“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.