"He's not tellin' the truth," Daley exclaimed.

"But he swears that he saw you, Mr. Daley, leading the dead man's horse. In the courtroom tomorrow, he will point his finger at you and say you are the one he saw." Blake looked at Daley with those sleepy blue eyes of his. Despite the lethargy in them, there was a certain hard subtlety about them now, a sly cunning, like those of a cat quietly sunning itself. It was almost as if he half expected the Irishman finally to give up this unconvincing pretense of innocence and admit his guilt at last.

"He's lyin'," Daley repeated. "I cannot say why, Mr. Blake. P'haps the boy knows who done it, and he's protectin' him."

"That's just speculation. Even if it were true, I will not have time to mount a credible alternative theory. It will come down to whether they believe him or not."

"But he's just a boy," Daley said.

"A Yankee boy," Blake countered. "And every single member of the jury will be Yankees, too. As was the dead man. They will listen to him and then they will look at the two of you. And do you know what they will see, gentlemen?"

"A pair of stinkin' Irishmen!" Halligan cried out, angry.

Blake looked sternly over at Halligan. "See that you keep your temper in check tomorrow, Mr. Halligan. What they will see will be their prejudices. Everything they hate and fear. A pair of foreigners who have come to this country to rob and murder. To take what they've worked so hard to establish. To corrupt morals with their strange Catholic ways. That's what they will see, gentlemen. Since the murder, there has been in these parts, in fact, in the whole of the commonwealth, a growing sentiment against immigrants. Especially the Irish."

"I thought we left all that behind," Daley said with the stubborn naivete of a small child. "I thought over here we're supposed to be good as the next fellow before the law."

"In theory, yes," Blake said. "You should know as well that both sides will be looking to use the trial for their own political ends."

"Both sides?" Daley asked.

"I speak of the Federalists and Republicans," Blake explained.

"I don't understand," said Daley. "What does politics have to do with whether we done what they say we did or not?"

"A great deal, I'm afraid, Mr. Daley," Blake replied, glancing over at him. "The Federalists have controlled the governor's seat for the past sixteen elections. However, their hold on the state, as with the country as a whole, is waning. The man who will be prosecuting you, James Sullivan, ran a very close race as the Republican candidate against Governor Strong in the last election. And he will be running against him in the next as well. Caleb Strong, on the other hand, hails from Northampton. A favorite son, if you will. He's quite wealthy, well connected. The town remains a stronghold for Federalists, one of the few remaining ones in the state for his party. In the last election Strong took every single vote from this town, which undoubtedly spelled the difference in the Federalists' narrow victory. But he's worried now that his hold on the town and on the entire western part of the state is slipping. For his part, the attorney general would like to make inroads in his opponent's advantage out here in the west by winning a conviction. Beating Strong in his own backyard, so to speak. A good showing in the trial might win enough votes to swing the next election in his favor. That's also why Strong offered a five-hundred-dollar reward for your capture and conviction."

"Five hundred dollars!" Daley exclaimed. "Do you hear that, Jamy boy? Five hundred they're givin' for our necks."

"There's your reason why the boy said it was us," Halligan said. "For the reward."

"I've considered that possibility. Unfortunately, I have no proof."

"A lot of people would turn their own mothers in for that kind of money," said Daley.

"By putting up such a large reward, Strong hoped to take advantage of the growing animosity toward foreigners. He feels it would help his chances for reelection. At the same time, he's one of the biggest investors in the turnpike."

"How's that?" Halligan asked.

"Well, the murder happened on the turnpike. If people are afraid to travel it, tolls will be down. Profits will be hurt. So it's to his advantage to see to it that these sorts of crimes are not allowed to go unpunished. Strong can't very well afford to have highwaymen accosting paying customers. It's bad for business."

Blake smiled at this, as if he had made a joke.

"And then there are the judges in the case," he continued. "Sam Sewall is openly anti-Catholic. He was one of the judges in a case that brought suit against the Catholic diocese of New England, forcing it to pay tithes for the support of a Protestant minister. The other is Judge Sedgwick."

"Tall fellow with coal-black eyes?" Halligan said.

"That's him. I've argued cases previously before him. He can be very exacting. And as a staunch Federalist, he is a solid supporter of the governor and a man who doesn't like Sullivan."

"That explained the business in court yesterday," Halligan said, glancing at Daley.

The lawyer frowned.

"The judge lit into Sullivan for not being there," Halligan explained. "Said he was too busy with his campaign." Blake nodded.

"Sullivan's a skilled attorney. He's quite experienced. I look forward to such a formidable adversary. And I will do my best by you."

"Is there nothin' to the good, Mr. Blake?" Daley asked.

