Mister Slaughter

Thirty-Two

On a bright, breezy afternoon in the middle of November, a flat-bottomed ferry barge from Weehawken tied ropes at Van Dam's shipyard, and discharged its passengers onto the wharf after an hour's trip across the Hudson.

A wagon pulled by a team of horses rumbled off the boat and onto the boards. Its driver then steered the horses into the town's traffic along King Street and turned to the right on the busy Broad Way, while the boy sitting next to him took in the sights, smells and sounds of New York.

The wagon was passing the intersection of Beaver Street and the Broad Way, heading south toward the Great Dock. Three men engaged in conversation in front of a tallow chandler's shop fronting the Way paused in their snide remarks concerning the bilious green of Lord Cornbury's new hat and took view of the wagon. One of them, a little barrel-chested gent standing at the center, caught his breath. He said, with a smudge of disgust, "Choke a duck! Corbett's back!"

With that, Dippen Nack took to his heels in the direction of City Hall.

Matthew heard several people shout to him from the sidewalks, but he paid them no mind. As much as he was glad to be back-as much as he'd thought he would never be back-the place seemed foreign, in a way. Different. As alien as Walker's village had seemed, at first. Had there been this many houses and buildings when he and Greathouse had left, more than a month ago? This many people, carts and wagons? This much clatter and bustle? He wondered if part of Walker had not returned with him, and he was seeing New York through an altered vision; he wondered if he would ever see it the same way again, or feel he truly belonged here among citizens who had not witnessed such vicious murder, violence and evil, or who had not killed a woman with an axe and fired a bullet into a man's body.

He had returned home, but not as he'd left. For better or for worse, he had blood on his hands. As did the boy beside him, but if Tom suffered any qualms about his part in the death of Tyranthus Slaughter, he kept them locked up in the ironclad vault of his soul. The most he'd professed about it to Matthew was that he viewed it as an execution, and lawful or not it was done so it wasn't worth speaking of any more.

But Matthew was sure Lillehorne was going to have a lot to say about it.

"Matthew! Hey, there!" Running up alongside the wagon was his friend, the blacksmith's apprentice John Five, newlywed in September to Constance Wade, now the happy Mrs. Five.

"Hello, John," Matthew answered, but he kept the team moving.

"Where've you been?"

"Working." "You all right?"

"I'll be all right," Matthew said.

"Folks were wonderin'. When your partner came back last week, and you didn't. I've heard what he's been tellin', about the redskins. Some were sayin' you'd had it."

"Almost did," Matthew said. "But I gave it back."

"You up to comin' to supper one night?" "I am. Give me a few days."

"Okay." John reached up and slapped Matthew's leg. "Welcome home."

Not much further along, a well-dressed middle-aged woman with an exuberant, sharp-nosed face waved at him with her handkerchief and stepped forward. "Oh, Mr. Corbett!" she called. "So good to see you! Will we be reading any more of your adventures in the next Earwig?"

"No madam," he told Mrs. Iris Garrow, wife of Stephen Garrow the Duke Street horn merchant. "Definitely not."

"But surely you won't deprive us!"

"Some things are best left to the imagination," he said, for he'd decided that the spicy element of sausages once sold at Sally Almond's to patrons just such as Mrs. Garrow need not be revealed. He knew that High Constable Farraday in Philadelphia felt the same about keeping the lid on the grisly box, for there was not enough water, wine, ale or hard cider in the colonies to wash that taste out of people's mouths.

"Are you somebody special 'round here?" Tom asked.

"Just a citizen," Matthew said, as they left Mrs. Garrow behind. "The same as anyone."

It was no surprise to Matthew that Hudson Greathouse had returned to New York, because he'd already known it to be true. After Nathaniel Powers had given him and Tom this wagon and some money to get back on, Matthew had turned off the Philadelphia Pike on the very same road by which Slaughter had directed his captors to Fort Laurens. Tom had remained silent as they'd passed the New Unity cemetery and Reverend Burton's cabin. On reaching the treacherous slope that led down to the ruins of the fort and beyond it the Seneca village, Matthew had seen that the wagon afforded him and Greathouse by High Constable Lillehorne was gone.

Matthew and Tom had left their wagon at the top of the hill and walked the rest of the way. Passing through Fort Laurens onto the path to the village, their progress was soon accompanied by the noise of cawing crows and barking dogs from the depths of the woods. When the first feathered brave finally showed himself, Matthew called out, "English!"

Again, there was a merry circus among the tribe as Matthew and Tom were escorted in, but after Matthew stuck out his chest and hollered, "English!" a few more times he was taken to a forbidding-looking, solemn man who at least could understand a little of the language and speak it enough to be understood in turn.

From what Matthew could gather, Greathouse had regained enough health to walk out on his own two legs, with the help of a hickory stick. In the time he'd been there, he had earned respect from the medicine sisters because, if Matthew comprehended this correctly, he had wrestled with Death in the wilderness beyond and returned grinning like a wolf. It seemed, from what the solemn Indian was able to make clear, that Gray Wolf had sat before the fire with the elders and drank a cup of rattlesnake blood with them, which much impressed everyone. Also, he was quite the good singer, which Matthew would never have guessed.

The Indians had previously brought in the two old nags that had pulled the wagon, intending-from what Matthew could gather-to kill them and use them as food for the dogs, but prevailing wisdom had dictated that the dogs should not suffer such an indignity. So they were allowed to graze and serve as playthings for the children until the day came that Gray Wolf was ready to leave. Then the horses were taken back up the hill, the wagon was pushed to the top and turned in the direction of the English world, and Gray Wolf set off for his home.

Matthew would have been interested to see how Gray Wolf had talked himself across the Raritan river ferry, having no money, but maybe he'd offered a song for his passage.

Before he'd left, Matthew had turned around and found that He Runs Fast had come out of the crowd. He Runs Fast spoke to the interpreter, and the question directed back to Matthew was: "Where son?"

"The Sky Road," Matthew said.

The interpreter didn't understand this. Matthew tried again: "Tell him his son did a great deed, his son was a true son, and now his son has gone to walk with the spirits."

The message was relayed and an answer given. "You say dead?" asked the brave, speaking for He Runs Fast. "Dead, yes."

He Runs Fast had been silent for a moment, staring at the ground. Then he spoke quietly, and the interpreter said, "He wish spirits make sense." But after saying that to the interpreter, He Runs Fast had turned away, and had broken into a trot in the direction of the lake.

Matthew's wagon had reached the Great Dock, where it appeared another merry circus was in progress, with a number of ships being loaded and unloaded. Crates and barrels were being carted up and down gangplanks, dock workers rushed around to the orders of their supervisors hollering through the sawed-off horns of bulls to amplify their voices, ropes were being coiled up, chains rattled, horses stamped nervously at their wagons and as usual the higglers were shouting to sell their roasted chestnuts, hot cider and corncakes.

"Always like this?" Tom asked.

"Pretty much." Matthew halted the team. "I'll be right back. I have to find the next ship leaving for England." He set the brake and got down, then went around to the rear of the wagon. In the back were two duffel bags that Powers had afforded them, holding a supply of clean clothes for their return trip to New York, and a smaller brown canvas bag.

Carrying the canvas bag, he walked along the dock until he saw a hook-nosed, bewigged man in a light gray suit who was marking in an account book with a pencil. He didn't know the individual, but reasoned he was one of the dock managers. He approached, got the man's attention from the confusion of commerce, and inquired about the ship he sought.

The man turned a page. "The Golden Eye. Care to sign up?"

"No, thank you. Where is it?"

"Two down, wharf nine. Leaving on the next tide. It'd be a grand adventure." "Thank you all the same."

Matthew set off for wharf number nine, the numerals painted in white on the pilings. He was almost there when he heard the quick clack-clack-clacking of shoes on the timbers behind him, nearly running, and before he felt the black cane with its silver lion's-head tap his shoulder none too gently he heard the sharp voice say, "Corbett! What the devil is this?"

Matthew stopped and turned to face Gardner Lillehorne, who wore a sea-blue suit, a tricorn the same aquatic hue, and a waistcoat striped blue-and-ebony. Behind him smirked Dippin Nack, who was always eager to watch Matthew receive a verbal thrashing.

"Where is the prisoner?" Lillehorne demanded. On the narrow, pallid face his carefully-trimmed mustache and goatee seemed to bristle.

