“Come along,” Minx told Matthew, as she linked her arm with his and held it in an unbreakable grip. “You’re with me.”
Seventeen
UNTIL now, Matthew Corbett had thought he understood the balance of the world. Good was its own reward. Evil deeds were punished. God was in His Heaven, and the Devil was evermore forbidden to walk the streets of gold. Yet here, in the realm of Professor Fell, all such platitudes and pieties for the Sabbath pulpit were revealed to Matthew as being echoes of the hollow voices of long-dead saints.
No rich man on New York’s Golden Hill had ever lived thus. He wondered what rich man in London might have earned such a monument. He was standing in what he presumed would be the Grand Entrance, and grand it was. The high arched ceiling might have been a sanctuary for angels, who could hide amid the polished oak beams with their feathered wings kissing the snow-white stones. The flags of many nations hung on poles that protruded from walls on either side, among them the white banner of France, the crowned eagle of Prussia, the tricolor of the Netherlands, and the Spanish arms of Bourbon-Anjou. Matthew noted that none of them were afforded a central location or a height that would emphasize one above the other, not even the English Union Jack. Matthew reasoned that to Professor Fell all countries were meant to be equally plundered.
A marbled floor of black and white squares made Matthew wonder if the professor was a chess player. But of course he was, Matthew decided. Who else would he be if he did not recognize the value of helpless pawns, black knights, crooked bishops, and an errant queen or two in his malignant view of life?
The Grand Entrance opened onto a Great Hallway and Glorious Staircase. White trimmed in gold seemed to be the color of the professor’s love. Well, Matthew mused as he followed Minx Cutter toward the stairs, the professor was his own God, so why not create for himself his own Heaven on earth?
“I’ll show you to your room,” Minx said, her voice echoing amid the ceiling’s beams.
“I’ll show him to his room.” This was spoken by Aria Chillany, who had come up behind the pair and now caught Matthew by the arm that Minx did not hold.
Minx levelled a calm but icy stare at the interloper. “I should think,” she said, “that you are very tired from your journey, and that a woman of your age needs her rest. So, as we have a dinner tonight and much to prepare for, I suggest you go to your own room and get your…shall I say…beauty sleep?” Her hand tightened on Matthew’s limb, and he thought if it got much tighter he would lose the circulation in his arm. She flashed a quick and totally insincere smile into Aria’s stony and—one might say—stunned face. “I’ll show you to your room, Nathan,” she said, a statement of power as well as of fact, and without a second’s more of hesitation she led him up the staircase with a stride that left a woman of a certain age at her bootheels.
Matthew had just time enough to glance back at Aria, who had recovered her composure to offer him a look that might have said Careful with this one, and guard your throat. He did not have to be so warned, but he was truly on his own now and whatever this game was, he was in deep.
They passed a stained-glass window overlooking the staircase that caught the morning sun and burst it into jewels of yellow, gold, blue and scarlet. It depicted what Matthew had first thought was the image of a suffering saint, but then he saw that it was the portrait of a young boy possibly ten or twelve years of age, his hands folded against the side of his face and tears of blood dripping from his haunted eyes. It was a strange decoration to be a centerpiece of Professor Fell’s paradise, and Matthew wanted to ask who that person might be but then they were past it and climbing up and he let the question go.
Though the stairway continued up to a third floor, Minx guided Matthew into the second floor’s hallway, lined with doors and hung with various tapestries that showed intricately-woven hunting scenes. Matthew thought they must date from medieval times or else be very convincing reproductions. Minx stopped at a white door about midway along the hall. “This is yours,” she told him, and opened the door for his entrance. The room had a canopied bed done up in black. Again, the floor was made up of the black-and-white chessboard squares. An iron chandelier and eight candles awaited his tinderbox flame, and on a white dresser stood another three-wicked candelabra. There was a small writing desk and a chair before it. On the desk was a key, presumably to his door, and a candle clock. Next to the bed was a white high-backed chair with black stitches woven through it in an abstract design. A white ceramic washbasin stood on iron legs with a supply of folded towels as well as a pearl-handled razor and a small round mirror. Matthew picked up the cake of soap next to the mirror and smelled limes. He noted that his baggage had been brought in and placed at the foot of the bed. He wondered if there might be a solid gold chamberpot under the bed, for surely here even the nuggets were worth something. “You might enjoy this,” said Minx, as she opened a pair of louvered doors. The warm seabreeze rushed in, bringing the salt tang of the Atlantic. A small balcony with a black iron railing overlooked the sea that thrashed itself into foam sixty feet below. Matthew had a view to the horizon, which was all empty blue ocean and sparkling waves.
“Very nice,” he agreed, uncomfortably aware that this young woman who was so good with knives had retreated a few paces to stand at his back. He turned to face her. When he did, he was startled to find that she had come up upon him as silently as a cat and was standing only inches away.
Minx peered into his eyes as if studying items for sale beyond a window. She said, “Have you ever seen me before?”
Matthew felt a small tremor. Was this a trick question? Was he supposed to have seen her before? He decided to play this safely. “No,” he answered, “I think not.”
“And I’ve never seen you before, either,” she said, with an arched eyebrow. “You’re a handsome man, I should have remembered you.”
“Oh.” Did he blush a bit? Possibly. “Well, then…thank you.”
“Soft hands, though,” she said, and took his right hand in hers. “You’re not much for handling horses, are you?”
“I haven’t much need to handle them.”
“Hm,” she replied. Her gold-touched eyes had taken on a certain ferocity. “Are you and Madam Chillany together?”
“Together?”
“An item,” she clarified.
“Oh. No…we’re not.”
“You may not think so,” she answered. Then she let his hand go. “If you’d like some lessons, I’d be glad to offer them.”
“Lessons?”
“In handling horses. The professor keeps a very fine stable. I might show you the island, if you’d like.”
“Yes,” he agreed, and gave her a wisp of a smile. “I would like.” Immediately he thought he had just taken a plunge into the deepest water yet, but still…such a sea should be explored.
“Meet me downstairs in one hour.” She was already moving toward the door. Yet she paused on the threshold. “That is,” she said, “if you can manage a tour. After your voyage, I mean.”
“I can always sleep tonight.” As soon as he voiced this, he noted an expression on her face that said he might be wrong about this as well as wrong about Aria Chillany’s interest in him.
“All right.” Minx gave him back his wispy smile. “One hour then.” And she added his name after the briefest of pauses: “Nathan.”