The wagon let them off at the eastern fringes of Lowertown, by which point Adam had fashioned a kind of brace for Liam’s leg that made it somewhat possible for him to walk. It was a long way down Rideau street, but it was a far better fate than when they’d been intending to hike along the stream through the forest.
Adam slung Liam’s arm over his shoulder and led the way. “You’re buyin’ me dinner for this,” he said with a grin.
“Joke’s on you,” said Liam. “I’m broke.”
They laughed and trundled on, careful to avoid the slicker spots that might be dangerous for them both.
“When we find Mr Aylen, let me do the talking,” said Adam, after a time. “Best he hears about the ordeal from someone who came out unscathed.”
“You think that’d help?” asked Liam. “He won’t be cross at you for not—” He tried to find a good way to say what he meant to say, without it coming off as an insult. “My father always used to say if you come home without bruises, ‘twasn’t really work. Had a fight with my mates and Rían—my brother, Rían—got a shiner and my da said ‘if you were really all there, you’d both look like him, or both look like you’.”
Adam laughed. “This is your roundabout way of calling me a coward.”
“No,” Liam said. “No, I just—”
“How much d’you know about Mr Aylen?” asked Adam. “His background and such.”
Liam shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“So, I’m not sure how much of this is true and how much legend. But the way it’s told, he left Ireland as a lad, taken to Britain by a drunken father. Took beatings daily, to the point where a hand raised in greeting made him brace for a blow. Endured that ‘til he was fifteen, then stowed away on a boat bound for the Caribbean, hoping to—”
“Find his fortune?” asked Liam, in a way that made it clear he knew the feeling well.
“To get the hell out,” said Adam. “Except stowaways ain’t the most beloved of creatures, least of all on navy ships. He talked his way out of a starboard dive by swearing himself to a life of unpaid labour—a sailor and deck hand and cook and counsellor in all ways but title.”
“And the Caribbean?” asked Liam.
“Saw the waters, but never touched. Now, you’ve met the man. You know how he is. So you can imagine how, despite his station, he got himself a solid footing amongst the men aboard. Made friends and allies. Got a little fiefdom below deck.” Adam sighed. “But there’s only one captain to a ship. And a nay-twenty year old Irish lad ain’t soon to be it.”
Liam had been on an Irish-run ship on his way to the colonies, but the senior crew were all English. He remembered the cruel way they’d talked to the sailors, the way they’d treated their passengers like diseased cattle. He could only imagine what that attitude had triggered in a younger, more impassioned Aylen.
“So legend goes, they’re makin’ a run up to Quebec where the captain’s got it in his mind that he’s going to have Aylen brought up on charges for bein’ a stowaway, all these years later. There’s a real question whether Aylen’ll lead a mutiny, or if he’s really got the men behind him to survive at all. No one’s sayin’ nothing outright, no one’s saying who’s what and who’s not. It’s a tense run, and in bad weather, too.
“So as they’re rounding the bend down the St Lawrence, rain pelting down and waves rocking them heave way and ho, Aylen stands tall on deck and calls out: ‘Oi, Captain! Permission to come aboard!’ The very thing he’s ‘bout to be charged with doin’ wrong.”
Liam smiled at the thought of it: a younger Aylen, saluting sharply, saying the words but completely devoid of the respect and decorum that goes with them.
Adam laughed. “And the Captain, he tells his men to arrest Aylen on the spot. Didn’t know what was up, but didn’t want to find out, shouting: ‘Permission denied!’ So Aylen gives him a bow, turns, and does the starboard dive of his own accord.”
He made a splash sound for effect, grin getting bigger by the second. “Captain thought he died, the crew called him a legend, and Mr Aylen, he ended up in Bytown six years later with enough money to stake his own claim against Wright and the others.”
Adam tapped his temple. “See, Mr Aylen doesn’t care if you get back with a bruise or a cut or a broken leg, Kelly. He cares if you’re smart enough to survive. Sometimes you gotta jump off starboard in the middle of a storm, but better that than certain death at the hands of an English prick.”
Liam laughed, nodded. “Alright, point taken. Wish my father’d been more like him, growing up.”
“No,” said Adam suddenly serious. “No, you really don’t.”
Liam wasn’t sure how to respond, so instead they walked in silence a while longer.
It was odd: the further they went, the more activity they encountered—far beyond the usual hubbub, even in warmer months. Men with torches were storming from behind houses, calling out of windows, directing each other this way and that. And what was strange, beyond anything, was that this was Canadien territory…and yet the men were all Irish.
