Freedom of the Mask

by Robert R. McCammon

  “You die,” said the Prussian, the wind whipping the words away so that Matthew only heard the passing intent of the growl behind them, but he could read Dahlgren’s lips well enough to know that the axe was not going to be used to part only his hair.

  Dahlgren’s boots crushed fish as he advanced. He lifted the axe with a two-handed grip and brought it down with ferocious strength.

  Matthew was already picking up a splintered spar that lay beside him in the debris as the axe rose. When it fell the spar was held horizontally before Matthew’s face and so caught the blade yet very nearly was chopped in two. The spar served an additional purpose of trapping the axeblade, and as Dahlgren struggled to pull it free and Matthew fought to keep hold of the piece of wood, Matthew kicked the Prussian as hard as he could in the right knee. Dahlgren let out a cry of pain that shamed the storm’s howl, but he held onto the axe and as he staggered back he tore the weapon loose from the wooden spar.

  Matthew got up from the deck, slipped again on flopping fish and slanting deck but he kept his balance. Dahlgren came limping at him with the axe raised for another killing blow. Matthew stopped the blade with his spar. This time the length of wood cracked in two and he was left with a shorter length in each fist. Dahlgren’s axe was rising again and so was the Wanderer, to a fearsome height. Lightning shot across the sky, a half-dozen white crackling whips snapping from black clouds to black sea. Matthew gritted his teeth and stepped toward Dahlgren while the axe was still going up, and he struck the Prussian on both sides of the jaw, right and left with his fists gripped around the pieces of wood. Dahlgren’s head snapped back but still he kept control of the axe, and then the Wanderer crashed down and the sea burst over the wrecked prow. The wave hit both men with equal force and swept them off their feet and tumbling toward the stern.

  Matthew collided with Enoch Fanning and nearly sent them both over the side. Randolph’s strength was a blessing for himself and Noble Jahns, for as they’d been throwing out the hawsers he had twice saved them both from going over. As Matthew came up spitting water, he saw that Dahlgren was also rising from the foam, and damned if by the dint of at least one powerful grip he still had the axe.

  Matthew had lost the two lengths of spar, and now here came the Prussian limping toward him as the remainder of the wave rushed away. Fanning was dumbstruck when Dahlgren swung the axe at Matthew, the young man dodged aside, and the axeblade sank into the transom. Matthew struck Dahlgren in the face again with a blow that, if it nearly broke his knuckles, certainly broke Dahlgren’s nose for the blood spurted from both nostrils.

  The Prussian pulled at the axe but this time Matthew was not going to let him free it. He hit him again, squarely on the crushed nose, and with a bellow of pain Count Dahlgren let go of the axe’s handle and flung himself upon Matthew in a clawing fury.

  “Stop that!” Fanning shouted. “Have you two gone mad?”

  Matthew and Dahlgren fought toward the stern, as the blacksmith and the farmer ceased their work to watch in incredulous amazement at what was certainly a death-battle. Dahlgren clawed at Matthew’s eyes and then got both hands around the young man’s throat. Matthew pounded at the bloody face, but the Count was oblivious to everything except killing his enemy. They careened wildly across the deck. Randolph stepped in to pull them apart but suddenly the ship was rising again…climbing at a frightening speed to another terrible height. Dahlgren squeezed Matthew’s throat with as much force as both hands could supply and the blood pounded in Matthew’s head and dark spots swirled before his eyes.

  The Wanderer fell toward another deep valley, walls of rolling ocean rising up on both sides. The hull’s timbers let out a shudder and moan as the ship hit the bottom of the trough, and just as Randolph grabbed hold of Matthew’s shirt and chopped Dahlgren’s hands away from the young man’s throat the next bow wave came at them all with a vengeance.

  In that blast of sea Matthew thought he must’ve gone over the stern, for he seemed to be completely underwater and his shoes could not find the deck. Randolph must’ve fallen with him, for he could still feel the man’s knotty hand holding cloth that at any second must rip away. Then his shoes touched timbers, his body hit what must’ve been the stern transom and knocked the fool out of him, the breath he’d been able to grab exploded from his lungs, he was about to draw in a draught of the sea, and then his face was out of the water and he pulled in air and collapsed against the transom like sack of soggy clothes.

