Phoenix Without Ashes (17 page)

“Have faith in my sense,” said Rachel. She gave him a quick, final kiss. “Dawn is too close. Help me with my clothes.”

They shivered in the frosty air.

“I wish I could remember what I began to dream,” said Devon absently.

Rachel straightened and began fastening the buttons of her sleeves. “Do those dreams foretell the future?”

“No. I mean, I don’t think so. Sometimes they seem to give me clues.”

“You have really talked with your parents in the dreams?”

“Yes.”

“Elder Micah preached about such things this past mid-week. He called them witchery.” Devon draped the shawl around her shoulders. “We will forget about Micah. His voice is loud in Cypress Corners, but the sound of it stops at the sky.” He walked with her to the path.

Rachel looked over the valley and said, “It was a good world.”

TWENTY-THREE

They kicked him awake.

Devon started upright, but the quilt wound around his body bound him as effectively as a loop of hemp.

“Watch it—do not let him escape!”

His eyes opened, half-focused, as something slammed the side of his head. Devon sprawled sideways and felt rough pine-bark abrade his face. “Wait—don’t—” He gained his hands and knees, but saw the stout sod-boot coming at him from the side. The boot tip missed his chin but caught him high on the collarbone, flipping him over. Devon looked up at the grim semicircle of adults.

Something salty pooled in the back of his throat; Devon knew it must be blood and he swallowed with difficulty. The breath left him as someone kicked him, in the side.

A voice said, “Enough!”

Devon painfully opened his eyes again. Nearest him, he saw Young Goodman and Esau. Goodman wielded a light metal hoe-handle and tapped it meaningfully on the soil. Esau looked down at Devon and licked his lips. Beside Esau stood Old Martin the shopkeeper, Ahab the fisher, and several others Devon identified as men from the town. A few paces beyond the rest stood Elder Jubal.

“I stay my blows with reluctance,” said a voice close to his head. Devon slowly turned to the side and saw Aram looming above him. In his hands Rachel’s father gripped a scythe so tightly his knuckles whitened. His face held the grimness of an early prophet from the Book.

“Elder Micah will soon arrive,” said Jubal. “Already he and the others have reached the bottom of the slope.”

Aram’s voice was tight with rage. “I defer to the authority of the Elders.” He turned heavily and stalked into the trees.

Devon said, in more of a croak than a proper voice, “I have to tell you—”

“Quiet, madman, witch, or whatever else lies beneath your guise!” Esau delivered a kick which glanced off Devon’s ribcage.

“Esau!”

“Aye, Elder.” Esau backed away reluctantly.

Goodman said maliciously, “What does the Book say about a witch?”

Near Devon’s feet, someone said, “That it shall not be suffered to live.”

“Burning?” said Goodman.

“Stoning?”

“Drowning, I think,” said Old Martin, “in the lake Severity.”

Someone offered, “Why not like the two-headed calf? Confine him without food. When he perishes of starvation, put him down the disposal trap.”

“Put him down the disposal trap alive,” muttered Goodman.

“Good idea.” Ahab echoed the man who had mentioned the fate of the two-headed calf. “His blood will then be on no one’s hands.”

“The disposal trap,” said Goodman, grinning openly. Devon closed his eyes.

“Never have we had to kill a witch,” someone said.

“How do we know Devon is in truth such a demon?” He was met with angry mumbling. Thereafter Devon wondered at the identity of the single skeptic; he never discovered it.

“Brothers!” Jubal’s scolding tone.

Feet-tramping sounds, other voices, approached.

“Where be the whelp?” The voice of Elder Micah.

“Yonder, beneath the pine.”

Closer, the sounds of the new arrivals.

“Open thine eyes to me, Devon,” said Micah quietly.

One eye opened more easily than the other, Devon discovered. The somber image of the Elder wavered for a moment. “Canst thou see?”

“Yes,” said Devon.

Aram returned from his sojourn alone among the trees. He cradled the scythe in one arm as he looked down at Devon. Aram spat on the ground, the spittle missing Devon’s ear by millimeters. “This one is fortunate I did not climb up here unaccompanied.”

Micah regarded the welts and bruises, and the congealing blood which made a mask of half Devon’s face. “He appears not to have escaped some retribution.”

