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Chapter Text

-The Great North Road, 1660-

The coach, a luxurious one, shivers in the cold of the witching hour, the moon having hidden her face with a thick veil of cloud so that only faint yellow pinpricks touch down on the heath and woodland to either side of the highway. It's a bad place, is Finchley Common, a very bad place.

Jane, her body moving back and forth in rhythm with the carriage, looks out of the window at the sinister, tree-bordered wasteland of ill repute, her mind sweeping between prayer and fear. Unless one travels with a complement of soldiers, one is at constant risk of robbery and ransom, everyone from the king downwards. And even with an armed guard, one is not free from threat. Highwaymen sometimes travel in packs, and they are sometimes soldiers themselves, and they throttle the roads, the roads that most of the public have no choice but to use.

The terror the thought of them inspires is much worse if one happens to be a woman, then the theft of silver and gold is the least of one's worries. Material theft is the least of her father's worries as well, and Sir Robin has provided her with a couple of heavily armed, well trained outriders for her trip from London to the far North, where she is to marry a Howard, all in the cause of helping to wash away the unpleasantness of the civil war. 

As the coach rocks and rolls, the horses laboring hard yet seemingly still doing nothing more than inching towards the far end of the Common, Jane and her companions, men and maidservants and the little lap dog she holds close, think on, or try not to think on, the news from a couple days ago, when a lord and his retinue were held up and murdered in this very place by the infamous Tyburn Nick, one of the worst of the worst, a hulking man in black described as possessing glowing red eyes, and riding a similarly hellish horse, a figure almost preternatural in his reputation for ruthless brutality, known to murder entire parties for no motive other than the diabolical lust for blood. Unlike the common notion the breed would like to have put about far and wide, this fiend does not even attempt a show of politeness during his attacks. Sir Robin had hoped that sending his daughter on her journey so close to the last incident would buy her more safety, for highwaymen often take days off between highly successful raids.

In what must surely be a deliberate application of cruelty, evil strikes out of the darkness just when the inmates of the coach begin to truly believe they have escaped from the shadow of death. Glass shatters as balls of lead break through, one of them catching a manservant in the shoulder, another grazing Jane's cheek, a third passing through the wood to strike the coachman in the back. The explosive sound and smell of black powder comes along afterwards. Only one outrider shouts and returns fire, the other having sadly taken a pistol shot to the head.

“It's a gang. Well organised.” pants the injured manservant, whose name is John. 

By now the coach has pulled to a stop, but the drumming of hooves continues. Katherine, one of the maids, faints from terror, while Jane and the rest remain frozen, their chests heaving, attempting to draw in air that flees from them as they would flee from their attackers, if only they could.

Then comes the dreaded order, hissed in an exaggerated accent crafted to hide the real voice: “Stand and deliver!” A gun cocks over the sound of the mortally injured driver hacking, just as the doors of the coach are ripped open and the inhabitants pulled out. A hand not at all polite twists in Jane's hair, forcing her around to be face to face with that which she feared. Although her mind offers evidence that the man isn't the one known as Tyburn Nick, because such a self-willed beast would never ride with a gang, it also registers that the blazing eyes less than a foot away are blazing both in intensity, and colour. The rest of his face is hidden by both a black handkerchief, and a black hat in which a striking yellow feather flies. It's the only bit of colour to him, other than his eyes. No lace decorates his clothing, and compared to the other bandits he is extremely understated, if one considers the colour black to be an understatement and not a confident display. Like many highwaymen, the others spend a great deal of their stolen riches on velvet and lace. 

The villain compelling Jane out of the coach sits a true black stallion of more than ordinary size, and of a non-English breed, which he controls as if the majestic animal is an extension of himself. He says nothing, but Jane's frightened mind becomes caught in the deep and furious rhythm of his breathing. 

Once her feet touch the ground, Nick pushes her back against the side of the carriage, where the swinging belly of his horse hits and traps her. Another thing that doesn't match the stories - the animal doesn't possess red eyes.

Once they have determined that no further threat is likely to come upon them from the passengers of the coach, three other highwaymen get off their steeds and down to the work stripping their victims of any and all valuables. When they set to violating the maidservants, John protests, but his throat is slashed for his trouble, and he's left to die in the dirt.

At the cost of some of her hair, Jane turns her face away from the scene of horror, wishing to help but knowing there is nothing she can do. Turning her ears off to the cries and gleeful laughter is not so easy though. Fear has exited the scene once terror arrived, and so she waits in a state of weird calm for her turn, listening to a man and his horse steadily exhale and inhale. Away in the dark trees, a fox screams.

But she is not thrown to the dogs, nor does her captor get off his horse, in fact he does nothing, his pistols and sword remain in his belt, and when one of his compatriots turns his gluttonous eyes upon her, he still doesn't react, although his horse paws the earth, damp from an evening shower.

“Nick.” says the man, getting up and readjusting his clothing. “Nick.” he repeats, in a voice loaded with unlaunched words. As by a musket shot, Jane realises the robber is afraid, afraid of his colleague. The pair of thugs stare at each other for a moment, before the man on the ground turns away and kicks one of the others in the ribs. That starts an argument, with one whining at the other about the perils and botheration of ransoming nobles, and that argument abruptly ends when the black stallion paws the ground again, and snorts. Apparently there is a hierarchy of some sort even amongst thieves.

Ransom. Ransom. She's heard of highwaymen successfully ransoming their captives, successfully as in the victim was returned alive. Some of the terror weighing her down like a millstone, begins to leach away, enough for her to pay more specific attention to her surroundings in a way that will hopefully lead to useful memories. The monster with a hand twisted in her hair is not at all old. In fact, from the little she can see in the gloom, he appears to be coming up to thirty years of age, and therefore approaching the end of his natural life, for the life of a highwayman is extremely short. Most only subsist in the ‘profession’ for a year or two before coming to the gallows, but Tyburn Nick is downright ancient for a man of his breed, and he won his nickname for the very fact of his so often escaping swinging from the ‘tree’ which is his namesake, as well as for the amount of deaths attributed to him, and the devilry of their execution. Jane imagines his real name is quite ordinary and plain, just as the face behind the mask will be quite ordinary and plain. So often she's been assured that the ‘knights of the road’ are handsome, but the prison sketches show otherwise.

Once all that can be sold or otherwise provide quick coin has been collected, and the men have had their fun, they saddle up, pointedly ignoring their taciturn partner in crime as they ride off into the woods. After leaving a carefully written note on the coach seat Jane once occupied, ‘Nick’ lifts her and her dog onto his horse without so much as a grunt, clicking his tongue to signal the animal to move off, and leave the scene of carnage behind.

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 A bolthole in a forest miles and miles away, a safehouse in a local market town, Jane unavoidably learns of the existence of these, if not the precise names and locations. She also learns that the gang is a gang of six, and that the man on whose horse she has been placed, is not the leader. No, the leader, ‘Ol Harry, acted as a lookout during the attack on her coach, him and another man, a man who is technically a boy. In fact, from what she's seen, most of the group are not yet twenty-five, with three being below twenty, ‘Old’ Harry in particular showing baby smooth skin above his mask. ‘Nick’ being the eldest might account for some of the kid glove handling he receives from the others. She also learns that it was Nick who ‘dispatched’ the soldiers protecting the coach, and that he specialises in ‘dispatchment’. She also learns that he was a Royalist, his colleagues preferring to talk about rather than to him.

A ruined and heavily overgrown church in the middle of a forest is where Jane, and some of the other booty is taken. It's not a good place to keep fine horses long term, and that is why it's only a temporary place to stash some portion of the loot while the rest is handed over to various fences. Since Jane might be recognised in town, this is where she will have to remain until a deal can be struck with her father. It's clear from the tone of the men's voices, that her capture was not part of the plan, and equally clear that Tyburn Nick is prone to such random whims. 

‘Flights of fancy’ is what ‘Ol Harry calls it while speaking as if he's meaning some brutish woman in passing acquaintance with himself, and not one of his underlings. “Some people are very queerly affected by the sight of a pretty face. Men, women, it don't matter. I call that odd, especially when these notions of theirs put other people in a quandary or gives them extra work to do to get the money what's owed to them.”

The person to whom he is addressing this passive aggression as the line of horses plod along a woodland trail that would be faint enough in the day let alone during the night, does not respond, and as he is bringing up the back of the group, no one sees his expression either, if expression he has. Jane's position is extremely uncomfortable, not only because she has to sit side-saddle at the front of a horse that is not fitted for her, but because a monster's arms regularly brush up against her as he handles the reins. At least he doesn’t smell. Of anything. Even though the night's raids are over with, he continues to breathe in a very angry manner.

One of the other gangsters, one thrown more regularly in Tyburn Nick's way than their glorious lookout of a leader, attempts to change the subject. “Did Black Bess make good on her word about the Duke's watch?” Black Bess is a fence, madam, and safehouse keeper in good old London.

“Course, course.”

“How much is she gettin’?”

“We shall discuss that when I've had a pipe and a beer and a nice bit of stew, shall we not, Mike?”

Once the gang arrives at the old wreck of a church that serves as a temporary base, Tyburn Nick finally dismounts, and Jane discovers that reports of his height and size were incorrect, as he's much bigger than what she heard, and makes the other men appear to be members of a different species - five squat goblins and a giant, perhaps. Certainly she would describe the men to be as vicious as redcaps, her mind returning again and again to the horror on the highway. She's still lost in nightmare memories when gloved hands meet around her waist and pluck her off the horse. Yelping in shock, she fights for a moment before a ‘light’ slap from her captor knocks her reason back into place. 

From then on she remains meek, even when herded past the rest of the men, who stare at her like she's a honey-glazed ham. She's glad to be ushered into a damp cell mostly made of vines, tree roots and rat droppings, if only because it puts visual obstructions between her and the evil eyes outside. She'd like to warn the man busy attaching her to the remaining wall with newly made manacles, of what those men desire, but he no doubt knows better than she, likely desires the same. And indeed, after removing his hat to reveal a mop of extremely pale blond hair, his masked nose hovers rather too close to her neck to be strictly necessary when he leans in to prod the cut left by the musket ball. Up close his eyes turn out not to be an exceptionally russet shade of brown, but legitimately red, their whites bright and clear. Deciding that he's even more possessed than any of the others, Jane squeezes her eyes shut, turning her head away.

 Criminals of any sort, but especially ones so given up to evil and vice, are not known for circumspection. Having made a great deal of money that night, the highwaymen proceed to lose much of it to each other over the couple of hours it takes them to eat a combined supper and breakfast, necessitating they run out early in the morning to acquire some more. Copious amounts of food and drink do their part to make certain people less wary of lessons learnt (or not, as it happens) the hard way. 

One of the rapists from the previous night, one especially sadistic in his torment of the innocent maidservants, decides that he's not had enough yet, and watches and waits, bleary-eyed, for old Nick to check on his horse, an animal to which he alone reserves the right of tending. No peace, no safety, no friendship can be had by the wicked, not even from their compatriots, at any moment they could be turned in, or murdered, as the treasure horde is great and each one has a bounty worth many hundreds of pounds on his head, and as such, none of his so-called friends attempt to stop him, although they all remain fully aware at all times of the girl in the ruin. Instead they watch the man stagger towards the church, before returning to their feasting and gaming, their gazes repeatedly flicking off to where the horses are kept.

Practiced in the art of forcing himself on the unwilling, the fool who steps into Jane’s cell doesn’t waste time. Rape is an art and a science, it has rules one must follow if one wishes to be considered a master. He’s just gotten to the pulling up of the dress part when his left arm, the one closest to the door, suddenly dislocates itself. The sound and shock makes him look that way, and that’s when a hand is clamped over his face, completely over his face, and that’s also when he begins screaming, unlike Jane, who was too terrified. Dragged out of the room into the remains of a corridor, slow wet hacks and the slow crunch of breaking bones continues for an agony of minutes as the systematic dissolution of a human being takes place.

Chapter Text

 Being down one man doesn't appear to affect the gang, and in fact a certain lightness, a certain gaiety overcomes the habitual doom and gloom which is always simmering just below, if not at the surface. Fool Tom fulfilled the prophecy of his name and went out like he'd long been threatening to. 

The remaining men pretend not to notice the sticky remains of a torture-murder session conducted a few feet from their campfire, just as they pretended not to hear the screams and pleas for help and mercy. A lad has to be suicidal to attempt to rebuke a deed, even only with one's eyes, when the perpetrator is still feeling the black heat of fury course through his veins. 

Usually Tyburn Nick doesn't clean up after himself, but today he does, removing the majority of the corpse out of bounds of the camp, before silently deputising one the younger men to bury it, going about this delegation by stomping past him in a meaningful way, and letting Harry interpret what that means. “Give him a hand, Ed, go on now..” Still, the presence of death is not acknowledged, not even when Fool Tom's decapitated head is propped on a jutting shelf of old stone.

