The Daredevil Snared

by Stephanie Laurens

  Diccon heaved a disconsolate sigh. “I wish I could run away, but Dubois said that if’n I ain’t back by sundown every day, he’ll kill two of me mates.” The boy’s face paled. “So I don’t even dare be late back. He’s a devil, Dubois is.”

  “You believe him?” Phillipe asked the question gently.

  Diccon looked him in the eye. “We all believe Dubois’s threats. Even Mr. Hillsythe. He says Dubois is one of those villains who enjoys killing, and that we none of us should ever doubt he’ll do exactly what he says.”

  Caleb caught Phillipe’s eye. Hillsythe was Wolverstone’s man. If that was his assessment of Dubois, they’d be well advised to pay it due heed. “All right.” Caleb returned his gaze to Diccon. “I think it’s time we took a look at this camp—but first...” As he rose, he glanced at the assembled men, then he looked back at Diccon. “We need to find a place to camp that’s close enough to the mine for us to keep watch and study it, but far enough away that no one from the camp is likely to stumble across us. I thought perhaps somewhere along that path to the north—the one no one uses.”

  Diccon nodded. “I know just the place. There’s a good-sized clearing a little way down that track.”

  Caleb laid a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Can we get to it without going closer to the camp?”

  “O’ course—I can lead you.” Diccon’s happy grin returned, and he swiped up his basket. “I know all the places round about. I can go where I like around the camp, and the berries and fruit and nut trees grow everywhere.”

  “Is it likely anyone from the camp might hear us?” Phillipe asked.

  “Nah.” As Caleb let his hand fall from Diccon’s shoulder, the boy turned and beckoned. “We’re still well out, and the trees and leaves and all keep sound in. You often can’t hear someone until they’re quite close.”

  Caleb signaled to his men to follow and, with Phillipe on his heels, fell in behind Diccon.

  When they reached the path from Kale’s camp, Diccon beckoned them onward. “I’ll take you through the jungle and around until we hit the other path.”

  He proved as good as his word, leading them unerringly on a tacking course around jungle trees and more dense pockets of vegetation. He waved them to caution as they approached another path. When Caleb put a hand on Diccon’s shoulder and leaned down to breathe in his ear “What?” the boy tipped his head back and whispered, “This is the northwest path they use to drop off the diamonds and go to Freetown. I don’t think they’ll be on their way back yet, but...”

  Caleb released his shoulder with a pat. “Good lad. Always play safe.”

  They crept to the edge of the path and strained their ears, but heard nothing. Swiftly, they crossed over the beaten track and plunged back into the jungle. Ten yards on, Caleb glanced back and could see nothing but jungle foliage. Finding a guide had been a stroke of luck. Without Diccon to lead them, they would have been stumbling around—very possibly into the mercenaries’ clutches.

  But Fate had smiled and sent the boy to them.

  When they came upon the next path, Diccon walked confidently on to it. “That place I told you about—the nice clearing—is just along here.” He led them down what was clearly a very much less well-traveled track. There were small saplings springing up, and vines laced across the path. Phillipe muttered, then told the men to work on keeping their passing as undetectable as possible. So they avoided the saplings and ducked under the vines, all of which Diccon whisked light-footed around.

  Then he turned off the path onto a narrow animal track. Fifteen yards on, it descended into a clearing that—as Diccon had promised—was perfect for their needs. Big enough to comfortably house all of them and with a tiny stream trickling past on one side.

  “Here you go.” Grinning, the boy spun, holding his arms wide.

  Caleb grinned back. “Thank you—this is just what we need.”

  Phillipe smiled at Diccon and patted his shoulder as he passed. “You’re an excellent scout, my friend.”

  The other men made approving noises as they filed into the space.

  Diccon positively glowed.

  It took only a moment for Caleb and Phillipe to organize the establishment of their camp, then, summoning their quartermasters—Caleb’s Quilley and Phillipe’s Ducasse—they presented themselves before Diccon.

