Witchy Winter

by D. J. Butler

  “I was a frail child,” he answered. “The only way I have ever been able to get anything done has been by education.”

  “Frail and poor,” she shot back. “If you’d had money, you’d have accomplished plenty.”

  “Is that what your Scotsman teaches you?”

  Notwithstanding Schmidt harrumphed.

  “You know,” he said, “the men have all placed wagers as to where the name Joe Duncan comes from.”

  “The name of my canoe.”

  “Yes, fine, the name of your canoe.”

  “What’s your wager?” Schmidt crawled through the book of accounts with a straight edge as they spoke, and Luman continued brushing out the written blessing onto the fine sheet of paper he’d brought from Philadelphia, one letter at a time.

  “Will you tell me the truth if I tell you my bet?”

  “Natürlich.” Schmidt’s father had been an Ohio German, one of the Ministerium’s preachers. She claimed that her mother had been a Yankee, and that the two had resolved their inability to agree on a name for their only daughter by opening to a random page of the Bible and shoving in a finger. Exodus chapter twenty-one, twenty-first verse: Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money. Both had been horrified, but also too pious, too committed, and too recalcitrant to back down.

  He’d seen one of the factors reporting to her call her Nottie, once. The next day, there was a newly promoted former subfactor in his place.

  “Very well. I bet six Philadelphia shillings—a grand sum, you will acknowledge, even if they were the old shillings, bearing Hannah’s face and slightly worn at the edges—that Joe Duncan was the name of your first lover.”

  “A curious guess.”

  “I’m not betting on your sense of nostalgia, but on your will to vengeance. I think if you were ever jilted by a man, you would want him under your feet forever after.”

  “Ha!”

  Luman waited. “Well?”

  Schmidt set down the straight edge and looked up at him. “Joe Duncan was the name of my first…horse.” She smiled, her cheekbones standing out and her face abruptly looking feminine.

  “I lose.”

  “Sorry.”

  “But you realize, this doesn’t resolve the mystery at all.”

  Schmidt returned to the book. “Now you and the men can bet on why I named my first horse Joe Duncan. Do you feel confident enough to repeat the same wager?”

  Luman considered. “I shall think about it, after I have finished this himmelsbrief, rolled it into an oiled case, and pasted the case inside the Joe Duncan, to replace the one that was soaked as we came over the Ohio Forks.”

  “Is this the same text as the last one?”

  “Of course. They’re letters from heaven. Heaven dictated the text, and to change it would be to destroy the power of the thing. A lumanwaltersbrief, God knows, would do you no good.”

  “How much good did the last himmelsbrief do? It was destroyed by a little rain and being knocked about in some rapids, after all.”

  “Yes, the letter was destroyed.” Luman stabbed the quill pen through the air at Director Schmidt. “But the Joe Duncan was not, eh? Your first horse the Joe Duncan was not.”

  “And a teufelsbrief?”

  Luman hesitated. “Well, yes, there are letters from hell, too. But…”

  There came a knock at the door.

  “Enter!” Notwithstanding Schmidt called.

  The door opened and one of the Ohio Company traders stepped inside, quickly shutting the door behind him to keep out the late October chill. He removed his coonskin cap and rubbed some of the heated office’s air into his face. “There’s an Imperial chaplain here, Madam Director. He wishes to see you.”

  “Chaplain? What do I need a chaplain for? I’ve got money, and I’ve got a wizard.”

  The trader hesitated, toying with the cap in his hand. “He says he was father confessor to the emperor.”

  Schmidt frowned. “Is his name Angleton? A Covenant Tract man?”

  The trader nodded. “The two dragoons who came into the stockade yesterday confirm his story. He was chaplain to the Imperial House Light Dragoons, Madam Director.”

  “If the dragoons corroborate his story, why not send him directly? Why this shuffling notice? Am I some pasha, only to be approached by supplicants on their bellies?”

  “He looks…strange, ma’am. He’s filthy. He stinks of the graveyard.”

  “Give me a moment,” Schmidt said. “Then send him in.”

  The trader stepped outside and Schmidt called out, “also, send in the post superintendent. I’m ready to reconcile accounts with him.”

