Cardinal Black

by Robert McCammon

  As Matthew climbed down from the driver’s bench, Julian and the doctor got out of the coach. Firebaugh gazed around at this new domain, while Julian clasped a hand to the binding around his ribcage. For a man who didn’t believe in God, he was ready to fall to his knees in praise of Heaven for getting him out of that pitching rattletrap, because no matter how sturdy was the coach, the roads were shit.

  “You,” said Julian to Hudson. He smiled thinly, his mouth tight below his dark-circled eyes. “All well, I trust?”

  Matthew tensed, knowing how close Julian was to having his block knocked off and then mayhem to follow.

  “All well,” replied Hudson dryly, who at the moment was too glad to see Matthew to lose his temper at this puffed-up buffoon. Anyway, he was certain Devane had been invaluable to Matthew in their quest, so how could he really be angry? He started to clap Matthew on the shoulder, but the young problem-solver held up a hand and said, “My bones are not properly rearranged yet for that, if you please.”

  “What happened to your face?”

  “What didn’t happen to my face?”

  “I mean the plaster.”

  “Just a little gunshot wound,” said Matthew.

  “Yes,” Julian said. “He might have another scar to go with that one from the bear cub. Someone get me a strong drink and the stronger the better!” he shouted toward the assembly. The act of shouting made him wince, but he sent out another one anyway. “Damn your eyes! Can’t you see I’m needy?”

  “Who is that?” Hudson pointed a finger at Firebaugh, who had walked out further into the square to take his bearings. “And why are his breeches about to fall down?”

  “The chemist, by the name of Lazarus Firebaugh,” said Matthew. “As for the breeches…a long story.”

  “An entertaining one, I’m sure.” Hudson took the measure of Matthew’s demeanor and condition and his gaze sharpened. “How was it?”

  “Rough,” was the reply. “How is Berry?”

  “Further diminished.”

  Matthew didn’t like the sound of that. He had to see Berry at once. “Doctor? Will you come with—”

  “The professor wants to see you,” said one of two men—Stalker by name—who had pushed their way forward through the twenty or so people who had gathered, most of them admiring the coach and the horses, some of them wearing blank and stupefied expressions to indicate that their own drugged conditions had not abated. “You, Julian and him from the coach. Now,” Stalker added. He and the other wore pistols and knives on belts their coats had been drawn aside to reveal.

  “I’m going to see Berry first,” said Matthew. “Doctor, please—”

  “The professor said now and he means now.” Stalker glanced quickly at Hudson. “Not you. You’re to stay—”

  Without a word, Hudson hit him an uppercut to the jaw.

  Stalker’s whole body flew up into the air and the black cap spun off his head like a frightened crow. When he came down with a solid thump his body shivered but he was out like a dewicked lamp. The other man—whom Hudson knew by name as Guinnessey—drew his pistol and levelled it at Hudson.

  “For God’s sake, Hugh!” Hudson said with a scowl. “You’re not going to shoot me! I owe you too much money at dice!”

  Guinnessey’s pistol dropped down. “Well, what am I supposed to do? Stand here like a droolin’ fool with the professor watchin’ all this from his balcony?”

  “Let him watch.” Hudson rubbed his scuffed knuckles. “Stalker’s been asking for that, and you know it.”

  “A grand show, worth a half-pence at least!” Julian tipped to his mouth a clay jug someone had brought him from the village’s tavern, the Question Mark. He coughed several times at the strength of the ale, which did his ribs no favor.

  “I’m going to see Berry,” said Matthew. “All of you can do as you please.”

  Before Matthew could start off for the Nashes’ house on Conger Street, Hudson caught at his arm. “Matthew…listen…it may not do to see her right now. I mean to say…you should probably get some rest before you see her. Another day isn’t going to make much of a difference.”

  “But it could make some difference,” said Matthew, as he pulled his arm away.

  “I ask you…as a friend…to delay that visit. You coming right off the road like this…I know you want to see her as soon as possible…but she won’t recognize you, Matthew. It’s useless to try to sit in front of her and make her remember anything. It’ll just…well…it’ll just tear you up all the more. Give it the rest of the day, get a meal and some sleep. What I suppose I’m telling you is to fortify yourself. And I’m telling you that as someone who cares about both of you. All right?”

