Control the light and you control the shadow. Place your illusion in one and your trick in the other.
The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook
There is no misdirection more fully compelling than a lock. The escapist in the Circus of Wonders taught me that. He showed me a trunk he used on stage and asked me how I thought he could get out of it. The padlock was huge to me, just a child, and heavy. It filled both my hands. I pulled on it, leaning back with all my weight. Only after I had given up did he show me the secret. Smiling, he tipped the trunk on its side. The base hinged inwards like a door. It was no prison at all.
Having bunched my blankets so that it seemed a person might be lying in the bed, I took Tulip’s hand and kissed it. She touched my cheek then gestured towards the door.
There was no lock. There was no guard.
I limped down the steps and followed the inky shadow of the huts all the way to the edge of the camp. Once in the trees it was too dark to see the ground and I had to feel my way.
Tulip had torn a strip from the sheet to use as a bandage. It cushioned the pressure of my boot against the wound. But every time I flexed my ankle, pain like a needle of ice stabbed through the throbbing ache. Every time I stumbled, I had to stifle a cry.
Money and spare clothes were at the wharf, together with my gun and the means of disguise. I reckoned there to be seven hours before dawn. Then perhaps another hour after that until a constable carried breakfast to the hut and found me gone. Even at a slow walk, my boat was in range.
Unless John Farthing decided to intervene. He had watched my preparation to escape, shame putting a stopper in his usual eloquence. I had no means to judge whether he would report what he had seen. Now more than ever, I needed a clear head, but when I thought of him my mind clouded with anger.
At last, I found my way out of the thickest part of the woods and was able to make out the line of a path. Soon I came to a road with fields to either side. There was a hill to my right. Recognising its profile against the starry sky, I reckoned the village of Cropston must lie ahead. After that would be Anstey and after that again, the suburbs of North Leicester and the wharf that had been my home.
But having walked less than a mile, I was limping so badly that I had to stop and lie in the verge with my boot loosened. Blood had soaked into the leather and the laces were sticky to touch. When I stood again, the pain was sharper than ever. I hobbled on for another half mile, then left the road to bathe my foot in the icy water of Cropston Reservoir. This helped more than the rest had done, though afterwards I could not re-lace the boot. Supporting some of my weight on a stick wrenched from the hedgerow, I picked my way on towards Anstey.
I had descended a gentle slope into a dip, when I heard the steam percussion of an approaching engine. Looking back, I saw a light in the trees which shifted with the movement of a vehicle as yet unseen. It was approaching at speed. I hopped on a few paces until my shadow flickered and disappeared on the road. The lights had touched me.
I dived into the verge. The vehicle had crested a rise a hundred paces back and was closing the distance fast. I could make out the bulky carriage of a black Maria behind the lights, which were now pointing down into the slope.
Cursing John Farthing’s name, I rolled further away from the road bracing myself to drop into a ditch. But there was only long grass, wet with dew. I snatched the pale bonnet from my head and stuffed it underneath me. Then I spread my dark hair over my face.
The thud and whoosh of steam driven pistons seemed impossibly loud. The lights dazzled through my closed eyelids. I could hear the clack of wheel rims on stones in the road. Then the beat changed. The steamcar rolled to a halt. There was a teeth-jarring screech of brakes.
I opened my eyes.
The black Maria had stopped a few paces short of where I lay and the lights were no longer directly on me. Two pairs of boots jumped down.
“Here you say?” said one man.
“Or nearby,” said another.
“Could have been a deer?”
“It was a woman.”
There was a sudden clattering in the hedge not five paces from my feet. A truncheon thrashing through branches. I held my breath.
A pause.
More thrashing, closer this time.
“We don’t even know she came this way.” That was the first man, over by the black Maria.
“I know what I saw!” The second voice was shockingly close.
I could see his torso and arm through the tangle of my hair. Again he attacked the branches.
“You know what you thought you saw,” said the first man. “Dreaming of women again.”
Laughter from the steamcar.
“Shut up!” He sidestepped closer.
My chest was burning for want of breath. All I could see were his lower legs. His foot came up hard against my knee. I braced myself for discovery, but he thrashed around in the hedge once more. An insect fell on the side of my face and started crawling over my hair.
“Just coz you didn’t lock her in properly,” called the first man. “What’ll the chief do to you in the morning?”
The booted feet turned away from me. I let out my breath and filled my lungs again.
“You saw the blood at the hut. Wounded like that she can’t have gone far.”
“Lucky then. And lucky the other woman snitched. You’d still be asleep if she hadn’t raised the alarm.”
“They’re animals. Royalists.” He spat. It landed on the roadway, level with my face. He swivelled and hit the hedge as if he was smashing a cricket ball to the boundary. Then he stormed back to the black Maria, growling words I can’t repeat.