Speaks the Nightbird

by Robert R. McCammon

  This pit of deceit was deeper than he’d expected. But what did it have to do with Rachel? Linch was obviously a learned, intelligent man who could write with a quill and read books of theoretical substance; he was also quite well off financially, judging from the sapphire brooch. Why in the world was he acting such a wretched part?

  And then there was the singing to consider. Had Violet gone into the Hamilton house or not? If she had, why didn’t she notice the disagreeable odor of that dead dog? And if she had not gone in, then what strange power had made her believe she had? No, no; it was confusing to even his disciplined mind. The most troubling things about Violet’s supposed entrance into the house were her sighting of the white-haired imp and her memory of the six gold buttons on Satan’s cloak. Those details she shared with Buckner and Garrick were damnable evidence against Rachel. But what about the ratcatcher singing in that dark room where Matthew had found the bitch and her pups? One might say Violet had imagined it, but then could one not infer that she’d imagined the whole incident? But she could not imagine details that had already been supplied by Buckner and Garrick!

  So: if Violet had entered the house, why was the ratcatcher singing back there in the dark? And if she had not entered the house, why—and how—did she fervently believe she had, and from where did those details of the white-haired imp and the six gold buttons come?

  He was thinking so furiously on these questions that he failed to gird his wits for his return engagement with Exodus Jerusalem, but he found that the preacher’s tongue had ceased its salivation over orifices. Indeed, Jerusalem, the trio of audience, and the so-called sister and the so-called nephew had departed and were nowhere to be seen. Matthew was soon aware, however, of a balhaloo in progress on Harmony Street. He saw four covered wagons and fifteen or twenty townspeople thronged about them. A lean gray-bearded man wearing a green tricorn sat at the reins of the first wagon’s team and was engaged in conversation with Bidwell. Matthew also saw Winston standing behind his master; the cur had gone to some effort to shave and dress in clean clothes to make a presentable picture, and he was speaking to a young blond-haired man who appeared to be a companion to the wagon driver.

  Matthew approached a farmer standing nearby. “May I ask what’s going on?”

  “The maskers have come,” the man, who had perhaps three teeth in his head, answered.

  “Maskers? You mean actors?”

  “That’s right. They come every year and show a play. Weren’t expected ’til midsummer, though.”

  Matthew was amazed at the tenacity of a travelling actors’ troupe to negotiate the bone-jarring road between here and Charles Town. He recalled a book on the English theater he’d seen in Bidwell’s library, and realized Bidwell had engineered a yearly entertainment—a midsummer festival, so to speak—for his citizenry.

  “Now we’ll have a fine time!” the farmer said, grinning that cavernous mouth. “A witch-burnin’ in the morn and a play in the eve!”

  Matthew did not reply. He observed that the gray-bearded man, who appeared to be the troupe’s leader, seemed to be asking instructions or directions from Bidwell. The master of Fount Royal conferred for a moment with Winston, whose outward mannerisms gave no inkling that he was anything but a loyal servant. Then, the conference done, Bidwell spoke again to the bearded man and motioned westward along Industry Street. Matthew realized Bidwell must be telling the man where the actors might set up their camp. He would have paid an admission fee to hear the thoughts of Exodus Jerusalem when the preacher learned his neighbors would be thespians. Then again, Jerusalem might make some extra coins by giving the players acting lessons.

  Matthew went on his way, avoiding contact with Bidwell and the scoundrel in his shadow. He paused for a short while at the spring, watching the golden sunlight ripple on the water’s surface. It entered his mind to go to the gaol and look in on Rachel; in fact, he felt an urgent need to see her, but with a considerable effort of willpower he declined. She had made it clear she did not want his presence there, and as much as it pained him, he must respect her wishes.

  He returned to the house, found Mrs. Nettles, and asked if he might have some lunch. After a quick repast of corn soup and buttered bread, he ascended the stairs to his room and settled in a chair by the open window to contemplate his findings and to finish reading through the documents.

