The Highwayman's Footsteps (27 page)

He must not use my horse in this way. He must not use my horse at all.

I drew my sword, my eye catching the glint of steel, seeing the rainwater gather and spread and scatter on the slanting blade. If ever the ghost of Bess's father watched over us, I needed him now. But if he did not, then I would fight hard and I would fight long.

My father scrambled to his feet, his clothes covered in mud. He shouted oaths at my brother, railing at him for lagging so far behind, and my brother answered him with that thin and spiteful voice which I knew so well. It seemed he should have followed our father more closely but Blackfoot had thrown him after shying violently. As he said this, he lashed once more at my horse's side with his stick and Blackfoot threw his head back, eyes staring wide in distress. My brother struggled to regain control. The reins were held too tight and Blackfoot's neck was arched and taut.

I could not bear this.

I would fight my brother. But not on horseback. It was too dangerous for the horses and more difficult than fighting on foot. I leapt to the ground. I had no other thoughts, no eyes for anything else, though I was dimly aware that Bess had returned. I would trust her to watch over the other men. But I would fight my brother.

Although I had been afraid to fight him when he had challenged me only a few weeks before, this was different. Then, I had never fought except in practice; now, I was fighting with my heart. Now I was not afraid.

Moving forward, my sword before me, my intention clear, I gathered the words I would speak. I cared nothing for the money now, nothing for my father; I thought only of saving my horse from my brother's cruelty.

But before I could say anything, my father spoke, shaking with anger. “Be off with you, you scoundrel, footpad, you blackguard, you!” The whites of his eyes were wide and wild, as he spat his words. “You have what you came for – now be gone! And be sure I will not sleep until you have been caught and hanged.”

“Get down from the horse, and fight like a man!” I shouted to my brother. I did not care now if they might know me from my voice but I do not think they did.

My brother merely grinned and urged Blackfoot forward. The horse threw his head back and reared up, feet thrashing the air. My brother dug his spurs into the bleeding flanks and Blackfoot jibbed and bucked, pain in his eyes and in his flaring nostrils. But Blackfoot, my Blackfoot, did not move forward. Skittering sideways, his feet raised high in agitation, he would not obey.

“Fight like a man!” I shouted again. And as I did, recognition dawned in my brother. It spread in a smile across his face. He lashed Blackfoot one more time and when the horse still refused to charge forward, he, too, leapt from his saddle.

My brother drew his sword. “So, you must hide behind a handkerchief? Ever the coward, William! You may have thought you and your accomplice could overcome an old man, but now you have more than met your match!”

As I pulled down my kerchief, I was only dimly aware of the gasp from my father, and of the noises behind me of Bess controlling the horses. I was very clearly aware of my brother's gleeful face and the rain on his ginger moustache and his small ferret-like eyes gleaming.

With a cry, he leapt forward, thrusting his sword towards my face. I ducked sideways, parrying, and the echoing crash of our swords rang through my body. My brother was strong, and furious, and with every blow, every parry, every step backwards, I felt his power. His arm moved so fast, with such strength, that all I could do was defend myself, leaning back, twisting my sword this way and that, now across my face, now down at my feet. His blade flashed fast until all I could see was the criss-cross pattern of steel stripes in the air before my eyes.

I could hear his breathing, his grunts with every blow, see his maddened glare, his grimace as he threw every effort into beating me into submission. And then I understood: my brother would kill me, with no more thought than he would kill an animal.

W
ith rain across my eyes, and my vision spinning, I stumbled, falling to one knee, holding my sword above my head. And still my brother beat his weapon down on mine with fury, the blows falling faster and faster onto my blade. Pain jarred up my arm, thudding into my shoulder.

“Cry mercy, little brother!” he shouted.

But I would not. I should rather die than ask for mercy from him. Now, from somewhere deep inside me, came a voice, my own voice: “Think of Henry Parish! Think of injustice!” And, through a mist, I saw flashes of red before my eyes – the bleeding wounds on my horse's flanks. Or was it the memory of the redcoats before they killed Henry?

