Hour of the Witch(69)

    The captain raised the whip and landed the first blow, the sound cutting through the falling snow like a rare, wintry clap of thunder, and as it did Henry’s head reflexively popped up, his eyes wide, and though his mouth was open he barely grunted against the pain. She herself flinched. And it was then that the crowd finally spoke, hollering dismissively at Henry as one, a cacophonic stew of hoots and cackles, the group calling him a sinner and a scamp and a snipe, and when the second lash cut into his flesh, Mary took her thumbs and pulled back her hood so it fell against her shoulders. If he was going to endure this on her account, then she would be a presence that did not skulk in the shadows. And their eyes met. Each time the whip tore into him, his body jerked like a badly managed puppet and he’d blink, but then he’d stare back at her—squinting now as if reading small print at his desk at his Uncle Valentine’s warehouse—and she told herself that in his gaze she saw gratitude. He was glad she had come.

Meanwhile, the crowd found a strange sense of order around the sixth or seventh lash, and began to count with the captain, as if this were one of those appalling drinking games she had heard about that they sometimes played at the taverns and the ordinaries.

When the captain had finished, he reached into a bucket and took what Mary thought for a split second was snow but then understood was salt and tossed it onto Henry’s back. Then he coiled his rope, stepped down from the pillory, and pushed his way through the men and women who had gathered to watch. When Mary turned her gaze back toward Henry, she saw that he was shaking his head ever so slightly, his face awash in sweat despite the cold and the snow and the ice in his hair, and she realized that while his initial reaction to her presence may have been one of thanksgiving, now he was only alarmed and he wanted her gone.

    For a moment she hovered, aware of the flakes that coated her face and coif, too. She felt them on her eyelashes and her nose. She was torn. He jerked his head toward the left—her right—and she turned, half expecting to see Goody Howland or, God forbid, her husband. But there was no one there that she knew. He was motioning only toward the street and urging her to move on.

And so she pulled her cape back over her head and brushed the snow off her face. The people who had come to gawk had seen what they craved and were leaving now, and so she looped around the pillory to see where the flesh had been ripped from Henry’s back: the striping was bleeding and raw, from the top of his breeches to his shoulder blades, and she felt a wave of nausea because it looked more like a slab of badly butchered meat than human skin. There was blood streaming down his spine and puddling at the fabric at his waist, and the snow by his boots looked stained by Madeira. In addition to the long black lines crisscrossing his back, there were blotches, one almost the shape of a star, that she realized were open wounds.

She rubbed at her eyes, which had grown wet, but not from the cold. She was tearing up with sadness and regret. She had done this to Henry Simmons: she had draped him in this excruciating livery, she had clad him in this pulpy abomination.

But he was right: she needed to gather herself and walk on. And so she did. She left the pillory, recalling her pretext for coming to the center of the city. Bread. Obadiah. She rubbed gently at the setting bone in her hand and wondered at her wretchedness. At man’s wretchedness. At the way her anger, once more, was bubbling inside her.

This would not stand. It would not.

Yes, she would buy her bread and return home. She recalled something from a play—an ungodly play, true, but a drama she was aware of nonetheless. The line of dialogue existed like a bird high in the sky, distant and hazy but real. It was something about a pound of flesh. It came to her now because of Henry’s ruined back and because of the injustice that was her world.

    Before winter was done—if not sooner—she would have her pound of flesh.



* * *





As she was leaving the baker’s, she and Rebeckah Cooper spied each other simultaneously, the goodwife’s two children at her side. Mary felt her guard rising because of the boiled apples and raisins, and the fact that Rebeckah had been cooking them with Peregrine. But her friend—at least a woman she had supposed was her friend—was all smiles and rushed over to her, pulling her daughter by a leading string and urging her son to be quick.

“Mary!” she exclaimed, “I heard the news that thou art reconciled with Thomas.”

“And that seems to thee a cause for joy, knowing now my history with the man and the way that he treated me?”

“No. I am just happy to see thee. I have missed thee, that’s all.”

Mary nodded. “I am sorry. I sounded peevish.”

Rebeckah took Mary’s right hand in both of hers and said, “That is understandable. I did not mean to diminish thy disappointment in the judgment from the Town House. I’m sorry for thee, too. Tell me: how is thy hand mending?”

“Well. It is.” The woman’s daughter was looking up at her curiously, and Mary thought of the girl who had come to her in her dream.

“I’m glad. Relieved. I will come visit thee. May I?”

“I’d like that,” she said.

“Did thy parents and thee enjoy the treat that Peregrine and I baked?” She motioned at her children. “?’Tis a favorite of this pair.”

“Didst thou make some for thine own family?”