With the sun simmering on the horizon, most of the men go to sleep, lying by the fire, hats perched over their faces. Jane, and her little pet dog, which is so well trained that it hasn't barked at any point during her ordeal, and thus has preserved its life, are brought food and water, which arrive by hands on which blood is rapidly drying to form a thick brown crust. Nick always removes his gloves when it comes to delicate work. 

She's not hungry, which is just as well because the way she's bound means he'd have to hand feed her. As it is he has to help her drink. Neither says anything, and Jane does her best not to look into his burning eyes.

Even a fiend must rest, and that he does in the corridor, leaning up against the wall of the cell, inches away from a bit of the floor that is already beginning to swarm with flesh eating insects. 

A few hours later he bestirs himself, just as simply and easily as he'd gone to sleep, waking before the others. Today will be both a busy and a quiet day. Booty needs selling, leads need following up on, perhaps he'll steal a horse or two-ah, no, he won't, because of the girl. Can't leave a girl alone for two seconds without someone attempting to have his way with her. Above the mask, his eyes roll at the frailty of human nature. Nothing puts paid to fear like lust, and this is not the first time he's woken up next to a bed of maggots. And that's not to say that he himself isn't above giving into bloody temptation, after all, he is a serial murderer.

 Meanwhile, on the Great North Road, a coach is discovered, along with a fancily written note promising the swift and orderly return of a girl, unharmed and undefiled , supposing, of course, the swift and orderly payment of monies. Send word by priest at All-Hallows-by-the-Tower. Signed, Tyburn Nick.

                                                                                                           ☠️🐎

 All highwaymen are addicted to vice, and Tyburn Nick is no different, there being no other way to end up at such an extreme of wickedness in so short a time. Like most of them, he does love a good hat, even if he confines himself to the one colour. He also likes a good meal, a good beer, and a good woman, but these are partaken of by him in such moderation in comparison to the average robber, that more than once he's been mistaken for a renegade monk by other members of the underworld. Mistake away, thinks he, as most highwayman fatalities, off the road, come about because of one of those three things, usually the latter. Also. unlike like the average thief, he's not interested in gambling for its own sake (although he always wins when he does play), and he can read and write very well. 

All this to say, unlike the other four members of the gang, he has no especially pressing need to make the risky trip to town since a reply to his note will likely not arrive for at least a day, and since he's an ex-soldier, camping out in the woods with the bugs and bracken is not especially tedious.

“Nick! We're goin’ to town. Keep house, would you, and send us a message when the deal comes off, or come over with the gold. I owe you a drink.” says ‘Ol Harry. The reply he receives comes in the form of an unnerving stare, which is the usual response, so no worries there. The man has never personally felt himself to be in danger from the most demented member of his crew, because he prides himself on knowing how to handle the dumb brute. Keep civil, keep your distance.

Now, whenever the gang take their eyes off each other, tensions rise, as nine out of ten times a gang of this size ultimately falls by betrayal to the authorities. And sometimes people run off with money and valuables. But Nick having taken charge of a high born captive puts him in the most vulnerable and fraught position out of them all, so his comrades go off with fairly light hearts (and most of the treasure), seeing him as a rickety boat in a storm, a boat which is lamentably tied to an anchor of his own making.

“Selling girls back to their families usually turns out well for him.”

“Yeah, well when it does I'll be takin’ a cut, but until then I'll be stayin’ in town.”

‘Staying in town’ of course translates to - spending all the money I stole until I'm either caught, killed, or have to return to work.

 When the last hoofbeats have bled away into the natural quiet of a pre-Industrial world, Nick removes his hat and scratches his scalp, the renewed fire at his feet crackling pleasantly. Birds sing in the trees, insects buzz through the air, and unseen animals rustle amongst the undergrowth, the day promising to be decently bright and warm. Tea time, breakfast time, both things best enjoyed without the company of a pack of cowardly scoundrels. 

Supposing that his captive might need to relieve herself, if she hasn't already, he gets up, King Charles commemorative mug of tea in hand. As soon as Jane hears him coming, she shrivels into a ball as best she can, her knees coming up, her position putting great stress on her shoulders and elbows, bugs shaking free of the foliage covering the wall to pool in the folds of her dress. He may not have touched her the night before, but that's not to say he won't begin now.

“I'm going to let you outside to use the privy.”

The shock of his voice makes Jane jerk, painfully. Although it has only been a few hours since she fell into the hands of these villains, she had assumed that he hadn't yet spoken because he couldn't. It's not even the hollow boom or vicious hiss she imagined it would be, though it is raspy, and pitched deliberately low.

“Uuh.” it is for her not to be able to speak.

No warning not to try anything is issued, because both know that after that display of a few hours earlier, none is needed.

Chapter Text

 Going to the loo while a lunatic the size of an ox looms over her, is not something Jane will ever forget, or so she says to herself. In truth, the things one remembers after being in a state of mortal peril, are not at all what one expects, and are typically strange and extremely specific, something like the static image of a hand gripping reins, or the smell of mold on a summer's night. Humiliating as the situation is, she's gotten lucky in that the sadist holding her leash, literally, is not so small minded or unambitious as to bother applying cruelty in the matter of bodily functions. Most of the time he's not even staring at her, not entirely. 

So he's not mentally challenged, not intellectually anyway. The sentence he spoke was like a normal person’s, uncomfortably so. Does that mean she should attempt to reason with him? Obviously she's supposed to fight or flee if her chastity is threatened, that's what she's always been taught. No one taught her, however, that it might be impossible to do either. 

“Please, please let me go.” how many times have these monsters heard that line directed at them, and how many times did it soften their stony hearts? Now as then, it has no effect, Nick keeps on staring into the woods. 

A day passes in silence, even with the occasional visit of captor to captee. He still hasn't touched her in an overtly lustful way, and the constant fear of it makes Jane yelp and jerk away every time he approaches. He also hasn't removed his mask, which is a good sign, from what she can remember of the things her father would say to her brother about the ways of criminals, traitors and renegades. If they've captured or got you in their power for a while, and don't show you their face, they expect you to survive to tell someone what you saw. The extremely pale hair isn't so remarkable that it's enough to go on. And it might be a wig. 

The night sees a clash between man and beast, as a pack of boars attempt to tear apart what remains of Fool Tom, the sound of their snuffling and squeals a horrendous thing. Instead of chasing them away, Nick, partly out of concern for his horse, and partly out of predatory glee, launches a one-man pig hunt, sword in one hand, pistol in the other. Boars are no weak opponent, especially not the males, who have been responsible for a laughable number of regicides, so to attack one, let alone a herd, is another breed of madness entirely. From her hole, Jane hopes he's disembowelled and eaten alive. 

Sadly, no. Sadly, it is the pigs who are disembowelled and eaten, the smell of frying bacon mingling with the dankness and rot, the chef's black clothes shining wetly in the low light. A sword and pistol lie on a log usually occupied by other gang members, awaiting a cleaning. It's too early to lose hope, but if a man can survive dueling a pack of boars, then Jane must begin to wonder about what manner of horror has gotten a hold of her. The rumours described a supernatural creature terrorising the heath and woods, but she suffered the attack of a man, and now wonders if the rumours weren't ultimately correct after all. 

A hunk of fried pork is brought to her on a plate. It's been cut into tiny pieces, and in-between feeding her, non-negotiable now, Nick throws bits of pig flesh to her dog, Mademoiselle. It's utterly humiliating, and frightening, to be fed like this, as more often than not his fingertips touch Jane's mouth, and he still hasn't cleaned them, seeming to enjoy the gore which has turned them a dark reddish brown. She'd like to inquire how he could think making such a racket with the gunfire and squealing can be in accord with staying hidden, but she doesn't want to alert him to a possible error that might see her rescued…or make him angry.

 Midday of the following day, the clatter of hooves is next to disturb the birdsong a few minutes after Jane has been reattached to the wall following her scheduled privy trip. Nothing can be seen from the dank hole she's in, so it takes a while for her to understand that Nick has left camp. 

Without waiting even a moment, she begins yanking at the manacles, yanking, yanking, yanking until they cut into her skin. Still, she goes on yanking. 

                                                                                                                 🐎☠️

 Confident in the strength of iron and steel and the long forgotten isolation of the ruin, the only thing that makes Nick anxious as he rides towards London at savage speed, is the threat of wild dogs or more boars scenting the girl or the corpse, and the trickiness of negotiating a ransom without being captured and killed. That is why you work through a Catholic priest, and that is why you are generous and kind to the poor. Pay for bread and circuses, and the underclasses will hide and protect even a man as large and antisocial as himself.

Accordingly, the first thing he does when that great black scab of a city, London, greets his sight when he crests a hill, is to make for the slums, the warrens, and the winding, filth and gibblet strewn lanes of the butchers, where he is loved, if not known. Like many of the very evilest men, he can be as charming and charismatic as he likes, especially when his bulging coin purse comes out to play. It's just that he usually doesn't like. 

Traipsing around in such a dour outfit is not unusual for a land so recently Puritan, plus the yellow feather gives a burst of dandyism to the look, and Nick is soon full of news and gossip and other people’s good cheer. There's a king again, a jolly whoremonger, heaven has been abolished, and sins and vices of every sort have been liberated from hell. Men like Nick simply take the general idea to the logical extent, and he can’t see why he should be punished for it. 

A man in the livery of a certain marquess was seen entering All Hallows around dawn. All Hallows-by-the-Tower, said to be the most ancient surviving church in London, is a favourite with Nick for entirely impious reasons, that being that it overlooks the Tower of London, the scene of so much death and torment, home of opportunistic carrion birds like himself. Even with the precaution of using a man of God as an intermediary, it would be foolish in the extreme to strut into the church or surrounds just like that, especially given the fearsome reputation of the man whose daughter he’s stolen. For this reason, Nick employs a variety of the most degenerate and debased, but not foolhardy men and boys to act as go-betweens. Thanks to his prowess and his money, all of them are die-hards for his self indulgent cause, and would rather suffer themselves than see him suffer, very much unlike his colleagues, who do no more than tolerate him, at most. They suppose that because he rarely speaks, that he doesn't notice things? Hah. 

A fairly literate man and boy pairing are sent in, with instructions to tell Sir Robin's, or rather Lord Robin's, messenger to meet another intermediary at another location, there by Shooter's Hill, at midnight, alone. This is to allow Nick to lurk and watch for soldiers or ambush. No sense becoming impatient and fluffing things now. He would have preferred using Hyde Park as a meeting point so as to give the appearance that he lives in the area, but being inside the rotten city in any great capacity is a fraught thing. It's like a poisoned bear trap, waiting to slam shut around the unwary and unlucky, and one day soon he expects it to face its reckoning.

Observing the church from the top floor of a house belonging to a poor family devoted to him, Nick sees his men leave after ten minutes. As instructed, they go, not in the opposite direction from where he is, but in between, scurrying away with the slipperiness of men old in the ways of villainy. Five minutes after them, the messenger and priest exit, pausing to linger at the door to speak. From past experience, Nick knows the priest is cautioning the man to do as he's told, and to advise Lord Robin to do the same. He is saying that only serious, career abductors go through the trouble of using priests, but that one ought not to get clever with them, as there is no bird so flighty, and all it takes is one slip of a dagger for things to go irretrievably wrong. 

Chapter Text

 Before midnight rolls around again, Nick rides back to base. Weak as they are, it never pays to underestimate women and their cunning, a bit of wisdom wholly unknown to the majority of men in his trade, who regularly meet their ends thanks to the cold blooded treachery of the female. Even he, naturally highly attractive to the fairer sex, must be wary. Be aloof, and they'll adore you, be too aloof, and you'll wake up to find guards at your door. 

In Jane's case he expects exactly what she has in fact been getting up to while he's been gone.

“Loggerheaded strumpet. Frothy goose. She means to live, but she acts to die." Why yes, Nick has seen a Shakespearean play or five, and didn't think much of them. Coming upon Jane with her wrists all bloody, but still trapped by the manacles, made him cackle and unleash a few of the many insults that continuously whirl around the dark and cruel cavern of his mind. Going at her with his horse whip rather than his tongue would be his preferred choice, but he has more self control than that. So many ransoms fail to come off because light-brained fools refuse to follow the number one rule: don't touch the merchandise . You cannot have your cake and eat it. 

The way Nick silently looks down at his captive after he finishes verbally abusing her, with eyes like bloody holes in the cracked ceiling, tells her that worse happenings than harsh words will be applied to her tender form should her father quibble, or otherwise make trouble for him. The knowledge sends shivers running up and down her spine, because her father is in the business of making trouble.

