Part 29 (1/2)
”I can can think of a reason you might have fas.h.i.+oned those poppets and hidden them in my house,” Rachel went on, her face pressed against the bars and her eyes afire. ”Do you not think I noticed the way you looked at me, when you thought Daniel didn't see? Do you not think I felt you devouring me? Well, Daniel saw it too! He told me, less than a week before he was murdered, to beware of you because you had a hungry stare and you were not to be trusted! Daniel may have been a stern and quiet man, but he was a very good judge of character!” think of a reason you might have fas.h.i.+oned those poppets and hidden them in my house,” Rachel went on, her face pressed against the bars and her eyes afire. ”Do you not think I noticed the way you looked at me, when you thought Daniel didn't see? Do you not think I felt you devouring me? Well, Daniel saw it too! He told me, less than a week before he was murdered, to beware of you because you had a hungry stare and you were not to be trusted! Daniel may have been a stern and quiet man, but he was a very good judge of character!”
”Obviously he was,” Paine said. ”He married a witch.”
”Look at the magistrate,” Rachel commanded, ”and tell him about your affair with Lucretia Vaughan! Oh, everyone in Fount Royal knows it but Mr. Vaughan, and he knows it too in his heart but he's too much a mouse to make a squeak! Tell him about your affair with Blessed Pearson, and your dalliance with Mary Summers! Go on, look him in the face and admit it like the man you wish to be!”
Paine did not look at the magistrate. He continued to stare at Rachel even as he let out a laugh that-to Matthew's ears- sounded a bit strangled. ”You're not only a d.a.m.nable witch,” he said, ”but you're raving insane as well!”
”Tell us all why a handsome, healthy man like yourself has never married! Isn't it because you're only pleased to possess what belongs to other men?”
”Now I know know you're insane! I've never married because I've spent my life in travelling! I also prize freedom, and a man's freedom is destroyed when he gives it up to a wife!” you're insane! I've never married because I've spent my life in travelling! I also prize freedom, and a man's freedom is destroyed when he gives it up to a wife!”
”And while you have no wife, you are free to turn wives into wenches!” Rachel said. ”Mary Summers was a respectable woman before you got your hands on her, and now where is she? After you killed her husband in that duel, she perished of sorrow within a month!”
”That duel,” he answered coldly, ”concerned a point of honor. Quentin Summers splashed wine in my face at the tavern and called me a card cheat. I had no choice but to call him out.”
”He knew you were having your way with his wife, but he couldn't catch you! He was a farmer, not a duelist!”
”Farmer or not, he was given the first shot. He missed. If you'll recall, I only wounded him in the shoulder.”
”A bullet wound in this town is a death sentence! He just took longer to die than if you'd shot him through the heart!”
”The subject of my visit here, I believe, is to display the poppets.” Paine turned his gaze toward the magistrate. ”Which I have done. Do you wish to keep them, sir?”
Even if Woodward's voice hadn't been so diminished, it would have been altogether stolen by the accusations and statements that had just flown like wild birds in a storm. It was going to take him a while to absorb all of this, but one thing stood out in clear relief in his mind.
He remembered Dr. s.h.i.+elds saying in regards to Paine: He was married, when he was a younger man. His wife perished from an illness that caused her to suffer fits until she died. He was married, when he was a younger man. His wife perished from an illness that caused her to suffer fits until she died. Why, then, did Paine contend he had never been married? Why, then, did Paine contend he had never been married?
”Magistrate? Do you wish to keep the poppets?” Paine repeated.
”Oh! Uh... yes, I do,” Woodward answered, in his tortured whisper. ”They shall become the court's property.”
”Very well, then.” He fired a look at Rachel that, were it a can-nonshot, might have cleaved through the hull of a wars.h.i.+p. ”I'd beware that one and her nasty tongue, sir! She holds such a grudge against me I'm surprised my murder wasn't on her list of crimes!”
”Face the magistrate and deny that what I've said is the truth!” Rachel all but shouted.
Woodward had endured enough of this discord. For want of a better instrument, he picked up the Bible and slapped it down against the desk's edge. ”Hus.h.!.+” he said, as loudly as he could; instantly he paid the price in pain, and tears welled up.
”Madam Howarth?” Matthew said. ”I think it wise to be silent.”
Paine added, ”I think it wise to begin cutting the stake for her execution!”
This sarcastic remark bruised Matthew's sense of propriety, especially following on the heels of such heated wranglings. His voice tightened. ”Mr. Paine, it would interest me to know if what Madam Howarth claims about you is true.”
”Would it, now?” Paine put his hands on his hips. ”You're overstepping your bounds, aren't you, clerk?”