"Thank you, sir," Matthew answered calmly, "for your appreciation of my return. I can tell you that it was an iffy proposition."

"All right, all right! I'm gratified you've returned! Now where's Slaughter?" "And speak up!" Nack added, to which Lillehorne shot him a warning glance.

"I'm actually very glad you're here, to witness the transfer." Matthew motioned toward the ship on its moorings at wharf number nine. "I understand," he said, "that the Golden Eye is the next vessel sailing for England. Come with me, won't you?" He started for it, and heard the clack of Lillehorne's boots following.

"What game are you playing at, Corbett? Don't you realize that John Drake, the Crown's constable, has been staying at the Dock House Inn for nearly three weeks? And who do you think is shouldering that cost? New York, that's who!"

Matthew waited for a couple of men to pass lugging a huge trunk, and then he went up the gangplank. Lillehorne was right behind him. Matthew stopped at the end of the plank. He opened the canvas bag, uptilted it, and upon the deck fell two polished black boots, somewhat scuffed in their tumble down a roof.

Lillehorne looked at the boots and then, incredulously, at Matthew. "Are you absolutely mad?"

"I seem to remember, sir, that you said in our office, 'I want the prisoner's boots on the next ship leaving for England, and good riddance to him'. Isn't that what you said?"

"I don't know! I don't remember! But if I said that, I meant for him to be in the boots! And these could be any boots you found between here and wherever you went. Now I know what happened to Greathouse, and I regret that but it was his own greedy fault."

"Greedy!" Nack crowed, standing behind Lillehorne.

"Drake's come to take the prisoner into custody!" Lillehorne plowed on. "Where is the prisoner?"

"Tyranthus Slaughter is buried on the grounds of Lord Kent's tobacco plantation in the Carolina colony," Matthew said. "If you wish to know the details, I suggest you visit Nathaniel Powers, or ride to Philadelphia for a meeting with High Constable Abram Farraday. Or Drake can go, I don't care. All I care is that Slaughter's boots are on the next ship leaving for England, which was your stated requirement." Matthew glared holes through the high constable. "And good riddance."

"Sirs!" came a bellow from the deck. "Either move your asses out of the way or start loadin' freight!"

The suggestion of physical labor put naked fear on the faces of Lillehorne and Nack, but Matthew was already descending the gangplank. He strode back along the dock toward his wagon.

Lillehorne hurried to catch up with him, while Nack brought up the rear. "Corbett! Corbett!" Lillehorne said, as he got up beside Matthew. "I'll hear the details from you! This minute!"

Where to begin? Matthew wondered as he walked. If Greathouse had already related the incidents leading up to the exploding safebox, that was to the good. He could pick up the story with Walker, he thought. Of course, sooner or later he was going to run into the part about Mrs. Sutch, and he wasn't sure Lillehorne was ready for that. Certainly it was not something Nack needed to hear, and then go flapping his red rag about town.

He wondered what they would think of Tom's story. That, to him, was the most amazing part.

Tom had spent about eight hours at the house of the Reverend Edward Jennings and his wife in Belvedere. When he had slept enough to get some strength back, he had simply gotten up in the dark just past midnight and gone out the door. He had reasoned that Slaughter was following the road south to Caulder's Crossing, which he himself had passed along on his journey north. Nothing in the world mattered so much as finding that man and killing him, and in the cold resolve of Tom's voice Matthew felt as if Slaughter had come to stand for many tragedies in the boy's life, or maybe Evil itself. In any case, Tom was bound to follow Slaughter no matter how far the killer travelled or how long it took, and so he'd left Belvedere on the same route that Matthew and Walker had followed.

Not knowing about Slaughter's attempt to steal a horse and his subsequent jaunt through the woods, Tom had kept to the road. Just before dawn he'd slept about two more hours, but he'd never needed much sleep anyway. Then, further on and as the day progressed, he'd sighted tracks coming out of the forest. One traveler wearing boots, two wearing moccasins.

They led him to a house he'd stopped at before, on his journey north. Where the family had been kind to him, and fed both him and James. Where the girl named Lark was so very pretty, and so kind as well, and where the boy, Aaron, had shown him a bright variety of colored marbles in a small white clay jar. He and Aaron had spent more than an hour shooting marbles, and it had amazed Tom that there was still a boy to be found somewhere inside him, because by this time he'd already killed a man in self defense down in the Virginia colony.

He had gone into the house, he'd told Matthew. He had not shed a tear, he'd said, since his father had died; he was done crying, he'd said. But these murders, of these innocent and kind people, had shaken him to his soul. Of course he knew who'd done it. And he'd found himself looking at Aaron's marbles scattered across the table, and picking up four or five in his hand, and thinking that if he ever needed anything to keep him going, to push him on when he was tired or hurting or hungry, all he had to do was touch these in his pocket and think of that day a good family had let him be young again.

But he was not young anymore.

He had taken some food from the kitchen table and a knife from a drawer. He didn't think they would mind. He had found the broken boards in the back of the barn. Had found the tracks going up the hill. Had followed four travelers who were following one, deeper into the forest. But he was still weak, he'd told Matthew. Still in pain from his injuries. He was going to kill Slaughter, yes, and he didn't want Matthew or Walker to stop him, or stand in his way. That would be a problem. He figured he was going to have one chance to kill Slaughter. Just one. He would know it when it came.

Gunshots and shouts in the night had given him direction. The next morning he'd sighted Matthew and Walker on the trail, had seen that the Indian was badly hurt, and had ducked down when he knew Walker had gotten a glimpse of him.

There was nothing he could have done at the ravine, where Matthew went over the fallen tree. Tom had watched Lark and her mother jump, but he had also seen the arrow go into Slaughter. Then, at the watermill, Tom had seen Slaughter getting the better of Matthew, had seen Matthew's face about to go into the gears, and the only thing he could do to help was to throw a handful of marbles. He'd hidden when Slaughter had gone rampaging through the woods, and had thought Matthew was swept over the waterfall.

Tom had followed Slaughter into Hoornbeck, had watched him come out of the doctor's house freshly-stitched and go to the Peartree Inn. Tom had hidden all night where he could see the place, and waited for Slaughter to emerge. Early in the morning, Slaughter had come out with another man carrying some boxes, set them in the back of a wagon and headed off. Tom had had to find a horse to steal, in a hurry.

Not far from Philadelphia, Tom had pulled his horse off the road as he'd watched the wagon pull off ahead. Slaughter and the other man sat talking, and then they had gotten down and Slaughter had clapped him on the back as they'd walked into the woods on the side of the road. In a few minutes, Slaughter had returned, climbed up on the wagon and continued on his way alone. Tom had found the corpse in the brush, the throat cut, and had also discovered a few coins in the dead man's pocket, enough to buy him food and drink for the next few days if he couldn't beg or steal anything.

In time, Tom had shadowed Slaughter to a hog farm north of a town called Nicholsburg. He was amazed there to see Matthew appear, and creep into the cellar. The hulking man who had brought a coffin in the back of his wagon and hauled a dead body out of it was clearly up to no good. Matthew hadn't come back out, but it appeared no one had found him yet because the coffin-robber emerged lugging a damp and nasty-looking bag just as easy as you please. So Tom figured the pickaxe in the back of the wagon could be put to some use, and Matthew would have a chance to do whatever he was doing and get out with his skin on.

Slaughter had ridden away. Tom had followed, still waiting for his one chance to strike.

A black suit. A black horse. A black night. Tom had lost Slaughter at a crossroads. Had gone a distance in all directions, but the man was gone. Not lost, but gone.

"You came back and decided to follow me? All that way?" Matthew had asked. " Why?"

"'Cause," Tom had answered, with a shrug. "I knew that if you were alive, you'd keep tryin'."

Now, as Lillehorne and Nack followed Matthew to the wagon, Matthew said, "I'll tell you the whole story later. I want to talk to Hudson first."

"Well then, who's this?" They had reached the wagon, and Lillehorne was motioning at Tom. "I send you after a killer and you bring back a boy?"

"Tom helped me. I couldn't have done it without him."

"Oh, I'm sure," Lillehorne sneered. "Tom who?"

"Bond," said the boy.

"Where are your parents?"

"Got a grandpa in Aberdeen."

"No one else?" He waited, but Tom just gave him a blank stare. "What are we supposed to do with him?" Lillehorne asked Matthew. "Add him to the orphanage roll?"

