Finally, predictably, it was Calvin’s mother who spoke up. “You saw my boy? Where was he? How was he?”
“I met him in London. He has the language and bearing of quite a clever young man. Seems to be in good health, too.”
They nodded, and Verily saw that they seemed to be relieved, So they did love him, and had feared for him.
A tall, lanky man of about Verily’s age stretched out his long legs and leaned back on his stool. “I’m pretty near certain that you didn’t come all this way just to tell us Calvin was a-doing fine, Mr. Cooper.”
“No, indeed not. It was something Calvin said.” Verily looked around at them again, this large family that was at once welcoming and suspicious of a stranger, at once concerned and wary about a missing son. “He spoke of a brother of his.” At this Verily looked at the lanky one who had just spoken. “A son with talents that exceeded Calvin’s own.”
The lanky one hooted and several others chuckled. “Don’t go telling us no stories!” he said. “Calvin wouldn’t never speak of Alvin that way!”
So the lanky one wasn’t Alvin Junior after all. “Well, let’s just say that I read between the lines, so to speak. You know that in England, the use of hidden powers and arcane arts is severely punished. So we Englishmen remain quite ignorant of such matters. I gathered, however, that if there was one person in the world who could teach me how to understand such things, it might well be Calvin’s brother Alvin.”
They all agreed with that, nodding, some even smiling.
But the father remained suspicious. “And why would an English lawyer be looking to learn more about such things?”
Verily, to his own surprise, was at a loss for words. All his thought had been about finding Alvin the miller’s son—but of course they would have to know why he cared so much about hidden powers. What could he say? All his life he had been forced to hide his gift, his curse; now he found he couldn’t just blurt it out, or even hint.
Instead, he strode to the counter and picked up a couple of large wooden spools of thread that were standing there, presumably so that customers could reel off the length of thread they wanted and wind it onto a smaller spool. He put the ends of the spools together, and then found the perfect fit for them, so that no man could pull them apart.
He handed the joined spools to the miller. At once the man tried to pull them apart, but he didn’t seem surprised when he failed. He looked at his wife and smiled. “Lookit that,” he said. “A lawyer who knows how to do something useful. That’s a miracle.”
The spools got passed around, mostly in silence, until they got to the lanky young man leaning back on his stool. Without a moment’s reflection, he pulled the spools apart and set them on the counter. “Spools ain’t no damn good stuck together like that,” he said.
Verily was stunned. “You are the one,” he said. “You are Alvin.”
“No, sir,” said the young man. “My name is Measure, but I’ve been learning somewhat of my brother’s skill. That’s his main work these days, is teaching folks how to do the same Makering stuff that he does, and I reckon I’m learning it about as good as anybody. But you—I know he’d want to meet you.”
“Yes,” said Verily, making no effort to hide his enthusiasm. “Yes, that’s what I’ve come for. To learn from him—so I’m glad to hear that he wants to teach.”
Measure grinned. “Well, he wants to teach, and you want to learn. But I got a feeling you two are going to have to do each other a different kind of service before that can happen.”
Verily was not surprised. Of course there would be some kind of price, or perhaps a test of loyalty or trustworthiness. “I’ll do whatever it takes to have a Maker teach me what my gift is for and how to use it well.”
Mrs. Miller nodded. “I think you just might do,” she said. “I think perhaps God brought you here.”
Her husband snorted.
“It would be enough if he brought you to teach my husband manners, but I fear that may be beyond even the powers of a benevolent God,” she said.
“I hate it when you talk like old Reverend Thrower,” said the miller grumpily.
“I know you do, dear,” said his wife. “Mr. Cooper, suppose you did need to practice law, not in Wobbish, but in the state of Hio. How long would it take you to prepare to take the test?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It depends on how far American legal practice has diverged from English common law and equity. Perhaps only a few days. Perhaps much longer. But I assure you, I didn’t come here to practice law, but rather to study higher laws.”
