Devil's Mistress (29 page)

He removed his hat and coat, and asked if Michael was sleeping. When she replied that he was, he nodded and sat; and when she continued to move about the room—she had been making candles all day, and they had cooled enough to be brought down—he grasped her hand and dragged her down beside him.

“They’ve issued arrest warrants today,” he told her, convinced that he must speak frankly to make her understand what position they had to take.

“For witchcraft? Against whom?” she demanded.

“Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osbourne.”

Brianna drew in her breath. Tituba was the Carib slave who had been telling tales to the girls, so it was not surprising that the magistrates had decided to question her. Nor was it surprising that, if someone wanted a scapegoat, they should point to Sarah Good. The woman was of an indeterminate age, a typical hag, with worn clothing and the unladylike habit of continually puffing upon an old pipe. But Sarah Osbourne was a woman quite well off. She kept to herself, and as far as Brianna could see, brought no harm to anyone.

“Sarah Osbourne!” she exclaimed. “Good God! Why?”

Robert did not look at her but stared pensively into the fire, and then shrugged. “The girls cried out against her.”

“The girls cried out against her …” Brianna repeated incredulously. “Oh, Robert That is no reason to drag—”

“Stop, Brianna!” he charged her. Her hand was upon his shoulder; he shook it off and stood and walked to the fireplace to lean against the mantel. He stared at her long and hard. “Brianna, you will not say anything—anything at all—to anyone! Sarah Osbourne has not been to church for over a year. She lived with Osbourne long before they legitimized the union with marriage. She—”

“She is a witch because she lived with a man?” Brianna interrupted furiously.

“Nay! I am merely telling you that those being brought in for questioning are not of respected character—”

Brianna was on her feet. “And for that they should be hanged? Robert! Don’t ever say anything so ridiculous to me, of all people …”

“Brianna!” He charged her, and she saw then that his fingers were twitching where they touched the mantel—and that he was very frightened by the turn of events.

She turned away from him, wanting something to do, and suddenly feeling very disoriented in her own home.

He came up behind her, taking her shoulders, pulling her back close to him. “Brianna, I do not understand what is happening here yet. Perhaps these women will be questioned and freed—and that will be the end of it. The initial exams will be on Tuesday. March first,” he added, as if in afterthought. “We will be there because the town will be there and I am afraid not to go. But, Brianna, you will not speak. You will not cry out that they cannot be guilty. They will think that you blaspheme if you deny the devil.” He turned her around slowly. His dark eyes were a tempest against his long hollow face as they stared into hers. “Brianna, I mean this, as I have never meant anything before in my life. Defy me, and I will beat you—the same method Proctor suggests would cure the girls!”

She might have laughed—or wept. Robert had never even laid a hand across Michael’s bottom to chastise him, nor did he ever take a whip to their horse, or to their mules. Never before had he even spoken to her so harshly.

She lowered her eyes quickly. She did not know if she could keep silent. But he was her husband; perhaps she was the stronger of the two, and perhaps theirs was not the normal relationship, but she would not dishonor him now by a show of disobedience.

“It will be as you say, Robert,” she told him quietly. But she knew that she lied. Having known the stigma of the accusation, she could not bear to see it cast toward others.

Not only had the village come out for the day, but the roads and Ingersoll’s Ordinary were filled with populace from Ipswich, Topsfield, Beverly, and Salem Town. It was, Brianna reflected, for Salem Village, a very grand occurrence. Drumbeats could be heard in solemn dignity and pennants waved against the chill of the air. The examinations were to have taken place in Deacon Ingersoll’s great chamber, but the crowd that thronged about was so vast that the meetinghouse was opened up for the occasion. The Puritans were waging battle against the devil—and that battle would be fought in the open.

