“Will, it is I!” Relief surged through me as I heard Bess’s voice and then her footsteps as she slipped from the horse and ran to retrieve the purse. “Well done!” she said, her eyes gleaming with excitement. “Come, we can both ride Merlin. Hurry!”
The boy kicked like a wild thing and it was all I could do to hold on to his legs. Desperate situations require desperate measures: I hit him hard on the thigh with my fist. Still he struggled. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a stone. Reaching out quickly, I picked it up and hit him again, harder, on his bony hip this time, with the sharp edge of the stone. He screamed.
“Be still!” I shouted. He did so, falling silent, apart from his laboured breathing, which came in suffocating sobs. His face was buried in the dirt and I knew very well what that felt like. I ought perhaps to show mercy – now that we had reclaimed the purse, there was no need to take vengeance further.
Once I was sure that he would not try to struggle free, I carefully lifted myself from his legs and rose to my feet, dusting myself down and feeling a degree of pleasure at my success. I rubbed my bruised elbow.
Bess was smiling at me as she put the purse back in her skirts. I smiled back at her. For the first time, perhaps, it seemed that she accepted me as her equal.
Her equal! Was I not above her in station? And she a girl, too!
“We shall leave him here,” she said. “If you would be so good, gentle sir, as to help me into the saddle, then we…” She stopped. She was looking over my shoulder and what she saw turned her white. I twisted round.
Two figures stood there. Their arms hung loosely at their sides, their huge hands open. Two men. Large men.
Grinning.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Bess moved by instinct towards her horse.
“Leave it!” barked one man. “It is ours.”
Bess obeyed, even moving further away than she had been before. At that moment, I knew not why she did so.
I had need of a weapon. The stone still sat in my hand, but that would not suffice. Not against two large men who looked as strong as bulls. And the boy to help them.
Still the men stood there. They were some twenty yards away. I tried to judge whether I would have time to pick up a piece of wood I could spy a few feet from me. But what would Bess do? I was still trying to decide my next action when I heard a noise behind me. I swung round. The boy had climbed to his feet. And he was not alone. Another older boy stood by him now, with a nasty grin and a mouth entirely empty of teeth. His eyes were white and rheumy, his skin badly marked by pox, and he had the appearance of something from the other side of the grave. I shuddered. He held a thick wooden club, a piece of jagged metal sticking from it.
My mouth was dry. I could not swallow. Thoughts spun like a storm in my head. This could not be happening! How had we allowed ourselves to be trapped? How could we possibly escape?
Bess was whispering from the side of her mouth, so that only I could hear. “Be ready. Watch me.”
Oddly, through my near-panic, a voice of calm came to me. It was not Bess’s voice, though hers, too, sounded steady. It was a voice from deep inside me. And it said, “Be brave. And you shall succeed.”
And so, barely breathing, but thinking, thinking fast, controlling my thoughts, I waited, watching her. I would not let Bess down.
I was ready.
“Now!” she shouted and, without thinking what she wanted me to do, I dived for the piece of wood. As I did, I saw the men move towards us. And from the corner of my vision, I saw Bess pick up her skirts and run, fast as a hunted hare, towards the horse. In astonishment, I saw her crouch and then spring through the air, twisting as she did and landing in the side-saddle. I had never seen that done – I could not imagine how any lady would even think of trying, and if I had thought about it I would never have thought it possible. But there Bess was, sitting in the saddle, apparently without pain from her injury, gathering the reins and urging Merlin to a gallop.
Straight at the two huge men.
On some instinct, I twisted round, just in time to swing my piece of wood at the yellow-haired boy as he leapt at me. It hit him round the side of the head with a terrible crunch and he crumpled to his knees on the ground, clutching his ear, blood trickling from his fingers.
The toothless boy hesitated, but only briefly, before a grin split his pockmarked face again and he came towards me, moving jerkily, with the club held in front of him. I was about to raise my stick to hit him too, when Bess shouted, “No!” and I whipped round.
