The River of Souls (33 page)

“Hm,” said Daniel, pausing to stare down at the unkempt hovel. “He sounds dangerous. What’s his name?” 

“Annabelle said he used to be royalty, from some other country. Could hardly speak English, she had to teach him. Called himself Count…” Quinn hesitated, trying to come up with the name. “Dagen. Somethin’ like that. He’s got a crooked left wrist, looks like a break that didn’t set right.” 

Daniel nodded, but said nothing. 

“I say he’s to be left alone,” Quinn continued, “’cause a month or so past I saw him down in the woods swingin’ a sword around. Looks like he knows how to use one…so he’s not somebody I care to invite to supper.” She gave her man a smile and a playful nudge in the ribs. “Just enough catfish for
us,
anyway.” 

Daniel agreed, and he carried the bucket of fish on into their home. 

What night was it that he had the dream? Maybe not the same night he’d heard about the widow-beating count, but one soon after. The name
Dagen
kept bothering him. Something about it…it wasn’t right. In his dream he had been seated at a banquet table, with all manner of food on silver platters spread before him, and scrawled on the wall was the shadow of a swordsman at work, carving the air into tatters with a vicious and well-trained arm, and the air of danger had swirled thick and treacherous through the room. 

Dagen
. 

Count Dagen
. 

He used to be royalty, from some other country
. 

In the middle of the night Daniel had sat up, not so quickly as to disturb his wife, and listened to a dog barking in the distance. Otherwise the world was silent, but questions pressed upon Daniel’s mind. 

What was a count from some other country doing in Rotbottom
?
A swordsman? A man with a crooked
left wrist?
And the name—Dagen—wasn’t right. No…that wasn’t the man’s name. Close, but…no.
 

“Go to sleep,” said Quinn, reaching up to rub his bare shoulder. “Darlin’…go back to sleep.” 

He tried, but he could not. He lay there for a long time, beside his sleeping wife, thinking that there was a problem he desperately needed to solve but not quite sure what it was.

Twenty-Two

It worked on him. 

He kept it from Quinn because he didn’t wish for her to be as disturbed as himself, but she knew something was wrong. He could see it in her eyes. It was a kind of shiny fear, and where it came from he didn’t know but it was there all the same. 

One night, as summer moved on, the black-bearded and wiry Daniel Tate got up from their bed slowly and carefully so as not to wake his wife. He knew the small room by now and he was able to dress in the dark. In the front room he lit a candle and put it inside a lantern, and then—still moving quietly—he left the house and walked toward the harbor. 

The little town slept beneath a blaze of stars. Frogs croaked in the swamp grass and far off a nightbird sang, happy in its solitude. 

Also in solitude sat a man on the end of the wharf, a lantern and a wooden bucket beside him. He was intent on watching the bobber of his fishing line, but as soon as Daniel’s boots made noise on the planks the man’s head jerked around and he stared coldly at the newcomer through the darkness between them. 

“I vant no company!” said the man, in a heavy foreign accent. 

Prussian, Daniel thought…but he had no idea why he thought that. He continued onward, his boots thumping the boards. “I have need to speak to you,” he said. “If…indeed…you are the Count?” 

The man suddenly trembled. He grasped his lantern and stood up, fishing line and pole forgotten. By the yellow light Daniel saw the man was wearing a brown-checked shirt and dirty tan-colored breeches with patches on the knees. The left arm was grotesquely crooked at the wrist, indicating a severe break that had been poorly mended, if tended to at all. 

“
Who are you?
” asked the man, whose pale blond hair was matted and shaggy and hung limply about his shoulders. There was a note of frantic urgency in the voice, and Daniel saw the fingers of the man’s left hand grip with some difficulty around the wooden handle of a knife in a leather sheath at his waist. 

“I am Daniel Tate,” was the reply. “You are Count…is the name
Dagen
?” 

“Get avay from me!” 

