Speaks the Nightbird mc-1 Page 11

  "Yes, sir. Shawcombe also made mention that the Spanish spy might be an Englishman. Or at least an Englishman in appearance. And that he might be living in Fount Royal."

  "Curious. What would be the purpose of such a spy? Ah!" he said, answering his own question. "Of course! To report on the progress of Fount Royal. Which may yet turn out to be known as Bidwell's Folly, I might add. But what part would the Indians play in this, that they would have to be tamed by Spanish gold?"

  Matthew had already formulated this question and given it some thought. He ventured his opinion, something he was never reluctant to do: "One of Bidwell's motives behind the creation of Fount Royal is as a fort to keep watch on the Spanish. It might be that they're already much nearer than the Florida country."

  "You mean living with the Indians?"

  Matthew nodded. "A small expeditionary force, possibly. If not living with the Indians, then close enough to want to seek their good graces."

  Woodward almost reined the horses in, so hard did this speculation hit him. "My God!" he said. "If that's true—if there's any possibility of it being true—then Bidwell's got to be told! If the Spaniards could incite the Indians to attack Fount Royal, they wouldn't have to lift a finger to destroy the whole settlement!"

  "Yes, sir, but I don't think Mr. Bidwell should be alarmed in such a way just yet."

  "Why not? He'd want to know, wouldn't he?"

  "I'm sure he would," Matthew agreed calmly. "But for now you and I are the only ones making these suppositions. And that's what they should remain, until some proof can be found."

  "You don't think the coin is proof enough?"

  "No, I don't. As Mr. Paine said, one coin does not make a fortune. Nor does it give proof that Spanish soldiers are encamped out in the wilderness. But if such an idea flew out of Mr. Bidwell's mouth and into the ears of the citizens, it would mean the certain end of Fount Royal."

  "Do you propose we do nothing?" Woodward asked, rather sharply.

  "I propose we watch and listen," Matthew said. "That we make some discreet inquiries and—as far as we are able—monitor Mr. Paine's activities. If indeed there is a spy, he might be waiting to see what develops concerning the witchcraft case. After all, with Satan walking the fields, Fount Royal may simply continue to shrivel up and soon dissolve."

  "Well, it's a damnable thing!" the magistrate snorted. "You raise these speculations, but you don't wish to act on them!"

  "Now is not the time. Besides, sir, I believe we both have a more pressing engagement with Rachel Howarth."

  Woodward started to respond, but sealed his mouth. The wagon's wheels continued to turn through the mud, the two horses keeping a slow but steady pace. After a spell of deliberation, Woodward cleared his throat again. "Rachel Howarth," he said. "I can't say I look forward to making her acquaintance tomorrow. What did you make of Garrick's story?"

  "Very strange."

  "A grand understatement, I should think. I don't believe I've ever heard anything quite like it. In fact, I know I haven't. But is it believable?"

  "Unless he's one of the best liars I've ever heard, he believes it."

  "Then he did see someone or something behind that barn, yes? But that act he described . . . how in the name of all that's holy could a woman perform in such a way?"

  "I don't think we're dealing with a holy situation," Matthew reminded him.

  "No. Of course not. Two murders. It seems reasonable that the first murder should've been a minister. The diabolic would seek to destroy first and foremost a man who could wield the sword of God."

  "Yes, sir, it does. But in this instance, it appears the blade of Satan was a stronger weapon."

  "I'd keep such blasphemies chained, before you're summoned to a higher court by a bolt of lightning," Woodward cautioned.

  Matthew's eyes regarded the green, steamy wilderness that loomed beside the road, but his mind had turned to other sights: namely, the finding of truth in this matter of witchcraft. It was a blasphemous thought—and he knew he risked eternal damnation for thinking it—but sometimes he had to wonder if there was indeed a God who reigned over this earthly arena of fury and brutality. Matthew could sing the hymns and mouth the platitudes with the best of them, in the stiffly regimented Sabbath church services that basically consisted of the minister begging for five or six hours that Jehovah show mercy on His wounded and crippled Creation. But in his life Matthew had seen very little real evidence of God at work, though it seemed he'd seen much of Satan's fingermarks. It was easy to sing praise to God when one was wearing a clean white shirt and eating from china platters, much less easy when one lay on a dirty mattress in an almshouse dormitory and heard the shrill scream of a boy who'd been summoned after midnight to the headmaster's chambers.

