Speaks the Nightbird mc-1

by Robert R. McCammon

  "Or possessed supernatural strength, or had the witch curse Green to sap the man's power, " Bidwell said. "That's what I think."

  "Pardon me, gentlemen." Mrs. Nettles had come. "Dinner's a'table."

  "Ah, yes. Good. We'll be there directly, Mrs. Nettles." Bid-well waited for the woman to withdraw, and then he said quietly to the others, "I have a problem. Something of the utmost importance that I need to discuss with all of you."

  "What is it?" Shields asked, frowning. "You sound not yourself."

  "I am not myself, " Bidwell answered. "As a matter of fact... since we returned from Charles Town and I have taken stock of my impending failure, I am changed in a way I would never have thought possible. In fact, that is what I need to discuss with all of you. Come, let's go into the library where voices don't carry as freely." He picked up a lamp and led the way.

  Two candles were already burning in the library, shedding plenty of light, and four chairs had been arranged in a semicircle. Winston followed Bidwell in, then the doctor entered, and lastly Johnstone limped through the doorway.

  "What's this, Robert?" Johnstone asked. "You make it sound so secretive."

  "Please, sit down. All of you." When his guests were seated, Bidwell put his lantern on the sill of the open window and settled himself in his chair. "Now, " he said gravely. "This problem that I grapple with... has to do with..."

  "Questions and answers, " came a voice from the library's entrance. Instantly Dr. Shields and Johnstone turned their heads toward the door.

  "The asking of the former, and the finding of the latter, " Matthew said, as he continued into the room. "And thank you, sir, for delivering the cue."

  "My God!" Shields shot to his feet, his eyes wide behind his spectacles. "What are you doing here?"

  "Actually, I've been occupying my room for the afternoon." Matthew walked to a position so that he might face all the men, his back to the wall. He wore a pair of dark blue breeches and a fresh white shirt. Mrs. Nettles had cut the left sleeve away from the clay dressing. He didn't tell them that when he'd shaved and been forced to regard his bruise-blotched face and the clay plaster on his forehead, he'd been cured of unnecessary glances in a mirror for some time to come.

  "Robert?" Johnstone's voice was calm. He gripped the shaft of his cane with both hands. "What trickery is this?"

  "It's not a trick, Alan. Simply a preparation in which Edward and I assisted."

  "A preparation? For what, pray tell?"

  "For this moment, sir, " Matthew said, his face betraying no emotion. "I arrived back here—with Rachel—around two o'clock. We entered through the swamp, and as I was... um... deficient in clothing and did not wish to be seen by anyone, I asked John Goode to make my presence known to Mr. Bidwell. He did so, with admirable discretion. Then I asked Mr. Bidwell to gather you all together this evening."

  "I'm lost!" Shields said, but he sat down again. "You mean to say you brought the witch back here? Where is she?"

  "The woman is currently in Mrs. Nettles's quarters, " Bidwell offered. "Probably eating her dinner."

  "But... but..." Shields shook his head. "She's a witch, by God! It was proven so!"

  "Ah, proof." Now Matthew smiled slightly. "Yes, doctor, proof is at the crux of things, is it not?"

  "It certainly is! And what you've proven to me is that you're not only bewitched, but a bewitched fool! And for the sake of God, what's happened to you? Did you fight with a demon to gain the witch's favors?"

  "Yes, doctor, and I slayed it. Now: if it is proof you require, I shall be glad to satisfy your thirst." Matthew, for the fourth or fifth time, found himself absentmindedly scratching at the clay plaster that covered his broken ribs beneath the shirt. He had a small touch of fever and was sweating, but the Indian physician—through Nawpawpay—had this morning announced him fit to travel. Demon Slayer hadn't had to walk the distance, however; except for the last two miles, he'd been carried by his and Rachel's Indian guides on a ladder-like conveyance with a dais at its center. It had been quite the way to travel.

  "It seems to me, " Matthew said, "that we have all—being learned and God-fearing men—come to the conclusion that a witch cannot speak the Lord's Prayer. I would venture that a warlock could neither speak it. Therefore: Mr. Winston, would you please speak the Lord's Prayer?"

  Winston drew a long breath. He said, "Of course. Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done..."

