“Why? What is you wish to know about Edward?”
“Not about Mr. Winston. About the spring.”
Bidwell looked as if he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “The spring? Have you lost your senses altogether?”
“The spring,” Matthew repeated firmly. “I’d like to know how it came to be found, and when.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you? Lord, you really are!” Bidwell started to blast at Matthew, but all the air seemed to leave him before he could gather himself. “You have worn me out,” he admitted. “You have absolutely tattered my rag.”
“Humor me, as it is such a beautiful morning,” Matthew said steadfastly. “I repeat my promise not to plague you again, if you’ll tell me how you came to find the spring.”
Bidwell laughed quietly and shook his head. “All right, then. You must know that, in addition to royally funded explorers, there are men for hire who will carry out private explorations for individuals or companies. It was one of these that I contracted to find a settlement area with a fresh water source at least forty miles south of Charles Town. I stressed the fact that access to the sea was needed, yet a direct seafront was not necessary. I could drain a marsh, therefore the presence of such was tolerable. I also needed an abundance of hardwood and an area defensible from pirates and Indian raiders. When the proper place was found—this place—I presented the findings and my plans to the royal court, whereupon I waited two months for a grant to purchase the land.”
“It was given readily?” Matthew asked. “Or did anyone attempt to block the grant?”
“Word had gotten to Charles Town. A coalition of their paid magpies swooped in and tried to dissuade the transaction, but I was already ahead of them. I had greased so many palms I could be called an oil pot, and I even added free giltwork to the yacht of the colonial administrator so he might turn heads on his jaunts up and down the Thames.”
“But you hadn’t visited this area before you made the purchase?”
“No, I trusted Aronzel Hearn. The man I’d hired.” Bidwell took his snuffbox from his coat pocket, opened it, and noisily sniffed a pinch. “I saw a map, of course. It suited my needs, that’s all I had to know.”
“What of the spring?”
“What of it, boy?” Bidwell’s patience was fraying like a rope rubbing splintered wood.
“I know the land was mapped,” Matthew said, “but what of the spring? Did Hearn take a sounding of it? How deep is it, and from where does the water come?”
“It comes from…I don’t know. Somewhere.” Bidwell took another sniff. “I do know there are other smaller springs out in the wilderness. Solomon Stiles has seen them, and drunk from them, on his hunting trips. I suppose they’re all connected underground. As far as the depth is concerned…” He stopped, with his snuff-pinched fingers poised near his nostrils. “Now that’s strange,” he said.
“What is?”
“Speaking of the spring like this. I remember someone else asking me similar questions.”
At once Matthew’s bloodhound sense came to full alert. “Who was it?”
“It was…a surveyor who came to town. Perhaps a year or so after we began building. He was mapping the road between Charles Town and here, and wished to map Fount Royal as well. I recall he was interested in the depth of the spring.”
“So he took a sounding?”
“Yes, he did. He’d been set upon by Indians several miles from our gate. The savages had stolen all his instruments, therefore I had Hazelton fashion him a rope with a sounding weight tied at the end. I also had a raft built for him, that he might take his measurements from various areas of the fount.”
“Ah,” Matthew said quietly, his mouth dry. “A surveyor without instruments. Do you know if he discovered the spring’s depth?”
“As I remember, the deepest point was found to be some forty feet.”
“Was this surveyor travelling alone?”
“He was alone. On horseback. I recall he told me he had left the savages playing with his bag, and he felt lucky to escape with his hair. He had a full beard too, so I expect they might have sheared his face off to get it.”
“A beard,” Matthew said. “Was he young or old? Tall or short? Fat or thin?”
Bidwell stared blankly at him. “Your mind is as addled as a cockroach, isn’t it? What the bloody hell does it matter?”
“I would really like to know,” Matthew persisted. “What was his height?”
“Well…taller than me, I suppose. I don’t remember much about him but the beard.”
“What color was it?”
“I think…dark brown. There might have been some gray in it.” He scowled. “You don’t expect me to fully remember a man who passed through here four years ago, do you? And what’s the point of these foolish questions?”
