“Aren’t you supposed to take me back to your little emperor?”Jonathan asked, surprised how his voice remained steady.“Prove to him you caught me and parade me in the streets of Paris?”
“I shall.Don’t you worry,Mr.Bowen.”The captain smiled again at demoting Jonathan in turn.“Or are you truly a nobleman?”The question was clearly rhetorical, because he continued without waiting for an answer.“But you’ll miss all the amusement of the imperial household, since I’m taking you to France as a corpse in a sack.”
Like hell he would!
Jonathan’s fingers finally closed around the slim handle, and he brought the knife up in one smooth, desperate motion.Jamming the blade into the soft flesh of the man’s neck, it entered just below the jaw.
Hot blood spurted over his hand, shocking in its heat and immediate volume.
With a scream, the captain tried to slap the knife away as if it were nothing more than a stinging bug.But Jonathan had already pulled it out, only so he could shove it into the man’s side, aiming low so the ribs wouldn’t deflect it.
The blade only went in a few inches because the angle was poor and the uniform was thick.It didn’t matter.The first stab had done its work and settled matters.
The officer had gone slack, his eyes wide with shock and the dawning realization of his own mortality.He’d already dropped the pistol, unnoticed.His blood continued to spurt with each beat of his heart, pulsing in a rhythm that was already growing weaker.
Groaning, he slumped slowly to the side.
Jonathan easily pushed him off his chest the rest of the way and scrambled to his feet.His hand was covered in blood, his heart still racing, as he looked around, expecting another attack.None came.The lateness of the hour meant the dock was quiet, most of the work was now going on inside the lit warehouses.
Somewhere close, Wilhelm’s rye had been unloaded, and the farmer was enjoying a tankard at a local tavern.Sailors prepared for departure or had just docked, maybe looking forward to a soft bed and a wench.But no merchants remained, arguing over who was lowering prices, and the most noise was from the gulls wheeling and crying overhead.
Still, he was surprised not to be set upon by someone.Either no one had noticed the altercation, or no one cared to get involved.Not with a French soldier.
Jonathan watched the captain bleed out on the cobblestones, his mouth working soundlessly, his hands clutching at the wound in his neck.It was over in seconds.The light faded from his eyes, and the terrible fountain of blood slowed to a trickle.
Standing over the body, breathing hard, Jonathan waited for a natural feeling of remorse.Instead, he felt ...nothing.Or perhaps more accurately, he felt too many things at once for any single emotion to dominate.Relief.Savage satisfaction at surviving.A strange, hollow emptiness.
He ought to feel sorry, he supposed.Some measure of guilt at having taken a life, even in defense of his own.But when he searched his conscience, he found his regret was mostly for the waste of it all.
Besides, this man had terrified Lise.Had threatened the von Ostenfelds.Had been prepared to execute a prisoner in cold blood rather than follow proper military protocol.
But he’d also given a thirsty prisoner a simple glass of water, when he needn’t have bothered.A small mercy, but mercy nonetheless.Thus, the least Jonathan could do was offer a prayer for the captain who’d sold his honor for profit, who’d been willing to murder rather than capture, who would never see his own loved ones again.
Reaching out, Jonathan drew the captain’s eyelids down over his sightless eyes.
“Requiescat in pace,”he murmured, then added a brief prayer his mother had taught him as a child.It seemed inadequate, but it was all he had to give.
Kneeling beside the body, he wiped his hands as best he could on the man’s coat, cleaned his knife and put it back in his boot.Feeling like a Covent Garden pickpocket, Jonathan then searched the officer’s coat until he found a small purse attached to the belt.He took it, hefting its weight in his palm.The jangle of coins was musical, almost obscene in its cheerfulness.
Enough for any expenses between here and home, certainly.Enough to bribe someone into silence if necessary.
“You won’t need this any longer, Captain.”The words came out flat, distant, as though spoken by someone else.Then Jonathan shoved the purse into the pocket of Henrik’s borrowed coat.
Standing, realizing he ruined yet another suit of clothing, he forced himself to turn away.To focus on what mattered now.Getting home.
Trying to stroll, not run, Jonathan ambled toward theMargarethewith unhurried steps, resisting the urge to look back, even when he heard the first cries of “murder.”His hands were shaking now that the immediate danger had passed, his legs weak with reaction.But he kept moving, kept his chin up, kept his eyes on the ship that represented safety.
A man stood by the gangplank — older, weathered, with the bow-legged stance of someone who’d spent more years at sea than on land.He looked Jonathan up and down, taking in the bloodstained clothes, the wild-eyed expression, the general dishevelment.
One eyebrow rose high.
“Captain Thomsen?”Jonathan asked quietly.
“Aye,” he answered in Danish-accented English.“And you’ll be von Ostenfeld’scargo.”
Not a question.The captain jerked his head toward the gangplank.“Get aboard before someone asks questions about whose blood that is.We sail with the evening tide.”
Jonathan didn’t need to be told twice.He climbed the narrow plank on legs that felt like water, acutely aware of the body he’d left behind on the dock.
