Heartfire: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume V (39 page)

Purity had no idea what Verily Cooper’s plan was. All she knew was that Quill hated it, and if Quill hated it, she had to like it. Besides, she could see plainly that Verily Cooper had no ill intent toward her, nor Alvin, though he was in chains because of her. Still, it wasn’t easy for her to sit beside these men that she had accused. If she had known when she made her charges where they would lead... She tried to explain this to them.

“We know that,” said Verily Cooper. “Don’t think twice about it.”

“Where’s the food?” said Alvin. “We only got a little while to eat.”

“I don’t know why you’re helping me,” said Purity.

“He’s not,” said Alvin. “He’s trying to change the world.”

“Alvin has trouble with authority,” said Verily. “He doesn’t like it when somebody else is in charge.”

“I want somebody to be in charge of getting me something to eat. This table is starting to look mighty tasty.”

At that point the bailiff approached and asked them if they wanted to eat down in the jail, separately, or right there at the defense table, with a picnic lunch donated by several of the ladies of Cambridge, including his own wife.

“What extraordinary kindness,” said Verily.

The bailiff grinned. “My wife was on the commons yesterday. She thinks you’re Galahad. Or Percival.”

“Will you thank her for me? For all of us?”

Soon the table was spread with bread, cheese, and summer fruit, and Alvin set to eating like a teenager. Purity had a much harder time working up an appetite, though once she had the taste of pears and cheese in her mouth, she found she was hungrier than she had thought.

“I don’t know,” said Purity, “why you should ever forgive me.”

“Oh, we forgive you,” said Alvin. “We more than forgive you. Verily, here, he’s downright obsessed with you.”

Verily only smiled, his eyes twinkling. “Alvin’s feeling out of sorts,” he said. “He doesn’t like jails.”

“Have you been in jail before?” asked Purity.

“He was acquitted of all charges,” said Verily. “Proving that I’m a clever lawyer.”

“Proving I was innocent,” said Alvin. “An advantage I don’t have this time.”

Only now did Verily show annoyance. “If you think you’re guilty, why did you plead innocent?” he said sharply.

“I’m not guilty of witchcraft,” said Alvin. “Under a ‘strict reading’ or whatever. But the things Mistress Purity said about me, well, you and I both know they’re true.” As if to demonstrate it, he peeled the manacle from his right hand like it was made of clay.

Purity gasped. She had never seen such power. Even hearing Arthur Stuart’s account on the riverbank, she had not realized how effortlessly Alvin worked his will with iron. No incantations, no sign of strain.

“Mistress Purity is startled,” said Verily.

“What do you think?” said Alvin. “Should I spread some iron on this bread and eat it?”

“Don’t be a show-off,” said Verily.

Alvin leaned back in his chair and ate a thick slab of bread and cheese—a posture he could not have assumed while manacled. His mouth full, he talked anyway. “I reckon you needed to remember, Mistress Purity, that
what you said about me was true. Don’t you go blaming yourself for telling the truth.”

Purity found herself on the verge of tears. “The whole world’s awry,” she said.

“True,” said Alvin, “but in different ways in different places. Which is what makes traveling worthwhile.”

“I know you only mean good for me, both of you. Though you’re annoyed with each other. I don’t know why.”

“Verily Cooper thinks he’s in love with you,” said Alvin.

Purity didn’t know what to say to that. Nor did Verily, who was blushing as he ate a slice of pear. He didn’t contradict Alvin, though.

“Not that I don’t approve of Verily falling in love,” said Alvin, “and my wife tells me you’re a good girl, loyal and smart and patient and all the other virtues that a wife of Mr. Cooper has to have.”

“I didn’t know that I had met your wife, sir,” said Purity.

“You haven’t,” said Alvin. “Don’t you remember what Arthur told you about her?”

“That she was a candle.”

“Torch,” said Alvin.

“We don’t hear much about knackery here in New England. Except as it pertains to disposing of the bodies of downer animals.”

Verily laughed aloud. “I told you she had a sense of humor, Al.”

She allowed herself a small smile.

“Let’s just say that Margaret thinks you’re worth the trouble of my staying in jail a couple of nights,” said Alvin.

“You sustained me while we were running yesterday, didn’t you?”

Alvin shrugged. “Who knows how tough you are? At some point, everybody gives in and says what the questioner wants to hear.”

“I’d like to think I could withstand torture as well as the next person,” said Purity.

“That’s my point,” said Alvin. “Nobody can withstand it, if the questioner knows what he’s doing. The body betrays us. Most people never find that out because they’re never asked a question that matters. And those that are, most give the answer the questioner wants without a lick of torture. It’s only the strong ones, the most stubborn ones as gets tortured.”

“Mr. Cooper,” said Purity, “I hope you don’t think I’m giving any stock to Mr. Smith’s jests about your feelings toward me.”

Verily smiled at her. “You don’t know me, so I can hardly expect you to welcome such an idea.”

“On the contrary,” said Purity, “I know you very well. I saw you in court today, and on the commons, too. I know the kind of man you are.”

“You don’t know he farts in his sleep,” said Alvin.

Purity looked at him, appalled. “Everyone does,” she answered, “but most people find no need to mention it during meals.”

Alvin grinned at her. “Just didn’t want this to turn into a love feast. Not while my lawyer here is trying to burn down the barn to kill the fleas.”

Verily’s face darkened. “It’s not ‘fleas’ when innocent people die, and others become perjurers out of fear.”

“How much justice will be done when judges go striking down laws whenever some lawyer gives them half an excuse?”

“That’s theory,” said Verily. “When the practice of the law leads to injustice, then the law must change.”

“That’s what Parliament is for,” said Alvin. “And the assembly.”

“What politician would dare announce that he was in favor of witchcraft?”

