There was a sharp clatter of crockery. Matthew looked to his left to see that Woodward had spilled his tea. The magistrate was staring at him as if the clerk had taken leave of his senses.
"It is a pertinent question, sir," Matthew said. "I do think it deserves an answer."
"It's foolish," Woodward whispered, his gray face stern as a rock.
"Might you reserve your opinion until after the question is answered?"
"What kind of question is it?" Garrick asked, visibly agitated. "I thought I was brung here to tell you 'bout the witch, not about buttons!"
"You were brought here to tell us whatever is necessary for the magistrate to weigh his judgment," Matthew countered. "Remember, sir, that you hold a Holy Bible, and that you've vowed to speak only the truth. Remember that God is listening to your answer." He paused a few seconds to let Garrick reflect on that pronouncement. "Now: were the six buttons arranged in a single line, or were they three side by side?"
"They were . . ." Garrick suddenly stopped. His tongue flicked out again, wetting his lips. His fingers tightened on the Bible, his knuckles whitening. "They were . . ." Again he faltered. His face seemed threatened by conflicting currents that moved beneath the skin. He took a long breath, in preparation to make his decision. "Six gold buttons," he said. "On the black cloak. I seen 'em. Shine in the moonlight."
"Yes, sir," Matthew said. "But what arrangement were they in?" Garrick frowned; his mouth worked, but no sound emerged. His right hand began to rub in small circles on the Bible. He stared blankly at nothing, his eyes glazed and the pulse beating harder at his temple. Matthew realized that Woodward had leaned slightly forward and his expression had become keen.
"It was a silent town," Garrick said, in what was almost a whisper. A glaze of sweat glistened on his forehead. "Silent. The whole world, afeared to breathe."
Matthew had been taking down every word that the man uttered. He redipped his quill and held it ready. "It's a simple question, sir. Do you not have an answer?" Garrick slowly blinked, his jaw slack. "Sir?" Matthew prompted. "An answer, please?"
"The six gold buttons were . . . they . . ." He stared into nothingness for a moment longer, and then he shook his head. "I don't know."
"They caught your attention and were clearly defined by the moonlight, yes?"
"Yes."
"But you don't recall how they were arranged on the cloak?"
"No," Garrick said, his voice thick. "I . . . can see them buttons in my head. I see 'em shinin' in the moonlight, but ... I don't know if they was straight down or three by three."
"All right, then. Tell us what happened after Satan spoke to you."
"Yes sir." Garrick lifted a hand from the Good Book and wiped his damp forehead. "He . . . asked me if I liked what I was a'lookin' at. I didn't want to speak, but he made me say 'yes.' He made me. Then he laughed, and I was ashamed. He let me go. I ran home, and I got in bed beside my 'Becca. That next mornin' I went to see Mr. Paine and I told him the whole story."
"When you say he let you go, do you mean he held you spellbound?"
"Yes sir, I believe he did. I wanted to run, but I couldn't move."
"Did he release you with a word or a gesture?"
Again, Garrick frowned as he tried to assemble his thoughts. "I can't say. All I know is, he let me go."
"And your wife was still sleeping when you teturned to bed?"
"Yes sir, she was. She never waked up at all. I closed my eyes tight as I could, and next thing I knew I heard the cock crow and it was mornin'."
Matthew's eyes narrowed. "You mean after that experience you had no trouble falling asleep?"
"I don't know if I did or not. The cock crowed, and I waked up."
Matthew glanced quickly at the magistrate before he posed the following question: "Mr. Garrick, sir, is it possible—just possible— that you were never awake at all?"
"I don't know what you mean, sir."
"I'm asking if what you thought was real may have been a dream. Is there any possibility of that?"
"No sir!" Garrick clutched the Bible tightly once more. "It all happened like I said! I woke up with stomach trouble and had to spew, and I went outside! I seen that devil and the witch there behind that barn sure as I'm lookin' at you! I swear before the Lord God I did!"
Matthew said quietly, "There's no need for such swearing. You hold the Bible and you've already vowed your story is the truth. You are a God-fearing man, aren't you?"
