Matthew picked up the silver coin, which was obviously old and so worn that most of the stamping had been wiped clean. Still, there was the barest impression of a Dei Grat.
He looked up at Goode, who stood over him. “Where did these come from?”
“Turtle bellies,” Goode said.
“Pardon?”
“Yes suh.” Goode nodded. “They come from turtle bellies. The spoon and silver piece came out of one I caught last year. The blue clay came out of one I got…oh…must’a been two month ago.”
“And the gold coin?”
“The first night you and the magistrate was here,” Goode explained, “Mastuh Bidwell asked me to catch a turtle for your supper the next night. Well, I caught a big one. There’s his shell hangin’. And that gold piece was in his belly when I cut it open.”
“Hm,” Matthew grunted. He turned the gold coin between his fingers. “You caught these turtles out of the spring?”
“The fount. Yes suh. Them turtles like to be eatin’ the reeds, y’see.”
Matthew put the coins down upon the table and picked up the silver spoon. It was tarnished dark brown and the stem was bent, but it seemed remarkably preserved to have spent any length of time in a turtle’s stomach. “Very strange, isn’t it?” he said.
“I thought so too, suh. When I found that gold piece, and hearin’ that yours was thieved a few days after’ard…well, I didn’t know what to think.”
“I can understand.” Matthew looked again at the gold coin’s date, and then studied the fragment of blue pottery before he replaced it and the other items in the wooden jar. He noted that May appeared very much relieved. “And I do promise not to tell anyone. As far as I’m concerned, it’s no one’s business.”
“Thank you, suh,” she said gratefully.
Matthew stood up. “I have no idea why turtles should have such things in their bellies, but it is a question that begs an answer. Goode, if you catch a turtle and happen to find anything else, will you let me know?”
“I will, suh.”
“All right. I’d best return to the house. No need taking the carriage up, I’ll be glad to walk.” He watched as Goode put the lid back on the jar and returned it to the shelf.
“Let me ask you a question now, and please answer truthfully: do you think Rachel Howarth is a witch?”
He responded without hesitation. “No suh, I don’t.”
“Then how do you account for the witnesses?”
“I can’t, suh.”
“That’s my problem,” Matthew confided. “Neither can I.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Goode said. Matthew offered a goodbye to May, and then he and the old man left the house. On the walk back toward the stable, Goode shoved his hands into the pockets of his brown breeches and said quietly, “May’s got it in her mind we’re gon’ run to the Florida country. Take them gold and silver pieces and light out some night. I let her think it, ’cause it eases her. But we’re long done past our runnin’ days.” He looked at the muddy earth beneath his shoes. “Naw, I come over when I was a boy. First mastuh was Mastuh Cullough, in V’ginia. Seen eight children sold. Seen my brother whipped to death for kickin’ a white man’s dog. I seen my little daughter’s back branded, and her beggin’ me to make ’em stop. That’s why I play that fiddle Mastuh Bidwell give me; it be the only sound keep me from hearin’ her voice.”
“I’m sorry,” Matthew said.
“Why? Did you brand her? I ain’t askin’ nobody to be sorry. All I’m sayin’ is, my wife needs to dream ’bout the Florida country, just like I need to play my music. Just like anybody needs anythin’ to give ’em a reason to live. That’s all. Suh,” he added, remembering his place.
They had reached the stable. Matthew noticed that Goode’s pace had slowed. It seemed to him that there was something else the slave wanted to express, but he was taking his time in constructing it. Then Goode cleared his throat and said in a low, wary voice, “I don’t believe Mistress Howarth is a witch, suh, but that ain’t to say not some strange goin’s-on here’bouts.”
“I would certainly agree.”
“You may not know the half of it, suh.” Goode stopped walking, and Matthew did the same. “I’m speakin’ of the man who goes out to the swamp now and again, after it’s long past dark.”
Matthew recalled the figure he’d seen here in the slave quarters that night the lightning had been so fierce. “A man? Who is it?”
