“Ethan Kaille?” Greenleaf said.
“What can I do for you, Sheriff?”
“You’re to come with us to the city gaol.”
At the sheriff’s mention of the prison, Ethan’s stomach began to knot like wet rope, but he kept his voice steady as he asked, “And why am I being arrested?”
“You’re to be tried and hanged for murder.”
“Murder!” Ethan repeated. “And who am I supposed to have killed?”
“Simon Gant, of course.”
Ethan’s legs nearly gave way beneath him. “Gant’s dead?”
Greenleaf chuckled. “Dissemble all you like, Kaille. But this time you’ll not wheedle your way to freedom. I have witnesses who heard you asking about him, talking about how he had beaten you.” He reached out and grabbed Ethan roughly by the chin, turning his face so that he could see Ethan’s cheek and jaw. “I can still see the bruises a bit, though not as much as I would have expected. I’d wager we both know why, don’t we? If I can’t hang you for a murderer, I’ll hang you for a witch.”
Ethan jerked his head out of the man’s grasp. “Where did you find him?”
“Gant you mean?” the sheriff said. He shook his head. “I’m not going to play your games.”
“I don’t believe this man killed anyone, Sheriff,” Rickman said. “He’s been with me for some time now, and prior to that he was in that tavern there. When is this man, Gant, supposed to have died?”
Greenleaf’s eyes narrowed and he looked the doctor up and down. “Never mind that. Who are you?”
“My name is William Rickman. I’m ship’s surgeon aboard His Majesty’s ship the Launceston.”
“And what are you doing in the company of this man, Doctor?” Preston asked.
“You know as well as I do, Captain. Mister Kaille has been asked by agents of the Customs Board to look into a … a matter of some importance to the British fleet. I worked with him at Castle William, where you met with us. And I continue to work with him here in Boston.”
“Well, you’d be best off keeping your distance from him,” Greenleaf said. “I wouldn’t expect a man of your position to be aware of this, but he’s known to be a witch, not to mention a mutineer, a liar, and a cheat. Gant beat him to within an inch of his life, and he wanted his revenge.”
“He came to the camp where my regiment is billeted,” Preston said, taking up Greenleaf’s story so smoothly that Ethan wondered if they had rehearsed it beforehand. “He asked one of my soldiers about where he might find Gant, and even offered to pay the man in treasure that he planned to recover once Gant was taken care of. His bruises were more obvious then. Thinking back on it now, we all should have known why he wanted to find Gant.”
“Is any of this true?” Rickman asked.
“All of it,” Ethan said. “And none of it. I did go looking for him, I did speak with a soldier, and I did offer to share some plunder with him. Gant was a smuggler, and this man knew it. It was the only way I could think of to learn whatever it was he knew. But I wanted to find Gant, not kill him.”
“I think it’s clear that you did both,” Greenleaf said.
“Let me guess,” Ethan said. “There wasn’t a mark on the man. He just seemed to have dropped where he stood.”
A cruel smile stretched across the sheriff’s broad face. “Very good. It’s almost like you were there.”
“I don’t understand,” Rickman said.
“He was killed by a conjuring,” Ethan told him, still gazing at the sheriff. “Just like the others.”
Greenleaf’s face fell. “What others?”
“You have to let me see him, Sheriff,” Ethan said.
“See who?”
“Gant. You have to let me see the body.”
Ethan might as well have said that Greenleaf had to give him the keys to the prison.
“Why in God’s name would I let you do that?” the sheriff asked, a sneer twisting his face.
Because I can see the color of the power used to kill him. Because I can learn what kind of spell it was, and perhaps find the conjurer who cast it. But of course Ethan couldn’t say any of these things. Greenleaf’s threat to have him hanged as a witch was just that: a threat, empty and meaningless. But as soon as Ethan admitted to being a conjurer in front of the sheriff and Preston and all these men, his life would be forfeit.
“I can help you find the person who killed him,” Ethan answered, not daring to say more, knowing that this wouldn’t be enough to convince Greenleaf of anything.
“Tell me what you meant before,” the sheriff said. “What others?”
Ethan glanced at Rickman, who stared at the ground, but gave one slight shake of his head.
“It was nothing,” Ethan said. “I misspoke.”
Greenleaf regarded the doctor. “Very well.” He looked back at Preston. “Captain?”
Preston said something to his men that Ethan couldn’t hear. One of the soldiers took Ethan’s knife and two others grasped him firmly by each arm and started to march him back the way he and Rickman had come. The other regulars fell in around him. Preston and the sheriff followed.
“Is there someone I should tell?” the doctor called after Ethan.
Ethan craned his neck to look back. He stumbled, and the men beside him tightened their grips on his arms. “Kannice Lester, the woman who owns the tavern where you found me.”
“I’ll go to her right now! And I’ll do everything in my power to win your freedom! I swear it!”
Ethan nodded once, and faced forward again. The soldiers’ fingers dug into his flesh like manacles of steel. The wind blew, the rain pelted down on his bare head and drenched his coat. But these were nothing to him. Already Ethan could smell the fetor of the cell awaiting him in Boston’s gaol.
Chapter Eighteen
Despite all his scrapes with Greenleaf and his encounters with representatives of the Crown, Ethan had not set foot in a prison since the night of his release from servitude in Barbados. Even then, the cell had only been a place where he could sleep until he set out the following morning for the Town of Saint Michael, whence he was to depart by ship for Charleston. He hadn’t truly been a prisoner in a cell since the days of his trial for the Ruby Blade mutiny.
And yet as he neared the prison, memories of that old cell and of his captivity in Barbados flooded his mind like a rising storm tide. War had never frightened him, even in his youth. He had sailed through ocean storms that would have reduced some grown men to sobbing babes. He had been beaten and threatened; he had come close to dying more times than he could count. None of that scared him. But prison … He found himself choking back tears. His legs trembled as the regulars led him down the length of Queen Street that passed before the courthouse and gaol. One would have thought that he had just run up to the very top of Beacon Hill, his heart labored so. He could smell his own sweat, his own fear, and he hated himself. He recalled that feeling, as well. The one small mercy was that neither Kannice nor Diver, nor any of the other people in his life, could see him at this moment. He was entirely alone and for now at least he was glad.
The gaol sat in the midst of one of Boston’s finer neighborhoods, as out of place as a beggar-or perhaps a thieftaker-among men of society. It was a plain building, not particularly menacing and noteworthy only for its ancient, heavy oak door, which looked to Ethan as implacable as a mountain. A few small windows broke up the solid, ugly façade, but otherwise it was nothing more or less than a great stone box. And they were going to put him inside of it.
The soldiers halted. Greenleaf stepped past them, gesturing with a quick wave of his hand for the two who held Ethan to follow him. He led them through the prison entrance into the rank shadows within.