by Peg Kerr
Elated, she pulled the fish bone from her mouth and squinted at it in the dim light of the cell. That bone was small, but there were larger ones, too, still attached to the fish’s spine. Delicately, she extracted one, carefully breaking it off so that part of the vertebra was still attached, forming a crude hook at the end. Then she reached for her thread and slipped a loop around the hook to begin crocheting. Ostensibly, life returned to normal rhythms when the trial was over. It was meat-curing season, and there were tools to be mended and meals to be cooked. Women still exchanged visits to trade spun wool for cloth, and men still gathered in the tavern to discuss politics. As always, each household assembled for devotions at dusk, and the Sabbath-day services were attended as usual. And yet tension lingered below the surface, mounting every day as Eliza’s execution date drew nearer. William had been satisfied by the trial’s outcome, and yet in the days that followed, he had difficulty concentrating while trying to prepare his sermons. His concern for Jonathan distracted him, and so he spent as much of his time with his friend as he could. Although the minister had to admit the man seemed to be maintaining his dignity, he sometimes noticed a look in Jonathan’s eye in unguarded moments that made him feel very uneasy. William took to inviting Jonathan to dine with him every night, an invitation that the magistrate usually accepted gratefully. It allowed Jonathan to avoid his own home in the evening. The memories of the quiet hours he had spent by the fireside with his wife were still too painfully raw.
Patience kept close to her house during this period. Eventually, however, it occurred to her that hiding from her neighbors might prompt dangerous talk, and that conversely, wagging tongues might best be stilled by going about her customary occupations as much as possible, So she tried to show her usual interest in the health of babies, the lancing of boils, and the application of poultices. No one mentioned the magistrate’s wife to her, or Patience’s outburst in court. Yet whenever Patience walked by the town gaol, she cringed inwardly with shame, although she never looked at the building. Sometimes, late in the still hours of the night while she kept watch over a sick patient, she wondered what more she might have done. No matter how much she turned it over in her mind, she could not see any way that she might have saved Eliza without endangering herself.
But this conclusion did not make her feel any better.
On the day before Eliza was to be hanged, William came to Jonathan’s house in midafternoon in response to a summons from one of the magistrate’s servants. He was admitted at once to the front room, where Jonathan sat at his desk looking out the diamond-paned window, turning a quill pen listlessly in his hand. He looked up with a tired smile as William removed his hat. “Good afternoon, Reverend. I am most grateful you could come.”
“Good afternoon.” Worriedly, William considered the lines of strain around Jonathan’s eyes. “Tell me how I may be of service to you.”
“I have sent for the midwife,” Jonathan said, putting down the quill.
“The midwife?” William repeated, bewildered.
“I anticipate her arrival at any moment.” Jonathan raised his eyes fleetingly and then looked at the floor. “So she may perform the examination.”
“But why— Oh.” William rubbed his chin uncomfortably. “Oh, aye, of course.”
“I am the presiding judge and thus the responsibility to give the order is mine.” He folded the piece of paper before him and pushed it forward. “You see the difficulty.”
“I do. Shall she, er, be expecting the summons?”
“I do not know. Perhaps. Perhaps not. In any case, I expect some awkwardness. And I would be most grateful...”
Enlightenment dawned on William’s face. “Would you like me to give her the instruction?”
Jonathan’s eyebrows rose, and then he nodded, relieved. “I had not thought—but yes, that would be a great kindness, if you would. I shall be present, of course.”
“Will she—” William began, but broke off at a knock on the door.
“Enter,” Jonathan called, and Goody Grafton opened the door and bobbed a curtsey.
“Begging pardon, sir, but Goody Carter has come as bid.”
Jonathan and William exchanged looks. “Show her in, please,” Jonathan said. Goody Grafton stepped aside, and Patience entered the room. Her eyes widened at the sight of William, and as Goody Grafton left the room again, shutting the door behind her, Patience flinched at the sound.
The three stared at one another for a long moment. “Thank you for being so good as to come,”
Jonathan said mildly at last.