Aram said bitterly, “He is fortunate to be still among the living.” He shifted the scythe to the other arm. In the morning light, the honed edge reflected fire. “Were I alone, I would have reaped his life.”

“Thou hast done the proper thing,” said Micah. “The Creator would be displeased were there blood—even demon blood—solely on thy hands.”

Aram slowly nodded, but his gaze never left Devon’s throat.

“Be thy family well?” said Micah.

“Aye.”

“And thy daughter?”

Color rose in to the farmer’s cheeks. “Aye, well enough. I beat her when I found her creeping in from the hills. For a while, then, she slunk around the house like a dog caught sneaking food from the kitchen table.”

Micah looked significantly toward Devon. “Be that all the hurt?”

“I do not know,” said Aram, looking at the ground. “She admitted nothing. I’ve left her in the custody of her mother.”

“Be not downcast,” said Micah. “Thy daughter be untainted in the eyes of the Creator. Whatever filth dwelleth in her shall depart with the exorcism of mad Devon.” From the ground, Devon said, “Do not speak that way about Rachel.”

Elder Micah glanced at Young Goodman. Goodman nodded slightly and kicked Devon in the stomach. Devon doubled over, retching.

“It is my shame,” said Aram.

“No.” Micah shook his head and raised his voice so all could hear. “It be a shame upon the land; and thus shalt the land itself expel that shame.”

Devon forced out the words hoarsely, “I must tell...” Micah looked down; Devon saw no mercy in the impassive face. “Thou wilt say naught, child of evil. Thy fate awaits thee.”

“Listen to me... I have to tell you about the Ark.” The Elder inexorably continued: “We do what must be done to
any
who blasphemes and brings evil and rancor to our people. Thou wilt be tried and punished as befits your crimes.”

Devon said faintly, “No... the destruction will come if...”

Micah spoke to Goodman. “Remove thy neckerchief and make of it a gag. There be deadly danger in even listening to this sacrilege.”

Young Goodman took pleasure in jamming open Devon’s jaws with the metal hoe-handle so that he could insert the wadded-up cloth. Devon started to struggle but was easily secured by two of the other men. “He’ll speak no more words of heresy, Elder.”

Micah faintly smiled his approval. “Then let us hasten back to the town. With the guidance of the Book, we shall excise this sty upon our vision.”

The men gathered to depart the hill; there was a problem of logistics with the prisoner. “How should we carry him?” someone said.

“Use the quilt,” said Aram. “It’s now too soiled for any other purpose.”

They wrapped Devon in the comforter. One on either end, a third man with his arm wrapped around Devon’s middle, they carried him like a slack sack of grain down the hill. Dead weight being hard to haul, they traded off every half-kilometer.

Young Goodman took his turn with Esau and Ahab. From one end of the burden, Goodman said too low for Micah to hear, “Too bad there’s not a disposal trap in the hills. It would save us much sweat.”

Ahab looked at him curiously. “It is one thing to hate a witch or heretic... that is a rightful rage. But your hatred stalks beyond even righteousness. Why?”

Goodman said nothing.

Esau tittered. “I fear Brother Goodman has his own small sacrilege with which to contend.”

“Shut up, Esau.”

“What’s the matter?” said Esau. “Do you think no one knows?”

Goodman scowled and said nothing.

Esau said to Ahab, “There are stories men tell each other—you know... like after meetings, or on a stack in between loads of hay. But these stories aren’t parables out of the Book.”

Ahab nodded.

“Well,” said Esau, “there’s a story about two men who wished to lie with the same girl.”

“For the Creator’s sake, keep your voice down.” Goodman looked nervously at Elder Micah, leading the procession.

“Two men...” Ahab looked significantly down at the wrapped bundle that was Devon.

Esau said, “Well, we don’t know for
sure,
but—”

“And the other man?”

Esau only tittered again; Goodman’s cheeks flushed red.

“It is indeed a sacrilege,” said Ahab. “Rachel should open only to her husband, and that husband will be Young Garth.”

“Brother Goodman holds little affection for Young Garth as well. Our new smith once interrupted a game we were playing with the Young Devon.”

“Your story is most unpleasant,” said Ahab. He turned his head to see who followed close behind. “My leg hurts me. Brother Martin? Will you carry this burden for a while?” He handed one end of the prisoner over to the shopkeeper; then let the rest of the file of men pass him
by.