  SOMETIMES HE DID DREAM of his mother and father. Not often, but sometimes. In those dreams he saw two figures that he knew were his parents, but he could never clearly see their faces. The shadows were always too deep. He might not have recognized them even if he had been able to see their faces, as his mother had died of poisoned blood when he was three years old and his father—a taciturn but hardworking Massachusetts colony plowman who had tried his best to raise the boy alone—succumbed to the kick of a horse to the cranium when Matthew was in his sixth year. And with the flailing of that fatal equine hoof, Matthew was thrust into a pilgrimage that would both mold and test his mettle. His first stop on the journey was the squalid little cabin of his uncle and aunt who ran a pig farm on Manhattan island. As they were both drunks and insensate much of the time, with two imbecile children aged eight and nine who thought of Matthew as an object to be tormented—which included regular flights into a huge pile of pig manure beside the house—Matthew at seven years of age leaped upon the back of a southbound haywagon, burrowed into the hay, and so departed the loving embrace of his nearest relatives.

  There followed almost four months of living hand-to-mouth on the New York waterfront, falling in with a group of urchins who either begged from the merchants and traders in that locale or stole from them when the fires of hunger became too hot. Matthew knew what it was like to fight for a few crumbs of hard bread and feel like a king when he came away from the battle bloody-nosed but his fists clenching sustenance. The finale to that episode in his life came when one of the harbor merchants roused the constable to action and men of the law subsequently raided the beach-wrecked ship where Matthew and the others were sheltered. They were caught in nets and bound up like what they were—kicking, spitting, frightened, vicious little animals.

  And then a black wagon carried them all—still bound and now gagged to contain the foul language they'd gleaned from the merchants—over the city's hard dirt streets, four horses pulling the load of snot-nosed criminals, a driver whipping, a bell-ringer warning citizens out of the way. The wagon pulled to a halt in front of a building whose bricks were soot-dark and glistening with rain, like the rough hide of some squatting lizard yellow-eyed and hungry. Matthew and the others were taken none too gently out of the wagon and through the iron-gated entrance; he would always remember the awful sound that gate made as it clanged shut and a latchpin fell into place. Then under an archway and through another door into a hall, and he was well and truly in the chill embrace of the Sainted John Home for Boys.

  His first full day in that drear domain consisted of being scrubbed with coarse soap, immersed in a skin-stinging solution meant to kill lice and fleas, his hair shorn to the scalp, his nails trimmed, and his teeth brushed by the eldest of the boys—the "fellows," he was to learn they were called—who were overseen by an eagle-eyed "commander" by the name of Harrison, aged seventeen and afflicted with a withered left hand. Then, dressed in a stiff-collared gray gown and wearing square-toed Puritan shoes, Matthew was taken into a room where an old man with sharp blue eyes and a wreath of white hair sat behind a desk awaiting him. A quill pen, ledgerbook, and inkwell adorned the desktop.

  They were left alone. Matthew looked around the room, which held shelv
es of books and had a window overlooking the street. He walked directly across the bare wooden floor to the window and peered out into the gray light. In the misty distance he could see the masts of ships that lay at harbor. It was a strange window, with nine squares set in some kind of metal frame. The shutters were open, and yet when Matthew reached toward the outside world his hand was stopped by a surface that was all but invisible. He placed his palm against one of the squares and pressed, but the surface would not yield. The outside world was there to be seen, the shutters were open, but some eerie force prevented him from pushing his hand through.

  "It's called 'glass,'" the man behind the desk said in a quiet voice.

  Matthew brought his other hand up and pressed all his fingers against this strange new magic. His heart was beating hard, as he realized this was something beyond his understanding. How could a window be open and closed at the same time?

