DESPITE being banished to the sofa once more, Mark slept better this night than the previous one. He had firmly resolved in his mind that Stephanie’s assailant would need to be traced, and once found given the beating of his life. In that expectation, he was fairly confident that he would prevail: his considerable stature and physique as a farm worker, hunter and forester, would surely be enough to see off a mere stable-lad. He was eagerly contemplating the forthcoming encounter when he drifted off to sleep.
At breakfast Mark announced that he and Stephanie would have to leave for a while on urgent business, without being too specific. It would be a short trip, and he proposed to hire two horses from nearby stables that he knew of. Margaret and Martha were both puzzled and their questions remained unanswered, so they held their peace, knowing that Mark was serious and that he would take good care of Stephanie.
“But what about the cart?” said Martha.
“Oh yes—the cart. I rented it for a week; we’ve only been out two or three days, so there’s plenty of time, but I can’t promise we’ll be back in time to return it. Do you think you can manage it on your own, Martha?”
“I think I can. We reached here from Kentak in a day, so I ought to be able to get back in a day. Just so long as I don’t lose my way.”
“Make for Adrian and Jack’s place: they can arrange for the return of the cart if we’re not there. We’ll leave a message.”
“Do stay with me for a few more days, Martha,” put in Margaret. “It’s lovely to have you here, and with any luck Mark and Stephanie will be back before you leave. If not, I’ll make sure you have excellent directions.”
So Mark’s plans were put into motion. He found that it took longer to negotiate the loan of the two horses from the stables, and by the time he came back to the farm with them, it was too late to set out, if they wanted to reach Kentak that day. So they stayed at the farm and Mark was able to show Stephanie around during the afternoon.
The next morning they bid their farewells and set out early. Mark explained that he proposed to avoid Waknuk: they would take rough paths that he knew quite well, easily negotiable on horseback if not by cart. “Safer that way, for both of us,” he remarked.
It was Stephanie’s first time on horseback since their terrible mishap on the road to Kamach—and she was understandably nervous and not a little tearful as she mounted. Mark had provided her with a medium-sized but very spirited gelding, more lively than the horses she was used to, and a slightly larger one for himself. She was a good horsewoman and felt sure she could manage.
Indeed, the long ride to Kentak passed almost without incident, except at one point where Stephanie’s horse spooked at a passing fox and threatened to throw her. She was able to dismount without injury and took the horse’s head to calm it down. Mark was impressed: skills learnt as a child, no doubt.
It was still daylight when the couple reached Kentak, and first of all they threaded their way to Jack and Adrian’s flat. Jack was there and welcomed them, but explained that Adrian was out at court: he should be back in time for dinner. Mark and Stephanie explained that they were only stopping in Kentak overnight, and proposed taking a room at the inn once more, but Jack wouldn’t hear of it.
“Please be our guests for the night: I’m sure nothing like what happened with Michael and Rachel could possibly happen again. I’m quite sure Adrian will agree and we’d be delighted to have you. Where are you setting off for, tomorrow?”
“Oh, somewhere out on the Rigo road. As far as Ashapi, maybe—”
At this point Stephanie hurriedly interrupted. “Jack, Mark knows what happened at Ashapi. Mark, I told Jack and Adrian about it—”
“You told them before you told me!” exclaimed Mark, visibly angered.
“Oh please, Mark! When I arrived here all alone, I was really upset—in tears—and you weren’t around. And they’re both attorneys. I had to tell someone. And later, I was afraid to tell you, at first. Please don’t be cross with me.”
Jack intervened. “Stephanie, you did the right thing. It’s often better to let these things out to comparative strangers. Mark, I’m sure you understand.”
Mark muttered something under his breath and then fell silent.
“So you plan to seek out this young man, do you?” continued Jack, guessing the truth. “Well, I’m not going to comment or advise you until Adrian comes home. Let’s leave it at that for now.”
And with that he left them alone whilst he busied himself getting the spare room ready and preparing supper. At length Adrian appeared, and Jack quickly explained the situation to him. Adrian was not pleased.
“Well, it’s a natural reaction, I suppose,” he stated, after a pause. “But do you really think you’re entitled to take the law into your own hands? A man who’s committed a crime should be facing justice, not revenge. I can understand your feelings about it, but I can’t condone your intentions.” Jack nodded. “What if you found yourself facing a murder charge?” Adrian continued. “Would you expect me to defend you?”
