Heartfire: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume V

by Orson Scott Card

  “I sent myself,” she said. “I have urgent business with the King. Your wife is in no condition to take me. So you’ll have to do it.”

  “Business with the King! You want him to throw me out of office?”

  “I know the ringleader of the slave revolt!”

  Lord Ashworth was confused. “Slave revolt? When?”

  “Tonight, while you were threatening to kill your wife. She’s a shallow woman, Lord Ashworth, and she has a mean streak, but she’s more faithful to your marriage than you are. You might take that into account before you terrify her again. Now, will you take me to the King or not?”

  “Tell me what you know, and I’ll tell him.”

  “An audience with the King!” demanded Margaret. “Now!”

  Lord Ashworth finally stumbled into the realization that he had no choice. “I have to change clothes,” he said. “I’m drunk.”

  “Yes, by all means, change.” Lord Ashworth staggered from the room.

  Margaret strode into the house, calling out as she went. “Doe! Lion! Where are you?”

  She didn’t find them till she opened the door down to the ground floor. Half soaked in floodwater, the slaves were as frightened and miserable a group as she had ever seen. “Come upstairs now,” she said. “Lion, your master needs help dressing himself. He’s very drunk, but I have the gun.” She showed him the pistol. Then, certain that Lion had no murder in his heart, she handed the gun to him. “I suggest you lose this and then don’t find it for a few days.” He carried the gun upstairs with him, only dropping it into his pocket at the last minute.

  “You sure he don’t kill the master?” asked Doe.

  “Doe, I know you’re a free woman, but can you go to Lady Ashworth? As a friend. No harm will come to you from it. She needs comforting. She needs you to tell her that the man who had the use of her was more than a trickster. He forced her against her will. If she doesn’t remember it that way, it just proves how powerful he is.”

  Doe looked studious. “That a long message, ma’am,” she said.

  “You remember the sense of it. Find your own words.”

  King Arthur and his council had been meeting for an hour before Lord Ashworth finally bothered to show up, and it was obvious he had been drinking. It was rather shocking and would have been a scandal on any other night, but all the King could think about was that finally he was here, perhaps he could break the impasse over what to do. Hotheaded John Calhoun was all for hanging one out of every three slaves as an example. “Make them think twice before they plot again!” On the other hand, as several of the older men reminded him, one didn’t seize one-third of the city’s most valuable property and destroy it, just to make a point.

  Lord Ashworth, however, did not seem interested in the argument. “I have someone to see you,” he said.

  “An audience! At a time like this!”

  “She claims to know about the conspiracy.”

  “We know about it already,” said the King. “We have soldiers searching for the hideout right now. If they’re wise, they’ll drown themselves in the river before they let us take them.”

  “Your Majesty, I beg you to hear her.”

  The intensity of his tone, despite his drunkenness, was sobering. “All right, then,” said the King. “For my dear friend.”

  Margaret was ushered in, and she introduced herself. Impatiently, the King got to the point at once. “We know all about the conspiracy. What can you possibly add to what we know?”

  “What I know is that it wasn’t a conspiracy, it was an accident.”

  She poured out the story, keeping it as close to the truth as possible without announcing just how powerful Calvin was before, and how helpless he had become. A young White man of her acquaintance noticed a man taking something from each slave that disembarked. It turned out that they were charms that held the slaves’ true names, along with their anger and their fear. Tonight there had been an accident that destroyed the name-strings, and the slaves suddenly found themselves filled with the long-hidden rage. “But the flood frightened it out of them, and you’ll have no rebellion now.”

  “Claptrap,” said Calhoun.

  Margaret looked at him coldly. “The tragedy of your life, sir, is that despite all your ambition, you’ll never be king.”

  Calhoun turned red and started to answer, but the King raised a hand to silence him. He was quite a young man, perhaps younger than Margaret and there was an air of quiet assurance about him that she rather liked, especially since he seemed interested in what she had said. “All I want to know,” he said, “is the name of the one they call the taker of names.”

