City of Dreams (92 page)

“You mean he saw you playing in the field? Like Captain Turner did?” A nod this time. “And before that he came to consult me, to ask Mistress Healsall to help him get well? Is that what you mean?”

Clare nodded again.

Morgan started to say something, but Roisin lifted a hand to stop him. “Did the man come just once or did you see him many times?”

“A few times, Mama. You made him a tisane to drink.”

“Which tisane, Clare? You know I’ve told you to watch me, that you have to learn everything I know so when you’re a big girl you can be a healer, too. Now show me which tisane I used for the bad-smelling man.” Clare hesitated. “Go on,” Roisin urged. “Show me.”

The little girl got up from the hearth and ran to the shelves in the corner. She stood on her toes, reached up, and unerringly took a pewter flask from the topmost shelf and ran back to her mother.

“Cinchona bark,” Roisin whispered, taking the flask in her hands. “For the ague that comes with
mal aria.”

“The shaking and sweating sickness?”

“Yes. Tars get it often. The last patient who came for the tisane was a tar. His eyes aren’t straight, so he can’t look at you directly.”

“I’ve known more than one man with crooked eyes. Do you remember his name?”

“I think so. It was Dutch. Petrus something.”

“Petrus Vrinck,” Morgan said quietly.

Roisin nodded. “That’s him.”

Holy bloody Savior. Why wasn’t he surprised? “He sailed with me for two voyages back when the
Maiden
was taking prizes down among the islands. A good fighter but a bad sailor. And a worse man. Not to be trusted.”

Morgan moved closer to the fire. Roisin still knelt by the hearth. Clare stood beside her and Roisin put a protective arm around the little girl’s waist. Roisin was beautiful. And the child—his child—would be equally beautiful when she grew up.

“Cuf’s not like your Petrus Vrinck,” Roisin said softly, her green-eyed gaze fixed on his face. “Cuf’s a good man. He loves us, Morgan.”

“I know.”

“Promise me you’ll do nothing to disturb his peace of mind. Promise me, Morgan. You didn’t know what you took from me, but you’re in my debt.”

God. So lovely. He stretched out a hand, wanting to touch her, but dropped it quickly. “What did I ever take from you? I saved you from the whipper and I offered to take you with me when I left. You’re the one who—” He broke off, knowing he’d said more than he ever meant to say, more than he’d admitted to himself these past six years.

Roisin dropped her head, refusing to look at him. “I know you rescued me from the pit. I’ve always been grateful to you for that, Morgan. But I was no … no doxy.” Oh, God, why was it so important for him to know that? Why had she had a thousand dreams in which she told him the truth and made him believe her? And always woke up to the fact that dreams were false and Cuf—lying beside her, loving her and loving her child—Cuf was true.

Morgan wanted to argue. He wanted to tell her he’d never held her past to be anything to shame her. But there was so much he didn’t yet understand about his own feelings. And the matter of Vrinck was urgent. He bit back the words and squatted so he could look into the child’s blue eyes. “Clare, tell me when the man asked you about the song. When did he give you the penny?”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember.”

“You must.”

“Clare, tell Mama about the penny. Do you still have it?” The child nodded. “Where is it?”

Clare darted a glance to the hearth. “Under the stone,” she murmured.

Roisin sighed and released her hold on the little girl. “She means here.” She bent and pried up a single brick at the corner where the hearth met the floorboards. “I put a bit of money in there now and again to have it by for an emergency. Clare’s seen me do it. I removed the last coins I had in there three days past. Look.”

She pointed to the scooped-out hollow below the loose brick. The hiding place contained one wooden penny. “Sometime in the last three days, then,” he said. Roisin nodded.

“Thank you, Clare.” He stood up, reached into his pocket, and extracted three copper pennies. “I keep my promises.”

Suddenly shy, the little girl nodded but didn’t look at him, and didn’t stretch out her hand. Morgan allowed the coins to drop into the hiding place beneath the hearth. He considered offering Roisin more—it seemed incumbent on him to do that under the circumstances—but he knew she wouldn’t thank him for it. “About Cuf,” he said instead. “Don’t worry. I shan’t make trouble.”

Morgan knew Petrus Vrinck to be a typical tar. He drank like a fish and did it where he could be with others like him. Morgan visited every slop shop and tavern along the waterfront.

There were dozens. Some he’d never been in—the Pine Apple, the Dog’s Head in the Porridge. Others, like the Dish of Fry’d Oysters, he’d visited once or twice. Still others—the old Blue Horse, the Split Mizzen, the Five Fish on a Spit, and the Fighting Cocks—were places where he’d once been a regular patron.

Everywhere he went he followed the same pattern. He’d put a shilling in the barkeep’s hand and tell him to send the punch bowl on a free round. Morgan followed the bowl, asking the same question of every man who lifted a mug to his health. “I heard that the Dutchman Petrus Vrinck was in town. He sailed with me on the
Maiden.
Have you seen him?”

Many of the sailors said they had, that for a time Vrinck had been a regular. “Bought plenty o’ drinks he did, Cap’n Turner, for all as would sit down with him,” one said. “And asked a few questions besides.”

“What questions?”

“’Bout poor old Tobias Carter, mostly. And any as came drinking with him that last night afore he was killed.”

“And do you know what answers he got?”

“None from me, Cap’n Turner. Never saw old Tobias that night. Leastwise, I don’t remember if I did. Been six years …”

Two days and two nights. Always the same. No sign of Vrinck for nearly a week, they all said. Sick maybe. Had the
mal aria.
Though he’d found that quack Mistress Healsall and she was helping him.

