A Malevolent Manner (Patrick Pierce #1)

by William Scott

MacDuff innocently walked up the staircase amid the riotous crowd of the tavern, despite being the cause of the chaos below. He’d spotted some of the sailors from the Courted Anne as Sean had walked up the stairs. Sensing an opportunity to potentially disrupt Colonel Bufford’s plan, he’d immediately sprung into action. A few more coins to the bartender sent a few bottles of rum their way, despite their existing drunkenness. The bottles were greeted in the spirit of most sailors, with sheer delight and gleeful ignorance as to the source.

  MacDuff then spotted another group of sailors in a similarly dishevelled state of inebriation. The difference was that this group had a pair of women at their table, who were probably a convenient mixture of server and prostitute. He watched one of them accept a coin from one of the burly sailors at the table and approach the bar, taking the spot recently vacated by Sean. She passed the coin across and asked for another cheap bottle of booze, receiving no change with it. She accepted the bottle with muttered grumblings about cheap sailors.

  With a smile, MacDuff placed two silver coins in front of her before she could leave. She looked up in surprise and immediately displayed a delightful demeanour. MacDuff told her to take the coins and bring her friend over to the crew of the Anne. She hesitated for only a moment before noticing that they had plenty of booze and she could keep all of the cash. With a new bounce in her step she grabbed the cheap bottle, signalled her friend, and then joined the new table.

  Harsh words were immediately exchanged between the two tables, the two women, and then the bouncers. A fight broke out between the two crews by the time MacDuff reached the stairs. He knew it would envelop the entire tavern by the time he entered Bufford’s room, and hoped some of the Anne’s sailors would end up too hurt to rejoin their ship.

  He didn’t even bother to see if anyone was watching him as he opened the door to room 5, sure that everyone was either trying to join or escape the fight raging below. He opened the door casually and was about to ask Sean what was taking him so long, but stopped before he could ask.

  Sean was simply sitting in front of an opened travel trunk, his eyes fixed in place and his body completely motionless. MacDuff closed the door quietly behind him and gingerly walked over to him.

  “What’s going on lad?”

  “It didn’t go off.”

  “What didn’t?”

  “The bomb didn’t. I can’t believe it didn’t go off,” Sean mumbled into the opened trunk. “I think I just saw my life flash before my eyes.”

  “You’re not making much sense Sean,” MacDuff replied calmly before gingerly grabbing his shoulder.

  The small amount of human contact seemed to shock Sean back into the current world, eliciting a slow shake of the head and few blinks to clear his vision.

  “Sorry MacDuff,” he apologized groggily, as if just waking up. “I messed up, but they messed up worse. See this wire by the inside latch?”

  MacDuff merely nodded, confused and intrigued by his man’s current state.

  “Well there’s another one on the lid. It was actually one piece of wire. A trip wire. Well, I snapped it when I opened the lid. I just flung it open like some kid at Christmas. A second after it snapped I heard the click of a detonator, or something like that, and I swear I saw my life flash before me; my parents, friends, the Highlands, Culloden, the Manor, everything.”

  “But you’re still here.”

  “They forgot to arm the booby-trap. See this small metal attachment? You’re supposed to drop some gunpowder in it, creating an explosion when triggered. Luckily for me they forgot.”

  MacDuff nodded in reply, thankful that Sean was still with him and doubly thankful that their quarry seemed to be slipping. “Anything good inside the trunk?”

  “Honestly I haven’t moved a muscle since I heard the wire snap.”

  “Well let’s have a look inside,” MacDuff rubbed his hands together in anticipation. A booby-trapped trunk usually offered something important.

  A quick search turned up nothing useful to their purposes; some clothes, blank parchment and quills, and some other odds and ends. They were about to put everything back, when Sean leaned into the trunk and started scraping the bottom.

  “Hurry up if you’ve found something,” MacDuff ordered as the sounds from below started to get even louder and smoke began seeping through the cracks in the floor.