  The boy looked at them expectantly.

  “First question,” Caleb said. “Have you got enough fruit in your basket to satisfy the cook?”

  Diccon lifted the floppy basket, opened it, and examined the pile of fruit inside. “Almost.” He looked up and around, then pointed to a small tree with dangling yellow fruit. “If I got some more of those, I’d have enough.”

  Two captains and two quartermasters dutifully gathered several handfuls of the ripe fruit.

  Diccon smiled as they filled his basket, then he clamped the handles together and looked at Caleb. “More than enough.”

  “Excellent. What we need next,” Caleb said, “is for you to lead us to a place where we can see into the camp, all without alerting any guards. Do you know of such a spot?”

  Diccon snapped off a salute. “I know just the place, Capt’n.” He’d heard Caleb’s men using his rank.

  “In that case”—Caleb gestured toward where he assumed the mine must be—“lead on.”

  Diccon did. He lived up to their expectations, leading them first along the disused path again, then cutting left into the untrammeled jungle. He looked back at Caleb and whispered, “This will be safest. We’re moving away from the other paths and into the space between that northward path and the one leading to the lake. The mercenaries take some of the men to the lake to fetch water every day, but they do that in the morning. There shouldn’t be anyone at the lake now.”

  Caleb nodded, and they forged on, increasingly slowly as Diccon took the order to be careful to heart.

  Eventually, he halted behind a clump of palms. Using hand signals, he intimated that they should crouch down and be extra careful while following him on to the next concealing clump.

  Then he slipped like an eel through the shadows.

  Caleb followed and instantly saw why Diccon had urged extra caution. The compound’s palisade lay ten yards away, separated from the jungle by a beaten, well-maintained perimeter clearing—a cleared space to ensure no one could approach the palisade under cover. The compound’s double gates were five yards to their right. And the gates stood wide open with two armed guards slouched against the posts on either side. Both guards’ attention was fixed on the activity inside the camp, but any untoward noise would alert them.

  Given the gates were propped open, Caleb surmised that the real purpose of the guards—and, indeed, the fence, the gates, and the guard tower in the middle of the compound—was to keep people in; the mercenaries had grown sufficiently complacent that they didn’t expect any threat to emerge from the jungle.

  Well and good.

  They watched in silence for more than half an hour. Caleb noticed that heavily armed guards appeared to be patrolling randomly through the compound, but the attitude of all the mercenaries was transparently one of supreme boredom. They were very far from alert; the impression they gave was that they were perfectly sure there would be no challenge to their authority.

  Against that, however, he saw some of the captives—he had no idea which ones, but both male and female—walking freely back and forth. More, some met and stopped to chat, apparently without attracting the attention of the guards.

  Curious.

  Then he noticed Diccon peering up at the sky. The sun was angling from the west. Remembering the boy’s concern over returning in good time, Caleb tapped him on the shoulder, caught Phillipe and the other men’s eyes, then tipped his head back, into the relative safety of the area behind them.

  Diccon retreated
first. One by one, the rest of them followed.

  They gathered again well out of hearing of the guards on the gates. Caleb dropped his hand on Diccon’s shoulder and met the boy’s gaze. “Thank you for all your help. Now, we have to tread warily. Who is the person you trust most inside the camp?”

  “Miss Katherine.”

  Caleb blinked. He’d expected the boy to name one of the men, but his answer had come so rapidly and definitely that there was no real way to argue with his choice. Slowly, Caleb nodded. “Very well. I want you to tell Miss Katherine all we’ve told you. Can you remember the important bits?”

  Diccon nodded eagerly. “I remember everything. I’m good like that.”

  Caleb had to grin. “Excellent. So tell Miss Katherine, but no one else, and see what she says. Then tomorrow, when you come out, go and look for fruit in this area—between our camp and the lake. Behave as you usually do and gather fruit, and we’ll come and find you. We’ll be waiting to hear what Miss Katherine, and any others she thinks fit to tell, say.”

