Leopard in Exile (25 page)

play this adventure. When Wessex ventured forth from the yacht, he would do so in his own persona,

playing the unfamiliar part of himself. Only as the Duke of Wessex could he reasonably expect to hear

news of his Duchess, and that would make him very easy to find.

When he had seen Koscuisko and his waggonload of trunks vanish into the teeming downport, Wessex

had returned to his cabin to allow Atheling to complete his Ducal toilette to the manservant's exacting

standards. At a few minutes shy of noon, he strolled down the gangway, the image of an indolent,

haughty English Duke. Captain Tarrant had already called at the Harbormaster's office, but there had

been no letters for either the
Day-Dream
or the Duke of Wessex.

Wessex thought he might go and do some banking.

There was a wreath upon the door of the venerable Nussman's Bank when Wessex arrived, and it was

not long before the Bank's august visitor was put in possession of the intelligence that the Bank's Director

had met with an unfortunate end only a few months before.

"He was always an
intemperate
gormandizer, was Mr. Nussman," said Mr. Freedman in tones of

gloomy relish. The Bank's interim Director was as gaunt and cadaverous as Mr. Nussman had been

plump, and had received the Duke with an almost mortuary relish. Now the two men sat in the late Mr.

Nussman's office, a chamber whose windows were so densely shrouded with layers of Venetian blinds,

lace curtains, and velvet draperies that it was a very brave and determined ray of sunlight that could gain

admittance.

"I may collect, then, that the death was unexpected?" Wessex asked. On the surface, all he showed was

polite interest, but within, his hunter's senses had sharpened. Had Nussman been killed to keep him from

talking of his meeting with Louis?

A few moments idle chat established that Mr. Nussman had met his fell end after Louis would have called

at the bank. His death was ascribed by Mr. Freedman to an excess of rich food, but he was easily led to

describe Mr. Nussman's last hours, and those symptoms sounded far more to Wessex like poison.

"I am, as you know, contemplating the deposit of a substantial sum with the Bank, and am glad for you to

reassure me that the establishment is still in prudent hands… but perhaps Her Grace has already attended

upon the matter?" Wessex asked delicately.

No, the Duchess of Wessex had not called. No, neither had Wessex's good friend, Don Diego de la

Coronado. Wessex left Nussman's very much as he had arrived, suspicious and unsatisfied.

It would be some hours yet before Atheling had terrorized the servants at the Royal Baltimore to his

liking, and Wessex wanted to stretch his legs after the long sea voyage. He had spared Louis from

entanglement in Britain's schemes, but such forbearance had not secured liberty for the young King in

exile. Now Louis was in someone's hands, no matter whose. He had vanished in April. Five months later

there should be news, and the next thing Wessex must do in the hunt for his Duchess was gain it.

At the Turk's Head he took a cup of coffee—the bitter stimulating brew was far more popular here,

where the tariffs were lower, than it had ever grown in England—and asked after news. He heard a great

tediousness of crops and weather, and of the ruinous burden of complying with the new Bill of Abolition,

which had first been read out here in May, and of the Crown's intention to found a Freedmen's Bureau to

help defray the costs.

Many of the newly-freed slaves meant to go to Africa, either to return to their homelands or to colonize a

place of which they had only vaguely heard, but as many more had firm ties to New Albion, and meant to

make homes of their former prisons. Fortunately the Lord Protector's Monticello had for many years

been run with free black labor, for the Lord Protector did not keep slaves, so the complaints of

plantation-owners that the thing could not be accomplished were devalued at the start.

"And the Froggish darkies are as r'iled up as damme," one speaker said, "for all they think of is to get

across the Freedom River into Virginny or Transylvania—they may starve here, but they are bound to

starve as free men. I hear the French Governor hangs a thousand a week."

"If he did, who would be left to get in the crops? Come to that, who will bring them in here in the

Carolinas? Enjoy your pipe, my friend, for I am afraid you will find tobacco very dear in the future,"

another answered.

