Heartfire ttoam-5

by Orson Scott Card

  “You got no right to make her cry!” shouted Arthur Stuart.

  “Hush up, Arthur,” said Smith. “Verily's right.”

  “How do you know this?” said Audubon.

  “Look at her.”

  She was sobbing so hard now that she could hardly stand. She felt long, strong arms around her, and at first she tried to flinch away, thinking it was Mike Fink seizing her from behind; but her movement took her closer to the man who was reaching for her, and she found herself pressed against the fine suit of the barrister, his arms holding her tightly.

  “It's all right,” said Cooper.

  “They hanged my mother and father,” she said. Or tried to say– her voice could hardly be understood.

  “And you just found out,” said Cooper. “Who told you?”

  She shook her head, unable to explain.

  “Figured it out for yourself?” said Cooper.

  She nodded.

  “And you belong with them. Not with the people who killed them and put you out to an orphanage.”

  “They had no right!” she cried. “This is a land of murderers!”

  “Hush,” said Cooper. “That's how it feels, but you know it isn't true. Oh, there are murderers among them, but that's true everywhere. People who are glad to denounce a neighbor for witchcraft– to settle a quarrel, to get a piece of land, to show everyone how righteous and perceptive they are. But most folks are content to live humbly and let others do the same.”

  “You don't know!” she said. “Pious killers, all of them!”

  “Pious,” said Cooper, “but not killers. Think about it, just think. Every living soul has some kind of knack. But how many get hanged for witchcraft? Some years maybe five or six. Most years none at all. The people don't want to surround themselves with death. It's life that they want, like all good people everywhere.”

  “Good people wouldn't take me away from my parents!” Purity cried.

  “They thought they were doing good,” said Verily. “They thought they were saving you from hell.”

  She tried to pull away from him. He wouldn't let her.

  “Let me go.”

  “Not yet,” he said. “Besides, you have nowhere to go.”

  “Let her go if she wants,” said Arthur Stuart. “We can get away from here. Alvin can start up the greensong and we'll run like the wind and be out of New England before she tells anybody anything.”

  “That ain't the problem,” said Smith. “It's her. Very's worried about keeping her from getting herself killed.”

  “He doesn't need to worry,” Purity said. This time when she pulled away, Cooper let her. “I'll be fine. I just needed to tell somebody. Now I have.”

  “No,” said Cooper. “It's gone. You're not afraid of death anymore, you welcome it, because you think that's the only way you can get home to your family.”

  “How do you know what I think?” she said. “Is that your knack? I hope not, because you're wrong.”

  “I didn't say you were thinking those things. And no, that's not my knack at all. But I'm a barrister. I've seen people at the most trying moments of their lives. I've seen them when they've decided to give up and let the world have its way. I recognize that decision when I see it. You've decided.”

  “What if I have?” she asked defiantly. “And anyway I haven't, so it doesn't matter.”

  Cooper ignored her. “If we leave her here, she'll die, sooner or later. She'll do it just to prove she's part of her family.”

  “No I won't,” said Purity. “I don't even know for sure that that's what happened to them. I think the evidence points that way, but it's a slender arrow indeed.”

  “But you want it to be true,” said Cooper.

  “That's silly! Why would I want that!”

  Cooper said nothing.

  “I don't hate it here! People have been kind to me. Reverend Study arranged to let me use the Harvard library. I get to listen to the lectures. Not that it will ever amount to anything.”

  Cooper smiled ever-so-slightly.

  “Well, what can it amount to?” Purity demanded. “I'm a woman. Either I'll marry or I won't. If I marry, I'll be raising children. Maybe I'll teach them to read before they get to school. But I won't be the one who gets to teach them Latin and Greek. They'll get their Caesar and their Tully and their Homer from someone else. And if I don't marry, the best I can hope for is to be kept on as a matron in the orphanage. Children are the only people who'll ever hear my voice.”

  “Ain't nothing wrong with children,” said Arthur Stuart.

