‘Hm…’ The lieutenant was stroking his chin thoughtfully, his eyes wandering between me and Mr Ambrose. ‘We shall see. No matter what, we shall find a use for her.’ His arm still rock-steady, he gave a mocking little bow to me. ‘My apologies, by the way, for our inefficient torture methods, Senhora. If we had understood the reality behind the mask, I’m sure we would have found something more appropriate to a member of the fairer sex.’
His eyes drifted over me, leaving little doubt about the meaning of his words. From behind him, raucous laughter drifted towards me, and for the first time I realised that he was not alone. Shadows were shifting under the trees, moving steadily towards us. It looked like he had brought a whole squadron along with him.
‘Don’t worry, Lieutenant,’ I assured him. ‘I won’t hold your negligence against you. In fact, I wouldn’t mind you being negligent again.’
‘That is extremely unlikely, Senhora. But enough of these pleasantries.’ He pressed the gun more tightly against Mr Ambrose’s temple. ‘The manuscript! Now, if you please!’
‘Como interessante, Lieutenant,’ came a voice from further back out of the darkness of the jungle. ‘That was just what I was going to say.’
There were more clicks of weapons, and out of the shadows of the trees stepped Colonel Alberto Silveira, rifle raised and aimed straight at the lieutenant’s head.
‘Hands up!’
‘Um…I already have my hands up,’ I pointed out.
‘Not you! Him!’ The army colonel jerked his rifle towards de Alvarez. The man hesitated for just a moment - then dropped his gun with a low curse and raised his hands over his head.
‘What’s your name?’ Silveira demanded.
‘De Alvarez, you imperialist scum!’
‘Ha! I’ve heard of you! Wait till the general hears of this. I was only reckoning with the treasure. If I can bag you rebel vermin into the bargain, there’ll be a promotion in this for me.’
The only reply to this was an intelligible string of Portuguese profanities. I listened with interest. If I survived this, my vocabulary would be considerably extended.
The colonel did not seem impressed by de Alvarez’s tirade, however. His rifle remained steady on the rebel commander. ‘Shut up, you filthy dog! And as for you…’
The colonel’s eyes drifted to Mr Ambrose. ‘Under different circumstances I might drag you back to headquarters and teach you the error of your ways. Someone has to show you that you cannot simply march into a war zone without suffering the consequences. But I’ll have my hands full with this lot, so you and your lady will be getting off lightly. Leave Brazil, and you won’t hear from me again. But the Brazilian Empire is confiscating that manuscript. We can’t have it falling into the wrong hands, now, can we?’
Mr Ambrose met the colonel’s eyes. It was hard to say whose gaze was further below the freezing point. ‘No,’ Mr Ambrose agreed. ‘We can’t have that.’
In a flash, his hands darted to his belt, and before either of the officers could move, the muzzles of two shining steel revolvers pointed in their faces. Shouts rose from all around us, and rustling broke out in the shadows as dozens of soldiers started to raise their weapons.
‘Nobody move!’ Mr Ambrose’s command cut through the air with the mastery of a dozen field generals. ‘One twitch means two bullets in the head! Understood?’
The shapes in the shadows froze, unsure what to do. But if they were taken aback by the new development, it was nothing to how Colonel Silveira seemed to feel. He gaped at Mr Ambrose. ‘I just saved your life!’
‘And you have my sincerest thanks,’ my dear employer told him without shifting his gun an inch from the man’s forehead. ‘We’ll chalk it up against the torture and imprisonment, and call us even. Now, drop the rifle and put your hands in the air. This is your last warning.’
Silveira wavered. He was clearly contemplating trying to sweep the rifle around and shoot down this arrogant Englishman who dared to threaten him like a dog. After all, who was he? Just some big city boy who had gotten mixed up in a matter far, far too big for him. Those were the thoughts clear on Silveira’s face - until he met Mr Ambrose’s eyes.
‘Don’t.’
It was just one word, but whispered with such ice-cold menace, it made me shiver. If Mr Ambrose ever pointed a gun at me with that look in his eyes, I didn’t know what I’d do. But I probably wouldn’t survive.
