The Providence Rider (25 page)

“Get her, Austin!” came the shouted command, but it was already well to Berry’s back. She was going through the underbrush as if her own hair was aflame. A stumble over a pod of cactus plants was not a pleasant experience, but she sucked in her breath and swallowed the pain and kept running for all she was worth, which felt at the moment like a wooden shilling. When she dared to look back she saw in the silver moonlight Austin—half-haired and sweat-faced—still after her, his torch having been lost to hand in the initial skirmish. As he lunged forward to grab at her Berry changed direction like a skittering rabbit. She heard a grunt as his feet slid one way and his body careened in another, and there was a solid and satisfying
thud
as Austin hit the ground.

Berry ran for her life, or at least her freedom. She tore through vines and thorns and disturbed beams of moonlight with her running shadow. A look behind showed her no one following…yet. She didn’t slow down. God help Zed, she thought, for she could not.

She came out of the woods onto another road. To her right, a torch was visible with a man underneath it, running in her direction. The light glinted off a sword. She ran along the road, her breath coming hard and fast and the sweat standing out on her cheeks. In another few yards a cart trail led off to the right through the brush, and this she took without hesitation, feeling she was safer amid the trees. She followed the trail further on, and saw by the moonlight several houses of white stone standing ahead.

A shout caught her attention. Two torches were coming from behind. Berry ran to the first house and banged furiously at the front door. There was no response or lamplight from within. The torches were getting closer. She had a few seconds to decide whether to run for the woods again or try the door of the second house. It was a near thing, but she went to the door. A hammering this time awakened a light that moved past a window. There was not much time; the two men approaching were almost within sight. Then a bolt was drawn, the door opened a crack and a lamp was thrust into Berry’s face.

“Help me,” she gasped. “Please!”

There was a pause that seemed to stretch for a hundred years. “What’re you
doing
out here?”

That voice. She recognized its deep, commanding resonance.

The door opened wider and the lamplight revealed the ebony, white-goateed face of Captain Jerrell Falco. The amber eyes were ablaze in the yellow light. They moved to take in the two torches coming along the trail.

“Please,”
Berry said. “They’re after me.”

“So they are,” Falco replied, without a shred of emotion. He stared at her as if to ask why he should help. But then his mouth crimped, he blinked as if someone had slapped sense into his soul, and he said, “Get in here.”

Berry entered the house like a sliding shadow. Falco reached past her, closed the door and bolted it. A movement to her left startled Berry, and when she looked in that direction she saw a young cream-colored woman in a yellow gown holding a baby in her arms.

“Saffron,” Falco said, “take the child into the bedroom.” The girl instantly obeyed. Another small candle was burning in the room she had entered. Falco positioned himself between Berry and the front door. “Go back in there and stand in a corner out of sight,” he told her. “Go on.
Now
.”

The voice was made to give orders. Berry went into the bedroom, a small but tidy place with pale blue walls, a clean bed, a crib for the baby, a writing desk and a couple of cheap but sturdy chairs. Berry took a position with her back in a corner, while Saffron rocked the baby and stared at her with huge chocolate-colored eyes.

Falco’s candlelight was blown out. Berry knew he must be standing in the dark, waiting for the insistent knock upon the door. A half-minute stretched, and then a full minute. The baby began to cry, a soft mewling sound, but Saffron crooned quietly to it and the crying ceased. Saffron’s eyes never stopped examining Berry Grigsby.

Another thirty seconds passed. Saffron whispered, “You runnin’ from them men?”

“Yes,” Berry answered, supposing ‘them men’ were the same who chased her.

“Go in them woods? Where they be?”

“Yes.”

“Quiet,”
said Falco, in a low murmur.

“Them woods is death,” Saffron told her. “That road, too. You go in there, you doan come out.”

“Why?” Berry asked, recalling how the men had converged on Zed. “What’s in there?”

“Somethin’ ain’t healthy to know,” Saffron answered, and that was all.

Falco came into the room. In this low light he looked very old, and very weary. “I believe they’ve passed by,” he said. “But they might yet start knocking on doors. Did anyone else see you?” Berry shook her head. “Good. Where’s the Ga? They take him?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. You wouldn’t have come out here alone. Miss, you should have stayed in the village. Are you so eager to be…” He stopped, measuring his words against his tongue and teeth.

“To be
what
?” she prompted.

