Summery: Deserted coach-roads, daring thieves, distressed damsels and a better summery soon to come

The Highwayman

By

Woodstock1330

4
In the Blind-Alehouse

False dawn glowed in the eastern horizon when Amelia was awakened for the second time that night by a noise, a noise she could not first identify. She rolled over and pulled the blanket up over her head, pressing her face into the mattress. Whatever it was could be dealt with in the morning… but the noise persisted unabated; a thump, closely followed by a low groan and a curse. Amelia herself muttered something very unladylike as she sat up slowly, forcing her eyes open. She glanced around in the dim eyes, alighting almost instantly upon the perpetrator, though it took her drowsy mind a moment to register exactly what she was seeing.
Jack leaned heavily against the wall, the chair overturned at his feet. His skin looked the color of old porridge and there was a fine sweat beading along his forehead. “Jack..?”

He looked up, two hallow eyes gazing back at her’s blankly, “It’s nothing…” Without his waistcoat Amelia could plainly see that it was not nothing. Blood had soaked into his shirt, spreading from the shoulder to nearly mid-chest, staining the bleached linen and deep scarlet.
“You’re wounded--!”

“I’m fine!” he shouted, even as his legs began to crumple beneath him, he slumped down against the wall.
“Fine indeed,” she murmured, climbing out of the bed to help him up.

He refused her, using the bed instead for support he pulled himself upright, “I don’t need any of your chiding just now little Madam…I shall be fine in a moment, I just…just need to get my bearings.”
Amelia rolled her eyes; all men everywhere were exactly the same! Why she remembered when Cousin Kit had fallen from the library window, they all thought him dead, but when he came to he immediately stood up and stalked away, stubbornly refusing any assistance. It wasn’t until later that they discovered he’d broken his collarbone..! “Well sit down at least.”
“Can you not hold that tongue of yours for even the briefest moment? Or are you completely incapable? Good God girl! A moment’s peace is all I ask!”
Several things she wanted very much to fire back at this great thieving, roguish ass sprang suddenly to mind but she bit her lip. There was no sense arguing, nor even speaking to him just now, for he wouldn’t mind her. She wasn’t even sure why she was bothering, if he did faint, all the better for her, she could escape at last! If he bled to death, well it was his own fault, served the beast right!
He stumbled and seemed almost confused, shaking his head as if trying to rid his ears of water, his eyes met hers for a moment, the briefest moment before they glazed and he fell, crumpling like a bit of straw. Amelia caught him before he hit the floor, the impact of his dead weight nearly topping her over…she couldn’t have any more loud noises, someone might suspect. She dragged the limp form to the bed and laid him out on it; that done she went to his greatcoat, a heap on the floor beside the overturned chair. She sifted hastily through the coat, which seemed to be made up entirely of pockets until at last her hand closed around cool steel, and she knew she’d found what she’d been looking for. She drew the one flintlock and rooted around till she found the other, both had been re-loaded. She started toward the door, but on a second thought, took the coat as well…it would be cold out and she couldn’t risk the time it would take to dress. She gave one last glance to the prostrate figure on the bed and, taking a deep breath, pushed the door back and stepped out into the hall.
There was an almighty cry that seemed to rattle down to the very foundations followed by quite a lot of cursing, Amelia hopped back at once and stared down at the unidentifiable little heap of living flesh at her feet. A pair of muddy brown eyes gazed back; eyes housed in a gaunt little face, rather pointed, like a rat’s and surrounded by a mass of lank dark hair. This little face didn’t seem to mind having been trodden on, for he fairly beamed up at her.
“Evenin’ yer ‘ighness,” the boy said as he extracted himself from his mess of ragged blankets. He could’ve been no older than nine, and pitifully skinny; far too many angles, all elbows and knees jutting out clothing that was in some places too big, in some too small, and flattered nothing. Yet he smiled as contentedly as her little cousin Dirch, that handsomely plump and endlessly merry child she did so adore.
Amelia found herself returning the smile, though hers a little bewildered, “what—what are you doing down there?”

