The Bloody Quarrel (The Complete Edition) (8 page)

It seemed as though Adana had been built piece by piece, bits added on all the time, rather than designed. Streets didn’t seem to meet up and rarely traveled in a straight line. She turned and headed down towards the docks, where the rest of her people were being held. At first the streets were quiet and peaceful but the closer she came to the water, the rougher things seemed. There were certainly no more women of quality around. It felt like the village drinking hall at the end of a long day, when decent people were thinking of calling for Fallon to come and keep the peace.

Men were staggering out of whatever passed for drinking halls in Adana and leering at her. She couldn’t understand what they were saying – and she was glad of that. Abandoning ideas of finding the last few places that held her people, she cut down an alley, hoping to get out of this area and find her way back to the house. Getting back in was going to be even harder than getting out, although requiring a little less timing. She decided she had had enough excitement for one night.

The alleyway was dim but a sudden spill of light showed what looked like a sailor, who staggered out of a doorway and then began to piss against the opposite wall. Bridgit let her chairleg-dagger slip down into her hand and stepped around him, walking even faster.

He must have felt her passing rather than seen it, but she heard the trickle dry up and then he called out something to her. Having no idea what he might be asking she decided it would be far safer to keep walking, and actually broke into something closer to a trot, hoping he would go back to whatever he was drinking.

But she heard footsteps behind her, getting louder, as well as another challenge, this one louder and angrier. The end of the alleyway looked too far away and she did not want to be attacked from behind, so she stopped and spun around. Her heart was thumping and her breath was rasping painfully in her throat, but the makeshift dagger was steady in her hand, hidden behind her back. She was under no illusions as to what was at stake. If she were discovered to be Gaelish, then rape would be the least of her problems.

The sailor slowed as he approached, a drunken grin on his face, and he kept talking. She could not understand a word but from his tone guessed he was bragging about what a great catch he was and why she should immediately go with him for a shag somewhere.

But when she said nothing his voice changed, becoming a little harder. He reached out a hand to grab her hood but she did not wait to find out what he would do next. She took a half-step closer, her left hand reaching out to grab his shoulder, her right whipping up with the full force of not just her arm and shoulder but all her fear and disgust. The sharpened chair dagger rammed up underneath the man’s chin, ripping through the soft skin, into his mouth and up further, before striking and splintering on something hard inside his head. She tried to rip it back out but it was stuck and he was staggering back, trying to speak, but only a spray of hot blood was coming out.

She hesitated for a moment, seeing him futilely trying to pull the weapon out of his face, while he made strange grunting noises, his mouth pinned shut, his tongue pierced by her blow. Then he collapsed and she turned and ran for it.

She felt the hood flip back off her face and the scarf fall down as she raced away but she was more concerned about creating some distance before the man’s friends found him. As she ran she wiped her bloody hand on the inside of her dark robe – not so much to hide what she had done but more because the hot, sticky blood made her skin crawl.

Bridgit emerged from the alleyway and slowed down instantly, flipping up her hood and adjusting her scarf. She did not recognize this part of town and she did not stop to get her bearings, instead walking swiftly and changing direction rapidly, to throw off any pursuit. Her heart had almost returned to normal when she finally walked back into the street that held the house that had become their prison. She could not have retraced her route if her life depended on it but she still counted it as a success. Now she just had to get back in safely.

There were two new guards in the doorway, sitting down and leaning back, one of them smoking a pipe, the other carving something with wood. She was pleased to see them so bored. No doubt guarding a house full of women and children was not a popular task for Adana’s soldiers. That was how she wanted it. Carefully, because she did not want to attract their attention, she flicked a pebble up at the window she had escaped from only a couple of turns of the hourglass earlier. It vanished into the open window and she immediately hoped she had not hit one of the waiting children. A few moments later a pale hand waved out of the window and she continued up the street, as slow as she could go, keeping half an eye on what was happening at the door.

Almost immediately, there was a knock on the door from the inside and the two guards sprang up, pocketing the dice and unlocking the door to see what was happening. Instantly Bridgit changed direction and cut across the street, standing beneath the window as voices began to argue from behind the door.

Their makeshift rope dropped down at her feet and she slipped her foot into the loop, took a careful hold of it and tugged twice. She zoomed up the side of the building; and as she came level with the window, she looked into Nola’s sweating face and grabbed the edge of the sill, to help herself tumble over the edge and onto the mattress.

