I stood and engaged the steel, worked the action of the blade, then slid it home. It was time—time to go and save Anne and Mary.

SIXTY

He had some distractions to set off, he said. I was to look for the women while he saw to them. Fine. I knew where they were being held, and not long later, when the first of his explosions gave me just the distraction I needed, I was able to slip back into the prison compound and make my way there.

Then, as I drew closer, what I heard was the sounds of screaming and the unmistakable voice of Anne Bonny.

“Help her, for God’s sake. Fetch help. Mary’s ill. Somebody, please.”

In return I heard the sound of soldiers trying to shut her up, thumping at the bars of her cell with their musket butts.

Not to be silenced, Anne was shrieking at them now.

“She’s ill, please, she’s ill,” Anne was screaming. “She’s dying.”

“A dying pirate, there’s your difference,” one of the men was saying.

I ran now, heart thumping, feeling the pain at my side but ignoring it as I turned a corner, one hand on the cool stone wall to steady my progress and the other engaging the blade at the same time.

The guards were already rattled by Ah Tabai’s explosions and Anne’s screaming. The first one turned and raised his musket but I swept my blade under and up, thrusting it through his rib-cage, gripping the back of his head and wrenching it into his heart at the same time. His mate had turned at the sound of the body thumping to the stone and his eyes widened. He reached for his pistol but I got to him before his fingers curled around the grip, and with a shout leapt and struck downwards, plunging the blade into him.

Stupid move. I wasn’t in the condition for that kind of action.

Immediately I felt a searing pain along my side. Pain like fire that began at the wound and rolled up and down my body. In a tumble of flailing arms and legs I fell with my blade embedded in the guard, landing badly but pulling it free as I rolled to meet the attack of the last guard . . .

Thank God. Ah Tabai appeared from my right, his own blade engaged, and seconds later the last guard lay dead on the stone.

I gave him grateful eyes and we turned our attention to the cells—to the screaming.

There were two cells beside one another. Anne stood, her desperate face pressed between the bars.

“Mary,” she was pleading, “see to Mary.”

I didn’t need telling twice. From a guard’s belt I liberated the keys and tore open Mary’s door. Inside she used her hands for a pillow on the low, dirty cot where she lay. Her chest rose and fell weakly, and though her eyes were open, she stared at the wall without seeing it.

“Mary,” I said bending to her and speaking quietly. “It’s me. Edward.”

She breathed steady but ragged breaths. Her eyes stayed where they were, blinking but not moving, not focusing. She wore a dress but it was cold in the cell and there was no blanket to cover her. No water to touch to her parched lips. Her forehead was shiny with sweat and cauldron hot when I touched a hand to it.

“Where’s the child?” I asked.

“They took it,” replied Anne from the door. The bastards. My fists clenched.

“No idea where she is,” continued Anne, then suddenly cried out in pain herself.

Jaysus. That’s all we need.

Right, let’s go.

As gently as I could, I pulled Mary to a sitting position then swung her arm around my shoulder and stood. My own wound grumbled, but Mary cried out in pain and I could only imagine the agony she was going through. After child-birth she needed rest. Her body needed time to recover.

“Lean on me, Mary,” I told her. “Come on.”

From somewhere came the shouts of approaching soldiers. Ah Tabai’s distractions had worked; they’d given us the time we needed, but now the troops had recovered.

“Search every cell,” I heard. We began stumbling along the passageway back towards the courtyard, Ah Tabai and Anne forging ahead.

But Mary was heavy and I was weak from days and nights spent hung in the gibbet, and the wound in my side—Christ, it hurt—something must have torn down there because the pain flared, and I felt blood, warm and wet, course into the waistband of my breeches.

“Please, help me, Mary,” I begged her, but I could feel her body sag, as if the fight was leaving her, the fever too much for it.

“Stop. Please,” she was saying. Her breathing was even more erratic. Her head lolled from side to side. Her knees seemed to have given away and she sank to the flagstones of the passageway. Up ahead Ah Tabai was helping Anne, whose hands clutched at her stomach, and they turned to urge us on, hearing more shouting from behind us, more soldiers arriving.

“There’s no one here!” came the shout. So now they had discovered the break-out. I heard more running feet.

Ah Tabai and Anne were at the door to the courtyard. A black square became a grey one and night air rushed into the passageway.

Guards behind us. Ahead of us Ah Tabai and Anne were already across the courtyard and at the main gate, where the Assassin had surprised a guard who was sliding down the wall, dying. Anne was screaming now, needing help as they clambered through the wicket door of the prison compound and out into a night glowing orange with the fire of Ah Tabai’s explosions.

But Mary couldn’t walk. Not anymore. I grimaced as I bent down and scooped her up, feeling another tearing sensation in my side as though my wound, though a year old, simply couldn’t cope with the extra weight.

“Mary . . .”

I could carry her no longer, had to lay her down on the stones of the courtyard. From all around us I could hear the sound of tramping boots and soldiers calling to one another.

Fine, I thought. Let them come. Here is where I’ll stand and fight. It’s as good a place to die as any.

She looked up at me and her eyes focused, and she managed to smile before a fresh surge of pain made her body convulse.

“Don’t die on my account,” she managed. “Go.”

“No,” I tried.

But she was right.

I laid her down, tried to make her as comfortable as possible on the stones. My mouth was wet when I spoke. “Damn it. You should have been the one to outlast me.”

She smiled a ghostly smile. “I’ve done my part. Will you?”

Her image divided as though viewed through diamonds and I palmed tears from my eyes.

“If you came with me, I could,” I urged her.

She said nothing.

No, please. Don’t go. Not you.