The Providence Rider by Robert R. McCammon
“Good. I want you to be sharp this morning.”
Sharp was not exactly what he was feeling, but he decided not to contest the statement. He followed Minx away from the stable and the castle and out onto the road that led to Templeton, as the sun grew warmer and the sky more blue and brightly-colored birds flew in circles over Fell’s paradise.
When they reached the cliffs where Minx had brought him on the first day, the whales were already surfacing amid the waves, spouting white foam into the air and jostling each other with playful but gentle abandon.
Minx dismounted and walked to the edge, where she stood watching the parade of leviathans. Matthew also got off his horse and joined her, and together they stood under the hot glaring sun as the beasts dove and surfaced again, flapping their tails like the banners of huge gray ships.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” Minx remarked, with no emotion.
“Yes, they are,” Matthew answered, warily.
She turned toward him. Her gold-touched eyes in the strong and beautiful face seemed to be on fire.
“Kiss me,” she said.
He did not wait for a second invitation. Truly, then, this was who had visited him last night. He stepped forward and kissed her, and she held his kiss and pushed her body against his, and then he felt the knife under his chin pressing into his throat and when she drew her face away the fire in her eyes had grown into a blaze.
“You’re a very good kisser, Matthew,” she told him, “but you’re no Nathan Spade.”
He might have stammered something. For sure he swallowed hard, though the blade was right there ready to carve his Adam’s apple. He felt the sweat fairly leap from his pores.
“No Nathan Spade,” she repeated. “And exactly why are you here, pretending to be him?”
Did he dare to clear his throat, with that sticker so poised? No, he did not. “I think,” he said with a Herculean effort that might have impressed even Hudson Greathouse, “that you’re mistaken. I am—”
“Matthew Corbett,” Minx interrupted. “You see, I knew Nathan Spade. I was in love with Nathan Spade. And, as I say…you are no Nathan Spade.”
Somehow, from his deepest recesses, he found the courage to compose himself against the blade. I want you to be sharp this morning, she’d told him. Indeed he sharpened himself, in that instant. With a faint smile he said, “Not even a little bit?”
“Not even,” she replied, “the littlest bit of your littlest finger.”
“Ow,” he answered. “That hurts.”
“The knife?”
“No. The sentiment.” He was aware of the sheer drop to the playground of the whales. “Did you bring me here to show me how efficiently you might kill me and dispose of the body?”
“I brought you here to make sure no one followed or overheard. You are Matthew Corbett, are you not?”
“You…put me in a predicament.”
“I’ll answer for you, then.” The pressure of the blade against Matthew’s neck did not lessen a fraction. “Of course I knew at once you weren’t Nathan. He and I were lovers in London. Against the professor’s rules, as you might know. I wasn’t sure who you were until I saw how you reacted when Adam Wilson mentioned killing Matthew Corbett at the table that night. You almost spilled your wine. Probably no one noticed but me. Then I knew who you must be. And I knew also why you must be here.”
“An interesting fiction,” Matthew said, clinging to his misguided hope.
“You were brought to this island by Professor Fell to find out who told the authorities that a shipment of Cymbeline was en route for a meeting with a Spanish warship on the high seas.” Minx’s face was close to Matthew’s, her eyes still ablaze and her breath smelling faintly of lemons. The knife was still pressed firmly against his throat. “You are a problem-solver, are you not? In the employ of Katherine Herrald? And you were brought here under the charge of Aria Chillany.” The knife prodded. “Answer.”
Matthew sighed heavily. The game was up. But, strangely, he felt another game was just beginning. “True,” he said. “All of it.”
“The professor has suspects? Who are they?”
“Three. Cesar Sabroso, Adam Wilson and Edgar Smythe.”
Minx smiled grimly. “Oh my God,” she said. The knife went away from Matthew’s throat. She held it loosely at her side. “What are you looking for? Evidence that one of them is a traitor?”