"No, sir," Tom said. "Not an orphanage." He climbed down and took his duffel bag from the back. "Say you found the next ship leavin' for England?"

"Put your bag down," Matthew told him. "We've come a long way. There's no hurry for that."

"Got a long way yet to go," Tom answered. "You know I'm one to keep movin'."

"I should say so." Matthew thought he ought to try again, since he wanted to at least buy Tom a good meal at the Trot and introduce him to the regulars there, but he knew it would be a waste of breath. When this boy made up his mind to do something, it was done. "Wharf nine. The Golden Eye, leaving on the next tide. I hope you don't mind that Slaughter's boots are lying on the deck." He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat for some of the money Powers had given him. "Here. I want you to-"

"No charity," Tom interrupted. "I'll work my way over, if they're hirin'." He aimed his intense gray eyes along the row of masted vessels, and he gave the faintest hint of a smile as if he sensed the opportunity for a grand adventure. "Figure I ought to learn somethin' about ships, anyway." He held out his hand. "So long."

Matthew shook it. The boy's grip was as hard as his grit. "Good luck."

Tom swung the duffel bag over his shoulder and moved on. True to his nature, he never looked back.

Thirty-Three

"The truth," said Greathouse, as he ruminated over his third cup of wine, "is that we failed." He frowned, rethinking his statement. "No," he amended. "/ failed. As the one with the most experience-I won't say the most sense-I should have known he was going to try something. I just didn't know it was going to be so effective." He took another drink, and then he grinned across the table at Matthew. "Did I tell you they named me Gray Wolf?"

"Several times." At this point in the evening, Matthew could not bring himself to tell his supper companion that he'd already known it.

"Well then, there you are," Greathouse said, though Matthew wasn't exactly sure where they were in this conversation. One minute they were talking about Slaughter, the next about the great one's experiences in the Seneca village. It seemed to Matthew as if Greathouse had actually enjoyed his time there, once it was sure he'd returned from the wilderness beyond.

They were sitting in the Trot Then Gallop, on Crown Street. This being Matthew's first night back, his meal and drinks were on the house courtesy of the tavernmaster, Felix Sudbury. Many people had come forward to wish him welcome home, including Effrem Owles and his father Benjamin, Solomon Tully, Robert Deverick and Israel Brandier. Matthew had been polite, but firm in his refusal to say anything more than that the criminal he and Greathouse had been sent after was dead. Case closed. Savin' it for the Earwig ,huh? Israel had asked, but Matthew said there would be no more of those outlandish tales in Marmaduke's broadsheet and he offered to vow on a Bible if they didn't believe him.

As the night progressed, the interest in knowing Matthew's business waned, since he remained steadfastly not talking, and the other patrons drifted away from him to their own concerns. Matthew had noted, however, that he'd gotten some sidelong glances from people who thought they had known him very well up to this evening, and perhaps were wondering what had changed about him in his month's journey.

One thing different, among many, was that he now believed in ghosts more than ever, since he'd seen both Walker In Two Worlds and Lark Lindsay on the street this afternoon. Several times, in fact.

Even now, as he sat with Greathouse and drank his own third cup of wine, he was sure someone was sitting at the table behind him and to his right. If he turned his head just a fraction he could make out from the corner of his eye an Indian with black facepaint and an arrangement of feathers dyed dark green and indigo tied to his scalplock with leather cords. Of course when he looked fully in that direction Walker was not there, but now in the corner of his other eye a lovely, serene blonde girl was standing over by the table where Effrem Owles and Robert Deverick were playing chess.

He had brought them back with him, he thought. How long they wished to stay-how long they would stay-he didn't know. But they were friends of his, just as much as any of the others, and they were welcome.

"What do you keep looking at?" Greathouse asked.

"Shadows," Matthew said, and let it go at that.

When he had gone to the Grigsby house today, after Tom had boarded the Golden Eye, Matthew had knocked at the door and Berry had answered it. They had just stared at each other for a few seconds, he taking her in like sunlight after thinking he would likely die in the dark, and she seemingly frozen with his name on her lips. And then just as she'd cried out, "Matthew!" and reached for him her grandfather had let forth a bellow from behind her and shouldered her aside to throw his arms around Matthew in a crushing embrace.

"My boy! My boy!" Marmaduke had shouted, his large blue eyes ashine in the frames of his spectacles and his heavy white eyebrows twitching on the moon-round face. "We feared you were dead! Good God, boy! Come in here and tell us the whole story!"

The whole story was what Matthew was determined not to tell, even as Marmaduke pushed a platter of honey-drizzled biscuits and a mug of mimbo upon him at the kitchen table. Berry sat beside him, very close, and Matthew could not help but notice and be gratified by the fact that she kept placing her hand upon his arm or shoulder and rubbing there as if to make certain he was real and would not fade away like a dream upon awakening.

"Tell! Tell!" Marmy insisted, as his right hand seemed to grip an invisible quill and prepared to scribe upon the table.

"No," Matthew had said, after he'd eaten two of the biscuits and put down half the sugared rum. "I'm sorry, but I can't."

"But you must Your readers are clamoring!"

"My business depends on privacy. There'll be no more of those stories." "Nonsense! I've made you into a celebrity!"

"The price for that is too high," Matthew had answered. "From now on, I'm just an ordinary fellow who works for a living."

Marmaduke had snatched away the platter of biscuits, but then he'd seemed to take note of Berry's hand upon Matthew's arm. He'd pushed the biscuits forward again, and sighed. "Ah, well. I'm running low on ink, anyway. Suf'-and here he'd lifted a finger of triumph-"there's yet the tale of Gray Wolf to be told, isn't there?"

Matthew had shrugged. If Greathouse wanted to go down that particularly twisty road, it was his own horse-and-wagon. More like ass-and-cart, to be truthful.

Berry had put on a yellow cloak and walked with Matthew for a while, north along the waterfront. He didn't speak and she didn't speak for the longest time, as the breeze blew about them and the sunlight shimmered off the river. He stopped for a few minutes to watch a ship, its sails unfurled, gliding toward the blue expanse of the sea past Oyster Island, and then he turned away.

"Can you talk about it?" she'd asked, her voice quiet and careful.

"Not yet. Later. Maybe."

"I'll be there when you want to. If you want to."

"Thank you." A few more steps in silence, and then he'd decided to speak what he'd been thinking ever since he'd walked into the Lindsays' kitchen: "I need help with something."

"Yes?"

"I need help with a question," he'd said. "A mystery. Even more than the monster's tooth, in McCaggers' attic. It's about God. Why does God allow such evil in this world? If God is supposed to watch over every little bird. Why?"

Berry didn't reply for awhile. Then she said, "I suppose you'd have to ask a reverend."

"No. That's not good enough. What would a reverend know that I don't? The right words and verses? The names of the saints and the sinners? Yes, all those, but not the answer." He'd stopped abruptly, and looked deeply into her expressive dark blue eyes. "Why doesn't God strike down evil? Why doesn't He destroy it, before it takes root?"

Again, she was reluctant to answer. She lowered her head, looking at the ground, and then lifted her eyes to his again. "Maybe He expects us to take care of the garden."

Matthew considered something that had winnowed itself into his brain. It was He Runs Fast, saying through the interpreter He wish spirits make sense. Matthew hadn't understood that at first, but then it seemed to become a quiet cry at the passing of his son. A cry for understanding, and the peace of acceptance. Matthew too wished that God's ways made sense, or that he could understand what sense they did make. He knew he could batter his brain against that unknown and unknowable door between the trials of Earth and the truth of Heaven every day for the rest of his life, and it would not bring him any closer to an answer.

It was the ultimate mystery, more ancient than a monster's tooth.

He wish spirits make sense.

"So do I," Matthew had said. And then he was aware that Berry's hand was in his, and he was holding onto it like a gift given him to protect.

Now, in the Trot, Matthew drank his wine and contemplated the fact that Greathouse, for all his show of bravado, had entered the tavern about an hour before on the support of a cane. The hollows under his eyes were still dark, his face drawn and more deeply lined. Gray Wolf had wrestled with Death in the wilderness beyond and returned grinning, yes, but not without leaving something behind. Matthew thought that if anyone could make a full recovery to health after being stabbed in the back four times, it would be the great one, but only time would tell.

Which was one reason Matthew was not ready to share with Greathouse the letter he'd found in Mrs. Sutch's safebox, and was now in his coat pocket. To venture into that area at all would be detrimental to Greathouse's recovery, for who would wish to know he'd eaten sausages spiced with human flesh? And with such relish, as well?

