West Indies, Sebastian summed up the danger he faced. He could stay where he was and let the men close on him, forcing him to fight all five at once. Or he could charge one of the two groups of men and try to escape before they joined forces. With three men ahead and only two blocking his return to the lane, the choice was simple.
For the moment, both groups of adversaries seemed content to hold their distance. “Who sent you here?” asked one of the men near the mouth of the alley, a dark-haired man with the thickening waist and heavy jowls of middle age. He held a cudgel, a stout length of wood he tapped threateningly against the palm of his free hand. His redheaded companion—big and broken-nosed and quite sober—had a knife. In the street, earlier, there had been three of them, Sebastian remembered. Which meant that somewhere, one more drover and perhaps a flute player awaited Sebastian.
Licking his lips in a show of nervousness, Sebastian made his voice go high-pitched and quivery. “Squire Lawrence, up in Leicestershire—”
“Uh-uh,” said the man with the cudgel. “Think about this: a man can die quickly or he can die by inches, screaming for mercy and ruing the day he was born. The choice is yours.”
Sebastian gave the man a grim smile.
He chose the man on his right, the big redhead with the nimble feet and the knife that could kill quicker than a cudgel. Redhead held his ground, his knife low, waiting to absorb Sebastian’s attack. But by switching his dagger to his left hand at the last instant, Sebastian was able to circle his right forearm beneath the big man’s lunging blade, knocking the freckled hand holding the knife up and away long enough to drive his own dagger through the waistcoat and shirt of the drover’s broad chest, deep into the flesh and sinew beneath.
He was close enough that Sebastian could see the pores in the man’s skin, the sheen of nervous sweat on his forehead, smell again the reek of the gin with which he’d doused the coarse wool of his coat. The man let out a whooshing gurgle, blood and spittle spewing from his mouth, his eyes rolling back in his head. Wrenching the blade free, Sebastian swung quickly to face the man with the cudgel.
Not quick enough. A blow meant to dash in the back of Sebastian’s head fell on his shoulder, bruising hard. Pain exploded across his collarbone, reverberated to his left arm. He went down on one knee, a grunt escaping his clenched teeth. A shadow loomed over him. Twisting, Sebastian had a vision of heavy jowls dark with anger, lips peeling back from yellow crooked teeth gritted in determination as the man raised the cudgel to strike again.
Sebastian drove his dagger up, deep into the man’s stomach.
The man screamed, then screamed again when Sebastian tried to jerk the blade free, only to have it catch on the stout cloth of the man’s waistcoat. Someone shouted. He heard the pant of breath, the pounding of feet as the men from the other end of the alley drew near.
Abandoning the dagger, Sebastian pushed up. He could see the mouth of the alley, an eddy of movement and shadow framed by the darker shadows of looming brick walls. He took one running step, two, just as the explosive percussion of a pistol reverberated up the narrow passage. He saw the yellow-white flash of the burning powder, smelled the pungent odor of sulfur.
And felt a stinging line of fire plow across the side of his head.
Sebastian’s step faltered, but he kept running.
He burst from the mouth of the alley into Giltspur Street.
His hat was gone. He could feel a sheet of blood running down the side of his face, its coppery tang heavy in the moist night air. More blood darkened the front of his coat and waistcoat, only that wasn’t his blood.
Heads turned toward him. Women in shawls drew back, faces pale, eyes wide with fear. He knew they must have heard the pistol shot, but no one stepped forward to help him. He was a stranger here. The men behind him were not.
A trickle of warm blood ran into his eyes. He stumbled off the narrow footpath. Horses’ heads loomed from out of the darkness, their nostrils flaring. He heard the crack of a whip and a shout, and the jingle of harness. He jumped back barely in time to avoid the flashing hooves and rumbling iron-rimmed wheels of a big green-and-red brewer’s wagon driven fast up the road.
The wagon was tall, the top edges of its high wooden sides some three feet or more over Sebastian’s head. He heard running steps slap the paving stones behind him. Without looking back, Sebastian leapt at the wagon’s high back, trying to catch the top of the tailgate with both hands. But the blow to his shoulder had incapacitated his arm more than he’d realized. His left hand slipped off the rough wood, useless. Only his right hand found its purchase and held, jerking his arm in its socket as it took all his weight.
From somewhere behind him came a shout, followed by a hoarse “There he is! Stop him.”
Gritting his teeth, his feet kicking in air, Sebastian fought to pull himself up one-handed onto the tailgate. He’d just managed to hike his elbow over the side when one of the men threw himself forward, his arms wrapping around Sebastian’s legs.
The jolting weight of the man’s body swung Sebastian around, dragged him back down toward the rushing road. Sebastian had a pain-filled vision of a craggy-faced man with thick, straight brows and a thin nose, his lips twisting into a snarl as he said, “I’ve got you, you son of a bitch.”
Freeing one leg, Sebastian drew up his knee and kicked out hard. His foot landed square in the man’s face. He heard the crunch of cartilage and bone, saw the spurt of blood as the force of the blow sent the man reeling back.
For one moment, he clutched wildly at Sebastian’s booted foot. Then the boot slipped off with a sucking
“ONE OF THESE DAYS,” said Kat Boleyn, dabbing a cloth dipped in witch hazel against the side of his head, “someone’s going to shoot at you and they’re not going to miss.”
Sebastian drew in his breath in a pained hiss. “They didn’t exactly miss this time.”
He was sitting on a low stool beside the kitchen table in Kat’s house in Harwich Street. Elspeth and the rest of Kat’s small staff had withdrawn to spend their evening off in their rooms in the attics high above, leaving the house
