When Gods Die (21 page)

Ignoring the turning that would have taken him to King Street and Covent Garden beyond, Sebastian simply continued on south toward the river. The horse was different, of course: a gray in place of the more noticeable bay. But there was something instantly recognizable about the set of the man’s shoulders, his easy seat in the saddle. It was the shadow from South Downs.

Alert now, Sebastian swung left onto Chandos Street. Following at a judicious interval, the brown-coated horseman kept pace with him.

Ahead, the street formed a lopsided Y around the sharply pointed corner of an ancient brick building whose ground floor housed an apothecary, its rotting sign peeling paint, its small windows shuttered now with the coming of night. Most of the traffic here veered left, toward Bedford Street; Sebastian guided the chestnuts into the narrow opening to the right, then turned a second hard right into an even narrower lane that angled off toward the river.

A heavy odor of age and damp closed in around them. High, sagging walls rose up steeply on either side, cutting off the dim light of the dying day. Most of the shops here were shuttered as well, or simply boarded up, the narrow, nearly deserted footpaths edging a lane of old cobbles half lost in a thick, noisome mud.

“Here, take them,” said Sebastian, passing the reins to his groom. “Keep going, and wait for me at the theater.”

Giles scrambled slack-jawed onto the seat. “My lord?”

“You heard me.”

One hand braced against the high seat iron beside him, Sebastian vaulted lightly to the cobbles. He was aware of heads turning. Ignoring them, he sprinted back to the ironmonger’s that stood on the corner. Beside it, a pile of scrap metal and old timbers blocked the footpath and spilled out into the lane. Sebastian scrambled to the top, the boards creaking and shifting precariously beneath him.

From the street came the passing whirl of a lightly sprung phaeton, mingling with the ponderous rattle of a heavy wagon’s iron-rimmed wheels and the even
clip-clop
of a single approaching horse. Throwing a quick glance toward the bottom of the lane, Sebastian could see his curricle quite clearly, the solitary figure of the blue-coated groom silhouetted against the brick of the ancient Tudor buildings. But for most people the curricle would be a dark blur, the number of men it carried impossible to discern in the gathering darkness.

The clatter of hooves came closer. Sebastian returned his attention to the corner beside him. An old woman walked past, bent nearly double beneath a bundle of what looked like rags.

Sebastian settled himself into a crouch.

A rat, its nose twitching, its eyes shining in the darkness, crept out from beneath the rotting board at Sebastian’s feet just as the brown-coated rider turned the corner. The flickering flambeau thrust into a holder fixed high up on the wall of the building opposite revealed a man with a top hat pulled low on his forehead, his gaze narrowed as he studied the curricle at the bottom of the lane. Sebastian could see the man’s powerfully jutting nose and sweeping side-whiskers, the rest of his face clean shaven and utterly unfamiliar.

The rat squealed in alarm and scampered off, just as Sebastian leapt.

Chapter 34

S
tartled by the sound of the rat’s screech, the rider swung around. His eyes flared wide in alarm, his right arm jerking up instinctively to shield his face and upper body as Sebastian slammed into him.

The impact was enough to unseat the rider. But that blocking sweep of his arm and the shift in the man’s seat deflected Sebastian’s momentum enough that, rather than crashing down with the man on the horse’s far side, Sebastian was flung back. The edge of one of the boards raked his ribs painfully as he fell.

Squealing in terror, the gray reared up between them, its sharp hooves slashing the air. Sebastian scrambled to his feet, dodged the gray’s hooves as the horse reared again. But the brown-coated man was already up. Boots slipping in the mud, he bolted around the corner.

Sebastian tore after him, up a street lined with workshops and small traders closing now for the night. He sidestepped a tailor’s apprentice who turned, a green-painted shutter held in his widespread arms, his mouth forming a silent
O
as Sebastian ran past.

The entrance to an alley yawned ahead. The brown-coated man darted down it, Sebastian hard after him. They were in an old mews, the high, bulging walls propped up by rotting beams that thrust out to trip the unwary, the former yards filled now with a hodgepodge of illegal shacks and grim hovels. A group of ragged children playing with a hoop shouted as they dashed past. One little boy of no more then five or six, his face smeared with filth, ran after them, calling to them and laughing until he could keep up no longer and fell away.