A movement rouses her from future fears, to current terror. Unblinking, the highwayman slowly turns his head, fixing his spiteful gaze upon Mademoiselle, where the little animal lies curled up beside her stricken mistress, the dog's big liquid eyes peering up at her anxiously. Intuition fills Jane's mind with its invisible illumination. No!

“Aren't you going to fix me up? Isn't a damaged product less valuable?” Jane writhes snake-like at his feet, before pain from her torn flesh scraping against the metal of her restraints makes her yelp and hiss and jerk. 

Something moves under the villain’s mask, his nostrils flaring, or lips curling, giving the shadows cast from the candle he holds, an even more devilish look. Whatever just happened, and whether it was due to her words or her movements, it's good for Jane's purposes, as his attention reverts to her, canine forgotten. An exceedingly dangerous game to play to save a dog, because after staring at her for a long moment, Nick uses his foot to nudge her ankles apart.

“Huh.” and with that, he abruptly turns away and leaves the ruin, no cape to whirl. He doesn't return for a couple hours, and when he does, his caregiving is rough and perfunctory, as it would be if she were one of his fellows.

                                                                                                                    🐎☠️

-Shooter's Hill-

 A man in a gibbet hangs upon the hill, a highwayman, one of thousands who will fill those iron cages in years to come. The moon is out, but thin, it barely reflects in Nick's hungry eyes as he watches the road from a thick clump of trees. In the distance, London squats on the Thames, working through its delirious nightmares, many a murder taking place in its twisted streets and lanes. A dash of scarlet still lingers in the sky, like a demon's smile. 

Word is none of the bigger outfits of robbers plan to strike here this night, since no big fish are supposed to take a trip, but the pairs and single men will strike at anything, including a lone messenger, if he looks like he has a few coins on him. Robin's man had been told to change his clothes and look poor for the occasion, but it's debatable whether he will. It's astounding what risks people take for vanity with even their closest loved one's lives. Nick has been involved in more than a few regrettable incidents of that sort. Anyway, he's been here since late afternoon, keeping out of sight as he made a slow loop around the area, checking all the spots his kind use to spring an ambush. No soldiers or armed men about, just some peasants going about their business, peasants who didn't notice him. 

A coach lit with lanterns rattles past, richly adorned. Much like a dog scenting food, Nick's mouth waters. No matter, one decent ransom is worth many a plump carriage. It's not a game just anyone can play, however, and he prides himself on being one of the few who can. 

On time, the clink and creak of stirrups approaches through the dark and the quiet, coming up from the city. One horse, one rider, if the faint light of the moon tells it true, wrapped in a voluminous travelling cloak against the cold. An owl hoots and Nick readies his pistols, just in case. Sometimes the thing doesn't progress past the initial stages, and then you have to find some other way to recuperate the expenses incurred in keeping a captive. Abduction, or rape, as it's called in the case of a woman, is a big risk in every way. Rather unfair though that if you happen to be well born, you don't get the rope out of it, but a wife, want her or not. Hehe, Nick chuckles softly over the many misfortunes of aristocrats whilst checking his guns. He's not exactly lowborn himself, but neither is he titled, not anymore.

Hoofbeats cease, replaced by the whoosh of fabric as the rider climbs off his steed. Lightly, easily, confidently, a practiced horseman, no doubt expecting to meet some scuttling dreg of a man. 

“You there?” calls a middling high voice, a young voice of mixed accent, the voice of someone tolerably noble who spends a good deal of time around the exceptionally high and mighty, and therefore uses some of their words and mannerisms along with his native ones. No need to specify who ‘you’ is. No one lingers on the Hill without good, or rather, bad reason. A lantern flickers from beneath the voluminous cloak, illuminating a small fraction of the lower half of the messenger and the ground around him. He's tall, very tall, and dressed as instructed.

It's doomsday, and Nick approaches the messenger carefully, without seeming to do so, replacing his usual eerie glide with a slow and lumbering gait. Won't the boy be surprised when he sees the full exte-

That last few feet of heath that separated the pair of men? It disappears, abruptly, when the lantern explodes. The gun that Nick had been in the process of raising as a humanoid shape shot at him across the scrubby gap, is knocked away into the dark, the cold muzzle of the messenger's own pistol digging into the flesh under his chin. Hah! Is that all? Betting that his opponent won't blast the head off that contains the location of Sir Robin's daughter, Nick fights back, savagely punching the man in the ribs with one hand, while wrestling the gun away with the other, his superior strength and viciousness about to win him the fight, only for a forehead like iron to slam into his face, breaking his nose in one crushing blow. That devastating move makes him reel and see stars, which should mean that his glorious career will have its end here in the ill-famed heath, at the grand old age of twenty-nine. But it doesn't, and he's not shot to death or otherwise killed while dazed. Instead, one of his arms is incapacitated and made to hold his other pistol to his eye socket, while his head is put in a lock of horrific tightness.

The voice that addresses him next from the mouth of the ‘messenger’ is not at all what it was originally, having dropped any pretence of callow youth or confused accent. Rather, a deadly hiss blows hot air into his ear, the black fury carried within it making Nick think that his organ of hearing is about to be torn off via the application of teeth.

“What did you do with my daughter, you craven whoreson!”

Chapter Text

 Contrary as the devil and twice as perverse, Nick makes no reply to the demand. In fact he intends to make no reply to Robin, ever.  

“Answer or I'll knock your filthy brains out of your vile skull.” 

Even at the cock of the pistol, Nick refuses to speak, plead, or make the slightest sound other than that of thick, blood filled breathing.

Supposing he understands what manner of man he's dealing with, Sir Robin applies a surge of pressure to his foe’s trapped arm, fracturing it. Still, the man makes no sound beyond a low hiss. Highly unsatisfactory, but highly intriguing. Robin's first desire was to shoot the robber in the thigh, but people die too quickly that way. 

Since threats and the fear of death aren't working, he opts for a more difficult, but much more effective tactic. “I was wondering if the knave who made this meeting would turn out to be the real deal, or merely another counterfeit using the moniker. I'm sure you are aware there are many artless coxcombs strutting about under your alleged name. Some of them even go to the gallows quietly. It can't be a tough trick after some practice, or perhaps you took the easy route and cut your tongue out, or had it cut. It's a pity there's really no way to tell who is the original hedge-born bitch spawn, if there ever was one. Son!”

At the call, another horse trots silently out of the night, a white as huge as Nick's black, the man sitting it being even larger than the highwayman, as evidenced when he lights a lantern. Unlike Robin, he's wearing armour, and unlike Robin, who's dressed like a poor man, this one is displaying a wealth of long hair which pours down his front in a yellow cascade of curls. Very impressive. He came across the heath, and must have arrived after his father, possibly during the fight.

“Take this cur’s weapons, and hand me my own.” says Robin, his tone one of absolute monarchy, not unkind, but unquestioned and unquestionable. 

The newcomer does as commanded, staring all the while at Nick with intelligent eyes so amber they're yellow. He's probably a decade younger than the man who stole his sister, something which makes Nick wonder for the first time, just how old Jane is. Age of victim has never been a factor, neither for him nor for the other men. The young lord, who is uncommonly comely, wears an uncanny expression, very intense, but only around the eyes, as if all his facial muscles are concentrated there, leaving the rest of his face slack. It makes hairs stand up on the back of Nick's neck. 

Now that his enemy is at a severe disadvantage, disarmed and disarmed, Robin can more safely let him go, which he does by shoving him backwards enough paces that no lunge with a knife will come without an adequate warning for either he or his son. 

“Now, dog, I see you're not of the average low breed, so, I propose a deal. You take me to my daughter, and I tell everyone I killed the real Tyburn Nick. Whether you are or not, doesn't matter.” Robin points one of his own pistols at Nick's heart, while his son raises no weapon, but continues to watch, almost without blinking. An ornate scabbard hangs from the youth's belt. From its length, it's clearly no modern rapier, but a relic from the old feudal days. Sir Robin's family is exceptionally proud of being a crucial part of every crusade, and before then, the Conquest. Powerful and ancient, even now they steadfastly remain Roman Catholic, though of various quality, like their close cousins, the much younger House of Howard.

Nick lazily looks from one storied scion to the other. It's not a bad deal, as deals go. It's true, he has many imitators, and each time they cock up and get cooked, his legend dims. Few will disbelieve Sir Robin, and those that do will not dare contradict him where it could get out. Leaving a legacy is important if one possesses no hope of a good afterlife, and short of abducting a princess or robbing the king, this will be as high as he can go.

Pride raises its rotten head, and goes to war with humility. No, wait, what is he thinking? Highest he can go? Some nutty marcher lord and Welsh constable resting on his laurels as his house slips into irrelevancy? A shard of nasal bone must have skewered old Nick's brain. How about we raise that bet?

Under his mask, Nick grins a red grin. “Counter proposal. I've heard the whispers. You know what I mean.” he says, voice not at all affected by the stress of the fight or the black powder death staring him in the face.

At the unexpected sound of his voice, Robin shifts his weight a tad, while Kevin's eyes widen.

“So?” says Robin.

“I want in.”

“ You ? What, Charlie's son do something to offend you?”

“Mayhap I don't like his wig.”

“Hah!” Robin sounds amused, but levels another gun at the centre of Nick's chest. “That is an interesting proposal, but before it can be discussed further, I require my daughter to be returned to me.”

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 So the strange trio of sirs and sadist gallop through the dark, all of them extremely wary, for adjacent reasons. If the girl is not where Nick left her, or if she's there as well as the rest of the gang, there'll be a bloodbath, and then the Crown itself will come after him. He'll have to flee the country. Or he'll be done in by Robin or any soldiers he may have stashed around, as soon as he relinquishes his captive. Meanwhile, the other two worry about an ambush, or coming upon a greater tragedy than what has already occurred.

With swift horses and an unerring sense of direction, the trip goes quicker than nerves and night make it seem. Having encountered Sir Robin, Nick won't ever again be using the church as a place to stash living investments, far too risky now. Unnatural outlines appear between the trees, the stone of the ruin a slightly greyer shade of blue than its surroundings.

No horses are tied up in the usual place, no fire or sound of merriment disturbs the woodland denizens, but that doesn't mean all is well, he has to see the girl to make sure. Many different possibilities for fight filter through his mind, but the less viable or less enjoyable options get strained out.

Fool Tom's partially picked clean head gives the blue bloods reason to pause. Less so Robin, and more so his son, who finally draws his weapon of choice. It's a longsword, as Nick supposed, but appears less long than it really is, thanks to the immense size of its wielder. “That's him alright.” Kevin says, jerking his chin at the highwayman, his eyelids flung wide. “That's Old Nick. Father, don't enter, make him bring Janey out.”

“Son, what do you take me for?” Robin never takes his eyes off their guide. His right hand rests on the pommel of the sword that's on the belt at his own waist, a richly decorated broadsword. Both men seem rather more perturbed than they were a few moments before. Odd. It would be enough to make Nick laugh, were he not in such a precarious situation. His betters may consider him likely to pull some heinous trick, but he considers them to be just as deranged, possibly much more than he. He wonders if he would put himself in such a dangerous position if the places were switched.

“Get on then.” Robin twitches his left hand, which works a pistol as easily as his right. Apparently he'd devised possible strategies for just such an eventuality with his son, before arriving at Shooter's Hill, as at his words to Nick, the young man moves to a better spot, the long blade he holds ready, glinting in the moon and lantern light.

Doing as he's told, Nick enters the mouldy ruin, not exactly holding his breath, but coming as close to it as a man like him can. As a precaution, and punishment, he'd gagged the girl, so his ears strain to pick up the rustling sounds made by her small movements or her dog's. He has no candle, so must wait for his eyes to readjust before he can discern her slumped shape curled up against the wall. Asleep, clothed, not eaten or otherwise dead or despoiled. Naturally, he has nothing to do with God, and so can do little more to express his feelings but grunt in satisfaction and relief.

Picking her up would be the safer thing to do, but his arm being fractured makes that a poor idea. Instead he must fumble to unlock the manacles and then prod her out, stepping on the dog in the process. It yelps, but Jane scoops it up as she is used to doing at home. Assuming she is being taken to the privy, she staggers at the threshold of the church when she finally understands what she's seeing. There, in a pool of warm yellow light stand her father and brother, both expectant and on edge, weapons raised.

“Father!” 

The pleasures of reunion cannot be enjoyed just yet, and the men show their military training most of all when they hustle Jane to a horse, Robin still never taking his bright russet brown eyes off Nick. He hasn't shot him yet, and doesn't seem like the long speech making type, so Nick begins to wonder if those whispers he'd heard, truly were true. Could it be that out of personal antipathy, this noble of ancient lineage does indeed mean to overthrow the new king and replace that lackey with himself? For such a fatal endeavour one requires fatal men. One might even overlook a few ‘indiscretions’ in aid of that goal.