Patience bit back her initial retort, which was to reply that the magistrate’s servant had not given her much choice in the matter. “What will you be wanting from me, then?” she said, at once nervous and defiant.
Jonathan looked at William, who cleared his throat. “Goody Carter,” William said in his deliberate way, “I am sure that you know that tomorrow is the date—”
“I know what tomorrow is.”
“Yes. Well. Both custom and law require that when a female prisoner is to be executed, she be, uh, examined. We need to know that she will not be pleading her belly.”
“Pleading her belly? Is that not why she was condemned, because she could not plead at all?” She snorted and muttered under her breath, “As the lamb before the shearers is dumb—”
“What did you say?” William snapped.
Patience stared at him hard and wisely decided not to answer that directly. Instead, she said, “She cannot speak a word to defend herself, Reverend. How then do you expect her to make her plea?”
William felt a wave of impatience at her obtuseness. “In order for the sentence to be carried out, there must be an affidavit sworn declaring that she is not now with child. You are the midwife. It is therefore required that you—”
“No!” Patience exclaimed with rising horror. “You cannot ask that of me!”
“Cannot?” William said frostily. Patience flushed deeply as he raised an eyebrow. “Do you wish to revisit our earlier discussion, Goody Carter, about what the court can and cannot do?”
Patience opened her mouth to reply hotly, but Jonathan looked up, meeting her eyes for the first time.
“Please. Please, Goody Carter.”
She wondered afterward whether he had meant then to signal to her that she should lie and declare Eliza pregnant, to delay the execution. But she was too angry to think of that at the time, so angry that she took the only revenge she could. “Oh, aye, indeed,” she exclaimed, “ ‘twill be so much easier for you to sleep at night, knowing you did not murder your own unborn babe on the gallows. Only your beloved wife!”
“I do not murder her,” Jonathan said, white to the lips.
“Yet you will not lift a finger to save her,” Patience cried to Jonathan. She pressed a hand to her lips, and the tears spilled over onto her cheeks. “And yet how may I rebuke you for that? Am I not as great a palterly coward as you?”
A dreadful silence fell, and then Jonathan said gently, “I can do nothing, Goody Carter.” The agony in his eyes made Patience’s breath catch in her throat. “God help me, I love her still. That must be my punishment, for I fear my love will condemn me to eternal damnation.
“And yet I cannot save her.”
Patience drew a shaky breath and dashed the tears from her face with an impatient hand. “I will do as you ask,” she said gruffly. “Perhaps that is my punishment.”
Jonathan dipped his quill in the inkwell, scratched a name on the square of paper before him, and handed it to Patience. “Take this to the gaoler and give it to him. He will take you in to see her.”
Patience looked down at the paper in her hand. “If it must be done, it were best if done by a friend.”
Lifting her chin, she gave her eyes a last wipe with her apron and marched from the room, shutting the door firmly behind her.
After Patience had left, Jonathan blew out a breath and rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Do you remember the first thing
I ever said to Elizabeth? When we found her in that cave?” Jonathan closed his eyes. The memory of his first sight of her came back to him, as she crouched in the dimness of the cave’s recesses, hair tumbled wildly down her back, staring up at him with wary, huge eyes. “She was so afraid of us. And I said to her, ‘We are not savages; we will not hurt you.’” He sighed. “Alas, that the first thing I would ever say to her would be a lie.”
“Jonathan,” William said, somewhat at a loss, “you forget where the fault truly lies.”
“Do I?” Jonathan shook his head. “Goody Carter may be right. I rescued Elizabeth from the wilderness. But I have brought her to this place, where she shall die tomorrow. And you say I play no part in what is happening to her?”
“I am sorry. I do not know how to answer your pain.” William eyed him worriedly. “Come sup with me tonight, Jonathan.”
“Again?” The corner of Jonathan’s mouth quirked ruefully. “I fear I have burdened you o’ermuch with my company as of late.” He sighed. “I needs must face my own hearth alone some evening, Reverend.”
