The rainclouds had cleared, and the evening sun had almost slipped below the horizon. It was dusk, but after the pitch black of the cell block, it still took a moment for Justy’s eyes to adjust to the light. The door opened onto a small courtyard. Four high walls, with a wooden platform that ran the whole way around the yard, four feet below the top. The platform overhung a number of benches arranged against the walls of the yard, and on the benches sat a group of women, perhaps twenty of them, in robes of every shade of red and blue and brown and green. The women sat silent, their faces covered.
“Umar’s womenfolk,” Kerry whispered. She was covered from head to foot in dried mud. She looked like one of the witches the old Irish folk told about in their fairy tales. Justy looked down at his own clothes. The entire right side of his body was soaked in blood. The blade was streaked with it. His hand had what looked like raw egg smeared over the back of it.
He followed Kerry, limping on his damaged knee, feeling the eyes of the women on him. This was a second compound. He could see it now. The high walls of the space Umar had shown him screened this second area from view, both from the Broad Way and from the stream north of the marshes. It meant Jericho was twice the size he thought it was. Perhaps even bigger.
They were halfway across the courtyard, and still not one of the women had made a sound.
“Why don’t they speak?” he whispered.
Kerry shook her head. “Just keep moving.”
He limped on towards the door in the far wall.
It opened, and Gorton stepped through into the yard. He had his coat off, and his sleeves rolled up, and his shirt open at the neck. He had untied his hair, and it tumbled in a gray wave over his shoulders. There was a half smile on his face, a pistol in his belt, and one of the long, crude blades in his hand.
“Evening, Marshal,” he said.
Kerry looked back.
Gorton shook his head. “I wouldn’t, if I were you, girl. There’s a whole platoon of lads back that way. I can’t vouch for your safety if you run into them.”
Justy was cold. His head was singing. “You scum. You bastard traitor.”
“Traitor to who, Marshal? To you? To the great city of New York?”
Justy used his own blade to point at the door behind him. “Do you have any idea what’s going on in there? What he’s doing?”
“Course I do, jack. It’s one of the perquisites.” Gorton grinned. “As your titter will be, once I’ve made you easy.”
He stepped forward, spinning the blade in his hand, catching it, spinning it again. The grin was plastered to his face. It didn’t make it to his eyes. Justy stepped to the side, away from Kerry, trying to find a line of attack. The odds were long. He was injured; Gorton was not. They were both armed, but he was no swordsman, and Gorton looked strangely comfortable with the wide, brutal blade.
He glanced around, saw nothing but eyes watching him.
“A rum lot, ain’t they?” Gorton said. “They waft about the place like ghosts. Won’t say a word to a white man, or let him see their face. Not that I gave a damn. I’ve spent enough time in coal holes to know dark meat ain’t to my taste.”
He winked at Kerry. “Although I’ll make an exception in your case, girl.”
He spun the blade in his hand, and Justy lunged, a desperate thrust at Gorton’s throat. Gorton rocked back, but recovered fast, his blade swinging up to hit Justy’s cutlass a glancing blow that sent it sliding over his shoulder.
Justy stepped back quickly, then right and right again, keeping an eye on Kerry. And then he attacked, driving off his left foot. The two cutlasses crashed together, and Justy was thrown back, his hand numbed by the violence of Gorton’s strike. His leg crumpled under him, and Gorton came on with a fast backhand. Justy scrambled back further, into the center of the courtyard, avoiding the blow. He jabbed again, but Gorton twisted sideways and hacked upwards. Justy felt the tip of the blade brush his shirt, just under his chin. He flailed with the cutlass, but his arm was weak and there was no force behind the swing. Gorton caught the back of the blade with his left hand, and used his own cutlass to cut the strap around Justy’s wrist. And then he shoved Justy hard, and sent him sprawling.
Gorton’s face was bone white. He had switched his cutlass to his left hand, and was holding the pistol in his right. He jammed the muzzle into Justy’s temple, forcing his head over. “Scum, am I? You madge. Get up.”
Justy got slowly to his feet. Kerry’s face was a mask. The women watched, dark-eyed and soundless.
Gorton picked up Justy’s cutlass. He smiled his half smile. “You’re lucky the chief cock wants the both of you alive.”
He motioned with the pistol towards the door he had come through. “You first, missy,” he said to Kerry. “And don’t try to chouse me, or I’ll blow a hole in his backbone.”