The lad got himself up, “Why, standin’ guard o’course.”

“Standing guard,” Amelia said to herself, marveling, “guard of what?”

“Why, yer own self, o’course, yer ‘ighness.”

Amelia forced down a chuckle at his chosen form of address and faced him seriously, “Are you to keep me in, or keep them out my little man?”

“Both I guess, ye see, Swiftie Brown-- sure and ye’ll be knowing all about ‘im?”

Amelia nodded.

“Well ‘e said ‘e’d be payin’ me a whole—“the boy decided finances were not something to be discussed with Princesses, and began again, “Well I’m ter watch ye and on no account are ye ter leave yer room unless he comes fer ye himself, and no one else is ter come fer ye, so I s’pose that means ter keep ‘em out, and too right, a grand lady like yerself.”

Something akin to anger flashed behind Amelia’s eyes but she pushed this away, it was not the boy’s fault, who could blame him for taking Swiftie’s bribe? “What if I promised you I was not trying to escape?”

The boy shook his head, “Swift said on no account, not even if ye paid me, ‘e said whatever ye gave me ‘e’d give me double, ifin I did what ‘e said, anyway, ye might be lyin’.”
Amelia sighed, resigning herself once again. She could overpower the boy easily, but he might let up a holler and wake the whole place, and that was a greater problem than Amelia was ready to face just now. Anyway, she didn’t think she could bring herself to threaten such an agreeably curious little lad. “Well now,” she bent down to the boy’s level and pointed behind her at Jack, “you see that man there on the bed?”

