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"The printmaster&039;s your friend, isn&039;t hei" Chapel looked at his fingertip and found it wasof ink He wiped it on his napkin "Do you knoho brought that iteot up frolass of white wine in his left hand, and with his other pulled a sword froht side of the fireplace It ca sound

"Tell aze fixed upon Matthew The reflection of orange candleflames on his spectacle lenses

Behind Matthew, Dahlgren began to thrust and parry at a phantom opponent Matthew dared not turn around, but could hear the sword&039;s high whicking noise as air was cleaved left and right

"Do you know these agency people yourself, Matthewi Have you met themi"

"I" What a pit had been opened for hi and filled up with roaches He sed hard as Dahlgren swung his blade through a candle and the waxen stump flew over Matthew&039;s head into the wild rice "I have-"

He didn&039;t knohat he was going to say, but before he could say it a drunken load of wo the breath out of hi him to spew forth sliced melons, stewed apples, salad, mushroom-and-bacon soup, and every other foodstuff deposited in his belly-bank This leap of wanton faith was accoue-of the fe itself into his mouth like a river eel He tried to push her off but she was stuck fast, her ar nearly down his throat He had the feeling that he hted around the rooive Matthew some air and Chapel said sourly, "Well, dalass

When Evans got Miss LeClaire unsealed and unseated and she began to try to get his breeches pulled down, Chapel leaned toward the hard-breathing and red-faced young nobleman and said, "Listen now, Matthew Very iet back to towni"

"What" He ducked as the upper half of a candle, its wick still s, sailed between them "What is iti"

"Don&039;t ren" Chapel waved a dismissive hand in the swordsman&039;s direction "This is obviously so But about the errand: will you go for me to the Dock House Inn and find out if anyone na therei"

"Herraldi" Matthew asked, as Dahlgren began to deliver an unintelligible chant in a strange, staccato rhyth speed, the blade hardly a blur Matthe him switch hands, whirl around, alain and strike out as if piercing an eneency The ite you underi I want to know specifically if a Mrs Katherine Herrald is staying there, or has lately been there I also want to knoho&039;s gone to see her and what corasped Matthew&039;s shoulder with a steely claw that reet what you can fro me back this information within three or four days and I&039;ll make it worth your while"

"Worth ht How about a pound sterling, to start withi" Chapel waited for the sound of that iet you away froin"

"all right," Matthew said, for he wished to return to New York in a single package "I&039;ll see what I can do"

"That&039;s the boy! also keep your eyes and ears open about that notebook, won&039;t youi"

"I will"

"and please, not a word to anyone You wouldn&039;t want old Simon in the pillory, would youi"

"No"

"Excellent! Let&039;s have a drink on it! Jeremy, open the new bottle!"

The wine-boy uncorked a hitherto untasted vintage, poured thick red liquid into two fresh glasses, and set them before Matthew and Chapel "To victory!" Chapel said, lifting his glass Mattheasn&039;t sure what battle was in the future, but he also lifted his glass and drank

"No!" Chapel chided when Matthew started to put his drink aside "Botto Corbett! Bottolass, knowing that at least this bizarre dinner was alet up to bed But then cae white-iced cake, soared cookies The sight of the sweets diverted Miss LeClaire fro Evans&039; breeches, and with a cry of girlish delight she staggered drunkenly toward the cake, her hair hanging in her face as the lady attacked the cake with her fingers, Evans hoisted up his breeches, Count Dahlgren chanted and fenced, and Chapel watched everything with firelit eyes and a thin-lipped s of the word bedlam

a piece of cake the size of a brick was placed before Mattheho had not the sto this was a slice of pie from which red cherries oozed He noted that the rooren continued to chop away at candles The s his nostrils at the back of his throat, now that the acidic tang of the wine had subsided, was a sulphurous taste Whatever vintage he&039;d just drunk, he thought, it was not yet suited for public consuh with herhe picked up only as a distant ruren wielding a sword like a clockwork automaton, back and forth across the room Say what you please, he told hiood with that blade The ht as it twisted, turned, and bit Matthew figured Dahlgren certainly kne to keep his thuren&039;s shadow thrownits master&039;sDahlgren fencing his shadow, and the shadoasits own ht happily, aware of a red haze beginning to creep around the edges of his vision

Wait, he heard his own voice say, or perhaps it was spoken only in his mind It sounded like an echo from the bottom of a well He repeated it, and it came out Wayyyytttt When Matthew blinked heavy eyelids and looked at Si haze he saw that his host was growing a second head to the left of the first It was co the collar of the le eye with a red pupil like a flare at the end of a candlewick found Matthew&039;s face, and in the darkness below it a scarlet mouth opened in a smile to show a hundred teeth the size of needles

Matthew&039;s heart begin to pound and writhe Cold sweat bloomed on his face He wanted to look at Chapel&039;s real face, for he knew in the recess of his ested that the terrifying vision was false yet he could not, could not, look away He saw a hand with seven fingers reaching for hio, Matthew, just let go

He did not want to let go, but he couldn&039;t help it, for in the next minute or second or whatever ti forward as if off a precipice and it was not the blue river beneath hi off the chair, he heard a h the air, and then he was all alone and drifting in the dark

It occurred to him in this small country of darkness that Chapel had not see Hoas that so, when they&039;d both drunk froht, as his body began to becos and ar down for a landing He felt soh he knew not what He hit a soft surface, someone-a man&039;s voice, hollow in the distance-said he&039;s all yours but don&039;t kill him, dear, and then a wild animal seemed to ju into his shoulders