"I spoke to Berry this afternoon," Matthew said. "About Zed. She tells me they've devised a common language, based on drawings."

"Yes, I know."

"And that he really is a highly intelligent man, she says. He knows he's a long way from home, but not how far. She says he sits up on the roof of City Hall at night looking at the stars."

"The stars? Why is that?"

"They're the same stars he's always seen," Matthew related. "I suppose there's a comfort in that."

"Yes," Greathouse agreed, and turned his cup between his hands. "Listen," he said after a moment of silence. "We failed this job. I failed it. I'm not proud of being stupid. The doctors and the Quakers and Lord Cornbury and that Constable Drake expected us to bring Slaughter in alive. Obviously, my plan to buy Zed and set him free got the better of my judgment. Things are as they are. But I'm a professional and in this situation I did not act as one, and for that I'm profoundly sorry."

"No need for that."

"There is," said Greathouse, with a little of the old fire. "I want you to know that if I'd been on my feet and in my right mind I would never have let you go after him. Never. I would have called it quits right then and there, and been done with it. You took a tremendous risk, Matthew. God knows you're lucky to be alive."

"True," Matthew said.

"I won't ask you about it, and you don't have to tell me. But I want you to know that going after Slaughter was a braver thing than I have ever done in my life. And hell, just look at you! You're still a moonbeam!" He drank down the last of his wine. "Maybe a little tougher around the edges," he admitted, "but a moonbeam all the same." "And still in need of a bodyguard?"

"In need of a keeper. If Mrs. Herrald knew about this, she'd-" He stopped and shook his head. "She'd what?" Matthew prodded.

"She'd say that I was a damned fool," Greathouse replied, "but she'd know she made a good choice in you. Just so you stay alive to secure her investment for a few more months."

Matthew distinctly remembered Mrs. Herrald telling him that the job of a problem solver meant thinking quickly in dangerous situations, sometimes taking your life in your hands or trusting your life to the hands of someone else. But he chose not to remind Greathouse of that.

"Speaking of investments," Greathouse said, "there's a job you can do for me. Or rather, try to do. You know I told you about the situation involving Princess Lillehorne, the other women, and Dr. Mallory? When I was half out of my head? Well, due to my current complication I'm not going to be able to get around so much for a while, so I'd appreciate it if you would take the case over. It's just a question of why Princess sees him three times a week and comes home in a red-faced sweat, according to Lillehorne. Four other wives, the same, and do you know what they tell their husbands? That it's a health treatment. Then they refuse to say another word, and in the case of Princess Lillehorne, she's threatened to withhold her wifely duties if Gardner doesn't pay Mallory's bill."

"All right, then. I'll just ask Dr. Mallory."

"Wrong. If he's ramming them in the back room, what's he going to say?" "Maybe he's ramming them in the front room."

"You just take it slow. Talk to that wife of his and see if you can get a handle on him. If he's strumming the love harps of five women three times a week, she ought to have a clue." He stood up with the help of his cane. "My notes are in my desk. Have a look at them tomorrow."

"I will."

"Want to meet me for breakfast at Sally Almond's? I think they're supposed to be getting in some of those hot sausages."

"I wouldn't count on that," Matthew said. "Anyway, they're not to my taste. But yes, I'd be glad to meet you. My treat."

"Wonders never cease. Seven-thirty?" He frowned. "No, better make that eight-thirty. These days it takes me a little longer in the morning."

"Eight-thirty it is."

"Good." Greathouse started out, but he turned back to the table and stood over Matthew. "I did hear what you told me about finding the money," he said quietly. "The eighty pounds worth of gold coins, in the lockbox at the Chapel estate. You found that on your own time. It belongs to you, no question. And I would have done exactly the same thing," he said. "But you're still paying back what you owe me, and buying me breakfast. Hear?"

"I hear," Matthew said.

"Tomorrow, then." Greathouse stopped at the door to get his woolen cap from a wallpeg and wrap his cloak around his shoulders, and then he walked out of the Trot for home.

It was awhile before Matthew finished his wine and decided he ought to go. He bid goodnight to his friends, got his tricorn and his warm ash-gray cloak and bundled himself up, for it was a chilly night. He left the Trot, but instead of going north to his dwelling behind the Grigsby house he turned south. There was some business to attend to.

He had memorized the letter in his coat pocket.

Beginning with a place name and date-Boston, the fifteenth of August-it read in a flowing script: Dear Mrs. Sutch, Please carry out the usual preparations regarding one Matthew Corbett, of NewYork town in the New York colony. Se advised that Mr. Corbett resides on Queen Street, in-and I fear this is no jest-a dairy house behind the residence of one Mr. Grigsby, the local printmaster. Also be advised that the professor has been here lately in the aftermath of the unfortunate Chapel project, and will be returning to the island toward mid-September.

The professor requires resolution of this matter by the final week of November, as Mr. Corbett has been deemed a potentially-dangerous distraction. As always, we bowbefore your experience in these matters of honor.

At the bottom it was signed, Sirki.

The letter had been in Mrs. Sutch's safebox, among papers detailing mundane business things such as money paid for delivery agents to carry orders of sausages to Sally Almond's in New York and both the Squire's Inn and the Old Bucket tavern in Philadelphia, as well as-interestingly enough-the Peartree Inn on the Philadelphia Pike at Hoornbeck. The deliverymen, contacted by the decent and hard-nosed constable from Nicholsburg, were simply locals who had been recruited by Mrs. Sutch to do the work, and they were amazed that anyone would have murdered Mrs. Sutch and Noggin and burned the place to the ground. But then again, these were evil times, and God save Nicholsburg.

Also in the box had been a half-dozen small white cards, identical to the one Matthew had received in the second week of September excepting the fact that his had borne the bloody fingerprint.

Matters of honor, indeed.

He had tried to reason this out. The best he could figure was that Mrs. Sutch was given the command by Professor Fell-or whoever this Sirki was-to carry out these preparations. It was likely she gave Noggin-or an unknown someone else?-the card and put him on a packet boat from Philadelphia. Then, depending on the professor's pleasure, time passed while the intended victim was left to squirm. Only in Matthew's case, the professor had decided to resolve the matter of honor by the end of November, this very month, in order to remove a potentially-dangerous distraction.

Matthew didn't know whether to be pleased or insulted by that. It also irritated his craw that they were laughing about his house.

He walked south along Broad Street, passing City Hall. Lights showed in the attic windows. The sky was full of sparkling stars, and Matthew wondered if on this crisp and quiet night Zed was not sitting up there, maybe with a blanket draped around him, thinking of nights spent with loved ones under those same celestial banners.

Lanterns gleamed from wooden posts on the street corners. The constables were out, carrying their green lamps. Matthew saw one coming north further along Broad, the lantern swinging back and forth to check nooks and crannies. Matthew turned to the right onto Stone Street, took from his pocket the key he'd gotten from home, and unlocked the door to Number Seven.

He fired the tinderbox that sat on a table beside the door, and with its flame touched the wicks of three tapers in a triple-armed candleholder also on the table. He locked the door, picked up the candles and climbed the steep stairs.

As he reached the top he heard a soft little thump. The ghosts were greeting him, in their own way.

Passing through the oak-paneled outer room with its cubbyhole-chest and its windows that looked toward the Great Dock, Matthew entered another door that held his and Greathouse's desks. He left the door open and lit four candles in an eight-armed wrought-iron chandelier overhead. The unshuttered windows in this office gave a view of New York to the northwest. The room held three wooden file cabinets and a small fireplace of rough gray and tan stones sure to see much use when the really cold weather began. It was good to be home.

Matthew sat the triple-candleholder on his desk. Relishing his return, he peered for a while through the windows at the comforting view of the little lamps scattered across the expanse of town. Then he removed his hat and cloak and hung them up, situated himself at his desk, took the letter from Sirki to Sutch out of his pocket, and smoothed it down before him. Opening the top drawer of his desk, he brought out the magnifying glass that was a gift from Katherine Herrald, and studied the handwriting with closer scrutiny.

A man's hand, he decided. Flowing, yes, but with very little elaboration except for a flourish beneath the name. What ki nd of name was Sirki? And what was that about returning to the island toward mid-September? Matthew could see where the quill had paused from time to time for another dip of ink. The paper had been twice folded to fit an envelope. It was light brown, not as thick as parchment. He held it up before the candleglow, and there he saw something that made him turn it over and look again.

