from the building, and stop any messenger, any warning, getting through. We’ll meet you there once we’ve gathered our forces.”
The three nodded and went.
Dorcas and Arnia followed, dispatched to find the priest and get his church bell tolling.
Gareth looked at Watson, met the older man’s eye. “You need to stay here-you know what to do.”
Watson nodded. “I do. I will.”
Turning back to the gathering rabble-older locals as well as an increasing number of sailors and others who had days before formed part of their impromptu militia-Gareth waved at the door. “Let’s take this outside. Form up, and I’ll tell you exactly what we must do.”
Sixteen
She wasn’t sure he was entirely sane.
He was, however, indisputably in charge. The three who had brought her there, the knife pricking her side all the way, had bowed and scraped and looked thrilled to receive just a word in reward.
The old man-Uncle, they’d called him-was the commander Gareth had suspected existed, the one charged with halting Gareth’s mission.
As she’d been marched through the chateau, she’d seen many cultists, ready, battle-primed, some sharpening their knives. They’d glanced at her as she’d passed, but their dark gazes had slid away-they were already thinking of other things. Of killing.
Killing Gareth and the others-she knew he, and all the rest, too, would come after her.
That, it seemed, was the old man’s plan.
What horrified her, held her stupefied with terror, was how he apparently planned to fill in the time.
His back to her, he was tending a collection of implements, perfectly ordinary implements from kitchen, smithy, and barn, the sight of which caused not the slightest alarm-not until they lay heating on a bed of red-hot coals in a brazier set before a crumbling hearth.
If that weren’t bad enough, to one side a once-superb gaming table displayed an array of knives. Not ordinary, run-of-the-mill knives. Many she’d seen only rarely, on docks, at the fishmonger’s or the butcher’s. Filleting knives. Flaying knives.
Her blood had run cold long ago. She looked at the knives and felt sick.
She didn’t know what to do. With her feet tied and her arms lashed at elbow and wrist to the chair arms with old curtain cords, she was helpless to move, but she wasn’t going to simply sit and be burned and cut.
It took effort to force her mind to work-to think of what might distract this man-Uncle-from his grizzly entertainment, at least long enough for Gareth to reach her.
She couldn’t think beyond that point. She didn’t need to. Once Gareth reached her, nothing would stop them. Together they would win through.
But what could she do to gain time?
Was there any way she could make it easier for him to find her, so he could reach her more quickly?
She recalled the chateau as she’d seen it from the drive. Most of the windows were shuttered, except for this room. Because of the fumes from the smoking fire in the hearth and the brazier, they’d opened the shutters and set the windows ajar. As with all the front rooms on the ground floor, those windows opened to a paved terrace that ran the length of the house.
Talking seemed her best option.
She cleared her throat. “Excuse me, sir?”
He glanced around, arrested, as if surprised she could talk.
Her expression innocent, she raised her brows. “Would you mind telling me what’s going on?”
He frowned, straightened, a pair of hot pincers in one hand. “I”-he set his other fist, closed, to his chest-“am a representative of the great and mighty Black Cobra. You are here on my master’s orders, and soon you will die a most painful death-to the great glory of the Black Cobra!”
She fought to ignore the vision his words conjured, to ignore the heated pincers he held. She forced a confused frown. “You’ll pardon me if I seem a trifle obtuse, but…I’ve never met this Black Cobra person. Why would my death mean anything to him?”
Uncle blinked at her. “But…” Then he drew himself up. “You were instrumental in delivering the letter a Captain MacFarlane stole in Poona to a Colonel Delborough in Bombay.”
She opened her eyes wide. “That letter? Was it important? I had no idea. I thought it was a personal message from the captain to his commanding officer.” She did her best to look intrigued. “What’s in it?”
Uncle hesitated, then said, “I do not know.”
She frowned harder. “You mean you’ll kill me-and presumably many others-and you don’t even know why?”
He bridled; his dark eyes lit. “It is my master’s orders.”
“So he gives orders and you obey-even though you don’t have any idea why?”
He looked down his nose at her. “That is the way of the cult. It is how cults are.”
She had no difficulty looking unimpressed. “Regardless, I don’t see how killing me will in any way help your master. I don’t know anything about the letter, and I certainly don’t have it-I gave it to Colonel Delborough months ago.”
“You may not have it-but Major Hamilton might!”
“Gareth? Are you sure?” She looked unconvinced. “He hasn’t said anything to me about it.”
“He has it-or a copy. This is why I have been sent.”
“To find the copy?”
“Yes.”
“Was that you all along-back in Aden and on the Red Sea?”
He answered, and she knew she was safe for just a little while-as long as relating their journey and the cult’s many actions would take. Like many such men, Uncle was vain enough to want to claim any and all victories he could. She was careful to preserve a suitably innocent mein, encouraging him to impress her with tales of his guile and standing.
He spoke in ringing tones, declaiming and making grand statements.
She asked her questions as loudly as she could.
All the while she listened, strained to hear any activity outside.
Any sign that rescue had arrived.
Inwardly, she prayed.
If the cultists in the chateau saw Gareth’s impromptu army marching up the drive, the first thing they would do was slit Emily’s throat.
Gareth knew that for an absolute fact. He was consequently unbending in imposing absolute authority over his ragtag forces.
He’d collected those who knew the chateau’s grounds, and kept them with him at the head of the ranks as they marched in good order out of the town. He halted them all at the bottom of the chateau’s long drive, and impressed on everyone the need for absolute silence from then on.
With quite remarkable stealth, they crept further up the drive. Those familiar with the place told him how far
