Chapter 13
The Warehouse Plan
The broken chapel door closed behind Diana and Eliza, and Alistair stayed looking at the wood until their steps were gone on the road.
The lantern put a narrow band of light on the stones.
The rest of the place had gone back to shadow.
A few minutes ago Diana had been there, her fingers caught in the front of his coat, her mouth warm under his.
Now she was going to the house of a woman who watched her and a man who knew her true name.
Graeme came in by the side passage.
He had mud on his boots and dark water at the hem of his coat. One of the clansmen shut the door behind him.
"Boyd left the cart at a warehouse by the smaller quay," he said. "The box went in through the back door. Two guards stayed outside."
"Did you see the parchment?"
"I saw a box that could carry half a pig or three of Penelope's gowns."
Eliza had said the map would not go until the following night. Boyd might have carried something else, or Penelope might have started the movement before she told Malcolm.
Alistair picked up the lantern.
"Is Dugald waiting?"
"At the peat house. And Iain's waiting for you at the shelter with a disposition that hasn't improved since the last escape."
"He'll survive."
Graeme looked at Alistair's wounded side.
"It isn't his survival that's in question."
The walk to the peat house took nearly an hour. Staying down in the cart would have been faster, but the main road was busy even at that hour. They went by service tracks between fields hardened with cold, keeping clear of the lit holdings.
The pain below the ribs followed every climb. It had lost the cutting force of the first days. It was a steady pressure, sharper whenever Alistair tried to ignore it. Iain had said the skin was closing better than what lay under it. Diana had used similar words before she left the chapel.
He did not intend to prove either of them right.
The peat house sat low between two rises, out of sight of the road. Shepherds had used it through the summer and left it at the start of winter. Dugald was waiting by the small hearth, with a sheet of paper, charcoal, and an untouched piece of bread on the table.
"You took your time," he said.
Graeme pulled off his gloves.
"Boyd took a turn along the quay to see whether anyone was following him."
"Did he see you?"
"If he had, I wouldn't be telling you."
Alistair undid the clasp of the wool coat and sat down before his leg could give out on its own. The movement drew Dugald's eyes and no remark. That was one of the few advantages of planning with men who knew the difference between weakness and useless information.
Graeme moved the sheet nearer the light.
The drawing showed the river, the smaller quay, two lanes, and Boyd's warehouse. It was not a full plan. Graeme had marked the back door, the entrance facing the water, and two high windows.
"The east wall backs onto a ropewalk," he said. "There's a narrow passage between the two buildings. A man goes through sideways."
Dugald pointed at the bank.
"And by the river?"
"The current's strong. We can use a boat to come out, but not to go in without drawing eyes."
"How many men?"
"Two in front, two behind. I saw another one inside when the door opened."
Alistair examined the lines.
"Malcolm expects Diana to mark the north road tomorrow."
"Then part of his men will follow the road," Dugald said.
"If Penelope keeps the hour she gave Malcolm," Graeme said.
Alistair looked up.
"Why wouldn't she?"
"Because she changed the cart today without telling him. Boyd's driver had his instructions from Ellis, not from Malcolm."
The difference mattered. Penelope controlled the movement inside her own house. Malcolm knew the destination and believed he knew the hour. Neither of them appeared willing to leave all the power in the other's hands.
Dugald drew a circle over the warehouse.
"We'll go in before the transfer. We'll take the map while there are still few men."
"Without confirmation we could break into a warehouse full of cloth," Graeme said.
"And tell Malcolm we know the place," Alistair finished.
Dugald sat back.
"Then we'll wait for the box."
Alistair turned the paper over and drew four marks.
"Graeme will follow the load from the house. He won't interfere, even if he sees the wrapper."
"If there's an opportunity—"
"He won't interfere. We need to know where every man is before that door opens."
Graeme pressed the point of the charcoal until it broke.
"Go on."
"Dugald will hold four men on the withdrawal. Two at the lane, two near the quay. If anything changes, he'll close the way between the warehouse and the north street."
Dugald nodded.
"And you?"
"I'll go in by the east passage with two men."
"Three," Dugald said. "You are still guarding the right side when you should be guarding the left."
The observation landed on the stitching.
"Two is enough."
"Three," Graeme said. "Or I'll go in."
"You'll be following the box."
"I can follow and go in."
"And miss whoever arrives after it?"
Graeme closed his hand around the broken charcoal. The resistance lasted a few seconds.
"Three men with you."
Alistair looked at Dugald.
"Three."
The old fighter went back to the drawing.
"The back door?"
"Boyd uses a key," Graeme said. "So does one of the guards."
"We'll take the key."
"Quietly," Alistair said. "The map is the object. Malcolm will stay alive if he isn't in the warehouse."
Dugald raised his face.
"And if he is?"
"He'll stay alive until he says what Penelope intends to do."
None of them needed to discuss what came after.
The wood in the hearth cracked. The wind touched the low roof and found a gap above the door.
Dugald picked up the bread.
"Do the sisters know the plan?"
