The Emperor's Assassin (29 page)

T
he setting sun lit all the clouds in the western sky aflame, some burning down to charcoal grey, others still molten bright—oranges and reds and liquid golds. The green rolling hills extended to every point of the compass, the shadows of trees and hedges stretched long and thin across fields and pastures. Dusk seemed to seep out of the shadows, spreading over the Somersetshire countryside, as though the darkness bled out of the earth itself.

Morton and Westcott sat up on the box, Westcott with reins and whip in hand. They had not spoken much for the past hour, watching a sky overwhelmed with transient beauty. They had stopped at a posting inn two hours earlier, where some navy men had paused en route to London. Westcott had avoided them, Morton noticed, almost to the point of hiding himself away. Morton, curious by profession, wondered why.

“You knew those officers at the inn?” the Runner said at last, having first considered several variations on the wording of his question.

“Not all of them, no,” Westcott answered softly. “Thamesly was midshipman with me briefly on the
Ajax
. He's a rear admiral now.”

Morton felt this was more explanation than he needed. Westcott's bitterness at having spent the war ashore was a wound Morton did not want to open. They drove on in silence, the sky burning itself out, dusk spreading over the lands. Once or twice Morton thought Westcott would speak, but then he did not.

Finally the navy man said, “You are, if I'm not mistaken, Morton, a man who takes his duty seriously. Do you ever wonder if you have not been too much of a slave to duty? If you have served her, but she has not served you in return? After all, Morton, you are also a man of considerable ability. You could have made your fortune in commerce or trade. Lesser men than you have done it. Look at Soanes—an architect now, but was his father not a bricklayer?”

Morton was about to answer that duty had no obligation to serve in return, but the question was seriously and honestly asked, and he felt it deserved an answer in kind. “I have at times felt resentment at others who have taken a path less difficult than mine, and not so narrow, and yet achieved great acclaim for their efforts. I'm sure the navy is full of men who have performed difficult service that will never be recognised. In wars, many serve but few are noticed. Some give their lives.”

Westcott nodded. “Yes. I should not grumble. Men I've known did lose their lives in the wars against Bonaparte. They served with distinction and in the end were rewarded with a white shroud, a shot of chain, and a forty-fathom grave. I've fared better than they. I should not grumble. You're quite right, Morton. I should not.”

He shifted in his seat, glancing round. “It is time to light the lamps, I think.”

The dusky little coaching town of Ilchester appeared as a close scattering of dim lights, and soon the dark houses and buildings pressed in around them. Westcott negotiated the turn beneath the arch and on into the yard of the inn. Beneath the dim light of a few lamps the paving stones glittered, apparently wet from a light rain, though Morton and his companions had been spared this as they travelled.

Despite the hour the innyard was full of the usual noise and confusion: a crowd of milling dark figures, vehicles, hills of baggage, stamping horses. As the coach came to rest, Morton stood, casting a weary eye over the scene. The mail coach, which had recently overtaken them on the road, exchanged its team, the passengers alighting, looking as though they'd just wakened, and then, one by one, wandering into the coffee room for refreshment.

On all sides the yard was surrounded by buildings: the inn to the fore and down one side, a stable to the left, and in the back the dark bulk of an outbuilding that Morton could not name. Another arch led out there, so that the coaches should not have to be turned in such a confined space. Several more carriages stood in a shadowy corner, but there was no lamp lit near them, and Morton guessed they would remain where they were for the night.

“Do they have horses for us, I wonder?” Westcott asked.

Morton climbed down from the high seat, joints cracking at the effort. “So I hope,” he said. He was having
trouble forcing his mind to wake and seemed to be drifting in some near-dream state. How long had it been since he'd enjoyed the luxury of a full night's sleep in his own bed? He waved a hand toward the back of the yard. “There are carriages down the way. I'll see they're not our berlin, then we'll find the inn manager.” He rapped on the carriage door. “Jimmy? Time for an ale, lad.”

The rocking of the carriage signalled the young Run-ner's attempt to rouse himself.

As Morton left the oblong of dim illumination and approached the dark carriages, a small man detached himself from their shadow and hurried across the yard into one of the stable's open doors.

Morton took another pace and realised that he was looking at the berlin they had chased through the streets of London! He snapped awake. Before he could call out to Westcott and Presley, a muffled cry caused him to step into the shadow of a carriage. A pistol flashed, from just inside one of the stable doors, the report echoing down the length of the yard, bringing everything to a stop for a long moment. And then everyone began to run.

Morton sprinted for an open door of the stable, ducking in and keeping low.

He cursed silently. Someone had tried to call out to him—Boulot. It could only have been Boulot.

He pulled out his pistols and cocked them, the grips cool and solid in his hands. A single lamp pushed a few shadows away from its immediate vicinity, but the rest of the barn was very dark. Shapes suggested beams and stalls, grain bins and haystacks. Morton stood with his back to a massive post and gazed into the darkness around him, watching for the smallest movement. He strained to hear, but the shot had frightened everyone,
and outside there was pandemonium and little could be heard over it.

Inside, the horses in their rows of standing-stalls were casting their heads from side to side, pulling at their tethers and trying to back out into the alley. Morton ducked down and poked his head out to look down the alleyway. All he could make out was a long row of horses' hindquarters, shadows, bits of straw bedding, dung awaiting a shovel. The sweet smell of hay was mixed here with the noisome odours of the carriage trade.

