Chapter 14 #2
She saw Fort, standing some way away but clearly able to hear, turn to his soldiers as if to give independent orders. She marched over to him. “This is a serious business with no place for rivalry. If we act in competition, we could well interfere with one another.”
She really couldn’t tell if his eyes were icy cold or flaming with anger. Perhaps it was icy rage. She only had a moment to study them, for he turned sharply toward Bryght. “What plan of action do you have?”
Elf could have hit him for so pointedly overlooking her, but this was no time for that either.
Later, she promised herself, remembering Rothgar saying that to Cyn. They, however, hadn’t been talking about a chance to talk, to explain, to understand.
Oh, devil take all men and their codes of behavior.
“We should approach this wharf from both sides,” said Bryght. “Three sides, in fact. Some of the soldiers can go on board our boat to stand out in the river in case they get the cargo out on the water.”
“You came by boat?”
“It was fastest.”
“You shot the bridge?” For a moment, Fort looked at Elf and she chose to believe that his flare of temper could come from concern for her. Immediately, however, he turned to his men. “Corporal, send four men with one of Lord Bryght’s people to take position on the river.”
“Aye-aye, my lord! What orders, my lord?”
“Stop any suspicious vessel. No, damn it. The river’s too crowded—”
“I’ll go on the boat,” said Elf. “I can recognize Murray.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Fort snapped.
“I agree,” said Bryght.
“Such harmony of opinion!” She pulled out the pistol. “I’ll shoot any man who tries to stop me.”
Fort and Bryght gaped at her, then shared a look that came close to commiseration.
Without another word, Elf turned to the four chosen soldiers. “Follow me.” As she led them toward the river, she heard Bryght say, “I knew it was dangerous to arm women.”
She also heard Fort’s response. “Of course, ladies are taught from birth to behave themselves.”
She remembered a similar conversation at Bryght’s betrothal ball, one that had almost come to blows. At the moment, she rather hoped they battered each another bloody over it.
The boat and the eight oarsmen stood a little way off the steps, but at her sign, it pulled in so they could embark. Elf gave Woodham, the leader of the crew, a brief explanation of the situation.
“So,” she said at the end, “I need you to hold position on the river opposite Harrison’s Wharf. Can you do that?”
The sturdy, middle-aged man scanned the busy waterway. “Aye, milady, though it won’t be easy. Other boats won’t want to go round us.”
“Do the best you can.”
As Woodham had said, getting out into the river under eight oars was easy enough, despite having to jostle for good water with the lighters and wherries ferrying goods to and from the ships.
Holding place in the fast-flowing water without colliding with other boats was more difficult, but the oarsmen managed it.
Elf scanned the crowded river, looking for a boat carrying a coffin and a bob-wigged minister or Murray with his blond hair. She couldn’t see any vessel that could fit the bill.
She turned to study the wharf.
She wished she had a spyglass, for the riverbank was a confusing jumble of jetties, warehouses, and cranes, all swarmed over by workers.
Then she saw a flash of red that must be the soldiers.
In moments she could make out Fort and Bryght coming from different directions, and could even mark their progress by the eddies in the human stream as men moved away from the military.
She studied the edge of the wharf where goods were being loaded into boats. It was hard to spot any one person, but then she saw a crane hoisting something off a cart.
A coffin?
“There!” she said to the soldiers. “See that box?”
It took a moment, but then they spotted it too. The crane was swinging the coffin over a lighter. Below on the wharf a white-wigged figure almost danced with agitation as he watched the operation.
“That’s our target,” she told the soldiers. “We must stop it being loaded on board a ship.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, milady,” said one of the soldiers, “but on the river, that could be dangerous.” She could see from the way he clutched onto the boat that he wasn’t happy on the water.
“If it gets onto a ship, it’s no great problem.
A vessel can be stopped and searched on its way down the river. ”
That was true. It could take days to sail down the Thames into the North Sea, and vessels were subject to various regulations all that time.
“Perhaps not, milady,” said Woodham. “See that vessel there?” He pointed out into the confusing forest of masts. “The one flying the fleur-de-lis?”
Elf shaded her eyes and did see it. “What does that mean?”
“I reckon it’s the ship taking the French ambassador back, and it’s the only one that’s yet to sail. Stopping vessels like that ain’t usually done.”
