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12

"Sit down!" Carlin ordered, unwittingly echoing the conversation which was currently going on right below his supposedly impregnable walls.

"In this state?" Chantal stuck her nose in the air, as if trying to distance herself from her blood-stained suit. "I require a bath and some fresh clothes." She glared at him in the most self-centred and spoilt manner she could manage. "I presume you do have such basic amenities, even in a hovel like this?"

"Do you indeed? You've got a lot to learn," Carlin told her with an unpleasant grin. "Sit down!"

Chantal remained defiantly standing. "I do not sit at table covered in blood! You are obviously not a gentleman if you expect me to do so."

"I never made any claim to gentlemanly behaviour," Carlin told her, but he was not relishing the thought of dealing with her in her present condition, so he shouted: "Maggie!" When one of the girls appeared from the kitchen, he ordered: "Get the lady bath water. And a change of clothing. In my room." The girl glowered at Chantal, but fled hurriedly when Carlin snapped: "Now, you little slut!"

Heating the water took some time, but when his orders had been obeyed, Carlin once more took Chantal by the arm and propelled her upstairs and into a room which looked out over the gap between the prison and the house. The bath of hot water was there, alright, but Chantal had no intention of putting so much as a finger in it until she had got rid of Carlin. Leaving aside modesty, she needed to keep her hands unobserved, since they hardly had the soft palms of a rich young lady. To which end she complained vigorously about the replacement clothes she was offered.

"Tawdry trash! You can't seriously expect me to participate in anything dressed like saloon scrapings!" She slapped the offending garments in Carlin's face, catching him a nasty blow across one eye as she did so. "Now get out and get me something better or you can forget about my father paying you anything!" she screeched.

Carlin clutched his smarting eye and suddenly found himself seriously off balance as a sharp boot-heel came down on his instep. Jess could have warned him, but certainly wouldn't have. Following up her advantage in no uncertain manner, Chantal gave him an almighty shove which sent him staggering blindly out of the door. He was lucky not to pitch straight down the stairs. It was all a total shock: he was used to much more subservient women,

Chantal was lucky too. Although she'd picked up sundry underhand methods of attack from her younger brothers and lately from Jess, she was really no match for a man like Carlin. It was sheer surprise and a desire to get out of earshot of a screaming female which worked in her favour. Besides, he reckoned that she wasn't going anywhere unless she was prepared to jump from a second floor window. Little did he know she had already considered this and was struggling to recall whether there would be any hand and footholds on the wall outside.

The replacement clothes arrived shortly, by way of a very angry Maggie, who opened the door, flung them on the floor and slammed the door again in Chantal's face. They were not much of an improvement, but had served their purpose as a diversion. Chantal quickly stripped off her ruined suit, splashed herself in a hasty wash rather than a bath, and dressed again in a skirt and shirt several sizes too big for her. Her hat had disappeared long ago in the violence of the courtyard.

She was still wrestling to make the clothes fit when the door opened without so much as a knock. Her captor gave her what he presumably assumed was an engaging leer and remarked: "That's an improvement. I never did like a woman covered in another man's blood."

Chantal's heart nearly stopped. Her gloves were still in the heap of discarded clothing on the floor next to the bath. She hastily put both hands behind her and contrived to look as furious as she could. "If these rags are the best you can do, I'm going to need a trip to town. Not that I expect there will be anything of quality there, but at least I might get something which will fit."

Carlin chuckled. "You expect me to take you on a shopping expedition?" He had to admire her nerve.

"If you won't, then provide me with a suitable escort, since you've made rather a mess of my previous one!"

"You won't need an escort because you won't be going anywhere," Carline assured her. "Not until I've worked out how to get the most out of you. So make yourself at home."

"You won't get anything out of me unless I'm in one piece and willing to negotiate with my father," she reminded him.

"No. But I can get some hard work out of you while I'm waiting for your father to cough up. You can put those pretty hands to good use!" He lunged suddenly at her and pulled her hands from behind her. "It won't hurt you to get them dirty for once." Gripping her inexorably by both wrists, Carlin turned her palms up.

