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Chapter 21


Early in the morning the Meadowlark was ready to depart. Fitzroyce kept pacing up and back on the dock, watching crates, bales, and boxes loaded into the ship under the watchful eye of the master.

At last, the young lieutenant left his duties and came up to the inn to fetch his sister and her belongings. O’Connor kept back a short way, staying amid the busy crowd so he could keep a close eye on them. The goods wagon had departed before cockcrow with her parcels and packages, and there they were on the wharf.

He did his best to remain concealed. So many ships were preparing to move on from Hamburg with the morning tide. A Navy ship flying USE colors had just set sail, its brasses polished to a blinding gleam to pick up the red sunrise. With that much canvas on the wind, it would be out of sight in a matter of minutes. He kept the English brother and sister in sight, staying just behind a wagonload of kegs trundling in between them.

The lieutenant showed her to the heap of boxes on the dock. The boot-faced girl clucked around the luggage, no doubt checking to make certain all the bags and cases were there. Her fussing fixed the brown-haired wench’s attention on her.

The lieutenant answered a shout from the bridge and dashed up the gangplank, leaving the women alone on the dock. Perfect. The time had come. O’Connor spotted Fitzroyce already moving toward her. They could take her away before the boy came back.

O’Connor felt for the knife at the back of his belt and hid it in his sleeve. Closer, now. He glanced back to see if the way was clear to the warehouse. Yes, a long line of heavy goods wagons lay between the ships and the town, all the better to conceal his escape.

As the wine cart passed them, O’Connor stepped deliberately close and bumped into her.

“Entschuldigung,” the girl said, turning around to offer an apologetic face to him, then paled in shock. O’Connor held the knife to her ribs.

“Not one word, girly,” he said. “Come with me.”

“Now, you!” the servant shrieked, her voice sounding like the gulls screaming overhead. She drew the knife in her belt. “Let my mistress be!”

By then, Fitzroyce had swooped in and taken the girl by the arms. The servant rushed at them, flailing at them with her basket. O’Connor kicked it, and the contents went rolling all over the deck. The girl struggled, jackknifing and kicking to free herself from his grasp, and attempting to get her hand into the pouch on her belt.

“She’s strong as a salmon,” Fitz grunted, laughing. “Easy goes there, my lass.”

O’Connor threw his arm around the neck of the servant, squeezing hard to calm her down. He tossed his head in the direction of the warehouses.

“Let’s go,” he said.

But by then, the bustle around them had cleared, and the ship’s crew had spotted what was going on. A handful of men scrambled down the gangplank toward them.

“Stop that! Let them go!” one of the men shouted.

Fitz pulled the girl toward the row of carts, aiming to squeeze between a couple and disappear. O’Connor had more of a struggle with the maidservant. She was as slippery as a wet pig, and landed a few blows on his ears and chin, and they weren’t love-taps either.

“Back, or I’ll gut her!” Fitz shouted at the sailors. The brother, James, signed to his fellows. They kept edging warily toward the two men and their captors, flanking outward to surround him. “Back! You don’t believe me?”

He turned the knife upward and pricked the girl’s chin with it. A thread of blood ran down her pale skin.

That was too much for the brother. He flung himself over his sister’s back, knocking Fitz’s arm down. Fitz kept hold of his knife somehow, and turned to slash at James. Cloth tore, and the boy had a bloody streak down his chest. Fitz still kept the girl tight against him in his other arm.

The brother caught him with the point of his knife. It was honed sharp as sharp, and tore through the linen. He was used to using it in fights, so it seemed, for Fitz had to defend instead of attacking.

The girl struggled hard. She’d worked an arm free, and brought her own knife into play. Knocking the brother back with his shoulder, Fitz caught her arm and bent her arm back, back, back until everyone heard a crack. Not a bone, but a tendon. The knife fell and spun away. She dropped to her knees, clutching her wrist. Fitz grabbed her around the neck and hauled her toward the warehouses.

