Chapter 18
In the morning she found Sloan shirtless and shaving over a pitcher in the kitchen, wincing as he nicked his chin—and scowling when he saw her there.
A fire burned healthily in the grate. Brianna gazed at his naked torso, lowered her eyes, and stepped by him.
“I’ve tea and honey,” she murmured. “The bread will be stale, but—”
He caught her arm. “It matters little,” he said.
Eleanor came out. Silence reigned over the room while Sloan finished with the razor and donned his shirt, and the women laid out a meal. Then Michael appeared in the doorway, rubbing his eyes—and staring at Sloan curiously. She heard his voice as he went to the little boy.
“Michael, I am a friend. My name is … Sloan.”
Brianna did not turn around, but she sensed what she would see if she had: Michael, very uncertain and wary as he surveyed the stranger suddenly in his home. He would be about to rush past Sloan and race for the protection of her skirts.
“Michael,” she said quickly, cheerfully, “Sloan is going to help your papa. Go with him and let him help you dress.” She held her breath for a long moment. Eleanor touched her arm and she turned at last to see that the two had gone to the bedroom.
She could not eat. Then they heard Michael’s laughter from the bedroom and Sloan’s deep voice droning something that they could not understand. And then Michael’s delighted laughter again.
At last the two reappeared. Michael crawled up on his mother’s lap. “Like him!” he said, pointing to Sloan. Sloan didn’t sit; he inclined his head toward the room.
“Get his things,” he told Brianna. She nodded and set the child down to eat, and went to do as she had been told, fiercely fighting off tears as she packed the tiny garments she had sewn so lovingly.
In time they were ready. Having only the one horse, Brianna put bridles on the ornery mules. They rode first to the jail. Sloan did not go in, but remained outside with Michael.
Despite all her promises Brianna cried out when she saw her husband.
“Oh, Robert!” she cried, sinking to his side.
He smiled at her. “My wife,” he murmured, and he touched her hair, his eyes surveying her. “Brianna, don’t look at me so. Have faith in God.”
“I do,” she lied. Since Pegeen’s death it had been difficult to have such faith. “Oh, Robert …”
He pushed himself up and caught her chin between his hands, his eyes dark and serious as they stared into hers. “I do not want you here, Brianna. Treveryan can take you away; and as your husband, I order you to go.”
She smiled and shook her head. “In anything else, Robert, I would obey. But at your trial I can testify in your defense.” She hesitated. “I am sending Michael to New York today.”
He winced, and his pain touched her deeply, but as regarded the child’s safety, she knew they were both in accord. “Thank him,” Robert muttered, and she knew he meant Sloan. “Let me hold you,” he said, and they leaned against the cold wall.
He was very warm, Brianna thought worriedly. But it was true that he seemed to have everything that could be provided here. Blankets, water, ale, and the crusts of his breakfast remained on a tray. The bread and the fish smelled fresh.
In time he slept. She kissed his forehead and left him.
On the street she could find neither Eleanor, Sloan, nor Michael. Eleanor, she assumed, was still with Philip. But where had Sloan taken her son?
At last she hurried to the taproom of the ordinary. Sloan was alone at a table, a tankard of ale before him. With rising panic she rushed over to him and demanded, “Where’s Michael?”
“I’ve sent him on.”
“With whom? You didn’t let me see him, you didn’t let me say good-bye, you didn’t—”
He caught her hand and pulled her down to sit opposite him, his eyes flashing a warning as he indicated that others were discussing the witchcraft arrests and the coming trials.
“And what would that have done? You would have wept and he would have gone off in tears, fighting all the way! Your friend Sarah Ingersoll took him to Rikky’s.”
“Rikky’s?”
“Lord Turnberry’s,” Sloan explained impatiently. “Rikky will take him on to Boston. In Boston, he’ll find Paddy—and the Sea Hawk will take them on to New York and Lady Eastwood, Rikky’s aunt.”
Brianna stood, eager to rid herself of his presence. Michael was gone, and she knew she was going to cry, and she didn’t want to do so in front of Sloan.
But as soon as she was on her feet, he was on his. She had barely reached the tavern door before he caught her hand, shackling her wrist with his fingers. He tipped his hat to a passing stranger as he led her back to the mules.
“Leave me alone!” she insisted.
He shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t. Tomorrow at Robert’s examination, I will be at your side—ready to throttle you if you create a disturbance.”
