by Matt Turner
“The time, damnit,” Vera snarled. He tried to roll over in the bed, but she straddled him, forcing the choking pillow back over his heaving face. “When do the bourgeoise arrive?”
“I don’t know,” he started to say, but his rapidly diminishing supply of air quickly made him reconsider. “Half past six, for God’s sake!” he choked out. “The Catherine Canal!”
The fear in his muffled voice convinced her that he was being genuine. “Thanks, handsome.” She smiled as she laid her arm across the pillow, still forcing it down, and wrapped her fingers around the handle of the knife in her brassiere. “Now please, let’s have a good-bye kiss.”
The only kiss that Lieutenant Anatoly Krakowsky, servant of the dying Tsarist regime, received was the blade that plunged the soft cotton of the pillow and into the base of his throat. Vera quickly leapt away from his dying spasms and watched with interest as he finally managed to tear the suffocating pillow away. His eyes bulged out of their sockets in terror and surprise, and he weakly fumbled at the great hole she had torn in his throat, as though his fingers could stitch it back together again. His body bucked and twisted as he gasped and choked, until at last he fell off the bed onto the floor, where his blood spewed out onto the carpet.
Vera knelt and examined his whitening features. The lieutenant tried to say something, but all that came from his mouth was a weak gurgle and a cough of lifeblood.
Still, she thought she understood the burning question in his pleading eyes. “For Narodnaya Volya,” she simply said. “The People’s Will.”
Vera never knew whether he understood her; the only response he gave was a slight darkening of his trousers. She turned away from him in disgust and looked down at herself. Just as she had feared, a great deal of the lieutenant’s blood had spattered across her clothes. “Now look.” She groaned. “I have to take a bath because of your sorry ass.”
She left the dying man to bleed out while she prepared the tub.
3
Boston, 1692
“Good God,” John said with a satisfied sigh as he rolled to the side of the cot. “That was incredible.”
Tituba gave him a smile. “You shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Reverend.” She gave him a scorching kiss that he eagerly reciprocated.
“The Lord will forgive me, I’m sure,” John drawled. He let his hands run over Tituba’s bronzed skin one last time—God, he had been lucky to find a woman like her, in this unlikeliest of places!—and, with a reluctant groan, sat up to put his breeches on. “Now, alas, I must be off.”
“Must you?” Tituba pleaded. Not for the first time, John couldn’t help but be impressed with her mastery of the English language—as far as he knew, the native woman had not known a single civilized word when she had first started work as a servant in the colony a few years previously. But then, gray-eyed women with looks like hers seemed to have a habit of landing on their feet. At least most of the time, he silently corrected himself.
“I have a meeting with the governor himself.” Truth be told, Stoughton was only the lieutenant governor—Phips had washed his hands of what he had so elegantly dubbed goddamned witch nonsense. Nevertheless, John felt a burst of pride at the mingled expression of awe and fear on her face and couldn’t resist to add another piece to the bait: “It’s about you.”
“You think he will—” Tituba did not finish the thought; instead, she motioned at the small prison cell around them. The other accused languished in Boston’s prison, but John had used his influence and Tituba’s confession to secure one of the abandoned cabins on the outskirts of the colony into a makeshift prison for her, complete with boarded-up windows, a chain and ball about her ankle, and a cot that made up the sole piece of furniture. John didn’t mind his lover’s makeshift imprisonment; if anything, the illicitness of it made the entire thing more exciting.
“Pardon you?” Hope flared up in Tituba’s bright face at the words. John slowly nodded. “I believe so, yes. Your confession for one thing, and besides—” He leaned back to give her a peck on the cheek. “Who could ever punish anyone as lovely as you?”
Tituba slightly flushed at the words. “I’m just a servant,” she mumbled in embarrassment.
“You’re more than that to me, Tituba,” John said gently. “You know that.”
A strange expression crossed her face. “I—” she began, and then stopped. “I—I know. We will still be together when this is all over, yes?”
