Fate, The Relentless Hunter.

Mayhem, and a strangely disturbing meeting.

Richard became aware that the horses and that carriage were suddenly stopped. The noise from the wheels had ceased, and the horses were agitated—their progress having been unexpectedly arrested—and they were making more noise on the cobbles. They were now snorting in fear; milling and rearing about. Protesting voices were raised above it all. A robbery was in progress. He would certainly intrude upon it in a surprising way as it lay directly ahead of him. He drew his saber and urged his horse along; heedless of the noise its hooves would now be making to give warning. As he gradually emerged from the fog into the dim light thrown by a nearby gas light and the weak lights of the carriage itself, he saw that there were three men that had intercepted the carriage; a gentleman’s carriage, though unmarked—as far as he could see in his first glance—by any distinguishing crest. One of the robbers was endeavoring to hold the plunging lead horses still, and to stop them from taking off, while a second had climbed onto the box and seemed to be fighting with the driver for control of the reins. The third was even then climbing into the carriage, but he was not having an uncontested entry. There was the raised, protesting, and determined voice of a woman. The man was forced to drop away from the door as a parasol was thrust firmly into his face and body, though he seemed to have a grip on the lady; a young lady it seemed from her voice, before he had to let go or risk losing an eye.

By then, Richard was upon them. When one of them had first heard the clatter of hooves, and then saw him approaching out of the fog like a harbinger of death with his drawn saber, he gave an alert to the others. They all scrambled in their attempts to quickly disperse into a dark alley from which they had probably emerged some moments before, though they were so caught up in what they were doing, that they could not easily break away. One; the one that had been at the carriage door, did not react as quickly as his accomplice, struggling with the older man. That one had leapt from the carriage and was even then, running off into the darkness. The man by the carriage door seemed prepared to fight off any intruder if he could, seeing only one of him. He had turned to face the rider bearing down upon him, stood his ground like a fool, and began to raise his pistol. The rider swept him out of the way and hard against the carriage wheel with his horse, turned in the saddle, and before the man might recover and make his shot, Richard adjusted his grip on his sword and brought the back of it down hard across the man’s arm. The scream of pain that started from his lips spoke to the damage that was done, but at least his arm was only broken and had not been severed. The gun had dropped from his suddenly useless hand, and as quickly as he might, after regretting what his reckless stubbornness had done to him, he scurried off behind the carriage before another similar blow did even more damage, or laid him out. He followed his companion off with haste-full panic into the darkness, still whimpering at the pain from his arm which he held close across his body. The third man was unable to extricate himself from the horses as quickly as he would have liked with their milling about him; his hands caught up in the harness. He had his scalp laid open by another swing of the back of the saber, knocking him senseless to the ground under the horses feet to pose no more of a threat. If he survived, he would not only have a sore head, but two black eyes before morning light, as well as having lost some of his blood.

They had not had time to accomplish what they had hoped to do. They had been alarmed at the intruder’s sudden approach; and had not expected to be interrupted so soon in their efforts. Where there was one man of that kind in uniform and waving what was obviously a saber, there were usually more. They had no intention of arguing with a military man with a villainous weapon in his hand that might sever an arm, or put paid to one’s existence with one sweep, and had already come close to doing that with one of them, while possibly succeeding with another.

Richard drew up his horse, dismounted in one smooth action, and replaced his saber in its scabbard. He calmed the carriage horses as he spoke to them, noticing that the gentleman driving the horses, and holding the reins, had produced a gun and was holding it upon him for a few seconds as he recovered his composure; still uncertain at what had happened to change the circumstance. The third man was even then recovering well enough to crawl painfully away through the horses’ restless feet, before he once more became the focus of violent attention. Richard’s own horse, strange as Richard himself might be to him on such short re-acquaintance after the passage of some few years, stood still and waited. This was obviously all familiar to him; a horse worth having, but Richard already knew that. Stephens knew horses better than almost anyone else in the city.

