Jackdaw (9 page)

Chapter Nine

Two days later they were in Cornwall.

They had been quiet most of the way, or at least Ben had. At first he’d been silent and numb, unable to think, his brain hopelessly fogged by confusion and uncertainty and the accumulated miseries of the last few days and months. Jonah hadn’t tried to talk about them, or the future, or anything serious. He had passed Ben food that he ate like an automaton, and chattered in his inconsequential way, about rugby and old gossip, the weather and fellow passengers, a meaningless accompaniment that Ben listened to or ignored as his thoughts wandered. He had slept for what seemed like most of the journey, on railway carriage seats or hard benches, unconcerned by his safety because, he realised afterwards, Jonah was watching over him.

Then, that morning, waiting at a station, Jonah handed him an earthenware mug of tea, and Ben woke up.

“Uh. Thank you.” He wrapped his hands around the mug, inhaling the steam that rose through the bright, chilly morning air.

“Morning.” Jonah gave him a quick, lurking smile. “Welcome back.”

“I…” Ben blinked. “Sorry. I feel like I’ve been asleep for days.”

“You have. But not snoring. It’s one of your most attractive qualities, you know, you never snore. Rare and precious, and”—his voice dropped, though they were alone on the platform—“sadly underrated in a bed partner. Not that I’m implying it’s your best quality in that department, just that I appreciate it greatly.”

“Idiot.” Ben hid behind the cup, not sure of his own reaction. Jonah hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, and the beginnings of a black beard gave him an air that Ben could only call piratical. He would look rather good with a well-trimmed beard, Ben thought, and then he was imagining the feel of that wiry hair against his own skin, the whisper of roughness it would bring to a kiss.

He had been lost in turmoil for so long, until that strange period of mindlessness and sleep. Now he felt awake, and alert, and with it, painfully aware of Jonah. His laughing eyes, and his mouth made for kissing, and the life that ran through him, always so bright and vivid, and that lithe strength that could knock Ben on his back…

He took a scalding gulp of tea. “Where are we?”

It turned out the trains had taken them to Exeter, and from there to Liskeard, where they were waiting for a train to somewhere called Looe.

“I said we’d go as far as we could, and this is about it,” Jonah said. “I think after this we walk, or possibly ride a cow.”

A tiny engine pulled two carriages along the coastal route to Looe, over steep inclines and through thick woods. From Looe a carter accepted a penny to take them further on, up the next cliffs, past Polperro, jolting along deep-sided narrow twisting lanes. They hopped out of the cart at a crossroads, where the carter was to go inland, and the little sea road ran down to a tiny fishing village. It was visible some way ahead, cottages spilling along the steep side of a deep cleft in the coastline.

“Just Pellore down ’ere,” the carter warned them. His speech was so thick, it was hard to make out the words. “Not much doin’ yerr.”

“It sounds perfect,” Jonah assured him.

They walked along the road in silence. The air was salty, bright with the scents of thyme and gorse.

“What are we going to do in a fishing village?” Ben asked at last.

Jonah shrugged. “Fish?”

“Do you know how?”

“No. Do you think it’s difficult?”

“Extremely, I’d have thought.” Ben had never been to Cornwall before, never seen the sea, in fact. He’d been watching the shifting blue sparkle all day, whenever he could, fascinated and a little unnerved. He hadn’t quite understood how large it was. “I imagine people have to work hard round here.”

“I can work hard,” Jonah said, answering the unspoken question. “At least, I expect I can. It’s never come up.”

The long journey had sadly depleted their stolen funds, so finding some kind of work would soon become necessary. They were both travel-stained, luggageless, with nothing more than a pocketful of coins and the clothes they stood up in. But the sea was glittering in Ben’s vision, the air was as clear and as intoxicating as gin, and Jonah was with him, shoulder to shoulder, stride by stride. In this moment, they were free.

The sun was already low over the sea, spreading a long golden pathway over the waves.

“We should think about a place to sleep at some point,” Jonah remarked. “There’s an inn there.”

It was a large building, larger than one might have expected for such a remote place, perched at the top of the cliff where the road began its meander down to Pellore. Its whitewash was stained with sand and salt, and the grey slate roof had a disorder to it. A faded sign showed it to be the Green Man.

“Let’s try the village first,” Ben suggested. “See where we are and if we want to stay here.”

