Chapter Twenty-One

O ne of the village boys held the reins of two horses Jowan did not recognize.

"No time to go home or to chase after your horse," Bran said. "The innkeeper is providing horses for anyone who can ride."

Well enough. Jowan nodded, took the reins of the nearest horse, and mounted.

They followed the sound of the hunt—calls to alert the rest of the pursuers to sightings or redirections regarding places that hadn't been searched. From the sounds, Coombe and his valet had taken to Bodmin Moor.

Perhaps they thought it would be easier to lose the pursuit amongst the hills and valleys, the rocks and scattered buildings, not to mention the mists that would counter the assistance given to the hunters by the bright moonlight.

Or perhaps they thought the open moors would be less familiar to the villagers than their own fields, being ignorant city fools who did not know Jowan's people.

Certainly, they had reckoned without the blanket bogs and valley mires that every villager who lived on the edge of the moors knew how to recognize and negotiate. Whenever the two managed to evade the hunt, all Jowan and his allies had to do was cover the heights and wait for one or the other to get caught as the grasses over the peat gave way and the bog beneath captured a boot or even both legs in liquid mud that oozed away whenever its victim struggled.

Every time, the man who had been trapped yelled—for help, or just in fear and surprise. So far, the boggy snares gave up their captives before one of the hunters could reach them, but it was only a matter of time. And so far, the St Tetha side had followed Jowan's instructions not to use their guns. If Coombe still had any ammunition left—he had been shooting less regularly as the night wore on and had so far missed everyone he shot at—he would be most dangerous when cornered.

The full moon was at its zenith, but the mists had grown thicker. They could be at this all night unless something changed. But Coombe and the valet must be tiring faster than the St Tetha crowd. Quite apart from the energy sapped by the bogs, they were two city dwellers of sedentary habits.

The risk was that they'd make it to the edge of the moors at a time when none of the pursuers was close enough to prevent them from leaving, but so far, the hunt had driven them farther in.

Driving. That was a point. Up until now, they had not been herding Coombe and valet, but letting them set the direction. A destination popped into Jowan's mind. "Let's drive them towards Aermed's Hollow," he said to Bran.

Two other searchers who were close enough to hear turned to Jowan with a grin even as Bran chuckled. "Nice," he said.

Legend said that Aermed's Hollow had been created when a hero had fought a dragon there, to rescue the maiden Aermed. The hollow had been formed by the stroke of the hero's sword that split the dragon nearly into two, and the rocky walls on to north, west, and south were, so the story said, the bones of the dragon. Certainly, a rock near the entrance to the little valley looked, from a certain perspective, like the skull of a dragon.

If the mist cooperated, and Coombe and his man could be pushed in the right direction, they would find themselves trapped with near vertical walls on all sides but one, and no way out past those who waited on that side. And the walls confined one of the deepest mires on the moor—one that would, after the recent rain, be even deeper than usual.

The men who had heard his plan drifted away into the mist to set the word spreading. Perhaps it was Jowan's imagination, but a new sense of purpose hovered over the moor, and a rising triumph as the quarry took the paths left unguarded and avoided the villagers who let themselves be seen at carefully chosen locations.

It may have taken an hour, perhaps more, from the moment Jowan thought of Aermed's Hollow to the moment Coombe, with his valet right behind him, stumbled through a thicker-than-usual patch of mist and found pursuers close behind them and walls on either side.

"Gotcha," said Bran, in an undertone low enough that only Jowan could hear.

"I'm going to the far end," Jowan told them. "Will you keep them moving till they are too far in to climb the walls?"

"Trust me and the lads for that," Bran told him.

Jowan flashed him a smile. He could trust any of them, and Bran most of all.

He guided his horse through the tangle of rocks that marked the top of the hollow until he reached the far end. Below, he could hear Coombe and his valet bickering.

"It is a trap, Signore," the valet complained.

"The walls grow wider," Coombe snapped back.

"Twice you have said this, and each time…"

"Shut up," Coombe ordered. "Damn. Another bog. Keep to the side, Marco. It is shallower at the edges."

Not this time. In fact, from the sounds of them squelching in the mud, they had chosen the deepest side.