The rifle hit the ground with a wet thud.
Mr Ambrose inclined his head. ‘Acceptable.’
‘This doesn’t mean anything!’ Silveira hissed. ‘My men outnumber you a hundred to one! Do you honestly believe the two of you are going to get out of here alive?’
‘No, not the two of us. But the three of us - yes. Karim?’
The last word was a shout over the heads of the soldiers. From somewhere up in the trees came a metallic click, and an answering shout.
‘Yes, Sahib?’
‘Tell our good friend the colonel here what you have up there in the tree with you.’
‘As you wish, Sahib. I have with me one of your engineers’ experimental weapon models, a mechanised gun that can fire several shots per second - without requiring reloading, I might add. Some use the term “machine gun” for this new invention. It seems to be the pet project of the British and American armies, but I doubt the Brazilian Empire has got its hands on one of them yet.’
With every word, the face of the colonel grew paler.
‘A bluff!’ he hissed. ‘This is just a bl-’
Before he could finish the word, an ear-splitting roar cut the night in two. Lightning lit up the trees around, and the muddy ground at our feet spewed upwards, spattering us with dirt and shredded foliage.
Mr Ambrose cocked his head.
‘A bluff?’
Colonel Silveira swallowed. ‘All right. Maybe…not.’
‘I am so very pleased that you agree with me, Colonel. Now - tell your men to throw away their weapons, grab some rope and tie up the rebels!’
‘What?’ Lieutenant de Alvarez demanded. ‘You can’t-’
‘Except,’ Mr Ambrose cut him off, ‘for one, who will then take the rest of the rope and tie up all the imperial soldiers.’
‘What?’ Colonel Silveira exclaimed.
‘I thought I spoke perfectly clearly. But if you wish-’ Shifting, Mr Ambrose pressed the barrels of his guns against the two men’s heads more tightly. ‘-I can let my two metal associates speak for me.’
‘N-no! No need for that. Men, do as he says!’
It all went surprisingly smoothly. I watched, open-mouthed, as enemy soldiers disarmed each other and pulled out coils of rope to tie rebel to imperial and imperial to rebel. Mr Ambrose watched like a hawk, making sure everything went exactly as he had commanded. I had to admire his ingenuity. With only enemies binding each other, it was ensured that nobody would tie a knot too loosely. In the end, all except the officers and one more man were tied up in an impenetrable tangle of ropes.
‘Kneel!’ Mr Ambrose commanded.
The man did as ordered.
‘Now cross your arms behind your back! Mr Linton?’
The call of my name pulled me from the amazed paralysis.
‘Y-yes, Sir?’
‘Tie his hands behind his back. And don’t be afraid to tie the knots too tightly.’
He didn’t have to tell me that twice - or once, for that matter. By the time I was finished with the poor man, he was tied up more tightly than a parcel on its way to Australia.
‘Karim!’ Mr Ambrose called.
‘Coming, Sahib!’
With an earth-shaking thud, the Mohammedan dropped out of a nearby tree, a metal monstrosity clutched under one arm that I assumed was the so-called machine gun. For a moment, I wondered where in hell he had kept this thing hidden before - then I remembered some rather large packages on the back of his packhorse. Of course. Only…there had been more than one such package. What might the others contain?
Mr Ambrose did
n’t leave me any time to ponder the question further.
‘Karim, tie up these two gentlemen here,’ he commanded, nodding to the officers.
‘I’m an officer of the Brazilian Empire!’ Silveira sputtered. ‘You can’t-’
‘And knock them unconscious, for good measure,’ Mr Ambrose added.
Silveira shut up.
‘And me?’ I asked.
‘You, Mr Linton, pack everything up and ready the horses. We’re leaving.’
I was too busy with my own hasty work after that to pay attention to what Mr Ambrose or Karim were doing. But once I had the horses packed and ready to depart, I glanced back at our former campsite, and saw de Alvarez and Silveira bound up along with their men, glowering fiercely up at Mr Ambrose. Karim stepped behind them, raising the butt of his rifle.
‘Not yet,’ Mr Ambrose ordered, freezing him in place. ‘I have something to say to our two friends yet.’
