Like Chaff in the Wind (22 page)

“How could you do this to me?” she said, trying to disengage her hand from his. “What in the world possessed you go there in the middle of the night?”

“I had to, I had to somehow make him pay. But I wasn’t planning on killing him.”

Alex gave an incredulous snort. “No, just some GBH, right?” At his puzzled expression she sighed. “Grave bodily harm; GBH.”

“Aye, that fits.”

“Sometimes you’re incredibly stupid. What do you think Fairfax would have done had you assaulted him? Never told anyone? He’d have had you dragged from our bed in revenge, either by the constables or by Jones and his likes, and they would have left you more dead than alive.” She saw that he had never considered that, and exhaled loudly through her nose. “Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, remember?”

They walked without speaking, stopping now and then to rest by the verge. Alex sat back against a slender sapling, having first ensured there were no snakes in the vicinity.

“If I hadn’t woken up, it would have been you, not James, on the constable’s horse. And no matter how innocent, they would have tried you and found you guilty.” He nodded his grudging agreement. “And now James will die instead.”

“Aye,” Matthew groaned, “he has condemned himself for me.”

Chapter 29

“Somehow we have to find a way to prove that Jones did it.” Alex tagged after Matthew on their way to the temporary jail. In her basket she carried food, stone bottles of beer, candles and a few sheets of paper, as well as a clean shirt and the worn Bible Matthew had fetched from James’ little bundle.

Matthew didn’t reply; this had been the constant theme in everything she’d said since they got back, and he had to quell an urge to turn on her and yell that there was no proof. In fact, it might not be Jones at all, even if both Alex and he were convinced it was. He was battling huge coils of guilt that twisted in a writhing heap inside of him. If only he hadn’t gone, or if at least James and Alex hadn’t come. But if they hadn’t, it would be him sitting under lock and key, watching as the gibbet was constructed outside his window. That was the worst of it; the sense of acute relief at having avoided death by the noose. He had no illusions whatsoever about James’ fate – the court would condemn him to hang.

“I want to see him as well,” Alex said, but the guard shook his head.

“He has requested that only Mr Graham be allowed in.”

“Why would he do that?” she grumbled to Matthew, handing over her basket.

“He’s my friend, and it’s my life he’s saving.”

Matthew followed the guard to the makeshift cell. Once he was inside, the door swung shut, leaving him blinking at the sudden disappearance of light.

“James?”

“Over here,” came the reply, and Matthew dropped to sit beside him in the straw.

“How are you?”

James shrugged; he hadn’t been mistreated, and the guards had brought him water and bread. The bedding was as comfortable as any he had had lately, and he’d even been given a blanket.

“That’s good then,” Matthew said.

“Aye, that’s good.” James explored the basked and smiled with evident pleasure at the candles and the paper. “Will you carry my letters back with you? I wish to write to my wife and my son.”

Matthew nodded and cleared his throat. “Why are you doing this? Why are you throwing your life away?”

“Throwing my life away? Don’t you want to live?” James leaned forward. “Don’t you?”

“Aye,” Matthew admitted weakly. “I do.”

“Then I’m not throwing it away, am I? I’m giving it that you may live.”

Matthew moaned, crushed by shame, and hid his face in his hands. James patted him on the head.

“I’m an old man and I’m dying anyway. You know that, and so do I. It’s no great matter.”

“But you’ll hang,” Matthew said, “you’ll die branded a murderer.”

James uncorked the beer bottle and drank before handing it to Matthew.

“You and I both know I’m not a murderer, and so does the good Lord. And as for the hanging…” He swallowed, he swallowed again, and even in the weak light Matthew could see how his face paled, how a hand came up to rub at the scraggly neck. Guilt burnt like red-hot coals down Matthew’s gullet, landing to hiss recriminations in his gut.

James shook himself, gave Matthew a small smile. “Every day I die, lad. Look at me, you can see me wasting away.” James pinched at his thin arms. “He was right about that, yon Jones; I couldn’t have run a dirk through that fat man, not unless he held himself very still and had the patience of an angel.” He drank some more and pushed the cork back into the bottle. “It’s right painful. Do you know the story of the Spartan boy, the lad who hid a fox cub under his cloak?”

Matthew nodded that he did.

“Well, I have a fox cub eating at me all the time, eating through my innards in slow, agonising bites. The Spartan laddie he didn’t cry out, he just fell down dead when the fox bit into his heart. I fear that I won’t be that brave, that instead I’ll cry and scream like a lassie.” James clapped a surprisingly strong hand on Matthew’s shoulder. “‘Tis better to die quickly. I’m dying already, lad, I’ve just chosen the way to do it.”

