The Providence Rider by Robert R. McCammon
“I disagree.” Madam Chillany stepped between Matthew and Falco to disrupt their burgeoning accord. “Captain, I will remind you that you are being paid very well by your employer to—”
“Madam, you are not my employer,” he said, with a hint of a curled lip. “Yes, I am being paid very well. I am loyal to my employer, as long as he pays well. I always do my job to the best of my ability…but my job, madam, is to make the best decisions possible under the shadow of the sails above our heads. Now, I’ve been coming down here for several days to speak to the Ga. And to the girl as well. I was simply told when they were brought aboard that for the sake of security and simplicity they should be caged here, and I agreed with your position. At that time I agreed,” he added. “But now, having spoken to both of them and gained a bit more…shall we say…understanding of the issues involved, I see no point in having them remain in these cells.” He reached for the wall, where a ring of keys hung from a hook. “After all, where are they going to go? And I believe the swords and pistols aboard this ship can handle a Ga if he loses his temper.” He spoke again to Zed, who answered with a chest-deep grunt and a shake of his bald head. “Madam,” Falco translated, “he vows not to lose his temper.”
“The professor won’t care for this,” she warned as Falco slid a key into the lock on Zed’s cell, and instantly Matthew knew she’d gone a threat too far.
Falco unlocked the cell and opened the door with a creak of sea-rusted hinges. He motioned Zed out. “I believe our young guest has a good idea,” said Falco. “Concerning the arrangement of quarters. I think our Ga here can be given tasks to perform and therefore rate at least a blanket on the deck, if not a hammock.” He strolled past Matthew to slide a second key into the lock on Berry’s cell door. “As for her, I believe she should rest in some comfort, to make amends for this affront to her dignity. Madam, I expect you to move into the doctor’s cabin within the hour. If he has any problem with this, he’ll know where to find me.”
“No!” The woman had a voice on her. It nearly shook the oaken beams at the ceiling. Her eyes blazed. She was one mad madam. “I refuse! He snores to high heaven and his feet stink like the devil’s ass!”
The key turned. The lock was sprung. Falco opened the door and Matthew was there to catch Berry when she staggered out.
“I’ll be glad to provide you with wads of cotton,” Falco told Aria Chillany. “Two for the ears and two for the nose. Shall we all go up now and enjoy a little sunshine?”
Thirteen
MATTHEW was not himself today. On this thirteenth morn of sailing aboard the Nightflyer, he was restless and irritable and felt he would soon jump from his skin if harbor was not presently reached. Of course, reaching harbor would offer its own set of pressures. He pitied the crews and passengers of ships bound from England to the colonies. But he did have an escape from this constant roll of ship upon sea and vista of sun’s glare off dark blue water. He was becoming Nathan Spade.
Madam Chillany had told him, very coldly, the same afternoon of the day that Berry and Zed had been released from their cages: I assume you’re proud of yourself, that you won the little skirmish? But there are real battles ahead of you, Matthew, and I hope you are up to fighting them so valiantly for you might be fighting for your life. I would suggest you pick up that parchment you so carelessly tossed aside and read the entire document. It was prepared for you by Professor Fell, so it’s not to be taken lightly. Consign the life and times of Nathan Spade to your memory, dear one. Become him, if you value your neck…and, by reason of association, the necks of your lady friend and the black crow. We will be making harbor toward the end of another week. By that time, you should be Nathan Spade. Mark this advice well, won’t you?
I shall, Matthew had replied. I do hope you enjoy your new quarters, and thank you for your hospitality to Miss Grigsby.
There had been a definite chill in the air when that woman left his door.
Why he had to become Nathan Spade, he had no idea. But it seemed the right thing to do, since Aria Chillany was so insistent upon his no longer being Matthew Corbett when they docked. And as for her statement that Some of the personages you are going to meet knew Lyra Sutch…well, long live Nathan Spade.
