"Sir! Sir!" Nack was up again, staggering on his way to the door. Matthew noted that either the constable had spilled a drink in his lap, or was past need of a chamberpot. "Tried to stop it, sir! Swear I did!" He passed close to Zed and recoiled as if fearing to share Bonehead's method of departure.
"Oh, you shut up," Lillehorne answered. A rather eye-startling picture of fashion in a pumpkin-colored suit and tricorn and yellow stockings above polished brown boots, he came into the room and wrinkled his nose with disgust as he took stock of the scene. "Is anyone dead here?"
"That crow was gonna kill us all!" the lady shouted. She'd taken the liberty of seizing the unfinished mugs of brandy from the table where the wharfmen had been sitting, and had one in each hand. "Look what he did to these poor souls!"
Lillehorne tapped the palm of his gloved left hand with the silver lion's-head that adorned his black-lacquered cane. His long, pallid face with its carefully-trimmed black goatee and mustache surveyed the room, the narrow black eyes the same color as his hair, which some said was dyed liberally with India ink, and which was pulled back into a queue with a ribbon that matched his stockings.
Baiter was still mewling, clasping the ruin of his nose with both hands. The wharfmen were starting to stir, and one of them heaved forth a torrent of foul liquid that made Lillehorne gasp and press a yellow handkerchief to his pinched nostrils. George and his companion had gained consciousness but were still sitting at the table and blinking as if wondering what all the fuss was about. Two of the gentlemen were trying to revive the swordsman, whose legs began to jerk in an effort to outrun the mug that had knocked him into dreamland. At the far back of the room, the fiddler stood in a corner protecting his instrument. Out in the street, the gawkers shouted merrily as they peered through the door and the gaping aperture where Bonehead had passed through.
"Appalling," said Lillehorne. His cold gaze dismissed Matthew, fell upon the giant slave, who stood motionlessly and with his head lowered, and then came to rest on Hudson Greathouse. "I might have known you'd be here, when I heard Skelly hollering two streets away. You're the only one in town who could put such a fright in the old wretch that his beard flew off. Or is the slave responsible for all this mess?"
"I appreciate the compliment," said Greathouse, still wearing his self-satisfied and thoroughly infuriating smile. "But as I'm sure you'll find when you speak to the witnesses-the sober witnesses, that is-Mr. McCaggers' slave was simply preventing any physical harm to come to me or himself. I think he did a very able job."
Lillehorne again turned his attention to Zed, who stared fixedly at the floor. Outside, some of the shouts were turning nasty. Matthew heard "grave-digger's crow", "black beast", and worse, coupled with "murder" and "tar-and-feather".
"It's 'gainst the law!" Nack had suddenly remembered his station. "Sir! It's 'gainst the law for a slave to be in a public tavern!"
"Put him in the gaol!" the lady hollered between drinks. "Hell, put 'em all under the gaol!"
"The gaol?" Greathouse's brows lifted. "Oh, Gardner! Do you think that's really such a good idea? I mean three or four days in there-even one day-and I might be too weak to carry out my duties. And as I and I alone certainly admit arranging Mr. McCaggers' slave to meet me here, I would thus by law be the person to suffer."
"I think it ought to be the pillory, sir! For all of 'em!" Nack's evil little eyes gleamed. He pressed the tip of his billyclub against Matthew's chest. "Or the brandin' iron!"
Lillehorne said nothing for a moment. The shouts outside were becoming uglier still. He cocked his head, looking up first at Greathouse, then at Zed and back again. The high constable was a small-boned and slender man, standing several inches shorter than Matthew, and thus was dwarfed by the larger men. Even so, his ambition in the town of New York was the size of Goliath. To be mayor, nay, even the colony's governor someday was the bellow that fanned his flames. "Which will it be, sir?" Nack urged. "Pillory or iron?"
"The pillory may well be in use," Lillehorne replied without looking at Nack, "by a spineless constable who has gotten himself stinking drunk while on duty and allowed this infraction of the law on his watch. And mind you cease talking about irons before you find one branding your buttocks."
"But sir I mean " Nack sputtered, his face flaming red.
"Silence." Lillehorne waved him aside with the lion's-head. Then he stepped toward Greathouse and almost peered up the man's nostrils. "You hear me, sir. I'm not to be pushed, do you understand that? No matter what. Now, I don't know what game you've been playing at tonight and possibly I don't wish to know, but I don't want it to happen again. Is that clear, sir?"
"Absolutely," said Greathouse without hesitation.
"I demand satisfaction!" shouted the fallen swordsman, who was sitting up with a huge lump and blue bruise on his forehead.
"I'm satisfied that you're a fool, Mr. Giddins." Lillehorne's voice was calm and clear and utterly frigid. "There's a penalty of ten lashes for drawing a sword in a public place with intent to do bodily harm. Do you wish to proceed?"
Giddins said nothing, but reached out and retrieved his weapon.
The shouting in the street, which was drawing more men-certainly more drunkards and ruffians-from the other taverns, was increasing in volume and desire for justice in the form of violence. Zed kept his head down, and sweat was gathering on the back of Matthew's neck. Even Greathouse began to glance a little uneasily at the only way out.
"What I must do galls me sometimes," Lillehorne said. Then he looked into Matthew's face and sneered, "Aren't you tired of playing the young hero yet?" Without waiting for a reply, he said, "Come on, then. I'll walk you out of here. Nack, you'll stand guard 'til I send someone better." He started for the door, his cane up against his shoulder.
Greathouse got his cap and cloak and followed, then behind came Zed and Matthew. At their backs spewed dirty curses from the patrons who could still speak, and Nack's gaze shot daggers at the younger associate of the Herrald Agency.
Outside, the crowd of thirty or more men and a half-dozen drink-dazed women surged forward. "Get back! Everyone get back!" Lillehorne commanded, but even the voice of a high constable was not enough to douse the fires of this growing conflagration. Matthew knew full well that there were three things sure to draw a crowd in New York, day or night: a street hawker, a speechmaker, and the promise of a rowdy knockabout.
He saw through the crowd that Bonehead had survived his journey with but a gash on his brow and some blood trickling down his face, but he was still obviously less than fighting fit for he was careening around like a top, both fists swinging at the air. Somebody grabbed his arms to pin them, somebody else caught him around the waist, and then with a roar five other men leapt in and there was a free-for-all right there with Bonehead getting bashed and not even able to punch. A skinny old beggar held up a tambourine and began to rattle it around as he pranced back and forth, but someone with musical taste knocked it from his hand and then he began fighting and cursing like a wildman.
Still the citizens pressed in around their true quarry, which was Zed. They plucked at him and danced away. Someone came in to pull at his torn suitcoat, but Zed kept his head lowered and paid no mind. Ugly laughter-the laughter of brutes and cowards-whirled up. As he followed the slow and dangerous procession along Wall Street, Matthew suddenly noted that the wind had ceased blowing. The air was absolutely still, and smelled of the sea.