Heartfire

“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 begi

“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.”

Hezekiah shook his head.

“I never knew them, but I sit now where they sat, though guiltier, because I'm the one who leveled the charge. And I tell you, they knew who their friends were.”

“I was no friend to them.”

“They knew who their friends were,” said Purity, “and I know who their friends were. All may have been outraged, but they let the hanging take place. You alone followed me or found me here. You alone took care to raise me in safety. You gave years of your life to their child. That is a true friend.”

Hezekiah buried his face in his hands. His shoulders shook, unable to bear what she had placed upon them. Absolution was a heavier burden, for the moment, than guilt.

Quill rose to his feet the moment John Adams called the court to order.

“Your Honor, I have a motion.”

“Out of order,” said John.

“Your Honor, I think all can be settled when we call Mr. Verily Cooper to the stand! This is ecclesiastical law and there is no–”

John banged the gavel again and again until Quill fell silent.

“I said your motion was out of order.”

“There are precedents!” said Quill, seething with fury.

“On the contrary,” said John. “Your motion may be in order when we resume the trial of Alvin Smith and Purity Orphan. But at the moment, this is a hearing on a motion, and in this procedure I am the questioner. There are no sides and no attorneys, only my own pursuit of information to allow me to reach a conclusion, So you will take your seat until I call you for questioning. You are the equal of all other persons in this court. You have no standing to make a motion of any kind. Is that clear to you at last, Mr. Quill?”

“You exceed your authority, Your Honor!”

“Bailiff, bring manacles and leg irons. If Mr. Quill speaks again, they are to be placed upon him to remind him that he has no authority in this courtroom during this hearing.”

White-faced and trembling, Quill sat down.

The hearing went quite smoothly for quite a while. John questioned Purity first. She described the nature of the charges she originally made, and then told how Quill had deformed them, turning harmless frolicking in the river into an incestuous orgy, and a peaceful conversation on the riverbank into a witches' sabbath. He asked her about the professors from the college, and she affirmed that she had never mentioned them and only found out they were being questioned when Quill demanded that she denounce them, Emerson in particular.

Then the professors were brought forward, one at a time, to recount the experience of being questioned by Quill. Each one stated that he had been led to believe that others had confessed and implicated them, and that their only hope was to confess and repent. All denied being the one who confessed.

Then John turned to Quill.

“Aren't you going to question him first?” Quill said, pointing to Alvin.

“Have you forgotten whose hearing this is?” asked John.

“I just want to hear whether he denies the witchcraft charges!”

“You'll find that out in the trial,” said John, “since the accused can be called to give testimony against themselves in witch trials.”

“You're favoring him,” said Quill.

“You're testing my patience,” said John. “Put your hand on the Bible and take your oath.”

Quill complied, and the questioning began. Quill answered scornfully, denying that he had deceived anyone. “She's the one who talked of Satan. I had to stop my ears, she spoke of him so lovingly. She wanted carnal knowledge of him. She even told me that Satan had instructed her to lie and say I made up the story, but I was not afraid because I knew that in lawful courts, my testimony would have greater trust than hers.”

John listened to Quill calmly enough, as his testimony grew nastier and nastier. “These professors behave exactly as one would expect a conclave of wizards to behave,” said Quill. “I wouldn't have questioned them if the girl hadn't denounced them. She thought better of it at once, of course, and tried to deny it, but I knew what she had told me, and it was enough. They deny that they confessed, but several of them did, as my depositions to the court affirm.”