“I want no trouble,” said Daniel. He lifted his own lantern higher to reveal his face. “Only a moment of your time.” 

The man drew his knife, which appeared a painful process to the warped wrist. He took a few steps forward, holding his lantern toward Daniel, and then stopped again. “
You
,” he said; a single word, delivered with both stunned disbelief and like a curse. “Of all to find me…
you
.” 

Daniel shook his head, uncomprehending. “Do you
know
me?” 

“I came here…to hide,” said the Count, his English strained and hard-earned. “From him. From whoever he vould send after me. I failed. He does not tolerate such.” The Count gave a bitter, anguished grin. “Of this place I heard in Charles Town…this vas the end of the earth. And now…
you
.” He came a few steps closer, the knife ready for a stabbing blow. 

Daniel did not retreat. He was thinking that if this madman came much nearer he would smash him in the face with one swing of the lantern. “I’ve never seen you before. Who do you think
I
am?” 

“You don’t know your own name?” 

“I told you my name. It’s Daniel Tate.” 

“Oh, no. Oh, no,” said the Count, still grinning. “You’re Matthew Corbett. You haff the scar on your forehead. I don’t forget that.” He held up the crooked wrist. “This too I don’t forget.” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. My wife is Quinn Tate. I have lived here for…” Here Daniel had a stumble, for this part was blank. He tried again. “Lived here for…” 

“How long?” the Count taunted, coming a step closer. 

Daniel had a headache. He touched his left temple, which seemed to be the center of his pain. “I’ve suffered an accident,” he explained, his voice suddenly weak and raspy. “I hurt my head, and some things…I don’t remember.” What name had this man called him? “Who is Matthew Corbett?” Daniel asked. 

The Count stood very still. Then, slowly, he lowered his knife. 

And he began to laugh. 

It was the laughter of the king of fools, a giddy outpouring of stupid mirth. He laughed and laughed and laughed some more, until his pallid, wolfish face had bloomed red and the tears shone in his green eyes. He laughed until he was too weak to stand and had to lower himself to the planks, and there at last he was silent but breathing heavily and staring at nothing, his lower lip curled with aristocratic disgust. 

“May I know the joke?” Daniel asked when the laughter was done. 

It was a moment before the other man replied. He seemed to be thinking very hard about something. Then he said, “Ve haff met before. Do you not remember me?” 

“I do not, sir.” 

“The name Count Anton Mannerheim Dahlgren means to you, nothing?” 

“Dahlgren,” Daniel repeated. Not
Dagen
. He had the memory of that dream again, and the shadow of a swordsman upon the wall of a banquet room. Perhaps at the center of the dream was the feeling of fear. The man sitting before him was very dangerous. But how and when they had met…
if
they had met…he had no idea. “You’re a swordsman,” Daniel ventured. 

“Ah, that! Yah…or…I
vas
. The sword demands balance. Timing. As vell as strenght. You see my crooked arm? Isn’t it lovely?” 

Daniel knew not what to say, so he said nothing. 

“My balance is no more. I am too veak on this side. Oh yah, I can still use the sword…but I am no longer her master. And for me…ah, such a shame.” Dahlgren gave Daniel a pained smile. “I vas taught…if you are not the best, you are nothing. All my years of training…of hardship…lost and gone. How do you think my arm vas broken? Do you haff any…guesses?” 

“None,” said Daniel. “I
am
sorry for your condition, however.” 

Count Anton Mannerheim Dahlgren came up off the planks with silent fury. Before Daniel could retreat, Dahlgren’s face was pressed nearly into his own and the knife’s sharp point was placed at Daniel’s throat. The man’s smile was a ghastly rictus. 

They stood like that for a few seconds, motionless on the edge of violence. 

Sweat had risen on Dahlgren’s face. His smile began to fade. The knife left Daniel’s throat. 