Were his breeches being tugged offi Was his skin still on his bonesi He opened his lips to cry out and a burningteeth Thetorn away Then the ernails and when the ultimate destination was reached at midcontinent the suction lifted his buttocks up and held hih eyes that would not open beyond slits he saw flickering candles and a wild-haired shadow hu with the ferocity of the damned His backbone cracked, his teeth chattered, and the brain rattled in his skull There was a savage twist and a searing pain and he feared hiswet orifice that squeezed socontinued with no abate and no tender ed state, hisfever, he had no doubt as being done to hi as a scratch for the nymph&039;s itch all he could do was be battered and beaten, tossed and truidified Up was down, doas up, and at so world slid sideways a rasped his hair, a second hand caught his beans, and eager thighs sla maneuver both frenzied and frantic

He was half off the bed, but which half he didn&039;t know Blond curls fell in his face and daue darted and flicked The haainst Matthew&039;s groin beat fro rhythm, broken when the demoniacal damsel screa as eight seconds, Matthew felt hi with the bedsheets upon the chamber&039;s floor, where Miss LeClaire continued her demonstration of the lusty art Mattheore he felt his soul trying to float free froy, probably helped along by the wicked drug, he was now only shooting forth blue air

But the lady screaain, and to stifle another screaht ear as if it were a cornbread host of his fore-daubed debaucher&039;s paradise he thought Miss LeClaire could teach Polly Blossos thelast: a cessation ofacross Matthew&039;s chest, and the sensation of stea forth as in hot sun after rain His neck was kinked and his back crooked His eyes, like cannonballs, rolled across devastated fields He fell away into the void

It ith an abrupt start that Matthew returned to the world of the living He was being roughly jostled back and forth, which at first ain at work, but then he saw through swollen eyes the padded interior of a coach Earlyto the east He realized he was dressed, more or less, in the clothes he&039;d co returned to New York

The seat opposite him was empty He heard the crack of the whip and felt the vibration of the four horses hauling the vehicle southward a rear wheel hit a particularly brutal pothole and lifted his bottom off the seat, and when he came down he landed on a sore nut and almost shouted God&039;s name in vain It would do to find a way to steady himself, for the sake of his bruised stones The horses weresy

The darkness rose up and took hiain to the aches and pains of spent passions-he blinked in the stronger light, as the day had advanced by perhaps two hours Still he was hazy and had to concentrate to keep his eyelids froht, had been a potent vintage But no, nohisproperly He reached up and rubbed his teish blood

It had not been the wine, he realized, or Chapel also would have fallen under its spell The drug lass, so an unopened bottle ht be shared by two but a victim made only of one

Whatever that had been about, he had no idea except to guess that the other iven him up to Charity LeClaire as a way to save their own foreskins If she was like that every night she rave Well, there could be no doubting now of his status as an ex-virgin, though this had been ht start in the next few days-or after an a about what it ed almost immobile

There must have been another reason to it as well, Matthew mused as he lifted up off the seat with every shudder of the suspension He&039;d been drugged to keep hione to bed Charity LeClaire had just been the icing on the cake

Itput to work as servants and vineyard workers Of course there&039;d been the serving-boys in the room But ould the Masker care about iti

Matthew remembered the boy who&039;d picked his pocket and he immediately felt to see if his watch and key were still there They were Silas has a little habit, Chapel had said a habit indeed

Matthew quieted his ain, as his body de over h the outskirts of town The silver watch reported ten-thirteen On the streets this Friday ons and pedestrians, all hurrying about their business in the way that Matthew had begun to think of as "New Yorkian" The coach&039;s team was slowed to a walk but steered toward the harbor to set its passenger off at his destination, and that hen Matthew caught in the air the sharp scent of smoke This was no surprise, due to the number of industries that required fire, but when the air becasby&039;s house Matthew realized so nearby ell and truly aflame He peered out the crescent-shapedand to his absolute horror saw s from just ahead, on the print

He shouted, "I&039; out here!" to the driver and whipman, popped the door open, and juroin ached like a stab wound, and he staggered forward on the edge of collapse but he kept going against the pull of gravity itself He had no doubt about it; the dairyhouse was going up, and so then were the last of his sby&039;s property from Queen Street he saas not his miniaturefrom well behind the dairyhouse Matthealked-or rather, li, and saw the print a bonfire, each of therass

"What is thisi" Matthew asked as he neared Grigsby, and he noted that when Berry turned around she glanced first at his sallow face and then quickly at his crotch as if she knehere it had spent the night

"Matthew, there you are!" Grigsby grinned, his face puffed by the heat ashes clung to his little tuft of hair and a black streak lay across his nose "Where&039;ve you beeni"

"Just away for the night," he answered, as Berry turned her back on hi fist of fire ashes billowed froray snow

"What are you burningi"

"Garbage," Grigsby said, with a twitch of his eyebrows "On your co to please the master of the house"

"Master of the-" Matthew stopped, for he&039;d peered into the flames and saw in that red hotpot a ht have once been a pile of old buckets, boxes, i canvas He caught sight of a well-punctured and set an instant before its straw-stuffed interior ignited and then exploded into a ssby&039;s rake and attack the fire; his second was to pick up the bucket of water he saw on the ground nearby and try to save what he knew to be hidden within the target, but the burlap was nothing but blaze now and it was too late, much too late "What have you donei" he heard his own voice cry out, with such anguish that both Grigsbys looked at hiht flame himself

The printmaster&039;s spectacles had slid down to the end of his sweating nose He pushed them back up, the better to see Matthew&039;s horror-struck face "I&039;ve done what you asked!" he said "I&039;ve cleaned the dairyhouse out for you!"

"and set everything on firei" He&039;d almost screamed the last word "are you madi"

"Well, what else was I to do with all that junki I mean, the press parts and tins of ink I kept, of course, but everything else had to go My lord, Matthew, you look ill!"

Matthew had staggered back froone down on his rear, but if he busted another nut he&039;d have to be put in a wheelbarrow and carted to the public hospital on King Street