“I think,” Eurig said, his seamed face as impassive as Devane’s, “that you’re a cursed man.”
“As you please. Matthew, I’m waiting!” Devane’s gaze scanned the villagers who remained on the street, most of them nearly huddled up in a knot behind Eurig. “You!” Devane said. “With the brown cap! Come here!”
“Me, sir?”
“Here!” Devane pointed at the ground before him with the pistol, and the young and terrified man came slouching like a dog expecting at the least to be kicked. “Do you have lice?” Devane asked.
“Sir?”
“Lice! Do you have lice?”
“No sir!”
“Good enough.” Devane plucked the brown woolen cap from the man’s head and held it toward Matthew as the water jug was brought back to its master. “Put that under your hat. You’ll need it against the sea wind,” Devane said, “which I intend to ride like a sonofabitch.”
Matthew took it and saw a couple of small holes in the thin wool, but otherwise it was a welcome addition to his winter wardrobe. He immediately put it on to warm his ears, lice or not, and then topped himself with his tricorn. He was looking down at the scrawl of blood on the dirt where the wounded man had fallen when he realized Devane was already halfway to the chosen boat.
“Wherever you’re goin’,” said Eurig, “you’re in bad company.”
“I’ll leave the musket on the wharf when we pull out,” Matthew answered; he had the gun tucked up under his arm and Devane’s sword still in his hand as protection. “The horses are worth that boat, believe me.”
“Tell that to Ewan’s wife and children,” came the stone-faced reply.
Matthew could say nothing more. He backed away from Eurig and the others, fearing an en masse attack that his swordsmanship or pistolplay could not handle, but the wounding—maiming—of Devane’s victim had done its work on the villagers of Adderlane; they had had enough of violence to last them a lifetime, and when Eurig turned away the others did as well. Matthew walked to the wharf, put the musket down upon the boards and obeyed Devane’s order to first hand over the sword and then cast off. After he’d sheathed the weapon, Devane busied himself inspecting the mainsail, which was furled and not yet raised to the mast. Matthew tossed the lines onto the Pig’s Snout, for want of a better boat title, and then stepped aboard.
Matthew saw Devane sweep aside his cloak to secure the pistol on a hook that hung from a belt at his waist. “Put a pair of oars in the locks and start rowing,” Devane said, motioning toward two pair of weatherbeaten sticks that lay in the bottom of the boat.
The locks, Matthew saw, were pieces of wood carved into U-shapes to steady the oars. He fixed the oars in position and then, settling himself upon the plank seat toward the stern, he began rowing them out of the protected harbor. It was not an easy task, and he was gratified when Devane took the remaining two oars and positioned them in a second set of locks amidships, then sat down on the other plank facing toward the bow. He began to row along with Matthew and the little craft cut through the waves, but about a hundred yards out was where the rougher water began. Matthew reasoned it was going to be very unkind to the Pig’s Snout and its passengers.
After a few more strokes Matthew asked, “Did you really have to shoot him?”
“You know better than to pose that question.”
“Maybe I do. But…did you?”
“Look at this craft. This was the most seaworthy boat in the harbor…which is not saying much. But if it wasn’t this boat, we were finished. Is that answer enough for you? And for certain I would have shot that big bastard in the head. So you saved one life today. Congratulate yourself and keep rowing.”
“It seemed extreme,” Matthew said, keeping to the point he wished to hammer.
“Extreme,” Devane repeated, as if he’d bitten into a lemon. “You’re a dreamer, aren’t you? Live in your own fantasy world. Well…those people were one axe swing away from rushing us and ending your dream to save that girl’s mind. Anyway, I did the little bastard a favor.”
“Did you? How so?”
“He was the only one with enough courage to come at me. If he survives—and even if he loses his leg—they’ll take care of him and his family. Not that I give a shit, but they’ll probably elect him mayor. So you see…I did a good deed today, too.”
“I would clap my appreciation,” said Matthew, “but I’m rowing.”
“Yes, and put more of your back into it, I want to clear the headland before my next birthday.”