Brianna had never before seen either of the magistrates from Salem Town. Robert tensely pointed out that the fellow with the stern face and fiery eyes was John Hathorne, and the man with the more tormented expression was Jonathan Corwin. Brianna felt a certain pity for Corwin because he appeared to be miserable with his task. But Hathorne …

Hathorne had a look of fanaticism about him.

A look in the eye that was frighteningly familiar to her. It reminded her of Matthews.

Michael was at Brianna’s right side. She suddenly picked the little boy up and hugged him close, furious with Robert that they were here, and that they had brought Michael. But she needed to clutch him then, feel his heartbeat and the warmth of his flesh, feel his little arms curl about her neck. She was frightened.

The afflicted girls were there in positions of importance, near the front, where the pulpit had been removed and replaced by a table. As Sarah Good was brought in—between two heavyset constables—they immediately began to cry out and writhe. Brianna gasped as she watched them, for what she had heard was true. They were ill, or possessed—or something! Ann Putnam fell to the floor; her tongue protruded in a grotesque fashion and none could doubt that the child could not do such a thing of her own volition.

Hathorne conducted the investigation. And he was a fierce questioner. But Sarah Good had something of a swagger about her; she denied all charges with a vigor that pleased Brianna, since Brianna was quite positive that while the old crone had her share of sins, she was not a witch.

Yet it seemed the “witches” were determined to damn themselves. When asked who did torment the children if it was not she, Sarah Good pointed her finger at her fellow prisoner. “Goody Osbourne doth afflict the children!” she cried—and it was then time for Sarah Osbourne to face Hathorne.

Sarah Osbourne claimed that she had not been to church because she had been ill. “It is more likely I would be bewitched, than be a witch!” she cried, and went on to say that a black man, possibly an Indian, had visited her in her dreams, viciously pulling her hair and pinching her neck. She denied acquaintance with the devil.

Tituba came to the stand. The old heavyset dark Carib’s eyes rolled—with fear, Brianna was certain. The room seemed suddenly to go insane, the girls shrieked and screamed and convulsed with such vigor.

Tituba decided to “confess.”

She talked of a tall man who carried a book; she said that there had been many witches’ sabbaths, and that the tall man brought her there through the air. Her tale was such a good one, told with such a mystique—with such conviction of a frightened, cornered mind—that the room sat quiet and spellbound. And by the time the session was ended for the day, Brianna knew that the village was in trouble indeed. Everyone knew that it took twelve to have a “coven.” Where, then, were the rest of the witches?

Outside the meetinghouse the March wind was chill and it seemed to howl about the building. Hushed voices offered greetings to her, but when Brianna did not respond, Robert pinched her hard.

“We will go to Ingersoll’s for a drink with the others,” Robert told her, and that was when she rebelled.

“No!” In the middle of the street she wrenched herself from his grasp. There were others about, so she kept her voice low, but she could not go into the tavern room and listen to more accusations.

“Brianna! Do as I say!”

She couldn’t help but defy him. She turned, and pressing Michael close to her heart, she ran down the street. She did not know that they had been observed, nor did Robert.

But the man who watched them from the window of Ingersoll’s tavern did so intently, and he missed nothing. Not the fear—or fury—in her eyes. Or the anger and command in Robert’s tone. Watching from the ordinary, Sloan knew, too, that Robert was very, very frightened—and miserable.

“Only the wind has power, my friend,” Sloan whispered. “Only the earth and sea can move mountains.”

He left by the rear, before Robert could enter from the front. Though he longed with a physical agony to go after the woman, he did not. He turned his horse southward, toward Boston.

His flesh was hot, his heartbeat erratic. He had told himself he only wanted to see the boy—and he had done so. But when he had seen the child, nestled in his mother’s arms, he had felt his resolve crumble like dry leaves. The child was his—beyond doubt. He was very tall for his age, and sturdy. His hair was as dark as the night, but while his hair could be his mother’s, his eyes could not. They were a deep, dark green, with no hint of Brianna’s blue—or Robert’s deep-set brown. They were large eyes, heavily fringed with lashes.

