Guns of the Dawn (11 page)

The Ghyer sighed. ‘I thought, when I came to reclaim my kingdom, that I would at least have your father to deal with. Now all I find are silly little girls.’

Alice spat at him, and Griff raised his hand to slap her again, but obviously thought better of it. Emily was starting to realize how lucky she had been. They had caught the brigands off guard,
thinking themselves secure in their tree-walled fortress. Things would go very badly for all concerned, though, when the first trigger was pulled.

She could see no obvious way out.

‘Imagine my surprise,’ said the Ghyer, emphasizing each word deliberately, ‘imagine how I felt, when I found that my old enemy was dead these last twelve years, and
by his
own hand.
’

Emily felt as though she had been struck. Her hands twitched on the musket and the barrel jerked. The Ghyer flinched and ducked back, and for a moment he was just an old man, tired and
frightened.

There was a long period of silence before he cleared his throat and continued, with a harsh, ragged laugh. ‘I see, in his absence, you’ve grown up into a man.’

To Emily’s shame, Alice giggled slightly. She put it down to nerves.

The Ghyer glanced between them, one hand raised peaceably. ‘Just put the gun down. Your man can go, and you and your sister’ll come to no harm. I mean to ransom her, and you’ll
get the same. Ransom works best with undamaged goods.’

‘Ransom?’ she echoed.

‘Of course.’ He smiled, revealing teeth that were uneven and yellow, with gaps. ‘Why not ransom? Two ladies of quality. The authorities will pay a good price for your safe
return.’ His eyes glinted, and that gap-toothed smile widened.

Emily looked him right in the face, a face that had been pared down by the trials of his life until it was too transparent to hide the truth.

‘You would never give us back alive,’ she told him. ‘You had Alice kidnapped for revenge. You hate my family too much. I hear it in your every word.’

His face froze up, except for his eyes, which flicked towards her musket.

‘And,’ Grant added, without looking round, ‘if your man there moves another step, I’m firing this thing and that’s the end of it.’

Emily became aware now that Griff had been inching towards her as soon as her musket had focused on the Ghyer, and that he was abruptly stock-still and scowling.

The expression on the face of the Ghyer remained calm, but his eyes were as wild as a trapped animal’s.
He knows I’m right.
Emily could almost hear the echo of the shots
resounding back to her from some point in time just moments away.

What on earth have I done?
I’ve killed Grant, and probably Alice. And me, too, but that’s no great matter.

She saw the Ghyer’s hand begin to reach for the pistol in his sash. ‘Just drop the gun,’ he was saying, his tone losing its nonchalance. ‘Drop it, Miss Marshwic.
I’ll give you my word.’

And what would that be worth?
She raised the musket to her shoulder and, as she did so, saw a movement behind him, further up the trail. She froze, and enough of the brigands noticed
that even the Ghyer turned to look.

Three riders had appeared over the rise, and two of them were wearing the King’s red.

Relief washed through her, and she said, ‘I’d advise you to surrender now. Perhaps they’ll show you some leniency, in light of your age.’ But then she sensed the mood of
the bandits. They had not tensed or lost hope. They had relaxed.

‘I’d take another look, Miss Marshwic,’ said the Ghyer, and his face shone with such triumph that it almost restored his youth. ‘They’re no friends of
yours.’

Two of the riders did indeed wear the uniform of the King’s army, but the third was in drab undertaker’s black, and she saw that it was Mr Northway, which betrayed the other two as
his henchmen from the town hall, with muskets held sloping over their saddles.

‘Put the gun away, Miss Marshwic,’ the Ghyer advised her. ‘Hoi, Northway, look who we’ve had come a-visiting! Some unfinished business of yours, no?’

Northway reined his horse in and studied the little knot of people before him: the Ghyer, the brigands, the Marshwic girls and Grant. A look crossed his face that signified sheer frustration,
that of a man whose hand had been forced. He spoke several words to his men out of tightened lips, and kicked at his horse.

‘What have you done?’ he demanded of the Ghyer, as he and his men came trotting down towards the camp. ‘What is this?’