  “But you already know it,” she said to him. “Several witnesses have told you about Denmark Vesey.”

  “Ah, but we know about him because of excellent investigative work. How do you know?”

  “I know that he’s innocent of any ill intent,” she said.

  A man handed the King a paper. “Ah, here it is,” the King said. “Your name is Margaret Smith, yes? Married to an accused slave thief. And you’re here in Camelot to meddle in our ancient practice of servitude. Well, tonight we’ve seen where leniency takes us. Do you know how many slaves told us about plans to kill entire White families in their sleep? And now I find that there’s a White woman intimately involved with the conspirators.”

  With sick dread, Margaret saw herself playing the leading role in some nasty futures in the King’s heartfire. She hadn’t bargained on this. She should have probed into her own future before coming to the King with wild-sounding stories about Blacks giving up their names voluntarily, for safekeeping, and then getting them back suddenly. “You must admit it sounds like a fable,” the King explained kindly.

  “Your Majesty,” said Margaret, “I know that there are those who urge you to punish this revolt with brutality. You may think this is necessary to make your subjects feel secure in their homes, but Your Majesty, extravagant measures like the one Mr. Calhoun proposes will only bring greater danger down upon you.”

  “It’s hard to imagine a more heinous danger than our servants turning their knives on us,” said Calhoun.

  “What about war? What about bloody, terrible war, that kills or injures or spiritually maims a generation of young men?”

  “War?” asked the King. “Punishing revolt will lead to war?”

  “The rhetoric surrounding the issue of whether the western territories of Appalachee will be slave or free is already out of hand. A wholesale slaughter of innocent Black men and women will outrage and unify the people of the United States and Appalachee, and stiffen their resolve that slavery will have no place among them.”

  “Enough of this,” said the King. “All you have succeeded in proving to me is that you are part of a conspiracy that must include at least one of the servants in the palace. How else could you know what John Calhoun’s proposal is? As for the rest, when I need advice from an abolitionist woman on affairs of state, you’re the very person I’ll call upon.”

  “Your Majesty,” said Calhoun, “it’s obvious this woman knows far more about the conspiracy than she’s letting on. It would be a mistake to let her leave so easily.”

  “What I know is that there is no conspiracy,” said Margaret. “By all means, arrest me, if you’re prepared to bear the outcry that would follow.”

  “If we hang one slave in three, no one will be asking around about you.” said Calhoun. “Now arrest her!”

  This last order was flung at the soldiers standing at the door. At once they strode in and took Margaret by the arms.

  “She’ll confess soon enough,” said Calhoun. “In treason cases, they always do.”

  “I don’t like knowing about things like that,” said the King.

  “Neither do I,” said another man’s voice. It took a moment for them to realize that it wasn’t one of the King’s advisers who spoke.

  Instead, it was a tall man dressed like a workingman on holiday—clothes that were meant to be somewha
t dressy, but succeeded only in looking vaguely pathetic and ill-fitting. And beside him, a half-Black boy two-thirds grown.

  “How did you get in here!” cried several men at once. But the stranger answered not a word. He walked up to Margaret and kissed her gently on the lips. Then he looked steadily into the gaze of one of the soldiers holding her by the arm. Shuddering, he let go of her and backed away. So did the other soldier.

  “Well, Margaret,” said the man, “it looks like I can’t leave you alone for a few minutes.”

  “Who are you?” asked the King. “Her foreign-policy adviser?”

  “I’m her husband, Alvin Smith.”

  “It was thoughtful of you to show up just as we’ve arrested your wife. No doubt you’re part of the conspiracy as well. As for this Black boy—it’s not proper to bring your slave into the presence of the King, especially one too young to have been reliably trained.”

  “I came here to try to keep you from making the mistake that will eventually take you off your throne,” said Margaret. “If you don’t heed the warning, then I at least am blameless.”

  “Let’s get her out of here,” said Calhoun. “We’ve got hours of work ahead of us, and it’s obvious she needs to be interrogated as a member of the conspiracy. Her husband, too, and this child.”

