Orson Card - Heartfire

"I have the authority to demand that you be clapped in irons yourself if you cause these two souls to be tortured for one more moment!" cried Verily. He knew the crowd was spellbound, watching the confrontation. "For I am Alvin Smith's attorney, and by torturing my client without authority, you, sir, have broken the Protection Act of 1694!" He flung out an accusing finger and the witcher visibly wilted under his accusation.

Verily was growing impatient, however, for the plan wasn't to win a petty victory here on the common. Was Purity so tired she couldn't lift her head and see who was speaking here?

He was about to launch into another tirade, during which he would wander closer to Purity and stand her up to face him if need be, but finally she recognized him and eliminated the need.

"That's him!" she cried.

The witcher sensed salvation. "Who? Who is he?"

"The English lawyer who was traveling with Alvin Smith! He's a witch too! He has a knack with wood!"

"So he was also at the witches' sabbath!" cried the witcher. "Of course Satan quotes the law to try to save his minions! Arrest that man!"

Verily immediately turned to the crowd. "See how it goes! Everyone who stands up for my client will be accused of witchcraft! Everyone will be clapped into jail and tried for his life!"

"Silence him!" cried the witcher. "Make him run along with the others!"

But the tithingmen, who reluctantly took Verily by the elbows because he had been accused, had no intention of doing any more running, now that it had been called torture and declared to be illegal. "No more running today, sir," said one of them. "We'll have to hear from the judge before we let you do such things again."

As a couple of tithingmen helped Purity stagger toward the courthouse, she whimpered when she came near Verily. "Don't bring me near him," she said. "He casts spells on me. He wants to come to me as an incubus!"

"Purity, you poor thing," Verily said. "Hear yourself spout the lies this witcher has taught you to tell."

"Speak no word to her!" cried the witcher. "Hear him curse her!"

To the tithingmen, Verily wryly muttered, "Did that sound like a curse to you?"

"No muttering! Keep still!" screamed the witcher.

Verily answered the witcher loudly. "All I said was, to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail!"

Some people understood at once and chuckled. But the witcher was not one for irony. "A satanic utterance! Hammers and nails! What have you cursed me with? Confess your meaning, sir!"

"I mean, sir, that to those who profit from witch trials, every word sounds like a curse!"

"Get him out of here with his filthy lies and innuendoes!"

The tithingmen dragged him and Alvin off to the courthouse, to cells far from each other, but they were near each other several times, and though they didn't speak, they traded glances, and Verily made sure Alvin saw him grinning from ear to ear. This is working exactly as I wanted, Verily was saying.

Alone in his cell, though, Verily lost his smile. Poor Purity, he thought. How deeply had this witcher twisted her mind? Was her integrity so tied up in knots that she was no longer capable of seeing how she was being manipulated? Somewhere along the line, she had to realize that the witcher was using her.

Let it be soon, thought Verily. I don't want Alvin to have to wait long in this jail.

Hezekiah Study had already packed his bag for an extended stay with his niece in Providence when he heard the shouting on the common and leaned out his window to listen. He watched the English lawyer embarrass Micah Quill, manipulating the master manipulator until Hezekiah wanted to cheer. His heart sank when Purity denounced the lawyer-- and, indeed, she had spoken of a lawyer in Alvin Smith's party right from the start-- but the lawyer managed to plant seeds of doubt in every onlooker's mind all the same. To Hezekiah Study, it was the first time he'd ever seen the early stages of a witch trial without dread and despair seizing his heart. For the English lawyer was grinning like a schoolboy who doesn't mind the punishment because it was worth it to put the rock through the schoolmaster's window.

He's in control of this, thought Hezekiah.

His better sense-- his bitter experience-- answered: No one's ever in control of a witch trial except the witchers. The man is grinning now, but he'll not grin in the end, with either the rope around his neck or his decency stripped from him.

Oh, God, let this be the day at last when the people finally see that the only ones serving the devil at these trials are the witchers!

And when his prayer was done, he came away from the window and unpacked his bag. Come what may, this trial was going to be fought with courage, and Hezekiah Study had to stay. Not just to see what was going to happen, but because this young lawyer would not stand alone. Hezekiah Study would stand with him. He had that much hope and courage left in him, despite all.

Calvin didn't notice, at first, that he was trapped. With his doodlebug he followed Denmark into Blacktown, the section of Camelot devoted to housing skilled slaves whose services were being rented out, or where trusted slaves who were running errands for out-of-town landlords found room and board. Blacktown wasn't large, but it spilled over its official borders, as one warehouse after another had rooms added on upper floors-- illegally and without registration-- and where slaves came and went.

It was into one such warehouse just outside Blacktown that Denmark went and Calvin followed. Rickety stairs inside the building led to an attic story filled with an incredible array of junk. Boards, bits of furniture, strap and scrap iron, old clothes, ropes, fishnets, and all sorts of other random items dangled from hooks in the ceiling joists. At first he was puzzled-- who would spend the time to bind all these things together?-but then he realized what he was seeing: larger versions of the knotwork that Denmark had collected from the newly arrived slaves.

He was about to return to his body and tell Honor‚ what he had found and where it was, when suddenly the junk parted and Calvin saw a dazzling light. He exclaimed about it, then moved closer and saw that it was made of thousands and thousands of heartfires, held within a net which hung, of course, from a hook in the ceiling.

What kind of net could hold souls? He moved closer. The individual heartfires were much tinier than those he was used to seeing. As so often before, he wished he could see into them the way torches did. But they remained a mystery to him.

His vision, though, could see what Margaret's never could: He could see the stout web of knotted cords that held the heartfires. On closer examination, though, he saw that each heartfire danced like a candle flame above one of the little bits of knotwork that he and Honor‚ had watched Denmark collect from the arriving slaves. So the web probably wasn't hexy at all.

With that, Calvin drew back, expecting to return instantly to his body to speak to Honor‚. He even started to speak. But his mouth didn't move. His eyes didn't see. He remained where he was, looking at the heartfires with his doodling sight instead of gazing out of his eyes at the street.

No, that wasn't so. He was vaguely aware of the street, as if seeing it out of the corners of his eyes. He could hear sounds, too, Honor‚'s voice, but when he tried to listen, he kept getting distracted. He couldn't pay attention to Honor‚, couldn't focus on what his eyes were seeing. He kept coming back here to the knots and the net, no matter how hard he tried to tear himself away. He could feel his legs moving, as if they were someone else's legs. He could tell that Honor‚'s voice was becoming agitated, but still he couldn't make out what was being said. The sounds entered his mind, but by the time the end of a word was said, Calvin had lost his hold on the beginning of it. Nothing made sense.