All the time, the servant girl was trying to break free of O’Connor and get back to her mistress. O’Connor nearly had her to the gap between a cartload of osier baskets and a pen of barking puppies, when two of the sailors jumped for him. He punched the servant girl in the neck. She went down, gasping. He evaded the Englishmen’s grasp to try and help Fitz.

The brother leaped onto Fitzroyce’s back, trying to force the man’s head back. O’Connor grabbed for him and threw him off into the faces of his fellow sailors. He took hold of the girl’s arm and pulled her upward.

Suddenly, a blinding light was thrust into his eyes, burning like the sun. He wailed a curse and struck out with his free hand. He heard a clatter, as if something metal had fallen, but he didn’t let go. He dragged the wench backward, away from the waterside.

All this had happened in moments. Finally, someone got their voice back, and shouted for help.

O’Connor, blinking away the momentary blindness, saw two men running toward them. He gaped. The larger of the two he had last seen lying in filth at the rear of the inn, drunk—no, pretending to be drunk!

The smaller of the two pulled a short stick from a loop on the side of his belt and struck it on the ground as he ran. To O’Connor’s amazement, it sprang into a staff.

The burly one ran straight at Fitzroyce. They were well matched as far as size, but the man came in under the Irishman’s guard and kicked him in the knee hard enough to knock him sprawling. O’Connor picked up a huge basket and looped it over his arm like a buckler. He swiped at the smaller man’s staff. It caught the top of the pole and dragged it sideways. O’Connor twisted to loose it from the man’s grip.

The small man grinned, a death’s head smile, and yanked back on the staff. That caused O’Connor to stagger forward. The small man swept the rod free, and brought it around in a circle, striking O’Connor solidly in the kidneys. O’Connor yelled and tried to parry the rod with his basket. The other man pulled it back a couple of feet, then jabbed the Irishman in the guts with it. He was a demon! O’Connor watched his eyes to see where his next blow was going, and evaded it, slashing with his knife. He knew he was being forced backward, away from the carts. Their escape was becoming more and more unlikely.

He realized that he was going to have to win this battle just to get away. The stakes were too high. They could be hanged for spies. One of them had to stay free to get word back to the Earl of Cork.

O’Connor used the only real shield he had. He pushed the girl in between himself and the demon. Every time the man moved, he moved the girl. She whimpered in pain from her wrenched wrist. O’Connor pulled the girl against his chest and put the knife to her throat.

“Let us go, or she dies right here,” he said.

The man with the staff backed off a pace. Then, he charged. O’Connor sprang backward another step, staying out of range of the deadly staff. Then, he felt himself falling. The last thing he saw was the man with the staff lunge forward like a stroke of lightning and seize Margaret de Beauchamp by the arm.

Filthy water closed over his head. He kicked to the surface, coughing, spitting and swearing, just in time to see Fitzroyce fall off the pier, too. Fitz wasn’t too canny a swimmer. He clutched at O’Connor, threatening to drown them both in his panic. O’Connor swallowed sea water and heaved up his guts.

Ropes dropped down onto their heads. O’Connor realized he’d lost his dagger. Men shouted at him from the pier above. He felt a fool. Tricked into flinging himself into the sea!

He turned to grasp at a rope, and something hit him hard from behind. He looked over his shoulder, treading salt water, and realized that he was only a yard or so from the heaving hull of a merchant ship. It threatened to crush him against the pilings holding up the pier.

“Swim out a few yards!” the small man shouted from above. “Get away from the ship!” Men on board the ship were yelling at them, too.

He and Fitzroyce had to duck underneath the boards a couple of times before they could hold onto a rope long enough to be pulled up. Someone snared him around the body with a gaff hook and tossed him onto the quay. Before he could scramble to his feet and escape, the big bruiser was on him with a pair of shining manacles. He snapped them around O’Connor’s wrists and hauled him to his feet by the short chain between them.

Fitzroyce got a similar pair of bracelets when his sodden carcass was dragged up from the sea.

Both of the Irishmen tried to wriggle out of the gyves as they’d learned, but these were tighter than those the constabulary in Dublin used. O’Connor wore his wrists bloody before he gave up. The big bruiser pulled a huge pistol from his belt and held it in front of O’Connor’s left eye. The Irishman stopped struggling, wary of the big black O at the pistol’s mouth.

