Puritan

by David Hingley

  ‘Where is that page near the front you showed me?’ He leafed through the crinkling book. ‘Damn it, where is—ah!’ He thrust the book on the table, flattening it at a diagram of the monas hieroglyphica, the alchemists’ symbol Winthrop had drawn for her in Hartford:

  ‘The monas?’ She looked at him. ‘Why?’

  ‘Look at it! Look what it’s made of!’

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said, flustered, ‘but I cannot—’

  ‘Nathan?’ he said, but he too shook his head, seemingly as puzzled as she.

  ‘Look.’ Nicholas jabbed his finger at the book. ‘This monas is made up of different pieces. An upside-down arch. A circle, with a dot in it. A cross. Some – wavy hill things.’ He looked at Mercia, begging her to see it. ‘An upside-down arch, a circle, dot, and cross!’

  She looked between the monas and the codes, searching for the connection, and then—

  ‘By God’s wounds! You are right!’

  Nathan leant over. ‘I still cannot—’

  ‘Look,’ she said, as agitated now as Nicholas. ‘An upside-down arch, a circle, a dot, and a cross!’ Then she pointed at the symbols at the end of each code. ‘The letter U – ’tis not a letter! ’Tis an upside-down arch! The O – ’tis a circle! The dot – well. And finally the cross. My God!’ She stared at him. ‘We were reading them wrong.’ Then she looked up at Nicholas. ‘Very, very well done.’

  He beamed. ‘I just saw it.’

  ‘But what does it mean, Mercia?’ said Nathan. ‘If the killer is hiding a monas in the codes, is an alchemist behind this, after all? Lavington, perhaps, maybe Amery?’

  ‘Or someone interested in alchemy,’ said Nicholas. ‘Someone who keeps that interest quiet?’

  ‘Or maybe,’ said Nathan, ‘someone who wants us to think it’s to do with alchemy. Mercia? What say you?’

  But Mercia was staring over the opened book, her enthusiasm already vanquished. Her face paled as a sinking feeling descended in her chest.

  Nathan frowned. ‘What is it?’

  She looked at him, and again at the monas. Then she closed her eyes.

  ‘I know what it means. But it is not good.’ She paused, and in that moment the immensity of the situation once more weighed heavy upon her. ‘It means there will be another murder.’

  Buoyed and disheartened in equal measure by their breakthrough, the next day she rode to Hartford with Nathan, intending to consult Winthrop and visit Daniel. She left Nicholas in Meltwater with instructions to observe, and to discuss nothing with anyone, but he needed no telling. She wondered if he would be safe there, from the Indians as much as from the killer, but he was young and strong, and forewarned about the possibility of attack. Nevertheless, when she asked him to look after their cottage, she chose not to tell him it was because she wanted him away from Amery, even though she could scarcely believe the waspish schoolmaster could be a killer. But it was better to be safe: perhaps she, too, was growing paranoid of late.

  When she arrived, the sight of her son running into her arms filled her with such love that she had to hold him a long time lest she be overwhelmed by his happy face. After a few seconds he began to squirm, but she held him tighter, kissing his forehead until eventually she felt able to release him.

  ‘Mamma,’ he scolded. ‘Don’t squeeze so hard.’

  She looked at him, and an image filled her mind of the day she would no longer be able to hold him, when he would be a grown man dressed in finery, and she knew she would be fiercely proud. She thought of the manor house, hoping the King would be good to his word and return it. Then Daniel smiled, and she changed her mind – however old he was, however frail she became, she was still going to squeeze him tight.

  ‘Have you missed me?’ she asked.

  Daniel nodded. He was dressed smartly in a little black outfit that was remarkably free of dirt. His cheeks were full and healthy: clearly, the Winthrops had been looking after him well.

  ‘I have a friend,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Another boy.’

  ‘I guessed that. What’s his name?’

  ‘Pen.’

  ‘That’s unusual.’

  ‘’Tis short for something.’ He frowned, trying to think. ‘Er … Repent. Repentance.’

  She looked at Nathan. ‘Repentance?’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not a very nice name for a child.’

