A Falcon Flies (8 page)

She was tired now with the effort of climbing and blundering around over the heaving slopes and peaks of cargo, and with the nervous tension of the search.

She paused to rest a moment, leaning back against one of the bales of
merkani
cloth, and as she did so something dug painfully into her back, forcing her to change her position. Then she realized that cloth should not have hard lumps in it. She shuffled around and once again slit the sacking cover of the bale.

Protruding from between the folded layers of cloth, there was something black and cold to the touch. She pulled it out and it was heavy iron, looped and linked, and she recognized it instantly. In Africa they were called ‘the bracelets of death'. Here, at last, was proof, positive and irrefutable, for these steel slave cuffs with the light marching chains were the unmistakable stigmata of the trade.

Robyn tore the bale wider open, there were hundreds of the iron cuffs concealed between layers of cloth. Even if it had been possible, a perfunctory search by a naval boarding party was highly unlikely to have uncovered this sinister hoard.

She selected one set of cuffs with which to confront her brother and she started aft towards the lazaretto, filled suddenly with desire to be out of this dark cavern with its menacing shadows, and back once more in the safety of her own cabin.

She had almost reached the entrance to the lazaretto when suddenly there was a loud scraping sound from the deck above, and she froze with alarm. When the sound was repeated, she had enough of her wits still about her to douse the snuffer of her lantern, and then immediately regretted having done so for the darkness seemed to crush down upon her with a suffocating weight and she felt panic rising up to take possession of her.

With a crash like a cannon shot the main hatch flew open, and as she swung back towards it she saw the white pin-pricks of the stars outlined by the square opening. Then a huge, dark shape dropped through, landing lightly on the piled bales beneath, and at almost the same instant the hatch thudded closed again, blotting out the starlight.

Now Robyn's terror came bubbling to the surface. There was somebody locked in the hold with her, and the knowledge held her riveted for long, precious seconds, before she plunged back towards the lazaretto hatch, suppressing the scream that choked up into her throat.

The shape she had glimpsed for a moment was unmistakable. She knew that it was Tippoo in the hold with her, and it spurred her terror. She could imagine the great hairless toadlike figure, moving towards her in the darkness, with repulsive reptilian swiftness, could almost see the pink tongue flickering out over thick cruel lips, and her haste became uncontrolled. She lost her footing in the darkness and fell heavily, tumbling backwards into one of the deep gullies between banks of cargo, cracking the back of her skull on a wooden case, half-stunning herself so that she lost her grip on the extinguished lantern and could not find it when she groped for it. When she scrambled to her knees again, she had lost all sense of direction in the total blackness of the hold.

She knew that her best defence was to remain still and silent until she could place the man who was hunting her, and she crouched down in a crack between two crates. Her pulse beat in her ears like a drum, deafening her – and her heart seemed to have crammed up into her throat so that she must fight for each breath.

It took many minutes and all her determination to bring herself under control, to be able to think again.

She tried to decide in which direction lay the lazaretto hatch, her only means of escape, but she knew that the only way she would be able to find it would be to grope her way to the ship's wooden side and follow it around. The prospect of doing this, with that grotesque creature hunting her in the darkness, was appalling. She shrank down as far as she could into the narrow space and listened.

The hold was filled with small sounds that she had not noticed before, the heave and creak of the ship's timbers, the shifts of the cargo against its retaining ropes and netting

– but then she heard the movement of a living thing close behind her and she caught the shriek of terror before it reached her lips, as she lifted her arm to protect her head. Frozen like that, she waited for a blow which never came.

Instead she heard another movement pass behind her turned shoulder, a whisper of sound, yet so chilling that she felt all power of movement drained from her legs. He was here, very close in the blackness, toying with her, cruel as a cat. He had smelt her out. With some sort of animal sense, Tippoo had found her unerringly in the darkness, and now he crouched over her ready to strike and she could only wait.

Something touched her shoulder, and before she could jerk away it swarmed up over her neck, brushed her face. She flung herself backwards and screamed, striking out wildly with the steel chain and handcuffs which she still held in her right hand.

