Speaks the Nightbird mc-1

by Robert R. McCammon

  "Grunewald," Rachel said. "She pinched her husband's ear for speaking to me, long before any of this happened."

  "Madam Grunewald saw the location of the poppets in a dream," Matthew continued. "How do you account for that?"

  "Simply. She made the poppets and put them there herself."

  "If she hated you so deeply, then why did she leave Fount Royal? Why did she not stay to testify before the magistrate? Why did she not satisfy her hatred by remaining here to watch your execution?"

  Now Rachel was staring at the floor. She shook her head.

  Matthew said, "If I had made the poppets and hidden them beneath the floorboard, I would make certain to be in the crowd on the day of your departure from this earth. No, I don't believe Madam Grunewald had a hand in creating them."

  "Nicholas Paine," Rachel said suddenly, and looked again at Matthew. "He was one of the three men who broke down my door that March morning, bound me with ropes, and threw me into the back of a wagon. He also was one of the men who found the poppets."

  "Who were the other two men who took you into custody?"

  "Hannibal Green and Aaron Windom. I never shall forget that dawn. They dragged me from my bed, and Green locked his arm around my throat to stop my screaming. I spat in Windom's face and got a slap for it."

  "Paine, Garrick, James Reed, and Kelvin Bonnard discovered the poppets," Matthew said, recalling what Garrick had said on the night of their arrival. "Can you think of any possible reason Paine or any of those others might have fashioned them and hidden them there?"

  "No."

  "All right, then." Matthew saw another dark streak go across the floor. He watched the rat climb up the side of the waterbucket and drink. "Let us say that Paine, for whatever reason, did make the poppets and put them under the floorboard. Why should it be Madam Grunewald who saw their location in a dream? Why should it not be Paine himself, if he was so eager to present physical evidence against you?" He pondered the question and thought he might have an answer. "Did Paine have . . . uh . . . a relationship with Madam Grunewald?"

  "I don't think so," Rachel replied. "Cara Grunewald was as fat as a pig and had half her nose eaten away by the pox."

  "Oh." Matthew pondered some more. "Less reason she should leave Fount Royal, then, if she had made the poppets and knew you to be falsely accused. No, whoever fashioned them is still here. Of that I'm positive. A person who would go to the effort of such deceit would make sure he—or she—had the satisfaction of watching you die." He glanced through the bars at her. "Pardon my bluntness."

  Rachel said nothing for a while, as the rats continued to squeak and scurry in the walls. Then, "You know, I'm really beginning to believe you've not been sent here to spy on me."

  "You should. I'm here—unfortunately—on a criminal offense."

  "Involving the blacksmith, did you say?"

  "I entered his barn without permission," Matthew explained. "He attacked me, I injured his face, and he desired satisfaction. Therefore the three-day sentence and three lashes."

  "Seth Hazelton is a very strange man. I wouldn't doubt that he attacked you, but what was the reason?"

  "I discovered a sack hidden in the barn that he desired not to have brought to light. According to him, it was full of his wife's belongings. But I think it was something else altogether."

  "What, then?"

  He shook his head. "I don't know, but I do intend to find out."

  "How old are you?" she asked suddenly. "Twenty years."

  "Have you always been so curious?"

  "Yes," he answered. "Always."

  "From what I saw today, the magistrate doesn't appreciate your curiosity"

  Matthew said, "He appreciates the truth. Sometimes we arrive at it from different routes."

  "If he chooses to believe what's claimed about me, he is lost in the wilderness," she said. "Tell me why it is that you—a clerk—seem to grant me more innocence than does a learned magistrate of the law."

  Matthew thought about this point before he gave a reply. "Perhaps it's because I never met a witch before."

  "And the magistrate has?"

  "He's never tried a witch, but he does know judges who have. I think also that he was more impressed by the Salem trials than I, since I was only thirteen years at the time and still in an almshouse." Matthew rested his chin upon one of his knees. "The magistrate has in his sphere of learning all the accumulated knowledge of English law," he said. "Some of that knowledge is built on a framework of medieval belief. As I am a lowly clerk and have not yet been immersed in such knowledge, I do not hold so strongly to its conceptions. You should realize, however, that Magistrate Woodward is indeed a liberal jurist. If he were entirely of the medieval mind, you would be burnt by now."