The headland—the jutting cliffs on either side that protected the cove of Adderlane’s harbor—was cleared in about fifteen minutes, which Matthew decided was not within the scope of Devane’s day of birth. “Pull in your oars and let drift!” Devane commanded, as he did the same. Then: “Move up to the bow and stay out of my way.”
Matthew obeyed without question, getting past the other man as best he could. Waves had begun to rock the craft. Devane hoisted the sail and secured it, and then he settled himself in the stern in a position where he was able to control the motion of the sail’s boom with a line and also keep a hand on the tiller behind him.
Wind whipped at the patched-up sail, which for a few seconds whipped back until Devane made an adjustment with both line and tiller. The sail gave a crack like a gunshot as the wind filled it, and in response the Pig’s Snout leapt forward like a hog with its ass on fire. Spray burst over the bow into Matthew’s face, and he figured it wouldn’t be long before he was both soaked and chilled to the bone.
The waves seemed to be coming at the boat from all angles. The Snout pitched up and down. There was nothing for Matthew to do but to huddle up, grasp hold of the plank beneath him and hope the bottom of the boat held firm against this aquatic assault. It was cold comfort to note that Devane was keeping them at most only two hundred yards off the shore, for to call this craft seaworthy was to call a pumpkin a carriage.
It did interest Matthew, however, to twist around not only to protect his face from the spit of the sea but to watch Devane work the sail and tiller. Obviously the man had sailing experience, not only from the way he handled the boat but from the way he gauged the wind; Matthew could see him watching the break of whitecaps across the gray expanse and then steering to take the most advantage of the wind’s power. At no time did the sail flutter with failing exhaustion, for Devane seemed to be thinking ahead of the gusts and meeting them as they changed direction, even so minutely.
In little more than an hour they passed the harbor of Y Beautiful Bedd and the road leading up from it along the cliffs to Fell’s domain. The upper balcony of the professor’s small castle and the village’s protective wall were clearly visible. Though there were better fishing boats in the harbor, Devane did not alter course in order to change craft; it seemed to Matthew that the man had decided this was the boat of destiny, as it were, and from the grim half-smile on Devane’s face it appeared he enjoyed the challenge of besting the sea astride such a lowly mount.
The Snout swept on, its full sail defiant. Matthew wondered if this boat had ever seen the hand of a true captain; he doubted it, but Devane was in fact keeping them steady and fast-moving against a sea that smacked the hull in vain to slow their progress. They passed looming cliffs, gray stretches of beach and the occasional cove where there might be a few ramshackle houses and moored catboats or nothing but jagged rocks and tentacled trees. For certain there were no triple-masted ships of the Royal Navy in sight, and as the sun began to fade and sink toward the west the Snout kept going but to where Matthew was unsure.
“Come back here!” Devane called. “Mind your head!”
Matthew got past the sail’s boom. He had begun to shiver with the cold and he could no longer feel his face; it was as if he were himself wearing the mask of Albion but it was made of ice instead of leather.
“Get some water.” Devane motioned with a nod o
f his head toward the saddlebag at the bottom of the boat.
Matthew opened it, took out the small clay jug, uncorked it and drank. Devane let go the tiller to take the jug, which he too drank from, and then he quickly returned the jug and went back to steering. His eyes scanned the waves, while Matthew was still intent upon scanning for high masts in a hidden cove.
“They’re nowhere near, I’m thinking,” said Devane. “My opinion is…they are far and gone.”
“We can’t give up,” Matthew answered.
“I said nothing about surrender.” Devane attended to adjustment of the sail and tiller before he spoke again. “If you’re indeed a gambler, I have a game to propose.”
“A game? With Berry’s mind in the balance?”
“If we don’t play this game out her condition has no chance for recovery. Yet I do realize time is of the essence. Therefore the game involves time…and I see no way around playing it out.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Devane once more was silent for a while. He looked at the setting sun, then at small lights that had begun to shine amid houses clustered along a beach: the glow of lanterns, and families preparing for the dark.
“About thirty more miles across this bay is the town of Bristol,” Devane said. “If the wind keeps up, we can make landfall sometime after midnight.”
