"We haven't got one."
"It seems we've got his."
Then Kit stopped, and Edmund, following his look, stopped too.
Beyond the elms, drawn up on the verge where the lane bent away toward Hampstead, stood a black travelling chariot. It had four horses in harness and two postilions in dark jackets sitting their mounts with the patience of men paid by the hour. The blinds were down. There was no crest on the door panel, no device of any kind, only glossy black lacquer that held the grey light like still water. The lamps were unlit. Steam rose from the horses' flanks in the cold, so they had been standing a while.
"A magistrate?" Kit said under his breath.
"Magistrates don't keep four horses waiting in the dark." Edmund studied the carriage. "That's a turnout for a long road. Post-horses. Somebody means to go a good distance this morning."
"Stannard, then. Ready to bolt for the coast once he's done for you."
"Perhaps." But Stannard had come in a curricle, which stood by the tavern wall with a groom at the horse's head. Edmund had seen it as they drove in. A man does not bring two conveyances to a duel. He looked at the black chariot a moment longer. He had the cold, absurd feeling that the chariot was looking back at him, and then he made himself turn away.
The ritual went forward as such rituals do, in murmurs and bows. Darnell was a narrow, anxious man with a cold. He met Kit halfway between the parties, and the two of them conferred, examined the ground, and agreed on the place. Darnell paced out twelve steps and Kit paced them again. They agreed on the signal: a handkerchief, dropped. The pistols were inspected and loaded in front of each other's eyes. Ogilvie stood apart, opened his bag on a folded cloth, and laid out his instruments with the care of a man setting a table.
Stannard walked over. Close to, he was handsomer than Edmund remembered and more tired, a face just beginning to go soft at the jaw. His eyes were very pale and very steady. He looked at Edmund, and then at Edmund's right hand, and then at the pistol Kit had put into Edmund's left.
"Garrow."
"Captain Stannard."