The Highwayman (10 page)

“No more of that gruel,” Burke announced to her as she entered the tent with a bowl of marrow and curds on the fourth day of his recovery. “I’ll have meat or naught at all. I’m being fed like a nursling. And leave off with that flower potion, too; it keeps me in a fog.”

“You seem the better for both,” Alex said, setting the bowl on the floor and postponing that argument for later.

“And I want a glass to shave. I feel like a beggar at the manor gates. All I lack is a stump.”

“Why don’t you grow a beard? I’ve taken note that everyone else in camp has one.”

“I had one. It itched.”

“Liar. You’re vain.”

He gave her a disgusted look.

“Vanity is a great sin,” Alex said. “You want to look out for your soul and compose yourself in modesty.”

“And I need to cut my hair. I’ll be mistaken for a maid.”

“Some hopes with that beard. And that size. The woman never lived to come near your shoulder.”

“Tell Rory I’ll go to the brook and have a wash,” he said.

“I will do no such thing. You’ll rest for two days more before you go anywhere.”

“You’re a tyrant, and I vow you’ll pay for it once I’m back to myself again.”

“Until then, you’ll do as I say. I’ll cut your hair and shave you when you’re up and about.” She smiled. “I’ll crop that mane and give you curls like Alexander.”

“Who’s that? Your father?”

“No, but my father named me after him. He was the greatest leader of ancient times, in Greece, more than three hundred years before the birth of Christ.”

“And what did he do?”

“He conquered the entire world, as much of it as was known to him, all the way to Persia.”

“Persia?” he said doubtfully. “Where is that?”

“A long way from here,” Alex replied, at a loss to describe the immense distance she had once seen on her tutor’s cartograph. “Many times the distance from England to Ireland.”

“And were the Persians, whoever they might be, difficult to conquer?”

Alex nodded. “They fought him from their elephants.”

“Elephant? Is that a sort of fortress?”

Alex giggled. “An elephant is an animal, as high off the ground as one man standing on another’s shoulders, with a long nose like a pig’s snout that reaches all the way to the earth.”

“From that height?”

“Yes.”

He snorted. “You mock me. There is no such creature.”

“But there is. I’ve seen drawings of them.”

“You must think me dull-witted,” he said, hitching his shoulder in irritation.

“Certainly not. But since I’ve seen the pictures, you might forgive me for believing.”

“I’ve seen drawings of the green men said to come out on the lawn on midsummer eve at midnight and grant the beholder three wishes. That doesn’t mean I believe in them. Why am I talking to you at all? A woman who thinks the people in the Welsh Marches have webbed feet!”

“I was telling you of Alexander,” she said, dropping the subject of elephants.

“So you were.”

“He reached the limits of the world before the age of thirty. He died at thirty-three, weakened by old wounds and poisoned, it is often said, by tainted water. My father was a student of history and a great admirer of his.”

“For his victories?”

“For more than that. My father thought he was very forward looking, a man out of his time. He told me stories of him when I was a child. But after he died and my uncle took charge of my care, my new tutor instructed me in wifely duties only. I heard no more then of Alexander,” she ended sadly.

“Why do you remember all this so well?” Burke asked. “You must have been very young when you heard about him.”

“I was young but often left alone to think, and I was captivated by what I’d heard. I looked up his image on the bookplates in my father’s library, before his books were sold with his entailed estate when he died. There were copies of Alexander’s likeness. He was fair, like you, with the same brown-gold hair.”

Burke stared at her, listening.

“He was clean-shaven also, in a time, like now, when the fashion was for beards.” She smiled. “Perhaps he was vain, too.”

“And?”

“Not so big as you, not above middle height, but very comely. The story goes that his games master believed in a strict regimen of sparse diet and little sleep for children, and this kept him small. He blamed his childhood for his size, which he felt was a failing. His greatest friend, Hephaestion, was described as taller and better looking, in which case he was certainly handsome. Alexander went near to mad when Hephaestion died, of physician’s neglect, so he thought. He gave orders immediately to hang the doctor.”

“That was not wise,” said Burke. “So your hero had a flaw.”

“Yes. I remember it because it seemed such a lack of judgment, as if he must have been quite driven from his senses.”

“Great fondness followed by a loss can do that.”

“True. He seemed to think he and his friend were twin souls, almost the same person. How you feel about Rory, I imagine. Or your brother.”

Burke rubbed his shoulder, lost in thought.

“Don’t touch that,” Alex said.

“This bloody thing is putting me in hopes of an asylum,” he complained.

“It almost put you in your grave,” Alex said. “And I must take issue with Rory. He once told me you stood wounds very well.”

“He stands the wounds well,” Rory said, entering the tent. “It’s the mending he can’t bear.”

“I’ll take a walk,” Burke announced.

Alex rose as she and Rory exchanged glances.

“Tomorrow,” Alex said. “And now you must rest. You’ve been listening to me babbling all this time when you should have been napping.”

“She treats me like a stripling,” Burke said to Rory.

“You’re behaving like an infant,” Rory replied.

Alex sighed. “It’s time for you to sleep.”

“Tell me some more interesting stories about your namesake.”

“Stories?” Rory said, arching his brows. “Are we in an English nursery now, pestering the governess for bedtime stories?” He rolled his eyes and left the tent.

Burke looked at her expectantly.

