The Providence Rider (39 page)

Falco reached into a pocket. He opened his hand. “These. They’re very fine diamonds.”

Matthew realized what Zed had picked up from the dungeon floor as the castle was crashing down. Not a single object, but two. Sirki’s front teeth were larger in Falco’s palm than they’d appeared in the giant’s mouth, and so too were the sparkling diamonds larger.

“I’ll be damned,” Matthew had to say.

“Damned by
one
, at least,” Falco corrected. He returned the teeth to his pocket and clenched his own teeth around the pipe’s stem. “You’ll be foremost in his mind. Mark that.”

“I do mark it.”

“I intend to find a house and leave Saffron and Isaac here. I hope you’ll look in on them from time to time.”

Matthew nodded. He’d only learned that Isaac was the child’s name when they were several days at sea. “I don’t believe I told you, but I knew a great man named Isaac,” he said.

“Let us hope my Isaac grows up to be great. Well…I trust you will make good on your promise to held me find a position carrying cargo when I return?”

“I’ll make good.”

“I somehow knew you would say that.” Falco reached his hand out, and Matthew took it. “I also know, Matthew, that you and I are tied together by the bonds of Fate. Don’t ask me how I know this. Call it…knowing which way the wind blows.” And so saying, he blew a small white spout of Virginia’s finest that was caught by the soft April breeze and carried out over the sea.

Matthew walked forward to where Zed was standing motionless, as he must have sometimes stood watching the life of New York pass by from the rooftop of City Hall. When Zed realized Matthew was there, he instantly turned himself toward his visitor. Matthew thought that, whether at war or at peace, the Ga was a fearsome sight. But there was nothing to fear now. At least for a while, the war was over. And…perhaps…Zed’s long life of peace was soon to begin.

“You’ve saved my life more than once,” Matthew told him. “You probably can’t understand me, but I thank you for your…um…
presence
. I’m sure Berry won’t let you leave without speaking, and neither will McCaggers. I wish you good fortune, Zed.” Matthew thought it was peculiar, that he would never know this man’s real name. And also, in a way, terribly sad. He held out his hand.

Zed took a step forward. His mouth opened. He tried to speak. He tried very hard. He squeezed his eyes shut to try to make the stub of his tongue form a word. His face contorted. But for all his strength, he had not the power to utter a single syllable. His eyes opened. He took Matthew’s hand in a grip that tightened just to the point of breakage. Then he put a finger beside his left eye and drew that finger out along a line until it pointed at Matthew.

I’ll be watching you
, he said.

And somehow Matthew was sure of that. Even at a distance from here to Africa. If anyone could cast their eye across a sea, to view a world left behind and those left in it, Zed could.

“Goodbye,” Matthew said, and when he left the
Nightflyer
Zed was still standing at the bow, silently regarding what he was leaving and ready perhaps to take the daring flight into his future.

Matthew was on his way home along Queen Street, thankful to have gotten through the throng and all the well-wishers, when a voice called, “Matthew! My God, there you are!”

He paused to look behind. Of course Matthew had instantly recognized the voice. Effrem Owles, tall and gangly, with his large round eyes behind his spectacles and though only at twenty years of age the premature gray streaking his brown hair. As befitted the tailor’s son, he wore a very nice tan-colored suit. But here was the rub: Matthew felt a pang of guilt as Effrem approached. Though Effrem smiled as if the entire world was his thread and needle, Matthew knew he must still be in great pain. After all, the family business had been destroyed by Professor Fell’s Cymbeline bombs. And, truth be told, Matthew felt responsible for that catastrophe because he had resisted the professor’s will.

“I heard you and Berry had arrived! I thought I’d get there to see you, but…”

“But here you are now,” said Matthew, and he clapped his friend on the shoulder. “You look fine, Effrem. How’s your father?”

“He’s very good, Matthew. But where have you been for so long? I understood you were in the hospital that night, and then you just vanished?”

“A long story. One I’ll keep for some other time. All right?”

“Of course. I won’t press you.” They began walking together, side by side and north along Queen Street. After a moment Effrem said, “I suppose you haven’t heard, then?”

“Heard what?”

“The news, Matthew! Oh, how
could
you have heard? Come with me, won’t you?”

“Come with you where?”

“To the shop! I want to show you!”

