Chapter 296: Hands Behind His Back

James shoved the roots aside, and the afternoon struck them full in the face, wet and hot.

The merry couple stepped over the dead and turned left, away from the drum, Anne a stride behind with her cutlass held low. On their way they passed beneath a leaning balcony and through a low gate into a flooded court, where a causeway of fitted slabs cut across the water.

He ran for it, boots kicking up fans of spray.

To the left, a stepped terrace rose out of the flood, and high on the hill beyond sat a enormous statue with its knees drawn up and its hands flat on its thighs. Some moss covered the stone and its headdress, and a dozen pioneers came spilling out of a black passage underneath it into the sunlight and chaos.

A volley crashed from the terrace, fired by muskets, and lead bullets struck the court, stitching the water with spouts and ranging off a slab at Anne’s heel. It had come close, and there were plenty more redcoats in the army willing to try again.

"Don’t stop now, lass!"

James whooped over noise, hat clamped down. "It’s the King’s payin’ for that powder, and the bastard’ll want his money’s worth out of it!"

"Shut yer gob and use yer legs, ye great galumphin’ lummox!"

To the right, among the fallen columns, two pirates came hurtling down from a wall tangled in roots, landing on the redcoats beneath them.

The sailors buried their boarding axes in the redcoats and drove them face-first into the stones, the blade deep enough to crush bone and spatter blood down the necks and into the flooded flagstones.

By their left, a hand shot out of a flooded doorway, clamped over a private’s mouth, and dragged him beneath, his boots scraping against the stone as he struggled.

His heels hammered against the doorframe before he vanished with a wet slap, leaving the water thrashing red in his wake, and a moment later, his hat floated back out and bobbed on the surface, keeping its dignity rather better than its owner.

At the end of the causeway, Tomás held a half-drowned set of steps, his sword dripping with blood, with two sailors behind him. He crossed himself over a body, then touched two fingers to his brow.

James and Anne slipped right through a passage between a leaning pillar and a wall, to a narrow passage that led to an arch, beyond which a low voice was giving instructions.

"Steady, lads, steady, they bleed same as everyone else. Make ready."

The merry couple slowed at the arch.

"Lee-vel!"

Then they charged through together and found themselves facing a yard full of muskets.

The yard was a dozen paces across, with a squat gateway at the far end, a toppled block and a trough to the left, and two pillars hung with roots to the right. A stout, flat-faced corporal held the gateway, flanked by a tall private and a broad one, both with their muskets aimed at the arch.

A young private knelt by the block, ramming a charge, while a thick-chested private stood three paces away, priming his pan.

The thick-chested redcoat dropped his powder and lunged at James’s belly. [Verdict] knocked the bayonet aside, and he seized the private’s crossbelt with his left hand, swinging him into the muzzles with Anne close behind.

"Fire lads! He’s a dead man either road, might as well be some use."

Half a heartbeat later, the privates obeyed. Three shots struck the redcoat, one tearing out through his shoulder and whining past James’s ear before ringing off the arch.

"Och, the army’s a hard master, lad," James told him as he let him fall. "Bloody hard."

Through the powder smoke, the tall and broad privates charged on.

"Ooone!"

The bayonets thrust.

"And TWO!"

The word cracked, and the butts came round, whistling.

Anne took the tall private, and James faced the broad one. James beat the lunge aside with his forte and ducked under the butt, while she turned her opponent bayonet past her ribs and ducked his swing.

"Ooone, and again, lads! Put your backs in it!"

The tall private thrust again, and Anne knocked his bayonet wide.

The broad private checked his lunge and swung his butt straight at James’s face while he prepared to drawn his pistol. It caught him beneath the brim, across his left cheekbone, light burst behind his eye, his cheek split, and he stumbled half a step toward Anne.

Anne crossed in front of him, and they switched opponents. Her blade cut the broad private’s throat while his stance was broken, sending blood down the front of his coat, as James drove his blade beneath the tall private’s raised arm and up into his lung.