There was general laughter at that remark, and the conversation turned upon the ruinous tariffs recently

imposed at the Port of Nouvelle-Orléans. There was not much sympathy extended to the farmers and

trappers whose goods had been lost, for if Nouvelle-Orléans were closed to English shipping, the

Atlantic ports—such as Baltimore—would flourish accordingly. Feeling he would hear nothing of note

here, Wessex moved on.

At the Royal Monmouth, the talk turned more to the war with France, for the recruiting sergeant had

lately passed through, striving to bring colonial regiments such as the Royal Americans up to strength.

Here Wessex heard laments of the impressment gangs that preyed on the unwary near the docks to fill

Royal Navy quotas, and complaints of the necessity of sending their young men to England when their

own borders needed protection from French and Spanish invasion, and even protection from disaffected

Indian tribes in the pay of the enemy. The war news was all stale or garbled, and Wessex moved on once

again.

At the Delaware Arms the clientele cared little for the larger issues of life. Wessex drank a pint of

excellent beer and heard about a mysterious fire on the docks, a rash of minor thefts on the outskirts of

town—since iron and silver had been left untouched, the locals were inclined to blame piskeys—and a

general chorus of blame to the natives for not earthing their Powers in the same fashion the English did.

"I'd sooner have a yellow dog in the house than a Native girl, letting in who knows what across the

hallowed threshold sweet as never you please," a stout woman said indignantly.

"Ay, it's not what comes across the threshold as worries me, but what a man may meet on the road,"

another gossip complained.

There was a brief discussion of a highwayman who had held up the Royal Mail the month before and

seemed impervious to both pistol and musket. Opinion differed as to whether this was because the

highwayman had been wearing steel armor beneath his coat, or because he was a ghost to begin with.

Frustrated in all directions, Wessex gave up and turned his steps toward his inn. Nothing at all seemed to

be going on in Baltimore. Certainly there was no sign of either Louis or Sarah in the gossip, which meant

that Louis, at least, had not turned up. Certainly Misbourne had never taxed Wessex with having left a

valuable pawn unsecured, which argued that Misbourne—and thus all of Europe—did not know of

Louis' existence.

It would be a great joke on us all if he has simply fallen prey to footpads or highwaymen, and now

lies dead in Potter's Field with no one the wiser as to his true identity.

But in that case Meriel would still be awaiting his return, and Sarah would simply have retrieved Meriel

and returned home. Wessex thought highly enough of his wife to suppose that she would have left word

for him that she had done so.

But there had been no such word. In which case, where the devil was she?

He was within sight of the inn, when the unmistakable sound of a trigger being cocked caused him to

freeze in his tracks.

"Ah, there's prudence. Show a measure more, Your Grace, and you'll live to dandle the grandkiddies on

your knee—"

His loquacious assailant had made the fatal mistake of talking long enough to let Wessex gauge where he

was. The Duke struck out behind him and then spun, flinging himself upon his surprised attacker.

From the alleyway came a roar and a flash of flame—the gunman whose weapon-cock had alerted

Wessex had fired, his ball going wide in the confusion. But by then Wessex had closed with his attacker.

A stiffened strip of buckram and leather sewn into the . sleeve of his coat deflected his assailant's first

slash, and when Wessex landed atop him, the knife went skittering across the hard-packed earth of the

street.

The man fought with too much skill to be a common thug. He had known precisely who he was after, and

had been bold enough to try to take his prey in broad daylight. This was a professional.

Wessex chopped at the other man's face, feeling his ducal signet twist and cut him beneath his glove as he

did so. At the back of his mind, a clock was ticking off the seconds until the second man could reload

and fire.

"Back off, unless you wish to kill your comrade!" Wessex barked sharply. He staggered to his feet and

lurched toward the alley-mouth, away from both his assailants.