"I have a few cards I plan to play. It is not completely hopeless," he said, and then realizing how pessimistic that must have sounded, added, "not by a long shot. The boy's statement, though damaging, is not without certain inconsistencies that I shall try to exploit on cross-examination. Besides, they have no actual eyewitnesses to the crime. It is all presumptive evidence. Nor can they connect you to the murder weapons. These particulars are very much in our favor. And there is the fact that you put up no resistance when you were arrested. That looks good. So all in all, you needn't give up hope. We have better than a fighting chance, gentlemen."

The attorney began to pack up his things.

"Mr. Blake, sir," Daley said. "That fellow. The one who was killed. Did his people get his things back?"

"What do you mean?"

"His horse and saddle and such. Did his folks get them back?"

"I would imagine so. What they didn't keep for evidence. Why?"

"Just wonderin' is all."

Halligan shot him a warning look, but Daley wouldn't meet his gaze.

"Then I shall meet you in court, gentlemen," he said. He stood and removed the flask from his coat, and took another sip. He was going to put it back when he looked over at the two. "As you can see, I, too, have an inside pocket for carrying refreshments." He smiled, giving his fleshy, liquor-haunted face an oddly boyish look, youthful and mischievous. He unscrewed the cap and held it out to Daley. "Would you care for some?" he asked.

Daley hesitated, then said, "If'n you please, sir." He accepted the flask from him and took a short sip. "Ohhh," he cried, shivering. " 'Tis grand stuff that."

Halligan then took the bottle and drank. It was West Indian rum, cinnamon-flavored, sweet and filled with fire. The liquid burned his mouth and throat but slowly warmed his insides, fanning out like a warm sea breeze.

"Thank you, Mr. Blake," Halligan said, wiping the top on his sleeve and handing it back to the man.

"To our mutual success, gentlemen," Blake toasted, formally holding up the flask before taking another sip. He returned the flask to its pocket. Then he gathered up his things and put his coat on.

"Get a good night's sleep, gentlemen," he said. "It is likely to be a long day tomorrow. May God be with you."

"And you, sir," Daley offered, making the sign of the cross. "Take care of that cold. Have you some melted butter."

The man smiled and left. After he was gone, Halligan whispered, "What in the hell was all that about?"

"All what about?"

"If that fellow's family was going to get his bleeding things or not? What concern is that of yours?"

"I just... I feel bad about the money."

"Jaysus. We didn't do nothing wrong."

"We lied about it, didn't we?"

"What else could we have done, Dom?"

"But by rights it should belong to his folks now."

"We don't have it anymore, remember? They took it from us. Let them do with it what they will. It's no business now of ours."

"I still don't feel right about it. I feel like we stole it. I don't want that on me head."

They both fell silent for a moment.

"All right, listen, Dom," Halligan said finally. "If we get out of this, they'll have to give us the money back. We'll put it in an envelope and send it to them. We won't say who it's from. And if they find us guilty, well, it won't matter anyway. What do you say?"

Daley looked over at him and nodded. Then he lay back on his bunk, put his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. He was so still that Halligan had thought he'd fallen asleep. But then he started to hum. It was an old tune from back home. "Cossey's Jig." Pretty soon Daley began to sing the words to it.

Ma'am dear, did you ever hear of pretty Molly Brannigan?

The times are going hard with me I'll never be a man again.

Not since Molly's gone and left me Here alone for to die.

Chapter Five.

Cheverus rose in the chill pre-dawn darkness of his room. He knelt at the foot of his bed, his rosary wrapped tightly around his hand, and prayed. He prayed for the soul of his beloved mother. He prayed for those of Father Landry and Archbishop Dulau and for all the hundreds of martyred priests who had died during the September Massacres. He prayed for the two Catholic prisoners, Dominic Daley and James Halligan. May God grant them a fair trial. May He forgive them their trepasses, whatever they might be. May He lead them from the darkness of sin into the light of His everlasting love.

When he was in the seminary in Paris, he had liked this time of day best, by himself, praying on the smooth stone floor of his narrow little room. The still, sanctified air of early morning infusing his prayers with solemnity and holiness. His heart quiet, his soul becalmed. The day's busy labors awaiting him, but right then alone with his God. At such times he could almost feel His presence, not as a thing abstract and transcendent, not as fire or light or love, but actual and corporeal, a presence almost human. He felt he could hear God's heart beating, could feel His breath warm upon his face, like a baby feels his mother's. Lately though, his prayers seemed to hang unheard in the air around him, like so much flotsam. Sometimes he wondered if He even received his words anymore. He preached that God forgave even the worst sinner, as long as he confessed his sins and received absolution. So why hadn't he confessed? Was it vanity? Fear? Willfulness of spirit? What? Help me, O Lord, to knowThy wishes. I am ignorant and need instruction. I am weak and need Thy strength.