“Where did he stay?” Matthew asked, oblivious to Bidwell’s rising ire. “Here in the house?”
“I offered him a room. As I recall, he refused and asked for the loan of a tent. He spent two or possibly three nights sleeping outside. I believe it was early September, and certainly warm enough.”
“Let me guess where the tent was pitched,” Matthew said. “Was it beside the spring?”
“I think it might have been. What of it?” Bidwell cocked his head to one side, flakes of snuff around his nostrils.
“I am working on a theory,” Matthew answered.
Bidwell giggled; it sounded like a woman’s laugh, it was so quick and high-pitched, and Bidwell instantly put his hand to his mouth and flushed crimson. “A theory,” he said, about to laugh again; in fact, he was straining so hard to hold back his merriment that his jowls and corncake-stuffed belly quivered. “By God, we must have our daily theories, mustn’t we?”
“Laugh if you like, but answer this: for whom was the surveyor working?”
“For whom? Why…one moment, I have a theory!” Bidwell widened his eyes in mockery. “I believe he must have been working for the Council of Lands and Plantations! There is such an administrative body, you know!”
“He told you he was working for this council, then?”
“Damn it, boy!” Bidwell shouted, the mighty schooner of his patience smashing out its belly on the rocks. “I’ve had enough of this!” He stalked past Matthew and out of the banquet room.
Matthew instantly followed him. “Please, sir!” he said as Bidwell walked to the staircase. “It’s important! Did this surveyor tell you his name?”
“Pah!” Bidwell replied, starting up the steps. “You’re as crazy as a loon!”
“His name! Can you recall it?”
Bidwell stopped, realizing he could not shake the flea that gave him such a maddening itch. He looked back at Matthew, his eyes ablaze. “No, I do not! Winston walked him about the town! Go ask him and leave me be! I swear, you could set Satan himself running for sanctuary!” He jabbed a finger toward the younger man. “But you won’t ruin this glorious day for me, no sirrah you won’t! The sun is out, praise God, and as soon as that damned witch is ashes this town will grow again! So go march to the gaol and tell her that Robert Bidwell has never failed, never, and will never be a failure!”
A figure suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs. Matthew saw him first, of course, and Matthew’s astonished expression made Bidwell jerk his head around.
Woodward braced himself against the wall, his flesh near the same hue as his pap-stained cotton nightgown. A sheen of sweat glistened on his sallow face, and his eyes were red-rimmed and weak with pain.
“Magistrate!” Bidwell climbed the risers to lend a supporting arm. “I thought you were sleeping!”
“I was,” he said hoarsely, though speaking with any volume caused his throat grievous suffering. “Who can sleep…during a duel of cannons?”
“I apologize, sir. Your clerk has roused my bad manners yet again.”
The magistrate stared down into Matthew’s face, and at once Matthew knew what had been important enough to force him from his bed.
“My deliberations are done,” Woodward said. “Come prepare a quill and paper.”
“You mean…you mean…” Bidwell could hardly contain himself. “You have reached your decision?”
“Come up, Matthew,” Woodward repeated, and then to Bidwell, “Will you help me to my bed, please?”
Bidwell might have bodily lifted the magistrate and carried him, but decorum prevailed. Matthew ascended the stairs, and together he and the master of Fount Royal took Woodward along the hallway to his room. Once settled in bed again and propped up on the blood-spotted pillow, Woodward said, “Thank you, Mr. Bidwell. You may depart.”
“If you don’t mind, I would like to stay and hear the decree.” Bidwell had already closed the door and claimed a position next to the bed.
“I do mind, sir. Until the decree is read to the accused”—Woodward paused to gasp a breath—“it is the court’s business. It would not be seemly otherwise.”
“Yes but—”
“Depart,” Woodward said. “Your presence delays our work.” He glanced irritably at Matthew, who stood at the foot of the bed. “The quill and paper! Now!” Matthew turned away to get the document box that also held sheets of clean paper, the quill, and the inkjar.
Bidwell went to the door, but before he left he had to try once again. “Tell me this, then: should I have the stake cut and planted?”
