Heartfire

Alvin smiled thinly. “You got too high an opinion of human nature.”

“Do I?”

“The law didn't make witch trials happen. It was the hunger for witch trials that got them to make up the law.”

“But if we do away with the legal basis–”

“Listen, Verily, do you think men like Quill will flat-out disappear just cause witchery ain't there to give them what they want? No, they'll just find another way to do the same job.”

“You don't know that.”

“If it ain't witchcraft, they'll find new crimes that work just the way witchcraft does, so you can take ordinary folks making ordinary mistakes or not even mistakes, just going about their business, but suddenly the witcher, he finds some wickedness in it, and turns everything they say into proof that they're guilty of causing every bad thing that's been going wrong.”

“There's no other law that works that way.”

“That's because we got witch laws, Very. Get rid of them, and people will find a way take all the sins of the world and put them onto the heads of some fellow who's attracted their attention and then destroy him and all his friends.”

“Purity isn't evil, Alvin.”

“Quill is,” said Alvin.

The sheriff leaned down. “I'm trying not to listen, boys, but you know it's a crime to speak ill of a witcher. This Quill, he takes it as evidence that Satan's got you by the short hairs, begging your pardon.”

“Thank you for the reminder, sir,” said Verily. “My client didn't mean it quite the way it sounded.”

The sheriff rolled his eyes. “From what I've seen, it doesn't matter much how it sounds when you say it. What matters is how it sounds when Quill repeats it.”

Verily gri

“What are you smiling at?” asked Alvin.

“I just got all the proof I need that you're wrong. People don't like the way the witch trials work. People don't like injustice. Strike down these laws and no one will miss them.”

Alvin shook his head. “Good people won't miss them. But it wasn't good people as set them up in the first place. It was scared people. The world ain't steady. Bad things happen even when you been careful and done no wrong. Good people, strong people, they take that in stride, but them as is scared and weak, they want somebody to blame. The good people will think they've stamped out witch trials, but the next generation they'll turn around and there they'll be again, wearing a different hat, going by a different name, but witch trials all the same, where they care more about getting somebody punished than whether they're actually guilty of anything.”

“Then we'll stamp them out again,” said Verily.

Alvin shrugged. “Of course we will, once we figure out what's what and who's who. Maybe next time the witchers will go after folks with opinions they don't like, or folks who pray the wrong way or in the wrong place, or folks who look ugly or talk fu

Verily leaned over and whispered into Alvin's ear. “Meaning no disrespect, Al, it's your wife who can see into the future, not you.”

“No whispering,” said the sheriff. “You might be giving me the pox.” He chuckled, but there was just a little bit of genuine worry in his voice.

Alvin answered Verily out loud. “Meaning no disrespect, Very, it don't take a knack to know that human nature ain't going to change anytime soon.”

Verily stood up. “It's time for the arraignment, Alvin. There's no point in our talking philosophy before a trial. I never knew till now that you were so cynical about human nature.”

“I know the power of the Unmaker,” said Alvin. “It never lets up. It never gives in. It just moves on to other ground.”

Shaking his head, Verily led the way out of the room. The sheriff, tightly holding the end of Alvin's chain, escorted him right after. “I got to say, I never seen a prisoner who cared so little about whether he got convicted or not.”

Alvin reached up his hand and scratched the side of his nose. “I'm not all that worried, I got to admit.” Then he put his hand back down.

It wasn't till they were almost in the courtroom that the sheriff realized that there was no way the prisoner could have got his hand up to his face with those manacles on, chained to his ankle braces the way they were. But by then he couldn't be sure he'd actually seen the young fellow scratch his nose. He just thought he remembered that. Just his mind playing tricks on him. After all, if this Alvin Smith could take his hands out of iron manacles, just like that, why didn't he walk out of jail last night?

Chapter 12 – Slaves

“You must take care of him,” said Balzac.

“In a boardinghouse for ladies?” asked Margaret.

Calvin stood there, his unblinking gaze focused on nothing.

“They have servants, no? He is your brother-in-law, he is sick, they will not refuse you.”

Margaret did not have to ask him what had precipitated his decision. At the French embassy today Balzac received a letter from a Paris publisher. One of his essays on his American travels had already appeared in a weekly, and was so popular that the publisher was going to serialize the rest of them and then bring them out as a book. A letter of credit was included. It was enough for a passage home.

“Just when you start earning money from your writing about America, you're going to leave?”

“Writing about America will pay for leaving America,” said Balzac. “I am a novelist. It is about the human soul that I write, not the odd customs of this barbaric country.” He gri

Margaret dipped into his futures. “Will you do me one kindness, then?” she asked. “Will you write in such a way that when war comes between the armies of slavery and of liberty, no government of France will be able to justify joining the war on the side of the slaveholders?”

“You imagine my writing to have more authority than it will ever have.”

But already she saw that he would honor her request, and that it would work. “You are the one who underestimates yourself,” said Margaret. “The decision you made in your heart just now has already changed the world.”

Tears came to Balzac's eyes. “Madame, you have give me this unspeakable gift which no writer ever get: You tell me that my imaginary stories are not frivolous, they make life better in reality.”

“Go home, Monsieur de Balzac. America is better because you came, and France will be better when you return.”

“It is a shame you are married so completely,” said Balzac. “I have never loved any woman the way I love you in this moment.”

“Nonsense,” said Margaret. “It is yourself you love. I merely brought you a good report of your loved one.” She smiled. “God bless you.”

Balzac took Calvin's hand. “It does me no good to speak to him. Tell him I did my best but I must to go home.”

“I will tell him that you remain his true friend.”

“Do not go too far in this!” said Balzac in mock horror. “I do not wish him to visit me.”

Margaret shrugged. “If he does, you'll deal with him.”

Balzac bowed over her hand and kissed it. Then he took off at a jaunty pace along the sidewalk.

Margaret turned to Calvin. She could see that he was pale, his skin white and patchy-looking. He stank. “This won't do,” she said. “It's time to find where they've put you.”

She led the docile shell of a man into the boardinghouse. She toyed with the idea of leaving him in the public room, but imagined what would happen if he started breaking wind or worse. So she led him up the stairs. He climbed them readily enough, but with each step she had to pull him on to the next, or he'd just stand there. The idea of completing the whole flight of stairs in one sweep was more than his distracted attention could deal with.