Robert McCammon - Speaks the Nightbird

Bidwell didn't reply. He couldn't speak.

"I realized… I had also killed myself, eight years ago. I had given up my practise, I had turned my back on my wife and my other son… who both needed me, then more than ever. I had forsaken them, to kill a man who in many ways was also already dead. And now that it was done… I felt no pride in it. No pride in anything anymore. But he was dead. He was bled like my heart had bled. And the most terrible thing… the most terrible, Robert… was that I think… Nicholas was not the same man who had pulled that trigger. I wanted him to be a coldhearted killer… but he was not that man at all. But me… I was the same man I had always been. Only much, much worse."

The doctor closed his eyes and let his head roll back. "I am prepared to pay my debt, " he said softly. "Whatever it may be. I am used up, Robert. All used up."

"I disagree, sir, " Matthew said. "Your use is clear: to comfort Magistrate Woodward in these final hours." It hurt him like a dagger to the throat to speak such, but it was true. The magistrate's health had collapsed the very morning of Matthew's departure, and it was terribly clear that the end would be soon. "I'm sure we all appreciate your candor, and your feelings, but your duty as a doctor stands first before your obligation to the law, whatever Mr. Bidwell-as the mayor of this town-decides it to be."

"What?" Bidwell, who had paled during this confession, now appeared shocked. "You're leaving it up to me?"

"I'm not a judge, sir. I am-as you have reminded me so often and with such hot pepper-only a clerk."

"Well, " Bidwell breathed, "I'll be damned."

"Damnation and salvation are brothers separated only by direction of travel, " Matthew said. "When the time is right, I'm sure you'll know the proper road upon which to progress. Now: if we may continue?" He directed his attention to the schoolmaster. "Mr. Johnstone, would you please speak the Lord's Prayer?"

Johnstone stared intently at him. "May I ask what the purpose of this is, Matthew? Is it to suggest that one of us is a warlock, and that by failing to utter the prayer he is exposed as such?"

"You are on the right track, yes, sir."

"That is absolutely ridiculous! Well, if you go by that faulty reasoning, Robert has already exposed himself!"

"I said I would go back to Mr. Bidwell, and offer him a chance at redemption. I am currently asking you to speak the prayer."

Johnstone gave a harsh, scoffing laugh. "Matthew, you know better than this! What kind of game are you playing?"

"I assure you, it's no game. Are you refusing to speak the prayer?"

"Would that then expose me as a warlock? Then you'd have two warlocks in a single room?" He shook his head, as if in pity for Matthew's mental slippage. "Well, I shall relieve your burdensome worry, then." He looked into Matthew's eyes. "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in-"

"Oh, one moment!" Matthew held up a finger and tapped his lower lip. "In your case, Mr. Johnstone-your being an educated man of Oxford, I mean to say-you should speak the Lord's Prayer in the language of education, which would be Latin. Would you start again from the beginning, please?"

Silence.

They stared at each other, the clerk and the fox.

Matthew said, "Oh, I understand. Perhaps you've forgotten your Latin training. But surely it should be easily refreshed, since Latin was such a vital part of your studies at Oxford. You must have been well versed in Latin, as the magistrate was, if only to obtain entrance to that hallowed university. So allow me to help: Pater noster: qui es in caelis; Sanctificetur nomen tuum; Adventiat reg-num tuum-well, you may finish what I've begun."

Silence. Utter, deadly silence.

Matthew thought, I have you.

He said, "You don't know Latin, do you? In fact, you neither understand nor speak a word of it. Tell me, then, how a man may attend Oxford and come away an educator without knowing Latin."

Johnstone's eyes had become very small.

"Well, I'll seek to explain what I believe to be true." Matthew swept his gaze across the other men, who were also stricken into amazed silence by this revelation. He walked to the chess set near the window and picked up a bishop. "Reverend Grove played chess, you see. This was his chess set. Mr. Bidwell, you informed me of that fact. You also said the reverend was a Latin scholar, and liked to infuriate you by calling out his moves in that language." He studied the bishop by the lamplight. "On the occasion of the fire that burned down a house that same night, Mr. Johnstone, you mentioned to me that you and Mr. Winston were in the habit of playing chess. Would it ever have happened, sir, that-this being a town of rare chess players and even more rare Latin scholars-Reverend Grove challenged you to a game?"

Bidwell was staring at the schoolmaster, waiting for a response, but from Johnstone there was no reply.

"Would it have happened, " Matthew went on, "that Reverend Grove assumed you knew Latin, and spoke to you in that language during a game? Of course, you wouldn't have known if he was speaking to you or announcing a move. In any case, you wouldn't have been able to respond, would you?" He turned toward Johnstone. "What's wrong, sir? Does the Devil have your tongue?"

Johnstone simply stared straight ahead, his fingers gripping the cane's handle and the knuckles bleached.

"He's thinking, gentlemen, " Matthew said. "Thinking, always thinking. He is a very smart man, no doubt of it. He might actually have become a real schoolmaster, if he'd chosen to. What exactly are you, Mr. Johnstone?"

Still no response or reaction.

"I do know you're a murderer." Matthew placed the bishop back on the table. "Mrs. Nettles told me she recalled Reverend Grove seemed bothered about something not long before he was killed. She told me he spoke two words, as if in reflection to himself. Those words were: No Latin. He was trying to reason out why an Oxford man didn't know the language. Did he ask you why, Mr. Johnstone? Was he about to point out the fact to Mr. Bidwell, and thus expose you as a fraud? And that's why Reverend Grove became the first victim?"

"Wait, " the doctor said, his mind fogged. "The Devil killed Reverend Grove! Cut his throat and clawed him!"

"The Devil sits in this room, sir, and his name-if it is his real name-is Alan Johnstone. Of course he wasn't alone. He did have the help of the ratcatcher, who was a…" He stopped and smiled thinly. "Ah! Mr. Johnstone! Do you also have a background in the theater arts? You know, Mt. Bidwell, why he wears that false knee. Because he'd already visited Fount Royal in the guise of a surveyor. The beard was probably his own, as at that point he had no need for a disguise. It was only when he verified what he needed to know, and later returned, that a suitable masking was necessary. Mr. Johnstone, if indeed you were-are-an actor, did you perchance ever play the role of a schoolmaster? Therefore you fixed upon what you already knew?"

"You, " Johnstone said, in a hoarse whisper, "are quite… raving … mad."

"Am I? Well, let's see your knee then! It'll only take a moment."

Instinctively, Johnstone's right hand went down to cover the misshapen bulge.

"I see, " Matthew said. "You wear your brace-which I presume you purchased in Charles Town-but you didn't put on the device you displayed to the magistrate, did you? Why would you? You thought I was long gone, and I was the only one who ever questioned your knee."

"But I saw it myself!" Winston spoke up. "It was terribly deformed!"

"No, it appeared terribly deformed. How did you construct such a thing, Mr. Johnstone? Come now, don't be modest about your talents! You are a man of many black facets! If I myself had wished to make a false knee, I might have used… oh… clay and candle wax, I suppose. Something to cover the kneecap, build it up and make it appear deformed. You chose a time to reveal the knee when I was unfortunately otherwise occupied." He swung his gaze to Dr. Shields. "Doctor, you sell a liniment to Mr. Johnstone for the supposed pain in his knee, don't you?"