Finally, he was alone.He sank back against the wall, then slid down it until he was sitting in the straw.
His throat was still tight, and his eyes stung with unshed tears.What the devil had happened to him?He hadn’t thought about that day in years.He’d shut it deliberately out of his head… and in any case, many more like days had come after it.
Jed held out his hands.They were trembling.No blood on them, only traces of harness oil.But when he closed his eyes, he saw sand scattered across a blood-slicked deck.Gunwales shattered by cannon balls, lines of bodies sewn up in sailcloth, and carrion birds circling overhead.The deathly hush of the evening after a battle, and the stench of blood everywhere.
This wasn’t the first time his memories had taken him unawares since he jumped from theNonsuch, even if it wasn’t usually so vivid.What was wrong with him?
He took several deep breaths.
Probably he was a bit unsettled, that was all.Nothing surprising about that.Everything in his life was up in the air: his missing horse and cart, Carrie’s marriage, the press gang at Minehead… Once he was back in Ledcombe, reunited with his horse and cart, he’d be able to put these nightmares and living dreams behind him.
He just had to keep his head until then.
When Jed finally left the yard and went next door to the Boar, the Guildhall clock was already striking the half hour.The alehouse was busy but not uncomfortably crowded.Behind the bar, chatting with a couple of boatmen, stood the dark-haired woman Jed and Solomon had spoken to on the day they arrived.Nearby, a cheerful group of young men were sharing a plate of herring.Laughter and song floated through from the back room, where the Honourable Company of Wheelwrights were holding their weekly meeting.
Wallace and Solomon were already seated at a table near the bar.When Jed joined them, carrying a drink, Solomon nudged Wallace to get him to shift over a few inches.Jed realised, with a warmth in his chest, that he’d done it so that Jed wouldn’t have to sit with his back to the door.
“Sorry I’m late.”He didn’t want to mention what had happened in the stables.
“Never fret,” Solomon said.“I was late arriving back at the yard myself.”He had been sent with one of the grooms to fetch a pair of horses that Mrs Drake had bought from a dealer.
“That come off all right?”It wasn’t always easy to back a horse that had been broken to driving.
“We only brung one of ‘em back with us, in the end.The other was colicky.”
Wallace pulled a face.“That’s one thing I don’t miss these days: spending hours walking colicky horses in the rain.”
“Were you once an ostler too?”Jed asked him.
“Yes.Solomon and me, we worked at the same coaching inn up in London.”
That led to a conversation about horses they had each worked with, extraordinary cases of illness they’d seen, favourite poultices and ointments.Wallace was a softly-spoken man, his voice at odds with his height and broad shoulders.He smiled often, with a warmth that reached his eyes.He seemed eager to have Jed like him.
Jed couldn’t help remembering Solomon’s words:I’ve warmed his bed in the past…It was odd to sit at a table with Wallace after hearing him so often mentioned, and even odder still to think that he must know, or at least have guessed, what lay between Solomon and Jed.
Despite this oddness, the conversation flowed easily; the topic of horses and horse-keeping was a familiar one for all of them.Wallace and Solomon were polite enough never to let the conversation drift into a discussion of their life in London that would have excluded Jed.Nevertheless, he was constantly reminded of how well they knew each other.It was clear in every laugh they shared, every sentence that Solomon started and Wallace finished.
Some bond seemed to hold them together.A bond forged in adversity, Jed thought.He felt a flash of jealousy of that closeness—not because Wallace had ever bedded Solomon, but because he probably knew Solomon’s heart and mind far better than Jed did or ever would.
“Solomon says you have a fine singing voice,” Wallace said to Jed, once they had exhausted the topic of the care and use of horses.
“Well… I’ve a strong voice, at any rate.”
“Wallace used to belong to a choir in London,” Solomon put in.
As a young man, Jed had been a member of the Methodist choir in his village.He’d loved it: practice in the blacksmith’s house, a friendly drink afterwards with the other choir members, and a rousing performance on Sundays.It seemed like another lifetime, now.
“Are you church or chapel?”he asked Wallace.“I ask acause there’s a fine choir at the Meeting House on Cross Street.”
“Chapel, mostly.Where’s Cross Street, then?That’s behind the Guildhall, en’t it?”
They talked about choirs and singers they had known, those songs that were easiest or most difficult to sing in company, and the particularities of performing in front of a crowd.
“I nearly didn’t go along to my first practice, I was that nervous,” Wallace said.“I don’t know how I worked up the courage to cross the threshold.”
“Oh, I know how,” Solomon said.“It was in hopes of getting to speak to the pretty choirmaster’s daughter.”
“It was not!Or… maybe only a little bit.”