Damn! Sloan thought, pounding a fist against the pommel of his saddle. How he had yearned to run to her and snatch the boy from her arms. He had never experienced such emotions as now tore through him …

He frowned then, trying to turn his thoughts from the longing he could not appease. Robert Powell had certainly had good reason to be concerned.

Sloan himself was quite certain that the place had gone mad. It wasn’t as frightening yet as the European witchhunt. People were not being snatched off the streets to be dragged to nooses or set to the flames, but it was a bad situation nevertheless. So far, it appeared that the Puritan fathers were doing nothing more than conducting examinations. But Sloan had read some of the Puritan literature. He knew the magistrates had carefully been studying such works as Burton’s
Kingdom of Darkness
and Baxter’s
Certainty of the World of Spirits.
To judge from the gossip in the tavern, these people believed that the Carib slave Tituba had gone to black sabbaths through the air by the vehicle of a broomstick. He had heard by loud discussion that they had determined that such measures as “swimming” a witch were archaic and unchristian—but that they had resolved that the “witch’s teat” would be considered evidence, and the devil could not take the form of an innocent person to do harm.

It was not going to be a good place for Brianna. Even if none of her neighbors knew of her past history, it seemed unlikely that she would hold her tongue.

Was there anything that he could do? he wondered in frustration. In Glasgow he had readily kidnapped her and never regretted the decision, but this was different. She was married now to a man that Sloan could not despise. If Robert Powell beat his wife, if he were cruel, such action could be justified.

But under the present circumstances it could not. Even if Sloan could forget the man entirely, Brianna would never come to him. He knew that as surely as he felt that he still knew her. No passage of time could change that.

He sighed deeply. He would have to play for time, and hover in the background. He would be there if she needed him. And, he thought bitterly, this time there would be no payments. No services bought or rendered. He would just be there—because he could not leave.

Suddenly as he rode, he was angry. As angry with her as he had ever been. She should have come to him already. Surely she was aware that he was in Salem. If she’d ever cared at all for him, she should have known how very badly he wanted to see his child, and she should have offered him the joy of holding the boy, if nothing else.

Damn her—damn her, a thousand times over! He groaned aloud and his body shook. How could she have left him? How could she have married?

Because he’d had a wife. The answer was so simple, and yet so bitter. And all the more ironic because he knew what it was like to love one woman—and owe his name and protection to another.

In her simple woolen garb she was more beautiful than ever. She had matured in the more than two years that had passed. Her face had sharpened, but beautifully so. Her figure was fuller, yet she still moved as though sailing from place to place. She seemed quieter, perhaps wiser—but still her eyes could snap with blue fire, and she would fight heaven and hell to have her way.

He fed on his anger. It was good, if only because it helped to assuage the pain of knowing he could not touch her. She owed him—she owed him the courtesy of seeing his child. If he had only known …

He never would have left her, Alwyn or no; Robert Powell or no. Neither the devil nor God himself could have convinced him to leave her—not even when she had begged him herself.

He laughed aloud suddenly, and spoke to the wet and frigid March air. “She is a witch, friends! The kind to beguile a man beyond reason, to taunt and torment him to the end of his days, no matter where he goes, or what he does!”

His horse pricked up its ears and Sloan laughed again, dryly, as he patted its neck. “Sorry, old boy. Ah, perhaps it is best that she does not come near me. I would want to beat her senseless for keeping him away from me. For leaving me …”

He sighed deeply. He was a fool. He was going to stay around here—torturing himself—while his crew spent all their profit in Boston. Letting his anger and desire simmer and brew until it was a powderkeg just waiting for a spark. He was going to stay and hope that she’d come to him—before he went mad and burst into her sanctified little Puritan household.

Brianna was baking bread again when Robert returned to the house. From the way she pounded into the dough, Robert knew that she longed to pound into the magistrates—probably Hathorne.