Speaks the Nightbird mc-1

by Robert R. McCammon

  "If it's possible."

  "It is. I wish you to walk out of here and not return."

  Matthew hadn't known what to expect, but this request was as painful—and as startling—as a slap across the face.

  Rachel watched him intently. When he failed to respond, she said, "It is more than a wish, it is a demand. I want you to put this place behind you. As I said before: go on about your life." Still he couldn't summon an answer. Rachel came forward two more paces and touched his hand that gripped the bar. "Thank you for your belief in me, " she said, her face close to his. "Thank you for listening. But it's over now. Please understand that, and accept it."

  Matthew found his voice, though it was near perished. "How can I go on about my life, knowing such injustice was done?"

  She gave him a faint, wry smile. "Injustice is done somewhere every day. It is a fact of living. If you don't already know that to be true, you are much less worldly than I thought." She sighed, and let her hand fall away from his. "Go away, Matthew. You've done your best."

  "No, I haven't."

  "You have. If you need me to release you from some imagined obligation to me... there." Rachel waved her hand past his face. "You are released."

  "I cannot just walk out of here like that, " he said.

  "You have no choice." Again, she levelled her gaze at him.

  "Go on, now. Leave me alone." She turned away and went back to her bench.

  "I will not give up, " Matthew said. "You may... but I swear I won't."

  over toward her waterbowl. She cupped her hand into it and brought water to her mouth.

  "I won't, " he repeated. "Do you hear me?" She pulled her hood over her head, shrouding her face once more, and withdrew into her mansion of solitude.

  Matthew realized he might stand here as long as he pleased, but Rachel had removed herself to a sanctum that only she could inhabit. He suspected it was the place of reflection—perhaps of the memories of happier times—that had kept her mind from cracking during the long hours of her imprisonment. He realized also, with a twist of anguish, that he was no longer welcome in her company. She did not wish to be distracted from her inner dialogue with Death.

  It was indeed time to leave her. Still he lingered, watching her immobile figure. He hoped she might say something again to him, but she was silent. After a few moments he went to the door. There was no movement or response from Rachel. He started to speak once more, but he knew not what to say. Goodbye seemed the only proper word, yet he was loath to utter it. He walked out into the cruel sunlight.

  Shortly the smell of charred wood drifted to his nostrils, and he paused at the pile of blackened ruins. There was hardly anything left to attest that it had ever been a schoolhouse. All four walls were gone, and the roof had fallen in. He wondered if somewhere in the debris might be the wire handle of what had been a bucket.

  Matthew had almost told Rachel about his findings of last night, but he'd decided not to for the same reason he'd decided to withhold the information from Bidwell: for the moment, the secret was best kept locked in his own vault. He needed an answer to the question of why Winston was spiriting infernal fire from Charles Town and using it to set flame to Bidwell's dream. He also needed from Winston further details—if the man could supply them—of the so-called surveyor who'd come to Fount Royal. Therefore his mission this morning was clear: to find Edward Winston.

  He inquired from the first person he saw—a pipe-smoking farmer carrying a flasket of yellow grain—as to the location of Winston's house, and was informed that the dwelling stood on Harmony Street just shy of the cemetery. Matthew started off to his destination, walking at a brisk pace.

  The house did stand within a stone's toss of the first row of grave markers. Matthew noted that the shutters were sealed, indicating that Winston must be out. It was by no means a large dwelling, and probably only held two or three rooms. The house had been painted white at some point in the past but the whitewash had worn off, leaving a mottled appearance to the walls. It occurred to Matthew that—unlike Bidwell's mansion and some of the sturdier farmhouses—Winston's abode had an air of shoddy impermanence akin to that found in the slave quarters. Matthew continued up the walk, which was made of packed sand and hammer-crushed oyster shells, and knocked soundly at the door.

  There was but a short wait. "Who is it?" came Winston's voice—rough-edged and perhaps a bit slurred—from within the house.

  "Matthew Corbett. May I please speak with you?"

  "Concerning what?" This time he was making an obvious effort to disguise what might be termed an unbalanced condition. "The witch?"