  No, Matthew wanted to adamantly say, but he thought there was some wisdom in what Hudson had said. Fortify yourself. He feared for Berry, and feared for himself as well…that when he faced her and saw her diminished condition he would crack to pieces.

  Fortify yourself.

  A meal and some sleep, and then to visit Berry—possibly in the company of Firebaugh—first thing in the morning. That, as much as he disliked it, sounded like a good plan.

  “Yes,” Matthew said. “All right.” Even as he said this, he thought that to visit the professor’s house at the end of Conger Street he would face the difficult challenge of walking past Mayor Nash’s house also on Conger Street.

  “Wise choice,” said Julian.

  “Button it up!” Hudson snapped. “If I didn’t think you probably had saved Matthew’s life a half-dozen times you’d be down on the deck with that little bastard.”

  “This one is a loose cannon,” Julian smirked at Matthew. “His balls may be too big for his brain.”

  On the ground, Stalker groaned and began to stir.

  “This is all well and good,” said Guinnessey, “but the professor is waiting. Hudson, you’re not invited.”

  “The hell you say. How are you going to stop me?”

  “Oh, shit!” Guinnessey motioned them all onward with his pistol. “Come on, then!”

  thirty-four.

  “Sit there,” said Professor Fell.

  The black leather armchair he had indicated was positioned at the center of Fell’s upstairs study, before the writing desk that bore ornamental diamond shapes carved into the front. The professor, resplendent in a crimson skullcap and a crimson robe decorated with gold figures, sat behind the desk. The deep-set eyes in the mulatto face were the same smoky amber color as the liquid in the jars of marine specimens on the shelves behind him. They were fixed upon Lazarus Firebaugh, whom he had just addressed.

  Matthew, Hudson, Julian and Guinnessey also stood in the room. There was one other armchair available, but no one else had been invited to sit. As Firebaugh—obviously nervous and nearly trembling in this first encounter with the professor—took the chair Fell had motioned toward, Matthew saw that the study was about the same as when he’d last been here on the occasion of Mother Deare’s death by Julian’s hand: shelves of the specimens and books, a black wrought-iron chandelier in the shape of an octopus hanging from the ceiling’s thick rafters and holding a taper in each of its eight tentacles, the etchings of fantastic sea creatures of fable and nightmare upon the gleaming oak walls, and a door to the right leading out to the balcony that surrounded the topmost floor. Through a broad window could be seen the cloud-streaked sky and the movement of white-capped waves. The only difference in the study that Matthew could tell was that the beautiful Oriental rug with its cast of colors in sea greens and blues had been replaced by a simple dark blue rug. Matthew reasoned that Mother Deare’s blood and brains upon the Oriental had finished it off, and he recalled that her brains had also splattered across the specimen shelves. He would very much have disliked that job of tidying up the professor’s domain, which now smelled not of Julian’s gunpowder or Mother Deare’s death but a bittersweet incense
that was burning in a little black cup on a table near the stairs.

  Firebaugh sat down.

  Fell’s gaze shifted to Guinnessey. “Go tell Stalker that I forbid any retribution against Mr. Greathouse. He is a guest here and—though he does not obey my orders very well—he is to be treated with respect.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Guinnessey, who went down the stairs and out.

  “I didn’t hit Stalker that hard,” Hudson said. “He must have a glass jaw.”

  Fell ignored him and directed his attention over Firebaugh’s head toward the two returned travellers. Julian had removed his cap to display the stubble of his blonde hair, and with his dark-shadowed eyes in his pallid face he hardly looked to be the same man who’d ridden out. Matthew as well appeared altered, and not just by the bullet crease beneath the plaster or the dappling of his fading bruises, but a difference in the eyes—a look that Hudson had thought was both wounded and yet harder than he remembered.

  “You two,” said the professor, “have experienced some difficulties. I will have you both go to the hospital for a visit with Dr. Belyard.”

