“Yes sir, really. The higher authority at this…this station, call it…should be responsible for making sure they’re fit for service, and passing out to them lanterns and some sort of noise-making devices. Say a ratchet crank. Those are used in London, are they not?” The Gazette said so, therefore no need to wait for Cornbury’s verification. “Something the Dutch used to do, and we for whatever reason ceased doing, was giving green-glassed lanterns to the constables. Therefore when you saw a green lantern’s glow, you knew at whom you were looking. I think there also ought to be a program of training for the constables. They should all be able-”
“Hold, hold!” Lillehorne nearly shouted. “The constables are picked from the common stock! What kind of training are you talking about?”
“They should all be able to read and write,” Matthew said. “Also it wouldn’t hurt if they were men whose eyesight was proven not to be faulty.”
“Listen to this!” The high constable was now back on stage, playing to the crowd. “The clerk makes it seem as if we’re a town full of dunce-caps!”
“One dunce-cap is too many,” Matthew answered; and with that he knew his future would be a battleground. Lillehorne was ominously silent. “I would also suggest, Lord Cornbury, that for the purpose of finding the best individuals for this nightly task, they should be paid from the common fund.”
“Paid?” Cornbury managed to look both bemused and shocked at the same time. “In money?”
“Just as for any job. And let this central station be a serious workplace, not a warehouse or stable used as an afterthought. I think there are other details worth looking into, as well. Larger candles that burn longer, for instance. And more of them afforded to the constables and also placed in lanterns on every street corner. I’m sure Mr. Deverick might help with that.”
“Yes of course,” Deverick spoke up quickly, but everyone including Matthew knew he was already counting the extra lucre. “I also like the idea of the green lanterns. I can get those as a special order.”
“This has not passed my approval yet, sir!” Cornbury obviously had no liking for Pennford Deverick, and wasn’t about to let the moneywagon run away from him. “Please withhold your pleasure!” Then he directed a piercing stare at Matthew, who felt the power of royalty like a fist balled up to knock him down. “How is it you’ve given such thought to this, and the high constable has heard nothing of it?”
Matthew pondered this. Everyone waited, with some expectation. Then Matthew said, “The high constable is a busy man, sir. I’m sure these ideas would have come clear to him, eventually.”
“Or perhaps not.” Cornbury frowned. “Dear me, I’ve seen men duel to the death over lesser affronts to offices as this. Mr. Lillehorne, I assume you have the good of the town in mind, and that would preclude any offense you might take at this young man’s bravura. Yes?”
Gardner Lillehorne said with the hint of a hiss, “My lord, I am only here to sssserve.”
“Very good. Then I shall read over these remarks from the public record and I shall ask you at some point to meet with myself and, of course, the aldermen for further discussion. Until then, Mr. Deverick, I don’t wish to see any green lanterns floating about in the dark. And you may sit down, Mr. Corbett, with thanks for your thoughtful suggestions. Anyone else?”
Matthew sat down, having been thoroughly dismissed. But Tully jabbed an encouraging elbow into his ribs and Powers said, “Good show.”
“Sir? I have a question, if you please?”
The voice was familiar. Matthew looked around to see his chess-playing comrade stand up. Effrem Owles was twenty years old, but already the gray streaks were pronounced on the sides of his bird’s-nest thatch of brown hair. His father, the tailor, had gone completely silver-haired by age thirty-five. Effrem was tall and thin and wore round spectacles that made his intelligent dark brown eyes seem to float out of his face. “Effrem Owles, sir,” he said. “I do have a question, if it’s not so…improper.”
“I’ll be the judge of impropriety, young man. Ask away.”
“Yes sir, thank you. Well then…why is it you’re dressed as a woman?”
A gasp went up that might have been heard ’round the world. Matthew knew Effrem had asked the question in all sincerity; it was not the younger man’s nature to show cruelty or ill-will, but his vice-if such could be called- was a plain-spoken curiosity that sometimes rivaled even Matthew’s.