Finished with his morning prayers, he set about his toilet, washing himself briskly in a basin of icy water on his night table. Next, with a small handheld mirror, he shaved, the first time since his illness. With difficulty he hacked at his beard with the unstropped straight razor. Despite its dullness, he managed to cut himself along the angle of his jaw. The blood flowed freely down his neck, appearing bright red against the pallid skin. As he stanched the bleeding with a rag, he stared appraisingly at himself in the mirror. He felt the usual vague dissatisfaction with what he saw: a frail-looking man with a head too large for his dwarfish body, the melancholy, slightly down-turned eyes, the weak jaw, the absurdly boyish features belying the fact that he was rapidly approaching the middle years of life. He was at that stage when most men had something to show for their time on earth--a wife, family, career, a certain measure of success--when a man knows the rhythms of his own existence, when the feel of it is as familiar to him as the roof of his mouth, when he can look both backward with satisfaction and forward still with hope and anticipation.

Cheverus had never really cared to weigh his own life against those common scales of worldly success or failure. He had only wanted to serve his Lord, to carry out His will--regardless of however slight or unimpressive it might look to others. It would have been his success, his accomplishment. Even in that, how had he fared? He had toiled ceaselessly to further His Church in this harsh, unforgiving land. He had thrown himself into his work with a passionate intenstiy. But why? Was it for the greater glory of his Lord or for his own aggrandizement? Did He look with satisfaction on his life? The world saw a dedicated, hard-working, deeply devout man of God. He knew that many in Boston--Protestant as well as Catholic--held him in some regard. In his innermost soul, though, he questioned himself. In some ways, he couldn't help feeling his life a sham, that he was a charlatan, a fraud hiding behind the cloth. He was weak. He could be petty and vain. He yearned for the love of his flock though he felt himself above them. He often lacked humility or patience or understanding. He felt desire for women, even now after all these years of celibacy. Despite what others may have thought, he knew himself to be a coward at heart, and that when acting out of what seemed to be principle or conviction--as in the case with the Daleys--it was more that he feared to do otherwise, feared what people would think of him. The face that looked back at him seemed to mock him.

When he had finished dressing, he sat at his escritoire. He penned a note to the attorney general asking that he might have a word with him this morning about the prisoners. He left it vague, so as not to give Sullivan the advantage, but added the word "urgent." As he sat there, he glanced at the letters from home. Perhaps, he thought, he would leave for France in early autumn, when he'd returned from his mission work with the Indians in Maine. That would give everyone enough time to adjust to his going. By then, Bishop Carroll could have arranged for a suitable assistant for Father Matignon. His friend would not be left empty-handed, and he himself would have time to tie up loose ends here. Finish the Catholic manual he was working on. Perhaps get the school up and running. Give his Irish time to adjust to the idea of his leaving-- though he doubted that would take much. More importantly, he would have time to get acclimated to the notion. Once the decision was made, he could then begin to set his sights on returning home. Who knows? Maybe going home was just what he needed. Maybe it would clear his mind of these brooding meditations, these troubling memories of the past. Facing the thing he feared. Courage, after all, was merely an act of will.

Yvette was up already, tending to the fire in the kitchen by the time he came downstairs. She said in English, "I made for you breakfast, mon Pere."

He found to his surprise that his appetite had returned. He sat down to a meal of fried cod, baked beans, and gruel, with a cup of tea. He ate ravenously.

"Good?" she asked, placing before him a copy of the Columbian Centinel, one of Boston's weekly papers.

"Oui, tres bon" he replied, smiling at her. He handed her the note he had written. "Yvette, I would like you to take this message to Mr. Sullivan. He lives on Summer."

"Now?" she asked.

"Please. Wait for his reply. Tres important."

"Oui, mon Pere."

After she left, he opened the Centinel and began to read, the first time in nearly two weeks that he had perused a paper. There was news about Napoleon's latest conquests. About a French frigate spotted off the Maine coast. About a possible embargo of all trade with Europe. There was the usual bickering between Republicans and Federalists, especially with the upcoming gubernatorial election still very much contested. Then on the second page, he came across a small article: "Irishmen to be Tried for Murder."

Dominic Daley and James Halligan, two men lately from Ireland and now of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, are to be tried this week in Northampton for the murder of Mr. Marcus Lyon, who was brutally slain at Wilbraham this past November. It is highly probably the accused persons were concerned in several highway robberies in this vicinity.

Yvette returned in a half hour's time with a note saying the attorney general could spare a few minutes to meet with him at nine. He put on his cassock and left the rectory, making his way along the alley toward the front of the church. The early spring morning was cool, especially in the shadows of buildings, but overhead the sky was a deep blue and the day promised to be much more seasonable than the past several. To the east, above the harbor, a determined sun had already broken through the usual mists that hung above the water. Yellow light glistened in the still-wet limbs of the maples and white oaks out on Franklin. The rain from the previous night had left the roads smelling sharply of sewage.