For a moment Sebastian thought the man had misjudged and trapped himself in a cul-de-sac. Then a black mouth opened up before them and Sebastian saw a low archway where the upper stories of the houses on either side of what had once been a narrow lane had extended out to swallow the sky, leaving only a dark tunnel beneath.

Plunging into a shadowy darkness of recessed doorways and sharp corners where a man might lie in wait, Sebastian was forced to slow his pace, listening always for the slap of running feet, the sawing of labored breath up ahead. Then the traboule opened up and he found himself in a courtyard of what must once have been a fine coaching in, its ground floor now filled with dilapidated workshops overhung by rented rooms where ragged laundry hung limp and the still evening air trapped the scent of frying onions and burning dung.

Leaping a puddle left by the previous day’s rain, Sebastian ran on. Two women taking down the laundry paused to stare; an old man filling a clay pipe called out something lost in the din. Sebastian followed his quarry through the arch and down a narrow passageway between two brown brick buildings. Then the pale glow of lamplight shone up ahead and the passageway emptied out into a wide, busy thoroughfare that Sebastian realized must be the Strand.

The man ahead of him was breathing heavily now, stumbling as he dodged between a hackney and a ponderous old landau sporting a faded crest. Two men on the far footpath, their red waistcoats and blue coats marking them as men from the Bow Street Patrol, turned and shouted.

Brown Coat’s head snapped around, his open mouth sucking in air, his eyes going wide. Abandoning the busy, lamplit expanse of the Strand, he careered around the nearest corner, heading now toward the river.

The streets were newer here and straight, the chance of running into a trap diminished. Lungs aching, his breath coming hard and fast, Sebastian pushed himself on. They were halfway across the open square of Hungerford Market when Sebastian caught him.

Reaching out, Sebastian closed his hand on the man’s shoulder and spun him around. They lost their balance together, the man pulling back, Sebastian practically running over him as, legs tangling, they sprawled across the pavement.

Brown Coat’s back hit the ground hard, driving the wind out of him. “Who are you?” Sebastian demanded. The man heaved up against him once, then lay still, panting, his face ashen with pain.

“Damn you.” Sebastian closed his fist on the cloth of the man’s coat to draw him up, then slam him back down again. “Who set you after me?”

A heavy hand fell on Sebastian’s shoulder, jerking him up. “There, there now, me lads,” said a gruff voice. “What’s all this, then?”

Chapter 35

H
is hold on Brown Coat broken, Sebastian found himself staring into the broad, whiskered face of one of the men from the Bow Street Patrol.

Sebastian shook his head to fling the sweat from his eyes. “Bloody hell.”

“Now then, let’s have none of that,” chided the second Bow Street man, grabbing Sebastian’s other arm.

Scuttling backward, Brown Coat scrambled to his feet and took off at a run.

“You stupid sons of bitches,” swore Sebastian, bringing his arm back to drive his elbow, hard, into the plump red waistcoat of the first man who’d grabbed him.

Air gusting out of a painfully pursed mouth, the Runner let go of Sebastian and hunched forward, his hands pressed to his gut.

“I say,” began the other Runner, just as Sebastian drove his fist into the man’s face and wrenched his left arm free.

By now, Brown Coat had made it to the end of the market. Sebastian pelted after him, the shriek of the Bow Street men’s whistles cutting through the night.

Up ahead, he could see the wide-open expanse of the Thames. The riverbank here had been built up into a stone-faced terrace fronted by a low wall. Dodging across the open space, Brown Coat leapt up onto the flat top of the wall, meaning perhaps to avoid the traffic clogging the street fronting the river by running along the wall to the top of the steps.

But the wall was old, the weathered stone damp and crumbling. His feet shot out from beneath him. For a moment the man wavered, his arms windmilling through the air as he sought to regain his balance. With a sharp cry, he toppled backward.

There was a dull thump. Then all was silent except for the insistent blowing of the Runners’ whistles and the lapping of the water at the river’s edge.

Leaning his outstretched arms against the top of the wall, Sebastian hung his head and gasped for breath. On the rocks far below, the man lay sprawled on his back, his arms outflung, his eyes wide and unseeing.