  Matthew waited, staring into Winston's face, as the man perfectly recited the prayer. At the "Amen, " Matthew said, "Thank you, " and turned his attention to Bidwell.

  "Sir, would you also please speak the Lord's Prayer?"

  "Me?" Instantly some of the old accustomed indignation flared in Bidwell's eyes. "Why should I have to speak it?"

  "Because, " Matthew said, "I'm telling you to."

  "Telling me?" Bidwell made a flatulent noise with his lips. "I won't speak such a personal thing just because someone orders me to!"

  "Mr. Bidwell?" Matthew had clenched his teeth. This man, even as an ally, was insufferable! "It is necessary."

  "I agreed to this meeting, but I didn't agree to recite such a powerful prayer to my God on demand, as if it were lines from a maskers' play! No, I shall not speak it! And I'm not a warlock for it, either!"

  "Well, it appears you and Rachel Howarth share stubborn natures, does it not?" Matthew raised his eyebrows, but Bidwell didn't respond further. "We shall return to you, then."

  "You may return to me a hundred times, and it won't matter!"

  "Dr. Shields?" Matthew said. "Would you please cooperate with me in this matter, as one of us refuses to do, and speak the Lord's Prayer?"

  "Well... yes... I don't understand the point, but... all right." Shields ran the back of his hand across his mouth. During Winston's recitation he'd finished the rest of his drink, and now he looked into the empty glass and said, "I have no more wine. Might I get a fresh glass?"

  "After the prayer is spoken. Would you proceed?"

  "Yes. All right." The doctor blinked, his eyes appearing somewhat glazed in the ruddy candlelight. "All right, " he said again. Then: "Our Father... who art in heaven... hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy... will be done... on earth as it is... is in heaven." He stopped, pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his sand-colored jacket and blotted moisture from his face. "I'm sorry. It is warm in here. My wine... I do need a cooling drink."

  "Dr. Shields?" Matthew said quietly. "Please continue."

  "I've spoken enough of it, haven't I? What madness is this?"

  "Why can you not finish the prayer, doctor?"

  "I can finish it! By Christ, I can!" Shields lifted his chin defiantly, but Matthew saw that his eyes were terrified. "Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our... forgive us our trespasses... as we forgive those who... who trespass... trespass..." He pressed his hand to his lips and now he appeared to be distraught, even near weeping. He made a muffled sound that might have been a moan.

  "What is it, Ben?" Bidwell asked in alarm. "For God's sake, tell us!" Dr. Shields lowered his head, removed his glasses, and wiped his damp forehead with the handkerchief. "Yes, " he answered in a frail voice. "Yes. I should tell it... for the sake of God."

  "Shall I fetch you some water?" Winston offered, standing up. "No." Shields waved him down again. "I... should... tell it, while I am able."

  "Tell what, Ben?" Bidwell glanced up at Matthew, who had an idea what was about to be revealed. "Ben?" Bidwell prompted. "Tell what?"

  "That... it was I... who murdered Nicholas Paine." Silence fell. Bidwell's jaw might have been as heavy as an anvil.

  "I murdered him, " the doctor went on, his head lowered. He dabbed at his forehead, cheeks, and eyes with small, birdlike movements. "Executed him, I should say." He shook his head slowly back and forth. "No. That is a pallid excuse. I murdered him, and I deserve to answer to the law for it... because I can no longer answer to myself or God. And He asks me about it
. Every day and night, He does. He whispers... Ben... now that it's done... at long last, now that it's done... and you have committed with your own hands the act that you most detest in this world... the act that makes men into beasts... how shall you go on living as a healer?"

  "Have you... lost your mind?" Bidwell thought his friend was suffering a mental breakdown right before his eyes. "What are you saying?"

  Shields lifted his face. His eyes were swollen and red, his mouth slack. Saliva had gathered in the corners. "Nicholas Paine was the highwayman who killed my elder son. Shot him... during a robbery on the Philadelphia Post Road, just outside Boston eight years ago. My boy lived long enough to describe the man... and also to say that he'd drawn a pistol and shot the highwayman through the calf of his leg." Shields gave a bitter, ghastly smile. "It was I who told him never to travel that road without a prepared pistol near at hand. In fact... it was my birthday gift to him. My boy was shot in the stomach, and... there was nothing to be done. But I... I went mad, I think. For a very long time." He picked up the wineglass, forgetting it was empty, and started to tip it to his mouth before he realized the futility of it.