A man dodged out into the alley, then disappeared into shadow. Morton was sure he'd held a pistol in his hand. How many were there? Then he heard voices whispering—in French, he was almost certain.

“We are from Bow Street!” Morton called out. “You cannot get away now. Give yourselves up!”

A pistol fired again, and a horse, not a yard away, whinnied, dancing to one side.

Morton stood and fired toward the muzzle-flash, but he saw no one. The smell of smoke touched his nostrils, and he heard some desperate stamping. A flame licked up from behind the standing-stalls very near to where the man had fired. The shadows of men were suddenly thrown against a wall.

“Morton?” Presley's voice came from outside, but Morton dared not answer.

The hay in the mangers was going up now, a high, quick crackling sound that made the hair on Morton's neck stand on end. Flames spread out and upward, until they lapped at the ceiling, illuminating the scene in eerie orange light. The horses were in terror now, struggling wildly to free themselves, hooves scraping harshly on
stone as they pulled at their tethers. Their backs were like a moving sea—a storm of fear and panic.

Smoke began to burn Morton's eyes, and he ducked low, moving forward, one hand on the cool stone floor. A man shouted in French—words Morton did not recognise. And then dark shapes dodged out of the smoke. Morton raised his second pistol and pulled the trigger, but it hung fire, only a spray of sparks erupting from the pan. A wild-eyed horse rushed toward him, its nostrils flaring.

He spun and raced out the door, dodging the horse that had broken free. Outside Morton found Westcott and Presley pressed against the wall, each with one of Jimmy's pistols in hand.

Dim shadows leapt onto the berlin.

“There they are!” Morton shouted.

Both Presley and Westcott raised their pistols and fired, but it was impossible to see if they'd hit anything. The berlin lumbered into motion, picked up speed, and disappeared under the archway at the back of the inn.

More horses were breaking their tethers and charging out of the barn, where they ran in circles, endangering anyone who came near. Some tried to force their way back in again, so panicked were they.

Presley stood by an open door, and when he judged no horses were coming out, he dashed into the stable.

“Jimmy!” Morton called. “You'll be trampled.”

Morton and Westcott were retreating along the wall, fearful of the horses and driven back by the smoke.

“You!” someone called from behind, and Morton turned to find a frightened man with a blunderbuss pointed at them. “You will put down your pistols!”

“I'm a Bow Street Runner,” Morton called over
the noise. “We're pursuing murderers, Frenchmen in a big berlin.”

The big muzzle of the gun wavered.

“Put that weapon down!” Westcott ordered the man. “We are the king's men on the king's business. You'll lose your stable and buildings if you don't jump to it.”

Slowly the sweating man lowered the muzzle. Presley came barrelling out of the building and was knocked down by a horse that shot out behind him. He picked himself up, coughing into a handkerchief he held over his mouth.

“I freed as many horses as I could, but they're running in circles, knocking each other down.” He looked about at the scene of madness in the yard, frightened horses running every which way, the flickering light of the growing fire glittering off their flanks. Wide-eyed men and boys came pounding across the yard with buckets.

Westcott reached out to take a bucket from a man, but Morton stayed his hand.

“No!” he shouted over the cacophony. “We can't let them escape.” He pointed back toward Westcott's carriage.

“But this inn will go up,” Westcott protested.

“We are pursuing murderers, Captain. We cannot waver.”

Morton herded his reluctant companions back to the carriage. They were some time turning it round in the madness of the innyard, but then they were out into the roadway, where men on foot and horse came hurrying to the fire.

With one backward look at the rising glow, Westcott turned the carriage onto the western road and cracked his whip over the heads of their tired team.

A
t first they seemed almost unearthly, a strange dancing circle of yellowish-orange lights, bobbing in the dark emptiness of the night above him. Morton was by himself on the box, and he blinked his weary eyes a moment in confusion, the reins slack in his hands. Plymouth was still some twenty-five miles off, it was well past midnight, and all around, unseen below an overcast sky, lay the barren upland wastes of Dartmoor. It was the most deserted stretch of country he and his companions had traversed since leaving Lon-don—he had not seen lights of any kind for hours, since they had passed the lonely signal tower at the edge of the moor, its shutters motionless, a single dim lamp burning in an upper window. Now, from nowhere, a faerie circle of illumination seemed to hover and vibrate over the invisible earth.

But as he urged his team cautiously on and felt the coach begin once more to ascend, he recognised that they weren't in midair at all, but only on the brow of the next height of the Great Western Road. Drawing slowly
up the slope, he could make out a little knot of men with lanterns, standing oddly across the way and blocking it. As he stopped a few yards short of them, a deep silence fell, and the crickets could be heard pulsing on all sides.

Only then did he notice the weapons—the musket barrels, the glint of blades. Too late. Several of them were setting down their lanterns, taking up their arms. Presley and Westcott remained asleep in the compartment. Morton moved his hand unobtrusively to his pistol. The sound of the men's boots on the gravel road seemed very loud as they walked deliberately up. Their stern faces loomed into the glow cast by his own coachlamps.