“But—Stephanie’s feet!” argued Mark. “How on earth can we involve the Sheriff, or the Police, without that bit of detail coming out? Besides, I’m not proposing to kill the bastard—just give him a good hiding that he won’t forget. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been in a brawl,” remembering his occasional spat with a farm hand back home.
“All I can say,” replied Adrian, “is that we can’t stop you carrying out your ‘mission’, but we think the worse of you for it. Take care: you don’t know this young man and he may be armed.”
“I will,” muttered Mark.
The conversation lapsed for a while, and did not pick up again until they were seated at dinner. Stephanie steered the subject away from their plans, and spoke instead of their meetings with Margaret and Amelia, and also of their surprise encounter with the Waknuk Inspector, and his unexpected leniency. Adrian was most interested in this last detail.
“The Waknuk Inspector got an awful lot of ‘stick’ over the torture and murder of those two unfortunate girls—even though he wasn’t directly involved. He even got a dressing-down direct from the Government in Rigo. The attitude towards human Deviations from that quarter is definitely becoming more liberal, since the present Governor took office. So it’s not really surprising that your Inspector would shy away from controversial human cases. And your case would be controversial, Stephanie, if it ever came up: you can count on that!”
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Nevertheless, Mark could not be swayed from his intention of teaching the ostler a sound lesson. So they let the matter rest.
In the morning they set out early for Ashapi. It would be a long ride on horseback, further than the previous day’s ride, and they expected it to be quite dark, and the horses would be tired, when they arrived; but at least it was a good road. As it happened, it was well that Mark had rented two strong mounts with plenty of stamina: lesser horses would never have made the journey in a day. At length they saw the lights of Ashapi looming up ahead. As they slowly trotted into the inn yard and dismounted, Stephanie peered anxiously into the dark as the ostler approached to take charge of the horses.
“It’s not him. It’s a different man,” she whispered to Mark. Mark felt relieved.
The innkeeper recognised Stephanie. “You’re the young lady who stayed here two weeks ago—when we had some trouble with your door—am I right? And some other trouble too, if my wife’s not mistaken…” He broke off, noticing Mark’s expression.
“It’s all right to talk about it,” said Stephanie, hurriedly. “Yes she probably noticed I had a small bruise. But it was nothing—”
“It certainly was not nothing,” said Mark, angrily breaking in. “But seeing as you seem to know something about it, perhaps you could tell us your side of the story. The whole story, please…”
“If it’s about William, who was working the stables, I don’t mind if I do. You see, I don’t take kindly to folks messing around with my room keys, if you please! Of course I never suspected you, Miss—er, Ma’am—Stephanie, but I particularly wanted to know what had become of the missing key. So I had the entire inn searched—all the rooms, the kitchen, everywhere—without result. Then the following day I thought of looking in the stables, and sure enough the key was found hidden under a bale of straw. So I questioned William, who was the only lad working in the stables that night. Of course he denied knowing anything about it, but then when I showed him the stable-door key which I’d found in Miss Stephanie’s room—and which he was supposed to have in his safe-keeping at all times—he blurted out some sort of ‘story’ about Stephanie (sorry!) having invited him to her room, and the keys somehow got mixed up.
“Well, I wasn’t going to take any more nonsense from him, especially after my wife reported the bruise on Stephanie’s face. I don’t hold with my staff molesting my guests, so I sacked him on the spot, and told him to stay well away from Ashapi if he valued his health. That’s the last you’ll see of him, my friends. I hope that is of some comfort to you.”
Stephanie was, of course, mightily relieved at this outcome—but Mark looked somewhat crestfallen: he had been ‘spoiling for a fight’ and now the opportunity seemed to have gone. But as they talked over the matter in their room, he agreed that the said ‘William’ had had some sort of comeuppance. Stephanie urged him to be satisfied with that.
Despite knowing that the food served in the inn was rather mediocre, they agreed to take dinner there, there being no other choice. As they were working through their rather chewy mutton, they noticed the young girl who had served them—a slim, freckled lass of barely sixteen with mousy hair—standing close to their table and trying to catch their eye. Stephanie looked up at her enquiringly.
