Heartfire: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume V Read online

  Praise for The Tales of Avin Maker by Orson Scott Card

  “The most important work of American fantasy since Stephen Donaldson’s original Thomas Convenant trilogy.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  “At long last, Card returns to what promises to be his most notable creation, The Tales of Alvin Maker.... From beginning to end, this novel is full of riches.... This superb and welcome book continues the saga at the same high level as before, and is most highly recommended.”

  —Booklist (starred review) on Alvin Journeyman

  “The best fantasy series now in progress.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “With delicacy and insight, incorporating folktales and folk magic with mountain lore and other authentic details, Orson Scott Card has evoked a vision of America as it might have been.”

  —Greensboro Tribune-Review

  “In the Alvin Maker series, Card utilizes the lore and folk magic of our early settlers to create an America that is at once enchanting and revelatory.”

  —Nashville Life

  TOR BOOKS BY ORSON SCOTT CARD

  ENDER

  Ender’s Game

  Speaker for the Dead

  Xenocide

  Children of the Mind

  Ender’s Shadow

  Shadow of the Hegemon

  Shadow Puppets

  The Folk of the Fringe

  Future on Fire (editor)

  Future on Ice (editor)

  Hart’s Hope

  Lovelock (with Kathryn Kidd)

  Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

  Saints

  Songmaster

  The Worthing Saga

  Wyrms

  THE TALES OF ALVIN MAKER

  Seventh Son

  Red Prophet

  Alvin Journeyman

  Heartfire

  Prentice Alvin

  Crystal City

  HOMECOMING

  The Memory of Earth

  The Call of Earth

  The Ships of Earth

  Earthfall

  Earthborn

  WOMEN OF GENESIS

  Sarah

  Rebekah

  SHORT FICTION

  Maps in a Mirror: The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card (hardcover)

  Maps in a Mirror, Volume 1: The Changed Man (paperback)

  Maps in a Mirror, Volume 2: Flux (paperback)

  Maps in a Mirror, Volume 3: Cruel Miracles (paperback)

  Maps in a Mirror, Volume 4: Monkey Sonatas (paperback)

  ORSON SCOTT CARD

  HEARTFIRE

  THE

  TALES OF

  ALVIN MAKER V

  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

  NEW YORK

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.

  Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  HEARTFIRE

  Copyright © 1998 by Orson Scott Card

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  Edited by Beth Meacham

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  ISBN 0-812-50924-2

  EAN 978-0-812-50924-3

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-3041

  First edition: August 1998

  First mass market edition: May 1999

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

  To Mark and Margaret,

  for whom all heartfires

  burn bright

  Acknowledgments

  Several books were of incalculable value in developing the story of Alvin’s search through America for patterns he might use to build a community that is both strong and free. Most important was David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (Oxford University Press, 1989, 946 pp.), a brilliant, well-defended exposition of a non-reductionist theory of the origins of American culture; in its pages I found both detail and rich causal reasoning, greatly helping me take this book from plan to page. William W. Freehling’s Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776–1854 (Oxford University Press, 1990, 640 pp.) gave me details of life, obscure historical characters, and the economic and political realities of Charleston in the 1820s, which I could then distort into my American “Camelot.” Carl J. Richard’s Founders and the Classics: Greece, Rome, and the American Enlightenment (Harvard University Press, 1994, 295 pp.) provided me with the attitudes of educated American leaders toward the Greek and Roman classics that were a part of traditional education at the time.

  As so often before, I thank Clark and Kathy Kidd for providing me with a retreat where I could jump-start this book.

  Thanks also to Kathleen Bellamy and Scott J. Allen for help above and beyond the call of duty; to Jane Brady and Geoffrey Card for their collection of data from the earlier books.

  As Alvin wanders through the world, it is his wife who provides his harbor; this, my wife, Kristine, also provides for me. All my stories are told first to her.

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Maps

  Chapter

  1 Gooses

  2 A Lady of the Court

  3 Painted Birds

  4 Stirred-Up

  5 Purity

  6 Names

  7 Accusation

  8 Basket of Souls

  9 Witch Hunt

  10 Captivity

  11 Decent Men

  12 Slaves

  13 Judgment Day

  14 Revolt

  15 Fathers and Mothers

  1

  Gooses

  Arthur Stuart stood at the window of the taxidermy shop, rapt. Alvin Smith was halfway down the block before he realized that Arthur was no longer with him. By the time he got back, a tall White man was questioning the boy.

  “Where’s your master, then?”

  Arthur did not look at him, his gaze riveted on a stuffed bird, posed as if it were about to land on a branch.