Effrem started striding away, and Matthew followed. They were heading toward the corner of Crown and Smith streets. A fateful corner, Matthew thought. It was where the Owles’ tailor shop had stood, before it had been blown into burning bits. The pang of guilt became stronger. Matthew faltered. He wasn’t sure he could go on.

“Keep walking, Matthew!” Effrem urged. He stopped to wait for his friend and for a haywagon to trundle past. “I know you must be tired, but I want to show you—”

“Effrem,” said Matthew. “I do remember. All right? I know what happened to your father’s shop. I’m so very sorry, and I hope you don’t hold it against me. Now…there’s no need for you to take me to the ruins. I will do whatever I can to—”

“The
ruins
?” Effrem’s eyes had widened. “Oh no, Matthew! Not ruins! Come on, it’s not much further! Please!” He grabbed at Matthew’s sleeve to pull him along.

They came in sight of the corner, and there Matthew stopped as if he’d run into a stone wall.

Not ruins.

A new tailor shop, built with sturdy red bricks and a coppered roof. Matthew got himself moving again, and as he neared the beautiful place he saw painted along the bottom of the glass window in front:
Effrem Owles, Master Tailor
. And below that,
Benjamin
Owles, Consulting Tailor
.

“I have the shop now,” said Effrem proudly, and he did puff his chest out a little. Then he waved at someone and called, “Here he is! I found him!”

Matthew saw a slim young woman approaching. She was dressed simply and elegantly, in a dark blue gown and a hat the same. She had jet-black hair, and she was quite the lovely. She walked with a purpose, and her purpose was to reach Effrem Owles by the fastest possible route. Thus she gave Effrem a smile that shamed the April sun, and he returned that smile, and by those obvious clues it did not take a problem-solver to deduce that love bloomed eternal and between the least likely couples.

“Hello, Opal,” said Matthew.

“’lo, Matthew,” she said, but she was all eyes for her owl. “We heard you got back. Effrem went runnin’.”

“Missed him at the dock, though. Had to catch up.”

“I’d like to be
caught
up.” Matthew regarded the new tailor shop. “Built so strongly, and so quickly! It must have cost a pretty penny!” He had to ask the next question: “Your father had enough money to rebuild?”

“No, he didn’t,” Effrem answered. “But…that was before.”

“Before what?”

Effrem looked at Opal. “Go ahead, tell him.”

She scruffed the street with a shoe. She shrugged. “Just a
thing
, it was. I mean, it didn’t mean
nothin’
to me. So I thought…y’know…somebody could get some good from it.”

“Will you speak sense, please?” Matthew urged.

She lifted her face and peered up at him with her very bright blue eyes. “The ring you gave me. With the red stone. Turned out it was the nicest ruby the jewel buyer ever seen.”

Matthew made the sound of a man being punched in the stomach by a baby’s fist:
“Oh.”

The ring from Tyranthus Slaughter’s treasure box. Presented to Opal for her good deed in helping Matthew uncover Lyra Sutch’s plot, back in October. Matthew thought that knowing he had been responsible for such a kindness as this would have made Slaughter’s bones writhe in the grave.

“That is wonderful,” said Matthew.

“
She
is wonderful,” Effrem corrected. He put his arm around her shoulders, she put her arm around his waist, and suddenly Matthew felt like he needed to put his arm around a crate of wine bottles and drink to good deeds, good luck, good fortune, and the goodness of love.

Effrem excused himself from Opal for a moment while he walked with Matthew back to Queen Street. “Listen,” Effrem said quietly, though the street was certainly not crowded. “About
Berry
.”

“What about her?”

“I am out of her picture. Yes, I do believe she fancied me. But Matthew, I can’t be courting
two
ladies!”

“No, it would be unseemly,” Matthew agreed.

“Correct! So…if she asks about me, or says anything…would you be the one to tell her that I am walking the serious road with Opal?”

“The serious road?” Matthew didn’t wait for an explanation, nor did he need it. “I certainly will be the one to tell her, if she asks.”

“Thank you!” Now it was Effrem’s turn to clap Matthew on the shoulder. “My God, isn’t it splendid?”

“Isn’t what splendid?”

Effrem looked at Matthew as if he had just arrived from another world. “To be alive!” he said, with a broad and giddy grin. “She’s waiting for me, and we’re going to Deverick’s place for coffee. See you soon at the Trot?” He had already started walking in the opposite direction.