  "What's he waiting for, then? If I'm going to burn anyway, why hear these witnesses?"

  "The magistrate wants to give you an opportunity to answer all the charges. It's the proper way of procedure."

  "Damn the procedure!" Rachel snapped, and she stood up. "Damn the charges! They're all lies!"

  "Profanity will not help your position," Matthew said calmly. "I'd suggest you refrain from it."

  "What will help my position?" she demanded, approaching the bars. "Shall I fall on my knees and beg mercy for crimes I haven't committed? Shall I sign over my husband's land and all my possessions and swear upon the Bible that I shall never bewitch the citizens of Fount Royal again? Tell me! What can I possibly do to save my life?"

  It was a good question. So good, in fact, that Matthew was unable to supply an answer. The best he could manage was: "There is some hope."

  "Ah, hope!" Rachel said bitterly. Her hands curled around the bars. "Perhaps you're not a spy, but you're a liar and you know you are. There is no hope for me. There never was any hope, not since that morning I was dragged from my house. I am going to be executed for crimes I have not committed, and the murderer of my husband will go free. Where's the hope in that?"

  "Hey, there! Quiet down!" It was Hannibal Green, thundering from the entrance. He came into the gaol, bearing a lantern, and behind him trudged the filthy, ragged figure Matthew had last seen by the light of a burning house. Gwinett Linch had his ratsack at his side, a cowhide bag over his shoulder, and his sticker in his hand.

  "Brought you some company," Green rumbled. "Gonna clean this hole up a bit."

  Rachel didn't respond. Tight-lipped, she returned to her bench and sat down, then she covered her head and face with her cowl again.

  "Which one'll do ye?" Green asked of the ratcatcher, and Linch motioned toward the cage opposite Matthew's. Linch entered the cell and used his foot to brush aside the layer of dirty straw from the floor in a small circle. Then he reached into a pocket of his breeches and his hand emerged to throw a few dozen dried kernels of corn into the circle. Again his hand went into his pocket, and then a number of small pieces of potato joined the corn kernels. He produced a wooden jar from the cowhide bag, out of which he shook a brown powdery substance around the circle's perimeter. The same brown powder was shaken here and there in the straw, and applied at the base of the cell's walls.

  "You gonna need me?" Green asked.

  Linch shook his head. "I mi' be a while."

  "Here, I'll give you the keys. You can lock up when you're done. Remember to put out the lantern."

  The exchange of the keys was made, after which Green hurried out. Linch shook more of the brown powder into the straw, making trails between the corners of the walls and the circle.

  "What is that?" Matthew inquired. "Some kind of poison?"

  "It's most ground sugar," Linch answered. "With a teech of opium mixed to it. Got to get them rats drowsy, slow 'em down some." He returned the lid to the wooden jar and put it back in the cowhide bag. "Why? You thinkin' of robbin' my job?"

  "I think not."

  Linch grinned. He was listening to the squeakings and squealings of the rats, which had obviously caught scent of the feast that was being offered to them. Linch p
ut on his deerskin gloves and then with smooth familiarity removed the piece of wood that secured the single blade at the end of his sticker. From his bag he brought out a fearsome appliance that had five curved blades, much like small scythes, and this he twisted into position on the sticker's tip. Two metal clips were forced into grooves to lock the ugly implement, and then Linch regarded it with obvious pride. "Ever see such a thing, boy?" he asked. "I can strike two or three at a time with this. Thought it up myself."

  "An artful device, I'm sure."

  "A useful device," Linch corrected. "Hazelton fashioned it for me. He's an inventor, once he puts his mind to a task." He cocked his head toward a rustling in the corner.

  "Ah, listen to 'em! Fightin' to eat their last meal!" His grin widened. "Hey, witch!" he called to Rachel. "You gonna give me a tumble 'fore you burn?"

  She didn't dignify his request with a reply or even a movement.

