Phoenix Field Agent
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Season: season 3
Episode:Passages
Vehicle: Jeep
Jacket: Black leather
House: House boat
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Accusations Part Three
Rated: PG
“My daughter was most insistent that you receive nourishment,” the magistrate who resembled Pete said, passing a goblet of water and a plate of food through the prison bars to MacGyver. Even now, watching the strange prisoner, he had to admit to himself that he felt a small amount of sympathy for him, forced to sleep on a rough pallet of straw, shackled and caged like some wild beast that needed to be contained. He seemed harmless enough, not a threat to their community, yet he had to remind himself that appearances could be deceptive and that he had to remain on his guard as he questioned him.
MacGyver gladly accepted the offering, his hands shaking from having been denied food or water for several days, feeling weak, dehydrated, and malnourished. He gulped the water greedily and hungrily devoured the food, a combination of some kind of wild game fowl and vegetables, flavorfully seasoned, satisfying and pleasing to his starved palate, using his hands since there weren’t any utensils, possibly because the magistrate knew he would attempt to use them to escape. He was halfway through the meal when he realized he had yet to utter a word of thanks. Embarrassed, he paused in mid-chew and looked at the magistrate shyly, still not believing how much the man looked like Pete, especially now when his bald head was unadorned with the wig.
“I appreciate this,” he said, swallowing the last bit of food. “It was gracious of your daughter, and very delicious. But if this is some method to coax a confession of sorcery out of me, it won’t work.”
“I have not come for your confession,” the magistrate said. “My daughter Emily bade me come and speak with you. She is the one who nearly drowned, and she…claims you restored her precious life to her, and that because of this selfless, charitable act you are incapable of the crimes for which you stand accused. While I am eternally grateful for her life, I must ask what your motives or reasons were for doing so, since I cannot ascertain them.”
“There was no motive,” MacGyver said, setting his empty plate aside in the straw. “She was dying and I wanted to help.”
“And you say that you revived her of your own power, not of God’s divine will?”
“What if I told you that I learned what I needed to do to save her from God?”
“Blasphemy! Vile heresy!” The magistrate shouted, looking indignant as if insulted personally.
“Well, you’re probably right about that,” MacGyver said, grinning slightly, not even daring to mention to this pious man that he was actually an agnostic, skeptical of the existence of God. “What if I told you instead that what I did to help her, anyone in your village could do if they learned? It’s not magic or a dark art, sir. It’s a life-saving skill. I could teach you.”
“I will not hear of such a thing!” The magistrate said, appalled. “No one is to interfere with matters of life and death! That is God’s affair.”
“Yes well, sometimes man has to step in and help,” MacGyver said. “If I hadn’t done what I did, your daughter would not be alive right now.”
The magistrate looked down at the straw-covered floor of the prison and sighed heavily. “Yes, I am aware,” he said sadly. “Once again, I must express my gratitude. She…also told me that the girls who are bewitched might instead be poisoned by something toxic in our grain?”
“Yes sir,” MacGyver said. “If I could be released, I could prove it. I won’t have access to all the equipment I’ll need, but I’m sure I could improvise.”
The magistrate looked back up at him, staring at him. “Who are you?” He asked. “Who sent you? You seem to possess advanced knowledge. If you are not a sorcerer, then what are you? I cannot explain it, but somehow I feel as if I know you, as if you have the ability to read my innermost thoughts. Tell me, are you an agent for God or for Satan? Answer me truthfully.”
“I’m neither,” MacGyver said. “I’m a man, just like you. I don’t possess any special powers or abilities, but it is true that I know some things you don’t, and I can understand how that would make me appear magical to your people.”
“You…also looked at me during the trial and referred to me by the name of ‘Pete.’ Why? I am called William.”
MacGyver shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just…where I come from, you remind me of a man I know named Pete—a lot, actually. You look almost nearly identical to him. He’s a good man, a man of reason, willing to listen. I hoped you were the same, and I’m beginning to think you might be.”
William studied MacGyver’s dark brown eyes for a long time, seeing nothing but honesty and goodness in them. Doubts began to arise within him again about whether they had condemned the right man.
“Where do you come from if it not be from the heavens or the fiery depths of hell?” He asked.