“Stop pulling!” she hissed, as the older children continued to haul away, swinging her leg around.

From below, the sound of Riona and Ely talking to the guards was coming to a close.

“We did it!” Bridgit grinned up at Nola.

Her friend let the rope drop and reached down to pull her up, only to recoil when she saw the blood on her right hand.

“What happened?” she whispered.

“I’ll tell you later. Not in front of the children. But know that we can do this,” Bridgit said. “Now I need to wash. In fact it feels like I need to have a bath for a moon.”

Fallon did not want to leave the bodies in the alleyway, where Aidan could pretend none of this had happened. The easiest way to move them was in a cart, and he and Brendan found one swiftly. Its owner was less than happy at giving it up but found the sight of Brendan’s hammer even more persuasive than Fallon’s arguments.

The cart was small enough to get down the alleyway and they hurled the dead snatchers on to it before covering them with a canvas sheet. They looked strangely small and not at all threatening now. The six men who had followed them from the castle seemed to have disappeared, which made Fallon’s neck itch. It reminded him of the time when he had joined a hunt with the Duke of Leinster. Beaters had been used to drive the game towards the hunters, where they could be killed. But now the hunters were dead, what would the beaters do? Go home or join the hunt?

“I reckon their hideout is around this corner,” Gallagher said, leading the way to a boarded-up house in a quiet street. Fallon trusted the fisherman’s memory, for he and Devlin had scoured the city for the snatchers on Cavan’s orders. Judging by the nailed boards across the broken front door, they had been in there once already.

“When we go in, stay together. Nobody goes off by themselves for a look,” he ordered, then loaded his crossbow. “If there’s any more in there, get them down and Brendan’ll do the rest.”

“I hope there is,” Brendan said wolfishly.

Fallon gave him a quick look but the big smith seemed serious. Fallon sighed again. How would everything go back to normal when Brendan wanted to smash in heads and Devlin would not make a joke? He shook that thought away. “Come on,” he said, then saw they were attracting quite a crowd, although the sight of Brendan’s bloody hammer kept the people at a safe distance.

“Stay back! We don’t know what is in there!” he shouted.

It did little to deter them and he nodded to Brendan. Better to get in fast. Waiting just gave more people the chance to see what was going on.

Brendan’s hammer shattered the door and Fallon led the way in, crossbow searching for anyone hiding in the shadows.

The house was dark and silent and Fallon quietly ordered Devlin and Gallagher to start knocking away the covers from the windows. Daylight poured in through grubby panes, revealing a large room with a small fireplace and a twisting set of stairs heading up into more darkness. There was nobody in sight and no furniture, nothing to indicate anyone had ever been here.

“Maybe it’s still empty,” Gallagher said.

“We’ll look anyway,” Fallon said. “Do you remember what is upstairs?”

“Do you know how many houses we broke into?” Gallagher said with a shrug. “More rooms, I suppose.”

“Spread out,” Fallon ordered. “And for Aroaril’s sake watch the stairs!”

He eased closer to the fireplace, risked a look in there, but it appeared empty. Then he held up his hand and waved to Gallagher.

“What is it?” his friend asked, ghosting across the wooden floor.

Fallon stepped around the fireplace. He could hear faint voices, people crying, and he was reminded of the time when they had almost caught Swane and his Fearpriest, when the sound of crying children had lured him deep into the Prince’s foul pit.

“Can’t you hear that?” he whispered.

The others all froze also, everyone straining to pick up what grated on Fallon’s ears.

“It’s coming from around here.” Fallon slapped his palm on the thick brick chimney.

“Is it next door?” Gallagher asked. “I can hear something but it’s faint.”

“Brendan, hit that wall,” Fallon ordered.

The big smith shrugged, then swung his hammer at the rough plaster, except when it struck, it sounded like wood. Fallon waved the smith back and shoved on it. A chunk of a door fell away, revealing stairs leading downwards.

“That was not here when we came in last time,” Gallagher said. “We never went down in any of those houses. None of them had a cellar.”

“None that we could find, anyway,” Devlin said.

The sounds of calling and crying people was getting louder now.

“Come on up! You are free!” Fallon bellowed down the stairs.

