by Rebecca King
With agreement from both travellers, Elias guided his horse to a field the carriage could use. Minutes later, with the carriage turned around, Boris flicked the reins and drove the carriage back to the village at break-neck speed.
“What do we do now?” Ruth asked.
Elias, who was studying the landscape, watched the carriage Al had intercepted disappear back down the road it had just used as well. With both carriages now safely diverted, Elias knew it was time for them to leave the area too.
“Now, we get to the safe house where we can warm up and eat in that order,” he murmured gently. “That wasn’t anywhere near as difficult as I expected it to be, but we have to make good use of our unexpected good fortune and get out of here before the highwaymen see us.”
The words were no sooner out of his mouth, though, when Elias and Ruth found themselves with a new problem on their hands. Rointon, whose men had been watching the carriages approach, also watched them being intercepted. Angry at being thwarted, the highwaymen now turned their attention to the horsemen – the Star Elite.
The first bullet Rointon fired at Elias and Ruth embedded itself in the stone wall beside them. It was so unexpected that Ruth screamed. Elias’s horse, unused to the noise of a woman’s scream, jerked and danced about nervously. It was that nervous prancing that saved the animal’s life because when the second bullet that was fired at them it embedded itself harmlessly in the snow laden ground beneath the animal’s dancing hooves.
“We have to go,” Elias growled, tugging his horse around to face the village. He hated having his back to the gunmen but there was no alternative. Hunkering protectively over the woman in his arms, he dug his heels deeper into the animal’s sides, and took off down the road.
“What are you doing?” Ruth screamed when the horse seemed to career wildly down the road in an uneven direction that made it look as if Elias had no idea where he was going.
“I am making it harder for the gunman to get a proper aim,” Elias bit out. He urged his horse to go faster but knew that he was placing a heavy burden on the animal already struggling to carry two people through snowy roads. The animal tired quickly. When Elias looked over his shoulder he swore roundly when he saw the highwaymen still bearing down upon them.
“We have to get out of here,” Ruth cried. “What do we do?”
Deep inside, she already knew. She didn’t know much about horses but recognised that the horse they were on wasn’t able to keep going while carrying two people.
Elias urged the horse on toward the village anyway. “Take the gun,” he snapped. “Point it at them and pull the trigger. Hold it tightly and don’t drop it when it fires.”
Ruth stared down at the heavy weapon that Elias held. She hated to even pick it up. It was the bullet slamming into the ground beside them that forced her to ignore her squeamish doubts and grab the weapon anyway. She held it tightly and leant against Elias to point it over his shoulder. Because she needed to hold the heavy gun with both hands, she had to almost wrap herself around him to aim at the riders behind them. Staring at the closest rider, she pointed the gun randomly in his direction and pulled the trigger. The enormous blast of the weapon being fired was enough to make her flinch.
“Now what?” Ruth bit out, doing her best not to cry.
“Now get the other weapon.” Elias’s voice was cut off by the returning gunfire from the riders behind them. Elias guided the horse toward the carriage directly ahead of them. Thankfully, they were almost on the outskirts of the village. Unless the highwaymen were prepared to have everyone in the village able to identify them, they had to stop following.
“We have to find somewhere to hide,” Elias muttered.
“What do I do about the gun?”
“Reload it.” Elias told her where to find the small pouch of shot.
“I can’t reload it and hold on to you,” Ruth cried, terrified at the thought of letting go of him. She would surely fall to her death if she did.
“I will hold you,” Elias promised. “Trust me.”
Ruth had no choice but to rely on his strength. As they cantered toward the village, she released him and followed his directions as she reloaded the weapon. Taking aim again, Ruth squinted at Rointon. She was disturbed by how close he was. His almost ferally pugnacious spite was visibly evident on his bull-dog features as he bore down on her and Elias with murderous intent. Ruth didn’t hesitate to lift the weapon and point it at him. Like Elias, the second he realised that she was aiming at him, Rointon veered his horse to one side, but Ruth was prepared for it and followed him with the weapon.
She managed to get a sideways shot of him that he couldn’t avoid.
Ruth watched a shower of blood burst into the air around him which was swiftly laden with Rointon’s virulent curses. “I have hit him!” Ruth gasped, delighted yet horrified at the same time. “I have shot Rointon!”
“God, have you?” Elias gaped in disbelief when he saw Rointon slumped over his horse, clutching his wounded side. “Jesus, you have,” he breathed.
Before he could celebrate, though, another loud burst of bullets was aimed at them by Rointon’s furious friends. The gunfire this time was far closer than any they had endured thus far.
Ruth didn’t hesitate to reload the weapon she still held. While she aimed it at another gunman, Elias continued to move the horse in random directions. “Later, I am going to wonder how I managed to get the courage to do this,” she muttered ruefully to Elias. “You know that don’t you?”
Elias grinned at her. “You are a very courageous lady. God, you are astonishing.”
“You don’t have to sound so surprised. I always seem to be getting your backside out of trouble,” she muttered, throwing him a rueful look.