  "Do you have a name?" the man asked. Matthew didn't bother answering. He was enraptured in studying the mysterious window.

  "I am Headmaster Staunton," the man said, still quietly. "Can you tell me how old you are?" Matthew pressed his face forward, his nose pushing against the surface. His breath bloomed before him. "I suspect you've had a difficult time. Would you tell me about it?"

  Matthew's fingers were at work again, probing and investigating, his young brow furrowed with thought. "Where are your parents?" Staunton asked. "Dead," Matthew replied, before he could think not to. "And what was your family name?"

  Matthew tapped at the window with his knuckles. "Where does this come from?"

  Staunton paused, his head cocked to one side as he regarded the boy. Then he reached out with a thin, age-spotted hand, picked up a pair of spectacles on the desk before him, and put them on. "The glazier makes it."

  "Glazier? What's that?"

  "A man whose business is making glass and setting it in lead window frames." Matthew shook his head, uncomprehending. "It's a craft not long introduced into the colonies. Does it interest you?"

  "Never seen the like. It's a window open and shut at the same time."

  "Yes, I suppose you might say that." The headmaster smiled slightly, which served to soften his gaunt face. "You have some curiosity, don't you?"

  "I don't got nothin'," Matthew said adamantly. "Them sons-abitches come and now we ain't got nothin', none of us."

  "I have seen six of your tribe so far this afternoon. You're the only one who's shown interest in that window. I think you do have some curiosity."

  Matthew shrugged. He felt a pressure at his bladder, and so he lifted the front of his gown and peed against the wall.

  "I see you've learned to be an animal. We must unlearn some things. Relieving yourself without benefit of a bucket—and in privacy, as a gentleman—would earn you two stings of the whip given by the punishment captain. The speaking of profanity is also worthy of two lashes." Staunton's voice had become solemn, his eyes stern behind the spectacles. "As you're new here, I will let this first display of bad habits pass, though you shall mop up your mess. The next time you do such a thing, I will make certain the lashes are delivered promptly and—believe me, son—the punishment captain performs his task very well. Do you understand me?"

  Matthew was about to shrug again, dismissing the old man's complaint; but he was aware of the fierce gaze that was levelled at him, and he had some idea that he might be doing himself future harm not to respond. He nodded, and then he turned away from the headmaster to once more direct his full attention to the window's glass. He ran his fingers over it, feeling the undulating ripples and swells of its surface.

  "How old are you?" Staunton asked. "Seven? Eight?"

  '"Tween 'em," Matthew said.

  "Can you read and write?"

  "I know some numbers. Ten fingers, ten toes. That makes twenty Double that's forty. Double again's . . ." He thought about it. His father had taught him some basic arithmetic, and they'd been working on the alphabet when the horse's hoof had met skullbone. "Forty and forty," he said. "I know a-b-c-d-e-f-g-h-i-j-n-l-o-p-k too."

  "Well, it's a beginning. You were given a name by your parents, I presume?"

  Matthew hesitated; it seemed to him that telling this headmaster his name would give the man some power over him, and he wasn't ready to do that. "This here window," he said. "It don't let the rain in?"

  "No, it doesn't. On a windy day, it allows sunlight but turns away the wind. Therefore I have more light to read by, but no fear of my books and papers being disturbed."

  "Damn!" Matthew said with true wonder. "What'll they think of next?"

  "Watch your language, young man," Staunton cautioned, but not without a hint of amusement. "The next profanity will raise a blister on your hide. Now, I want you to know and remember this: I want to be your friend, but it is your choice whether we are friends or adversaries. Enemies, I mean to say. In this almshouse there are sixty-eight boys, ages seven to seventeen. I do not have the time nor resources to coddle you, nor will I overlook bad manners or a troublesome attitude. What the lash does not cure, the dunking barrel remedies." He paused to let that pronouncement sink to its proper depth. "You will be given studies to achieve, and chores to perform, as befits your age. You will be expected to learn to read and write, as well as calculate arithmetic. You will go to chapel on the Sabbath and learn the holy writ. And you shall comport yourself as a young gentlemen. But," Staunton added in a gentler tone, "this is not a prison, and I am not a warden. The main purpose of this place is to prepare you for leaving it."