  Shields drew a long, shuddering breath and released it. All eyes were on him. "Robert... you know what the officers in these colonies are like. Slow. Untrained. Stupid. I knew the man might lose himself, and I would never have the satisfaction... of doing to his father what he had done to me. So I set out. First... to find a doctor who might have treated him. It took a search through every rumhole and whorehouse in Boston... but I eventually found the doctor. The so-called doctor, a drunken slug who tended to the whores. He knew the man, and where he lived. He had also... recently buried the man's wife and baby daughter, the first who'd died of fits, and the second who'd perished soon after."

  Shields again wiped his face with the handkerchief, his hand trembling. "I had no pity for Nicholas Paine. None. I simply... wanted to extinguish him, as he had extinguished something in my soul. So I began to track him. From place to place. Village to town to city, and back again. Always close, but never finding. Until I learned he had traded horses in Charles Town and had told the stable master his destination. And it took me eight years." He looked into Bidwell's eyes. "Do you know what I realized, the very hour after I killed him?"

  Bidwell didn't reply. He couldn't speak.

  "I realized... I had also killed myself, eight years ago. I had given up my practise, I had turned my back on my wife and my other son... who both needed me, then more than ever. I had forsaken them, to kill a man who in many ways was also already dead. And now that it was done... I felt no pride in it. No pride in anything anymore. But he was dead. He was bled like my heart had bled. And the most terrible thing... the most terrible, Robert... was that I think... Nicholas was not the same man who had pulled that trigger. I wanted him to be a coldhearted killer... but he was not that man at all. But me... I was the same man I had always been. Only much, much worse."

  The doctor closed his eyes and let his head roll back. "I am prepared to pay my debt, " he said softly. "Whatever it may be. I am used up, Robert. All used up."

  "I disagree, sir, " Matthew said. "Your use is clear: to comfort Magistrate Woodward in these final hours." It hurt him like a dagger to the throat to speak such, but it was true. The magistrate's health had collapsed the very morning of Matthew's departure, and it was terribly clear that the end would be soon. "I'm sure we all appreciate your candor, and your feelings, but your duty as a doctor stands first before your obligation to the law, whatever Mr. Bidwell—as the mayor of this town—decides it to be."

  "What?" Bidwell, who had paled during this confession, now appeared shocked. "You're leaving it up to me?"

  "I'm not a judge, sir. I am—as you have reminded me so often and with such hot pepper—only a clerk."

  "Well, " Bidwell breathed, "I'll be damned."

  "Damnation and salvation are brothers separated only by direction of travel, " Matthew said. "When the time is right, I'm sure you'll know the proper road upon which to progress. Now: if we may continue?" He directed his attention to the schoolmaster. "Mr. Johnstone, would you please speak the Lord's Prayer?"

  Johnstone stared intently at him. "May I ask what the purpose of this is, Matthew? Is it to suggest that one of us is a warlock, and that by failing to utter the prayer he is exposed as such?"

  "You are on the right track, yes, sir."

  "That is absolutely ridiculous! Well, if you go by that faulty reasoning, Robert has already exposed himself!"

  "I said I would go back to Mr. Bidwell, and offer him a chance at redemption. I am currently asking you to speak the prayer."

  Johnstone gave a harsh, scoffing laugh. "Matthew, you know bettet than this! What kind of game are you playing?"

  "I assure you, it's no game. Are you refusing to speak the prayer?"

  "Would that then expose me as a warlock? Then you'd have two warlocks in a single room?" He shook his head, as if in pity for Matthew's mental slippage. "Well, I shall relieve your burdensome worry, then." He looked into Matthew's eyes. "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in—"

  "Oh, one moment!" Matthew held up a finger and tapped his lower lip. "In your case, Mr. Johnstone—your being an educated man of Oxford, I mean to say—-you should speak the Lord's Prayer in the language of education, which would be Latin. Would you start again from the beginning, please?"

  Silence.

  They stared at each other, the clerk and the fox.

  Matthew said, "Oh, I understand. Perhaps you've forgotten your Latin training. But surely it should be easily refreshed, since Latin was such a vital part of your studies at Oxford. You must have been well versed in Latin, as the magistrate was, if only to obtain entrance to that hallowed university. So allow me to help: Pater noster: qui es in caelis; Sanctificetur nomen tuum; Adventiat reg-num tuum—well, you may finish what I've begun."