With a roar, gathering every remaining ounce of my strength, I rose to my feet and brought my sword crashing down on my brother's as he paused for breath. He stepped backwards, taken by surprise, parrying my blow. I pushed forward, now bringing my sword crashing down, now thrusting it forward, now slashing down from the right, now pushing forward, now swinging from the left, now thrusting forward again. In rhythm we moved, my brother and I, weaving a deadly dance. According to my rhythm, not his. Did my father watch me now? I think he did.

My body was wearying but I would not give up, and I would not show any weakness. I could see my brother's eyes, could feel him begin to doubt himself, begin almost to fear.

But with his fear would come extra fury – I sensed that too. I must act quickly.

Without warning, I broke the rhythm of our blows and, with a sudden twist and flick of my wrist, I sent his sword spinning out of his hand. It landed on its point in the mud several feet away, and stuck there, shuddering. Bess leapt towards it, grabbed it, and in several swift movements sliced through the traces which held the horses to the carriage.

But my eyes were still on my brother. I advanced on him, my sword pointing steadily in front of me. He stepped backwards. I thrust the sword forward. In his haste, he stepped back too quickly and his feet slipped from under him.

My brother was sitting on the ground, drenched in mud and rain, staring up at me in fear. With the point of my sword against his throat, I could do anything.

I pushed the sword slowly, gently forward, and he sank back until he lay first on his elbows and finally flat on the ground.

“Don't!” he cried. His voice was choked, thin, weak. “Don't, I beg of you!”

I had not intended to do what he feared. But I wanted to see his fear and, indeed, I could see it in his watery eyes and hear it in the way his voice shook. It was enough.

I moved my sword away, and said nothing. While Bess stood over the men with my brother's sword, I tied my father and brother tightly to the wheels of the carriage, using their own neck-ties and the belts from their breeches. Bess looked inside the carriage and removed a pair of pistols, which she threw far away – within moments they would be too wet to use. The postillion I did not tie – from his shocked white face and his teeth closed in pain, he would be no help to them. None of this had been his fault and we put him gently in the carriage for shelter and some comfort.

My father, shivering now, spoke at last. I could not tell what emotion was in his voice, whether it was anger or fear or surprise. “Why have you done this? To your own father?”

“I have done it for justice.”

“How so? Justice?” He was sneering now, the father contemptuous of his son, assuming everything.

“I have done it for the old man whom you ordered to be put to death. The innocent old man. I have done it for the good men you take from their families without thought for them. I have done it for a young boy who died because men like you think that the lives of the poor are worth nothing. I have done it because I believe it is right and your way is wrong.”

And with that, I turned around, and went to Blackfoot, my beautiful Blackfoot, where he stood patiently. I stroked his nose and I know that he remembered me. Perhaps that is why he would not obey my brother and help him against me – I do not know. Strange things happen in the bond between horse and man. But I know that he knew me. There was a thick feeling in my throat as I stroked him and smelt his familiar warmth.

“Come on, Will,” urged Bess, holding Sapphire and sitting on her own horse. “We should go now.”

She had watched me fight, she had trusted me to win without her help, and I was glad of that, more than she could know.

I mounted Blackfoot, careful not to touch his wounds, and gently squeezed him to encourage him onwards. He did not need to be asked twice and we trotted away from that place, leaving my father silent and my brother railing at us until I heard my father's voice ring out in anger against him. I did not hear precisely what he said, but I think he called my brother a coward.

I think he did not use that name for me. No longer would he think me a coward.

I smiled. And as the rain stopped at last and as the evening sky brightened to the west, I threw back my head and I laughed.

As we rode away, I looked around at the grim countryside. Did the ghost of Bess's father watch over us here too? Perhaps. Yet, I do not think we had need of him that day.

W
e rode fast, taking the road back the way we had come. We had no need to lead Sapphire – she followed us willingly, as riderless horses do. Every now and then, I looked at Bess and we smiled. For the first time, we felt power: a sense that we could fight and win.