He waved and everyone moved back to the other side of the room, pointing their crossbows at the dark entrance to the cellar.

“What if it’s more of them down there?” Devlin whispered.

Fallon did not think it sounded like child snatchers and was trying to work up the courage to go in there when the sound of feet on steps made him drop to one knee, bow aimed at the door.

“Don’t loose! We have children!” a hoarse voice said, as a pair of dirty hands appeared from the doorway, followed by a thin man dressed in rags, blinking at even the dim light fighting its way in through the windows.

“Come on out,” Fallon instructed.

The man shuffled into the room, his hands on his head.

“We have to hurry, the snatchers could be back at any moment,” the man said urgently. “We need to get out of here before they do.”

“How many are there?” Fallon asked.

“Three of them. They never say a word but they will kill a man as quickly as look at him,” the man said, his eyes streaming tears. Fallon did not know if that was because of the light or because of what he had gone through. “We have to get out of here!”

“We killed all three. They are dead. We smashed their skulls in,” Fallon said.

The man fell to his knees. “Praise Aroaril!” he cried. “We prayed for this moment but I thought Aroaril had turned His face from us.”

“How many are you?” Fallon asked, lowering his crossbow.

“Many,” the man said. “Come out now, it is safe!” he called, and other faces appeared at the cellar doorway. Small faces of women and children.

“Who are you?” Fallon challenged.

“I am Conor. My daughter was taken by the snatchers and we came to see Prince Cavan, who promised to get her back. But that night the snatchers came for us. They forced us to follow them or they would kill our children. This is the second house we have been in. They moved us at night and kept us in that cellar all the time, giving us bread and water once a day. Is it really true they are dead or am I dreaming?”

“Come with me and you can see their bodies,” Fallon invited.

Conor wiped his eyes, tears pouring down his face. “Thank you! I shall never forget this,” he vowed.

Behind him, other men, women and children were coming out of the cellar and filling the room. Fallon quickly counted nearly two dozen.

“Are you all prisoners of the snatchers?” he asked.

“We all lost children to them and were taken by them later,” a woman replied, rubbing her streaming eyes with a dirty sleeve.

Fallon signaled Gallagher over. “We’ll take them back to the castle,” he said. “Let’s see what the King says about this. He wanted to test us? Let’s test him. But we’ll have to put some of them in the cart. Make sure the bodies of the snatchers are pushed right up to one end.”

Gallagher nodded and hurried out.

“We’re going to get you some food, some clothes and the chance to clean up. And then you will probably need to tell your story to the King this time,” Fallon said loudly. “But you are safe now. Nothing more will happen to you. The snatchers are dead.”

“Have you found our missing children?” Conor asked eagerly.

Fallon turned back to the man. “I thought they were with you. I thought the snatchers had you all,” he said.

“Not our children who went missing first of all. They were not with us,” Conor said. “My daughter Becca. Have you seen her?”

Fallon remembered the sound of weeping children in Swane’s lair and shuddered. He had to somehow look for them. “No. But we will find her, I promise you,” he vowed.

He tried to urge them out and towards the front door but the first woman grabbed his hand and kissed it.

“Thank you! Aroaril bless you!” she sobbed.

Fallon smiled awkwardly at her, at the others who were all nodding and smiling through the tears. “I shall search the house for any sign of your children,” he announced.

So while Gallagher and Devlin helped the women and children out, Fallon and Brendan checked the rest of the house out, finding nothing interesting, although the smith knocked holes in every wall.

He would have liked to spend more time checking but a look out a window told him the crowd outside was becoming bigger by the moment and he wanted to get off the streets before something else happened.

The smaller children and some of the women were loaded into the cart, the bodies of the snatchers pushed hard up against the headboard.

“We need to get Padraig and Rosaleen to look at these,” he told Gallagher. “I don’t know if it was wizard magic or blood magic but something had been done to those men.”

The fisherman grimaced. “When I was moving the bodies, I saw they had had their tongues cut out,” he said.

Fallon did not like the sound of that. It said, whoever these snatchers were, they took orders rather than gave them.

“Conor,” he asked the man at the front. “Did you hear anyone speaking to them? Did they give you any idea of what they wanted with you?”

