It was a brief walk to a very well-appointed stable, where a black attendant saddled their horses and wished them pleasantries for a good ride. Then they were off, Minx on a sleek black mare the attendant had called Esmerelda and Matthew on a broader-chested sorrel mare called Athena. Minx took the lead and obviously knew where she was going, guiding her horse onto a trail that crossed the estate in the direction of the road. Matthew dutifully followed, finding Athena not too hard to handle in spite of her namesake being a Greek goddess of war. The trail led them across the road and onto the plain of windswept seagrass. But a verdant green wilderness awaited a hundred yards beyond, and they entered it and rode for a while without speaking as the sunlight streamed down through the treelimbs overhead and strange birds called in the ferns.
At last, as they plodded along, Matthew decided it was time to voice a question. He urged Athena up alongside Minx’s horse. “May I ask,” he said, “what you do for the professor?”
She stared straight ahead. “You know better than to pose a question like that.”
“Ah, yes.” He nodded. “No one should know anyone else’s business, of course. Pardon my curiosity.” His curiosity, he thought, had been cursed before but never pardoned.
They went on a distance further, past a small lake where white egrets searched for fish in the shallows. Here and there treacherous brown thornplants reached out from the softer green growth on either side of the trail to snare the clothes of unaware riders, and they made Matthew think of the dangerous predicament that Berry and Zed had constructed for themselves. I can help you, she’d told him. Yes, he thought; help them all into unmarked graves. And that night she’d shown up in the alley opposite the house on Nassau Street and nearly scared his tenor into a permanent falsetto. My God, the cheek of that girl! he thought. She had lovely cheeks, it was true, but her curiosity was likewise to be cursed and not pardoned. Who did she think she was? A female version of himself?
And now he had not only to watch his own step in this beautiful morass, but to keep Berry and Zed from plunging into quicksand…and at a distance, no less.
“I will overlook your lack of propriety,” Minx suddenly announced, as the horses walked along side by side. “Because this is your first conference. And I suspect you’re curious about the other guests.”
“I am.” He paused for a few seconds before he went on. “Is it true that the professor has told the others a little about me?”
“A little. A small amount.” She held up two fingers pressed nearly together to show how small.
“But enough to let them know who I am and what I do for him?” He was amazed how easily this flowed, even as he thought how easily the quicksand pit might suck him under.
“Yes,” she answered, still staring straight ahead as the trail led them through a grove of spidery trees with leaves like miniature green fans.
“I am at a disadvantage then. I don’t like to be disadvantaged.” He smiled to himself. Well said, Nathan!
They went on perhaps forty more yards before Minx shifted in her saddle and spoke again.
“I’m an expert on handwriting. Forgeries, in four different languages,” she emphasized, as if he didn’t understand: “I oversee three apprentices to the craft. You’ve seen Augustus Pons. He’s a blackmail specialist. You may have seen Edgar Smythe on the stairs. He has something to do with weapons, I’m not quite sure what. Then there’s Adam Wilson, who does something with finances. Cesar Sabroso is a Spaniard who has influence with King Philip the Fifth. You’ll also meet Miriam Deare at dinner tonight. She prefers to be called ‘Mother Deare.’ What she does, I don’t know, but she is one of the professor’s oldest associates. You might already know that Jonathan Gentry is an expert on poisons, and that Aria Chillany has a position of responsibility concerning murders-for-hire. Lastly but not leastly, we come to the Thacker brothers, who hold themselves in high regard for their persuasive abilities in the area of extortion. Then there’s you…the whoremaster who steals state secrets.”
“Yes,” Matthew agreed. “Whenever I get the opportunity, that is.”
“You sound proud of that.”
“I am.” Lies came so fluidly they frightened him. “As I’m sure you’re proud of the work you do?”
“I’m proud of my abilities. They are hard-earned.”
“Your talent with a knife speaks for itself. Is that ability also hard-earned?”
Minx gave him a little sidelong smile, as they passed beneath the branches of trees draped with curtains of green moss. “I was born into a circus family,” she said. “I had to do something to earn my keep. For some reason, I was drawn to the knives. You know. Throwing them at moving targets. Including my own mother and father. I was quite the attraction, at twelve years of age taking aim with a knife in each hand, and outlining with the blades my mother’s body as she whirled around on a spinning wheel. Or splitting an apple on my father’s head while I wore a blindfold.”
“The art of dexterity,” Matthew said. “And a solid measure of self-confidence, I’m sure. Did you ever miss?”
“My mother and father are still circus performers. They may have a few more white hairs than they should. But no, I never missed.”
“For that, I’m grateful.” He fired a quick glance at her. “As should be everyone in our coach. But don’t you think Jack Thacker might hold a grudge? After all, you gave him something more than a quill’s prick.”
“He might hold a grudge,” Minx agreed, “but it is just because of the quill’s prick that he knows to leave me alone. My dexterity as a forger is more important to the professor than my ability with the throwing knife.”
Matthew made no comment. He was thinking, and being drawn along a wilderness path as surely as the horses followed their own. I oversee three apprentices to the craft, Minx had said.
It stood to reason that the others—Pons, Smythe, Wilson, Sabroso, Mother Deare and of course the handsome Thackers—were also the heads of their respective departments, rather than being lone wolves. Each one might oversee several—or dozens—of other lowlier lowlifes. Just as he, Nathan Spade, had a network of prostitutes and well-groomed grabbers of Parliament’s finest whispers. So when he looked at one of these so-called associates, he was looking at a single cog of what might be a truly vast criminal machine.
“What are you thinking?”
He brought himself back. On either side the forest was dense and dark, and birds called out in harsh voices from the tangled limbs. “Only about the conference,” he said, and just that quickly he decided to venture out on his own dangerous limb. “The why of it.”
“This being your first, I should suspect so. I attended the conference two years ago, which was my first. We are all used to being summoned by now. Some more than others.”
“And it is for the purpose of…?” He let the rest of it hang.
“It is for the purpose,” Minx said firmly, “of obeying the professor. Also he enjoys hearing in person reports of progress from his associates. It is a business, you know.”
“Of course it is. Otherwise, what would be the point of any of it?”
Minx suddenly kicked Esmerelda forward and then sharply reined the horse in, turning the animal so Matthew’s path was blocked. Matthew also reined in Athena, and he and Minx stared at each other as motes of dust drifted through the sun’s streamers and dark-colored butterflies flew back and forth between them.
“What is it?” Matthew asked, his heart pounding, when Minx remained silent a bit too long for his comfort. Her eyes were likewise too sharp for his skin.
“You intrigue me,” she answered. “And puzzle me.”
He forced a smile. “An intriguing puzzle. I am flattered to be so.”