Page 24

24

DAYLIGHT ROBBERY

“ N o!” Léon smashed an arm up, knocking Henry off-target, the ball bearing flying from the barrel of the gun and lodging itself in a tree an inch above the cart man’s shoulder.

“You idiot!” Henry shouted.

He scrambled a hand into his pocket, feeling for more bullets and gunpowder, wrenching the package out, while the man across the field snapped his horse to attention and set off at as fast a pace as he could turn the cart.

Léon saw the packet, noted its contents, and summarily knocked it to the ground.

Henry slammed an elbow straight into Léon’s cheek, then set off across the field, bolting like a man possessed, wrenching a knife free and making for the kill.

Léon picked himself up and ran even faster, tall and agile and more than a match for Henry’s physical prowess.

He soon caught up with him and tackled him to the ground, Henry rolling onto his back to brace for the assault, Léon almost impaling himself on the knife that Henry tossed down rather than accidentally ram it into Léon’s bare abdomen.

But that was where his sympathy stopped.

He clamped both hands onto Léon’s shoulders and smashed a knee into his stomach, extracting a gasp of pain from Léon as he dug it in hard.

He threw him over and climbed to his feet, then fell flat on his face when Léon caught his ankle.

Henry kicked a boot back at him, an inch from breaking his nose, but Léon dodged it, then dived on his two legs to keep him down.

“You can't just kill him!”

“Watch me!” With great difficulty, Henry rolled over, then smashed his head forward in an attempt to headbutt Léon, but Léon pulled his long neck back, holding Henry’s two arms to the ground, his feet curled across Henry’s thighs, sitting hard on his pelvis while Henry struggled beneath him. “What do you think you’re doing?” Henry growled. “You think he’s going to let you get away with this?”

The idea had bloomed in Léon’s mind as no more than a sapling. He had been caught red-handed helping Henry—stealing a condemned woman out of her cell, then shaking hands with the man he’d delivered her to. He held tight to Henry as the catastrophe plummeted down on him, and he was so lost in his task and worries that it took him a moment to realise what was going on in the background of his own personal nightmare.

Catherine, like a ghost in the night, bloody in her white shift, had taken up Henry’s gunpowder and bullets, had found and snatched up his pistol, had loaded the thing, and another deafening shot went off right above Léon and Henry. It narrowly missed the cart man as he disappeared around the bend. The basket of heads he’d been charged to deliver fell off the back of the cart with his volition, and fourteen heads rolled about the forest floor, all of Léon’s work come back to haunt him in one enormous calamity.

“What do we do now?” Catherine asked Henry, in a language Léon didn’t understand a word of, as it was English, and naturally, they had all been speaking French the whole time prior to this.

Léon relinquished his hold on Henry, falling to the ground, staring up at her in dismay.

Also speaking in English, pushing himself up to sitting, Henry replied, “I don’t know. We’ll have to hide, I suppose.”

“And him?” she asked, looking down at Léon.

Henry glanced once at Léon’s appalled and bewildered face, then said firmly, “Leave him be.”

With an angry tone that Léon hadn’t imagined reviving so fast in a woman in her situation, “Can he be trusted?”

Henry watched Léon dig despairing fingers into his hair, going somewhere distant as his whole world imploded. And Henry, having achieved the one thing that had been his sole obsession for months, switched his allegiance and intention in a heartbeat. “He’s with me. Don’t hurt him. No matter what stupid thing he does next.”

“We can’t just pick up strays,” she said.

Léon, not understanding a word of their discussion, rolled back, wailing to himself, “What am I going to do now? Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuuck!”

“And he seems a bit unstable,” Catherine observed, watching him writhe on the grass.

“He’s just a little upset,” Henry offered. “It’s been a big day for him.” He tapped a hand down on Léon’s knee, switching back to French. “How about we get out of here?”

Léon slapped the hand away viciously. “How about you go fuck yourself, Henri? You utter, utter piece of shit!” He scrambled back out of his reach. “I don’t know who you are, or what you’ve done— Fuck! What have you even done?” Catherine narrowed sharp eyes at Henry as Léon yelled, “I knew I never should have helped you! I should have just told them what you did!”

Henry shook his head at his sister in warning, and she rolled her eyes before asking, “What’s your plan, then?”

He climbed to his feet, leaving Léon to roll over and bang his forehead into the dirt repeatedly. “To not get caught. We’re going to have to make a fast escape, and my horse wandered off somewhere like the bastard he is.”

“How did you afford a horse?”

“Stolen horse. I’ll see if I can get him back.” Henry whistled, low, and there was a cracking of branches as his black stallion obediently leapt out from behind thick greenery. Léon paused his tantrum in astonishment. He’d had no idea it was still there. He couldn’t think of a moment Henry’d had to hide it, and he’d assumed it had run away in fright.

The horse trotted straight up to Henry, but when he held out a hand to take its reins, the animal flinched away, prancing two steps to the side and out of Henry’s reach.