  He could not shake the feeling, as he read the answers to the questions he had posed, that a revelation was close at hand. He only dimly heard the singing of birds and sensed the warmth of the sun, as all his attention was focused on these responses. There had to be something in here—something small, something overlooked—that might be a key to prove Rachel’s innocence. As he read, however, he was distracted by two things: first, the bellringing and braying voice of a public crier announcing the magistrate’s decree even in the slave quarters; and second, the sound of an axe chopping timber in the woods between the mansion and the tidewater swamp.

  Matthew reached the end of the documents. He had found nothing. He realized he was looking for a shadow that may or may not exist, and to find it—if it was discoverable—he must concentrate on reading between the lines. He ran a weary hand over his face, and began once more from the beginning.

  twenty-eight

  LANTERNS GLOWED across Fount Royal, and the stars shone down.

  Isaac Woodward inhabited a realm that lay somewhere between twilight and Tartarus. The agony of his swollen throat had spread now through his every nerve and fiber, and the act of breathing seemed itself a defiance toward the will of God. His flesh was slick with sweat and sore with fever. Sleep would fall upon him like a heavy shroud, bearing him into blessed insensibility, but while he was awake his vision was as blurred as a candle behind soot-filmed glass. In spite of all these torments, however, the worst was that he was keenly aware of his condition. The deterioration of his body had not yet reached his mind, and thus he had sense enough to realize he was perilously close to the grave’s edge.

  “Will you help me turn him over?” Dr. Shields asked Matthew and Mrs. Nettles.

  Matthew hesitated, his own face pallid in the light from a double candleholder to which was fixed a circle of reflective mirror. “What are you going to do?”

  Dr. Shields pushed his spectacles up on the bridge of his nose. “The afflicted blood is pooling in his body,” he answered. “It must be moved. Stirred up from its stagnant ponds, if you will.”

  “Stirred up? How? By more bleeding?”

  “No. I think at this point the lancet will not perform its necessary function.”

  “How, then?” Matthew insisted.

  “Mrs. Nettles,” the doctor said curtly, “if you’ll please assist me?”

  “Yes sir.” She took hold of Woodward’s arm and leg on one side and Shields took the opposite side.

  “All right, then. Turn him toward me,” Shields instructed. “Magistrate, can you help us at all?”

  “I shall try,” Woodward whispered.

  Together, the doctor and Mrs. Nettles repositioned Woodward so he lay on his stomach. Matthew was torn about whether to give a hand, for he feared what Dr. Shields had decided to do. The magistrate gave a single groan during the procedure, but otherwise bore the pain and indignity like a gentleman.

  “Very well.” Dr. Shields looked across the bed at Mrs. Nettles. “I shall have to lift his gown up, as his back must be bared.”

  “What procedure is this?” Matthew asked. “I demand to know!”

  “For your information, young man, it is a time-tested procedure to move the blood within the body. It involves heat and a vacuum effect. Mrs. Nettles, would you remove yourself, please? For the sake of decorum?”

  “Shall I wait outside?”

  “No, that won’t be necessary. I shall call if you’re needed.” He paused while Mrs. Nettles left the room, and when the door was again closed he said to Woodward, “I am going to pull your gown up to your shoulders, Isaac. Whatever help you may give me is much appreciat
ed.”

  “Yes,” came the muffled reply. “Do what is needed.”

  The doctor went about the business of exposing Woodward’s buttocks and back. Matthew saw that at the base of the magistrate’s spine was a bed sore about two inches in diameter, bright red at its center and outlined with yellow infection. A second, smaller, but no less malignant sore had opened on the back of Woodward’s right thigh.

  Dr. Shields opened his bag, brought out a pair of supple deerskin gloves, and began to put them on. “If your stomach is weak,” he said quietly to Matthew, “you should follow Mrs. Nettles. I need no further complications.”

  “My stomach is fine,” Matthew lied. “What…is the procedure?”

