The Queen of Bedlam by Robert R. McCammon Read Free Book Online Page A

nothing to do with books or judgments of law and so occupied themselves as workmen on the docks, though one had risen to the rank of foreman. The thing was, the two boys were likely paid quite a sum more than their father, the salaries of civil servants being as low as a mudcat’s whiskers. Powers had dark brown hair gone gray with fatigue at the temples, his nose as straight as his principles and his brown, once hawk-like eyes in need of spectacles from time to time. He had been a tennis champion in his youth, at the University of Cambridge, and he spoke often of greatly missing the cheers and tumult of the galleries. Sometimes Matthew thought he could see the magistrate as a young, supple, and handsome athlete drinking in the approval of the crowd, and times as well he wondered if the man’s silent reveries replayed those days before his knees creaked and his back was bent under the weight of a pressing judgment.
    “Edward Hyde is his given name,” Powers said, interpreting Matthew’s silence as an interest in the new governor. “Third Earl of Clarendon. Attended Oxford, was a member of the Royal Regiment of Dragoons and a Tory in Parliament. My ear-to-the-ground also says he’ll have some interesting observations about our fair town.”
    “You’ve met him, then?”
    “Me? No, I’ve not been so favored. But it seems those who have-including High Constable Lillehorne-wish to keep the particulars to themselves and the rest of us in suspense.” He began to go through the tidy stack of papers that had been arranged on the desk for his appraisal courtesy of his clerk, who had also prepared his quills and gathered some legal books from the shelves in anticipation of impending cases. “So tomorrow morning is our interview with the widow Muckleroy?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Casting a claim for stolen bedsheets on Barnaby Shears?”
    “She contends he sold the bedsheets and bought his mule.”
    “Well, his entire house isn’t worth an ass,” Powers said. “One wonders how these folk get together.”
    “Not without some effort, I’m sure.” The widow Muckleroy weighed near three-hundred pounds and Shears was a rascal so thin he could almost slide between the iron bars of his gaol cell, where he was now being held until this matter was cleared up.
    “Friday, then?” the magistrate inquired, looking through his notes.
    “Friday morning, nine o’clock, is the final hearing before sentence on George Knox.”
    Powers found some writing he’d done on the subject and spent a moment studying the pages. It was a matter of violence between rival owners of two flour mills. George Knox, when raging drunk, had hit Clement Sandford over the head with a bottle of ale in the Red Bull Tavern, causing much bloodshed and subsequent disorder as the supporters of both men in their dispute over prices and territories began a melee that had spilled out into Duke Street.
    “It amazes me,” the magistrate said quietly, in his appraisal of the facts, “that in this town prostitutes may give sewing lessons to ladies of the church, pirates may be consulted for their opinions on seaworth by shipbuilders, Christians and Jews may stroll together on a Sunday, and Indians may play dice games with leatherstockings, but let one silver piece fall in a crack between two members of the same profession and it’s a bloody war.” He put aside his papers and scowled. “Don’t you get sick of it, Matthew?”
    “Sir?” Matthew looked up from his writing; the question had honestly surprised him.
    “Sick of it,” Powers repeated. “Sick. As in ill. Of the pettiness and the never-ending pettifoggery.”
    “Well…” Matthew had no idea how to respond. “I don’t-”
    “Ah!” Powers waved a hand at him. “You’re still a young fish, not a cranky old crab like I am. But you’ll get here, if you stay in this profession long enough.”
    “I hope to not only stay in this profession, but to advance in it.”
    “What? Quilling transcripts,