He brought from his drawer a pencil and scratched lead over what seemed to be a faint impression on the back of the paper.

Before him appeared the stylized shape of an octopus, its eight tentacles stretched out wide as if to seize the world.

It was the impression of the wax stamp that had been used to seal the envelope. He heard a quiet noise, almost a sigh. Something bit him on the side of his neck. A little sting, no more.

He put his hand there and felt a small object in his flesh. When he pulled it out, he was looking at a wooden dart about three inches long with a smear of yellowish paste on its stinger tip and on the other end a piece of hollowed-out cork.

A ghost stirred in the corner beside the file cabinets, where the shadows lay thickest.

This ghost, as it emerged, wore a long black cloak and tricorn and had silky hair the color of dust. He was of indeterminate age, small-boned, pale of skin and weirdly fragile. A long thin scar ran up through his right eyebrow into his hairline, and his eye on that side was a cold milky-white orb. He held a wooden tube, which he now set atop one of the filing cabinets. His black-gloved hand went into his cloak-his movements slow and horribly deliberate-and reappeared with a long, sharp knitting needle that glinted blue in the candlelight.

Matthew stood up, dropping the dart to the floor. His throat was cold, his neck prickling where the tip had entered.

"Stay where you are," he said. He was aware that his tongue was starting to freeze.

Ripley, the young assassin-in-training, advanced as in a nightmare. Obviously he had graduated to using a blowpipe and a dart smeared with frog venom. Matthew recalled with terror what Mrs. Sutch had told Slaughter: " causes the muscles to stiffen and the throat to constrict. Within seconds, the victim cannot move "

If he had only seconds, he was going to make them count.

He picked up the candleholder with numbed fingers and hurled it. Not at Ripley, but through the glass of the windows. The crash echoed along Stone Street and made a dog start barking. His only chance, he'd realized, was to bring the nearest constable to his aid. If no one heard the noise, he was dead. And he might well be dead, anyway.

He retreated. His legs were cold and trembling; everything seemed to be in slow-motion, and he was aware that his heart-when it should be pounding in his chest-was also slowing. When he drew in a breath, his lungs creaked. They felt as if they were filling up with icy water. Even the workings of his mind were running down: Ripley may have shadowed him from the Trot come ahead and picked the lock relocked the door waiting for him in the dark his method of a needle through his eye into the brain for resolution of this matter of

Matthew picked up Greathouse's chair and held it before him, as he backed toward the wall.

In the flickering light cast by the candles on Greathouse's desk, Ripley glided forward step after step.

"Hello?" someone called from the street. "Hello, up there!"

Matthew opened his mouth to shout for help, but his voice was gone. It came to him to throw the chair at Ripley and take his chances on getting down the steps. As soon as this thought registered in his brain, his hands spasmed. He lost hold of the chair. His legs gave way and he fell to his knees.

A fist hit the door at the bottom of the stairs. Matthew fell onto his face. He was shivering, his muscles jumping as if the venom had birthed frogs beneath his skin. Still, he tried to push himself across the floor. Within another five seconds both his strength and power of will had abandoned him.

Ripley stood over Matthew, who lay frozen on his stomach, his eyes open and his mouth gasping.

"Corbett?" shouted another voice. There came the sound of the doorhandle being worked back and forth.

Ripley reached down and began to turn Matthew over.

Something slammed against the door.

Ripley succeeded in his task. In his prison of ice, Matthew thought he should get his hands up before his eyes. He tried this also, but nothing happened. I'm drowning, he thought. My God I can't breathe

Again, something smashed into the door. There came the noise of wood ripping asunder. Matthew felt the floor shake underneath him.

Ripley grasped a handful of Matthew's hair. Candlelight jumped off the needle's tip as it hovered over the center of Matthew's right eye. Ripley had become a blur, a white shape, truly ghostly. The needle's tip descended, and looked to be burning with blue fire.

Matthew saw Ripley's head turn.

A dark shape enveloped the assassin.

Ripley's mouth opened, and suddenly a huge black fist hit him in the face and his jaw crumpled and teeth and blood flew out. For a second the blurred Ripley gave a hideous rictus of a grin with his ruined mouth, the single good eye wide and staring, the other fish-belly white, and then his face disappeared again beneath the fist. This time Ripley fell out of Matthew's line-of-sight, leaving what Matthew saw to be a streak of spirit image across the air.

Matthew's lungs hitched. He was gulping breath down, swallowing it from where he lay at the center of an ice­ pond.

"Corbett!" Someone was above him. He couldn't make out the face. "Corbett!" "Is he dyin'?" another voice asked. A green lamp floated over Matthew.

The face went away. There was a silence, during which Matthew continued to gulp small mouthfuls of breath, for it was all he could manage. His heartbeat was slowing slowing

"Christ!" came a shout. "Zed, pick him up! Peterson, do you know where Dr. Mallory lives? On Nassau Street? "Yes sir, I know."

"Run there as fast as you can! Tell him we're bringing in a poison victim! Go!"

Thirty-Four

"Drink this."

Matthew recoiled; he couldn't recoil very far, however, for he was swaddled in damp beddings with his arms down by his sides. A cup of steaming liquid was tilted to his lips, which Matthew even in his humid haze kept tightly pressed together.

"It's just tea. English tea, that is. With honey and a dash of rum. Go ahead, drink it."

Matthew accepted it, and Jason Mallory held the cup to his mouth until the tea was gone.

"There," said Dr. Mallory. "Wasn't so bad, was it?"

Matthew's swollen eyes took in the doctor sitting in a chair beside his bed. On an octagonal table next to the chair was a single candle with a polished tin reflector behind it, and by that light Matthew made out Mallory's face. The rest of the room was shrouded by darkness.

Matthew felt as if his mind had been shattered like a mirror and pieced together again by a stranger who was not quite sure how the memories fit. Had Rachel Howarth ever stood beautiful and defiant before a mocking throng of Indians in a Seneca longhouse? Had Magistrate Woodward ever nocked an arrow and fired it into the night-black forest? Or Berry ever leaned her head against his shoulder under the stars and wept heartbroken tears? He was all messed up.

More than that, his bones ached, his very teeth ached, he couldn't have gotten up from this bed or in reality lifted his arms from his sides for eight times eighty pounds, and he had the awful impression of a woman sliding a chamberpot under him and saying, "There you are, now do your business like a good boy."

He remembered sweating. But he remembered freezing, as well. Then burning up. At some point, had cold water been poured repeatedly over his back? He remembered someone pushing down on his chest, again and again, hard enough to had he wept, like Berry had? And someone saying close to his ear, "Breathe, Matthew! Breathe!"

Ah, yes. He remembered drinking the tea. Not English tea, certainly. This had been thick, sharp-tasting, and Again, Matthew/ Drink it, now You can do it. All down.

His heart. He remembered how his heart was pounding, as if about to tear itself from his chest and tumble across the floor spewing blood. He was sweating, he was lying in a sodden mass of linens, and

One more cup, Matthew. Come on, Greathouse, get his mouth open.

"How are you feeling?" Mallory asked.

Matthew made a noise between a fart and a whistle.

"Do you know where you are?"

Matthew could see nothing but the doctor's face, illuminated by the reflected candle. Mallory was a lean, handsome man who appeared to possess features part angel, in his long, graceful Roman nose and luminous sea-green eyes, and part devil, in his arched, thick dark brown eyebrows and a wide mouth that seemed to be on the constant verge of a cruel burst of laughter. He had a weathered face that spoke of the harsh fire of tropic suns. His hair was dark brown, pulled back and tied into a queue. His chin was square and noble, his demeanor calm, his teeth all in their places. His voice was low and smoky, like the rumble of distant guns.

"The treatment room in my house," he said, when Matthew didn't respond. "Do you know how long you've been here?"

"No." Matthew was shocked at the weakness of his own voice. How time flew: one day a young man, the next ready for Paradise.

"This is your third morning."

"It's day, then?" But where was the sunlight? Surely there were windows in here. "When I last checked the clock, it was just after two. In the morning." "A night owl," Matthew rasped.

"You might give praise for night owls. Owing to a particular night owl named Ashton McCaggers, you were brought promptly to me."

