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

one moved.
    From far back of the room Matthew thought he heard the sound of a bass Chinese gong, muffled. He caught a movement beside him and looked over at Solomon Tully, whose mouth was stretched wide open and whose new choppers, wet with spit, were sliding out of the gaping aperture. Without a thought, Matthew reached out and pushed them back in until something clicked. Tully continued to stare open-mouthed at the colony’s new governor.
    “I said, you may be seated,” Lord Cornbury urged, but the way his peacock feathers swayed had some already mesmerized.
    “God above,” whispered Magistrate Powers, whose eyes were about to pop, “the lord’s a lady!”
    “Gentlemen, gentlemen!” a voice boomed from the back. There came the tap of a cane’s tip, followed by the noise of boots clumping on the pineboards. High Constable Gardner Lillehorne, a study in purple from his stockings to the top of his tricorn, strode up to the front and stood at ease, one hand resting on the silver lion’s head that adorned his black-lacquered cane. “Ladies also,” he amended, with a glance toward Polly Blossom. “Lord Cornbury has asked you to be seated.” He heard, as did the whole assemblage, the noise of giggling and scurrilous chatterings back where the crowd became a mob. Lillehorne’s nostrils flared. He lifted his black-goateed chin like an axeblade about to fall. “I,” he said, in a louder voice, “would also ask you not to show discourtesy, and to remember the manners for which you are so justly famous.”
    “Since when?” the magistrate whispered to Matthew.
    “If we are not seated,” Lillehorne went on against what was mostly still shock instead of resistance, “we will not witness Lord Cornbury’s address this day…I mean, his remarks this day.” He stopped to pat his glistening lips with a handkerchief that bore the new fashion, an embroidered monogram. “Sit, sit,” he said with some annoyance, as if to wayward children.
    “I’ll be damned if my eyes haven’t gone,” Tully told Matthew as they sat down and the others got themselves settled again, as much as was possible. Tully rubbed his mouth, vaguely noting that the corners of his lips felt near split. “Do you see a man up there, or a woman?”
    “I see…the new governor,” Matthew answered.
    “Pray continue, sir!” Lillehorne had turned around to face Lord Cornbury, and perhaps only Matthew saw that he squeezed his lion’s head so hard his knuckles were bleached. “The audience is yours.” With a gesture of his arm that would have made competent actors challenge Lillehorne to a duel for the honor of the theater, the high constable retreated to his place at the back of the room where, Matthew considered, he could watch the reactions of the crowd to see how the popular wind ruffled Cornbury’s feathers.
    “Thank you, Mr. Lillehorne,” said the governor. He gazed out upon his people with his purpled eyes. “I wish to thank all of you as well for being here, and for showing me such hospitality as I and my wife have enjoyed these last few days. After a long sea voyage, one needs time to rest and recuperate before appearing properly in public.”
    “Maybe you need more time, sir!” some wag shouted back in the gallery, taking advantage of all the swirling smoke to hide his face. A little laughter swelled up but it froze on Lillehorne’s wintry appraisal.
    “I’m sure I do,” agreed Lord Cornbury good-naturedly, and then he gave a ghastly smile. “But rest will do for some other day. On this afternoon I wish to state some facts about your town-our town now, of course-and offer some suggestions as to a future avenue toward greater success.”
    “Oh, mercy,” quietly groaned Magistrate Powers.
    “I have been in consultation with your aldermen, your high constable, and many business leaders,” Cornbury went on. “I have listened and, I hope, learned. Suffice it to say I have not accepted this position lightly from my cousin, the