”May I speak for you, sir?” Matthew asked Woodward, and the magistrate didn't hesitate to nod his a.s.sent. ”There, Mr. Paine. My bounds are more clearly defined. Now: are these claims true or false?”
”I didn't know I was to be a witness today. I might've worn a better suit.”
”Your delay in answering,” Matthew said, ”delays the outcome of this trial. Shall you be instructed to sit down and swear truth on the Bible?”
”You might instruct it, but I doubt you could enforce it.”
”Yes, I'm sure you're correct. I'm no duelist, either.”
Paine's face had taken on a reddish cast. ”Listen to me! I didn't want to fight that man, and if he'd insulted me in private I would have let it go! But he had to test me in public, right there at Van Gundy's! What could I do but call him out? He had the choice of weapons, and the fool chose pistols instead of blades! I would've given him a single cut and called it done!” He shook his head, his expression taking on a hint of regret. ”But no, Summers wanted heart's blood. Well, his pistol misfired and the ball hardly rolled out of the muzzle! Still, that was his shot. Then it was mine. I aimed for the meat of his shoulder, which I squarely hit. How would I know he was such a bleeder?”
”You might have fired at the earth,” Matthew said. ”Isn't that acceptable when the first shot misfires?”
”Not by my rules,” came the chill reply. ”If a man aims a weapon at me, whether it's a pistol or a dagger, he must account for it. I've been stabbed between the ribs before and shot through my leg; so I hold no sympathy for anyone who tries to do me harm! No matter if he is is a farmer!” a farmer!”
”You suffered these wounds during your career at sea?” Matthew asked.
”The stab, yes. The shot... was a later incident.” He stared at the clerk with fresh interest. ”What do you know of my career at sea?”
”Just that you were a seaman aboard a brigantine. Mr. Bid-well told me. A brigantine is a fast s.h.i.+p, isn't it? In fact, brigantines are the vessels of choice by pirates, are they not?”
”They are. And they are also the vessels of choice by those who would hunt hunt pirates in service of the trading companies.” pirates in service of the trading companies.”
”That was your profession, then?”
”Hardly a profession. I was sixteen years old, hot-tempered and eager to fight. I served one year and four months on a coastal patrol before a black-flagger's rapier laid me low. That was the end of my salt.w.a.ter adventures.”
”Oh,” Matthew said quietly. ”I see.”
”What? Did you think me me a pirate?” a pirate?”
”I wondered.” Now that the subject had been opened, he had to ask the next question as well: ”Might I inquire... who taught you to roll your tobacco in the Spanish fas.h.i.+on?”
”A Spaniard, of course,” Paine said. ”A prisoner aboard s.h.i.+p. He had no teeth, but he dearly loved his cigars. I think he was hanged with one in his mouth.”
”Oh,” Matthew repeated. His suspicions concerning the Spanish spy had just fallen to pieces like shattered mirrorgla.s.s, and he felt an utter fool.
”All right, I admit it! ” Paine lifted his hands. ”Yes, I have done the things the witch claims, but they were not all my doing! Lucretia Vaughan came after me like a shewolf! I couldn't walk the street without being near attacked by her! A match can only bear so much friction before it flames, and a single hot blaze is all I gave her! You know how such things happen!”
”Um...” Matthew inspected the tip of his quill. ”Well... yes, such things do happen.”
”And perhaps-perhaps-my eye does wander. I did, at one point, feel an attraction to the witch. Before Before she was a witch, I mean. You must admit, she's a handsome piece. Is she not?” she was a witch, I mean. You must admit, she's a handsome piece. Is she not?”
”My opinion is of no consequence.” Matthew blushed so furiously that his face hurt.
”You do admit it. You'd have to be blind if you did not. Well, I may have looked in her direction once or twice, but I never laid a hand on her. I had respect for her husband.”
”I'd be amazed if you had respect for anyone!” anyone!” Rachel said sharply. Rachel said sharply.
Paine started to fire off another volley at her, but he checked himself. After a pause in which he stared at the floor, he answered in what was almost a saddened tone, ”You don't know me very well, madam, even though you imagine you do. I am not the beast you make me out to be. It is my nature to respect only those who respect themselves. As for the others, from them I feel free to take what is offered. Whether that makes me good or bad, I can't say, but that is how I am.” He looked at the magistrate and lifted his chin high. ”I did not put those poppets in the witch's house. I found them, according to a dream related to me by Cara Grunewald. It seems she had a vision-G.o.d-sent, if you want my opinion-in which a s.h.i.+ning figure told her there was something of importance hidden beneath the floor of Rachel Howarth's kitchen. We knew not what we were searching for. But there the poppets were, beneath a loosened board.”
”This was how long after Madam Howarth had been removed from her house?” Matthew asked.