The Prodigal Son (18 page)

Alex sighed. “First and foremost he’s a risk; to you, to me.”

He strode off down the hill and left her to follow as best as she could.

Chapter 14

Captain Leslie came by late in August to make his farewells, and from the eager light in his grey eyes Alex could see he had made up his mind.

“Yes,” Thomas Leslie said. “I’ve resigned my commission and am presently selling off my worldly goods, one by one. We will set out in March of the coming year.” He rolled his eyes. “So much to purchase and pack; utensils, tools, a plough for my brother, clothes and bolts of fabric to make new ones…” He smiled at the fat baby in Matthew’s arms and tweaked its cheek. “You are fortunate in your children, all so healthy and strong.”

“Aye.” Matthew bounced Daniel on his knee. “I have a good, fertile wife.”

Alex snorted, making him cast her a look. “It makes me sound like a mare – or a cow,” she said, suppressing a grin at his worried expression.

“You know I don’t mean it like that.”

Alex just smiled, catching an admiring look from Thomas Leslie. She liked Thomas, would miss him once he was gone, even if now and then he gawked a bit too openly at her – more out of respectful admiration than lust.

“What does your wife think about all this?” Alex asked, putting away her sewing. “It must be difficult for her to uproot herself and your family.”

Thomas cleared his throat and drank some of his beer. “Think? Well, I assume she trusts that I’ve made the right decision.” He smoothed back his hair and fussed with the narrow collar that adorned his grey coat. A monochrome man, was Thomas Leslie, rarely sporting anything but grey. Maybe he was colour-blind.

“Of course,” Alex said, “but you must have discussed it with her first, right?”

Leslie regarded her cautiously. “Not really, Mary leaves all such matters to me.” As she should, his tone implied.

“Your wife and I must be very different,” Alex commented, making Matthew choke on his drink. “If my husband were to take a decision of that magnitude over my head, I would probably be tempted to do him grave harm. Castration comes to mind.” She smiled sweetly in the direction of Matthew.

“Well, my dear, I assure you my wife and you are most dissimilar.”

“Fortunately. For you I mean,” Alex replied.

“So is it Maryland then?” Matthew asked. Thomas nodded, explaining how his brother had been made welcome, despite the turbulent relationships between Puritans and Catholics in the colony.

“Our Puritan brethren were somewhat heavy-handed some years back,” Thomas said, “burning churches throughout the colony. But now some semblance of peace exists. They have a strange decree, an Act of Toleration, a law that argues it is up to each man to follow his conscience in matters of God, and that churches of different convictions must learn to live side by side.”

“How modern,” Alex murmured, earning herself a warning glance from Matthew.

“Yes.” Thomas gave her an odd look. “But now and then it all explodes into savagery.”

“How can it matter so much?” Alex blurted. “How can men go to war, pillage, burn and destroy in the name of their God? Look at what’s happening here; good, God fearing men hounded from their farms, branded as dangerous outlaws for the simple act of holding to their beliefs. And to make it all even more depressing, it’s ultimately the same faith – Jesus Christ and all that stuff.” Absolute silence greeted her outburst. Over Thomas’ head Matthew met her eyes, doing an exaggerated eye roll.

“Well…” Thomas Leslie said, slapping himself hard on the thighs. He rubbed his legs and then looked at Alex. “You know, my dear, there are days when I think you’re right. The good Lord must tear his hair as he sees us – good Christians all of us, in our own way – destroy each other. But I fear those are dangerous thoughts to voice out loud, and for your sake as well as that of your husband you must learn to be circumspect.” He nodded as if in agreement with himself. “Tolerance; a virtue lacking in far too many men in this day and age…” He sighed and stood up. “I must go. I have a long ride south, and I hope to be in London before the seventh day of September. My chief asset is a draper’s shop in the City, brought to me by my marriage. It is my hope the sale of that business alone will cover the full cost of transportation for my family – and some land.” Alex choked back an exclamation, but if Thomas noticed he didn’t say, bowing in her direction before leaving the room.

Matthew followed Thomas out into the yard.

“I wish you the best in your future endeavours, and may you and your family make it safely over to the other side.”

“And you? Is it not something you’ve considered?”

“I’ve already been there. And I wasn’t left with any fond memories of the place.”