  The doctor reached into the bag again and brought out a small glass sphere, its surface marred only by a circular opening with a pronounced curved rim. The rim, Matthew saw with sickened fascination, had been discolored dark brown by the application of fire. “As I said before…heat and vacuum.” From the pocket of his tan waistcoat he produced the fragrant piece of sassafras root, which he deftly pushed to the magistrate’s lips. “Isaac, there will be some pain involved, and we wish your tongue not to be injured.” Woodward accepted the tongue-guard and sank his teeth into the accustomed grooves. “Young man, will you hold the candles, please?”

  Matthew picked up the double candlestick from the table beside Woodward’s bed. Dr. Shields leaned forward and stroked the sphere’s rim from one flame to the other in a circular motion, all the time staring into Matthew’s eyes in order to gauge his nerves. As he continued to heat the rim, Shields said, “Magistrate, I am going to apply a blister cup to your back. The first of six. I regret the sensation, but the afflicted blood will be caused to rise to the surface from the internal organs and that is our purpose. Are you ready, sir?”

  Woodward nodded, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Shields held the cup’s opening directly over the flames for perhaps five seconds. Then, rapidly and without hesitation, he pressed the hot glass rim down upon Woodward’s white flesh a few inches upward from the virulent bedsore.

  There was a small noise—a snake’s hiss, perhaps—and the cup clamped tightly as the heated air within compressed itself. An instant after the hideous contact was made, Woodward cried out around the sassafras root and his body shivered in a spasm of pure, animal pain.

  “Steady,” Shields said, speaking to both the magistrate and his clerk. “Let nature do its work.”

  Matthew could see that already the flesh caught within the blister cup was swelling and reddening. Dr. Shields had brought a second cup from his bag, and again let the flames lick its cruel rim. After the procedure of heating the air inside the cup, the glass was pressed to Woodward’s back with predictable and—at least to Matthew—spine-crawling result.

  By the time the third cup was affixed, the flesh within the first had gone through the stages of red to scarlet and now was blood-gorged and turning brown like a maliferous poison mushroom.

  Shields had the fourth cup in his gloved hand. He offered it to the candle flames. “We shall see a play directly, I understand,” he said, his voice divorced from his actions. “The citizens do enjoy the maskers every year.”

  Matthew didn’t answer. He was watching the first brown mushroom of flesh becoming still darker, and the other two following the path of swollen discoloration.

  “Usually,” the doctor went on, “they don’t arrive until the middle of July or so. I understand from Mr. Brightman—he’s the leader of the company—that two towns they customarily play in were decimated by sickness, and a third had vanished altogether. That accounts for their early arrival this year. It’s a thing to be thankful for, though, because we need a pleasant diversion.” He pressed the fourth blister cup onto Woodward’s back, and the magistrate trembled but held back a moan. “My wife and I used to enjoy the theater in Boston,” Shields said as he prepared the fifth implement. “A play in the afternoon…a beaker of wine…a concert on the Commons.” He smiled faintly. “Those were wonderful times.”

  Matthew had recovered his composure enough to ask the question that at this point naturally presented itself. “Why did you leave Boston?”

  The doctor waited until the fifth cup was attached before he replied. “Well…let us say I needed a challenge. Or perhaps…there was something I wished to accomplish.”

  “And have you? Accomplished it, I mean?”

  Shields stared at the rim of the sixth cup as he moved it between the flames, and Matthew saw the fire reflected in his spectacles. “No,” he said. “Not yet.”

  “This involves Fount Royal, I presume? And your infirmary?”

  “It involves…what it involves.” Shields glanced quickly into Matthew’s eyes and then away again. “You do have a fetish for questions, don’t you?”

  If this remark was designed to seal Matthew’s mouth and turn aside his curiosity, it had the opposite effect. “Only for questions that go unanswered.”

  “Touché,” the doctor said, and he pressed the sixth blister cup firmly onto Woodward’s back. Again the magistrate trembled with pain but was steadfastly silent. “All right, then: I left Boston because my practise was failing there. The city has a glut of doctors, as well as lawyers and ministers. There must be a dozen physicians alone, not to mention the herbalists and faith-healers! So I decided that for a space of time I would leave Boston—and my wife, whose sewing enterprise is actually doing quite well—and offer my services elsewhere.”