Rounding the corner, he came upon a group of boys heading off to work in the ropewalks, clutching their lunch potato and bit of bread wrapped in oil cloth. He recognized several from his parish. They were jostling and pushing one another and didn't see the priest right away. One boy, Danny Cahill, the youngest of the Cahill clan, called out, "I'd kick the bloody bastard in the arse, is what I'd do." "You would not," cried another.

"What are ye talking about, yer mother's nothin' but a whore," taunted the Cahill boy. When he finally spotted the priest though, his face turned crimson and he lowered his gaze. "Mornin', Father," they all said in contrite, singsong fashion. The priest smiled at them and bade them good morning. He wasn't out of earshot before they fell once more to cursing and fighting.

He passed the impressive Tontine Crescent, a curved row of stately homes designed by his friend, the architect Charles Bulfinch, to imitate the grand rowhouses of Bath, England. The Crescent had been one of the new marvels of the city when it was completed a decade ago. Even now, people came from as far away as New York and Philadelphia just to see it. In front of one residence, a Negro coachman waited in the driver's seat of an elegant phaeton drawn by a matched pair of chestnut-colored geldings. He was dressed in red velvet livery and a white peruke beneath a cocked hat. It was now quite the fashion, especially among well-to-do Federalists, to dress one's servants in the style of an English manor lord. The Negro glanced down at the priest and nodded.

As Cheverus turned down narrow Arch Street and passed beneath the rooms of the Boston Public Library, his heart sank when he saw who was approaching him: Nell O'Rourke. It was hard to keep a conversation short with the woman, and he had little time and less patience this morning for her insipid blather. She was busily making her way along the street with a basket on her elbow, no doubt heading for the market in Faneuil Hall.

"Father!" she cried, surprised to see him out that early. She had a slightly guilty look on her face, which was as dark and scabrous as an oyster shell. "'Tis good to see you're feeling better. You've been in me prayers."

Nell was in her thirties, a sturdy woman with a fleshy neck and arms, thick ankles below her long, already-sullied apron. Cheverus didn't particularly like her. She was an ignorant woman, full of superstitious nonsense, like so many of them. More than that, she was the worst sort of gossip. She keened the loudest at wakes, and in the confessional she spent more time talking about her neighbors' sins than her own. And though she was always fawning and obsequious in his presence, he'd heard from Mrs. Lobb, another parishioner, how the woman thought the two French priests considered themselves above the common sort.

"Good morning, Nell," he said unenthusiastically.

"Sorry for missin' Mass, Father. I been awful busy. Me mistress is with child--again," she said with a conspiratorial wink. She was employed in the household of Sarah Wigginson, a well-to-do woman whose husband owned several merchant ships. "Herself with three little ones already. The master can't keep his hands to home." Then, lowering her voice as if someone might hear, she added, "Though for the life of me, I can't see reason for it. A face like a pig's rear end. Pardon me tongue, Father." But she laughed in spite of herself, tossing her head back to show a mouthful of rotten teeth. "On'y means more work for me."

"I'll see you at Sunday Mass then?"

"Aye. If she lets me off."

He didn't want to be late for his appointment with the attorney general, so he wished her a good day and tried to slip by her.

"By the way, Father," Nell said, cutting off his escape. "Those lads. Daley and the other one. Word is they're to be put on trial finally."

"I don't know anything about it," he lied.

"A terrible thing. Just terrible. Poor Mrs. Daley. And herself losing her younger boy, too. A cryin' shame. Now to have this one branded a thief and a murderer. A curse is what 'tis." Then leaning close to him so he could smell the oniony odor of her breath, she said in an undertone, "But it don't surprise me none. No sir. Them Daleys always was a bit wild, if you know what I mean."

Cheverus stared at her, surprised by what was, even for her, vicious gossip. "Dominic was a good Catholic," he offered. Was, he thought.

"Not what I heard, Father. I heard he had a wild streak in him," she said, nodding. "Me mistress says they'll get the rope. Do ye think so?"

"I don't know. Good day now," he said, moving on.

"They're as far back as Couneenole," she said, walking with him back the way she'd come. Cheverus had heard the expression before. It meant something hopeless. She continued talking as she walked along beside him. "Me mistress says they ought to do it and be quick about it, too. Afore there's trouble." "What trouble would that be?"

"You haven't heard, Father?" she said, raising her eyebrows.

"No," he said, stopping again. He wasn't sure he wanted to get into this, but then again he was curious. "What are you suggesting?" he snapped.