Woodward squeezed his eyes shut at Bidwell’s dogged disregard for propriety. Then he opened them and said tersely, “Sir…you may accompany Matthew to read my decree to the accused. Now please…leave us.”
“All right, then. I’m going.”
“And…Mr. Bidwell…please refrain from dawdling in the hall.”
“My word on it as a gentleman. I shall be waiting downstairs.” Bidwell left the room and closed the door.
Woodward stared out the window at the gold-tinged sun-illumed morning. It was going to be beautiful today, he thought. A more lovely morning than he’d seen in the better part of a month. “Date the decree,” he told Matthew, though it was hardly necessary.
Matthew sat upon the stool beside the bed, using the document box as a makeshift writing table propped on his knees. He dipped the quill into the ink and wrote at the top of the paper May Seventeenth, Sixteen-Ninety-Nine.
“Ready it,” Woodward prodded, his eyes fixed on the outside world.
Matthew scribed the preface, which he had done enough times in enough different circumstances to know the correct wording. It took him a few moments and a few dips of the quill: By Decree of the Right Honorable King’s Appointed Magistrate Isaac Temple Woodward on This Day in the Settlement of Fount Royal, Carolina Colony, Concerning the Accusations of Murder and Witchcraft to Be Detailed As Follows Against the Defendant, a Woman Citizen Known Hereby As Rachel Howarth…
He had to stop to work out a kink in his writing hand. “Go on,” Woodward said. “It must be done.”
Matthew had an ashen taste in his mouth. He dipped the quill again, and this time he spoke the words aloud as he wrote them: “On the Charge of the Murder of the Reverend Burlton Grove, I Find the Aforesaid Defendant—” He paused once more, his quill poised to record the magistrate’s decree. The flesh of his face seemed to have drawn tight beyond endurance, and a heat burned in his skull.
Suddenly Woodward snapped his fingers. Matthew looked at him quizzically, and when the magistrate put a finger to his lips and then motioned toward the door Matthew realized what he was trying to communicate. Matthew quietly put aside his writing materials and the document box, got up from the stool, went to the door, and quickly opened it.
Bidwell was down on one knee in the hallway, busily buffing his right shoe with his peacock-blue sleeve. He turned his head and looked at Matthew, lifting his eyebrows as if to ask why the clerk had emerged so stealthily from the magistrate’s room.
“Gentleman, my ass!” Woodward hissed under his breath.
“I thought you were going downstairs to wait,” Matthew reminded the man, who now ferociously buffed his shoetop and then heaved himself up to his feet with an air of indignance.
“Did I say I would race there? I saw a blemish on my shoe!”
“The blemish is on your vow, sir!” Woodward said, with a measure of fire that belied his watery constitution.
“Very well, then! I’m going.” Bidwell reached up and adjusted his wig, which had become somewhat tilted during his ascent from the floor. “Can you blame me for wanting to know? I’ve waited so long for it!”
“You can wait a little longer, then.” Woodward motioned him away. “Matthew, close the door.” Matthew resettled himself, with the box on his knees and the writing materials and paper before him.
“Read it again,” Woodward said.
“Yes, sir.” Matthew took a deep breath. “On the Charge of the Murder of the Reverend Burlton Grove, I Find the Aforesaid Defendant—”
“Guilty,” came the whispered answer. “With a stipulation. That the defendant did not actually commit the murder…but caused it to be committed by her words, deeds, or associations.”
“Sir!” Matthew said, his heart pounding. “Please! There’s absolutely no evidence to—”
“Silence!” Woodward lifted himself up on his elbows, his face contorted with a mixture of anger, frustration, and pain. “I’ll have no more of your second opinions, do you hear me?” He locked his gaze with Matthew’s. “Scribe the next charge.”
Matthew might have thrown down the quill and upset the inkjar, but he did not. He knew his duties, whether or not he agreed with the magistrate’s decision. Therefore he swallowed the bitter gall in his throat, redipped the quill—that bastard weapon of blind destruction—and spoke again as he wrote: “On the Charge of the Murder of Daniel Howarth, I Find the Aforesaid Defendant—”
“Guilty, with a stipulation. The same as above.” Woodward glared at him when Matthew’s hand failed to make the entry. “I should like to finish this sometime today.”