Silence.

Carlin looked down at Chantal's hands. Even comfrey, however lovingly applied, could not work miracles: the blisters and cuts and abrasions had only lightly healed and the faint tinge of blue clay remained ingrained in the skin. When he looked up, the light of malign intelligence was glinting in his eyes. He said in soft and deadly tones: "There's only one place you could have got injuries like this. How did you get in there!"

"The same way every child does!" she spat back at him. There was no point in concealing her knowledge now. She was shaking inside at the thought of what he might do to extract further information from her. Only the awareness of the immanent raid by the Ranulfiar kept her from screaming and running. As it was, her only chance was to stall Carlin and keep his attention from what was happening outside as long as possible.

"You will go to hell!" Her voice was cold and low and as hard as the labour she had witnessed. "Or maybe I'll just let them loose to tear you to pieces the way you deserve, before you burn for all eternity."

The briefest flicker of fear showed in Carlin's expression. He had no dread of hell or damnation. No man who had made his choices would. But he knew the power of the mob, most of all the mob bent on vengeance. These might be children but there were far more of them than him and his men could handle at once.

"That tongue of yours is way too sharp! Harper was right when he –" Carlin stopped abruptly, his brain clearly working overtime. "You're in this together, you lying pair! You're no lady. Just some broad he's picked to get on the inside of my operation! And if Harper's playing games, what's the betting his side-kick won't be far away to back him up? Isn't that so?"

He shook her viciously and twisted one arm behind her, forcing her head towards the floor so that she was nearly bent double.

"I've never met him, I swear," Chantal gasped. "I met Harper in a saloon. He promised good money, plenty of money for risking the danger!"

A brutal wrench on her arm accompanied the next question. "Tell me what they planned."

"I don't know anything!" Chantal let her voice become tearful, but her free hand was busy.

"Tell me!" Another twist threatened to push all the air out of her lungs.

"I can't breathe! Let me up and I'll talk."

"That's more like it!" Carlin slackened his grip.

It was his mistake. As she straightened up, the knife in her hand (Harper maxim: always carry a knife in your boot) made a frantic upward sweep. She failed to make contact with Carlin's throat, but the blade sliced hard across his shoulder and narrowly missed severing his ear. He gave a roar of pain and let go.

Chantal sprang towards the window, but almost instantly he was after her again. She stood with her back braced against the wall and the knife thrust out before her in both hands. She hoped he didn't know how much it hurt to hold it so steadily.

"Forget it, little lady," he jeered. "You're no bigger than a kid and I've got twenty men to back me up."

Chantal glanced over her shoulder. "But I," she laughed, "have got the cavalry!"

# # # # #

The raiding party spread out along the base of the stockade in their smaller groups as Slim inched his way silently up the rope, for the last time, he hoped. Despite the urgency of the task and his burning desire to open the prison door and his fervent hope that Jess would be able to stay on his feet long enough to find Chantal, he did not hurry. Hand over hand, he rose up the rope, using nothing more than his strong grip and the power of his upper body, and taking care his feet did not bang or scrap on the surface.

At last he was able to take hold of the upper edge and pull up to look over. Instantly he dropped back again, hanging by his fingertips, as a guard passed down the walkway, obviously heading for the gate-house. Below, everyone held their collective breath. If Slim's strength failed now, there would be no more concealment and they would be involved in an outright fight in which the men above them would have the advantage in firing down on them.

Slim's strength did hold out, although it was a near thing. As soon as the sound of footsteps became distant, he was hauling himself up and over the fence and dropping, as he had done before, into concealment in the shadows. It took only a minute more to secure and lower the other ropes. Having done this, he went back to the original one and shook it vigorously.

With uncanny speed, the men swarmed up, over and rolled into the shadows, just as he had done. When the last movement faded and all became still again, Slim began to count as he had been instructed below. There could be no more spoken orders now. Each man must know his job and his place in the team. Each of them had a task to fulfill.