MacGyver hesitated, unsure how to answer. “I come from…another time. The future,” he said, cringing, knowing that his answer might make him sound just as guilty if not more so of sorcery, for who else but someone capable of great power could travel through time? “Where I come from, many people know how to revive someone from death as I have. There have been advances in medicine, technology, agriculture—almost every aspect of human life that you can imagine. While it may seem like magic to you, it’s commonplace to us, just as your way of life is normal for you but would seem out of the ordinary and magical to a more primitive society than your own. It’s all based on perspective, and the historical timeframe and context from which you view it.”
William carefully considered what MacGyver was saying, rubbing his rounded chin. “I suppose that could explain the bizarre clothing you were wearing when Thomas found you,” he said. “But, why are you here? What is your purpose? How did you arrive?”
“I don’t know. One minute, I was back in my own time, and the next thing I know…I’m here.”
“Appearing as if from nowhere, just as Thomas reported,” William muttered. “How did you know about the poison? Is that a matter of historical fact in your period of time when they record information about this era?”
“Well…yes and no,” MacGyver said. “There’s still some speculation about it, but there’s a strong possibility and some evidence to suggest that this poison caused the strange behavior of the girls accusing townspeople of witchcraft. It’s chemically induced, but not by any magic potion or witch’s brew. It grows in the grain itself, a part of nature. There is no witchery or deviltry or any other malevolent forces of evil striking and afflicting your people. It all has to do with what has been ingested, what is occurring in your food supply.”
William looked horrified, staring blankly, his face gone pale. “Then…if what you say is true, our judicial body hath condemned many innocent lives to unjust deaths,” he said.
“Yes, history will eventually pardon those falsely accused, but in your defense, you had no way of knowing,” MacGyver said. “Look, believe it or not, I can understand. You’re living in a new land, a strange, foreign land. The unknown and the unexplained frighten you, and you have to find some rationalization for them, so you believe it is witchcraft or sorcery or the hand of the devil. I can test your grain for you. I can prove it. I can even eliminate it, so that the fears of witchcraft will at last come to an end, and the accusations and persecutions of innocent people can stop. I can bring peace back to your village, as well as sanity. There are many other things I can offer to improve your quality of life as well, if you will only give me the opportunity and allow me to live, clearing my name of the charge of sorcery.”
“All of this in exchange for your release,” William said.
MacGyver nodded.
“You say you wish to help my people as you helped my daughter, that your intentions are not of evil design?”
“Yes. All I’m asking is that you give me a chance to defend myself, to prove my innocence through my actions.”
“Then you will return to your own time?” William asked.
MacGyver shook his head. “I don’t know if I can,” he said. “I’m afraid I might be trapped here, which is why I want to make a difference in the lives of your people.”
“But if you are as advanced as you claim, then surely you can return.”
“If I don’t know how I got here, then there is a good chance I don’t know how to get back. If I’m going to have to live here, I would rather make a contribution than be a prisoner, unjustly accused of a crime I did not commit.”
William once again looked into his eyes, finding only decency in them, not detecting any treachery or deception. “You claim you only want to help my people, as you helped my daughter?” He asked.
“Yes.”
“And you do not want anything in return except your freedom?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“How can I trust you? How can I know whether this is a clever ploy designed to lead us all to our ruin?”
“You can’t,” MacGyver said. “If I was in your position, I would probably be just as mistrustful and doubtful. After all, you don’t know me. You’ve never seen me before, and you’ve seen me do what you consider to be some strange, magical things beyond the realm of basic human understanding. But you’re also in a position of authority. You have the power to stop this before it turns into a greater tragedy than it already is and more innocent lives are lost.”
“Including your own I assume,” William said, arching his eyebrow. “You do profess your innocence, do you not?”
“Yes sir, I am innocent. I will continue to say so, even if you decide I should be executed for my crimes. I will stand firm in my convictions, even if it leads to my death. I am not sorry I saved your daughter’s life, and I’m sure you’re not, either. If I had to, I would do it all over again, even if that positively proved I was guilty of your charge of sorcery.”
William glanced around the prison, making sure the guards were out of earshot. He moved closer to the thick iron bars, and MacGyver gripped them tightly with his manacled hands, listening intently, knowing that he had something important to say.
“Unfortunately there is little I can do at the moment,” he said quietly. “However, I did send a dispatch bearing my seal to our governor with a messenger posthaste. His offices are not far, only in the next township, so I pray it will arrive in his hands shortly. I asked for your pardon, explaining the circumstances and how you saved my daughter’s life.”