"I remember " What? A one-eyed ghost, sliding out of the wall? A sting in the side of his neck? Oh, yes. That. His heart was beating hard again, and suddenly he was wet with perspiration. The bed already felt like a sinking boat. "Ripley," Matthew said. "What happened to him?"

"He is in need of a new face, and currently resides in the prisoners' ward of the King Street hospital. It's unlikely he shall be speaking anytime soon. You might thank McCaggers' slave for that."

"How did Zed get there?"

"Well, he knocked the door down, is the short answer. As I understand, the slave was up on the roof of City Hall and saw your light. He relayed this-as he does in some way, I suppose-to his master, who wished to take you a bottle of brandy to toast your return. There was something about hearing glass break. So again, you might give thanks for night owls, both the white and black variety."

"Why?" Matthew asked.

"Why what?"

"A moment." Matthew had to compose the question again, for it had slipped away between thought and lip. "Why was I brought to you? There are other doctors nearer Stone Street."

"There are," Mallory agreed, "but none of them have travelled as extensively as I have around the world. And none of them know anything about the frog venom on the dart that struck you, or of course how to alleviate its unfortunate effects."

"How?" Matthew asked.

"Is this a guessing game?"

"How did you alleviate?"

"First of all, I knew what it was-what it must be-due to the blowpipe that Ashton found in your office, and of course from your condition. I spent half a year on an expedition into the jungles of South America, where I witnessed natives regularly hunt with the pipe and dart, and more than once I saw them put even jaguars on the ground. Of course there are many different species of what they call 'poison-dart frogs', some more potent than others. The venom is actually sweat from the skin. A sort of sticky yellowish-white paste. As in the small clay vial that young wretch was carrying in his pocket."

Matthew thought of the empty space where the blowpipe had been, in Mrs. Sutch's cupboard. His own name had been in the ledger book of victims, but it would not have been crossed out until Ripley had done the deed and reported back.

"The venom doesn't travel well," Mallory went on, his face daubed yellow by the light. "After a year or so, it loses its full lethal potency. Though it can still seize a man up, so to speak, or at least give him a good scare. The trick is to keep the victim breathing and give him a shock to the heart. Which I did with my tea."

"Your tea?"

"Not the English variety. My own recipe, which I hoped would work if indeed the venom was not at its full potency. A tea boiled from feverwort, yarrow, cayenne pepper, coca leaves, hawthorn and skullcap. You received a very, very strong dosage. Several, in fact. Boiled down to a thickening, I suppose you might call it. The result is that your heart pounds, your lungs pump, and you sweat rivers, but you do banish the impurities, if you live."

"Ah," Matthew said. "I expect my face got very red, as well?"

"Beet-red."

"May I ask you a question?" Matthew slowly eased himself up to a sitting position. His head swam and the room spun, but he made it. "Have you ever given that tea to Princess Lillehorne?"

"In a much more moderate portion, yes. A very expensive health treatment. Firms the fibers, aligns the humors and is quite beneficial to women's parts. She told me she was having some trouble in that regard. I asked her to keep the treatment to herself, because my supply of coca leaves was limited, but she deemed it wise to tell a friend, who told a "

"Friend, who told a friend, until there were five women paying for health treatments three times a week?"

"Yes. And I allowed it because every time I raised my fee, they paid. Only now you've used up the last of my supply."

"I don't think I want anymore," Matthew said. "But tell me how did Ashton McCaggers know you knew anything about the frog venom?"

"Ashton and I," said the doctor, "have been meeting regularly on Crown Street for coffee. He's a very interesting and knowledgable young man. Very curious about the world. I've told him about my travels: Italy, Prussia, Hungary, China, Japan and many other places, I'm proud to say. One day I mentioned my exploits in South America, and I told him about the natives and the blowpipes. He'd already read Sir Walter Raleigh's account of his travels on the Orinoco River, and of how the pipes were used, so Ashton recognized what it was when he saw it."

Matthew nodded, but he was watching the doctor very carefully. Some little thing, just a pittance of a thing, had begun to bother him. "I wonder," Matthew said, "how that young wretch, as you put it, got hold of a blowpipe, a dart and that vial of frog venom. Don't you?"

"I have wondered about that, yes."

"You know, that seems a bit strange to me."

"Yes," the doctor agreed. "To me, as well."

"I mean, it's not every day that a killer tries to murder someone with frog venom from South America, and there in the same town is a doctor who is well almost an expert on frog venom from South America."

"Not an expert." Mallory gave a passing smile. "There are so many more varieties of poisonous frogs yet to be discovered, I'm sure."

Matthew sat up a little straighter. He had a bitter taste in his mouth. "I would think McCaggers might wonder about that coincidence too, when he stops to consider it."

"He already has. As I said to him, it's one of those strange improbabilities that make up the chaos of life. I also told him, Greathouse and Lillehorne that the blowpipe could have been fashioned right here in New York, but that the venom would have been obtained only after much time and expense. Someone had to bring it back from the jungle. A very exotic way to kill a victim, really. But perhaps it was an experiment?"

Matthew felt a new chill pass through him. It's being experimented with, Mrs. Sutch had told Slaughter. "How do you mean?" Matthew asked.

"I mean perhaps the young wretch was testing the method. For someone else. To see how well the venom travelled, or " He stopped abruptly. "Your point being, did I supply it?" His arched brows lifted. "Don't you think that's being ingracious? After all, I gave you a very expensive amount of my tea."

"But I wasn't going to die, was I? Because the venom wasn't potent enough?"

"It was a close call," Mallory said. "But I can tell you that without my treatment you'd have been lying on your back in a hell of delirium for at least a week, and after that your ability to walk would be impaired for who knows how long? With my treatment, you'll be able to stagger out of here tomorrow or the next day."

Matthew couldn't help it. Even as weak as he was, he had to probe. "Did you say you and your wife came from Boston? Toward mid-September?"

"Boston, yes. And the middle of September, the same."

"I wonder, Dr. Mallory I know this seems a very odd question, but " Matthew forced himself to lock eyes with the other man. "Would you call Manhattan an island?"

"It is an island." Mallory paused for a few seconds. His mouth squirmed, looking very near to giving out the burst of laughter. "Oh! You're referring to this!"

From within his white shirt he produced a piece of light brown paper, twice folded. It was not as thick as parchment. As Mallory unfolded it before the candle, Matthew could see the pencil's impression of the octopus symbol on the back.

"That's private," Matthew said. Did his voice quaver?

"And so it should remain. I sent Rebecca to your office after they brought you here. I wanted to know if there were any more of those nasty little darts on the floor, like this one Ashton found." Mallory reached over to the table, beside the candle, and picked up the dart that lay there to show his patient. "It appeared you'd only been struck with the one, but I wasn't sure and you couldn't tell me nor could that young toothless wretch, though it was later discovered he had three more in a leather pouch in his pocket. I thought it was also a good idea for Rebecca to take a quick look around before Lillehorne got there. So on the floor behind your desk was this letter."

Matthew was silent. He cursed himself for stupidity, for he had wandered again into rattlesnake country where it was least expected.

Mallory looked long and hard at the octopus symbol. "I understand," he said, his guns rumbling, "that you killed the man you were sent to bring back. Tyranthus Slaughter. Yes?"

Matthew didn't answer.

"Relax. We're only talking, Matthew. Two people in a room, at half-past two in the morning. Just us night owls." He gave a quick, cold-eyed smile. "All right, I presume you killed Slaughter. That's what Lillehorne says. Now, about Mrs. Sutch: is she in custody, or is she dead?" "Who are you?" Matthew managed to ask. His throat was cold again.

"I," said the doctor, "am your friend. And I am going to assume as well that Mrs. Sutch is deceased, because she would have killed herself before she let anyone cage her." He folded the letter again and slid it into his shirt. "A pity," he said. "I liked her sausages."

Matthew decided he had to make a move. He had to get up and get out of here, no matter what. But when he tried-and he really, really did try-he had no strength, and now his arms and legs were losing sensation and the candlelight was spinning out long yellow spikes.

"Tell me, Matthew." Mallory leaned closer to him, his eyes shining. "When you killed Slaughter and Mrs. Sutch, what did you feel?"

"What?"

"Feel," Mallory repeated. "What did you feel?" "I felt sick."

Mallory smiled again. "There's a medicine for that, too."

Again Matthew tried to get out of bed; again he failed, and this time his head fell back upon his pillow because the muscles of his neck had given out. He thought of shouting for help; the thought shattered like glass, and blew away like smoke.

