The Ninth Daughter Part 22

Unshaven, untidy, but giving no other evidence of spectral vexation, the Reverend Bargest stood in the restless red glare of the torches, his arms folded and his eyes like pits of shadow beneath silver brows. One of the half-dozen village men grouped behind him had a lantern, and from it the torches had been kindled, that were now thrust into cracks of the broken walls all around the little room. Farther back still in the shadows, the eyes of the horses glowed gold, and the beasts stamped and s.h.i.+fted at the scent of Muldoon's blood.

Abigail ran forward to where the sergeant lay by the wall, and Dog-Mouth and Brother Mortify caught her arms, pulled her back. She could see Muldoon still breathing, though his eyes were closed and there was blood in his red hair. "Behold another of them," proclaimed Bargest, and Abigail whirled to face him, righteous anger drowning her consternation and fear.

"Don't be an a.s.s," she snapped. "Is everyone everyone who goes against you a witch?" who goes against you a witch?"

"It takes but one witch to corrupt a mult.i.tude, as leaven works through a loaf, so that they do her bidding, and through her, her Master's. Where is she?"

"Halfway to Wenham by this time, I should imagine," retorted Abigail.

"Hear it lie," he said, as if she were not really there. "The hag could scarce walk."

"What?" said Abigail. "A woman who can fly? A woman who can reduce you, Reverend-Chosen though you may be-to writhing in agony on your bed? Until it's time to do something that you really want to do, like rise up and convince people that she's the cause of all their problems."

"Satan is the cause of all of their problems," replied Bargest quietly. "And Satan wears many guises. And the most deadly of his guises is that of the Anti-Christ, the False Shepherd who leads men astray with arguments that sound like reason. So don't chop logic with me, Mrs. Adams. These my children are the tried and true remnant of the People, Gideon's faithful Three Hundred, who remain true to the Lord's testing when all the rest have fallen away. They know the Voice of the Lord, and they will not fall away, though you show them all the Kingdoms of the Earth."

He turned to the men. "Satan her master has forsaken the witch," he told them. "Yet as long as her body remains, Satan can return to her, and she will not cease to vex us, until I am dead, or she is destroyed. And when I am dead-when I am no longer able to stand between her and you with the s.h.i.+eld of pure faith-then she will come for the rest of you. Believe this." His deep, quiet voice filled the room with its power, and such was the force of his personality that Abigail thought, Now I can understand, how Prophets stood up to Kings Now I can understand, how Prophets stood up to Kings . . . . . .

"Believe it?" retorted Abigail. "The way that poor mad murderer Orion Hazlitt believed it, when you told him an innocent woman was Jezebel, only because she owned land that you want? It is you you who played King Ahab, sir, not the other way about." who played King Ahab, sir, not the other way about."

"The wh.o.r.e was not innocent," said Bargest quietly. "None is innocent, who raises her hand against the children of the Lord. Even as the witch Malvern"-here he raised his voice-"has lifted the Devil's red and dripping hand to smite me down!"

"Rebecca Malvern has been barely conscious for weeks! Since when-?"

"The Devil dwells in the flesh of a witch!" thundered Bargest, and flung up his hands as if calling down the power of G.o.d from the heavens. "He never sleeps! Nor will he ever, until the Righteous lie dead in their blood! Find the woman and kill her." His blazing eyes, the sweep of his arm, took in all his followers, and ended with one long, bony finger pointing at Abigail. "This one as well. She is the Daughter of Eve, apt to the hand of the Devil . . ." never sleeps! Nor will he ever, until the Righteous lie dead in their blood! Find the woman and kill her." His blazing eyes, the sweep of his arm, took in all his followers, and ended with one long, bony finger pointing at Abigail. "This one as well. She is the Daughter of Eve, apt to the hand of the Devil . . ."