  The trader nodded and shut the door.

  Notwithstanding Schmidt picked up two pistols lying on the table near her and refreshed their firing pans. Pushing chairs under the table beside her to both her left and right, she laid a pistol on each chair. Out of sight, but within her reach.

  Luman blew dry the last of the ink. “Madam Director, will you indulge me?”

  “Not if you want to bring the canoe in here.”

  Luman laughed. He laid the heavenly letter out flat on the desk before the Director, then carefully laid two of the post’s account books on top of it. The letter became invisible, but visibility was not necessary for such a letter. Indeed, himmelsbriefe were often nailed within the walls of houses, or above doors, to do their work without being seen.

  Luman stepped to the side, near the fire, and crossed his arms.

  The door opened abruptly and a tall man strode in, slamming the door shut again behind him. “Director Schmidt, yaas?” he said, in a nasal whine.

  The newcomer was pale, with a hawkish nose between piercing, close-set blue eyes. He was thin and wore the black steepled hat favored by some of men of Boston and Hartford. At his waist hung a medieval-looking long sword. More strikingly, he wore a brown coat that looked on the verge of rotting entirely from his body, and his tongue and one ear were blackened, as if with charcoal. His eyes were sunken and dark.

  And he did stink of the grave.

  Something else bothered Luman, too, though he couldn’t quite have said what.

  “Madam Director is the usual form of address,” she said. “Ma’am, if you know me well enough. But we’re in the Ohio, and I won’t stand on ceremony if you won’t.”

  “Madam Director,” he said.

  “Right Reverend Father Ezekiel Angleton,” she answered, “if I remember correctly.”

  “I’m gratified you remember me. We’ve met.”

  “In Horse Hall. You had just returned from an expedition to Acadia with the emperor. And again I think in Cambry. You were preaching a stirring Martinite exhortation not to accept employment with any Ophidian master.”

  “Yaas. The Celts are entirely too quick to imagine themselves as magical creatures; that makes them sympathize more than they should with the Eldritch. You have a good memory.”

  She smiled.

  Luman realized what was bothering him about the chaplain; the man had burst in nearly at a run, and yet wasn’t breathing hard.

  In fact, despite the long conversation he was carrying on with the Director, he didn’t seem to be breathing at all.

  Luman reached into his coat and took his Homer amulet into his fist. It was a thin iron lamella hanging around his neck on a fine chain, and he knew the three lines of Greek inscribed onto it, between two tiny stylized crocodiles, by heart. Hos eipon taphroio dielase monychas hippous. Book Ten of the Iliad, all the ancient writers agreed, had special power. The amulet was good against enchantments and demons and ensured victory, the grimoire Luman had copied from his Memphite initiator even before his time in Youngstown assured.

  “What can I do for you?” Schmidt asked, her smile dropping. “I’m actually quite busy, but I’m sympathetic to the needs of a fellow Imperial, especially one down on his luck.”

  “Down on my luck?”

  “You may already know that a few o
f the dragoons from your company have straggled into this post in the last twelve hours or so. I haven’t heard a full, coherent story yet from any of them, but I gather that the Imperial House Light Dragoons have come to misadventure. Happily, I believe you weren’t accompanying the emperor at the time, and His Imperial Majesty is safe at home in Philadelphia.”

  “Yaas.” Angleton straightened out and removed his hat, holding it to his breast as if in salute. “Yaas, Madam Director, you’ve heard true. I come to you because I need additional assistance for my errand. The emperor’s errand.”

  Andras t’aspairontas en argaleesi phonesin.

  “The emperor could assign you men to assist, if he wished. If he is sparing, it may be because he finds himself somewhat short on manpower.”

  Angleton rubbed his eyes. “Thomas doesn’t know my present need.”

  “Thomas?” Schmidt arched her eyebrows. “Well, I’m afraid it’s out of the question. I have orders myself, you see. I’m recruiting additional men into the ranks of the Company Regulars, and I also bear letters patent from the emperor allowing me to take management of Imperial Militia units, which I am doing. And I and my men are marching west. And I can’t spare any of them. Not one.”

  “You’re building an army.”