  Silence. Utter, deadly silence.

  Matthew thought, I have you.

  He said, "You don't know Latin, do you? In fact, you neither understand nor speak a word of it. Tell me, then, how a man may attend Oxford and come away an educator without knowing Latin."

  Johnstone's eyes had become very small.

  "Well, I'll seek to explain what I believe to be true." Matthew swept his gaze across the other men, who were also stricken into amazed silence by this revelation. He walked to the chess set near the window and picked up a bishop. "Reverend Grove played chess, you see. This was his chess set. Mr. Bidwell, you informed me of that fact. You also said the reverend was a Latin scholar, and liked to infuriate you by calling out his moves in that language." He studied the bishop by the lamplight. "On the occasion of the fire that burned down a house that same night, Mr. Johnstone, you mentioned to me that you and Mr. Winston were in the habit of playing chess. Would it ever have happened, sir, that—this being a town of rare chess players and even more rare Latin scholars—Reverend Grove challenged you to a game?"

  Bidwell was staring at the schoolmaster, waiting for a response, but from Johnstone there was no reply.

  "Would it have happened, " Matthew went on, "that Reverend Grove assumed you knew Latin, and spoke to you in that language during a game? Of course, you wouldn't have known if he was speaking to you or announcing a move. In any case, you wouldn't have been able to respond, would you?" He turned toward Johnstone. "What's wrong, sir? Does the Devil have your tongue?"

  Johnstone simply stared straight ahead, his fingers gripping the cane's handle and the knuckles bleached.

  "He's thinking, gentlemen, " Matthew said. "Thinking, always thinking. He is a very smart man, no doubt of it. He might actually have become a real schoolmaster, if he'd chosen to. What exactly are you, Mr. Johnstone?"

  Still no response or reaction.

  "I do know you're a murderer." Matthew placed the bishop back on the table. "Mrs. Nettles told me she recalled Reverend Grove seemed bothered about something not long
before he was killed. She told me he spoke two words, as if in reflection to himself. Those words were: No Latin. He was trying to reason out why an Oxford man didn't know the language. Did he ask you why, Mr. Johnstone? Was he about to point out the fact to Mr. Bidwell, and thus expose you as a fraud? And that's why Reverend Grove became the first victim?"

  "Wait, " the doctor said, his mind fogged. "The Devil killed Reverend Grove! Cut his throat and clawed him!"

  "The Devil sits in this room, sir, and his name—if it is his real name—is Alan Johnstone. Of course he wasn't alone. He did have the help of the ratcatcher, who was a..." He stopped and smiled thinly. "Ah! Mr. Johnstone! Do you also have a background in the theater arts? You know, Mt. Bidwell, why he wears that false knee. Because he'd already visited Fount Royal in the guise of a surveyor. The beard was probably his own, as at that point he had no need for a disguise. It was only when he verified what he needed to know, and later returned, that a suitable masking was necessary. Mr. Johnstone, if indeed you were—are—an actor, did you perchance ever play the role of a schoolmaster? Therefore you fixed upon what you already knew?"

  "You, " Johnstone said, in a hoarse whisper, "are quite... raving... mad."

  "Am I? Well, let's see your knee then! It'll only take a moment."

  Instinctively, Johnstone's right hand went down to cover the misshapen bulge.

  "I see, " Matthew said. "You wear your brace—which I presume you purchased in Charles Town—but you didn't put on the device you displayed to the magistrate, did you? Why would you? You thought I was long gone, and I was the only one who ever questioned your knee."

  "But I saw it myself!" Winston spoke up. "It was terribly deformed!"

  "No, it appeared terribly deformed. How did you construct such a thing, Mr. Johnstone? Come now, don't be modest about your talents! You are a man of many black facets! If I myself had wished to make a false knee, I might have used... oh... clay and candle wax, I suppose. Something to cover the kneecap, build it up and make it appear deformed. You chose a time to reveal the knee when I was unfortunately otherwise occupied." He swung his gaze to Dr. Shields. "Doctor, you sell a liniment to Mr. Johnstone for the supposed pain in his knee, don't you?"