“Why Bristol?” Matthew asked, because obviously the other man was leading up to something.
“We need information,” came the reply. “I have vowed to the professor that I will see this through to the best of my ability. As much as I despise the idea…as much as it sickens my gut…I do know one man living in Bristol who might help us.”
“One man? Who?”
“Rear Admiral Garrett Devane of the Royal Navy,” said the captain of the Snout. He looked into Matthew’s eyes and offered a crooked and horrifying half-grin, half-sneer. “My loving father.”
five.
“The house on haunted hill,” said Devane.
“Are there ghosts about?” Matthew asked.
“Oh yes.” The dark green tricorn dipped in a nod. “Many.” The breath that could be seen in the cold air might have been a specter, after all.
They stood at the end of the road they’d been following, two miles from the beach upon which the Pig’s Snout had been left to wallow. It was dark, and Matthew reasoned the time was near three o’clock. But all was not quite impenetrable, for there was a glow on the low-hanging clouds over Bristol’s harbor, which could be distantly seen from this hilltop as a forest of masts, lanterns moving back and forth on the wagons carrying cargo to be loaded, or carrying cargo that had just been unloaded. It seemed quite reasonable to Matthew that Devane’s father would have his house situated so the man might have a view of the harbor, all its commerce and comings and goings, and of the sea beyond…which, of course, was the passage to the New World.
No lights showed in the house, which was an austere-looking gray stone manor of two levels, many shaded windows and multiple chimneys. The road became a gravel drive curving up to the estate on its spacious lawn. But getting to the house was a current problem that needed no solver to deduce: the estate was guarded by a black wrought-iron fence at least seven feet tall and topped with a multitude of wicked spikes. Blocking entry was an iron gate secured with a lock the size of Magnus Muldoon’s fist and that Matthew thought might’ve come directly from the none-so-gentle confines of Newgate Prison. He reasoned that climbing was out of the question; one slip and a spike in the stomach would not be a welcome accompaniment to the dried beef he and Devane had eaten from the saddlebag during the journey across Bristol Bay.
With the saddlebag slung over his right shoulder, Devane surveyed the locked gate. “Shall we announce our presence?” he asked. “Step back,” he said, as he drew the deadly pistol and took aim not at flesh but at metal.
Matthew stepped way back.
Devane held the pistol at arm’s length and put two of the barrels nearly against the lock. He lifted a hand to shield his face. Matthew knew better than to let his eyes be dazzled by the flame of the double shot; he looked away an instant before Devane fired.
In the stillness and silence of the night it sounded to Matthew as if people in London over a hundred miles away might be jarred from their sleep by such a conflagration. His ears felt almost torn from his head, or liable to leap free and go flopping down the road all bloodied and abuzz. He saw in the drifting smoke that the lock had been nearly torn asunder from the gate and turned into a mangled shape that hung by a blackened coil. Devane finished the task with a solid boot to the gate, which swung open with the screech of a protesting spirit awakened from the grave.
Matthew followed Devane through the opening and up the drive. In the distance several dogs were barking their heads off, but here no dogs thrived. The house remained dark…no, Matthew saw in another moment…a light had appeared in an upper-floor window, over on the left. It bloomed brighter as the wicks of the second and third candles were touched by flames.
Devane put the gun away as he walked, and he strode forward as if he owned the place. At his side the sword in its sheath made a rustling sound against his cloak. Matthew watched lights move across the windows; definitely there would soon be a welcome, of some kind.
On the trip across Bristol Bay Devane had been mostly silent when Matthew had asked questions about Rear Admiral Garrett Devane; the only answer Matthew had gotten was that the elder Devane was a rear admiral in name only, having attained that rank many years ago but leaving the force to serve both as Bristol’s harbormaster and to take up partnership in the Royal Atlantic Company to sell cargo to the New World. Still, the elder Devane kept in contact with companions in the navy and might know something about a missing mortar vessel, likely taken within the last few weeks from one of several naval dockyards. Other than that little bit, Devane had remained mute on the subject of his father.