“Of course,” murmured Elf. “That’s why it all had to be last night. To travel on that ship. You say it’s about to sail?”
He squinted at the great vessel. “Aye, milady. Anxious to be off on the tide, I’d say.”
Excitement had fueled Elf, but at this crucial moment, it suddenly drained away, making it hard to formulate decisions. What-ifs and ifs only clamored in her weary head. She shook them away. “Block the way of that boat,” she ordered.
“Aye-aye, milady,” said Woodham, but he added, “That’s a lighter they’re putting that coffin on. A big boat, a lighter is. If it chooses to go through us, we’ll be kindling.”
Elf could see what he meant, but couldn’t weaken. “Then we’ll have to stop it before it goes through us, won’t we?”
The coffin sat on the lighter now—a mere fraction of the cargo the huge barge could carry—and Fort and Bryght’s parties had arrived nearby.
From a sudden shift in the crowd—a surge away from the edge of the wharf—Elf knew something was happening.
Like a line of toy soldiers, the redcoats aimed their muskets.
At whom?
At a man with a pistol.
Even as she saw that the man with the pistol wasn’t Murray, fire spurted from the barrel as he fired, and the line of muskets belched flame and death.
The pistol-wielder tumbled backward into the river.
On the wharf another person fell.
Who? Dear God, who?
Elf stood clutching one of the stanchions, watching the lighter moving ponderously into the river, while on the wharf confusion seethed. But the barge was steering away from them, away from the French vessel!
“What’s he doing?” Elf cried, trying not to even think of dead bodies. “Where’s he going? Get closer to him!”
“Nay, milady,” said Woodham phlegmatically.
“He’s heading for the French ship. Lighters are dumb-boats, see.
With just one man and one oar they can’t steer proper.
They have to use the flow of the river. Lightermen know the ways of the river like you know your hand and he’ll end up at the French ship in the end.
Of course,” he added, squinting at the crowded Thames, “that means that even if he don’t want to crash right through us, there’s not much he can do about it. ”
“Oh, God,” Elf whispered.
She stole a glance back at the wharf, but saw only a milling crowd. The soldiers suddenly fell into line again and fired another round after the boat, but it missed. She prayed God their fire not injure an innocent person, and that Bryght or Fort stop them firing again.
If Bryght and Fort were both still able to give commands.
Who had fallen on the wharf?
Perhaps it wasn’t either of them.
Why did she have this certainty that it was Fort?
She forced mind and eyes back to the lighter.
It was sidling and drifting its way over the river, and now it clearly headed toward the French ship. Which meant it headed toward them.
Then she spotted Murray.
He stood, one hand protectively on the coffin, gazing rapt at his destination.
He wore clergyman garb, but Elf recognized him all the same.
A pistol in his free hand pointed at the lighterman, so he couldn’t be entirely caught up in the sight of the French ship.
Clearly, the lighterman would not be allowed to turn back even if he tried.
There was only one thing to do.
Elf spoke to the soldiers. “Which of you is the best shot?”
One moved forward. “I am, milady. Pickett’s the name.”
“Well, Private Pickett, do you think you can kill the man standing in that vessel?”
He considered it, squinting. “If this boat don’t move too much, it’s an easy shot, milady.”
“Woodham, keep the boat as steady as you can.”
“Aye-aye, milady.”
It shocked her to contemplate cold-blooded murder, but she had to stop the barge.
Elf remembered Vauxhall, and the way Murray had pursued her, knife in hand.
She knew he would shoot the innocent lighterman on the slightest pretext, and he was responsible for all the recent deaths, including Sally’s.
Including Fort’s?
She couldn’t know that Fort had been the person who had fallen on the wharf, and yet she did, and chill sat heavy inside her because of it.
She cast one last harried glance at the distant riverbank, took a deep breath, and said, “Whenever the time seems right, Private Pickett.”
The man knelt on one of the velvet-covered seats, using the back as extra support for his long musket, viewing down the barrel with great care. With a loud click, he pulled back the pin and removed the flint cap. Mouth dry, Elf saw his finger begin to tighten on the trigger.
Then another lighter passed between, blocking the shot, and creating a bobbing wave.
Pickett muttered something, then said, “Bob, keep an eye open for anything else like that, will you?”
“Right’o, Billy,” said one of the other soldiers. “Looks clear for the next couple of minutes.”