Witchy Winter

by D. J. Butler

  * * *

  “I do know where they’ve gone,” the boy said earnestly.

  Kinta Jane held the draft horses’ reins tight and chuckled softly. Old, tired, blinkered, and restrained, the animals didn’t need the soothing, but it was part of the act, along with her broad-brimmed Pennslander hat, the stuffing in her shirt to make her look like a fat man, and the coal smudges on her face.

  Temple Franklin, the Emperor’s aide and confidant, looked down at the filthy ragamuffin standing before him and harrumphed. “Franklin’s Players, you know who I mean?”

  “Yes, sir. They’re the ones who perform Jesus Born for Christmas, and Jesus Crucified for Easter.”

  “Precisely.” Temple looked about the bustling market square over his spectacles. “Where are they?”

  Wilkes, also in disguise, whistled and shoveled coal into a chute surrounded by cobblestones. The wagon stood in a small square only a few yards from the Lightning Cathedral—its tallest three spires, the east-facing ones, peeked over the bank facing Kinta Jane, their white stone hard to see against the white winter sky. The bishop’s famous lightning crackled within enormous glass receptacles, big as barrels, in each of the three church-towers.

  “Do you desire to see a mystery play, sir?” the boy asked innocently.

  Franklin fixed a keen eye on the lad. “I see you’ve already decided your price. Philadelphia urchin today, Philadelphia lawyer tomorrow. Do you know what they say about Pennsland, boy?”

  “That it’s got a lot of trees.”

  Franklin snorted. “No, that’s not it, true though it be. No, they say this: Pennsland is heaven for farmers, paradise for artisans, and hell for officials.”

  “And preachers,” the boy added, as if reciting a catechism.

  “You’ve been to school!”

  The boy beamed, without losing his sly look. “Thanks to your grandfather, sir, I had to.”

  Franklin harrumphed again. “Well, you should thank him. I see you know who I am, anyway, and you know I’m not the wealthy man my grandfather was. How much will this information cost me?”

  “A shilling,” the boy said promptly. “Philadelphia.”

  “Go on, then,” Franklin told him. “Where are they?”

  The boy said nothing, but held out his hand, palm up.

  “That’s a lot of money you want,” Franklin said.

  The boy shrugged. “Don’t pay me if you don’t want to know.”

  Franklin growled but dug a silver coin from his purse. “Tell me.”

  The boy turned and pointed. “Out that gate there starts the Lancaster Pike.”

  “I know the road.”

  “Good. Take it and follow it straight.”

  Wilkes climbed aboard and Kinta Jane started the wagon forward.

  Franklin adjusted his spectacles and frowned. “How far?”

  The boy swung his head from side to side as if calculating. “About six hundred miles, I expect.”

  “Six hundred miles! But that would mean you want me to—”

  “That’s right!” The boy nodded, and then burst into a run, crossing the square and turning to yell back with hands cupped around his mouth. “You go to the Kentuck!”

  Kinta Jane drove her wagon out of the market square. “Where to, coalman?” She was still unaccustomed to the use of her new tongue, and it still surprised her every time a barking dog fell silent in her presence.

  “North, coalman,” Isaiah Wilkes said. “Brother Onas is sleeping, so we must turn elsewhere for aid.”

  * * *

  Ma’iingan arose early, offered asemaa to the four directions and to mother earth, and then sought the others to say his farewells.

  Nathaniel and the Dutchman Jacob Hop stood inside the Earl of Johnsland’s great hall. The healer wore his tricorner hat backward and his long coat inside-out, and carried his horse-drum slung over his shoulder.

  Hop shuffled a warped and splitting deck of cards.

  The tapestries were gone. The earl and his son George directed teams of Zhaaganaashii farmers who scrubbed the walls and floors in preparation for repainting. Landon Chapel moved slowly, directing men who replaced buckets of filthy water with clean water and lye soap. A carpenter removed windows in order to make way for new frames and glass, so the wind blowing through the hall was chill despite the bonfire at one end.

  Ma’iingan arrived as the earl was handing a flat wooden box to Nathaniel.

  Nathaniel inspected the box; there were no markings on it, and it was of simple workmanship. Ma’iingan recognized it as the box the earl had been clutching when he’d seen the man mad in his own hall, believing himself to be a bird. “What is this?”

