The River of Souls by Robert McCammon Read Free Book Online

straightened his boulder-like shoulders. He cast his gaze around the ballroom, at the grinning faces in the guttering light. He let his gaze fall upon Matthew Corbett, who felt the weight of the moment. 
    “You bested me,” said Muldoon. “I ought to hate your guts…but I don’t. I’m just gonna leave you here with ’em, all these fine ladies and gentlemen, and I’m gonna say…enjoy what you’ve earned.” He gave Matthew a slight bow, and then turning around he walked across the boards and exited the event by the way he’d come, through the filmy curtain and into the garden where no weed dared grow. 
    In another few seconds Matthew found himself the hero of the moment. So many hands whacked him on the back—and some as hard as enmity—he feared he’d be bruised all the way to his lungs. Sedgeworth Prisskitt came up and clapped him on the back and said something unintelligible, because Matthew had ceased to listen to him. Fine ladies drifted up like pastel smoke to rub against his shadow. Highwigs puffing powder marched up and the chunky faces beneath them said how steadfast he was, and how cunning. And then Pandora Prisskitt came forward, radiant even in her darkness, and took his arm with the pride of ownership. 
    “You are so smart,” she gushed, “and so brave too!” 
    The musicians were starting to take their places again, and allow a few notes to issue forth as invitations to more dancing. “Thank you for your compliments and your company,” said Matthew, to Pandora’s puzzled expression as he dislodged her hand from his arm. “I shall have to take my leave now, as I’m feeling a little ill.” 
    “Oh?” Sedgeworth had heard this, and came forward. “What’s the matter?” 
    “Nothing very much,” Matthew replied. “Just a bit close in here for me. The air…seems oppressive.” 
    “I’m sure a walk around the garden will help! Pandora, go with him!” 
    But Pandora was very intelligent, and she knew and pulled back. Matthew gave both father and daughter the smile of a gentleman who has done his duty. “I shall indeed walk around the garden on my way to the inn. It seems to me that there are several fellows here who might like a dance with your very gracious and understanding daughter. Oh…would you take this, please?” And so saying, he placed the comb matted with Muldoon’s bloody hair into Sedgeworth’s palm. Then he offered a bow to the lady and glanced up one more time at the sword of Damocles to count himself lucky. He left the room by the garden exit to walk beneath the star-strewn sky over Front Street, ruminate on how quickly life could turn comedy into tragedy and vice versa, and consider that he might appear to be one of the chosen elites who occupied the ballroom yet he in truth he had been there on a task and in depth he was more an outsider than ever before. And tonight, after having escaped either death or humiliation and seeing the reality of things, Matthew was very much more than content with his position.

Four

It was a fine morning to walk along Front Street in the warm sunshine, which if Matthew knew anything about Charles Town in the summer—and he certainly did from past experience as clerk to Magistrate Woodward here in his younger days—the warmth of the sun would turn to wretched heat as the day wore on and the shadows grew small. By noon the smell of the swamp would ooze over the town’s stone walls and permeate the little shops selling coffees and teas and bon-bons for the genteel, and the odor of decaying fish afloat and abloat against the wharf would violate even the most sweetly-scented fragrance of a garden’s roses or the perfumes sold to dab behind a lady’s ear or upon a gentleman’s cravat. In other words, at high noon it was time to get out the silk fans and employ the nosegays, so Matthew walked the street early and wisely before such aromas could embellish the air. 
    Besides, last night he’d gotten a strong enough whiff of this