The Merman and the Barbarian Pirate (26 page)

Raef stiffened his sinews. He knew of at least one servant who had little love for Haverford.

"We need to get to the stables," he said. "There's a lad called Stephen who works there. He might just help us."

 "Damn right, I'll help you," snarled Stephen. He'd just got over the initial shock of Raef hauling him into an empty stall and being confronted with two women wielding guns and a book large enough to commit murder with. "You don't have to pay me. I hate the bastard, and what's more, I know how he's really passing this afternoon. He's told everyone that he's gone to his quarters to meditate on the pirate's sentence. That's codswallop. He's taken my sister Eliza up with him, and I loath to think what's going on. At least he'll let her off the hook this evening. That's when he's going to announce his judgment—a hanging for sure."

"Bastard," muttered Cecilia. "He's the one who needs to be hanged. He's Lord Lieutenant of the county, not judge, jury, and executioner." Raef admired her grit, and hoped one day soon she'd be a Lady Lieutenant of the County, if such things were permitted of females in human society. If they weren't, they damned well ought to be, though he couldn't fret about that injustice right now. Jon, so Stephen said, was under constant guard somewhere inside the house. On top of that, the four of them were in grave danger of being found and questioned.

"Where do you think Haverford will watch the… the…" Raef couldn't bring himself to say 'hanging.' "Where will he watch the proceedings from?"

"Probably his balcony," replied Stephen. Raef recalled Haverford's threat that first night he'd seen Jon in the cave, to stand up there and gloat when the pirate was executed. "The yeomanry will stand watch and Haverford can pronounce his judgment and lord it over everyone from above."

Raef bit his lip as an idea struck. "But if Haverford, say, proclaimed a pardon instead," he asked, "they'd have to let Jon go?"

"Yes," replied Sarah. "The Lord Lieutenant is the most powerful man in the county. Nobody would dare defy him… but I can't see anyone persuading him to do that."

"Nobody will need to," said Raef gravely. "Because by the time he pronounces the pardon, he'll be dead."

That revelation seized the others' full attention. The four of them bunched into a tight knot while Raef explained about the automaton. Raef intended to make the full-size model of Haverford appear on the balcony in Haverford's stead.

"I'll creep into his quarters via the servant's staircase," said Raef. "I won't be able to fire the pistol, because everyone would come running, but if I can take Haverford by surprise, I can knock him out with the butt or stab him or something. Then I'll make the announcement from within. My voice is not such a different timbre to his."

"We'll have to get away fast after that," said Cecilia, twisting a coil of hair about her finger, cautious but optimistic.

"It might work," said Stephen, who chewed nervously on a piece of straw. "If the model is as good as you say it is. He keeps it tight, because
I
didn't know about it. If he'd brought it at out a dinner party or ball to show his friends, I'm sure the gossip would've reached the stables."

"That's a plan, then," said Raef, and he picked up the book. "Stephen, will this manuscript be safe if we hide it somewhere in the stable?"

"I suppose so." Stephen bit clean through his strand of straw and screwed his slim features into a glare.

"What is it?" asked Raef.

"I don't see why you should get to kill him," said Stephen. "He's wronged me more, and Eliza too. I should do it."

"Raef's a pirate," said Sarah. "He's experienced at this sort of thing. We've seen him in action, and he's amazing."

Raef stared down at the grimy hay, feeling anything but amazing. He let the girls win the argument on his behalf. Merman pirate he might be, and keen to carry out the mission, but that did nothing to alleviate the iron clench of fear in his gut. Jon's life hung in the balance. Without him, Raef's future stretched out, endless, empty, and desolate. If Jon died, so would Raef's soul. But would this madcap plan really work?

Once the girls had persuaded Stephen, he accompanied Raef down the passage and up the spiral staircase as far as the door that opened near to Haverford's bedroom. "I'll wait here then," he said, only mildly begrudging. "I'll do my best to delay anybody who approaches, but I can't make any promises it'll work." He snorted. "Then again, it won't be the first time that I've been asked to keep watch while that nob swives my sister."

"This will be the last time, I promise." Raef patted Stephen's back and managed a smile, belying the panic that blazed within him. He must strike the killer blow again, but this time, he'd have no friends to back him up. Despite all he'd learned of Haverford's evil, he feared it would still be harder to kill him than some henchman he'd only just met. He wondered if it would be better just to incapacitate the lord somehow. Though that would risk Haverford crying out, or getting away before Raef's plan was complete. So much could go wrong, it made his head hurt.

He could do this. He must.

Opening the door a crack, he looked from side to side, nodded a farewell to Stephen, and hurried to the entrance of Haverford's chamber. The double door beneath the crest was closed. He knelt down, and pressed his ear to it.

He could hear the buzz of voices, but they seemed to be coming from the lower story. Not a whisper sounded from the bedchamber, or the creak of a mattress, or the ruffle of a bed sheet.

He cocked the pistol, opened the portal a sliver. The room had been tidied back to perfection since he'd ransacked it with Jon, but was devoid of all life. He shuffled in on his knees, then tiptoed to the dressing room and repeated the process of carefully opening the door. The smaller chamber turned out to be empty, too. He edged past the horn furniture and swished the red curtain aside, revealing the waxy face of the automaton Haverford. The real one remained missing.

"Damn, damn, damn." Raef tucked his gun away then raked his hair, attempting to reassure himself his plan wasn't in tatters. Wherever Haverford was, he would have to return to the bedroom in order to make his proclamation from the balcony. If Raef moved the model Haverford near the large windows, it would be ready to push outside. He could then wait behind the bedroom door and assault his victim on arrival.

