The bookcase. There it stood, beside the clothes chest. Three shelves, made of lustrous dark brown wood with diamond-shaped mother-of-pearl insets. Underneath the bottom shelf was burned a name and date: Rodrigo de Pallares, Octubre 1690. It had arrived in New York last May, on a privateer’s vessel, and was offered at waterfront auction along with many other items taken from Spanish ships. Matthew had bid on it, as a birthday gift to himself, but was outbid by half again as much by the shipbuilder Cornelius Rambouts. Suffice it to say, it was an amazement when Magistrate Powers, who’d been present at the auction, announced to Matthew that Corny had decided to sell that “old worm-eaten piece he’d picked up at the dock” for Matthew’s original bid just to be rid of a Spanish captain’s tobacco-pipe smell.
The books that were jammed into these three shelves had also come off ships. Some were water-damaged, others missing front or back covers or large sections of pages, some yet almost perfect for their tribulations of sea travel, and all to Matthew were wonderful miracles of the human intellect. It helped that he was fluent in Latin and French, and his Spanish was coming along. He had his favorites, among them John Cotton’s A Discourse About Civil Government, Thomas Vincent’s God’s Terrible Voice in the City of London, Cyrano de Bergerac’s A Comic History of the Society of the Moon, and the short stories of The Heptameron compiled by Margaret, Queen of Navarre. In truth, though, all these volumes spoke to him. Some in voices soothing, some angry, some that had confused madness with religion, some that sought to build barriers and others that sought to break them; all the books spoke, in their own way. It was left to him to listen, or not.
He contemplated taking the chair and rereading something heavy, like Increase Mather’s Kometographia, Or a Discourse Concerning Comets, to get these demons of murder out of his mind, yet it was not the dream that weighed on him so much. He found himself dwelling more on the memory of Nathan Spencer’s funeral. It had been a bright and sunny June morning when Nathan had gone into the ground; a day when the birds sang, and that night the fiddles had played in the taverns and the laughter had gone on just as every night, but Matthew had sat in this room, in his chair, in the dark. He had wondered then, as he wondered now-as he wondered many nights, long before John Five had said it-if he’d killed Nathan. If his adamance and thirst for justice-no, call it what it was: his unflagging ambition to bring Eben Ausley to the noose-had led Nathan to uncoil the rope. He’d thought Nathan would crack, under his unrelenting pressure. And surely Nathan would do the right thing, the courageous thing. Surely Nathan would bear witness before Magistrate Powers and Chief Prosecutor Bynes to those terrible things done to him, and later be willing to repeat those same atrocities before a court of the town of New York.
Who wouldn’t do such, if they were truly in need of justice?
Matthew looked into the flame of the nearest candle.
Nathan had needed only one thing: to be left alone.
I did kill him, he thought.
I finished what Ausley began.
He drew a long breath and let it out. The flame flickered, and strange shadows crawled upon the walls.
The funny thing, he thought. No…the tragic thing, was that the same all-consuming fire for justice in himself that had saved the life of Rachel Howarth in Fount Royal had…probably…most likely…almost certainly?…caused Nathan Spencer to take his own life.
He felt constricted within these walls; his shoulders felt pinched. He had the most uncommon need for a strong drink to calm his mind. He needed to hear the fiddle play across the room, and to be welcomed in a place where everyone knew his name.
The Gallop would still be open. Even if Mr. Sudbury was just cleaning the tables down, there’d be time enough for one good blast of brown stout. He had to get dressed and hurry, though, if he wished to end this night in the presence of friends.
Five minutes later he was going down the ladder wearing a fresh white shirt, tan-colored breeches, and the boots he’d polished before retiring to bed. The pottery shop was as neatly kept as Matthew’s room, seeing as how it was also Matthew’s responsibility. Arranged on shelves were various bowls, cups, plates, candle-holders, and such, either waiting for a buyer or awaiting further ornamentation before firing. It was a firmly built place, with upright wooden posts supporting the garret floor. A large window that displayed select pieces of the potter’s art faced the street to entice customers. Matthew paused to fire a match and light the pierced-tin lantern that hung on a hook next to the door, deciding that tonight-though he was determined to steer clear of the Blind Eye and any sighting of Ausley-he could use more illumination to beware any attack from the headmaster’s stomperboys.