With an air of solemnity, Robin addresses Nick, who remains standing just to the side of the entrance to the ruin, below the shelf of stone on which Tom's head sits.“A fine career move, leaving my daughter mostly unharmed.” 

“I'm a professional, not one of your ‘artless coxcombs’.”

“So it appears.”

Instead of nervously shuffling, questioning, or showing off his supposed wit, as lesser men would, Nick says nothing. Robin looks further down his nose at him. Even with his hood thrown back, it's difficult to tell how old he is, but if his eldest son is not yet twenty, than he is probably around thirty-five, older than Nick, but not that much older. Regardless, he carries himself with the dignity, authority and confidence of a much more seasoned man. He has some sort of close relation to some sort of royal line more English than what the realm is currently foisted with, barring accidents of fate, there is no reason why his mad scheme shouldn't come off. Stranger things have happened. 

 “I can't you let go, as I'm sure you are aware.”

“Mmm.”

Kevin returns from assisting his sister, stopping close by, but not too close. Neither of the men are standing too close to Nick. A horse snorts and a tail swishes.

Robin raises his gun so that it no longer points at Nick's heart, but at the leafy canopy over their heads. “You're ambitious and proud and unsatisfied with the hand you've been dealt, same as I. If you're loyal to me, you'll die a far more important man than a common robber whose name will be forgotten after a few years. Whose star is fading even now. Perhaps you'll be known as Earl Marshal, or some other suitable title. We'll see. A noble's estate would of course go with it.”

Really, there's no reason not to go along with the madcap dream. It's only exchanging one sort of death for another, and Nick fancies himself able to avoid, or if worst comes to worst, endure a drawing and quartering, and then there's the possibility that the fantasy will prove no fantasy.

Chapter Text

 The shameful, confining feeling of being a human dog thrusts itself down upon Tyburn Nick's shoulders as soon as he agrees to work for the mad nobleman. Work as a slave, for one can be no better off when such an imbalance of power exists. And still, he wonders what else the aristocrat has hidden as leverage if he is willing to risk association with a man of a breed known to play fast and loose with their lips even to their own detriment.

“My physician will see to that arm.” Sir Robin says, once they're a comfortable number of miles from the ruin, saying it as if Nick just happened to break it with no involvement from himself. 

Many a man possessing such a father would cackle along inanely at every show of dominance, but Kevin, bringing up the rear, makes no sound beyond gruff noises of reassurance to his sister, who rides with him. They're travelling at a fairly good clip, not to London, but to a house of Robin's, not the town house in London, not a castle, just a house. 

‘House’. There should be another word for the multi floored edifice which rises out of the early morning mist, proud and staunch behind its iron gates, flanked by an honour guard of oak and elm even older than it. Rebuilt during Henry's day, it's beautiful and two faced in black and white, destined to be one of those buildings which remain so long they become unreal monuments, with even their horrors becoming sources of entertainment. And full of horror it is, said to be haunted even when it was young, centuries and centuries ago. 

Having been in quite a number of these places, both before and after the wars, Nick looks first for the servant's entrance, which is where you go for information and other clandestine goods. 

Unlike some men who find themselves in his position, Robin makes no snide remarks or veiled threats towards his criminal co-conspirator regarding the sort of behaviour expected of him while a guest in a nobleman’s house, self restraint which goes a long way to making it less likely that Nick will bite something’s head off, or otherwise vent frustration in sudden violence. The reckless, unpredictable behaviour of these privileged people blankets the wild fury inside him a tad, making him feel the way his fellow gang members feel around him, supplying an artificial form of meekness, forcing respect. For him it's almost…pleasant.

Stable hands emerge from the greyness to assist with the horses, but Nick rejects their help, as does his horse, which snaps viciously and kicks at the attempt of another to touch it. Upon leading it away, Nick glances at what was so recently his captive. Once her father and brother bundled her up in their cloaks, she seemingly ceased to be aware of him, has not even looked his way, let alone at him. That is not good for one's ego, but hissing at or otherwise directly attracting a woman's attention is not a low he stoops to. Does she know of her father's schemes? He doesn't see how it could be otherwise. Does she approve? He shakes his head. Like it matters what she thinks.

No one orders him to remove his mask, and a manservant comes to show him to his quarters, which is not in the stables, pig sty, or outhouse, surprisingly, but in a loft area meant for the entourage of visitors of rank. The promised physician comes to set his arm, bustling in in a flurry of rich fabric and perfume. It's not nearly as fractured as the sound it made would have had one think, and the leech can't and doesn't need to do much. While he's here, the man says, he wants to give his new patient a look over, owing to his rough life and recent altercation, but like his horse before him, Nick aggressively rejects the idea, making disappointment flicker in the man's eyes. That is so incongruous that Nick speaks, the words almost compulsively drawn out of him.

“Do you know who I am?” he asks, wrenching his lips back and up off his teeth without a speck of amusement or other positive feeling infusing the 'grin'.

“Oh yes, that's precisely why I want to get a good look at you. I have my theories about your sort, but usually those in my profession have to wait till, uh, after.”

No need to request clarification on ‘after.’ So, the strangeness permeates from the top down, here.

Little sleep is taken during what remains of the night, and in the morning Nick is woken from his slumber by a shake of Lord Robin's large and masterful hand. 

“Here, porridge.” a bowl of rich, milky oats is placed on the low chest of drawers which abuts the simple wooden bed. There's a few beds in here, but only Nick is occupying one. Once he's delivered the meal, Robin places a stool down, a good distance from his new employee, but not far enough that anyone could say he's doing anything but protecting the respect due his status. There's no point in worrying about poison or other kind of assassination, so Nick sets to work demolishing his breakfast. It's good.

“I'm not going to bother with any of the usual bluster and blather. You know it, I know it. Instead, I'm going to tell you what I want you to do, trusting that you have enough wits about you to understand that what is good for me, is good for you, but first-”

Darting forward like an extremely large snake while Nick is occupied with his spoon and bowl, Robin shoots a hand out, swipes at the robber's face, then leaps backwards, all in one move.

“Hmm!” Robin, his eyes wide, lifts a hand to his own face, before catching and stopping the unconscious movement halfway.

Shrugging one-shouldered, Nick replaces his mask in its usual position, and returns to eating, his way of doing so necessarily slow and careful.

Not fooled by this show of casualness, Robin sits down and deftly passes over what just occurred. 

“You're a killer, I want you to kill, beginning with the peckerless swine who assisted you in attacking my daughter's coach. Kill them all, preferably slowly, and bring me trophies. I see you're not squeamish in that regard. Naturally, I won't be paying you for the return of Lady Jane, but I will pay for the deaths of your associates, the bloodier the deed, the better the reward.”

By way of agreement and approval, Nick raises an eyebrow. “Tonight, I'll begin.”

“Good.”

The day passes slowly, as it always does when you're cursed to only feel alive for the space of a few hours between dusk and dawn. Being in a ‘respectable’ location, Nick can't get up to his usual tricks. Well, he could, but he manages to hold the burning bloodlust in, surprising the first man he comes across, extremely, when he grunts the word ‘books’ at the air to the runner's right. The only area he's officially not allowed to go is the women's wing of the house, but Robin did not deign to grant him an official tour of any part of it, merely telling him that food could be got from the kitchen. Supposedly he's just another guest, but only the dimmest could mistake a masked and armed highwayman for a powdered and petted aristocrat, or vice versa. That takes a powerful imagination indeed.

‘Armed’, he's not given back his weapons till night falls, not that anyone fancies that he couldn't, if he desired, pull replacements off the walls or out of the hands or belts of the guards and other men. Cleansing and improvement of their murdering abilities, is the reason given for why his weapons remain locked up till his hours of work begin.

In the library he comes upon Sir Kevin, or however he's supposed to be addressed, poring over leatherbound books of warfare. With his blond hair, which may or may not be a wig, he doesn't look capable of putting what he's learning into practice, but Nick saw how he held his sword, and knows better than to underestimate a man with eyes as intense as his. The longsword leans against the table like a very lean friend, but the young man doesn't reach for it when he notices Nick, although he does start at his sudden appearance, which is that of a ghost. Instead, he keeps track of the unwelcome guest in silence, like someone used to being kept firmly under a hand too heavy to lift.

Disdainful of what he sees as a pretty attack dog on a short chain, and annoyed by the surge of respect he feels for the quiet, iron bravado on display, Nick glides past, heading for the biographical section, where he plucks down a book about infamous bandits of the sixteenth century. Surprise, they all came to a bad end, and he considers irrelevance to be the baddest of them all. During the night he came to the decision that, if the places were switched, and he were Robin or his son, then he would have chopped off his head at the ruin and applied some extensive desecration to the body.

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 At no point during that first day, does Nick catch sight or sound or smell of Jane, but that is no suffering, as he forgets about her as soon as she's out of view, just like he does all his victims. She adds herself to the black, fleshy paste that covers the walls of his mind. Even when he comes upon a white faced girl being spoken to softly by another maid in the fashionable French garden, he feels nothing but generalised glee at the shrieks and screams that shatter the tense atmosphere ever present in this place. Generalised, as he had no idea at the time why she should take offense at his presence in particular. Later, when it clicks, he continues to feel glee, as well as mild annoyance at Fool Tom, something that was constant when that man was alive. Rape on the roadside is unnecessarily perilous. Well, the rot-brain got what was coming to him. 

Now, for the others who are to receive a fateful delivery of long delayed justice. They'll still be hanging about the usual set of taverns, brothels, and low gambling holes, no doubt wondering when he's going to turn up with their share of the booty from his daring. The thing to do is lure them to the forest, a place that keeps its own counsel about many a sin…but perhaps he wishes to add a new twist to his legend?

Chapter Text

 Over the course of more than a fortnight, death stalks the alleys of a prosperous market town. It's not the regular sort, not plague or fire, not borne on a drunken fist or a runaway cart, but deliberate, evil, predatory. 

“Your money or your life.” it doesn't shout, it barely raises its voice above a normal speaking level, and sometimes it whispers, but that is plenty loud enough. No one hears the famous words but the victims, and they are found, known reprobates, tossed in lonely places and abandoned buildings, without either money or life, eviscerated, chopped up, pulled apart as by supernatural strength. A dark horse is seen moving through the shadows after midnight, ridden by a figure in black, his eyes cinders cast up from hell itself. 

A man couldn't have done this, so folks look for alternative explanations. It's a demon, but it can't be an ogre, they are too dim. It can't be a goblin, they are too small. The Irish are convinced it's a Dullahan, the fairy of death, who rides a black horse and keeps his grotesquely grinning severed head under his arm, while their stolid English cousins subtract the fairy and the head, but keep the rest. Often of a morning, gold coins are found lying between the cobblestones, an attempt to keep the thing away, for the Dullahan, like all fae, fears pure metal. People begin to wish for a Popish priest and his holy water.

They also begin to see a black dog with flaming eyes, lurking in the area before another victim is taken. The harbinger of death and disaster, the animal vanishes when approached, but one unlucky sod is mauled to death by phantom claws before a host of onlookers. The floundering churches see major attendance that month, and more than one person repudiates the religion of Elizabeth. 

Even fleeing the cursed town cannot save the doomed ones, as a corpse is found beside the road to London, lying in the grass. It's head remains missing. 

Having done his sums once the last of his colleagues shows up as a pile of entrails, Ol’ Harry deduces that something is indeed terrorizing the area, something is targeting his gang, and that something might just be the only member who has not yet arrived dead. It's ill luck to think bad of Nick, or think of him at all, this he secretly believes. It's like speaking certain words before a looking glass, the man is not right, he can hear when he's talked about behind his back. Harry hasn't heard anything further regarding the marquess and his missing daughter, so he can't be sure what's going on with his rambunctious underling, but that level of savagery is rare outside of an active rebellion or heathen land. 

Holed up in Black Bess’ ‘home for gentlemen’, Harry frets and rubs at his face and eyes. He'd heard the tales, that's why he, young and full of foolish bravado, wanted this most wicked of men in his crew, as if it were up to him really. Talk of demons and possession, deals struck on blood soaked battlefields with the Morrigan of Celtic myth, a romantic Royalist past, sounded to his ears at the time like agreeable flourishes, a way to distinguish his gang from others. And it did distinguish his gang - all the prostitutes and lushes were very impressed. But after the first shock of meeting had passed, Harry found himself…disappointed. Tyburn Nick never did anything especially occultic or esoteric, did not own a pet raven, never cast any spells, forecast the future, or called up Satan, although he always remained plenty frightening. He was just a man, a big man who liked killing, that's not so special.

