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Back Cardinal Black Save as PDF
Chapters (44)
  1. Title Page
  2. One: Into the Storm
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Two: London Calling
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Three: The Malignant Seven
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Four: Squirrels and Cats
  29. Twenty-Four
  30. Twenty-Five
  31. Twenty-Six
  32. Twenty-Seven
  33. Twenty-Eight
  34. Twenty-Nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-One
  37. Thirty-Two
  38. Five: Revelation
  39. Thirty-Three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. About the Author

Within the Flying Dragon, Julian swigged down one mug of hot apple cider and then he and Matthew tied Firebaugh to the wooden bedframe of the room the criminal was consigned to. The cravat was left in his mouth and any needs he had for food, drink or evacuation delayed until after Varney had finished tending to the team. Julian warned him forcibly that any mess upon the featherbed would earn him dire regret. Then Julian staggered to his own room, collapsed on the bed, got himself into as much a comfortable position as possible, and immediately fell asleep, leaving Matthew to explain to Ann Varney that they were travelling with no baggage because their cases had been left behind in their haste to escape the criminal’s accomplices.

It was the best story he could concoct, but he knew at once that Ann Varney was not so rural a spirit as to fail to have some sophistication in the aromatic tales of travellers, and this one did not pass her smell test. But there was naught she could do except demand that her husband throw the trio out upon the road at this wee hour, which she evidently decided against. However, as she prepared a pot of turnip soup while her husband attended to the horses she gave Matthew a show of producing a small pistol from a drawer and keeping it close at hand in her kitchen.

Matthew didn’t blame her. Who would? The story’s rope had to be fashioned with some stronger fiber, otherwise the nearest sheriff might be summoned, and in any event he had important business with the doctor.

As the woman worked in the kitchen, Matthew entered Firebaugh’s room with a cup of the hot cider and took a chair beside the bed. Firebaugh’s eyes were closed. Matthew turned the lamp’s wick up and prodded the doctor in the side. Firebaugh jerked awake and pulled his knees up to his chin in an effort to make himself a smaller target for violence.

“I just want you to listen to me for a minute,” said Matthew. He took a drink of the cider, which had to rank among the most delicious liquids he had ever put down his gullet, or maybe it was just part of the joy of still being among the living. “You’re a man without a country right now. You know that, don’t you?”

From the doctor there was no response, just the sullen glaring of a caged animal.