The boy looked passed her, then nodded. “Sure I see ‘im.”
“That man is badly injured, and he might even die, I was going to fetch help.”
The boy titled his head and sucked in his cheek, considering this for a moment, “ye were?”
Amelia nodded, “now, I promise I won’t leave this room, if you go and fetch the innkeeper.”
“Ye swear, not a foot?”
“Not a toe, I swear it.”
The boy shrugged his shoulders, “alrigh’, didn’t suppose yer ‘ighness could lie anyway, ‘s not ladylike.” And with that little gem, he scurried off.
Amelia watched until the little figure faded into the darkness of the hall and turned back to the room, she returned the pistols to their homes and shrugged off the coat. She righted the chair, moved it back into its rightful corner and, hanging to coat upon its back, settled down with a sigh. So much for that…
Moments later Amelia heard footsteps progressing back up the hallway, the boy’s quick scurry accompanied by more substantial footfalls. The door burst open a moment later and was filled momentarily by a rather large buxom woman with frizzy black hair, given to gray, and a poor Irish complexion, but the dark eyes that shone out of her ruddy face were keen and sharp, and Amelia felt suddenly relieved. This startled her, for to feel such intense relief, meant that she must have been worried, but she had little time to ponder this for the next moment the woman had crossed the threshold, and she found herself otherwise occupied.
Moll Gallagher, for that was the woman’s name, prided herself on only two things in life, being a “right fine” innkeeper, and having a “knack for doctorin’”. Thus, she was in her element. She rolled back the sleeves of her bodice dress, revealing large, almost man-like forearms and retied her apron. “Right,” she murmured as she bent over him.
“Do you think we ought to rouse him?” Amelia ventured timidly.
Moll turned the body over, ripping apart his shirt to examine the wound, “Heavens no,” she said as she wiped away some of the blood with the ruined cloth and began prodding here and there, “He’ll be awake soon enough, I should think.”
“Dick lad,” she turned to the boy, who was still standing in the doorway, wide eyed, “fetch me the bottle o whisky fro’ the top shelf in larder, ye know which, mind ye be quick about it.” Dick was off like a shot. Moll turned back to Amelia, “there’s naught for it, bullet will just have to come out.”
“Won’t that make the bleeding worse?”
“Probably,” she said, wiping the back of her hand across her cheek, leaving a streak of blood in its wake, “better that than it goin’ all putrid like.”
Amelia wondered what the difference was in dying from blood loss, and dying from infection, if they both ended in death, but she did not voice this, for there was something about the woman that dared you to contradict her.
“Take this,” Moll tossed her the shirt, “and tare it into long strips.” Amelia took the bloody article gingerly and did as she was told. If it came to that, how much more of a chance of infection was there with the bullet than without it?
Moll drew Jack’s own knife from its case at his waist and examined it; it was a formidable looking thing with a bone pommel and six-inch steel blade, slightly given to rust. She seemed to find it satisfactory for she nodded to herself and turned again to Amelia, “right, ye come’re and hold him down, for the minute I start he’ll awake, wriggling and squealing like a stuck pig, and if he does…well, just see that he doesn’t.”
Amelia’s face flushed as she rested her hands tentatively, one upon his left shoulder, and one upon the small of his back. From here she could see the wound plainly, the angry red of the swollen skin around the place of entry, she had expected a small clean hole, instead it was a gaping cavity, filled with torn muscle and tissue…she looked away hastily as bile rose in her throat.
She did not see the initial entry of the blade, nor the fresh blood, a dark thick red, as it spilled out around it, but she heard the sickening squelching sound and felt the sudden jolt that shot through his body, that of life returning… He let out a cry of shock and pain, his body writhing. It was not the knife, but Moll’s large hand, pressing down upon his shattered shoulder, that caused this, but there was nothing for it. “Hold him!” the woman shouted above the noise and Amelia forced down with all her strength.
Dick must have heard the screams for there was a pounding on the stair and the little man burst back into the room, whisky in hand. “Right, give him a good swig of that now Dick,” He did so, Jack nearly choked on it, “and another,” this time he swallowed.
“One more Dick lad,” Jack breathed shakily and the boy complied.
“Right? On we go…” She pressed down again as the knife took another plunge, Jack cried out again. “Dick, shut him up, he’ll wake the whole house with that, never did I hear a man scream so!” Dick obliged, stuffing a bit of the shirt into his mouth. “I think I’ve almost got it…hold him still damn ye!” She withdrew the knife, “another drink then Dick,” he removed the cloth, gave Jack another hefty swig, and replaced it again. “Right, last time…”
This time she went in with her fingers as well and when she drew her hand away, there between her forefinger and thumb she held a small, rather bloody, leaden ball. Amelia felt a relief flooding her, but it was not over yet.
“Up ye get Jack lad,” Moll said as she hoisted him into a sitting position, “now, girl, I’m going to set the bone like, and ye have to hold it there while I wrap, we’ll curb the flow, God willing, but if the bone mends wrong,” she clicked her tongue, “none o that will matter much…”
Moll set the bone and together they wrapped the wound, stopping at intervals to give Jack another swill of liquor, before they finished he passed out again, his head lulling to one side. Once finished they laid him back gently, covering him with the blanket. A true dawn shone in the eastern horizon as Amelia slumped back in the chair. “How well do you know Jack—I mean Mr. Avery?”
Moll, who had turned for the door, stopped “Every scar on that body I’ve treated the wound what caused it,” she said, casting an indulgent sort of glance at the bed, “or just about.”

“So you’ve known him all his life?”
“Well now, no I haven’t…he must’ve been near eleven or twelve first time I ever saw him… odd little thing he was too, so gentlemanly and polite, couldn’t figure what a fine lad like him was doing with the likes of Grisly Avery and Swift Brown…” she shook her head as if still half disbelieving.
“He said…I heard that he was—is--wanted for murder--.”
Moll turned back to her sharply, “Mind ye tongue girl! Jacko never killed no one!”

“But he said—.”