He also liked money and notoriety, which is what Harry assumes is at the bottom of this, since he can't remember betraying the man in any way, although perhaps one of the others did. A short temper, yes. If Nick ever did one considerate, kind, or merciful thing, it was warning Harry when first they met, that he had a short temper.

What to do, how to survive? The last body was found this morning, a couple hours ago, he has time until tonight, or maybe even tomorrow or the day after to get himself sorted. The terror has been allowed to marinate, kills made just when you think it's over, another clue that someone haughty is behind it, and ‘haughty’ is definitely a descriptor of Nick. He's the type of base rogue folks erroneously call ‘shy’ when really he's too vain to say something that might embarrass his pride.

Staying in the brothel might have protected Harry till now, unless he's being saved for last, but regardless, he can't stay here forever and he's not so foolish as to imagine that Nick can't get in without causing a fuss. Can't ask the law for help. They'll look into his business and see plenty he doesn't want them to see, and then he'll be facing a rope anyway. And Nick the madman will probably dress up like a guard and get him in prison. Can he run? Ed tried that, and Ed is no more. Still, unless he really is a witch, Nick is no mind reader.

 Hours pass and the sun travels along its rigorous path through the heavens as Harry sweats over bottles of ‘light’ ale, trying to brain his way out of a trap he long since nibbled the cheese off of. Fright increases with every minute till he can almost see the bar, in dreadful slow motion, coming down upon his neck. What torture this is - fear - anything is better, anything at all. At least if he faces the man, he has a chance. Nick's not immortal, he fears death, same as any blighter. He can be shot, Harry has seen it, and seen the wound afterwards. And this all might be some kind of horrible coincidence. No sense cowering in his hole like a creeping coward or a woman…no, he's met tougher women than this, working girls like Black Bess, who once told Nick he was a rabid dog who ought to be put down, told him right to his very face. They even had a dalliance. Nah, Nick's short temper burns out too quick for this.

The choice comes down to run, run to Scotland or Ireland and hope whoever is pissed off, cools down with an entire country between them. Accordingly, he gathers up the remains of his capital, sends a letter by runner, has a word with Bess about sending on any money that might be coming his way, then hurries out to saddle up his horse at the local stable. Usually this is a place to linger and grease up the ostler, men whom every highwayman worth his salt pays great attention to, as the ones who best know who is coming or going by the road, and what they're carrying. 

But today, lingering anywhere is anathema to Harry. He even considers going straight wherever he ends up. Yes, yes, he'll go straight, if God preserves him he'll turn his life around, marry a good woman, put his hand back to the old trade, be content with a respectable, hard working, sufficient life. No one needs lace or a fancy horse. The thrill is dispensable. 

Once his fancy horse is all trussed up, cinched tight and given an apple, then Harry climbs aboard. Even just sitting on the speedy animal makes him feel better. Those other guys, they got into the usual trouble, bad trouble, insulted someone, won or lost too much, touched something that wasn't theirs - how they ended up, that's just how it goes, he'll put together a new gang. Nick isn't needed, he's only a shortcut, more trouble than he's worth.

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 Colchester, that's where he's headed, having deciding it's best to stick near the coast, just in case, at least for a time. An all day ride at moderate pace so as not to attract attention, yes, that's the way. He's left the haunted town behind, it’s all good. Travelling along path and lane and road, avoiding open heath and close woodland, if he can. Avoiding the night. There's no one as fears a robber like a robber.

Some hours in, the weather turns gloomy and grey, as often happens in England. The sky grows dark before its time, and the land takes on a sullen, glowering aspect, leafless trees making the world one big graveyard. With his horse needing rest, Ol’ Harry turns into an inn backed by a pleasant field full of sheep- The King's Head.

No one with any sense asks too many questions of a man in dark clothing, especially not after an extra coin or two is slipped across the table, and for that he receives the room he wants, the nearest to the stables, without any fuss. Far enough, he's far enough away, and he's been a fool. Nick wouldn't take him out, or his whole gang, he's not a proper lone wolf, he always needed a voice other than his own around, if only so he wouldn't need to speak. Lazy, Nick's lazy, he's like a fat lizard on a sunny rock. You have to buzz up to him and put yourself in his mouth.

Back and forth Harry goes, soothing himself ‘finally’, only to leap back into whirling, tormenting anxiety at the knock on a door elsewhere in the inn, or the sound of a horse snorting. Dual temptations strike, to stay up all night, or to drink himself into a stupor. For a while he defaults to the former, locked into ennui while staring at a candle flame. Dinner arrives, but he's not hungry. 

Midnight creeps in through gaps in the walls, clouds cover the moon. Having fallen asleep with his head against the window, Harry knocks his head on it when he's shocked awake by the horrid phenomenon of someone shouting in his ear. For long seconds he sits there in the dark, over a burnt out candle, eyes glassy and wide and staring, eyeballs shifting minutely as he simultaneously interrogates the blackness and attempts to work out if the voice was real, or imagined. Almost always a voice in a sleeping man's ear is a dream using a real noise as a base for transformation, like the squeak of a carriage or whinny of a horse, perhaps, so he focuses on the stable, hoping to hear whatever noise it was, repeated. After a couple minutes of perfect quiet, fear begins to ebb away naturally, and reason surges back in. It was a dream, a nightmare, he suffers from them fairly often, women's voices, children's, even the odd man. They call out for their loved ones, short sharp barks or long high wails. Terrible, terrible, why must they persecute him?

“Harry!”

This time Harry sits up so hard and so fast, that he breaks his chair, the back cracking and falling sideways, twisting around and dangling from a fibre of wood, much like an improperly decapitated head. He pays no heed to it, doesn't notice as he stands pressed up against the window. That voice. His sister. No doubt about it. His sister was the victim of a highway robbery. She wasn't murdered, but not for want of trying…She is the reason why he is a robber, so he says to himself. Screw everyone else. Screw them, screw the world. If people will take what they want from him, he'll do the same right back.

The voice lingers on the midnight mist, which glows now that the moon peers through a hole in the cloud cover. Peers like a Peeping Tom, or someone afraid of what they might see. It was undeniably a woman's voice, high and light, his sister, she got his letter, she's wandered after him. No. No no no.

“Harry! Help me!”

The rest of the small room is trashed in Harry's attempts to exit it as fast as he can. It's too late for anyone but drifters and drunks and sleepy late night travelers to be about, so no one stops him to talk, always the worst part of the inn experience, after fleas and mites. 

Outside it is cold, misty, wet, and dark. Even darker beyond the lanterns of the inn, but still navigable with the help of the moon. Across the road is a stand of trees, marching up the highway like old and ragged soldiers. But that is not where the voice is coming from, it's coming from the woods behind the field. Of course it is. Anne has no sense anymore, she must have taken what she saw as the safer path, through the trees and their alleged shelter. 

The voice wails no more, terrifying the man even more than it did initially. But he’s the least superstitious highwayman he's ever met, his mind does not jump to ‘ghost’ ten times a day. There are far more mundane dangers about. Rumours of wolves still linger in these parts, and then of course there are boars…and men. Men, worst of all. The type to prowl among the trees may as well be wolves. Pulling his gun out, Harry hops the stone wall and runs, stealthy like, across the field to the spray of trees. Now his rage begins building as he recalls that every man is his enemy. He'd let the good life soften him into little more than a pale slug, intent of food, sleep, whores. Thoughts of Nick completely leave his mind. It's them , the weak, fat, and lazy merchants and ‘respectable’ citizens who let this happen to him and his sister. He got into this line of work in order to get his revenge on them, and what has he achieved? Once he gets his sister out of whatever she got herself into, he'll shoot every last bastard who looks at him wrong.

The woods appear as they always are - quiet, sinister, the trees like mute men, mute out of contempt. They stand and watch, but never assist. Occasionally they fall, and crush. How many murders have they seen? How much blood has gone into those roots, drunk up, and used to create the beauty mankind loves. Some of them crouch on mass graves, new and old. From the recent wars, from long before that. Cannibal druids, old Roman bones, French invaders, all are the same to the trees. It’s an ancient land. If only the bark turned pale so you could be sure. 

“Anne!” it would be beneath his dignity at any other time to shout, but this is not any other time. He doesn't care if a blighter hears.

“Harry!” 

Yes! There it is, close, very close, stationary. 

“Harry?” 

The change in tone makes him run, makes him need to console. Yes, it is Harry, your brother, I am here, as I should've been before.

“Harry! Help!”

Almost on top of the voice now, Harry turns sharply around the corner of an enormous, swollen black oak, gun raised vertically so as not to cause himself an even greater family injury than has already been done, and that's when something, a giant cat, leaps out of the tree onto him. The gun breaks free from his grip, and casts itself away to tumble down a leafy incline into a shallow pit. 

Manlike hands of vast strength scramble and huge feet shift so that the great beast can turn over the man, who again wears the petrified expression he wore when he woke from his nightmare. A human face looks down at him, mostly invisible behind a black mask, a mask over the top of which two red eyes glare, the whites visible all around. 

“Your money or your life.” says the voice of Anne, from the mouth of Tyburn Nick.

Chapter Text

 The first few days of gainful employment are not nearly as torturous as Nick remembered them being in his youth, the happy days before the unhappy state of fatherlessness, and then orphanage fell upon him. Apart from having the freedom to go about his task in any way he deems fit, and having a secure and comfortable bolt hole to go back to, one no one would ever expect, he also has access to nobles, not that he'd ever, on this side of the grave, give the impression that being able to hobnob with the aristocracy is in any way different to sitting around with the dung-eating peasantry. 

Never ever, never ever. It is not special and he does not intensely enjoy the taste of blue blood on his tongue. Not even when he catches a glimpse of Jane in an upper window of the Tudor house, does he exult, Jane who hasn't, as he would have expected, been sent on up north or anywhere else not housing her abductor. Perhaps now Robin will not let her go anywhere without him. That does seem in line with the little he knows of the great man. One mistake, one insult, is one mistake and one insult too many. 

“It's about pride, and what's decent, what's right. We can't have upstart former stewards running the place into the ground!” says Robin, after Nick turns in the first night's proof of his bloody work, a man's heart wrapped in a court proclamation he nicked off a tavern table. It occasioned a flicker of aristocratic lips and a sniff, but Robin was true to his word, and paid handsomely.

Currently, he's not ranting about some lowlife robber, but about the king. “These Stuarts, they think they can just waltz in and out of here like they own the place? It's a mere fluke they ended up on the throne, or rather that they ended up on it in their present condition. That weak bloody woman! Errr! Imagine just rolling over and allowing a bunch of foreigners to put a collar on you?!” he thumps a fist onto the mahogany desk he's sitting behind, making his glass of whisky jump. 

Nick, standing on the other side of it, inhales deeply of the smoke from the fireplace Kevin is stoking. The boy has yet to be invited to add his piece, and neither has Nick, although Robin's rant has been going on for a couple minutes now. Were he the type to do self reflection or point the finger at the mirror, Nick might find it both nerve wracking and suspicious to be recruited by such a person, but to him there is absolutely nothing strange in other people wanting to make use of his services. King killing? Aye. Revenge? Of course. Betrayal? Naturally. After a while it becomes boring. Convictions and idealistic dreams were for his younger days, before life kicked the shite out of him. He fought for a king, and what did he receive for his loyalty? His dedication to truth and justice? Nothing, except to be declared an outlaw, one whom no man might shelter or befriend. Well, if no man will be his friend, then he will be friend to no man.

Still, it's important to listen or appear to listen to the one holding his leash, and that he does, until he's let loose to rest and prepare for the next night, should he choose to utilise it for toxic waste removal. Of course, his opinion on the whys and wherefores of the conspiracy was not requested. 

The ‘next’ morning, while he's splitting his time between looking after his horse, looking after his weapons, eating and exploring the area in excruciating detail, he notices a movement at the top of the house. Behind a beautiful leaded window stands a beautiful girl. One of her maids or governesses attempts to pull her away from it, but she resists, keeps on staring straight down, at him. In other places, a tavern for example, or the road, and among men, such a stare would be considered a provocation, a challenge to fight. In the mind of an egomaniac, such a look from a woman is also a provocation and challenge, of a different sort, but Nick is not so self involved as to forget that he's a villain, even if he makes the same excuses for himself as other evil men do. It would be idiocy to a pathetic degree to imagine the girl finds her abductor attractive, so he refrains from thinking something so stupid and insane, barely, even though such cases have occurred more than once to his knowledge. Frightening situations do strange things to people. He's seen that over and over and over again. The brain makes weird leaps.

