“Good morning,” she said with an honest smile, yet the sapphire-colored eyes were always wary. “May I come in?”
He stepped back and motioned her to enter, and she closed the door at her back.
She was wearing a lilac-hued gown and a dark blue jacket trimmed with black leather. Her hair copiously cascaded along her shoulders and down her back. She smelled of an exotic incense, with an undertone rather like a sugared, hot and slightly burned coffee. She took him in with her direct stare. “You’re mending nicely.”
Was some witticism called for here? He decided to say only, “Thank you.” He also had realized that the shaving mirror was becoming kinder to him. The worst of the bruises only showed faint blue, the cuts were scabbed over and this woman’s ex-false-husband was coming in the afternoon to remove the plaster and the stitches. Matthew was free of pain and everything seemed to have settled back where it needed to be. This was, he’d decided, more of the effects of deep and healing sleep brought on by the drugged wine than any other of Gentry’s ministrations.
“Here,” she said, and gave him a rolled-up parchment secured with a black cord.
“What is this?”
“Your future,” she told him. Her gaze wandered over to the dresser and atop it the brown clay bowl holding two apples, an orange and a lemon that were brought to him on a daily basis. Without asking, she moved to the bowl with a crisp rustle of underclothes, selected an apple and bit into it. She chewed and watched him as he opened the parchment.
Matthew saw it was someone’s life history, scribed in black ink by a steady and very disciplined hand. The title was The Life And Times Of Nathan Spade.
“And exactly who is Nathan Spade?” Matthew asked.
“That would be you,” said Madam Chillany, as she crunched another bite of apple.
He scanned the document. It proclaimed a false birthday, and a birth year that made Nathan two years the elder. It described a hardscrabble childhood on a farm in Surrey. A younger brother, Peter, died as an infant. Mother—Rose by name—perished from consumption. Father Edward was ambushed by a highwayman and his throat slashed for a palm’s weight of measly coins. Therefore Nathan went into the world as a bitter twelve-year-old with many miles to walk and many scores to settle against the whole of humankind. His first occupation: rolling the drunks at a London dockside bordello and cleaning up the mess they left—whether vomit, blood or other.
“Charming,” said Matthew. He stared into the woman’s eyes, forcing his expression to remain stony and unflinching. “What is this about?”
“Obviously,” she answered, “your new identity.”
“And why would I need one?”
She continued to eat her apple with leisurely bites. She smiled faintly, the smile of a predator. She came around behind him, and he allowed it. She leaned forward and said quietly into his right ear, “Because being Matthew Corbett, problem-solver for the Herrald Agency, would hasten your death where we are going. You would not last a day, darling Matthew.” Her forefinger, wet with juice, played with his hair. “Some of the personages you are going to meet knew Lyra Sutch. They would not like to know the part you played in her tragedy. Your name is already being bandied about. Therefore the professor wishes to protect you…from them, and from yourself.” The last word was concluded with a nip to Matthew’s ear. Playful or not, she had sharp teeth.
He decided it was best, after all, not to let her get behind him, and therefore he turned to face her and backed away a pace.
“Oh,” Aria said, her face placid and self-composed but her eyes on him as if he were the most luscious apple to be plucked, “you shouldn’t be afraid of me, darling. It’s those others you should fear. The ones you’re going to meet.”
“Who are they, exactly?”
“Associates. And friends of associates.” She came toward him a step, and again he retreated. “You have been invited to a gathering, Matthew. A…festivity, if you will. That’s why you need the new identity. So you will…shall we say…fit in.”
He read a few more lines of the document. “Hm,” he said. “Spade murdered his first victim at the age of fourteen? He was involved with one of the prostitutes and he killed a jayhawk?” A jayhawk, in this instance, being a man who attempts to remove a prostitute from one ill abode to another, using either flattery or force.
“Yes,” said Aria. “The jayhawk beat her terribly one night. Broke her beautiful nose and vowed to cut her open and watch her guts slide out upon the floor. And do you know what, dear Matthew? Her name might have been Rebecca.”