“You act as if I had no sense!” Brianna cried out, shaken. She couldn’t bear him so continually by her side. Alone.
“Nay, Brianna. You have sense. But it can too easily be lost these days.”
“I need to go home alone,” she rasped out. Again he shook his head and spoke bitterly.
“I promised your husband I would let no harm befall you,” he told her. “Look—here comes Eleanor. We will ride back to the farm and wait for tomorrow.”
Somehow, the night passed.
The crowds were out for Robert’s examination, but then he wasn’t the only “witch” being examined that day.
Philip English, a very wealthy sea merchant, did not hold his temper well. When questioned by Hathorne, he demanded to know, “Where, then, is your toleration?” His preference, all knew, was for the Church of England, and such a thing might well have stood against him.
Martha Carrier was brought in, and remained in total fury throughout the proceedings. She brought her garrulous voice high over the ear-splitting screams of the girls. “You lie! I am wronged!”
Though she was an unpopular old woman, Brianna quite believed that she was.
Then it was Robert’s turn.
Brianna, sitting between Sloan and Eleanor, knotted her fingers into her palms in such a tight clasp that she dug holes in her flesh, and only later noted the blood she had drawn.
Hathorne began the examination.
“Why do you afflict these girls?”
“I do not,” Robert replied calmly, and the girls, from their place of importance near the front, began to scream. Brianna could not see which, but two of the young girls and one of the older teens fell to the floor in wild convulsions.
“How can you deny it?” Hathorne’s voice boomed out.
“As Christ is my witness,” Robert replied, staring straight at the magistrate, “I deny it.”
“Oh! He pinches me! He pinches me!” someone cried out—Abigail, Brianna believed. Then that child, too, was on the floor, so contorted that her head snapped back to touch her heels.
The room began to swim before Brianna. She had known it would be this way but she had prayed for strength. She couldn’t bear it.…
She hopped to her feet to defend her husband.
But before she could, Sloan was dragging her out.
“Listen, little fool!” he raged to her. “You’ll do nothing here but get your own name on a warrant! When the trial comes, we’ll be there—calmly, determinedly, and legally—to save him. Brianna, I swear to you by God and my own life, I will not let him die!”
Brianna looked into his eyes, so intensely brilliant today. She smiled then, sadly, for the cast of the swashbuckler still sizzled there—and she believed him, and God alone knew why he stood by her.
“Why don’t you sail away?” she asked him.
“Because you are a witch,” he said lightly, “though we mustn’t let these people know. Because you’ve cast your spell on me. I cannot touch you, but I’d die a thousand times over for you. Neither time nor distance can change that.”
“It’s … it’s my husband we are fighting to save.”
Sloan sighed deeply and shook his head as if he were a bit puzzled himself. “I don’t know if it is because you love him—or because I have come so to respect him myself. It doesn’t really matter, does it?” he asked her, his tone suddenly bitter.
She shook her head, lowering her eyes. “Everything that you want is out there now, Sloan. William and Mary sit on the throne. Your home awaits you. You are free to find a woman of noble birth—young and beautiful, willing and able to give you an heir. But here you stay beside a Puritan goodwife who has brought you nothing but heartache, death, and misery since the day you first saw her.”
“I am a fool, aren’t I?” He tried to grin. “Before God, Brianna, I beseech you to stay silent! Right now, all you can do is be strong for him. Trust in me that I will take action when the time is right.”
The afternoon brought no surprises. Along with the others examined that day Robert was to return to prison to await his trial.
Because of his health and Sloan’s money, Sloan was able to obtain a mandate giving Robert the privileges usually reserved for the very prominent.
He was to reside in rooms in the center of the village under guard, but Brianna could nurse him so long as his shackles were in place and he did not attempt to leave the building.
They moved into those rooms on June second, the day of the first trial. Bridget Bishop was found guilty, and on June tenth the sheriff brought her to Gallows Hill, and she was hanged.
Robert and Brianna spent the days in tension and misery, with Robert beseeching her to leave before her name could be brought forward.
Sloan divided his time between Robert’s guarded rooms and the jail, for he had promised Eleanor he would support Philip Smith. Cedric Turnberry maintained his social status with the magistrates and justices, reporting all the news to Sloan as he obtained it.
The prisoners were distressed at the news of Bridget Bishop’s execution, but they weren’t without hope. There had been physical evidence against Bridget—the dolls stuck with pins. She had been condemned on more than the say-so of a group of hysterical girls.