The two men hesitated, and he wheeled on them. ‘I told you, go!’
And without any further argument the men edged off. I heard their footsteps scraping on the shingle, walking first, then moving off more quickly, breaking to a run.
Creed didn’t move, but still I felt the space between us shrinking.
‘So,’ he said. ‘You have a voice.’
I tried to think. I hadn’t said that many words, and with the pistol’s firing it was likely that he hadn’t heard me clearly, so there was a fair chance that he wouldn’t know I wasn’t Irish, wasn’t who he thought I was. And even though he knew that I could speak, my safest course now might just be to keep my mouth shut and not risk him finding out that I did not belong here.
‘A clever play on Butler’s part,’ he said, ‘and on your brother’s, for it made me ill-inclined to ask you questions, as they no doubt hoped it would.’
The knowledge that he still thought I was Fergal’s sister would have eased my mind more if he hadn’t been reloading the pistol while he talked, brushing the used powder out of the firing pan and re-priming it deftly.
‘But now that I have heard you speak,’ he said as he took practice aim towards the entrance of the cave and idly sighted down the barrel, ‘I’ve a mind to find out for myself how well you sing.’
I watched the pistol swing around to point at me.
He said, ‘You can sing, can you not, Mistress O’Cleary? You will find it is a useful art, for keeping your own head out of the hangman’s noose. Come now, tell me what does Butler mean to shift from here tonight, and where will it be bound?’
Shaking my head once I took a step backwards, reminding myself he was trying to frighten me. Doing a fabulous job of it, certainly, but he had no real intention of killing me yet. He still needed me for the same reason he’d told his men earlier – Daniel would never submit to arrest without force or coercion, and I was the constable’s leverage, his bargaining chip.
He wouldn’t kill me yet, I told myself again, and clinging to that little fragment of uncertain courage I stepped back again and hoped he’d think I was retreating from the pistol. I knew well enough I didn’t have a hope of moving out of range – I’d seen the damage his last shot had done the boy, who had been standing further off from Creed than I was standing now – but the dagger, Daniel’s dagger, was still lying on the damp stone floor somewhere between the barrels just behind me.
My thoughts had not yet focused through my fear enough to let me form a plan of what to do with it, but having any weapon seemed a better thing than having none at all, so I kept inching backwards with a single-minded purpose while Creed said, ‘You do know, do you not, what does befall a woman like yourself in Newgate? And for what? The law is very clear for those who comfort traitors. In the end you will be forced to testify to what you know, and he will hang regardless, and your suffering will be for naught. Speak now, to me, and I may yet persuade the courts to show you mercy.’
The voice that answered wasn’t mine. It said, ‘A kind offer, but I rather doubt she’ll accept it.’
I turned my head, astonished, to see Jack not twenty feet from us, inside the entrance to the cave. Keeping his own pistol levelled on Creed and his gaze firmly fixed on the constable’s face he remarked, ‘You have given her small cause to think you’d be merciful.’
The constable shrugged. ‘Men can change.’
If Jack felt fear he was hiding it well. He looked calm and completely relaxed as he took a step forwards and ordered me, ‘Eva, go now.’
I heard Creed’s gun, still pointed at me, give an ominous click.
‘Butler, I should have thought saving yourself would outweigh any chivalrous impulses.’
Jack gave a half smile and said, ‘Men can change, so I’ve been told.’ Still coming forwards, he said again, ‘Eva, go now, he’ll not shoot you.’
The constable lowered his eyebrows at that. ‘Will I not? And what makes you so certain?’
‘Because it is not your design. You’d not even shoot me, if I gave you the chance.’
‘You seem very certain.’ Creed’s voice had an edge. ‘Why not put your own pistol aside, and we’ll see?’
Jack answered without stopping his advance, ‘All right.’
And as I watched in horror he replaced his pistol in his belt and held his hands out slightly from his sides, to plainly show he was unarmed.
Creed’s pistol swung away from me to aim at Jack, and as it moved I took advantage of the fact to back away between the barrels, where I’d seen the dagger on the day we’d brought the cargo back from Brittany.
I’d nearly given up when I saw one faint edge of something metal gleaming in the lantern’s light, and cautiously, my eyes still on the men, I stooped to pick it up. My hands weren’t large enough to hold the dagger’s blade concealed as Daniel did, but still I tried to keep it pointed straight so it was hidden by my wrist as much as possible.
Neither Jack nor Creed appeared to notice.
Jack had covered half the space between them now with his sure, certain steps, and all the while his gaze stayed steady on the constable. ‘You want us dead, myself and Danny, but you will not shoot me now, for should I die by your own hand, the people of Polgelly will demand to know the cause of it, and even your authority has limits in this place.’ He tipped his head to one side, questioning. ‘Or do you think those two men you presumably sent after me, the ones I did see running for the woods, will yet return to lend you aid?’