you terrify a man who’s already lost his tongue. Go and catch a Maimer, if it’s truly your concern.”
Pitt lowered the gun. He was too dignified to spit at the cat but openly considered it, sucking in his cheeks and staring at Tom as if he, and not Scratch, had torn his favorite stocking. “I’m coming back,” he said. “And I will shoot this cat and anyone else who comes between me and the fellow upstairs.”
Then he drew himself tall, like a pillar of the town, and strode out of the tavern to organize another futile sortie into the forest.
“Good cat,” Tom said.
Scratch slashed the air and made Tom flinch before scrambling downstairs and darting out of sight.
“Tom,” Benjamin said, suddenly behind him. “I need a quill and paper. Our man would like to tell us who he is and how it happened.”
* * *
His name was John Pale, he was a lawyer out of Grayport, and he had written his story down before exhaustion overcame him. The ink was smudged and the sheet was dotted with blood, but his handwriting was beautifully refined and his account, however hasty, exhibited candor and clarity. Now the paper lay on a table near the front window of the Orange’s taproom, where Benjamin sat looking thoughtfully into the night, while Tom prepared them each a hot cup of smoak.
Fire rippled in the great stone hearth, providing the room’s only light aside from a candle at Benjamin’s table. Nabby had retired to her bedroom off the kitchen, Ichabod was in his room upstairs overlooking the river, and Bess had forgone her own bed to sleep in a chair beside John Pale. Benjamin had used the raspberry leaves as an astringent and largely stopped the bleeding. They had poured the hideous draft directly into the patient’s stomach with the funnel, and once the added medicine had dulled the worst of the pain, he had finally fallen asleep. The day had passed with few additional travelers, but many townspeople had come to the tavern for news of the latest attack. Sheriff Pitt and a band of armed companions had ridden into the forest and returned empty-handed, Tom had gone about his usual work, and Benjamin, having done all he could for John Pale, had seen to other patients and returned to the Orange after dark to sit with his friend and talk, at last, of Molly and the Maimers.
Tom stirred the boiling water into the freshly ground smoaknuts and set a pair of cups upon the table. He snipped tobacco from a twist, stuffed two pipes, and handed one to Benjamin. They lit them from the candle and puffed until a cloud swirled above their heads, where it mingled with the rosemary hanging from the rafters. Instead of speaking right away, they settled back and savored the quiet of the taproom with its dark wooden walls, its deeply scarred tables, and its permanent smell of woodsmoke, cinnamon, and bacon.
Tom picked the paper up and read it once more. John Pale had left Grayport on horseback the previous morning. The road remained in poor condition—passable, but slow—and he had made such terrible time that he’d been forced to spend the night at Shepherd’s Inn, a small but honest house ten leagues away from Root. Just after sunrise, he reembarked and was stopped by a group of riders halfway between the inn and the Orange. They were five in number—one more than last year’s reports of the Maimers—and wore identical black cloaks, tricornes, and masks. The masks were plain and hid their faces from their noses to their hats.
One of the five, the only one who spoke, barred the way with two of his companions while the other pair of riders blocked the road behind. The speaker asked John his name and destination. The lawyer had heard of last year’s attacks and answered at length, offering not only his name but also the reason for his journey, his occupational history, how much money he was carrying—barely worth the trouble, they were welcome to it all—the name and pedigree of his horse, and everything else he could think of to make himself agreeable.
One of the riders took his reins and guided him onto the ground. He was told to remove his clothes, which he did without objection, trying to smile in his nakedness and hoping, through his talk, to sensibly dissuade them from their infamous finale.
The speaker raised his hand—it was gloved, holding tongs—and said, “It seems to me