Matthew came out of the jail feeling relieved, the guilt shrinking to more manageable proportions. James had explained several times that the constables would never have looked further than the man already there, present at the scene.

“Except that I wasn’t, not when he died,” Matthew had said.

“Nay, the only one there at the time was Jones,” James had replied.

Matthew seethed inside, his hands clenching into fists.

“No, Matthew, you must not. You must promise me that you won’t.”

Matthew attempted to twist away from those brown eyes, his mind swimming with the urge to revenge himself on Jones for everything.

“You mustn’t,” James had repeated urgently. “You’ll never win against him here. He’s the establishment, you’re but a disgruntled former slave.”

Matthew had promised, seeing James sink together with relief.

Once outside, he stood in the uncomfortable heat and regarded his wife, sitting on the bench where he had left her. Her wide-brimmed hat hid most of her face from view, one rebellious strand of hair having escaped to shimmer in the sunlight.

“You look like a demure maiden,” Matthew said, sitting down beside her.

Alex made an irritated noise and returned her work to her pouch. “Appearances can deceive.”

Halfway home she hurried over to stand in the shade of some trees, complaining loudly about this infernal heat.

“This is nothing, you wait until August, then you can talk about heat.” He stood relaxed beside her, studying the few people who had dared the humid midday heat of this Sunday late in June. “The guards were talking about you.”

“Me? Why?”

“On account of what you did earlier today.”

“Earlier? Oh, you mean when I sent the constable flying.” She hitched her shoulders. “I didn’t hurt him, you know I can do far worse.”

“It isn’t seemly.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “See if I care.”

“Alex,” Matthew sighed, “they could have put you in the pillory.” He nodded at the look on her face. “Aye, you don’t want to experience that, do you?”

“What was I supposed to do? Have them drag you away?”

“I don’t need you to fight for me!” He softened his tone at her hurt look. “You’re my wife; it is I that should do the defending.”

“This is a tough world,” she said, “and I must be able to defend myself and mine.” He agreed but extracted a promise that she would do no more fighting until the child was born, before asking her how she retained her skills.

She shrugged. “I practice.” Twice a week at minimum, she told him.

*

After a couple of minutes in the shade, they resumed their walk, Matthew with his hands clasped behind his back and a severe look on his face. He looked haggard – no wonder, given that he hadn’t slept all night, and on top of that he was probably wallowing in a quagmire of recriminations. Alex’s eyes drifted to his neck, her hand strayed to her throat.

“Is he scared?”

“Nay. He seemed…at peace.” He gave her a brief summary of the conversation he’d had with James.

“Not my choice of euthanasia,” Alex said, vividly imagining the burning sensation as the rope closed around the tender skin of her neck.

“The drop will kill him, and we’ll give him the means to get royally drunk beforehand.”

She just nodded, sick to her stomach. Poor James to die in front of so many people and not one to hold his hand.

A shout behind them startled them, and they turned to see the stout figure of the harbourmaster waving something at them.

“A letter,” he smiled, handing it over. “And I have berths for you.”

Alex whooped.

“The ship sails in three days,” the harbourmaster added, looking from one to the other expectantly. The joy dissipated as fast as it had come, leaving in its wake an echoing hollowness.

“Three days? Is there not a possibility for it to wait a week?” Matthew sounded pleading.

The harbourmaster shook his head. “No, it sails on time. It’s already taking aboard cargo.”

Matthew took Alex’s hands in his. “I can’t let him die alone.”

“I know,” Alex replied, working hard to contain the roaring, angry voice inside of her. His fault – all of it his fault!

“I appreciate your kindness,” Matthew said to the harbourmaster. “But we can’t leave on such short notice. We have a dying friend.”

The harbourmaster nodded. “I heard: not that Fairfax is a great loss to mankind, if I may say so.” He gave Alex an encouraging smile. “There’ll be more ships, ma’am.” With that he was off, no doubt to find new buyers for the precious berths.

Alex leaned her head against Matthew’s chest and wept. Home! Had he not gone out to Suffolk Rose, obliging her and James to come after, they’d be on their way home. He rested his cheek against her head.

“I’m so sorry, lass, I’m so very, very sorry.”

Finally she wiped her eyes. “At least we have a letter to read, but let’s read it back in our room. Let’s save it for later tonight, okay?”

What she really wanted to do was to yank the letter out of his hands and tear it open to read it now, immediately. Her eyes hung on the thick paper square as he nodded and tucked it inside his shirt. Matthew put the back of his hand against her face.