Alex resumed her place on the dirt floor. She told him what else she could remember about the man who had changed history, back when Burke’s distant ancestors were still migrating from the banks of the Danube, to keep him quiet until he fell asleep.

* * * *

Burke awoke in the middle of the night, sweating and parched, and reached for the deerskin flask Alex had left at his elbow, wincing as the movement stung his shoulder. He drank deeply and then considered his nurse, sleeping a short distance away, curled up on his tweed cloak.

This must stop, he thought. He must get some exercise, find some way to relieve the pressure of her constant presence. He was not so injured after all, despite the protestations of his attendant. He was at least well enough to spend every waking moment when he wasn’t talking to her indulging in fantasies of making love to her.

And sleeping was worse. Each night, like this one, he awoke, perspiring and dizzy with desire, from dreams in which he caressed her creamy skin and kissed her budding lips and the languid, heavy lids of her emerald eyes. He told himself that it was hopeless, that their situation made it so, but logic did not avail him. He told himself that sooner or later she would surely be restored to the English so his feelings were a waste of time. Lastly, he told himself that she was a child—which he knew was a lie.

She was a woman fully grown, and she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He knew it from her furtive looks, the longing glances she had not the cunning to disguise, the way she trembled when they touched. But she was young and sheltered, and aside from all other considerations, this presented another problem.

Burke had never taken a virgin in his life. From his fifteenth year he’d had ready access to the easy women who hung around the inland camps and asked no questions. His current favorite was Deirdre, an attractive hybrid with the ebony hair of the Spanish invaders, who bedded him well and regularly. He did not deceive himself that it was a sentimental attachment; she liked the honor of being chosen by the local chieftain and the considerable pleasure of coupling with his strong, healthy body. She milked him dry and then left him, satisfied, with no conscience about it whatsoever.

Such would not be the case with Alexandra. She was no Deirdre to take her pleasure where she found it. And it was different for him, too. He wanted to be with Alex all the time. He found himself, in weaker moments, wishing heartily that he’d never sent a message to the castle that he had her.

There was a hole in his shoulder, his brother was still an English prisoner, and he was in love with his hostage. It was a mess all around, but Burke resolved that he would save something from it and not touch her. He may have misused her in this instance, but he did not have to ruin her entire future. The one thing he could decently do was return Alex to her uncle intact, not despoiled for a wealthy husband, the political marriage Cummings must certainly have in mind for her.

Burke closed his eyes. He must get back on his feet quickly. His dependence on Alex was only worsening the situation. In the morning he would walk.

* * * *

And in the morning he did. Rory went out to the woods with him, and he felt stronger, but when he got back he was glad of his bed. He squinted down at his shoulder as Alex changed his dressing and said, “It should be left to the open air.”

“Tomorrow. After your bath we’ll leave it uncovered.”

“Tomorrow, tomorrow. Is there nothing at all that can be done today?”

Alex sighed. The wound had puckered shut but was still oozing slightly. She had to keep him occupied one more day. She’d run out of Alexander stories. “I wish I had some books. You have none here?”

There was a long pause, and then Burke said, “Who would read them?”

Alex looked at him. “You cannot read and write?”

“Most people cannot read and write.”

Alex knew that this was true. The general population, even in England, was largely illiterate.

“But I thought...”

“You thought what? You thought I had a private tutor come to my father’s study and teach me letters and tell me stories?”

Alex was silent.

“I speak your language because I listened to others speaking it for a long time, as I told you,” he said. “No one gave me lessons.”

“Then I shall do so.”

“What?”

“Let’s begin with your name,” she said, picking up a stick and drawing a line on the dirt floor. “What’s your first name? No one ever calls you anything but Burke.”

“Burke will do.”

“You have no first name?”

“Kevin,” he said reluctantly.

“What does it mean in your language?”

He thought for a moment. “Strength.”

“Your parents chose well.” She carefully spelled out
Cayvin
on the floor, for that’s the way it sounded when he said it.

“Doesn’t look like much.”

“This is English, of course.” She added
Berk
for good measure. “There. I wonder what it would look like in Gaelic.”

“Not like that,” he said. “I’ve seen some books, the figures are very different.”

“A different alphabet,” she said.

“What?”

“The letters used to make up the words. In any case, one language at a time is enough.”

“Show me your name,” he said.

She wrote it for him on the floor.

“It’s longer than mine.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I’ll need to know more than names.”

“Let’s start with the letters. Once you learn them you can form them into words.”

And so she began the task of teaching Burke to read.

* * * *

The next day, as promised, Burke went to the brook with Rory and bathed. Alex stood at a discreet distance until she was summoned to cut Burke’s hair.

No one thought any longer that she would run away.

“I leave you to it, and welcome,” Rory said sourly. “He’s the worst patient I ever saw, and I’ve seen a few.”

Burke called after him in Gaelic, and Rory glanced over his shoulder as he left and threw his cousin a black look.

“What did you say to him?” Alex asked.

“It doesn’t bear repeating.”

“Give me your knife.”

Burke, freshly shaved, was stripped to the waist and seated on a rock. His damp hair was pushed back off his face, his shoulder disfigured by the swollen purple weal left by his wound, adding to a gallery of other, faded scars. It was late morning, and the thin sunshine was just strong enough to warm the skin. He handed her the weapon.

“Do you usually just slice it off yourself?” she asked, picking up a lock of his hair.

“What other could I do?” he replied as she stood behind him.