The King of Shadows, page 2
“I would think hard about that last statement,” she countered. “If you believe he’s going to release you after you find the son and before the mirror can be found, I suspect I may know him better than you do. After all, you will have proven yourself a success … in the worst possible way.”
True, Matthew thought, but he didn’t speak it. He sat silently for a moment, listening to the strolling girl with the guitar sing “The Lamentation of Cloris,” which seemed fitting at the moment due to the amount of time he and Berry were to be absent from each other. If Berry followed the path of Cloris, out of despair at their parting she would be opening her heart and bed to Ashton McCaggers, which was a most disagreeable image to have in mind.
And as if reading that mind, or perhaps seeing the dour expression on Matthew’s face, Berry asked, “How long must you search for this man? A year? Two? Five? And also he may not have any knowledge at all of this mirror. Likely he sold it to a junk dealer after his father’s funeral.”
“A possibility. As for the timeframe, I believe a trip to the Amarone vineyards of the Veneto region may show quick results, one way or the other.”
“May,” she repeated, and shook her head. “You should’ve had a lawyer draw you up a contract.”
“The only lawyer in that bunch,” said Matthew, “is probably so addled by Fell’s drugs that he thinks he’s living in Sherwood Forest with the merry men. No … I have your life as a contract, and that’s good enough for me.”
“But why isn’t Hudson going back to New York, as well?”
“I tried. He resisted.” And that was all Matthew needed to say.
She reached for his hand, grasped it and squeezed. Her eyes were brimming, but the tears were yet to fall. “I am on the razor,” she said, keeping her voice composed with a mighty effort. “I dread like … like hell … for you to do this, but I know you. I know that when you make a promise you feel it’s your duty to keep it, even in a situation as despicable as this. If you were to join me onboard the ship home I would rejoice to the angels, but instead I have to give you over to the devils because that’s your promise.” And now the tears did drop, and getting a glimpse of their glimmer the guitar girl turned away to aim her lamentations in a less emotional area. “I love you, Matthew, and I love your sense of duty. But I must tell you: I hate this moment like the blackest sin.”
“I’m not too fond of it, either,” he said, with the most gentle smile he could muster. He leaned forward to give her a kiss on a damp cheek. More intimate kisses would come later, minus an audience. “Let’s order another bottle, shall we?” he asked. “And I have an idea.” He got up, went to the guitar girl and at her pause asked her to come to the table and sing the first verse of “Lavender’s Blue.”
She came along when Matthew had seated himself, and after strumming the first few chords she began singing in her high, soft voice.
“Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, lavender’s green,
When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen.
Who told you so, dilly dilly, who told you so?
’Twas mine own heart, dilly dilly, that told me so.”
“Perfect,” said Matthew with his arm around Berry, who seemingly had melted into him. “Thank you very much.” And he sweetened his thanks with a large tip of Professor Fell’s money that had likely been secured by cutting someone’s head off.
Two
Therefore by following the trail of men with lanterns through what seemed its own city of docks and ships, at length Matthew, Berry and the hirelings pushing her baggage cart came to the Lady Barbara, where the usual chaos of morning departure was in full-throated bellow. And bellow it truly was, for orders were being shouted about and general hollering made in competition with the band of fiddlers, drummers, trumpet players, capering gypsies, jesters and jugglers who all wanted a piece of the pie from the passing pockets. Up the passenger gangplank toward the bow marched an elderly couple holding onto each other as if in terror of being swept away by the sheer noise of the place, while at the same time two cows were being pushed up the cargo gangplank at the stern. Over on one side of the dock a pig squealed in a slatted crate and on the other side chickens flapped and squawked in their own enclosure. All in all, a necessary madness.
“Come on, you louts!” shouted a broad-shouldered, brown-bearded mountain in a brass-buttoned coat and a tan-colored woolen cap atop his summit. He was directing his attention toward Berry’s baggage handlers, and in the light of the ship’s lanterns he looked positively fiendish. “Get that garbage aboard!” Then seeing Matthew and Berry he gave a sweet smile, doffed his cap in a bow to display a hairless skull and said just as loudly, “Don’t mind my mouth, it’s all garbage to me! Miss, you’re the lady takin’ the special cabin?”
