A Spell for the Revolution (45 page)

“I don’t think so,” Proctor said, lifting it to strike.

Bootzamon gave one flick of his finger, and the staff flew out of Proctor’s hand and into the scarecrow’s glove. He patted it on the palm of his open hand.

“You freed the souls, the cursed souls shackled to the soldiers in your army,” Bootzamon said. He had stopped advancing. He blew out a cloud of smoke, and the coal in his pipe flared bright.

“A group of us did that, but yes,” Proctor said.

Bootzamon took the pipe from his mouth and tossed it to Proctor. “Free me.”

The pipe scorched his hand, twice as hot as the widow’s had been. “What?”

“I thought it only natural to serve; that was our lot in death as well as life. But this strange country of yours is full of men who would rather be dead than serve another. I have no pleasure in anything I do, owning only others’ pain, collected in debt to my master. I would rather be dead than serve him or anyone else again.”

Proctor was waiting for the trick, for the subterfuge. “I can’t guarantee where you’ll go, to heaven or to hell.”

“You think this is not hell enough? I serve a devil and depend on the demon Dickon to stoke a flame that keeps my soul on constant fire.”

“It’s not the same kind of curse.”

“I have faith in you, boy. You’ve bested me twice, and I have no one else to have faith in. You’ll find my master in town, in the small house on King Street across from Colonel Rall’s headquarters. The children may still be alive.”

“How do I defeat him?”

“You can’t. You can only escape him.” He flung the stick aside, and his voice took on an edge of anger. “Now be quick about it, before he realizes what I am about and summons me back to his bottle collection.”

Proctor snapped the pipe in half, breaking the focus of the spell. “Let my people go.”

Nothing happened.

Bootzamon stared at him.
“Let my people go? Dimitte populum meum
, that’s your spell?”

“It worked the first time,” Proctor said.

“But you’re not any kind of Moses,” Bootzamon said.

“I don’t want to reach the land you’re promised,” Proctor answered. Bootzamon’s anger was making him tense.

“Try this verse instead,” Bootzamon said. He fell to his
knees and lowered his head.
“Quoniam peccavi super numerum harenae maris, multiplicatae sunt iniquitates meae, Domine, multiplicatae sunt iniquitates meae
. My transgressions, O Lord, are multiplied. My transgressions are multiplied, and I am not worthy to behold and see the height of heaven for the multitude of mine iniquities. I am bowed down with many iron bands, that I cannot lift up mine head, neither can I have any release. For I have provoked Thy wrath, and done evil before Thee. I did not do Thy will, neither kept I Thy commandments. I have performed abominations, and have multiplied offenses. Now therefore I bow the knee of mine heart, beseeching Thee of grace.
Et nunc flecto genua cordis mei, precans ad te bonitatem Domine.”

“What is that?” Proctor asked.

“Don’t they make you learn the Prayer of Manasseh anymore?” Bootzamon said.

“I don’t know it.”

Bootzamon shook his head in disappointment and sighed. “I’ll say it, and you can repeat it after me.”

“All right.” Proctor clutched the broken ends of the still-warm pipe in his fists and stumbled badly through the prayer in Bootzamon’s wake. “My transgressions, O Lord, are multiplied …”

They finished and sat there silently as the icy rain continued to fall.

After a moment, the scarecrow’s shoulders sagged, his head drooped forward, and water poured off the brim of his hat. Then he stood and dusted the snow off his knees. “Oh, well,” he said. “It was worth the attempt. I’ll have to kill you now, but I promise I’ll make it quick.”

He took two steps toward Proctor with his tomahawk raised.

But Proctor finally realized the verse he needed to use. He opened his palm and saw that the pipe bowl still glowed faintly. He dropped to his knees and bowed his
neck. Plunging the pipe bowl into the snow, he said, “Father, into Thy hands I commend this spirit.”