Hearing a shout from outside, Raef hurried to the window. Haverford swaggered up the lawn from the jetty, wearing an enormous feathered hat.

Raef swallowed hard. Stephen had been wrong, or at least mistaken. He could see a figure huddled in Haverford's rowing boat: Stephen's sister, Eliza, he supposed. Haverford had taken the girl not to his bedroom, but to the cave.

In the west, the sun brooded low on the horizon. It would nearly be time for Haverford to come up and announce his judgment.
If
he came up at all. "Please," breathed Raef. "Please come up to your bower, so I can kill you."

Haverford wasn't in any hurry. Sheriff Simpson rushed out to greet him as he paced up the lawn. The two men exchanged words, and the sheriff waddled toward the house, huffing and puffing on his stout legs.

"Bring the prisoner out," shouted Simpson. "Lord Haverford is about to proclaim the verdict."

Raef's heart jumped to his mouth. Haverford couldn't. He mustn't. Not down there. Raef sunk to his knees, gripping the window, his knuckles whitening.

Beneath him, Jon was led out from the house, his hands tied, and accompanied by a dozen of the yeomen. They marched down the steps and headed for the scaffold, where the executioner pulled on a black hood. Jon strode boldly as ever, his back ramrod straight. He stared straight toward the noose, save a single glance at the ocean. Haverford wiped his neck with a large, white handkerchief and waited on the veranda below.

Haverford wasn't going to come up to the balcony. If that had ever been the plan, the blackguard had changed it.

"And so must I," murmured Raef.

He reached into his pocket and brought out the conch shell. The castle was near enough to the ocean to give it a try. Moreover, sunset couldn't be too far off, and if the army of mer arrived at that magical moment, maybe they
would
be able to walk on land.

Whatever came to pass, Galyna would take Raef back home, and he'd be furious, a terrifying prospect. Yet Raef had no choice. To save his love, he'd have to give him up.

Below, Haverford cleared his throat noisily. The rest of the company fell hushed. Unaccompanied, Jon alighted the steps of the scaffold. He held his chin high, as if trusting even at this late moment that his luck—or his love—would come through.

"I won't let you down," whispered Raef. He cupped the shell in his hand. "Send me an army. Deliver Jon Kemp from danger."

He lifted the spire to his lips and blew.

Sixteen

The conch emitted a thin, reedy note, and Raef held it 'til all the puff drained from his lungs. He hid the shell beneath the curtain, and gripped the sill once more.

Outside, proceedings were gathering pace. The yeomen had lined up, six on either side of the platform. In the distance at the jetty, Eliza had climbed out of the boat and was running toward the fisherman's cottages, hitching her gown back on her shoulders. Raef was glad of that. If a sea-borne army swept up to the castle, he didn't want innocent folk swamped. Though at this moment, no such apocalyptic force was forthcoming, and worry raked him. Maybe the summoning hadn't worked. None of his knowledge of magic talismans came from experience. Had he used the wrong kind of words in his plea? Was there some secret password he didn't know? On the other hand, the summoning might just take a bit of time… of which Raef was rapidly running out.

Haverford remained on the veranda, strutting like a seagull. "This man is guilty by his own admission of theft, smuggling, piracy, and every variety of dastardly crime," he announced. "My love for my country is too great to wish the time of the courts wasted in trying him like a decent citizen. Thus, as Lord Lieutenant, I hereby judge Jon Kemp guilty, and sentence him to be hanged by the neck 'til he be dead."

Haverford's announcement was far from unexpected, but it gouged into Raef like the pincers of a crab. One of the yeomen beat a drum to a somber rhythm. The executioner lifted the noose over Jon's head. Raef grabbed for his pistol, hauling up the window frame, even as a loud cry reached his ears. It was Cecilia, who'd emerged with Sarah and Stephen from the stables. All three stopped dead. There was little they could do except fire their weapons and hope. With any luck, they would intervene. Raef would kill Haverford and every last yeoman to help Jon… if, with the range of this pistol and his novice aim, he could hit any of them at all.

The drum roll intensified, a fierce battering. The executioner strode toward the lever that would release the trap beneath Jon's feet and see him swing. Raef squeezed the trigger and aimed for the back of Haverford's be-hatted head. A bullet fired at the Lord Lieutenant would at least delay proceedings, even if he missed. The drum roll accelerated, surging like thunder.

And then it was no longer the drum he heard. It was the ocean.

He unleashed his shot, which blasted through the feathers of Haverford's hat the same instant a wall of white water came rushing into the bay. Cresting the great wave were seahorses, on which rode a brigade of muscular mer warriors armed with pikes, and one who bore a trident. Galyna.

An army of the mer had come: the elders of Raef's tribe. Fright swamped his relief as the ocean defied the laws of nature. It dashed over the shale and swept up the green sward toward the castle like a spring bore across mudflats. The yeomen scattered with yelps of panic. The hangman proved more stolid. He reached for the lever that would open the scaffold's trap, even as Cecilia sprinted toward him and threw herself at him bodily. With the trap still in place, Sarah sliced a knife through the tethers about Jon's wrists. Jon lifted the noose from his neck to save himself.

Then the wave hit, swamping the platform, buckling the mighty tree as if it were a blade of grass, and obliterating Raef's friends. The waters smashed into the castle, spray splashing to the highest turret. Raef threw off his boots and belt and dived from the window. He let the rebound of the current take him, fighting with all his strength to keep his head above the surface and get to the tree.