  “Excuse me, sir.” Firebaugh’s voice trembled. “But…I assumed I was to be the doctor here?”

  “Incorrect. You are to be the chemist here. If I choose so. Nicholas Belyard is the village’s physician. You and he will share the hospital, but it is beyond his duties—and capabilities—to explore the laboratory and use the chemicals in the fashion that will fall to you. If I allow it.”

  “Ah. I see.” Firebaugh shifted uneasily in his chair. “Um…I seem to recall the name of Nicholas Belyard. He—”

  “Two years ago shot and killed another physician in an argument over a young woman,” Fell said. “Such are the uncontrollable emotions of youths scarcely out of medical school. He escaped the clutches of the law and a year later wound up in my employ. So you as the village’s chemist will not be in direct contact with patients needing such things as stitches and boils lanced. Belyard makes trips beyond the village to bring back medical supplies, ointments and instruments as needed. Those will not be your concern.”

  “Ah,” Firebaugh repeated. “Then…basically…I will be in a position of research? A position that one might say is…solitary?”

  “One might say,” Fell replied. He looked at Matthew. “The book?”

  It came out of Julian’s cloak. Julian put the red bound volume in front of the professor, who ran a hand across it before he opened it and for a minute or two turned through the pages in silence. “I know,” he said, “that you would not be here if Matthew had not decided you met the qualifications. I will hear the whole story from our travellers at a later date, but right now I want to hear from yourself why you believe you’re up to this responsibility.”

  Responsibility, Matthew thought. He almost laughed and he knew Hudson almost did as well. Even Julian might have suppressed a guffaw that would’ve earned him much more than broken ribs. Fell was making the job of keeping most of Y Beautiful Bedd’s inhabitants dazed with drugs sound like a task Queen Anne might have commanded. Matthew wondered what might happen if, indeed, the drugs wore off. If the people here—kept prisoner by Fell for one reason or another—began to come to their senses, as Matthew had seen a few start to resurface from their drugged depths, would the remaining contingent of guards be strong enough to hold back a revolt? Or would the whole place collapse without the power of the potions? If anything, the place would be changed, and no longer would the majority of inhabitants—prisoners—be so docile and easily contained.

  He was thinking of his promise to the Italian opera star Madam Alicia Candoleri that he would get her, her manager Giancarlo Di Petri and her makeup artist Rosabella out of the village and to safety. How could that possibly be done?

  As Firebaugh blabbed about his medical education, his invaluable experiences at the Royal College of Physicians under the watchful tutelage of the esteemed doctors Crippen and Jekyll, his short practice as a general physician and then his interest in chemical research that had led him to heading up the asylum at Highcliff, Matthew thought about his end of the bargain with Professor Fell.

  Going to Italy and finding Brazio Valeriani, whose father Ciro had from supernatural sources fashioned a mirror that would supposedly call up a demon and put its caller in an imprecise and possibly dangerous command.

  Ridiculous.

  Fell was losing his mind to put such stock in a story like that.

  Cardinal Black—if he still lived—was equally insane. Likely born that way.

  But the fact was that Fell had already gone to great effort to try to find the mirror. He had kidnapped the opera star not for herself, but because her makeup artist Rosabella was cousin to Brazio and had some knowledge of the family.

  Matthew recalled a conversation with Rosabella before he’d left for Adderlane, when she was telling him she had attended her uncle Ciro’s funeral in Salerno and had spoken to Brazio there.

  He asked how old I was, she had said, and I told him thirteen. He said…I think I’m remembering this right…that thirteen was a good age, especially for Amarone.

  Amarone? What does that mean? Matthew had asked.

  The answer: It’s a red wine, very strong.

  Brazio had a particular interest in wine?

  She had shrugged. I just remember he said that.

  Matthew had not been able to let this go. It seemed he was on the edge of something vital. He had asked, Was Brazio living with his father when Ciro hanged himself?

  No, I believe he had to travel from somewhere.

  Why do you say that?

  He came two days late, Rosabella had replied. The funeral was delayed until he got there.

  Did you tell that to the professor?