“No,” Thomas Leslie said, sitting up on his horse. “I can imagine you would have nightmares rather.”

“At times.”

“Be careful, my friend,” Thomas said looking down at him. “I wouldn’t want to hear you’ve ended up dead or deported.”

“I won’t,” Matthew said. “I have family and home to keep safe.” He stretched up his hand and clasped Thomas’ hand hard.

“God be with you, brother.”

“And with you,” Thomas Leslie replied before wheeling his horse away.

“Poor man,” Alex sighed once Matthew had re-joined her. “I hope he has more assets than that draper’s shop.”

Matthew looked at her in bewilderment.

“It will burn,” she said, “it’s one of the things I definitely remember from my history lessons. In early September 1666, the whole city of London will burst into flames, leaving ash and ruin in its wake.”

“Ah, no! Then how will he live? No officer’s commission, no new life.”

“He has a small farm,” Alex said, “and he has spoken of a few other assets.”

Matthew sighed. “Enough to pay the passage, and perhaps some supplies. Not enough to set him up once he reaches the colony.”

“Let’s hope he has a closer relationship with his brother than you do with yours,” Alex said. “Not that that is saying much.”

It only took a couple of days after Thomas Leslie rode away for Alex and Matthew to understand that he had been a protective influence over Hillview. From weekly, or at times only bi-weekly inspections, the soldiers now came back far more frequently, appearing sometimes from the lane, but just as often from the moor or through the water meadows. And each time they searched every building, leaving no stone unturned in their permanent hunt for outlawed ministers, foremost among them Sandy Peden.

“It’s because he’s a good speaker,” Matthew explained to Alex one evening as they walked hand in hand down to the eddy pool for a late bath. “His sermons are whispered and repeated, and people are heartened by them.” He waded out naked into the water and stood waiting for her as she shed her shift. Matthew chuckled. “It must be frustrating for the soldiers; repeatedly they’ve had him surrounded and then he simply vanishes. I suspect they think it’s magic, while in reality it’s that Sandy knows how to melt into the ground, being born and bred on that moss. He knows every hollow, every gorse stand. It makes him difficult to trap.” He held out his hand to her and drew her to him, walking backwards until they were both well above their waists in water. Above them hung a yellow, heavy moon.

“Harvest moon, and this year the harvest is good, right?” Alex said.

“Aye. So far,” Matthew said, stretching for the pot of soft soap. They washed in silence, helping each other with the hair before returning to the shore. Once dry, Matthew stretched out on the ground and Alex kneeled beside him.

“Will they ever catch him, do you think?” Alex asked, her hands busy working their way down Matthew’s tense back. He groaned when she dug her fingers into the tendons that ran from shoulders and up through his neck.

“Aye… there… mmm, no, more to the right.”

“Will they?”

“Aye they will,” Matthew sighed. “Sooner or later they will. God help him then.”

It used to be Alex liked Sundays. But that was before Matthew took to gallivanting about the countryside, aiming for one conventicle or the other while she remained at home, her heart in her throat for the whole day. She piled her plate with a second helping of pancakes – well, everyone was entitled to something. He needed God, and she needed comfort food – and dribbled a sizeable amount of honey over the stack. Three mouthfuls in, and Alex sighed, cocked her head in the direction of the yard and got to her feet.

“Officer,” Alex was curt, her eyes on the unusually large group of soldiers in her yard.

“Is your husband at home?” Captain Howard inquired.

“I’m not sure, it depends what you mean by home. He’s not in the house.”

“Hmm,” the officer nodded at one of his men, who rode forward. “We found this individual up by the road. Friend of yours?”

Alex’ knees folded when a tall, haggard man was deposited on the ground at her feet.

“Minister Crombie!” She bent down to help him stand. “What has happened to you?”

“Alexandra Graham,” Minister Crombie half croaked, half coughed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you again, however constrained the circumstances.” He patted her hand, regaining an element of composure as he straightened up to his full, considerable height.

“So you do know him,” the captain stated.

“No, I always greet unknown men that way,” Alex snapped, irritated by the smirk on the officer’s face. “He wed us, eight years ago, so of course I know him.”

“And since then, have you seen him?”