“You want to know why you found us all down here at Armor’s store?” asked the miller. “We were having a meeting, to try to figure out how to raise the money to hire us a lawyer. We knew we needed a good one, a first-rate one, but we also knew that some rich and secret group in Carthage had already hired them the best lawyers in Hio to work against us. So the question was, who could we hire, and how in the world could we pay him? My wife thinks God brung you, but my own opinion is that you brung your own self, or in another way of looking at it, my boy Alvin brung you. But who knows, I always say. You’re here. You’re a lawyer. And you want something from Alvin.”
“Are you proposing an exchange of services?” asked Verily.
“Not really,” Measure interrupted, rising from his stool. Verily had always thought of himself as rather a tall man, but this young farmer fairly towered over him. “Alvin would teach you for free, if you want to learn. The thing is, you pretty much got to do us that legal service before Alvin can take you on as a pupil. That’s just the way it is.”
Verily was baffled. Either it was barter or it wasn’t.
The storekeeper spoke up from behind him, laughing. “We’re all talking at each other every whichaway. Mr. Cooper, the legal service we need from you is to defend Alvin Junior at his trial. He’s in jail over in Hatrack River, charged with stealing a man’s gold and my guess is they’re going to pile on a whole bunch of other charges, too. They’re out to put that boy in prison for a long time, if not hang him, and you coming along here just now—well, you got to see that it looks mighty fortunate to us.”
“In jail,” Verily said.
“In Hatrack River,” said Armor.
“I just rode through there not a week ago.”
“Well, you passed by the courthouse where they got him locked up.”
“Yes, I’ll do it. When is the trial?”
“Oh, pretty much whenever you want. The judge there is a friend of Alvin’s, as are most of the townfolk, or most of them as amount to much, anyway. They can’t just let him go, much as they’d like to. But they’ll delay the trial as long as you need to get admitted to the bar.”
Verily nodded. “Yes, I’ll do it. But . . . I’m puzzled. You have no idea whether I’m a good lawyer or not.”
Measure hooted with laughter. “Come on, friend, you think we’re blind? Look at your clothes! You’re rich, and you didn’t get that way from barrelmaking.”
“Besides,” said Armor, “you have that English accent, those gentlemanly airs. The jury in Hatrack River will mostly be on Alvin’s side. Everything you say is going to sound powerful clever to them.”
“You’re saying that I don’t actually have to be very good. I just have to be Englishman attorney-at-law, alive, and present in the courtroom.”
“Pretty much, yep,” said Armor.
“Then you have an attorney. Or rather, your son does. If he wants me, that is.”
“He wants to get out of jail and have his name cleared,” said Measure solemnly. “And he wants to teach folks how to be Makers. I think you’ll fit right in with what he wants.”
“Come here!” The command came from Mrs. Miller, and Verily obediently walked to her. She reached out and took his right hand and held it in both of hers. “Mr. Verily Cooper,” she said, “will you be a true friend to my son?”
He realized that it was an oath she was asking for, an oath with his whole heart in i
t. “Yes, ma’am. I will be his true friend.”
It wasn’t quite silence that followed his promise. There was the sound of breaths long pent being released. Verily had never been the answer to anyone’s heartfelt wish before. It was rather exhilarating. And a bit terrifying, too.
Wastenot and Wantnot came back in. “Horse and mule are unloaded, fed, watered, and stabled.”
“Thank you,” said Verily.
The twins looked around. “What’s everybody grinning for?”
“We got us a lawyer for Alvin,” said Measure.
Wastenot and Wantnot grinned, too. “Well, heck, then let’s go home to bed!”
“No,” said the miller. “One more item of business we got to do.”
At once the cheerful mood faded.
“Have a seat, Mr. Cooper,” said the miller. “We have a tale to tell you. A sad one, and it ends with all the men of this town, except Armor here, and Measure—it ends with all of us in shame.”
Verily sat down to listen.
13
Maneuvers
Vilate brought him another pie. “I couldn’t finish the last one,” Alvin said. “You think my stomach is a bottomless pit?”
“A man of your size and strength needs something to keep the meat on his bones,” said Vilate. “And I haven’t figured out yet how to make half a pie.”