“Forever,” John promised as he slipped his shirt on and donned his hat. “With any luck, this will all be over by this time tomorrow. Chin up, darling. I’ll have you freed in a flash.” He gave her one last kiss, and then left through the single ramshackle door, making sure to chain and bolt it behind him.
Tituba gave him one last smile as a crack of light from the outside ran across her face, and then she was once again sealed away.
With that last image of Tituba’s smile in his head, John Hale went directly to the lieutenant governor with his recommended punishment for the witch: death by fire.
The next morning was an early one for John. He woke even before the sun rose and slipped into his formal attire as swiftly as possible, and still found that most of the colony had arrived at the large central plaza before him. “Reverend,” the lieutenant governor, a portly man by the name of Stoughton who wore large, dilapidated wig that was decades out of fashion, said in greeting as John ascended the makeshift stage that overlooked the large pile of firewood. “Lovely day to put all this nastiness behind us, isn’t it?”
“Aye, sir, it is,” John agreed.
“Witchcraft.” Stoughton shook his head in disgust. “It comes from the savagery of this New World, no doubt. I’m told that the woman is one of the natives?”
“Aye, sir. I believe she crept into town several years ago and found work with the Parris family.”
“Utterly deplorable.” The lieutenant governor frowned. “The evil that lurks directly under our noses…do you know of what I speak, Reverend?” His intelligent eyes scanned John’s face, as if searching for some secret. John couldn’t help but feel a surge of relief when the man’s intense gaze suddenly broke away from him. “Ah, here comes the cart now!”
“You sons of whores! Children of the devil! Fucking goddamned murderers!” The screams emanating from the cart being driven into the plaza steadily rose in pitch and fury, much to the amusement of the gathered crowd. Even the lieutenant governor had to stifle a chuckle at the witch’s rage. “This one’s a fighter, isn’t she?”
“That she is, sir,” John said heavily.
The cart came to a stop in front of the woodpile, and half a dozen men struggled to drag the witch out. She was more hell-cat than woman; despite their greater strength and numbers, one of the guards let out a yelp of pain when she clawed violently at his face, nearly taking out one of his eyes.
“She does seem to have the Devil’s own strength,” Stoughton remarked as the witch slammed her manacles into another man’s face, shattering his nose. The crowd howled with laughter at the sight. “Did you know her well, Reverend?”
“Not before I began my investigation.” He had pined after the beautiful native woman for years—it had been a divine stroke of luck when she was accused of witchcraft, and he was put in charge of investigating her. He had been given complete and unfettered access to the woman of his dreams, who was desperate enough to do anything to avoid the stake… But of course he wasn’t going to tell the lieutenant governor that. For a time, it had been a dream come true. The nights they had spent together… All dreams must end, he thought sadly.
At last the guards overpowered her with a few choice blows from their muskets. The crowd jeered and booed the bleeding, cursing creature dressed in tattered rags. Despite the bayonets at her throat, the witch screamed back, vile obscenities and strange-sounding curses that did nothing but elicit great peals of laughter. For a moment, the guards just stood there, allowing the crowd to soak in Tituba’s blasphemies, and then they began to drag her towa
rd the great pile of firewood.
“Is there any salvation for such foul vermin, Reverend?” Stoughton wondered aloud. “Can even the servants of Satan be forgiven?”
John slowly shook his head. “No.” The single syllable was an iron weight on his lips.
Near the edge of the firewood, the witch’s rage at last shattered, and she broke down sobbing to collapse on her knees. The guards formed a protective ring around her, and the crowd went silent, breathlessly awaiting her final words.
“For the love of God,” Tituba choked out in a weak, ragged voice. “Mercy! For the child in my belly, mercy!”
An audible gasp rose from the crowd. “She’s pregnant?” the lieutenant governor exclaimed in shock. “That’s not possible—she’s been jailed since March…” He turned to give John a beady-eyed stare. “Is there something that you aren’t telling me, Hale?”