  “I’m reinforcing the Pacification of the Ohio. As ordered.”

  “I have orders, too.” Angleton jammed his hat back onto his head.

  “Yes, what are they? Perhaps our errands are compatible, and I can help you in some way.”

  “I’m bound for Johnsland,” the chaplain said. “The emperor has sent me…that is, I seek to capture an enemy agent. An Ophidian, a traitor.”

  Autoi d’hydro pollon aponizonto thalasse.

  The iron lamella tingled in Luman’s grip.

  “You know, many Ophidians are loyal subjects of the Empire,” Schmidt said mildly. “They pay taxes, engage in trade. Some of them work for the Company. I know you Martinites did good work in the Serpentwars, but you might be well advised to moderate your rhetoric now.”

  Ezekiel Angleton sprang forward, hands reaching for the director—

  she thrust her own hands under the table, but she was too slow—

  Luman jumped to intervene, but he was too far away and much smaller than the Yankee—

  and then Angleton reached the edge of the desk and fell back, as if he had struck a brick wall.

  Notwithstanding Schmidt blinked like an owl. Luman arrested his charge and stared.

  Roaring, the Yankee cleric hurled himself forward again, and again bounced back.

  “What is this?” he shrieked.

  “This,” Schmidt said, producing two pistols from under the table, “is confirmation that I receive value for money from my hexenmeister.”

  Ezekiel Angleton froze, stared at the pistols for several long seconds, and then retired to the door. He wrapped his coat about himself, adjusted his hat, and drew himself up to his full height. “Forgive me, Madam Director. I haven’t slept these two nights, and I’m not myself.”

  “Forgiven. I still can’t spare you the men. Good luck in Johnsland. Watch out for your Celts, while you’re there. I hear the Cavaliers’ Irish servants still sink the children of Adam into the bogs and sing their druidic chants. For that matter, who can say what sacrifices the earl’s own godar really offer on those bloody rock-heaps?”

  “None of my affair,” Angleton said. “I follow St. Martin Luther.”

  “And lust for Firstborn blood.”

  Angleton nodded sharply and exited, leaving the door open.

  Director Schmidt laid down her pistols, moved aside the account books, and examined the himmelsbrief lying on the table. “This is indeed a beautiful piece,” she observed. “I rather think I’d like you to make another one…one I could wear, say, in the lining of my coat.”

  “One for you, Madam Director,” Luman Walters said. “And a second for me.”

  The post superintendent, a big-nosed man named Weber, stepped into the office.

  “Ah, Herr Superintendent,” Schmidt said, pronouncing the S like a Z, in German fashion. “I have reviewed your journal accounts and recalculated the post’s capital surplus. I must say, your mathematics were very nearly exact. That tends to suggest that you are an honest man, and even competent.”

  Weber looked at Luman and chuckled nervously.

  Luman smiled back and checked his stock of fine Philadelphia-bought paper. He had himmelsbriefe to produce.

  “Also, your working capital seems to be tightly managed. Now get the post’s cash, please,” Director Schmidt continued. “We will need to reconcile the accounts to cash on hand. The Company is going to extract an extraordinary dividend.”

  “Don’t worry, though,” Luman added. “In return, I’ll hex the trading post to drive additional business here. I have all the orange wax I need to cast the spell, but I’d appreciate it if you could procure a rooster—the bird will die, you understand—and a copper coin earned by the post in ordinary trade. And please show me a spot where you don’t mind me hiding something in the wall.”

  * * *

  Ma’iingan left his canoe buried under a drift of autumn leaves high above the river the Zhaaganaashii and the Haudenosaunee called the Ohio. He marked the location discreetly in the bark of nearby trees, but he wasn’t too concerned; he had made the canoe himself, in a few hours’ work, and he could make another if he needed to.

  He had spent most of his journey in solitude. He shared a pipe of asemaa with Sauk and Fox hunters when he encountered them, to assure them of his peaceful intentions. He spoke Zhaaganaashii and he made a point of saluting all travelers when he passed, but he didn’t need to trade—with his bow, or occasionally with his German rifle, he killed deer and other game to feed himself. He also found his own water, and he built his own shelter when necessary. And he knew his path from the vision his spirit guide, his manidoo, had shown him.

