Witchy Kingdom

by D. J. Butler

Not actually himself, of course, but through the open door behind the man in orange and gray, he saw a young woman who might have been Nathaniel, if Nathaniel wore an orange and gray flannel dress and had an enormous pile of thick, curled hair on top of his head. She carried a circular tray that held a coffee pot and white cups, and around her neck hung a medallion that looked like a lump of lead.

  She met Nathaniel’s gaze; her eyes were dull and confused.

  Jake swung another kick at Nathaniel and missed, maybe on purpose. Nathaniel nodded and backed away, making moaning and grunting noises in the back of his throat. The man at the door leered, said something in harsh syllables, and laughed. Jake joined in the laughter, and then followed Nathaniel off the porch.

  It occurred to Nathaniel that with his backward hat and inside-out coat, he looked like someone who was not only deaf and mute, but also an idiot. A deaf, mute, idiot drummer boy.

  “No wonder they told us to sleep in the barn,” he grumbled as they crossed the field. “I look like a madman.”

  “No, that’s a good thing, hey?” Jake said. “The barn is ordinary hospitality for strangers around here. It’s what I asked for.”

  “Did you see the girl?”

  “I only saw the doorman.”

  Had he imagined her? Or heard her, with his astral ear, and interpreted the information as visual cues? But no, she had been quite solid.

  “I saw my sister,” he told the Dutchman. “She didn’t react at all to seeing me.”

  “Maybe she didn’t see you. Or maybe she was distracted by your sense of fashion. Was she a prisoner? A guest?”

  “She wore the same colors as the doorman. She looked like a servant.”

  Jake looked over his shoulder and waved back at the house in the last light of the setting sun. “Let’s get behind a closed door and discuss plans.”

  The barn was neatly ordered, with bales of hay filling half the high-roofed structure and farm implements the other. Jake shut the large barn door behind them.

  “We can’t stay here,” Nathaniel said.

  “It’s a pretty warm barn.”

  “There’s something wrong with my sister. Something…something is wrong with her spirit.”

  “Is she mad?”

  Nathaniel considered. “No, I’ve known a madman, and he was nothing like this. And I don’t think she’s an idiot, either. But something has been taken from her, or hidden. Her identity, her memory.”

  “That could be madness.”

  “Or it could be a kind of prison. It could be gramarye.”

  Jake wore a very innocent look on his face. “Do you think she needs…healing?”

  Nathaniel flinched. “Maybe.”

  “Then you might be the right person to help her.”

  Nathaniel nodded, trembling only slightly at the sudden thought of Robert Hooke’s vortex of grasping hands.

  “In any case, your point is that if she’s a prisoner, the people in the house are the ones holding her captive. They are not to be trusted.”

  “And if the doorman noticed how much I look like her…”

  “We should leave immediately.” Jake made a beeline for the much smaller barn door in the back corner and Nathaniel followed.

  They walked directly away from the farmhouse, keeping the barn between them and the building to screen them from view. It was easy—they just made sure the barn blocked the light coming from the house’s windows.

  Then they got onto a different lane from the one they’d traveled before, and followed it again into Haarlem.

  “No one will think twice about you,” Nathaniel said. “You’re Dutch, this is the Republic. But I’m a Cavalier…well, I sound like one…anyway, I’m not Dutch. Do you know that the Ojibwe have this word, Zhaaganaashi, and it means people who speak English as their native tongue? Also, because of the way I wear my clothes.”

  “We could make a word like that. Engelsspreker. English-speaker. That kind of thing works for the Germans, anyway. I’ll call myself Thijs,” Jake said. “I’ll get a room on the ground floor and let you in by the window.”

  They chose an inn called the Benedito de Espinosa and Nathaniel sneaked into the yard behind the inn to wait. In the shadow of a chicken coop, he counted three of the inn’s guests who made it to the privy in the corner of the hard-packed dirt yard, two who never found the outhouse and made use of the back fence instead, and one who staggered in circles singing the same verse of a song Nathaniel didn’t know over and over until he finally gave up and wandered back into the common room again. Nathaniel watched the back windows of the inn, waiting for one to open. He was beginning to grow impatient when he heard a hissing noise from above.

  He looked up and saw Jake, leaning out a window on the second story and waving his arms. “Psst! Psst!”