I saw a knife blade rise and begin to fall. I did not have time to raise my arm high enough – all I could do was hurl myself desperately to one side. The knife slashed through my sleeve, but I felt nothing else.
Scrambling to my feet, I saw Bess jerk the reins upwards, making her horse rear up. How could she not fall? But she did not, and I felt a thrill of ugly pleasure as I saw one of the men trip as he tried to dodge the horse’s legs. He was felled with a terrible cry and lay groaning on the ground, blood pouring from a wound in his head.
There were still two assailants left, though they had less spirit for the fight. Even the thick-set man hesitated, his black eyes darting from side to side as he judged his next move. I kept the young one in my sights, swinging the stick in front of me, ready for him, waiting for the moment when he might leap towards me.
“Go now!” I shouted at them. “While you still have a chance!”
“Give us t’ money,” snarled the larger man, his voice ugly with menace.
“Not while there is breath in my body!” I retorted. I do not know where such fury came from. Perhaps the exhilaration of fighting back, the thought that, with two of them disposed of, Bess and I had a chance. A small chance, but nevertheless a chance.
But two things happened at the same moment. One was that my mind flitted for no good reason to thoughts of my horse, Sapphire – where was she? What had Bess done with her? And while I was distracted so, the injured man pushed himself to his hands and knees and then, in one swift movement, his feet. He stood there briefly, shaking his huge head and making a noise which was something between a groan and a bellow. Blood covered one half of his face. He wiped his eyes.
And began to move.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The injured man lurched towards Bess and Merlin. The other man hurled himself towards me with a cry, his knife slashing downwards as I ducked again. Bess’s horse was rearing but now the boy was running towards her too, hitting the horse from behind. Landing on the ground again, Merlin lashed out in fear with a well-aimed back foot and the lad collapsed once more, screaming and clutching his leg.
Surely someone would hear us? Surely someone would come to our aid?
Everything was happening too quickly. I did not know if I had been cut with the knife, but if not then I could not say how not. I lashed out in every direction with my stick, the sounds of blows hitting their mark mixed with the sounds of our grunts and yells. Merlin reared again and whinnied in panic.
A shout from somewhere above us was followed by the liquid contents of a bucket landing on one of the men, plastering his hair to his head and producing a maddened roar.
One of the men went down again – I do not know if I hit him. The thin one soon stopped his grinning when Bess whipped him across the face with her reins. One man only was left, seeming undamaged, still holding his knife. I lashed out frantically, swinging my long stick wildly in front of me, just managing to keep him at bay because my stick was longer than his arm. Every time he lunged, I parried him, as I had often been taught by my fencing master – though I had never fought for my life in any rapier lesson.
Suddenly, he lunged forward again, his eyes wide. Wielding my stick, and trying to dodge to one side, I hit him on the side of the head, but weakly now. My strength was fast fading and there seemed no power in my arms. Black spots rushed across my vision and red rain poured down. I wiped my hand across my eyes – blood, bright, horrible. I had not even felt the blade ag
ainst my skin.
But worse was to come.
My breath escaped in a weak moan. I sank to my knees, all strength leaving my legs. Roaring in delight, my assailant came at me again with his knife. I rolled to the side, sending him tumbling, and caught sight as I did of the thin boy on his feet once more, his trousers torn and blood coming from a gash in his leg. With a furious face, he leapt towards Bess, from the side, where she could not see him.
That was all I needed to urge me to desperate action – summoning my ebbing strength, rolling away from my opponent, I lashed out at the boy’s legs with my stick. He turned, but he did not fall. I leapt to my feet and hurled myself at the boy, hating his snarling pock-marked face.
“No! Behind you!” yelled Bess and, without looking round, I threw myself to one side. The man’s knife came flashing down, passing the place where I had been only a moment before.
