The king of shadows, p.1
The King of Shadows, page 1
The King of Shadows
A Matthew Corbett Novel
Robert McCammon
One
Departings and Arrivings
One
“Chin up,” said Matthew Corbett.
It did no good.
At four o’clock on a cold morning, the third week of January in the year 1704, the sun had not yet risen over the solemn sea to the east of London. Nor had it yet risen over the solemn scene now taking place upon the Leslie and Silverstone Shipping Company’s Wharf Number Four, where the vessel Lady Barbara was being readied among the forest of masted ships for its voyage to the town of New York, scheduled to be guided from its berth at six o’clock by the sturdy longboats and the pilotmen with shoulders like the cliffs of Dover.
The morning of departing had arrived. Walking hand- in-hand with Berry Grigsby on her way to the three-master, Matthew had meant his statement as a measure of encour- agement, for it seemed to him that if Berry's chin drooped any lower she'd be thumping it across the planks. But it had also occurred to him that Chin up might be something the hangman would say to the condemned as the rope was secured around the neck, so fie on that sentiment and he wished it had remained unspoken.
It was a grim day. Grim thoughts did not help the grimnity. But as much as he despised the moment—and how very much she despised it, to the point of bitter tears—it had to be conquered as all disagreeable things must, face-on and—yes—chin up.
To be truthful, as the couple trudged along the wharf toward the sound of what was likely the worst fiddle skreeling and drum boomathomping Matthew had ever heard, he was fighting bitter tears of his own. He thought of how horrible it was … how terrible—two terms that could not fully convey the wretched spirit of the moment—that he had only recently saved the woman he loved from a descent into drug-induced mindlessness, and now he had to put her aboard a ship bound for the New World … and might not see her again for an entire year, perforce of his own looming journey to Italy. And that journey to be undertaken with and in service to the criminal mastermind Professor Danton Idris Fell, the same villain who was responsible for the near erasure of Berry’s mind. How the twisted mouth of Fate must be laughing at that one!
Matthew thought of encouraging himself with a Chin up, but it likewise would do no good. His grip on Berry’s hand was unbreakable. They both wore newly purchased hooded coats lined with woolen fleece—did you have to spend so much? the professor had asked as he’d been presented the bills—and close behind them came two hired men pushing on wheeled carts the pair of trunks that held Berry’s other newly purchased clothing suitable for a three-month journey across a wintry Atlantic. My God! Will I have any money left after this escapade? the professor had lamented as the merchants’ demands were laid out before him like so many playing cards of a losing hand.
Sir, Matthew had replied, you have yet to buy my own wardrobe and accompaniments, as well as those of Hudson Greathouse, and I submit to you that none of those items will be the familiarities of a pauper.
Professor Fell had made a noise like steam hissing from a kettle and Matthew thought the man’s round wire-rimmed spectacles had nearly slipped off his nose of their own accord, but otherwise the mastermind of crime had merely sunken down a few inches into his chair in his suite at the Emerald Inn.
As they continued along the maze of wharves toward their destination, Matthew and Berry saw employees of the shipping company standing with lanterns directing them on, as they would be directing the other passengers, the luggage carters, the wagons bringing in cows, chickens and pigs as victuals for the trip, and all the sundry assortment of items and cargo that made such a jaunt possible. Matthew found Berry pressing closer to him, and himself to her. How short now the hours seemed! Impossible that yesterday had passed so quickly, and how fast the time of departing had arrived!
I want to know, Berry had said at their supper table last night, while the merrymakers at the White Horse Tavern had continued to make merry, the girl with her guitar drifted about the tables and sang sweet songs of love found and love lost, and all the world seemed to be ignorant behind its happy ale-tipsy face of the time burning down between the two lovers that would see them split asunder until who knew when.
Yes, Matthew had replied, because he knew quite well what she wanted to know.
But where to begin, and how to explain it? He had looked into her face and saw that now the question must be answered, and though he had put it off time and again it had to be reckoned with this moment, and no later.
By the soft candlelight that glowed from the taper on their table he thought she was a lady of rare beauty, both without and within, and he was not worthy of such a gift of love. This eve Berry wore one of her new gowns in the color of pale violet, with its elegantly ruffled neck and sleeves. Matthew wouldn’t dream of saying so, but he knew she was aware that aboard ship mold crept about like a sodden thief, and such a gown was likely now seeing its most romantic hour. And romantic it was. Matthew took admiration anew and afresh—as it seemed he did every time he looked at her—in her cascade of coppery-red curls peaked by a violet hat, her clear blue eyes, her strong chin, the dash of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. But mostly he saw in her face that she loved him, and for that love had crossed the Atlantic to be at his side. A foolish endeavor, to be sure, but what was love without a little foolishness in the mix? A gamble of the heart, it might be said. It occurred to him that no one among the well-dressed patrons of the White Horse might have guessed that little more than a month ago this creature of charm and beauty had been deluded by a drug into believing she was the daughter of an insidious couple in Fell’s village of Y Beautiful Bedd where the professor confined a score of both enemies and cohorts in crime, and she had very nearly not been delivered back from the abyss of insanity.