  "No, sir. Concerning a surveyor who came to Fount Royal four years ago." Silence fell. "Mr. Bidwell has told me you walked the man around, " Matthew pressed on. "I'd like to know what you might recall of him."

  "I... have no recollection of such a man. If you'll forgive me now... I have some ledger business to attend to."

  Matthew doubted that Winston had any business other than drinking and plotting more conflagrations. "I do have some information pertaining to Rachel Howarth. Might you want to see the magistrate's decision? I've just come from reading it to her."

  Almost at once there was the sound of a latch being undone. The door opened a few inches, enough for a slice of sunlight to enter the house and fall upon Winston's haggard, unshaven face. "The decision?" he said, squinting in the glare. "You have it with you?"

  "I do." Matthew held up the rolled document. "May I come in?"

  Winston hesitated, but Matthew knew the die had been cast. The door was opened wide enough to admit Matthew and then closed again at his back.

  Within the small front room, two candles burned on a wicker table. Beside the candles, and set before the bench that Winston had been occupying, was a squat blue bottle and a wooden tankard. Up until this moment Matthew had thought Winston to be—judging from his usual neatness of appearance and his precise manners—a paradigm of efficiency, but Matthew's opinion suddenly suffered a sharp reversal.

  The room might have sickened a pig. On the floor lay scattered shirts, stockings, and breeches that Winston had not bothered to pick up. The smell of damp and musty cloth—coupled with body odor from some of the gamier articles—was somewhat less than appealing. Also littering the floor were crumpled balls of paper, spilled tobacco, a broken clay pipe here and there, a few books whose bindings had come unstitched, and sundry other items that had outlived their use but not been consigned to a proper garbage pit. Even the narrow little hearth was near choked with cold ashes and bits of trash. In fact, it might be within bounds to say that the entire room resembled a garbage pit, and Matthew shuddered to think what Winston's bedchamber might conceal. A bucket of sulphurous chemicals might be the least noxious of it.

  Nearby stood the desk that Winston had recovered from the gaol. Now Matthew understood why it had been so thoroughly cleaned out when Winston had it carted over, as its surface was a jumbled mess of more crumpled and ink-splattered papers, a number of candles melted down to stubs, and a disorderly pile of ledger books. Matthew was surprised that Winston had been able to lay his hands on a clean sheaf of paper and an unspilled inkjar in this rat's nest. It occurred to him, in his brief but telling inspection, that all Winston's business with Bidwell was done at the mansion because Winston wished not to reveal his living conditions—and possibly the condition of his mental affairs—to his employer.

  Winston was pouring liquid from the blue bottle into his tankard. He wore a long gray nightshirt that bore evidence of many poor repatchings, as well as several small scorched holes that told Matthew the man's control of fire did not extend to power over a spilled pipe. "So, " Winston said. "The decree's been made, eh?" He downed some of his pleasure, which Matthew assumed was either hard cider or rum. "Bring it over here and spread it out."

  Matthew did, but he kept a hand on the document, as it was his charge. Winston leaned over and read the ornate handwriting. "No surprises there, I see. She's to be burned on Monda
y, then?"

  "Yes."

  "High time. She should've gone to the stake a month ago; we'd all be the better for it."

  Matthew rolled the decree up again. He cast a disdainful eye about his surroundings. "Do you always live in this fashion?"

  Winston had been about to drink again, but the tankard's ascent paused. "No, " he said with sarcasm. "My servants have been called away. Ordinarily I have a footman, a parlor wench, and a chamberpot scrubber." The tankard went to his mouth and he wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "You may go now, Sir Reverence."

  Matthew smiled slightly, but his face was tight. Sir Reverence was gutter slang for human excrement. "You must have had a late night, " he said.

  "A late night?" Winston's eyebrows went up. "Meaning what?"

  "Meaning... a late night. I had assumed you were an early riser, and therefore must have been working into the small hours."

  "Working." He nodded. "Yes. I'm always working." He motioned toward the ledger-laden desk. "See there? Managing his money. His pence and guineas and dog dollars. His ins and outs. That's what I do."

