The Emperor's assassin moabsr-2

by T. F. Banks

  “If ye be the king's men, our justice of the peace'll want ye. He's zent for. There be zummut that ye best look on.”

  They would be no more specific. Humphrey went ahead on horseback, leading the carriage with the Bow Street men and their companion away from the high road and along a narrow, deeply shadowed lane overgrown on both sides by furze bushes and straggling hedgerows of thorn and briar. The way was pitted and eroded by the floods of other seasons, and their wheels rocked perilously as they jounced over it; but then the way became smoother, gravel crunching beneath the iron-shod feet of their team and beneath the wheels. Someone had repaired the lane out of sight of the main road.

  Below a low stone bridge, invisible water muttered and rattled endlessly in a rocky bed. Once there came the shrill cry of a plover out of the surrounding obscurity. Then silence again, and the rank perfume of midsummer heather hanging oppressively in the muggy air.

  At length the path seemed just to peter out. Their yellow lamps cast a sulphurous glow over an unkemptyard, filled with dim forms: a broken rick and other decayed and half-seen things-rusting spade, scythe handle, a heap of shattered crockery-all overrun with knapweed.

  They found a decrepit barn, newly thatched, set back in a grove of scraggy trees that clung to the hillside. As the London men and their guide approached, a dark form detached itself and moved toward them.

  “Lemuel?”

  “Here, Maister Albright.”

  A gaunt young man came into the light, a musket at port. From the familiar way he held it, Morton guessed him to be a discharged soldier.

  “Zir Godfrey's not come?”

  “Been, and 's gone to Ashburton for the crowner and some other volk. Come again anon, 'a zays.”

  “Nought's stirred here?”

  Lemuel's beardless lips formed a slight sardonic smile. “Nay,” he replied, “nor like to, 'll guess.”

  Albright grimaced and gestured for the visitors to come in. As he followed, Morton's chest tightened, and he tried to prepare himself. But something about the wretchedness of this place, perched on the margins of the barren moor, something in the grim air of the men, and an indescribable charge of anxiety that seemed to hang unreleased in the very boughs of the stunted trees and in the eerily still ghost-forms of shrubbery on either side of the path, all combined to fill his fatigued mind with a deeper dread, a feeling shapeless and uncanny.

  A little wave of almost panicky resistance coursed through him, and he badly wanted not to have to go into this barn, not to confront what was there. For a moment it seemed almost to take hold of his body, to be physically impeding him, and it was an enormous struggle to place one foot ahead of the other. But leadenly, doggedly, he continued to walk.

  Humphrey Albright was the first through the low, wide door that already stood open. Morton went next, breathing deep. The barn was open, large, the light not strong enough to banish all the shadows. But there was no hay here, and any stalls or pens had been torn out. The floor was stacked with small four-gallon barrels, and boxes of all sizes, many marked with writing in French.

  “A smugglers' den,” Presley said. “Out here!”

  “Not zo var vrom Tor Bay, Teignmouth, and Dalish,” the other man said, then reached up to hang his lantern on a beam hook, illuminating a hellish tableau.

  Morton registered the blood first. Darkened blood everywhere, splashed, smeared, drabbled across the rough stone floor. But there were other things. Grey stuff spilled across the stones, viscous, amidst which were scraps of white, glistening in the lamplight. A man's brains, and bits of his broken skull. And then the man himself, on the floor. Beyond an overturned plank table a second man, partly hidden from Morton's view.

  Somehow, now that he actually had the thing before him, Henry Morton was better able to control his emotions. The worst, the horrible foreboding, seemed to pass, after one light-headed moment. For Jimmy Presley it was otherwise, and with a choking gasp, he abruptly turned and blundered back out. A moment later, through the narrow, broken window, they heard him bellow-a strange, half-throttled cry of protest and horror and shock. Then he fell silent. Albright nodded his head slowly, looking down. Beside him Westcott was impassive. It occurred rather disconnectedly to Morton that he must have seen worse on the decks of His Majesty's warships.

  No. As bad perhaps. Not worse.

  But it also flickered through his mind that these sailors were hard men. Harder than one might other wise have supposed.

