“We can, and the sooner the better,” Quire said. “I’m not sure how this is going to go, mind. There might be a problem or two.”
Dunbar rolled his eyes.
“Do you know where Blegg is?” Quire demanded of Durand.
“No,” the Frenchman said. “Outside somewhere. Beyond that, I cannot say.”
“I was going to get us straight into a hackney cab outside, but it’d be too easy to follow us. We’ll get down on to Princes Street. There’ll be plenty of hackneys down there, and it’ll make Blegg show himself if he’s about. We either shake him off, or deal with him a bit more roughly.”
Durand looked downcast.
“You are a capable man, but I rather doubt you can deal with Mr. Blegg, as you put it.”
“We’ve not exactly got a whole host of choices,” Quire muttered.
There was quite a crowd on the pavement outside the Assembly Rooms. Many of them were the drivers of the hackney carriages which, as Quire had predicted, were lined up on the street awaiting the custom of departing guests. The drivers leaned against the pillars of the portico, smoking pipes, quietly trading gossip. There were quite a few casual onlookers too. Those who would never be invited to such a gathering, and were curious at the light and music drifting out on to the street, and hoping to get a look at some of the elaborate costumes.
Quire and Dunbar moved their companion briskly away from the throng, keen to get a bit more space around them. They went from one pool of gaslight to the next along the street, the gentle whine of each lamp growing louder as they approached it and fading away behind them as they passed beyond it. It was late, and the fine shops were closed, most of the great houses quiet.
They turned down on to the sharp slope of Frederick Street and Quire looked back as they moved around the corner. A single figure was separating itself from the shadows beneath the portico of the Assembly Rooms, moving smartly after them.
He pushed Durand into a trot as they descended towards Princes Street.
“Is there going to be trouble?” Dunbar asked as he jogged along at Quire’s side.
He was entirely serious now, any notion of the evening’s events as some kind of game discarded. The soldier in him came to the fore less easily than did Quire’s, but it was there nonetheless.
“Maybe,” Quire said. “I don’t know. Should’ve brought a pistol.”
“They’d hardly let you carry such a thing into the Assembly Rooms. You’d have had trouble hiding it in that clown’s outfit, anyway.”
Quire glanced down at his motley dress, and was struck by what an absurd, and obvious, figure he cut, hurrying along the New Town streets like a fugitive from some wandering theatre troupe. He had vaguely thought he would have the chance to shed the disguise before leaving, but that, in hindsight, had never been likely.
They emerged on to the broad expanse of Princes Street with the soaring dark mass of the castle before them, like a vast umbrageous thundercloud detached from the night sky and settled down to rest atop the crags. It was dotted, though, with points of light: the windows of its huge barracks, and lanterns burning here and there along its meandering walls.
There were no buildings along the south side of Princes Street—none save the Royal Institution, a short way further east—just a long run of black, spiked railings and beyond them the sweeping gardens that plunged down and across to the base of the castle’s huge rock. Those gardens were a black, blank void, obscured by the glare of the tall gaslights lining the street.
Quire looked back. Blegg—he was almost certain it was him, though he could not make out his features at this distance—was coming down after them, walking quickly.
“We need to shake him off,” Quire muttered.
Directly ahead of them, opposite the foot of Frederick Street, a gate broke the line of the iron railings. It would be locked—the gardens were a private pleasure for the residents and shopkeepers of Princes Street—and was, like the railings themselves, head high. But it had no spikes atop it.
“Into the gardens,” Quire said promptly. “No light there. We can lose him, or spring a little trap of our own.”
“Right,” Dunbar said.
He did not sound entirely convinced, but responded without hesitation to the taut urgency in Quire’s voice.
Dunbar darted forward, set his strong hands on the top of the gate and swung his legs up and over with a great heave of his shoulders. Quire put his hands to Durand’s waist even as they drew near the gate, and lifted him from his feet. Dunbar reached over and hauled the Frenchman into the gardens. The two of them fell in a heap, crunching down on to the gravel path.
Quire did not need to look around to know what Blegg was doing. He could hear running feet, pounding closer. He flung himself at the gate, hitting it hip high, folding himself over the top of it, landing on his back on the path beyond. He rolled and scrambled to his feet, glimpsing Blegg’s dark form rushing down the last of Frederick Street’s slope, coming into the pools of light cast by the chain of streetlights. The man was fast; unnervingly so.
Quire ran after Dunbar and Durand, already disappearing into the profound darkness of the gardens. He could hear them clearly enough, though, for the gravel path was not made for silence.
“Get off the path,” he called softly, and followed them as they veered off over the manicured lawns.
They crouched into one of the big thickets of ornamental shrubs. Most of the bushes were foreigners; evergreens with thick, heavy concealing leaves. Durand was gasping for breath.
“Be quiet,” Quire whispered.
Blegg appeared, up there at the railings. Peering down into the gardens. Seeing, Quire hoped, not much more than they had: just the inky, lightless nothing. Blegg moved slightly to one side. His head was framed by the glowing lantern head of one of the gaslights, like a radiant halo.
“There’s three of us,” Dunbar murmured. “We could sort him out easy enough, couldn’t we?”
“Maybe,” said Quire. He was reluctant to trust any assumptions regarding Blegg’s capabilities. “In any case, there’s only two of us worth the counting, I’d guess.”
“Quite true,” Durand whispered. “And he would kill both of you, most likely.”
“I didn’t sign up for getting killed, any more than I did killing,” muttered Dunbar.
Blegg carefully, deliberately, set both his hands atop the gate and vaulted it in a single leap, swinging his legs up high and clear. A manoeuvre that Quire could not have matched.
“Shit,” Dunbar whispered, evidently reconsidering the advisability of confrontation.
They eased themselves further back amongst the bushes. Quire had never been inside the gardens before, and could remember precious little of any use as far as their layout was concerned, even though he had often enough looked down over the railings and thought it a pleasant view. One thing he did remember, with something approaching certainty: the only other gates were further along to the west of them, down towards St. John’s and St. Cuthbert’s, the chapel and church that dominated the far end of Princes Street.
“Right, well I’ll draw him off, and you get your little French package here away,” Dunbar said suddenly.
“No,” hissed Quire.
Dunbar was already shifting his weight, settling himself on the balls of his feet.
“Hush. It’ll be easy enough. I’ll just take him off into a corner somewhere and slip out over the railings. Once he sees it’s just me, he’ll leave off pretty sharp. It’s you two he’s after, you poor buggers.”
“No, you don’t…” Quire said desperately, but he was saying it to Dunbar’s heels.
Dunbar went crashing away, thrashing through the shrubs with abandon, and pounding his feet on the turf as he plunged into the darkness.
“Christ,” groaned Quire.
They heard Blegg ghosting past over the grass; a much lighter tread. Quire’s heart hammered away, and his legs trembled with the desire to throw himself out and after Blegg. He struggled with the instinct, and stifled it.
Dunbar was quick on his feet, and nobody’s fool. He could take care of himself if he had to. That was all Quire could hope as he dragged Durand hurriedly but quietly away in the opposite direction.