It wasn’t much. Pellore was a small agglomeration of cottages, huddled against the sea winds, running down a steep, narrow valley to a long stone quay that jutted into the sea, out past black bunched rocks. Red-sailed boats were moored along the quay, and blue-jerseyed men in heavy boots moved with bent backs among piles of wet and stinking netting. The stone underfoot glimmered with damp and fish scales. A crab lay, belly up, legs flopped wide. Jonah took a step forward to inspect it, and hopped back, startled, as a mad-eyed seagull swept down with a flurry of wings to claim the treasure.

There was no way on earth that Jonah belonged here. What had they been thinking?

And there was no work, either. It was a fishing village, that was all, supporting itself, and nobody had any need for two rootless, shabby, ignorant Londoners. They walked around for a while, garnering too much attention, and as dusk fell, they set back up the road.

“This won’t work,” Ben said.

“Here won’t,” Jonah agreed. “Well, we’ve gone too far, that’s all. We need a town. Let’s stay here tonight and pick somewhere to head for tomorrow.” He glanced over. “It’ll be fine, Ben. The justiciary won’t be able to alert every police force in every town in England. They won’t even want to, I bet, they’ll just want us—me—to go away.”

Ben wasn’t convinced of that. “What if Saint’s dead?”

“I’m sure she’s not. But if she is, it’s too late for us to do anything about it. Come on. I want a drink, and a wash, and an actual bed.”

“Can we afford that?” Ben said. “That is, we can’t afford that.”

“Yes, we can.” Jonah spoke firmly. “This is a good thing to spend money on.”

“Not if we don’t have any.”

“Don’t worry about money, Ben. We’ll manage.”

“I told you,” Ben said. “I won’t live by stealing. No more theft.”

“Yes, you said—”

Ben grabbed his arm, pulling him round. “Said it and meant it. I won’t have it. If we’re travelling together, or—or whatever we’re doing, you can’t steal. I want your word that you won’t.” What was that worth? “Your word to me.”

Jonah exhaled hard. “I don’t see why—well, obviously, I do see, but God, Ben, is this the time for moral scruples?”

It was exactly the time, when the broad and easy path beckoned so temptingly. “Yes. We’ll find something else.”

“
Like you did in Reading? Surely if we need—”

“It’s not about need. Everybody needs. You can’t break the law because you
need
.”

“We did, for months.”

“That—”
That’s different
, Ben wanted to say, but it wasn’t. “All right, yes, but that harmed nobody else. The point is, I won’t live by stealing and I don’t want you to be a thief.”

“Oh.” Jonah looked startled. “Oh. I didn’t think of it like that. Uh…” He gave Ben a glance that was almost shy. “If that matters to you…”

“Yes.”

Jonah cocked his head. “All right. No more stealing.”

“I mean it, Jonah. I want your word.”

Jonah gave him a cheerful grin. “You have it. I give you my word.” That didn’t sound remotely like a serious decision and Ben was about to protest when Jonah waved a hand. “Anyway, you’re doubtless right. We’ll find something else easily enough.”

“Will we?”

“Pfft. I’ve done plenty of this—”

“Running from the law?”

“Having nothing in my pockets and nowhere to go. The trick is not to weigh yourself down. Live through today the best you can and don’t worry about tomorrow.”

“Keep running, or you’ll fall?”

“Exactly.” Jonah gave a satisfied nod. Ben stopped and stared at his back as he trotted up the hill, wondering how to say,
You do realise that’s how you dragged us both into this awful bloody mess in the first place?

The Green Man was in shadow when they made it back up the steep hill. Lights flickered through the small-paned windows. Ben pushed open the thick, black-painted door, and they went in.

It was a very old inn. The floor was rough and uneven stone. A fire smoked badly in the huge hearth, not drawing properly, suggesting why the heavy beams and rough walls were so smoke blackened. A rather grim-looking landlady, her angular face lined with tiredness, turned as they approached the bar, and took in their unkempt appearances with a look of surprise that quickly changed to distrust. They were dusty, crumpled, and neither had shaved in days. Jonah’s dark chin was on the way to respectable growth; Ben looked like the vagrant he was.

Jonah beamed at her, a wide, innocent smile that made her lips curve in instinctive response, before the stern expression returned. “Can I help you?”

