The Queen of Bedlam

by Robert R. McCammon

  “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 rivalled 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 a boy!”

  “Sir?” Matthew had decided to stand firm, though the lion’s head was trying to shove him off-balance. “The magistrate had nothing to do with this. I spoke for myself, pure and simply.”

  Lillehorne produced a mocking half-smile. “Pure? I doubt it. Simple-minded, yes. The time wasn’t right to bring this issue to the forefront. I have the governor’s ear, I could make these changes in our system gradually.”

  “We might not be able to wait for such gradual change,” Matthew said. “Time and the criminal element may overtake us, and whatever system you believe we have.”

  “You are an impudent fool.” Lillehorne gave Matthew’s chest a painful thrust with the cane and then, thinking better of any further public display, brought the instrument down to his side. “And don’t think I won’t be watching you in case you want to overstep your bounds again, clerk.”

  “You’re missing the point, Gardner,” said Powers in an easy, nonthreatening voice. “We’re all on the same side, aren’t we?”

  “And what side might that be?”

  “The law.”

  It wasn’t common that Lillehorne couldn’t come up with a stinging response, but this time he fell silent. Suddenly an even worse visage came up alongside the high constable’s shoulder. A hand touched the shoulder.

  “Tonight at the Blind Eye?” Ausley inquired, pretending that neither Matthew nor the magistrate stood before him. “Montgomery’s vowing to go double-or-nothing at Ombre.”

  “I shall bring my wallet, in order to hold the winnings from Montgomery’s and your own.”

  “Good afternoon, then.” Ausley touched the brim of his tricorn and glanced at Powers. “And good afternoon to you, sir.” Then he waddled along with the stream of citizens past Matthew, leaving in his wake the overpowering odor of cloves.

  “Just remember your place,” the high constable warned Matthew, not without some heat, and Matthew thought he might be pissed on yet. But Lillehorne suddenly put an odious smile on his face, called to one of the sugar mill owners, and sidled away from Matthew and Powers to put the grab on another man of greater financial influence.

  They got out of the chamber, out of the building, and onto the street where the sunlight was still bright and groups of people stood about discussing what they’d witnessed.

  The magistrate, who looked tired and worn in the more glaring illumination, said he was going home to have a spot of tea in his rum, put his backside in a chair, and ponder on the differences not only between men and women but between talkers and doers. Then Matthew himself started up the incline hill of the Broad Way toward home, figuring there were always pots to be done and that the wheel and the work had a wonderful way of smoothing even the wicked edges of the world into a more comfortable shape.

  six

  UPON AWAKENING from his dream of murdering Eben Ausley, Matthew lay on his bed in the dark and pondered how easy it would
be to murder Eben Ausley.

  Think of it. To wait for him to emerge from a tavern—the Blind Eye, say—after a long night of gambling and drinking, and then fall in behind him and keep away from the lamps. Better still, to go on ahead and lie in wait at a place of one’s choice. Here come the footsteps, heavy on the stones. Best to be sure it’s him, though, before you strike. Sniff the air. Rotten cloves? That’s our man.

  Closer he comes, and closer yet. Let him come on, as we decide how to do the deed. We must have an implement, of course. A knife. Terribly messy. Turn on a bone and he escapes, screaming for his life. Blood all over the place. A hideous misfortune. Well then, a strangulation cord. Yes, and best of luck getting a rope around that fat neck; he’d shake you off like a flea before you got his eyes popped.

  A club, then. Yes, a nice heavy bastard of a club with skull-cleaving knots all over it. The kind of club the blackguards sell to each other in the murder dens of Magpie Alley, according to the Gazette. Here you may offer your coins to the shadow-faced villains and take your pick of brainers. Ah, there’s the one we want! The one with a hard ridge running the length of the bopper, the better to bust with. Right there, under the monkey’s-claw blade and the little fist-sized bag of nails.

  Matthew sat up, lit a match from his tinderbox on the bedside table, and touched the candle in its brown clay holder. As the welcomed light spread, so fled the ridiculous—and rather sickening, really—images of murder. In his dream, everything had been flailing blurred motion, but he’d known he was following Ausley for the dark purpose and when he came up behind him he killed the man. He wasn’t sure how, or with what, but he did remember seeing Ausley’s face staring up from the stones, the eyes glazed and the mocking little lip-twisted smile gone crooked as if he’d seen what the Devil had waiting for him down in the fire-hole.

  Matthew sighed and rubbed his forehead. He might wish to with all his heart and soul, but he could no more kill Ausley than be alone in a room with him.

  You ought to find somethin’ better than this to hold on to, John Five had said. Somethin’ with a future to it.

  “Damn it,” Matthew heard himself mutter, without realizing he was going to say it.

  John Five was nothing, if not to the point.

  The point being, it was over. Matthew had long ago realized his hopes of seeing Ausley brought to justice balanced on a slender thread. If only he’d been able to get one of the others—Galt, Covey, or Robertson—to bear witness. Just one, and then Ausley’s pot would’ve been cracked. But think now what had befallen Nathan Spencer, who’d seen better to hang himself than let everyone in New York know how he’d been brutalized. What sense was there in that? Nathan had been a quiet, timid boy; too quiet and too timid, it seemed, for even as Matthew had offered him a hand out of the morass Nathan had been contemplating suicide.

  “Damn it,” he repeated, in spite of all reason. He didn’t want to think, as John Five had maintained, that his intrusions into Nathan Spencer’s life had aided the death-wish along. No, no; it was better not to think along that line, or one might become too cosy with the idea of death-wishes.

  You ought to find somethin’ better than this to hold on to. Matthew sat on the edge of his bed. How long had he been asleep? An hour or two? He didn’t feel very sleepy anymore, even after murdering Eben Ausley. Through his windows there was no hint of dawn. He could go down and check the clock in the pottery shop, but he had the feeling just from repetition of sleep and time that it was not yet midnight. He stood up, his nightshirt flagging about him, lit a second candle for the company of light, and looked out the window that faced the Broad Way. Everything quiet out there, and mostly dark but for the few squares of other candlelit windows. No, no; hear that? Fiddle music, very faint. Laughter carried on the night breeze, then gone. As Lord Cornbury had put it, the last gentleman had not yet staggered out.

  At supper this evening the Stokelys, who’d attended the governor’s address but had been back in the crowd closer to the street, had praised Matthew’s suggestions for the constables. It was past time the town got up to snuff in that regard, Hiram had said; the thing about the station where they were to meet made sense, too. Why hadn’t Lillehorne thought of that?

  As for Lord Cornbury’s appearance, Hiram and Patience were less positive. The man might be meaning to represent the Queen, Hiram said, but couldn’t he have worn a man’s clothes just as well? It was a peculiar day, Patience said, when the governor of New York town was dressed in more ribbons and puffs than Polly Blossom.

  Meanwhile, under the table, Cecily kept knocking her snout against Matthew’s knees, reminding him that whatever premonition she foresaw had not yet come to pass.

  Matthew turned from the window and surveyed his room. It was not large nor particularly small, just a garret tucked behind a trapdoor at the top of a ladder above the shop. There was a narrow bed, a chair, a clothes chest, the bedside table, and another table on which rested his washbasin. In a hot summer one could cook up here and in a cold winter the thickness of a blanket spared him from frostbite, but one didn’t complain about such things. Everything was clean and neat, well-swept and well-ordered. He could cross from wall to wall with six steps, yet this was a favorite part of his world because of the bookcase.

  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.