Page 23 of By Marsh and By Moor (Marsh and Moor #1)

Five years earlier

The first time Solomon saw Wallace Acton, they were in the stables at the Crown on the Borough High Street. Solomon was brushing down a post horse, and the head ostler came into the stables accompanied by a large, fair-haired young man with a distinct touch of nervousness in his pale blue eyes.

“This is Acton,” the head ostler said to Solomon. “Acton, Dyer will show you how we do things at the Crown.”

The Crown was one of the busiest inns on the road south from London and employed at least a dozen ostlers at any one time, working around the clock.

Most of them slept in rooms above the grain store, and Solomon showed Wallace where he could lay out his bedroll and stow the little knapsack that contained all his worldly possessions.

“Freshly arrived in Town, eh?” he said. “Where are you from?”

“Epping Forest,” Wallace said in a small, uncertain voice, and then, more firmly, “I worked ten years in the local squire’s stables. I know my way around horses.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Solomon said, hiding his amusement.

Wallace seemed a mere boy, even though he and Solomon were of an age.

As the new fellow, he would be an obvious target for pranks and teasing from the other ostlers, and Solomon resolved to keep an eye out for him, making sure he got his fair share of the vails that gentlemen travellers tipped them.

At that time, Solomon himself was twenty-four or thereabouts, as far as he knew.

He had been in London for eight years by then, and at the Crown for three of them.

His life suited him down to the ground: the bustle of the coaching inn, the flow of humanity coming and going, the decent wages and dry roof over his head.

He had his eye on the post of head ostler, though he’d have to wait a good few years before being considered old and wise enough.

The ostlers at the inn lived in cheerful promiscuity: sleeping in shifts in one small room, eating in the kitchens with the maids, and sneaking off behind the stables from time to time for a swig of gin or a nap.

Solomon rarely found himself alone with Wallace, and the first time they exchanged more than a word or two in private, several weeks had already passed since Wallace’s arrival at the Crown.

It was dawn, just after the departure of the Maidstone stagecoach, and Solomon and Wallace were hitching horses to the private carriage of a gentleman who had arrived the previous day.

The gentleman’s coachman was a rakish young fellow who had been overtly attentive to Wallace in the kitchen the night before.

He was a handsome specimen; Solomon wouldn’t have turned him down.

Wallace, however, determinedly ignored every attempt made to draw him aside, though he blushed every time the man spoke to him or even looked at him.

Now, the gentleman climbed into his carriage. The coachman gave Wallace one final wink, then leapt nimbly onto the box and took up the reins. He clicked his tongue, and the carriage left the yard at a brisk pace.

Wallace let out an audible sigh, his eyes following the carriage.

Solomon suppressed a smile. So Wallace had been interested after all. Solomon was not surprised. He hadn’t missed the quick up-and-down that Wallace’s gaze had done, taking in Solomon’s body, when they were first introduced.

He stepped closer to Wallace and spoke into his ear in an undertone. “Never mind. There’s plenty more fish in the sea.”

Wallace jumped. He spun around, casting a guilty look at Solomon. “I—I don’t know what you mean.” But the hearty colour in his cheeks betrayed him.

The two of them were alone in the middle of the yard, their low-voiced conversation hidden by the rumble of traffic passing in the street. Solomon gave Wallace a reassuring smile.

“London is full of men who’d be very eager to become more intimately acquainted with you. Or at least, so I’ve found it to be.”

“Oh,” Wallace said. The fear in his eyes faded, to be replaced by a glimmer of hope.

“I don’t play where I work, though. And neither will you, if you take my advice. I’ve seen men lose their positions for less. Not to mention the risk of the law being called in.”

“Oh, no!” Wallace said in a strangled voice. “I mean, of course not…” His voice trailed off. “But then where—?”

Solomon grinned at him. “Don’t you have an evening off on Thursday? I’ll contrive to be off too, and we’ll go somewhere I think you may find interesting.”

They went to a little Bermondsey alehouse Solomon knew, where men of all sorts came to drink: ostlers and postilions from the coaching inns, lightermen and bargemen from the river, weavers and carders from the garrets.

As he led Wallace through the dark and crowded room, he ran into a group of watermen with whom he had a passing acquaintance.

“Hey, Sol,” one of them called. “Who’s your friend?”

There were three of them, half-full glasses of porter on the table between them. They moved over to make room for Solomon and Wallace to sit with them.

