Page 19 of By Marsh and By Moor (Marsh and Moor #1)

“Well, good for you. Or at least, I mean, that seems to have turned out all right for you.” Despite himself, the end of the sentence rose into a question.

Solomon didn’t answer immediately. Finally, he said, “Sometimes I wish I’d run when I was much younger. Not waited so long. And sometimes…” He broke off. “I left people behind. Friends. I don’t know what’s become of them. I should have made more of an effort to bring them with me.”

His voice was even, but the muscles in his jaw had tightened.

“But that’s hardly your fault, is it? They could up and leave too, had they wanted.”

“It en’t so simple. Sometimes you don’t realise you’re in chains until you’ve escaped them.” He shrugged, and when he spoke next it was in a lighter tone, with a laugh in his voice that wasn’t quite convincing. “Anyroad, then I went up to London, and found paradise.”

Following his cue, Jed said in the same lighter vein, “Paradise in the form of many willing young men, you mean?”

“That’s right.”

It was dark enough now that Jed could safely slide an arm around Solomon’s waist. The rough linen of Solomon’s smock was warm under his hand, and soft hair tickled his cheek.

They sat like that for a while. Jed wished they were curled up together in the waggon, just the two of them. But this was better than nothing.

“You were never tempted to move to a big town yourself?” Solomon asked after some time. “Not as far away as London, of course. But to Bristol, maybe?”

Jed thought of his first time driving to Bristol with his father, and how long the journey had seemed. No one from the village had ever travelled half so far. Going up to London would have been unthinkable. But since then, he’d been halfway around the world and back.

“I thought I’d stay in Ledcombe my whole life,” he said.

“The village carrier. That was all I ever wanted. My days spent out in my cart, crossing the moors, and then back home to Ledcombe at journey’s end.

I thought Carrie would marry one of the boys next door and set up house in the village.

I’d have nieces and nephews, children around me in my old age…

Maybe I’d take on one of my nephews in the carrying line of work. ”

Carrie was a year younger than him, but when they were children she could hold her own against any boy in the village.

She’d never seemed like a little sister, but always an equal companion and playmate.

When their parents died young, she’d taken care of him as much as he had of her.

He couldn’t understand how she could have changed so much.

Or maybe she’d never been the person he thought she was.

Tomorrow, he and Solomon would be back in Barnstaple, and they’d be meeting Wallace for a drink at the Boar. Solomon had said Wallace knew someone who might help Jed write to Carrie.

Writing to Carrie… It was something he’d been putting off, and he knew it. He was afraid of what her reply might be.

The chilly night air prickled his skin, and he couldn’t suppress a shiver.

“I suppose we’d better get back to the waggon,” he said reluctantly. They’d given one of the stable lads tuppence to watch over it, but they couldn’t stay away forever.

Solomon made a noise of agreement, and they both got to their feet.

The sun had disappeared behind the trees, and here in the shadow of the hedgerow it was so dark they could not even see each other’s faces.

On impulse, Jed reached out, pulling Solomon to him, arms about his waist. Solomon’s lips met his in the darkness.

Jed had never wanted his life to go this way, but it did bring him here to Solomon. And that made up for an awful lot.

“I’ll do that,” Jed said, taking Norris’s place at the horses’ heads. “You just get the harness put away.”

He liked working with Norris, but the man had a tendency to dawdle, and Jed had plans to meet Solomon and Wallace at the Boar in a quarter of an hour.

He and Solomon had returned from Exeter late the previous evening, and the head yardman had immediately sent Jed out again on a short delivery with Norris. But fortunately they’d returned with just enough time to spare for Jed to make it to the Boar on time.

He clicked his tongue, prompting the two horses into motion. They followed him into the stables, where one of the grooms came to meet them.

“Evening, Wren,” Jed said cheerfully.

“Evening, Trevithick,” Wren said, throwing Jed a rubbing cloth. “You take the bay, I’ll take the piebald.”

Jed whistled under his breath as he worked. He had wages in his pocket, and the prospect of drinks with a man he’d been curious about for weeks now. Moreover, he hadn’t lost his temper with anyone in at least three days. Maybe he could finally put those bursts of choler behind him.

And tonight, with any bit of luck, he could catch a few minutes alone with Solomon again—

Behind him, Wren let out a sudden, harsh oath. Jed turned.

Wren was bent over the piebald’s near foreleg. A fresh, jagged wound marred the skin, blood spurting with each heartbeat.