  “Fount Royal is a long distance from Boston,” Matthew said.

  “Oh, I didn’t come directly here. I lived for a month in New York, spent a summer in Philadelphia, and lived in other smaller places. I always seemed to be heading southward.” He began peeling off his deerskin gloves. “You may put the candles down now.”

  Matthew returned the double candlestick to the table. He had seen—though he certainly didn’t let his eyes linger on the sight, or his imagination linger on what the sensation must be—that the flesh gripped by the first two cups had become hideous, blood-swollen ebony blisters. The others were following the gruesome pattern.

  “We shall let the blood rise for a time.” Dr. Shields put the gloves into his bag. “This procedure breaks up the stagnant pools within his body, you see.”

  Matthew saw nothing but grotesque swellings. He dared not dwell on what pressures were inflicted within the magistrate’s suffering bones. To keep his mind from wandering in that painful direction, he asked, “Do you plan on staying in Fount Royal very much longer?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Bidwell pays me a fee, and he has certainly built a fine infirmary for my use, but…I do miss my wife. And Boston, too. So as soon as the town is progressing again, the population healthy and growing, I shall seek to find a replacement for myself.”

  “And what then would be the accomplishment you crave, sir?”

  Dr. Shields cocked his head to one side, a hint of a smile on his mouth but his owlish eyes stony. “You’re a regular goat amid a briar patch, aren’t you?”

  “I pride myself on being persistent, if that’s your meaning.”

  “No, that is not my meaning, but I’ll answer that rather meddlesome question in spite of my reluctance to add pine knots to your fire. My accomplishment—my hoped-for accomplishment, that is—would be twofold: one, to aid in the construction of a settlement that would grow into a city; and two, to have my name forevermore on the title of Fount Royal’s infirmary. I plan on remaining here long enough to see both those things come to pass.” He reached out and gently grasped the first blister cup between thumb and forefinger, checking its suction. “The influence of Rachel Howarth,” he said, “was an unfortunate interruption in the forward motion of Fount Royal. But as soon as her ashes are buried—or scattered or whatever Bidwell’s going to do with them—we shall put an end to our calamities. As the weather has turned for the better, the swamp vapors have been banished. Soon we shall see an increase in the population, both by people coming in from elsewhere and
by healthy babies being born. Within a year, I think Fount Royal will be back to where it was before this ugly incident ever happened. I shall do my best to aid that growth, leave my mark and name for posterity, and return to Boston and my wife. And, of course, the comfort and culture of the city.”

  “Admirable aims,” Matthew said. “I expect having your name on the mast of an infirmary would help your standing in Boston, as well.”

  “It would. A letter from Bidwell stating that fact and his appreciation for my services could secure me a place in a medical partnership that ordinarily I might be denied.”

  Matthew was about to ask if Bidwell knew what the doctor intended when there was a knock at the door. Shields said, “Who is it, please?”

  “Nicholas,” came the reply. “I wanted to look in on the magistrate.”

  Instantly Matthew sensed a change in Dr. Shields’s demeanor. It was nothing radical, but remarkable nevertheless. The doctor’s face seemed to tighten; indeed, his entire body went taut as if an unseen hand had gripped him around the back of his neck. When Shields answered, even his voice had sharpened. “The magistrate is indisposed at the moment.”

  “Oh…well, then. I’ll return later.”

  “Wait!” Woodward had removed the sassafras root from his mouth, and was whispering in Matthew’s direction. “Ask Mr. Paine to come in, please.”

  Matthew went to the door and stopped Paine before he reached the stairs. When Paine entered the room, Matthew watched the doctor’s face and saw that Shields refused to even cast a glance at his fellow citizen.

  “How is he?” Paine inquired, standing at the door.

  “As I said, indisposed,” Shields replied, with a distinct chill. “You can see for yourself.”