  The earl smiled, sorrow twinkling deep in his eyes. Having bathed and scrubbed away multiple layers of dead skin, grime, and the effluvia of illness, he looked like a much younger man. “When you came to me, you arrived with two things. I kept them both, expecting to give them to you someday. I found as I lost my grip on my own mind, I clutched these two things even tighter.”

  Nathaniel opened the box and took out the first item. It was a rag, a simple hand towel such as a scullery maid might use, gray with age.

  “Squeeze it,” the earl said. “Roll your hand down it, if you will forgive the vulgarity, as if you were pulling at a cow’s teat.”

  Nathaniel frowned, but pulled down the rag. Though the cloth appeared dry, his action caused a stream of white liquid to jet from the rag to the floor. The healer almost dropped the rag, but then looked up at the earl with surprise. “What is that?”

  “Milk.” The earl shrugged. “Cow’s milk, for all I can tell by the taste. I don’t know where the milk comes from.”

  “Somewhere,” Ma’iingan said, “there is a cotton cow, who wonders what ghost it is who milks her.”

  The earl guffawed. “Perhaps.”

  Nathaniel replaced the rag and drew the second item from the box. It was an acorn.

  Old, plain, slightly cracked.

  Then, as he and Ma’iingan and the others looked at it, words began to appear on the wood.

  “We have a sister,” Nathaniel read aloud as the words appeared, incised into the acorn. “The acorn will lead you to her.”

  “Who is we?” George Isham asked.

  “Nathaniel and his sister,” Hop explained. To answer the sudden raising of Cavalier eyebrows, he added, “the witch-queen of Cahokia.”

  “I hadn’t heard,” the earl said slowly, “but it makes my heart glad. Kyres’s children rise, and almost, it is as if Kyres himself returns. And there is a third. Go with my blessing, Nathaniel. Find your sister.”

  “And you, My Lord Earl?” Jacob Hop asked.

  “Evil news from Philadelphia.” The earl’s face darkened. “My proxyholder writes in a perfunctory way, perhaps believing me still mad, to inform me that he has voted to support the Emperor in pacifying the Ohio. He attaches the particulars, which greatly increase my taxes and also require me to furnish men for Imperial service. I must confer with my neighbors about what is to be done.”

  “And the Chief Godi?”

  “I will confer with him as well. He is not my enemy, though he has meddled in my affairs beyond his writ. I understand his proxyholder voted similarly, but in his case, it may not have been against the Elector’s preferences.”

  “I shall ride with my father,” George said.

  “And I shall make certain the manor is repainted before they return!” Landon cried from the corner of the long hall.

  “And…Jenny?” Nathaniel asked softly.

  “Jenny will stay here,” George said. “Her child will be named Chapel, but I will acknowledge him, and Jenny will always have a place.”

  “And you will go home,” Nathaniel said to Ma’iingan. The Ojibwe’s arm still ached a bit, but after the healer’s songs, his skin felt new and his lungs were clear.

  “I could travel with you,” Ma’iingan offered.

  “You have opened the way for me,” Nathaniel said. “I’m heal
ed. It’s enough, I think.”

  “Then I’ll go home.” Ma’iingan nodded. “And feed my son.”

  * * *

  Belowdecks in the Sint Michiel de Ruyter, the mate fumbled with the keys. He did it quietly, not wanting to awaken the occupant of the tiny, timber-reinforced room. He froze at the soft chink of iron on iron, held his breath, and decided he hadn’t been heard.

  The ship rocked as it should, creaked as it should. Outside, an icy wind blew her northward toward her home port.

  The mate slipped the key into the lock, which he’d had profusely oiled earlier in the day against this moment. In his other hand, he held a plate of biscuit and pork. Leaving the key in the lock, the mate eased open the door.

  He took two steps in, carefully measured.

  He set down the plate.

  The room’s occupant rose. This was the moment the mate feared, and he backed toward the door, murmuring placating things. “Er is geen problem, dit is een erg lekker diner.”

  The prisoner stepped forward, and in a shaft of light descending through a small crack in the planks above, the mate saw the thick tangle of curly hair on the prisoner’s head rise and stand on end, as if she had been electrified.

  “Helpen me!” he screamed.

  He heard the splintering of the wood as the prisoner tore her chain from the wall, and then she swung the chain at the mate.

  He threw himself on the floor, barely avoiding the attack. She swung again.

  The last thing he heard was the cracking of his own skull.