‘Oh, don’t pretend this isn’t music to you!’ the Ghyer remonstrated, and Emily felt her musket sag in her grasp. One of the brigands started forward to take it from
her.

‘Now,’ said Northway, and both his men fired in unison, the roar of their guns echoing across the width of the clearing. The man reaching for Emily’s musket was slammed against
her leg, bouncing from the side of her horse to crumple to the ground. Her mount reared frantically and lunged away, but the tangle of trees deflected it and it rounded back on the camp. Across the
clearing, a second man was down, yelling and bloody, and then Grant fired the blunderbuss, and the bandit musketeer still standing loosed his own weapon, and the camp exploded into gunshot and
smoke. Emily screamed at the thunderous noise of it, and felt her musket kick in her hands, discharging its load at the sky. Northway had dropped awkwardly to the ground, drawing a brace of pistols
from a saddle holster. One of the red-coated soldiers was unhorsed, clutching at a raw wound in his arm. Grant had forced his mount between Alice and the rest, and his load of birdshot lashed
across the remaining bandits, scattering them. Some were fleeing, some were down.

‘Alice! Come to me!’ Emily could not even hear her own voice.

Through the reeking smoke, which smelt to her of her father on his last night, she saw the Ghyer drag the gun from his sash. There were tears on the old man’s face, knowing that it had
come to this. Betrayed, doomed by his own hand, he turned the gun on Emily. His mouth opened to spit out some invective lost in the roar of battle.

Something drove him to his knees, snapping his head back and throwing his arms wide like those of a crucified man. She saw him dragging the weight of his pistol back towards her, and still she
could not react, could not take her eyes away.

The second shot hit him so hard, from a low angle, that it almost threw him up onto his feet again, but he collapsed instantly, his back a blasted ruin.

There were no further gunshots. The only sound was the echo and re-echo of the guns, fading and vanishing amongst the trees, and the wretched moaning sounds of the wounded.

Emily found that she could finally draw breath again, but the air she inhaled was choked with cordite and memory. Her hands holding the reins were trembling, and she felt the horse’s
terror through the muscles of her legs.

Mr Northway stood up from where he had dropped to one knee to take his final shot into the Ghyer. The two pistols in his hands were smoking like pipes. His expression displayed only mild
unhappiness, as the wounded soldier was helped up by his comrade.

There was a tugging at her leg and Emily started suddenly, but it was only her sister. Alice was sobbing, tears coursing down her cheeks, as she tried to bury her face in Emily’s
dress.

Grant was across the clearing, checking on the stolen horses without a glance to spare for the fallen men – or for Mr Northway. After so much fury and gunfire, there seemed to be
surprisingly few corpses within the clearing. She saw that Griff’s was not one of them. At least three brigands had made off into the trees.

‘It’s all right,’ Emily heard herself saying to Alice, though her head was still ringing from the noise. ‘It’s all over. We can go home now.’ She put a hand
protectively on Alice’s head, and then raised the same hand with wonder, seeing it so fouled with grime and oil from the gun.

She heard a horse snort and stamp, and realized Mr Northway was now mounted again. He looked from her to Alice and back. ‘I had better escort you to Grammaine.’

‘Grant knows the way,’ Emily assured him, but Alice sobbed out, ‘Oh please, Mr Northway, please do. I don’t know what we’d have done if you hadn’t come
– or what they’d have done to us.’ She raised her tear-streaked face to her sister. ‘I’m so sorry, Emily. I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I didn’t mean for
any of this to happen.’

You didn’t mean to cause
this
sort of trouble, anyway.
‘Look, Grant’s bringing over the horses. You had better mount up,’ Emily said.

As Grant helped Alice into the saddle, Emily turned her gaze back onto Mr Northway. ‘I suppose we will be glad of your company on the way back to Grammaine, Mr Northway,’ she said.
Then, as soon as Alice was mounted, she turned her horse towards the trees again.

She did her best to ride aloofly at the head of their little procession, but Mr Northway was like her shadow, his horse keeping steady progress at her shoulder until she felt
compelled to look back at him.

‘You have some accusations, I think.’ His lipless, sardonic smile had returned.