The thing was furry and quick, and it squealed sharply, like an angry piglet as she struck again and again. Then it was gone, and she heard the scamper of small feet across the rough wood of the crate and she realized that it had been one of the ship's rats, big as a tom cat.

Robyn shuddered, revolted, but with a lift of relief that was short-lived.

There was a flash of light, so unexpected that it almost blinded her, and a lantern beam was thrown in a single swift sweep about the hold, and then extinguished, so that the darkness seemed even more crushing than before.

The hunter had heard her scream, and had flashed his lantern in her direction, had probably seen her, for she had clambered out of her niche between the crates. Now at least she knew in which direction to move, the brief flash of light had orientated her once again, she knew where to find the hatch.

She threw herself over a pile of soft bales, clawing herself towards the hatch, then checking her flight to think a moment. Tippoo must have known how she had entered the hold and would know that she would try to escape in the same direction. She must move with care, with stealth, ready for the moment when he flashed the lantern again, taking care not to rush headlong into the trap he was certainly setting for her.

She changed her grip on the iron chain, only then realizing its potential as a weapon, much more effective than the short-bladed scalpel in her pocket. A weapon! For the first time she was thinking of defending herself, not merely crouching like a chicken before the stoop of the hawk. ‘Robbie was always the plucky one.' She could almost hear her mother's voice, troubled but touched with pride, when she had defended herself effectively against the village ruffians, or joined her brother on some of his more hairraising escapades, and she realized she needed all of that pluck now.

With the chain gripped in her right hand, she started stealthily back towards the hatch, crawling, slithering forward on her belly, pausing to listen every few seconds. It seemed like a complete round of eternity before her outreaching fingers touched the solid planking of the after bulkhead. She was within feet of the hatch now and that was where he would be waiting for her.

She crouched down, with her back firmly against the planking and waited for the flutter of her heart to abate enough to allow her to hear, but any noise her hunter made was covered by the creak and pop and groan of the working wooden hull, and the thud and hiss of the sea as
Huron
beat up hard to the wind.

Then she wrinkled her nose at a new smell that overlaid the pervading reek of the bilges. It was the hot oil smell of a shuttered lantern burning very close by, and now when she listened for it, she thought she could hear the pinkle and tick of the heated metal of the lantern. He must be close, very close, guarding the hatchway, ready to flash the lantern at the moment he could place her whereabouts accurately.

With the slowness of spreading oil she rose to face into the darkness where he was, she slipped the scalpel into the palm of her left hand, and she drew back her right arm with the chain and iron cuff dangling from her fist, ready to strike.

Then she pitched the scalpel with a short underhanded throw, judging the distance to drop it close enough to force him to move again, but far enough to make him move away from her.

The tiny missile struck something soft, the sound muted, almost lost in other small sounds, but then it slithered softly along the deck, like a hesitant footfall and instantly light flooded the hold.

Tippoo's monstrous shape sprang out of the darkness, huge, menacing, unbelievably close. He held the unhooded lantern high in his left hand, and the yellow light glistened on the bare round dome of his yellow skull, and on the broad plain of his back, the muscle rippling and tensing into valleys and ridges as he swung back the heavy club in his right hand, his head hunched down on the thick corded neck. He was facing away from her, but only for an instant. As he realized that there was nobody in front of him, he reacted with animal swiftness, ducking the great round head on to his chest, beginning to swing away.

She moved entirely by instinct. She swung the heavy iron manacle on the length of chain. It hummed in a glittering circle in the lamp-light, and it caught Tippoo high on the temple with a crack like a branch breaking in a high wind, and the thin layer of yellow scalp opened like the mouth of a purse with a crimson velvet lining. Tippoo swayed drunkenly on straddled legs that started to buckle under him. She pulled back the chain and swung again with all the weight of her body and the strength of her fear behind the stroke. Again a deep red wound bloomed on the polished yellow dome of his skull and he went down slowly on to his knees, an attitude she had seen him adopt so often as he prayed on the quarterdeck, making the Muslim obeisance towards Mecca. Now again, his forehead touched the deck, but this time with his blood dribbling into a puddle under it.