Matthew decided there was no point in lying. He feared the point of Minx Cutter’s knife. “The professor thinks two may be involved. And that there is some evidence to be discovered, yes.” From the corner of his eye he caught sight of a whale surfacing. It spouted from its blowhole spray that seemed to form a question mark in the air before it shimmered away.
“Two traitors?” Her blonde brows lifted. “How astute of him.”
“Oh? Meaning what?”
“Meaning,” she said, her lips very near his own, “that there were two traitors. You are looking at one of them. Can you reason out who the second might have been?”
He didn’t have to reason it out. He plainly saw the answer in her face, and he felt as if the uneasy earth of Pendulum Island shook a little bit more under his boots.
“Nathan Spade,” he replied.
“Bravo,” she said, and her blade came up to give him a congratulatory tap on the chin.
Twenty-Seven
WHAT I want to know from you is,” Minx Cutter went on, as the sun shone down upon this happy world, “who killed my Nathan.”
Matthew was staring at the ground. He had to do so, to keep his equilibrium. He was late in answering, therefore the beautiful knife-thrower gave her own reply.
“Aria Chillany killed him, didn’t she? He disappeared one evening, on his way to meet me. I never heard from him again. Madam Chillany has a reputation for killing her ex-lovers. And yes, I knew they had been involved with each other. That was the past. He and I were looking toward the future. So…she killed him, didn’t she? For the reason that Professor Fell learned Nathan was selling diplomatic secrets to the highest bidder?”
“That,” Matthew said.
“I told him not to go there,” Minx replied. “I told him…don’t be greedy. I said…the professor will find out. It was enough that we knew about the Cymbeline and the shipment of it to Spain. That came from one of the professor’s rotten apples in the basket of Parliament, after a few drinks of wormwood in the whorehouse. Then we knew what was about to happen…and we knew we couldn’t allow it to happen.”
“Couldn’t allow it?” Matthew frowned. He was always aware of where the knife was. Currently in her right hand, at her side again. She held it with her thumb caressing the ivory handle, like an object of love. “What do you mean? You two suddenly became patriots?”
“We were always patriots. Well…maybe not so much as most, but…to sell the gunpowder to Spain? No.” She shook her head. The fire in her eyes had abated a few degrees, and now some darker sadness had crept in. She slid the knife into her waistcoat, where it had come from. “We didn’t know where the Cymbeline is stored when it reaches London from here. A warehouse somewhere on the docks. The gunpowder would be disguised as barrels of tar and nautical supplies. But when we found out that the first shipment was going to Spain, with the help of Cesar Sabroso…we had to speak out and stop it.” She stared steadily into Matthew’s eyes, and he felt the sheer force of her willpower. “No matter who I am, or what Nathan is…or was…we could not stand by and let this powder go to an enemy of our country. So…yes, we are patriotic, in our way.”
Matthew looked toward the fort and could see the thin tendril of rising smoke where the chemicals were being cooked. “What makes it so powerful? Using sugar instead of charcoal?”
“It’s white powder instead of black. It’s stronger than the normal composition, and gives off less smoke. On any battlefield or naval battle, it would give the user of it a great advantage. How did you know about the sugar?”
“It’s what I do,” he explained. And
“All right, then. Now that you do know…what are you going to do about it?”
Matthew thought about this for a moment, as he watched the tendril drift in the breeze. And then he decided what must be done, and what he had to do.
“I’m going to get in there tonight,” he told her, “and I’m going to blow it up.”
Her expression did not change, but her voice was strained when she responded. “You,” she said, “are insane.”
“Insane to go in by the road, maybe. But through the forest? Maybe not. I think I could find something there to make a fuse or two. If I can get into the storehouse. But I’ll cross that river when I get there.” He searched her eyes and found nothing. “The professor can’t be allowed to create this gunpowder in quantity. Much may be stored already in London, ready to be shipped…but if it’s made here, here is where it must be ended.”
“Insane,” Minx repeated.
