The Black Room: Door Six

by Jasinda Wilder

  Looking both ways as I reach the end of the alley, I see nothing to the left or right but the empty streets. The town is completely silent.

  Spread out, Markham had said—which meant they must be everywhere. The redcoats were going to find me. There was no question of it.

  I swallowed my fear and chose to turn right, trying to walk quickly and quietly. My footsteps sound loud in my own ears, echoing off the walls all around, surely sending my location directly to Markham’s ears. I turn right at the next corner, and then left, and then I’m as lost as could be, with no way of even finding the alley-side inn again. I’m fighting tears and a hot hard knot fills my throat. My hands are shaking so hard the heavy swords rattle in their scabbards—and the damned things are so heavy I’m not sure how much longer I can carry them both.

  I don’t know how long I wander the streets of Fort William alone. The night is dark and cold and endless, and somehow I manage to keep hold of both swords, though they are a burden that only slows me down. They’re a comfort though, a reminder on this endless futile trek on empty shadowy streets that Conrad is real, Angus is real. As I walk I see no one, nor any lights in any window. There is no sign of Markham, either.

  I begin to despair as dawn burns dull gray on the black horizon beyond the rooftops. I’m on a side street somewhere, and I hear the lap of water against the docks. I can also hear voices. Many of them. Conversing in low tones in distinct English accents. I’m aware of boots on cobblestone, the rattle of metal. I hear a coarse laugh and smell the acrid scent of burning tobacco.

  I halt mid-step, hunch lower and press back against the wall, freeze in my tracks. They’re approaching, and there are at least four of them. They’re taking their time, meandering slowly, joking, laughing, and smoking, on a patrol they’ve obviously deemed futile.

  I must turn around and try to put distance between the patrol and myself without being too loud about it. The road ahead curves, and then joins another in a sharply acute angle—perhaps I can duck down the other street before they see me. I begin to move, my slow, careful shuffle becoming a tentative lope. I desperately try to keep my steps silent and keep my heels from clacking too loudly on the stone.

  “Hush a moment, mate,” a gruff voice mutters behind me. “Thought I heard somethin’.”

  I freeze again.

  A second voice: “Bah, a rat most-like. Markham’s got us on a fool’s errand.”

  Third voice: “Might be, but this fool’s errand means five guineas if we find ‘em. Between us, that’s a guinea and five shillings each.”

  “Two men and a woman, in all of Fort William? And none of us even know what they look like. Pair of these Itchland Highlanders, yeah? Whossat mean, then? Red hair? Kilts? And one of those men is Conrad Killian.” This is the first voice again. “I’ve heard talk of that bloke. Right deadly with a blade, they say. I don’t think much of our chances if we do come across ‘em.”

  A fourth voice, then. “Stuff and nonsense. He’s but one man. Even two of ‘em, it’s still them against the four of us. Don’t be a coward, John.”

  John, then, the first voice. “You ever see what one o’ them claymores does to a man? You’re new to these parts, Harry—I’m not. I’ve seen it. Seen those bloody massive swords cleave a man straight in two, head and guts going one way and the legs another. You can call me a coward all you want, but I’ve no great eagerness to get chopped down like a damned tree. A guinea and five ain’t worth it.”

  They’re only a few yards from me now. I huddle back against the wall, trying to shrink into the doorway I’m hiding in.

  I’ve stopped breathing. My heart has gone wild, thundering out of control. My hands shake, my knees knock, and my stomach is lurching. They’re going to find me—they’ll rape me and give me over to Markham and the whole night’s flight will have been in vain. I’ll never see Conrad again.

  The footsteps come closer and closer, the soldiers discussing what they’d do with the reward money—most of the answers revolve around alcohol and a certain bordello in London.

  I’m a statue as they approach my hiding place, such as it is, not breathing, lungs burning, fear turning my blood to ice in my veins, eyes squeezed shut, childlike, hoping if I refuse to see them they won’t see me.

  “Oi, mates.” The voice is low, male, amused, rough. “Look what we have ‘ere.”