Kerry pulled the door open. She recognized the comfortable chairs and the dining table with the big pewter box and the five-taper candelabra, fitted with fresh candles, their wicks pointing upright, as straight as soldiers. It was the room where Umar had served her the drugged mint tea.
“Nice, innit? This is where he entertains the nobs. Before they entertain their knobs.” Gorton laughed. He dropped the cutlasses by the door. “A nice little side business it could be, if he charged them. Now sit.” He nodded towards a chaise placed against one wall. “Side by side.”
He sat opposite. His pistol looked oiled and cleaned and well cared for. It was fully cocked, and as steady as a rock in his hand. Justy tried not to look at the black hole of the muzzle. “He doesn’t charge them?” he asked.
Gorton shrugged. “Cakey, innit? But I suppose he knows what he’s doing.”
“Making white babies for sale.”
“That’s right. And worth their weight in gold they are, too. What’s a slave cost these days? Four hundred ducats? Umar’s got coves’ll pay ten times that for a pale-skinned kinchin-mort. More if they’re paying in kind.”
“In kind?”
“Aye. Slave captains in Africa will trade twenty grown bucks for one. And we’ve got twenty girls back there, each turning out a little white chit every twelvemonth. Quite a hallow thing.”
Justy thought about the girl he had seen in the cell. The tiny smoke-filled room, her distended belly, the thick sound of her voice.
“How much did it take to buy you?” He let the contempt curdle in his voice.
Gorton smirked. “Well, I didn’t come cheap, matey. I’ve got a neat little share of the business, and a nice fat stipend. Plus use of the facilities when I choose, if you get my meaning.”
“And what does Umar get in return?”
“Information. A man on the inside. Someone to take care of any scrapes that might arise.”
“Like a girl getting loose from this place.”
Gorton smiled faintly. “Aye. Like that.”
“Did you kill her?”
The smile disappeared. “I don’t kill kinchen.”
“But you’re happy enough to sell them.”
“They do all right. Better than I did when I was a chip.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Stands to reason, don’t it? The ones he trades with the Africans are like trophies. They won’t have to work in the fields or the mines or stand in the ranks with the other cannon fodder. It’ll be the best food and a soft bed for them, for the rest of their lives. The color of their skin will see to that. And the ones he sells here? They’re made.”
Kerry started. “He sells children here? In New York?”
Gorton grinned. “Yes he does, darlin’. Not many, for it’s risky and he doesn’t want to be caught, but you’d be surprised how many fat culls can’t have kinchen of their own. And how much they’re willing to cough up for the privilege.”
Justy could feel Kerry vibrating beside him, like a mill engine building a head of steam. His own anger seemed to have gone. He smelled his own sweat drying, the blood on his sleeve. He felt the rough silk of the chaise upholstery under his hands. He heard footsteps.
The door opened. Umar stepped inside. The scarred man was behind him. Umar picked up the cutlass Justy had used on the guard in the cell. He stared. “You killed Carthy.”
Justy said nothing.
“He was with me from the beginning,” Umar said. “We took the boat into the eye of the storm, the three of us. Me, Carthy, and Jason here. The women holding on to each other in the bows, screaming and praying. The lightning cracking around us. The boat filling with water. We rowed until our hands split and our arms tore, and we thought we were in hell. But we lived. We were brothers. And you killed him.”
“It was my pleasure.” Justy leaned back on the chaise. “Absalom.”
Umar made a growling sound, deep in his throat. His eyes darkened, as though he had pulled a blind behind them, and snuffed out the light.
“Kill him.” He thrust the cutlass at Gorton. “Use this.”
Gorton shoved his pistol into his belt and took the blade. “You want me to cut him up a bit first, then? See if he’s got anything else to tell us?”
“He knows nothing of use. He did not speak to his uncle. Kill him, and burn the body. Make sure there is no trace. We must leave no one any reason to come after us.”
“What about Old Hays? He’ll suspect.”
“But he will not know. You said yourself he is a stickler for correctness. He will do nothing without evidence.”
Gorton glanced at Kerry. “And her?”
“She stays with me.”
Gorton spun the cutlass in his hand. He took a step towards Justy. “You heard the man, Flanagan. Up you get. Time for you to walk the plank.”
Justy did not get up. He got on his knees, sliding slowly off the chaise onto the rug. It was thick and tufted, a series of geometric shapes woven, over and over, in red and gold on a pale blue background. His eyes darted from the cutlass to Gorton’s face and back again.
“Please,” he said. “Don’t.”