Those were the final words of the Chosen One. A gunshot crashed from one of the holes in the crazy roof. Bargest flung up his arms as he staggered back, a red hole appearing in the white of his open s.h.i.+rt-front, eyes bulging with shock and an expression of astonishment that was nearly comical.

Brother Mortify grabbed Abigail's arm as the men in the little cabin convulsed into panic movement. Abigail, furious, turned in his grip, shoved her face close to his, flung up her free arm, and screamed as loud as she could.

Taken completely by surprise, Mortify dropped her arm in shock. At the same instant Muldoon sat up, blood oozing from a wound in his shoulder, pistol in hand, barrel leveled on Dog-Mouth, who was one of the few who had a weapon ready. Abigail dived for the sergeant's side as men began to stampede for the door. Her eyes went to the biggest of the holes in the ceiling in time to see another pistol thrust through it, nearly invisible in the shadows. The second shot cleared the room.

Bargest rolled over, gagging on blood. His hands fumbled about, trying to rise, to crawl after them. Then he fell, sobbing and groaning like a child. Abigail dragged Muldoon clear of the horses, which were rearing and stamping in fright. She thought she would have gone next to the Reverend, but there was a slither and thump outside the wall, and the next moment, Orion Hazlitt appeared in the broken doorway of the house.

At the sight of him Abigail's nostrils seemed filled with the smell of blood. All she could see was the dishonored horror of the young woman's body on Rebecca's kitchen floor. Muldoon drew her close to him, pistol ready in his hand, unaware, Abigail realized, who this unshaven, exhausted stranger was.

No more than do I. No more than anyone in Boston ever has.

Hazlitt stopped before her. "Is she safe?" His green eyes-his mother's eyes-were sane. Sane, and very tired.

"She's in the woods. We'll-"

"May I?" Orion bent down, took the pistol from Muldoon's hand-it was John's, Abigail noted-turned around, and shot Bargest between the eyes. "Don't fear," he said, handing the weapon back to the startled Muldoon. "I won't"-he stopped, took a deep breath-"I didn't kill Pentyre," he said. "I couldn't get near him. I-there were-Sons of Liberty-on Castle Island. Everywhere I looked, among the crowd. Someone must have-They were watching for me-"

Softly, Abigail said, "They know."

He closed his eyes. The breath went out of him in a sigh. "Rebecca, too?"

"Yes."

"Everything?" His eyes opened, went to Muldoon, who was busily reloading the gun.

"Everything about you you." Her mind screamed, How could you not have known? How could you not have known? and along with Perdita Pentyre's slashed-up body she seemed to see the black cat Pirate, cleaning himself with the stump of his cut-off paw. To read again the horrible verses about slitting the throat of a red-haired devil so that she would not tempt him again, as he was tempted by the dark-skinned succubus who haunted his dreams. and along with Perdita Pentyre's slashed-up body she seemed to see the black cat Pirate, cleaning himself with the stump of his cut-off paw. To read again the horrible verses about slitting the throat of a red-haired devil so that she would not tempt him again, as he was tempted by the dark-skinned succubus who haunted his dreams.

How could I have sat at Rebecca's table with this man? Shoulder to shoulder with him, not just one night but dozens? How could I have talked politics with him, commiserated with him about servant-girls, made dinners for him-for him and for the mother he murdered not forty-eight hours ago? How could I not have seen and smelled and felt all that horror inside him?

She knew she should feel something-fear? Rage? Disgust? Hatred? But all she felt was strange, separated from herself, as if she were coming down with fever. For a moment she thought that she stood on the threshold of h.e.l.l, speaking to someone just within its doors.

Orion Hazlitt drew breath again, and let it out. "Would that anyone," he whispered, "knew everything about me." He turned away.

A part of her wanted only for him to leave. Muldoon, with the blood soaking into his jacket and his eyebrows standing out ghastly in the torchlight against his waxy pallor, could not have saved her from an attack. Yet she knew Hazlitt would not raise his hand against her. She asked, "Where will you go now?"

