Heartfire: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume V (31 page)

“People I hate!”

“Fishy, would you rather I call you by that name?”

“Don’t you go saying my true name no more,” said Fishy.

“All right, then. How about this? How about if I say I had you helping me today, and I pay your mistress a little to compensate for having taken you away from your duties?”

Fishy looked at her suspiciously. “Why you do that?”

“Because I
do
need your help.”

“You don’t have to pay for that,” said Fishy. “I be a slave, ain’t you heard?”

“I don’t want your labor,” said Margaret. “I want your
help
.”

“I don’t got no help for White folks,” said Fishy. “It be all I can do not to kill you right now.”

“I know,” said Margaret. “But you’re strong. You’ll contain these feelings. It’s good to have your name back. It’s as if you weren’t alive before, and now you are.”

“This ain’t no life,” said Fishy. “I got no hope now.”

“Now is when your hope begins,” said Margaret. “This thing you’ve done, you and the other slaves, giving up your names, your anger—it makes it safer for you, yes, it makes it easier, but you know who else it helps? Them. The White people who own you. Look at
the other slaves, now that you have your anger back. See what they look like to the master.”

“I know how they look,” said Fishy. “They look stupid.”

“That’s right,” said Margaret. “Stupid and contented.”

“I ain’t going a-look stupid no more,” said Fishy. “She going a-see it in my eyes, how much I hate her. She going a-beat me all the time now.”

“I can’t help you with that right now,” said Margaret. “I’d buy you away from her if I could, but I haven’t that much money. I might rent your services, though, so you don’t have to spend time with your mistress until you’ve got these feelings under control.”

“I never going a-
control
these feelings! Hate just going a-get bigger and bigger till I kill somebody!”

“That’s how it feels now, but I assure you, slaves in other cities, in other places, nobody takes their pride and hides it away, but they learn, they watch, they wait.”

“Wait for what? Wait to die.”

“Wait for hope,” said Margaret. “They don’t
have
hope, but they hope for hope, for a reason to hope. And in the meantime, there are many White men and women like me, who hate the whole idea of slavery. We’re doing all we can to set you free.”

“All you can ain’t worth nothing.”

Margaret had to admit the truth of what she said. “Fishy, I fear that you’re right. I’ve been trying to do it with words alone, to persuade them, but I fear that they’re never going to change until they’re made to change. I fear that it will take war, bloody terrible war between the Crown Colonies and the United States.”

Fishy looked at her strangely. “You telling me there be White folks up North, they willing to fight and die just to set Black folks free?”

“Some,” said Margaret. “And many more who are willing to fight and die in order to break the back of King Arthur, and others who would fight to show that
the United States won’t get pushed around by anybody, and—why should you care why they fight? If the war comes, if the North wins, then slavery will end.”

“Then bring on that war.”

“Do you want it?” asked Margaret, curious. “How many White people should die, so you can be free?”

“All of them!” cried Fishy, her voice full of loathing. Then she softened. “As many as it takes.” And then she wept again. “Oh, sweet Jesus, what am I? My soul so wicked! I going to hell!”

Margaret knelt beside her, facing her, and dared now to lay her hand gently on Fishy’s shoulder. The girl did not recoil from her, as she would have earlier. “You will not go to hell,” said Margaret. “God sees your heart.”

“My heart be full of murder all the time now!” said Fishy.

“And yet your hand is still the hand of peace. God loves you for choosing that, Fishy. God loves you for living up to your true name.”

The movement was slight, but it was real, as Fishy leaned a little closer to Margaret, accepting her touch, and then her embrace, until she wept into Margaret’s shoulder. “Let me stay with you, ma’am,” whispered Fishy.

“Come with me to my room, then,” said Margaret. “I hope you don’t mind going along with me in some lies.”

Fishy giggled, though at the end it was more of a sob than a laugh. “Around here, ma’am, if folks got they mouth open, if they ain’t eating then they lying.”

So this was what it came to, after all these years at the bar, as lawyer and as judge: John Adams had to sit in judgment in Cambridge over a witch trial. Oh, the ignominy of it. For a time he had been something of a philosopher, and caused an international incident over his involvement in the Appalachee Revolution. He had spoken for union between New England and the United States, daring the Lord Protector to arrest him for treason. He had called for a ban on trade with the Crown Colonies as long as they trafficked in slaves, at the very time that his fellow New Englanders were loudly calling for the right to enter into such trade. There wasn’t a question of import in New England since the 1760s that John Adams hadn’t been a part of. He had even founded a dynasty, or so it seemed, now that his boy John Quincy was governor of Massachusetts and chairman of the New England Council. And for the past fifteen years he had distinguished himself as a jurist, winning at last the love
of his fellow Yankees when he refused an appointment to the Lord Protector’s Bench in England, preferring to remain “among the free men of America.”

And now he had to hear a witch trial. The toadlike witcher, Quill, had come to see him when he arrived in Cambridge last night, reminding him that it was his duty to uphold the law—as if John Adams needed prompting in his duty from the likes of Quill. “I have not exceeded the law in any respect,” said Quill, “as you’ll see even from the testimony of the witches, unless they lie.”

“God help us if a witch should tell a lie,” John had murmured. Quill missed the irony entirely and took the answer as an affirmation. Well, that was fine. John didn’t mind if he went away happy, as long as he went away.

John should have died last year, when he got the grippe. He had it on the best authority that the Boston papers had all planned on a double-page spread for his obituary. That was precisely the space devoted to the eulogy of the last Lord Protector to shuffle off his mortal coil. It was good to be considered at a level with rulers and potentates, even though he had never quite succeeded in joining New England to the United States, making it impossible for him to play a role in that extraordinary experiment. Instead he remained here, among the good people of New England, whom he truly loved like brothers and sisters, even though he longed now and then to see a face that didn’t look like every other face.