It seemed now, though, that an introduction was imminent, for as the rear admiral’s son and the New York problem-solver approached the house the front door opened and a figure holding a lantern and wearing a long white nightgown peered out. “Who’s there?” the figure called: a man’s thin voice, wavering and reedy.
“It’s Julian,” was the answer. And, more sarcastically: “Come home again.”
“Young Julian? Why…I…young Julian?”
“The same. How are you, Windom?”
“I think…my eyes must be deceiving me…my ears also!”
Matthew and Julian were almost at the front steps. The old man in the white nightgown came down to meet them on age-stiffened legs, lifting his lantern up to catch their faces. He stopped, his wizened face open-mouthed, his halo of white hair being blown by the wind and his eyes widening. “My Lord!” he said, almost breathlessly. “Young Julian come home!”
“Hello, Windom.” Julian reached out to quickly pat the old man’s shoulder, a gesture of affection that surprised Matthew. “Best we get inside, out of this cold.”
“Oh…yes, sir! Yes, of course! But…what was that awful noise?”
“Hell freezing over,” Julian said. “You’ll recall I said I’d return here when that event occurred.”
“Oh…I…I do recall such.” Windom, obviously the house servant or butler, still couldn’t seem to believe he was speaking to the young man upon whom the yellow lantern light fell. Perhaps, Matthew thought, Julian Devane was himself one of the ghosts who haunted this place. “Yes,” Windom said after a few more seconds. “Cold out here. Please…do come in.”
They entered the house, the door—with its large brass knocker in the shape of an anchor, Matthew noted—was closed behind them, and Windom set about lighting several other lanterns from the wick of his own. As the glows strengthened, Matthew saw they stood in a vestibule with a black-lacquered floor and a similar black-timbered staircase leading upward.
Various colorful signal flags hung from hooks above, and foremost in this room was a marble-topped table upon which stood an intricately detailed model of a ship-of-the-line complete with its myriad of sails, lines and gunports, the entire construction being about three feet in length.
Julian was already moving onward; as seemed to be his nature, he waited for no man’s invitation. He shoved open a sliding oak door on the right and went into another room, with Windom close behind carrying two lanterns. Matthew heard a door open and shut with a solid-sounding thunk upstairs and he figured the rear admiral was soon to be sailing into view. He walked into the room after Julian and Windom and saw he had entered what might have been a combination library and office. The lantern lights spilled over many shelves of books and also a large desk with papers neatly stacked atop its blotter and an inkwell and a supply of feather pens near at hand. The room held several black leather chairs that all faced the desk and seemed to Matthew to look more forbidding than comfortable. On the floor was a navy-blue carpeting, the heavy drapes were of the same hue, there was a fireplace of gray tiles and a few little embers still glowing in the ashes, and on the walls were gilt-framed oil paintings of maritime scenes with the likes of huge sailing ships carving through tremendous waves as lightning-charged stormclouds bore down from the heavens.
“Dear bleeding Christ, what do we have here?”
It had not been a shout as much as it was a growl, brought up from the depths of a gravelly gut.
Julian turned toward the door with a frozen smile. “Good morning, Father,” he said, and he removed his tricorn and flourished it in a mock salute, which Matthew would have told him was not the thing to do at the moment.
“With you in my presence,” answered the older man, his face a square-chinned chunk of sea-weathered rock, “there can be nothing good.”
Rear Admiral Garrett Devane wore his long coat of stature over his nightclothes and carried a ship’s lantern in his right hand. Matthew figured he must’ve plucked the coat from a mannequin that stood beside his bed, because the item had not a single wrinkle or dimple in the fabric. It was dark blue, high-collared with a trim of gold and displayed detailed workings of gold across the breast area. The coat bore perhaps twenty large gold buttons down the front and four on each gold-striped cuff. On the left, over the heart that beat for England, were numerous gold and silver medals the size and shape of small starfish. Matthew thought that if all high-ranking officers commanded such coats there would be little left of gold in the treasury to build the ships and it would become a Pig’s Snout navy.
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