“Soon,” Matthew promised, with a smile that was neither so broad nor so giddy but quite as meaningful, and then the two friends who thought it was so very splendid to be alive continued on their separate paths.

As they waited at the table in Sally Almond’s tavern for the person who was coming, Matthew scanned the blackboard upon which was chalked the evening’s specialities. Two fish dishes, one chicken, one beef and one pork. One of the fish dishes interested him, but he decided to drink his glass of red wine and think about it before ordering.

“To all present,” said Hudson, lifting his own glass.

He was answered by Matthew raising his glass, and by Minx Cutter raising hers. They drank, and then they listened to the strolling musician play her mandore and sing “Go No More A-Rushing” in a sultry alto voice.

There was no rushing to be done this night. It was the last week of May, which had prompted someone to request the song, its first line being “Go no more a-rushing, maids in May.” A rain shower had passed through this morning, but the earth needed its blessing. Everything was normal in New York, which meant anything could be expected at any time, from a group of Indians stalking along the Broad Way to a hog wagon breaking down and the hogs leading a merry chase along the length of Wall Street. Matthew had shaved. He had purchased a new suit from Effrem. It was cream-colored with a dark brown waistcoat. He had on new brown boots and a new, crisp white shirt. He was dressed his best in honor of the person who would be joining them, she’d said in her letter, at half past seven. According to the tavern’s clock, she would arrive in eight minutes.

“Another toast?” asked Hudson, this time with a glint of mischief in his eyes. He waited for the glasses to be raised. “To those who have tasted the grapes of crime, and found them bitter.”

Minx drank. “But sometimes,” she said as she put her glass down, “the most bitter grapes make the sweetest wine.”

“Ah ha! But yet…sweet wine can poison, the same as bitter.”

“True, but what may be sweet to me may be bitter to you.”

“Yes, and what you may drink of poison may be pleasure to me.”

“Gentleman and lady?” Matthew said. “Shut up.” They ceased their verbal joustings as if suddenly remembering he was sitting between them. Minx shifted in her chair. Her face was placid. She showed no emotion but surely she was nervous, Matthew thought. This was a momentous night for Lady Cutter. This was the night she had bought with her aid to Matthew on Pendulum Island. This was, truly, the first night of the rest of her life. The clock ticked on, and Matthew noted that Minx glanced at the progress of its hands and drank without waiting for a toast. “Very well, Mr. Corbett,” Lord Cornbury had said that morning in April, two days after Matthew had arrived home. “Begin, please.” And thus Matthew
had
begun, telling the green-gowned governor, the purple-suited High Constable, and the regular-clothed Chief Prosecutor everything there was to tell, from start to finish. He of course had to mention Mrs. Sutch’s sausages as background, and Prosecutor Bynes had had to excuse himself and rush from the office for it seemed he and his wife had been great partakers of that particular meat product. Matthew had told his listeners about the false Mallorys, Sirki, the bombs being set off in his name, the abduction of Berry, the voyage to Pendulum Island, the Cymbeline works…all of it.

And everything also that he knew of Professor Fell, and the fact that the professor had escaped on a vessel called
Temple’s Revenge
and a letter might be sent to the authorities in London to begin a search for that ship.

When he was finished Matthew asked for a glass of water, and to his credit Lillehorne went out and returned a short time later with a glass and a pitcher full of water freshly-drawn from the nearest well. Then Lillehorne had sat down in the corner seat he’d occupied and he and Lord Cornbury had stared at each other seemingly for a minute, neither one moving, as if to ask each other if they believed what they’d heard.

“Thank you, Mr. Corbett,” the ladyish Lord had said at last. He didn’t seem to want to lift his green-shaded gaze from his desk. “You may go now.”

Matthew had stood up. “You might at least send a letter requesting that Frederick Nash be investigated. Also the money changer Andrew Halverston.”

“Yes. Noted, thank you.”

“I would think this is of vital importance, gentlemen.” He used that word lightly. “There is a warehouse somewhere in London that may still be stocked with the Cymbeline. The professor may yet intend to sell that powder to a foreign army…or, it might just be sparked into an explosion that would level the buildings around it and kill many—”

“Noted,” Cornbury had interrupted. “Thank you for your presence and your time, and you are free to go.”

Matthew had looked to Lillehorne for some kind of support. The High Constable had repeated it: “Free to go.”