He looked back. "I should say, to h.e.l.l," he said softly. "Except that I am there. I was raised there. I suppose I'll go where G.o.d sends me, who made me as I am."

Had he not turned back to speak to her, she thought he might have gotten clear away. The night was pitch-dark, and even with a small lead, he could have been swallowed up by the native woods of his childhood, and so gone on to the West beyond the mountains. But when he looked away from her, and started again for the door, it was to find Lieutenant Coldstone standing in the aperture, his coat as red in the torchlight as the Reverend Bargest's pooling blood and not a hair of his marble white wig out of place. He had a pistol in his hand and two very large soldiers of the Sixty-Fourth at his back. "Orion Hazlitt?"

Abigail caught the officer's eye, and nodded, knowing that with him, she handed all his knowledge of the Sons of Liberty over into the hands of the Crown.

"I arrest you for murder, in the King's name."

"Don't worry," said Hazlitt, when they stood together while two of Coldstone's men dug a shallow grave. "I am what I am-but I'm not a traitor to Liberty. I'll tell them nothing."

Seated on a tree stump, wrapped in her own cloak and Coldstone's, too, and s.h.i.+vering as if her bones would shatter, Abigail looked quickly up at him.

"G.o.d made me what I am," he repeated softly. "But I chose to fight for our rights." He looked across the torchlit clearing, to where Coldstone knelt, talking to Rebecca. "Please tell her that."

"Would you wish me to ask her," said Abigail, "if she will speak to you?"

Men carried Bargest's body out of the broken little house. There was no time, nor a horse to spare, to bear him back even as far as Salem with them, and there was no knowing whether the Gileadites would themselves return to bury him before the vermin of the woods came to feed. Coldstone had brought six men in all-enough to provide protection but by no stretch of any Patriot imagination a threat of armed force-and two of them stood on either side of Hazlitt, watching the darkness all around them with frightened eyes.

After England's tame fields, Abigail thought, the woods of America must seem primeval beyond description, and what they'd seen recently-both in Boston and here in the hinterland-could not have been rea.s.suring.

Across the clearing by torchlight, Coldstone pressed Rebecca's hand, and helped her rise. Exhausted as her friend was, Abigail guessed that she would be capable of coming up with a convincing explanation of why Perdita Pentyre would have come to her house at midnight, without the slightest reference to the Sons of Liberty or insulting pamphlets about the British on Castle Island.

Orion said, "Thank you, Mrs. Adams, but no. I don't want to upset her, and I know she would never understand. Only Mother-" He stopped himself, and turned his face away. His hands were bound behind him but Abigail guessed that the blood on his s.h.i.+rt-cuffs was his mother's. "Only Mother truly understood that I don't want to be what I am," he finished quietly. "I wish she hadn't seen me. Not because she'd tell, but because . . . Her good opinion . . ."

His voice broke off in a whispered laugh, and he shook his head at himself, for even thinking of such a thing. "G.o.d made me like this. The Reverend Bargest said, after I-after the first-the first time time," he stammered, "that G.o.d never does things without a reason, and therefore, it was G.o.d's will, that I am what I am. That I am seized with-That there are times when it is as if my soul goes into another world, where nothing looks the same, and G.o.d's commands are different. In that world, I hear those commands shouting at me out of my heart. I did fight it," he added, as another trooper brought up horses for them both. "The second time, when I woke up in the woods, and came back to the village and everyone talking about the Banister girl's death, and I knew it wasn't a dream . . ."

He shook his head. "Bargest told me, to pray G.o.d to show me a different path. A different way to combat Satan. It was the saving of me, for five years. There were bad days, bad times, in Boston, but nothing I could not put aside, with the help of G.o.d.

"Knowing Rebecca helped. Knowing she . . . she cared for me, without wanting to eat my soul. I thought then, that maybe I could choose another road." One corner of his mouth turned down, with a breath that could have been a sigh, or another, whispered, laugh at his own absurdity. "Then Mother came."