It was close to midnight on the second night when Morgan finally asked the right question. “Must have been expensive for Vrinck to be standing good the drinks for all. Any idea where the money came from?”

“None. ’Course, he’d gone privateering for years ’n’ years. But ain’t been much profit in that lately. As none knows better’n yerself, Cap’n Turner.”

“I do. So where do you think he got the money?”

“Hang on. Old Jack over there, he might know.”

The man called old Jack was summoned to the table, and Morgan bought him a draught of rum. Jack held the tankard in his left hand. His right was missing and had been replaced by a fierce-looking hook. “Be me as sent Vrinck to Mistress Healsall. Helped me a lot she did when this was first done.” He waved the hook in the faces of Morgan and the sailor who’d called him over. “Pain was fierce until she started giving me some o’ her potions to drink. Best quack in the city, is Mistress Healsall. The Dutchman, he be suffering with the shivering sickness. Sent him to see Mistress Healsall, I did. Knowed if anyone could help him she be the one.”

“Does she charge much for her healing?” Morgan thought of Roisin’s little room and her shelves full of cures. She could be a rich woman if she was as good at her trade as she was claimed to be. Obviously that wasn’t her aim. “Where did Vrinck get the money to pay her?”

“Oh, that don’t be a problem with Mistress Healsall. Pays what ye can afford with her. But he was standin’ the cost o’ a mighty lot o’ drinks, Vrinck was. Afore the shivering sickness got bad.”

“Again. Where did the money come from?”

“Can’t say for sure, Cap’n Turner. But first time I mentioned Mistress Healsall, the Dutchman, he said he had a friend what was a regular doctor. Said if it was medicine he needed he could get it fast as could be from this doctor friend. ’Course I said weren’t no point in that. All them doctors does is cup and bleed and purge. If it’s a cure ye wants, somethin’ as will take the pain away, it’s a quack ye needs. And in all New York ain’t none better’n Mistress Healsall.”

It was not yet December, but the first snow of the season had started in earnest. Thick sheets of white obscured the corner of Broad Street and Pearl. Except for the sign swinging over the front door, Morgan could barely make out the redbrick structure that had once been the De Lancey house, called Fraunces Tavern now.

He strode forward. Another man loomed in the blinding snow. They had nearly collided before Morgan saw him. “Andrew! Bloody Savior, what are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same. But I think I can guess. We’re neither of us come to sample the landlord’s punch, are we?”

“No, I expect not. He’s mine, Andrew. Whatever you think of what happened that day, Caleb Devrey’s life belongs to me.”

“Good Christ, man, I’m not… God Almighty, it’s impossible out here. The cold takes your breath away. Come inside.”

Morgan’s cloak was soaked through and his shoulders were thick with snow. Andrew had the barest dusting of white on his collar. That could mean only one thing. “You were leaving, weren’t you?” Morgan asked. “You’ve been here for some time and you’ve already seen Devrey.”

The night was too foul for most men. There were just two drinkers in the tavern, sitting at a table in the far corner nearest the fire. The landlord stood beside them. Andrew pitched his voice low enough so only Morgan could hear. “I’ve seen him.”

“By Christ, Andrew, if you’ve taken it on yourself to end Caleb Devrey’s miserable life, I—”

“I’m not in the killing business. If I were, it’s you I’d want dead.”

“I don’t blame you for thinking what you do about that day at the almshouse. Or about what’s happened to your father. But you’re wrong if you think I had a choice. You can believe me or not.”

“I’ll never believe that.”

Morgan shrugged. “Then blood ties or no, we’ll remain enemies. Not without example in this family, as we both know. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve business upstairs.”

“No,” Andrew said quietly. “You haven’t. Caleb Devrey’s dead. I was on my way to inform Cousin Bede.”

Morgan’s heart began to pound and his bowels churned. “Are you telling me …” The words came out in slow, measured tones, forced beyond the tide of rage that threatened to sweep all words, all reason, away. “After you said you weren’t—”

“I’m telling you only that Caleb Devrey is dead. Get hold of yourself, man. You look as if you’re about to follow him to hell.” Andrew turned. “Landlord! Brandy!”

The drinks came quickly. Morgan gulped his, grateful for the warmth that flooded his belly. Andrew sipped the fiery spirit, studying his cousin over the rim of the goblet. “Better?” he asked after a few seconds.

“If you took what was mine by every right,” Morgan muttered, “by God you’ll pay.”

“How many times must you be told the same thing? I didn’t kill him. I came because Caleb sent for me. Too late, as it turned out. He was dead when I found him.” And truth to tell, Andrew was bitterly disappointed. A man at death’s door, whose problem was quite probably a seepage of blood in the belly—Christ, he would have been justified in trying the transfusion, the way Grandfather had written about it. The way he did it with old Red Bess. From Andrew’s own arm directly into Caleb’s. But he’d been too cursed late.

Andrew glanced toward the landlord. He was eyeing them warily now, obviously afraid of trouble. Probably recognized Morgan, so it was a natural assumption. “I believe it best to tell Cousin Bede before letting Mr. Fraunces here know what’s transpired on his property,” Andrew said, his lips barely moving to form the words.

Ice had replaced the fire raging in Morgan’s belly. “If not you, who killed him?”

“Not who, what.”

“Very well, what?”

“It’s impossible to be certain without performing an anatomy, but my guess is that he had an ulceration of the liver, perhaps the bowel. If I’m right he’ll have been in great pain for some time. I suppose that gives you a degree of satisfaction.”

“Not nearly enough,” Morgan said. “Tell me something, if he’d called for you earlier, would you have treated him, made him well?”