The Providence Rider (12 page)

A sudden twist of the body and the oar tore through cloth underneath Sirki’s right arm. Sirki’s fist shot out again, catching Zed square in the mouth and rocking his head back. Still the massive black warrior did not fall, and now he squeezed Sirki’s wrist with a desire to burst bones and Sirki fought back by hammering at Zed’s skull with his fist. Zed’s concentration was complete; the blows to his head may have been painful but he shook them off like beats to a tribal drum, and letting go of the oar’s splintered shaft he grasped Sirki’s knifehand and began to squeeze those bones with the tenacity and power of a python.

Sirki resisted as long as he could, and then with a muffled gasp his fingers opened and the fearsome knife fell into the water. He was no longer smiling. He jabbed the fingers of his other hand into Zed’s eyes. Zed gave out a tongueless roar of pain and swung Sirki around in preparation to throw him sprawling into the rocky drink, but Sirki held tight to him and both the giants staggered and fell together into the water. They struck and splashed and kicked and grappled, rolling over stones layered with oyster shells. Zed got hold of Sirki’s turban and it came undone, revealing a brown scalp bald except for a thick strip of black hair down the middle. Then Sirki chopped the edge of a hand into Zed’s throat and Zed gurgled and fell back, and as Matthew and Berry watched in horror the East Indian killer got on top of the Ga warrior and, grasping the throat with both hands, forced the bearded face underwater. Zed thrashed to escape. Sirki’s arms quivered with the effort of holding him under.

Matthew saw the other oars in the skiff. He roused himself to action and started out over the rocks to get an oar and beat Sirki upon the head with it, but suddenly there was an upheaval of water and Zed came up with his teeth gritted and his eyes full of Hell. He took hold of Sirki’s throat with both hands and with a single powerful thrust he was suddenly on top of Sirki, whose face was sinking beneath the foam.

Now it was Sirki’s time to wildly thrash. The muscles of Zed’s shoulders and back bunched and twisted under the sopping-wet coat. Sirki’s hands came up, the fingers clawing at Zed’s tattoos. Zed’s body shook with the effort; Sirki was fighting for his life, and his strength was yet undiminished by the process of drowning.

In all this violence, the rowboat that slid onto the shore with a lantern at its prow hardly caused a ripple. Matthew saw it contained five men. And one woman. The woman being Rebecca Mallory, real name Aria Something. One of the men being Doctor Jason Mallory, real name unknown. But both certainly alive and well and unburnt to crisps as had been their unfortunate lie-ins.

“Stop that!” Doctor Jason shouted. Two of the men, having realized their stately champion was being defeated by this black misfit in drenched rags, were already clambering from the boat. They grabbed hold of Zed from either side and tried to pin his arms. That lasted only a few seconds before a Herculean shrug sent them flying, one to land in the water and one in the weeds.

“Mister Grimmer!” Doctor Jason was directing his shout to another man in the boat. “Run him through!”

A thin man in a brown tricorn and a dirty brown suit with ruffles of grimy lace at the sleeves and throat stood up, drew a rapier from its sheath and stepped into the water. He approached Zed with no hesitation, and raised the sword to drive it into the black warrior’s back.

“No!”
Berry cried out.
“Please! No!”
She ran into the water to get between Grimmer and Zed, and the sallow swordsman looked for further instructions from the false Doctor Jason. Berry didn’t wait. She knew the next word would be her friend’s death. “Zed!” she said, with raw force in her voice. “Zed, listen to me! Let him go! Do you hear?”

His head turned. The bloodshot eyes found her, and read her fear for him. Still holding the flailing giant down, he turned his head to the other side and saw the swordsman standing there, ready to put the rapier to use.

Berry put her hand on Zed’s shoulder. “No,” she said, shaking her head.
“No.”

Zed hesitated only a few seconds longer. He brought his right hand up and with it made a flattening motion.
All right
, he had answered. He released Sirki, stood up and stepped back, and Sirki burst from the briny coughing and gasping and then turning over and throwing up his last New York dinner into the sea to be consumed by the small fishes of the night.

“Shall I kill him anyway, sir?” asked Grimmer, in a low sad voice that seemed to suit his name.