  ‘Some of our names are rather strange.’ Mercia looked up to see Winthrop standing in the doorway to his house, dressed as usual in sober black. ‘Pen is a product of adultery, and Repentance is the name the ministers enforced on him. And yet, like your boy, he is a delightful child.’

  ‘Governor.’ Mercia stood. ‘Thank you so much for looking after Daniel.’

  He smiled. ‘It is a pleasure. It is bracing to have a child in the house again.’

  ‘Was the coin I left for you sufficient? I was worried it was not enough, but with crossing the ocean, I could not bring—’

  Winthrop waved a dismissive hand. ‘Do not concern yourself with that. ’Tis the least I can do to help.’ He gave her a thoughtful stare. ‘When you have spent time with your son, let us talk.’

  ‘Come, Mamma.’ Daniel tugged at her dress. ‘I want to show you a bird’s nest I found.’

  She nodded at the governor. ‘Patience, Danny. But yes, let’s go and play.’

  Winthrop’s usually calm face was askew; he was blinking without cease, his lips parted, looking down at the copies of the codes Mercia had brought with her.

  ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘There will be another murder. The monas is not yet complete.’

  ‘No.’ Sitting beside him, her own countenance was grim. ‘The wavy semicircles at the bottom are missing, while each of the other elements is present. The circle, the dot, the arch and the cross.’

  ‘But what does it mean? One more murder? Two, for each of the two semicircles? And who will it be?’

  ‘Damn these codes.’ Nathan sat opposite at the dining-room table, his chin cupped in his hands. ‘Why can’t we read them?’

  Winthrop shook his head. ‘Maybe now we have four, I will be able to decipher the letters. Maybe. But ’tis nothing I recognise offhand. Not like the puzzle I set you, Mercia, no one step forward, two steps back. I do not think it is merely a substitution, either, with each letter always corresponding to an exact other. Not across all four, at least.’ He sighed. ‘In the powwow’s code, the letter L appears multiple times. In a substitution, that could translate to the letter E, the most commonly used letter. But then it does not appear in the third and fourth codes at all.’

  ‘But why are they even left on the bodies?’ Mercia bit off a fingernail she had unknowingly been chewing down. ‘If the monas is involved, do you not think this is to do with alchemy?’

  ‘I cannot think how. Other than, as I told you, we alchemists love to write in code.’

  ‘Could it be Lavington?’ asked Nathan. ‘Amery Oldfield?’

  Winthrop screwed up his aged face. ‘I cannot see Lavington as a killer. And it feels’ – he scratched at his neck – ‘almost a personal attack on me. I know that is selfish to think so, but everyone knows the monas is a favourite symbol of mine. I use it frequently in my work, on the orders for equipment I place with my suppliers in London.’ He threw himself back in his chair. ‘Why would an alchemist do this? Purification, perhaps? But this extreme … surely no one of science would sink to such barbaric depths.’

  Mercia looked at him. ‘Why purification?’

  ‘You recall when I explained how the two goals of alchemy are the philosopher’s stone, to turn base metals precious, and the alkahest, to cure all ills?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, there are those who think we will only uncover these prizes in a land that is totally pure, untainted by human corruption.’ He raised a grey eyebrow. ‘A puritan environment, you could say. But Lavington has never subscribed to that tenet in any discussions we have had. As for young Oldfield, I do not much know
him.’

  ‘Then perhaps the killer is merely employing a known symbol, aware we will realise its meaning to some end. Or he wants to sow ill feeling for alchemists, as Nathan suggested before.’

  ‘But again, why?’ Winthrop was more distressed than Mercia had yet seen. ‘Damn these commissioners of the King, roaming New England on their infernal surveys! I should be focusing on these deaths, not on disputes of boundary!’

  She reached out a hand. ‘Governor, I am there. I will help you solve this.’ She looked up. ‘Nathan and me.’

  Winthrop nodded, wiping a handkerchief across his brow. ‘’Tis just so maddening, when I have spent my life immersed in alchemy, devising and reading codes.’

  ‘I understand.’ She withdrew her hand. ‘Nicholas, my manservant, suggests we should think of the killer rather than the ciphers. He thinks they may be left to taunt us rather than as any real message. Perhaps we should concentrate on that.’

