Speaks the Nightbird

by Robert R. McCammon

  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. “Reason’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 teach 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.

  In the solitude of the Home’s chapel, Matthew unwrapped the box and opened it. Within it was a palm-sized pane of glass, especially made by the glazier. Matthew knew what Headmaster Staunton had given him: a clear view unto the world.

  A short time later, however, the Home had a new headmaster by the name of Eben Ausley, who in Matthew’s opinion was a rotund, fat-jowled lump of pure vileness. Ausley quickly dismis
sed all of Staunton’s staff and brought in his own band of thugs and bullies. The lash was used as never before, and the dunking barrel became a commonplace item of dread employed for the slightest infraction. Whippings became beatings, and many was the night that Ausley took a young boy into his chambers after the dormitory’s lamps were extinguished; what occurred in that chamber was unspeakable, and one boy was so shamed by the deed that he hanged himself from the chapel’s belltower.

  At fifteen, Matthew was too old to attract Ausley’s attentions. The headmaster left him alone and Matthew burrowed ever deeper into his studies. Ausley didn’t share Staunton’s sense of order and cleanliness; soon the place was a pigsty, and the rats grew so bold they seized food off the platters at suppertime. Several boys ran away; some were returned, and given severe whippings and starvation diets. Some died and were buried in crude pinewood boxes in a cemetery beside the chapel. Matthew read his books, honed his Latin and French, and in a deep part of himself vowed that someday, somehow, he would bring justice to bear on Eben Ausley, as a grinding wheel on a piece of rotten timber.

  There came the day, toward the midst of Matthew’s fifteenth year, that a man arrived at the Home intent on finding a boy to apprentice as his clerk. A group of the five eldest and best educated were lined up in the courtyard, and the man went down the line asking them all questions about themselves. When the man came to Matthew, it was the boy who asked the first question: “Sir? May I enquire as to your profession?”

  “I’m a magistrate,” Isaac Woodward said, and Matthew glanced at Ausley, who stood nearby with a tight smile on his mouth but his eyes cold and impassive. “Tell me about yourself, young man,” Woodward urged.

  It was time to leave the Home. Matthew knew it. His view upon the world was about to widen further, but never would he lose sight of this place and what he’d learned here. He looked directly into the magistrate’s rather sad-eyed face and said, “My past should be of little interest to you, sir. It is my usefulness in the present and future that I expect you wish to ascertain. As to that, I speak and write Latin. I’m also fluent in French. I don’t know anything about law, but I am a quick study. My handwriting is legible, my concentration is good, I have no bad habits to speak of—”

  “Other than being full of himself and a bit too big for his britches,” Ausley interrupted.

  “I’m sure the headmaster prefers smaller britches,” Matthew said, still staring into Woodward’s eyes. He felt rather than saw Ausley go rigid with barely controlled anger. One of the other boys caught back a laugh before it doomed him. “As I was saying, I have no bad habits to speak of. I can learn whatever I need to know, and I would make a very able clerk. Would you get me out of here, sir?”

  “The boy’s unsuitable for your needs!” Ausley spoke up again. “He’s a troublemaker and a liar! Corbett, you’re dismissed.”

  “One moment,” the magistrate said. “If he’s so unsuitable, why did you even bother to include him?”

  Ausley’s moon-shaped face bloomed red. “Well…because…that is to say, I—”

  “I’d like to see an example of your handwriting,” Woodward told the boy. “Write for me…oh…the Lord’s Prayer. In Latin, if you’re such a scholar.” Then, to Ausley, “Can that be arranged?”

  “Yes sir. I have a tablet and quill in my office.” Ausley cast Matthew a look that, had it been a knife, would’ve plunged between the eyes, and then he dismissed the other boys and led the way to his chamber.

  When it was done, the magistrate satisfied as to Matthew’s value, and the papers of transferral drawn up, Woodward announced he had some business to attend to elsewhere but that he would return the next morning and take the boy away. “I do expect the young man will be in good condition,” Woodward told the headmaster. “As he is now my charge, I shouldn’t like it that he might suffer an accident in the night.”

  “You needn’t be concerned, sir,” was Ausley’s rather chill reply. “But I require the sum of one guinea to house and feed him until your return. After all, he is your charge.”

  “I understand.” The gold guinea coin—worth twenty-one shillings, an exorbitant price to pay—was removed from Woodward’s wallet and placed into Ausley’s outstretched hand. Thus was the agreement sealed and Matthew’s protection bought.

  At supper, however, one of Ausley’s thuggish helpers entered the dining hall. A silence fell as the man walked directly to Matthew and grasped his shoulder. “You’re to come with me,” he said, and Matthew had no choice but to comply.

