The Lion of Midnight by J.D. Davies

ran into the street, followed in short order by Musk, Tremar and the rest of our men. Soldiers bearing blazing torches were running toward us, and at first I thought my dreadful premonition had come true. Butsomething was not right. If these men were seeking battle with a mob of rampaging Cressys elsewhere in the city, their behaviour seemed strange. They were not moving as a body, all in the one direction: at every alley, two or three men broke away and began thrusting their brands into doorways and dark corners. These were not men looking for a fight. Rather, they were looking for something, or someone.
    Behind the main body of soldiers came a smaller party of half-a-dozen. There was Ter Horst, talking urgently with two officers; there Lord Conisbrough’s attendant, the boy North; there Kit Farrell at the side of the shapely and not unappealing figure of Magdalena Ter Horst, who was covered by a sable-lined cloak.
    ‘Lieutenant!’ I cried.
    ‘Sir Matthew! I had not expected you to be ashore – I have sent word to the ship –’
    Ter Horst nodded curtly to me and hurried on with his subordinates; whatever he was about, he had no intention of sharing it with me.
    ‘What is it, Kit? The crew?’
    ‘No, Sir Matthew. Lord Conisbrough is missing. Mister North, here, reported it to the Landtshere barely a half-hour ago. I happened to be present –’ he glanced coyly at the maiden Ter Horst, who could not understand a word he was saying – ‘and joined the search. I encountered Carvell and some others of the larboard watch and have sent them around the city to give the word to the rest of the ticket-of-leave men. It is not a large place, sir. With the Landtshere’s men and our own scouring the streets, it is only a matter of time before he is found.’
    ‘Dead or alive,’ said Musk bluntly, ‘that is the question.’
    North was shivering, but whether from cold or fear was impossible to tell. ‘Mister North,’ I said, ‘how did My Lord come to be missing?’
    ‘He left me shortly after two, Sir Matthew,’ he said, avoiding my eyes. ‘We were to meet at four, beneath the statue of King Gustavus in the main square. But he did not appear. I waited an hour, though I knew My Lord is never late.’
    ‘Did he tell you where he had gone?’
    ‘No, Sir Matthew. And that was unusual.’ The miserable North was almost whispering and nearly in tears, seemingly overwhelmed by the enormity of what was happening. ‘My Lord Conisbrough took me everywhere with him. He confided entirely in me.’
    ‘He knows the city,’ said Kit. ‘He knows many people here. It is possible he could be with one of them – that for some reason he has been detained and could not meet with Mister North at the allotted time –’
    Magdalena Ter Horst looked at Kit admiringly, but in entire ignorance of his speech. He was right, of course: Conisbrough knew the city well, better than any of us and perhaps even better than Ter Horst. But I also thought upon Conisbrough’s own account of the dangerous enmities that lurked in Gothenburg. He was a vast man, an unmistakeable and immediately recognisable figure. Such a man, alone in such a place…
    Then I recalled the regicide Bale’s words. ‘
We will meet next in Hell,
My Lord!
’
    A man ran toward us from one of the side alleys, and both Kit and I put our hands to our sword-hilts. But the figure was unmistakeable, even if only as the shadow we saw for a moment before the man himself emerged before us: John Treninnick, the ape-like monoglot Cornishman who had the strength of five men. He could not speak his message in words we would comprehend, but his gestures were clear enough. He pointed urgently back down the alley whence he had come, toward one of the small canals that ran at right angles to the Great Canal.
    It was only a matter of yards away. As I ran out of the alley I saw a small group upon the canal wall, holding blazing torches out over the frozen expanse. There were two or three