  Margaret and Alvin looked at each other and laughed. Arthur, on the other hand, was too busy gazing at the magnificence of the council room to care much about what was going on. He didn’t really notice the King until now, when Alvin pointed him out. “There you are, Arthur Stuart. That’s the man you were named for. The King of England, in exile in the Crown Colonies. Behold the majesty of the crownèd head.”

  “Nice to meet you, sir,” said Arthur Stuart to the King.

  Calhoun’s outrage reached a new level. “You dare to mock the King in this fashion? Not to mention naming a Black child after him in the first place.”

  “Since you’ve already got me hanged in your mind,” said Alvin, “what harm will it do if I compound the crime?”

  “Compound nothing, Alvin,” Margaret said to him. “He’s been warned that if he takes retribution against this revolt that didn’t even happen, killing slaves without reference to guilt or innocence, it will lead to war.”

  “I have no fear of war,” said Arthur Stuart. “That’s when kings get to show their mettle.”

  “You’re thinking of chess,” said Margaret. “In war, everyone has their chance to bleed.” She turned to Alvin. “My message was delivered. It’s out of my hands. And your brother needs you.”

  Alvin nodded. He turned to the company surrounding him. “Gentlemen, you may return to your deliberations. I ran down here from New England this afternoon and I have no more time to spend with you. Good evening.”

  Alvin took Arthur by one hand and Margaret by the other. “Make way please,” he said.

  The men blocking his path didn’t move.

  And then, suddenly, they did. Or rather, their feet did, sliding right out from under them. Alvin took another stride toward the door.

  The King drew a sword. So did the other men, though they had to get them from the wall where they hung during the meeting. And two guards by the door drew pistols.

  “Really, Your Majesty,” said Alvin, “the essence of courtesy is that one must allow one’s guests to leave.”

  Before he finished talking, he already reached out to change the iron in the swords and the pistols. To their horror, the armed men found their weapons dissolving and dribbling into pools of cold wet iron on the floor. They dropped their weapons and recoiled.

  “What are you, sir!” cried the King.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” said Calhoun. “It’s the devil, the devil’s dam, and their bastard son!”

  “Hey,” protested Arthur Stuart. “I may be a bastard, but I’m not their bastard.”

  “Sorry we have to be on our way so quickly,” said Alvin. “Have a nice future, Your Majesty.” With that, Alvin reached down, pulled the lockset out of the massive door, and then pushed gently on it, making it fall away from its dissolving hinges and land with a crash on the floor outside the council room. They walked away unmolested.

  The stink of Calvin’s dead body filled the attic when Margaret led Alvin and Arthur into the place. Alvin went at once to the corpse and knelt by it, weeping. “Calvin, I came as fast as I could.”

  “You want to cry,” said Denmark, “cry for the dead.”

  “I already explained to him about holding Calvin’s heartfire in the box,” Margaret said.

  “I can’t repair the body without the heartfire in it,” said Alvin. “And it can’t hold the heartfire until it’s repaired.”

  “Do both at once,” said Margaret. “You can do it, can’t you, Gullah Joe? Feed the heartfire back into the body, bit by bit?”

  “You lose you mind?” asked Gullah Joe. “How many miracle you want tonight?”

  “I’ll just do my best,” said Alvin.

  He worked on Calvin’s body for three hours. No sooner did he start in on one repair than the one he just completed started to decay again. Working steadily and methodically, though, he was able to get the heart and brain back into working order. “Now,” he said.

  Gullah Joe slid off the box, carried it close to Calvin’s body, and opened it.

  Alvin and Margaret both saw the heartfire leap into the body. The heart beat convulsively. Once. Twice. Blood moved through the collapsing arteries. Alvin paid no heed to that problem—it was the lungs he had to repair now, quickly, instantly. But with the heartfire inside the body, it became far easier, for now he could make a pattern and the body would imitate it, passing the information along through the living tissues. A half-ruined diaphragm contracted, then expanded the lungs. The blood that pumped feebly through the body now bore steadily increasing amounts of oxygen.