MacGyver found himself smiling. What in the modern world would have been considered a conflict of interest had worked in his favor.
“When did you do all this, sir?” He asked.
“Not long after meeting you during your first trial,” William said. “I had my doubts and feared you as the others did, but even then I could sense there was something about you, something that did not suggest evil. I could not explain it until my daughter came to me and told me of how you restored her life to her.”
“Is she aware of what you’ve done?”
“No, I have not told her yet, but I plan on doing so as soon as our conversation has concluded.”
“Well, what happens now, in the meantime?”
William sighed. “You will remain in prison,” he said. “There is nothing I can do to change that. Until you are exonerated for the crime of sorcery, you still stand accused and are assumed to be guilty. I can do little to protect you except offer you this advice—do not confess.”
“Of course,” MacGyver said. “Why would I do that if I’m innocent?”
William shook his head and stared at him gravely. “You do not understand,” he said. “The other magistrates, especially Thomas, will spare no efforts to coerce a confession from you, perhaps even painfully, under the duress of torture. You must endure it, even when it seems you cannot bear it any longer.”
“Can’t you do anything to stop them?”
“It is not within my power to do so until I receive official word from the governor himself.”
“But, when will word come? It might take too long, and I could be dead either way, even if I did confess to sorcery.”
“You will remain alive longer if you do not confess,” William said, “because the other magistrates want that confession, no matter the cost. They will keep you alive until they have it.”
“They said they would kill me if I didn’t confess.”
“Eventually, they would, but you will ultimately remain alive much longer if you withhold any form of a confession, even one that has been brutally extracted from you.”
“So what you’re saying is that this is a risk,” MacGyver said. “I could die either way before hearing word from the governor.”
William bowed his head. “That is, unfortunately, the best I can offer you at the present moment,” he said. “Try to remain alive as long as you can. Your reward for all your suffering will be clemency. You must exercise patience and strength to survive the trials to come, and from what I have seen of you, I know you are capable of doing so. I am confident. I will provide support where I can, but I can only do so much without revealing my sympathy towards your condition and possibly being disrobed and dishonored for harboring feelings of compassion towards an accused sorcerer, and agent of the devil. I could even be tried as a sorcerer myself, as a confederate, so I must exercise great care and caution if I am to continue to help you and until word from the governor arrives.”
“I understand,” MacGyver said. “You must do only what you can.”
William reached through the bars and retrieved the dishes. As he retreated, he paused and clasped MacGyver’s hand.
“I have faith in you, my son,” he said. “You shall survive this ordeal. Do not surrender.”
“I won’t, sir,” he said, surprised and touched by the man’s gesture of support. “Thank you for believing in me, and in your daughter.”
William smiled, his eyes misty with tears as he imagined the horrors the poor prisoner was about to experience before freedom could be granted to him. He had developed a great affinity for this mysterious man the more he got acquainted with him.
“You must remain strong,” he said. “Liberty will eventually be yours. Remember that.”
“I will, sir.”
“You may call me William,” the kindly, intelligent magistrate said, his friendly expression reminding MacGyver so much of Pete that he wondered if they could possibly be blood relatives, the strong bond the two men carried into the distant past to one of his ancestors. He looked out the entrance of the prison. “I must go now before I arouse suspicion,” he said. “If they make any inquiries as to my presence here I shall tell them that I was attempting to obtain a confession from you but was unsuccessful.”
“Sure,” MacGyver said, dreading what was to come, knowing that none of the other magistrates, especially Thomas, would ever be as kind and tolerant while trying to get a confession from him.
William smiled at him again. “I bid you good night, my son,” he said. “Remember to conserve your strength. You will survive, I promise you.”
MacGyver watched him leave, gripping the bars with his manacled hands, hoping he was right. He had been in many difficult survival situations before, coming close to the brink of death on several occasions. Always, when his fate appeared to be at its most dismal, desperate, and hopeless, he had managed to overcome. He knew he could in this case as well, but it never got any easier. Tired from the food and lack of sleep, he curled up on the straw matting on the floor, doing his best to get comfortable, falling into an unsettled sleep, waiting to see what nightmares would come.
To be continued…
 "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."
--Henry David Thoreau
brains+brawn+beauty+personality=MacGyver
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