When he had reached a hundred, Slim began to crawl towards the prison, passing the only group between him and it. They would follow and secure the prison itself and the arms store. The others were closer to the gatehouse and charged with dealing with all the other guards.

Beside him, Slim felt one of the Ranulfiar - Keilder, he recognised. He knew without being told that it was this man's task to deal with any guards they might encounter, freeing Slim himself to open the prison at the appropriate moment. Keilder suddenly froze. Slim stopped and dropped flat. Coming towards them was a guard, in the same position and on duty in the same way which had impeded Jess's rescue of Chantal. Remembering this, Slim sent up a brief prayer for their safety now.

The guard behaved exactly as Jess had described. He was almost treading on them when he halted for a moment, before turning back towards the prison. There was a lightning movement, a slight grunt, and the man lay unconscious. Keilder quickly used the man's gun-belt to immobilise him. Then he touched Slim's arm and they moved on.

After carefully surveying the yard below them, they found the ladder to ground level had once more been removed. One of their group had retrieved the rope they had climbed up and now passed it over to Keilder, who used it to swing down into the yard. He swiftly restored the ladder so they could descend, leaving one man above to deal with any opposition which came along the walkway. But so far there was almost no movement or sound in the blackness of the fort below.

The only sounds they could hear were some rustling and a few faint thuds on the other side of the yard. Another of their number slipped away to the arms store, taking guard inside where he would be reasonably protected and well placed to hold off any attack. This left three of them. Keilder and Slim remained either side of the barred door, their ears straining to catch the sounds which indicated that the prisoners were still there. The third man edged his way round the prison until he was in the alley leading to the locked gate. It was unlikely that resistance would come from this direction, but you never knew. He would also be able to give back up to the group who were taking care of the house, where the lighted windows stood out bright against the darkness of the rest of the place. Jess, Slim knew, was with this group, but it felt strange and disconcerting not to be going into tonight's fight side by side.

At least, Jess was supposed to be with this group, but, as Vin had experienced many times, giving Jess orders was one thing and getting him to obey them was something else entirely. It was Samson who had been left to guard the walkway and he was supremely unsurprised when Jess slid noiselessly up beside him. There was no way even with the most elaborate hand signals to say 'What the devil are you doing up here?' and, in the gloom, both men's expressions were unreadable. But, on his arm, Samson felt Jess tap out the code meaning 'I'm going forward – stay here.' The next moment the lean shadow at his side was gone like a part of the darkness itself. Samson could have been forgiven for groaning or sighing or grinding his teeth, had he been able to make any sound, but the only reaction he gave was the faintest of shrugs and a silent chuckle. He figured Jess probably knew what he was doing and where he was going.

Jess made it over the roof of the prison and as far as the edge overlooking the alley between the two buildings before he stopped. Below the fort was falling, without a sound, into the hands of the raiders. Soon the hideous confinement right under his feet would be broken open and Slim would be able to lead those children to safety. An affectionate smile twitched Jess's lips: he just bet Slim would find it hard to resist offering them the shelter of his home, at least in the short term. He was dedicated to family life and if anyone needed help and security, they could count on Slim to give it.

Crouching below the parapet, Jess loosed the rope which he had once again wound round his body. Its roughness on his bare skin had further exacerbated his injuries and the exertion of climbing and crawling had set blood running again as well as making his lungs pump painfully against his damaged ribs. He took not the slightest notice of all this, his only concern being that the blood did not make his hands slippery for what he expected to be his next move. He could not have said why he had chosen to come up here instead of going in the main entrance of the house with the others. It was some deep instinct of gut or heart which told him he was needed here.

Moments later, a movement in the lighted window opposite galvanised him into action. He threw the rope across the gap and lassoed a convenient chimney-pipe opposite. With a brief prayer that it was not too rusty hold his weight, Jess launched himself over the gap, swinging hard on the rope, and crashed straight through the open window.

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Acknowledgement of idea from 'Gone with the Wind', Margaret Mitchell