“I don’t know if—”
“Yes, she is,” said Matthew, himself having to nearly shout his own throat raw. The professor had promised as comfortable a trip as his finances and the Lady Barbara could afford. “It’s all ready for you! Done up in paint pinker’n a baby’s ass, got a nice soft bunk—I mean to say, a real bed—and a dresser, a clothes stand, everythin’ right off Strand Street and shinin’ like two dozen candles in a Sabbath church. I’m Captain Stoneman, pleased to be of service.”
“Glad to meet you!” Matthew fired back. “You fit your name!”
“What? Lit my flame? No, I don’t do no smokin’ and there’s none been done in her cabin, so none’s the worry to a sensible nose.”
“Very sensible,” Matthew agreed.
“Everybody, pick up your balls and get movin’!” Stoneman hollered to everyone in general who was so equipped. Then the cap went back on and the mountain moved away, as crew and baggage men scurried about.
“Pardon me,” said someone close behind Matthew and Berry. “Might I ask why the lady is deserving of such a special cabin?”
They both turned to find themselves confronted by the tall figure of a man wearing a fur-collared coat and a fur-trimmed tricorn. Matthew’s first impression was that the gent was about forty, had a well-maintained light brown mustache and goatee and blue eyes in a sharp-nosed, foxish face. He was wearing deerskin gloves, his fingers interwoven before him as at his back his own crew of handlers struggled with trunks seemingly as big as wagons.
“I overheard,” said the man. “Though in this din, my ears are nearly cracked. So … is this lovely young creature somehow deserving of a special cabin? I mean to ask: is she of important reputation or parentage?”
“She can afford the luxury,” Matthew replied. He’d already noted—as had Berry—that the fellow’s eyes had travelled up and down her body and paused at places of speculation.
“Indeed. Wealthy, then? And you are…?”
“Who I am,” said Matthew. “Your name, sir?”
“Oh, of course. My bad manners are unfortunately on display. I am Reginald Goolbie.”
“Ah,” Matthew said, as if that meant anything.
The eyes kept travelling. “‘Rowdy Reggie’ to my friends,” he went on. “Buyer and seller of fine jewelry. Your neck, dear one … would seem created for a string of the most magnificent pearls.”
“Which you happen to have in your baggage?” Matthew asked. He started to put his arm around Berry but she beat him to it by putting her arm around him.
Goolbie’s eyelids flickered only the faintest bit. “But of course, sir. You and this beauty are travelling together to New York?”
“This beauty,” said Matthew, with a stiffening back, “is travelling alone, but I intend on asking her to marry me when I also return to New York.”
“Oh. I see.” Tap tap went the gloved fingers on his pursed lips. “Meaning you have not yet asked her to marry you? That’s a pity. And when, sir, will you be travelling to New York?”
“Soon,” said Berry. “Very soon. And whether Matthew has asked me or not, the answer to that question will be yes, yes, a thousand times yes.”
Matthew had thought about posing this question in a formal way, but the moment seemed wrong. Wrong after she was recovering from her ordeal at Fell’s village, wrong until he’d told her why he was going to Italy, and wrong afterward up to this moment. And now … to ask her to marry him on this dock, surrounded by cows, pigs, chickens and foxish philanderers? Wrong again. And perhaps there was another reason, deep down: what if it really was years before he could get back to New York? What if he never returned? Having her wait for her groom for years, and grow old waiting for someone who might never again step off a ship?
Wrong.
No, it should be done formally in New York, with all this behind the both of them. For now it was enough to know that Berry understood and welcomed his intention, and that alone would have to do until Italy, magic mirrors, dead sorcerers and Professor Fell were all fading figures in the past.
