Free The Highwayman's Curse by Nicola Morgan Page B

early. No one told us why, until Iona had said we would be “running a cargo”, which I did not fully understand but took to be a seaman’s term. I would not show my ignorance in front of the girl, although she was softening towards us slightly and I to her. There was a silent anger about her, which I was coming to understand. She was trapped in a hopeless world. She must have felt weighed down by the curse that she believed hung over her.
    Lying awake on a cold night, alone with her thoughts, she must have feared what might happen to her. As I had, when the man had cursed me. “The devil take the sheriff’s son!” he had said, with all the poison and hatred he could muster. And still I feared those words sometimes, though I was far away now and I considered myself no longer the sheriff’s son. I had paid for my father’s sins, had I not? Had I not done enough to shake off the power of any curse, especially one that was wrongly made?
    But could I be entirely sure?
    One thing I didn’t worry about as I tried to sleep that night – the horses. We had seen to them before we slept and they were dry and comfortable, with some dusty oats and fresh water. These people might be harsh in their treatment of fellow men but of their beasts they would take good care. We had been given back our saddlebags too, and though they contained little of value it meant something to me that we were now trusted by these men. Not that I wished to stay long, of course, but I felt that we were safe at least for a while.
    Our pistols and swords were not returned to us, not yet.
    The fire hissed and crackled, sometimes spitting a violent spark onto the hearth. Snoring there was aplenty, and the muttering of men sleeping uneasily. Every now and then, Tam moaned in his sleep and I peered at him through the darkness, hoping that he was not slipping into fever. And from outside came the faraway crashing of waves and the nearby whishing of a night wind ruffling the heather-lined thatch above us. Every now and then, a draught from the window moved the spinning-wheel a little, and then it settled with a click.
    The scrawny dogs licked themselves regularly with a wet slapping sound. Eventually, someone sent them outside, where I suppose they found shelter where they could.
    But more than these noises, it was my thoughts that kept me awake.
    I had changed in the last few weeks since running from home. My reasons for leaving seemed like a story from another life. Did it matter now that my father and my brother had despised me so? They had been wrong, and I had punished them in full.
    At first Bess had shown me how to survive, but now I needed no one to show me. That thought was strong and good. Yet the future seemed full of confusion. I did not know where I was going, what choices I might have, what chances. I could see the silhouette of the spinning-wheel in the darkness and the image came to my mind of the three Fates, spinning our lives for us, the thread twisting and strengthening, then weakening, then snapping on a whim.
    At last, I must have slept, because it seemed a very small time before I was woken by the confusion of voices and other commotion. Someone was shaking my shoulder. It took many moments before I remembered where I was. My mouth felt horribly dry, hunger making my tongue taste foul.
    In guttering candlelight and the glow from a quiet fire, Thomas and Jock were pulling on their jackets and boots. Mouldy, Red and Billy were there too, taking up items such as rope, and sacks, and fastening them about their bodies.
    Few words were spoken. Jeannie bustled around, giving the men hunks of bread and some cheese, which they ate, ripping at the food with their teeth. She gave the same to Bess and to me. “Do as ye are tellt, and no harm will come,” she said quietly. She touched Bess’s shoulder, as a woman to a girl, and stroked a finger on her cheek. Bess smiled back at her.
    Two men removed the chest