  Jake threw down a rope made of a knotted sheet and Nathaniel tied his pack to it. Jake hoisted the pack in through the window, and then lowered the rope again. Nathaniel climbed awkwardly, levering his feet against a lead drain pipe and against the frame of a window on the first floor, but when he was close enough, Jake grabbed him and dragged him in through the window.

  “We said ground floor,” Nathaniel gasped, lying on the floor.

  “Those windows don’t open,” Jake said. “I think it’s to force the burglars to work for their living. I had to go back and lie to the innkeeper and tell him I had said second story when we both knew very well I’d said first. Then I had to make this rope.”

  “We could have picked another inn.”

  “Or you could have worn your coat right side out and no one would look at you twice. But we didn’t do either of those things, and now you’re inside.”

  Had they wasted their time with elaborate precautions? He decided not. “We’ll be happy if those people follow us into the village and go around asking for the odd foreigner in the turned-out coat.”

  “And think of the excellent practice you’re getting, in case you decide you do want to become a spy.” Jacob Hop was shuffling his Tarocks. “Let’s do a casting.”

  “Why? We found my sister, and now I want to go heal her.”

  “Does that mean you’re not nervous about Robert Hooke anymore? Your headache is gone?”

  “Do the casting.”

  “Here’s the question I have: what are the omens for Nathaniel Penn’s journey to rescue his sister?” After the shuffling, Jake laid down three cards. “The omens are good.”

  “I don’t know how you’d know,” Nathaniel said. “Though at least the Tarocks have pretty pictures. Astrologers cover a page with simple dots and tell you it predicts the future. You’ve dealt all…what do you call them?”

  “Major Arcana,” Jake said. “Yes, the Highway, the Virgin, and the Serpent. I take these as good omens. The starlit plain is the Highway you wish to travel and the Virgin is the sister you’ll rescue. The Tarocks acknowledge your plan. Your sister Sarah is the Serpent, or your father is, or your goddess. Or you. It’s a good sign for your family. A negative sign would be the Revenant or the Sorcerer, which I might take to indicate Hooke himself, or Oliver Cromwell. Or Simon Sword.”

  “That seems unlikely, that all three cards would be from the Major Arcana. There are twenty of those, and how many cards total?”

  “Seventy-six. On a random draw, twenty chances out of seventy-six—call it one in four, to make the math easier—you get one of the Major Arcana.”

  Nathaniel struggled. His mathematical training had been rudimentary, and mostly expressed in terms of the number of pheasants on a string, or miles to Richmond. “If you add one in four to one in four, you get—half?”

  “No.” Jake shook his head. “If I draw one card, there is one chance in four it’s one of the Major Arcana. If I draw a second card, the chances that both are from the Major Arcana is one in four multiplied by one in four. And the odds of three cards all being from the Major Arcana are one in four times one in four times one in four.”

  “I don’t know what that makes,” Nathanie
l admitted.

  “One in sixty-four.”

  Nathaniel whistled.

  “You think that’s impressive, hey? Watch this.” Jacob Hop shuffled the cards thoroughly, putting the Serpent, the Highway, and the Virgin back into the deck, and drew three cards again.

  The Drunkard, the Virgin, and the Hanged Man.

  Nathaniel stared.

  “Six cards in a row is one chance in four thousand ninety-six. But here’s the thing—I’ve been turning cards for about two and a half months, and they’re always from the Major Arcana. As long as I hold the cards in my hands, I can shuffle through them and see them all, Minor Arcana as well as Major. The minute I start laying cards down, only the Major Arcana come up. That’s thousands of cards in a row, and I long since stopped calculating what odds that made. There are no odds here. This is fixed. Something is dictating what cards turn up.”

  “Is it just that deck?”

  “I borrowed a deck in Johnsland, and the same thing happened. The man whose cards I borrowed couldn’t believe it either, and when I handed it back to him, his deck worked normally again.”

  “Well, that answers my next question. And now I suppose I know why you haven’t stopped fidgeting with those cards since I met you.”

  “There are other reasons,” Jake said.

  “Does it only affect you?” Nathaniel asked.

  “It didn’t affect that fellow in Johnsland.”

  “Let me try.” Nathaniel held out his hand.