Matthew had no choice but to write down the decree. The heat of shame flared in his cheeks. Now, of course, he knew what the next decision must be. “On the Charge of Witchcraft…I Find the Aforesaid Defendant—”
“Guilty,” Woodward said quickly. He closed his eyes and rested his head back down on the stained pillow, his breathing harsh. Matthew heard a rattling sound deep in the magistrate’s lungs. “Scribe the preface to sentencing.”
Matthew wrote it as if in a trance. By Virtue of the Power Ascribed to Me As Colonial Magistrate, I Hereby Sentence the Aforesaid Defendant Rachel Howarth to…He lifted his quill from the paper and waited.
Woodward opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. A moment passed, during which could be heard the singing of birds in the springtime sunlight. “Burning at the stake, as warranted by the King’s law,” Woodward said. “The sentence to be carried out on Monday, the twenty-second of May, sixteen-ninety-nine. In case of inclement weather…the earliest necessary date following.” His gaze ticked toward Matthew, who had not moved. “Enter it.”
Again, he was simply the unwitting flesh behind the instrument. Somehow the lines were quilled on the paper.
“Give it here.” Woodward held out his hand and took the document. He squinted, reading it by the light that streamed through the window, and then he nodded with satisfaction. “The quill, please.” Matthew had the presence of mind—or rather the dignity of his job—to dip the quill in the inkjar and blot the excess before he handed it over.
Woodward signed his full name and, below it, the title Colonial Magistrate. Ordinarily an official wax seal would be added, but the seal had been lost to that blackhearted Will Shawcombe. He then returned the paper and the quill to Matthew, who knew what was expected of him. Still moving as if enveloped in a gray haze, Matthew signed his name beneath Woodward’s, along with the title Magistrate’s Clerk.
And it was done.
“You may read it to the defendant,” Woodward said, avoiding looking at his clerk’s face because he knew what he would see the
re. “Take Bidwell with you, as he should also hear it.”
Matthew realized there was no use in delaying the inevitable. He slowly stood up, his mind yet fogged, and walked to the door with the decree in hand.
“Matthew?” Woodward said, “For whatever this is worth…I know you must think me heartless and cruel.” He hesitated, swallowing thick pus. “But the proper sentence has been given. The witch must be burned…for the good of everyone.”
“She is innocent,” Matthew managed to say, his gaze cast to the floor. “I can’t prove anything yet, but I intend to keep—”
“You delude yourself…and it is time for delusions to cease.”
Matthew turned toward the man, his eyes coldly furious. “You are wrong, sir,” he added. “Rachel is not a witch, she’s a pawn. Oh yes, all the conditions for a burning at the stake have been met, and all is in order with the law, sir, but I am damned if I’ll let someone I know to be innocent lose her life on hearsay and fantasy!”
Woodward rasped, “Your task is to read the decree! No more and no less!”
“I’ll read it.” Matthew nodded. “Then I’ll drink rum to wash my mouth out, but I will not surrender! If she burns on Monday, I have five days to prove her innocent, and by God that’s what I intend to do!”
Woodward started to answer with some vinegar, but his strength failed him. “Do what you must,” he said. “I can’t…protect you from your nightbird, can I?”
“The only thing I fear is that Rachel is burned before I can prove who murdered her husband and Reverend Grove. If that happens, I don’t know how I can live with myself.”
“Oh, my Christ.” It had been spoken as nearly a moan. Woodward closed his eyes, feeling faint. “She has you so deeply…and you don’t even realize it.”
“She has my trust, if that’s what you infer.”
“She has your soul.” His eyes opened; in an instant they had become sunken and bloodshot. “I long for the moment we shall leave this place. Return to Charles Town…civilization and sanity. When I am cured and in good health again, we’ll put all this behind us. And then…when you can see clearly…you’ll understand what danger tempted you.”
Speaks the Nightbird Page 48