  “You all right?” The question was not directed from Randolph to himself, but to Jahns, who answered shakily that, God be praised, he was still aboard and still in one piece.

  Fanning sputtered and retched, having been knocked to his knees and also thrown hard into the stern. Randolph held onto Matthew’s shirt while the young man breathed like a bellows and came to his senses.

  He realized in the next few seconds, as they all did, that the Prussian swordsman was no longer among them.

  “The Count went over!” Jahns shouted. “I see him! He’s grabbed hold of a rope!”

  Over the roar of wind and the pounding of rain, Matthew thought he heard Dahlgren’s ragged cry for help but that could have been a trick of the storm. He looked over the stern and saw in that madhouse of crashing waves and flying foam a blonde-haired head maybe forty yards out, and it was apparent Dahlgren had indeed seized one of the lines and was holding on for all his life was worth.

  “Jahns! Fanning! Help me pull him in!” Randolph shouted, and having ascertained which rope the Prussian had grabbed he went to that line and began to haul the man home. Jahns gave his strength to the task, and so did the minister.

  Matthew Corbett, however, did not join in the attempt at life-saving. He was recalling the moment when Dahlgren’s blade slashed across the throat of a poor addled girl who already had been dealt a miserable hand in this lunatic game of living. He recalled her expression of shock as she fell, and his own helplessness to do anything but watch as her life streamed away across the floor. Oh, there had been so much blood…so much pain in that room…the cabin that Quinn had thought would be the loving home for herself and Daniel.

  It was not right, Matthew thought. It was not fair.

  He stood alone, and hardly moved when the next wave came in and washed around his legs and spray hit him across the back like buckshot.

  The three men were doing an admirable job of hauling Count Dahlgren to safety. They would soon have him up on the deck. The rope was taut between the three Samaritans and the Son of Satan.

  Well, Matthew thought.

  In a daze he found himself putting a foot against the transom, pulling hard, and freeing the axe. He waited for the ship to rise and fall again, and the angry water to flow over his back. Then, aware of this cold-blooded instinct that had taken hold of him yet realizing also that once aboard this ship Dahlgren’s main purpose would be to kill him before they reached England, Matthew strode through the swirl of sea on the deck toward the three men at the stern.

  His face was a mask, showing no emotion. It was all locked within, and perhaps that was a freedom of the mask…the ability to show the world a false face, while holding all the torment deep inside, to show the world in essence a false person, a construct of circumstance.

  Who among this ship’s company would believe him when he demanded that Dahlgren be put in the brig and kept there until they reached port? The drunken captain? These well-meaning but unknowing men? Hell, was there even a brig aboard this crippled tub?

  No, the decision must be made now.

  He reached the stern. The rope was taut. Dahlgren was near being hauled up.

  Matthew lifted the axe and with as much strength as his cold rage could produce he brought it down where the rope scrubbed over the stern transom.

  The blow did not completely sever the rope, as it was a hawser as thick as the wrist of Magnus Muldoon. But it did serve to loosen the three men’s grips upon it, as they all looked with astonishment at Matthew, and as Matthew raised the axe agai
n Fanning fell back with an arm up as if he feared being struck by the mad young man and both Jahns and Randolph could only gape at him.

  The second blow…and the rope was almost severed, but not quite.

  “Please! Pull me up!” Dahlgren was right at the stern. His mouth sounded already full of water. A little more, and that accursed Prussian voice would be a gurgle.

  “What are you doing?” the blacksmith shouted. Jahns had backed away from the task, and now only Randolph held the rope, which itself was held together by a fraying horse’s-tail of strands.

  “I am doing justice,” the young man replied, very calmly, and with a very calm expression he slammed the axeblade down a third time, the blade sank into the wood and completely cut the line, and Randolph staggered back because what he was holding was tethered only to the air.

