The Accidental Highwayman (10 page)

Captain Sterne! So he was still abroad in the land. It gave me a thrill of alarum to think of that relentless fellow upon my trail. There was good news, though: In none of the talk was any mention made of a bloodthirsty servant doing James Rattle in. Kit Bristol and Whistling Jack were not associated, except by circumstance. I thanked the landlord and ducked outside again, elated just to be alive. It was then, as I squinted in the bright morning and began to think about my future, that a very ugly woman crossed my path on the way to the town marketplace, and my fortunes took another turn.

 

Chapter 10

LONG-SUFFERING RADISHES AND NEW CLOTHES

D
RESSED AS
a beggar and none too clean after all my adventures, I scarcely had reason to keep my head up. Nor did I want anyone to fix my features in their mind, in case an inquiry into Master Rattle's missing servant were made. So I tucked my chin into my chest and stepped into the street, eyes cast down. It was for this reason that I did not see the portly woman crossing before me until it was too late, and I collided with her. She let out a small cry and tumbled to the street, spilling large radishes from a basket. For my part, I fell across her, and the two of us struggled upon the ground. It must have been a comical sight, for a couple of red-faced gentlemen and a member of the clergy laughed heartily as they stepped over us.

I got as far as my knees, a string of regrettable words prepared for utterance just behind my teeth. I had no patience left. “Why did you not look—” I began, but the words perished on my lips when the woman's hood fell back and I beheld her face.

A good woman is no less good for suffering some deformity, and I'll credit myself for not judging people on that score—I've known many a handsome face behind which lurked an unattractive soul. There is no shame in ugliness, except what beauty lends it. But when I say that this woman was ugly, I mean she could have knocked the eyes out of a potato. I doubt the troll could have gazed upon her without fright. I am not proud to say I gasped aloud.

Her nose was that of a pig—a genuine snout, with large, flexible nostrils pointing straight forward, set the same distance apart as her tiny pink eyes. The swollen flesh of her face hung in folds, weeping sweat. The sweat ran down the creases in her cheeks and coursed around the warts that decorated her jowls. Brown-edged teeth protruded from between her lips like a fire-grate. I had never seen such a dreadful collection of features all gathered in one place for a common purpose.

“Good heavens,” cried I, and clapped a hand across my mouth. She threw the hood back over her face, then scrabbled in the dirt to pick up her radishes. I did nothing to help, but leapt to my feet, shocked at the sight of her. The woman struggled upright—she was enormously beamish and could hardly walk—and hobbled away down the street with her head tucked between her shoulders.

Conscience often arrives too late, but never comes in vain.

As I stood there beside the tavern door trying to dust off my already filthy scarecrow clothes, I was overcome with shame. If that was my reaction to a brief glimpse of her, what must it be like to live every day with a countenance such as she had? Had I not known a man with three legs when I was a traveling entertainer? And a bearded woman? And a boy my own age with skin like a crocodill's? They hadn't seemed repugnant to me once I got to know them, whatever my first reaction might have been. So I cringed there by the inn door, ashamed, until the unfortunate woman was out of sight among the people in the street. Then, with vague thoughts to make amends somehow, I followed in the direction she had gone, but did not see her anywhere.

So that was an end of it. I'd been a slubberdegullion
*
and there was no repairing it.

It was in my mind to return to Midnight and continue my journey, perhaps to Ireland or France, whither to begin a new life. I had my liberty, a fine horse, and a purse of gold. What else was needed, after all? Clothes, of course. I wouldn't get very far—or at least, not without great travail—dressed as a vagabond. But how could I purchase a new suit without revealing I had money above my station? The answer came to me when I passed a Lombard banker's premises—a pawnshop. It was set a little way down a narrow alley, as if embarrassed of its business. Nobody, however ragged, would be turned away from such a place.

A few minutes later, I emerged in a fair enough secondhand suit of brown worsted, not too shiny at elbow and knee, with the scarlet of my boot turndowns tucked inside the shafts to conceal them. There weren't any shoes fit to walk in among the broker's stock. I stepped into the main street and retraced my steps back up through the town, and nobody spared me so much as a glance.

My complacent mood was rudely shattered, however. For what should I see on the road ahead but a file of soldiers, led by Captain Sterne on his fine brown horse? I nearly bolted, but recalled in time that he had not seen my face, and without my
own
horse I looked nothing like a highwayman. So I did what everyone else was doing, and got up against the shopfronts to make room as the procession went by.

The redcoat soldiers were somewhat the worse for weather. They'd been living rough and fighting desperate men, and their crossbelts were not so white as they had been. Sterne sported a blackened eye, which only made him look the fiercer. He fixed his bloodshot gaze upon everyone he passed, much as he had done in the Widow's Arms. When his eye fell upon me, I contrived to be scratching my brows so that my features were concealed. But he wasn't interested in my face—he was examining my boots. From between my fingers I watched him pass, and did not breathe again until his attention was directed elsewhere in the crowd.

In the vanguard behind the soldiers came the desperate men themselves: On the back of an ox-wain, or open-sided wagon, stood a cage of iron bars, after the fashion of a lion pen. Inside the cage were Giant Jim and his gang, the Spanish Desperado, Milliner Mulligan, the sailor with the hook, and several others I didn't know.