The older gentleman had been roughed up and was still disoriented. He soon took note of the change in their circumstances, and put his pistol away in the holster by his seat as he recovered his hat from where it had fallen by his feet. This intruder meant them no harm, and had even seen the others off.

“You came up in time I would say, else we might have been robbed. Thank you.” They both watched as the third man clumsily regained his feet, once he was well away from the horses, and stumbled off into the alley; having a difficult time of it, and leaving a bloody trail as he blundered from one wall to another, not sure that his last moments were not closing in upon him.

Richard was pleased to see that the older man appeared to be unharmed. “You are welcome, sir. It was fortunate that I was riding this particular street to get away from the river. Your horses were startled but are no worse for it. I take it that neither you nor your passengers suffered any injury?” The horses were already calming.

“They did not have enough time to do that, thanks to you, but I shall see.” The older man dismounted and passed the reins into Richard’s hands, reassured by the uniform. It seemed almost as much French as English in some ways, with his pelisse; from the battlefield, and leather padding inside his legs to protect his uniform from wear. He tried to see more of the soldier, but there was little to see of his features in the poor light. He checked inside his carriage and seemed reassured at what he saw and heard. There was obviously some verbal exchange, though no words were spoken that Richard could make out. The older man turned back to him. “We are all well, thanks to your quick intervention, sir. The sight of that saber seemed to discourage them more than the possibility that I might be able to produce a gun.” He seemed to be still shaken up, but was recovering, and was obviously grateful for the intervention.

Richard chuckled. “It usually does. It is far from being a gentleman’s weapon, as others claim that it is, but it is stupefyingly effective, and sobering to anyone on the receiving end of it. The prospect of facing its certain and bloody outcome will usually outweigh the dubious value of a gun that might misfire, and sometimes does. I broke his arm at the wrist, is all. I did not need to take it off and make a mess in the road, and possibly make more of a mess of myself. I laid the other’s scalp open. He was too close to the horses for any better finesse. He will have a headache for some time I think, if not worse, but he will still have a head.” He looked about the street as he spoke, but could see no others stirring to investigate the ruckus.

“I did not wish to be too effective, though I did not expect to face this so soon, nor here.” He laughed, cynically. “What is England coming too?” As they spoke, he kept his wits about him, and looked attentively about, but there was nothing to see of their assailants. This was a dangerous part of town and it was not wise to linger too long He felt that he was being looked at attentively from inside the carriage, and turned to see what he could. There was one figure that he could see in the weak light. He saw a young woman’s pale face; briefly glimpsed but nonetheless striking, before she had hurriedly withdrawn into the deeper shadow when she saw him turn to look at her. He had heard a slight exclamation from her at the same time, and her hand had flown to her throat for an instant, in surprise. He glimpsed a lace glove at the edge of the carriage door, and above that, a pale face peering out from a bonnet, before she was once again bathed in shadow. She seemed to wish to stay out of sight. Perhaps she had disapproved of the violence, as ladies will; while being thankful to be saved by it. He felt some slight curiosity about her, and why she did not wish to be seen, but his attention was reclaimed by the older man again, who had studied him for a few seconds in the dim light from the carriage lanterns. He had even reached up and patted the neck of his horse before Richard might think to stop him with a word of caution about the horse’s tendency to sink his teeth into anyone unwise enough to get close, but there was no need to say anything. The horse, unexpectedly had tolerated him well enough, as though he had known the man.

“You are still dressed for the battlefield, sir, and those are fresh scars.” The young man’s large and scarred hands—the fresh scars, courtesy of their last battles—were briefly shown in the weak lights of the carriage. The older man could not reconcile easily what he saw of the man, with the quality and unmarked character of the horse beneath him. It was a fresh mount and had not arrived with him; but he already knew that. “You must have just landed; luckily for us.” The old man was observant and would see more than he might say.

“Yes, sir, I did. I landed just an hour or two ago and will depart almost as quickly as I arrived, on the tide tomorrow to rejoin my regiment. I was just on my way home for the night when I came across this circumstance. Fate leads our tracks in some strange directions at times; some for the better, some for worse. I do not know what caused me to take this particular route rather than others to get away from the river, but fortunately, I did. If you feel that you can proceed I would be pleased to escort you if you would like? I had forgotten how dangerous the city can be. Especially at night and in this area.”

