the hammer and anvil had perplexed. “I mean, nobody’s happy about where Grace is, and why she wants to stay there. She won’t leave it, you know. But I guess everything’ll take care of itself in time, just like the reverend said. I know he’s got a fight on his hands with some of those elders, though.”
“But not all of them, I’m sure,” Matthew said.
“No, not all, that’s true.” John cocked his head to one side. “I’d like to ask you what you knew about Grace, and when you knew it, but would you tell me?”
“I would not.”
“Didn’t think so. Doesn’t matter, does it?”
“I’d like to talk about something that does matter,” Matthew said, and his somber tone of voice made John Five draw up a frown. “About the orphanage, to be exact.”
“The orphanage? Oh, Matthew! He’s dead now. Can’t you ever let it go?”
“It’s not that. I left the orphanage in 1694, when I was fifteen. You were brought there by a parson, I recall, when you were about nine years old, and you stayed until you turned seventeen and Master Ross chose you as an apprentice. Is that correct?”
“Yes. What of it?”
“In the years from, say, 1696 to when you left, can you think of anything unusual happening there?”
“Unusual,” John repeated, with no emotion. Then he said heatedly, “Listen, Matthew, you’ve got to give this up! Forget the damned place! It’s not doin’ you a bit a’ good to-”
“Anything unusual,” Matthew plowed on, his eyes intense and perhaps a little haunted. “I’m not talking about Ausley’s personal habits now. I’m talking about something that would have required boys to leave the orphanage before they were placed with families or offered apprenticeships. Maybe some left and came back, I don’t know.” He could tell John wasn’t even trying to remember, probably because John’s own experience at the hands of Ausley wouldn’t let him go back to that terrible place even in his memory. “Please, John. Think. Something that drew the boys away from the orphanage. Maybe you even went.”
“Oh. That,” said John, who breathed a sigh of fresh relief. “That was nothin’. I wanted to go, but I didn’t have any skills they were needin’.”
“Skills? What kind of skills?”
John shrugged his heavy-set shoulders. “Readin’ and writin’. Figurin’ numbers. Copyin’ drawin’s and such. You remember Seth Barnwell? He went and came back. Said they got up in his face too much. Ran the place like an army camp. Seth wasn’t there but a few days. He went to learn how to make keys, but the hell of it was that for some reason they took a lot of fellas who liked to fight and cause mischief and after Seth got his nose busted a couple of times he’d had enough.”
“What was this place?”
“It was a trade school,” John said.
A trade school, Matthew thought grimly. Indeed. “Was it up the river about fifteen miles?”
“I think so, yes. But like I said, I never went. One of my best friends went and stayed, though. You remember Billy Hodges? That long tall drink of water? He was two or three years younger than you, I guess.”
“I remember him.” Hodges had been a smart young man, but had always been plotting intricate ways to escape the orphanage and had great dreams of being a sea captain and sailing to the West Indies.
“He applied, and they took him. You know what they took him in for? Because he had such good handwritin’. Can you believe it? They wanted him so he could learn to be a scrivener. Keep records and such, they told him. And him with that missin’ thumb.”
Matthew felt a cold shock slowly course through him. He thought his face had gone from gray to pasty-white in an instant. “Missing thumb?” he heard himself ask.
“That’s right. A year after you left, Billy was puttin’ on his shoes one day when a spider bit his left thumb. Thing was in his shoe. I saw it, wasn’t so big but it was awful black. Next thing, his thumb’s turned blue and swelled up and his whole hand’s killin’ him. It went on for a while like that, brought him to tears and he was a tough nut, too. Anyway, by the time Ausley brought a doctor, Billy’s thumb was as black as the spider. Took it off, so he wouldn’t lose the whole hand. He was all right about it, though. I think he was prouder of showin’ off the stump than he’d been of havin’ a thumb.”
“Good thing it wasn’t his scrivening hand,” Matthew said.
John grinned. “See, that’s the thing. It was his writin’ hand. He had to learn to write all over again with his right hand. Maybe that helped when he had to copy the script.”
“Copy the script? What script?”
“Oh, some men would come now and again and give us tests. You know. Doin’ numbers, copyin’ script, figurin’ out puzzles and such. They talked to us, too. Wantin’ to know all about us and our lives and so on. What we wanted for the future. Were we sad, were we angry, did we carry grudges or get in fights. A man even came a couple of times to see if any of the older boys knew how to use a sword or a dagger. He was a Prussian fella, could hardly speak English. But he could handle a sword in both hands.”
The enigmatic Count Dahlgren, Matthew thought. Not teaching Chapel how to use a sword, but instead teaching younger and more pliable students. “Whatever use would you have for a sword or dagger at a trade school?” he asked.
“One of the trades was learnin’ how to sharpen swords and knives. I reckon they wanted somebody who showed an interest in blades.”
Master Ross suddenly peered out through the entryway, and he looked none too happy. “Mr. Five, are you comin’ back to your labors anytime today?”
“Oh, yes sir. Sorry.” When the smith had gone back in, John said, “I’ve got to go. But why all this interest in the trade school? I’d nearly forgotten about it.”
“I think it was more than a trade school,” Matthew replied.
“More than a trade school? Meanin’ what?”
“Mr. Five!” came the bellow from within.
John winced. “Ouch. Well, his bark’s worse than his bite. Usually. You ought to have dinner with Constance and me one evenin’, Matthew. We’ll talk then. All right?”
Before Matthew could respond, John Five had returned to his work. He stood in the strong white sunlight. People moved about him as if he were a rock in the midst of a stream. He was thinking that Billy Hodges was now lying in a grave on John Ormond’s farm, and the young man’s last journey had not been as a sea captain but as a passenger of the river.
Matthew couldn’t help but wonder if Hodges, the plotter of daring escapes, hadn’t tried to escape the trade school, and thus brought down upon himself the judgment of the gauntlet.
He had his own work to do, and best get to it. He hurried back to Grigsby’s house by the shortest route, which was along the dockside, and found the printmaster setting out type for the next Earwig. Berry was absent. Grigsby told Matthew she’d gone out at first light to continue her landscape pictures, and then he wanted to know all about Matthew’s trip to Philadelphia and if he’d met with success.
“Not just now, Marmy,” Matthew said. “Do you think Berry would mind if I get something from her drawers?”
Grigsby’s eyes nearly popped. “Excuse me?”
“I mean her chest-of-drawers!” Matthew’s face was red. “Something I asked her to keep for me.”
“I have no opinion, it’s just my house. It’s apparent you and Berry are keeping secrets from me, so go right ahead and-” But he was mouthing to the air, for Matthew had already gone to open the bottom drawer and retrieve the notebook.
Matthew put the notebook in the inside pocket of his coat. He didn’t have a far distance to go, and then it was a short walk to City Hall and Lillehorne’s office. Chapel’s cohorts might indeed be watching him, but on this day the law would also lay eyes upon Simon Chapel.
“Back later,” Matthew told Grigsby as he went out the door.
“Go on, and don’t bother telling me anything!” Grigsby called after him, a smear of old ink already leaped across his forehead. “I’m just the broadsheet publisher!”
Matthew considered stopping at Number Seven Stone Street to see if Hudson Greathouse was available for…what would be the word?…back-up, but as he reached the Broad Way and turned south he decided against it. No, this was a more delicate issue. There was a time for flashing swords but also a time for the quiet movement of