Berry had been waiting for him outside the governor’s mansion, beneath a shady oak, in case they had also needed her testimony. “Didn’t they believe you?” she asked as they walked toward the Broad Way. Today she was a festival of colors, a veritable walking bouquet of April flowers from her pink stockings to her darker violet gown to her red throat ribbon to her white straw hat to the puff of yellow buds that adorned it.

“I think they believed me, all right. I just think they’re overwhelmed. They don’t know what to do with the information.” He gave her a wry glance. “I don’t think they want to get themselves
involved
.”

Berry frowned. “But…that seems against the spirit of the town!”

“I agree. They have the facts. What they do with them now is their business.” He stepped back for a passing team of oxen pulling a lumber wagon, also bound for the Broad Way. The carriages and wagons were thick up there, in the area of Trinity Church. So much traffic, some kind of regulation was soon to be needed. Just yesterday there had been an afternoon squabble between a man hauling a wagon full of tar barrels and a street hawker pushing a variety of wigs in a cart. In the ensuing collision, it was determined that tar and wigs did not mix. And neither did tar clean up very easily from the street.

“Where are you off to?” Matthew asked her as they strolled.

“I’m with you.”

“Yes. Well…I’m on my way to see Minx Cutter. I’ve gotten her settled into a room at Anna Hilton’s boarding house. You know, over on Garden Street.”

“Oh, yes.”

“I’m watching over her,” Matthew said, and instantly knew this was the wrong thing to say. “Tending to her, I mean.” Wrong again. “Making sure she stays in town.”

“Where would she go?”

“I don’t know, but I want to make certain she doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Why?”

“Someone is coming,” Matthew said, “who I think would like to meet her. In fact, it is
essential
that they meet.”

“Who are you talking about?”

In Sally Almond’s tavern on this May evening, the clock was two minutes away from seven-thirty. Matthew turned himself to watch the door.

“She’ll be here, don’t fret,” said Hudson. “I’m going to order another bottle. That suit everyone?”

“It suits me fine,” said Lady Cutter, with an intimation in her voice that she could drink the great one under the table ten times and again.

As they had walked along the Broad Way that morning in April, Berry had been silent for a few moments, contemplating this interest in Minx Cutter. Then had come the question that Matthew had been expecting: “Do you care for her?”

“Who?”

“You
know
who. Minx Cutter. Do you care for her?”

“I care
about
her.”

Berry had stopped suddenly, positioning herself in front of him. Her eyes were keen. Her chin was slightly uplifted. She wore her universe of freckles proudly. “You delight in playing with me, don’t you? Your word games and your…your mismeanings. I am asking you this question, Matthew. Do you care—in a romantic way—for Minx Cutter?”

He thought about this. He looked at the ground. He looked at the sky. He looked at his own hands, and polished with a sleeve the buttons on his coat. Then he looked into the face that he considered so very beautiful, and he knew the mind behind it was beautiful and so was the heart, and he said as coldly as he could on such a warm day, “Maybe I do. What of it?”

She wore a stricken expression. But only for a few seconds. If she had come to pieces in that short span of time, so she reassembled herself just as quickly.

“I see,” she said.

But Matthew knew she did not see. Matthew knew that very easily Berry’s head could have been parted from her body at the neck by Sirki’s blade, and that her beauty might have curdled in the guts of an octopus. Or that she might indeed have walked off a cliff in the dark and fallen to her death. Or been found by the searchers and wound up…what?…beaten and ravished in a cell? He couldn’t bear to think of any of those possibilities, and how close some of them might have been to coming true. So last night he had made up his mind what to do, and now—this moment—was his opportunity.

He had decided to make her hate him.

“Minx Cutter is…fascinating to me,” he said. “So different.”

“I’ll say different, too. She wears a man’s clothes.”

“She is
unique
,” Matthew plowed on. “A woman, not a girl.”

“Hardly a woman,” was the retort.

“
All
woman,” said Matthew. “And very exciting to me in that way. You know, one gets tired of the ordinary.” He thought that might be the shot that knocked her down.

But Berry was still on her feet, and still on his side. “I think you’ll find out for yourself that some
ordinary
people, as you say, are
extraordinary
. If you cared to look closely enough.”

“I live an exciting life,” said Matthew, and he nearly cringed at his own self. “Why would I want less in my romantic life?”

“Why are you so cold today? This isn’t like you!”

