The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [632]
The swords. Were the swords still where they had left them, in the corner of the shed? The rain had grown too loud for him to hear anything outside, anyway; he abandoned his listening post and went to look.
The Russians all looked up at him with mingled expressions of wariness and concern. He smiled and nodded, making little shooing gestures to get them out of the way. Yes, the swords were still there—that was something, and he felt a small surge of hope.
Chemodurow was conscious; he said something in a slurred voice, and Karina got up at once and came to stand by Roger. She patted him gently on the arm, then took one of the swords from him. She drew it from its scabbard with a ringing whoosh that made them all jump, then laugh nervously. She wrapped her hands round the hilt and held it over her shoulder, like a baseball bat. She marched over to the door and took up her station beside it, scowling fiercely.
“Great,” Roger said, and gave her a broad smile of approval. “Anyone pokes his head in, take it off, aye?” He mimed a chopping motion with the side of his hand, and the Russians all made loud growling sounds of enthusiastic support. One of the younger girls reached for the other sword, but he smiled and indicated that he would keep it, thanks anyway.
To his surprise, she shook her head, saying something in Russian. He raised his eyebrows and shook his head helplessly. She tugged on his arm, and made him come with her, back toward the corner.
They had been busy during the brief period of their captivity. They had moved aside the rubbish, made a comfortable pallet for the injured man—and uncovered the large trapdoor installed in the floor, meant to be used by boats coming under the wharf at low tide, so that cargo could be handed directly up into the shed, rather than unloaded onto the dock.
The tide was going out now; it was a drop of more than six feet to the water’s dark surface. He stripped to his breeks and hung by his hands from the edge of the trapdoor before dropping in feetfirst, not wanting to risk a dive into what might be dangerous shallows.
The water was higher than his head, though; he sank in a shower of silver bubbles, then his feet touched the sandy bottom and he launched himself upward, breaking the surface with a whoosh of air. He waved reassuringly at the circle of Russian faces peering down at him through the trapdoor, then struck out for the far end of the wharf.
FROM HIS PERCH ON the roof of the shed, Jamie assessed the magistrate’s way of moving, and the manner in which he fondled the weapon. Lillywhite turned away, his hand nervously caressing the hilt of his sword. A long reach, and a good bearing; quick, too, if a little jerky. To wear a sword under these circumstances suggested both a habit of familiarity with the weapon and a fondness for it.
He couldn’t see Anstruther, who had pressed himself back against the wall of the shed, under the overhang of the roof, but he was less concerned with the Sheriff. A brawler, that one, and short in the arm.
“I say we kill them all. Only way to be safe.”
There was a grunt of dubious assent from Lillywhite.
“That may be—but the men? We do not wish to put our fate in the hands of witnesses who may talk. We could have dealt with Fraser and MacKenzie safely out of sight—but so many . . . perhaps we may leave these Russians; they are foreigners and seem not to speak any English. . . .”
“Aye, and how did they come here, I’d like to know? I’ll warrant they wasn’t caught up in a waterspout and set down here by accident. Someone knows about ’em, someone will come looking for ’em—and whoever that someone is, he’s got some means to talk to ’em, I’ll be bound. They’ve seen too much already—and if you mean to go on using this place . . .”
The rain was still light, but coming