There was a sound in the air, like glass breaking. Bootzamon stopped, startled, and stared at the sky where a light appeared in the clouds. The tomahawk tumbled out of his gloved hand and landed upside down in the snow.

Behind the illusion of Bootzamon’s human face, always faint to Proctor’s eyes, behind the pumpkin head and stick-bones of the scarecrow, a spirit appeared. It was long-chinned and gaunt, with hollows for his watery eyes and a mouth opened in shock.

“You can feel hell,” Bootzamon whispered. “It scorches the bottoms of your feet like hot coals.
Domine, remitte mihi, remitte mihi
.”

His spectral head toppled off his body, and the whole form of his spirit rose out of the scarecrow like a blue flame, fading in the air like steam from a cup. The light in the sky faded away.

When it was dark again, the gourd rolled off the scarecrow’s shoulders. A second later, the body collapsed into pieces, a pile of harmless rags at Proctor’s feet.

Proctor was shaking, not shivering, but shaking. Sweat poured from his forehead, and his hands were wet and clammy.

He staggered over to a tree and propped himself up, trying to catch his breath. There was no time to spare. The German might not know he was coming yet. What was it that Bootzamon had called him?

No, not Bootzamon. Rotenhahn. He had earned back his own name.

Rotenhahn had called him the prince-bishop. He was in Trenton, in the small house on King Street across from Colonel Rall’s headquarters. Proctor might still surprise him if he moved quickly enough. He might still be able to rescue both the children.

He called for Singer, but she was long gone, spooked by Nance and Bootzamon. Did he waste valuable time searching for her or simply make his way into town? It was best to go straight for the goal. He stuck a sprig of evergreen in his hat and spoke a spell of concealment, meant to turn away any eyes who chanced upon him. Not a perfect spell, but snow flurries filled the air again, and in this weather it would have to do.

He staggered out of the woods and found the road. A cooper’s shop sat at the edge of town, with the shadows of the other rooftops spread behind it. He was headed the right direction.

Proctor had almost passed the shop when the door
opened and a Hessian in his tall, stiff cap popped out. Proctor froze—the concealment spell was more effective when he didn’t move. The Hessian stared through him, then dropped his gaze to the snow. Proctor had left a trail of footprints behind him, leading right to where he stood.

The Hessian started forward with his gun raised. At the same moment, the wind intensified, sweeping snow before it and wiping clean Proctor’s footprints like waves over sand. The Hessian shielded his face against the blast, and looked again, but the prints were gone. He peered through Proctor as he scanned the roads one more time, then turned and went inside.

As soon as the door slammed shut, Proctor hurried into town, hunched over against the wind. He followed the sign to his right down King Street. Here and there, he saw early smoke rising from chimneys, but on the day after Christmas, in the cold with the storm holding back the dawn, the residents were late to stir.

In the middle of town, he saw a large mansion that filled half a block. The Hessian commander Rall’s regimental colors snapped in the wind outside. Directly across the street, lights burned in the lower windows of a small house.

Proctor climbed over the little picket fence around the yard and went to the back. He checked his supplies—some salt, some sand, a knife. He couldn’t do anything with a direct attack. His plan, if you could dignify it by calling it such, was to sneak in, grab Zoe and the orphan boy, then escape through the American lines before the shooting started.

He eased the door open silently and stepped into the kitchen.

A voice from the front parlor chilled Proctor to the bone.

“You’ve been a thorn in my side, boy. You’ve deprived me of a servant who’s been my obedient dog for almost two hundred years. For that, I think you owe me.”

Proctor still had his hand on the latch. He pushed
against it, intending to leave, but the door slammed shut. The latch turned under his fingers and against his will, sealing it as tight as a cork in a bottle.

“You won’t be leaving that way,” the voice said. “Come out here.”

Maybe it was time for a new plan. He fumbled in his pocket as he walked slowly to the doorway. He stopped there, leaning against the jamb.

