In all this violence, the rowboat that slid onto the shore with a lantern at its prow hardly caused a ripple. Matthew saw it contained five men. And one woman. The woman being Rebecca Mallory, real name Aria Something. One of the men being Doctor Jason Mallory, real name unknown. But both certainly alive and well and unburnt to crisps as had been their unfortunate lie-ins.
“Stop that!” Doctor Jason shouted. Two of the men, having realized their stately champion was being defeated by this black misfit in drenched rags, were already clambering from the boat. They grabbed hold of Zed from either side and tried to pin his arms. That lasted only a few seconds before a Herculean shrug sent them flying, one to land in the water and one in the weeds.
“Mister Grimmer!” Doctor Jason was directing his shout to another man in the boat. “Run him through!”
A thin man in a brown tricorn and a dirty brown suit with ruffles of grimy lace at the sleeves and throat stood up, drew a rapier from its sheath and stepped into the water. He approached Zed with no hesitation, and raised the sword to drive it into the black warrior’s back.
“No!” Berry cried out. “Please! No!” She ran into the water to get between Grimmer and Zed, and the sallow swordsman looked for further instructions from the false Doctor Jason. Berry didn’t wait. She knew the next word would be her friend’s death. “Zed!” she said, with raw force in her voice. “Zed, listen to me! Let him go! Do you hear?”
His head turned. The bloodshot eyes found her, and read her fear for him. Still holding the flailing giant down, he turned his head to the other side and saw the swordsman standing there, ready to put the rapier to use.
Berry put her hand on Zed’s shoulder. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No.”
Zed hesitated only a few seconds longer. He brought his right hand up and with it made a flattening motion. All right, he had answered. He released Sirki, stood up and stepped back, and Sirki burst from the briny coughing and gasping and then turning over and throwing up his last New York dinner into the sea to be consumed by the small fishes of the night.
“Shall I kill him anyway, sir?” asked Grimmer, in a low sad voice that seemed to suit his name.
“I’ll kill him!” Sirki had found his curved dagger. He and his clothing were a mess. He was trying to wind his sodden turban back onto his head. The furious expression on his face made him appear to be not so much a giant as a big infant angry at being deprived of a sweet. “I’ll kill him this minute!” he nearly shrieked, and he lifted the sawtoothed blade and sloshed toward Zed, who stood immobile at the rapier’s point.
“You will not touch him!” This announcement had not come from Doctor Jason, but from the raven-haired, blue-eyed and fiercely beautiful Aria. She stood up in the boat; over a black gown she was wearing a dark purple cloak and on her head was a woolen cap the same color. “Sirki, put your knife down!” Her voice carried the promise of dire consequences if he did not obey; he did obey, almost immediately. Matthew watched this with great interest, getting the order of masters and followers in its proper perspective. “I see you have the girl,” Aria went on, with the slightest edge of irritation. “That may be for the best, despite all appearances. You see, the black crow means something to the girl, and the girl means something to Matthew. So no one is going to be stabbed or otherwise harmed this night, Sirki. We can use what we can use. Do you understand?”
“He’s nearly killed Croydon and Squibbs! And these other two! And he’s a Ga! A danger to everyone!”
“Danger,” said Aria, with a faint smile in the lamplight, “can be easily controlled, if one knows the right throat to pressure. Grimmer, put the tip of your sword against Miss Grigsby’s neck, please.”
Grimmer did so. Zed gave a warning rumble deep in his chest.
Matthew own throat had tightened. “There’s no need for that. I said I’m coming along.”
“Miss Grigsby,” said Aria, “inform your black prince—however you can—that your life depends on his good behavior. That we wish him to be meek and mild and for that he shall have a good dinner and a warm blanket in a ship’s brig tonight.”
“A ship’s brig?”
“Just inform him, however you are able. And you might tell him you will be in the next cell, so he won’t feel so lonely.”
Now came Berry’s challenge to communicate to Zed without benefit of the drawings they used to do together, which had served as a bridge between them. Zed was watching her intently, knowing that some message had been delivered to her from the black-haired woman and now was poised in his direction. Berry understood that he did know some of the English language, but how much she couldn’t tell since silence had been thrust upon him with the cutting out of his tongue, and silence also was his armor.