They were all marked with wounds and bound with chains, or they would otherwise have been strangling one another. As it was, they scowled and spat and recited the most appalling litany of curses I had ever heard. Although several of them happened to cast their eyes in my direction, none recognized me at all. I watched the heavy cart lurch out of sight and then continued my journey.

Well beyond the town, there was a stone bridge. It wasn't far from the track down which Midnight was hidden in the barn. I was still some distance away when I saw several soldiers upon the bridge, presumably posted as a watch. Bridges were an excellent place to lay for wanted persons; everyone must cross or swim, and few could swim. Anxiety flooded me once again. Although I had ample proof that I was entirely unknown, the thought of passing among the soldiers made my pulses race and my body run with cold sweat. One may avoid conviction, but one can never escape guilt. Still, I had to retrieve Midnight, and my path lay across the bridge.

As I drew closer, I saw that most of the soldiers were lounging against the parapet of the span while one of their number tormented a person halfway across. They laughed insolently and slung cruel jeers back and forth, tossing a small object their plump victim kept leaping to intercept. My heart gave a bounce when I saw the object was a radish, and that there were more scattered about. The object of their derision was none other than the dreadfully ill-favored woman from the town.

There had been many a test of my mettle the last two days, but none tried me as sorely as that which followed. I will be absolutely honest: Had not I already humiliated the poor woman, and owed her a debt of conscience, I would have turned away and forded the river elsewhere.
I
could swim, and I wanted no part of those soldiers whatsoever. Cruelty was so commonplace in those days, nobody could have faulted me for ignoring it. But ignore it I did not.

Almost without my permission, my feet lengthened their stride, and in a few moments I was at the bridge.

“Unhand that radish,” I cried, and all eyes were bent upon me.

My heart turned to ice. The soldiers were much larger than me, and with their tall miter hats and bright bayonets they looked the very picture of danger. I was reminded of the goblings, who gave me similar menacing looks. There might even have been a troll under the bridge, as in the children's tales.

The radish fell forgotten to the stones, so I had accomplished that much. The woman in the hood began gathering up her vegetables again, in just the way she had done when I knocked her down, except now she seemed weak and bewildered, as if under the influence of strong drink. Now I felt a great obligation to assist her. So I crossed midway over the bridge, ignoring the soldiers, and knelt to help her pick up the radishes. I was so engaged when one of the soldiers knocked off my hat.

“Pick it up,” said he, and placed his boot upon its brim, pinning it to the ground.

“Lift your foot, then,” I replied, growing angry despite the peril of my situation.

The other soldiers laughed, and I saw the one who now trod upon my hat was the same who had taken the chief part in bedeviling the ill-favored woman. I rose to my full height, which reduced the vertical distance between his eyes and mine to about a foot and a half, and said, “First I saw a cartload of bandits, and now I see a dozen knaves. The roads aren't fit for decent folk.”

Something I have learned since then is if you must insult someone, it's better to shape taunts into questions that invite a rejoinder. Most aggression is relieved by speech; if you leave your antagonist with nothing to say, he shall have to find some other outlet to release his hostility. Mine found an outlet in my nose.

The soldier, deprived of an opportunity for wit, biffed me upon the conk with a fist like a milking stool. I stumbled backward, cupping the injured appendage between my hands, and the back of my knees struck the parapet of the bridge. I toppled over the side. Any befuddlement the blow had caused was cleared from my head by the icy water into which I plunged. Blowing and sputtering, I flailed to the surface and was born downstream until the bridge was out of sight.

I crawled to the riverbank, completely covered in ignominy, and upon the shore was soon covered in goose excrement. Thus bedighted, with water spilling out of my boot-tops, I sloshed up the bank and made my way back toward the bridge. By now I had no pride left to repair, nor any intention of pursuing the quarrel, but simply wanted to retrieve my hat.

Luck, however, had returned from whatever errand it had been upon. I was approaching the bridge when I spied Captain Sterne upon his horse, bellowing at the soldiers. They now stood in as pretty a row as potted geraniums. The woman in the hood was gone, along with her radishes.

I didn't dare approach the bridge while the captain was upon it, for even with their unusual tops concealed, my boots were far too fine for the rest of my costume—as he might have observed in town. So I waited behind a holly bush, wringing my coattails, until he had run out of abuse and spurred his mount away. Only then did I return. Every soldier's eye was upon me, darting knives and lightning, but they dared not trouble me further.

I found my hat upon the ground, placed it upon my head, and tipped it to the soldiers. “Be kind to radishes,” I said, and went upon my way.

 

Chapter 11

THE PRICE OF A BUTTON

W
HEN THE
excitement wore off, all I was left with was nerves. My legs felt like jelly as I wended up the path to the decrepit barn. “Midnight,” said I, stepping through the door, “we are leaving this confounded place.”

But there was another surprise in store for me. Standing beside Midnight was the radish-woman, with her hood thrown back to reveal her ill-assorted face.

“I don't know what to make of thee,” she said, in a cool, musical voice that seemed incompatible with the rest of her.