  “That's not what she means anyway,” said Cooper.

  “Don't you dare interpret me anymore!” Purity cried. “You think you know me better than you know yourself!”

  “Yes, I think I do,” said Cooper. “I've been down the same road.”

  “Oh, were you an orphan? As a barrister, did they make you work with children all the time? Did they make you sit outside the courtroom to plead your case?”

  “All these sacrifices,” said Cooper, “you'd make them gladly, if you believed in the cause.”

  “Are you accusing me of being an unbeliever?”

  “Yes,” said Cooper.

  “I'm a Christian!” she said. “You're the heretics! You're the witches!”

  “Keep your voice down,” said Fink menacingly.

  “I'm not a witch!” said Audubon fervently.

  “You see?” said Cooper. “Now you are accusing us.”

  “I'm not!” she said. “There's no one here but you.”

  “You're a woman whose world has just turned upside down. You're the daughter of witches. You're angry that they were killed. You're angry at yourself for being alive, for being part of the very society that killed them. And you're angry at that society for not being worthy of the sacrifice.”

  “I'm not judging others,” she said.

  “They were supposed to build Zion here,” said Cooper. “The city of God. The place where Christ at his coming could find the righteous gathered together, waiting for him.”

  “Yes,” whispered Purity.

  “They even named you Purity. And yet you see that nothing is pure. The people are trying to be good, but it isn't good enough. When Christ comes, all he'll find here is a group of people who have done no more than to find another way to be stubble that he will have to burn.”

  “No, the virtue is real, the people are good,” said Purity. “Reverend Study–”

  “Virtue is real outside New England, too,” said Verily Cooper.

  “Is it?” she asked. “Most people here live the commandments. Adultery is as rare as fish with feet. Murder never happens. Drunkenness can never be seen anywhere except at the docks, where sailors from other lands are permitted– and why should I defend New England to you?”

  “You don't have to,” said Cooper. “I grew up with the dream of New England all around me. In every pulpit, in every home. When someone behaved badly, when someone in authority made a mistake, we'd say, 'What do you expect? This isn't New England.' When somebody was exceptionally kind or self-sacrificing, or humble and sweet, we'd say, 'He belongs in New England,' or 'He's already got his passage to Boston.'”

  Purity looked at him in surprise. “Well, we're not that good here.”

  “I know,” said Cooper. “For one thing, you still hang witches and put their babies in orphanages.”

  “I'm not going to cry again, if that's what you're hoping for,” said Purity.

  “I'm hoping for something else,” said Cooper. “Come with us.”

  “Verily!” said Smith. “For pete's sake, if we wanted a woman with us we'd be traveling with Margaret! You think this girl's ready to sleep rough?”

  “Ain't decent anyway,” said Mike Fink. “She's a lady.”

  “You needn't worry about my going with you,” said Purity. “What kind of madman are you? Perhaps I am angry and disillusioned about the dream of purity here in New England. Why would I be any happier with you, who aren't even as pu
re as we are here?”

  “Because we have the one thing you're hungry for.”

  “And what is that?”

  “A reason to live.”

  She laughed in his face. “The five of you! And all the rest of the world lacks it? Why don't they all just give up and die?”

  “Few give up living,” said Cooper. “Most give up looking for a reason. But some have to keep searching. They can't bear to live without a purpose. Something larger than themselves, something so good that just being a part of it makes everything worthwhile. You're a seeker, Miss Purity.”

  “How do you know all these things about me?”

  “Because I'm a seeker, too. Do you think I don't know my own kind?”

  She looked around at the others. “If I were this thing, a seeker, why would I want to be with other seekers? If you're still seeking, it means you haven't found anything, either.”

  “But we have,” said Cooper.

  Smith rolled his eyes. “Verily Cooper, you know I still don't have a clue what we're even looking for.”

  “That's not what I'm talking about,” said Cooper. “You're not a seeker, Alvin. You already have your life handed to you, whether you want it or not. And Arthur here, he's not a seeker, either. He's already found what he wants.”