The young private’s ramrod stuck in the wet charge, so he abandoned the loading and came at Anne’s flank, bayonet low. She knocked it down, but not soon enough, the blade scraped a cut across her left forearm.

"Ah, you whoreson pup!"

She jumped behind a pillar, and the bayonet plunged into the curtain of roots and lodged there. James grabbed the boy by his collar and drove him face first into the edge of the stone, enough for teeth and bone to shatter.

The corporal threw down his empty musket and drew his hanger. The merry couple came at him from opposite sides, like the blades of a pair of shears.

His overhead deflected against [Verdict], and the recoil came in a backhand sweep at Anne, that she easily evaded with a backwards jump. He tried both attacks again, James deflecting the cut high and wide while Anne slid beneath the backhand across the blood-slick flags.

Her blade cut open the corporal’s belly just as [Verdict] drove through his throat, while their lunges carried them forward, and neither could stop.

They collided chest to chest over the falling corpse, struck a pillar, and Anne kissed James hard, briefly, with an appetite that had evidently survived the messy skirmish. Her ample bosom pressed against his chest through their wet linen, his hands closed on her backside in a tight grip, and her teeth caught his bottom lip in a drowned moan.

She pulled away, breathing hard.

"’Time and place’, was it?"

Anne panted, flushed to the ears and not one bit sorry. "And yourself with your two paws where they’ve no business bein’, over a dead man’s belly, a great hypocrite!"

James drawled, the crooked grin tugging at his torn cheek.

"Manners, lass, manners! A decent lad doesn’t interrupt another while he’s busy dyin’."

She flicked the blood from her fingers, and he wiped [Verdict] on the corporal’s coat.

An iron bracket in the gateway held a burning pitch torch. James sheathed [Verdict] and took the torch in his left hand and [Counterargument] in his right, while Anne transferred her cutlass to her bleeding left hand and drew a pistol from her belt. Beyond the entrance, the passage lay in darkness, enough to make a man think twice about what might be waiting there.

The corridor was wide enough for two to walk abreast, its floor covered in ankle-deep water. The wall bore a frieze of tall figures in long, pleated robes, walking single file, each carrying a heavy jar on one shoulder.

Then the place parted open into chambers, then stairs, chamber, and another set of steps.

James clicked his tongue.

"Snug place, sling a hammock between the pillars, and you’d sleep like the dead."

Anne hissed.

"Say ’dead’ one more time, and I’ll leave you down here with the lot of them."

From afar, voices rang through the stonework.

"Hold the stair! Hold it, d’ye hear me? Hold it, damn your eyes!"

Then Sam’s voice boomed from a side gallery. "Ahh, a thousand pardons, me handsome! I be a-levyin’ this wee chest of King’s treasury at me usual rate, which be the whole bleedin’ lot of ’un! He’ll have a receipt, naturally! I’m a man of business!"

"That’s His Majesty’s brass, thieving bastard!"

"Put it down! Put it DOWN, or I’ll have thy bollocks for ballast!"

On the bottom steps, a giant was carved into the wall, a bowl resting in its lap, with a crowd of tiny men kneeling below and their arms raised. By the time they reached the next staircase, Anne’s temper cooled down, and her fingers found his sleeve.

The next steps down brought James into the glow of lanterns, the torch held high, to a chamber with pillars as thick as mainmasts, their reflections shining across the wet floor, and beyond the lanterns only darkness.

Three marines in red coats and white crossbelts stood there with their muskets raised, while beside them a thin aide held a lantern aloft.

A tall, lean, grey-haired man stood before the marines, dressed in a dark coat, hair bound at the nape, face deep and weathered and eyes pale as washed slate. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, regarding the newcomers without moving a muscle.

[Counterargument] rose and came to aim against the grey man’s chest. Anne raised her pistol beside it, aiming at the aide, whose lantern began to tremble, and all three muskets levelled at once, two on James and one on Anne.

The torch hissed in James’s fist, water dripped beyond the light, and the fighting overhead faded to a distant murmur.