“Made to vanish?” he asked, with a lift of his unruly gray brows. “As some curious cats have vanished before you?”

Berry swallowed. She had to ask the next question. “What will they do with Zed?”

“Whatever they wish. That’s no longer your concern, if you care to keep your skin.” Falco took one of the two pillows from the bed and tossed it to the floor. “Sleep there,” he said. “The men might come back with their dogs. If so…we shall see.” He stretched out upon the bed, his hands folded back behind his head. Saffron lay the baby in the crib and curled herself up alongside the
Nightflyer
’s captain.

Berry lay down on the floor and rested her head on the pillow. Sleep would be impossible, but this was the best place to hide. Lying on her back, she stared up at the ceiling and saw in it the small cracks that meant Pendulum’s movements were felt here as well.

“Thank you,” she offered, in a voice strained from the night’s events.

Someone blew out the candle, and from the dark there was no answer.

Matthew was ready and waiting, dressed in his charcoal-gray suit with thin stripes in a lighter gray hue. The suit was a bit tighter than it had been before being immersed in salt water, but Matthew still wore it well. When the knock came at the door this bright and sunny hour, Matthew was quick to open it for he knew who was behind the fist.

“Good morning,” said Sirki, with a slight nod of his turbanned head. Today the East Indian giant wore his white robes, spotless as new snow. A glimpse of diamond-studded front teeth sparkled. “You are well, I presume?”

“Very well,” said Matthew, attempting lightness but finding it a heavy effort. “And you?” As well as can be expected, Matthew thought, for someone who delights in severing heads from their bodies.

“I am instructed,” the giant replied, “to pay you.” He offered a brown leather pouch tied with a cord. “Three hundred pounds in gold coins, I am told. A very sizeable sum, and one you may keep whatever your decision may be regarding the professor’s problem.”

“Hm,” Matthew answered. He took the pouch; it was richly heavy. He noted the red wax seal that secured the cord, and the octopus symbol of the professor’s ambition embossed upon it. He moved the pouch back and forth next to his right ear to hear the coins clink together. “I have questions for you before I decide,” he said firmly. “Will you answer them?”

“I will do my best.”

Matthew decided not to tell Sirki about his dream last night, in the midst of his troubled sleep. In the dream, which was fogged at the edges with phantasmagoria, the gasping head of Jonathan Gentry had rolled along the bloody table and fallen into his lap, and there the twisted mouth had rasped three words that Matthew now repeated to Sirki.

“Finances. Weapons. Spain.” Matthew had gotten out of his bed and walked back and forth upon the balcony in the cool hour before dawn until his perception of the matter had cleared. “Those are the realms of the three men involved. I am assuming, then, that the Royal Navy intercepted a cargo of weapons meant to be handed over to the Spanish, in return for a large sum of finances to the professor?”

“Your assumption may be correct,” said the giant, with an expressionless face and voice that likewise revealed nothing. “I think,” he added, “I might enter your room instead of having this discussion in the hallway.” When Sirki came into the room, Matthew backed cautiously away from him, reasoning that the evil sawtoothed knife was somewhere near at hand. Sirki closed the door and planted himself like an Indian ironwood tree. “Now,” he said, “I will entertain more of your assumptions.”

“Thank you.” A small bow completed the charade of manners. “I’m thinking, then, that Professor Fell is supplying some kind of new weapon to the Spanish? And he plans to sell the same weapon to Britain as soon as Spain puts it into full production?
And
there are other countries he plans to see this weapon to?”

“Possibly correct,” said Sirki.

“But someone informed the authorities, and the first shipment was waylaid on the high seas? What’s the weapon, Sirki?”

“I am not allowed,” came the reply.

“All right, then.” Matthew nodded calmly; he’d been prepared for this. “The professor believes one man of three is the traitor. Is it possible there could be
two
traitors among the three, working together?”

“A point well taken. The professor has already considered this possibility and wished you to reach it at your own opportunity.”

“So the evidence Professor Fell is looking for may be some signal or message exchanged between the two, if indeed there
are
two?”

“That may be so.”

Matthew placed the pouch of gold coins upon the writing desk. He was loathe to turn his back upon Sirki, even though he trusted that today he might keep his head. Through the louvered doors that led to the balcony he could hear the shrill cries of gulls and the hammerbeat of the waves below the castle’s cliff. It was going to be a warm day, a world away from New York. He devoutly wished he were walking on snowclad streets, his hand in Berry’s to guide her away from trouble.