He was thinking furiously. Sweat was on his face, not necessarily from the thinking but from the morning’s sullen heat. “If I’m successful, I’ll need a way to get off the island quickly. A ship. I believe I know who might be convinced to help me with that. I have three hundred pounds that might help his decision and buy him a crew. And I need something else.”
“What are you babbling about?”
“I need a traitor. In fact, I need two traitors, to fulfill the professor’s expectations.” He ran his fingers across his mouth, his gaze directed toward the rolling sea. He had a plan…or, at least, the bare beginnings of one. Much depended upon much. “Let me ask you…if I brought you a handwriting sample say by around noon…could you forge a message by four?”
“Forge a message? What message?”
“I need what the professor expects. Proof of treason. A message, passed from one traitor to the other and hidden in a…shoe, perhaps. Or wherever I intend to plant it. A short message, and perhaps you can help me with this. Do you have any idea when the next shipment of Cymbeline is planned to leave London?”
“No. It was sheer luck our finding out about the first shipment.”
“It’ll have to be something else, then. Something revealing. But what?” He thought for a silent moment. “Who gave Nathan the first information?”
“The honorable Frederick Nash. A dissolute bastard if there ever was one. He is also on the professor’s payroll.”
“We can work with that. Drag his name into the fray. I’ll come up with something.” Matthew was thinking he had to get into Smythe’s room when the foul man went down for the mid-day meal. Questions nagged at him, though, and one he specifically had to have answered. “You say the powder is stored in a warehouse in London, but you don’t know exactly where? Why doesn’t the professor keep it all here, instead of transporting it?” As soon as he asked the question, he thought he knew the answer. “Ah,” he said before Minx could reply. “He wants it in a place where the spies from other countries can see it and report to their masters. And he fears another earthquake, doesn’t he?”
“What?” She obviously had no idea what he was talking about.
“The tremors,” Matthew explained. “There was an earthquake here when the professor was a boy. He can make the Cymbeline here in relative safety. But he fears if there’s an accident at the fort, and enough of the powder ignites…there could be another earthquake. That’s why I suspect he moves the powder off the island as soon as there’s enough to fill a ship’s hold. Which I would think would be enough to make a very impressive blast.”
“Insane,” Minx said for the third time. “You’ll never get in there to blow it up.”
“Not alone, no. But with help…possibly I will.” He levelled his gaze at her. “Yes, Madam Chillany killed Nathan. I won’t tell you how. But I will say that if Nathan Spade was standing here…he might also be thinking of blowing the place up.” He gave a quiet grunt. “The bad young man found his boundary of evil, didn’t he? The line beyond which he would not pass? So yes, Minx…your Nathan would go in there and blow the place to smithereens, just as I intend to. And he would ask for your help, just as I am asking.”
“My help? You mean with the forgery?”
“That, and however I might need you afterward. You’re very capable. I have need of your capability and your…shall we say…firmness under pressure.” He couldn’t help but give her a sly smile. “I have to ask…last night…did you…?” He shrugged and trailed off.
“Did I what?”
Her tone spoke volumes. The problem-solver was at a loss.
“Never mind,” he told her, not without some disappointment. “I have someplace to go. The house of a certain sea captain. Will you come with me?”
“I will,” she answered.
Astride their horses and with the map to Falco’s house in Matthew’s brain, they continued on their journey. Matthew and Athena were in the lead, and after a moment Minx urged Esmeralda up beside them.
“He was not all bad,” she said.
“No one is all bad.” Then he thought about Tyranthus Slaughter. “Most aren’t, at least.”
“He wanted to make amends for things he’d done in his past. He wasn’t proud of them. When he saw this chance, and he told me about it…we both knew it was right.”
“I should say,” said Matthew.
She was silent for a time, perhaps reliving poignant memories. “We were going to have a future,” she told him. “Married or not, I don’t know. We met by chance, really. At a party for Andrew Halverston, the money changer. Also on the professor’s payroll.”