  ‘I hope he will be safe,’ said Nathan, looking through the window. ‘We left him there with a killer.’

  Mercia glanced across. ‘I did not think you much cared for him.’

  ‘I do not want him killed, Mercia.’ He fixed her with a look.

  ‘I am sorry.’ She shook her head. ‘I worry for him too.’

  ‘I suspect he is in no danger,’ said Winthrop, his voice steadier now. ‘This sequence started before you even arrived in Connecticut. The powwow was slain many weeks ago. And these codes suggest a methodical mind, someone who enjoys playing games. I think the next … victim … has been earmarked for death for a long while.’

  A cold sense of despair tugged at Mercia’s being. ‘Then we need to act quickly. What links all these murders?’

  ‘Indians,’ said Nathan straightaway.

  ‘That does not feel right. Why the monas?’

  Winthrop arched his hands. ‘Clemency and Hopewell were friends to the Indians, and somewhat free-thinking, I suppose. But then Mason was not.’

  ‘He did have a fancy for an Indian woman,’ said Nathan.

  ‘Did he?’ Winthrop looked surprised. ‘Then maybe your guess is correct after all. Or is somebody judging what they think of as a sin?’

  ‘We had thought of that,’ said Mercia. ‘But what of the powwow? And why would anyone kill for such minor things?’

  ‘Only God can know that,’ he replied. ‘Or perhaps it is the Devil spinning his foul tales to a twistable mind. But many people here are totally devout, Mercia. What is minor to you may be heresy to another. Most think the cries of the Indian powwows prove they are allies of Satan.’ His head jerked. ‘The monas is a symbol of perfection, indeed … and so if it is broken into its parts, as it is throughout these codes, could that be a judgement on the failure of perfection? That the killer wants to tell me, and Lavington, as alchemists of some standing, what he thinks of the society we preside over?’

  Elbows on the table, Mercia rubbed her eyes; to her, that seemed self-indulgent. ‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘But while we talk, another innocent seems likely to suffer the same fate.’

  Winthrop sighed. ‘Of course, for the next victim, it may already be too late.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A sharp sense of dread pervaded Mercia’s steps as she wandered Meltwater’s streets. Every person she saw could be a callous ender of lives, every person the next to reach their premature end. With Lavington ranged against her, Lavington indeed a suspect, she did not want to broach with him her discovery about the monas, and she continued to receive glances of mistrust in the streets. She thought of talking with Vic Smith, one of the few who had helped, but even his marked face, she wondered, could be hiding unknown truths. So she waited, retreating into the familiarity of Nathan and Nicholas, holding out until Percy returned, and all the while terrified the killer would strike first. Nicholas took to sleeping with a knife in his bed, doubting Mercia’s concerns for his safety, but acting on them all the same.

  And still it gnawed at her they were saying nothing to the town. Surely, she agonised, its people should be told a life was in danger? Overcoming her disdain, she spoke with Godsgift Brown, urging him to prepare for an Indian attack, obscuring her meeting with the sachem by simple talk of plausible retaliation. But he scorned her once again, well aware, as he said, that the Indians could come, blustering how the townsmen were ready and would kill every last stinking savage as they poured from the woods.

  ‘But what if the killer becomes frustrated?’ she said to Nathan, strolling along the river to the waterfall for some air. ‘He placed those codes to be found, and we are hiding them. What if he changes his plan, brings it forward?’

  ‘If he is as methodical as Winthrop says he is, then he will not. Besides, ’tis not just us keeping them quiet. Lavington knows about them, and we can assume the constable does too.’

  ‘I would sooner assume nothing.’ She sighed. ‘We cannot abnegate responsibility, merely because Lavington is the magistrate and we are not.’

  He shook his head. ‘Telling the town might be the worst thing we could do, if we can find him before he strikes. And we did all agree at the meeting.’

  ‘But we can’t find him, can we? Even with four codes. We cannot decipher them. And we did not know about the monas before.’ She exhaled deeply. ‘Let us see what Percy thinks when he returns.’