  Reluctantly, Jake passed over the deck. Nathaniel shuffled them thoroughly and then dealt three cards: the River, the Virgin, the Revenant.

  And again: the Horsemen, the Drunkard, the Highway.

  He shuffled and dealt five more times, each time getting only Major Arcana. Each time, he felt more troubled and haunted, but to his surprise, Jake’s expression looked like relief.

  “It isn’t only me!” Jake burst out at Nathaniel’s final casting.

  “Then what explains it?” Nathaniel asked.

  “I worried it was me. That maybe my…connection…with Simon Sword made the cards not work.”

  “I don’t have a connection with Simon Sword,” Nathaniel objected.

  “I think you do,” Jake said. “Not the same connection I have—I hope—but your family is tied to the Heron King. And now that Simon Sword is in motion, for those of us who are connected to him, the New World Tarocks show only Major Arcana.”

  “You think this is some magic of Simon Sword’s?”

  “Maybe.” Jake shrugged. “Maybe it’s not something he intends, it’s just something that happens. Or maybe it’s some magic of Benjamin Franklin and John Penn. Maybe it’s a warning system. Maybe when Peter Plowshare dies and Simon Sword ascends to the Heron King’s throne, the Tarocks go mad as a way to let people know.”

  “But they don’t go mad for everyone.”

  Jake shrugged. “For people who have crossed Simon Sword’s path? Or who will cross his path? This is magic we are talking about, after all, not hydraulics.”

  “Well, I am grateful for the omens.” In truth, Nathaniel did feel slightly better. He didn’t especially trust the Tarocks to tell his future—he trusted them less, thinking that Simon Sword or Benjamin Franklin or someone else was manipulating what cards came up—but it heartened him to see images he thought of as positive: the Serpent, the Virgin.

  The inn’s room had a single bed and a narrow table, with no fireplace and only the single window. Two tall tapers in brass candlesticks sat on the table, lighting the chamber. Nathaniel sat cross-legged in the center of the floor and closed his eyes. He inhaled deeply and shifted his drum into his lap. But before he could focus his mind, he heard Jake sitting down facing him.

  “I’m coming with you,” Jacob Hop said.

  “To spy?”

  “No.” Jake spoke with a straight face. “We’re going to heal your sister. But if Robert Hooke comes to take you, I’ll be there to help.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I’ll start by throwing Tarocks at him. If that doesn’t work, I’ll throw myself under his feet to slow him down so you can get away.”

  Nathaniel opened his eyes. “Don’t do that.”

  “I don’t serve you, Nathaniel Penn. I serve my queen, Sarah Elytharias, and she sent me to bring back her siblings. If I die and you live to return to Cahokia, then I have succeeded.”

  Nathaniel considered. “I understand. And still…don’t do that. There will be another way.”

  “Not always,” Jake said. “I’m closing my eyes now, I’m ready.”

  Nathaniel drummed and sang:

  I ride upon four horses, to heaven I ride

  I ride to seek my sister, horses by my side

  I bring a true companion, by perils tried

  I seek the land of spirits, to heaven I ride

  He rose from his sitting position, pulling Jake behind him onto the back of his drum-horse and up onto the starlit plain. He listened for Robert Hooke and heard sounds of cursing and shouting, far in the west.

  Good. Whatever made Hooke suffer should make Nathaniel glad.

  He listened for Margaret and now—having heard her voice, he recognized it and could pick it out of the deeper song of the cosmos—he found her nearby.

  ~You know,~ Jake said. ~In this place, your coat is rightside out and you wear your hat the right way.~

  Nathaniel checked his clothing and was surprised to find it was true.

  ~Ha,~ he said.

  They rode across a short meadow and through a curling valley to find the house they’d left outside Haarlem shortly before. On the starlit plain, the white farmhouse appeared as a sagging warehouse painted a dark crimson.

  ~They’re smugglers,~ Jake said. ~They must be.~

  Nathaniel was pleased that his head didn’t hurt, and he nodded.

  ~Your vision is just as powerful as your sister’s,~ Jake said.

  ~This isn’t vision. This is…motion. Of an unusual kind.~

  They rode through the front door. Within, bottles of rum stood stacked around all the walls. Three men sat at a table, playing cards. Nathaniel rode closer and saw that the fronts and backs alike of the cards were blank.

