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

Queen.”
    Lillehorne thumped his cane tip against the floor, daring anyone to chortle for fear of a night in the gaol.
    “My cousin, the Queen,” Cornbury repeated, as if chewing on a sweet. Matthew thought he had very heavy eyebrows for such a lady. “Now,” the governor said, “let me outline where we are.”
    For the next half-hour, the audience was held not in rapture but rather by the droning on of Cornbury’s less-than-majestic vocal skills. The man might be able to carry a dress, Matthew mused, but he couldn’t manage a decent speech. Cornbury meandered through the success of the milling and shipbuilding businesses, the fact that there were nearly five thousand residents and that now in England people saw New York as not a struggling frontier town but a steady venture able to return sterling investment on the pound. He gave his lengthy opinion on how someday New York might surpass both Boston and Philadelphia as the central hub of the new British Empire, but added that first a shipment of iron nails that had accidentally gone to the Quaker town from the old British Empire must be retrieved so as to rebuild the structures unfortunately burned in the recent fire, as he did not trust treepegs. He waxed upon the potential of New York as a center for farming, for apple orchards and pumpkin fields. And then, going on forty minutes in his dry dissertation, he hit upon a subject that made the citizens sit up.
    “All this potential for industry and profit must not be wasted,” Cornbury said, “by late-night carousings and the resulting problem of slugabeds. I understand the taverns are not closed here until the last…um…gentleman staggers out.” He paused a moment, surveying the audience, before he clumsily plowed ahead. “Forthwith, I shall decree that all taverns close at half past ten.” A murmur began and quickly grew. “Also, I shall decree that no slave is to set foot in a tavern, and no red Indian shall be served-”
    “Just a moment, sir! Just a moment!”
    Matthew and the others up front looked around. Pennford Deverick had stood up and was casting an eagle-eye at the governor, his brow deeply furrowed as a sign of his own discontent. “What’s this about the taverns closing early, sir?”
    “Not early, Mr. Deverick, isn’t it?”
    “That’s right. Mr. Deverick it is.”
    “Well. Not early, sir.” Again the hideous smile emerged. “I wouldn’t call ten-thirty at night early, by any stretch. Would you?”
    “New York is not a town constrained by a bedtime, sir.”
    “Well, then, it ought to be. I’ve done a study on this. Long before I set out from England, many wise men afforded me their opinions on the wastage of available manpower due to-”
    “The blazes with their opinions!” Deverick said sharply, and when he spoke sharply it was like a very loud knife to the ears, if a knife might be loud. Matthew saw the people around him flinch, and beside him Robert Deverick looked as if he wished to crawl under the nearest stone. “Do you know how many people here depend on the taverns?”
    “Depend, sir? On the ability to consume strong drink and in the morning be unable to go about their duties to themselves, their families, and our town?”
    Deverick was already waving him off with the governor’s ninth word. “The taverns, Lord Cornblow…”
    “…bury,” said the governor, whose quiet voice could also be cutting. “Lord Cornbury, if you please.”
    “The taverns are meeting places for businessmen,” Deverick continued, swirls of red beginning to come up on his cheeks not unlike the governor’s rouge. “Ask any tavern owner here.” He pointed toward various personages. “Joel Kuyther over there. Or Burton Lake, or Thaddeus O’Brien, or-”
    “Yes, I’m sure the assembly is well-stocked,” Cornbury interrupted. “I presume you are also a tavern owner?”
    “Lord Governor, if I may?” Again the smooth and rather oily High Constable Lillehorne slid forward, the lion’s