He said, “I left a letter.”
“Inevitably,” the smooth, cold voice beside him said. “The tool turns against its master. Napoleon himself was betrayed by Barras.”
“I named Buchanan. I told them he planted the false evidence and where and how. I named the Frenchmen. And you. I’ve left more than enough proof to hang us all. Josiah’s going to walk free before this day is out and he’ll come looking for vengeance. He won’t come after me, because we were friends, once. But I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”
“I’ve arranged my own protection against Whitby. He won’t touch me.”
“Maybe not.” It didn’t matter. There wasn’t much that mattered to a man after he’d betrayed his friends. He couldn’t even say why he’d done it. The company felt like his own, after all these years. The warehouse and the ships. It hadn’t seemed wrong to do some smuggling on the side and keep it off the books.
It had fallen apart. He’d done treason. He still didn’t know how he’d come to it.
The voice behind him just wouldn’t stop. “The Republic doesn’t forget its heroes. There’s a place prepared for me. I go into honorable exile, and only for a time. When the emperor rides in triumph down Pall Mall, I’ll be one of the men behind him. They’ll need Englishmen to lead the new government. I have experience.”
Pitney heard the cocking of a gun. He allowed himself one final look at the brown water of the Thames and the clean blue sky above it. He turned.
He didn’t want to be shot in the back.
LIMEHOUSE was full of sailors and stevedores of every country and race known to man, most of them rolling drunk, even in the middle of the day. It was a gauntlet she wouldn’t have wanted to run alone.
Belkey’s warehouse was a quarter mile farther on, in Asker Street, in a row of falling-down waterfront warehouses, slated for destruction. Most were empty now or holding bulk storage.
The Reverend kept beside her. His black jacket and white collar cleared a path for them through the sailors and whores. Men respected his cloth or wanted to avoid the sermons men of religion passed out in this part of town. The locals recognized him and knew he was under Lazarus’s protection.
Asker Street, by the docks, was mostly deserted. The Belkey warehouse, halfway along, had been closed up for a year. Grass grew in the spaces between the cobbles of the loading yard. The windows were broken, even up on the third and fourth story. Must have taken weeks for the local lads to throw rocks that high and break out every blessed pane. Nothing like a challenge.
No sign of life. Nobody had made himself at home in that rubble on the far side of the yard or in some cozy corner of the fence. That alone meant somebody stayed here regular to rout the squatters out. Dogs had set up housekeeping, though. There were a dozen of them, mean and hardy and wise, crouching behind the broken boards of the fence. They watched strangers cross the open space, staying safe in the shadows. The boys in this district taught dogs to be wary of humans.
The river smell was strong. Just the other side of the warehouse wall lay the stinking mud of the Thames. Cold, damp air blew off that water, leaving a bad taste in the mouth. At the wharves, just out of sight, ships creaked and snapped and banged. Chain rattled and there was a sudden loud pop, like a distant gun. It was never quiet down at the docks.
Pitney might still be here, waiting, out of sight, or he might have come and gone. Either way, there’d be a man inside the warehouse, alert and capable, with a boat ready any hour of the day or night. Papa always had a back door out of any city they lived in. Nobody more careful than Papa.
The door in the side of the warehouse was an inch open.
“This is unlocked,” the Reverend said.
“I expect the locks got pulled off some time ago.”
At first, when she walked in, the place looked empty. Gutted. The storage racks had been pulled down and the wood stolen for fuel. Bars of sun slanted through the broken windows.
Somebody was living here. She smelled beer and piss and charcoal and stale food. There’d be rats. There were always rats. “You better stay outside, Reverend, till I see what’s what.”
“I won’t leave you alone. I’ve seen worse, Jess.”
On the far side of the open floor, below the windows, a bedstead was shoved up against the brick wall. Beside that was a charcoal stove with a kettle on it. Good signs. Whitby’s man would show up soon enough.
She led the way inward, past dark, empty arches where they used to store cargo, toward that patch of domesticity. She didn’t see what stepped out behind her and looped a cord around her throat. The world was gone, sudden as snuffing out a candle.
“IT’S the Reverend,” Adrian said.
Sebastian rolled him over. The man groaned and his eyelids fluttered. There was blood on his forehead where he’d hit the floor.
Jess had been here. The ferret chittered in its cage, lashing its body back and forth.
“He was hit from behind. Here.” Sebastian’s hand came away bloody. “This just happened. A friend of Jess’s?”
“Friend of all the world. Jess must have gone to him. Smart, smart girl.”
“Two men . . .” the Reverend’s eyes opened, “took her.”
“Don’t move. Trevor, stay with him. When he can walk, get him to my aunt.” Sebastian laid the man gently back on the floor. “Pitney didn’t order this. Quentin has her.” She could be anywhere on the docks. On any ship. “I need to see Lazarus. I need men to search the docks.”
Adrian stood up. “When’s the next tide?”
“Three hours.” They didn’t have much time. Maybe no time at all.
Doyle’s face was grim. “The Reverend’s under Lazarus’s protection. So’s Jess. He’s going to kill somebody for this.”
Good. “Let’s get moving.”
DARKNESS brightened first at the center. Not with light. With pain. That’s how she knew she was alive. Being alive hurt.
She was wrapped in sailcloth, being carried like a bundle over somebody’s shoulder. He sang. He crooned to himself. She thought it might be Gaelic. Her head flopped again and again against his back. Through a gap at the end of the smothering folds she could see the black wood planks of the dock and blinding sunlight glinting off the river. She was being taken to a ship.
She fought to wake up, sick and terrified. If they got her on board, she’d drop out of sight like a stone in the ocean. Maybe exactly like a stone in an ocean.
One chance. She worked her hand up to her throat and snagged the ribbon at her neck. Got it off over her head and pushed her hand out of the cloth . . . and she let her mother’s locket go. She let it fall on the dock.
Find somebody. For God’s sake find somebody and tell them where I am.
It might work. Folks didn’t leave gold lying in the dirt.
She set to making herself conspicuous, yelling and flopping and trying to kick the cloth off. It didn’t make any difference, as far as she could tell. The bloke carrying her didn’t speed up. Nobody stopped him to ask why his bundle was making a fuss. It wasn’t three minutes later she felt the change in his steps that said he was going up a gangplank. The slosh and clank said ship, and she was carried aboard. Ship smell surrounded her. Nobody would find her now.
She was tossed down and spun out of the wrapping. She landed with a thud that knocked the breath out of her. Shock stole her sight.
Her eyes cleared. She lay on her back, on deck, faced up to the sky. Above her was dazzling blue sky with a mast in it. She let her head roll to the side and saw Blodgett. Captain Blodgett. So she knew where she was. This was the Northern Lark.
Lark was old and lumbering and always in need of repair—a poor excuse for a ship, but she stayed just barely profitable. Lark carried dirty cargo she didn’t want fouling better vessels—horse hides and dried fish and such.