Chapter 12
Rather than give the game away by taking his curricle or his own well-bred Arabian mare, Sebastian rode out to Chalk Farm on a suitably nondescript job horse hired from an Oxford Street livery stable.
The night was cold but clear, the sky above a panoply of stars that glittered at him from out of the deep black velvet of eternity.
Once upon a time, in the days of the Druids, this area had been woodland, home to deer, wild boar, and wolves.
A millennium later, it served as one of Henry VIII’s favorite hunting grounds.
But then came Henry’s break with Rome, the Stuarts, regicide, and civil war, and the Puritans sold off the land to their friends.
The trees were cut down, and what had once been the forested hunting grounds of wolves and kings became grassland and neatly tended fields.
The tavern stood on an ancient winding lane just off Hampstead Road.
Originally an old white-painted farmhouse, it had two stories, with a central door flanked on each side by a window and a wide veranda that ran across the entire front.
As Sebastian reined in, he could hear the laughter and raised voices of drinking men spilling out into the night.
The taverns on the outskirts of London were always crowded on Sunday nights, when armies of drovers herding everything from cattle and sheep to ducks and geese converged on the city for the Monday morning markets.
Leaving his horse in the care of an ostler, Sebastian crossed the stable yard to push open the door to the taproom.
After the crisp, calm fresh air of the countryside, walking into the noisy, smoky, dimly lit tavern was like entering another world, its atmosphere thick with the smells of sawdust, hot tallow, spilled beer, tobacco, and pungent male sweat.
Pushing his way through the boisterous, laughing crowd, Sebastian went to lean against the bar and signal the woman behind the counter.
She looked up from filling a clutch of tankards and frowned.
“Haven’t seen you around here before,” she said, coming to set a foaming tankard on the bar before him with a soft thump. She was an attractive woman somewhere in her thirties with thick dark hair, creamy white skin, and pale eyes that narrowed speculatively.
Sebastian raised the tankard to his lips and took a slow swallow. “I’m looking for a man named Sid.”
“Oh? Sid what?”
“All I know is ‘Sid.’ ”
“I take it he ain’t exactly a friend of yours?”
“No,” Sebastian admitted. “But I’d still like to talk to him. Is he here?”
She shook her head. “Sorry, don’t know nobody named Sid.”
“You don’t?”
“No.” She reached for a wet rag and wiped at an imaginary spot on the scarred countertop. “What you want with him, anyway?”
“I hear he once tangled with the young gentleman who got himself killed last night up on Primrose Hill.”
She stiffened. “You a Bow Street Runner?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so,” she said with a sniff. “We already had ’em out here once today, you know—pokin’ around, askin’ all sorts of questions. It ain’t good for business.”
“I wouldn’t think it would be.”
She rested her forearms on the bar and leaned into them. “So if you ain’t a Runner, then what’s that dead nob to you, anyway?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Meanin’ what?”
He simply smiled and shook his head. “They were here last night, weren’t they? Both young men—the one who was killed and his friend.”
He thought for a moment she didn’t mean to answer. Then she shrugged and said, “They were here.”
“They came in together?”
“They came in together, they drank too much, and then they left together. Lord knows I was glad enough to see the back of ’em. Them kind are always trouble.”
“Did they quarrel with anyone while they were here?”
“Not this time.”
“But they’ve quarreled with people here in the past?”
“You mean, besides your nonfriend Sid?” she said archly.
“Yeah.”
She straightened. “They’re a quarrelsome lot, those young bucks.”
Sebastian swiped his thumb at a line of foam running down the side of the tankard. “Did the two men by any chance quarrel with each other while they were here last night?”
She stood very still. “Funny, the Runners who was here today didn’t ask that question.”
“So did they? Quarrel with each other last night, I mean.”
“As it happens, they did.”
Sebastian felt a yawning pit of worry open up in the depths of his gut. “Do you know what about?”
She shook her head. “I try to stay as far away from that kind as I can.”
Raising his tankard again, he let his gaze drift around the roomful of drovers, farmhands, and tradesmen. He didn’t see anyone who looked like he was on the high toby, but then, what exactly did a knight of the road look like when not engaged in his favorite occupation?
“You get many Druids in here?” he asked.
At that, the woman laughed out loud, then rolled her eyes. “Certain times of the year, they’re so thick you can’t hardly turn around without tripping over one of ’em.”
“Were any here last night?”
“Now, how would I know, if’n they wasn’t wearing their robes an’ all?”
“I suppose it would be rather difficult.”
She fixed him with a long, thoughtful stare. “You thinkin’ it’s true, what they’re sayin’? That somebody used that nob as part of a heathen sacrifice, like they did in olden times? Burned him to their gods?”
“Do you?”
She made a scoffing sound deep in her throat. “Reckon them’s just old stories folks use to scare children.”
“So who do you think killed him?”
“Somebody who knew him, I reckon. We get lots of rough characters in here, and some of ’em can turn real mean when they get the drink in ’em.
But those bucks—the ones who was here last night, and their friends, too—they’re somethin’ else again.
Think they own the world, they do; that they can do whatever they want and never have to pay for it.
But somebody showed at least one of ’em that sometimes that ain’t so, didn’t they?
And if I was to say I’m sorry, I’d be lyin’. ”
Then she tossed her rag on the counter with a sodden plop and walked away.
On a clear, moonlit night like tonight, the huddled buildings, church towers, and docklands of London were plainly visible from the summit of Primrose Hill.
Sebastian stood with the reins of his hired horse held loosely in one hand, his gaze on the distant city.
A breeze had kicked up, bringing with it the scent of damp earth, dead grass, and, from nearer, the charred stench of last night’s fire.
He couldn’t have said exactly why he’d come here, as if this haunted place could somehow whisper to him the secret truths that he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear.
Drawing a deep breath, he listened to the distant lowing of a cow and the quiet footfalls of a man who’d left his own horse down below and was now creeping stealthily toward the top of the hill.
“My hearing and night vision are both quite good, you know,” said Sebastian, shifting the reins to his left hand to leave the right one free. “So if you think you’re sneaking up on me, you’re in for a rude surprise.”