"Yes sir, I am. If I was lyin' to you, I'd be struck dead in an instant!"
"I'm sure you believe so. I have only one last question for you, and then—with the magistrate's approval, of course—you may go. My question is: how many buttons are on the coat you wore that night?"
"Sir?" Garrick tilted his head to one side, as if his ears hadn't quite caught the inquiry.
"You seem to be a highly observant individual," Matthew said. "Can you tell me how many buttons adorn the coat you put on before you went outside to spew?"
"Well. . . like I said, I don't recall puttin' my coat on."
"But you must know how many buttons it has. I presume you wear it quite a lot in cold weather. How many? Four? Five? Six, perhaps?"
"Five," Garrick answered. "No ... I think one of 'em broke off. It must be four."
"Thank you," Matthew said, and he put his quill aside. "Magistrate, I would suggest that Mr. Garrick be freed to go home."
"Are you sure?" Woodward whispered, not without some sarcasm.
"I'm sure Mr. Garrick has told us the truth, as far as he knows the truth to be. I don't think there's any use in keeping him here."
Woodward took a drink of tea and put the cup aside. "Good day," he told the farmer. "The court thanks you."
"I'm free to go, then?" Garrick stood up. He reluctantly relinquished his grip on the Bible and laid it back before the magistrate. "May I be bold to say, sir ... I hope I've helped send that witch to the fire. Reverend Grove was a right good man, and what I knew of Daniel he was a Christian too. But when Satan slips into a town, there ain't nothin' that follows but wickedness and tears."
"Mr. Garrick?" Matthew said as the man started to leave the cell. "In your opinion, was it Rachel Howarth or Satan who committed those murders?"
"Had to be Satan, I'd say. I seen Grove's body laid out in the church, and I seen Daniel's a'layin' in the field. A throat cut like those were . . . couldn't been a woman's hand that done it."
"In your opinion, as a God-fearing soul, would you believe that Satan could freely enter a church and murder a man of the Lord?"
"I would never have thought it. But it happened, didn't it?"
"Thank you," Matthew said. "You may go."
As soon as Garrick left the gaol Rachel said, "You understand it now, don't you? He was dreaming the whole thing!"
"That is a distinct possibility." Matthew looked at the magistrate, who was stroking his unshaven chin with his fingers. "Would you agree, sir?"
Woodward took his time in offering a reply It seemed to him that Matthew was awfully quick in his attempts to deflect Garrick's testimony The boy was very intelligent, yes; but it appeared to Woodward that Matthew was sharper and quicker now rhat he'd ever seen him to be. Of course, never before had Matthew been put into the position of commanding an interrogation, and perhaps his abilities had simply risen to the challenge, but . . . there was something a bit frightening in his desire to destroy Garrick's Bible-sworn sratements.
It was a fervor, Woodward decided, that bore careful watching. He sipped the bitter tea and whispered, "This court is not yet adjourned. Let us keep our opinions in rein."
"It seems to me, sir," Matthew plowed on, "that Mr. Garrick's testimony bears all the signs of being a dream. Some things he can recall quite vividly, while others—things he ought to be able to know—are lost to his memory."
"Though my voice is weak," Woodward said, "my ears are still in order. I heard exactly what you did."
"Yes, sir." Matthew decided he should retr
eat on this subject. "Pardon my manners."
"Pardon accepted. Now be quiet." Matthew took the time to clean his quill. Woodward poured himself a fresh cup and Rachel paced back and forth in her cage.
Nicholas Paine returned carrying a bundle wrapped with white cloth. Instantly Rachel stopped her pacing and came to the bars to watch. Paine placed the bundle on the desk before Woodward and started to open the cloth.
"A moment," Matthew said. "Was that how you originally found the objects?"
"The cloth is original, yes."
"It was not bound up?"
"It was just as you see it. And here are the poppets, just as they were." He opened the cloth and there were four small figures formed of straw, sticks, and what appeared to be red clay. The poppets were human-shaped, but bore no attempt at facial features; the red clay of their heads was smooth and unmarked. Two of the figures, however, had thin black ribbons tied around the sticks that would represent the human throat. On closer inspection, Woodward saw that the stick-throats had been gashed with a blade.