“We’re desperately dry,” Jonah assured her, smile broadening. “Two pints of ale, please?” He pulled out coins as he spoke, and the woman relaxed slightly and went to serve them. Jonah chatted to her as she drew the beer, rattling on about trivialities with his usual fluency, and she agreed that yes, she could do them a plate of something.

“We don’t cook much,” she said. “Not much call for it.”

“Not a lot of passing trade?” Ben asked, after a long and welcome pull at his beer.

She gave a short laugh. “Here? No.”

Ben wanted to ask how they kept going and decided it would be tactless. A girl, about seventeen, with the same strong cheekbones as the landlady but softened by youth, came in with a pile of logs that seemed too heavy for her.

“It’s the upkeep,” the landlady said with a sigh. “This is a big place. It used to be a coaching inn, but the railways.” She spoke as if that were all the explanation needed.

“Do you take travellers still?” Jonah asked. “We’re exhausted. Oh, and I don’t know if we might need to leave early, so could I pay you now?”

The ready cash was obviously a reassurance, to the landlady if not to Ben, but she grimaced, looking from one to the other. “We’ve only the one room fit for use, and that’s a big bed. It does very well for two if you don’t mind doubling up. It’s old-fashioned ways, I know, but it keeps you warm.”

“That will do very well,” Jonah assured her. “Honestly, that will be marvellous. Now, don’t fuss, Ben, I’m sure we’ll be quite comfortable.”

Ben opened his mouth at that baseless accusation and shut it as he realised what Jonah was doing. The idea of sharing a bed with Jonah was—many things, too much to consider now. But it was the landlady’s suggestion, in the common way of these old inns, and nobody could possibly question it.

Not that anything would happen. Absolutely not.

“Bethany, a warming pan for the bedroom,” the landlady ordered her daughter, and turned back to Jonah’s chatter.

Ben couldn’t listen. He wasn’t sure why Jonah seemed to be so interested in her. Maybe it was simply that he was interested in everything, that jackdaw mind of his as quick to seize on anything as to drop it. That wasn’t Ben’s concern.

He had accompanied Jonah in the dreamlike haze of utter exhaustion that had possessed him ever since Reading bridge. He’d barely been able to consider the present, let alone remember the past or plan the future. Waking up, feeling himself once more, had brought back all the things he hadn’t dwelled on for two days, and he rather missed the state of numbness.

They were going to share a bed again. He pushed that tempting thought away. It wouldn’t go. But it had to, because it brought their last encounter back to his mind, making him sweat, and not with desire.

He hadn’t made himself face that dreadful, shameful night in Runciman’s since it had happened. The impossible rescue, the windwalking, yes, but not what he had wanted to do to Jonah. What he had come so close to. What he
had
done, in hatred and anger, to the man who’d loved him all along, no matter how badly things had gone. The thought sickened and shamed him, so much that his mind flinched away from it. The Ben who might have done that thing seemed to be a madman now.

A madman with his face. How could Jonah forgive that? How could Ben?

He had no right to touch Jonah even if he wanted to. That fact allowed him to shove away the question of whether he wanted to.

He sat in silence, drinking his ale and another, eating without tasting, letting Jonah’s chatter and the landlady’s more taciturn responses wash over him. A few other men came in, and she went off to serve them, leaving Jonah to sit with him in silence. Finally the drinks were finished. Jonah gave an indicative nod, and they moved together to the bedroom that they were to share.

Men shared beds all the time. There was nothing to blush about.

The room was in the back part of the inn, on the ground floor. It was of decent size but very plain. The rough whitewashed stone walls were somewhat yellowed with dust or age, and had a couple of great black iron hasps sticking out of them. A huge dark wood wardrobe loomed in the corner. The floor was stone flags, likely cold in winter, and there was no fire lit in the hearth, but a basin and an earthenware jug of hot water were waiting on the night stand. Jonah made a noise of intense pleasure, seeing it.

“Thank God, water.” He locked the door. “I am desperate to be clean.”

So was Ben, after days in the same clothes. He stripped without thought, using the thin towels provided to rub himself all over, until he felt the fug of long travel and fear-sweat lift from his skin. Beside him, Jonah was doing the same, so much more gracefully, his darkly furred chest glistening with damp, nipples hard in the chill air.