Kyorin smiled, disappearing into the labyrinth of the rookeries. 'Unfortunately, intoxicants will no longer taste quite as appealing as they did to you before your healing.'
There was a Pentshire moon outside the farmer's window. Round. Full. Easily enough light for the farmer to see by as the squire's thug took his hand and raised it slowly up in front of his face.
'Now, imagine your fingers are voters,' said the thug. He gave the farmer's fingers a little wiggle.
'Pay attention!' hissed one of the other two men pinning down the farmer's body. 'This is important.'
'Nice, fat, plump little voters. Contented,' explained the ringleader. 'They know who to vote for. They know who owns the tenancy on their farms and crofts. But-' his voice turned ugly '-now someone else comes along to stand for parliament, and look, they're all confused.' He wiggled the farmer's fingers in a sad little dance.
'Someone who's not been paid off to throw the election for you in your rotten little borough,' spat the farmer, spots of blood from his smashed face landing on his bedroom floor as he spoke.
'That's a terrible accusation to make,' said the ringleader. 'You see, when the voters are confused, they just need straightening out.'
The ringleader took one of the farmer's fingers and pushed it back, the snap of bone nearly making him faint.
'That's a lot of work for us,' observed one of the thugs behind him, hissing the words into his ear. 'And the Circle knows, you've kept us busy enough this year already, organizing every labourer whose ear you could grab to pour your poison into their thick heads, setting up a damn tenants' union.'
Another finger snapped and the farmer desperately tried to stop himself screaming so he didn't wake up the others in the farmhouse, trying to keep his family out of this.
'And you wouldn't like parliament,' added the second of the thugs behind him. 'All those long airship trips down to Middlesteel, and the prices in the capital are diabolical.'
A third finger snapped and all the farmer could think of was how he was going to walk the shirehorse and the plough across his fields next week in this mangled state.
'Don't get me wrong, now,' continued the ringleader, 'but I just can't see you sitting in the House of Guardians. They're carriage folk, mostly, and there's you with no carriage at all – why, I wager you wouldn't even know which spoon to pick up from the table to use for your soup. You would just embarrass us all if you got elected.'
The ringleader made to break the farmer's last finger, but then shook his head as if changing his mind. 'And here's something I bet you haven't considered. If you're down in Middlesteel, hobnobbing with all the quality and listening to all those boring bills being read in parliament, then who's going to be looking after your family?'
The farmer's heart leapt. Even they wouldn't? A fourth thug emerged into the room with the farmer's son struggling in his grip, one hand covering the boy's mouth, the other clutching a pheasant-skinning knife.
'Please!' the farmer begged.
'What, you thought we were joking?' said the ringleader. 'Thought we'd come a-visiting your home at night for a bit of sport, did you?'
'Please!'
The shadows in the room were growing longer, thicker. Like mist. But no one noticed. The farmer was struggling desperately under the weight of the thugs holding him down, the others were too giddy with the excitement of the kill.
'Shut up, you've got another two lads, you're not even going to miss one of them.'
'You can't do this!'
'I feel your pain,' laughed the ringleader.
'And I feel your evil,' hissed another voice, as the thug holding the farmer's son stumbled back into the shadows of the room. They were both enveloped and disappeared, a second before the grip holding the farmer fast seemed to slip away and he was free.
The farmer backed away as the ringleader and the remaining thug glanced hastily around at the shadows of the room, hundreds of them, swelling and moving like the surf on the sea. Solid. Black. Laughter seemed to bubble out of those shadows, but there was no happiness in it. It was a pit to hell opened in that room, the echo of a fallen soul rising out of the depths. But where was his lad, and where was the thug who had been holding him?
Twisting a knife around in his hand, the ringleader seemed to be trying to locate the sound of the terrible laughter. There was an explosion of light from one corner, blinding the farmer, then a series of wet slaps. As the dots cleared from the farmer's eyes, he realized the only other person left in the room was the ringleader, the shadows twisting and circling around him.
'You've carried your squire's message for him this night,' laughed a dark voice. 'I have one for you to take back to him.'
There was a snap-snap-snap of light – like the powder flash on a camera – the shadows and the light merging to become an angular figure striking at the gang's ringleader. The farmer turned his head to avoid the shower of splintering glass as the thug was forced to leave by the window.
The room seemed to return to normal, the intense light diminishing to a sparkle on the handle of a pistol – one of a pair – holstered on a figure wearing a jet-black riding coat, his face covered with a dark executioner's hood.
'My son?' trembled the farmer, looking mesmerized at the three corpses lying on the floor of his bedroom.
'Back in his room,' said the figure. 'A child's mind is a very flexible thing. He'll remember nothing of this night.'
'Dear Circle,' said the farmer, 'what have you done, man? There's three dead here. The squire has the county constabulary in his pocket, they'll-'
'The county magistrate is due a visit from me, as, I believe, is the squire.'
'You can't interfere with justice!'
The terrible laughter returned to the room. 'They only know about the law; I shall explain what justice is.'
'You're him, aren't you. The one they talk about.'
'Look out of the window,' said the hooded figure. 'What do you see?'
The farmer stood in front of his shattered window. There was the gang's ringleader, crawling across the glass on a broken leg, moaning, trying to reach his horse. And a dense fog was forming – seeping out of the woods, fingers of it probing along the ground like the legs of a curious spider. It was a marsh fog. The farmer looked around, but the three corpses had disappeared.
Vanished too was the Hood-o'the-marsh. Only the broken window remained as evidence that the farmer hadn't dreamt the whole break-in.
Walking into the woods, the Hood-o'the-marsh allowed himself a smile, shouts from the squire's mansion echoing behind him as the great house's retainers spilled into the night, waving their blunderbusses and birding rifles. Someone was yelling to douse the lanterns, more of a hindrance than help on a nighttime pursuit. Not that it would do them any good, any more than cavalry redcoats would be able to help the bloody figure of a county magistrate in a dressing gown, stumbling towards town and the garrison. He owned the night. Not much of a recompense for losing the ability to sleep, to dream.
Which was why the silhouette of the woman waiting at the top of the hill took him by surprise. Nobody could sneak up on him. Nobody. Not since he had found… both pistols were suddenly in his hands as he advanced, treading silently towards the woman. After all these years, could it really be her?
'Mother, is that you?'
There was no answer. He could feel nothing from her, as if she had no weight on the world. No evil. No goodness either. And there was only one person – if you could call her a person – who had ever registered on the Hood's senses like that.
'Mother, if-'