His mother had left Gilead, and appeared on the printshop doorstep, in May of 1772, Abigail recalled. She remembered it because Rebecca's letter spoke of seeing John, when he'd gone to the session court at Cambridge in that month.

"And Perdita? Did you . . . Did you go into this other world you speak of?"

"Not-No. Yes." In the torchlight by the house, Coldstone helped Rebecca to mount behind a trooper, stood speaking to her for a few moments more. She did not look in Orion's direction.

"It was the blood," said Orion at last. "I thought I could kill her without . . . I thought I could do what the Lord commanded me to, and no more. But then I saw the blood. Smelled its smell. The Hand-Bargest," he made himself use the man's name. "Bargest came to Boston at the beginning of November. With more sermons for the book I was printing, but also to attend on the court. Afterwards he came to the shop, took me aside. He told me that he had proof that Pentyre and his wife were in league with the Devil, that they were the Devil's chosen instruments to break up our Congregation and drive us from our lands. I had fought-for over a year I had fought-to put these thoughts, this terrible sense, from me, that inevitably I would go back to what I had done . . ."

"And he told you," said Abigail softly, "that G.o.d had forged you to be His Weapon?"

Orion nodded, his face ghastly in the flickering yellow light. Soldiers came, knocking grave-dirt from their hands and boots, to help him onto a horse. Abigail wondered if the men of the Gilead Congregation would come at daybreak, to dig the Chosen of the Lord up again and bury him in Gilead itself. The energy that had kept her going through flight and confrontation, scouting the town boundaries and climbing down ropes from the burning blockhouse, was long gone. When someone brought up Balthazar to her, she could only gaze aghast at the saddle; one of the men had to help her mount. She reined him over beside the st.u.r.dy middle-aged trooper behind whose saddle Rebecca clung: "Will she be all right?" She was mildly astonished that Rebecca hadn't fainted long ago.

The trooper saluted her. "I'll look after 'er, mum, don't you worry." He showed her where, under his cloak, he held Rebecca's wrists tight together against his chest with one big hand. "She starts to s.h.i.+ft or slack, I'll feel it 'fore she feels it 'erself, won't I, Mrs. M?"

Her head pressed to his back, Rebecca barely had the strength to nod.

Abigail recalled one of Sam's choice broadsides, about every redcoat being the sc.u.m of the London backstreets, whose sole wish was to bayonet every honest American woman he saw.

The little troop started away down the road, one man walking ahead with a torch to light the road. Tarry flakes of fire dripped down from it, to hiss out on the wet earth; the horses moved among rising threads of steam. The world smelled of smoke.

John and his party finally met them, halfway back to the Salem-Danvers road.

Or, rather, Coldstone's party was intercepted by a gang of unknown men dressed up and painted to look like Indians, who stopped them at gunpoint and searched the sad dlebags on Orion's horse, something Lieutenant Coldstone had neglected to do. As one of the Indians-who under all his paint looked suspiciously like Paul Revere-brought out of the bag a brown-backed quarto-sized notebook la beled "Household Expenses," another-short, chubby, sitting his horse with the uncomfortable stiffness of a man who has his dignity to consider-reined up beside Abigail. Blue, slightly protuberant eyes met hers worriedly from a black-painted face.

Abigail inquired coolly, "Did you get lost?"

The Indian nodded, and said, rather unwillingly, "Ugh."

"Ugh indeed." indeed."

He looked as if he were struggling against strict orders not to say a word in English, and Abigail, relenting, said more quietly, "I'm quite all right," which was not strictly the truth. She could feel fever coming on her, from chill, exertion, and clothing damp from the wet of the woods. She realized she was very lucky to be alive at all. Rebecca, slumped behind the King's b.l.o.o.d.y-back savage, was s.h.i.+vering, too. The Indian reached out a hand to her, but Abigail, mindful of the soldiers watching them, kept her grip on the reins.