Resolving to forget about the incident, he nonetheless doesn't, and so is not surprised to discover Jane's brother glowering at him extra hard the next time he enters the library. The look is so repulsive to vanity that Nick is forced to respond to it.

“See something interesting?” he says, in a voice of gravel. 

Kevin's right hand, resting on his customary desk, turns towards his sword by a fraction. Every night he's in the library, studying. Nick wonders if he has been assigned any of the customary duties of the eldest son. Wonders if there are other sons he ought to watch out for.

“Stay away from my sister.”

“Hehe, I've never touched her.”

That's it, as if in slow motion, Nick watches the young lord leap to his feet, picking up the sword in the process, the heavy piece of honed steel flipping through the air with astounding grace, its tip turning towards him, its master’s huge body following along the way Nick's follows his horse, the two things really one. When it gets to within closing distance, Nick raises his arms, using hidden plates of metal strapped to his forearms to deflect the sword and hit Kevin in the throat, not hard enough to hurt him, but just enough to shove him backwards and into the desk, shattering it. The sword clatters across a stone floor of Roman origin. Nick places a foot on it, preventing its removal. From the ground, Kevin watches him, a strange mixture of emotion stark within his eyes.

“Can't take a joke, boy?”

“You're a monster.”

“Mmm. You might like to know that I didn't touch her in the way you might be fearing. That's bad for business.”

“As if I would believe a snake.”

“Ask her. She might tell you something interesting. What I found fascinating is that she is still here, where I am. Don't blame me for that.”

At this Kevin resumes glowering in silence.

 Had the boy not attempted to tell him what to do, Nick might have thought nothing more of his former captive, but now that he's been told to stay away, he's going to have to get closer…

 The family takes their meals together, upstairs, meals to which he has not been invited, but it's nothing to contrive a way to get in, all he has to do is tell a footman that he has pressing need to slip a word into Robin's ear regarding ‘business’.

Once allowed into the dining room, which is clad in dark wood, scarlet wallpaper, ancient tapestry and old weapons, like the rest of the house, Nick carefully keeps his eyes on the lord and master, all the way at the head of the table, but doing so doesn't prevent him noticing that both children stare at him, keeping their eyes on him as on a venomous reptile, Kevin angrily, Jane with a sort of wary curiosity, looking at him as one might look at a ugly and unknown creature washed up on the shore.

“Yes, what is it?” Robin looks at him differently. There's not a person reflected in those fiery eyes, and gazing into them too long makes Nick's self-image grow fuzzy and indistinct. Arranged around the man is a variety of foodstuffs of a quality greater than that found on many a king or emperor’s table, but in a much more ascetic quantity. The aroma of meat and wine causes the ever hungry Nick's mouth to water. 

Smooth despite this, he leans down to grunt something about seeing a man about a dog. There's a pause, and then almost too microscopically to be registered, Robin laughs. The movement is concealed by a blink and a cough, but Nick is too close not to have noticed. Saying such a thing was a risk, for any other man.

When he looks up to leave, he catches, or is caught by Jane's eye's, forgetting, or unable to look away.

                                                                                                              🐎☠️

 He purchases a dog from a farm that rents land from Sir Robin, a mastiff trained to attack on command, intending to use it during robberies, because of course those aren't going to stop simply because he has a patron now, no no no, now he'll go it alone, until, when or if a new brace of tolerably competent cannon fodder appear. No, the world, having changed its tune by saying ‘a king is once again acceptable’, can't make it up to him, can't be forgiven by him, not that it has bothered to seek forgiveness.

The afternoon grows long during the ride back, with orange light falling from the sun to dash itself across the moist earth, fighting black shadows only to be swept away by them. The dog shows his worth in obedience, speed, endurance, and even more importantly - quietness. Nick enjoys sending him after squirrels and birds or whatever attracts his attention, but no minor movement in the bracken and brush can interfere with the memory of his interruption of lunch, which keeps repeating itself. That girl treated him with her eyes much as he would a small animal when bored: prodding him, playing with him, torturing him, secure in her innate superiority. Hah! She looked at him like that back in the ruin too, her fear not enough to efface an accident of birth.

That evening he stays put, testing the dog out, staying away from everyone, patrolling the house in a wide circle, as he used to do whenever the gang would be encamped outside of town, more so as to have nothing to do with anyone else, than for safety's sake. Spending time with people inevitably leads to disappointment. Even with animals this can happen, but it's a lot less likely, and they can't laugh.

Breaking into a dinner party twice in one day is pushing it, so he contents himself with riding out in the early hours to do some scouting, some watching, some waiting. The dog follows along, a darker wisp of black in the massed night.

Chapter Text

 The next time Nick appears unasked for at a meal, Robin offers him a cup of deep red wine, and the time after that, he tells him to take a seat near the end of the table. An explosion of indignation glows bright in Kevin's eyes, but the light is swiftly banked, and the heavy covers under which it habitually lives, are thrown back over. After one swift glance at his sister sitting opposite him, he returns to his meal. Unlike her brother, Jane shows no real reaction to the invasion, her face is like that of the servants waiting at table, cast in something greater than stone, cast in iron. Nor does she reply when Nick compliments her, and for an hour or so he believes he's caused a reaction with his words, but when she leaves the room she does so without a wracked face or shivering body. 

When he returns with the head of Ol’ Harry, Robin has a manservant pour him a glass of whisky and bring it to him on a silver platter across the ancient carpet of Robin's study. The fire crackles, but a great deal of its light is obscured by the hulking form of Kevin. The young man stares into the flames in silence.

“Right, with that little unpleasantness over with, we can move on to more important matters. Come.” Robin says, getting up from his desk with a candle in hand, his movements full of energy waiting to be unleashed in bursts of violence, this characteristic going to help generate the immense tension that always fills the air around him. Like a scene out of a French novel, he leads the way into a much older section of the house through a secret passageway hidden behind a well filled bookshelf, into a series of small stone rooms set up with every necessity and as much comfort as possible. Given the man's religion, Nick decides that many a priest has been through here.

Sir Robin stops in the largest secret room and slaps a large book of heraldry down on a carefully polished oak table, before indicating that Nick should take a seat, while he himself remains standing, looming, his shadow harsh in the candlelight. “We're not the type to deeply discuss our plans out in the open of some tavern basement. I happen to know you're not a peasant or a merchant, but in order to continue to be useful to me, you are still required to learn a few things, and I'm going to teach you, both here and in the training yard. You're stealthy and patient, and you've great martial talent, but you need polishing.”

“I'm not sociable.”

“I don't need you to socialise. Certainly you won't get far in or out of that mask, sociable or not.”

Opening the book, Nick flips to an image of the royal arms, inscribed with the motto ‘God and my right’. “You want me to assassinate the king and his brother.” he says, his eyes no less red in the low light.

Robin nods, slowly, pleased at the adroitness of his underling. “And any ministers who fail to realise where their best interests lie. We've come far in our plans, but some key pieces have yet to fall into place. I would prefer for Charles to cede the right to rule to me, but the prospect of a golden circlet does strange things to a man, and I can't respect someone willing to take orders from a parliament of bugs. A man who can't even sire one legitimate son and must make his brother his heir.”

“I can do that.”

“Of course you can.” like he saw it in a play but has never attempted the move himself, Robin lifts a meaty hand, and brings it down on Nick's shoulder in a patting motion.

“Everything is going to change.”

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 It transpires that much like his eldest son, Robin himself was kept by his father out of any business that didn't involve learning war in all its many applications and forms, and along with helping him brush up on the heraldic language, he quickly opens up a whole new world to Tyburn Nick, a world of tactics not taught in any national army. A world smelling of date palms and hot sand, and of the harsh wastes where the Romans dared not tread. 

“You're a bloodthirsty weasel, my lad, and I say that as a compliment, but to the weasel we are going to add the bear.” if the frightfully intense lord could be said to be jovial, he's jovial while twisting Nick's arms, kicking his legs out from under him, punching him in the gut, and putting him in various holds meant to demonstrate how to incapacitate an enemy at close range. No guns, no secret knives, those layers come after the foundation. Close combat is where his protégé is lacking, and since he is already an accomplished horseman and firearms expert, they don't waste time there. 

“How are you with the sword?”

“Adequate.”

“Hmm, my son is more than adequate. He'll put you through your paces, and in exchange, you show him what I'm showing you, once you've mastered it.”

As a veteran of a fraught parental background, Nick doesn't ask why Robin can't teach his son himself. The palpable tension between father and son seems tempered only by duty and loyalty to the family, and the family endeavour. 

The pale web of light and shadow that's draped across the yard shifts unexpectedly, forcing Nick to snap his head around to look up at the building, which encloses the courtyard on every side. Robin also looks, but only briefly, while Nick's dog barks. Windows look down like misty old eyes, so many windows dark as forest pools, striving to capture some of the wan light and pull it indoors. At this time of day it's difficult to see who is standing behind them, a futile effort which Robin gives up immediately as a pointless exercise, while Nick keeps trying.

 Weeks of intensive training pass. The men train until the watery sun begins dipping towards the horizon, everyday knocking off earlier and earlier. Night closes in, but with nowhere to be, Nick takes his amusements alone in his bedroom, smoking and drinking and staring at the ceiling, a book open on his lap. On the way there though, a slow and meandering way, he watches for a soft face and listens for the rustle of satin and fur. 

On one of these trips back to solitary confinement, he comes across his quarry, lurking where he thought he might find her, beside a window.

“...” Although he'd meant to make some impressive, witty greeting straight out of a script, he finds himself tongue tied when it comes to the execution. Jane has her little dog with her, and the animal makes a nasty face at him, while its mistress continues to gaze out of the window, without really looking through the pane of glass.

“How now, sweet lord?” she says, the note of mockery simultaneously extreme and very very subtle. Perhaps he has been made a lord, her father likes to have that done for his retainers, although just now there's a bit of a backlog at court.

“My lady.”

“Do you require something? I'm of course glad to render assistance.”

“...Do you know where your brother is?”

“I last heard he was going over his horses, perhaps in order to go for a ride.  You might search him out in the stables.”

“Bless you, good lady.” Nick makes her a low bow, sweeping off his feathered hat in a scene that occurs ten times every minute on the Continent.

 Kevin is indeed talking shop with the master of the stables, and speaking in a much more animated manner than the newcomer has yet heard from him. The young man's tone, outside of his father's immediate presence, is bitter, fast, sharp. For a fuller understanding, Nick waits outside the building, and listens to a boring morass of equine terminology that dredges up memories of night after night spent sitting in the mud with the rest of his unit. There would always be someone gone mad with horse flesh who would not shut their trap about it, and usually they'd be cut down in the next charge or the charge after that.

After what feels like an age, but is really ten minutes, Kevin decides he's had his fill. “Right then.” Stomping footsteps and a darkening of the door herald his approach. Like his father, and Nick himself, he must duck through it, which he does as smoothly as an otter dips underwater, his armour and hair (which is not a wig) gleaming in the failing light. When he spots Nick, he starts, his hand going to the pommel of his sword.

“What are you about, you rogue?”

“Listening to yon lordling prattle on about his scurvy nags. I fancied a bit of entertainment.”

The tanned but smooth skin of Sir Kevin's face undergoes a very slight change. A smile does not warp his lips, which very rarely take such a stance, but the shadow of one does cast his face into a much more agreeable setting, so that his cold beauty loses the terribleness of his father, and he suddenly becomes a young man like other young men. It makes Nick wonder about his mother, who is not in evidence, although she is said to be alive and well, sequestered in some castle somewhere.

“Ha!” Kevin barks a laugh, the sound frayed at the edges, not through displeasure, but because of something else. “Hahaha! I would invite you on an evening ride, but I don't invite the lower classes anywhere. Instead, you will join me on an evening ride. Father isn't quite sure certain professionals are as good on a horse as the waste of time romantics proclaim that they are.” 

“And I'm not quite sure the petted and pampered are as capable with cumbersome ancient relics as they'd fancy.” Nick darts his eyes at Kevin's sword belt. 

The latter's eyes glitter. “You'll soon have an opportunity to find out in an environment suitable for the display, knave.”

 ‘An evening ride’ turns out to be a codeword for jousting practice, which Kevin conducts in the gloom, so as to truly test his aim against straw and sand targets dressed up like men in armour. It's been a good long while since Nick has had the opportunity to watch this most exhilarating and violent of sports, and he feels the bloody itch settle in under his skin with each thundering rush of hooves, bone crunching thud and splintering explosion of wood. As with boars, many a king, prince, and lord has been horribly killed or maimed by the application of fast moving lance to their tender areas. The activity is much safer now than it used to be, but still, accidents happen, especially if you're aiming to create them.

Chapter Text

 “You're going North.”