That took a few seconds to sink in. He held up the parchment. “I thought this was a work of fiction.”
“Fiction is often the echo of truth,” she answered, her focus steady upon him. “Don’t you think?”
Matthew studied her face. Her nose was indeed a little crooked, yet still beautiful. He wondered what those eyes had seen. Or perhaps he really did not wish to know.
But one bit of information he did desire. He decided now was the moment to reach for it. “I’m presuming you were the woman with the blue parasol that day at Chapel’s estate? When he put his birds on us?” He was speaking here of an incident that had occurred during the summer, in his investigation concerning the so-called Queen of Bedlam.
“I was. And happy we all are now that you did not succumb to that fate.”
“I’m presuming also you got out through the hidden tunnel? The one that wound down to the river?” He waited for her to nod. “Tell me this, then. What happened to the swordsman? The Prussian,” Matthew emphasized. “He called himself Count Dahlgren.” Matthew and the count had been locked in deadly combat, and but for a silver fruit tray one young problem-solver would have found himself run through by a wicked dagger. Though Dahlgren had been wrapped in a pair of curtains and clouted into a goldfish pond, his left arm broken at the wrist, still the enigmatic Prussian had escaped capture that day, and had disappeared.
“I have no idea,” Aria answered. “That’s the truth.”
Matthew believed her. He hated loose ends. Dahlgren was definitely a loose end. Moreover, Dahlgren was a loose end who could still manage a sword and surely bore a Prussia-sized grudge against the adversary who’d bested him. The question was still unanswered: where had Dahlgren gone, and where was he now?
Surely the count was not waiting for him at the end of this voyage, Matthew mused. But he felt sure that somewhere, at sometime, he would meet Dahlgren again.
Matthew decided to try another angle to one of his three questions, now that he had this parchment and some idea that he was being required to playact the part of a rather nasty young killer. Obviously, a great deal of thought and preparation had been put into the professor’s plan…whatever it was. “I want to see Berry and Zed.”
“That’s not possible. I believe that Gentry has assured you—”
“You’re speaking when you should be listening,” Matthew interrupted. “You must not have heard. I’m not asking, I’m telling.” He rolled up the parchment and wrapped it with the black cord. “I want to see Berry and Zed. Now.”
“No,” she said.
“And why not? Because if I see what condition they’re being kept in, I may refuse to go along with this…nonsense?” He flung the parchment across the room to land in the far corner. “All right, then. You go tell Sirki I refuse to leave the ship when we dock wherever we’re going. Tell him they’ll have to carry me out on a stretcher, after all. Tell him—”
“I’ll tell him,” Aria agreed, “to kill them. Starting with the girl.”
Matthew forced a harsh laugh. He and the woman might not have swords, but they were fencing all the same, and damned if she wasn’t as good at using her own weapon as Dahlgren had been with his. “You will not,” said Matthew, and now he approached her. She stood her ground and lifted her chin. “Sirki vowed Berry would be returned safely to New York, and myself as well. His anger toward Zed will have passed by now. I have the feeling he might be an honorable man,
in his own way.” And you a dishonorable woman in all ways, he might have added. He continued right up to her, as if he owned the very air she breathed. He had already decided he had very little to lose in this situation, and he must show himself to be a powerful force. As much force as he could masquerade under, to be honest. A look of uncertainty passed only briefly across Aria’s face before she righted her ship. She stood firm and defiant before him, and she started to take another bite of the dwindling apple.
“If I’m going to be Nathan Spade,” said Matthew, “I’m starting now. Rebecca,” he added with a faint sneer. “And who gave you permission to steal my apples?” He took it from her before it reached her mouth, and then he took a bite from it. A bit green and sour, but there it was. “I said I want to see Berry and Zed today,” he told her as he chewed. “This moment. Is that clear enough for you?”
She didn’t answer. She stood expressionless, like a cipher, perhaps revealing her lack of soul. Or, possibly, she was simply struggling to control a scene that had gotten away from its playwright.