“What d’ya reckon that’s all about?” asked Adam, trying to keep out of their way.
“I don’t know,” said Liam. “But it can’t be good.”
Colleen screamed even louder, but it did nothing to help. The men dragged her across the icy ground, heels scraping uselessly as they stormed south like soldiers on the march, handling a very unruly cannon.
“Let me go, you brutes!” she yelled, trying to thrash her way free—but their grips on her arms were too strong. She wasn’t going anywhere.
The people in the houses nearby stopped to stare, whispering things to each other about who she might be, and what she might know. She saw them gossiping, which only made her predicament worse, because while they knew what was going on—or thought they did, anyway—she still had no idea.
“Help!” she screamed. “Somebody help me!”
She twisted to see where they were headed. Toward Rideau, she knew that much. But beyond that? So many possibilities, and none of them good. Panic was just setting in when she saw, up ahead, something of a miracle. “Liam! Liam, help me!” she yelled. “Please!”
Liam looked up immediately, throwing his arm off his friend and racing over as best his bound-up leg would let him. He nearly tumbled into Colleen’s captors, whether by accident or intent.
“Hey!” he shouted. “What the hell d’you think you’re doing?”
The taller of Colleen’s handlers shoved Liam back. “Mind your own business. She’s ours.”
Liam raised his fist to fight. “Like hell she is. Let her go.”
The second man let go of Colleen and got into a battle stance, darting quick looks to Liam’s broken leg, making it very clear where he’d strike first. “It’s our bounty, fair and square. You touch her—”
“Bounty?” asked Liam. “Bounty for what?”
Adam arrived at his side, not understanding what was going on, but ready to fight nonetheless. “We alright here, Kelly?” he asked.
The taller man did a double take. “Wait, Kelly? You mean she’s yours? The widow’s brother?”
Colleen snarled at him, tried to get free, but he still wasn’t letting her loose. “I keep telling you, I’m not—”
“That’s not Maggie,” said Liam, playing catch-up. “That’s her friend, Colleen.”
The second man, angling to take on Liam and Adam at the same time, sneered. “It’s a trick. He’s lyin’. They’re after the bounty.”
“What bounty?” asked Liam. “What’s going on?”
The taller man shook Colleen by the arm. “We found ‘er out French way, stuck to a Gen like they said she’d be.”
“I was trying to find out where Maggie’s gone,” snapped Colleen. “Talking, not fighting. You might try it sometime.”
“Wait, Maggie’s gone?” asked Liam. “Maggie’s gone where?”
Colleen’s face switched from anger to pity in one fell swoop. She tried to speak gently, despite the circumstances. “We went looking for answers,” she said. “Last night, in the taverns. It was like she lost her mind, Liam. She started yelling, and saying these really insane things, and they—”
Liam started toward Colleen, desperate. The second man wound back to strike, but Adam made it clear that that would be a very poor decision.
Liam took Colleen’s free hand in his, pleading with his eyes. “Please say she’s alive. Please.”
Colleen had tears in her eyes. “I don’t know. I wish I knew, but I don’t know. The Canadiens took her away, and threw me out, and I…I’ve been trying to find her ever since. But I can’t—”
The taller man, hearing this, sighed and let her go, looking sheepish and defeated all at once. “The baker’s got her,” he said. “That’s all we know for sure.”
Liam tried to understand. “What baker? Who’s we?”
“The baker’s shop burned down last night,” said the second man, still not quite giving up the fight he was promised. “Covering his tracks so he can make a getaway. He’s got the widow. And now we’re gettin’ him.”
“Except not, though. The one we thought was him, wasn’t really him,” said the taller one.
The second shrugged. “One less Canadien, all the same.”
Liam pulled Colleen away from them, brushed the hair from her face while she fought off a panic attack. “What did she say?” he asked. “What did she say that set them off?”
She seemed scared to say it herself. “She…she went on about how Montferrand killed Rían,” she said. “Kept blaming Montferrand for what happened.”
Liam’s pulse raced, his ears rang, and suddenly his leg didn’t bother him at all anymore. “That bastard…” he seethed. “I’ll—”
He started to leave, but Adam caught him. “Hold up, Kelly.”
“He has to pay!” Liam snarled.
“Maybe so,” said Adam, “but he ain’t a baker. And we need to find that baker.”
Liam blinked, dazed, and looked back to Colleen. Her panic was starting to get the better of her. “She’s with the baker?” he asked.