A fresh wind dried our faces and our cloaks as we rode. Once, the sun broke through over a distant hill and a bright patch spread across the slopes, moving fast in front of the clouds.

We came to where the road forked, and took the southerly direction, wanting to put many miles between us and my father's place before sunset.

Perhaps two hours later, we came to a smallholding and approached cautiously. A conversation with the man and his wife soon secured us a place to rest and feed the horses. These people had little enough to call their own, and even the chickens that ran around their feet were scrawny, but they welcomed us.

The woman prepared a paste for Blackfoot's wounds and I winced for him as she spread the ointment into the torn flesh. Some of the wounds looked older than others, and I cursed my brother for his cruelty.

The good people would take no money, however hard we tried to press it upon them. But I had an idea. I led Sapphire towards them.

“Take this horse – we have no need for her now.” At first, they would not agree, though I could see from their faces that such a horse would mean much to them. But we persuaded them and I felt considerably better once this deal was done. They would look after Sapphire kindly, just as she had served us well, and we had no use for her now. She would, perhaps, have a longer and safer life than she might have with us.

That evening, we sat by the fire, feasting on pigeons spitted over the flames and old potatoes baked long in the embers, oozing freshly-churned butter. Our clothes dried and our faces became pink in the heat, as the smell of roasting meat and tired bodies and hot cider mingled in the air. When I looked at Bess and thought of what we had done, and when I watched her eyes sparkle as she chewed meat from a pigeon's leg in the manner of the man that they still thought her to be, I felt something like real happiness.

Surely, nothing could harm us now? Surely God and fortune would favour us at last?

N
early two days later, we came back into the valley where Bess's cottage sat. We were tired, and the horses now walked slowly, but we were glad to be coming home. And, indeed, it felt like home to me. I looked forward to summer in the cottage, to growing vegetables, to making repairs, to learning to live in the countryside without servants to do everything for me.

We would have another journey to make before that, of course. For we had not yet taken my father's money to Henry Parish's mother and sister, as we had vowed to do. But we needed to rest a day or two first, and to rest the horses. They had ridden hard and far and we must not overuse them.

And so, eagerly, with light spirits, sometimes laughing together, we rounded the brow of a hill and looked down on Bess's valley. We pulled our horses to a standstill and they stood there, blowing steam in the afternoon air. Our eyes moved along to the trees above her dwelling. And then down towards the cottage.

I gasped. A low moan escaped from Bess's lips.

Where her cottage had been, were now plumes of smoke.

“No!” she cried. “No!”

She kicked Merlin to a canter and a gallop and hurtled down the slopes, scattering clods of mud, ignoring paths, racing straight for her home.

I followed, a little more slowly, darkness in my heart, not wishing to see what I knew we would find.

I scanned the hillside for signs of danger. Any redcoats. For I understood, and I suppose Bess did too, that this was their work. A stone-built cottage does not burn down by accident or chance of nature.

But I saw no redcoats. I saw only the forlorn dampness of the moors, the darkness of the trees, the sombre, careless scattering of rocks.

As I came to the cottage, Bess was there before me, standing in the yard, her shoulders stooped. Smoke spiralled slowly from empty windows. The roof had gone, fallen into the main part of the building. There could be nothing left undamaged in there.

She walked towards the blackened doorway.

“Bess!” I called. “Wait!” And I dismounted quickly and went to her.

I took her hand and we walked towards the door together, holding our breath against the acrid smell. Bess tried to go in, to climb across the ruins, but I held her back. Burnt timbers and smashed rafters were piled in confusion everywhere.

I could just make out parts of the table, with sections charred as though chewed by a hungry beast. Bess stooped to pick something up – it was the end of a quill pen, one that we had used to copy her ballad to Henry Parish. I knew then, that if the redcoats had doubted whether or not we had tried to shelter their prey, they would have known for certain once they found those written words. We had not even thought to hide the papers.