Whether Nathan Spade had ever really lived or not was a question Matthew considered, and then decided upon not asking Madam Chillany, as such a creature in this world further darkened his view of God’s control over Evil on this side of Heaven. As Matthew walked the deck on this thirteenth morn, with the sun out in full force and Berry walking at his side refreshed and well-fed and free of shipboard mold, he speculated with an uneasy mind upon the life and times of Master Spade.
From one murder to the next, Nathan Spade travelled as if on a mission of discovery to reach the wretched bottom of the human soul. It seemed that Spade had become very proficient at murder, having hired himself out to a gang of London thugs called the Last Chancers, and having killed—and pray to God this was Professor Fell’s attempt at fiction—eight men by the age of twenty. And an additional two on his twentieth birthday, seemingly for the sport of it. He was called ‘The Pepper Kid’ for his method of throwing a handful of ground pepper into the eyes of his victims before he either slashed open their stomachs or their throats with a hooked blade, depending on how fast or how slowly he wished them to die. Then he became a jayhawk of the most sterling quality, and secured for the Last Chancers the gin-sodden wenches they desired to fill the rooms of their house of ill-repute on Blue Anchor Road in Southwark. He fulfilled this role to the best of any bastard’s dark ambitions, having impressed upon the Last Chancers the fact that little girls and virgins always sold well in any economic climate, and that there were always little girls lost or thrown out upon the London streets, and there were always doctors ready for an amount of cash to restore with needle and stitches the pride of a wholesome virgin.
“I wish you wouldn’t tell me these things,” Berry said, as they walked the deck and Matthew recited this particular element of Nathan Spade’s charm. Then she corrected herself: “But I do want to know. Why do they need you to pretend to be him? And what does this Professor Fell want with you?”
Matthew had had no choice but to tell her everything, as he knew it to be. He saw her daily, during these outings, but had seen Zed only a few times as Zed was usually working belowdecks. Matthew had decided that keeping Berry in the dark was no longer a noble endeavor, but was in fact an act of cruelty. “As I said,” he told her, “he wants me to work for him. To solve some unknown problem. But I do trust his word to return us to New York after we’re done.”
“And why should you trust his word?”
Matthew looked at her. He noted she was getting sun on her face. Her freckles were emphasized by her freshened coloring. In the last few days the sun had made the weather as warm as April in New York. They were nearing the Bermuda islands and Matthew reasoned they couldn’t be more than a few days out. “I have to,” he replied. “Though I’ve…shall we say…disturbed his plans on more than one occasion, I believe he considers me to be…” He hesitated, pondering the end of that thought. “Of worth to him,” he finished.
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell someone, Matthew! About the Mallorys! I mean…Doctor Gentry and that woman.” She spoke the word with supreme disdain. “You could have told Hudson! Why didn’t you?”
“For the same reason I didn’t tell you,” he reminded her. “I want no one dead on my behalf. If Hudson had interfered with this, they might have killed him. Because it wasn’t he they wanted. The same with you. And, of course…here you are, and look what’s happened. Now not only do they have me, they have Zed to be held as a sword over your head and you to be held as a sword over mine.”
“As you’ve said,” she answered with a quick flash of blue-eyed anger, “many times before.”
“And I’ll say it many times hence before I’m done.” His anger was not so flashy, but mayhaps burned deeper. Still, there was no use in hitting her
They walked a distance further, completing one circuit of the deck and watching their step for coiled ropes and the numerous seamen scrubbing the wetted planks with holystones, before Matthew said, “All right, then. Continuing on about Master Spade, if you wish to hear anymore.”
Berry hesitated only briefly. Her gentle sensibilities were no match for the power of her curiosity. “Go on.”