The argument might have gone on, but at that moment the door of the courtroom opened and Hezekiah Study
came in. He gave no greeting, but stalked down the aisle straight to a chair directly behind the defense table. He spoke only to Verily Cooper.

“Don’t do it,” said Hezekiah Study.

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t take on the witchers,” he said. “Try the case. Or better yet, if your client really has the knack he’s charged with, shed the chains and begone with you.”

Only then did Hezekiah notice the manacle lying warped and deformed in Alvin’s lap. Alvin grinned at him and mashed the last hunk of bread and cheese into his mouth all at once.

“Pardon me, sir, but who are you?” asked Verily Cooper.

“This is Reverend Study,” said Purity. “He advised me not to charge Alvin with witchcraft. I wish I’d listened to him then.”

“You’ll wish you had listened to me now,” said Hezekiah.

“The law is on my side,” said Verily.

“No, it isn’t,” said Hezekiah. “Nothing is on your side.”

“Sir, I know my case, and I know the law.”

“So did I,” said Hezekiah. “I tried the same strategy.”

Now Verily was interested. “You’re a lawyer, sir?”

“I
was
a lawyer. I gave it up and became a minister.”

“But you lost a witch trial, I take it?”

“I tried to use the strict reading you’re going for,” said Hezekiah. “I tried to show that the testimony of the witcher was tainted. Everything you’re doing.”

“And it failed?” asked Verily.

“What do you do,” asked Hezekiah, “when the witcher calls
you
to the stand?”

Verily stared at him in silence.

“The witcher can call my lawyer?” asked Alvin.

“It’s ecclesiastical law,” said Hezekiah. “The law is
older than advocacy. There is no privilege unless you’re an ordained minister.”

“So they called you,” said Purity. “But what did you say?”

“I could only tell the truth,” said Hezekiah. “I had seen my clients use their knacks. Harmless! A gift of God, I said it, but there was my testimony.” Tears flowed down his cheeks. “That’s what hanged them.”

Purity was weeping also. “What were their knacks?”

“Who?” asked Alvin.

“My mother and father,” said Purity, looking at Hezekiah for confirmation.

He nodded and looked away.

“What did they die for?” asked Purity. “What was their crime?”

“Your mother could heal animals,” said Hezekiah. “That’s what killed her. A neighbor with an old quarrel waited too long, called her too late, and his mule died, so he said that by the power of Satan she cursed the animals of all those who didn’t please her.”

“And my father?”

“He could draw a straight line.”

The words hung there for a moment.

“That’s
all
?” asked Alvin.

“On paper. In the soil. Truer than a surveyor. His fences were the marvel of the neighborhood. He won the plowing prize every year at the parish fair. No one could cut so straight a furrow. His wife always made him cut the fabric when she was sewing. People remembered his knack when his wife was on trial, and he admitted it readily, seeing no harm in it, since it neither harmed others nor gave him any advantage. Except at the fair.”

Purity could hardly talk for weeping. “That’s why they died?”

“They died for envy,” said Hezekiah, “and for the bloodlust of the witcher, and for the incompetence and arrogance, the
pride
of their attorney who called himself their friend but dared to put their lives at risk in a larger
cause. I could have won them a banishment. They were well-liked and the trial was unpopular. The witcher was willing to dicker. But I had a cause.” He gripped Purity’s hands. “I can’t let this man do the same to you! I’ve spent my life trying to keep you from the same fate, because they marked you, don’t think they haven’t. Quill knows who you are. Because of you, they couldn’t hang your mother until you were born, and the outrage built and built among the people. There was a strong sentiment to break them out of jail. But the witchers called in the authorities and they guarded the hangings. And then they sent you away, so as not to remind the people of the outrage that had been done against you. To this day, God help the witcher who comes through that part of Netticut, because the people know the truth there.”

“Then it was a victory of sorts,” said Purity quietly. “They didn’t die for nothing.”

“They
died
,” said Hezekiah. “Their accusers were ostracized until they moved away, but they’re still alive, aren’t they? The witchers lost a lot of prestige, but they’re still in the witch business, aren’t they? That feels like dying for nothing to me.”

“It’s a different trial,” said Verily. “And a different judge.”

“He’s an honorable man, bound by law,” said Hezekiah. “Don’t think he isn’t.”

“Honorable men aren’t bound by bad laws,” said Verily.

Alvin laughed, a little nastily. “If that’s so, how you going to tell the honorable ones from the dishonorable? Who’s bound by law at all, since every law is bad at one time or another?”

“Whose side are you on?” Verily asked testily.

“I’m supposed to build a city,” said Alvin. “And if I don’t build it on law, what am I going to build it on? Even Napoleon makes laws that bind him, because if you don’t then there’s no order, it’s chaos all the way down.”

“So you’d rather hang?”

Alvin sighed and held up the twisted manacle. “I’m not going to hang.”

“But someone will,” said Verily. “If not this year then next, or the year after. Someone will hang. You said so yourself.”

“Let witch trials fade out by themselves,” said Alvin.

“The way slavery’s fading?” Verily answered mockingly.

The door opened again. People were beginning to return. The bailiff came back to clean up the meal. “You didn’t eat much,” said the bailiff.

“
I
did,” said Alvin.

Hezekiah and Purity still held hands across the railing separating spectators from the court. “Beg pardon,” said the bailiff. “She’s a defendant now. I don’t want to put her in chains, but she’s not allowed to touch folks beyond the rail.”

Hezekiah nodded and withdrew his hands.

The bailiff left with the picnic basket. Alvin wrapped the manacle around his wrist again. Purity couldn’t resist touching it. It was hard again. As hard as iron.

Quill came back into the courtroom smiling.

Purity turned and whispered to Hezekiah. “You’re wrong, you know,” she said. “It wasn’t you that hanged them.”