“A pity,” Rowdy Reggie repeated. “I do have many samples of beautiful items in my belongings.” He was speaking now directly to Berry. “I understand there are only six or seven other passengers. It’s a long journey.” He gave a slick smile. “There will be plenty of time for you to see what I’m carrying.” At the same time he shifted his balance, just so his rather grotesque meaning would be applied like a hammer to the forehead.
“I’m sure I’d rather not see,” Berry said.
“Oh, but I am an expert at the delight of women! Knowing what sort of jewels give them the most excitement, is my meaning. Yes, very much the expert. May I ask your name, since we shall be travelling companions on the long journey ahead of us?”
“Your bad luck,” she said.
His face didn’t lose the slick smile but something in his eyes retreated. At least for the moment, Matthew thought. This individual would never give up trying to expose his jewels to whatever woman drew his fancy.
“Pardon me, then,” said Rowdy Reggie. “I shall say it was a pleasure meeting the both of you and … sir … I do hope your return to New York will not be too late.”
“Too late for what?” Matthew inquired.
“For everything,” was the rather tight-lipped response, and then Rowdy Reggie motioned with a disdainful hand for his wagon-sized trunks to be hauled up the gangplank and he strode away.
He didn’t get very far before it hit him.
The slip of a boot on a smear of cow flop might only discomfit some individuals. For Reginald Goolbie it spelled the disaster of destroying his balance as if he’d been blunderbussed at the kneecaps, making him stagger three steps, careen off the pig’s crate and then stagger three more … though unfortunately for him, only two of those steps had timbers beneath them. With a hoarse yell he toppled over the other side of the dock into the cold and dirty water. Matthew and Berry could only stand and watch as Captain Stoneman ordered a rope to be thrown to the flailing figure, and when the dripping mess came out Rowdy Reggie was more of a Sad and Soggy Sight, minus his fur-trimmed tricorn and with his hair plastered down over his face like one of the professor’s tentacled sea curiosities. Matthew heard Berry give a little giggle, which she hid—mostly—under her hand, and knowing her past relationship with the forces of luck both good and bad he declined the impulse to ask if she didn’t have a bit of sorcery in her as well.
The excitement over and Rowdy Reggie raging and stamping about as if in a bizarre dance with the gypsy girls who capered around him, Matthew and Berry went aboard the Lady Barbara. Captain Stoneman himself led them to a forward hatch, down an angled ladder that served as a stairway—care must be taken here not to brain one’s noggin upon any overhead planking—past a storeroom full of barrels of more victuals and kegs of fresh water, and along a short passage to an open door and a small but comfortable and pink-painted cabin. Indeed there was a bed, as narrow as it was, a clothes-stand and a dresser with her own washbowl and a supply of clean towels. Fresh linen on the bed, Captain Stoneman said, and also he indicated a key upon the dresser top that fit the door’s outside lock. “Inside is this here latch, good and proper,” he said, with a pickle-sized forefinger on it. “The crew’s to be trusted. Been servin’ the Lady Barbara back and forth six trips now, most of ’em’s been with me the lot. Ain’t need for a worry about your safety. And you can have your meals brought to you in your cabin, if you please.” He gave a rather embarrassed grin. “Ol’ Henry’s never been paid the number offered for this space. Used to be a pen where we kept the goats, but you see we fashioned it up, put a door on it and cleaned it out to a very spot.”
“Commendable,” Matthew said. There was not a bit of goatishness in the cabin, it was true. Everything clean and quite stylish, in its own nautical way. He doubted he’d see a third of this kind of space aboard the Essex Triton when it sailed for Venice morning after tomorrow. On that ship Professor Fell—travelling as John Lamprey—would be sleeping in the “special cabin,” whereas he under the name of Matthew Spottle, Hudson Greathouse, Fell’s four men Hugh Guinnessey, Elias Kirby, Aaron Sanderson and Rowan Dawes would be afforded hammocks in the lower guts.
“I’d prefer to take my meals with the others,” Berry said. “A long voyage … no need not to be sociable.” And it was likely, Matthew mused, that before the voyage was over a certain jewelry salesman would have so much bad luck he would wish he’d taken his own private raft over the Atlantic and rowed himself to New York.