The lantern clattered on to the deck, still burning, and in its light Tippoo rolled heavily on to his side with his breath snoring in his throat and his eyes rolled up into his head, glaring ghastly white and unseeing, his thick legs kicking out convulsively.

Robyn stared at the prostrate giant, aghast at the damage she had done, already feeling the need to administer to any hurt or crippled being – but it lasted for only seconds, as Tippoo's eyes rolled back into their deep sockets, and she saw the pupils beginning to focus. The yellow gleaming body heaved, the movement of limbs was no longer spasmodic but more coordinated and determined, the head lifted, still lolling, but swinging questingly from side to side.

Unbelievably, the man was no longer crippled by those two cutting blows, had been stunned for seconds only, in seconds more he would be fully conscious and in his fury more dangerous than ever. With a sob Robyn flew at the open hatch of the lazaretto. As she passed him, cruel fingers hooked at her ankle, pulling her off balance so she almost fell before she could kick herself free and dive through the opening.

Tippoo was on hands and knees in the light of the fallen lantern, creeping towards her as she threw all her weight against the hatch. As it thudded into its jamb, she dropped the locking bar into its seating, and at that moment Tippoo's shoulder crashed into the far side of the hatch with a force that shook it in its frame.

Her frantic fingers were so clumsy that it took three attempts to secure the padlock and chain, and only then could she sink to the deck and sob away her fear until her relief came to buoy her up and give her renewed strength.

When she dragged herself to her feet, she was lightheaded, intoxicated with the strange fierce jubilation that she had never felt before. She knew it sprang from having fought herself out of danger, from the unfamiliar experience of inflicting punishment on a hated adversary – and she knew she would feel guilt for it later, but not now.

The keys were still in the door between the lazaretto and saloon where she had left them. She pushed the door open quickly and paused in the opening an instant, feeling the quick flare of alarm overtake her feeling of elation.

She had only an instant of time to realize that somebody had trimmed the saloon lamp, and then fingers seized her wrist from behind and swung her off balance, bearing her down heavily to the deck and holding her there with one arm twisted up between her shoulder-blades.

‘Keep still, damn you – or I'll twist your head off your shoulders.' Mungo St John's voice was low and fierce in her ear.

Her arm holding the chain was trapped under her, and now her captor shifted his weight over her, placing his knee in the small of her back and bearing down so painfully that she wanted to cry out with the agony that flared up her curved spine.

‘Tippoo flushed you out quickly enough,' St John murmured with grim satisfaction. ‘Now let's have a look at you

– before we stretch you out on the grating.'

He reached forward and pulled off the cloth cap that covered her head, and she heard his little grunt of surprise as her hair tumbled loose in a slippery shining mass in the lamplight. His grasp slackened and the pressure of his knee into the base of her spine eased. Roughly he grasped her shoulder to turn her on to her back so he could see her face.

She rolled easily towards him and then as her trapped arm came free, she hurled the chain at his face. He threw up both hands to catch the blow. As slippery as an eel she wormed out from under him and flew at the door to the saloon.

He was quick, quicker than she was, and his fingers were steely, they caught in the thin worn flannel of her shirt and it ripped from collar to hem. She turned and lashed at him with the chain again, but now he was ready for her, and he caught her wrist, trapping it.

She kicked wildly at his shins, and succeeded in hooking an ankle behind his heel and they went down together in a tangle on to the wooden deck, and Robyn found herself carried along by a fierce uncaring madness. She was hissing and snarling like a cat as she raked at his eyes with her nails, raising a bloody line down his neck. The tatters of her shirt flapped around her waist and the coarse dark hair of his chest rasped against the tender points of her naked breasts so that dimly in her madness she realized that he wore only breeches, and the man smell of his body filled her nostrils as he tried to smother her wild struggles with his body.