Heartfire

“I declare this hearing adjourned.” He banged the gavel. Then he banged it again. “I call the court to order in the matter of the commonwealth versus Alvin Smith and Purity Orphan. This being a witch trial, we may not proceed without the presence of an interrogator with a valid license. Is there an interrogator with such a license in the courtroom?”

John looked at Quill cheerfully. “You, sir, seem to be sitting at the prosecutor's table. Have you such a license?”

Quill saw the handwriting on the wall. “No, Your Honor.”

“Well,” said John. “As there seem to be no other candidates for the role of interrogator present, I have no choice but to find that this trial is improper and illegal. I dismiss the charges. The defendants are free to go. Mr. Smith is not obligated to return to court. Court is adjourned.”

Quill rose shakily to his feet. “If you think you can get away with this, you're wrong, sir!”

John ignored him and walked away from the bench.

Quill shouted after him. “We'll get new licenses! See if we don't!”

But John Adams knew something that Quill had forgotten. Licenses were issued only on the authority of the governor. And John was pretty sure that Quincy would not issue any licenses until the Assembly of Massachusetts had plenty of time to write a new witch law that eliminated the office of interrogator and required the normal rules of evidence to hold sway, including the right of the defendant not to be compelled to testify. The churches had the right, of course, to hold witch trials any time they wanted, but the maximum penalty in the ecclesiastical courts was excommunication from the congregation. And they used that power against people who didn't attend church often enough.

When the door of the robing room had closed behind him, John couldn't help it. He danced a little jig all around the room, singing a childish ditty as he did.

Then he remembered what he had seen Alvin Smith do, and his mood sobered at once.

He sat in the plush chair and tried to understand what he had seen. John had never believed in knacks that defied natural law, but now he realized that he had come to believe this, not because they didn't exist, but because no one would dare to use such powers in New England, where you could hang for it. The witch laws were wrong, not because such powers were wholly imaginary, but because they didn't necessarily come from Satan. Or did they? Had he crippled the witchcraft laws at the very moment when he had proof that they were necessary?

No. Cooper might not have prevailed with his motions, but his point was well taken. It was only the falsified testimony of the witchers that showed any involvement of Satan with knacks. Without the witchers, knacks were just inborn talents. That some of them were extraordinary did not mean that the possessor of such a knack was either evil or good. Nor was there any evidence that the witch laws had ever been used against people whose hidden powers were truly dangerous. It was obvious that if Alvin Smith had not wished to be confined, no jail could have held him. Therefore only those whose knacks were relatively mild and harmless could ever have been convicted and hanged. It was a law that did nothing it was intended to do. It protected no one and harmed many. It would be good to be rid of it.

In the meantime, though, there was Alvin Smith. What a strange young man! To walk away from his own trial because he thought his lawyer was going to get him off by hurting society at large– was he really that altruistic? Did the good of the people mean more to him than his own good name? For that matter, why had he stayed? John knew without asking. Just as Hezekiah had begged him not to let any harm come to Purity, so also had Alvin stayed for the trial specifically in order to link Purity's fate to his own. But no matter what happened, Purity wasn't going to hang. Alvin had the power to see to that.

But that wasn't enough for Verily Cooper. Saving his friend, saving this girl, that wasn't enough. He had to save everybody. John understood the impulse. He had it himself. He had been thwarted in it, and it hurt him to fail. Not like it hurt Hezekiah Study, of course. But at long last, Cooper had brought them both a chance to redeem their past failures. It was a good gift. Cooper might be too clever for his own good, but he used it in a good cause, which was more than could be said for many clever men.

Knacks. Alvin Smith could shed iron like melting butter. What is my knack? Do I have one? Perhaps my knack is just to hold on my course whether it seems to be taking me anywhere or not. Stubbor

John Adams had a good laugh about that, all by himself.

Chapter 14 – Revolt

No sooner was Alvin out of the courtroom than he began to run, long loping strides that would carry him to the river. No greensong helped him at first, for the town was too built up. Yet he was scarcely wearied when he reached the place where Arthur, Mike, and Jean-Jacques were just awakening from their late-afternoon naps. For a moment they wanted to show him what Jean-Jacques had painted, but Alvin had no time for that.

“I was in court and I couldn't pay attention to half that folderol, and my mind wandered to Margaret and there she was, her heart beating so fast, I knew something was wrong. She was spelling big letters in midair. Help. And I looked around her and there was Calvin lying on the floor of an attic in Camelot, and he's in a bad way.”

Jean-Jacques was all sympathy. “You must feel so helpless, to be so far away.”

Mike Fink hooted with laughter. “Alvin ain't all that helpless wherever he is.”

“It means we're going to part company with you, Jean-Jacques,” Alvin said. “Or rather, some of us are. Arthur, you're coming with me.”

Arthur, who had been on tenterhooks waiting to hear the plan, now gri

“Mike, I'd appreciate it if you'd go on into town and meet Very. He'll have that Purity girl with him, I reckon, or I'll be surprised if he don't. So if you'd tell him that he and you and her and Jean-Jacques here, you should all head for the border of New Amsterdam. I figure we can join up in Philadelphia when I'm done with whatever it is Margaret wants me to do.”

“Where?” asked Mike. “Philadelphia's a big place.”

“Mistress Louder's rooming house, of course.”

“What if she don't got room?”

“Then leave word with her where you'll be. But she'll have room.” Alvin turned again to Jean-Jacques. “It's been a pleasure, and I'm proud to know a man with such a knack for painting, but I'm taking Arthur and we got nobody to hold the birds still for you now.”

“So what I do now?” said Jean-Jacques. “I make you angry when I kill the bird and stuff it. My career is over if I do not kill the bird.”

Alvin looked at Arthur Stuart. “I got to tell you, Arthur, I got no problem with him killing a bird now and then for the sake of folks studying his paintings.”

Arthur stood there looking down at the ground.

“Arthur, it ain't like I got a lot of time here,” said Alvin.

Arthur looked up at Jean-Jacques, then at Alvin. “I just got to know one thing. Does a bird have a soul?”

«Am I a, how you say, th‚ologien?»

“I just– if a bird dies, when it dies, when you kill it, what happens to it? Is it completely dead? Or is there some part of it that…”

Arthur stood there with tears beading up on his cheeks. Alvin reached out to hug him, but Arthur pulled away. “I ain't asking for a hug, dammit, I'm asking for an answer!”

“I don't know about that,” said Alvin. “What I see is like a little fire inside every living thing. Humans got a big bright one, most of them anyway, but there's fire like that in every animal. The plants, too, only the fire is spread out all through the plant, not just in one place like it is with the animals. Margaret sees something like that, she says, only she don't catch much more than a glimpse of what's in the animals, like the shadow of a fire, if you get my drift. Now is that heartfire a soul? I don't know. And what happens to it after a body dies? I don't know that either. I know it ain't in the body anymore. But I know sometimes the heartfire can leave the body. Happens when I'm doodlebugging, part of it goes out of me. Does that mean that when the body's dead the whole thing can go? I don't know, Arthur. You're asking me what I can't tell you.”