  There was a high, sharp scream when someone’s so-called master realized the falling rope meant he would not be putting his boots on the Wanderer’s deck after all. Matthew wondered if the man would have the presence of mind to swim for another rope, but it had been sheer luck he’d been able to grab one in the first place. Matthew let go of the axe, which remained embedded where it had struck. He stood at the stern as the ship rose away from Count Anton Mannerheim Dahlgren on the shoulders of the Atlantic as if a giant had awakened from the deep. There was a last glimpse of a blonde-haired head, or perhaps a mass of floating kelp torn from its muddy moorings fathoms below, and then the vessel slid downward, the hull and forecastle took a thunderous blow, the water surged around them but now with noticeably diminishing force, and the black waves tossed and foamed.

  Matthew realized, dumbly, that his nose was bleeding. He could taste the blood that had gotten into his mouth. He put his hand to his nostrils and then looked at the blood as rain washed it out of his palm.

  “We’ve done it!” someone shouted behind him.

  All turned toward the voice, and there stood Hezekiah Montgomery in all the glory of a half-drowned rat. But behind him, at the tortured prow, were other figures only half-seen through the gloom though two of them had oil lamps…four figures, moving about as if they somewhat knew what they were doing.

  “I went below!” Montgomery said breathlessly, for it appeared he’d taken a worse beating forward than had the men at the stern. “Told the crew what we were trying! Got four of them with balls enough to help!”

  “What did they do?” Jahns asked.

  “Dropped the anchors! Put a drag on this ship, they figured it would keep us from heeling over!”

  “Exactly,” said Matthew; it was a dazed mutter, and he wasn’t sure anyone had heard. Did it matter? No.

  “What’s happened here?” Montgomery asked. He saw the cleaved end of the hawser Randolph was still holding and took it from the expressions, the postures and the fact that an axeblade was embedded in the transom top that something amiss had occurred. “The count! Where’s Dahlgren?”

  “Over the stern. Drowned by now, most likely,” said the blacksmith. “His servant has murdered him.”

  “What?”

  “I saw it all!” Fanning said. “They began fighting like two animals. Dahlgren had the axe…maybe he’d taken it from his servant, I don’t know. It looked like he was trying his best to kill the boy, but…I don’t know what happened to start it! Then…well…the man went over, and that one—” and here a finger pointed at Matthew Corbett “—cut his lifeline and committed cold-blooded murder! It can’t be called self-defense in any court in England!”

  “My God!” Montgomery said. “A servant killed his master? Lord, boy, why did you do such a crime?”

  Matthew had no answer. At least none that these men could understand at the moment.

  His head still hurt, his ears rang, and he was very weary. But they were waiting for a reply, so he said, “I thought this voyage needed a bit more excitement.”

  The blacksmith dropped the useless rope. “We’ll see how excited you become when you spend the next two months in chains! You can’t be trusted to be around the others! Here, let’s get him below! Will you walk or shall you be carried?”

  “I shall walk, thank you,” Matthew said, and so he did.

  On a bright September afternoon in New York, as birds sang in the trees, cattle grazed on the hillside pastures, boats sailed up and down the rivers, wagons trundled along the town’s streets and all seemed right with the world, Berry Grigsby waited with dread to deliver a message.

  She had arrived at Robert Deverick’s Crown Street Coffee Shoppe at the appointed hour, taken a table and ordered a small light brew with cream. It was served to her not by Robert himself, who was making so much money off this endeavor that he could afford to hire help and was looking at another location in Philadelphia, but by one of the many ebullient and ambitious youths who, it seemed, were flooding into the town these days, with or without their elders. In this case it was a cheerful girl of about seventeen, with tresses of chestnut-brown hair and sparkling light blue eyes, and looking into that peach-fresh face Berry wanted to say, Enjoy all life has to offer, but for the sake of peace guard your heart.

  But she did not, for such advice from an older personage as herself would be cast aside as surely as leaves were now beginning to be blown from the trees. It was not such a long way from seventeen to twenty but it could be a world of distance. So Berry smiled at the girl’s smile, commented favorably on the bright yellow ribbons in the maiden’s hair, and settled down to wait for Ashton McCaggers to arrive.