But it was true that Berry and Zed had spent much time together, at the behest of Ashton McCaggers, for whether Zed goeth so went his master at that time and McCaggers did enjoy Berry’s company, broken shoe heel or not. And in that time Berry had begun to “hear” Zed, in a fashion. It was a hearing of the senses and the mind. She could “hear” his voice in a gesture of the hand, a shrug of the shoulder, a fleeting expression. If it had been a spoken voice, it would have sounded a little low and gutteral, a little snarly as suited Zed’s view of the world that held him captive.
Now Berry stared into Zed’s eyes and held her hand out before him, palm outward. She spoke two words: “Do nothing.”
He looked at her hand, then at her face. Then at her hand again. He turned his head to take in the scene where unconscious men were coming back to their senses. He took in the woman on the boat and then the giant he’d just nearly drowned. He took in the sight of Matthew Corbett wrapped in a blanket, the young man’s face bruised by some incident beyond his understanding. He looked again at Berry Grigsby, his friend, and his lifting of the eyebrows and the slight twist of his mouth said, I will do nothing…for the moment.
“Good,” she answered, with the rapier’s tip nearly nicking her throat. She aimed her angry eyes at Grimmer. “You can put that down now.”
Grimmer waited for Aria to nod, and the rapier was lowered.
But not yet lowered was the heat of rage that steamed from Sirki, who pressed forward with his knife in hand. “I’ll kill you yet,” he promised Zed. The ex-slave understood the meaning quite well, and he gave a square-toothed grin that almost drove Sirki into a maddened fit.
“We have a tide to catch,” Aria announced. “Anyone who cannot walk will be staying here. Gentlemen, board your boats. Matthew, would you please come get into this one? I’ve saved you a place.” She sat down and patted the plank seat at her side.
The woman’s directions continued. Berry and Zed were put into the other boat, with Grimmer holding the sword ready and Sirki anxious with his knife. Everyone, it seemed, who had been knocked woozy could at least walk, and they returned to the boats. Squibbs seemed only to be able to walk in circles, however, and Croydon winced and grasped at his back with every step.
Matthew took his place beside Aria Whomever, and Doctor Jason sat facing him. The two boats were pushed off and the oarsmen went to work.
“You have made the right decision,” said Doctor Jason, when they were out on the choppy water away from Oyster Island.
Matthew watched the lamps of the second boat following. “I presume no harm will come to either Berry or Zed?” He stared into Aria’s intense sapphire-blue eyes, for she was the captain of this craft. “In fact, I insist on it.”
The woman gave a small laugh that might have been edged with cruelty. “Oh, you’re too cute,” she said.
“I imagine I’m going also into a cell in the ship’s brig?”
“Not at all. They will be, yes, because they are uninvited guests. But you, dear Matthew, will have a cabin of honor aboard the Nightflyer.” She motioned out into the dark. “We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
He had to ask the next question, if just to salve his curiosity. “What’s your real name? And his real name?”
&n
bsp; “I am Aria Chillany,” she answered. “He is Jonathan Gentry.”
“At your service,” said Gentry, with a nod and a devilish smile.
Matthew grunted. Even the grunting hurt. He recalled something Hudson had told him, back in the summer, concerning Professor Fell’s criminal network: We know the names of the most vile elements. Gentleman Jackie Blue. The Thacker Brothers. Augustus Pons. Madam Chillany. They’re in the business of counterfeiting, forgery, theft of both state and private papers, blackmail, kidnapping, arson, murder for hire, and whatever else offers them a profit.
He felt Madam Chillany’s fingers at the back of his neck.
“You’re thinking of something important?” she inquired.
How to survive, madam, he thought. And how to keep Berry and Zed alive, too.
“We’re going to become very good friends, Matthew,” she said. “Poor boy.” She pursed her lips in a pout and now her fingers travelled over the tender terrain of his cheek. “All those bruises and scrapes. But you enjoy close scrapes, don’t you?”