The wheels in Stoughton’s head were clearly turning; the damned man was swiftly putting the pieces together. John could feel the weight of hundreds of other eyes turn to assess him as a suspicious whisper ran through the crowd. Worst of them all was Tituba’s pleading gaze—even now, surrounded by those who deemed her a creature of sin, when he looked at her, all he saw in her weeping eyes was hope…and beyond that, something more.
“What do you have to say for yourself, Hale?” From far away, the lieutenant governor’s voice murmured in his ear. “Explain.”
For a brief moment, John hesitated. But in the end, there was only one choice that could be made. This decision would forever alter the rest of his life; far too much rode upon it.
“The witch lies,” John loudly announced. “I examined her myself—if she is indeed pregnant, it is the spawn of some devil, no doubt.”
Not even the approving roar of the crowd could drown out the witch’s heartrending howl. Once again, the guards seized her and dragged her into the fire pit, where they tied her to the upright log that served as a makeshift stake.
Stoughton eyed John coolly, clinically inspecting him as though he were some preserved specimen. “Very well then, Reverend,” he said. “I trust your judgment in spiritual matters such as this.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “Perhaps you’d be willing to throw the first torch?”
“Sir?”
“Don’t be so shy, Reverend.” The lieutenant governor had to raise his voice to speak over the distant witch’s screams as the guards retreated from the stake and the crowd began to hurl stones and rotten food at her. “You were the one who uncovered her guilt. It stands to reason that you should be the one rewarded with the honor of sending her to Hell.” The portly man paused, and his tone darkened. “Unless you have doubts?”
It was a trap, then. The lieutenant governor had seen through his lies after all, and they both knew it. There was only one choice, one way to escape— “Aye,” John agreed. “I’ll do the deed.”
Stoughton’s eyes slightly widened in surprise, but he nodded. “Good man.”
With that, John leapt down from the raised stage and strode toward the fire pit, trying to ignore the churning ball in his gut. The crowd obediently parted before him as he did his best to project an air of utter confidence and spiritual enlightenment to his flock. I’m protecting them, he told himself. I’m doing the right thing.
At last he reached the edge of the fire pit and silently held out his hand for a torch. To his relief, the witch had finally gone silent: her bloodied face was bowed in defeat, and her tangled hair—filthy with rotten food and blood—blanketed her features in shadow. One of the guards pressed a torch into his hand, and he lifted it, ready to hurl the flame into the oil-soaked wood.
“John Hale,” Tituba rasped. She slowly raised her head to stare at him. One of her eyes was swollen shut, and the other had gone blood-red from tears and raw madness.
John couldn’t help but flinch at the pure, unadulterated hate he saw there.
“I know the truth. You murder our child to save your own skin? Coward. Fucking craven.”
“Shut her up!” someone in the crowd called out. A stone smacked against the witch’s cheek, drawing blood. The crowd’s silence instantly broke, and again, men, women, and children called out for her death, pelting her with stones, mud, and any debris they could lay their hands on.
And still John hesitated. There was something oddly mesmerizing about the witch’s eyes, in spite of the blinding hate and rage blazing within them.
“I’ll make you pay,” she promised in a voice that cut through the crowd’s cries like a sharp blade through soft flesh. “If it takes me all of time, John, I’ll find you one day, and when I do, God Himself won’t be able to save you. When I find you, it’ll be your turn to burn —”
The torch fell from John’s trembling hand, for the witch had craned her neck down and was savagely biting at the bonds that held her to the stake. Dear God, John thought in horror. She’s going to escape. But it was no use; long before the rope began to fray from her frenzied attack, the little pool of flame started by the torch became a lake of fire that engulfed the wood. The flames swiftly reached up to the witch’s knees.
“I’LL FIND YOU, JOHN HALE!” she shrieked. Her hair caught fire, engulfing her head in a halo of flame. Blood poured from her ruined face and turned to steam in the intense heat. “IN HELL!”
The crowd nervously began to back away from the fearsome sight. Stand firm, John told himself. The blackened thing that was more corpse than witch suddenly lurched forward in the fire, freed from the stake by the flames that had consumed it. It raised a burning, blistered arm toward John in one last expression of hate and damnation—and then at last it collapsed into the fire forever.