In a quiet voice she asked, "I take it you didn't get my message until the town gates were shut for the night. Was the storm too bad to get a boat across the bay?"

"Ugh." He looked, first at Rebecca, his eyes filled with pity, then at Orion.

"The Reverend Bargest is dead," said Abigail. "Hazlitt shot him-goodness knows what his followers are going to do." She coughed, fighting to still it, then gave the Indian a smile. "It is very good to see you, dearest friend."

He smiled back, and saluted her with his tomahawk. "Ugh."

The Indian who looked like Paul Revere slipped the account book into his own saddlebag, and signed to his men. Two of them took the reins of Orion's horse. Orion turned in the saddle, and sought Rebecca's eyes, but did not speak. With him among them, the whole tribe disappeared into the night.

Thirty-four

Presumably this same tribe of Indians, five nights later, boarded the three tea s.h.i.+ps at Griffin's Wharf-the Beaver Beaver having docked, cargo intact, the day before-and dumped some $90,000 worth of East India Company tea into Boston Harbor while six thousand armed countrymen stood around the docks. There was no attempt on Colonel Leslie's part to interfere. having docked, cargo intact, the day before-and dumped some $90,000 worth of East India Company tea into Boston Harbor while six thousand armed countrymen stood around the docks. There was no attempt on Colonel Leslie's part to interfere.

Abigail herself only heard the men go by in the street, from the bed where she lay in the weak aftermath of fever. Though her window was closed and shuttered by that time, still the tramp of their feet came to her, quiet and well-disciplined, though some of them sang. Not a mob Not a mob, she thought. An army. An army.

"And not so much as a belaying-pin on any of those three s.h.i.+ps was stolen or damaged," Rebecca Malvern reported the next morning, when she came after breakfast with fresh-baked scones and a hot ginger tisane. "The Indians even swept the decks clean afterwards."

"How very tidy of them." Abigail-dressed for the first time since being put to bed with a feverish cold-tugged her several shawls closer about her shoulders, and sipped the tisane. "Sam does nice work."

"It makes me wish I could write a poem about it." Rebecca smiled, and drew over to herself the papers that Thaxter had left on the big kitchen table for them: notes copied from the Ess.e.x County court records, which showed just how much of the Gilead congregation's lands actually belonged to the Sellars family, and through them, to Richard Pentyre.

Abigail looked across at her, and raised an inquiring brow. After being sick herself for two days, nursed by Gomer Faulk in the tiny chamber from which Tommy and Charley had been temporarily evicted, Rebecca had been on her feet again and helping Gomer and Pattie nurse Abigail-thus Abigail had witnessed the meeting between her friend and Charles Malvern.

It had been awkward-no self-respecting novelist would have produced the fumbling dialog between the elderly merchant and his estranged and rescued wife-but, Abigail thought, not painful. The afternoon following-which was Wednesday-Malvern had called again, and Wednesday evening, Scipio had arrived with a light gig, to take Rebecca home.

Rebecca continued, "Perhaps I will write a poem, at that. I'll keep it in my desk drawer, until-until we know how any of this will turn out." She smoothed the folds of the dark wool dress she wore, a dress that bore the signs of neat refitting and was laced as close as it would draw around her wasted body. Framed in the neat dark wig she wore, her strong-boned, triangular face had a waifish look.

Still, she'd been enough herself to smile and laugh when Johnny and Nabby had greeted her back with embraces, and demanded help with their sums, at which they were working at the other end of the table: "Will you be teaching us again?" Nabby had wanted to know. "I've told Gomer she can come to your school, too." And Rebecca had replied, "I would love to have you again-and you, too, Mistress Faulk-but it may not answer, now that I'm to be Mr. Malvern's wife again."

Now Abigail asked, "And what does Mr. Malvern say to last night's events?"