They were invisible in the heavy mist, but here on the heights the air was clear, and Jowan could see the villagers lined along the top of the cliffs to either side. They grinned at him, and he lifted his finger to his lips, enjoining silence, though in truth, none of them were making a noise.

"We must go back, Signore," Marco whined.

"We would like that, wouldn't we, men?" Bran replied from somewhere in the mist behind them, and a few others agreed.

"Forward," Coombe ordered, his voice grim. Only a few paces farther, and they'd be up to their thighs. Deeper, perhaps, after the persistent rain of the past few days.

"Signore, it is too deep!" Marco was panicking. "I am sinking."

The time for silence was over. "It gets deepest just under the cliff," Jowan commented. "The one in front of you. There is no way out, Coombe. My men block the only exit. The cliffs are too steep to climb, and my men are lined along the tops of them. You are trapped."

Coombe was silent for a long minute, then he yelled, "What do you want, Trethewey? Tammie? Let me out and I'll promise to leave her alone."

"Signore!" Marco sobbed.

"You cannot be trusted, Coombe," Jowan replied. "Lying and cheating are your natural behaviors."

"Signore, help me," begged Marco. "I am sunk up to my arms."

"Keep still then, you fool," Coombe replied. "Haul me out, Trethewey, and I will make you any promise you like. Money? Women? Power?"

On an impulse, Jowan said, "You alone. Not your valet. Tamsyn does not like him." He winked at the men who could see him. Was it a lie if you lied to a liar?

"Agreed," Coombe said.

"Signore!"

"It's hard enough to pull one man out of the mire, let alone two," Jowan said. Which was true. And it could not be done in the dark, but if they kept still until morning, he would try.

"One of us, then," Coombe declared.

Marco's distressed cry was wordless, but the sound of a gunshot told its own tale. Coombe must have missed, for Marco shouted his rage, and then all Jowan could hear was sloshing and squelching, followed by a scream of pain.

Jowan stepped closer to the edge to peer into the mist but could see nothing. He would swear, though, that Coombe and Marco were fighting. A gurgle was followed by silence, and then Coombe's voice.

"Trethewey. Marco is dead. The mud is up to my chin, man. Get me out of here."

"No," Jowan replied. "Nothing can be done in the dark. When the sun rises, if you are still alive, I shall try it, so you can hang for your crimes. You are a destroyer of life. It is time for you to explain yourself to your maker."

"Devil take it!" Coombe's voice dropped. He continued speaking, but not in English. If Jowan had to guess, he would say the man was swearing in one language after another. He would sink only slowly while he stood still. But eventually, he would no longer be able to stand. If the sun had not yet risen, the mire would have him.

It was a gruesome thought. Jowan had to sternly remind himself of how Tamsyn had suffered at Coombe's hands and those of his minions. Jowan was not prepared to risk the life of even one of his men to save the villain.

The head ostler from the inn came up beside him. "Quite apart from what he has done up until now, he murdered his employee in our hearing," he told Jowan. "If we could get him out of that mire, and I doubt it's possible, he will be dead anyway, when he hangs. It isn't worth risking any of us in a rescue."

That was true, too. "I will wait until dawn," Jowan announced. The ostler said that he would too, in his office as constable. Bran and several other men offered to remain with them. Jowan accepted another two, for if four of them could not get Coombe out of the bog, greater numbers would not help. He convinced Bran to return to his bride. "Look after the ladies, Bran. Coombe might have planned something else."

Twice before dawn, Coombe tried to bargain for his life, offering money, fame, courtesans. Threatening, too, when Jowan refused to respond to his bribes. Jowan had stood, still and grim, and listened to the man bargaining, sometimes in hysterical shrieks, sometimes in a reasonable voice. With Jowan, with the other watchers, with God. Whimpering, too, and in the end, with gasps and finally, gurgling.

By the time sunlight gilded the tops of the mists, he had fallen silent.

It was late morning before the mists lifted. Neither of the villains had come out of the hollow, so they must be inside it. Jowan led the way between the ponds and the patches of unstable ground, watching for the vegetation that marked the difference between safe ground and danger, and hunting for any sign of Coombe or Marco.