"I assume those two were meant to be Reverend Grove and Daniel Howarth," Paine said. "The others must have been victims of enchantment, or maybe people who would've been murdered had we not captured the witch." Rachel made a sound of disgust, but was wise enough to hold her tongue.
"You can deny it all you please!" Paine turned toward her. "But I myself found these under a floorboard in your kitchen, madam! Under the very boards that your husband walked upon! Why did you murder him? Because he found you doing witchcraft? Or did he catch you servicing your master?"
"If they were hidden in my house, someone else put them there!" Rachel replied, with considerable heat. "Maybe you did! Maybe you murdered my husband, too!"
"I'm sure he had nothing I wanted!"
"But he did!" she said. "He had me."
Paine's face froze with the last vestige of a mocking smile on his mouth.
"I can think of a reason you might have fashioned those poppets and hidden them in my house," Rachel went on, her face pressed against the bars and her eyes afire. "Do you not think I noticed the way you looked at me, when you thought Daniel didn't see? Do you not think I felt you devouring me? Well, Daniel saw it too! He told me, less than a week before he was murdered, to beware of you because you had a hungry stare and you were not to be trusted! Daniel may have been a stern and quiet man, but he was a very good judge of character!"
"Obviously he was," Paine said. "He married a witch."
"Look at the magistrate," Rachel commanded, "and tell him about your affair with Lucretia Vaughan! Oh, everyone in Fount Royal knows it but Mr. Vaughan, and he knows it too in his heart but he's too much a mouse to make a squeak! Tell him about your affair with Blessed Pearson, and your dalliance with Mary Summers! Go on, look him in the face and admit it like the man you wish to be!"
Paine did not look at the magistrate. He continued to stare at Rachel even as he let out a laugh that—to Matthew's ears— sounded a bit strangled. "You're not only a damnable witch," he said, "but you're raving insane as well!"
"Tell us all why a handsome, healthy man like yourself has never married! Isn't it because you're only pleased to possess what belongs to other men?"
"Now I know you're insane! I've never married because I've spent my life in travelling! I also prize freedom, and a man's freedom is destroyed when he gives it up to a wife!"
"And while you have no wife, you are free to turn wives into wenches!" Rachel said. "Mary Summers was a respectable woman before you got your hands on her, and now where is she? After you killed her husband in that duel, she perished of sorrow within a month!"
"That duel," he answered coldly, "concerned a point of honor. Quentin Summers splashed wine in my face at the tavern and called me a card cheat. I had no choice but to call him out."
"He knew you were having your way with his wife, but he couldn't catch you! He was a farmer, not a duellist!"
"Farmer or not, he was given the first shot. He missed. If you'll recall, I only wounded him in the shoulder."
"A bullet wound in this town is a death sentence! He just took longer to die than if you'd shot him through the heart!"
"The subject of my visit here, I believe, is to display the poppets." Paine turned his gaze toward the magistrate. "Which I have done. Do you wish to keep them, sir?"
Even if Woodward's voice hadn't been so diminished, it would have been altogether stolen by the accusations and statements that had just flown like wild birds in a storm. It was going to take him a while to absorb all of this, but one thing stood out in clear relief in his mind.
He remembered Dr. Shields saying in regards to Paine: He was married, when he was a younger man. His wife perished from an illness that caused her to suffer fits until she died. Why, then, did Paine contend he had never been married?
"Magistrate? Do you wish to keep the poppets?" Paine repeated.
"Oh! Uh . . . yes, I do," Woodward answered, in his tortured whisper. "They shall become the court's property."
"Very well, then." He fired a look at Rachel that, were it a can-nonshot, might have cleaved through the hull of a warship. "I'd beware that one and her nasty tongue, sir! She holds such a grudge against me I'm surprised my murder wasn't on her list of crimes!"
"Face the magistrate and deny that what I've said is the truth!" Rachel all but shouted.
Woodward had endured enough of this discord. For want of a better instrument, he picked up the Bible and slapped it down against the desk's edge. "Hush!" he said, as loudly as he could; instantly he paid the price in pain, and tears welled up.