"Everything that he always did." Rebecca's smile turned a little wry. "I knew his promise not to speak of politics wouldn't hold-I think he'd go off in an apoplexy if he tried to keep it. But at least so far he does remember, that we have 'agreed to disagree.' Having Tamar gone helps," she added. "She went on a great deal about prisons and convents, when her father broke it to her she was being sent to her aunt's. But I think the prospect of living in New York cheered her, before she even got on the boat. I still keep to my own room, and Mr. Malvern to his." She turned on her wrist the little bracelet of pearls, that Abigail did not remember among her things before. "And we will see, how it all answers, in time."

Silence lay between them, and Abigail drank her tisane. Pattie and the children went out into the scullery-Pattie had promised to make a syllabub for after dinner-and the kitchen was quiet. Oddly so, it seemed, without the church bells that had rung over Boston for two weeks. Indeed, the silence seemed a little ominous.

"I must say I'm a little surprised, that the Indians unloaded all three s.h.i.+ps," remarked Abigail after a moment. "What came of the rumor that someone was going to unload the Beaver Beaver secretly-?" secretly-?"

Rebecca laughed, and flung up one hand in exasperation: "Do you know who was behind that? Richard Pentyre. Richard Pentyre. Sam told me only yesterday: 'tis what Pentyre was trying to arrange on the Wednesday night, that his wife-" Her voice faltered, and she put her hand quickly to her lips. Sam told me only yesterday: 'tis what Pentyre was trying to arrange on the Wednesday night, that his wife-" Her voice faltered, and she put her hand quickly to her lips.

To call her thoughts back, Abigail said, "He guessed there'd be trouble, and sneaked off after seeing his mistress, to hire smugglers to circ.u.mvent it?"

Rebecca nodded, and made herself smile. Abigail saw the tears flood to her eyes.

"And of course he guessed there'd be trouble because that wretch Bargest had sent him a note, threatening his life."

Rebecca drew breath, to steady herself, and let it out again. " 'Tis lucky he had the note, or he'd have been a suspect himself."

"Don't think I didn't suspect him." Abigail refilled her cup. The silence returned.

At length Rebecca said, "I dreamed about it last night. Again. In daytime I barely remember it, but at night-"

" 'Twill pa.s.s."

"I know." Rebecca pressed her hands to her eyes for a moment, and sighed again. "I don't even know if the things I see in my dreams really happened or not. I remember-I think I remember-waking up lying on my bed with my hands tied, in the dark, but I have no idea how I got there. Orion had come earlier, of course, with some more of the Hand of the Lord's wretched sermons, but I know he left. And I remember going out a little later, and seeing Queenie standing in the alley gate, talking to one of the men who buys kitchen leftovers-grease and suet and such, only of course Mrs. T. forbade her to sell them. The way she started when I spoke to her, I suspect she was selling other things, like the odd spoon, or a few ounces of Mr. T's cognac."

Abigail sniffed. "I wondered if 'twas something like that. The way she lied and prevaricated about having been in the alley, or having talked to you-"

"Miserable woman. I suppose," she added, "that living under the same roof with Mrs. Tillet would make anyone miserable, let alone a thief and a liar. I remember talking to her, and going back into the house as the rain was starting, but nothing after that."

"We think-John and I," Abigail said slowly, "that Orion must have unlatched the window in the parlor when he was there earlier, and slipped back in that way while you were out talking to Queenie by the gate. Yours was the only house, you see, that he knew he could get Mrs. Pentyre to come to alone."

It was the blood, Orion had said. I thought I could kill her without . . . But then I saw the blood. Smelled its smell . . . I thought I could kill her without . . . But then I saw the blood. Smelled its smell . . .

Had Bargest told him, You're a Weapon in the Hand of the Lord, but for G.o.d's sake don't go crazy and cut the woman to pieces like you did those others You're a Weapon in the Hand of the Lord, but for G.o.d's sake don't go crazy and cut the woman to pieces like you did those others . . . ? . . . ?

A Weapon in the Hand of the Lord.