. The shift in stance saved his life; Thomas stepped forward and swung his saber in a long killing arc, which would have sliced Wilkes’s head off. Instead, the sword’s tip passed just before his nose and missed him.

  Sliding backward, Wilkes from some unseen pocket produced a tiny hold-out pistol. One shot only, and small caliber; Kinta Jane knew the type, because she knew many ladies of the New Orleans boardwalks who carried them.

  Thomas stepped forward and raised his sword again.

  Pop!

  Wilkes’s shot was surprisingly quiet, but he hit Thomas in the shoulder and the Emperor stumbled, dropping his sword.

  Wilkes scrambled forward as Kinta Jane grabbed the doorknobs to the entrance. He scooped up the Emperor’s saber and leaped to his feet. With his free hand, he punched Thomas right where the blood stained the Emperor’s sleeve, and Thomas fell back, yelping.

  Then Wilkes turned on Franklin. The heavy man had a side drawer in one of the writing tables and was reaching into it. Wilkes rose up on one foot and with the other foot kicked the drawer shut.

  Franklin screamed and fell to his knees.

  Wilkes cracked the pommel of the saber down on the top of Franklin’s head. Franklin sagged to the thick carpet; Wilkes grabbed Kinta Jane by the hand and they raced through the open door.

  Outside the door stood a short man with a blocky face and a powdered white perruque. He held a pistol in each hand, pointed at the floor.

  “Make it look good,” he said.

  Wilkes ran him through the leg.

  The man with the perruque sank to the floor, crying out. “Too much!” he gasped, his perruque falling from his head into a puddle of his blood.

  Wilkes snatched the pistols from his hands. “Thank you, Gottlieb,” he whispered. Then he ran for the nearest stairs.

  As they reached the bottom of the spiral staircase, Kinta Jane heard cursing behind them. She and Wilkes both whipped about, and Wilkes fired one shot at Franklin’s emerging face. The shot rang out loud in Horse Hall, and the bullet lodged into the door of the wood just above Franklin’s head.

  Franklin withdrew behind the door, and Wilkes and Kinta Jane ran up the stairs.

  “We’re going the wrong way!” she gasped.

  “I’m glad you think so!”

  The upper floor seemed to be comprised of servants’ lodgings. Wilkes led Kinta Jane down a short passage—

  to a dead end. No windows, no doors. Only a trap-door in the wall.

  “What is this?” she asked him.

  “Laundry chute.” Wilkes pulled open the trap-door and Kinta Jane saw a passage descending to lower floors. Ten feet down, the shaft disappeared in darkness.

  A rope was tied to a steel hook bolted into the wall at the top of the chute. The rope descended into darkness, knotted every few feet.

  “Go!” Wilkes snapped.

  He held open the chute with one hand and with the other kept his borrowed pistol trained on the empty space at the end of the passage where pursuit might appear. Kinta Jane crawled into the chute feet-first, twisted herself around until she got her hands on the rope and its knots, and then began the descent.

  Wilkes slid into the shaft as neatly as a snake and then shut the trap-door, closing them in darkness. “Count the knots out loud as you go,” he whispered. “If I go too fast, I’ll step on your hands.”

  She counted and climbed downward.

  Muffled by the walls of Horse Hall, she heard the running of booted feet, and lots of shouting. The sound faded between floors, and then rose in volume as she passed trap-doors at some levels. In the cracks of light seeping in around the edges of those trap-doors, she looked at her hands; they ached from the climb, and in the dim occasional light, she saw that her fingers were swelling from the work, and the skin of her palms was torn and bleeding.

  The shaft smelled vaguely of sweat, and the closeness of the tunnel made her feel she was choking. The stink got thicker as she dropped, and Kinta Jane began to wonder whether she might die of asphyxiation.

  She’d just passed the count of two hundred—and the sounds of frantic search had significantly faded—when her feet found purchase in a soft pile of soiled laundry.

  “I’m at the bottom,” she whispered.

  “I’m passing down the pistol,” Wilkes murmured back. “Grip first. Don’t shoot me.”

  She took the pistol, able to see it because here at the bottom there was a final trap door, larger than all the others. Wilkes remained over her head, a dark mass hovering above a dangling pair of boots.

  “Open the door,” he said.

  She hesitated, but his unerring path through the building this far gave her confidence. Pressing her back against the wall of the shaft opposite the door, she aimed the pistol at the trap-door, cocked the hammer, and then kicked the door open.

  The door opened into a laundry. Steam from boiling cauldrons brought forth an instant slick of sweat on Kinta Jane’s skin. Pipes gathered the smoke from coal-fires below the cauldrons with large lead hoods and carried it away; other pipes brought in fresh water. The room smelled pungently of lye.

  “Go!” Wilkes said again.

  She climbed out into the laundry, pistol first, and he followed her. Once he had enough room to move, he stretched his back and neck, took the pistol, and resumed the lead again.

  “Why aren’t we seeing more servants?” she whispered.

  “They’re being kept out of the way,” he said.

  Next to the laundry was a coal room. An enormous pile of the chunky black mineral cascaded down the far wall beneath another chute, this one rising up and terminating quickly in a metal lid.

  Wilkes scrambled up the pile, urging her
on. At the top of the coal-heap he tucked the pistol into his belt and made a stirrup of his hands. “Foot here,” he said. “Up you go. Knock on the plate on top.”

  She did as she was told. “You’re filthy, you know. Dirty laundry, fake blood, sweat, and now coal dust?”

  “Who says the blood was fake?”

  Wilkes hoisted her up the coal-shaft. She slid on her belly, shooting quickly up the shaft and catching herself against the heavy metal trap on top. She rapped on the metal with sore fingers, and it lifted. Strong arms yanked her arm, and then a rope was dropped into the hole for Wilkes.

  Kinta Jane didn’t know the two men who dragged them up from the coal room, and she’d never be able to describe them; their faces were thoroughly smeared with coal-dust, and clouds of the dust rose from their coats as they moved. The vehicle was a heavy wagon pulled by two dray horses and piled high with chunks of black coal.

  As he emerged from the coal-chute, Wilkes kicked it closed behind him and then dragged Kinta Jane by the arm underneath the coal-wagon. Lying on her back, she looked up in surprise and discovered that the bed of the wagon was much higher than she would have imagined, and beneath the wagon were two long shelves, each long and wide enough to accommodate a person, bolted into opposite sides of the wagon’s frame.

  “This is no ordinary wagon.” She climbed onto one of the shelves as Wilkes climbed into the other.

  “An ordinary wagon would be much less useful,” Wilkes pointed out. “We’d have to bury ourselves in the coal and risk suffocating.”

  “Have we failed?” she asked him.

  “You haven’t failed,” he said immediately. “You’ve succeeded spectacularly. I…I don’t know about myself. I may have failed. But we together, we all of us, haven’t failed yet. Now let’s you and I both keep still while our friends take us to someplace quiet.”

  * * *

  “Who’s out there?” Ma’iingan asked.

  Nathaniel shook his head. “I don’t know a who. I know a what. There are spirits of the dead out there, and they aren’t quiet.”

  “Wiinuk. I have no herbs, I have no charms.” He wished his father had inducted him into the Midewiwin before he’d left on his journey. He wished he knew a reliable way to invoke his manidoo.