  Yes. He asked if Brazio had been living in Salerno or had travelled there. I told him just the same as I’m saying now. Also that my mother and father had not heard from Brazio for years and they didn’t know where he was living.

  Let me guess what happened next, Matthew had said. Professor Fell asked you to write down a list of the people present at Ciro’s funeral?

  Correct. There were five others besides myself and my parents.

  But he doesn’t know Brazio mentioned the Amarone? Matthew had waited for her to answer with a shake of the head. Why do you think your cousin might have mentioned, of all things, a variety of wine?

  I have no idea, she’d said with a shrug. Unless…he works in a vineyard somewhere.

  Matthew had nodded. Yes. A vineyard somewhere.

  Of course it could be that Brazio simply liked Amarone and was planning to get drunk on it after the funeral, but…thirteen years a good age for Amarone? Spoken like someone who understood and valued the aging process.

  A vineyard worker? Or a vineyard owner?

  “Those are my qualifications,” said Firebaugh. “I hope they suit the purpose.”

  Professor Fell again slid his hand back and forth across the book, as if caressing it as Matthew had seen Julian caress the four-barrelled bastard. It was a time before he spoke. “I am going to have this taken to the hospital and locked up. You’ll be given a key. You will note that there are two differing handwritings in this: those of Jonathan Gentry and Gustav Ribbenhoff. The former created the great majority of the potions and the latter added to them. The drug that has afflicted Miss Grigsby was concocted in this fashion, therefore you can follow Ribbenhoff’s scribing to decipher the formula, with the knowledge that Gentry’s handwriting will be by far the predominant.” The amber eyes levelled at Firebaugh. “Are you up to this task, sir?”

  “I think I am.”

  “Not what I asked. Are you, or are you not?”

  Firebaugh lifted the red-bearded chin. “I am, sir.”

  “Go to the tavern and get something to eat and drink. Then you also go see Belyard, make your introduction and have your injuries e
xamined. That ear in particular looks in need of attention. I’ll find a house for you and some clothes…if you don’t mind wearing the clothing of someone recently dead?”

  “Ribbenhoff, I presume?”

  “I believe they would fit you,” said Fell. “He had a very sophisticated wardrobe, as a matter of fact. The Prussians are like that.”

  Pah! Matthew thought.

  Firebaugh stood up. “I will wear Dr. Ribbenhoff’s clothing for the present, but I would like my own suits tailored for myself. Is that possible?”

  “Possible,” Fell answered. “Prove your worth on Miss Grigsby’s behalf, and we shall proceed from that point. Now go back to the square and get a meal. I’ll summon you when your house is ready. Hudson, you may escort him to—”

  “He can find his own way,” Hudson said.

  “There it is again.” Fell smiled coldly. The feral killer’s gleam in his eyes had returned. “Guest or not…my patience with you is not unlimited.”

  “I’m going now. Thank you, sir,” said Firebaugh, who suddenly was in a hurry to get out of the study, down the stairs and out of the house.

  When the doctor was gone, Fell laced his blue-veined hands together atop the desk and drew a long, deep breath. “Who was behind the mortar vessel? Someone other than Black, I know.”

  “Vice Admiral Samson Lash of the Royal Navy,” Julian replied. “Working in partnership with Black.”

  “And they are both dead?”

  “I have no doubt Lash is dead. As for Black…” Julian shrugged.

  “You mean you left him alive?”

  “Julian shot him,” Matthew said, and whether this was true or not it didn’t matter because he didn’t want Julian gutted by a sword or blown apart by a cannon. “At the moment we were both…um…a bit busy securing the doctor and the book to follow Black into the woods past the burning barn and—” He stopped, because Fell’s eyebrows had gone up and an expression of amusement had settled upon his face. “It was freezing cold out there,” Matthew continued. “Black was shot and probably froze to death.” As soon as he said it, he thought that a burning barn could keep even a badly-wounded man from freezing for quite some time. Before Fell could speak, Matthew said, “I know all about Ciro Valeriani’s mirror. Are you really serious? That you believe in such a thing?”