Neither would anyone here have guessed that Matthew Corbett himself—black-haired, gray-eyed, a handsome young gentleman dressed to the tens and eliciting admiring appraisals from many of the feminine occupants of this establishment—had been a recent inhabitant of Newgate Prison, was likely the last surviving member of the Black-Eyed Broodies street gang, and little more than a month ago had been fighting for his life—and for Berry’s—alongside one of Fell’s murderous henchmen, Julian Devane by name. The only telltale of a rather rough journey through life was the curved scar across Matthew’s forehead, courtesy of a bear’s claw, but even that did not spell the entire story, nor did he wish it to be told beyond the rather fevered writings in New York’s broadsheet The Earwig, operated by Berry’s grandfather Marmaduke. And fortunate it was that Berry had only inherited her grandda’s insatiable curiosity and strength of purpose rather than his pop-eyed presence, though indeed she had been blessed with a noble forehead capable at one time of breaking to smithereens the nose of a villainous doxy named Charity LeClaire.
All that was in the past. However, the past was preamble to both present and future.
The time had arrived.
Matthew began. “You recall our … um … visit to the Chapel estate.”
“Lest I try to forget,” she said, with a twist of the mouth. “Yes. Certainly. Well.” He didn’t wish to dwell on the fact that a mound of horse manure had saved them both from having their eyes plucked out by Simon Chapel’s trained hawks. “When I went back to the estate, after all that was over, I found a book.” He hesitated. In for a penny, in for a hundred pounds.
“A book,” she repeated.
“Now … please bear with me. The book I found … is a volume titled The Lesser Key Of Solomon. A very interesting publication, and as I later discovered rare in its distribution.”
“All right. So you found a religious tome. What of it?”
“A religious tome … not exactly … except perhaps to some.
The volume in Chapel’s library was hollowed-out as a hiding place for a key to another book holding a bag of money. Only it wasn’t a book, it was a box made to look like a … well, anyway … the curious thing is that I discovered a second copy of The Lesser Key Of Solomon in Fell’s library on Pendulum Island, and a third copy in his house at the village.”
“I wouldn’t have thought of that man as being religious!” “Ah,” said Matthew, and now came the blast of the cannon though delivered as meekly as a mouse’s mew. “The tome is a catalogue of the demons of Hell, with their descriptions and purposes. Also instructions on how to summon them for particular needs.” He kept his eyes on his wineglass, but even so he saw her give a start that was so severe the breeze from it almost killed the candle. “What?”
He fortified himself with a drink of claret. To go on? He must. “It is Professor Fell’s intent to use that book in determining which demon to call up from a mirror created by a sorcerer in Italy just for that purpose.” And now he did raise sickly eyes upon a face which a moment before had been glowing but now appeared as gray as a scrubbed-out washrag. “You see?” he said, with perhaps the most absurd half-hanging grin he’d ever managed to impose upon his mouth.
< br /> “Oh my Lord,” Berry breathed when she could find the air. “Have you come all this way to lose your senses?”
“Furthermore,” Matthew trudged on upon this sulphureous surface, “I have bargained with the professor to help him in his efforts to find the mirror.” Again, the weight of his dumb grin shamed his face. “Now really … don’t look like that! Such a thing can’t be true!”
“My ears,” she said, her eyes wide. “I can’t be hearing this!
Am I still drugged?”
“I bargained with Fell,” Matthew said, “to let me leave the village and find the stolen book of potions that would return you to reality. Also … that he would put both you and Hudson on a ship back to New York, and be done with any idea of revenge he might have in mind for my … um … past transgressions against him on behalf of the Herrald—”
“Madness,” she interrupted. “He’s mad. And he has infected you with it! Matthew, are you even hearing yourself?”
“Believe me, I wish I wasn’t.”
“I think,” she said, “I need something stronger than this wine! Matthew … are you telling me you intend to help Professor Fell call up a demon? From Hell itself?”
Did his face want to slide down off his skull? He gave a nervous little laugh. “You make it sound a bit ridiculous.”
“It is insane! And you a man of such intelligence! Or at least I presumed so! Not only to speak of the insanity of it, but the … the …” She struggled for a further description.
“Evil of it,” he supplied.
“Evil of it! Yes! Thank you very much!” Berry realized her voice had gotten away from her and was reaching other tables. She spent a moment composing herself, while Matthew had another drink that finished off the glass. “No,” she said at last, more quietly but no less fervently, “I would never put myself in the position of barring your way to any advancement, but I’ll put myself in the path of your eternal damnation at the hands of that … that maniac. You can’t do it, Matthew! No! Tell me you won’t do it!”