But they saw only the boot marks and churned mud that marked the passage of the pair, no glimpse of either man. Not even right at the end, on the edge of the final mire, where the cliffs reared eighteen feet high around every side except that of the entrance.

In the mire, vegetation had been crushed and churned around, but the mud and the water lay still.

"They have to be under there," the ostler commented. "Might come up. Might not. Probably not. Remember the Bowithick cow." The other men nodded or murmured agreement or both. Just a few years ago, a herd of cows had panicked when their quiet amble along a moor road had been disrupted by a pair of racing curricles. One of the cows had ended up in a bog, up to its neck. Attempts to retrieve it had failed and the cow had sunk, never to rise again except in conversations such as this.

The cow, apparently, had accepted its fate with bovine grace, and sunk in silence. Not so Coombe. Jowan shuddered. He never wanted to think of it again, but he feared Coombe's dying moments would haunt him for the rest of his life. The man had deserved to die. But what a horrible death.

"I'm for St Tetha," he said. "I need to know how Miss Roskilly is after her ordeal."

*

Tamsyn struggled from sleep, feeling heavy and nauseous. Before she could fully open her eyes, Evangeline was leaning over her, asking, anxiously, "How do you feel?"

"Dreadful. Have I been sick?" The words came in short phrases, with pauses between as she dredged the next few words out of her mind and forced her mouth to remember how to shape them.

She had a flash of memory. An image of Coombe forcing laudanum on her. A dream, surely?

"What do you remember?" Evangeline asked.

Evangeline was truly here. "You are home," Tamsyn said, smiling at her friend despite the truly awful headache and the equally unpleasant ache in her gut. "Welcome back, Evangeline." She frowned. "I had a bad dream, I think. About Coombe. Coombe, Marco, and Willard."

"They were here, Tamsyn," Evangeline explained, "but Patricia sounded the alarm and Jowan and the village stopped them from taking you away. You have been unconscious for hours."

Tamsyn tried to sit up, but her head reeled, and Evangeline moved quickly to support her and to shift her pillows to prop her upright. "Don't try to do anything, my friend. That horrible man gave you too much laudanum, and the doctor says you must be very careful in case your heart has been damaged."

That prompted another memory. "I told him I had not had any opium or alcohol since I left him, but he did not believe me. Willard laughed," Tamsyn said, the words flowing more easily now.

"The doctor will want to know you are awake, and so will Bran and Patricia. I will be back in just a moment, and I shall bring you something to drink." Evangeline left the room and a moment later, Tamsyn's maid slipped inside.

"Oh, Miss. We was that worried. Do you be well now, Miss?"

"A little weak, but grateful to all the village," Tamsyn told her. She was too tired to say more, though she had, from the light, slept away the morning. The maid must have realized because she busied herself with her mending, and Tamsyn let her eyes close while she waited for Evangeline to return.

She brought Jowan with her. "I had to let him up, Tamsyn," she said. "He insisted that he needed to see you with his own eyes." She frowned at Jowan. "You can only stay a moment."

Jowan crossed the room to take Tamsyn's hand in his own. "Coombe is dead, Tamsyn. He won't trouble you ever again. Nor will Willard or Marco."

The whole room went waltzing this time. Tamsyn pressed the back of her head into the pillows and shut her eyes till the dizziness abated, and Evangeline scolded, "Jowan! You must not alarm her like that."

"No," Tamsyn insisted. "It is good. I needed to know." She smiled into Jowan's worried eyes. "I am safe. You said you would protect me, and you have."

He shook his head. "I let you get hurt. I am sorry, Tamsyn. It was my fault. I should have kept the guards on your cottage."

"Out," Evangeline ordered. "These discussions can wait until Tamsyn is well again. Go away, Jowan. Go and get some sleep. Now, Tamsyn, I have some ginger tea for you. Your stomach is probably a little sore, so nothing to eat until we see whether you can keep this down."

Tamsyn was watching Jowan leave the room, his eyes lingering on hers for as long as his head was still within her sight. It took her a moment to catch up with what Evangeline had said. "Thank you, Evangeline. I am very thirsty."