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Margaret. "God sees your heart."
"My heart be full of murder all the time now!" said Fishy.
"And yet your hand is still the hand of peace. God loves you for choosing that, Fishy. God loves you for living up to your true name."
The movement was slight, but it was real, as Fishy leaned a little closer to Margaret, accepting her touch, and then her embrace, until she wept into Margaret's shoulder. "Let me stay with you, ma'am," whispered Fishy.
"Come with me to my room, then," said Margaret. "I hope you don't mind going along with me in some lies."
Fishy giggled, though at the end it was more of a sob than a laugh. "Around here, ma'am, if folks got they mouth open, if they ain't eating then they lying."
Chapter 11 - Decent Men
So this was what it came to, after all these years at the bar, as lawyer and as judge: John Adams had to sit in judgment in Cambridge over a witch trial. Oh, the ignominy of it. For a time he had been something of a philosopher, and caused an international incident over his involvement in the Appalachee Revolution. He had spoken for union between New England and the United States, daring the Lord Protector to arrest him for treason. He had called for a ban on trade with the Crown Colonies as long as they trafficked in slaves, at the very time that his fellow New Englanders were loudly calling for the right to enter into such trade. There wasn't a question of import in New England since the 1760s that John Adams hadn't been a part of. He had even founded a dynasty, or so it seemed, now that his boy John Quincy was governor of Massachusetts and chairman of the New England Council. And for the past fifteen years he had distinguished himself as a jurist, winning at last the love of his fellow Yankees when he refused an appointment to the Lord Protector's Bench in England, preferring to remain "among the free men of America."
And now he had to hear a witch trial. The toadlike witcher, Quill, ad come to see him when he arrived in Cambridge last night, reminding him that it was his duty to uphold the law - as if John Adams needed prompting in his duty from the likes of Quill. "I have not exceeded the law in any respect," said Quill, "as you'll see even from the testimony of the witches, unless they lie."
"God help us if a witch should tell a lie," John had murmured. Quill missed the irony entirely and took the answer as an affirmation. Well, that was fine. John didn't mind if he went away happy, as long as he went away.
John should have died last year, when he got the grippe. He had it on the best authority that the Boston papers had all planned on a double-page spread for his obituary. That was precisely the space devoted to the eulogy of the last Lord Protector to shuffle off his mortal coil. It was good to be considered at a level with rulers and potentates, even though he had never quite succeeded in joining New England to the United States, making it impossible for him to play a role in that extraordinary experiment. Instead he remained here, among the good people of New England, whom he truly loved like brothers and sisters, even though he longed now and then to see a face that didn't look like every other face.
Witch trials, though - it was an ugly thing, a holdover from medieval times. A shame on the face of New England.
But the law was the law. An accusation had been made, so a trial would have to be held, or at least the beginning of one. Quill would have his chance to get some poor wretch hanged - if he could do it without violating the prerogatives of the bench or pushing the powers of the law beyond their statutory and natural limits.
Now at breakfast John Adams sat with his old pupil, Hezekiah Study. I adhere to a double standard, John admitted to himself. Quill's visit to me last night I thought highly improper. Hezekiah's visit, equally intended to influence my judgment in this case, I plan to enjoy. Well, any fool can be consistent, and most fools are.
"Cambridge is not what it used to be," said John to Hezekiah. "The students don't wear their robes."
"Out of fashion now,"