Matthew Corbett 02 - The Queen of Bedlam mc-2

by Robert R. McCammon

  “Not only that. If I have done my research and come to this belief, others also have.”

  “Others?”

  Mrs. Herrald didn’t answer for a moment. She picked up her fork and used it to slowly stir the remaining liquid in the bowl before her, as if she were probing for the bottom of a swamp.

  She said, “You can be sure, Matthew, that the criminal element of not only England but also greater Europe is looking in this direction, and has already seen the potential. Whatever it might be: kidnapping, forgery, public and private theft, murder for hire. Domination of the mind and spirit, thereby to gain illicit profit. I could give you a list of the names of individual criminals who will most likely be lured here at some time or another, but it’s not those petty thugs who concern me. It’s the society that thrives underground, that pulls the marionette strings. The very powerful and very deadly group of men-and women-who even now are sitting at dinner just as we are, but they hold carving knives over a map of the new world and their appetites are ravenous.”

  She ceased her stirring and again locked her gaze with his. “You say that currently the criminal element is not overpowering the judicial system. That’s today. There are going to be many tomorrows in the life of this colony and this city, Matthew. If we don’t prepare for the future, it will be taken from us by those who do.” She lifted her arched eyebrows. “Please don’t be blind to the fact that there’s already an element of…shall we say…evil at work here? The ‘Masker,’ as Mr. Grigsby calls him. There have been several murders in Boston and Philadelphia that are still unsolved and unlikely to be as more time goes past. Oh, it’s already here, Matthew. And it will thrive unless the enforcement of law is strong and organized. Which it currently is not.”

  Greathouse came back in with a wineglass full to the brim. “Have I missed the sermon?”

  “I was just getting to the ‘amen,’” Mrs. Herrald answered. “I hope I haven’t frightened our junior associate too very much.”

  “There were some, I recall, who up and bolted.” Greathouse settled himself in his chair. “What say, Matthew? Still in the game?”

  It was time for Matthew to ask an indelicate question, but one that must be posed. “How much money am I to be paid?”

  “Ah!” Greathouse grinned. He lifted his glass in a toast. “That’s the spirit!”

  “To be negotiated,” said Mrs. Herrald. “You can be sure it’s more money than you’ve ever seen, and will continue to be improved as your experience and training improves.”

  “Training? What training?”

  “Had to be a catch,” Greathouse said.

  “Your training from junior to full associate, which may take some time,” came the reply. “You won’t be given anything you can’t handle, that I promise.” Matthew didn’t like the sound of that training part, yet he assumed it probably had to do with learning a new language or improving his processes of logic and deduction by further reading. Still, his hesitation made Greathouse say, “You know what the dockmen say in London, Matthew? ‘Don’t sweat over the small crates, and everything’s a small crate.’”

  “I would say some crates are not as small as others, but I echo the sentiment…I suppose,” said Mrs. Herrald with a slight smile. “We need you, Matthew. You’ll be well-paid and well-challenged. Probably well-travelled too, before long. Certainly well-educated in the complexities of life, and of the criminal mind. Have I frightened you off?”

  “No, madam,” Matthew answered quickly and firmly. “Not in the least.”

  “That’s what I wished to hear.” She looked out the window and saw a flash of lightning in the distance, toward town. “I don’t think you should try the road this time of night, and in this weather. If you’d care to stay, you can sleep in the downstairs bedroom. Get an early start at sunup, if you like.”

  Matthew thought that would be the wisest course, and thanked Mrs. Herrald for her hospitality. As the night moved on, Greathouse brought a chessboard and pieces from another room, set it up on the table, and had a game with Matthew as he downed a second brimful glass of wine. Matthew assumed Greathouse would be an easy victim with all that liquor in his brain, but the man caused grievous difficulty with his knights before Matthew shredded him with a queen-and-bishop combination.

  After a second game in which Matthew showed no mercy from the beginning and coldly cut Greathouse to pieces left and right until the swordsman’s king was trapped in a corner like a miserable rat, Greathouse yawned and stretched his huge self until his backbone cracked. Then he said goodnight and retired to the carriage-house, where he resided.

