Matthew had been studying Tom while the stew was being cooked. The boy seemed silent by nature, closed up in a world of his own. Something about him resisted questions even before the questions had been asked. He had examined the visitors on first meeting, true, but after that he seemed not to care very much about them. He was a handsome boy, with a high forehead and a craggy nose that looked to have once been broken. His hair was more of a dark stain, being shaved to the scalp. Matthew had once worn his hair the same way, to combat the spread of lice. Tom had a strong square jaw and thick black brows above piercing light gray eyes. He was slimly-built, but nothing about him suggested weakness; in fact, he moved with a quickness and economy that said he was both physically strong and equally swift. Matthew thought the boy would've been a good candidate for Greathouse's sword-fighting lessons. Now, as Matthew continued to examine the boy, Tom looked up from his bowl and stared across the table at him, with a brief panther-like glare that asked the question What are you looking at? Immediately Matthew dropped his gaze and said, "Good stew."
There was no response from Tom, who went back to his eating as if nothing had been said.
"I saw evidence of a horse in the barn," Greathouse said in between sips of the cider. The pistol lay beside his bowl, aimed in Slaughter's direction. "My team will appreciate the oats, for sure. But what happened to your horse?"
"We had to sell her," Burton offered. "Tom rode her to Belvedere just last week, to trade for some things we needed. Candles, salt, sugar. Those things."
"And how far is Belvedere, then?"
"Oh twelve miles, I suppose."
"Fourteen," said the boy, without looking up.
Greathouse paused with the cup at his lips. "You're not going to tell me you rode a horse to this Belvedere place and walked back here fourteen miles carrying a sackful of supplies, are you?"
Tom shrugged. The silent answer was All right, I won't.
"A stout-hearted lad!" Slaughter raised his cup. "This world needs more of them!"
"Reverend Burton told me how you lost your parents," Matthew ventured. The boy seemingly paid him no attention. "I lost mine in much the same way. Don't you have any other family?"
Tom said nothing. He was finishing his stew, but kept a bit of rabbit to hand down to James. Then he spoke, as if the question were of no consequence: "A grandpa in Aberdeen. That's all." "Hail to the Scots!" Slaughter said.
"I can take care of m'self." Tom lifted his gaze to spear Matthew with it, and then he drank down some more of his cider to put an end to this line of conversation.
Thunder spoke above the cabin. Rain slashed at the shutters. James, unperturbed by the roar of nature, sat down next to Tom's foot and scratched at a flea.
"Greathouse." Slaughter had reached the bottom of his bowl. He licked juice from his fingers. "I don't know that name, but I swear you're familiar. Were you ever a circus performer?"
"No. Were you?"
"Oh, absolutely. In my youth I was an acrobat. Quite accomplished if I might say so. I had a female partner, and together we jumped through hoops of fire. Have you ever seen a circus?" The last question was presented to Tom, whose only answer was to reach down and rub his dog's back.
"I regret your situation here," said Greathouse to the reverend. "Can we do anything to help?"
"No. I just thank God the suffering is over." Burton rubbed his right temple, as if at the pain of memory. "They were such good people. So hopeful. And we were doing so well, for awhile. New Unity started as an apple orchard. There are fertile fields between here and the river, you see. More and more people came in, and then the fever struck. It was a terrible thing, sir. Terrible, to see all those people suffering, and begging over dying loved ones for the mercy of God, and yet all I could do was pray. A doctor was brought from Belvedere, and he did all he could but what could be done, against such an enemy? The doctor himself fell ill, and perished. Then my wife." He put his frail hand against his forehead. The thunder boomed again, off to the east. "My wife of fifty-two years, my lovely bride. Coughed herself to death, and squeezed my hand at the last, and I whispered, Wait for me, Abigail, please wait for me. But there were so many others in torment. I couldn't think only of myself, and my loss. I had to be strong, for the others. The young children who died, the mothers who watched their infants go pale and more and more unto deathly white. The strapping young men, with such great dreams, and the women who had come here with them to build a life. And there they lie, in the graves. Peaceful now, I hope. But oh, sirs, they endured so much."
A silence fell, but for the sounds of the fire and the rain.
Quite suddenly, Tyranthus Slaughter began to laugh.
"Shut your mouth!" Greathouse, his cheeks aflame, grabbed hold of the prisoner's beard and twisted it. Slaughter kept laughing, as tears of either mirth or pain glittered in his eyes.
"Shut it, I said!" Greathouse shouted. James was up on four feet, starting a low gut-growl, but Tom put his hand down on the back of the dog's neck to hold him steady.
"Pardon me! Pardon me!" Slaughter tried to swallow his laughter and began to cough, so violently that Greathouse released him. Matthew didn't know what to think. The madman's wagon had lost its wheels. "Pardon me!" Slaughter repeated, as he wiped his eyes and his nose and drew in a long ragged breath of air. "It just it just strikes me as so funny so ridiculous that none of you have a goddamned idea of-" And on the final four words his eyes cleared, his voice tightened and he reached up to rub his raw chin beneath the patchwork beard. "What real suffering is."
"Apologize to the reverend!" Greathouse demanded, with such force the spittle foamed on his lips. "By God I'll smash your face in if you don't!" Already his fist was clenched and the blow about to be struck.
Slaughter stared at the upraised fist. He reached into his mouth with a forefinger and probed at an offending shred of rabbit stuck between upper teeth. "I shall apologize, sir," he said lightly, "if the company will hear my tale of suffering."
The fist was near being thrown. Matthew knew a bloody mess was about to erupt. "Don't do it," he cautioned, and Greathouse's enraged eyes ticked toward him. The cocked fist was slowly lowered.
"Let him speak," said Reverend Burton, his opaque gaze fixed on the space between Greathouse and the prisoner. "Go ahead, sir, but I ask you to refrain from taking our Lord's name in vain."
"Thank you. Might I have another cup of cider? Just to wet the old whistle?"
Burton nodded, and Tom did the pouring.
Slaughter took a long drink and swirled the liquid around in his mouth before he swallowed. Then he put the cup down before him and turned it between his fingers, with their jagged clawlike nails.
Thunder echoed in the distance. A second voice of the storm spoke, nearer still.
"There was a boy," said Slaughter. "A hardworking young English boy. Whose drunken mother had been murdered in a tavern brawl when he was not quite ten, and her blood spattered his legs, but that is neither here nor there. This upright young boy and his father went out upon the world, and as fate would have it both of them found positions in the mining fields of Swansea. Diggers, they were. Shovel-and-pick men. Handgrubbers, down in the earth. A father and son, blackened together inside and out, black grit in their teeth and in their eyes, and all the day the ringing music of the pit, hour upon hour, for that pretty little pence in their palms. Or rather, in the father's palm, for the boy did so wish that his father might become rich someday, and stride the world as an earl, or a duke. Someone who mattered, in the course of time. Someone he might be proud of. You see?"