“All right, then. I’ll find them on my own.” Matthew picked up the bowl to prevent further thievery, and also to take the fruit to Berry and Zed for he fully intended to either find someone to unlock the necessary door or he was going to kick it down.
She let him get a grip on the door’s handle before he spoke. “You can only spend a few minutes with them. If I take you.”
He turned upon her as if determining where to thrust the sword, now that her defenses had been cracked. “You’ll take me,” he said. “And I’ll spend as much time with them as I please.”
She hesitated. Then, with a small cat-like smile, “I’m not sure I approve of this Nathan Spade so very much. He does seem to like to give commands, when he’s in no position to—”
“Be silent,” Matthew said flatly. “I didn’t ask to be here. Neither did my friends. So take me or step aside or do whatever you need to do, madam. But I’m done listening to you prattle.”
A hint of red crept across Aria Chillany’s cheeks. She blinked as if she’d been struck. But the damnedest thing, Matthew thought, was that the look in her eyes was not so much temper as tempest, and she began to chew on her lower lip as if it might spring forth a wine of rare vintage.
“I’ll take you,” she said quietly.
Good enough, Matthew thought, and if the woman had not been as near he would have heaved a sigh of relief so gusty the sails might have blown from their masts.
He followed her along the corridor. She took a key from an inner pocket of her jacket and started to unlock a narrow door about thirty feet from Matthew’s cabin, but she found the door already unlocked; its grip turned smoothly beneath her hand. She returned the key to its place. “It seems your friends already have a visitor this morning,” she told him.
The door opened on stairs that descended between two oil lamps hanging from ceiling hooks. At the bottom was a second door. Down here, nearer to the sea and the mollusks that likely clung by the hundreds to the hull, the aromas of tar, fish and old wet timbers were nearly overpowering. The constant low thunder of the waves was bad enough, but the creaking of the Nightflyer made it sound as if the vessel was coming apart at pegs, nails and seams. At this level the ship also rolled like a little bitch. Matthew was certain he would face Berry’s wrath about this, at some point to come. Yet it was he who should feel wrath, for who had asked her to stick her nose into this? Who had asked her to creep along and appear there on the dock, apparently in an effort to save him? Who had asked her?
Not I, Matthew thought, and didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until Aria Chillany looked over her shoulder and inquired, “What was that?”
He shook his head. She took him through the second door, and into the brig.
He had a moment of feeling he was back in time, entering the dingy gaol in the town of Fount Royal to hear a witchcraft case as a magistrate’s clerk. This might be a shipborne brig, yet the four cells were familiar and the iron bars as forbidding as any landlocked cages for human beings. Several dirty lanterns hung from hooks, illuminating the scene with a murky yellow light. A rat skittered across the floor at Matthew’s feet. It was chasing a cockroach as big as a crab. The smells of foulness commingled with the odors of musty wet wood and the fishy bowels of the ship were nothing short of an apocalyptic assault. Matthew felt rage rising in him, as he saw Zed confined in one cell to the left and Berry—a poor moldy ragamuffin with a tangled mass of red hair, she appeared to be—confined in the furtherest one to the right. They had straw mattresses and buckets, and that was the extent of the hospitality offered here.
“God blast it!” Matthew nearly shouted. His throat had almost seized shut. “Get them out of there!”
A man stepped from a pool of shadows in front of Zed’s cell. “Sir, please restrain yourself.”
“Restrain myself? Good Christ!” Red-faced and steaming, Matthew was on a tear. As a matter of truth, he felt he could tear the head from the neck of any sonofabitch who defied him. Even if it was the white-goateed and austere Captain Jerrell Falco who stood before him, armed with his twisted cane, and staring at him with steady and rather frightening amber-colored eyes. “These are my friends!” Matthew said into Falco’s face. “They’re not animals, and they’ve done nothing wrong!”