Kneeling on the ground so he was on eye-level with the two of them. His eyes, already cold before, took on that same merciless look he had had when holding the guns to their heads. I shivered - partly with instinctive trepidation, but far more with anticipation. I couldn’t wait to have those dangerous eyes on me again.
‘My business,’ he told them, his voice coming straight from Antarctica, ‘is not your business. And yet you chose to interfere. Be thankful that I am leaving you alive. Others have not been so lucky.’
‘You bastardo!’ de Alvarez growled. ‘You will pay for this!’
‘I doubt it,’ Mr Ambrose retorted, letting his gaze wander over the officers. ‘I never pay for goods of substandard quality.’
‘You…!’
The officer didn’t get out anything more. He seemed to choke on his own indignation, and his nemesis tied up right next to him didn’t appear to fare any better.
‘I would advise you,’ Mr Ambrose continued as if they hadn’t spoken, ‘not to follow us. Where we are going, there is no place for people like you. The treasure is mine! All mine! And if my man Karim catches so much of a glimpse of any of you, he will not hesitate to use that metal instrument he is caressing so fondly. Do we understand each other?’
The two officers remained silent.
‘Adequate.’ Mr Ambrose rose to his feet. ‘I will have to hope that you use your heads and heed my warning. Oh, and I almost forgot-’
He reached into his pocket with one hand. When he drew it out again, he a held long, shining steel blade. De Alvarez and Silveira shrank back, for the first time since they had been disarmed real fear showing in their eyes.
‘Oh, don’t be afraid. This isn’t for you.’ Stepping up to a falling tree trunk nearby, Mr Ambrose placed the shiny dagger on top of it, and let it lie there. ‘Or I suppose it is, in a way. After all, we wouldn’t want you all to starve to death in the jungle, would we? No, I hope you die much more unpleasant deaths. So I am going to leave this here with you. Once we are gone, you may try to reach it. Whoever gets to it first, rebel or imperial, can cut his bond. And whoever is free first, with a knife in his hand…’
He let his gaze wander over his wide-eyed audience. Something much too cold to be a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth for a millisecond.
‘Well, I’m sure I won’t have to explain that part to you.’
Without another word, he turned, grabbed the reins of his horse and marched off into the jungle.
‘Come on, Karim, Mr Linton!’ he called. ‘Time to go and leave these gentlemen to their business!’
Something goes ‘Bang’ in the Night
We didn’t try the river trick again. Since it had not worked twice in a row now, it was clear that the Brazilians, imperialists and rebels both, had excellent trackers among them. Instead, we marched as hard and as fast as we could, and hoped that Mr Ambrose’s threats were enough to deter them. They certainly would have been if I’d been the one following.
Still…I did wonder why Mr Ambrose hadn’t employed a simpler method of preventing trouble. A method that, usually, he didn’t seem averse to using.
‘Why didn’t you do it?’ I demanded, once we were well out of hearing range of our enemies.
‘Do what, Mr Linton?’
‘Kill them, of course! You could have, after all, easily. They were bound and at your mercy, which we both know is not very considerable. So why did you spare them? You didn’t have any qualms about disposing of the pirates.’
‘I have business interests in Brazil. I didn’t think the Brazilian government would look kindly on my shooting one of its officers, even if that officer is a worthless, greedy worm.’
‘And the rebels? You could have shot the rebels.’
‘I could have.’ He gave me a look. The kind of look that Julius Caesar probably gave his slow-witted little centurions before he explained why he wanted to invade Gaul. ‘But if I leave them both alive, maybe we’ll be lucky and they’ll kill each other.’
I remembered the gleaming blade Mr Ambrose had left behind at our former campsite, and the greedy gazes of the tied-up soldiers. If they did indeed kill each other, it would have little or nothing to do with luck.
We continued through the jungle, keeping up not quite as gruelling a pace as before, but still, it was pure torture for my poor legs. For hours upon hours filled with ceaseless marching, I craved nothing so much as a soft bed to lie on, and three pounds of solid chocolate to forget my aches - at least at first. After a few days, very slowly, a change set in. My legs ached less and less. My behind, which had felt like the dead weight of a mammoth dragging behind me, somehow got…lighter. My steps grew steadier. Only my craving for solid chocolate stayed. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as another craving.