“Not the scraping,” Matthew said. “The escaping.”
A ship’s bell rang, out in the distance. Suddenly a wet wall of black timbers was standing before them. Lanterns moved above. Men shouted back and forth. A rope ladder was lowered, and Aria Chillany said to Matthew, “You up first, darling. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Watch her, Matthew,” Gentry cautioned. His smile had gone a bit crooked. “When she gets behind you, you might find something thrust into your—”
“But don’t listen to him,” she interrupted. “He’s all talk, and precious little action.”
Matthew was beginning to think these two had so tired of their roles of loving husband and doting wife that they could’ve broken each others’ necks. Or, at least, stabbed each other below the waist. In any case, no wonder the false lovebirds had separate beds. The only fire in that house had been made by the bombs going off.
Now, though, as Matthew forced himself up the ladder—and no one else was going to help him up, for certainty—he felt Aria Chillany’s hand slide across his rump, and he thought that some wells in this vicinity were in desperate need of being pumped.
The sun was beginning to turn the eastern sky pale gray as Berry and Zed came aboard. They were quickly taken away belowdecks, without a chance for Matthew to speak or be spoken to. Sirki slinked along behind them, his turban still in disarray and his clothing dirtied by shore rocks and oyster shit. The two rowboats were hoisted up by men who looked as hard as New York cobblestones. Though Matthew was not overly familiar with the many types of ships and seacraft, he thought the Nightflyer might be considered a brigantine, having two masts with square sails on the foremast and fore-and-aft sails on the mainmast. It looked to be a low-slung, fast vessel, and its crew appeared highly efficient at their tasks. Orders were given, the Nightflyer turned to catch the wind, the sails filled and the spray began to hiss along the hull. A hand touched his arm as he stood at the starboard railing in the strengthening light. Madam Chillany regarded him with narrowed eyes. “I’m to show you to your cabin now. You’ll meet Captain Falco later. You’ll be served breakfast presently, and a large glass of wine to help you sleep.”
“Drugged wine?” Matthew asked.
“Would you prefer?”
He almost said yes. Maybe he would say yes, if he thought about it long enough. He was almost too tired to sleep of his own will, and who could sleep when they were summoned across the Atlantic to be Professor Fell’s personal providence rider?
Matthew saw the town of New York fading away behind them. It did appear gray, at this distance and in this light.
Farewell to the gray kingdom, he thought. For whatever he used to be and whoever he once was, he could no longer be. He had thought himself having to grow solid stones to meet the threat and violence of Tyranthus Slaughter. But now he realized that grisly adventure might have been a garden walk compared to this journey.
So farewell to the gray kingdom, for his mind must be clear and his vision sharp. He must be more Matthew Corbett than ever before. And, he thought grimly, God help Matthew Corbett.
The Nightflyer turned to secure its course. A dolphin leaped before the bow. Rays of sunlight streamed through the clouds to brighten the sea, and Matthew hobbled behind Madam Chillany in search of a good breakfast and a glass of sleep.
Twelve
AS the days passed, as the ship sailed across an ocean that might be both calm and turbulent in the same day, as the rain showered down from dark clouds and then the sun burst forth from the midst of darkness, as the pallid moonlight glittered upon the luminous waves and the bright blue ribbons of sea creatures moved on their errands of life and death, Matthew felt himself healing.
He was aided in this regard by the doctor, Jonathan Gentry by name. Gentry came by his cabin to see him in the mornings after breakfast and in the evenings before supper was served. Sometimes medicinal tea was brought, sometimes Gentry unpeeled the plaster under Matthew’s left eye to check the stitches, and then he applied a green salve and put the plaster back as it was. The doctor gave him a cake of grassy-smelling soap and told him to keep everything clean, for this Atlantic travel was a nasty business and all sorts of mold grew from the grime a ship carried. Not to mention the rats that crawled about so freely they were given pet names by the sailors.
Matthew always posed the same three questions to Dr. Gentry. One being, “Are Berry and Zed well-treated?”
And the answer to that, always the same: “Certainly they are.”