Gorton sneered. “I didn’t think you’d want to go out on your knees like a Smithfield bunter, Marshal, but so be it.”
He raised the cutlass. Justy threw himself flat. “Please, Jeremiah,” he wailed, reaching for Gorton’s boots, scrabbling forward like a man begging for his life.
“Ah, for Christ!” Gorton stepped back sharply. “Be a man.”
“Please!” Justy clawed at his breeches. Gorton struck out with his boot, shoving Justy back against the table and sending the candelabra and its tapers spilling in all directions.
“Kill him!” Umar roared.
Gorton growled in frustration. He hacked down hard with the cutlass, but the table was in the way now, impeding his swing, and Justy rolled to the side, avoiding the blow.
He rolled into a ball, on his knees, hunched over, head down. He moaned. He begged.
“Please, Jeremiah! Please!”
“Gutless cunt,” Gorton muttered. “You’re a goddamned embarrassment. A white man, groveling so in front of these darkies.” He squared off, one foot either side of Justy’s head. He raised the blade in both hands, poised for the strike that would cleave Justy’s head in two.
Below him, curled up on the ground, Justy was waiting.
But not to die. He had closed his eyes. He was counting. One for Gorton to position himself. Two for him to raise the blade.
Three.
He launched himself upwards, jackknifing off his knees, driving the toes of his shoes into the pile of the rug. Aiming for Gorton’s throat.
From the moment he had stepped into the room, he had been looking for any kind of weapon. The cutlasses were too far away; he had no idea whether there was any cutlery in the pewter box on the table, and the furniture was too sturdy to break apart easily. Which left the candelabra on the table, and, more importantly, the candlesticks themselves. Six-inch cylinders of hardened wax, a half inch wide at the base, tapering to a rounded point. No one’s idea of a weapon. But as Owney Clearey had taught him that last day in his basement gymnasium, anything could be a lethal instrument, properly aimed, properly applied, with maximum force, speed, and aggression.
He had groveled about on the floor, trying to upset the table and grab a taper, and Gorton had helped. The candleholder had toppled and the tapers had spilled onto the floor. Justy had rolled to grab one, then rolled back as Gorton hacked down. Now the taper was cupped in the heel of his right hand and held in place with his left. The moment Gorton struck, Justy was off his knees, thrusting out his arm, making a straight line through his shoulder and his elbow and his wrist to the point of the candle, aimed at the soft hollow at the base of Gorton’s jaw.
One chance. To drive the taper up, through the thin layer of skin and muscle under Gorton’s tongue, through his mouth and his palate, and up into his brain.
One chance.
And he missed.
When Gorton swung the cutlass, the movement tilted him forward, not much, but enough that the point of the candle was intercepted by the hard plateau of his sternum, where his shirt gaped open. A miss. But not a catastrophic one. If it had been a knife in Justy’s hand, that would likely have been the end of it. A knife might have cut the skin, even penetrated a short way into the bone. But then it would have stuck there, or broken or glanced off.
But the unlit candle was rounded at its end, not sharp. Driven by the tremendous force of Justy’s strike, with his full weight behind it, the candle slid smoothly up Gorton’s sternum without breaking. It followed the line of Gorton’s neck, and slipped easily into the jugular notch above his clavicle. Justy felt the resistance on the heel of his hand, a fraction of a second, and then it was gone, and he rammed the candle home into Gorton’s windpipe.
Gorton dropped the cutlass. He swayed backwards, choking, clutching at his throat. A half-inch stub of candle protruded above his collarbone. He clawed at it, his face turning purple.
Justy pulled the pistol out of Gorton’s belt, cocked it, and stepped back.
Umar was backing towards the door, dragging Kerry in front of him, a knife at her throat. The scarred bodyguard pushed past him and bore down on Justy, his cutlass swinging, howling a hoarse, wordless scream. The scars around his mouth were white. His eyes were bloodshot. His mouth was like a monstrous cave, fringed with the ragged stumps of his teeth. There was nothing inside it. His tongue had been cut out.
Justy swung the pistol up and shot the scarred man in the face. The man dropped, his shoulder catching the edge of the table and upending it. There was a great crash as the cutlery box spilled open, and dozens of knives, forks, and spoons went skittering across the floor.
Gorton was on his knees, making a strangled sound. His face was the color of a bruised plum. His fingers were plucking at the stub of candle, his ragged nails too short to dig into the wax. Justy watched him for a moment. He picked up the cutlass and spun it in his hand. He smiled. “I told you biting your nails was a bad habit.”