The rain had stopped. Justy led the way out of the turning box and into the alley. Lars and Hardluck walked a yard behind him, one on each shoulder. The high walls hemmed them in, and it was an effort to resist cringing over, bracing for an assault from above. Justy could feel the eyes on him. Men watching from high on the walls, doubtless armed and equipped with stones and brickbats, ready to hurl them down on an invader.
Except that a disciplined defender would not attack the vanguard of an invading force. And Justy had no doubt that Umar was a disciplined man. He would have instructed his people to wait until as many invaders as possible were concentrated in a killing ground, to inflict maximum damage. The men on the walls above the turning box were there not to stop men coming in, but to prevent them from getting out again.
The passage opened out onto the wide-open area that Justy had walked around with Umar. He noted the small accommodation building, the kitchen, and the building where he had seen the silent women in their colored shawls.
His hands were shaking. Lars was right. What he was doing was insane. But sometimes it was the madmen that seemed to have it right. He had seen men, crazed with drink and fear, run alone at a line of redcoats. They had disappeared into the cloud of gun smoke and somehow emerged unscathed.
But then what?
He stopped. “This is as far as you go, boys. Stay here and keep your glimms wide for me. Squeak beef if you see anything peery.”
Lars shifted in the shadows behind him. “There’s nothing I can say to stop this windmill in your head, I suppose.”
“I’ll be all right, so long as I’m on my sneak. A man on his own is no threat to anyone. But two or three of us in a clutch might draw fire from some nervous cully.”
Lars grunted. “And what if you go in and don’t come out?”
“Wait until the five o’clock bell. Then you know what to do.” He squared his shoulders and stepped into the empty space. His shoes were loud on the loose, gravelly surface of the yard. He could feel the stones through the thin soles. He wondered if his boots had been mended yet. Then he wondered if he would ever get to wear them again.
It was only a few yards to the door of the workhouse, but it felt like a quarter mile. He imagined thumbs pushing down on hammers up on the ramparts of the walls around him. Fifty men. Fifty muskets. He wondered how well Umar’s men could shoot.
The Bull and Owens might field a hundred men. Fifty musket balls fired into a crowd that large, crammed into a space this small, would create havoc. Many would miss. Some of the muskets might not even fire, thanks to the wet weather. But the shock would be enough to create panic in the invader’s ranks. Some would hold, but the rest would be fighting with each other to get out. Then Umar’s men could close in with edged weapons, and cut them to pieces.
The door to the workhouse was made of two wide planks of heavy, dark wood that had been sanded and oiled, then caulked together and painted with resin. The glossy surface was beaded with rainwater. He could see his face in the varnish, and, behind him, the late afternoon sun struggling to break through the clouds.
For a moment, he considered knocking. But then he grasped the handle of the door, the iron cold and wet on his palm. He pressed down on the smooth surface of the latch and felt the bolt snap out of its housing. He pulled the door open.
The room looked smaller in the dim light. It was empty, filled with bolts of colored cloth that lined the walls and were stacked to the ceiling. Justy walked across the room to the storeroom door and pulled it open. The room inside was small and square.
Umar sat at a small table, dressed in his white robe. The bodyguard with the scarred face stood behind him. A weapon dangled from a strap around his wrist, a long, straight piece of sharpened metal, crude and brutal, like a cross between a large knife and a short sword. There was a single candle on the table, and a strong smell of incense in the room.
Umar was eating an apple, cutting slices with a sharp, narrow table knife, and spearing them with an old-fashioned, long-tined fork. The skin around his eyes crinkled as he chewed. “You are a brave man, Marshal.”
“I was counting on your ability to control your people.”
Umar acknowledged the compliment with a nod. “They will do nothing until they are told.”
“Until you have all of Owens’ and the Bull’s men in your trap.”
“If they are unwise enough to fall into it. But your uncle is a cautious man. And Owens is no fool.”
Justy stepped into the room and let the door swing closed behind him. “You can stop this.”
“I can? How?” Umar sounded amused.
“Let me take Kerry out of here. When I show them I have her, that she’s safe, they’ll have no excuse to attack you.”
Umar chuckled. “They don’t need an excuse. The O’Toole girl is a convenience for them both. A rallying cry. But she is beside the point.”
“And the point is?”
Umar spread his arms. “This. Us. Our land. Our people. Our religion.” His eyes glittered. “It is remarkable, is it not, that Negroes and Irishmen, two peoples that have themselves been so brutally oppressed, can behave the same way to a third people.”
“You think they want to kill you just because you’re Mohammedan? That’s madness.”
“Is it?” Umar shrugged. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps it’s merely because they want this land. Or perhaps because they fear that I might lead their people astray, as they see it. Or perhaps they just fear what they do not understand.”
“In that case, why provoke them? Why take Kerry O’Toole?”
Umar sat silently for a moment. “Would you like to see her?”
“She’s alive, then?”
“Of course. She’s no use to me dead.”
“I don’t see what use to you she is at all.”
Umar smiled. He turned and opened the door behind him. Justy followed him into a short passageway with a hard-packed earth floor. The only light came from the storeroom behind them. Umar turned left, and the light all but disappeared. It was like walking into a dark tunnel. The smell of incense was much stronger, mixed with the heavy stench of damp. Justy was vaguely aware of a line of doors on his right, but they were an impression, and nothing more. Umar’s bulk was a vague shape in the blackness in front of him. He could feel the bodyguard somewhere behind him. His eyes and ears strained. The roof of the passage pressed down on him. The fear he had felt in the yard returned, scrabbling at his guts.
The shuffling of Umar’s slippers on the dirt floor ceased. Justy stopped dead. He realized he was crouching slightly, braced for some kind of attack.
Umar pulled a door open, and a triangle of soft light fell into the passageway. Kerry sat on a low cot inside a cell, straight-backed, her legs crossed. Light came from a pair of thick candles, set in sconces on the low walls either side of the tiny room. A man sat on a small bench, close to the door. The candlelight shone on the tattoos on his face. He carried the same weapon as Umar’s guard, a brutal, ugly strip of hammered, sharpened steel.
“Inside, Marshal,” Umar said.
Justy weighed his options. Umar and the man behind him in the tunnel had trapped him. He could stab Umar and run, but he had no idea where the tunnel led, and the two hackums would be on him faster than rats on a dying dog. Three against one in a dark, unfamiliar place were no odds at all, really.
He stepped into the room. The bodyguard stood up quickly and patted down his pockets. He took out the knife and handed it wordlessly to Umar. Umar weighed it for a moment, and tucked it into the folds of his robe.
“What now?” Justy asked.
“Now we wait.” And Umar let the door swing closed in his face.