“Couldn’t see his face. I heard the horses cuttin’ up one night and come out here to ease ’em. On the way back, I seen a man walkin’ out to the swamp. He was carryin’ a lantern, but it weren’t lit. Walkin’ quick, he was, like he had somewheres to go in a hurry. Well, I was spelt by it so I followed him. He slip past the watchman there and go on out through them woods.” Goode motioned toward the pines with a tilt of his head. “The man that Mastuh Bidwell has watchin’ at night does poorly. I’ve had call to wake him up m’self come dawn.”
“The man who went out to the swamp,” Matthew said, much intrigued. “Did you find out what his business was?”
“Well suh, nobody with right business to do would go out there, seein’ as how that’s where the privy wagon gets carted to and dumped. And it’s a dangerous place, too, full a’ mucks and mires. But this man, he just kept on goin’. I did follow him a ways, though, but it’s hard travel. I had to turn ’round and come on home ’fore I seen what he was up to.”
“When was this?”
“Oh…three, four month past. But I seen him again, near two week ago.”
“He walked out to the swamp again?”
“I seen him on his way back. Both Earlyboy and me seen him, ’bout run right into him as we come ’round a corner. Bullhead—he’s Ginger’s man—has got some cards. We was over at his house, playin’ most the night, and that’s why it was such a small hour. We seen the man walkin’, but he didn’t see us. This time he was carryin’ a dark lantern and a bucket.”
“A bucket,” Matthew repeated.
“Yes suh. Must’a been sealed, though. It was swingin’ back and forth, but nothing was spillin’ out.”
Matthew nodded. He’d remembered that he had also seen something in the man’s possession that might have been a bucket.
“Earlyboy was scairt,” Goode said. “Still is. He asked me if we’d seen the Devil, but I told him I thought it was just a man.” He lifted his thick white eyebrows. “Was I right, suh?”
Matthew paused to consider it. Then he said thoughtfully, “Yes, I think you were. Though it might have been a man with some Devil in him.”
“That could be any man under the sun of creation,” Goode observed. “I swear I can’t figure why anybody would go out to that swamp, particular at night. Ain’t nothin’ out there a’tall.”
“There must be something of value. Whatever it is, it can be carried in a bucket.” Matthew looked back toward the watch-tower for a moment; the watchman still had his feet up on the railing, and even now appeared to be sleeping. He doubted that anyone who wanted to get past at night would have much difficulty, especially if they weren’t showing a light. Well, he felt in dire need of breakfast and a hot bath to wash off the gaol’s filth. “Thank you again for the liniment,” he told Goode.
“Yes suh, my pleasure. Luck to you.”
“And you.” Matthew turned away and walked along Peace Street, leaving the slave quarters behind. He had more things to think about now, and less time to sort them all out if indeed they could be sorted. He felt that someone—perhaps more than one person—had woven a tangled web of murder and deceits in this struggling, rough-hewn town, and had gone to great and inexplicable lengths to paint Rachel as the servant of Satan. But for what purpose? Why would anyone go to such labors to manufacture a case of witchcraft against her? It made no sense.
But then again, it must make sense—somehow, to someone. And it was up to him to use his mind and instincts to uncover the sense of it, because if he did not—and very soon—then he could b
id Rachel farewell at the burning pyre.
Who was the man who ventured at night into the swamp, carrying a dark lantern and a bucket? Why was a coin of Spanish gold in the belly of a turtle? And Goode’s question: How come Satan don’t talk German nor Dutch and he don’t talk to us darks neither?
Mysteries within mysteries, Matthew thought. Unravelling them would be a task fit for a far greater champion than he—but he was all Rachel had. If he did not answer these questions, then who would? The answer to that was simple: no one.
twenty-one
THE WARM BATH—taken in a tub room beside the kitchen—had turned out to be chilly and his shaving razor had nicked his chin, but otherwise Matthew found himself to be invigorated as he dressed in clean clothes. He had consumed a breakfast of eggs, sausage, and salted ham, put away two cups of tea and a jolt of rum, and so was eager to get out and about as the morning progressed.
His knock on the magistrate’s door was not answered, but the door was unlatched. When he looked in, he saw Woodward asleep with the box of court papers beside him on the bed. The magistrate had obviously begun reading through them, as there were some papers lying in disarray near his right hand, but his illness had stolen him away. Matthew quietly entered the room and stood at the bedside, staring at Woodward’s pallid yellow-tinged face.
