The Highwayman's Footsteps (16 page)

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.

D
arkness 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.

L
eaping 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.

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.

She levelled it at him and he looked up. “No, Bess,” I said quickly.

Her eyes gleamed in a way I had seen twice before, when she shot and killed the redcoat, and when she told the story of Mad Dog Tim's hanging. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

“The flint is done for,” I reminded her.

“The flint is perfect, as you very well know,” she replied, her words squeezing through tightened lips.

“Bess, you do not know what you are doing. He is no ordinary deserter. He has good reason to hate the redcoats as well. Let us talk. We can decide downstairs.”

Henry knelt there, shoulders heaving in silent sobs. How I wished he would stop his snivelling, that he would stand up and be a man!

“Get up,” I said, pushing him with my foot. “Go down the stairs.”

We followed him down. He looked to me to know where he should go. I pointed to the floor, near the fire but not too close.

“Sit. And listen. Do not speak. And do not move.” He pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them, sniffing frequently. I had never seen such a miserable face. But what did he have to be anything other than miserable about? What choices or chances did he ever have?

I acquainted Bess with all that I knew about him. As I did so, I avoided looking at him. He repelled me. I detested his thinness, his crawling poverty, his drivelling weakness. I hated the way he had crept back here like a mole driven into its hole at the first sign of light.

How I wished, above all, that he would go and that I did not have to think about him.

Once Bess had heard his story, why he was running from the redcoats, how desperate he was to take meagre flour to his mother and sister, even though it would not remedy their poverty, she burned with a different fervour. She forgot how close she had been to shooting Henry Parish dead, and in her desire to wreak vengeance on the redcoats she would do anything, however dangerous, however misguided. I suppose, too, she recognized his poverty and would not stand by while richer men made it worse. No doubt, her father would have felt the same, and burned with equal fervour.

“We will help you!” she said. “We will help you escape. Tonight you must stay here and tomorrow … tomorrow we shall make a plan.”

She thought that by aiding Henry, she would be fighting against the redcoats, I could see that. What they wanted, she wanted to take from them. And so, foolishly, thinking nothing of herself – or of me – she was prepared to risk everything for a boy who should mean nothing to her.

And yet, I knew that she was right. We had to help Henry Parish. It was the honourable thing to do.

Bess, though a girl of low station, was as brave and as honourable as any gentleman I had met. Braver and more honourable than many.

T
ired though I was, at first I could not sleep. My head throbbed and my bones ached in places where they had not before. And I did not know what would happen the next day, how we could help Henry escape. I confess I hoped he would escape far away from here, and never return. His home was many miles away, he told us, to the north-west, by Carlisle. Almost in Scotland. He named the place but I did not know it. I hoped that once there, he would never find his way back here.

I was considering only myself, I admit that.

I did not know for certain why he deserved our help. His troubles were not ours. He could indeed bring danger upon us, great danger. And he had done little enough to show bravery or honour. Running away for the sake of a few pounds of flour? How might that have helped his mother and sister? They would have eaten it within days and then where would they be? Still hungry and their son and brother with a price on his head.

He was foolish. He was foolish, cowardly and weak.

We made him sleep in the small room up the stairs, under the eaves. It was colder up there, without the fire, and probably damp, but safer. Safer for us, that is. Nor did I wish him to be able to slip out during the night and steal one of the horses. Bess slept in her bed in the smaller of the two downstairs rooms, after taking the chill off the mattress by use of a warming pan filled with embers from the fire. I was content with a horse-hair bolster and a pile of blankets on the floor by the hearth.

Before Bess had gone to her bed, we had briefly talked about the next day, while she stitched the tear in my sleeve. My head was heavy with exhaustion and I contributed little. After her recent illness, I do not know where Bess found the strength to talk so late.

She had some idea of using the horses and taking Henry to the nearest staging post, giving him some clothes, disposing of his redcoat's uniform, and sending him on his way home. As far as I was concerned, whether he reached home or not, I would perhaps never discover, and would care little to know. As long as I never saw him again.