The Providence Rider (15 page)

Enter,” said Captain Falco when eight bells had been struck on the deck above. Matthew had just knocked at the door decorated with the carved face of a lion. He turned the door’s handle and half expected the lion to let out a roar. Then he stepped into the captain’s cabin, where Falco was sitting at a table lighting a clay pipe with a candle’s flame.

“Sit,” came the next invitation, which sounded like a command. Falco blew out a gust of smoke and motioned toward the chair on the other side of the table.

Matthew obeyed. He saw that fish bones littered Falco’s dinner plate, along with the remnants of biscuits and brown gravy. A smaller plate held slices of lime. Also on the table were two wooden cups and a squat “onion”-style bottle of black glass. Matthew had a quick look around at the ship master’s quarters. Situated at the
Nightflyer’
s stern, it had six shuttered windows that, now opened, gave a view of the sea and star-spangled sky. The cabin, however, was not so very much larger than Matthew’s. There was an oak chest of drawers with a mirror and water basin sitting atop it. A writing desk held a gray blotter and a quill pen and inkpot at the ready. A bed—more of a thin-mattressed cot, really—was made up so tautly its brown fabric covering looked to be in agony. Several lanterns hung from hooks in the overhead beams to give light to the captain’s world. Falco smoked his pipe and Matthew smelled the rich, fragrant tang of Virginia tobacco.

“Pour yourself a drink.”

Matthew again obeyed. What flowed from the black bottle and into his cup was a clear, golden liquor.

“Brandy,” said the captain. “I decided to uncork something decent.”

“Thank you.” Matthew took a taste and found it considerably better than decent, but not so strong as to cause the eye-watering reaction he’d been expecting.

“It’s a civilized drink.” Falco poured himself a cupful. “For civilized men. Eh?”

“Yes,” Matthew answered, for Falco seemed to expect a comment.

The captain offered Matthew the plate of lime slices, but Matthew shook his head. Falco chewed one of the slices, rind and all. He had a high, heavily-creased forehead and a widow’s-peak of iron-gray hair. The upper portion of his left ear was missing. Matthew wondered if he’d ever met a swordsman named Dahlgren. In this light Falco’s flesh appeared the hue of the deepest blue-black ink, which made the amber eyes both lighter and more powerful in their unwavering appraisal of his guest.

Falco finished the lime before he spoke again. “What in God’s name have you gotten yourself into?”

The question was so direct it stunned Matthew for a few seconds. “Sir?”

“I don’t repeat myself.” Smoke roiled through the air.

A silence stretched, as one waited and one considered.

At last Matthew said, “I really don’t know yet.”

“You’d best find out in a hurry. Day after tomorrow, we reach Pendulum.”

Matthew wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. He frowned. “Pendulum?”

“Pendulum Island. One of the Bermudas. It belongs to…but you know who it belongs to. Don’t you?”

“I do.”

Falco nodded, the pipe’s stem clenched between his teeth. The eyes had an expression in them both sinister and jovial.
Mocking
,
it might be
, Matthew thought.
Or
carefully curious
. “Are you afraid?” Falco asked.

There was no sense in lying to the lion. “Yes.”

“And you should be. My employer, I understand, is to be feared.”

“You
understand
? You’ve never met him?”

“Never met him. Never seen him. I take my orders from him through Sirki.” The eyes had become heavy-lidded, and smoke swirled between the captain and Matthew. Falco poured himself a drink and removed the pipe from his mouth to take a sip. “I know he…commands many people, and directs many things. Some I’ve heard about, but I have ears that can remain closed when I choose. Also, my mouth can remain closed when need be. Which is most of the time.” Another drink of copious strength went down the hatch, and then the pipe’s stem was returned between the teeth.

“You’re not one of his criminals, then?” It was a daring question, but Matthew felt it was the right thing to ask.

“I am the captain of my ship,” came the measured reply. “How long I wished to be a captain, I cannot tell you. How long I labored for this position, again…a long time. He has given me the
Nightflyer
. He has placed me in the position I desired,” Falco amended. “And pays me what I am worth.”

“To do what, exactly? Sail from where to where?”

“From here to there and everywhere. To ferry passengers and carry cargo and pouches of letters. You see, I’m not like those others.”