“Bloody hell,” said Sebastian, and pushed away from the wall to swipe one muddy forearm across his sweat-drenched forehead.

“I
F YOUR MAIN PURPOSE
was to find out who he is,” said Sir Henry Lovejoy, staring down at the body at their feet, “then why did you kill him?”

Sebastian grunted. “I didn’t kill him. He fell.”

“Yes, of course.” Moving gingerly across the wet rocks, Lovejoy hunkered down beside the man’s still form and peered at the upturned face, ashen now in the moonlight. “Do you know who he is?”

“No. Do you?”

The little magistrate shook his head. “Any idea why he was following you?”

“I was hoping you might be able to help me discover that.”

Lovejoy threw him a pained look and stood up. “Have you seen this morning’s papers?”

“No. Why?”

Even though he had not touched the body, the little magistrate drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hands. “A park woman found a body in St. James’s Park. Just before dawn.”

A wind had kicked up and set a series of small waves to lapping against the rocks at their feet. The air was thick with the smell of the river and mud and ever-pervasive stench of sewage. Sebastian stared out at the dark hull of a wherry cutting through the dark water. In a city crowded with courtesans and prostitutes, the park women were the lowest of the low, pitiful creatures so disfigured by disease that they could only ply their trade in the dark, usually in one of the city’s parks.

“Is that so unusual?” said Sebastian.

“It is when the body in question has been butchered.” Lovejoy stuffed his handkerchief back in his pocket. In the pale moonlight, his face looked nearly as pallid as the corpse at their feet. “I mean that literally. Carved up like a side of beef.”

“Who was he? Do you know?”

Lovejoy nodded for the constables to remove the body and turned away. “That’s one of the more troublesome aspects. He was Sir Humphrey Carmichael’s eldest son. A young man of but twenty-five.”

Sir Humphrey Carmichael was one of the wealthiest men in the city. Born the son of a weaver, he now had a hand in everything from manufacturing and banking to mining and shipping. Until his son’s murderer was caught, the city’s constables and magistrates would be expected to concentrate on nothing else.

“Incidentally, one of the Bow Street men is talking about laying charges,” Lovejoy said, climbing the steps. “You broke his nose.”

“He ripped my coat.”

Lovejoy turned to run an eye over Sebastian’s exquisitely tailored coat of Bath superfine, now muddied and scuffed beyond repair. A faint smile played about one corner of the magistrate’s normally tense mouth. “I’ll tell him that.”

Chapter 36

“W
hat happened to you this time?” asked Kat, her gaze meeting Sebastian’s in her dressing room mirror. The curtain had only just come down on the final act; around them, the theater rang with shouts and laughter and the tramp of feet hurrying up and down the passage.

Sebastian dropped the paper-wrapped parcel containing the green satin gown on her couch and dabbed the back of his hand at the blood trickling down his cheek from a graze. “I was coming to see what you could tell me about this evening gown when I decided to stop and have a little wresting match in the mud.”

She gave him a look that spoke of concern and exasperation and amusement, all carefully held in check. Removing Cleopatra’s gilded diadem from her forehead, she pushed back her chair and went to unwrap the gown. In the golden lamplight, the satin shimmered.

“It’s exquisite,” she said, turning to hold the gown up to the lamplight. “Dashing, but not outrageously so. It looks like something that would be made for a young nobleman’s wife. A lady several years past her first season, perhaps, but still young.”

She glanced over at him. “Surely the woman who delivered the note for the Prince couldn’t have been wearing an identical gown?”

Sebastian stripped off his muddy coat. Not even a valet of Sedlow’s genius would be able to repair these ravages. “I doubt it. Probably a gown of a similar cut and hue. A female might have noticed the difference, but not most men.” Sebastian surveyed the damage done to his waistcoat. It was as ruined as his coat. “Whoever she was, she obviously had a hand in the Marchioness’s death.”

“Not necessarily. I know dozens of actresses more than capable of giving a very credible performance as a lady. The killer could simply have hired someone.”

“Perhaps. But it seems a risky thing to have done.”

Kat turned the gown inside out to inspect the seams. “Look at these tiny stitches. There aren’t many mantua makers in Town capable of producing work of this quality.”