“You are very good at it as well. Of course, you are welcome to lead the horse while I shoot.”
“I would love to, but we don’t have the time to stop so you can give me a riding lesson,” Ruth muttered. “Just keep riding.”
“With pleasure, ma’am,” Elias grinned.
Within minutes, they arrived in the village. The loud clatter of the horse’s hooves was the only sound that heralded the arrival of the newcomers in the otherwise deserted village. What struck Elias first was that the place was like a veritable ghost town. Shops were shut. Shutters were closed. The village was as quiet as a graveyard at midnight.
Easing his horse to a walk, Elias felt the small hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. “I don’t like this,” he murmured. “I don’t like this at all.”
“If Rointon’s men come here they can do what they like because there will be no witnesses.”
“We have to get off the street,” Elias announced.
“But the horse can’t keep trying to outrun them. It is exhausted. It will die if we keep pushing, if not from the gunfire then because of us. Please, we must stop. Can’t we find somewhere to hide?”
“Where?” Elias pointed to the empty main street, but even one quick cursory glance around warned him that there simply was no place to go.
Ruth knew there was no choice, and said: “You could let me dismount. I could find somewhere to hide. It isn’t me they are after. If the horse was carrying just one person, he might be able to get you to the safe house by yourself. You can ride a lot faster without me. You would be there and back with reinforcements in half the time.”
“No.”
“Elias.”
“I said no, Ruth,” Elias hissed vehemently. “I am not leaving you. We stay together.”
“I am just slowing you down. The highwaymen aren’t interested in me. It is you they are after,” Ruth whispered.
“I said ‘no’. No, Ruth,” Elias argued. “They know now that you saved me and provided us with a safe refuge while we recovered. Besides, you just shot Rointon. You aren’t safe now either.”
Elias hated the thought of being separated from her even though he knew that it was the best thing they could do. What he couldn’t risk was that Roint
on would find her while she was alone in the village. What the highwayman would do to her because she had denied him his moment of glory not once, or twice, but three times, was something that Elias couldn’t bring himself to contemplate. The highwaymen were, after all, nothing more than killers as well as thieves.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Psst.”
Elias jerked when he heard that noise but couldn’t see where it came from. It took him a moment to notice the elderly woman leaning out of a bed chamber window. She pointed at wooden doors across the street before slamming the window closed and drawing the curtains for good measure. Elias looked at what she had pointed at and saw Boris waving frantically at them from a narrow gap between two huge doors beside a tavern.
With a muttered curse, Elias nudged his horse toward him. Minutes later, they were inside a stable yard behind the tavern listening to Boris bolt the gates.
“The inn keeper has said that we can stay in here. He has secured the tavern so the highwaymen can’t get in,” the gentleman traveller they had just rescued announced. He grinned at Boris who looked rather pleased with his efforts.
“Thank you both,” Elias murmured. “The Star Elite thank you too.”
“So that is who you are, eh?” the gentleman murmured, suddenly shoving his hand at Elias. “The name is Frank Ainsley. That’s my right-hand man, Boris.”
Elias introduced both himself and Ruth.
“What do we do now?” the inn keeper whispered from the doorway. He was wringing his hands nervously on his apron. Behind him, in the depths of the tavern, several maids and his wife were hovering nearby looking nervous.
“Might I go and take a quick peek through your shutters?” Elias whispered.
“Of course.”
When the women inside the tavern began to mutter, Elias hushed them. Grabbing Ruth’s hand in his, he tugged her into the tavern with him. “Stay quiet. Nobody makes a sound. That way we will know where they are.”
“You can hear them, sir,” one of the young maids announced.
Sure enough, the clattering of many hooves on the cobbles of the main street was loud in the silence of the hushed tavern.
“Keep listening. Then you will know where they are and what they are doing. I need to know how many riders there are,” Elias informed them.
Ruth was aware of the women studying her as Elias dragged her through the tavern, to the shutter the inn keeper had partially open but only an inch or so.
“Have all the doors been bolted and barred?” Elias murmured, studying each man outside.
“Yes, sir,” the inn keeper whispered. “There are six by my reckoning, although one of them looks to be hurt.”
“He was shot,” Elias muttered, sliding an impressed look at Ruth.
“What do we do, sir? I don’t want the likes of him in this tavern,” the inn keeper muttered. “He is a sly one, that Rointon.”
“What do you know about him?” Elias demanded.
“That he is up to all sorts,” the inn keeper muttered. “He has rarely ventured this way before now, though. I wonder what he is doing here?” The look the man levelled on Elias really asked Elias what Rointon wanted with him.
“Rointon is getting desperate,” Ruth replied. “He has the Star Elite on his doorstep at his estate. He has had to venture further afield in the hopes that he can keep robbing carriages without being caught. We just stopped two carriages from being attacked. Rointon decided to target us instead.”
“He was shot, though, and the Star Elite are slowly but steadily removing his wider gang of criminals who are helping him move his stolen goods on,” Elias explained.
