A horseshoe whirled like a discus over Book’s head. It clouted the guard in the face, just above one eyebrow, with an audible crunch. The man dropped as though he had walked slap bang into an invisible wall.
Book glanced round to see River looking very pleased with herself, clapping her hands in glee.
“Nice shot,” he said.
“I love playing horseshoes,” River said. “I was always good at it. Better than Simon.” She picked up another horseshoe from the dust at her feet. It and the one she had thrown must have been just lying around spare. “If he gets up again, I’ll just hit him again.”
“You do that. Where’s Elmira?”
“Who? Oh, her. Yes.” The girl tapped her lips, pondering. “Up there.” She gestured towards a hayloft. “Straw in her hair.”
Book shinned up a stepladder that led to the hayloft. The horses were stamping softly and whinnying in their looseboxes below, disturbed by the uncustomary activities of the humans in the stables. If luck was on Book’s side — or some higher power — the beasts would not become so agitated as to draw the attention of people in the house.
As his head rose above the level of the hayloft floor, he peered cautiously around. There might well be a third guard on duty.
But there was nobody in the hayloft save for a young woman chained to a support post, with a piece of cloth tied tight around her mouth to form a gag. Her clothing was ripped and torn. Her hair was disheveled, and yes, as River had said, there were bits of straw in it, sticking out at all angles like pins from a pincushion. She had bruises and grazes all over, and she looked terrified.
As Book appeared, Elmira Atadema began to writhe and scream, despite the gag. He put a finger to lips and smiled reassuringly.
“I’m not here to hurt you, Elmira,” he said. “I’m here to help.”
Her expression was distrustful but she did calm down somewhat.
“Mika Wong sent me.” Only the slightest distortion of the truth. “My friends and I are going to get you out of here.”
Mention of Wong’s name appeared to settle the matter as far as Elmira was concerned.
Book undid the gag. Elmira worked her jaw to ease the kinks out. The gag had been on so long it had left red welts.
“Who are you?” she croaked.
“All in good time,” Book said. “First order of business: getting these chains off you.”
The chains were secured with a padlock. Book studied it for a moment, then shrugged. It had the simplest kind of lever-and-ward mechanism. He could have opened it in thirty seconds with a paperclip or a hairgrip, but luckily he could do better than that. From his satchel he took out a compact, leather-bound Bible. Concealed within the binding, in a recess beneath a marbled endpaper that could be detached, was a comprehensive set of lockpicks. He selected one that in his judgment matched this brand of padlock and corresponded to the genuine key in length. He inserted it into the slot, feeling its teeth fit snugly against the actuators. He’d gauged right. A single clockwise twist of the wrist, and the padlock’s shackle fell open.
“A Shepherd,” said Elmira, “who can pick a lock?”
“‘And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’” Book said, stowing the lockpick back inside the Bible and the book itself back in his satchel, “‘and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ Matthew chapter sixteen, verse nineteen.”
He unwrapped the chains from around her wrists and helped her to her feet.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
“I think so,” said Elmira.
“Then let’s go. Time is of the essence.”
26
Outside the stable block, Simon Tam was keeping watch. His specialty was medicine, however, not sentry duty. He didn’t see the armed man stealing up on him from around the corner of the stable block. He wasn’t even aware of his presence until the man pounced on him from behind, snaking an arm around his throat. The barrel of a gun dug into Simon’s temple.
“Don’t move,” the man growled, “’less you want your brains spattered all over that there fancy vest of your’n.”
“P — Please don’t shoot,” Simon stammered.
“Don’t give me no excuse to. State your business. Quick about it.”
“I’m — I’m a guest of Hunter Collington’s. Good friend of his. Arrived just this morning. I’m only taking a stroll around, admiring the spread.”
“Hunter who?”
“Your boss. Hunter Collington.”
The man chuckled gratingly. “I have a boss, but his name ain’t Collington. You maybe wanna try that again?”
“Covington!” Simon exclaimed. He could have kicked himself. What a rookie mistake, getting the surname wrong. He just wasn’t cut out for this sort of clandestine stuff. Nothing in his upbringing or education had prepared him for a life of skullduggery and violence. “Slip of the tongue. I meant Covington.”
“A so-called good friend of Mr. Covington’s wouldn’t have gotten his name wrong, pal. I don’t reckon you know him at all. I reckon you’re some kinda spy or somethin’. We’re under orders to be on the lookout for intruders, anyone sneakin’ around looking suspicious. I’d say you fit the bill. Now tell me the truth. You got until the count of three, and then it’s brain surgery by bullet. One. Two…”
River drifted out of the stable block, hands behind her back. “Hey, Simon. Who’s your friend?”
Simon felt the man holding him stiffen in surprise. “Where’d you come from, girl?”
“In there,” River said. “I was just stroking the horses. They have such soft noses, did you know that? Apart from the bristles. And their breath, when they snort, it’s warm on your hand. I like it. It smells of friendliness.”
She took a step towards the man and Simon.
The gun moved from Simon’s head, swiveling towards River. “Best you stay where you are,” the man said to her. “I got plenty of rounds in this thing, and I only need one for the each of you.”
Simon’s breath caught in his throat. With the tiniest twitch of his head, he tried to indicate to River that she should stop moving.
Whether she saw the instruction or not, River halted. She twirled one foot, drawing circles in the dust with the toecap of her boot. The man with the gun looked down at what she was doing. When he looked up again, River had brought both hands out in front of her. The right held a horseshoe. In one blindingly swift action she flung it at the man. It connected with his gun hand, knocking the weapon out of his grasp. Before he was able to collect his wits, River sprang. Simon stumbled aside as River and the man went crashing to the ground. Straddling her opponent’s torso, she rained punches on his face and ribcage in such a rapid flurry that her arms were twin blurs, like the pistons on a locomotive pumping at full speed. The man was utterly unable to defend or deflect. Within seconds River had rendered him unconscious. Still she kept up the barrage of blows, until Simon laid a hand on her shoulder.
“River? You’ve done it. He’s out cold. Keep that up and you might kill him.”
“He was going to kill you,” she said. “And me. Fair’s fair. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a candy for a candy, a penny for your thoughts.”
“Still and all. We don’t kill unless we have to.”
River reflected on this, then smiled brightly. “Okay! That’s a good rule.”
“I like to think so.”
She picked herself up and dusted herself off. “Oh, hi, Shepherd. And straw-in-hair lady.”
Book had just come out of the stable block, one arm around Elmira Atadema to support her. He cast a glance at the man on the ground.