  "You get over close to her, boy, and stick out your cock," Linch said. "She mi' suck it for you." He laughed as Matthew's face bloomed red, and then he pulled the cell's bench next to the cleared-off circle. When it was situated as he pleased, Linch left the cell to pluck the lantern from its hook and he brought it into the cage with him. He put it down on the floor a few feet away from the circle, then he sat upon the bench with his legs crossed beneath him and the five-bladed sticker held in a two-handed grip. "Won't be long now," he announced. "They're gettin' 'em-selves a taste of that sweet stupidity."

  Matthew saw the ratcatcher's luminous pale gray eyes glitter in the dim candlelight. They might have been the icy eyes of a specter rather than those of a human being. Linch spoke again, in a low, soft, almost singsong cadence: "Come out, come out, my dames and dandies. Come out, come out, and taste my candies." He repeated it twice more, each time becoming softer and more song than speech.

  And then, indeed, a large black rat did enter the deadly circle. It sniffed at a piece of potato, its tail twitching; then it grabbed up a corn kernel between its teeth and fled for the darkness again.

  "Come out, come out," Linch sang, all but whispering. He stared at the circle, waiting for the rodents to appear in his field of vision. "Come out, come out, and taste my candies."

  Another rat appeared, grabbed up a corn kernel, and fled. But the third rat that entered the circle moved more sluggishly, and Matthew knew it must be feeling the effects of Linch's sugared opium. This benumbed rodent chewed on one of the potatoes for a moment, then stood up on its hind legs to stare at the candleflame as if it were a celestial light.

  Linch was very fast. The sticker whipped down in a blur of motion and there was a high-pitched squeal as the rat was impaled. At once Linch snapped the small beast's neck, then plucked the carcass from its blade and made a deposit in his sack. All of this had taken only a very few seconds, and now Linch held the sticker ready again and he was softly singing. "Come out, come out, my dames and dandies. Come out, come out, and taste my candies ..."

  Within a minute, Matthew had witnessed two more executions and a near-miss. Linch might be disgusting, Matthew thought, but he was certainly proficient at his task.

  The rats that were entering the circle now showed signs of lethargy. Feasting on the sugar and opium had clearly robbed them of much of their survival instinct. A few of them still had the speed to escape Linch's blades, but most perished before they could turn tail. Several died so bewildered they didn't even squeal as they were pierced.

  After twenty or more executions there was quite a lot of rodent blood in the circle, yet the rats kept coming, too drug-fogged to be daunted from the promise of such treats. Every once in a while Linch would repeat in that soft, singsong tone his little ditty about dandies and candies, but it was such an easy massacre that it seemed a waste of breath. Down came the sticker, and rarely did Linch misjudge his aim. Soon the ratcatcher was killing them two at a time.

  In forty minutes or so, the number of rodents began to subside. Matthew presumed that either Linch had killed the majority of gaolhouse rats, or that at last the odors of blood and carnage were strong enough to warn them away even through the numbing effects of the—as Linch had put it—"sweet stupidity." The ratcatcher, too, seemed thoroughly fatigued by the slaughter, which had bloodied his gloves and bulged his sack.

  One small gray specimen, weaving around like a drunken lord, entered the circle. As Matthew watched, intrigued not by the grisly spectacle but by Linch's speed and surety of dispatch, the little rat nibbled at a kernel of corn and then began to chase its tail with ferocious intent. Around and around it went in a mad spin, with Linch's sticker poised above it waiting to strike. At last the rat gave up the chase and lay on its belly as if exhausted. Matthew expected the sticker to flash down and a blade to bite deep, but Linch stayed his hand.

  The ratcatcher gave a long, weary sigh. "You know," he said quietly, "they ain't such terrible creatures. Got to eat, just like anybody. Got to live. They came over on the ships, same as the people did. They're smart beasts; they know that where the people are, that's where they'll find food. No, they ain't so terrible." He leaned over and touched a finger to some of the sugared opium he'd scattered on the floor, and then he pressed the finger to the rat's mouth. Whether it ate the offering or not,

  Matthew couldn't tell, but the rodent was far too stupified to flee.

  "Hey, watch this trick," Linch said. He reached over, picked up the lantern, and began to move it in a slow, sinuous circle above the gray rat. The rodent just lay there, seemingly uninterested, its body stretched out next to a gnawed lump of potato. Linch kept the movement slow and steady, and presently Matthew saw the rat's tail twitch and its head angle up toward the mysterious glow that was circling its theater of night. A minute passed. Linch kept moving the lantern around and around, with no discernible reduction or addition of speed. The candlelight glinted red in the eyes of the rat, and ice-white in the eyes of the ratcatcher.