The inn keeper looked impressed. “The Star Elite, eh?” He raked Ruth with another look as if to ask what connection she had to them.
“She works with me,” Elias informed the man briskly.
The inn keeper’s knowing look fell to their clasped hands, but Elias refused to release her. Instead, he turned his attention to the riders outside only to curse when he realised that they had stopped directly beside the tavern’s main door.
“They are here,” he breathed, easing the shutter closed. He turned to look at the assembled people behind him, some of whom had been customers when the word had arrived that the highwaymen were heading to the village. “Stay quiet everyone.”
“They can’t come in here,” the inn keeper’s wife announced, looking terrified yet mulish at the same time.
“They aren’t going to come in here,” Elias assured her. “They just don’t know it yet.”
“They saved our lives,” Boris announced with a nod toward Elias and Ruth.
“Good for you,” one of the customers called only to be shushed by several people around him.
“What do we do?” Ruth asked Elias quietly.
“We are going to be here for a while yet,” Elias warned the inn keeper. “They can’t come in and we can’t leave until they have gone. So, with the doors bolted, we sit and wait.”
“What do we do if a carriage turns up? They will rob it,” a maid said.
“Then we are going to have to stop it if we see it,” the inn keeper muttered.
“Do you have any guns on the property?” Elias asked.
“Well, I have one or two,” the inn keeper edged.
“I have two guns,” Elias announced. “But not much shot left.”
“It should be enough to ward them off if they decide to attack us, or innocent travellers outside,” Boris muttered.
“Nobody will come out of their houses while the highwaymen are here,” the inn keeper informed them. “We won’t have any help if we get involved.”
To everyone’s dismay, the highwaymen began to pound on the tavern door. Everyone watched the latch lift. The door then rattled. The pounding and rattling continued for some considerable time until one loud thump against the door brought an end to the persistent demands to be allowed in.
“Will they be back, do you think?” The inn keeper looked terrified.
“The Star Elite will be here soon. I think that the highwaymen want help rather than ale. It looks like Rointon is bleeding heavily. He probably wants someone to tend to his wounds, but if he can’t get help he will have to go home.”
“I am not looking after him,” the inn keeper’s wife snorted. “Nobody in this establishment is going to work to help that man. He can bleed to death first.”
“Don’t answer the door. He isn’t likely to break in,” Elias replied.
“How do you do this?” Ruth whispered several minutes later when Elias had reopened the shutter and was studying the highwaymen lingering in the middle of the street.
“It is what I do,” Elias replied with a shrug. “It is like a giant game of cat and mouse.”
“How do you live with this level of danger every day? I mean, you are saving lives. I can understand why you feel the need to stop innocent people losing their lives at the hands of killers and cut-throats. However, you are putting your life in danger every day but for what? Most of the people whose lives you save don’t know you, do they?”
“That isn’t the point,” Elias replied. “I do this because people, including myself, should be able to go about their lives without being bullied, attacked, or murdered by thugs like Rointon and his mob. They are people who need to go to gaol because they don’t think that the law applies to them. Gaol puts the boundaries back into the lives of men like Rointon. He thinks he can do what he likes because he has – had – wealth and was well connected. It put him, in his mind at least, above everyone else. The problem is that he is really nothing more than a career criminal who needs to spend time behind bars and be forced to accept that his life should be restricted. Nobody lives life without boundaries. Everyone must abide by some law or another otherwise nobody would be able to live their lives, sleep in their beds at night, or would get to keep anything they had ever earnt whether it be the roof over their heads, the family members around the table, the clothing on their back, or coins on their p
ocket. Men like Rointon would always help themselves. It is my job, my duty, my responsibility, to make sure that men like Rointon learn that they can’t do what they like. I don’t do it to help innocent people, or people that I don’t know. I do it for myself. I want to be able to go about my business without being robbed in a tavern, or have my throat cut on my way home. I want to have a wife like you safe and protected in her own home without having every ne’er do well help themselves to what I have whenever my back is turned. I do this for me, my future, my future family, my future life, wife, hopes, dreams. Everything. I have to do this. Being in the Star Elite isn’t just a job. It is who I am.”
“What started this? How did you get to join the Star Elite?”
Elias sighed heavily. “I got mugged one night. It was after an evening with friends. I was doing nothing more than walking home when I was stabbed by a man who wanted my coin purse. We fought but he escaped. As foolish as I was at the time, I assumed that the thief had just run off. I didn’t realise that he had followed me home until I was in my bed and realised that I wasn’t alone. He tried to kill me a second time that night. We fought, and fought, and eventually ended up wrecking my house but he was eventually subdued. I realised then that I could rebuild everything but for what? For someone else to come along and help himself again?” Elias shook his head. “It turned out that the thief belonged to a gang that Sir Hugo, the boss of the Star Elite, had been hunting for a while. Sir Hugo appeared in my life and told me about the Star Elite. I was so enraged by my experience that I offered Sir Hugo my services. He readily accepted and sent me off to London for training, but only after I had served in the army. He said it would teach me discipline and important military skills that I would need while being an investigator.”