  Dear, sweet Ashton. He was a little peculiar, of course…living up there in the attic of City Hall with his collection of skeletons and macabre geegaws, but…well, as coroner he took his responsibility very seriously, and Berry appreciated someone who dared to be different. He was a kind young man also, he was handsome in a studious fashion, was highly intelligent and could be funny when the mood struck him to be jocular, which was at every blue moon. Also, he seemed a bit lonely now that his dependable and silent assistant Zed was gone. But…here was where the soap should rinsed from the linen…

  Were these attributes enough to accept his hand in marriage?

  Berry sipped at her coffee. She listened to the noise of horse hooves on the cobbles and the sounds of city life that drifted into the shop. She came into this place a few occasions a week, after her duties teaching at the schoolhouse were done, and she knew that this time of day there were only a few other patrons here, if any. Today, Effrem Owles and his bride-to-be, Opal, had been here when she arrived; they had passed a few pleasantries but no one had mentioned the topic of the day. Then Effrem and Opal had left, arm in arm, and in her heart Berry wished them good fortune and long lives together.

  What she would say to any young girl asking her advice in such matters of the heart was: never, ever fall in love with someone who cannot—or will not—love you in return. That road led not to the mountain of happiness, but to the valley of regret.

  Today she wore a dove gray gown decorated with pale green ribbons, gloves of the same green hue, and a cocked gray hat with a small brown feather in its band. It was her idea of mourning apparel.

  Ashton arrived, prompt as usual. He was a slim young man of twenty-seven, had light brown hair and darker brown eyes, wore spectacles of thin wire and his favorite brown suit, of which he had four exactly the same. Since he’d been seeing Berry throughout this past year and had come out more into the world from his aerie, this rather eccentric bird had improved his grooming habits, always meeting her with perfectly combed hair, spotless clothing and a fresh, clean shave. Berry reasoned he bathed before their appointments, for the odors of death did tend to cling to a coroner. Still, she sometimes caught beneath his fragrance of patchouli soap a whiff of graveyard matters. He was very proficient at his job and enjoyed being of service to the town in such a position, so how could one fault a hard-working young man who was on call all hours of the day and night to, as it were, tidy up. Berry had never had the misfortune to see this, but she recalled Matthew telling her that, f
or all his interest in skeletons, Ashton could not stand the sight or smell of blood and organs and thus had to keep a bucket nearby in which to release his objections. Matthew had said he’d witnessed Zed hold the bucket and minister to Ashton during this process, and Berry presumed one of the new young arrivals to town had found himself quite a job, though she and Ashton never spoke of this.

  Matthew.

  That name, the image of his face and the sound of his voice were always so close. It frightened her sometimes, how close they were. Close also, and still very painful, were the last words they’d spoken to each other, on the Broad Way back in April. I thought we were friends, she’d said. I thought…we were something, I don’t know what.

  His reply: I don’t know what either.

  I can’t…I don’t understand…why…

  Oh, he’d said, stop your prattling.

  I came to help you, if you needed me. That’s all I ever wanted, Matthew! To help you! Can’t you see that?

  That’s the point I’m trying to make, he had gone on, and then delivered a knife thrust to her heart that the world’s worst killer could not have bettered. I was wrong to have confided in you on the ship that night. It was weak, and I regret it. Because the fact is, I have never needed you, I didn’t yesterday, I don’t today and I will not tomorrow.

  Fine, Berry had replied. And the realization of what Matthew had just said fully hit her and nearly crushed her down, and to hang onto the wildly spinning world she had lifted her chin in defiance to fate and circumstance and repeated Fine as if that word had any true meaning. She had said Good day to you, then. And it was in turning away from him and trying to walk home along the Broad Way that she almost lost her balance and fell, and within six strides the helplessness and anger at Matthew’s dumb stupidity and the way he was throwing away both their friendship and whatever else they might have had made the tears burst from her eyes. She had turned again, to face him one last time, and say We are done.

  After that she had not spoken to him or seen him, and though she wished he would come ask—beg—her forgiveness and try to make everything right between them again, which she would have done after the proper length of time for him to lie in his dog kennel, he never did even try. Therefore she tightened her composure further, and went out of her way to avoid his comings and goings to the little converted dairyhouse behind the Grigsby home.