  Arthur hung his head, embarrassed. “Don't you go saying!”

  “Just like Mike Fink. They've found you, Al. They're going to follow you till they die.”

  “Or till I do,” said Smith.

  “Ain't going to happen,” said Fink. “I'll have to be dead first.”

  “You see?” said Cooper. “And Jean-Jacques here, he's no seeker. He knows the purpose of his life as well.”

  Audubon grinned. “Birds, women, and wine.”

  “Birds,” said Cooper.

  “But you're still seeking?” asked Smith.

  “I've found you, too,” said Cooper. “But I haven't found what I'm good for. I haven't figured out what my life means.” He turned to Purity again. “That's why I knew. Because I've stood where you're standing. You've fooled them all, they think they know you but it just means you've kept your secret, only now you're fed up with secrets and you have to get out, you have to find the people who know why you're alive.”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “So come with us,” said Cooper.

  “Dammit, Very,” said Smith, “how can we have a woman along?”

  “Why not?” said Cooper. “Quite soon you're going to rejoin your wife and start traveling with her. We can't camp in the woods our whole lives. And Miss Purity can help us. Our painter friend may be happy with what he's accomplished here, but we don't know anything more than we did before we arrived. We see the villages, but we can hardly talk to anyone because we have so many secrets and they're so reticent with strangers. Miss Purity can explain things to us. She can help you learn what you need to learn about building the City of–”

  He stopped.

  “The City,” he finally said.

  “Why not say it?” said Purity. “The City of God.”

  Cooper and Smith looked at each other, and Purity could see that both of them were filled with the pleasure of having understood something. “See?” said Cooper. “We've already learned something, just by having Miss Purity with us.”

  “What did you learn?” demanded Arthur Stuart.

  “That maybe the Crystal City has another name,” said Smith.

  “Crystal City?” asked Miss Purity.

  Cooper looked at Smith for permission. Alvin glanced at each of them in turn, until at last his gaze lingered on Purity herself. “If you think she's all right,” said Alvin.

  “I know she is,” said Cooper.

  “Got a couple of minutes?” Alvin asked Purity.

  “More like a couple of hours,” said Mike Fink.

  “Maybe while you talk and talk I bath in the river,” said Audubon.

  “I'll keep watch,” said Fink. “I fell in enough rivers in my time without getting nekkid to do it on purpose.”

  Soon Purity, Smith, Cooper, and Arthur Stuart were sitting in the tall soft grass on the riverbank. “I got a story to tell you,” said Alvin. “About who we are and what we're doing here. And then you can decide what you want to do about it.”

  “Let me tell it,” demanded Arthur Stuart.

  “You?” asked Alvin.

  “You always mix it up and tell it back end to.”

  “What do you mean, 'always'? I hardly tell this story to anybody.”

  “You ain't no Taleswapper, Alvin,” said Arthur Stuart.

  “And you are?”

  “At least I can tell it front to back instead of always adding in stuff I forgot to tell in the proper place.”

  Alvin laughed. “All right, Arthur Stuart, you tell the story of my life, since you know it better than I do.”

  “It ain't the story of your life anyway,” said Arthur Stuart. “Cause it starts with Little Peggy.”

  “'Little' Peggy?” asked Alvin.

  “That's what her name was then,” said Arthur.

  “Go ahead,” said Alvin.

  Arthur Stuart looked to the others. Cooper and Purity both nodded. At once Arthur Stuart bounded to his feet and walked a couple of paces away. Then he came back and stood before them, his back to the water, and with boats sailing along behind him, and the summer sun beating down on him while his listeners sat in the shade, he put his hands behind his back and closed his eyes and began to talk.

  Chapter 6 – Names

  Margaret did not waste time worrying about when– or if– her promised audience with the Queen might happen. Many of the futures she found in other people's heartfires led to such a meeting, and many more did not, and in neither case did she see such an audience leading to the prevention of the bloody war she dreaded.