The parlor had been turned into a stage mockery of a palace. A thick, imported rug woven with elaborate vines covered the simple wooden floor from wall to wall. Two tapestries of archers on horseback hung from hooks in the ceiling, one against each wall; because the walls were too short for their length, fabric bunched up on the floor. Two ornately carved tables set with gleaming candelabra sat on either side of the doorway. The glow from the candles was almost as bright as the flame from the fire in the hearth, and the greasy smell of them filled the air. Next to the hearth sat a cumbersome upholstered chair, and in that chair sat the large, heavy figure of the German. The prince-bishop.

A simple box sat against the wall behind the chair. Black silk was draped over it, and half a dozen glass bottles were arranged across the top. The bottles were filled with a liquid, and in the liquid floated bits like locks of hair and fingers. One of the bottles lay shattered, broken glass spilled across the floor.

Zoe and the orphan boy sat on the floor at the German’s feet. Silver chains about their throats connected to leashes that draped loose over one of the prince-bishop’s meaty hands. His other hand drummed restlessly on the arm of the chair. Proctor tried hard not to look at the children directly.

“It’s humble,” Proctor said. “Not too ostentatious.”

“You make joke,” the prince-bishop said, spitting out the words. “But I despise this rude country of hovels and
barns. Even the best men here—if such a phrase has any meaning at all—live like animals, sleeping with their hounds in wooden shacks and wearing a perfume made of piss and
Scheiße
.”

“You don’t have to stay,” Proctor said. He pulled a fistful of sand from the bag in his pocket and cast it into the room in the shape of an inverted V. “Let your house be built on foundations of sand.”

He hoped to weaken or deflect any spell that the prince-bishop cast at him. And maybe purchase enough time to come up with another plan.

The prince-bishop chuckled, his big chest shaking as he sat in his chair. “If that’s all the skill you have to offer, I have to wonder how you ever caused me so much trouble.”

“Run,” Zoe whispered. Her eyes were large and dark and wet. The prince-bishop gave almost a disinterested tug on her chain and her tongue clove to her mouth. The boy, his hair a wild mess and his eyes desperate, strained against invisible fetters to touch his hand to hers.

Proctor wondered if the prince-bishop, like all men seduced by power, relied too much on his servants. Jolly was dead, Cecily was trapped, Rotenhahn was released, and Nance was made useless for a time. Maybe he could just grab the children and run. “Give them to me,” Proctor said.

“Come and get them,” the prince-bishop said indifferently.

Proctor stepped across the threshold into the room.

As he passed the boundary, the archers in the tapestries came to life. Their tiny bows twanged and miniature darts flew at him from both sides. Proctor flinched, but when the arrows reached his lines of sand they dropped to the floor.

The prince-bishop’s amused chuckle stopped and the smile at the corners of his mouth folded downward. His fat fingers stopped drumming on the arm of his chair. Before he could lift his hand, Proctor stretched out his arms.

“Bring to light the hidden things of darkness,” he said.

The candlesticks flew to his hands, one to each. There was no reason for them to be lit, not with the fire burning, so Proctor reasoned that they formed part of the German’s protective spells. As soon as the heavy gold slammed into each palm, he blew out the flame, wrinkling his nose at the fatty stench of the wax.

He dropped the snuffed candlesticks. When they hit the floor, the tapestries crashed with them. Tiny arms and the legs of horses protruded from the folds of cloth. The arrows were only the first wave of their attack, but now nothing moved.

The prince-bishop frowned. His hand turned into a fist.

“The only good thing about this country,” he said, “is that so many young talents may be plucked from it, like an orchard full of low-hanging fruit. When your little rebellion is over, I shall go about the country gathering baskets of them. In five years, I’ll have more power than I had before. If only you were a few years younger, I might try to break your will too. I could teach you the sort of power over other men that you only dream of.” He stroked Zoe’s head, like a hungry man polishing an apple. She cringed but was helpless to move.

Proctor took a step forward, his toe touching the line of sand. “I don’t dream of power over other men.”