“Who isn’t?” Matthew asked.
“We didn’t know we had the professor in common until later. Then…it didn’t matter.”
“It matters now,” Matthew said, turning Athena toward the road that led to Falco’s house. “More than ever.”
“You should know about being on the professor’s payroll.” Minx shot him a dark glance. “His enemy…brought to his island to work for him. How in the name of God did that happen?”
“You’ll begin to see when we get where we’re going,” he told her. “One thing I’d like to know from you…who is Brazio Valeriani and why is Fell searching for him?”
“I don’t know…but I’ve heard things.”
“Such as?”
“Such as…that the professor has strange interests and ambitions. Valeriani has something to do with those. Other than that, I have no clue.”
“Hm,” Matthew said. “I should make it my business to find out.” He kicked into Athena’s flanks to hasten her progress, for he felt that time was growing short and there was yet much to do before he, Berry, hopefully Zed and…yes, Fancy…could escape this damnable island.
Following his mental map, Matthew led them along the cart trail into the woods and to the ascertained house of white stone that stood amid a few others. They both dismounted. Matthew knocked at the door. He didn’t have long to wait before a very lovely young native woman with cream-colored skin opened the door and peered out. “Saffron?” Matthew asked. She nodded; her eyes were wide and frightened. “I’m here to—” Saffron was pushed aside, gently but firmly. The fearsome visage of the white-goateed, amber-eyed and creased ebony face of Captain Jerrell Falco took the place of his wife’s loveliness. He looked from Matthew to Minx and back again, with a slight frown of disdain. “I didn’t think you’d be damn fool enough to come in the daylight,” he rumbled, like his own earthquake. “Who is she?”
“A friend.”
“You say.”
“You can trust her.”
“Too late now, if I don’t. You sure no one followed you?”
“He’s sure,” Minx spoke up sharply, her own brass showing.
“Damn all of you for getting me into this,” Falco said. And then he opened the door and stepped back. “Come in.”
As soon as Matthew walked across the threshold, he was hit by the embrace of a red-haired adventuress from New York who, at all of nin
That being…
“My name is Minx Cutter. I’m a friend of Matthew’s.” The gold-hued eyes took in Berry, the room, Falco and Saffron and everything; she was as cool as a September Sabbath. “Who might you be, and why are you hiding here?”
“Berry Grigsby,” came the frosted reply. “Also a friend—a very good friend—of Matthew’s. I am here because…” She faltered, but looked to no one for help.
“Because she escaped from the Templeton Inn night before last and got herself in some difficulty,” said Falco. “She and the Ga. Where he is, I don’t know. Packs of men were nosing around here all yesterday. Searched my house, but Miss Grigsby was under the floorboards in the back room. Not very much to her liking, but necessary.”
“There are crabs under there,” she said to Matthew, her eyes wide and rimmed with the tears of revulsion. There was nothing like feeling crabs tangling in one’s hair while rough boots stomped the boards three inches above one’s face.
“She kept silent, though.” Falco had his clay pipe in hand, and now he lit it from the stub of a candle and blew out a plume of smoke. “Good thing. They were looking to hang somebody for hiding her.”
“You were where? On the road to the fort?” The question was from Minx and directed to Berry.
“I don’t know about a fort. But we were on a road not too far from here. There were skulls hanging from the trees on both—”
“Stupid girl,” Minx interrupted. “Going in there, after you saw the warning? And who else was with you?”
“Her friend. Used to be a slave,” Falco offered. From the back room a baby began to cry, and Saffron went to tend to their child. Falco blew smoke through his nostrils, his comment on the situation regarding these visitors to his home and intruders to the life of his family. “You’ve got me in some shit,” he told Matthew. “All you people. Dragging me into your business. Did you hear me ask to have my throat cut by Fell’s men? Or to have to watch my wife and child be sliced up in front of me?” The smoke rolled toward Matthew’s nose…and to his surprise and relief, he smelled it. “Answer!” the captain roared.