Matthew did. Nathan Spade—if this indeed had been a living person—had evidently done a robust job as a jayhawk and thus at the age of twenty-two he had graduated to running the Blue Anchor bordello for the Last Chancers. Clock forward six months, and the Pepper Kid was put in charge also of a second Southwark whorehouse on Long Lane. And then at the age of twenty-four, his reputation both for discovering new talent and putting knives in the bellies of competitors was such that he was contacted by a certain Doctor Jonathan Gentry on behalf of a certain professor who wished to know if the aforementioned Master Spade might wish to come up in the world? Namely by managing a new house nearly in the shadow of Parliament, where men of good breeding and excellent funds mixed and mingled with the women of bad breeding who were determined to remove some of those funds from the overstuffed pockets? And suffice it to say, the women should be beautiful and rather ruthless in gaining information from their sex-stunned or love-struck lotharios, the better to share that information with Nathan Spade on its progress to Doctor Gentry and the professor’s ear.
So be it.
The Pepper Kid had arrived in his own personal land of Milk and Honey. Now he no longer needed the pepper nor the knives, for he had the professor’s killers to do that work if needed, and these days he wore expensive Italian suits and strolled the halls of diplomacy as an equal among the other moneyed and well-placed scoundrels.
“Disgusting,” was Berry’s comment when the tale was done.
“I agree,” Matthew said, and yet he was becoming Nathan Spade and so he felt compelled to add, “But one must admire ambition.” Spoken, he realized, from a knowledge of what it took for a farmer’s son to rise above a mountain of pigshit.
A commotion among a group of sailors snagged the attention of Matthew and Berry as they came around the starboard side, and following the pointed fingers and eager grins of these men brought their view up into the Nightflyer’s intricate rigging. Up there two figures were climbing and leaping amid the jungle of ropes and netting, even as the sails blew wide and tight with captured wind and strained against their masts. Matthew saw, at the deck level, some of the crew coming forward to drop coins into a black box held by a surly-looking seaman and beside him one of studious demeanor marking in a ledger book. Up above, the two figures grasped ropes and swung from mast to mast, and on the deck some of the sailors hollered with glee and some catcalled with derision. Matthew realized he was witnessing not only a race between men in the rigging but also a bet in progress as to who would win, yet it wasn’t clear what finish line one had to cross first in order to claim the prize. He wondered, from the shouts and rather crude encouragements of the gamblers, if several circuits of the masts had to be made, and so it was not only a contest of speed and dexterity but also of endurance.
He was struck with a sudden remembrance.
It had to do with the Iroquois tracker Walker In Two Worlds, who had been so vital in helping him in his hunt for Tyranthus Slaughter. Walker was telling Matthew about an arrangement that had been made, for a group of wealthy Englishmen to—
Pick three children, Walker had said, and see them off on one of the flying canoe clouds that rested on the waters of Philadelphia. Nimble Climber was chosen, Pretty Girl Who Sits Alone was another, and I was the third. We three children, and the tribe, were told we would see the world of England and the city of London for ourselves and when we were returned—within two years—we would be able to explain to our people what we had witnessed. In hopes, the men said, of forming closer ties as brothers.
But Matthew recalled that had only been part of the story.
My soul withers at the memory of that trip, Walker had said.
Watching the men race through the rigging high above his and Berry’s heads, Matthew realized what had lit the fuse on this line of thought.
Nimble Climber did not survive, Walker had told him. The sailors began a wagering game, betting how fast he could get up the rigging to fetch a gull feather fixed to the mast with a leather strap. And they kept putting it higher and higher. They were paying him with peppermint candies. He had one in his mouth when he fell.
The sailors hollered. One of the racers had slipped but had caught himself in the safety netting. He clambered up again to the nearest rope, undaunted by his brush with death.
When we reached England, Matthew remembered Walker saying, Pretty Girl Who Sits Alone was taken away by two men. I held onto her hand as long as I could, but they pulled us apart. They put her in a horse box. A coach. She was carried off, somewhere. I never found out. Some men put me into another coach, and I was not to see my people again for almost ten years.
Matthew recalled the rest of Walker’s story, that the Indian had been put into several plays as the ‘Noble Young Savage,’ and then—as his fortunes had dwindled and the novelty of an American redskin on a London stage had faded—he had found himself as the Demon Indian in a broken-down travelling fair and later returned to his tribe sadder, wiser, and—as he put it—insane.