Witch trials, though—it was an ugly thing, a holdover from medieval times. A shame on the face of New England.

But the law was the law. An accusation had been made, so a trial would have to be held, or at least the beginning of one. Quill would have his chance to get some poor wretch hanged—if he could do it without violating the prerogatives of the bench or pushing the powers of the law beyond their statutory and natural limits.

Now at breakfast John Adams sat with his old pupil,
Hezekiah Study. I adhere to a double standard, John admitted to himself. Quill’s visit to me last night I thought highly improper. Hezekiah’s visit, equally intended to influence my judgment in this case, I plan to enjoy. Well, any fool can be consistent, and most fools are.

“Cambridge is not what it used to be,” said John to Hezekiah. “The students don’t wear their robes.”

“Out of fashion now,” said Hezekiah. “Though if anyone had known you were coming, they might have put the robes back on. Your opinion on the subject is well known.”

“As if these boys would so much as part their hair for a relic like me.”

“A holy relic, sir?” asked Hezekiah.

John grimaced. “Oh, so I’m to be called ‘sir’ by you?”

“I was your student. You gave me Plato and Homer.”

“But you wanted Aristophanes, as I recall.” John Adams sighed. “You must realize, all my peers are dead. If I’m to have anyone on this earth call me John, it will have to be a friend who once called me ‘sir’ because of my seniority. We should have a new social rule. When we reach fifty, we’re all the same age forever.”

“John, then,” said Hezekiah. “I knew God had heard my prayer when I learned that it was you and no other who drew this case.”

“One judge is coughing his life out into bloody handkerchiefs and the other is burying his wife, and you think this is how God answers your prayers?”

“You weren’t due, and here you are. A witch trial, sir. John.”

“Oh, now you’ve knighted me. Sir John.” He wanted to laugh at the idea of his ever being the answer to someone’s prayer. Since his own prayers seemed rarely to be answered, it wouldn’t be quite fair of God, would it, to play him as the prize in someone else’s game of piety.

“I know how you feel about witches,” said Hezekiah.

“You also know how I feel about the law,” said John.

“I may disbelieve in the crime, but that doesn’t mean I’ll have any bias in the handling of the case.” Oh, let’s stop the pretense that the question has come up casually. “What’s your interest in it? Didn’t you used to defend these cases, back when you were a lawyer?”

“I was never a good one.”

John heard the pain in his voice. Still haunted after all these years? “You were an excellent lawyer, Hezekiah. But what is a lawyer against a superstitious, bloody-minded mob?”

Hezekiah smiled wanly. “I assume you know that the blacksmith’s lawyer was arrested last night.”

Quill hadn’t seen fit to mention this little ploy, but John had learned it from the sheriff. “I can see it now. Lawyer after lawyer steps forth to defend this man, only to be accused, each in turn, and locked away. Thus the trial continues till all the lawyers are in jail.”

Hezekiah smiled. “There are those who would regard that as the best of all possible outcomes.”

John chuckled with him, then sighed. “Don’t worry, Hezekiah. I won’t have defense attorneys locked up in order to bolster the witchers’ case. You shouldn’t be talking to me about this, though.”

“Oh, I knew what you’d do about that,” said Hezekiah. “If Quill thought he could get away with
that
—well, you’ll see when you meet the lawyer. He has Quill by the character!”

“That would be a slippery place to try to hold him.”

“No, it wasn’t the lawyer. It was another matter I wanted to bring to your attention.”

“Bring it in open court then, Hezekiah.”

“I can’t. And it’s not evidentiary, anyway.”

“Then tell me afterward.”

“Please don’t torment me, friend,” said Hezekiah. “I wouldn’t attempt anything unethical. Trust me enough to hear me out.”

“If it’s about the case ...”

“It’s about the accuser....”

“Who will also be a defendant in her own trial.”

“She’ll not be tried,” said Hezekiah. “She’s cooperating with Quill. So this can have no compromising effect on an action in court.”

“Don’t blame Quill for
her
. She came up with this accusation on her own.”

“I know, sir. John. But she’s not your normal accuser. Her parents were hanged for witches when she was a newborn. Indeed, her father took the drop, as they say, before she was even born, and her mother but weeks afterward. She found it out only a few days ago, and it put her in such a state that—”

“That she brought false accusation against a stranger?” John grimaced. “You have a fleck of yolk on your chin.”

Hezekiah dabbed at it with his napkin. “I think the accusation is not false,” said Hezekiah.

John glared at him. “I’m glad you didn’t say anything to compromise this blacksmith’s case.”

“I don’t mean that it’s objectively true, I mean that she’s being forthright. Her intent is pure. She believes the charge.”

John rolled his eyes. “So how many should I hang for one girl’s superstition?”

Hezekiah looked away. “She’s not superstitious, sir. She’s a sweet girl, good-hearted, and very bright. She’s been studying with me, and sitting in on lectures.”

“Oh, right. The girl and her professors. That’s why Harvard got raided by the tithingmen and half the faculty hauled off for questioning.”

“She didn’t initiate that, sir. She refuses to accuse any but the original defendants.”

“Till that rope-happy ghoul runs her into the ground.”

“You should have heard the blacksmith’s lawyer accuse Quill of using torture. Out on the common in front of everybody.” Hezekiah smiled at the memory. “He held the strings and Quill danced for the crowd.”

John liked the image as much as Hezekiah did, but he was a judge, and the first skill he had perfected was the ability to remain solemn and suppress even so much as a twinkle in his eye. “So you’re here to tell me that this girl, this Purity, means well as she tries to get this young man hanged.”

“I mean to say it isn’t a case of vengeance for spurned love, or any such thing as are usually at the heart of witch trials.”