“What others?”

Falco spewed smoke in a long stream toward the ceiling. He took another drink. “His other captains. The ones who—” He paused, with his head slightly cocked to one side and his gaze sharp once again. “The ones who do more than ferry passengers,” he finished.

“What more would there be?” Matthew asked, hungry for as much information concerning Professor Fell as he could consume. He reasoned that the more he knew, the stronger his armor.

“More,” said Falco, with a faint and passing smile his eyes did not share. “But I asked you here because I wished to know what your purpose is on Pendulum Island. I wasn’t told. My orders were to expect a passenger.
One
passenger, not three. Then there was some business with the signal lamp, and I saw fires burning in your town. Evidently the gunpowder bombs Sirki brought along in a wooden crate were put to use. I chose not to know anything further.”

“But you’re curious about my reason for being here?” Matthew prodded. “Why is that?”

Falco drew in more smoke and released it. He drank again before he answered. “You are out of place here. You are not…” He hesitated, hunting the rest of what he was trying to express. “The type I usually see,” he said. “Far from it. And the young girl and the Ga warrior? They shouldn’t be here. I can’t understand this picture I’m seeing. You stood up to that woman in the brig. And you stood up to her for the right reason.
My
friends
, you said. You see, this is what puzzles me: the kind of person I ferry for my employer
has
no friends, young man. To risk
anything
for anyone else…well, I’ve never seen that happen before on this ship. So I have to wonder…what in God’s name have you gotten yourself into?”

Matthew pondered the question. His reply was, “I’m a problem-solver. I’ve been summoned by Professor Fell to solve a problem for him. Do you have any idea what that might be?”

“No. And why would I? I keep out of his business.” Falco nodded at some inner comment he’d made to himself. “There. You see? I knew you were different. You’re not of his world, if you get my meaning. But take care that his world doesn’t get into you, because there’s a lot of money in it.”

“Dirty money, to be sure.”

“Clean or dirty, it buys what you please
when
you please. It’ll buy me a ship of my own one day. I’ll start my own cargo business. That’s what I’m in it for.”

“A reasonable plan,” said Matthew. He decided to try again at a question he wanted answered: “What do the other captains do? Besides ferrying passengers?”

For a time Falco did not answer, instead relighting his pipe from the candleflame. Matthew thought the question was going to go unheeded, and then Falco said, “There are four others. A very nice fleet, the professor has. The other ships carry cannons, which I have said I will not do. I want a clean and fast ship, unburdened by that heavy iron. But the others are also in the business of taking prizes on the high seas.”

“Pirates?”

“They fly no flag,” Falco corrected. “They are in the professor’s employ.”

This scheme was becoming clearer to Matthew, and the picture fascinated him. “So the professor gets a major portion of the prize for affording these…um…other captains a safe harbor?”

“As I said, he pays well. And lately the prizes have been something he obviously finds of great value.”

“What? Treasure boxes of gold coins?”

“Not at all.” Falco drew on his pipe and the blue-tinged Virginia fumes rolled from a corner of his mouth. “In the past few months the professor has been interested in ships carrying loads of sugar from the Caribbean.”

“Sugar?”
Matthew had to sit back in his chair on that one, for he’d had the image of Solomon Tully having a temper fit on the Great Dock, and asking the question of Matthew and Hudson Greathouse:
What kind of pirate is it that steals a cargo of sugar but leaves everything else untouched?

The third shipment in as many months,
Tully had moaned in his disconsolate agony of lost commerce
. And I’m not the only one affected by this either! It’s happened to Micah Bergman in Philadelphia and the brothers Pallister in Charles Town!

Professor Fell at work, Matthew thought. Sending his captains out to the trade routes to intercept the sugar boats.

“Why?”
Matthew asked, through the smoke that hung in layers between himself and Captain Falco.

“I have no idea. I only know the sugar is brought into that harbor on the northernmost point and taken away in wagons.” He offered Matthew a thin smile that looked like a razor cut. “Possibly this is also of interest to a problem-solver?”

Matthew remembered something else Solomon Tully had said, that cold day there on the Great Dock:
There’s something wicked afoot with this constant stealing of sugar! I don’t know where it’s going, or why, and it troubles me no end! Haven’t you two ever faced something you
had
to know, and it was just grinding your guts to
find out?

