The Heretic's Daughter: A Novel - By Kathleen Kent Page 0,107

from the approaching doctor, and the anger that had plagued Tom came and bit me squarely behind the neck. The doctor turned to one of the women and said, “Bring me whatever water you have and then stand back.”

He started to kneel to take his place by Andrew but Tom held up his hand and said, “No. We don’t need you. You can go away.”

“Don’t be stupid, boy. Your brother is at death’s door, and unless the arm comes off, he’ll pass over that threshold for sure. Now, you can be brave for your brother’s sake by holding his other arm.”

“No,” Tom said more forcefully, and the doctor rocked back on his heels, no doubt thinking of the coins he would forfeit by leaving his work undone. He picked up the belt and looped it together, forming a small noose, and motioned to the sheriff. I heard a woman call out of the growing dark, “Let the boy die in peace.” The sheriff drew an agitated breath and, closing the door behind him, began walking towards us. I felt Andrew’s hand searching for mine and the anger twisted in my spine. I said, forcing the words from deep in my throat, “If you touch him, I’ll curse you.” There was a stirring in the straw as bodies pulled closer, straining to hear the outcome.

The doctor turned to me, his brows drawn down, “What did you say?” But he had heard what I had said as clearly as if I had shouted the words. It showed in the way he tensed and looked over his shoulder at the murky figures standing in the lessening light, their hair wild and disarrayed, their clothing soiled with human filth, some torn into shroudlike tangles. He looked back at me with uncertain eyes and saw a flame-headed, remorseless child who had been thrown into a cell for doing the Devil’s work. He began to gather up his things, but in all the world, there is no better whip against the diminishing effects of fear than the enlivening thoughts of coins in the purse, and so he paused and studied Tom again in a cautious manner. Tom sat poised with his fists balled in his lap, but for all his protesting he was only a boy. The doctor set his jaw and called to the sheriff to come so that he could finish up what he had interrupted his dinner to do.

I saw Tom look wildly around for something, some kind of weapon or stick, to keep the doctor at bay. His hand closed around the straw and he held it up to his face as though he had found some great treasure. The doctor had started to say to the sheriff, “Now, pull back these two and then grab hold of this one and be quick about it . . . ,” when Tom drew back his arm, his good throwing arm, and let loose the weighted straw, hitting the doctor square in the chest and in the face. It was as though Tom had wounded him with a full measure of lead shot, so loud did the doctor swear and jump up and brush himself down. On his black great coat, the coat of his calling, and on his white linen shirt, were smeared dark and evil-smelling stains. All through the straw were the remnants of waste from women who, through illness or weakness from hunger, could not reach the slop buckets in time. Tom had only to reach a little ways to find it.

The doctor stamped his foot with rage and spit out, “You little bastard. Look what you’ve done.”

“Aye, that shit will never wash out.” We looked around, astonished at the strength in the voice and saw it was the old woman who had advised Goody Faulkner to keep her shawl from the sheriff’s wife. She was feeble and bent and had a ragged cough but her eyes were sharp and amused as they looked on the doctor. She opened her toothless mouth in laughter and said, “It’s the bile, you see? There’s never so great a stain as that which comes from the outraged body of a woman wronged. No, you’ll have to lop off a basketful of limbs to pay for a new coat such as that.” The doctor pulled away from her abruptly as though she were wearing plague sores.

The sheriff swung the door to the cell open and said, “You’d best go now. You’ll get nothing from this