Alvin chuckled. But as she slid the pie under the iron-barred door of the cell, Alvin noticed that she had some new hexes on her, not to mention a come-hither and a beseeching. Most hexes he recognized right off—he’d made a few of them in his own time, for protection or warding, and even for concealment and mildness of heart, which made for a deeper kind of safety but were much harder to make. What Vilate had today, though, was beyond Alvin’s ken. And since they probably wouldn’t work on him, or not too well, he couldn’t rightly tell what they’d be for. Nor could he ask her.
Some kind of concealment, maybe. It seemed related to an overlook-me hex, which was always very subtle and usually worked only in one direction.
Alvin bent down, picked up the pie, and set it on the small table they’d allowed him.
“Alvin,” she said softly.
“Yes?” he answered.
“Sh.”
He looked up, wondering what the secrecy was about.
“I don’t want to be heard,” she said. She glanced toward the half-open door leading to the sheriff’s office, where the guard was no doubt eavesdropping. She beckoned to Alvin.
What went through his mind then made him a little shy. Was she perhaps thinking some of the same romantic thoughts about him that he had thought about her on some of these lonely nights? Maybe she knew somehow that he alone could see past her false charms of beauty and liked her for who she really was. Maybe she thought of him as someone she could come to love, as he had wondered sometimes about her, seeing as how his first love was lost to him.
He came closer. “Alvin, do you want to escape from here?” she whispered. She leaned her forehead on the bars. Her face was so close. Was she, in some shy way, offering a kiss?
He reached down and touched her chin, lifted her face. Did she want him to kiss her? He smiled ruefully. “Vilate, if I wanted to escape, I—”
He didn’t get to finish his sentence, didn’t get to say, I reckon I could walk on out of here any old day. Because at that moment the deputy swung the door open and looked into the jail. He immediately got a frantic look on his face, and scanned right past them as if he didn’t see them at all. “How in the hell!” he cried, then rushed from the jail. Alvin heard his feet pounding down the hall as he called out, “Sheriff! Sheriff Doggly!”
Alvin looked down at Vilate. “What was that all about?” he asked.
Vilate dropped her teeth at him, then smiled. “How should I know, Alvin? But I reckon this is a dangerous time to be talking about what I come to talk about.” She picked up her skirts and rushed from the jail.
Alvin had no idea what her visit had been about, but he knew this much: Whatever her new hexes did, they were involved with the deputy and what he saw when he came in. And since there was a come-hither and a beseeching, Vilate might well have been the reason the deputy came into the room in the first place, and the reason he panicked so fast and rushed out without investigating any further.
She dropped the upper plate of her teeth to show contempt for me, thought Alvin. Just like she did to Horace, her enemy. Somehow I’ve become her enemy.
He looked at the pie sitting on the cot. He picked it up and slid it back under the door.
Five minutes later, the deputy came back with the sheriff and the county attorney. “What the hell was this all about!” Sheriff Doggly demanded. “There he is, just like always! Billy Hunter, you been drinking?”
“I swear there wasn’t a soul here,” said the deputy. “I saw Vilate Franker go in with a pie—”
“Sheriff, what’s he talking about?” said Alvin. “I saw him come in here not five minutes ago and start yelling and running down the hall. It scared poor Vilate so she took on out of here like she had a bear after her.”
“He was not here, I’d swear to that before God and all the angels!” said Billy Hunter.
“I was right here by the door,” said Alvin.
“Maybe he was bending over to get the pie and you didn’t see him,” said the sheriff.
“No sir,” said Alvin, unwilling to lie. “I was standing right up. There’s the pie—you can have it if you want, I told Miz Vilate that I didn’t finish the last one.”
“I don’t want none of your pie,” said Billy. “Whatever you did, you made me look like a plain fool.”
“It don’t take no help from Alvin to make you look that way,” said Sheriff Doggly. Marty Laws, the county attorney, hooted at the joke. Marty had a way of laughing at just the right time to make everything worse.
Billy glared at Alvin.
“Now, Alvin, we got to put you on your parole,” said Marty. “You can’t just go taking jaunts out of the jail whenever you feel like it.”
“So you do believe me,” said the deputy.
Marty Laws rolled his eyes.