  I open my eyes to see four tall redcoats with muskets in hand, faces rough and unshaven, hair greasy and wet under three-corner caps, white leggings dirty. Black fingernails. Rotting teeth. Foul breath even from two feet away. One clutches a clay pipe, smoke trickling from the bowl. As his companion draws attention to me, he knocks the pipe upside down on the heel of his palm, the cherry dropping orange and fading to the ground, then stuffs the pipe into a pouch on his belt.

  “Think this is the slut Killian had with ‘im?” The one who first spotted me asked. “I’d lay a heavy wager it is. Look, she’s even got their swords.”

  “Means we must’ve just missed ‘em back at that dodgy inn, then.”

  “Who cares about them?” Says the man directly in front of me. “We got us a wagtail right in front of us, and no molly officer to keep us off her.”

  “Markham said—” began the man who had the pipe.

  “Bugger Markham. He ain’t here.” He lunges forward, grabs my arm and yanks me out into the street. “Take a gander at her, Harry. You want to scarper off to tell Markham we found her then have done with it—me and the other lad’s’ll keep her busy till you get back.”

  I’m shaking, too terrified to move at first. His grip is weak, thinking me too scared to move—and for a moment, he’s right. But then terror turns to action. I pivot as hard and fast as I can, smacking the hilts of the two heavy swords into his ear with a loud clatter, sending him stumbling. As soon as I make impact, I jerk away and start running, still foolishly keeping hold of the swords.

  I should’ve let them go.

  I risk a peek behind me, see one of the redcoats on my heels, reaching for me. He catches the trailing end of my cloak and jerks me backward with it. The brooch chokes me and digs into my throat—I’m being hauled backward. I flick at the brooch and it pops free, letting the cloak billow away from me, giving me a few extra paces.

  But it’s not enough. I know it’s not.

  I turn a corner, scrabble to a stop, and toss one sword aside. Set the point of the other on the ground, put my foot on the scabbard and yank as hard as I can. The oversized blade rings free of the scabbard, and now I’ve got a naked blade in my hands as the redcoat rounds the corner.

  He stumbles to a halt a couple feet away, grinning even as he pants for breath. “Oh-ho, gonna swing at me are you, love?” He lifts his musket, reaching at his side for the bayonet, circling me slowly as he fixes it to the barrel of his blade. “Come at me, then, if you can even lift that bloody thing.”

  He’s not wrong. It’s too damned heavy for me to even attempt to brandish it with both hands. But it’s my only chance, my only defense. I back away from him, the tip of the claymore dragging on the cobblestone with a loud scrape. He’s grinning at me, lecherous, amused. Just waiting for me to swing, knowing he’ll turn the blade aside easily and then I’ll be done.

  It’s then, as I’m backing and circling, that I notice the bottom of the blade where it meets the hilt is wrapped in a short length of leather. A secondary handhold, I realize, allowing better leverage in close range. I shift my grip, so my lower hand is near the pommel and my upper hand grips the leather just above the crossguard. The sword is still absurdly huge and impossibly heavy, but it’s slightly more manageable now. I might just get in a hit before I’m taken. I won’t make it easy, that’s for damned sure.

  I keep the point low to disguise my intention, let him close in until he’s within range. And that’s when I strike. I lunge forward as fast as I can and lift the point up. I feel it hit, and for the second time this night I watch steel slice through flesh, watch as the palm-width blade scores through
his gut. He lurches toward me, eyes wide, brows furrowed, gasping soundlessly. Instinct has me pushing harder, driving the blade deeper, and then he stumbles and the sword is jerked free of my grip.

  His bayonet snags in my skirts near my ankles as he tries even still to strike at me, but he’s too weak, too near death. He falls, and the weight of the sword drags him toward his belly but prevents him from rolling over. A good two feet of red-stained steel protrudes from his back. Bile touches my teeth and I turn my head aside, spit—but then I find myself bent over and retching, shaking, sobbing. I only allow myself a moment of self-pity, and then I put my foot to the dying man’s chest and jerk at the sword. It only comes loose a few inches, and I’ve got to work it free with no small amount of effort, each jerk of my hands drawing a gasping groan of agony.

