‘He’s the man who had thirty quid that’s mine now. So shut up. See if he’s got more.’
‘More?’ Cassian demanded. ‘You have my money, damn you, do you want my fob-watch too?’
The First Bravo gave him a sardonic look, and reached for his fob-pocket, extracting the watch. The timepiece and its chain were the plainest the Duke possessed; as Jim took them out and the gold gleamed in the dim light, the woman gave a little gasp. ‘We could hang for this!’ she said shrilly.
‘And for kidnapping,’ Cassian said, and regretted it as they both looked at him. ‘Let me go and I won’t tell anyone. You can keep the money for your trouble, hmm? Nobody needs to know anything.’
‘Jim . . .’ the woman said, pleading.
The First Bravo hesitated, then shook his head. ‘In the morning. After we’ve had our word with Charnage and found the bitch, we’ll let you go, and you can have your watch back too if you’re a good boy. No more talk.’ He put the candlestick on a high shelf, and they both left.
Cassian reflected sourly on that interaction as he ate excessively strong cheese and tough bread, washed down with sour ale. If he’d been a heroic Corinthian sort, he could have fought his way out. That was not an option, because he was a shrimp of a man who could be mistaken for a runaway lady, if only in bad light.
He thought about his lack of broad shoulders for a moment, then stood.
There was one small window, a single square pane of dirty glass. It was high up in the wall but the walls weren’t that high, and he found a broken box to balance on. The window was far too narrow for anyone to worry about people climbing through, and it was just a pane of glass, with no opening mechanism. Cassian contemplated it for a few moments. Then he took a moment to utter a prayer, and put a hand in his coat pocket.
The watch had distracted them from checking his other pockets. So they hadn’t taken his knife.
One of the most striking aspects of Daizell’s heroics on the day of the crash had been the casually competent way he’d pulled out a clasp knife. The Duke of Severn had never carried such a thing on his person: he had servants for that. Cassian had bought himself a clasp knife in Stratford, indulging a fantasy of being the kind of man who might produce one in an emergency. He hadn’t lost it in the evening’s proceedings, and now here he was.
The window was secured with thick putty, brittle with age. It took a very little effort to work the blade around the edges, and after some moments of manipulation, the pane shifted. He eased it forward, because if it fell and smashed he’d be in trouble, and put it carefully on the ground. He was left with a very uninviting opening that most people would say a grown man, even a slender one, would have no hope of getting through.
Most people hadn’t grown up in a castle. Staplow was exceedingly well provided with narrow windows, and the Duke and his cousins – Leo, Matthew, and their sister Louisa – had spent a lot of time experimenting. You could get through most apertures, they had found, if your head and one arm fit.
He went to the door and listened, but heard nothing. He finished the sour ale and made use of the chamber pot. He put the knife securely in his pocket, and then he balanced on the broken box, and jumped.
He caught the window sill with his elbow first time. That was good, but getting the rest of himself up there was harder. He hadn’t done this in some years, and there wasn’t space to get both hands in place and heave. He had to scrabbleagainst the wall with his feet in a frantic, undignified way, trying to make as little noise as possible. He slipped back to the ground, and glared at the wall.
He could do this. He had to.
The window aperture was not wide. He took off his coat, bundled it up, and threw it through the window, both to narrow his width and to force himself to persist. Then he jumped and scrabbled again, and got the edge of his ribs up, and then it was a matter of twisting sideways, thrashing like a landed salmon to propel himself, working his leading arm out and pulling his other arm through in angular sections, clamped against his chest. It was damned tight. If they caught him like this, arse hanging out of the window and feet fruitlessly waving, wouldn’t they laugh.
That thought gave him the push he needed. He gave one more tight squirm, arm wedged against his chest, and then his second arm was through.
Now he just needed to get down to the ground without falling on his head. He pulled himself through sideways, getting his backside on the sill, folding a leg to get his foot up, and managed to hold on to a beam and work his way out to the point he could jump down.
He hit the ground with a thump that sounded very loud in the quiet of the night and stood a second holding his breath, ears straining. Nothing.
He was out. What now?
He could run, or more likely walk, but they’d come several miles. The moon was up now and three-quarters full, which helped but it would still be a nightmarish journey through dark fields and woods with no idea where he was going or what he was stepping in. Or he could stick to the road back, but then a man on a horse would catch him easily.
Of course, if he were the man on the horse . . .
He contemplated that a moment, then he retrieved his coat and crept silently round the outside of the house, looking for where the horses were stabled.
They were in an outbuilding. Cassian groped at shoulder height and found, as he’d hoped, a tinder box and lamp. He lit the lamp, hands shaking a little from nerves.
The building looked as though it had been used as a stables before, but not recently. It was dirty and dusty, and the straw for the two carriage horses looked sadly in need of refreshing. They both looked up at him, and one whickered.
‘Shhh now. Quiet, beauty,’ he murmured, approaching with slow confidence. ‘Come now, my lovelies . . .’
They were the usual hired beasts, weary job-horses without spirit, but at least they weren’t inclined to make a fuss, and Cassian invested a couple of minutes he didn’t want to spare in making friends. The tack hanging up was old and stiff but it would do. He saddled the horse that seemed more amenable, keeping his movements calming and his voice soothing. He put the second on a leading rein, using a length of rope that hung on a hook. Then he poked his head out of the door.
Nothing. Nobody.
‘Come on, beauties,’ he told the horses softly. ‘We’re going to find Daize.’