“Professor Fell,” Matthew said after some consideration, “puts me in the position of being a traitor myself. A traitor to my country,” he said, with a quick glance at the giant. “As I understand this, the professor is selling weaponry to England’s enemies, with the expectation that England will also have to buy the devices to keep their armories current. The so-called traitor…or
traitors
, perhaps…are actually working, whether they intend to or not, for the good of England. Therefore to expose them, I also become a traitor to my country. Is that not so?” Now Matthew directed a cold stare at Sirki, awaiting a response.

Sirki didn’t answer for a time. Then he said, with a shrug of his shoulders, “Money is money. Sometimes it buys patriots, and sometimes it buys traitors. Do not mislead yourself, Matthew. Both breeds of men walk the halls of Parliament. They sit in luxury and sip their wine while underneath their English wigs the worms of greed eat into their brains. But let us not use the word
greed
. Let us say…
opportunity
. That is the grease of all the great wheels that turn this world, Matthew. And I shall tell you that here you face the greatest opportunity of your life, if you take it with both hands.”

“My hands should not be so covered with English blood,” Matthew countered.

“But
someone’s
hands shall be,” said Sirki, in his silky way. “The professor is offering you many…incentives, I understand. He also wishes to see how you react under pressure.”

“I float,” Matthew said.

“He hopes that is so. He wishes you to float to a good conclusion here. One that benefits himself and yourself. You have no idea what he can do for you, if he perceives you are worthy.”

“Worthy to him, and unworthy to myself?”

Sirki smiled thinly, and almost sadly. “Oh, Matthew. What you don’t know of this world might fill the professor’s library ten times over.”

“Does he write all the books himself? And sign his name as ‘God’?”

Sirki for a time stared at the chessboard floor without speaking. When his voice came, it was no longer silky but edged with sawteeth like his blade. “Shall I tell the professor you are accepting or rejecting the problem to be solved?”

Now came time for Matthew’s move. He saw no way to get his knight to safety; it was going to be a hard sacrifice, but one that might yet win the game for him if he had further stomach for the playing.

“Accepting,” Matthew said.

“Very good. He will be pleased to know.” Sirki put his hand on the door’s knob, engulfing it with his grip. Matthew thought the giant could pull the door from its hinges with that one hand, if he pleased. Sirki opened the door, however, with a gentle touch. “I trust you will enjoy this day to its fullest,” he said.

The meaning of that was
get to work
, Matthew thought.

“Speaking of the professor’s library,” Sirki said, pausing on the threshold. “It’s on the third floor. You might be interested in visiting it, since it holds volumes you might find intriguing, and especially since I saw Edgar Smythe going up the stairs.”

“Your direction is appreciated,” said Matthew.

Sirki closed the door, and their discussion for the moment was finished.

Matthew reasoned that there was no time to lose. He had no idea how he was going to approach Edgar Smythe, the scowling weapons expert, but he decided to let that take care of itself. He left his room, locked the door, went to the main staircase and climbed it to the upper floor.

A pair of polished doors made from pale oakwood opened onto a room that nearly made Matthew’s knees buckle. It was filled with shelves of books almost from the smoothly-planked floor to the vaulted ceiling. Above his head, as per the banquet room, were painted clouds and watchful cherubs. The smell of the room was, to Matthew, the delicious and fragrantly yeasty aroma of volumes of ideas, considerations and commentary. There would be enough in here to keep his candle lit for years. He actually felt his heartbeat quickening, in the presence of so much treasure. Three hundred pounds be damned; this abundance of knowledge was the gold he truly sought. He saw across the room louvered doors that must lead to a balcony, and on either side of the doors heavy wine-red drapes with yellow tie cords were drawn across windows overlooking the sea. The library held several black leather chairs and a sofa, a table bearing bottles of what appeared to be wine and spirits for the further delight of the bibliophile, and an expansive white writing desk with a green blotter. Sitting at the desk, evidently copying something down from a slim volume onto yellow parchment with a quill pen, was Edgar Smythe, his gray-bearded and heavily-lined face absorbed in his task. He was once more wearing his ebony-black suit and white shirt—perhaps he owned a half-dozen of the exact same suit, Matthew mused—and between Smythe’s teeth was a clay pipe that showed a thin curl of smoke the color of the sea’s waves at first light.