He looked about, but could see no-one, and nothing beyond about fifty feet, though he was aware that eyes observed from behind many of those windows at the unexpected noise, and disruption to their already uncomfortable, vermin-troubled sleep, with the light troops in full march and feasting upon their bodies throughout the night.

The older man climbed up onto the carriage once more and took the reins that were passed to him. “No sir, but thank you for your offer. There is no need. We do not need to delay your homecoming. We have already been out beyond a sensible hour ourselves but we are almost home now, and I know that that will not be repeated. I now have my pistol close to hand, and am prepared where I was not earlier, and they know it now. You certainly injured one of them if his scream meant anything, and I know it did, and put the other out of action too. One does not recover too easily from a broken wrist or a whack on the head like that. Three might risk doing what they did. One, will not. I thank you again, sir.” He touched his hat, and proceeded to urge the horses along. Richard watched him out of sight as he held his own horse back, patted its neck and spoke softly to him as though he were a brother.

“Well, you are a pleasant surprise again, and better than I might ever have hoped. Your bad habits are all good ones as far as I am concerned, so continue with them. I had almost forgotten about you. I wish I had had you with me for the last year.” He re-thought that, “…though perhaps not. I lost too many horses from under me, and you are too good to be wasted in that way. I am surprised my old Colonel would dare trust you in my hands, considering what he knows of me, but you and I shall see that he will never regret it, won’t we? I am also curious about that young woman. I almost felt as though I had met her before, yet I never saw her clearly. Two such surprises in one day.”

As he mounted and prepared to ride away, he thought it peculiar that he had not been asked his name, nor had he been given the name of those on whose behalf he had intervened, as might have been expected. Too late now. In the heat of the moment, it had been easily overlooked, and it was late and not wise to conduct any conversation in the present setting where it might be overheard. It was never wise to be lingering here after dark, and it was sometimes bad enough during daylight too if you were not prepared for trouble from man or woman alike.

He looked quickly up into the dark alley that the robbers had fled into, but could see nothing. There was no sound from it either. A man might get shot or knifed if he went too far up there to follow them into that blackness, not knowing what was in there, and he was not about to risk either his own life, or injury to his horse in such needless folly. He delayed his departure a little, but out of the light, to discourage them if they were still there, and to deter them or others like them from thinking they might continue on foot and intercept the carriage once more if they might catch up to it.

Just before he rode off, he noticed a slight reflection of light off something on the ground at his horse’s feet. It appeared to be a piece of plain jewelry. He slid off the horse, and stooped to pick it up. It may have been wrenched from the neck of the woman in the carriage. However, it was not the kind of bauble that a woman might wear, and might possibly belong to one of the would-be footpads, the one he had disabled, except that it was threaded with a ribbon that had come undone. It belonged to the young woman. Some treasured memento, simple as it was. Not the kind of jewelry that a young woman might choose to wear. She must have lost it when the man had tried to pull her from the carriage before she fought him off.

He looked at it more closely in the poor light. It seemed strangely familiar to him. It was a coin like one that he wore, though unmarked as his had become. He quickly checked that his own was where he expected it to be, about his own neck, and it was. He put the second into his pocket, feeling strange about it; picked up the pistol that he now also saw on the ground nearby, as well as a wedge of brownish paper, and a gold ring that lay by it, both of which had fallen under the body of the carriage. He dropped those into his pocket too. He had checked that the pistol, which seemed ornate and not typical of any used by the unsophisticated individuals that plied the particular trade he had interrupted, was in a safe condition before he dropped that in his pocket, mounted again, and rode off. He would look at it more closely later. By then he could no longer hear the carriage, and did not encounter it again before he arrived home. He began to wish he had made himself known to the old man, and had learned, in turn, who he was, but everything had rolled along, and it was too late for that now.