“I’ll kill him!” Sirki had found his curved dagger. He and his clothing were a mess. He was trying to wind his sodden turban back onto his head. The furious expression on his face made him appear to be not so much a giant as a big infant angry at being deprived of a sweet. “I’ll kill him this
minute
!” he nearly shrieked, and he lifted the sawtoothed blade and sloshed toward Zed, who stood immobile at the rapier’s point.

“You will not
touch
him!” This announcement had not come from Doctor Jason, but from the raven-haired, blue-eyed and fiercely beautiful Aria. She stood up in the boat; over a black gown she was wearing a dark purple cloak and on her head was a woolen cap the same color. “Sirki, put your knife down!” Her voice carried the promise of dire consequences if he did not obey; he did obey, almost immediately. Matthew watched this with great interest, getting the order of masters and followers in its proper perspective. “I see you have the
girl
,” Aria went on, with the slightest edge of irritation. “That may be for the best, despite all appearances. You see, the black crow means something to the girl, and the girl means something to Matthew. So no one is going to be stabbed or otherwise harmed this night, Sirki. We can use what we can use. Do you understand?”

“He’s nearly killed Croydon and Squibbs! And these other two!
And
he’s a Ga! A danger to
everyone
!”

“Danger,” said Aria, with a faint smile in the lamplight, “can be easily controlled, if one knows the right throat to pressure. Grimmer, put the tip of your sword against Miss Grigsby’s neck, please.”

Grimmer did so. Zed gave a warning rumble deep in his chest.

Matthew own throat had tightened. “There’s no need for that. I said I’m coming along.”

“Miss Grigsby,” said Aria, “inform your black prince—however you can—that your life depends on his good behavior. That we wish him to be meek and mild and for that he shall have a good dinner and a warm blanket in a ship’s brig tonight.”

“A ship’s brig?”

“Just inform him, however you are able. And you might tell him you will be in the next cell, so he won’t feel so lonely.”

Now came Berry’s challenge to communicate to Zed without benefit of the drawings they used to do together, which had served as a bridge between them. Zed was watching her intently, knowing that some message had been delivered to her from the black-haired woman and now was poised in his direction. Berry understood that he did know some of the English language, but how much she couldn’t tell since silence had been thrust upon him with the cutting out of his tongue, and silence also was his armor.

But it was true that Berry and Zed had spent much time together, at the behest of Ashton McCaggers, for whether Zed goeth so went his master at that time and McCaggers did enjoy Berry’s company, broken shoe heel or not. And in that time Berry had begun to “hear” Zed, in a fashion. It was a hearing of the senses and the mind. She could “hear” his voice in a gesture of the hand, a shrug of the shoulder, a fleeting expression. If it had been a spoken voice, it would have sounded a little low and gutteral, a little snarly as suited Zed’s view of the world that held him captive.

Now Berry stared into Zed’s eyes and held her hand out before him, palm outward. She spoke two words: “Do nothing.”

He looked at her hand, then at her face. Then at her hand again. He turned his head to take in the scene where unconscious men were coming back to their senses. He took in the woman on the boat and then the giant he’d just nearly drowned. He took in the sight of Matthew Corbett wrapped in a blanket, the young man’s face bruised by some incident beyond his understanding. He looked again at Berry Grigsby, his friend, and his lifting of the eyebrows and the slight twist of his mouth said,
I will do nothing…for the moment
.

“Good,” she answered, with the rapier’s tip nearly nicking her throat. She aimed her angry eyes at Grimmer. “You can put that down now.”

Grimmer waited for Aria to nod, and the rapier was lowered.

But not yet lowered was the heat of rage that steamed from Sirki, who pressed forward with his knife in hand. “I’ll kill you yet,” he promised Zed. The ex-slave understood the meaning quite well, and he gave a square-toothed grin that almost drove Sirki into a maddened fit.

“We have a tide to catch,” Aria announced. “Anyone who cannot walk will be staying here. Gentlemen, board your boats. Matthew, would you please come get into this one? I’ve saved you a place.” She sat down and patted the plank seat at her side.

The woman’s directions continued. Berry and Zed were put into the other boat, with Grimmer holding the sword ready and Sirki anxious with his knife. Everyone, it seemed, who had been knocked woozy could at least walk, and they returned to the boats. Squibbs seemed only to be able to walk in circles, however, and Croydon winced and grasped at his back with every step.

