Roanoke: The Price of Power

The Night

Arnold had left the chillhouse after his brief exchange with the Doc.

He'd immediately set to work on mitigating the potential damage to the man's already tenuous reputation among the colonists. He began by discussing the situation with John the dispenser, informing him that the Doc was merely a person of interest and not a killer, and that he should call for help without delay if any man threatened to take vigilante action.

That included, he'd told John, assistant governor Dare himself.

He'd filled the rest of his afternoon by making rounds through the colony, keeping his ears open for talk of the arrest or blowhards speaking of delivering their own justice. To his chagrin, he'd found no such talk. Dare had been able to maintain more discretion than he'd expected, it seemed.

During his canvassing of the colony, Arnold had stopped to thumb through the book he'd confiscated from the Doc's hidden coat pocket. It turned out to be a journal, a scrawled collection of notes and sketches pertaining to medicine. There was much between the worn covers that Arnold didn't understand, but the passages regarding sanguine consumption and the pursuit of life everlasting stood apart. These were often marked with odd symbols and phrases in a language unknown.

After finding no answers within the book, he busied his hands with whittling a part of an oaken branch. He used his small carving knife, the same he'd used to pry up Doc's floorboard, to carve and groove details into the short knob of wood. All the while, he listened for danger, threats, rumors.

It never occurred to him that he had wasted an afternoon that he could have spent questioning Doctor Richard. The haunting notion, he found, was no longer the murder of Jeremy Swift. Not at all. That honor shifted very quickly to the notion that he was responsible for the arrest of an innocent man.

Duty required of him to protect that man. His own heart required such of him.

Now, with the sun completing its arc in the sky and returning to its nest on the horizon, Arnold was finishing his evening meal. He, Joyce and Tom were supping on rabbit and corn. They ate alone.

Both the absence of wifeless guests and the rabbit had been a gift from the assistant governor – a trifle offering of thanks for his help in the investigation. The message that came with the rabbit smelled suspiciously of undertone, precisely that Arnold's assistance was no longer necessary. He'd played his part.

The meal was taken with the family in silence. Arnold was wrapped up in his involvement. Joyce was frustrated with her husband for the same. She did not condone any unnecessary prodding into the affairs of others, even murders, and especially those that carried risk to life and limb (such as, precisely, murders.) Arnold's loss of his position as an investigator had been the highlight of their marriage in his wife's eyes.

Young Tom was silent as well, still sullen over the punishing words of both his mother and father after his unsanctioned evening sabbatical into the night.

After finishing his portion, Arnold rose from the table and placed a heel of bread and two thick hunks of rabbit meat into a linen napkin.