Conor shook his head. “We heard nothing. They did not like noise and we were scared to do more than whisper for fear they would kill our children. When they wanted us to do something, they grabbed a child and held a knife by their throat, then used hand signals to tell us what to do.” His face twisted as he remembered and fresh tears appeared in his eyes.

Fallon patted him on the back. “You are safe now, away from them. And we shall do all we can to find your missing children,” he promised.

Conor hugged his wife, looking incapable of talking any more.

Around them the crowd was getting restless, some demanding to know what was going on, others cheering as each family was brought out.

“What are we going to do with them?” Brendan asked.

Fallon looked around the crowd, guessing their numbers at over a thousand.

“Let’s use them against the King,” he said. “Give me a hand up.”

The smith helped him stand on the side of the cart so he could see the crowd and also be seen by them. He waved his hands until they quieted down, wishing he had Padraig there to help him.

“We have found the lair of the child snatchers, the ones who have been taking children and blaming it on witches,” he shouted, his voice booming off the houses and echoing down the street. “They are dead and you are safe!”

The crowd roared its approval in waves, those at the front passing the message on to those at the back, and he had to wait for them to quiet down.

“We have freed the families they had taken!”

Again they cheered him.

“Now we go to show them to our beloved King. Come along and hear how our great city of Berry is now safe!”

They bellowed their joy and, when Fallon jumped down, they fell in behind the cart and followed.

*

The crowd grew as they walked through the city, until there were thousands flowing in from the surrounding streets and filling the square in front of the castle. It seemed as if half of Berry was there and the guards on the gate looked terrified when Fallon ordered the cart stopped in front of them.

“What is going on?” their officer cried.

Fallon smiled to himself when he saw it was Quinn again. Kelty might have been a more difficult proposition. “We have killed the child snatchers and freed the families they had taken,” he announced loudly. “The people need to see us present this to the King.”

Quinn’s eyes bulged at the thought. “Send them away! Or bring that cart in and let us shut the gates. The King will lose his mind if he sees this crowd gathered here!” he cried.

Fallon jumped down and stepped close to Quinn, seeing several familiar faces behind him, guards he had led into Killarney. But he did not reveal that. “The crowd has grown too big. We cannot send them away. But I have told them the King wants to tell them they are safe and the danger is over. They are happy and excited, ready to cheer King Aidan. Go and tell the King what is happening. If he is angered, then it will be my fault. But if you send them away, they will grow angry. And it will be your head on the block then,” he said kindly, as if explaining something obvious to a young child.

“But I am ordered never to leave my post!” Quinn whimpered.

“I shall stand it for you. Do you not trust me?”

Quinn gulped and Fallon stepped aside, showing him the size of the crowd, which was growing every moment as more people rushed down to see what was happening.

“Go and get the King before it gets ugly,” he advised. “You can tell him I ordered you to so do, using Prince Cavan’s seal as my authority.”

Quinn still looked reluctant, so Fallon grabbed his shoulder and turned him around. “Quick man! Before it gets out of control! Go now, while you still have a head on your shoulders!”

That was the final straw for Quinn and he raced away.

Fallon watched him go for a few moments and turned to the squad of men barring the gates.

“Bran, good to see you.” He nodded to the black-bearded guardsman he had tricked and knocked down, then winked at Casey, the nervous young guardsman he had kept by his side at Killarney. “How have you been, lads?”

“Well, sir.” Bran nodded with a smile. “Are there any places in the Prince’s guard for the likes of us? We’d rather serve with you.”

“I’ll have to ask the Prince,” Fallon said with a smile covering the pain those words gave him. “But I would be proud to have you lads under my command again.” That part, at least, was not a lie. And if he could get at least some of Kelty’s men over to his side, it could only help.

“Just say the word, sir, and we’ll be with you,” Bran declared, most of the other guards nodding their approval.

“Good work, lads. Now we’d better keep quiet. For the King will be here any moment and he doesn’t allow talking on duty,” Fallon said with a wink.

“Sarge, did you really catch the snatchers?” Casey asked.

“It’s Captain now,” Fallon said. “And yes, we caught them and killed them.”

“How did—?”

“Better wait for the King,” Fallon told him gently.

He expected it to be quite a wait but the King appeared, followed by a handful of nobles, Finbar, Kynan, an angry-looking Captain Kelty and a swarm of guards, including a worried-looking Quinn.