  Mrs. Herrald had already gone to bed during the second chess game, so Matthew went into the small but comfortable bedroom downstairs, took off his clothes, and put on a nightshirt she’d laid out for him. He washed his face in a waterbowl, cleaned his teeth with a brush and peppermint dental powder left for his convenience, blew out his candle, and went to bed as the distant lightning flashed and flared over Manhattan.

  There was much to think about. To deeply ponder and consider. Matthew spent about three minutes thinking about Mrs. Herrald’s “sermon” at the table before the weariness crashed over him and he was out as quickly and absolutely as his candle.

  Thus it was with some confusion and grogginess that he came back to his senses with someone pulling at him and a lantern in his face. The rain was still falling from the dark, hitting the bedroom’s window. He sat up, squinting in what seemed like noonday’s sun thrown in his eyes.

  “Up and dressed,” said Hudson Greathouse, standing over him. His voice was all business and as sober as Sunday. “Your training starts now.”

  Twelve

  Matthew was urged by Hudson Greathouse through the drizzling rain toward the brown stone carriage-house, where illumination showed at the windows. He doubted he’d been allowed to slumber for more than two hours, and he was dog-tired and heavy-limbed. He walked before the light of Greathouse’s lantern through the open doorway, finding himself standing on a dirt floor with eight more lanterns set about in a large circle.

  Greathouse closed the door and, to Matthew’s unease, dropped the bolt across it. There was no carriage in the place, but a set of steps led up to a second level and what must have been Greathouse’s living area. Greathouse set the lamp he was carrying on a wallhook, and it was then that Matthew saw the glint of yellow light on the grips and handguards of four swords in scabbards also resting horizontally on hooks. That wasn’t all of the man’s arsenal. On display along with the swords were two pistols, three daggers, and-of all things-an oversized slingshot.

  “Mrs. Herrald tells me you know nothing about swords or pistols. Correct?”

  “Yes sir. I mean…correct.” Matthew had been about to yawn before he’d seen the weapons, but now he was as fully awake as a healthy jolt of fear could make a person.

  “You’ve never held a sword, then?”

  “No. Well…” He had briefly picked up a sword in a gaol cell in Fount Royal, but it was more to get rid of it than use it and so he didn’t think that incident counted for much. “When I was a boy…I mean, a very young boy…I was running with a gang at the harbor. Not a real gang, I mean. But just…you know…boys. Orphans, like I was.”

  “There’s a point to this?”

  “Yes sir. We used to fight each other with sticks and pretend they were swords. You know. Mock wars.”

  “Ever kill anyone with a pretend sword?” Greathouse approached him, looming over Matthew like a giant and getting larger still, if just in Matthew’s sensibility, as his shadow was thrown across the wall.

  “No sir.”

  “Ever kill anyone with anything?”

  “No sir.”

  “Can you fight? Use your fists?”

  “I’m…sure I remember fighting with the gang. But it was a long time ago, and I really was a different person. I’ve changed since then.”

  “You should have kept that part of yourself.” Greathouse stopped before him and sized him up fr
om toe to head as if for the first time. Washed with lanternlight, the man’s face was haughty and dismissive. It occurred to Matthew that either Greathouse had tremendous recuperative abilities over the effects of alcohol or he could simply drink a keg down and keep going.

  “You’re spindly,” Greathouse said, and began to walk in a circle around him. “You look weak as water and pale as a moonbeam. Don’t you ever get outside in the daylight and work?”

  “My work is…predominantly mental, sir.”

  “That’s the trouble with young people these days. They sit on their mental and call it work. Well, you think you’re so smart, don’t you? So clever at chess. I think you’ve let yourself go to rot. You’re more a ghost than a man. How’d you get that scar on your head? Fall down and hit it on a damned chessboard?”

  “No sir,” Matthew said. “I…got it in a fight with a bear.”

  Greathouse stopped his circling.

  “If I may ask,” Matthew ventured, “how did you get your scar?”

  Greathouse paused. Then at last he said, “Broken teacup. Thrown by my third wife.”

  “Oh.”