“It’s the new me,” he told her. And possibly there was some truth in that, for he wasn’t exactly sure he’d left all of Nathan Spade behind.

“I don’t like the new you very much, Matthew,” she said. “In fact, I don’t like the new you at all.”

“I am who I am. And who I will ever be.” He frowned, impatient at his own heartless lies. “I have to get along to see Minx now. Would you excuse me? I’d rather walk alone than be entangled in a ridiculous discussion like this.”

“Oh, would you?” She nodded. Her cheeks were very red and the freckles looked like bits of pepper. But deep in her eyes—and this wounded his soul to see—was a hurt that he thought he would rather tear his own orbs out than have to gaze upon. “All right then, Matthew. All right. I thought we were friends. I thought…we were something, I don’t know what.”

“I don’t know what either,” he answered, like the bastard of the world.

“I can’t…I don’t understand…why…”

“Oh,” he said, “stop your prattling.”

“I came to help you, if you needed me. That’s all I ever wanted, Matthew! To help you! Can’t you see that?”

“That’s the point I’m trying to make.” He drew a breath, for this next thing might be the killer. “I was wrong to have confided in you on the ship that night. It was weak, and I regret it. Because the fact is, I have never needed you. I didn’t yesterday, I don’t today and I will not tomorrow.”

And this time, he saw the little death in her eyes. It killed him, most of all.

“Fine,” Berry said. And again, as the ice closed in: “Fine. Good day to you, then.” She sounded a bit choked, and she quickly cleared her throat. Then she turned and began walking quickly away, and six strides in her departure she turned again toward him and there were tears on her face and she said in a voice near collapse,
“We are done.”

It was good that she got quickly away, for Matthew got himself going in the opposite direction, not toward Garden Street at all, and he staggered like a drunk though he had only put down the water, and everything seemed blurred and terribly wrong, and his heart ached and his eyes felt as if they were bleeding. A few steps and he broke the heel off his right boot, which made him limp even more drunkenly. And also like a drunk he found himself sitting under a tree in the Trinity cemetery, surrounded by those who had already known their share of life, love and loss, and he sat there for a time wishing some ghost would whisper to him about strength and fortitude and the will to keep going and similar such bullshit but no ghost spoke and so therefore he wiped his eyes, roused himself and went on his way and he thought that somewhere in Heaven or Hell one spirit applauded him and that spirit’s name had been Nathan. Who now was long deceased, for all the good love had done him.

Before he left that village of the dead he had the overwhelming urge to call out for her, as if she could hear him. To call out and say he was sorry, that he was a liar and hadn’t meant any of it but that he was frightened for her and frightened of Professor Fell for her. So it all came down to fear. But he didn’t call out, for it would have been for nothing and anyway the dice had been thrown.
We are done
. Three words he would take with him when they rolled him over into his own bed in this very same village of silent sleepers.

“Yes,” said Matthew, as he watched the door of Sally Almond’s tavern at seven-twenty-nine by the clock. “By all means, another bottle.”

“You’ve been drinking a lot lately, I notice.” Greathouse poured the last of the red wine into Matthew’s glass and held up the empty soldier for the waitress. “Why is that?”

“Thirsty,” Matthew answered.

There was a small
tick
of metal from the clock as the minute hand moved. And just that soon, the door opened and in walked Katherine Herrald.

She was now, as she had been in October, a trim figure who drew attention and admiration. She was about fifty years old, with sharp features and penetrating blue eyes. She was straight-backed and elegant and there was nothing aged or infirm about her. Her dark gray hair, under a fashionable cocked riding-hat a rich brown hue, was streaked with pure white at the temples and at a pronounced widow’s peak. She wore a dark brown dress ornamented with leather buttons and cinched with a wide leather belt. Around her throat was a scarf nearly the same color as the Stokelys’ Indian-blood-colored pottery. She wore brown leather gloves. She came across the tavern directly to their table, as Matthew and Hudson stood up to greet her. She was their employer, her dead husband the originator of the Herrald Agency and himself murdered by Tyranthus Slaughter on orders of Professor Fell. Back in October she’d told Matthew she was going to England and then would be returning in May. So here she was, and when she’d arrived yesterday morning she’d sent a letter to them from the Dock House Inn, announcing her presence. Matthew had written back:
I have someone you need to meet. Her name is Minx Cutter, and she was once an associate of Professor Fell.