T.F. Banks - The Emperor's assassin

Presley nodded. “Aye, Morton. I've my pistols ready.”

“Pistols are ever unreliable. But our nerve-when it falters, we are lost.”

Ilchester appeared where and when Darley had predicted, and the driver made his way toward the coaching inn. As they passed into the yard, however, the stench of charred wood assailed their nostrils, and a terrible sight greeted their eyes.

“What a fire they have had!” Darley said.

The driver brought the coach up before the inn's doors, a crowd of gawkers moving slowly aside.

Darley handed Arabella down from the carriage, and they stood gazing at the blackened mass, the burnt remains of beams and posts jutting out at odd angles, the slate roof collapsed, its back twisted and broken. Smoke still spiralled up in thin plumes here and there, and a few young men with buckets picked their way through the half-fallen building, dousing any places where the fire threatened to rise up again.

“It is a miracle the whole inn was not lost,” Darley said.

A woman standing nearby turned to them and said, “It is a miracle, sir, but God sent rain and the fire was quelched.”

“Quenched,” Arabella corrected her. “But thank the Lord, all the same.”

“How did it start?” Darley enquired.

The woman, who was exceptionally pious-looking, turned to them. “'Twas the Bow Street men chasing some poor men for the reward money as did it. Set the hay afire with the flash from their pistols. Poor Mr. Berry will have them to court, he will. Lost half his stable of horses, and men were burned and laid low with smoke fighting the fire.”

“Bow Street?” Arabella said, turning on the woman, whom she towered over. “When was this?”

“Last night, ma'am.”

“Were they hurt? The Bow Street men?”

“I'm sorry to say they weren't, ma'am. They went off after the men they were chasing lest their rewards get away. Didn't stay to help quelch the fire they started.”

Arabella and Darley looked at each other. “Can we get horses here?” Darley wondered.

The woman shook her head. “Mr. Berry's doing his best, sir. You'd best talk to him.”

More careful enquiries assured them that indeed men claiming to be from Bow Street had been there, and everyone thought they'd started the fire in the stables, where shots had been fired.

Arabella was sure that only Darley could have found fresh horses in such a situation, for they were back on the road and pressing on in little more than an hour.

After Arabella's unexpected visit from Honoria d'Auvraye, she and Darley had gone looking for Morton. Mr. Townsend told them that Morton and Presley had stopped at Bow Street for firearms earlier in the evening, but no one had seen them since.

After that they had retreated to Morton's rooms to wait. A concerned Wilkes hovered over them, bringing cafe au lait and dainty cakes. Mr. Townsend had finally arrived saying that a note had come from Morton for Sir Nathaniel. Morton and Presley had gone with Captain Westcott in pursuit of supporters of Bonaparte who were suspected of murder. They had set out down the Great West Road that very night.

Darley had hesitated only a moment, then proposed they set out in pursuit.

“But where are they going?” Arabella had asked.

“Where is Bonaparte?” Darley had answered.

“Plymouth, as you know very well.”

“Then that is where we will go, too, for there we shall find Mr. Morton.”

It was early afternoon when they finally reached Plymouth, and as he climbed stiffly from the coach, Henry Morton could smell the sea, heavy with the dull reek of fish. But he could see nothing. A thick wall of white fog hung before them, immense and motionless and uncanny in the cool, still air.

In the last miles of their journey they had had a horse go lame and had limped into the town, tradesmen's carts fairly flying past. But then they were rewarded. In the courtyard of the inn where they brought their post horses, casually parked amongst the other vehicles, stood their quarry. The phantom berlin they had been chasing across the English countryside was empty, however, its team gone, its dark shape hunched spiderlike in the blur. Morton crossed the yard to be sure of what he saw.

After looking into the deserted compartment, his eye was caught by something on the door. Scooping up a handful of hay, he wiped away some of the caked grey dirt, revealing a painted line. Scrubbing harder-one would almost think the grime had been plastered on de-liberately-he gradually revealed the whole design. A coat of arms. Westcott and Presley appeared to either side of him.

“Where did this lot get hold of a carriage like this?” Jimmy wondered. “Some toff's, obviously.”

Morton peered hard at the crest, the dim gold and blue chevrons, the odd, sketchily rendered little animal. Yes, odd. Like a hedgehog-wasn't that what Wilkes had said? But when you looked closer, maybe a lion, its hind paws together on the ground, forepaws together in the air. A lion salient .

“Do you recognise these devices, Captain?” Morton asked.

Westcott stared a moment. “No, I think not. Might they be French?”

“I think they are, and I have seen them before. It has just taken me a moment to recall where. This same crest was on a letter I received but the other day. It belongs to the Count d'Auvraye.”

The surprise of his companions hung a moment wordless in the air, then Westcott swore.

“I am constantly dumbfounded by this matter,” the seaman muttered.

Presley wiped at his eyes and gave his head a shake. “I thought we were chasing bloody Boulot and some of his Bonapartist friends!”

“So did I,” Morton said, “but it seems we've got that wrong-like too many things.”

Morton turned to Westcott, who still stared at the coat of arms, his look grim and distant.

“You'd best alert your admiral to what goes on here, Captain. Until we have these folk in hand, they should not allow Bonaparte out on the deck or anywhere else he might be a target for a sharpshooter.”

Westcott nodded. “Yes. I'll go down and try to see Keith immediately. He's likely to think me an alarmist, but I shall suffer that if need be.” He turned his measuring gaze to Morton. “And what of you?”

“We'll begin the search for-”

“Well, who?” Jimmy interrupted.

Morton looked back at the berlin. “For Eustache d'Auvraye, or his secretary, Rolles-or both. I cannot say.”

“Royalists!” said Jimmy, still trying to grasp it.

“And what charges will you lay at their feet?” Westcott quietly wondered.

“The abduction of Jean Boulot, to begin. The murder of Napoleon Bonaparte if we are not quick.” Morton turned away from the carriage, looking about as though trying to find a place to begin. “Jimmy and I will ask about here and see what we might learn. Then we'll go down to the quay. They will need a boat if they are to assassinate the emperor.”

Westcott took out his pocket watch and flicked open the silver cover. “Let us meet in three hours' time. There is a public house on the quay called the Blue Pillars. Anyone can direct you.”

As the navy man strode off into the grey obscurity, Morton and Presley began with the ostler.

“They arrived early this morn,” the man said. He reached up a finger and stretched the skin taut at the corner of his twitching eye.

“How many of them?”

“Three coves; Frenchmen, every one.”

“And what did they look like, these Frenchmen?” Morton wondered.

The man closed his eyes tightly and then opened them both, blinking three or four times, the spasm apparently over. “A young French nobleman, all in fancy embroidered clothes. A short little cove who looked after everything-paid the bills and made arrangements. T'other one didn't say anything but to his traveling companions. He was sullen looking-had one of those claret spills on his head.” The man turned back to the harness he was repairing. “Oh, and there was a driver.” He shrugged. “Looked like anyone else, really. Nothing to mark him.”