  Damn me if it doesn’t take a hell of a lot longer for a man to die than I’d thought. That was my final thought as I finally get the blade free.

  I hear boots on the stone behind me and I spin in place, sword sparking on stone. Two of the remaining redcoats face me, blocking off the street, and then I spin again and see the third. They each have their muskets to shoulder, hammers drawn back.

  “Put it down, girlie. You got poor John, and that’s a shame. But that just means an extra guinea to split, don’t it?” He gestures with the barrel of his musket. “Set it down. I’ll shoot you, see if I won’t.”

  I’ve no choice, then. I lower the sword to the ground at my feet, and immediately one of the soldiers darts forward and kicks it aside, and then I’ve got hands gripping my arms. I’m thrown to the ground and knees dig heavy and painful into my shoulders. Grubby, eager, dirty hands shove my skirts up. I kick, thrash, scream, but then a hand claps across my mouth, sour, vile, cutting off my scream. A fist plants in my stomach, knocking the air out of me, and then I feel the cold night on my bare lower half, blink against the pain to see leggings lowered to bare a hairy, filthy, engorged male member. I thrash and kick and scream and howl until another fist smashes into my stomach, harder this time, and now I can’t breathe, can’t even cry for the agony.

  He’s closer, closer—

  I feel him against my thigh.

  I try to bite the hand over my mouth muffling my screams, but can’t find purchase for my teeth.

  There’s an odd pause, then. The man about to violate me freezes, spine arching forward, and then I see something red and silver at his chest, pushing through skin and cloth. A sword tip. The man pinning me to the ground with his knees looks up, then throws himself backward, scrabbling away. His hands find his musket and he lifts and fires in one motion. The blast is so loud my ears ring.

  Boots plant on either side of my waist, and I cough through musket-blast smoke, glance up to see Conrad, saber in one hand and a dirk in the other, hair coming loose from the queue and whipping behind him in the breeze off the water.

  Conrad is faced with two redcoats, one desperately rushing to reload, the other with his musket trained. Conrad hesitates a moment, head swiveling to track each man, assessing. I scrabble out from beneath him, hunker against the wall and watch, fighting sobs.

  Conrad’s hesitation lasts less than ten seconds, but it feels like an eternity.

  The redcoat slams the ramrod down the musket barrel then withdraws. The musket is righted, and powder is poured into the pan.

  Conrad’s dirk-hand is at his side, and I notice that he’s surreptitiously rotated the dagger so he’s gripping it by the point of the blade.

  The next twenty seconds happen in a blurred flurry.

  Conrad hurls himself away from me, toward the reloading English soldier. His left hand flashes and there’s a silver smear in the darkness, and then a concussive musket blast and the angry whir of a ball zinging past my face close enough that I feel and hear its passage.

  At the same moment Conrad’s saber is slicing forward, piercing the breast of the reloading soldier. His dirk missed a killing strike, burying itself in the second Englishman’s shoulder, but it’s enough to give him the advantage. A jerk to withdraw his saber, and then Conrad is sidestepping and pivoting to thrust.

  I hear the wet slice of steel through flesh, and then Conrad is in front of me, lifting me to my feet, snaring me in one arm and crushing me against his chest. “Thank Christ, Hannah—you’re alive.” He pulls back enough to look me over. “Are you—did he…?”

  I shake my head. “No, but it was a near thing.” It all hits me like a ton of bricks, and I dissolve into sobs.

  He holds me for a long moment, and then lets out a rough sigh. “You’ve earned a good cry, all you’ve been through, but we’ve got to move.” He snugs his fist in my hair at my nape, gently but firmly tugs my head back and then his lips touch mine, a sweet, gentle kiss. “Can you run?”

  I nod. “Yeah, I—I think so. Not sure I can carry your swords any longer, though.”

  He frowns at me. “What d’you mean?”

  I point at the claymore on the ground, the other a few feet away up the street, opposite the way he came. “I couldn’t leave them behind.”