As Solomon had expected, Wallace, with his burly good looks, was instantly popular. Solomon amused himself watching them jockeying to get closer to Wallace, until he was distracted by another waterman who took the seat next to him.

“I’ve seen you here from time to time,” the man said.

“That’s right.”

“I mind you’re a coachman, en’t you?”

“No, an ostler.”

The man let out a mock sigh of relief. “Thank the Lord. That en’t half as bad.”

Solomon chuckled. London’s watermen had a hereditary hostility to the use of coaches and carriages within London Town. “You must learn to move with the times, friend.”

The other man had a fine head of curly dark hair, and thick muscular forearms that drew Solomon’s gaze every time he moved. They talked in a desultory fashion until they’d both drained their glasses.

The man leaned closer to speak into Solomon’s ear. “Like to take a walk with me?”

Solomon rarely left the alehouse alone if he didn’t choose to. But tonight was different. He had been watching Wallace out of the corner of his eye. A few minutes earlier, Wallace had received a very obvious invitation from his most ardent admirer, but had shaken his head firmly.

“I don’t like to leave my friend alone,” Solomon said.

“So bring him with us.”

Briefly, Solomon considered it. But it wouldn’t do to put Wallace in a position of perhaps feeling obliged, out of nerves or an excess of politeness, to say yes. There’d be other nights, other men.

“Sorry, no.”

“Your loss,” the waterman said with a shrug. He picked up his empty glass and peered into it. “You won’t take offence if I bid you farewell?”

“Of course not.”

Noticing that Solomon was now alone, Wallace moved closer to him. “I’m going to head back to the Crown. I’ll see you later.”

“I’ll come with you,” Solomon said.

Wallace looked surprised but didn’t object.

Outside, the night air was a cold shock after the smokey little room. They walked briskly, threading their way through the dark streets of Bermondsey. Wallace was silent. He seemed to be turning something over in his head, and Solomon didn’t force conversation upon him.

“I’m sorry,” Wallace burst out after a few minutes.

“What about?”

“I know—you brung me with you tonight because—and it should have been, it was”—he let out a strangled laugh—“it was the moment I’ve been dreaming of since I was scarce thirteen and couldn’t take my eyes off the blacksmith’s son.”

Solomon made a noise of understanding.

“I just… couldn’t work up the nerve, I suppose. You see, I’ve never—” He broke off.

Solomon stopped walking and turned to face him. “Hey. There’s no call for all this. If you didn’t want to, you didn’t have to.”

“I did want to,” Wallace said miserably. “Too much so. I’m still stiff as a board.”

“Oh.” Solomon gave him a sympathetic look. “Want a hand with that?”

Wallace had been looking at his feet—blushing furiously, of course. Now his gaze flew up to meet Solomon’s. After a moment, he nodded.

They were on Crucifix Lane, near a dark, narrow alleyway with no overlooking windows. Solomon had made use of it on more than one occasion.

“This way.”

Wallace followed him down the alley. He was vibrating with nerves. He crowded up close to Solomon, fumbling with Solomon’s breeches.

Solomon put a hand to Wallace’s chest to hold him off. “Wait. Never follow someone up an alley without looking up and down it”—he looked deliberately left and right, even though he already knew the place well—“making sure there’s a way out at both ends.”

Wallace swallowed, his eyes wide. He nodded.

Solomon had had some thought of giving him a broad education in the many and pleasurable possibilities open to them, but in the event, it was all over after about thirty seconds of a quick frigging—which Wallace did, at least, appear to enjoy enormously.

Then he was stepping back to support himself against the wall, looking overwhelmed. Solomon turned away, making a show of adjusting his own breeches to give Wallace time to recover.

“Should I—?” Wallace said. “I mean, can I—”

Solomon grinned at him. “If you’d like to return the favour, friendly-like, I won’t say no.”

Afterwards, they strolled back to the Crown together. Wallace was silent at first, but after a few minutes he burst out, “Lord, I am glad I came up to London!”

After that, Solomon made it his business to introduce Wallace to other interesting places he knew up and down the south bank: alehouses with useful backrooms and a congenial patronage, and the wooded areas along the Rope Walks.

They each had only one night off a week, and not necessarily on the same day, so that as the months passed, Wallace often ventured out alone. The next time they were both in the little Bermondsey alehouse together, Solomon was pleased to see that Wallace had entirely lost his initial nerves.