"Madam Howarth?" Matthew said. "I think it wise to be silent."
Paine added, "I think it wise to begin cutting the stake for her execution!"
This sarcastic remark bruised Matthew's sense of propriety, especially following on the heels of such heated wranglings. His voice tightened. "Mr. Paine, it would interest me to know if what Madam Howarth claims about you is true."
"Would it, now?" Paine put his hands on his hips. "You're overstepping your bounds, aren't you, clerk?"
"May I speak for you, sir?" Matthew asked Woodward, and the magistrate didn't hesitate to nod his assent. "There, Mr. Paine. My bounds are more clearly defined. Now: are these claims true or false?"
"I didn't know I was to be a witness today. I might've worn a better suit."
"Your delay in answering," Matthew said, "delays the outcome of this trial. Shall you be instructed to sit down and swear truth on the Bible?"
"You might instruct it, but I doubt you could enforce it."
"Yes, I'm sure you're correct. I'm no duellist, either."
Paine's face had taken on a reddish cast. "Listen to me! I didn't want to fight that man, and if he'd insulted me in private I would have let it go! But he had to test me in public, right there at Van Gundy's! What could I do but call him out? He had the choice of weapons, and the fool chose pistols instead of blades! I would've given him a single cut and called it done!" He shook his head, his expression taking on a hint of regret. "But no, Summers wanted heart's blood. Well, his pistol misfired and the ball hardly rolled out of the muzzle! Still, that was his shot. Then it was mine. I aimed for the meat of his shoulder, which I squarely hit. How would I know he was such a bleeder?"
"You might have fired at the earth," Matthew said. "Isn't that acceptable when the first shot misfires?"
"Not by my rules," came the chill reply. "If a man aims a weapon at me, whether it's a pistol or a dagger, he must account for it. I've been stabbed between the ribs before and shot through my leg; so I hold no sympathy for anyone who tries to do me harm! No matter if he is a farmer!"
"You suffered these wounds during your career at sea?" Matthew asked.
"The stab, yes. The shot . . . was a later incident." He stared at the clerk with fresh interest. "What do you know of my career at sea?"
"Just that you were a seaman aboard a brigantine. Mr. Bid-well told me. A brigantine is a fast ship, isn't it? In fa
ct, brigantines are the vessels of choice by pirates, are they not?"
"They are. And they are also the vessels of choice by those who would hunt pirates in service of the trading companies."
"That was your profession, then?"
"Hardly a profession. I was sixteen years old, hot-tempered and eager to fight. I served one year and four months on a coastal patrol before a black-flagger's rapier laid me low. That was the end of my saltwater adventures."
"Oh," Matthew said quietly. "I see."
"What? Did you think me a pirate?"
"I wondered." Now that the subject had been opened, he had to ask the next question as well: "Might I inquire . . . who taught you to roll your tobacco in the Spanish fashion?"
"A Spaniard, of course," Paine said. "A prisoner aboard ship. He had no teeth, but he dearly loved his cigars. I think he was hanged with one in his mouth."
"Oh," Matthew repeated. His suspicions concerning the Spanish spy had just fallen to pieces like shattered mirrorglass, and he felt an utter fool.
"All right, I admit it! " Paine lifted his hands. "Yes, I have done the things the witch claims, but they were not all my doing! Lucretia Vaughan came after me like a shewolf! I couldn't walk the street without being near attacked by her! A match can only bear so much friction before it flames, and a single hot blaze is all I gave her! You know how such things happen!"
"Um ..." Matthew inspected the tip of his quill. "Well . . . yes, such things do happen."
"And perhaps—perhaps—my eye does wander. I did, at one point, feel an attraction to the witch. Before she was a witch, I mean. You must admit, she's a handsome piece. Is she not?"
"My opinion is of no consequence." Matthew blushed so furiously that his face hurt.
"You do admit it. You'd have to be blind if you did not. Well,
I may have looked in her direction once or twice, but I never laid a hand on her. I had respect for her husband."
"I'd be amazed if you had respect for anyone!" Rachel said sharply.
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