“I don’t believe nobody,” said Sheriff Doggly. “And Alvin ain’t taking no jaunts, are you, Alvin?”
“No sir,” said Alvin. “I have not stirred from this cell.”
None of them bothered to pretend that Alvin couldn’t have escaped whenever he wanted.
“You calling me a liar?” asked Billy.
“I’m calling you mistaken,” said Alvin. “I’m thinking maybe somebody fooled you into thinking what you thought and seeing what you saw.”
“Somebody’s fooling somebody,” said Billy Hunter.
They left. Alvin sat on the cot and watched as an ant canvassed the floor of the jail, looking for something to eat. There’s a pie right there, just a little that way . . . and sure enough, the ant turned, heeding Alvin’s advice though of course the words themselves were just too hard a thing to fit into an ant’s tiny mind. No, the ant just got the message of food and a direction, and in a minute or two it was up the pie dish and walking around on the crust. Then it headed out to find its friends and bring them for lunch. Might as well somebody get some good out of that pie.
Vilate’s hexes were for concealment, all right, and they were aimed at the door. She had got him to stand close so that he’d be included in her strong overlook-me, so Billy Hunter had looked and couldn’t see that anybody was there.
But why? What possible good could she accomplish from such a bit of tomfoolery as that?
Underneath all his puzzlement, though, Alvin was mad. Not so much at Vilate as he was mad at himself for being such a plain fool. Getting all moony-eyed about a woman with false teeth and vanity hexes, for pete’s sake! Liking her even when he knew she was a plain gossip and suspected that half the tales she told him weren’t true.
And the worst thing was, when he saw Peggy again—if he saw Peggy again—she’d know just how stupid he was, falling for a w
oman that he knew was all tricks and lies.
Well, Peggy, when I fell in love with you you were all tricks and lies, too, you know. Remember that when you’re thinking I’m the biggest fool as ever lived.
The door opened and Billy Hunter came back in, stalked over to the cell door, and picked up the pie. “No sense this going to waste even if you are a liar,” said Billy.
“As I said, Billy, you’re welcome to it. Though I sort of half-promised it to an ant a minute ago.”
Billy glared at him, no doubt thinking that Alvin was making fun of him instead of telling the plain truth. Well, Alvin was, kind of. Making fun out of the situation, anyway. He’d have to talk this over with Arthur Stuart when the boy came back, see if he had any idea what Vilate might have meant by this charade.
The ant came back, leading a line of her sisters. All they found was a couple of crumbs of crust. But those were something, weren’t they? Alvin watched as they struggled to maneuver the big chunks of pastry. To help them out, he sent his doodlebug to break the pieces into smaller loads. The ants made short work of them then, carrying out the crumbs in a line. A feast in the anthill tonight, no doubt.
His stomach growled. Truth to tell, he could have used that pie, and might not have left much behind, neither. But he wasn’t eating nothing that came from Vilate Franker, never again. That woman wasn’t to be trusted.
Dropped her teeth at me, he thought. Hates me. Why?
There was no way around it. Even with the best possible luck in choosing a jury, even with this new English fellow as Alvin’s lawyer, Little Peggy saw no better than a three-in-four chance of him being acquitted, and that wasn’t good enough odds. She would have to go to him. She would have to be available to testify. Even with all the newcomers in Hatrack, one thing was certain: If Peggy the torch said a thing was true, she would be believed. The people of Hatrack knew that she saw the truth, and they also knew—sometimes to their discomfiture—that she never said what wasn’t true, though they were grateful enough that she didn’t tell every truth she knew.
Only Peggy herself could count how many terrible or shameful or mournful secrets she had left unmentioned. But that was neither here nor there. She was used to carrying other people’s secrets around inside her, used to it from the earliest time of her life, when she had to face her father’s dark secret of adultery. Since then she had learned not to judge. She had even come to love Mistress Modesty, the woman with whom her father, old Horace Guester, had been unfaithful. Mistress Modesty was like another mother to her, giving her, not the life of the body, but the life of the mind, the life of mannered society, the life of grace and beauty that Peggy valued perhaps too highly.
Alvin Journeyman: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume IV Page 21