“But I don't wish to, Father.”

“Hmm? Good Lord! What has gotten into you, child? I'm sorry, my dear, but it doesn't matter what you wish, you're going.”

Nick, from his position hidden around a corner of the convoluted house, finds it absolutely incredible, along with Robin,  that the girl should say anything but ‘Yes, sir, thank you, sir’ when addressed by a man who, instead of growing less fearsome with time and acquaintanceship, is only growing more so. At first Nick thought Robin was simply mad, and that his plans stood a very good chance of collapsing into a red heap, or combusting with a sudden bang, but now he's come to suspect that he is not in fact mad, but bad, and calculating, and therefore he might very well succeed with this thing that has apparently taken him years to prepare. The thought produces a heady rush in the robber whenever he thinks of it. It is very good to be around someone else who plans, schemes, and calculates, not only forecasting and carefully preparing major events, but the most miniscule of daily decisions. 

Winter had come, but now it goes, and Robin means it to take his daughter with it, remove her from this gloomy place in its icy claws. Not his only daughter, as it turns out, but the eldest, and the only one he can expect to profitably marry off. In fact, his only profitable, legitimate children are the two with him.

Before the familial pair can turn and blunder upon him, Nick slithers off, a huge man totally silent upon his feet. Once he has skipped several creaking steps of a staircase, descended a couple floors, he steps out into the grey and misty air of the outdoors, whereupon he can brood over in peace the last few months. He's a flexible fellow, for all his wrath and hardness he can make it so other people can flow easily around him, should they wish, and this is just what has occurred.

- Three Months earlier -

 The clink and zing of steel forms a background to daily activities, sometimes from dawn till dusk, only to be interrupted by the thunder of hooves, the explosive ricochet of wood splinters, and the bell for dinner. The young lordling, Kevin, was not putting on airs and graces about his swordsmanship, when he's not in a confined space he really can whip his crusading sword around as easily as a child whips around a toy dog on a string. Or as easily as Nick whips a horse, because while Kevin proves, initially, to be better at the sword, Nick outdoes him both in the saddle, and with a gun. They begin to joust against each other, initially to prove something, and then for fun, doing this contrary to Robin's express orders, mind. Soon, the natural pecking order reasserts itself. 

“If you won't tell him, I shan't.” says Kevin, around a twist of the lips meant to be a smile. His horse, as big and glossy as Nick's, lifts its head and noses its counterpart from the other side of the tilt barrier.

“Won't tell him what?” says Nick, shifting the grip on his lance a midge. 

“Hahaha!”

Nick does do what he was told when he comes to teaching Kevin the moves Robin taught him. He still has training sessions with Robin himself, but despite the closeness in age between them, the Marquess appears to classify his student with his son when it comes to generation, often referring to them as the ‘young lads’ and himself as ‘old’. Nick supposes that something happens to the brain when one turns thirty, because Robin very much remains the most dangerous piece on the board. Perhaps that is why highwaymen rarely ever pass thirty, after that you cease to be quite so foolish, and things like family begin to press insistently at the door. Nick has no family, although women have now and then claimed him as the father of their woe-begotten brats. 

Well, he still doesn't believe he will pass thirty, even when his birthday arrives one day in mid-winter, on the day of an eclipse. He says nothing about it as people rush about, staring at the grey sky, but he goes about the whole day expecting something to happen, like the Law to show up with a Tree and a Noose. He approaches no babbling brooks or rivers on that day.  

Training does not pause simply because there is snow and black ice on the ground, not when a battle may erupt at any time and in any place. Still, Robin has some concern for his heir, and the call for sparring to end comes when an aristocratic shadow darkens one of the upper floor windows, and ten minutes later the Lady Jane carefully steps out of the shadow of a doorway with a maidservant bearing a silver tray of steaming coffee and a plate of shortbread. The men, who had been practicing their aim on a group of straw men, put their guns away, and approach, reaching for a cup and a biscuit each. In other places, Nick would never be allowed to take a cup from the same tray as the son of a Marquess, nor be allowed to thank the daughter of one from so close. But he performs both actions, while still carefully maintaining subservience, which, while not nearly as marked as the servants, is still clear and appreciated. Provided one's pride isn't so insuperable as all that, it's not a bad exchange. 

Jane smiles upon her brother, and then upon him. The tales are growing wild about the supposed politeness and charm of the armed highway robber, but any sort of mild talk looks like the height of dandy smooth talking when said over the barrel of a gun, and as robbers go, Nick is near the bottom for inherent charisma, and yet this girl here smiles at him more and more. Kevin, he of the eagle eyes, notices, as he always does, but no longer attempts to take his partner's head off for it, instead he glares hard at his sister, who stares back, the siblings dueling in silence. 

Once Jane returns to the house, leaving the men with coffee and cake, Kevin airs a topic, just coincidentally. He makes a good attempt too to keep it natural, as he looks at the servant girl in the process, watches her intently as she walks away, his only mistake is that he speaks in the characteristic sing-song of someone trying to give a warning without giving a warning, the sing-song Ol’ Harry used to address Nick with. 

“I say, taboos make an otherwise fraught thing sweet, don't they? But when you bite into that apple, you soon find it to be floury. You discover a worm, maybe two. You realise something is squirming around in your mouth, and it's not your tongue...You realise you made a grave mistake.” the look he turns on Nick once he's done speaking, is a knowing one. While they may be friendly enough for Kevin to deliver this lecture without it being on a sword point, they are not friendly enough for him to come right out and say it, if that is something Kevin is even capable of doing. It could be it isn't, since dealing with his father requires a deft hand, an exceedingly light touch, and a tonne of wool wrapping, and, you know, he's not forgotten who he's speaking to.

Everyday, once he's released into his own devices, Nick returns to be a stalker of the wealthy, contriving to float around the house and place himself in the most opportune shadows, nooks, or corners where he can ‘accidently’ cross paths or otherwise see and be seen by the lady of the house. He follows her on the twice daily walks she takes with her maids, becoming bolder and bolder until, one day, he steps out of dead bracken onto the tree shrouded path in front of her. The maids, who have been told nothing in particular, (and whatever they do know has been ordered into secrecy and silence) gasp and struggle to stifle shrieks, but Jane herself stares hard at him, her hands remaining in her mink fur muff. 

“How now, sweet lord?” Jane says, her breath transforming into delicate white clouds, her tone definitely mocking. A frozen branch creaks, cracks, and falls to the ground nearby. The maids turn and look around, but the abductor and former abductee keep their eyes on each other. 

“Your father wishes it to be known that evening prayers will be half an hour earlier this day.” says Nick, none of his breath freezing in the air.

A corner of Jane's mouth twitches, and her lips thin. Her father orders prayers, but he doesn't attend the small service himself, and she very much wishes he would. “You are acting the messenger now?” she asks.

“I've been acting the messenger for months now. And no doubt will continue to do so. I wonder if you think about why I am here after everything that occured. I do so wonder.” 

Cocking her head, Jane scans the long, dark form that she only now realises has been moving ever closer across the cold earth, walking down a path cleared of snow, sliding over dead and decaying leaves in his shiny black boots. The man makes no sound, although the leaves he treads on are frozen. A violent shiver runs down her spine. A darling robin redbreast perches on a naked twig of a nearby bush, and watches the scene with its tiny, black eyes, its beak open as if in anticipation. 

As a male, you don't need to be a highwayman to cause alarm by moving in such a fashion near unaccompanied women, and the pair of maids half bolt, leaping backwards and then surging back into their original places. They can't run, but neither do they dare grab their mistress and make her do so. Their alarm is blackley funny, but no one laughs.

“Thank you.” A sudden jolt downwards in temperature, as if it's about to snow, makes Jane's nostrils flair and her eyelids flutter. “Leave me.” she says, her voice slightly strained. Not cracked, bent. The scent of ozone fills the air. No little dog accompanies her, but if it did, it might be growling.

A couple feet now separate a serial murderer, among other things, from one of his victims. “You can't order me around, my lady.”

“My father can.”

“He's not here, is he?”

“You intend to abduct me again? Pretty exchange for my father's wrath. He will not be so kind a second time, good sir.”

Nick steps even closer, close enough for Jane to smell perfume he wasn't wearing the first time she was this close to him, but his body heat, if he gives off any, does nothing to warm her. A black gloved hand lifts, causing her to hold her breath. Surely he is not so presumptuous as to dare touch her.

The hand creeps through the frigid air, stopping a centimetre from a bright lock of hair which has escaped her hood. Jane's heart thumps loud enough for others to hear.

“Pretty, yes.” Nick says, dropping his hand, and turning away, melting away back into the woods.

Christmas arrives, and with it a gift for Nick, which he did not expect. Numerous gifts, in fact. Robin gifts him a silver pen, a newish invention and a significant upgrade from a quill. What he expects Nick to use it for, is not known, perhaps it's a nod that his promise of offices and titles was not mere bluff. It’s not the first time Nick has been given such a thing by an older man at Christmas, but the last time was long ago indeed. 

Kevin gives him a sword, an honest to goodness gladius, because he says Nick has the ‘mind of Rome’. Whether or not that is a compliment, Nick takes it for one, and appreciates the weapon, which is much more convenient than a longsword, shorter and easier to hide and wield, although he doubts it will become a part of his regular arsenal. 

Most unexpectedly of all, he receives a new black hat from Jane, with a peacock feather stuck in it, and a pert little note stating that his current one is beginning to wear out. That sends him into a mirror-checking frenzy for the rest of the special day. 

These were the most significant events to occur over winter, which, while small, changed something, so much so that Nick, back in the present, dithers in the courtyard, veiled by mist, while working through his options, options which extend along a flowchart in his mind, each fork leading to a different future which is his for the taking. Working towards a coup, at least if you’re not a joker or a clown, takes so long, and he’s hot blooded and still antsy at being cooped up like Robin’s pet cock, taken out only to crow at appropriate moments.

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 “You’re going to be an outrider. I cannot have any more nonsense.” says Sir Robin to Nick as nonchalantly as if telling him that he’s going to chop wood because another servant has proven remarkably inept at such a simple task. The pair of them are sitting in the lord’s secret lesson room, going over a series of tactics Robin uses in life, some of which he claims Tyburn Nick already unconsciously utilises. 

1) Do not let your prey escape.

2) Never fall for your opponent's tricks, or accept his invitation.

3) A circle envelops a line.

6) Defy every move like a willow in the wind.

7) Every crisis is the perfect opening. 

8) An opponent’s maximum power is your greatest weapon.

9)The dark of night is your greatest ally.

10) Never let a woman into your heart.

Nick looks closely at item two for a good long while. Seeing this, Robin coughs and removes the sheet, promising to test him on it another day. 

“There will be others.” Nick says, about this new mission he’s been tasked with. He can easily see how sending him alone with a carriage could be some manner of set up. Even sending him with others could be a set up. 

“Naturally. I’m sending every man I can spare.” Robin sits down heavily, yet crosses a leg elegantly, his eyes sweeping the cramped environment, alighting on an empty decanter of whiskey, and narrowing. 

“Including your son?”

“No.”

“I assume I may shoot anyone that attempts trouble.”

“Yes, but do not draw unnecessary attention to yourself.”

“I would never.”

Turning his gaze from the empty bottle, Robin sweeps them over the dandy in black, and the line between his eyes deepens.They then alight upon the peacock feather in the pretty new hat, and the frown intensifies further. 

Preparations are made for the long journey up to Yorkshire, coach checked, horses checked, guns checked, men checked. Dogs are even checked. Nick’s is antisocial, though, and does not associate with the other canines. His fellow escort, men born and raised in Robin’s employ, could not look more unhappy about having an extra colleague on this dangerous venture, and cluster together, away from him, not quite on the other side of the coach, as they make sure to keep him in their line of sight. It's enough to make a grim man smile.

Chapter Text

- The Great North Road, 1661 -

-Day One-

The ride north promises to be long and arduous, especially arduous as Tyburn Nick has to spend around four days in company with other people, and spending time in company with other people without the option for seclusion, is something guaranteed to wear away at his always gaunt temper. 

Whatever ‘plans’ the leader of the enhanced escort had as to where Nick would be placed in the line, matters not at all to him. No, he takes a spot which for an instant creates profound deja vu in him, that is, when he climbs onto his horse, he moves to place himself to the left of the carriage windows through which Jane will look once the party is underway. The carriage itself is the same one from all those months ago, but even more luxurious, as if Sir Robin regards murder, rape, and armed robbery as a dare or challenge to up the ante. It's a shiny beetle black, lacquered with red and gilded with gold, its wheels and sides elaborately carved with mythological figures and motifs. Spotting something familiar, Nick leans closer, but is interrupted in his contemplation by the appearance of his charge.