“Yet must it be tonight?” William hesitated. “God has asked much of you, and I know that what is to come tomorrow shall be ... very difficult.”
“Difficult,” Jonathan repeated, as if tasting the word and finding it wanting. He smiled without humor.
“Yet remember, Reverend, those whom God loves, He chastises. Indeed, I must be His favorite child.”
William tried to smile, although he found Jonathan’s feeble attempt at levity chilling. “Do not persevere in this fond humor. You must not condemn yourself so heavily. Or let a friend bear you company, at least.”
Jonathan heard the warm sympathy in the minister’s voice. But the thought of Eliza, alone in her cell awaiting the dawn, made him want to recoil from William’s compassion as something undeserved. “I think it were best if I keep vigil alone tonight.”
“If there is aught else I might do to succor you ...”
Jonathan sat, deep in thought, for a long moment, and William waited hopefully. “Perhaps there is,”
Jonathan said slowly.
“Only name it.”
“There is one who needs comfort even more than myself. If you would, I ask that you go to the gaol to be with Elizabeth during her final hours.”
“Me?” William replied in disbelief. “You want me to go?”
“Aye. I do not like to think of her being alone tonight.” There was a moment’s pause, and then he added in a low voice, “And if I were to go instead, I am not sure whether... whether I could trust myself.”
Although he tried to hide it, William’s reaction was utter dismay, for instantly he knew that the one thing that Jonathan asked of him was above all the one thing he did not wish to do. To cover his agitation, William rose and went over to the fire, ostensibly to warm his hands. “What you ask is unusual,” he said crisply. “I believe witches are executed without benefit and comfort of the clergy.”
“By custom, yes, but not by law.”
“Does it mean that much to you?” William said, with his back still turned toward Jonathan.
“Reverend,” Jonathan replied huskily, “if you would stay with her tonight, to tell her that God still waits to welcome home the soul that is lost, that would be the greatest comfort you could ever give to me.”
“Very well, then,” William said, turning around. He felt a touch of pride at how well controlled he kept his face and voice. “I will, of course, do as you ask.”
William stopped at his home to pick up his Bible and then turned toward the gaol. Patience was just leaving as he approached it. He stopped in her path, blocking her way. “Well?” he said gruffly. “Is she with child?”
Patience pulled up her hood. “She is not.”
William eyed her, noting carefully the rebellious set of her mouth. “Your examination must have been swift. It was also thorough, I trust?”
“There was no need,” Patience replied, drawing on her mittens with quick, angry movements. “We were both spared that, at least. No, her courses are upon her. Once she understood what I wanted, she showed me her bloody clout; she had fashioned it from a bit of her petticoat.”
She meant to embarrass him, and she had the satisfaction of seeing his face redden, but he merely asked again politely whether she was quite sure.
“You need not fret yourself, Reverend. Her womb has not quickened, and so there’s naught to prevent her from dying tomorrow.” She gave him a sharp look. “I am sure you will joy at this news.”
He regarded her coldly. “I like not your manner, Goody Carter.”
“Oh no, do you not?”
“A froward, mocking tongue does not suit a Christian woman.”
She shrugged, and her anger held an edge of tiredness. “You have always hated her. I wonder why.”
She walked away as he stared at her openmouthed, unable to think of anything sufficiently cutting to say in reply.
After a moment, he forced himself to unclench his hands and turn back to the low building before him. He was here on an errand of mercy, he reminded himself, as a favor for a good friend. As he entered, the gaoler hurried forward, and after the exchange of a few words and the paper Jonathan had given William, the gaoler led William to the door of the chamber where Eliza lay.
At the rattle of the door latch, Eliza started in surprise and then scrambled to her feet to stand in the corner, hugging her work closely to herself. William was forced to stoop to enter. Though sunset had not yet come, he had to blink for a moment or two, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the room’s dimness. The rank smell in the cell made his nose wrinkle.