“We had a deal!” Henry growled.

The horse threw its head back and ran a tight circle while Catherine asked, “What’s the matter with it?”

“He doesn’t like the smell.” Henry glared at the horse as it dipped its huge head in agreement and stomped a hoof in the dirt. “I’ll wash you as soon as we’re done,” he tried, but the animal cantered off across the field the second Henry made a move toward it. “Bastard!”

Just then, all were distracted by the sound of a carriage—large wheels on gravel that spoke of a proper road nearby. Henry and Catherine locked eyes, an immediate understanding passing between them.

“Are you able to run?” he asked, his voice urgent.

She gave a nod, thrust the gun into his hand, and set off at a remarkable pace across the field, weird horse bounding after her. Henry reached for Léon’s hand to help him up, but found it smacked away again. “Get up, Ange, it’s time to go.”

“Stop calling me that!” Léon ground out, showing no sign that he was about to follow a single one of Henry’s instructions.

Henry dropped onto one knee. “If you don’t come now, you’re going to go down for my crime. And I don’t want to see your head end up in a basket. Not for something I did.”

It was a frank and jarringly earnest statement, and it grabbed Léon’s attention enough to pull him back to some sense.

His eyes cleared as they made contact with Henry’s, and Henry said, “I’ll take you to émile, we’ll figure a way out of this. But you have to come now. Please.” He held out his hand again. It took a good six seconds of consideration, but Léon locked fingers around his wrist, and Henry wrenched him to his feet. “This way. Run.”

Léon took up his discarded axe and bolted after him. Both could hear the carriage approaching, louder and louder, but neither could see it through the trees. Catherine, on the other hand, must have found a way around. They heard her cry out, “Help me! Please, please help me!”

Just as they made it to a clearing between the thick foliage, they heard a neigh of horses and the carriage driver yelling to his animals to hold as he drew hard on the reins. Catherine kept her ground, looking just as frail and pathetic as when Léon had first laid eyes on her. The carriage driver fell for it every bit as thoroughly as Léon had. He jumped down, Henry lunged forward, and the man had the tip of Henry’s pistol pressed behind his ear before he knew what was happening.

Léon tumbled out of the bushes. “Don’t hurt him! Please!”

Taking a step back from the driver, Henry nodded for Catherine to come take the pistol, saying to Léon, “How about this?” He handed the gun across and slid his sword free from its holster. “You do exactly as I say…” He rounded the carriage and snapped the door open to a communal scream from three ladies and a gentleman inside. “And I’ll let these good people live.”

Léon readily assented. “Okay. Whatever you say.”

Henry turned a dazzling smile on the bejewelled and shocked occupants of the carriage. “Pardon me. I hate to interrupt your journey, but I really must relieve you of your carriage. My sister, as you can see—” she waved and smiled at them “—has been in a small scrape, and I find I need to escort her to more genial surroundings forthwith. My accomplice here, Léon?—”

“I am not his accomplice!” Léon wheezed out.

Henry spoke over him. “He’s lost his shirt somewhere along the way, and, for the sake of public decency, it’s fallen to me to cover his shame.”

The eyes of the ladies lingered much longer on Léon’s bare and beautiful skin than they had on Catherine’s soiled dress, but the male occupant spoke up with a blustering, “That may well be, but you can’t just take our carriage.”

“I can,” Henry returned, “because you’re going to step calmly out of my way right now, unless you want your throat slit on this here road.” He smiled sweetly, and Léon would never have thought he was even slightly ruffled by the experience. In fact, it struck Léon just then, Henry seemed rather at home. Like he’d done this before. And suddenly the look on his face when Léon had asked what he did for a living took on a new meaning. Some pub talk that felt like aeons ago played over in his head. ‘ Le Baron Noir .’

He couldn’t be…

Henry extended a hand into the carriage. “May I?”

The first of the ladies, taking heart either due to his demeanour or good looks, grabbed hold and let him hand her down from the carriage. She stepped to the side of the road, away from both Léon and Catherine, the latter of whom still held the gun on the driver, and waited with as much calm patience as if their horses had only needed to be watered.

“I’m sorry,” Léon mumbled to her. “It’s a dire situation.”

“Oh, well.” She smiled and blushed. “Some things can’t be helped.”

The next lady, handed down equally graciously, took her place by the other’s side. Léon said, “Reims is just through those woods. A short walk. But mind the pit.”

“Maybe don’t tell them too many shortcuts?” Catherine suggested dryly. “And it’s not a particularly pleasant walk just now, anyway.”

Léon, remembering the heads strewn over the path, chivalrously tried then to change their route with a rambling reflection on the smoothness of the winding gravel road they stood upon, as opposed to the ‘muddy’ forest track, all while the last lady took her place, apparently bemused by the goings on. She interrupted Léon’s diatribe slightly when she leaned close to another, and with eyes on Henry, whispered, “That’s him, isn’t it?”