‘Come here!’
‘You are my subordinate, Mr Linton! You cannot give orders to- mmmmph!’
‘In case you hadn’t noticed before,’ I whispered against his smooth lips, ‘I like breaking rules.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘Oh yes, indeed, Sir! Now shut up and kiss me!’
We were camping next to a big tree that bore some kind of big, reddish fruit. It smelled invitingly tasty, but Karim had strongly advised against trying it. That wouldn’t have stopped me - I wasn’t big on following men’s advice - but I had my very own forbidden fruit lying right here on the ground beside me, and it was a lot tastier.
‘Mr Ambrose, Sir?’ Running my nose along the line of his jaw, I breathed in his scent of man, money and power, and felt his hard body quiver beneath me.
‘Yes, Mr Linton?’
‘Why don’t you relax a bit? It’s hot here in the jungle. Why don’t you take off a few of those stuffy clothes?’
He met my gaze with a cool one of his own. ‘Because I’m English.’
‘I’m English, too,’ I pointed out.
Slowly and lingeringly, Mr Ambrose let his gaze rake over me, from my messy hair down over my torn, threadbare chemise and bare legs to my feet, encased in massive boots. ‘Yes, and I’m sure that Nelson and Wellington are turning over in their graves at the fact.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
Grabbing my face with masterful hands, Mr Ambrose pulled me towards him and claimed my mouth with his.
‘Try to guess, you wicked little wench!’
I captured his lower lip between my teeth and bit, gently. ‘So, I’m your wicked little wench now?’
‘You are my little Ifrit!’
Warmth flooded my chest, stoking a fire in my heart. Blimey! This seemed to happen more and more often lately. How was it possible that no matter how coldly that man stared at me, it made me heat up inside like a bloody furnace? And every time he used that word, that damn word starting with ‘I’ that should have been an insult, I felt as if I could fly on fiery wings!
‘So?’ I whispered, teasing the corner of his mouth with little kisses. ‘Are you going to take off that tailcoat, or will I have to burn through it with my fire?’
He groaned beneath me. ‘Damn you! A part of me actual
ly believes you could!’
‘Out of that tailcoat, Mr Ambrose, Sir! Now!’
‘No.’
Growling with frustration, I reared up above him. ‘What the hell is the matter? Why won’t you…’
My voice trailed off. It wasn’t very easy to see anything in the deep shadows of the trees, and it was a task for a clairvoyant with a bloody great telescope to find any expression on the face of Mr Rikkard Ambrose at the best of times, but…
I narrowed my eyes as I knelt there, staring down at him. Then, slowly, very slowly, a smile spread across my face.
‘Do you want to know what I think?’
‘No. Definitely not.’
‘Well, I’m going to tell you anyway.’ My smile widened. ‘I think you’re shy.’
The look he sent back up at me could have introduced a new ice age.
‘Shy?’
The word was a whisper as sweet as snake’s venom.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ I hurriedly assured him, patting his cheek. ‘I think it’s very sweet, in a way. I mean, you told me I am your first. But I guess I didn’t realize what that meant before. It mustn’t be easy for a young, innocent virgin like yourself to trust yourself so completely to someone else for the first time, to put aside all the secret fears about your inadequacies that you’ve harboured for years and to-’
I didn’t get any further than that because I was tossed through the air, rolled around like a rollicking roulade and suddenly found myself pressed against the forest floor with one hundred and seventy pounds of man-muscle pressing into me.
‘Shy?’ an arctic voice hissed at my ear. ‘How shy is this?’
His hands found their way into my chemise.
‘I…oh…I…’
‘Tell me,’ he rasped, his hands playing me like a fiery instrument, ‘what inadequacies of mine were you speaking of exactly?’
‘Um…well…I…’
I was sure there were at least three dozen, but right now I couldn’t seem to remember. The fireworks going off in my head were too distracting.
‘Am I too rich for you? Too powerful? Too strong?’