She had resolved not to speak of it, but his words broke the fragile dam her discretion had built, and out came the words. ‘It was no chance meeting there between you and the Ghyer!’
she spat out.

‘Indeed not.’ His maddening expression did not change.

‘He was expecting you. He
knew
you.’

‘The Ghyer knew many people, you included,’ Northway observed.

‘But he was expecting
you.
The very man you came to warn us of– and you have been dealing with him.’

Utterly deadpan, he replied, ‘But as Mayor-Governor it is my job to deal with brigands.’

For a moment she was so angry she could not speak. ‘You were going to . . .
treat
with him. What was it about? Would you turn a blind eye in exchange for a portion of the
man’s gains?’

‘I was going to make terms, Miss Marshwic, and let him know what targets would arouse official ire and which he could attack in safety.’

She stared at him. ‘Mr Northway . . .’ But she fell speechless. What could be said to such an admission?

‘You see here in my company most of the official fighting strength of Chalcaster, Miss Marshwic. The Ghyer had more than ten, all told, though never all assembled in one place. If he
decided to declare war on my town, what do you suppose I could do? My job is to deal with whatever menace presents itself, and so I do by whatever means I possess.’

Still she was silent.

‘I would not have yielded Grammaine to him,’ Northway added.

‘Do you imagine,’ she said, ‘that I would be happy at having my safety bought with another’s blood?’

‘I don’t imagine you would, but you would never have known.’ Northway sighed. ‘However, the Ghyer was no more reasonable than you, in the end, and between the pair of
you, the decent thing appears to have been done. The brigands are put to flight, the man who had unified them is slain, the town is saved.’

‘How disappointed you sound,’ she mocked, for his smile was now gone.

‘What do you propose I do, Miss Marshwic, when another dozen brigands drift in and start their predations? Do I go to make terms with them? And why should they listen, after I broke my
word with the Ghyer?’

‘Do you blame me for—’ she started hotly.

‘No,’ he cut her off. ‘How can I? But do not cast so much blame my way, Miss Marshwic, for I do what I can. What would you do if all you could accomplish were little evils to
ward off worse?’

‘You have not scrupled at little evils previously, I think,’ she said, but her tone was not as harsh as before.

‘But those were for my own good,’ he told her, and a ghost of his smile returned. ‘Now I am soiling my soul for others, and it does not sit half so well with me.’

‘You are candid, Mr Northway.’

‘I have always spoken the truth with you, Miss Marshwic,’ he said. ‘Possibly because I so enjoy your expressions of outrage.’

She nodded, and it was not outrage that touched her. Instead she felt numb inside. The roar of the gunfire was still coursing back and forth inside her head, and her clothes – and her
hands and everything around her – stank of it.

She did not mind the noise, she found. It was like thunder, and soon over, but in her mind there was again a room with shuttered windows, filled with the smell of gun-smoke. There was a door she
had opened, thirteen years before, while looking for her father.

By his own hand.
He had cheated the Ghyer of a revenge, cheated Northway of any challenge to his ambition, cheated his family of a father, of an explanation.

She glanced at Northway again, the man whose machinations had put the gun in her father’s hand that fateful night. She searched for the wellspring of hatred that had simmered inside her
for so long.

She could not find it amidst the numbness, only the thought that if Northway’s schemes had forced her father into that room, forced him to take up that pistol, it had still been her father
who had decided to pull the trigger.

The thought shocked her, but it would not go away.

Alice had recovered from her ordeal within days, and already she was capitalizing on it when she visited Chalcaster. She was the abducted princess, to hear her tell it. She had
been wrested from her chamber in dead of night by a band of swarthy Denlanders and hied away with into the forests. They had been plotting to use her noble blood and gentle birth to destroy the
monarchy, although Alice was never specific about how this might be accomplished. Before their evil plots could be enacted, however, her rescuer and his gallant few crashed out of the woods and
saved her. Only the identity of that rescuer remained unspoken, with the heavy implication that it was some agent of the King desirous of remaining anonymous. Her gushing gratitude to Mr Northway
had soured even before she returned to Grammaine, and she had decided that her loathing of the man continued unabated.