  In the meantime, there were plenty of other activities to fill her time. For she was finding that Camelot was a much more complicated place than she had expected.

  During her childhood in the North she had learned to think of slavery as an all-or-nothing proposition, and in most ways it was. There was no way to half-permit it or half-practice it. Either you could be bought and sold by another human being or you couldn't. Either you could be compelled to labor for another man's profit under threat of death or injury, or you couldn't.

  But there were cracks in the armor, all the same. Slave owners were not untouched by the normal human impulses. Despite the most stringent rules against it, some Whites did become quite affectionate in their feelings toward loyal Blacks. It was against the law to free a slave, and yet the Ashworths weren't the only Whites to free some of their slaves and then employ them– and not all those manumitted were as old as Doe. It might be impossible to attack the institution of slavery in the press or in public meetings, but that did not mean that quiet reforms could not take place.

  She was writing about this in a letter to Alvin when someone knocked softly at her door.

  “Come in?”

  It was Fishy. Wordlessly she entered and handed Margaret a calling card, then left almost before the words “Thank you, Fishy” were out of Margaret's mouth. The card was from a haberdasher in Philadelphia, which puzzled her for a moment, until she thought to turn it over to reveal a message scrawled in a careless childish hand:

  Dear Sister-in-law Margaret, I heard you was in town. Dinner? Meet me downstairs at four. Calvin Miller

  She had not thought to check his heartfire in many days, being caught up in her exploration of Camelot society. Of course she looked for him at once, his distinctive heartfire almost leaping out to her from the forest of flames in the city around her. She never enjoyed looking into his heartfire because of all the malice that was constantly harbored there. Her visits were brief and she did not look deep. Even so, she immediately knew about his liaison with Lady Ashworth, which disgusted her, despite her long experience with all the sins and foibles known to humankind. To use his knack to provoke the woman's lust– how was that
distinguishable from rape? True, Lady Ashworth could have shouted for her slaves to cast him from the house– the one circumstance in which slaves were permitted to handle a White man roughly– but Lady Ashworth was a woman unaccustomed to feeling much in the way of sexual desire, and like a child in the first rush of puberty she had no strategies for resistance. Where the patterns of society kept girls and boys from being alone together during that chaotic time, preventing them from disastrous lapses in self-control, Lady Ashworth, as an adult of high station, had no such protection. Her wealth bought her privacy and opportunity without giving her any particular help in resisting temptation.

  The thought crossed Margaret's mind: It might be useful to know of Lady Ashworth's adultery.

  Then, ashamed, she rejected the thought of holding the woman's sin against her. Margaret had known of other people's sins all her lifeand had also seen the terrible futures that would result if she told what she knew. If God had given her this intense knack, it was certainly not so that she could spread misery.

  And yet… if there was some way that her knowledge of Calvin's seduction of Lady Ashworth might help prevent the war…

  How bitter it was that the most guilty party, Calvin, was untouchable by shame, and therefore could not have his adultery used against him, unless Lord Ashworth was a champion dueler (and even then, Margaret suspected that in a duel with Calvin, Lord Ashworth would find that his pistol would not fire and his sword would break right off). But that was the way of the world– seducers and rapists rarely bore the consequences of their acts, or at least not as heavily as the seduced and the brokenspirited.

  Dinner would be at four o'clock. Only a couple of hours away. Fishy had not waited for a return message, and in all likelihood Calvin wasn't waiting either. Either she would meet him or she would not– and indeed, his heartfire showed him unconcerned. It was only a whim for him to meet her. His purpose was as much to find out who she was as to cling to her skirts in order to get in to see the King.

  And even the wish to meet King Arthur contained no plan. Calvin knew Napoleon– this exiled king would not impress him. For a moment Margaret wondered if Calvin planned to kill King Arthur the way he had murdered– or, as Calvin thought of it, executed– William Henry Harrison. But no. His heartfire showed no such path in his future, and no such desire in his heart at present.