  ~Strange.~ Jake produced his battered Tarocks and held them up for him and Nathaniel both to see. The usual images were on the cards, front and back.

  Though on the faces of the Major Arcana, Nathaniel thought he saw a second set of images, ghostly as watermarks, lurking behind the colorful paintings he knew.

  And was that music he heard, coming from the cards?

  ~Put those away,~ he told the Dutchman.

  Later, they could examine the cards again.

  ~Will Hancock pay us or will the Frenchman?~ One of the card players asked the others. He was burly and lacked one ear. ~The loss of a ship is no small thing to recompense.~

  A second card player, a thin man with a drooping nose, shrugged. ~It’s La Fayette’s money either way.~

  ~They’re talking about John Hancock,~ Jake whispered. ~He’s the biggest smuggler north of Baltimore. And someone named La Fayette. Maybe the Marquis, the Acadian Elector?~

  ~I understand them,~ Nathaniel whispered back. ~They’re speaking English.~

  ~No, they’re not,~ Jake said, and then they both fell into thoughtful silence.

  ~I didn’t mean that Frenchman. I meant Le Moyne. In New Orleans.~ One Ear played a card and the other two cursed.

  ~They’re family,~ said the third card player, a man with burn scars on both hands. ~Same money.~

  ~Yeah?~ Droop Nose asked. ~You and I are family, Luuk. I’m married to your sister. How about you pay off the note I owe old man Van Beek?~

  ~Go to hell,~ Burn Hands said cheerfully.

  ~There’s an upper floor,~ Nathaniel said. There had to be, the building was too tall to contain just this one room.

  Though the starlit plain didn’t exactly obey the ordinary rules of size and dimension.

  ~I don’t see stairs,~ Jake said.
r />   ~We don’t need stairs.~ Nathaniel sang:

  I ride the winds of heaven, iron inside

  I shall not be resisted, my will denied

  No wall can stop my progress, she cannot hide

  I seek my sister Margaret, to heaven I ride

  With a liquid neighing sound and the thunder of an invisible drum, his horse leaped up and through the ceiling—

  emerging through the floor above into a cell.

  Margaret sat on a wooden chair and stared at a blank wall. Her face was just as expressionless as the wall; her hands were folded in her lap.

  ~Margaret,~ Nathaniel said.

  No response.

  Nathaniel heard a footfall and he spurred his horse aside, expecting to be dragged into Robert Hooke’s amber pool, or get stabbed in the back.

  Behind him stood another Margaret. This Margaret was identical, in an orange and gray flannel dress, except that her hair shot straight out of her head in all directions like a halo, and wiggled. She waved her arms at Nathaniel and her eyes bulged wide, but she held her lips tightly together and made no sound.

  ~What do you think your sister’s gift is?~ Jake asked. ~Is this her work? Is she projecting an image of herself? Or which of these is the real Margaret? They appear identical.~

  ~Not quite. Look.~ Nathaniel pointed; only the sitting Margaret wore the amulet.

  Fire seized Nathaniel suddenly, knocking him to the floor. He fell tangled with Jake, and with his horse, which suddenly seemed to be a drum again.

  The room around him flickered. The two Margarets faded in and out, and in their place he saw a single Margaret, lying on a small iron cot. Beside Margaret stood a bent-backed, unshaven man in an orange frock coat. He stared at Nathaniel and laughed.

  “Who do we have here? Is it an Acadian wizard whose master doesn’t want to pay for a ship his cargo sank?”

  A third scene overlaid the first two, and at the same moment Nathaniel seemed to see the cell on the starlit plain, the second-story inn bedroom at the Benedito de Espinosa, or a windowless stone-walled chamber with a man in orange.

  The room looked like a cellar.

  “Or are you some adept from the Imperial College, chasing down the rumor of a lost Penn scion, who must be eliminated if Thomas is to sleep well at night?” The man in orange stood inside a circle chalked onto a stone floor. The circle completely enclosed Margaret’s cot. Incense burned where he was—which must be somewhere in the white farmhouse, or beneath it—and he held an aspergillum in one hand. He shook the aspergillum in a circle around him, splashing liquid on the floor within the confines of the chalked space.