Guns of the Dawn Read Online Free

on
his face was an unutterable look of betrayal that he was at last brought to bay like this.
    The dream had come upon her as the capstone to a confused turmoil of a night full of wild imaginings. She had been lying awake since long before Poldry ever knocked at the door
of her chamber, which came two hours before dawn.
    ‘Ma’am,’ he murmured. ‘It’s time, ma’am.’
    ‘I know.’ Her voice came out just as a croak, and she forced the words out louder before the old man had to repeat himself.
    ‘Shall I send Jenna in to dress you, ma’am?’ came the respectful voice from the other side of the door.
    ‘I’m sure she’ll be busy with Alice. I’ll manage, Poldry.’
    As she heard him retreat down the corridor, she forced herself muscle by muscle to get out of bed. A year ago she would have had a girl dress her as a matter of course, but the war had no
patience with such excess. Most of the maidservants were working in the factories or the fields now, keeping warm the places of those absent men until they could come back. It was no great hardship
that Emily must dress herself.
    She chose a sombre, plain outfit that seemed to suit the occasion, and contorted herself like a fairground acrobat to do up at least some of the hooks at the back. Sloppy, perhaps, but she would
have her cloak to wear against the pre-dawn chill, and it hid a multitude of sins.
    Around and below her, Grammaine was coming alive. The old house – the Marshwic house for five generations – creaked as the fires began to warm it. She heard the feet of servants, the
clatter of the kitchen. It all seemed so normal.
    She went to her window and stared at the shutters a long time before she threw them back. That cured her of any idea of normality. The moon was down by now but the sun had not even begun to
touch on the east, and the world outside her window was as dark as she had ever seen it. Across hills invisible in the blackness, she saw the sparkle of Chalcaster – the lamps and torches of
a scatter of early risers and late-nighters, nightwatchmen and thieves. In the unrelieved dark that surrounded it, she could have plucked it from its setting and worn it as a tiara.
    Distantly, echoing from hill to hill, she heard the sound of the locomotive as it pulled away from the Chalcaster platform and began its long progress to Allsmere, thirty miles away. An owl took
up the call and carried it on soundless wings over the house.
    There were lamps being lit in the rooms below now, and shutters being thrown back. The fire’s heat spilled out into a leaching fog that stole its warmth and light away at once. Emily was
abruptly aware of the chill seeping into her room, touching her skin through the dress.
    I am not ready for this.
She did not want to go down and face what must happen but, if not her, then why would anyone else? She was about to turn away from the window when she saw, deep
in the night fog’s haze, a scatter of lamps approaching along the Chalcaster road. She strained her ears but heard no sound of horse or man. Still, who else could it be? They were coming at
last.
    She closed the shutters carefully, as though prudence could put off the inevitable.
    She paused with her hand on the door handle. The world with its cares and woes was waiting for her.
    In the kitchen, Alice was scolding over how the maid had arranged her hair, a vexation welcome for its familiarity. There was the smell of the porridge oats over the fire, and
she heard the rough, throaty voice of the miller’s wife murmuring about money. The stout, callused woman was at the door as Emily descended, coin in her hand and three loaves on the table
drowning the cooking porridge with the scent of fresh bread.
    ‘Thank you!’ Emily called after her, but the woman was already bustling off into the night towards her cart and her other customers. It had been hard on her when her husband took the
Gold and Red, but like all of them she managed.
    ‘Will you look at what