  He sheathes the saber, snatches his dirk out of the dead man’s shoulder and wipes it clean on the same man’s leg, then sheathes it. He catches up the sword I’d used, lifting it easily, twisting it in the dim light of near-dawn. “It’s blooded, lass.”

  I point further up the street at the man I killed. “I—he—I—”

  Conrad laughs. “I’ll be damned. It’s no easy feat to wield one of these even with practice.” He finds the scabbard and sheathes the blade, catches up the other, peeking at the soldier I stabbed. “Ran him through but good, you did. Impressive, Hannah.”

  I’m staring at my hands, the blood on them crusted and flaking. The killing of the young redcoat at the inn seems like a lifetime ago, this night has been so long. “There was another. Back at the inn. Markham showed up. Luck alone woke me up before they caught me in bed. I hid…they found nothing and were ready to leave, but…Markham sent a boy back to search one last time, and he found me. I had a knife, and I…I put it in his throat. There was so much blood, but he didn’t die. Not…not right away.”

  He’s there immediately, arm clutching me close once more. “You did what you needed to, nothing more. Feel no guilt.”

  “I know, but—”

  He squeezes me, and then pulls me into a fast walk behind him. “We have to go, and quick. The shots will have all of Fort William on us.”

  It’s another run, then, through the streets, dodging and ducking and turning seemingly at random, although the unerring way Conrad turns this way and that tells me he knows where he’s going.

  We reach the outskirts quickly and without further encounter.

  “Where’s Angus?” I ask, once we’re away from the city.

  “Ahead.”

  “Think we lost Markham?”

  A negative grunt. “For the nonce, perhaps, but not for long. He knows Angus is a MacLeod, so he’ll eventually assume we headed into MacLeod territory.”

  However, it turns out Conrad was wrong.

  Instead of Angus, we find ten redcoats stretched across the road with Markham at the center, muskets drawn.

  “Enough is enough, Killian,” Markham says. “Weapons on the ground, hands on your head.”

  Slowly, Conrad tosses his weaponry to the ground, and then places his hands on his head. His glance at me is sad, resigned.

  **

  What can be done? Our hands are bound behind our backs, and we’re marched away from Fort William. Not what I was expecting, and it worries me.

  We spend hours walking, the English muskets at our backs. We walk past the break of dawn and into mid-morning. Once again the monotony of fear dulls its edge. It quickly becomes clear Markham has some other intention beyond merely putting musket balls in us and being done with it. Something…rather more nefarious, I fear.

  Hours pass and time loses its meaning. Weariness accosts me, and when I slow my pace I feel the sharp point of a bayonet in my back. I have no
choice but to keep pace.

  The day begins to darken into evening, and that’s when we reach what appears to be a small crofter’s farm. Smoke rises from the main house, but not from the chimney…from the house itself. The structure itself is smoldering, the wreckage charred and ruined. I see no bodies anywhere on the ground outside the house, so I can only assume the worst about whoever the occupants were. Markham guides us to the barn, and then stops.

  We turn, standing just inside the open door of the barn. It smells of hay and manure and age, not unpleasantly. There are three ropes dangling from the rafters, tied in hangman’s nooses.

  “Wasn’t originally meant for you,” Markham says, glancing at the nooses, “but for the stupid dirty sots who lived here. An old man and his two sons. Informants, you might say. Sold sheep’s wool down in Fort William, and any information they might find useful. The old man in particular spent a lot of time in pubs, swilling and listening. We learned quite a bit from him, we did. Of course, he heard talk of you, nothing useful, but that you’d been sheltered up at Kilchurn. Earned him a shilling or two. But then I had myself an idea.”

  He snaps his fingers, flicks a finger at Conrad, and three of the redcoats bolt forward to press their muskets against him. No escape, no way to fight free…no chance to protect me, even at the cost of his own life.

  Markham sidles over to me, draws a wicked, curved-blade dagger from a sheath at his side. He flicks my cheek with the tip, drawing a drop of blood and a pained gasp. Then, button-by-button, he cuts open my dress until I’m left in just the shift. His eyes flick to Conrad now and then, to gauge his reaction. I fight to remain still, stoic, strong.