“You can go with this ship,” he said, sounding as if he’d choked on something unpalatable. “I can buy you passage and come after on a later boat.”

Leave him? She met his eyes and shook her head. “No way; I’m not leaving you. With your luck, you’d probably find yourself on a boat bound for Greenland or something.”

“Sounds like a wonderful place,” he said, with a smile in his voice.

“It isn’t, it’s a misnomer, or an indication of the Vikings having a very peculiar sense of humour. It’s covered with ice. And polar bears.”

In an effort to distract them both, she launched into a detailed description of Eskimos and igloos, and how in the future men would explore the barren wastes of snow. Sometimes she missed the diversity of her previous life, she told him, the availability of information about so many different things.

“Mmm,” Matthew said. “But why would anyone living here need to know about yon Eskimos?”

She looked away and sighed; in this day and age it was always about the here and now, a slow plodding pace that sometimes drove her crazy.

“Do you think of it often?” Matthew sounded belligerent, surprising Alex into turning towards him.

“Think about what?”

“About your other life,” Matthew clarified, his eyes scanning her face.

“Not really, every now and then yes, but not so much about my life as such, as about my people.”

“We are your people,” he corrected harshly. “Mark and I, Joan and Simon, even Mrs Gordon.”

“Soon to be Mrs Parson,” Alex smiled, eliciting a responding glimmer in his eye. She opened her fingers to twist them into his. “They are my people too; Magnus, Isaac and John. They will always be my people.”

He grunted, clearly dissatisfied by this reply. They walked in silence for some time, swinging their braided hands between them like infatuated adolescents.

“So you never wish yourself back, then?”

“No, never. They are my people, but you, Matthew Graham, you are my life.” She kissed his cheek and tore away to run the last few yards home.

*

Mrs Adams had long ago resigned herself to her guest’s obsession with cleanliness, and had agreed that she might use the laundry shed for her ablutions, thereby eliminating the need to carry pail after pail of water up the stairs. So when Alex rushed by her and asked if she could use the shed, she just nodded, bustling to find towels and soap.

“A taper?” she asked, nodding in the direction of the hearth.

Alex shook her head. “In this heat?”

Mrs Adams gave her a condescending smile. “This isn’t hot,” she said, echoing Matthew’s earlier comment. “Come August, well then you can talk about heat.”

“I can’t wait,” Alex mumbled.

“God willing you will be on your way home by then,” Mrs Adams chirped. She was a remarkably cheerful person, Alex reflected, at times borderline enervating.

“I sincerely hope so.”

“The harbourmaster said how he’d arranged berths for you, hasn’t he found you then? He—” Alex slammed the kitchen door hard behind her.

Alex propped the door open to let in some light into the dim interior of the laundry shed, and sat down on one of the work benches, kicking at the washboard propped against the trough. Home… and Mark… She tried to picture him in her mind. He would have outgrown all her smocks by now, a small boy, no longer a baby. Someone else was making his clothes, and at this rate it would be Joan, not her, that would be the first to dress him in shirt and breeches. The thought gnawed like a rabid rat at her heart. She was going to return to face a little stranger, a boy whose likes and dislikes she didn’t know.

She sighed; of course they owed it to James to be there for him when he died for Matthew. God, he was an idiot at times! If only…But no; how was she to blame him, when all he had set out to do was to avenge the harm done to them both? Stupid, stupid man! She bit off a piece of nail and chewed it meditatively. There would be other boats, she decided as she undid her shoes and took off her stockings. For a long time she stared down at her toes, not really seeing them when her eyes misted over with tears. She scrubbed at her face, took several steadying breaths, and turned her attention to the business of washing instead.

*

He had closed the wicker shutters and lit candles, throwing the room into a dusky half-light. Alex let out a surprised ‘oh’ when he moved towards her.

“Undress,” he said, taking in the way her wet hair hung in heavy ropes down her back. He loved this; to stand and watch as his Alex shed one piece of clothing after the other, until she was naked and white before him. Her breasts were already rounding with pregnancy, and above her dark pubic triangle there was an obvious little bulge. He rested his hand against it, his thumb caressing her skin.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, and her skin flushed into pink. He combed his fingers through her wet hair, unravelling one tangle after the other, and she leaned against him, pressing her naked breasts against his shirtfront. His cock was thudding by now, demanding to be let out to swive his wife, but Matthew was in no hurry, he had all day, and he concentrated instead on the intricate whorls of her ear, the line of her neck as it flowed down towards her collar bones, the way she fitted perfectly into him. Minutely he inspected her nipples, the birthmark on her right hip, the dimples just above her buttocks, and she stood breathing heavily under his touch.