  “What’s going on down there?” Sean asked as he sat back up triumphantly holding an envelope.

  “I might have started a bar brawl in the attempt to get some of the sailors from the Anne injured or arrested.”

  Sean smiled at his mentor and started to carefully open the envelope as MacDuff went back to the door and peered out into the hall. He was shocked to see two large men with equally large clubs running up the stairs

  “Matron said the bastard who instigated the fight went up here,” the larger one breathlessly informed his companion in French.

  “There he is!” yelled the second one seeing the door to number 5 cracked open. They both sprinted at the door but were unable to reach it before MacDuff slammed it shut.

  “Time to get moving!” MacDuff called as he locked the door from the inside. The handle immediately started turning frantically as the goons on the other side tried to get in.

  “We’re not getting out through the windows,” Sean reported from the far side of the room. The two grimy windows were more like portholes and though this might make the sailors feel more at home, they were poorly designed for emergency exits.

  Realizing that the door was locked, the men outside put their shoulders into it in an effort to knock it down. Evaluating the workmanship of the room, MacDuff realized it wouldn’t hold more than a few solid knocks. He motioned for Sean to grab one of the heavy wooden chairs, while he removed a pistol from inside his jacket and stood against the wall beside the door.

  The door flew open with a thunderous crash and the two large bouncers bulled their way in. Prepared for their entrance, Sean immediately swung the chair in his hands across the face of the larger one who was in the lead. The chair splintered on impact, stunning the recipient long enough for Sean to take a second shot with the remaining pieces.

  As the first bouncer went down, his companion raised his club with a shout. But before he could take a step towards Sean, the man heard the distinctive click of a cocked pistol and felt the cold steel of a barrel placed against the back of his head.

  “Drop the club lad,” MacDuff ordered from behind, shoving him across the room after he conceded.

  “What are we going to do with him?” Sean whispered as he picked up the club and stood beside MacDuff.

  “Shoot him I suppose,” MacDuff shrugged in reply, eliciting a sudden wave of fear upon the man on the bed. But their attention suddenly shifted upon hearing a loud crash from below and an increase of smoke seeping up through the floor. “Have a quick look out the door; I’ve got a bad feeling.”

  “The bloody place is on fire!” Sean shouted from the hall, seeing flames licking up the wall behind the bar on the level below.

  “Today’s you’re lucky day,” MacDuff smiled as he lowered the pistol from the bouncer on the bed. “Take your buddy and get out of here. Being burnt alive is a fate I’d not wish on anyone and I’ve only got one shot left.”

  Despite the wave of relief upon their prisoners face, MacDuff kept his pistol ready and walked backwards out of the room. Sean was still in the hallway, looking at the fiery scene from the top of the stairs.

  “We’re not getting out that way,” he said pointing to the front door, now fully engulfed.

  “There’s got to be a room up here with bigger windows we can get out of. If not we’ll make some of our own, most of the walls are pretty thin.”

  They set off down the hallway at a quick jog, peering into opened rooms as they passed. The first few were similar to room number 5, with small porthole type windows. Amid the thickening smoke and noise within the tavern they almost didn’t notice that the hallway took a
strange angle and the floor seemed to droop. Initially fearful that the rooms underneath were on fire and ready to give out, they quickly realized they’d reached the rickety additions of the building.

  “In here!” MacDuff yelled through a handkerchief covering his mouth, as he entered a room at the end of the hallway. Unlike the other rooms this one was empty; with an obviously uneven floor and a large window. The workmanship was so shoddy that the gaps in the walls were actually helping ventilate the space.

  Sean joined MacDuff by the window and together they not only opened it, but shoved it entirely out of the frame. Eagerly taking breaths of fresh air, they watched the descent of the window with surprise as it splashed into the harbour below. The room they now occupied was actually overhanging the dock, thirty feet directly over the water.

  “I hope the tide’s not going out,” Sean observed as they both swung a leg over the window sill.

  “Too late now,” MacDuff countered as they both crossed themselves and leapt out into the cold night.