“Who are you?”
No answer, but shadows moved and footfalls edged closer to him. Men behind him too. How many? Six, seven—or more?
He balled his hands into fists. If ever he needed his flintlock, it was now. “I said who are you, and what do you want?”
A fist swung from his left and smacked his jaw. He toppled back into someone’s arms, caught another punch, but turned on the man and elbowed the shadowed face.
Hands grabbed him, jerked back his arms. He kicked with both feet, sent someone falling backwards, and wriggled an arm loose.
More blows showered down on him as he fought. He must have landed his fist somewhere, though, because he heard a man fall back with a groan and another doubled over with gasps.
“Enough, men.” A voice, rough and familiar, eased closer. “Hold him still.”
They jerked him forward, keeping his arms held out on each side, until he faced a man he still couldn’t see. “What do you want?” Blood dribbled out with the words.
“The whereabouts of Captain Ellis.”
What?
Seconds ticked by. The hooded man drew closer, his cape stirring in the mist, only the white of his eyes visible. That voice. Where had he heard it?
“The Swabian.” Felton jerked his arms. “You’re the Swabian.”
At his nod, someone stepped forward and kicked a foot into Felton’s stomach. He bent over, choked, as pain cramped around his lower ribs. Fingers grabbed his hair and yanked him back up.
“Where is he?”
“What…what do you want with him?”
“Doesn’t matter. All you have to do is tell us where you found him.”
“So you can do to him what you’re doing to me now?”
“That and worse.”
“I do not think so.” Another kick to the stomach. His vision blurred. “No.”
Third kick. “Where?”
“No.”
“Hand me the whip.” Noises, scurrying, then they dragged him to the wet stone wall and draped him against it. Rough hands pulled off his coat, then a stinging pain lashed across his back. Once, twice, again and again and again. Until he was numb with the pain. Until he couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t move.
His body slumped to the ground when the figures finally released him. They were gone. He groped for the wall and tried to pull himself up—
The whip came back down on his knuckles, and he collapsed. Pain disoriented everything, made the world tip and turn and spin, as if he were dancing the library floor with the girl from the woods….
A face was next to his. Close to his ear. The Swabian. “Didn’t want to hurt you, but there be no choice. Come to the Jester’s Sunlight in three days and tell me where he be.”
Felton blinked against the rain and swallowed blood. “N–no.”
“Then don’t count on me to stop them when they be ready to slit your throat.”
Something was happening.
Eliza pulled on her wrapper in the darkness, felt her way to the bedchamber door, and hesitated with her ear against the wood.
Whoever had been running the hall must have already reached the stairs, because the air grew quiet again. Maybe it had been nothing. Maybe the hurried footfalls had been a servant going to the privy, or a maid meeting her midnight lover—or maybe, more likely, a figment of Eliza’s imagination.