Matthew approached the man, stopped and cleared his throat. Smythe kept right on copying something from tome to parchment. From time to time the quill went into an ink bottle, and then returned to its industrious work.

“Are you wanting something, Mr. Spade?” Smythe asked suddenly around his pipe, without interruption of his labor. The voice was as harsh as yesterday’s murder.

“Not particularly.” Matthew stepped nearer. “I wanted to have a look at the library.”

“Look all you please,” Smythe instructed. Whatever he was copying, there was no attempt to hide the effort. “But…refrain from peering over my shoulder, would you?”

“Certainly, sir.” Having said this, however, Matthew made no move to back away. “I
was
wondering, though, about something I hoped you might help me with.”

“I can’t help you with anything.”

“That might not be exactly true.” Matthew took one more step closer, which put him nearly at Smythe’s elbow. In for a penny, in for a pound, Matthew thought. He said, “I was hoping you might explain to me about the Cymbeline.”

The quill ceased its scratching. Matthew noted that the parchment was almost full of small but neat lines of writing, and that there were several other blank pages ready for use in the same way. Smythe’s face turned and the somber gray eyes fixed on Matthew with some force. “Pardon me?”

“Cymbeline,” Matthew repeated. “I’d like to hear about it.”

Smythe sat stock-still for what seemed a full minute. Presently he slid his quill onto its rest and removed the pipe from its clenched-teeth grip. “
Cymbeline
,” he said quietly, “is a play.” He held up the volume, and stamped there upon its dark brown binding were the gold letters
The Tragedie Of
Cymbeline, Five Acts By William Shakespeare
. “Shall I read you a scrap of what I’ve written here?” He went on without waiting.
“Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, Nor the furious winter rages; Thou thy worldly task has done, Home art gone and ta’en thy wages; Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers, come to dust.”
Smythe looked up from his parchment. “Would you care for more?”

“A recitation upon death? No, thank you.”

“Not just any recitation, Mr. Spade, but a grand affirmation of death. I am a great admirer of Shakespeare’s plays, sir. I am a great admirer of his mind and his voice, which unfortunately I only hear in my imagination.” He placed the volume down upon the desk again and drew a pull from his pipe. “This is how I’ve been keeping myself
sane
on this bloody island, sir. I have been dutifully copying passages from Shakespeare’s plays, of which the professor thankfully has a full set. Waiting for
you
to arrive has been a strain on all of us. Therefore…this little diversion of mine, which serves to heighten my appreciation of the master’s work. Do you have any complaint you’d care to commit to the air?”

“None.” Matthew was desperately trying to mask his confusion. Of course
Cymbeline
was a play, about the trials and tribulations of a British king—Cymbeline—possibly based on legends of the real-life British king Cunobelinus. But what this had to do with the professor’s problem, or the matter of the new weapon, Matthew had no clue. He decided he had better quit cutting bait and start to fish. “I’m presuming that’s the code name for the new device the professor has created?”

“Device? What are you talking about?”

“The new
weapon
,” Matthew said. “Which he is intent upon selling to Spain, and which was seized at sea by the British Navy.” He decided to add, “Due to Gentry’s influence.”

The pipe’s bowl spiralled its fumes. “Young man,” said the gravel-bottomed voice, “you are wandering into dangerous territory. You know that our businesses should be kept separate, by
his
order. I don’t wish to know anything about your use of whores to spear state secrets, and your desire to know about the Cymbeline is ill-met.”

Matthew shrugged but held his ground. “I’m curious by nature. And my curiosity has been sharpened after that pretty scene last night. I’m just wishing to know why it’s
called
Cymbeline.”

“Really? And who told you that Cymbeline is a weapon?”

“Sirki did,” Matthew said. “In response to my questions.”

“He also told you the first shipment to Spain was captured at sea?”

“He did.” Matthew thought that Nathan Spade was a very accomplished liar.

“What’s his game, then?” Smythe frowned; he had once been a handsome man in his youth, but now he was just harsh and ugly.

“Did he tell me untruths?”

“No,” Smythe said. “But he’s violating the professor’s decree. Why is that?”

“You might ask him yourself,” Matthew suggested, ever the gentleman.

Edgar Smythe smoked his pipe in contemplation of that remark, and when he was wreathed by the blue fumes he seemed to diminish in size and let any idea of confronting the East Indian killer slip away like the very essence of tobacco now floating toward the louvered doors. “You are incorrect,” he finally said, in a doomsday voice.