“It’s a more amusing story than most in the Book,” said Esau.

“Still thy tongue!” said Goodman, assuming the cant of the Elders.

Esau’s smile froze and died by millimeters. “Of course, Brother. I never meant to offend.”

Old Martin looked curiously between the two of them. “What did you say?”

Young Goodman answered for Esau. Lips twisted in a feral grimace, he said, “Nothing.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Young Silas the teacher read again the request that had been relayed to him from the Elders. He folded the paper in half, and then again, halving it until the paper was a small bundle too thick to fold. Then he slipped the message into the breast pocket of his overalls.

He walked to the door of the school. It was recess; his fourteen students were busily tending the garden plots surrounding the building. Spading, weeding, thinning, watering, the children toiled industriously along their individually assigned rows. The vegetables here were often better than the produce from most of the outlying farms.
Prideful thought,
and so he crushed it, but Silas still reflected to himself that he was a good teacher.

“Reuben!” he called. “Leah! Hiram!” The rest of their names. “Come here.”

They came to him obediently and waited to find out what it was he wished of them. His students were all younger than thirteen cycles.

Young Hiram, one of the youngest, whispered something to his neighbor. Behind him, eleven-cycle-old Leah jabbed him in the ribs. Silas pretended not to notice.

When all were assembled, the oldest, Young Reuben, said, “Yes, Master Silas?”

“We will not be working exercises in numbers for the remainder of the day,” he said. The younger students hid half-suppressed smiles of relief. “Several hours yet remain to the afternoon. We have been assigned a very special task by the Elders.”

That raised a small stir. Young Reuben said, “What is the task, sir?”

Silas felt the folded paper in his pocket; it exerted pressure against the skin of his chest. “We are to gather a heap of stones.”

“Stones, sir?”

He hesitated and decided not to explain. If he had been as good a teacher as he thought himself to be, they would not ask. “Yes. As many as you can find.”

“How big, sir?”

What
would
be required? “No lighter than about a half-kilo, no heavier than three.”

“How many, sir?”

“As many as you can find.”

“Any special kind, sir?”

“No... any kind. Just stones.”

He dismissed them and they scattered like a covey of surprised quail. Not quite like quail, he reflected. The children were silent and solemnly intent. Silas turned and retreated into the school. It was an echoing barn of a structure with rows of metal desks bolted to the floor and the single table located at the front. He sat down stiffly behind the table. In back of him, the blackboard held the neatly chalked columns of the multiplication tables. There were no other decorations on the walls.

“Sir?” It was Young Reuben with the first returns. “Where shall I put them?”

“By the steps,” said Silas. “Others will be along later to collect them.”

Young Reuben hefted a rock the size of his doubled fists. “This one glitters, sir.”

Silas didn’t look. “Pyrites. Fool’s gold.”

All afternoon the children radiated out and returned, like ants laboring to supply their mound. Toward dusk, Elder Jubal appeared at the schoolhouse door.

“Master Silas?”

The teacher looked up from the blank sweep of desk. “Elder Jubal.”

The children followed the portly Elder into the classroom. “It’s almost dark, sir,” said Reuben. “Have we brought enough stones?”

Jubal smiled and said, “You’ve all done well. It’s a fine collection of stones.” Then he spoke directly to the teacher: “Master Silas, will you come now to the Place of Worship? The trial is about to begin.”

TWENTY-FIVE

When the men unwrapped him at the penalty shed, Devon had rolled onto the hard floor and lain there too weak even to pull the gag from his mouth. He had nearly suffocated. His left eye was swollen shut. When he tried to move, his limbs twitched like the body of a gaffed fish.

Young Goodman bent down to retrieve his neckerchief. He held the cloth by one corner, examining it critically. “This Devon soils everything he touches.” He let the cloth flutter back to the floor.

Devon managed to get to his knees; some of the men backed away.

“He is a viper without fangs,” said Micah. “Fear him not. Long before new fangs grow, he shall meet his fate.”

Aram said, “Soon, Elder?”

“When the sun hast set,” Micah told them, “all thee shalt gather in the Place of Worship. Then wilt thee know the disposal of this sinful child.”