“Good-bye, Tituba,” John whispered with a pang of regret. I never wished for any of this, he told himself. A godly man should stand firm, true, but even a godly man needed to be able to bend with the winds. He murmured a hurried prayer for his dead lover’s soul. She had deserved that much, at least.
He maintained his vigil over the fire for nearly an hour, until at last the crowd dispersed as the final embers died. The lieutenant governor eventually came beside him to gaze at the shrunken, blackened thing that remained among the ashes.
“Fascinating how much the human body can shrink,” he remarked. “She looks to be the same size as a child. And the smell—I know it from somewhere…”
“Like burnt pork,” John said heavily.
“What should we do with the body, Governor?” one of the guards asked.
“Some of the savages are cannibals, aren’t they? Just take it to one of them.”
The guard looked pained. “Sir—”
“Just go bury it out in the woods somewhere.” Stoughton shrugged. “But make sure you bury it deep, for the reverend’s sake!” He laughed at John’s expression. “Only a jest, Reverend. Tell me, how would you like to join my family for dinner?”
“I would like that very much, sir,” John replied. He was starving after that whole ordeal.
“Splendid. In that case—” The lieutenant governor clapped his hands to summon his entourage of bureaucrats and clerks. “I shall see you this evening.”
That evening, they had a wonderful dinner of roast pork and steak, served on some of the most expensive chinaware in all Boston.
4
It was only now beginning to dawn on Simon how utterly, completely wrong he had been. He had expected a thousand peasants on foot to sally out from the city in a suicidal attempt to break the siege, but this… The heretics’ numbers were easily five times that, and far from being a disorganized rabble, the river of steel surging from Carcassonne’s gates was a tightly ordered column of men. He saw layers upon layers of pikes and crossbows, and worst of all—
“Faydits,” he snarled under his breath. Landless knights who had flocked to the heretics’ cause, what the faydits lacked in piety they made up for in a grim determination that bordered on madness. And now over a thousand of them bore down on his unprotected camp.
Bishop Vaux thundered
to his side. “My lord, there’s thousands of them—should we—”
The ambush would never work against so vast and disciplined an enemy, Simon judged. That left two options—retreat and the utter waste of this entire campaign, or a single desperate gamble.
“Organize the army while I delay them,” he ordered. “Get those damned Swiss to join us as fast as you’re able, and have Crecy’s forces hit them on the western flank. We’ll cut them off at the city and destroy them.”
“Yes, my lord,” Vaux agreed. He turned his horse and yelped in shock when he nearly trampled Amaury’s body. “Lord Amaury,” he gasped. “What happened? Is he—”
“The whole bloody Crusade depends on this battle,” Simon roared. “Now move!”
For the briefest of moments, the bishop hesitated, gazing at first the son, then the father. He opened his mouth as though he were about to say something, then finally nodded and galloped away.
“My son has fallen ill. Take him to a healer,” Simon called out to one of his knights. Without waiting to see whether the man obeyed him, he kicked his spurs into the flanks of his stallion and galloped for the ridge where his cavalry waited.
Fool, he cursed himself as the wind shrieked through his scarlet hair. He had never imagined the heretics would be able to field such a force, especially after six months of siege. His wretched spies had utterly failed him, and now the fate of his entire campaign hung by a slender thread. When I conquer Carcassonne, I’ll kill every last fucking one of them, he swore. I’ll do it bloodily. The black rage festered in his heart the way it always did before a fight. As the ridge drew nearer, he welcomed the fury and grinned as a course of adrenaline shot through his body.
Unbidden, an image of Amaury’s body flashed through his mind. He brutally shoved it aside—now was not the time to focus on trivial matters, not when he had a war to win.
“There’s no need to worry, de Montfort,” a voice said, so close to his ear that he jerked in surprise and nearly fell off his saddle. “You do have other sons, after all.”