I looked up-and let go of Denis. Denis fell back into the cellar, but he didn't ask why I'd dropped him, didn't say a word.
Cooper stood above me, blood caking his face and body. He had Denis's pistol, cocked and pointed at me. Where he'd gotten more powder and a bullet, I did not know, but I had no doubt the thing was loaded.
"You did not make it away before the tide," I said, stating the obvious, so Denis would hear and understand.
"I was coming back for ye," Cooper said. "You didn't have to work so hard. You are going to row me out of here, Captain, and he will die."
"Leave the paintings," I said. "And him. I'll take you somewhere safe. I know all the hidden places on this coast. You can go and never see him again."
Below me I saw Denis stop short of rolling his eyes.
"And what would that get me?" Cooper asked.
"Your life."
"You will row me anyway, Captain. With the paintings, after I shoot him."
"And then you'll kill me," I said. "I'll not do it."
"You will. This pistol is loaded and primed for him, but I have a long knife to take care of you if you give me trouble. Or I could do it the other way around. I haven't decided. Bring him out of there. Or I'll shoot you first."
In the cellar, Denis nodded. I reached down for him. He let me pull him out by the arms again, but he used only one hand to assist me. The other was tucked against his chest.
As soon as he got himself onto solid floor, Denis rolled hard away from me and flung a large handful of gunpowder up into Cooper's face. Cooper jerked back, but the powder clung to his face and chest, sticking in the blood all over the right side of his body.
Cooper swung the gun around, but I shouted. "The spark could ignite you, man. Stop!"
As Cooper hesitated in rage and confusion, Denis launched himself up like a cat. He grabbed the pistol from Cooper and slammed the butt of it into Cooper's forehead. Cooper, spent from bleeding and pain, went down.
Cooper groaned, and Denis hit him again. This time Cooper's big body went limp. Denis lifted the man's head, opened his eye, and let the head fall again.
I got myself to Denis and took the pistol from him. I unlocked the hammer and gently closed it before it could spark. "You have gunpowder all over you too," I said.
Denis ignored me. "What the devil did he do with my paintings?"
I had thought Denis would take out his knife and stab Cooper to death then and there, but he left the man on the floor while he went outside into the wind.
I limped across the wrecked floor and found the sword and sheath of my walking stick on opposite sides of room. I retrieved the pieces and slid the blade into the cane, happy that the thing had survived intact. I breathed a sigh of relief as I leaned my weight on it.
Cooper was alive, I knew from his loud breathing. Morgan, on the other hand, was dead.
I walked out of the miller's house to see Denis pull a canvas bag from one of the saddles and take a quick look inside it. The windmill keeper was nowhere about, but I saw that one of the rowboats had gone. Had Waller rushed to the nearest village to bring back a constable? Or fled entirely?
"Morgan is dead," I said.
Denis did not look up. "I know." He closed the bag. "Are you a good oarsman, Lacey?"
"I have not used an ocean craft in years," I said. "Though I rowed on a pond in Oxfordshire this summer and seemed to remember a bit."
Denis did not look in the mood to be amused. "You told Cooper you know all the secret ways around this coast. Were you lying?"
"No."
"Good. You row and tell me where to steer."
He handed me the bag of priceless paintings and went back into the miller's house. He came out with Cooper's body balanced over his shoulders, his slim build in no way bent by Cooper's weight.
Denis walked past me and dumped Cooper into the rowboat. He got into the rocking craft, holding it steady by the line tying it to a lone wooden post sticking out of the water.
I stood for a moment on the bank. I still held the pistol, and I had the paintings. I could shoot Denis there and then, row myself to shore, take the paintings to a magistrate I knew, and return home a virtuous man.
I got into the boat.
Denis took the bag from me, wrapped it well, and stowed it on the bottom. If we foundered, thousands upon thousands of guineas worth of valuable and historic paintings would go down with us.
"I assume you know the difference between port and starboard," I said, unlashing the oars.
"I do."
I cast off, thumped down onto the seat, and started to row. "Hard aport," I said, and we moved.
I rowed west and north, around headlands, past drained marshes, and to an area where little creeks ran everywhere, water and land blending into one. Here, the villages were far inland, and no fishing boats were in sight.
Denis did not want me to pull up in the marshes. He had me row out into deeper water, right into the sea.
I did so with some trepidation. This craft was meant for floating through creeks and rivers or along the shore, not for tossing about on waves. If we went too far, we'd not get back.
When the land was a only wide line on the horizon, Denis had me stop. I shipped the oars, and the boat bobbed heavily on the waves. The sun was sinking far to the west, over the green smudge of Lincolnshire in the distance.
Denis grabbed the unmoving form of Cooper and hauled him to the gunwale. The boat tilted alarmingly. Cooper groaned, and his eyelids fluttered.
"He's alive," I said.
"I know." Denis hooked his hand around the seat of Cooper's pants. "You might want to look to shore, Captain."
I did not think Denis meant to dunk Cooper's head in the water to revive him. I had hoped we'd brought him out here for a good talking to, but Denis's lectures tended to be final. Cooper started to struggle, regaining consciousness but still weak.
"You cannot dump a man overboard and leave him to drown," I said. "That is too cruel, even for you."
"Do you hear, Cooper?" Denis asked. "The captain has compassion."
He took up the pistol I'd left on the bench, heaved Cooper up so that his head was over the water, and stuck the pistol's barrel into the back of Cooper's neck. Cooper dragged his head around to look at me.
What I saw in Cooper's eyes was not terror but rage. He fixed me with a glare of hatred stronger than any I'd ever seen. He was still glaring at me when Denis pulled the trigger.
The gun's boom was deafening. The life abruptly died from Cooper's eyes as half his face vanished into blood.
Denis had arranged the execution so deftly that almost all Cooper's blood sprayed into the water, very little touching the boat. Denis laid down the pistol, caught Cooper's waistband again, and heaved the man into the water. Cooper sank, blood and bubbles in his wake.
Denis took a long breath and stripped off his ruined gloves. I thought he meant to say something to me, but he turned away, bowed his head, and pressed his hands over his face.
Denis sat for a long time-saying nothing, doing nothing. He remained motionless, in silence, while the waves pushed at the boat.
We started to drift too far north. I took up the oars and quietly turned us around, picking a path back to shore.
Eventually, Denis raised his head and caught the tiller. His eyes were as cool as ever, no tears, no redness to betray grief. But the sun was full in my face, doubled by its reflection on the water, and perhaps I could not see.
Denis said nothing at all as we traveled. He steered competently, and we avoided breakers to move smoothly back toward the windmill. I offered to row him closer to Blakeney or Cley, which would give him a short walk over fields to Easton's, but he declined.
"He will wash ashore sooner or later," I said after another long silence.
Denis did not ask me who I meant. "I know." His mouth was a thin line. "If you worry that any accusation will fall on you, do not. Your name will not be involved."