hour cutting a path to his office, which route had always been so easy before. When Emily had forced the door open, despite the clamouring of a dozen secretaries, she found the man was gone.
He had fled to avoid her wrath. He had gone to ground, she knew. When the bloody deed was done, he would resurface and set about his campaign for her anew.
Never, she said to herself. Once Scavian is gone, there will never be another. And not him – never him.
They waited there for some time, but Cristan Northway was nowhere to be found. Instead, they went to see Scavian. The prisoner was an easier man to visit than the mayor.
It was painful, that visit. For all she knew, it could be the last, and yet she could think of so little to say to him. He bore it bravely, gaunt from his captivity. In the end she just sat at his feet, glaring at the guards, as Tubal shared with him reminiscences of the war: people he and Scavian had known before she joined up, expelled members of the Survivors’ Club.
‘What did happen to the money?’ Scavian asked wryly. And then, ‘You’d better keep mine in the pot, I suppose.’
In mid-afternoon they travelled back to Grammaine, because the time had come. There would be no outside assistance. Plans had to be made.
*
It was in the yard at Grammaine that they found Penny Belchere hitching up her horse.
‘Emily!’ The girl started in surprise as the buggy drove in. ‘Why I’ve just come to find you.’
‘You’ve not looked too hard then,’ Tubal commented. ‘I think you rode past us on the road. At least I assume it was you.’
‘Oh, Lord, did I?’ She put a hand to her mouth. Emily barely recognized her out of uniform save that, like Emily herself, she still wore breeches and rode like a man.
‘How can we help you?’ Emily asked, and Belchere fumbled in her saddle pouch, drawing out a sheet of paper.
‘Same as usual,’ she explained gaily. ‘You’d think we’d have stopped meeting like this when the war ended, but here I am again.’
Emily took the message. Her name was on it, in a hand she knew well.
‘He gave you this, did he?’
‘For your hands alone,’ Penny confirmed. ‘He didn’t look happy about it. Mind, he’s not looked happy these last days, at all. I heard you and he had a row.’
Emily frowned at her. ‘Did you?’
Penny shrugged defensively. ‘I’m just saying—’
‘Open it,’ Tubal said. ‘See what he says. Hell, it could even be good news. The chance is remote, I admit.’
Emily broke the seal and saw a single line of crabbed, hurried script.
‘“Do not do anything rash”,’ she read aloud, looking at Tubal. The same warning as Gottred had brought her. They goaded her and they intimidated her and they mocked her, all of them, but by God they feared her. They feared what she could do, even while they drove her to it.
Do not do anything rash.
‘Strange. Sounds like he’s telling fortunes now,’ Penny said. The tension between them was lost on her.
‘You can go now, Penny. Thank you for doing your duty,’ Emily told her.
‘Will there be any reply?’
‘No.’ Emily said it with an air of finality.
*
They commandeered the drawing room, herself, Tubal and Brocky, and tried to devise a way to release their friend. At first they considered peaceful solutions, and then stealthy ones – but in the end they were three soldiers, and violence was always fated to intrude on the conversation.
‘How many guns do we have, do you reckon?’ Tubal voiced the common thought.
And after that they knew that, if it was to be done, it would be done in blood, and tomorrow.
They had been conspiring for some time when Alice let herself into the room.
‘Emily, so there you are—’
‘Alice, this is not a good time,’ Emily said. ‘We . . . cannot be distracted.’
Alice sniffed. ‘Well, I suppose you don’t want your message, then.’
‘What message?’
‘That was left under the door. If you don’t want it, why ask for it?’ Alice made as if to go.
‘Alice, I’m not in the mood for this just now. Give me the message and go.’
Alice’s eyes went wide. ‘Emily—’
‘Alice!’ Emily stood, for a moment every bit the officer facing insubordination. She put a hand out for the message, and her expression had no hint of sisterhood in it. Alice handed the paper over with trembling fingers and fled, and they heard her running all the way up the stairs