  “Boy, answer me, or I’ll have the constable ...”

  “He’s with me,” said Alvin.

  The man at once became friendly. “Glad to know it, friend. A boy this age, you’d think if he was free his parents would have taught him proper respect when a White man—”

  “I think he only cares about the birds in the window.” Alvin laid a gentle hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “What is it, Arthur Stuart?”

  Only the sound of Alvin’s voice could draw Arthur out of his reverie. “How did he see?”
>
  “Who?” asked the man.

  “See what?” asked Alvin.

  “The way the bird pushes down with his wings just before roosting, and then poses like a statue. Nobody sees that.”

  “What’s the boy talking about?” asked the man.

  “He’s a great observer of birds,” said Alvin. “I think he’s admiring the taxidermy work in the window.”

  The man beamed with pride. “I’m the taxidermist here. Almost all of those are mine.”

  Arthur finally responded to the taxidermist. “Most of these are just dead birds. They looked more alive when they lay bloody in the field where the shotgun brought them down. But this one. And that one....” He pointed to a hawk, stooping. “Those were done by someone who knew the living bird.”

  The taxidermist glowered for a moment, then put on a tradesman’s smile. “Do you like those? The work of a French fellow goes by the name ‘John-James.’” He said the double name as if it were a joke. “Journeyman work, is all. Those delicate poses—I doubt the wires will hold up over time.”

  Alvin smiled at the man. “I’m a journeyman myself, but I do work that lasts.”

  “No offense meant,” the taxidermist said at once. But he also seemed to have lost interest, for if Alvin was merely a journeyman in some trade, he wouldn’t have enough money to buy anything; nor would an itinerant workman have much use for stuffed animals.

  “So you sell this Frenchman’s work for less?” asked Alvin.

  The taxidermist hesitated. “More, actually.”

  “The price falls when it’s done by the master?” asked Alvin innocently.

  The taxidermist glared at him. “I sell his work on consignment, and he sets the price. I doubt anyone will buy it. But the fellow fancies himself an artist. He only stuffs and mounts the birds so he can paint pictures of them, and when he’s done painting, he sells the bird itself.”

  “He’d be better to talk to the bird instead of killing it,” said Arthur Stuart. “They’d hold still for him to paint, a man who sees birds so true.”

  The taxidermist looked at Arthur Stuart oddly. “You let this boy talk a bit forward, don’t you?”

  “In Philadelphia I thought all folks could talk plain,” said Alvin, smiling.

  The taxidermist finally understood just how deeply Alvin was mocking him. “I’m not a Quaker, my man, and neither are you.” With that he turned his back on Alvin and Arthur and returned to his store. Through the window Alvin could see him sulking, casting sidelong glances at them now and then.

  “Come on, Arthur Stuart, let’s go meet Verily and Mike for dinner.”

  Arthur took one step, but still couldn’t tear his gaze from the roosting bird.

  “Arthur, before the fellow comes out and orders us to move along.”

  Even with that, Alvin finally had to take Arthur by the hand and near drag him away. And as they walked, Arthur had an inward look to him. “What are you brooding about?” asked Alvin.

  “I want to talk to that Frenchman. I have a question to ask him.”

  Alvin knew better than to ask Arthur Stuart what the question was. It would spare him hearing Arthur’s inevitable reply: “Why should I ask you? You don’t know.”

  Verily Cooper and Mike Fink were already eating when Alvin and Arthur got to the rooming house. The proprietor was a Quaker woman of astonishing girth and very limited talents as a cook—but she made up for the blandness of her food with the quantities she served, and more important was the fact that, being a Quaker in more than name, Mistress Louder made no distinction between half-Black Arthur Stuart and the three White men traveling with him. Arthur Stuart sat at the same table as the others, and even though one roomer moved out the day Arthur Stuart first sat at table, she never acted as if she even noticed the fellow was gone. Which was why Alvin tried to make up for it by taking Arthur Stuart with him on daily forays out into the woods and meadows along the river to gather wild ginger, wintergreen, spearmint, and thyme to spice up her cooking. She took the herbs, with their implied criticism of her kitchen, in good humor, and tonight the potatoes had been boiled with the wintergreen they brought her yesterday.

  “Edible?” she asked Alvin as he took his first bite.

  Verily was the one who answered, while Alvin savored the mouthful with a beatific expression on his face. “Madame, your generosity guarantees you will go to heaven, but it’s the flavor of tonight’s potatoes that assures you will be asked to cook there.”

  She laughed and made as if to hit him with a spoon. “Verily Cooper, thou smooth-tongued lawyer, knowest thou not that Quakers have no truck with flattery?” But they all knew that while she didn’t believe the flattery, she did believe the warm heartedness behind it.