“Aye,” said the taller man. “Bounty on both their heads. From Mr Aylen himself. Said to move fast, before he finishes Big Joe’s wishes and—”
Liam didn’t wait to hear the rest. He stormed off, north into Lowertown, thumping his broken leg like pain was a luxury he’d never afford. Adam shoved the second man clear away from Colleen, touching her cheek kindly…then hurried after his friend.
It was going to be a mad, savage scavenger hunt in Bytown tonight…and the survival of the players depended entirely on who got to Maggie first.
Sisk stepped out of the cold, into the well-appointed house with the bed and chairs near the back. Still warm. Smelled of over-steeped tea, perfume and blood. He glanced at the kitchen window, half-open, and the counter pushed to the side. He knelt down and ran his finger along the spot where the legs had once stood. Faint scratch marks to the left. Moved recently.
“How long ago?” he asked, and one of his Shiner soldiers cleared his throat and stepped forward.
“An hour. Maybe more.”
“How much more?” Sisk growled.
The man stammered, almost whimpered. “Th-the accounts vary, but no more than—”
Sisk shushed the man quiet, squinting at something else entirely. There, in the corner by the counter, was a broom. And tucked in behind the broom, out of sight, was a knife. A kitchen knife. It hadn’t just fallen there, it had been put there.
He slipped it free, turned it over in his hand. “An hour’s walk gets ‘em east past the river, west past Uppertown, south halfway to Billings.” He flipped the knife, again and again, like it couldn’t cut him at all. “We’ve got men on the eastern bridges since last night. Billings’ men are on the lookout, too. So the only way out is Sapper’s Bridge. It’s been blocked for an hour now, so—” He stood, flipping the knife again and again. “—here’s where ‘no more than’ ain’t cuttin’ it. How long ago were they seen?”
The knife flipped closer and closer to the man’s face, until it took all his willpower not to flinch and hide. “An hour, Mr Sisk. Just an hour.”
“So they’re not into Uppertown?”
The knife grazed the man’s chin. “N-no, sir. Not Uppertown. I’m s-sure of it.”
Sisk leaned very close indeed. “Y’don’t sound sure.”
The tip of the blade rested on the man’s neck, right atop a bulging vein. Sisk seemed curious to see what would happen next, as if he had no control over his own actions.
The man took a shaky breath. “I’m sure. I am. Two women—a Canadien and Mrs Kelly—and two gentlemen. One was the baker, the other, we’re not sure.”
“French?”
“He didn’t speak,” said the man, and almost shrugged before he realized what that might do to his neck. “But we’re not taking any chances.”
“Good,” said Sisk, smiling his rotten smile. “That’s what I like to hear. Go see to it.”
He took a step back and the man exhaled, turned to go, but Sisk caught him by the arm. “Oh, here,” he said, and pressed the knife into the man’s hand—the blade of the knife, edgewise—until it broke the skin.
Sisk held the man’s arm in place so he couldn’t get away. “Hold onto this for me.”
The man’s eyes were tearing. Blood pooled in his palm. He didn’t know what to do.
“Go on,” said Sisk. “Don’t drop it.”
The man realized what was being asked of him. He slowly, painfully, closed his hand around the knife. Sisk grinned, squeezed his fingers down until the poor wretch yelped. “That’s it. Now keep it safe. Never know when a bloodied knife’ll come in handy.”
Sisk pushed, and the man stumbled back, running from the house, terrified to let go of the knife before he was out of sight.
Sisk did another circuit of the room, looking for clues and other oddities. The basin, with a little bloody residue around the edges. The cloths, wet and worn. A table set for three. The hearth, still warm, and sheets on the bed that’d been used by a fitful sleeper, and covered in soot.
He paused by the broom again, took it in his hands, and ran his finger down the length of it.
“Where’re you off to, Miss Maggie?” he asked, observing it like it might answer. “Where’ll you try ‘n hide next?”
He swung the broom up into his hands like it was a musket, taking aim at the bed in the back, and: “Bang,” he said, dead-voiced.
He turned ‘round and pointed at the counter by the window. “Bang,” he said again.
He aimed out the door, at the curious onlookers there, who flinched at the sight of him staring them down. “Bang. Bang. Bang,” he said, and smiled.
He spun the broom handle over his shoulder like a good soldier would, and marched himself out the door. “Run, Maggie, run!” he bellowed. “Ye can’t hide forever!”