Piccadilly lay just ahead; the streets were opening out, lined with the shops of clothiers and merchants, rather than the libkens and taverns of the narrower ways near Queen Street. At this time of night, the streets were busy with foot traffic, horses and carriages; random snatches of conversation, shouts and cheerful bustle drifted past.

A light rain was falling, and mist rose from the pavements round their feet. The lightermen had come already; the streetlamps flickered and glowed under the glass of their canopies and shone upon the wet stones, helping to dispel the lurking horror of that conference in the hay shed.

“Do you get used to it, me lord?” Tom glanced at him, round face troubled in the transient glow.

“To what? Death, do you mean, and bodies?”

“Well . . . that sort of death, I suppose.” The boy made a diffident gesture toward the bundle. “I’d think this was maybe different than what you see in battle—but maybe I’m wrong?”

“Maybe.” Grey slowed his pace to let a group of gay blades pass, laughing as they crossed the street, dodging an oncoming detachment of mounted Horse Guards, harness glittering in the wet.

“I suppose it is no different in the essentials,” he said, stepping out as the sound of hooves clattered off down Piccadilly. “I have seen more dreadful things on a battlefield, often. And yes, you do get used to that—you must.”

“But it is different?” Tom persisted. “This?”

Grey took a deep breath, and a firmer hold on his burden.

“Yes,” he said. “And I should not like to meet the man to whom this is routine.”

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

A Troth Is Blighted

Grey was rudely roused from his bed just after dawn, to find Corporal Jowett arrived on the doorstep with bad news.

“Ruddy birds had flown, sir,” Jowett said, handing over a note from Malcolm Stubbs to the same effect. “Lieutenant Stubbs and I went round with a couple of soldiers, along with that Magruder fellow and two constables, thinking to take the Scanlons unawares whilst it was still dark.” Jowett looked like an emaciated bulldog at the best of times; his face now was positively savage. “Found the door locked and broke it in—only to find the place empty as a ruddy tomb on Easter morning.”

Not only had the Scanlons themselves decamped; the entire stock of the apothecary’s shop was missing, leaving behind only empty bottles and bits of scattered rubbish.

“They had warning, eh?” Jowett said. “Somebody tipped ’em—but who?”

“I don’t know,” Grey said grimly, tying the sash of his banyan. “You spoke to the neighbors?”

Jowett snorted.

“For what good it did. Irishmen, all of ’em, and liars born. Magruder arrested a couple of them, but it won’t do any good—you could see that.”

“Did they say at least when the Scanlons had decamped?”