  Nathan scoffed. ‘Never mind what I think.’

  ‘Nat, he knows the townsfolk. Do not be petulant.’

  And so they continued to argue, while no progress was made.

  By the time Percy rode back, they were no further forward. Life marched on in its uneasy, unsure way, the townsfolk becoming used to Mercia’s persistent presence. The Indian farmhand’s stare continued to look down on anyone who came through the southern gate, and for Mercia, the message was stark: her failure to uncover the killer could lead to a terrible attack.

  ‘I think Nathan is right,’ said Percy, his brown horse trotting amiably alongside Mercia’s bay mare as they enjoyed the ride he had suggested they take. ‘Godsgift has been aching to impose a form of martial law on us for a long time. He would love this excuse. My father may have his failings, but his resistance to soldierly discipline is not one of them. We are a free society in this land, and should remain so, able to live as we please.’

  Mercia stooped to pass under a low-hanging branch. ‘That turned into a speech.’

  He laughed. ‘I suppose it did. But there would be panic if people were told of your discovery about the monas. Some of them would call it diabolical magic, with all the superstitious idiocy that would entail.’

  ‘I still worry we may be doing the wrong thing.’

  ‘You are assuming people here are rational.’

  ‘Percy, they are as rational as any people. Perhaps more so.’ She looked at the trees around her, the rising piles of russet and yellow leaves building up across the ground. ‘What you do here is remarkable, living like this, far from England. Far from anywhere.’

  He smiled. ‘So you do understand. Perhaps you should stay and live among us.’

  ‘I doubt I would be welcome. Nathan, though – I think he would like it. Do you know he is helping on the Davisons’ farmland now?’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘Since a couple of days ago. He says it gives him something physical to do. You know he is a farmer himself, back home. And he talks often with that Remembrance. He says it is because she takes solace from speaking with him about the loss of her brother, as he lost his daughter. I am sure that is right, and he is good to do so, but—’

  ‘But it makes you a little annoyed with her.’

  She reddened. ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘Well, you will just have to spend more time with me.’ He gripped his horse’s reins as they emerged onto a wider path. ‘How about we give these horses a real ride?’

  Caught off guard, she watched as he urged on his horse and shot away. But she did not hesitate for long.

  ‘Think I cannot keep up?’

  Sh
e whistled, knocking her knees into the mare’s flank through her slit riding dress, spurring the horse on in her turn. For several minutes they charged through the woods, Mercia never quite coming level but keeping Percy always in sight. It was a tricky course, scattered trees obstructing the winding path at irregular intervals, and he knew this land intimately, but she observed him, noting which way he leant, he turned, and she readied herself to copy him in advance. It was exhilarating racing through the woods, and when eventually he reined in his horse and she pulled up beside him, her heart was beating quickly in glad excitement, the thrill of the ride encouraging her to look at him in unbridled enjoyment.

  He laughed. ‘So you can keep up.’

  ‘I know how to ride a horse.’

  ‘And shoot a weapon too, if Vic is to be believed.’

  ‘He told you about that?’ She glanced away, hiding her pleasure. ‘Well, Godsgift was being so pompous.’

  ‘The men found it amusing.’

  ‘As did I.’ She looked at him, light-headed with the sharpness of the wind that had flown into her cheeks, and she realised she was feeling something other than rage, or melancholy, for the first time in days. He held her softened gaze until his horse pawed at the ground and he bent forward to calm it.

  ‘Now,’ he said. ‘I want to take you somewhere.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You will like it, I hope.’ He winked. ‘It has the grace of nowhere finer, not even Halescott.’ He faltered as a shadow passed over her face. ‘I am sorry. I should not have—’

  But her humour was not vanquished. ‘Do not worry. My house may not be mine again quite yet, but I am confident it will be.’

  He cocked his head. ‘So you will go back?’

  ‘Why – yes. I did not think you were being serious.’

  ‘Why not?’ He gestured at the autumnal forest. ‘Look at this place, how magnificent it is. What need have you of England when you have all this?’ He grew animated. ‘God has given us this land and we intend to keep it. Surely you have felt this as you have lived with us?’