“Hear me out,” he said, and the tone of his voice might have had in it some of Julian Devane’s matter-of-fact gravity, because it froze from escape the next words intended from Berry’s lips. “Let me explain about why Fell kidnapped the opera star, Madam Candoleri. It wasn’t to secure her, but to get her makeup girl Rosabella. It seems Fell discovered that Rosabella is a cousin to a man named Brazio Valeriani and saw him three years ago at the funeral of Valeriani’s father in Salerno. That’s in Italy.”
“I am a teacher and I know my geography,” she replied, with a suitable mixture of fire and ice.
“Yes, of course. Pardon. Anyway … I found out from Rosabella that Valeriani’s father Ciro had an interest in science and had created something that he tried to destroy but was unable to. His death was suicide by hanging. But every year on her birthday, Rosabella received the gift of a hand mirror Ciro had fashioned in his workshop, so obviously he had an interest not only in science but also the art of mirror-making.”
Matthew paused to take a breath. He thought Berry might interject, but she remained silent.
He went on. “When Julian and I were on our … mission … I found out from someone else the whole story of this supposedly enchanted mirror, if such is to be believed.” He’d decided there was no need to bring the name of Cardinal Black into this. Best hope that thing had either frozen to death or crawled back to his hole after their escape from Samson Lash. “The tale—and I shall take this with a handful of salt, as you should—is that the death of Ciro’s wife threw his mind off-balance and he began to be intrigued by the darker arts. He in time paid to be introduced to an aged man who I suppose one could call a wizard, a sorcerer, a warlock … whatever the proper term would be. By name Senna Salastre, who according to my informant was well-known to the sort of individuals who follow such things, and who passed away last August at the age of ninety-four. But Salastre helped Ciro with the construction of a free-standing, full-length mirror and—as I understand—added the reflective element from his own workshop. The purpose for the thing was to summon a demon from Hell, and the mirror would serve as the passageway.”
“Insane,” said Berry, but then returned to silence.
“Yes. Possibly so. Probably so,” he corrected, though bursting at the gate of his mind was an episode he had so far been successful at forgetting or even pretending had never happened: a night ride in service to a strange client named Karlis von Eissen, on behalf of an even weirder individual named Walloch Bodenkier, bringing Matthew into the midst of a war between …
Well … they were made of nightmares, whatever they’d been. And in speaking of the mirror with Hudson, the Great One himself had said Think on it. What if it’s real? Now don’t speak and don’t roll your eyes like that. You and I both know there’s plenty out there that can’t be put into little boxes or tied up with neat little bows.
And, for sure, Hudson was correct.
“Of course, insane!” Matthew amended to Berry. “But … according to what I was told … and keep the salt at hand, as I’ve said … Ciro may have tried to call a demon through the mirror, lost his nerve—or came to his senses—and damaged it enough to close the passageway in time. Later … he may or may not have repaired it, and then hanged himself. But where it is now is the problem.”
“Which you wish to solve for the professor,” Berry said. “Is he paying a fee to the Herrald Agency?”
“Yes, he is. The clothes you and I are wearing, the food and wine we’re enjoying, the hotel … the nights we’ve spent together … your life, and your freedom. Most certainly the best value for service the agency’s ever received.”
“I think, the worst. If a man of his ilk could get hold of such a thing and it was actually true … oh my Lord, Matthew! What might become of the entire world?”
“It’s not true. It can’t be. God Himself wouldn’t let such a thing exist.”
“Maybe God Himself damaged it through Ciro enough to stop the demon from coming out. Maybe then … Satan himself went to work entrancing Ciro to fix it, and after that was done the man realized he couldn’t destroy it and—”
“Now who’s talking insanities?” Matthew said quietly, though the idea of a man being caught between two powers at eternal war made sense to him, due to his own experience. “This is my belief: if indeed the mirror still exists and it can be found, it’s going to be simply an object of furniture. Yes, it may have been aided in its manufacture by a man who believed himself—and whom others may have believed—to have been a sorcerer of sorts, but in the end … only a mirror, no more than that. As I say, if any part of it still exists.”
“Somewhere in Italy? How do you know it’s not elsewhere? How can you know?”
“Not for any surety. But I know something that the professor has not known: where to begin. I’ve told him we are sailing for Venice, but nothing else.”
“And why Venice in particular?”
“Because,” Matthew said, “in speaking with Rosabella, she told me that at Ciro’s funeral Brazio inquired of her age. When she told him she was thirteen, he made the comment that thirteen years was a good age for wine, and especially for Amarone. It started me thinking that Brazio might be involved in the wine business there, possibly himself the owner of a vineyard. Later I learned that Amarone comes from the province of Verona, the Veneto region near Venice. Therefore: a starting point.”
“So first you’re searching for Ciro’s son? And that’s why the professor wanted information from Rosabella?”
“Exactly.” Matthew leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. The brunt of it was done. “To be perfectly exact, I told the professor I would find Brazio for him. The rest about the mirror is not my responsibility.”