  While the other roomers were still at table, Mike Fink regaled them all with the tale of his visit to the Simple House, where Andrew Jackson was scandalizing the elite of Philadelphia by bringing his cronies from Tennizy and Kenituck, letting them chew and spit in rooms that once offered homesick European ambassadors a touch of the elegance of the old country. Fink repeated a tale that Jackson himself told that very day, about a fine Philadelphia lady who criticized the behavior of his companions. “This is the Simple House,” Jackson declared, “and these are simple people.” When the lady tried to refute the point, Jackson told her, “This is my house for the next four years, and these are my friends.”

  “But they have no manners,” said the lady.

  “They have excellent manners,” said Jackson. “Western manners. But they’re tolerant folks. They’ll overlook the fact that you ain’t took a bite of food yet, nor drunk any good corn liquor, nor spat once even though you always look like you got a mouth full of somethin’.” Mike Fink laughed long and hard at this, and so did the roomers, though some were laughing at the lady and some were laughing at Jackson.

  Arthur Stuart asked a question that was bothering Alvin. “How does Andy Jackson get anything done, if the Simple House is full of river rats and bumpkins all day?”

  “He needs something done, why, one of us river rats went and done it for him,” said Mike.

  “But most rivermen can’t read or write,” Arthur said.

  “Well, Old Hickory can do all the readin’ and writin’ for hisself,” said Mike. “He sends the river rats to deliver messages and persuade people.”

  “Persuade people?” asked Alvin. “I hope they don’t use the methods of persuasion you once tried on me”

  Mike whooped at that. “Iffen Old Hickory let the boys do those old tricks, I don’t think there’d be six noses left in Congress, nor twenty ears!”

  Finally, though, the tales of the frolicking at the Simple House—or degradation, depending on your point of view—wound down and the other roomers left. Only Alvin and Arthur, as latecomers, were still eating as they made their serious reports on the day’s work.

  Mike shook his head sadly when Alvin asked him if he’d had a chance to talk to Andy Jackson. “Oh, he included me in the room, if that’s what you mean. But talking alone, no, not likely. See, Andy Jackson may be a lawyer but he knows river rats, and my name rang a bell with him. Haven’t lived down my old reputation yet, Alvin. Sorry.”

  Alvin smiled and waved off the apology. “There’ll come a day when the president will meet with us.”

  “It was premature, anyway,” said Verily. “Why try for a land grant when we don’t even know what we’re going to use it for?”

  “Do so,” said Alvin, playing at a children’s quarrel.

  “Do not,” said Verily, grinning.

  “We got a city to build.”

  “No sir,” said Verily. “We have the name of a city, but we don’t have the plan of a city, or even the idea of the city—”

  “It’s a city of Makers!”

  “Well, it would have been nice if the Red Prophet had told you what that means,” said Verily.

  “He showed it to me inside the waterspout,” said Alvin. “He doesn’t know what it means any more than I do. Bu
t we both saw it, a city made of glass, filled with people, and the city itself taught them everything.”

  “Amid all that seeing,” said Verily, “did you perhaps hear a hint of what we’re supposed to tell people to persuade them to come and help us build it?”

  “I take it that means you didn’t accomplish what you set out to do, either,” said Alvin.

  “Oh, I perused the Congressional Library,” said Verily. “Found many references to the Crystal City, but most of them were tied up with Spanish explorers who thought it had something to do with the fountain of youth or the Seven Cities of the Onion.”

  “Onion?” asked Arthur Stuart.

  “One of the sources misheard the Indian name ‘Cibola’ as a Spanish word for ‘onion,’ and I thought it was funny,” said Verily. “All dead ends. But there is an interesting datum that I can’t readily construe.”

  “Wouldn’t want to have anything constroodled redly,” said Alvin.

  “Don’t play frontiersman with me,” said Verily. “Your wife was a better schoolteacher than to leave you that ignorant.”

  “You two leave off teasing,” demanded Arthur Stuart. “What did you find out?”

  “There’s a post office in a place that calls itself Crystal City in the state of Tennizy.”

  “There’s probably a place called Fountain of Youth, too,” said Alvin.

  “Well, I thought it was interesting,” said Verily.

  “Know anything else about it?”

  “Postmaster’s a Mr. Crawford, who also has the titles Mayor and—I think you’ll like this, Alvin—White Prophet.”

  Mike Fink laughed, but Alvin didn’t like it. “White Prophet. As if to set himself against Tenskwa-Tawa?”

  “I just told you all I know,” said Verily. “Now, what did you accomplish?”