“Ah.” Lord Cornbury lifted a gloved and ringed finger. “Ah, that. Thank you for asking, Mr. Owles. I do understand how some-many, even-might not fathom my attire today. I am not always dressed so, but I decided that I should today at our first meeting show my respect and solidarity of spirit with the royal lady who has given me this wonderful opportunity to represent her interests so far from the mother shore.”
“You mean-” Effrem began.
“Yes,” Lord Cornbury said, “my cousin-”
“The Queen,” supplied some harsh-voiced rascal from back amid the mob.
“There you have it.” The governor smiled at his citizens as if he were the very sun. “Now I must retire from you and go about my business. Your business, of course. I promise to obey your call and your needs, as much as is humanly possible. Never let it be said that Edward Hyde is not responsive to the people. Good day, all of you, and I trust that at our next meeting we shall all have progress to report. Good day, gentlemen,” he said to the aldermen, and with a sharp turn he made his way back toward the door and out of the chamber, leaving voices both calling and cat-calling, and Matthew wondering how many hours it had taken the man to practice flouncing in that gown. The crier, still visibly shaken, managed to croak that the meeting was ended and God save Queen Anne and the town of New York.
“That’s that,” said Magistrate Powers, which suitably summed everything up.
On his way out through the converging crowd, which seemed torn between near-hysterical laughter and sheer speechless shock, Matthew caught Effrem’s eye and gave a lift of the chin that said Good question. Then with the next step he was aware of the sweet scent of flowers and Polly Blossom was passing him, leaving her provocative perfume up his nostrils. No sooner was she past than Matthew’s forward progress was stopped by a silver lion’s head pressed firmly against his collarbone.
Up close, Gardner Lillehorne was not a large man. In fact, he was three inches shorter than Matthew and wore too-large suits that did not hide his spindly frame but served to hang from it like baggy washing on a clothesline. His face was long and thin, accentuated by the precisely trimmed black goatee and mustache. He did not wear wigs, yet the blue sheen of his black hair pulled back with a dark purple ribbon suggested artificiality, at least for the season’s latest dye from India. His nose was small and pointed, his lips like those of a painted doll’s, his fingers small and his hands almost childlike. Nothing about him at close range was large or imposing, which Matthew thought had to do with why he was never likely to be granted a mayorship or governor’s charter; the big, sprawling English empire liked big, sprawling men as their leaders.
At least Lord Cornbury appeared to be a large man, under the dress. That was an area Matthew wished not to think about too much. Yet at this moment, for all his near-diminutive stature, High Constable Lillehorne appeared to have filled his guts and lungs and fleshy cavities with angry bile, for he seemed swollen to twice his size. Matthew had once, as an urchin living on the waterfront before he’d gone to the orphanage, captured a small gray frog that in his hand expanded itself until it was twicefold all slippery slick skin, pulsating warts, and glaring enraged black eyes as big as duit coppers. Looking upon Lillehorne reminded Matthew of this maddened toad, which had promptly squirted his hand with piss and jumped into the East River.
“How very kind of you,” said the goateed and livid puffer, in a quiet voice strained through clenched teeth. “How very, very decent of you…Magistrate Powers.”
Matthew realized that, though Lillehorne was staring daggers at him, the high constable was addressing Powers at his right side.
“To ambush me in such a fashion, before the new governor. I knew you wished me out of a job, Nathaniel, but to use a clerk as your weapon of removal…it doesn’t suit a gentleman like yourself.”
“I heard Matthew’s suggestions the same as you,” Powers said. “They were his own.”
“Oh, of course they were. For certain. You know what Princess said to me, just this morning? She said, ‘Gardner, I hope the new governor will shine a little light on you, and possibly report back to the Queen herself what a good job you’re doing in a thankless situation.’ Can’t you see her face as she said that, Nathaniel?”
“I suppose,” came the answer. Matthew knew that, though the true name of Lillehorne’s rather socially voracious wife was Maude, she preferred to be called “Princess,” since her father was known in London as the “Duke of Clams” after his shellfish eating-house on East Cheap Street.
“You and I have had our differences over one case or another, but I hardly expected this. And to hide behind