  In fact, it was Westcott who spoke. “Who was he?”

  “Him? Don't know. The other's a foreign cove,” mur mured Albright. “Lived here some zeven year now, by himself. Gervais, by name.”

  Morton stepped over the corpse to gain a better view of the second body. A man of good size and strong build-nearly sixty, Morton guessed. He had what appeared to be two wounds-one in his chest, the other in the brow just above his eye.

  “Master Gervais was shot,” Morton told the others.

  Stepping away, he bent again to have a closer look at the other man. He had been large, bigger than Morton. As he grew more steady, the Runner noticed more. There seemed to be a single wound to the man's skull, though it had caused enormous damage-a testament to the force behind it.

  “Is that Boulot, Morton?” Westcott asked.

  “No.” Morton noticed something beneath the man's torn sleeve. “This man has a dressing on his forearm. I would venture he is the same man d'Auvraye's Mrs. Barkling wounded with a cleaver.” He bent forward and pulled open the man's mouth a little more, repelled by the feel of cold lifeless flesh. “He fits the description- even the bad teeth.”

  “Well, that's one saved from the hangman,” Westcott said softly. “Here's the weapon.”

  Morton rose to find Westcott holding a greatcoat pistol.

  “It hasn't been fired!” the navy man said. “And look at this.” He handed it butt first to Morton, who found a scar across the top of the octagonal barrel, as though it had been struck by a sharp object or considerable weight. The scar cut through the maker's name: Twigg.

  “I've seen this pistol before-or rather another just like it. D'Auvraye's murderer dropped one in the entry of the count's house in Barnes.”

  “Here's what did for the murderer, then.” Westcott bent over a pile of packing straw and retrieved a hand axe, bloodied, its handle broken off just below the head.

  “Leave it as it lies,” Morton told them. “The coroner will want to see it.”

  Westcott eyed him from across the field of carnage. “Who killed these men? Boulot?”

  “If these are the men who killed the Count d'Au-vraye, as I suspect they are, then it makes little sense that Bonapartists killed them. But who, then, is Boulot traveling with? Let's out.”

  In the open again, gratefully breathing the fresh night air, they wandered from the yard, through an overgrown paddock, and stood together a moment, mute, looking sightlessly out into the darkness. Morton wordlessly offered Westcott a cheroot, and they lit them from the lantern, while Humphrey Albright pulled a briar pipe from his pocket.

  In the lantern light Morton opened his pocket watch: almost five. There was a hint of pewter in the eastern sky, he thought.

  A few moments later Presley came up, white-faced.

  “Morton amp;” he began, hollowly.

  “Nay, Jimmy.” Morton waved his apology away, the red tip of his cigar tracing a short arc in the night. Presley bent his head for a moment, then looked up again. His voice was still unsteady.

  “I've never seen a man with his brains spilled out like that. Every thought he ever had, every memory, spread out on the stone…”

  The farmer made a low, sympathetic noise in his throat, and Westcott blew smoke reflectively into the dark air.

  Morton asked, “Who found them?”

  Albright nodded. “ 'Twas a boy named Parsons, as brought Gervais potatoes and cabbages vrom the varm over the way. That were early this even. As he comes over the vield, the boy zees a carriage going down the la
ne to the road. These Vrenchmen must have ztolen it zomewhere.”

  “How did the boy know they were French?”

  “This man here be Vrench, and a smuggler, sure. Mayhap he won't carry them over t' Channel.” The Devon man shrugged. “ 'Tis Vrenchmen be missing from Princetown.”

  “This crime wasn't committed by some escaped French soldiers. When you find them, remember that. This was done by men who believe that entire nations are at stake and that individual lives count for nothing. We've no time to await Sir Godfrey but will send word back if we learn anything that bears upon this.” Morton motioned toward the barn; then the three London men climbed aboard the carriage and set off down the shadowy lane.