When Jane takes leave of her father and is helped into the carriage by her brother, she suffers a shock when her eyes fall on the dark mass looming a couple feet away on the other side of the window, though she hides it from everyone by busily pulling the curtains, and rearranging her muslin hood for good measure. The deep voices of men burst into life on only one side of the vehicle, at least until her father arrives, and the captain of the guard trots over on his horse to receive final instructions. The looming immensity of Nick remains where it is, his horse seeming to breathe for both of them. 

Last words are exchanged, and then the call is given, a horn sounded for extra measure, and the trip begins, the great wheels of the carriage crunching over gravel. The maids inside the machine giggle behind their muffs, out of a combination of nerves and the presence of so many strong, serious men, all here to keep them safe, giggles which earn them hard looks and reprimands from the steward who will sit beside the driver. The tale of what happened last time the Marquess attempted to hand over his daughter into the keeping of another man, is old hat by now. The maid who suffered at the hands of the villains who prowl the roads, is an object of aversion and suspicion, and the poor dead manservant has been forgotten by the youngsters. That is how it always is. Everyone forgets, except the victim, and often, the perpetrator. 

Meanwhile, Nick himself has many an admirer, both amongst those who know what he is, and those who do not. It is only natural, he's big, scary, and dressed in black, and not raggedy black either, but very expensive black from the Continent. Many a servant has discussed with a friend whether or not he has looked her way during his daily routine, and many a maid has conjured dreams of romantic horseback rescue from drudgery. Whether or not he is aware of this, is difficult to discern. 

The flanks of his horse ripple as it performs an easy trot, the pistol at his waist catching the light. There's more than one gun on hand, more than one sharp bladed instrument. This trip requires no less concentration and preparation than his usual forays along the Great North Road. At his horse’s heels, his hound pads along.

Looking from left window to right, Jane settles down to reading a little prayer book, Mademoiselle resting in her blue silk lap, just the way she did the previous year on the first attempt to send her away. The situation demands thought, but Jane does not spare time for it now that the uncomfortable event has arrived. It was one thing to eye the tiger from the safety of her father's house, but being alone with him is different, and she may as well be alone for all the guards on the other side of the coach.

The oppressive atmosphere does not let up, although the day is bright and full of spring sounds and smells. Birds chirp, hares dash across the road, other coaches pass, none as lavish and well guarded as Jane's. Some attempt to form a party with them, but are rejected. The ‘fellow traveller’ trick is one used by highwaymen and footpads alike, and regardless, Sir Robin would consider it beneath his dignity for his daughter to travel with those of lower rank. It would not produce the correct impression on the Howards. 

For the passengers, the trip is some parts boring, some parts outright frightening, especially as the sun begins to dip. But for the escort, stress and boredom are combined. No free moments for them, they must watch at all times, their minds on their weapons and their horses. Attack could come from behind, from sudden gunfire, from a charge out of the woods or across a field. It could come from the midst of the party, from kindness offered to lone travellers or broken down coaches. It could come from the front, from a pair of well dressed gentlemen on horseback. It could even come at an inn. There are still plenty of civil war malcontents out and about, living on the edge of society, relentless in their rage.

“Nick! What make you of this?” To his great chagrin, the captain was forced to meet with the man in black before their mutual master, to ask, in confidence, all the ways a highwaymen or gang of highwaymen might choose to ambush or otherwise assail the party on its way to York. And all the while afterwards the man has had new questions pop into his head. Now he, who has been riding up at the front with the driver, moves around to the robber, a map on his hand. There's a wooded dip in the road at a certain point up ahead, where it connects with another route, and he doesn't like it. As he hails the villain, he finds his ire rising, as he doesn't know what the fiend’s last name is, and hates to address him so familiarly. “Do you reckon your…eh, what do you reckon?”

The map is thrust at Nick over his horse's ears, earning the captain a dark look. A mild dark look, as dark looks go. Nick contemplates it, noting the density of the trees and the rambling extent of the woods.

“It is a likely spot.” 

A horse huffs and the captain's eyes start even further out of his head than they already are, thanks to staring at this man with his sinisterly covered face. “Likely spot? Is that all you got?”

Nick blinks, slowly, conveying without words the contempt he feels at being supposed to either be in league with every robber in existence, or to possess psychic powers. 

Being around him, at least for a man, is like bathing in acid, so his fellow employee snatches the paper away, folding it quickly and placing it in his jacket. Before leaving, he leans closer to whisper. “And take that thing off your poxy face, man! We've been gettin’ funny looks!” he then rides off to rejoin the driver. Nick makes no move to lower his mask, and the daggers he stares into the man's back are the regular variety. His vengeance comes in the form of moving even closer to the window of the carriage.

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 The many stops the party have to make along the way, further increase the tension. Stops to change horses, stops to answer the call of nature, stops to eat, stops while one coach passes another, stops so that the guard can investigate prickling of the sixth sense or alarming sounds and sights, stops because a hound has run off, stop so the ladies, servants, driver, and riders can stretch their legs, stops, stops, stops.

It is a good thing the country is tiny, thinks Nick, who knows just how small it is, because when you are a hunted man, there is never enough space to run. That wouldn't be a problem on mainland Europe, but it seems more than ever as if he will never see the Continent, not when golden chains keep bursting from the damp earth of England to fetter his feet. 

You should have fled to Italy, married a rich donna, and gone swanning about as a count for the rest of your rotten life, he thinks. But even as he thinks this, his eyes catch the lace and velvet curtained windows of the carriage as it rolls to a stop for yet another break, and he thinks, no, a mask would not be forgiven in a count, and his good looks only exist from the eyes up.

While he's mentally traversing the hills and valleys of his face, the window opens and a pale and dainty hand emerges, holding a lace handkerchief, just like a pure white bird perching on a sill. The hills and valleys of Tyburn Nick's face grow unaccountably hot in climate. 

“Good Sir, might I trouble you for a moment?”

For some reason Jane's voice, which is deeper and more throaty than the silly women he was accustomed to, makes Nick desire to throw himself off his horse and onto the muddy earth. Why this should be, he is not sure, but had they been in a tavern or bad part of town, he might suppose witchcraft were afoot. As it is, he approaches closer. “Yes, my lady.” he says. The captain is not in his line of sight, but he wouldn't care even if he were. 

The hand withdraws, and then emerges again, carrying a tiny cake. In the remaining space, Nick can see Jane's face, and hear the breathing of those accompanying her. It sounds anxious. “Please gift this fancy to your hound. Mademoiselle is very fond of them.“ 

Oh no, the absurd whims of women, against which no man is proof, no matter what charms he may procure from whichever vendor at whatever meaningful hour. The whims never change, no matter what place in society the woman occupies. All these years he's been contemptuous of colleagues who met their fate at the hands of the gentler sex, and yet the same affliction appears to be striking him down in slow motion. Is it simply inevitable, even for a man such as he? He’s thirty now, is the Tree approaching?

Taking the French cake with gruff thanks, Nick leans down to show it to his dog. “Grim, come here. “ The monster hound trots over obediently, his long and heavy snout hovering over Nick's hand. His owner doesn't imagine he will want the cake, being fed on raw meat like he is, but Grim snaps it up, and looks for more. Wiping his glove on his leg, Nick turns back to go through more pleasantries, feeling strangely off kilter. Witchcraft, most definitely. Perhaps these nobles mean to put him in a private zoo like they sometimes keep in their castles. The Tower has one, he'd heard, and he'd not like to end up in the Tower. “He liked it, my lady.”

“I'm delighted.” she says, before closing the window on him and pulling the curtains back over it. 

                                                                                                               🐎☠️

 The first overnight stop is at Grantham, the inn at Grantham to be exact, which sprawls to one side of the road. It's bustling, as all inns on the Great North Road are, there being a continuous stream of traffic. The carriage receives preferential treatment, naturally, and Jane and her ladies are shown to their rooms before Nick and the other men have finished seeing to their animals. With a night free and only those people of the inn or their own company to associate with, the majority fall to old standbys - eating, drinking, gaming - although the captain and steward keep a firm hand on everyone, everyone except Nick, that is. After observing the various workers who mill about the place, he goes for a walk, which astounds everyone he's been travelling with, them supposing him to be the first to drink himself under a card table. 

Give you lickspittles a chance to bandy words about me, he thinks, as he slides through the great double doors to the stable yard, passing a beggar huddled up against the stone face of the building as he does. It transpires that the bundle of ratty brown wool is not one beggar, but several, being a mother and two small children. Seeing this, he increases the already generous amount he was going to give her. 

“God bless you, kind sir!” says the gaunt faced woman, kissing his hand, or glove, rather. As always in these situations, Nick enjoys a mixture of duper’s delight (by far the greater portion) and suffers a painful pang of conscience. He’s not so good at lying that he can trick himself into believing that bad deeds can be balanced out by good.

Trouble can still be gotten on a pleasant evening walk, especially if you're a wicked man drawn, as if by the natural directional sense of an animal, to the dodgy parts of town. Nick makes for a low down drinking tavern slash house of ill repute, the type he used to frequent with Harry's gang, where he hopes to get the spell lifted, not by actually having a witch do anything to him, but by counter fascination. Women found in these sorts of places are like strong drink, they intoxicate quickly, and leave you in a great deal of pain afterwards. In fact it is with a sort of suicidal ideation that Nick ducks through a door far too low for him, into a heated, smokey atmosphere. Messing with a nobleman’s daughter is one sort of trouble, trouble he's prepared for, but having his head turned by her is another. 

When he enters, the hubbub dies, not because anyone knows him here, but solely due to his appearance. The hubbub is born again seconds later, but it's a new creature, wary where before it was swaggering. Men sit around dirty tables playing cards or dice, their patched elbows lying in puddles of ale, slatternly women leaning on them or sitting on their laps. It's a place likely to suffer frequent raids, and a place just as likely to host the raiders in the in-between time. Nick and Grim make their way to the bar, but don't reach halfway before the latter attacks another man's dog, a man who looks to be a petty thief of some sort, to judge by his sly eyes and many pocketed coat.

“He was provoked.” says Nick, when the animals have been separated. Grim is fine, the other dog…not so much. 

“Pardon me, sirrah? Where do you get off saying such a thing, you black feathered fop? I'll-” the muzzle of a pistol digs into the soft bit under the man's jaw, pausing his stream of pretentious words. 

“He. Was. Provoked.” says Nick. 

“Sir, yes sir! He was provoked, sir!”

The strumpets in the tavern disappoint, as well they might after a man has spent so many months in the company of the refined, the hygienic and healthy. A dark haired woman of indeterminate age immediately cosies up to him at the bar, looking for free drinks, but he pushes her off his lap without a word. A red haired lass attempts the same, and likewise fails. Over at another table sits a young and delicate blond, no doubt a prostitute of a decade already. She catches Nick’s evil eye. Dalliances are an exceptionally bad idea, five minutes of paid-for pleasure in exchange for the French pox, or a wench forever claiming her brat is yours, or your good self suffering robbery, or your good self being shot by a jealous lover, amongst many other possible results. It's like playing a game with a loaded gun.

That's not to say that Nick hasn't made foolish choices before. He makes them every day. No, he decides that the girl will be just the thing to relieve him of the itch afflicting his entire being. To attract this woman away from the man she is with, Nick turns on his stool and stares at the whore while breathing slowly and steadily. The technique has never failed before, and it doesn't fail now. She gets up and walks over, without sashaying, a lack of pretence that greatly increases the highwayman's interest.

“How do you fare, my lord? You are most handsome.” 

“Mmm.” Nick gestures for a drink from the barman, who places it before the girl. Once she has a hold of it, she sits herself on Nick's knee, but the instant he places a hand on her waist, a wave of revulsion hits him so hard that he pushes the girl away by reflex, into a group of gamblers. Some of the more stable players leap to their feet immediately, while the others take a moment. Without further preliminaries, a fight breaks out.

Having gone a long time without a decent one, Nick throws himself into it with a violence and malefic intent that shocks and terrifies all the would be brawlers, the same sort of terror that is inflicted whenever a madman gets himself involved in anything. Stakes go from ‘maybe I’ll be knocked out’, to ‘this fellow is aiming to kill!’. And indeed he is and does, as in the rush for the door, Grim grabs hold of the coattails of one of the gamblers, preventing him from escaping while a mountain of a man with embers for eyes disintegrates furniture as he bears down upon him, broken bottle raised aloft. In his last moments before that jagged piece of glass comes down, the gambler sees the shadow of a grin behind the black mask, a grin stretching from ear to ear like an open wound.

Some time later, Tyburn Nick, whistling a jaunty tune, returns from his walk, his clothing shiny where before it was matte.