The next question following: “May I see them?”
“Not quite yet.”
The third question: “When am I to hear what Fell’s problem is?”
And its answer: “In time, Matthew.” Then: “Make sure you get out on the deck for your walk. Yes?”
Matthew always nodded. In fact, he greatly looked forward to his walks on the deck. No matter if it was raining or the sun shone, Matthew walked ’round and ’round the ship, taking in the tasks being performed and the occasional glimpse of Captain Jerrell Falco, an austere figure in black suit, black cloak and black tricorn to match the blue-black sheen of his ebony flesh. The captain had a white goatee, and he carried a twisted cane that he had no qualms about using across the back of a slow seaman. Matthew had noted there were several Africans or black Caribees among the crew, as well as a few yellow skins from the Far East. If anything, the ship was worldly. Matthew found himself with books to read. They were delivered in a basket to his cabin, and they carried the faint hint of a woman’s perfume. It seemed to him that either Aria Chillany liked the idea of bruised flesh under her hands, or she was toying with him. The books were Shakespeare’s The Tempest, King Lear and Julius Caesar, a philosophical tome concerning the earth’s place at the center of the universe, and a fearsomely blasphemous book explaining how God was a creation of the mind of Man. Matthew figured just opening that book in some communities might earn a backburn of whiplashes if not a noose around the neck. Still, he thought he might read it. After all, the books aboard this ship had to have earned the approval of Professor Fell, therefore some view of Fell’s mental state might be gleaned from the reading.
To be sure, Matthew found no fault with his cabin or with the way he was being pampered. And pampered was indeed the correct word. Though no human element could correct the roll of the ship, the drumming of waves against the hull or the constant creaking and crying of timbers, every human element aboard the Nightflyer seemed intent on treating Matthew as a valued guest. A glass of wine—drugged or non-drugged, as he wished—was only the ringing of a silver bell away. His food was not only palatable, it was damned good. Yet he might tire of fish, the daily catch was spiced to his liking. His clothing had been washed and pressed by a hot iron. His boots wore a shine. As much as was possible aboard an ocean-going vessel, his cabin was spacious and clean. His bed was a four-poster, the legs pegged down to prevent movement with the ship. The person who came in to change the can
dles did so on a daily basis and was not stingy with the wax. And, most tellingly, the door to Matthew’s cabin was never locked from the outside. If he required privacy and latched it himself, that was fine, yet he was never forced to feel like a prisoner. One afternoon a knock at his door introduced him to an elderly man who came in with a measuring stick and piece of chalk and proceeded to take his measurements of arm, leg, chest and so forth and then left without a word.
Of course there were some places Matthew could not go. He was cautioned by Gentry not to wander around belowdecks, as he might pick up some unfortunate fungus or infection that would not do his condition any good. Also, there were several locked doors he came to that were obviously not going to be opened for him, and he presumed one of those led down to the brig. But as long as he stayed out of the way he was encouraged to be up on the deck, and several times Gentry had shared dinner with him in the doctor’s own cabin, which was perhaps one half the size of Matthew’s and not nearly so well-fashioned. Gentry was an interesting conversationalist, focusing mostly on his travels through South America, the Caribbean, Italy, Prussia, China, Japan and elsewhere, but not a word would come from him regarding either the professor or the reason behind this endeavor.
And so it was with real interest that after the passage of six days, and after Matthew had made his morning rounds of the deck under a blue sunlit sky that projected an amazing warmth for this time of year, he returned to his cabin to continue his reading of The Tempest and was roused from his comfortable chair by a rap at the door.
“Yes?” he asked mildly, for he had learned there was no sense or need to be rude in this situation.
“Dear Matthew,” said the raven-tressed woman on the other side, “I’ve brought you something.”
It had been several days since he’d laid eyes upon Aria Chillany. He had to admit she was an intensely beautiful woman and his eyes had missed such beauty in the midst of all these ragged and hard-bitten sailors. Therefore he put the folio aside, got to his feet and—marking the fact that this cabin made at least two of his dairyhouse home—he crossed to the door and opened it.