  Diccon’s face brightened. “So I’m like...what is it? A courier?”

  “Exactly.” Phillipe smiled at the boy. “But remember—the mark of a good courier is that he tells only those he’s supposed to tell. Not a word of this to anyone else, all right?”

  Diccon nodded. “Mum’s the word, except for Miss Katherine.”

  “Good.” Caleb released the boy. “I would suggest you circle around and come in from some other direction.”

  “I’ll go to the lake and walk in from there—that way, if you keep watching, you’ll see where that path comes out a-ways to the left.”

  Caleb’s approving smile was entirely genuine. “You’re taking to this like a duck to water.” He nodded in farewell. “Off you go, then.”

  With a brisk salute and a grin for them all, Diccon melted into the jungle; in seconds, they’d lost sight of him.

  “He is very good.” Phillipe turned toward the gates. “But I’ll feel happier when he’s back inside where he belongs.” He waved toward their previous hideaway. “Shall we?”

  They returned to the spot. Five minutes later, Diccon appeared out of the jungle to their left. He passed their position without a glance and, basket swinging, all but skipped back through the gates. He headed to the right, vanishing into an area of the compound that from their position they had no view of.

  Caleb consulted his memory. “He must have gone to deliver his haul to the cook—he said the kitchen was that way.”

  He’d barely breathed the words. Phillipe merely nodded in reply.

  Sure enough, ten minutes later, they saw Diccon, no longer carrying the basket, cross the area inside the gates, right to left. He appeared to be scanning the far left quadrant of the compound—but then he whirled as if responding to a hail from somewhere out of their sight to the right.

  Even from where they crouched, they saw his face light up. Diccon all but jigged on the spot, clearly waiting...

  A young woman appeared. Brown haired, pale skinned, she moved with a grace that marked her as well bred. Smiling, she came up to Diccon and held out her hands. Diccon readily placed his hands in hers, all but wriggling with impatience and excitement.

  Closing her hands about the boy’s, her gaze on his face, the woman crouched as Caleb had done.

  Immediately, the boy started talking, although from the way the woman leaned toward him, he was keeping his voice down.

  “Miss Katherine, obviously.” Caleb scanned all of the area around the pair that he could see, but there were no guards or, indeed, anyone else close enough to hear the exchange.

  As Diccon poured out his news, Caleb saw the woman—younger than he’d expected by more than a decade; he’d had no idea a governess could be that young—start to tense. Clearly, she’d realized the import of what the boy was telling her—and she believed his tale.

  That last was verified when she glanced out of the gates—not directly at them but in their direction.

  Immediately, she caught herself and refocused on Diccon again.

  But Caleb had seen that look, had caught her expression. However fleeting, that look had been a visual cry for help that had also held a flaring of something even more precious—hope.

  By some trick of the light, of that moment in eternity, he’d felt that hope—fragile, but real—reaching out to him, something so indescribably precious he’d instinctively wanted to grasp it. To hold and protect it.

  Then she’d clamped down on the emotion, but he no longer harbored the slightest concern that the adults in the camp wouldn’t believe Diccon’s tale. She—Miss Katherine—did, and even though Caleb had yet to exchange so much as a word with her, he felt certain a woman brave enough to stand up to a mercenary captain in order to save an urchin’s life would have the backbone to carry her point with the English officers in the camp.

  Diccon finished his tale. Her gaze fixed firmly on his face, Miss Katherine slowly rose to her feet. Then she released one of his hands, but retained her clasp on the other. Drawing him around, she set off with a purposeful stride, heading in the direction of the mine. In just a few paces, she and Diccon had passed out of their sight.

  They continued to watch for several minutes, but no alarm was raised, and there was nothing of particular interest to see.

  Caleb frowned. He leaned toward Phillipe and whispered, “We need to see into the compound—we need a much more comprehensive view.”