Pocket-watch pistol and garotte were useless, and the delicate mechanism of his throwing-knife had been

damaged in the scuffle. His rapier would be useless against a gun or even a heavy stick at such close

quarters. He had a second knife in his boot, but to gain it would take seconds he didn't have. He saw an

enormous figure come forward out of the shadows, holding a long gun by its barrel, as the first man leapt

onto his back.

The fight took a long time, as such fights went—almost two minutes—but the outcome was never really

in doubt. Wessex was entirely willing to kill both of them if he had to, and after the first few clashes he

realized they wanted to control, not hurt him. Wessex wrestled the gun away from the man before him

and used it as a club, downing the gunman as the man on his back sought to strangle him. For all his lean

height, the Duke of Wessex was ferociously strong. He slammed the second assailant into the brick wall,

and then spun and swept his feet out from under him.

"Who sent you?" Wessex demanded, kneeling over his victim, his hand about the other's throat. The man

was dressed in country fashion, obviously a native Albioner or trying hard to look like one.

"They want you to come home," the man gasped. He had received much the worse from the

encounter—his lip was split and bleeding, and a red welt that would soon blacken was forming around

his eye.

Wessex ripped ruthlessly through his victim's coat and vest, his fingers vising tight about the other's throat

to discourage resistance. He found what he expected to—money, documents identifying their bearer as

one Thomas Wren, and a badge with a silver tower erected upon a field of blood: the device of the

White Tower.

"Misbourne sent you?"

"No!" Wren's eyes grew wide with fear. "T'was Lord Q who set us on—oh, lord, you haven't killed

Barney, have you, sir? He's my brother, and Ma'll be cross if she finds I've gone and got him kilt."

Wessex rocked back on his heels, torn between laughter and disgust. Lord Q, the son of Sir John

Adams, was the head of Boston Station, and so the de facto head of the White Tower's activity here in

New Albion. Wren and his brother Barney were low-level field agents, the lamplighters upon whose

work so much of the high-level politicals' successes were based. The boy couldn't be more than

two-and-twenty, if that, and suddenly Wessex felt a thousand years old.

"Now listen to me, young Thomas. Take your brother, and yourself, and go and tell Quincy to mind his

own business. Assure him that the next man he sends after me might well not be as lucky as the two of

you have been. Explain that when I am entirely annoyed I tend to kill people. Tell him you have no idea

what I am doing in Baltimore, but that you are very certain I do not wish to be interfered with. Assure

him I have no intention of renouncing my estates, and so may be expected to return to London in my own

good time. Do you quite understand?"

"I—I—I—Yes, my lord. Yes, I understand!" The boy's face was so white that faint freckles stood out on

it like sun-shadows, and his bravado had vanished like the snows of yesteryear.

Wessex suppressed all impulse to sympathy. The boy was alive, and a good fright now could save his life

later. Besides, Wessex suspected his coat was entirely ruined, and the thought of what Atheling would

say made him irritable. He got to his feet and tossed the identification badge carelessly onto Thomas

Wren's chest.

"Now go away," Wessex said, turning his back upon the boys and stepping toward the street. He took a

moment to bless his luck that New Albion followed English fashion, not French. Had this street brawl

occurred in France, he would already have been seized by both secret and uniformed police and hustled

off to some dungeon. But the English relied still on magistrates and night watchmen, and neither was likely

to interrupt a private fracas.

A young street urchin, who had watched it all with interest from his perch beside the door, came running

up to Wessex as soon has he had gained the street.

"Is you the Duke?" he demanded inelegantly.

"Yes," Wessex said shortly, straightening his coat and attempting in vain to brush the mud from his sleeve.

Hopeless.

"H'it's your manservant, me lord. He said I was to find you, and tell you your ship was burning."

By the time Wessex reached the harbor, the
Day-dream
had burnt to the waterline, and hung, a sorry

derelict, half sunk in the water, still smoking faintly. The scent of burned pitch and tarred rope hung sourly