"You'll be peacefully asleep in a minute," said Mallory. "I want you to know the blade scrape across your chest is healing well, but the smaller cut on your side is infected. I have a poultice on it that should help, but we'll watch it carefully."

Matthew was fighting the oncoming dark. The light was fading, and so was the doctor's face. "Are you " He couldn't speak. Mallory was fragmenting into pieces, like Matthew's mind. "Are you going to kill me?" And he added: "Professor?"

The good doctor drummed his fingers on his armrest. "To your question, I answer: absolutely not. To your supposition, I say even night owls must rest." He reached out and with two fingers shut Matthew's eyelids. Matthew heard the chair creak as the man stood up, heard a breath extinguish the candle, and then all was silent.

Thirty-Five

An envelope arrived by courier at Number Seven Stone Street on a Friday afternoon in late November. Matthew's name was upon the front, and Lord Cornbury's seal upon the back.

"What the hell is it?" Greathouse wanted to know, and when Matthew informed him what it must be, the great one had said, "I think you ought to tell him, don't you?" Matthew agreed. He took his cloak and tricorn and was halfway down the stairs when he heard Greathouse shout, "You wouldn't have made a very good slavemaster, anyway!"

Matthew set off into the traffic on Broad Street. It was a bright day, warm for the season though light cloaks and coats were in order. Matthew went directly to City Hall, climbed the attic steps to McCaggers' domain and knocked at the door. He waited, but there was no answer. He thought he knew where McCaggers and Zed might be, since Berry had told him that the light this time of year-and especially on sunny afternoons such as this-was to be taken advantage of before the gray gloom of winter set in. Matthew had not missed the fact that where Berry was to be found, McCaggers also was.

He left City Hall and walked east on Wall Street toward the harbor. Another fact he didn't miss was that at the end of this street was the slave market.

He had been a slave owner for nearly a week. It had been an expensive proposition. McCaggers had been agreeable, with the understanding that Zed would continue his present living arrangements and also help the coroner as needed. But the villain of the play had been Gerritt van Kowenhoven, who brought in a silver-tongued lawyer before he would consider any discussion of selling his valuable slave. When the discussion began, it seemed to revolve around not Zed's future but the street van Kowenhoven had been promised as an honor to his name. Then, after being assured the street was indeed on the new map-and actually getting a view of the new map, courtesy of McCaggers-the talk had turned to van Kowenhoven's profit on his investment.

When the quills finished their job, Matthew's remaining money after the payment of debts had been whittled down to twenty-three pounds. The next step had been arranging a meeting with Lord Cornbury.

In Cornbury's office with its overstuffed chairs, a desk of English oak that seemed as wide as a continent and a portrait of Queen Anne glowering from the wall, the Lord himself had regarded Matthew through bored, blue-shaded eyes and idly twisted a curl of his high blond wig while Matthew stated his case. It wasn't easy, stating a case to a man in a purple gown with puffy frills of blue lace down the front. But after the case was stated, Cornbury then coldly informed Matthew that the Herrald Agency had embarrassed him in front of his cousin the Queen over that Slaughter business and Matthew might believe himself to be a celebrity, and think he had some influence due to this mistaken belief, but that Matthew should not let the door hit him in the cheeks on the way out.

"Ten pounds for your signature within the week," Matthew had said. And remembering his station in life, which was just a citizen the same as everyone, added: "Your Lordship."

"Are you not hearing me, sir? Anyway, these things take time. Even though we're speaking of personal property, we have the town's safety to consider. There has to be a discussion of the council. A meeting of the aldermen. Some of them are vehemently opposed to this kind of thing. No, no. Impossible."

That was when Matthew had reached into his pocket and put the intricately-engraved silver ring from Slaughter's safebox on the desk. He'd pushed it across the continent toward Lord Cornbury.

It had been picked up by a purple-gloved hand, inspected in the spill of light from the window next to the face of Queen Anne, and tossed aside. "Nice enough," came the voice through the painted lips, "but I have a dozen of those."

Matthew then took from his pocket the necklace of grayish-blue pearls that indeed were very beautiful, now that they were cleaned up. "Your Lordship, pardon me for asking," Matthew had said, "but do you know what a string of pearls is selling for these days?" Obviously, Lord Cornbury had known.

Matthew found McCaggers, Zed and Berry at the waterfront near the fish market at the end of Smith Street. Small boats were coming in and throwing lines to the wharf. Baskets full of the sea's bounty were being unloaded onto the dripping timbers. Salters stood by with their carts, and both customers and cats were prowling around looking for supper.

In all this haste and hurry of commerce, Berry and Zed stood drawing with black crayons on pads of paper as the fishermen delivered their catch. McCaggers stood a distance away, putting on a brave face though it was apparent the fish market was not his favorite place in town; he held a handkerchief with which he dabbed at his nose, and Matthew figured it had some kind of aromatic tonic applied to it.

Matthew approached them where they stood alongside the wharf. Zed saw him coming first. The huge man touched Berry's shoulder, who looked up, followed Zed's gaze and smiled when she saw their visitor.

"Good afternoon!" she called to him. Her smile became more of a sideways grin. Today she was an eyeburst of colors, as befitting her artistic nature. She wore a wide-brimmed red hat and a floral-print gown of red and yellow. A light green wrap covered her shoulders and arms, and she wore gloves of yellow wool that exposed her fingers, the better to control the crayon.

"Afternoon," he answered, and walked to her side to look at what she and Zed were drawing. On each pad were partially-completed scenes of boats arriving at the wharf. Zed's were created with much more force and intensity, each line as thick as a finger. Again, as in the drawings of Zed's that Matthew had seen in the attic, they had an alien quality. The boats looked more like long canoes, with scrawled, menacing figures aboard that seemed to be carrying spears and shields.

To be sure, the sight of a slave drawing a picture at the waterfront was not common, and several people paused to glance and mutter, but the printmaster's granddaughter had been seen around town on many occasions with McCaggers' man, both of them drawing as easily as if they'd been talking. Of course everyone knew the printmaster's granddaughter was a bit strange-an artist as well as a teacher, you understand-but as long as McCaggers tagged along to keep his man under watch there was no need for fear. Still the size of that man; he could go mad with rage and tear down a building, as it was said he'd done to the Cock'a'tail tavern just last month.

"'Lo Matthew," said McCaggers, offering one hand while keeping the handkerchief near his nose. "How are you feeling?"

Matthew shook the hand. "Almost myself again, thank you." He took in a deep draw of air. There were the smells of the briny sea, the wet timbers and the fresh fish. Very invigorating, he thought.

"We were just about to move along," McCaggers said, with a hopeful note.

"Before you do, I have this." Matthew held up the envelope. Berry and McCaggers stared at it, but Zed had returned to his art. Matthew broke Cornbury's seal, removed the parchment from within and unfolded it. "Ah," he said when he saw the crimped and altogether ugly signature. No matter, it was the intent that counted. "The writ of manumission," Matthew said, and showed it first to McCaggers, then to Berry.

"My God." McCaggers sounded stunned. "I can't believe you actually secured it." He turned to look at Zed, who was concentrating on further thickening a line and paid the others no attention whatsoever.

"Matthew? May I tell him?" Berry asked.

"Tell him? How?"

"Let me," she said.

He gave her the document.

"Zed?" When Berry spoke his name, he immediately turned his head and looked down at her. She held up the writ. "You are free," she said. "Do you understand that? You are free." She touched Lord Cornbury's signature.

He frowned, his fathomless ebony eyes moving back and forth from the parchment to Berry. There seemed to be no comprehension of what he was looking at.

Berry turned the document over, put it down on her pad, and began to draw something. As Matthew watched, a fish took shape. It was leaping out of the water, like one of the many drawings of fish Zed had done and kept in a box under his cot. When she had finished, Berry showed him the picture.

He stared at it, his tribal-scarred face immobile.

Slowly, his mouth opened. He gave a quiet gasp, from deep in his throat.

"Yes," Berry said, nodding. She offered him a kind smile. "You are as free as that."

Zed turned his head toward the market itself, where the catch was being laid out on tables beneath a roof of brown canvas. He moved his gaze across the many dozens of shimmering silver, brown-patterned and green-streaked bodies brought up on the lines and in the nets, across the seabass, the snapper, the fluke, the cod, the flounder, the bluefish, the mackerel, the cunner and the hake. He was a fisherman too. He knew the difference between a dead fish losing its magnificent colors and shine on a wet table as opposed to the fish that had slipped a hook or sensed the fall of a net and gone deep into the blue, deep where no man might catch it, deep where it might swim for yet another day as a bird might fly through the air.