  Presley and Morton went back up onto the driver's bench, manoeuvring them back onto the highway to Plymouth. Morton set the horses to a good pace, realising that the carriage carrying Boulot had gained much time on them. Exhaustion and anxiety both preyed on him now. Angelique Desmarches, the Count d'Auvraye, his manservant, and now these two out on the lonely moor. Five deaths. The first involving torture; the count and his servant cold, quick, calculated. Almost certainly revenge. The brutal murders he had just seen-and these too were likely revenge for the murder of the count. But then who had abducted Boulot? Why would Bonapartists kill the man who had murdered the count? Perhaps the supporters of Bonaparte were making war amongst themselves, though for what reason he could not imagine.

  Whoever was aboard the berlin, one thing was cer-tain-they did not hesitate. The murders in the barn were not crimes of passion, to be regretted later. These men would not go to their confessors and repent. Murder was nothing to them-the man who had wielded the axe would have split wood with the same dispassion.

  “Jimmy?”

  “Aye, Morton.”

  “When we catch these murderers up, remember, they'll kill you if they can. Don't forget what you saw in that barn. These are not men who will give themselves over to justice when they are finally caught. They have never known pity or remorse. And we cannot indulge them either.”

  Presley nodded. “Aye, Morton. I've my pistols ready.”

  “Pistols are ever unreliable. But our nerve-when it falters, we are lost.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Ilchester appeared where and when Darley had predicted, and the driver made his way toward the coaching inn. As they passed into the yard, however, the stench of charred wood assailed their nostrils, and a terrible sight greeted their eyes.

  “What a fire they have had!” Darley said.

  The driver brought the coach up before the inn's doors, a crowd of gawkers moving slowly aside.

  Darley handed Arabella down from the carriage, and they stood gazing at the blackened mass, the burnt remains of beams and posts jutting out at odd angles, the slate roof collapsed, its back twisted and broken. Smoke still spiralled up in thin plumes here and there, and a few young men with buckets picked their way through the half-fallen building, dousing any places where the fire threatened to rise up again.

  “It is a miracle the whole inn was not lost,” Darley said.

  A woman standing nearby turned to them and said, “It is a miracle, sir, but God sent rain and the fire was quelched.”

  “Quenched,” Arabella corrected her. “But thank the Lord, all the same.”

  “How did it start?” Darley enquired.

  The woman, who was exceptionally pious-looking, turned to them. “'Twas the Bow Street men chasing some poor men for the reward money as did it. Set the hay afire with the flash from their pistols. Poor Mr. Berry will have them to court, he will. Lost half his stable of horses, and men were burned and laid low with smoke fighting the fire.”

  “Bow Street?” Arabella said, turning on the woman, whom she towered over. “When was this?”

  “Last night, ma'am.”

  “Were they hurt? The Bow Street men?”

  “I'm sorry to say they weren't, ma'am. They went off after the men they were chasing lest their rewards get away. Didn't stay to help quelch the fire they started.”

  Arabella and Darley looked at each other. “Can we get horses here?” Darley wondered.

  The woman shook her head. “Mr. Berry's doing his best, sir. You'd best talk to him.”

  More careful enquiries assured them that indeed men claiming to be from Bow Street had been there, and everyone thought they'd started the fire in the stables, where shots had been fired.

  Arabella was sure that only Darley could have found fresh horses in such a situation, for they were back on the road and pressing on in little more than an hour.

  After Arabella's unexpected visit from Honoria d'Auvraye, she and Darley had gone looking for Morton. Mr. Townsend told them that Morton and Presley had stopped at Bow Street for firearms earlier in the evening, but no one had seen them since.

  After that they had retreated to Morton's rooms to wait. A concerned Wilkes hovered over them, bringing cafe au lait and dainty cakes. Mr. Townsend had finally arrived saying that a note had come from Morton for Sir Nathaniel. Morton and Presley had gone with Captain Westcott in pursuit of supporters of Bonaparte who were suspected of murder. They had set out down the Great West Road that very night.

  Darley had hesitated only a moment, then proposed they set out in pursuit.

  “But where are they going?” Arabella had asked.

  “Where is Bonaparte?” Darley had answered.

  “Plymouth, as you know very well.”

  “Then that is where we will go, too, for there we shall find Mr. Morton.”