“Forgiff me, sir,” he said, stepping back and giving a slight bow. “It is not anger at you…but much anger at myself.” He put the knife away. “I vish that ve should be friends. Yah?” 

Daniel rubbed the place where the blade’s tip had not broken skin but certainly had left an impression. “I don’t know why you believe me to be someone else, sir,” he said, “but I will repeat that my wife is Quinn Tate, my name is Daniel, and—” 

“And you are wrong!” came the reply. “You believe these things because the voman has
told
you? Her husband Daniel
died
last summer. Everyone knows her head is
verruckt
! She is insane. This is not your home, and you are not Daniel Tate.” 

“You make no sense.” 

Dahlgren’s grin darkened, his eyes glittering above the lantern. “Then…please allow me to
prove
what I say is correct.” 

“Prove it? How?” 

“There is a man,” said Dahlgren, leaning closer as if not wanting anyone else to hear yet they were entirely alone upon the wharf, “who vishes to find you. I know this is true. This man is…a professor. A man of great learning, and great power. He knows all about you, and he vill embrace you with gladness once I bring you to him.” 

“The man’s name?” 

“He is called Professor Fell.” 

Did that name cause a shifting of shadows within Daniel’s brain? He knew the name, yet he did not know how he knew. “Why does he seek me?” 

“To reward you, for services you haff performed. But he does not seek Daniel Tate. He seeks Matthew Corbett…your true name, and true self.” 

Daniel felt pressure building once more in his head. “You said…you came here to hide. From
him
?” 

“I vas involved in a…shall ve say…failed business venture, and he is a var’ hard taskmaster. But I vill tell you…all vill be forgiven, vhen I bring you to him. He vill greatly reward both of us.” 

“I think you’re mad,” said Daniel, with some heat in his voice. “I know who I am.” 

“Do you? Then…valk the town…alone, and ask anyone to tell you about that voman. My voman Annabelle told me, before she left. Ask about Daniel Tate, and how he died. Now…how can there be
two
Daniel Tates?” 

“
Mad
,” the tormented young man repeated, and began to back away. “I
am
Daniel!” 

“You are
not
. The professor knows you. Allow me to prove so, by taking you to him.” 

“And where would you take me, to meet this professor?” 

“
England
, young sir,” said Count Dahlgren. “Ve vould board ship in Charles Town, and set sail for England. I haff two horses and a vagon to sell. That vould be enough for our passage.” 

“I’m going nowhere with you,” Daniel replied, continuing to back away. “Certainly not across the Atlantic! My wife is here, and so is my life.” 

“Your vife is
not
here,” Dahlgren countered. He motioned toward the east with his crooked arm. “And your life is out
there
.” 

Daniel had had enough. He turned and began to walk back the way he’d come. 

“Think on these things!” said Dahlgren. “And…Matthew…no vord of this to the madvoman who shares your bed, yah?” 

A confused young man returned to the Tate house, and slipping quietly inside he extinguished the lantern’s flame but found he could not put out the small fire that had begun to burn in his brain. He undressed and settled himself against Quinn’s body, and she moved to rest her head against his shoulder. He lay listening to her breathing. He tried to remember his childhood, or how he’d met Quinn, or their wedding day, or anything about the empty cradle—made from a hollowed-out log—that stood on the other side of the room. 

He could remember nothing.
Do we have children?
he’d asked her, thinking how sad it was that he did not know even this, and she’d replied,
No, but we will in time
. 

That name Dahlgren had called him. Matthew Corbett? And the other name…Professor Fell. Why did that name both repell and attract him? Why did it give him quick images of fiery explosions, rolling ocean waves and cannons being fired from a ship in the violet twilight? And stranger still…why did he think of what appeared to be a bloody fingerprint pressed upon a white card? 

These images could not be kept. They could not be held long enough to be more closely examined. But he knew they were important, and he knew they said something about himself that he had to rediscover. 

“I love you, Daniel,” Quinn whispered to him, from the depths of sleep.