“If I might have a quick word with you, Ma’am, Sir, after I go off duty?”
Stephanie nodded and gave her their room number.
Sure enough, late that evening there was a gentle knock on the door and the serving-girl came in shyly. “I do hope I’m not intruding, but I couldn’t help overhearing the Chief telling you about William…”
“Well?” said Mark.
“You see, me and William used to go together for a while: he was gentle with me at first—but then he became violent and knocked me about, so I left him.” Stephanie nodded. “He was under strict orders from Chief not to go near me,” the girl continued, “so no surprise that he tried to have a go with the guests—especially one as pretty as you, Ma’am, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“We don’t mind,” said Stephanie. “But carry on.”
“Well, was I pleased as Punch when I heard he’d got fired!—and I hoped he’d obey Chief’s orders and get right away from Ashapi. But I suspicion he’s still around the place. I’ve spotted him down town once or twice, and I think he’s hanging out in an old barn about a mile off. Please let me show you if you don’t mind popping outside for a tick?”
So they walked with the girl to the edge of the town and looked in the direction she pointed: and sure enough there was a dim light flickering which could have been about a mile off. “You see, there’s no-one living in that direction, just the derelict old barn, so there oughtn’t to be a light. It could be him.”
Mark thanked the girl gratefully, and pressed a dollar on her for her trouble. As they returned to the inn Stephanie could sense that Mark was absolutely fixated on checking out that barn in the morning. She felt she’d had enough of trying to dissuade him. As they settled down for the night (fortunately, it was a different room from the one she’d stayed in before) she felt uneasy, as she lay listening to Mark’s snoring. Mark, at least, seemed to be comfortable enough!
It was no surprise when the next morning Mark announced his intention of checking out the barn—and Stephanie didn’t demur: in fact she agreed to accompany him, if only to identify William. Their horses had had some rest overnight but were still rather tired; however Mark judged that they would manage the short ride to the barn all right. Some snow had fallen overnight which should make following a trail, if there were any recent trails to be followed, easy.
They found a rough path which appeared to lead towards the barn and approached it gingerly, although all appeared to be quiet. Stephanie held back while Mark dismounted, wielded a heavy cudgel which he’d brought (he had no gun) and walked up to the barn, calling out loudly “Hello there!”. All was quiet. Mark repeated his call with no result. Then he walked up to the door, knocked loudly and waited. Still no response. He tried the door, but it was locked. So he stepped back a pace, took aim and delivered a firm kick to the door, which yielded readily.
Inside all was dark, dank and musty, with no-one about. But there were signs of a rude bed fashioned out of straw, and of a meal having been recently prepared and eaten. This was enough for Mark. He searched outside the barn for a while, and to his delight discovered footprints in the snow, leading away from the barn but not towards Ashapi: instead they seemed to be heading for the nearby forest.
Mark re-mounted, called to Stephanie, and slowly they picked their way following the tracks into the forest, Mark riding some way ahead. The footprints were quite clear, leading along a broad path for about three or four miles, then they suddenly turned aside into the trees. Mark yelled to Stephanie to wait. Just as he was preparing to dismount, there was a loud bang and some bird-shot flew past, barely grazing his horse’s mane.
The horse took fright and reared, throwing Mark to the ground, and then bolted off, further along the path. Mark quickly picked himself up and grabbed his cudgel, just as a young man emerged from the trees carrying a shotgun which he was holding by the barrel. Mark hurriedly aimed a blow at the man’s head just as he heard Stephanie’s scream “It’s him!”
But William easily parried Mark’s swing with the gun, and then went for him with the gun stock, landing a glancing blow on Mark’s shoulder, which caused Mark to recoil in pain but he didn’t seem to have suffered any injury. The gun was heavy and difficult to wield, so Mark had time to get in another stroke with his club, this time landing on William’s hip and clearly causing him hurt. But William in his turn was fetching the gun around for another swing, and Mark did his best to kick it out of his assailant’s hands. The only result was that the stock landed solidly with devastating force on Mark’s shin. There was an ominous crack and searing pain shot through Mark’s leg and up his side, and he fell over. He tried to get up but couldn’t. Stephanie was screaming. Then all went dark.
END OF PART II