“Very well, then!” said the captain. “I like that spirit! ’Minds me of my own daughter, bless her soul.” Something sad passed across the rugged face. “No longer on this earth, but I have her here.” He put his hand against his heart. Then in the next second he was again all scrimshaw and hardtack, obviously proud of the work done here for the lady’s comfort. “Lantern’s there for the convenience.” He pointed to it on a shelf beside the bed. “Supply of wicks for you, and your own tinderbox. Beg your pardon not to set my ship alight, so if you’re needin’ I’ll have someone come by and flame the lamp for you.”
“I can handle a tinderbox,” Berry said, “but thank you for the offer.”
“Chamberpot under the bed,” he continued. “So’s you won’t have to share with nobody. I’ll have someone clean it for you every day or so. Will you be requirin’ both those trunks?”
“No, only the one with the blue leather grips.”
“Yes’m. I’ll have it brought in from the hold after we set sail. Shore bell will be rung in near an hour,” the captain said to Matthew. “’Til then, I’ll leave you to your own.” He gave Matthew his own form of slapdash salute, bowed creakily for the lady and took his departure, cannily closing the door at his back.
“All the comforts of home,” Berry said when Stoneman had gone, and then she sat down on the bed with a sigh of resignation and a further spring of tears to the eyes. “I can say no more to change your mind, can I? No need to answer, I know that thought’s in vain.”
“But still appreciated.” Matthew sat beside her and took her hand. “We have an hour. It should be used to the limit of its seconds.”
Matthew knew what he wished to do, and mayhaps Berry wished it also, but the decorum of a gentleman and lady did not accept such even in these heart-rending circumstances. Matthew did stand up and latch the door, and for the next hour they lay together on the bed as if melded one-to-one, and when the shore bell rang out its strident voice of parting they had kissed each other nearly into oblivion. Then Berry went with him back upon the deck where the lines were being readied for the ship to be rowed out from its berth by the pilotmen, and several of the other passengers—minus the rowdy one—were standing to wave farewell to their own well-wishers on the dock.
The first edge of purple light was showing to the east. Matthew stood with his arms around his bride-to-be, and she holding him, and in the freshening breeze of morning he said, “I’ll be home soon.” I promise, he nearly said, but he could not utter that uncertainty.
“I want you to be careful,” she said, with her head against his shoulder. “That man … he’s leading you into such danger I can’t stand to think about it.”
“Well, don’t think. Just believe it’ll all turn out. Anyway, Hudson’s led me into danger before and I’m still here.”
“You know who I’m talking about!” Berry looked into his eyes and gave him what he was hoping to see: a small, wistful but genuine smile. “I wish I knew sorcery myself! If I was a witch I’d turn him into a toad!”
“Many women have said that about Hudson, I’m sure.”
“Off you go, sir.” It was Captain Stoneman, a frigate coming up alongside two connected sloops. “Got to secure the gangplank.” He caught the emotion of the moment. “Not to worry, I’ll make sure the lady enjoys a safe and uneventful voyage.”
“Thank you,” Matthew answered, but knowing Berry he somehow doubted that any voyage she took in life—whether at his side or not—would be uneventful. Even as he thought that, he caught sight of Rowdy Reggie in a fresh suit, coat and tricorn slinking around the deck.
“I’ll treat her as I would my daughter,” said the captain, who noted Matthew’s notation of Sir Jewels. “All is in order.”
“My thanks, again.” Matthew moved toward the gangplank with Berry still part of his arms and legs, and certainly his heart. “I will say farewell for now,” he told her. He felt tears burning his own eyes, and they were mirrored in hers. He figured that he was about a cry away from throwing Professor Fell over and going back down to Berry’s cabin with her, but … no … a bargain had been made and must be kept. He kissed her, she kissed him back, she whispered, “Forever” up next to his ear, and with that he walked down the gangplank and stood watching while it was pulled up and the distance between himself and the woman he loved increased by just that much.