  "You don't sound particularly proud of your accomplishments for Mr. Bidwell, " Matthew ventured. "He must rely on your services quite a lot, doesn't he?"

  Winston stared at Matthew, his bloodshot eyes wary. "You may go now, " he repeated, with a more ominous inflection.

  "I shall. But Mr. Bidwell himself suggested I find you and ask about the surveyor. As you were the one who escorted the man around, I hoped that—"

  "A surveyor? I hardly remember the man!" Again Winston quaffed from the tankard, and this time the gleaming residue trickled down his chin. "What was it? Four years ago?"

  "Or thereabouts."

  "Go on, get out!" Winston sneered. "I don't have time for your foolishness!"

  Matthew took a deep breath. "Yes, you do, " he answered.

  "What? By God, will I have to throw you out of here?"

  Matthew said quietly, "I know about your nocturnal activities."

  The hand of God might have come down to stop time and still all sounds.

  Matthew went on, taking advantage of the moment. "In addition, I have one of the six buckets that Mr. Rawlings and the others buried. Therefore it's no use to go out tonight and move them. The seventh bucket you took away is hidden here somewhere, I presume?"

  The hand of God was a mighty instrument. It had turned Edward Winston into a gape-mouthed statue. In another few seconds, however, the tankard slipped from Winston's grasp and crashed to the floor.

  "I presume it is, " Matthew said. "You used a brush to paint the chemicals on the walls of the houses you set afire, am I correct? It does seem to be a potent concoction."

  Winston did not move, did not speak, and hardly appeared to be breathing. The color of his face and the somber grisard of his nightshirt were one and the same.

  Matthew spent a moment looking around the littered room before he spoke again. "This is what I believe, " he said. "That on one of your supply trips to Charles Town with Nicholas Paine, you approached someone of authority there. Possibly Mr. Danforth, the harbormaster, but possibly someone with more interest in seeing that Fount Royal never grows to Bidwell's ambition. I suspect you might have sent Mr. Paine on some errand or another while you made this contact. He doesn't know, does he?"

  Matthew hadn't expected Winston to reply, therefore he was not disappointed. "I don't think he knows, " Matthew said. "I think this is your intrigue alone. You volunteered to take advantage of Rachel Howarth's plight and set numerous fires to empty houses, thus speeding along the process of emptying more. Am I so far correct?" Winston slowly sank down upon his bench, his mouth still open.

  "The problem was that you needed an incendiary to ignite in wet weather." Matthew prodded some discarded clothes with the toe of his right shoe. "The buckets of chemicals had to be mixed in Charles Town and secreted here by ship. The crew must have had some rough voyages, I'd suspect. But Mr. Rawlings must be making a profit for his risk. I would think you are making a profit for your risk as well. Or perhaps you've been promised a position in Charles Town after Fount Royal fails?"

  Winston lifted a hand and put it to his forehead, his eyes glassy with shock.

  "It is to your credit that you don't mar your dignity with denials, " Matthew offered. "I am curious, though. Bidwell tells me you've been in his employ for eight years. Why did you turn against him?"

  Now both hands were pressed to Winston's face. He breathed raggedly, his shoulders slumped.

  "I have seen enough of human nature to have an idea." Matthew went to the cluttered desk and opened one of the ledger books. He flipped through the pages as he spoke. "You know more than anyone else how much Bidwell is worth. You see his wealth on display, you see his plans for the future, and you see... your own existence, which according to the way you live is at a low flux. So I would venture to say this revolves around your own perceived misery. Did they promise you a mansion in Charles Town? A statue in your honor? What exactly did they promise, Mr. Winston?"

  Winston reached with a feeble hand for the blue bottle, brought it to his mouth, and took a long swallow of courage. When he lowered the bottle, he blinked away tears and said, "Money."

  "Considerably more than Bidwell was paying you, yes?"