Looking across the table at Jerrell Falco, Matthew realized the
Nightflyer
’s captain was also troubled by this unanswered question. Perhaps Falco had sensed a change in the wind, or a shift in the direction of his life toward darker and deeper currents.

And, perhaps, he had decided…far down in his soul, where every man lived…that he didn’t wish to go there.

He was asking Matthew to find out what was happening to the sugar. Because he too, like Solomon Tully, was confronted with something he felt had to be tinged with evil, and if Professor Fell desired shipload after shipload of it…was there any doubt?

“I may look into it,” said Matthew.

“As you please,” said the captain. “With one eye forward and one eye behind, I trust?”

“Always,” Matthew answered.

“Finish your drink,” Falco advised. “Take a slice of lime if you like.”

Matthew drank the rest of the very good brandy. He chose a slice of lime and, like the captain, chewed it down rind and all. Then, realizing he was being dismissed, he stood up from his chair and said goodnight.

“Goodnight, Mr. Corbett,” Falco answered, behind his swirling screen of smoke. “I do hope you solve the problems facing you.”

Matthew nodded. It was a sincere wish, and certainly Matthew shared it. He left the cabin and walked back along the corridor to his own little room on the sea.

Upon opening the door, he found three people waiting for him by the light of the hanging lanterns. Sirki and Jonathan Gentry occupied chairs in his chamber, while Aria Chillany lounged on the edge of the bed. They were sitting as if waiting for a concert or theater program to begin, and the show being a bit late Doctor Gentry was playing a solitaire version of cat’s-cradle with string between his fingers. The giant Sirki stood up, tall and dignified in his white turban and robes, as Matthew entered the room, and the madam pursed her lips and seemed to stretch her legs out a little as if to trip Matthew as he passed.

Matthew only needed a few seconds to compose himself, though seeing these three in his room had given him a severe jolt. “Good evening,” he said, his face expressionless. No need to let them see any hint of nerves. Nathan Spade surely wouldn’t have broken a sweat. “Making yourselves comfortable?” He closed the door at his back, a further sign of confidence he did not entirely embrace.

“Yes,” Sirki said to the question. “Very. So good to see you. I presume you’ve been walking the deck?”

“I fear there’s not much else to do for amusement aboard this ship. I’ve finished the books.”

“Ah.” Sirki nodded. Matthew felt the eyes of the other two on him. “Amusement,” Sirki repeated, in a dry voice. “We are here just in time, it seems, to amuse you. Also to
instruct
. We shall be reaching our…will you
stop
that?” Sirki had shot a glare at Gentry, who was still playing with his cat’s-cradle. The hands went down into Gentry’s lap, while the doctor’s mouth crimped with sullen indignation. To further the indignity, Madam Chillany gave a hard little laugh that sounded like clippers snipping off a pair of balls.

Matthew thought that the sea voyage was wearing on his hosts just as it wore on himself. He crossed to his dresser and poured himself a cup of fresh water from the pitcher there. Would Nathan Spade offer his guests a drink? No.

Sirki softly cleared his throat before he spoke again. “Have you been smoking?”

Matthew waited until he’d finished his water, taking leisurely sips in order to prepare his mind. He didn’t really want these three to know he’d been talking to Captain Falco, in case they decided to find out exactly
why
Falco had summoned him. Falco’s sudden discovery of curiosity and, perhaps, a desire to know the depth of his employer’s evil would not go well for him with this triad of terror-makers. Matthew asked, “Excuse me?”

“Smoking.” Sirki came upon him, nostrils flared. “I smell tobacco smoke on you.”

“Hm,” said Matthew, with raised brows. “I suppose I walked through a cloud or two.”

“On deck? It seems a windy night for smoke clouds.”

“It seems,” Matthew said, meeting Sirki’s dark stare with as much willpower and steadiness as he could find in an otherwise trembly soul, “windy in
here
. What’s this about?”

“For fuck’s sake!” squalled the woman, reduced to her true sensibilities due to either the buzz of snoring in her ears or the noxious aromas of her cabin companion. “Tell him!”