  In the headmaster’s chamber, Ausley sat behind the same desk that Staunton had occupied in happier times. The place was dirty, the window’s glass panes filmed with soot. Ausley lit a churchwarden pipe with the flame of a lamp and said, “Leave us,” to his accomplice. When the other man had retreated, Ausley sat smoking his pipe and staring with his small dark eyes at Matthew.

  “My supper’s getting cold,” Matthew said, daring the lash.

  “Oh, you think you’re so smart, don’t you?” Ausley drew on the pipe and expelled smoke from his nostrils. “So damned clever. But you’re not near as clever as you take yourself to be, boy.”

  “Do you require a response from me, sir, or do you wish me to be silent?”

  “Silent. Just stand there and listen. You’re thinking that because you’re off to be the ward of a magistrate you can cause some trouble for me, isn’t that right? Maybe you think I’ve done some things that ought to be called to his attention?”

  “Sir?” Matthew said. “Might I suggest a book on logic for your bedtime reading?”

  “Logic? What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “You’ve told me to be silent, but then posed questions that require an answer.”

  “Shut your mouth, you little bastard!” Ausley rose to his feet on a surge of anger. “Just mark well what I say! My commission gives me absolute authority to run this institution as I see fit! Which includes the administering of order and punishments, as I see fit!” Ausley, realizing he was on the edge of losing all control, settled back into his chair and glared at Matthew through a blue haze of pipesmoke. “No one can prove I have been remiss in that duty, or overzealous in my methods,” he said tersely. “For a very simple reason: I have not been so. Any and all actions I have taken here have been to benefit my charges. Do you agree with that, or do you disagree?”

  “I presume you wish me to speak now?”

  “I do.”

  “I have small qualm with the method of your punishments, though I would consider some of them to have been delivered with a sickening sense of joy,” Matthew said. “My objections concern your methods after the dormitory lamps have been put out.”

  “And what methods are you referring to? My private counseling of wayward, stubborn boys whose attitudes are disruptive? My willingness to take in hand these boys and guide them in the proper direction? Is that your reference?”

  “I think you understand my reference very clearly, sir.”

  Ausley gave a short, hard laugh. “You don’t know anything. Have you witnessed with your own eyes any impropriety? No. Oh, you’ve heard things, of course. Because all of you despise me. That’s why. You despise me, because I’m your master and wild dogs cannot bear the collar. And now, because you fancy yourself so damned clever, you think to cause me some trouble by way of that black-robed magpie. But I shall tell you why you will not.”

  Matthew waited while Ausley pushed more tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, tamped it down, and relit it with deliberately slow motions.

  “Your objections,” Ausley said acidly, “would be very difficult to prove. As I’ve said, my commission gives me absolute authority. I know I’ve delivered some harsh punishments; too harsh perhaps. That is why you might wish to slander me. And the other boys? Well…I like this position, young man, and I plan on staying here for many years to come. Just because you’re leaving does not mean the others—your friends, the ones among whom you’ve grown up—will be departing anytime soon. Y
our actions might have an effect on their comfort.” He drew on the pipe, tilted his head upward, and spewed smoke toward the ceiling. “There are so many young ones here,” he said. “Much younger than you. And do you realize how many more the hospitals and churches are trying to place with us? Hardly a day goes by when I don’t receive an enquiry concerning our available beds. I am forced to turn so many young ones away. So, you see, there will always be a fresh supply.” He offered Matthew a cold smile. “May I give you some advice?”

  Matthew said nothing. “Consider yourself fortunate,” Ausley continued. “Consider that your education concerning the real world has been furthered. Be of excellent service to the magistrate, be of good cheer and good will, and live a long and happy life.” He held up a thick finger to warrant Matthew’s full attention. “And never—never—plot a war you have no hope of winning. Am I understood?”

  Matthew hesitated; his mind was working over the planes and angles of this problem, diagramming and dissecting it, turning it this way and that, shaking it in search of a loose nail that might be further loosened, stretching it like a chain to inspect the links, and hoping to find one rust-gnawed and able to be broken.

  “Am I understood?” Ausley repeated, with some force.

  Matthew was left with one response. At least for the moment. He said, “Yes, sir,” in his calmest voice.

  “Very good. You may go back to your supper.”

  Matthew left the headmaster’s office and returned to his food; it was, indeed, cold and quite tasteless. That night he said goodbye to his friends, he climbed into his bunk in the dormitory, but he found sleep elusive. What should have been an occasion of rejoicing was instead a time for reflection and more than a little regret. At first light, he was dressed and waiting. Soon afterward, the bell at the front gate rang and a staff member came to escort him to Magistrate Woodward in the courtyard.

  As the magistrate’s carriage pulled away, Matthew glanced back at the Home and saw Ausley standing at the window, watching. Matthew felt the tip of a blade poised at his throat. He looked away from the window, staring instead at his hands clenched together in his lap.