You’ll someday cross swords with a villain who’ll long to get a short blade in your belly. You’ll know him, when the time comes.
Matthew knew him.
He saw Dahlgren’s left hand go under the waistcoat. He grabbed at the wrist to trap it, but another blow from the hilt rattled his brains. Where was Dahlgren’s hand? Panic flared in him. Where was-
Suddenly Dahlgren’s hand emerged. It had six fingers, one formed of steel and deadly sharp.
With a whuff of air and a burst of demonic strength, the Count drove his hidden dagger squarely into Matthew’s stomach.
There was a sudden loud crack. No more, no less.
Dahlgren screamed like a woman. He fell back, the dagger dangling and then dropping from the hand that hung off a broken wrist. His rapier also clattered to the floor. His eyes were wide with shock, and perhaps they widened even farther when Matthew reached under his own waistcoat and pulled out the silver fruit tray-about the size of an open hand-that he’d slid down to protect his belly from the dagger attack that Greathouse had warned him in the wisdom of experience to anticipate.
One thing could be said about Dahlgren, Matthew thought. The man certainly kept his thumb locked down.
Dahlgren shook his head back and forth, his damp blond hair standing up like horns. Matthew took the opportunity to smash the fruit tray into his face. When Dahlgren retreated a few paces and made a dazed circle with the broken wrist clutched to his chest, Matthew hit him again. Then a third time, and the Prussian fell into the wine-red curtains that hung over the garden doors but due evidently to his status as a grenadier did not allow himself to fall. Matthew dropped the fruit tray back into the silver debris from whence it had come. He tore the curtains off their hooks and wrapped them around the man’s head. Then, moving slowly and painfully but with definite purpose, he managed to pick up a chair and with it clouted Count Anton Mannerheim Dahlgren a final soul- satisfying blow that sent the swordsman crashing out the doors and over the terrace railing into the goldfish pond, where he sputtered and feebly kicked beneath his wrappings.
Matthew fell to his knees.
It couldn’t have been very long before he could move again, because though the commotion out front had subsided there were still shouts and an occasional curse to be heard. He crawled to Charity LeClaire and ascertained from her moaning that she was still alive, and if she lived long enough to think about it she would surely reconsider her purpose in this world.
He got to his feet and unsteadily went through the corridor.
Lying in the doorway was Lawrence Evans with a huge blue bruise at the center of his forehead. His nose was also pretty much a pulp. A knife was on the floor near his right hand. Sitting not far away with his own hand pressed to a circle of blood on the shirt at his left shoulder was Dippen Nack, whose nose was covered with a white plaster and both eyes dark-shadowed courtesy of Matthew’s fist. The black billyclub rested beside him, a good afternoon’s work done.
Matthew thought he’d taken too much of a beating, for surely he was seeing what was not there. He blinked and looked again.
Nack growled, “What the damned hell are you lookin’ at?”
Matthew walked on, stepping over Evans’ body into the sunlight.
The battle that had raged in front of the house was over, though the dust raised by hooves and boots still lingered. It was clear to see who had won and who had lost. Standing with hands upraised were the boys-at least, the ones who were not on the ground nursing injuries-and standing victorious around them with hatchets, cudgels, and swords were some of the very constables Matthew had thought to be so moronic at their tasks. He counted eight men. No, two more were just coming along the road, herding five boys at the point of axe and musket. A dozen or so horses either nervously pranced around or calmly grazed in the grass along with the sheep, oblivious to the conflicts of men.
Matthew peered through the drifting dust and saw a diminutive man who wore a canary-yellow suit and tricorn hat and held a pistol limply at his side. He was standing over a body.
As Matthew approached, Gardner Lillehorne glanced up at him with wounded eyes. In the harsh light, his skin was pale white and his dyed hair pulled into a queue with a yellow ribbon was more blue than black. He looked down again upon the body, and when he spoke his voice was crushed. “I had to shoot him. He wouldn’t stop coming at me. He’s…not dead, is he?”
Matthew knelt down. The ball had entered very near Jerrod Edgar’s heart. The boy’s eyes were open, but his flame was out. A large knife was still gripped in the right hand.
Matthew stood up, wincing as a pain rippled through his wounded thigh. “He’s dead.”
“I thought so. I just…didn’t…” Lillehorne stopped speaking for a few seconds, and then tried again. “I didn’t want to kill anyone,” he said.
“Chapel,” Matthew said, dazed by the loss of blood and the strange illusion that he was actually feeling sympathy for the high constable. “What happened to Chapel?” He ran a hand over his forehead. “What are you doing here?”
“Kirby,” Lillehorne replied. “He told me everything. I got as many constables as I could find. Brought us here. My God, Matthew!” He blinked heavily, looking around at the boys who were being told to sit down with their legs crossed underneath them and their hands cupped behind their necks. “They’re so young!”
They were young once, Matthew thought but he didn’t say it. Perhaps a long time ago. The hardship, cruelty, and violence of the world had begun their education. Ausley and Chapel had refined it. Professor Fell had put it to use. And as Jerrod Edgar had said, I was never nobody, out there.
“Where’s Kirby?” Matthew asked, and was answered by a half-hearted motion from the high constable, directing Matthew toward the road to the vineyard.
Matthew set off.
Not long after, he came upon the body of Simon Chapel, stretched out on his belly in the dust of the road. Possibly interrupted on his journey to get a horse from the stable, Matthew thought. Just as Lawrence Evans might have been interrupted by Dippen Nack on his way to get the last notebook or some of the more sensitive papers in that file cabinet. On Chapel’s left temple was a black bruise about three inches long. The face had been severely deformed by either fists or, more likely, a pair of boots. It was far from lovely, and in fact Matthew’s gorge rose at the sight of such a mess that a human face might become. But there was no pool of blood around the throat, and as Chapel’s raw lips moved and made incoherent sounds it was clear he had not yet departed the earthly scene.
“I wanted to kill him,” said Kirby, who sat on the other side of the road in the shade of a tree. A black horse with a white face stood nearby, grazing. Kirby had drawn his knees up to his chin and was holding the blackjack. “I gave Lillehorne my knife before we left. But I could have picked up a knife here, from one of the boys. I could have cut his throat, very easily.”
Matthew walked over to him, if just to get away from the sight of the large green flies crawling over the bloodmask that Chapel’s face had become.
Kirby said, “Pollard described him for me. So I’d know him. You see…I followed you from the office. I was going to go with you. To see Lillehorne. Then I watched Pollard and that other man stop you. When I saw Pollard take the notebook…I knew. I followed him back to the office, and I had a talk with him.” Kirby’s eyes closed and he leaned his head back against the treetrunk. Sweat sparkled on his forehead and cheeks.
“Where is he now?”
“Dear Joplin? My dear tavern pal? Well, first…before he talked he fell down a flight of grandmotherly stairs. Then…after he talked, my good pal shattered both his knees on a pair of fireplace tongs.” He opened his eyes and stared at Chapel’s body. “I made sure I got to him, before anyone else, because I was going to kill him. Beat him to death, if I had to. But I stopped beating him.” He frowned, thinking. “Why did I stop, Matthew? Why?”
Matthew also took some time to consider. “Because,” came his answer, “you know that from this point on Justitia will see Simon Chapel and his crimes very clearly, and by murdering him you only kill yourself a little more.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Swanscott’s son said. He nodded. “That must be it.”
Matthew eased himself to the ground in the treeshade. He was drowsy, the sleep of exhaustion pulling at him. Yet where was Berry? Was she all right? He didn’t know. He had to trust that she was. But what about all the boys? Had everyone been captured? What about the instructors? Was there any place all these people could be
