Airelies, Kent — August 1861

Brenna stood still, stock still, head tilted at the low sounds of a fine summer evening, and listened. The river ran behind her and the plane trees rustled in the light night winds, just as they always did. But something was different; Mars and Bellona, her hunting dogs, stopped with their hackles up stiffly along bony spines as if they had felt it too. Brenna's hand went quietly to her gun before going forward, shaky fingers pushing the flintlock guard up and inserting a steeltubed charge. The trees were thicker now as they entered into the wooded copse a half a mile from Worsley, bordering on the Northern London Road, and she had to thrust the leafy branches aside to push through towards the sounds which she could now identify with more clarity.

Voices. Men's voices. Low and soft and dangerous. A spurt of fear leapt into her heart, making it beat hard, and she stepped back in retreat, signalling her dogs to do the same, crouching in the undergrowth to get a look at what it was the men were doing before she left.

Two men came into her vision, dragging a third barely conscious man between them, his head bloodied, a blindfold tied roughly across his eyes, the fine linen of his shirt and the cut of his trousers strangely out of place against the rough homespun of the others.

"My God, highwaymen," Brenna thought, one hand moving unbidden to her mouth as if to stop the words that might come; the other one tightening on her weapon. Mars growled suddenly from behind her and Brenna held his muzzle, willing him into a calmness she herself was far from feeling. She watched the blindfolded man being tied roughly to the thick bough of an elm tree, then