He removed his hat, and the wild hope that had flared for a moment in Eliza, that Jonathan might have come to see her once more, died when she saw her visitor’s face. He saw the eager light fade in her eyes and guessed what she must have been thinking.
As the gaoler shut the door again, William hesitated, once again at a loss for words. Greeting her with a good evening seemed absurd under the circumstances. He cleared his throat. “Magistrate Latham asked me to come.”
She waited a moment and then lifted her chin and tilted her head a fraction, like a bird, meaning Go on.
William clutched his Bible tightly. “He was wishful that I stay the night with you,” he said a trifle too loudly, “to offer God’s comfort for what lies ahead.” He stopped again. Speaking to her directly made him uneasy in a way he did not understand. It did not occur to him that he had avoided ever doing so until now.
Slowly, without taking her eyes from him, she stooped with a clatter of chains to pick up a handful of fibers with a blistered and bleeding hand. The juice and stinging nettle hairs had taken their toll where she spun the thread against her hip, and now a spot on her side, under her thin, worn clothing, was beginning to ulcerate.
He stared as she began rolling the next section of thread. “You do not repent? You continue with that Devil’s work?”
Her eyes narrowed in anger, and he took a step back warily. But she did not move, and he straightened up again, ashamed of his own cowardice.
“You are a fool,” he whispered hoarsely. “They are going to hang you tomorrow. Do you understand what that means?”
She looked away from him, continuing to twist the fibers against her side.
“They will wrap a rope around your neck and then push you from the scaffold. If you are unlucky, and your neck does not break at once, you will be left to dangle there, kicking, with your lungs burning and piss running down your legs until your heart finally stops. And when you are finally dead, they will cut your body down and consign it to the fire. That will be consumed, but the fire where your soul burns will never be quenched throughout all eternity. Do you not fear that?”
Eliza shook her head wearily.
“Death holds no terror for you? Not even everlasting damnation?” He could see the tension in the cords of her neck. He knew he was betraying the trust Jonathan had placed in him by speaking to her
so. But the set stillness of her face goaded something inside him, igniting a hot spark that quickly fanned into a burning rage, pushing him past all caution, all memory of his own responsibility. “I only wish we burned witches alive here as they do in England,” he hissed. “If you had to face the flames, I warrant you would find a tongue then to scream for mercy.” Her face did not move, but he saw a change in her eyes. Without knowing it, in probing for a way to hurt her, he had blundered through her wall of reserve and touched upon her deepest fear. She saw it all, suddenly, as he had described it to her: they would drag her up, to scaffold or stake, what difference did it make? And her blazing desire to live to live to live would burst from her heart and throat in desperately screamed words, despite all her efforts, despite her fear and her love, slaying her brothers, too, as her own life was ripped away. Eliza dropped the thread and clapped both hands over her mouth as if to keep words from boiling forth. William’s eyes widened as she half fell to her knees, a strangled noise in her throat.
“You do not dread death.” He seized her arm, a fierce exultation rising inside him, for he sensed he had stumbled close to the heart of the mystery. “You fear something will force you to speak. Because you can speak, can’t you?” He watched terror blossom in her eyes. “You can, I know you can! What keeps you silent?” He dropped his Bible and grabbed her other arm. “What is your game? What have you done to Jonathan?”
She tried pulling away from him, her terror changing to bewilderment, and he shook her until her chains rattled. “How did you entrap him in your toils? What foul spells did you use to seduce him?” The fetid stink from her clothing arose in his nostrils, underscored with the taint of blood. A picture arose unbidden in his mind, of Jonathan reaching out to cradle her body against his, greedily pressing hot kisses on her breasts to taste the salt of her sweat. She arched her back luxuriously as Jonathan’s hands roved along her flanks, burying themselves in her hair, and then she lifted a leg over him to sit astride, smiling in triumph as he thrust eagerly inside her. Something within William cracked open in raw pain, and his rage utterly mastered him. “How did you make him love you? How did you make him love you instead of... instead of...”