  “I was thinking the same, and it just so happens”—without raising his arm, Phillipe pointed, directing Caleb’s gaze upward—“the compound is nestled into a curve in the hillside, and if you look very closely just there...”

  Caleb looked. His eyes were accustomed to reading ships’ flags at considerable distance; he quickly picked out the rock formation Phillipe had spied. “Perfect.” Caleb grinned. He glanced back at Quilley and Ducasse. “We’ve plenty of time before the light fades to find our way to that shelf.”

  They did and discovered it to be the perfect vantage point from which to survey the compound. The rock shelf was wide enough for all four of them to sit comfortably, sufficiently back from the edge that the shifting leaves of trees growing up from below screened them from anyone on the ground. They spent another half hour observing the movements of the guards and the captives, thus confirming and acquainting themselves with the uses of the different structures in the compound. Diccon had given them an excellent orientation, but it seemed that most of the adult males were down in the mine and not presently available to be viewed.

  There was a large circular fire pit in the space between the entrance to the mine, the barrack-like building that from Diccon’s description was the men’s sleeping quarters, and the large central barracks that housed the mercenaries. Ringed with logs for seats, the fire pit was situated well away from all three structures. A small fire burned at the pit’s center, doubtless more for light and the comfort imparted by the leaping flames than for warmth, and the women were already gathering about it. Miss Katherine sat with five others, but from the relaxed postures of the other women, she had not—yet—shared Diccon’s news. Instead, she glanced frequently toward the entrance to the mine.

  “She’s waiting for the men to join them,” Phillipe said. “She’s waiting to tell whoever’s in charge.”

  Caleb nodded. “I wish we could stay and identify who that is, but we should get down and back to our camp before night falls.”

  Night in the jungle was the definition of black; scrambling about on an unfamiliar hillside above an encampment of hostile armed mercenaries in the dark would be the definition of irresponsible.

  Phillipe pulled a face, but nodded, and the four of them rose and scrambled back onto the animal track along which they’d climbed up. Once they reached the jungle floor, despite the fading light, they skirted wide through the deepening shadows
. Giving the open gates of the compound and the well-armed guards a wide berth, they made their way back to their camp.

  CHAPTER 4

  The next morning, Caleb, Phillipe, and two of Caleb’s men, Ellis and Norton, returned to the rock shelf as soon as it was light. Light enough to see their way, and light enough to observe the activity in the compound.

  Caleb settled on the granite shelf. “Let’s see if we can establish their routine.” From the pocket of his lightweight breeches, he drew out a pencil and a small notebook.

  Phillipe, not an early riser, grunted. But he sank down beside Caleb, drew up his knees, rested his chin upon them, and focused his heavy-lidded gaze on the compound far below.

  Over the course of the next hours, they watched the camp come awake. The guards changed at six o’clock. Shortly after, the captives straggled out of the barrack-like huts in which they’d slept and tended to their ablutions in the lean-tos built against the sides. Some hung laundry on lines strung at the rear of the long huts. Eventually, each crossed to the awning-covered open-air kitchen on the opposite side of the compound to the mine to fetch their breakfast, then carried their plate and mug back to the large fire pit and settled on the logs to eat.

  The mercenaries also breakfasted, in their case under another palm-thatched awning erected in front of the guard tower, close by the kitchen. From their position on the rock shelf above and to the rear of the compound, Caleb and his men could get no clear view of the mercenaries as they broke their fast.

  Caleb grunted. “I would have liked to get a look at this Dubois and his lieutenants.” They all knew that the mercenaries they’d seen thus far were followers, not leaders.

  In contrast, they were fairly certain who among the male captives were the leaders—the officers.

  “That’s Hopkins—the one just joining the other three.” Caleb focused on the four men who sat together at the side of the fire pit closest to the mine. “I met his sister in Southampton. They share that same odd-colored hair.”