As he walked down the Broad Way he saw moonlight glitter silver on the black harbor water. The Gallop was on Crown Street, about a six-minute’s brisk pace, and thankfully a good distance north of the rougher taverns such as the Thorn Bush, the Blind Eye, and the Cock’a’tail. He had no need for danger or intrigue tonight, as his head was still not quite comfortable on his neck. One drink of stout, a little conversation-probably about Lord Cornbury, if he knew anything about the public taste for gossip-and then to bed until morning.
He turned left onto Crown Street, where at the corner stood the Owleses’ tailor shop. The sound of fiddling came again, coupled with laughter. The music and hilarity was issuing from the lamp-lit doorway of the Red Barrel Inn, across the street. Two men staggered forth, singing some off-key ditty whose words Matthew could only make out were not of the Sunday language. Following behind them a thin woman with black hair and dark-painted eyes came to the door and heaved a bucketful of who-knew-what at their backs, then screeched a curse as her dowsed targets laughed as only those who are truly stoggered may. One of the men fell to his knees in the dirt and the other began to dance a merry jig around him as the woman hollered for a constable.
Matthew put his head down and kept going, knowing that one might see anything at any time on the streets of this town, which particularly after nightfall had aspirations to rival the coarser deeds of London.
But how could it not be so? Matthew knew that, after all, London was in the blood of these people. There was talk of New Yorkers, those who were born here, but the majority of citizens still had London grime on their bootsoles and London soot in their lungs. It was still the mother city, from whence came ships bearing more Londoners determined to give birth to New Yorkers. Matthew surmised that in time New York would forge its own complete identity, if it survived to become a city, but for now it was a British investment shaped by the will of Londoners for the pocketbooks of London. How could it not take that city as its model of growth, industry, and- unfortunately-vice? Which was exactly why Matthew was concerned about the lack of organization concerning the constables. He knew from his newspaper reading that the mother city was nearly overcome by the criminal element, with the “Old Charlies” unable to cope with the daily flood of murders, robberies, and other demonstrations of the darker heart.
As more business grew to profit in New York, the ships would be bringing over experienced wolves intent on chewing the bones of a whole new flock of sheep. He fervently hoped that High Constable Lillehorne-or whoever was in charge by then-would be ready when it happened.
The Gallop was just a block ahead, across Smith Street. A black cat with white feet shot out along the street and tore after what appeared to be a large rat, the effect causing Matthew’s heart to give a leap up somewhere behind his uvula.
And then, from his right down Smith Street, came a thin gurgled cry.
“Murder!”
And again, now louder and more urgent: “Help! Murder!”
Matthew stopped and lifted his lantern, his heart still lodged in his throat. A figure was running toward him; more stumbling and shambling than running, but making an effort at keeping a straight line. The sight of this figure coming at him almost made him concurrently pee in his breeches and hurl the lantern in self-defense.
“Murder! Murder!” the young man shouted, and then he seemed to see Matthew for the first time and he held up his arms for mercy as he all but fell forward, his face bleached and his reddish-brown hair wild. “Who’s ’at?”
“Who are-” He recognized the face then, by the lantern’s glow and the added light of the lamp nailed up to the Smith Street cornerpost. It was Phillip Covey, one of Matthew’s friends from the orphanage. “It’s Matthew Corbett, Phillip! What’s happened?”
“Matthew, Matthew! Heesh all cut up!” Covey grabbed hold of Matthew and almost tumbled them both to the dirt. The smell of liquor off Covey’s breath nearly knocked Matthew down anyway. Covey’s eyes were shot with red and dark-circled, and whatever he’d seen had caused his nose to blow because gleaming threads of snot were dangling down over his lips and chin. “Heesh had it, Matthew! God help ’im, heesh all cut!”
Covey, a small-boned young man about three years younger than Matthew, was so drunk Matthew had to put an arm around him to hold him from falling. Still Covey trembled and flailed and began to sob, his knees buckling. “God Lord!” he cried. “God Lord, I near stepped on ’im!”
