The Heretic's Daughter: A Novel - By Kathleen Kent Page 0,90
King Charles I of England, who was taken up the steps of Whitehall-Gate, bent over a block, and separated head from neck by a tall, hooded executioner who held the head aloft for all of London to see and proclaimed, “The King, tyrant, and despoiler of the people, is dead.”
As we left the meetinghouse yard, the only one to bid us farewell was Lieutenant Osgood’s little black slave. He was standing off away from the crowd of the men and women of the meetinghouse, small and twisted, his shoes still immense on his bare feet, his coat more threadbare and ragged than ever. It was fitting that this boy, ignored, shunned, and despised, should be the only one to stand and wave to us until we’d disappeared from sight. I would never see him again, but I would often dream of him, and in my dreams his coat was new, the buckles on his shoes silver, his black face as sad and timeless as the dark half of the moon.
ON JULY 20TH Mary Lacey, Mercy Williams’ friend who had taunted me in the Andover burial grounds and who had only just been put into Salem prison, gave testimony that she was indeed a witch, as were her own mother and grandmother. She told her inquisitors that Richard and Andrew were also witches and that Goody Carrier revealed to her at a midnight gathering of witches that the Devil had promised that she, my mother, would be Queen in Hell. On the 21st of July, John Ballard brought his cart for my two oldest brothers.
He waited until Father had left for his long walk to Salem and then strode as bold as anything into our house with the warrants. I had to call Richard and Andrew from the barn and stood alone with him in the common room while he smirked at me and told me with a crooked finger, “You’ll be next, little miss.” When Richard walked in and saw the master of warrants, he looked for an instant as if he might make a run but he thought better of it when John Ballard clapped his hand roughly on my shoulder and said to Richard, “If you don’t come I can just take this one here.”
Richard submitted to having his hands tied in front, and Andrew, following his brother’s lead, willingly held out his hands to his captor. He shrank back only when the bonds were tightened hard around his wrists. They climbed into the cart, and as the constable adjusted his reins to depart, I whispered, “Richard, remember what Mother said. Tell them whatever they wish to hear.”
But my heart tightened into a fist when he said, “There’s nothing they can do to make me give a false statement. If Mother can hold fast, so can I.”
The cart pulled away and I followed after, saying, “Richard, think of Andrew, then. He will take your lead and do what you do and say what you say.” The cart was pulling away faster than I could walk, and I ran after them for a quarter mile crying out, “Richard, please, Richard. . .” He looked at me defiantly, braced with the pride of a young man who is strong and stubborn but who, until that day, has only shed his precious blood onto the edge of a shaving razor. He had turned eighteen on the 19th of the month, two days before his arrest.
When I returned to the house I found Tom curled up next to the hearth, rocking back and forth on his haunches, his face streaked with tears that had washed away the grime in pink bands down to his chin. I had no words to give him, so I sat next to him in the ashes and waited for Father to return. Upon arriving in Salem Town, five miles east of Salem Village, Andrew and Richard would be locked into the basement of Thomas Beadle’s Inn for the night, as the constable did not want to take the chance of meeting my father along the road to the prison. The next morning they were taken in front of the magistrates, and among them, to see for himself the growing tide of spectral evidence, was Cotton Mather, spiritual advisor and exemplar to half of the ministers in the colonies. From his own mouth he gave instructions to Richard and Andrew to offer truthful testimony to the court. He told them that God and their earthly judges would be