“What—”

“Caught on a nail,” Wren bit out. “Give me a hand here, would you?”

It was one of those leg wounds that bled copiously. Bright red blood was rushing down the foreleg, pooling on the floor.

Jed’s throat was so tight he couldn’t breathe.

His vision swam. He was on board a ship—some French frigate—and battle raged around him.

The rigging above was cut to pieces, and the deck was a mess of splinters, a foot long and more, from the pounding the Canterbury ’s guns had given this frigate a few minutes earlier.

Ahead of him, a lieutenant urging him on. Behind him, the Marines, ready to shoot any man who tried to hang back.

Jed and his shipmates surged forwards, plunging into the waiting mass of crewmen from the French ship.

Jed swung his boarding-axe, hitting some poor Frenchman’s head with the flat of it.

There was a sickening thud, and the unhappy bugger crumpled where he stood.

Jed couldn’t stop to see what became of him—he was swept onwards with the rest of the boarding party, inexorable.

His ears rang with the thunder of small arms fire and the bellowing of orders. His clothes were soaked with blood; he didn’t know if it was French or English. Among the din, someone was shouting, “For Christ’s sake, man, what’s the matter with you?”

Dimly, Jed was aware of the stables. The injured piebald. Wren, shouting at him. “What’s the matter with you?”

Another groom had appeared, seemingly from nowhere; Jed hadn’t even seen him arrive. The man was holding the piebald’s head, and Wren was trying to tie a knot in the bandage he’d wrapped around the foreleg.

The second horse, the bay Jed had been rubbing down, reared into the air with a nervous whinny, unhappy at being trapped in a small space with the commotion and the smell of blood.

“Don’t just stand there, man, get that horse out of the way,” Wren shouted at Jed. “Before one of us gets a hoof to the head.”

Jed grabbed the bay’s harness, whispering calming nonsense to her, hardly knowing what he said. He led her away into one of the boxes.

Finally, he was alone. He sank back against the wall, then slid down it until he was sitting in the straw.

His throat was still tight, and his eyes stung with unshed tears. What the devil had happened to him? He hadn’t thought about that day in years. He’d shut it deliberately out of his head… and in any case, many more like days had come after it.

Jed held out his hands. They were trembling.

No blood on them, only traces of harness oil.

But when he closed his eyes, he saw sand scattered across a blood-slicked deck.

Gunwales shattered by cannon balls, lines of bodies sewn up in sailcloth, and carrion birds circling overhead.

The deathly hush of the evening after a battle, and the stench of blood everywhere.

This wasn’t the first time his memories had taken him unawares since he jumped from the Nonsuch , even if it wasn’t usually so vivid. What was wrong with him?

He took several deep breaths.

Probably he was a bit unsettled, that was all.

Nothing surprising about that. Everything in his life was up in the air: his missing horse and cart, Carrie’s marriage, the press gang at Minehead…

Once he was back in Ledcombe, reunited with his horse and cart, he’d be able to put these nightmares and living dreams behind him.

He just had to keep his head until then.

When Jed finally left the yard and went next door to the Boar, the Guildhall clock was already striking the half hour.

The alehouse was busy but not uncomfortably crowded.

Behind the bar, chatting with a couple of boatmen, stood the dark-haired woman Jed and Solomon had spoken to on the day they arrived.

Nearby, a cheerful group of young men were sharing a plate of herring.

Laughter and song floated through from the back room, where the Honourable Company of Wheelwrights were holding their weekly meeting.

Wallace and Solomon were already seated at a table near the bar. When Jed joined them, carrying a drink, Solomon nudged Wallace to get him to shift over a few inches. Jed realised, with a warmth in his chest, that he’d done it so that Jed wouldn’t have to sit with his back to the door.

“Sorry I’m late.” He didn’t want to mention what had happened in the stables.

“Never fret,” Solomon said. “I was late arriving back at the yard myself.” He had been sent with one of the grooms to fetch a pair of horses that Mrs Drake had bought from a dealer.

“That come off all right?” It wasn’t always easy to back a horse that had been broken to driving.

“We only brung one of ‘em back with us, in the end. The other was colicky.”

Wallace pulled a face. “That’s one thing I don’t miss these days: spending hours walking colicky horses in the rain.”

“Were you once an ostler too?” Jed asked him.

“Yes. Solomon and me, we worked at the same coaching inn up in London.”