  Ma’iingan simply didn’t need to speak to anyone else.

  This left him time to think. His manidoo had told him that the healer he sought would need Ma’iingan’s help. What help would he need? Was the room Ma’iingan had seen in vision a prison cell? Ma’iingan had never been in a prison, and the People didn’t administer such things, but he had seen them from the outside, in Waukegan and Chicago. If the healer needed food, water, or shelter, Ma’iingan could help.

  But the spirit had said the healer was laid low by illness. What would the healer need, that Ma’iingan could provide?

  Ma’iingan climbed through mountains the inhabitants called the Appalachee. He saw Shawnee, and Zhaaganaashii, and when the Shawnee settlements gave way to the brick and wood houses of the Cherokee towns, Ma’iingan knew he was getting close.

  On the day when he could finally smell—faint and far away—the great waters of the ocean, Ma’iingan found the healer.

  He stumbled into a hunt. Only it wasn’t a hunt such as Ma’iingan knew, with the quiet stalking of a herd of deer, the hunter taking a knee with his bow and waiting patiently for the right moment to receive the sacred gift of the earth and the forest. Instead, it began as an avalanche of fur.

  Rabbits passed Ma’iingan first, running uphill. Behind the rabbits came foxes and raccoons, but these weren’t pursuing the rabbits; they too were pursued.

  Ma’iingan heard the baying of dogs and Zhaaganaashii curses. He didn’t think he was the intended prey, but a distracted hunter might shoot him anyway, so he quickly scrambled up the nearest tree, a tall white pine. Perched high in the pine’s branches with his legs wrapped around the trunk, he carefully maneuvered his bow into one hand and a single arrow into the other, hiding the arrow alongside the tree trunk.

  The Zhaaganaashii were arranged like a chevron of flying geese, only they flew backward. The loose arms of the chevron consisted of men and boys in coarse cloth, holding sticks. They were the source of the yelling and they struck bushes and trees with their cudgels, driving the animals ahead of them.

  Between the
two arms came a group of four Zhaaganaashii men in more elaborate clothing, with longer hair. All four of them wore long purple coats, faded and worn to different degrees. At least one of them was scented with perfume Ma’iingan could smell from the top of the tree and over the pine sap.

  “This is beneath me, really,” one of the men said. He had curly dark hair and carried a musket, but carelessly. Of all of them, his coat was the brightest purple. “I should be hunting the stag.”

  “True, George,” said the oldest of the group. He was younger than Ma’iingan and bigger, with a broad chest and shoulders that would make him a fierce fighter. “But Landon and Nathaniel could use the practice.”

  “As could you, Charles,” George sniffed.

  The boy with long brown hair laughed. Rudely, Ma’iingan thought.

  “Yes,” Charles agreed. His answer was slow and sounded good-natured, but Ma’iingan heard a note of anger in it. “Especially with the musket. All the shooting I do these days is with the pistol, you know.”

  “Do I know?” George snapped. “Do I?”

  “Easy, George,” Charles said. “I only mean that in the cavalry, I don’t get to shoot long guns much. Carbines and horse pistols.”

  “Yes, you remind me that you’re in the cavalry. That my father has been good enough to pay for your commission, while I have not yet got mine! Thank you, Charles, for that reminder!”

  “You’ll have it soon enough,” Charles said.

  “Yes,” the brown-haired boy said. “And you shall be captain, at least. Maybe colonel. And Lieutenant Charles Lee here will run your messages back and forth to other important commanders and to your many mistresses, and see that your laundry is done to your liking.”

  Ma’iingan didn’t follow all the words, but he understood that the young warriors were talking about rank and who took precedence over whom. This was a much more complicated question among the Zhaaganaashii than in the People’s war bands.

  “Don’t you start, Landon,” George snarled.

  “What?” The brown-haired youth, Landon, staggered sideways under George’s glare. “I am only pointing out that you’re the important one here!”

  “I’m important, so I won’t see any real fighting, is that it? I’ll be a coward, the kind of commander who has more mistresses in his camp than victories to his name?”