“Minister Crombie left the parish in late 1660, bound for Edinburgh.” Minister Crombie nodded in silent agreement. “Since then I haven’t seen him except for a brief visit in 1663, and I must say it worries me to see him in such state of ill health.” As if on cue the minister coughed, a heavy sound that resulted in him hawking and spitting a huge globule of phlegm.

“Consumption,” the captain diagnosed.

“Aye,” the minister said. A slight gleam flashed through his sunken eyes. “If I’m fortunate it will mean I die here, before I am deported.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” the officer replied laconically. “It takes a long time to cough your lungs to pieces.”

Alex sent a darting glance around the yard. She’d sent Mark off the moment she saw the soldiers, and hoped he’d managed to find and warn his father before he set off in the direction of this day’s hillside sermon, because something told her he would be walking straight into a trap.

The last few weeks had seen a flurry of arrests, some ending only in a beating, most resulting in fines and two in imprisonment. Behind her Daniel decided it was time for second breakfast and began to wail, a loud, insistent noise that had Alex crossing her arms to hide the fact that her breasts had begun to leak.

“By all means, take care of the child,” Captain Howard said, dismounting to retrieve his prisoner. “We’ll wait for your husband.”

It was a long wait. Over the coming hours Alex grew increasingly nervous, and it didn’t help to have the captain hovering around her like an enervating fly, his dark eyes registering her every emotion. With a superhuman effort Alex succeeded in looking mostly bland, allowing this to change into mild irritation as the day wore on, with muttered comments as to the inconsiderate nature of men in general and her husband in particular. All the time her heart was hammering inside her chest, her guts liquefying at the thought that Mark had been too late. Well; he obviously had, and Alex was torn with the double worries for her husband and her son.

“Where is he?” Captain Howard demanded.

“I don’t know, he usually takes Mark for long walks on Sundays. Maybe they’re fishing or hunting.”

“Hmph!” Captain Howard expressed, before striding outside to talk to the messenger that came galloping down the lane.

“Where is he?” the minister asked in a low voice.

“I have no idea, he was supposed to go to the meeting, and…” She bit down on her lip, thinking that she couldn’t start to cry because if she did she wouldn’t be able to stop.

“He’ll be fine,” Minister Crombie said, patting her hand.

“You think?” Any further conversation was interrupted by the captain, who entered the kitchen with a satisfied expression on his face.

“Quite a few arrests today, I hear.”

“Really?” Alex asked, going for unconcerned. But her voice betrayed her, sounding strangely cracked. For an instant she saw something akin to compassion in the officer’s eyes, and she averted her face, mumbling something about having to feed the baby.

A trap. Sweetest Lord, the ground sprouted soldiers, and all around him people screamed, running this way and that like befuddled hens. A company of mounted dragoons came charging over a drier patch of ground, swords glinted in the sun, and the screaming that surrounded him intensified. Matthew grabbed hold of Sandy, boosted him over a boulder and vaulted over, landing with a curse in a thicket of brambles.

“We have to go,” he said, struggling to adjust the ridiculous fair hairpiece atop his head.

“Aye, I gather that, but which way, do you think?” Sandy sounded controlled, but his hands were shaking and his mouth kept on twitching as if he were a cornered rabbit – adequate, all in all, Matthew mused wryly.

Matthew slid in under the brambles to better study the scene in front of him. The soldiers had formed a rough square and were closing in on the remnants of the meeting, swords raised. To the north, the line was straggly, and fleeing brethren and sisters rushed by the angry, shouting soldiers, making for the wetlands beyond. They could stay here, hoping that they wouldn’t be found, but when he saw the dogs Matthew decided that was not a good idea.

“This way,” Matthew said, and with Sandy’s hand in a firm grip he broke cover.

“It’s him! Peden!” There was a loud whistle from somewhere behind them, and the sound of booted feet, many feet, charging after them.

“Run!” Matthew extended his stride, dragging Sandy along. To his right, the soldiers were busy herding together a group of men. The soldiers to his left were too far away to be of any concern, and Matthew set his sights on a threesome of soldiers standing somewhat to the side. He brandished his sword, roared, and Sandy roared with him. The soldiers fell back, one of them tugged at his sword, another stumbled to his knees, and they were past, running deeper and deeper into the moor.