“I think so!” the other whispered back excitedly.

Finally, the man, who appeared to be their father, lined up beside them, and the women straightened their faces.

Henry, seeing Léon about to continue with his many apologies, directed him towards the carriage with the tip of his sword against his shoulder. Léon took a few reluctant steps away until his back was resting against the lacquered wood. Then Henry jabbed one further metaphorical knife into Léon by turning to his captives and saying, “Before you go, do be so kind as to hand over your money and jewels.”

Léon stepped forward. “You are not robbing these people!”

“No,” replied Henry. “They’ll give it over of their own free will. And you know the consequences if there’s any trouble, Ange.”

The threat was intended for Léon and Léon alone, so he opted to smash himself back against the carriage, clasping his hands tight, waiting for the ordeal to be over.

Upon handing their goods across, the man was outraged, the first lady frightened but compliant, and the second perfectly obliging. The third took her earrings, her bracelets, her rings, and put them all in Henry’s hand before pausing with fingers on her necklace. It was a fine piece of jewellery, made from pearls and amber, featuring a gold and ivory locket, giving gentlemen at parties an excuse to look at her cleavage as they pretended to admire the piece. She fondled it, and Henry, who couldn’t care less about her bosom, asked, “Is there a problem?”

“Well…” She pouted. “It’s only…” She searched his kindly looking face, and seeing little to fear there, gathered her bravery. “This is very special to me. It was a gift from my fiance, and see, he’s away, and I don’t know when I shall see him again, and…” A tear came into her eye, and her sister gripped her arm tight for support. The father kept a wary eye on proceedings, hands twitching by his pockets.

Henry, interest piqued, pointed at the locket and asked, “Is he in there?”

She nodded, raising a handkerchief to her eye.

“May I see?”

Another nod, a reluctant one, and the lady unclasped the jewel. She handed it over with a shaking hand. Henry clicked it open to discover a tiny but expertly made miniature of a dark-haired beauty with bright blue eyes, artistically gazing off into the distance. “My…” He looked up at her. “He’s handsome, isn’t he?”

“He is,” she whispered.

“Name?”

“Albert.”

“Very beautiful.” He admired the man a moment longer, then snapped the locket closed. “Better keep it.” He took the welcome liberty of leaning in close and securing the necklace himself, pulling a blush and a soft whimper from the lady as his shirt brushed her shoulder. He stood tall and said, “He’s very lucky.”

The woman’s eyes brightened. Henry gave her an audacious wink, and just as he turned back to the carriage, she called, “Sir?”

He spun back with a smile.

“I have…” Breathing hard, she reached into her hair and pulled a cascade of flowing blonde locks loose with the extraction of a diamond-encrusted hair pin. “You forgot this.”

While their father huffed and puffed and otherwise very nearly exploded, Henry bowed low, accepted the hand she offered, kissed it, and swept the jewels up with a flourish.

Feeling perfectly confident in his control of the situation, he took the gun back from his sister, and directed the driver to stand by the rest of the group. He offered to hand Catherine up onto the carriage to take the reins, as she insisted on driving, and it was only because she thwarted his chivalry so determinedly that he turned back in time to see a glint of sunshine on a long and sleek circle of iron rising towards Léon’s beautiful frame.

“Ange!” In a moment of perfectly unexpected, strangely romantic, excessive madness, Henry leapt forward to shove Léon to the side. The bullet flew from the barrel the very same second, and a splatter of blood flew up against the pale teak panelling.

Léon landed in the gravel with a scrape and a cry from his own mouth at the shock of Henry, shot and on the ground in front of him. Henry dug fingers into the dirt and pushed himself up, his loaded pistol the perfect answer to the other man’s burning-hot gun.

In a flash, Léon imagined the man’s head exploding right there in front of his daughters, and he scrambled up from the ground, tackling Henry into the carriage, screaming, “Catherine, drive!”

Henry lurched for the doorway, but the volition of the violent movement Catherine called from the animals felled him back into Léon, who locked an arm across his chest. Henry dropped the gun and snapped two hands against Léon’s hold, giving himself enough space to scramble for the door, where he yelled, “I’ll be back for you, you bastard! Don’t you forget this face!”

Léon kicked him right in his wounded arm. “Shut up, Henri!”

“Ow! Or my name!” Henry snapped, clambering back up. And in a moment of cruel retribution, holding the doorway for balance, he screamed, “My name is Léon Lyon! And I’m coming for you when you sleep!”

Léon leapt forward, only to find himself shoved down on a seat with the tip of Henry’s sword pressed so close against the skin of his neck that one bump in the road would have finished him. He inched himself back against the wall, Henry slammed the door closed and took his place opposite, keeping his sword drawn.

“Well, Ange,” he began, breathing hard over tight teeth, pressing a hand to his bleeding arm, “it appears you’ve been kidnapped and framed for a crime you didn’t commit. Would you like to talk about it?”