  “You don’t ask the questions,” the man snarled. “I ask the questions, do you understand?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Greathouse continued his circling, around and around. Then he stopped directly in front of Matthew. “If you want to see a scar, take a gander at this.” He unbuttoned his ruffled shirt and displayed a truly ugly brown scar that began just beneath the left collarbone and crossed to the center of the chest. “Dagger strike, fifth of March, 1677. He was going for my heart, but I caught his wrist in time. An assassin, dressed in monk’s robes. And here.” He pulled the shirt off his right shoulder to show a dark purple crater. “Musket ball, twenty-second of June, 1684. Knocked my arm out of the socket. I was lucky there, no bones broken. The ball went through the woman who was standing in front of me at the time. Look here, then.” He angled his body so Matthew could see a third gruesome scar across the ribs on the right side. “Ninth of October, 1686. That’s what a rapier can do to you, even when it doesn’t bear a cutting edge. The bastard swung instead of lunged. I did suffer two ribs broken on that one. Spent a month laid up, almost lost my mind but for the dear Contessa.” He touched the injury gently, as if in reverence. “I can foretell rain by three days.” He shrugged his shirt back into place and buttoned it once more, his expression now more pleased than petulant.

  Matthew had to ask, “Is that what I have to look forward to?”

  Instantly Greathouse pressed a finger against Matthew’s chest so hard Matthew thought he was about to receive his first battle-mark. “Not,” Greathouse said, “if you’re smart. Not if you’re lucky. And not if you let me teach you how to defend yourself.”

  Matthew said nothing, but Greathouse seemingly read his mind. “I will tell you,” said the swordsman, “that I was fighting four men when one got his rapier swing past my guard, so yes I can be a competent instructor. Anyway, he had no rhythm and he was all herky-jerky panic. It was good luck for him and bad luck for me. Until I got my breath back and spilled his puddings all over the alley floor. I gave another one a cut to the face that went through one cheek and out the other and then they all ran for their lives.”

  “Did you spare them?”

  Greathouse examined his gnarled knuckles, which Matthew noted also were marked with numerous small scars. “I followed the blood and tracked the wounded one down. A thrust to the throat and he was finished. It was a dark night, though. Only that saved the other two, though I suppose my own blood and broken ribs also might have slowed me a step.” Abruptly he walked to the armory and chose two swords. He unsheathed both, turned one, and offered Matthew the grip. “Take it. Thrust at me.”

  “Sir?”

  “Take the rapier and thrust at me.”

  Matthew accepted the sword. It was a damned heavy thing. Unbalanced, it felt to him. An unnatural way to get yourself killed, trying to move this sluggish piece of steel through the air. He wagged the sword back and forth, watching the light glint and jump from its surface. It seemed to him that the business point was too slow by far to get where he intended it.

  “You’re holding it like a baby with a rattle,” Greathouse said. “Take a man’s grip and lock that thumb down. All right now, just thrust at me.”

  “How do I stand?”

  “Don’t worry about the stance yet. Come on, do as I say.”

  “I don’t feel comfortable with this. Do you have one that’s not so heavy?” Already Matthew could feel the muscles of his forearm protesting. A swordsman he was not meant to be.

  “That’s the lightest of the bunch, moonbeam. Just hold the sword out, then. Bend your elbow a little. All right. Tight grip. Tighter. Drop your shoulder. Not your arm, your shoulder. Right there, stay still.” Greathouse brought his sword around and hit Matthew’s flat-to-flat with a ringing sound and, though not with much power, the vibration coursed up Matthew’s arm right to the skull. “Just get a feel for it,” Greathouse said, as he brought his sword around on the other side and struck again. He continued from one side to the other. The carriage-house sounded like a belfry. “The rapier has two parts, the blade and the hilt. Of the hilt there is the pommel-that little ball at the end of the hilt-the grip, and the guard. The parts of the blade are the strong-the forte near the grip-and the weak, which would be the feeble near the point.” The two swords continued to sound out their steel music. “Always block-or parry-a strike or thrust at the forte, you see as I’m allowing here. If you try to parry a blow at the feeble, you likely will either lose your weapon or have it broken. Or you’ll be run through. The rapier is not fashioned for cutting strikes, though of course you’ve seen it can cut with enough force behind it. It’s meant for lunging strikes, using the sharp tip to drive through your target. You’re weakening your grip, hold it steady. Now we shall get you accustomed to the feel of the weapon, and then we’ll move to the fundamentals of quarte, terce, approach, lunge stretch, distance measure, break measure, the feint, the riposte, beating, binding, time and-”

  “I think I have this under control,” Matthew interrupted, though his forearm ached like a bad tooth.

