Jed waited, but no further explanation was forthcoming.Instead, Solomon returned to work, shovelling at an even more determined pace than before.
Well, that was clear enough.And Jed wasn’t one to poke his nose in where it wasn’t wanted.He took his own shovel and followed suit.
Within an hour, however, a heavy fog was rolling in from the sea.
Cold, wet air prickled Jed’s skin, and he put up his shovel.The hedge on the far side of the field was already lost to view.“We’d best get back to the house while the going’s good.”
Solomon frowned, but he could not deny the wisdom of it.
By the time they reached the farmyard, they could barely see three yards in front of them.They ate in the kitchen and then retired to the barn much earlier in the day than usual, lighting their way across the foggy yard with a rush lantern.
The air in the hayloft was chilly, but they had blankets to wrap up in, and the soft, yellow light of the lantern.It was pleasant to be indoors, warm and dry, with a jug of ale from the kitchen.Jed burrowed comfortably into the hay.He was not in the least sleepy.
“Give us a song?”Solomon suggested.
Jed obliged with a rousing rendition of the ‘Stratford Weavers,’ Solomon joining in on the chorus.
“Your turn,” Jed said when he’d finished.He passed him the jug.“Whet your voice on that.”
“I en’t much of a singer.How about a story?I heard a good one from a coachman before I left London.So, there’s this shoemaker, and one day a gentleman comes to him to have a pair of boots made, and pays him with a single gold coin, far more nor the boots are worth.His wife and mother tell him it’s too good to be true, but he won’t listen—”
Solomon told the story well, his voice rising and falling as the cursed gold coin passed from hand to hand, turning low and thrilling when at last, now orphaned, widowed and bereft, the shoemaker put his hand in his pocket to find… the coin lying there again.
Jed whistled appreciatively.“Don’t know if I can come up with a story to top that one.”
He had plenty of yarns of his own from long Sunday evenings spent lounging with his messmates on the forecastle.But home was on his mind, and instead he found himself telling a story from a much earlier time: one that had been popular among the boys in his village, about the notorious smugglers said to frequent the caves below the headland.
Solomon had installed himself comfortably in the hay, lying on his back with one leg propped on the other.His eyes, dark in the lantern light, were fixed on Jed with an intensity that sent a shiver of heat through him.
If they’d been two strangers sitting in a tavern in some foreign port, Jed would already be shifting subtly closer to press his thigh against the other man’s under the table.
But this was different.No consequence-free risks here.They still had to work together tomorrow morning.
“…and they were never seen again,” he said, coming to the end of the tale.“And neither, more to the point, were the strings of rubies and diamonds!”
Solomon chuckled.“I suppose you spent hours searching for them as a boy.”
“Course we did!Scrambling over the rocks and into the cave as far as we dared.”
“Have you lived in the same village all your life, then?”
Jed nodded.“It’s a little fishing village on the north coast, between the moors and the sea.My father was carrier there before me, and his father before him.How about you?Where were you raised?”
“Oh, everywhere and nowhere.We moved around a deal.I’ve seen every part of England from the Severn to the Fens.”In answer to Jed’s obvious curiosity, he added, “My father and mother were servants to a travelling preacher.”
Jed had been hesitant to press him with questions.He hadn’t forgotten the reaction he’d received a few hours earlier.But Solomon seemed less reserved tonight.Maybe he was willing to talk about everything but the circumstances of his journey.Maybe it was the drink loosening his tongue, or maybe, like Jed, he was affected by the intimate atmosphere of their little circle of lanternlight in the darkness.
“So you’ve been all over?”Jed prompted.“You must have heard a mint of good yarns.”
“Only if you count the lives of Christian martyrs.Fiction and romance are the work of the Devil, you see.Or so I was always told.”
“Oh.”Jed had never heard of such a thing.“But, uh, now you live in London?”
“I went up to Town when I was sixteen.Wanted to see if it was all it was cracked up to be: a Den of Vice, a Pit of Sin.”He said it in a light, mocking tone.
“And did you find it to be so?”
Solomon stretched, and there was something about the movement that spoke of self-indulgence and the gratification of the senses.“I’d say so, yes.”