  That was only the beginning. Dawn had fully come before Alvin’s work was done. Calvin breathed easily and normally. The flesh had healed, leaving no scars. He was as clean as a newborn.

  “What I see this night,” said Gullah Joe. “What god you be?”

  Alvin shook his head. “Is there a god of weariness?”

  Someone started pounding on the door downstairs.

  “Ignore them,” said Margaret. “There are only two of them. They won’t break in until there are more soldiers to back them up.”

  “How long do we have?” asked Alvin.

  “Not long,” said Margaret. “I suggest we leave now.”

  “Is there no rest for the devil?” asked Alvin.

  “You a devil too?” asked Gullah Joe.

  “That was a joke,” said Alvin. “Margaret, who are these people?”

  “Time enough to explain on the road.” Margaret turned to the others. “It’s not safe for you to stay here, Denmark, Gullah Joe. Come away with us. Alvin can keep you safe until you’re in the North, out of this miserable place.” She turned to Fishy and Denmark’s wife. “You aren’t in the same danger, but why should you stay? We’ll take you north with us. If you like, you can go on to Vigor Church. Or Hatrack River.” Margaret looked at Gullah Joe and smiled. “I’d like to see what all the knackish folk in Hatrack River would make of you.”

  Denmark tugged at Alvin’s sleeve. “What you done for your brother. Raise him from the dead. What about my wife?” He brought her forward.

  Alvin closed his eyes and studied her for a few moments. “It’s an old injury, and it’s all connected with the brain. I don’t know. Let’s get away from here, and when we’re safely in the North, I’ll do what I can.”

  They all agreed to come along. What choice did they have? “Can’t you take all us?” asked Fishy. “All the slave in this place, take us!”

  Margaret put her arm around Fishy. “If it was in our power, we’d take them. But such a large group—who would take so many thousands of free Blacks all at once? We’d bring them north, only to have them turned away. You we can bring with us.”

  Fishy nodded. “I kn
ow you mean to do good. It never be enough.”

  “No,” said Margaret. “Never enough. But we do our best, and pray that in the long run, it will be enough.”

  Alvin knelt again by Calvin, shook him gently, woke him. Calvin opened his eyes and saw Alvin. He laughed in delight. “You,” he said. “You came and saved me.”

  15

  Fathers and Mothers

  Mike Fink and Jean-Jacques Audubon waited a discreet distance away as Hezekiah Study led Verily and Purity through the graveyard. The graves were located in a curious alcove in the wall of the cemetery. Purity knelt at her parents’ graves and wept for them. Verily knelt beside her, and after a while she reached for Hezekiah and drew him down with her as well. “You’re all I have left of them,” she said to Hezekiah. “Since I have no memories of my own, I have to rely on yours. Come with us.”

  “I’ll travel with you as far as Philadelphia,” said Hezekiah. “Beyond that I can’t promise.”

  “Once Alvin starts talking about the Crystal City, you’ll catch the vision of it,” said Verily. “I promise.”

  Hezekiah smiled ruefully. “Will there be a need for an old Puritan minister?”

  “No doubt of it,” said Verily. “But a scholar like you—I think we’ll have to tear you away from the things you can learn there in order to get a sermon out of you.”

  “My heart isn’t much in sermonizing anyway,” said Hezekiah. “I’m tired of the sound of my own mouth.”

  “Then don’t listen,” said Purity. “Why should we miss out on your sermons just because you don’t want to hear them?”

  They lingered near the graves for some time. Only when they were leaving did it occur to Verily how odd it was to have such an- alcove enclosing just those two graves. Otherwise the graveyard walls marked out a simple rectangle.

  Hezekiah heard the question and nodded. “Well, you see, when they were buried, the witcher insisted the graves had to be outside the churchyard. Can’t have witches in hallowed ground. Then the witchers left, and all the neighbors who knew them and loved them, they tore down the wall at that place, and laid out a new course, and now they’re inside the wall of the churchyard after all.”