Why Mermaids Sing

Chapter 8

Riding his neat little black Arab, Sebastian took the road south from London toward Merton Abbey, following in reverse the route Dominic Stanton would have taken the night before.

The afternoon was hot, the sun a golden blaze of late-summer glory. By now the traces of last night’s rain had been reduced to an occasional patch of mud drying quickly in the heat. Insects whined; the ripe, uncut fields of wheat and rye stood motionless, unstirred by any breeze. When a stand of oaks and chestnuts near the base of a hill closed around him, Sebastian welcomed the shade.

The road had proved to be little traveled. Sebastian suspected that even with yesterday’s mill, by the time Dominic Stanton left the White Monk on the outskirts of Merton Abbey, the surge of spectators returning to London would have already passed. Sebastian might welcome the coolness of this shady wood, but for a young man riding at dusk, alone and frightened by an unseen menace, the shadowy copse must have seemed anything but pleasant.

Sebastian slowed his horse to a walk.

The ground here fell away to the east, deep into a rocky gulley where the trees grew close and tangled with vines. As Sebastian scanned the sides of the track, he noticed his mare’s ears flick forward and back. Tossing her head, she whinnied softly. Sebastian reined in and listened. From the depths of the gully came a soft answering nicker.

He found the gray deep in the gully, her trailing reins caught fast in a thicket. Dismounting, he approached her with softly crooned words. “Easy there, girl. Easy.”

She quivered a moment, her eyes wide, then hung her head. He stroked her neck and let her nuzzle his chest. Slowly, looking for traces of blood, he ran his hand over the saddle leather. His hand came away clean.

“What happened, girl? Hmmm? Do you know?”

He checked her hocks and hooves, but she seemed sound. Then, skimming his fingers along the girth, he found the place where a sharp knife had sliced through the strap. Not enough to cut it completely, but enough that it would eventually work itself loose and a rider would feel his saddle begin to slip.

Leading the gray, Sebastian followed the faint trail of broken branches and bruised leaves back up to the road above. Last night’s rain coupled with the day’s traffic had obscured any trace that might have been left on the roadway itself. But at the edge beneath the trees, he found a place where the gray had trampled the earth with nervous sidling feet and, beyond that, tracks left by a two-wheeled carriage or cart that had pulled over to the soft verge. Whether the tracks had been laid down last night or at some other time, he had no way of knowing.

He spent the next fifteen minutes walking the area, looking for any other indications of what might have happened there last night. He was about to give up when a flash of white caught his eye. Reaching down into a tangle of long grass, he found himself holding a small porcelain vial decorated with a blue-and-white flower pattern.

He’d seen such vials before. They were imported by the thousands from China and the Far East. Raising the vial to his nostrils, he sniffed.

And caught the familiar pungent scent of opium.