  Linch whispered, "Up, my pretty. Up, up, my pretty." The rat's tail continued to twitch, its eyes followed the light, but otherwise it remained stationary.

  "Up, up," Linch whispered, again almost in a singsong cadence. "Up, up, my pretty." The lantern went around and around again. Linch bent his head toward the rodent, his untamed brows knitting with concentration. "Up, up," he spoke, a compelling note entering his voice. "Up, up."

  Suddenly the rat gave a shiver and stood on its hind legs. Balancing on its tail, it began to circle with the progress of the lantern, like a tiny dog begging for a bone. Matthew watched with absolute fascination, realizing the rat in its bewildered state was transfixed by the candle. The rodent's eyes were directed to the flame, its stubby front legs clawing at the air as if desiring union with that which made such a strange and beautiful illumination. Who knew what the rat was seeing—by benefit of the sugared opium—there at the center of the fire?

  "Dance for me," Linch whispered. "A reel, if you please." He circled the lantern a bit faster, and it seemed the rodent turned faster as well, though this might have been Matthew's imagination. Indeed, one might imagine the rat had become a dancer in accord with Linch's command. Its hind legs were shivering, about to collapse, yet still the rat sought communion with the flame.

  "Pretty, pretty one," Linch said, in a voice as soft as a touch of mist on the cheek. And then he brought the sticker down, not hurriedly but rather with an air of resignation. Two of the blades pierced the rat's exposed belly and the rodent stiffened and shrieked. It bared its teeth and gnashed at the air, as most of its brothers and sisters had done in their death agonies. Linch put the lantern aside, broke the rat's neck with a quick jerk of his right hand, and the bloody carcass went into the sack with the others.

  "How'd you like that?" he asked Matthew, his grin wide and expectant of praise.

  "Quite impressive," Matthew said. "You might find employ in a circus, if you would spare the life of your partner."

  Linch laughed. He removed a dark-stained cloth from his bag and began to clean the sticker's five blades
, which meant the executions had come to an end. "I was in the circus," he said as he blotted away the blood. "Nine, ten years ago back in England. Used rats in my act. Dressed 'em up in little suits, made 'em dance just as you saw. They have a taste of ale or rum—or stronger—and a candle makes 'em think they're seein' God. Whatever God is to a rat, I mean."

  "How come you to leave the circus?"

  "Didn't get on so well with the bastard who owned it. I was makin' the lion's share of money for him, but he was payin' me lamb's wages. Anyhow, the plague's got so bad over there your audience is all ribs and teeth." He shrugged. "I found me a better way to earn my livin'."

  "Ratcatching?" Matthew realized he'd spoken it a shade distastefully.

  "Gainful elimination of pests," Linch answered. "Like I told you, every town's got to have a ratcatcher. If there's anythin' on earth I know about, it's rats. And people, too," he added. "I know enough about people to be happy I spend most of my time with rats." He shook the heavy sack full of carcasses. "Even if they are dead ones."

  "A delightful sentiment," Matthew said.

  Linch stood up, the ratsack attached to his belt. He returned the bloodied cloth to the cowhide bag and slipped its strap around his shoulder. "I been here near two years," he said. "Long enough to know this is a good town, but it ain't got a chance while that witch stays alive." He nodded toward Rachel in her cage. "Ought to take her out come Monday mornin' and finish her off. Put her out of her misery and the rest of us out of ours, too."

  "Has she done anything against you?" Matthew asked.

  "No. Not yet, I mean to say. But I know what she's done, and what she's like to do 'fore it's over." He held the sticker in his right hand and picked up the lantern with his left. "If I was you, boy, I'd watch my back tonight."

  "Thank you for your concern, sir."

  "You're so very welcome." Linch gave a mocking bow. When he had straightened up, he narrowed his eyes and looked around the cell. "Believe I've cleaned the place might fairly. Maybe a few more still hidin', but none much to worry about. I'll say good night to you and the witch, then." He left the cell and started off, still carrying the lantern.