“Yes, sir,” Ethan said, making no effort to mask the bitterness in his tone. He let himself out of the courtroom, closing the door smartly behind him.
Greenleaf still waited for him in the corridor.
“What did he say?” the sheriff asked, his smile telling Ethan that he already had some notion of how the conversation had gone.
“He gave me five days,” Ethan said, striding past him.
Greenleaf’s face fell, making Ethan wonder if he had expected Hutchinson to deal with him even more harshly. It took the sheriff little time to recover, though.
“Well, I suppose you had better get busy then,” he called, his words echoing in the Town House stairway.
Ethan didn’t bother to answer.
Chapter Nine
Ethan seethed as he left the Town House and set out for the North End.
Hutchinson’s time limit was troubling enough. Ethan hoped that he could find Gant within five days, but he was far from certain of it. More disturbing by far, though, was the lieutenant governor’s apparent eagerness to purge Boston of all its conjurers. With his superstition and his fear of conjurers, he threatened to take Boston, indeed the entire Province of Massachusetts Bay, down a path that had been trodden before, with tragic results. It didn’t matter whether one called Ethan’s kind witches or conjurers; tied to a stake or standing on a hangman’s gallows, they were all mortal souls. Suddenly Ethan was the only man in Boston who could prevent what would amount to a massacre.
He thought about running back to the Fat Spider to warn Janna, and making his way to Hillier’s Lane to tell Gavin Black. Perhaps they could leave Boston, find a safe place to stay until this matter was settled. But what of the other conjurers Hutchinson had mentioned, the ones Ethan didn’t know offhand? Was it fair to warn Janna and Old Black and leave the others to fend for themselves? Better, he decided, to conduct his inquiry as quickly and effectively as possible, and save their lives that way.
The place he had been heading before meeting up with Sheriff Greenleaf-the place he hadn’t been willing to take Mr. Pell-was a run-down tavern in the North End called the Crow’s Nest. It sat just past Mill Creek, at the south end of Paddy’s Alley, near the waterfront.
Kannice made a point of keeping the Dowsing Rod as reputable as possible. She didn’t allow whoring or fighting or any other activities that might attract the notice of the sheriff. The Crow’s Nest, on the other hand, might not have existed had it not been for whores, fights, and the trafficking of stolen and smuggled items. Ethan felt certain that Sheriff Greenleaf knew quite well what went on within its begrimed walls, but that a steady flow of coin convinced the good sheriff to look the other way.
The Nest had been in business since well before Ethan returned to Boston from the Indies, but over the years it had been run by a parade of ill-fated proprietors. One had been killed during a tavern brawl, at least three had been transported to the Caribbean for crimes ranging from theft to battery to murder, and another had disappeared under circumstances that to this day remained a mystery.
The current owner was a small, understandably skittish man named Joseph Duncan. Dunc spoke with a faint Scottish brogue and often rushed his words, making him difficult to understand under the best of circumstances. To make matters worse, he often had a lit pipe clenched between his teeth. He had taken ill during the smallpox epidemic of 1764, which proved even more deadly than the 1761 outbreak, and many assumed that he would meet a fate similar to that of other Crow’s Nest proprietors. But to everyone’s surprise, Dunc survived. His face, though, was ravaged by the disease, leaving his skin pitted and scarred.
When Ethan walked in, Dunc was standing at the bar, perusing a newspaper. He glanced up from the paper, but quickly went back to reading. An instant later, he looked up a second time and pulled the pipe from his mouth.
“You’re not welcome here!” he said, leveling a bony finger at Ethan. “I’ve told you that before.”
Ethan walked to the bar and tossed a half shilling onto the wood. “An ale,” he said to the bartender, a lanky man with large eyes and a crooked nose.
The bartender looked to Dunc, who was still eyeing Ethan.
“I’ll leave when I’ve finished my ale, Dunc,” Ethan said. “Not before. So you might as well tell him to serve me.”
Dunc glared at Ethan for another few seconds before replacing his pipe with a click of his yellow teeth on clay. “Fine,” he said, picking up his newspaper again. “One ale.”
The barkeep took Ethan’s coin and filled a tankard for him.
Ethan sipped his ale and leaned against the bar, eyeing the Scotsman. “I didn’t think you were the kind of man to hold a grudge for so long.”
Dunc continued to read, saying nothing.
“It looks like the repairs went well,” Ethan went on, surveying the tavern. “This place looks as shabby as ever.”
Dunc cast a dark look his way, but promptly turned to the paper once more. He was reading the Gazette, the foremost Whig newspaper in the city.
“You know, it really wasn’t my fault.”
Dunc threw the paper down on the bar. “Wasn’t your fault?” he repeated, spittle flying from the side of his mouth as he tried to talk around the pipe. “You come in here and call Sephira Pryce a liar and a cheat in front of all my patrons! And when her men go after you, you nearly burn the whole place down with what I can only assume was witch-”
Ethan raised a finger just in front of the man’s face, silencing him. “Keep your voice down!”
Dunc continued to glower at him, but for several moments he said nothing more. He puffed hard on his pipe, making the leaf in its bowl glow brightly in the dim tavern, and blew a cloud of sweet smoke from the corner of his mouth.
“What do you want, anyway?” he asked. “I thought you only drank in that tavern your woman owns.”
“I have some questions for you.”
The Scot’s laugh was high and harsh. “Are you fool enough to think I’d help you?” He leaned closer, and when he spoke again it was in a whisper. “Do you have any idea what Miss Pryce would do to me if she found out?”
“I have a fair notion, yes. Especially because this concerns her as well.” Ethan leaned toward the man and dropped his voice. “But do you have any idea what I’ll do to you if you don’t help me?”
Dunc stared back at him.
“She won’t find out,” Ethan said, his voice still low. “You have my word. And despite everything between us, you know what that’s worth.”
The Scot hesitated, nodded.
“Do you want to talk in back?”
Dunc shook his head. “People will see us go back there and they’ll know for sure that I helped you. Better we stay out here. Make it quick.”
“All right. What have you heard from Simon Gant lately?”
Dunc took a step back from him, nearly losing his footing as he did. “Gant? How do you-?” He clamped his mouth shut around the stem of his pipe, the bowl gleaming again. “No!” he said with a hard shake of his head. “I won’t speak of him!”
“Be reasonable, Dunc. You wouldn’t want me to leave here angry.”
“I’ll take my chances with you, Kaille. Better you than-” He shut his mouth again.
“Just tell me when you last saw him.”
Dunc shook his head and reached for his newspaper. Ethan slapped his hand down on the paper, making the smaller man flinch.
“Was it recently, within the last day or two?”
The Scotsman regarded him with wide, fearful eyes. But after a brief pause he nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Do you think he’s still in the city? Is that why you’re so scared?”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“Do you know why Sephira might be looking for him?”
“No,” he whispered. “I swear I don’t. But…” He licked his lips. “They didn’t part on the best of terms.”