The magistrate’s mouth was open. Even in sleep he suffered, for his breathing was a harsh, painful wheeze. Matthew saw the brown stains on the pillowcase under his left ear. The room had a thick, sickly smell, an odor of dried blood and wet pus and…death? Matthew thought.
Instantly his mind recoiled. Such a thought should not be allowed. No, no, neither allowed nor dwelt upon! He looked down at the scuffed floorboards for a moment, listening to the magistrate’s struggle with the very air.
At the orphanage, Matthew had seen boys grow sick and wither away in such a fashion. He suspected Woodward’s illness might have begun with the cold rain that had pelted them on their flight from Shawcombe’s tavern, the thought of which made him again damn that murderous villain to the innermost fires of Hell. And now Matthew was tormented by worry, because the magistrate’s condition was only likely to worsen if he was not soon gotten back to Charles Town; he presumed Dr. Shields knew what he was doing—he presumed—but by the doctor’s own admission the town of Fount Royal and its cemetery were becoming one and the same. Also, Matthew kept thinking about something the magistrate had said concerning Dr. Shields: What prompted him to leave what was probably a well-established urban practise for a task of extreme hardship in a frontier village?
What, indeed?
Woodward made a noise, a combination of a whisper and a groan. “Ann,” he said.
Matthew lifted his gaze to the man’s face, which appeared fragile as bone china in the light of the room’s single lamp.
“Ann,” Woodward spoke again. His head pressed back against the pillow. “Ohhhhhh.” It was an exclamation of heart-wrenching agony. “…hurting…he’s hurting, Ann…hurting…” The magistrate’s voice dwindled away, and his body relaxed once again as he fell into a deeper and more merciful realm of sleep.
Carefully Matthew came around the bed and straightened the papers into a neat stack, which he left within reach of Woodward’s right hand.
“Sir? Are ye in need of anythin’?” Matthew looked toward the door. Mrs. Nettles stood on the threshold, and had spoken quietly so as not to disturb the sleeper. He shook his head.
“Very well, sir.” She started to withdraw, but Matthew said, “A moment, please,” and followed her out into the hallway after closing the door behind him.
“Let me say I did not mean to accuse you of stealing my coin,” he told her. “I was only pointing out that a woman might have done the job as equally as a man.”
“You mean, a woman a’ my size, do ye not?” Mrs. Nettles’s ebony eyes bored holes through him.
“Yes, that’s exactly right.”
“Well, I did nae steal it, so think what ye please. Now, if you’ll pardon me, I ha’ work to do.” She turned away and walked toward the stairs.
“As do I,” Matthew said. “The work of proving Rachel Howarth innocent.”
Mrs. Nettles halted in her advance. She looked back at him, her face mirroring a confusion of amazement and suspicion.
“That’s right,” Matthew assured her. “I believe Madam Howarth to be innocent and I plan on proving it so.”
“Provin’ it? How?”
“It would be improper for me to say, but I thought you might like to know my intentions. Might I now ask you a question?” She made no response, but neither did she walk away. “I doubt much goes on here that escapes your attention,” he said. “I’m speaking of Fount Royal as well as this house. You certainly heard the tales concerning Madam Howarth’s supposed witchcraft. Why is it, then, that you so adamantly refused to believe her to be a witch, when the majority of the citizens are convinced she is?”
Mrs. Nettles glanced toward the stairs, marking that no one was close enough to overhear, before she offered a guarded reply. “I ha’ seen the evil done by misguided men, sir. I saw it takin’ shape here, long ere Mistress Howarth was accused. Oh yes sir, it was a thing waitin’ to happen. After the rev’rend was laid low, it was bound an’ sealed.”
“You mean that a scapegoat was found for the murder?”
“Aye. Had to be Mistress Howarth, y’see. Had to be someone different—someone who was nae welcomed here. The fact that she’s dark-skinned and near a Spaniard…it jus’ had to be her accused of such crimes. And whoever murdered the rev’rend killed Mr. Howarth, too, and hid those poppets in the house to make sure Mistress Howarth fell to blame. I nae care what Cara Grunewald said about visions from God and th’ like. She was ha’ crazy and the other ha’ dumb. How the tricks were done, I canna’ say, but there’s a true fox in our coop. Do y’see, sir?”