The knife slashed across the boy’s eye and a thin red line appeared slanting across that side of his face. He collapsed screaming, his hands covering his eyes.
“Here!” shouted Bess.
I ran towards her, grasped her outstretched hand and leapt up behind her, landing half on and half off the horse’s rump.
It was enough. She did not wait for me to right myself before urging Merlin on. We left that terrible place as fast as our horse could take us, with me hanging off his back. The screams of that boy echoed through the narrow streets, almost drowning the angry shouts of one of the men as he argued with somebody at a window.
Once out of danger, Bess pulled Merlin to a walk and I slid off the back. She dismounted and came to me, concern in her face. I wiped the blood from my eyes again, feeling my legs begin to tremble like butterflies with exhaustion and relief at our escape.
She pulled a cloth from a saddle bag and made a pad which she pressed on my head. I felt no pain.
She removed the pad to examine the cut. “It is not deep,” she said. “Wounds to the scalp always bleed richly.” She pressed it again.
Now my bruises began to make themselves known. I did not know how much I had been hurt, but I knew nothing was broken. My sleeve was torn, but that would mend.
And, of course, I had retrieved her purse, for which she was profuse in her thanks. All my aches and pains seemed as nothing if I had proved myself not entirely useless.
“Where is Sapphire?” I asked.
“A tea seller has her. Do not worry for her. I know whom to trust.”
And I, too, knew enough to trust Bess by now.
At the square, we found a pump and I washed the blood from my face. The cut had stopped bleeding but I did not tempt it to open again by washing the blood from my hair. I made such improvement as I could to my appearance, though I could only guess at the result. Wearily, I walked beside Bess, who rode her horse, without question this time, and we slowly made our way to where she had left mine.
Horses know things, if you are minded to listen to them. I would swear Sapphire knew me when I came to her, and that she knew I needed her now. She nickered as she nuzzled my ear. I wished I had something to give her.
A muffin man was passing, shouting his wares. His cheeks, pink in the cold air, were round as muffins themselves. I bought three from him and gave one to Sapphire before giving another to Bess. Eating that simple muffin, and drinking the hot milky tea that we bought from the kindly-faced tea seller, I felt a wave of pleasure wash through me.
There were persons to trust, I told myself. One had merely to learn who they were. There was good to be found in every level of life. And bad. And sometimes one looked very much like the other.
It was as much as I could do to find the strength to mount my horse. But somehow, and soon, I was riding beside Bess, exhausted, bruised, but strangely happy, as we made our way back home. We talked little, each buried in thought, or in tiredness, or both.
We could not know that we would require more strength before the day was out.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Darkness was falling fast as we rode up to Bess’s home, not far from the foot of the valley. Behind, dark forest cloaked the hillside, sheltering the cottage, and I could hear a stream, unusually loud in the still, frosty air.
We dismounted in silence and led the horses to the stable, where we did what must be done for their comfort. They had served us well. As we walked across the small yard towards the black-windowed cottage, my limbs were stiffening. I wanted nothing more than to fall onto a bed and sleep till morning came.
But it was not to be.
Perhaps we were too tired to notice anything amiss. Perhaps our heads were too full of the events of that day. But, whatever the reason, we noticed nothing at all. Nothing out of place.
Bess had built the fire and lit it expertly with flint and steel. The flames were beginning to catch and their welcome warmth and comfort had started to soften my limbs. I had paused to stare at them for a few moments, but roused myself before I could fall asleep. She had lit two oil lamps from the flames. I had brought water from the pump, which was soon heating in an enormous pot over the fire. We planned to wash in warm water, a pleasant thought after days of discomfort.
She had allowed me to dress her wound again and I was glad to see how well it was healing, with barely any inflammation now. It had bled a little more, but that was only to be expected after her exertion of the day. She made no sound as I bound it tightly once more. As for her fever, it was entirely gone, though her face was still pale and tired-looking. But she brushed aside my concern, wishing me not to know if she was in any discomfort. I wondered at her stoicism.
