I turned my head, trying to get my bearings. I was lying on the road, that much I knew, but I couldn’t tell which way was forward and which was back. I tried to sit up. Dazed, I fell, to look once more at swirling stars.
Get up, Master Benedict said.
I managed to prop myself on my elbows. Why did everything have to spin so?
And… what had happened?
Blossom squealed, in pain and fear. I looked down the road and saw her struggling to rise, my torch near her feet. There was something in the dirt. Twisted, nearly the color of the earth. It looked like… a snake?
No. It was too long. One end, near Blossom, was fastened to a wooden stake. The other end was tied to a second stake pulled nearly horizontal—
A rope. That’s what it was.
Someone had strung a rope across the road.
I’d barely realized this when a flash lit the meadow and a boom rocked the dark. A puff of dirt kicked up, two feet to my right. And I recognized that sound right away.
Someone was shooting at me.
Now I moved. I scrambled forward, crawling headfirst into the ditch beside the highway. It was dark down here, the road between me and whoever had just taken that shot. Blossom, finally on her feet, whinnied and reared, forelegs kicking in fright. She stamped about, eyes rolling, running in a circle.
What was she doing? Was she looking for me?
Run, I thought. She was too easy a target. Run!
A second shot came from the meadow. It smashed through the pommel on my saddle, scattering shreds of leather in the mud. Blossom squealed and bolted into the dark.
I was relieved to see her go. But now I was alone. I just sat there, crouched in the ditch, for what felt like forever, the only sounds my breath, and the whump whump whump of my heart.
My pistols, I thought. I reached for them and found only one. The second must have tumbled from my belt when I fell.
I drew the one I had, gripped it, my palm slick. Master, what do I do?
Keep your head, he said. And move.
Right. Whoever was shooting at me couldn’t see me in the ditch. He’d have no idea where I was. I shifted, crawling a good thirty yards before I dared to take a peek.
The road was lit by my torch, burning faintly as it lay in the dirt. I couldn’t see much past—
Another shot came, the bullet whistling overhead. I saw the muzzle of their gun flash in the meadow. Reflexively, I fired back. My flintlock fizzed, then boomed in my hand, kicking into my palm, before I dived back into the ditch.
I doubted I’d hit anything. My hands were shaking. And from the muzzle flash, my enemy had to be fifty yards away. The original shot had come from much closer, that first burst fifteen yards from the edge. The shooter must have retreated.
And it was a shooter, a single man; I was sure of it. There was too much time between shots, just enough for one man to reload his musket.
They left a separate ambush, in case someone followed? I reloaded my own pistol with the powder in my apothecary sash, thinking, Does that mean I’m close?
I listened. The night was still, just my breath and my heart. No answering gunfire, no horn blaring an alarm. Hope faded as I realized however close I was to the king, I wasn’t close enough.
And yet… sound carried, especially on a chilly night like this. I peeked over the ridge of the road, and as the muzzle flashed at me from across the meadow, I fired in return. The enemy’s bullet hit the mud; I didn’t know about mine. Again I reloaded, waiting.
Still there was nothing.
Despair returned. Poor Blossom, terrified and in pain, had bolted somewhere into the night. While I was grateful for that—if she’d stayed, she’d be dead, lost to a Covenanter’s bullet—I now realized that I was stuck. Even if I could chase my ambusher off, I had no way of catching up to the king’s company. Maybe if Sally managed to find more soldiers… but it would take time to round them up. Only Tom—
Tom! I thought desperately. He’ll follow sooner. And if he doesn’t realize there’s a Covenanter in the meadow…
Surely he’d hear the shots and stop?
Or would he come more quickly, thinking I was in danger?
I had to warn him. And I had to warn the king.
But how? If our shots hadn’t done the job, what else did I have?
The image came then, so clearly. Master Benedict raised an eyebrow and said, What else do you have, indeed?
And I understood.
I fumbled about under my shirt. My apothecary sash. It didn’t only hold reloads for my pistol. I still had two—
There.
My fireworks.
They were four inches long and cylindrical, with a three-inch tail of cannon fuse at one end. The paper-cone noses had been crushed—so had the cylinders, a bit—but I could mend that.
I took the map of Whitehall from my coat and tore it in half. Each piece I curled into a cone and fixed to the top of the fireworks with birch gum from one of the vials in my sash. I hoped the gum would keep them stuck on. I didn’t have time to cure it.
A shot whizzed overhead. The sound made me flinch, even though I knew he couldn’t hit me in the ditch. He’s feeling me out, I thought.
Well, he was in for a surprise. Now that the nose cones were stuck to my fireworks, I needed a stick to serve as a launcher. I cursed. I couldn’t see one in the ditch, and with the Covenanter out there shooting at shadows, I didn’t dare go crawling to find one. What was I to do—
Of course.
My pistol.
It wasn’t ideal—I’d probably burn my hand a bit—but what choice did I have? I dumped