Matthew realized what Berry had already figured out.

The fish that Zed drew were the ones that had gotten away.

And in his mind, that was freedom.

Zed understood. Matthew saw it dawn in his eyes: a spark, like a distant candle on the darkest night.

He looked at them all in turn-Berry, Matthew and McCaggers-and then brought his gaze back to the girl. She smiled and nodded once more-the universal language of yes-and he nodded also but it was hard for a man in an alien world to smile.

He dropped the pad and crayon. He turned away from them, and he began to walk along the nearest pier out toward the water. As he went, he removed his shirt. Fishermen stepped aside, for he was a mighty force in motion. He kicked off one shoe, then the other, and now he was running, and anyone who had stood between him and his destination would have gone down as if hit by a moving wall.

"Zed!" Berry cried out.

He dove off the end of the pier, into the cold river water where the sun sparkled in bright ribbons. But even as big as he was, he hardly made a splash.

They shifted their positions to see past a boat and caught sight of his head surfacing, followed by the broad shining shoulders and back. Zed began to swim with powerful, deliberate strokes, following the river's current as it flowed to the Atlantic. He kept going, past the point where Matthew thought he must surely stop and turn back. He kept going.

"He'll come back," McCaggers said, the reflection of sun and water in his spectacles.

But Zed did not pause in his forward motion. Through the chill water, he swam on. "He won't go too very far," McCaggers said.

What was too very far? Matthew wondered if on all those nights Zed had studied the stars he'd calculated the way home, and now he was bound to get there if only in his last dream as he swam downward into the blue, away from the hooks and the nets.

"Zed!" McCaggers shouted. In his voice was a hint of panic. Matthew realized that McCaggers had likely considered Zed not a slave but a companion. One of a very few he could claim, for who wished to be friends with a man who spent so much time with the dead?

Zed kept swimming, further and further out, toward the wide expanse of the sea.

McCaggers said firmly, "He'll come back. I know he will."

A little waterbug of a boat moved majestically between them and Zed, its patched sails flying. When the boat passed, there was no more sign of the man.

They stood there for several more minutes, keeping watch.

At last McCaggers bent down and picked up the pad and crayon, and he gave them to Berry.

"He's a good swimmer," Berry said. "We just may not be able to see him from here."

"Yes," McCaggers agreed. "The sun's bright on the water. We may not be able to see."

Matthew felt he ought to add something, but he could only think that one attribute of being truly free was choosing how one wished to depart from life. Still was it a triumph or a tragedy?

McCaggers walked out onto the pier. He took his spectacles off, wiped the lenses with his handkerchief and put them back on. He stood there for awhile staring in the direction Zed had gone. When he came back, he said to Berry with a note of relief, "I think I saw him. I believe he's all right."

Matthew said nothing; he'd already seen what looked to him like a treetrunk with twisted branches being carried out toward Oyster Island.

The work of gutting fish had begun. McCaggers turned his face away from the sea, caught sight of a bucket full of fish heads and entrails, and focused on Berry. "Will you accompany me," he said, "for a cup of coffee?" He had a yellowish pallor. "On Crown Street?"

"I will," she answered. "Matthew, would you go with us?"

Matthew was about to say yes when he saw two people standing a distance away. One was a tall, lean man with features part angel and part devil. He wore an elegant gray suit, waistcoat and cloak, and on his head was a gray tricorn. The other was a slimly-built woman, nearly as tall as her husband, with long thick tresses of black hair curling about her shoulders. She wore a gown of deep blue velvet, with a short jacket the same material and color. She was standing beneath a blue parasol, its hue a few shades lighter than the velvet.

Matthew felt sure he'd seen that parasol before. At the Chapel estate, possibly. In midsummer.

The Mallorys seemed to be talking quietly, admiring the work of the blades as the glistening fish were carved. Did the woman cast a sidelong glance at him? He wouldn't be surprised. They'd been shadowing him ever since he'd left the doctor's care. A day hadn't gone by when he wasn't aware of them, hovering somewhere nearby.

They turned their backs to him, and arm-in-arm they walked away in the shadow of her parasol.

McCaggers hadn't noticed them. He was still anxiously searching the distance for a swimmer.

"Some other time," Matthew said to Berry's invitation. He didn't think he'd be very good company, with the Mallorys on his mind. "I'd best get back to the office."

McCaggers spoke up before the girl could respond. "Of course! Some other time, then."

"Ashton, I want to thank you again for saving my life," Matthew said. "And for letting me call you friend."

"I think Zed is the one who saved your life. When he comes back, we'll toast freedom and friendship. All right?"

"All right," Matthew agreed.

"You're sure you won't join us?" Berry asked imploringly.

"Let the man go about his business," said McCaggers, and he put his hand on Berry's elbow. "I mean are you sure you won't join us, Matthew?"

"I'm sure."

"Zed will be back." McCaggers looked into Matthew's eyes, and no longer out to sea. "You saw what a good swimmer he is."

"Yes, I did."

"Good afternoon, then." The coroner attempted a smile. His somber face was ill-suited to the expression and it slipped away. "I trust no one will try to kill you anytime soon."

"I trust," Matthew said, but he'd realized that he was a killer himself, whether he'd wanted the title or not, and to survive in a land of carnivores he would have to grow the killer's eye in the back of his head.

"Later?" Berry asked.

"Later," Matthew replied.

McCaggers and Berry walked on together, with his hand at her elbow. She glanced back at him, just briefly, and he wondered if she hoped he'd changed his mind. McCaggers had taken three steps when the heel of his right boot broke off. Berry helped him steady himself. He picked up the heel, and with a shake of his head at the improbabilities that make up the chaos of life he limped along at her side.

Matthew started off, heading back to Stone Street.

Before he got a block away from the waterfront, he heard a woman's voice behind him say, "Mr. Corbett?" He could keep going, he thought. Just keep going, and pretend not to hear. "Mr. Corbett? One moment, please?"

He stopped, because he knew that whatever their game was, they were determined to play it out.

Rebecca Mallory was a fiercely beautiful woman. She had high cheekbones and full, red-rouged lips and intense eyes of deep sapphire that Matthew thought must have claimed the souls of many men. She held the blue parasol between them, as if offering to share its shadow. Matthew saw her husband standing behind her a few yards away, lounging against a wall.

Dr. Mallory's care of Matthew had been professional and successful, and when Matthew had gotten his clothes back he'd found the letter from Sirki to Sutch returned to him in a pocket. It was as if that discussion between night owls had never happened, but for the fact that they were watching him. What was he going to do? Show the letter to Greathouse and open up all that bloody mess? And what could he prove about the Mallorys, anyway? In fact, what did he know about them? Nothing. So best to wait, and to let the game play out. For what choice was there?

"We have a mutual acquaintance." The woman's voice was calm, her gaze steady. She might have just said they liked the same kind of sausages.

"Do we?" Matthew asked, just as calmly.

"We believe he'd like to meet you," she said.

Matthew didn't answer. It suddenly seemed very lonely, on this street.

"When you're ready, in a week or two, we'd like you to come visit us. Will you do that?"

His lip felt the graze of a hook. He sensed the silent falling of a net. "What if I don't?"

"Oh," she said, with a tight smile, "let's not be unfriendly, Matthew. In a week or two. We'll set a table, and we'll be expecting you."

With that, she turned away and walked back to where her husband waited, and together the elegant, handsome Mallorys strolled along the street in the direction of the waterfront.

Matthew determined that before this day was over he was going to have to take a long drink or two at the Trot, surrounded by laughter and lively fiddle music and people he counted as friends. That was the true treasure of a man, it seemed to him. Greathouse, too, if he wanted to come. Matthew would even buy him a meal; after all, he had thirteen pounds and a few shillings left to his name. Enough for a fireplace, and then some. But without all those gold pieces stuffed in the straw of his bed, he slept so much better.

He also determined that his mouth was going to remain shut about this-to Greathouse, Berry, and everyone else he knew-until he found out more.

Right now, though, he had nothing but a friendly invitation from a beautiful woman.

And God only knew where that might lead.

Matthew watched the blue parasol out of sight. Then he went back to Stone Street on a path as straight as an arrow.