The racers went around and around. A foot slipped on a mast. A rope was grabbed. The two men, having landed face-to-face on the same beam, wrestled with each other for a moment with no lack of effort. One fell, causing a mighty uproar. He toppled into a safety net ten feet above the deck and so no blood was spilled nor bones broken in this display of rough skill amid the ropes. It seemed also that throwing one’s opponent off the mast was part of the game, as another uproar ascended for the victor and a crowd of men began to gather to claim their payouts from the black box.
“Skylarking,” said a voice behind Matthew and Berry. There was only one voice like that aboard the Nightflyer. “That’s what it’s called,” Captain Falco said when they looked to him for explanation. “A time-honored tradition. We’re close enough to harbor now that I thought they should have a little reward.”
“How close to harbor?” Matthew asked.
“Two days distant.” The amber eyes scanned the sky. “The weather will hold. The wind favors us. Yes, two days.”
“Thank God,” said Berry, with a sigh of relief albeit premature. “I can’t wait to walk on land again!” Though this trip had been nothing like the agony of her journey from England to New York on the ill-fated Sarah Embry last summer.
“Soon enough, miss.” Falco regarded Matthew for a silent moment. Matthew thought he was trying to come to a decision. “Mr. Corbett,” the captain said at last, “would you do me the courtesy of having a drink with me this evening? Say eight bells, in my cabin? I have something to discuss with you.”
“Concerning what, if I might ask?”
“Concerning your presence here. And I would appreciate your not mentioning this visit with any of your other friends.”
“Oh. I see.”
“No, you don’t see,” Falco corrected, in a tone that was becoming a shade harsh. He looked up, as he did more than a hundred times a day, to measure the progress of wind in the sails. “Two days distant,” he repeated. And then, to Matthew: “Eight bells, sharp.” He turned away, and went about his business of managing a sailing ship under the charter of the emperor of crime.
Fourteen
ENTER,” said Captain Falco when eight bells had been struck on the deck above. Matthew had just knocked at the door decorated with the carved face of a lion. He turned the door’s handle and half expected the lion to let out a roar. Then he stepped into the captain’s cabin, where Falco was sitting at a table lighting a clay pipe with a candle’s flame.
Matthew obeyed. He saw that fish bones littered Falco’s dinner plate, along with the remnants of biscuits and brown gravy. A smaller plate held slices of lime. Also on the table were two wooden cups and a squat “onion”-style bottle of black glass. Matthew had a quick look around at the ship master’s quarters. Situated at the Nightflyer’s stern, it had six shuttered windows that, now opened, gave a view of the sea and star-spangled sky. The cabin, however, was not so very much larger than Matthew’s. There was an oak chest of drawers with a mirror and water basin sitting atop it. A writing desk held a gray blotter and a quill pen and inkpot at the ready. A bed—more of a thin-mattressed cot, really—was made up so tautly its brown fabric covering looked to be in agony. Several lanterns hung from hooks in the overhead beams to give light to the captain’s world. Falco smoked his pipe and Matthew smelled the rich, fragrant tang of Virginia tobacco.
“Pour yourself a drink.”
Matthew again obeyed. What flowed from the black bottle and into his cup was a clear, golden liquor.
“Brandy,” said the captain. “I decided to uncork something decent.”
“Thank you.” Matthew took a taste and found it considerably better than decent, but not so strong as to cause the eye-watering reaction he’d been expecting.
“It’s a civilized drink.” Falco poured himself a cupful. “For civilized men. Eh?”
“Yes,” Matthew answered, for Falco seemed to expect a comment.
The captain offered Matthew the plate of lime slices, but Matthew shook his head. Falco chewed one of the slices, rind and all. He had a high, heavily-creased forehead and a widow’s-peak of iron-gray hair. The upper portion of his left ear was missing. Matthew wondered if he’d ever met a swordsman named Dahlgren. In this light Falco’s flesh appeared the hue of the deepest blue-black ink, which made the amber eyes both lighter and more powerful in their unwavering appraisal of his guest.