  "More than... I could hope to earn in two lifetimes." Again he drank copiously from the bottle. "You don't know what it's like, working for him. Being around him... and all that he has. He spends on wigs alone every year an amount I might live on as a prince. And the clothes and food! If you knew the numbers, you would understand and be sickened as I am by the man's philosophy: not a shilling more for a servant's needs, but spare no expense for the master's desires!"

  "I won't defend him, but I will say that such is the right of a master."

  "It is the right of no man!" Winston said heatedly. "I have an education, I am literate, and I consider myself reasonably bright! But I might as well be a slave, as far as he's concerned! I might even be the better for it!" He laughed harshly. "At least Bidwell cares enough about Goode to have bought him a fiddle!"

  "The difference is that Goode is a slave and you're a free man. You can choose your employer. Then again..." Matthew nodded. "I suppose you have."

  "Oh, be as smug as you please!" Winston turned upon Matthew an expression of the deepest disgust. "Look at my house, and look at his! Then look in the ledgers and see who directs the course of his monies! I do! He pretends to be such a sterling businessman, but in fact he is skilled at two things: intimidation and bluster. I ought to be a partner in his enterprises, for what I've encouraged! But it has been clearly and plainly shown to me by his actions that Bidwell takes good opinions and presents them as his own."

  He held up a finger to mark his point. "Now, failed ventures... that's a different cart. Failure is always the fault of someone else... someone who invariably deserves to be banished from the kingdom. I have seen it happen. When Fount Royal fails—and it will, regardless of how many houses I flamed and how long the witch roasts on her stake—he will begin to fire his cannons of blame at every possible target. Including this one." He thumped his chest with his fist. "Do you think I should sit at his beck and call and await a further slide into poverty? No. For your information—-and whatever you choose to do with it—I did not do the approaching. They approached me, when Paine and I were on separate tasks in Charles Town. At first I refused... but they sweetened their offer with a house and a position on the Shipping Council. It was my idea to set the fires."

  "And a clever idea it was, " Matthew said. "You hid behind Rachel Howarth's skirts and the Devil's shadow. Did it not trouble you in the least that these fires were ascribed to her?"

  "No, " he answered without hesitation. "If you'll read that document you hold, you'll find there's no charge there concerning the setting of fires. She fashioned the poppets, committed the murders, and consorted with Satan of her own accord. I simply used the situation to my benefit."

  "Simply?
" Matthew echoed. "I don't think there's anything simpleminded about you, Mr. Winston. I think coldly might be a better word."

  "As you please." Winston offered a bitter smile. "I have learned from Bidwell that one fights fire with fire and ice with ice." His eyes narrowed. "So. You have a bucket. I presume you were hiding out there?" He waited for Matthew to nod. "Who else knows?"

  "If you are considering violence as a solution, you might think otherwise. Someone else does know, but your secret is in no current danger."

  Winston frowned. "What, then? Aren't you going to go running to Bidwell and tell him?"

  "No, I'm not. As you've pointed out, the fires were incidental in the charges against Madam Howarth. I am hunting a smarter—and colder—fox than you."

  "Pardon my dulled wits, but what are you talking about?"

  "Your grievance against Bidwell is not my concern. Whatever you choose to do from this point is not of interest to me, either. As long as there are no future conflagrations, I might add."

  Winston let go a sigh of relief. "Sir, " he said, "I bow gratefully before your mercy."

  "My mercy has a price. I wish to know about the surveyor."

  "The surveyor, " Winston repeated. He rubbed his temples with both hands. "I tell you... I can hardly recall the man. Why do you care to know about him, anyway?"

  "My interest is a personal matter. Do you remember his name?"

  "No. Wait... give me a moment..." He closed his eyes, obviously trying his best to concentrate. "I think... it was Spencer ... Spicer... something similar to that, at least." His eyes opened.

  "The man was bearded?"

  "Yes... a heavy beard. And he wore a hat."

  "A tricorn?"

  "No. It was... a loose-brimmed shade hat. Much like any farmer or traveller might wear. I remember... his clothing was rustic, as well."

  "You took him walking around Fount Royal. How much time would you say you spent with him?"