Golden Lion: A Novel of Heroes in a Time of War (Heroes in a Time of War: the Courtney) by Smith Wilbur & Kristian Giles

Author:Smith, Wilbur & Kristian, Giles [Smith, Wilbur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-10-20T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Five

T HE THREE MEN MOVED like wraiths across the rooftops of the town. Barefoot and silent as shadows, Hal, Big Daniel and Will Stanley leapt a small gap onto the flat roof of the house behind Consul Grey’s. Getting this far had not been easy. Some of the roofs they’d crossed had been covered in tiles that either clinked under hand or foot, or were treacherously loose so that now and then one would slide off with a heart-stopping grating noise. It had only been the men’s long experience up in the shrouds and yards on a rolling ship which had prevented one of them falling to their death. Yet they had got this far at least, to a vantage point perhaps five feet higher than the roof of Grey’s property.

In contrast to the front of the property with its grand arched mahogany door, intricately carved with Islamic motifs, the rear of Grey’s house was much less richly adorned. But there were windows cut into the wall, and ledges below them. And lower down some of the windows had balconies with simple wooden balustrades. One of these would provide their way in.

“Can you see him?” Daniel whispered.

Hal’s eyes, which had always been keen as a hawk’s, sifted the dark for Aboli. There were no lamps here away from the streets and the night sky had filled with clouds through which the moon only rarely penetrated to cast the rooftops in fleeting moments of silvery light.

“Not yet,” Hal said. He could see the sentries though: two Africans in white robes standing by the gateway in the middle of the rear wall that would provide entry to the property for tradesmen and servants. The sentries carried blunderbusses, a shrewdly chosen weapon, Hal thought, because it roared like the devil when fired, alerting everyone that there was trouble.

Two more men were slowly pacing the roof opposite them from one side to another. None of these guards had been there when Hal and Pett had come to lunch. But then, Grey was always a man who took care to look after his own skin. He would have made sure that if anything went wrong with the night’s dirty work, he would remain well protected.

“There!” Hal hissed. Big Daniel and Stanley crawled up beside him.

“Jesus and Mary but he’s a bold sort,” Big Daniel hissed, because there was Aboli on the roof opposite, bent low, knife in hand, moving as fast and smooth as a bird’s shadow and coming up on one of the guards from behind.

Hal held his breath, certain the guard would turn around. That he would fire that blunderbuss. But Aboli was already on him like a leopard on an antelope. He clamped his left hand over the man’s mouth and nose and thrust the knife into his neck below the ear and Hal saw the blade protrude from the other side. Then Aboli slashed outwards through the throat and as the sentry’s legs buckled he lowered him to the floor without a sound.

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