  CHAPTER 30

  It was early afternoon when they finally reached Plymouth, and as he climbed stiffly from the coach, Henry Morton could smell the sea, heavy with the dull reek of fish. But he could see nothing. A thick wall of white fog hung before them, immense and motionless and uncanny in the cool, still air.

  In the last miles of their journey they had had a horse go lame and had limped into the town, tradesmen's carts fairly flying past. But then they were rewarded. In the courtyard of the inn where they brought their post horses, casually parked amongst the other vehicles, stood their quarry. The phantom berlin they had been chasing across the English countryside was empty, however, its team gone, its dark shape hunched spiderlike in the blur. Morton crossed the yard to be sure of what he saw.

  After looking into the deserted compartment, his eye was caught by something on the door. Scooping up a handful of hay, he wiped away some of the caked grey dirt, revealing a painted line. Scrubbing harder-one would almost think the grime had been plastered on de-liberately-he gradually revealed the whole design. A coat of arms. Westcott and Presley appeared to either side of him.

  “Where did this lot get hold of a carriage like this?” Jimmy wondered. “Some toff's, obviously.”

  Morton peered hard at the crest, the dim gold and blue chevrons, the odd, sketchily rendered little animal. Yes, odd. Like a hedgehog-wasn't that what Wilkes had said? But when you looked closer, maybe a lion, its hind paws together on the ground, forepaws together in the air. A lion salient.

  “Do you recognise these devices, Captain?” Morton asked.

  Westcott stared a moment. “No, I think not. Might they be French?”

  “I think they are, and I have seen them before. It has just taken me a moment to recall where. This same crest was on a letter I received but the other day. It belongs to the Count d'Auvraye.”

  The surprise of his companions hung a moment wordless in the air, then Westcott swore.

  “I am constantly dumbfounded by this matter,” the seaman muttered.

  Presley wiped at his eyes and gave his head a shake. “I thought we were chasing bloody Boulot and some of his Bonapartist friends!”

  “So did I,” Morton said, “but it seems we've got that wrong-like too many things.”

  Morton turned to Westcott, who still stared at the coat of arms, his look grim and distant.

  “You'd best alert your admiral to what goes on here, Captain. Until we have these folk in hand, they shou
ld not allow Bonaparte out on the deck or anywhere else he might be a target for a sharpshooter.”

  Westcott nodded. “Yes. I'll go down and try to see Keith immediately. He's likely to think me an alarmist, but I shall suffer that if need be.” He turned his measuring gaze to Morton. “And what of you?”

  “We'll begin the search for-”

  “Well, who?” Jimmy interrupted.

  Morton looked back at the berlin. “For Eustache d'Auvraye, or his secretary, Rolles-or both. I cannot say.”

  “Royalists!” said Jimmy, still trying to grasp it.

  “And what charges will you lay at their feet?” Westcott quietly wondered.

  “The abduction of Jean Boulot, to begin. The murder of Napoleon Bonaparte if we are not quick.” Morton turned away from the carriage, looking about as though trying to find a place to begin. “Jimmy and I will ask about here and see what we might learn. Then we'll go down to the quay. They will need a boat if they are to assassinate the emperor.”

  Westcott took out his pocket watch and flicked open the silver cover. “Let us meet in three hours' time. There is a public house on the quay called the Blue Pillars. Anyone can direct you.”

  As the navy man strode off into the grey obscurity, Morton and Presley began with the ostler.

  “They arrived early this morn,” the man said. He reached up a finger and stretched the skin taut at the corner of his twitching eye.

  “How many of them?”

  “Three coves; Frenchmen, every one.”

  “And what did they look like, these Frenchmen?” Morton wondered.

  The man closed his eyes tightly and then opened them both, blinking three or four times, the spasm apparently over. “A young French nobleman, all in fancy embroidered clothes. A short little cove who looked after everything-paid the bills and made arrangements. T'other one didn't say anything but to his traveling companions. He was sullen looking-had one of those claret spills on his head.” The man turned back to the harness he was repairing. “Oh, and there was a driver.” He shrugged. “Looked like anyone else, really. Nothing to mark him.”