“You will go nowhere,” he said.

The small man glanced around the pier and picked up a small golden cylinder. He brought it back to Mistress de Beauchamp, and she tucked it away in her reticule before O’Connor could get a good look at it.

“Is she a witch?” he demanded. “She blinded me!”

The small man snorted. “Are you all right, Miz Margaret?” he asked in an American accent. He smiled, revealing those shocking white teeth that O’Connor had come to associate with the newcomers.

The girl, wrapped in her brother’s arms, nodded.

“Thank you, good sir,” she said. “You dropped from Heaven to save us!”

“Oh, it wasn’t by accident, Fräulein,” the big man said. He spoke English with a thick German accent. “Frau Simpson told us to watch over you. We have been nearby during your entire visit.” He pointed to the Irishmen. “These are the only two who came close to hurting you. We are sorry we were not closer when they have made their second attempt. They will never be able to harm you again.”

Two other men sat on the ground with the maidservant, who was recovering from her ill-treatment with the help of a flask and a wet cloth to her neck.

“You!” Hettie said, her voice a croak. She pointed at them with an accusatory finger. “You are the ones who we saw at the reception.”

“Ach, ja, we did not conceal ourselves well,” the German admitted, with a sheepish grin. His compatriot nudged him in the ribs.

“I told you we weren’t blending in.” He turned to James. “I am Sergeant Matt Lowry. This is Sergeant Leopold Klein.”

“I cannot thank you enough,” James said, fervently. “Without you, they might have succeeded in abducting my sister.”

“They have been watching her since her arrival,” Sergeant Klein said. “We spotted them when they began to follow her to the inn. They came all the way to Magdeburg. They pretended to work for the palace, so we allowed them. They had access only to places where they could do no harm. We needed to know what they were looking for.”

“Good workers, too,” Sergeant Lowry said. “Too bad they weren’t honest men. They could have had jobs, as fit as they are.”

“Let us go!” Fitzroyce demanded. “We could work for you! We don’t have to go back to…”

“Shut your hole,” O’Connor snapped.

Klein, whose name was wholly inappropriate for his gigantic size, shook him like a dustrag. “Nein. You haf no power to bargain. Now, you go ahead and get on your ship, Fräulein. We’ll take care of these…?” He looked at his companion.

“Varmints,” said the smaller man, spitting on the pier. “Shooting’s too good for them. A waste of bullets. Come on, you.”

The Irishmen were forced off the pier, fighting like hell to get free. The small man had O’Connor’s pinioned arms pushed painfully high on his back so he had no choice but to go where he was steered.

The officers urged them along through a passageway to one of the warehouses a block off the dock. Sergeant Klein produced a huge key and unlocked the door. O’Connor half expected to see a torture chamber, but instead, the brick-lined room contained a large motor vehicle, larger than any of the cars he had seen before.

The officers pushed them into the rear seat and secured their wrist manacles to a bar attached to the ceiling.

“It’s time we found out where you came from,” the small man said, climbing into the seat with the wheel before it.

“Where are you taking us?” Fitzroyce asked. “Torture won’t open our mouths.”

“That’s not our problem once we drop you off,” the small man said, with that death’s head grin. The smile made ice form in O’Connor’s belly. “Hell’s bells, but your employer wasted his money on you two incompetents.”

He turned a key, and the front of the vehicle roared like a bull. The big man closed the warehouse behind them and the motor car turned out into the road.

O’Connor craned his neck to see the Meadowlark casting off hawsers. He couldn’t spot the girl, but the lieutenant stood on the deck, watching them with narrowed eyes until the car turned the corner and blotted the ship from view. The vehicle surged, throwing the two men back against the rear seat. O’Connor was torn between fear and admiration of the Americans’ device.

“Never been in one of these before?” Lowry asked, his cold eyes visible in the rectangular mirror attached to the glass window at the front. “Enjoy it. It’ll be the first and last time.”



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Framed