“Never ye mind what he said, said it to scare ye most like! He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time! That’s what comes o hanging around with that sort…”
“Swiftie said he killed—Dusky—something—“

“Dusky Jim,” Moll finished, “with a kitchen knife,” she rolled her eyes, “so I’ve heard, tosh in my opinion…Jacko hasn’t the heart to kill no one.”
“They hanged him for it—or tried to…”
Moll face darkened and her voice grew quiet, “so yer heard o that did ye…I remember that day, clear as anything. I’d heard tell o what they were plannin’, but I never believed they’d managed it and I was mourning like he were my own child…Well ye can imagine when they brought him to me, a wee thing not much over twelve then, slung over Avery’s saddle like a sack of grain..! All white and limp as a corpse-- I thought he was at first,” she wiped her eyes hastily, and gave Amelia a pathetic sort of smile, “well, the lad’s a knack for trouble anyway, that’s what.”

XXX

Across the heath, a group of soldiers slumped down wearily into chairs, stretching their muddy boots out before the fire. Several had already fallen prey to exhaustion, nodding off into their cups of mulled wine or tea. The rest kept the Inn’s staff on their toes with massive portions of eggs, sausage, ham, fried bread, toast, porridge, and mashed tatties, all of which they ate heartily and demanded more.

Raph Creswell paced back and forth before the door, he was as exhausted as any of them, evident in his own muddied footgear and the dark circles under his eyes, but he could not sleep, nor eat, nor even sit. He could only think, think of his poor beloved Amelia in the hands of those scoundrels…God only knew what they might do to her, what they were capable of, he shuddered, the icy blue of the one bandit’s eyes seemed to have etched themselves into his very soul, for he could not rid himself of the image, it was almost as though he had seen them before, in a dream—or rather a nightmare…
Just as he was contemplating this the door burst open and in stalked four of His Majesty’s finest, and accompanying them a lad of about fifteen, who looked rather like a pup with its tail between its legs. “Well?” He demanded, surveying them disdainfully, having spent the entire night in the company of these uniformed buffoons, he didn’t hold out much hope for the Empire. The Captain stepped forward and handed Raph a letter, it was not addressed and the wax seal, now broken, was without identifying character. He opened it and began to read, his face growing more red with each passing line...when he had finished he crumpled the paper in his fists, intending to toss the offending trash into the fire, but thinking better of it merely crushed it further, he rounded on the boy, “Where the devil did you get this?! From whom was it received?!”

The Captain delivered a swift kick to the boy’s shin, sending him yelping forward, “I—I be a post carrier Sir, I were out on me usual route, twenty miles on the Great Road, betwixt Slough and Maidenhead like—.”

“Hurry up boy, we don’t have all day,” interjected the Captain.

“Yes Sir, well Sir I were flagged down by a mite of a boy, no more’n ten sure, and dashed ragged so he was…”

The Captain gave him another kick, and the boy yelped again, hurrying on, “well Sir he gave me the letter, asked if I would deliver it on to Bath, said it should be delivered to the family of Ms. Amelia Fortescue directly… well I wasn’t wholly keen Sir, ye may imagine, but ‘e offered me a two shillings for me trouble, and I wasn’t like to turn ‘im down then, so I took it…well not a ‘alf an ‘our goes by afore I were flagged down again by these men ‘ere Sir. They asked me if I’d seen anything peculiar along this road, and I told them, and ‘ere me is Sir.”
Raph frowned but clapped the boy on the shoulder, “My thanks lad, and I think a crown should cover any additional trouble this delay may have caused you, should it not?”
The boy’s eyes grew round as Raph passed him the coin, he tucked it safely into his shoe, “yes Sir, thank ye Sir!”
“Off with you then,” growled the Captain, and the boy disappeared out the door, “well Sir?”
Raph smoothed out the letter and re-read it, “It says here the ransom should be delivered to Old Moll’s…so it is there we shall look.”
“They’ll have moved on from there Sir—.”

“Perhaps, but I think I’d like to have a word with this ‘Old Moll’…”