We had taken our purchases and Bess had put them away on shelves or in cupboards. We talked little as we did this, save for my occasional questions to ask where something should go.
“I shall change now,” she had said when everything was done. “But first, let me bring some clean clothes for you. You look as though somebody has attempted to kill you!” And she had walked towards the narrow staircase to the upper room.
She had smiled, black eyes glimmering, and I returned her smile. We both knew how close we had been to death. I tried not to think about the boy whose face had been so terribly cut. I could not view my part in that with shame – they had tried to kill us. We had wanted only to retrieve what was ours. And I had not wielded the knife. God could not judge me harshly.
She ascended the stairs, carrying a lighted candle, and her skirts disappeared into the flickering half-light. I was just turning away, just bending down stiffly to remove my boots, when suddenly my heart jumped. I had heard a noise.
Two noises, and I cannot say which came first: Bess crying out or the small thud from the upper room.
No light came from up the stairs now.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Leaping to my feet and grabbing an oil lamp, I hurled myself up the stairs, shocked into action once more. What would I find? My thoughts raced, tumbling over each other as I tried to make sense of this new danger.
Taking the stairs three at a time, I reached the top. There stood Bess. The candle smoked on the floor, the holder rolling backwards and forwards as it settled. She was frozen, still as stone, though there was fire in her staring eyes.
Henry Parish. The runaway redcoat. The flour thief. Standing wet-eyed, wide-mouthed, his musket held in front of him, at shoulder height. Finger on the trigger.
His eyes slid between the two of us, the musket moving unsteadily from one to the other. He swallowed, and licked his lips. Red were his eyes in the lamplight, his dirty streaked cheeks telling of tears.
I did not know how much more I could bear, how many more times I must face danger. I was tired, my head ached, my vision was blurring. And then anger ripped through me, surging in my stomach. How dare he? I had given him money! I had told him never to return. How dare he break into Bess’s house again, abuse its hospitality, sully its air with his snivelling? The traitor, the cowardly worm!
“What do you want?” I said, anger making my voice sound bold.
<
br /> Bess spoke. “Do you know this boy?” I could hear venom in her voice and then I remembered. This was a hated redcoat. If she could have attacked him with her bare hands she would have done. Henry would do well to be careful, musket or no musket.
“He was here when I came to fetch Merlin. I bade him go, never to come back.”
“He is a redcoat, Will!” she snapped. “He is a deserter too! Dishonourable on two counts. You ought not to have trusted him. You should have killed him.”
I said nothing. I knew how nearly I had killed him, but it would help no one to say so now. I knew too, that he was not only a deserter and a redcoat but also a thief. Now was not the time for explanations. I placed the lamp on the ground. Our shadows leapt up the wall.
“What do you intend to do with that musket?” Bess snapped at the boy, contemptuously. “Your hands are shaking. You could not shoot a giant at two paces with your hands shaking like that!” She took a step forward.
“No!” breathed Henry, his voice almost inaudible. “I will shoot! I will!” And he turned the musket towards me, preferring no doubt to shoot me instead of Bess. His finger moved almost unnoticeably, tightening slightly on the trigger. The gun, I could see, was cocked, ready to fire.
I would not stand and wait for the shot to come. Had I fought today for nothing? Had I ridden desperately from the militia officer, and seen him die, for nothing? Had I been guided across the marsh by a mysterious rider, and all for no reason?
Instead, I simply spoke, my wits sharpened by fear. “Your flint is worn,” I said. “Your musket will not fire.”
For an instant, Henry looked at the flint on his musket, hesitating, and in that moment I dived towards him and slightly to one side, grabbing his musket with my right hand as he swung it towards me.
He gave up. I should wish to say that I overcame him, but it would not be true. He simply sank to his knees in fear or exhaustion, utterly defeated. I twisted the musket from his hands and threw it to Bess.
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