"They know what they have to do," Alistair said.
Diana would confirm the hour from inside the house. Eliza would use the usual messages to pass on any change. Neither of them would set foot in the warehouse.
Saying so to Diana would produce an argument. Alistair would have preferred to have it there, inside the low house, where he could see every answer before he heard it. Instead she was back in Penelope's rooms, under the name Whitmore, pretending that Malcolm had not threatened her sister.
The memory of her mouth came back with a precision unsuited to the moment.
Graeme pushed the paper toward him.
"You've been reading the same line for a while."
Alistair moved his finger to the east entrance.
"I'm thinking."
"Naturally."
Dugald chewed his bread without looking at either of them.
A short noise came from outside. Two knocks on the wall, a pause, one more.
Graeme opened the door. A boy came in with his face red from the cold and handed him a folded piece of cloth.
"It came from Lady Hawthorne's house," he said. "The young lady left it with the washerwoman in the back street."
"Which girl?" Graeme asked.
"The younger one."
Eliza.
Graeme opened the cloth. Inside was a strip of paper with a few words.
Box kept in the study. Transfer tomorrow, near midnight. Diana will confirm after dinner.
Alistair read it twice.
"How did she get out of the house?"
"She didn't," the boy said. "The washerwoman had it with a list of linen."
Eliza had turned an ordinary task into a channel. There would be no unusual movement for Ellis to report and no absence for Penelope to measure.
Graeme gave the messenger a coin.
"Go back by the west road. Don't use the same street tomorrow."
When the door closed, Dugald put the note away.
"We have the hour."
"We have the hour Penelope allowed Eliza to hear," Alistair said.
Graeme tipped his head.
"Do you trust it?"
"I trust Eliza. Penelope knows the two of them came back for a reason."
The sentence left the plan on the table with a frailty no charcoal line corrected.
Dugald set a finger on the circle of the warehouse.
"If it is a trap, we need a second signal."
Alistair thought about the chapel, the loose stone, and the way Diana had kept her voice steady while Malcolm threatened Eliza.
"A dark ribbon in the third-floor window will confirm the hour. No ribbon, no one will move."
Graeme pointed to the house, drawn only as a square near the street.
"The window may not be visible from the quay."
"It will be visible from the roof of the cooperage," Dugald said. "I will put a man there before dark."
"And if Diana can't reach the window?" Graeme asked.
Alistair took the charcoal.
"Eliza will send word through the laundry circuit. Any change will come written as a correction to the list."
"Does Penelope read the lists?"
"Not when she considers the matter beneath her."
Graeme sat back and folded his arms.
"You know a good deal about Penelope's habits for a man who's never been inside the house."
"Diana explained."
The answer came out short.
Dugald looked at the hearth. Graeme watched Alistair long enough for it to be inconvenient.
"Did she explain the plan or other matters?"
Alistair set the charcoal on the table.
"Would you like to follow Boyd with a swollen eye?"
Graeme went back to the sheet.
"The plan will be simpler without that."
Dugald cut another piece of bread.
"For all of us."
The silence that followed had little of a war council in it.
Alistair went over the routes until every man had a position and every position a way out.
The entry would happen only after Graeme confirmed the box inside the warehouse and the signal from the house said the hour still held.
If Penelope kept extra guards, Dugald would turn the cart into the market street.
If Malcolm appeared, he would be surrounded before he reached the quay.
On paper it all fitted into clean lines.
Diana stayed outside them.
Near dawn, Dugald carried the instructions to the shelter. Graeme went to sleep a few hours in a rented room near the quay. Alistair stayed at the peat house, because going back to the clan would take half a day and Iain would probably prevent his next departure.
He took off the coat, checked the binding, and found a small mark of blood at the edge.
Diana would have called that proof she was right. Iain would have used fewer words and more force.
Alistair redid the bandage with clean water and the cloth Dugald had left. Then he lay down on the blanket, and sleep came in short stretches, broken by noises that belonged to the road or to memory.
At noon Graeme came back with bread, cheese, and word that Boyd was still at the warehouse. There was no new message from the sisters.
The afternoon went on without change.
Alistair walked to the rise behind the house, tested the stitching on sloping ground, and came back before Graeme could turn the observation into a remark. The wound would hold for the entry. The body would do what was required.
A little before dark, the messenger from the night before appeared again.
This time he brought a list of linen folded inside an envelope addressed to a seamstress. Graeme shut the door and opened the paper on the table.
The first part had hems, ribbons, and two gowns in need of repair. On the last line, in smaller writing, Eliza had added:
Disregard the midnight delivery. Lady H. has given Ellis a new order. Hour not stated. Malcolm was not present.
Dugald had not come back yet. Graeme read the line again.
"Can she find out?"
"She will," Alistair said.
"And until then?"
He looked at the drawing of the warehouse, at the men placed by an hour that no longer existed, and at the north road where Malcolm would be waiting for a useless mark.
Penelope had moved the piece without telling her own ally.
Alistair folded the paper.
"Until then, no one knows when the map will leave that house."