“I do,” Matthew said, “but I’d still like to know why you believe Rachel to be innocent.”
The woman’s mouth was set in a tight, grim line. Again, she checked the staircase before she spoke. “I had an elder sister by the name a’ Jane. She married a man named Merritt and come over here, settled in the town a’ Hampton, in the Massachusetts colony. Jane was a wonderful spinner. She could sit at the wheel and spin most anythin’. She could read the weather by the clouds, and foretold storms by the birds. She took to bein’ a midwife, as well, after Mr. Merritt died of fever. Well, they hanged her in 1680 up there in Hampton, for bein’ a witch an’ spellin’ a woman to give birth to a Devil’s baby. So they said. Jane’s own son—my nephew—was accused of evils and sent to prison in Boston, and he passed away there a year later. I’ve tried to find their graves, but no one knows where they’re lyin’. No one cares where they’re lyin’. You know what my sister’s great sin was, sir?” Matthew said nothing, but simply waited.
“She was different, do y’see?” Mrs. Nettles said. “Her readin’ of the clouds, her spinnin’, and her midwifery made her different. In Hampton they put her neck in a noose for it, and when our father read the letters and found out how she’d died, he fell sick too. Our mother and me worked the farm, best we could. He got better, and he lived another four year, but I canna’ say I ever saw him smile ag’in, ’cause Jane’s hangin’ was always there in that house. It was always there that she had been killed as a witch, when we all knew she had a sweet, Christian soul. But who was there to defend her, sir? Who was there to be her champion of justice?” She shook her head, a bitter smile pinching her mouth.
“Nae, not a single man nor woman stood up for her, for they must’a feared the same thing as we fear in this town: anyone who speaks up in defense must be also bewitched and fit for the hangin’ tree. Yes sir, he knows that, too.” Mrs. Nettles again stared through Matthew with fierce intensity. “The fox, I mean. He knows what happened in Salem, and in a dozen other towns. No one’s gonna speak out for Mistress Howarth, for fear of their own necks. They’d rather quit this town and drag a guilty shadow. I’d
quit it m’self, if I had the courage to turn my back on Mr. Bidwell’s coin…but 1 do not, and so there you have it.”
“The witnesses insist that what they’ve seen is neither dream nor phantasm,” Matthew said. “How would you account for that?”
“If I could account for it—and could prove it—I would make sure it was brought to Mr. Bidwell’s attention.”
“Exactly what I’m trying to do. I understand that Rachel was not well liked here, and was forced away from the church, but can you think of anyone who might have held such a grudge against her that they would wish to paint her as a witch?”
“No sir, I canna’. As I say, there were plenty who disliked her for bein’ dark and near Spaniard. Disliked her for bein’ a handsome woman, too. But no one I can think of who had that much hate in ’em.”
“What about Mr. Howarth?” Matthew asked. “Did he have enemies?”
“A few, but as far as I know they’ve all either died or left town.”
“And Reverend Grove? Did anyone display ill feelings toward him?”
“No one,” Mrs. Nettles said flatly. “The rev’rend and his wife were fine people. He was a smart man, too. If he was still alive, he’d be the first to defend Mistress Howarth and that’s the truth.”
“I wish he were alive. I’d much rather Reverend Grove calm the crowd than Exodus Jerusalem work them into a frenzy.”
“Yes sir, he’s a right loose cannon,” Mrs. Nettles agreed. “May I ask if I should set a plate for you at the midday meal?”
“No, it’s not necessary. I have some places to go. But would you please look in on the magistrate from time to time?”
“Yes sir.” She glanced quickly toward the closed door. “I’m feared he’s doin’ poorly.”
“I know. All I can hope is that Dr. Shields tends him adequately until we can return to Charles Town, and that he doesn’t grow any worse.”
“I ha’ seen this sickness before, sir,” she said, after which she was silent but Matthew grasped what was left unspoken.