“Oh my,” said Madam Chillany, who wore a thin smirk that very nearly was her last, “I knew this was a bad idea.”
“Matthew!” Berry was calling for him. She sounded weak and sick. And who wouldn’t be, Matthew thought, in this undersea tomb that smelled of tar and dead fish, with the ship rolling enough to tear a person’s internals loose.
“Get them out!” Matthew roared, at both the woman and the captain. The smirk melted from her face and Falco’s goatee may have smoked a bit as well.
The twisted cane was laid softly but firmly upon Matthew’s right shoulder.
“Calmness,” said the captain, “in a situation of pressure is a virtue, young man. I suggest you become more virtuous in speaking with me, beginning with your next word.” He had a deep, resonant voice that Matthew thought any church pastor would sell his soul to possess. And then Falco’s head turned and he said something in a rough dialect to Zed. Matthew, to his everlasting amazement, heard Zed give a throaty chuckle.
“You can…speak to him?” Matthew asked, feeling the sweat of rage start to evaporate from his brow. “He understands you?”
“I speak the Ga language,” Falco answered. “Also five other languages. I read and write ten languages in all. I was educated in Paris, and I have lived on three continents. Why would I not have taken benefit of my travels?”
“He understands you,” Matthew repeated, this time as a statement.
“I believe that fact has been demonstrated.” Falco frowned. His eyebrows were graying, but had not yet turned as snowy as his chin-hair. Gray also was the hair that could be seen beneath his brown leather tricorn. “What are you doing down here?” The amber eyes shifted to Madam Chillany. “Why did you allow this?”
“He insisted.”
“If I insist you jump to the sharks wearing a necklace of fish guts, would you do so?” He gave her a stare that would have buckled the knees of any ordinary woman, but Aria Chillany was nearly a witch herself, it seemed, so it had little effect.
Matthew strode past them and went to Berry’s cell. To say she was a sad-looking mess was to say that the sun did not shine at night. And truly her sunny disposition had been darkened by this perpetual gloom, enough that Matthew felt tears of new anger squeezing past his eyeballs. “Damn this!” he said. He put one hand around the bars, the other still gripping the bowl of apple, orange and lime. They built these brigs to keep mutineers and madmen at bay, and surely the iron that would not surrender to a Ga warrior would not be moved by a problem-solver. Berry came up close to him, her hair in her face and her eyes as murky as the light. “Can you get me some fresh water?” she asked him. “I’m very thirsty.”
“Yes,?
?? he said through gritted teeth. “I’ll get you some fresh water. First, take this.” He pushed the orange between the bars, and she took it and bit into it peel and all as if this were her first food since leaving New York. He turned toward Falco and Madam Chillany with something near murder glowering in his eyes. “I want my friends out of here. Captain, I implore you. They’ve done no crime to fit this punishment. I want them freed from this place and given decent cabins.”
“Impossible,” said the woman. “Everything is taken.”
“It seems to me that one uses what can be used,” Matthew said. “For instance, your cabin might be freed if you were to take habitation with your husband. I mean to say, the man who posed as your husband. A few more nights of sleeping with him and you might fall in loving bliss all over again.”
“I’d rather die!” shrieked the harpy.
Matthew ignored her. “Captain, could you find a bunk for a Ga? Perhaps give him some work to do, after he’s been decently fed and allowed to breathe healthy air?”
“He stays here!” said Madam Chillany. “It’s safer for all!”
Captain Falco had been staring fixedly at Matthew. Now his amber gaze settled upon the woman. “Do I hear,” he said quietly, “you making decisions concerning my ship and my crew, madam? Because if I do, I will remind you that I am indeed the master of this vessel—”
“I’m just saying it’s better he stays locked—”
“I hear what you’re saying,” the captain continued, “and I appreciate your opinion.” He looked again at Zed and fired off some statement that made Zed shrug. “I don’t think he’s a danger,” Falco said, addressing Matthew. “The girl is certainly no danger.”
“They should be freed from this place,” Matthew said. “The sooner, the better.”