Matthew took his place beside Aria Whomever, and Doctor Jason sat facing him. The two boats were pushed off and the oarsmen went to work.

“You have made the right decision,” said Doctor Jason, when they were out on the choppy water away from Oyster Island.

Matthew watched the lamps of the second boat following. “I presume no harm will come to either Berry or Zed?” He stared into Aria’s intense sapphire-blue eyes, for she was the captain of this craft. “In fact, I insist on it.”

The woman gave a small laugh that might have been edged with cruelty. “Oh, you’re too cute,” she said.

“I imagine I’m going also into a cell in the ship’s brig?”

“Not at all. They will be, yes, because they are uninvited guests. But you, dear Matthew, will have a cabin of honor aboard the
Nightflyer
.” She motioned out into the dark. “We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

He had to ask the next question, if just to salve his curiosity. “What’s your real name? And
his
real name?”

“I am Aria Chillany,” she answered. “He is Jonathan Gentry.”

“At your service,” said Gentry, with a nod and a devilish smile.

Matthew grunted. Even the grunting hurt. He recalled something Hudson had told him, back in the summer, concerning Professor Fell’s criminal network:
We know the names of the most vile elements. Gentleman Jackie Blue. The Thacker Brothers. Augustus Pons. Madam Chillany. They’re in the business of counterfeiting, forgery, theft of both state and private papers, blackmail, kidnapping, arson, murder for hire, and whatever else offers them a profit.

He felt Madam Chillany’s fingers at the back of his neck.

“You’re thinking of something important?” she inquired.

How to survive, madam
, he thought.
And how to keep Berry and Zed alive, too
.

“We’re going to become very good friends, Matthew,” she said. “Poor boy.” She pursed her lips in a pout and now her fingers travelled over the tender terrain of his cheek. “All those bruises and scrapes. But you enjoy close scrapes, don’t you?”

“Not the scraping,” Matthew said. “The escaping.”

A ship’s bell rang, out in the distance. Suddenly a wet wall of black timbers was standing before them. Lanterns moved above. Men shouted back and forth. A rope ladder was lowered, and Aria Chillany said to Matthew, “You up first, darling. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Watch her, Matthew,” Gentry cautioned. His smile had gone a bit crooked. “When she gets behind you, you might find something thrust into your—”

“But don’t listen to him,” she interrupted. “He’s all talk, and precious little action.”

Matthew was beginning to think these two had so tired of their roles of loving husband and doting wife that they could’ve broken each others’ necks. Or, at least, stabbed each other below the waist. In any case, no wonder the false lovebirds had separate beds. The only fire in that house had been made by the bombs going off.

Now, though, as Matthew forced himself up the ladder—and no one else was going to help him up, for certainty—he felt Aria Chillany’s hand slide across his rump, and he thought that some wells in this vicinity were in desperate need of being pumped.

The sun was beginning to turn the eastern sky pale gray as Berry and Zed came aboard. They were quickly taken away belowdecks, without a chance for Matthew to speak or be spoken to. Sirki slinked along behind them, his turban still in disarray and his clothing dirtied by shore rocks and oyster shit. The two rowboats were hoisted up by men who looked as hard as New York cobblestones. Though Matthew was not overly familiar with the many types of ships and seacraft, he thought the
Nightflyer
might be considered a brigantine, having two masts with square sails on the foremast and fore-and-aft sails on the mainmast. It looked to be a low-slung, fast vessel, and its crew appeared highly efficient at their tasks. Orders were given, the
Nightflyer
turned to catch the wind, the sails filled and the spray began to hiss along the hull. A hand touched his arm as he stood at the starboard railing in the strengthening light. Madam Chillany regarded him with narrowed eyes. “I’m to show you to your cabin now. You’ll meet Captain Falco later. You’ll be served breakfast presently, and a large glass of wine to help you sleep.”

“Drugged wine?” Matthew asked.

“Would you prefer?”

He almost said
yes
. Maybe he
would
say yes, if he thought about it long enough. He was almost too tired to sleep of his own will, and who could sleep when they were summoned across the Atlantic to be Professor Fell’s personal providence rider?