  "When?" Matthew asked.

  "In due time, and not before." Staunton plucked the quill from the inkwell and poised it over the open ledgerbook. "I'd like to know your name now."

  Matthew's attention had wandered back to the window's glass once more. "I sure would like to see how this is made," he said. "It's a puzzle how it's done, ain't it?"

  "Not such a puzzle." Staunton stared at the boy for a moment, and then he said, "I'll strike a deal with you, son. The glazier has a workshop not far from here. You tell me your name and your circumstances, and—as you're so interested in the craft—I'll ask the glazier to come and explain it. Does that sound reasonable?"

  Matthew considered it. The man, he realized, was offering him something that set a spark to his candle: knowledge. "Rea-son'ble," he repeated, with a nod. "My name's Matthew Corbett. Two t's and two t's."

  Headmaster Staunton entered the name into the ledger in small but precise handwriting, and thus was Matthew's life greatly altered from its previous muddy course.

  Given books and patient encouragement, Matthew proved to be a quick study. Staunton was true to his word and brought the glazier in to explain his craft to the assembly of boys; so popular was the visit that soon followed a shoemaker, a sailmaker, a blacksmith, and other honest, hardworking citizens of the city beyond the almshouse walls. Staunton—a devoutly religious man who had been a minister before becoming headmaster—was scrupulously fair but set high goals and expectations for his charges. After several encounters with the lash, Matthew's use of profanity ended and his manners improved. His reading and writing skills after a year were so proficient that Staunton decided to teach him Latin, an honor given only to two other boys in the home, and the key that opened for Matthew many more volumes from Staunton's library. Two years of intense Latin training, as well as further English and arithmetic studies, saw Matthew leave the other scholars behind, so sharp and undivided was his power of concentration.

  It was not a bad life. He did such chores as were required of him and then returned to his studies with a passion that bordered on religious fervor. As some of the boys with whom he'd entered the almshouse left to become apprentices to craftsmen, and new boys were brought in, Matthew remained a fixed star—solitary, aloof—that directed his light only toward the illumination of answers to the multitude of questions that perplexed him. When Matthew turned twelve, Staunton-—who was now in his sixty-fourth year and beginning to suffer from palsy—began to teac
h the boy French, as much to sow a language he himself found fascinating as well as to further cultivate Matthew's appreciation of mental challenges.

  Discipline of thought and control of action became Matthew's purpose in life. While the other boys played such games as slide groat and wicket, Matthew was likely to be found dredging through a Latin tome on astronomy or copying French literature to improve his handwriting. His dedication to the intellectual—indeed his slavery to the appetite of his own mind—began to concern Headmaster Staunton, who had to encourage Matthew's participation in games and exercise by limiting his access to the books. Still, Matthew was apart and afar from the other boys, and had grown gangly legged and ill-suited for the rough-and-tumble festivities his compatriots enjoyed, and so even in their midst he was alone.

  Matthew had just seen his fourteenth birthday when Headmaster Staunton made a startling announcement to the boys and the other almshouse workers: he had experienced a dream in which Christ appeared, wearing shining white robes, and told him his work was done at the Home. The task that remained for him was to leave and travel west into the frontier wilderness, to teach the Indian tribes the salvation of God. This dream was to Staunton so real and compelling that there was no question of disobedience; it was, to him, the call to glory that would assure his ascent into Heaven.

  Before he left—at age sixty-six and severely palsied—Headmaster Staunton dedicated his library of books to the almshouse, as well as leaving to the Home's fund the majority of the money he'd banked over his service of some thirty years. To Matthew in particular he gave a small box wrapped in plain white paper, and asked the boy not to open it until he'd boarded a wagon and departed the following morning. And so, after wishing every boy in his charge good fortune and a good life, Headmaster Staunton took the reins of his future and travelled to the ferry that would deliver him across the Hudson River into his own personal promised land, a Bible his only shield and companion.