michael schein

PROLOGUE

The First of October, sharply cold.  Just a girl, really, she seeks comfort against the wrenching carriage ride in the warmth of her big sister’s arms, and finds it as she always has.  The rutted, half-frozen lanes leading to Glenlyvar are determined to shake out her bowels, but she fights back, sucking herself into a ball, focusing now on the blurred sunshine outside the window, now on the tempest within.  Upon arrival she must lie down, not like this, not like that, not here, not there, for there is no surcease inside this skin.  Up the narrow stairs, through the outer chamber, bolt the door to the inner chamber, muffle the cries between the spotless sheets.

The cries! oh Lord such cries as fly unbidden from the entrails.  Cries that would freeze a wolf in its tracks, sour milk in the teat, tauten vestigial hackles.  Sister dear, where are you?  Laudanum, be quick about it! So bitter it is sweet again then bitter then bitterest.  No oblivion, just another ocean of nausea.  Sister, where are you?  Brother, is that you?  Medicine, now!  No, not that, no – you know what I need.  Not so bitter, not so bad, it goes down greedy smooth then turns to broken glass in the womb.

Sister, hold my hand, sister?  Brother?  Take my hand and squeeze with all your strength.  If you love me, really love me, you will help me now.    

PART ONE:

PRETRIAL PROCEEDINGS

Chapter 1

Counsel for the Defense

1.

Straight in the saddle, at a canter not a gallop, he rode as a gentleman should. Boots spit shined, breeches starched, frock coat tight, waistcoat tighter, he took the ground between himself and the Cumberland County Courthouse like enemy territory.  His sharp dismount tossed dark locks from darker eyes to reveal features at once frozen and roiling.  Ignoring the handful of geezers stuck like toadstools to the courthouse's tobacco-stained stoop, he bounded up the steps and executed an abrupt about face, startling one octogenarian who stood too close.  To the no one in particular assembled, and to all Virginia which in 1793 was damn near everyone, he said with all the dignity he could muster through his rage:

“I am Richard Randolph of Bizarre.  My character has lately been impugned by accusations of crimes at which humanity revolts. My wife is humiliated; the good name I would pass to my innocent baby son has been trampled in the gutter.  I cannot refute these vicious smears by private suits against their authors; for every one silenced ten more would appear.  Slander, to be refuted, must be confronted openly, here in the sight of God.  If the crimes imputed to me were true, then my life and my sacred honor would justly be forfeit to the Commonwealth of Virginia.  But I pledge that there is no truth to these slanders, none! Therefore I demand to be tried before a jury of this County on the charge of infanticide.  And mark this well – I will clear my name!”

Done with this extraordinary declamation, Mr. Randolph produced a handwritten version of the same, to which he had not referred once while speaking, and shoved it through a link in one of the many wrist cuffs bolted to the front of the courthouse for use on auction day.  He departed as smartly as he arrived, save only for the tobacco juice on his boots, and the triumph in his eyes.

“Damn fool,” said the geezer he’d nearly trampled, “they’ll hang him now, fer sure.”

“Naw,” said another of the courthouse gadflies, “that’s a Randolph neck. It ain’t never gonna stretch.”

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Review by Marie of Seattle Mystery Bookshop:

     There's not a single page of dry legal proceedings or arcane history anywhere in Schein's marvelous book.