  “I’m glad you think so,” said Greathouse, who instantly brought his rapier around with a little more power and at a different angle and suddenly Matthew’s fingers shot open as if his hand had been hornet-stung and the sword flew away like one of Increase Mather’s comets.

  “I’m sorry, I lost my grip,” Matthew said, as he tried to shake the sting out of his hand.

  “You never had a grip. I told you to keep that thumb locked down. Go get the sword and come back right where you stand.”

  Matthew obeyed. Greathouse said, “Make your body thin. As if it isn’t thin enough, but at least that’s to your advantage. Show only your right side. Keep your feet in line with me. Not so far apart. Now they’re too close. You want to have optimum power when you thrust, but keep your feet not too close or your balance will be unsteady. All right, that’s much better.” He walked in a slow circle just beyond the lanterns. “Keep your sword pointed outward, don’t let it slope down unless your opponent is three inches tall. Very well, sink down as if you’re about to sit. A little more. Left arm behind you, like a rudder.” He stopped in front of Matthew again. “Sword tip pointed. Slightly higher than the hilt. All right, that’s good. Now you’re going to stretch forth your right arm and step forward with your right foot as far as you can, keeping left arm, body, and sword in line. Thrust at me. Do it!”

  Matthew pushed himself forward. Long before his sword broke the circle, it was knocked aside by Greathouse’s blade.

  “Again,” Greathouse said. “Keep your body in line. Don’t lift your left foot or let it drag. And when I say thrust, I don’t mean jerk like a sun-addled mule. I’m looking for economy of motion; speed will come later.”

  Once more Matthew thrust, once more his sword was nearly knocked from his hand.

  “I held it
!” he said proudly. “Did you see?”

  “Yes, my mistake.” Greathouse took a single step forward, his blade came in with a quick twist, and again Matthew’s hand spasmed open and the sword stabbed dirt ten feet away.

  “The next time you lift that thumb up,” Greathouse glowered, “you shall need only nine-fingered gloves. Go get it and return to your position.”

  Matthew again obeyed. His forearm was killing him, but he gritted his teeth and was determined to make at least a show of fortitude.

  “Take the quarte. That’s the position I just showed you. Now I want you to just move the sword. Cut to the right, return to position, thrust in the center, return to position, cut to the left, thrust in the center. Keep your back firm. Bend your knees a little more. More still, you won’t fall. Keep moving the sword until I say to stop.”

  Bastard, Matthew thought. He didn’t know how much more of this his arm could take, but damned if he’d give up.

  “You’re losing your form,” said Greathouse as he walked the circle again. “You have no power in your arm, do you? Keep going. Don’t lift that left foot. Are you deaf? I said to keep your body in line!”

  Sweat glistened on Matthew’s face as he continued to cut and thrust. The rapier now felt as if it weighed near an anvil and his forearm was just nerveless meat. His shoulder, however, was screaming bloody murder.

  After what seemed at least fifteen minutes, Greathouse said, “Stop.”

  Matthew lowered the weapon and tried to rub the life back into his arm. He was breathing hard. It amazed him how much strength and energy was demanded just to handle the damned sword, much less use it in a combat situation. “How long will it take me to become proficient?” he asked, in between breaths.

  Greathouse had sheathed his rapier and hung it by a leather strap across his shoulder. Now he produced a short-stemmed clay pipe from his breeches pocket, lit it with a match from a small tinderbox, and blew out a plume of gray smoke that floated past Matthew’s head. “Ten years,” he answered. “Give or take.” He tucked the tinderbox away.