He felt rather than saw Solomon nod.
Outside in the yard, the first light of dawn tinged the sky above the rolling line of moorland hills.A faint mist hung over the yard.They were only ten miles from the sea here.The inn was still in darkness, no lights burning in the windows.
Jed turned to look back at the waggon.For a second, he had thought Solomon might follow him.If he did, it would be the first time they were alone together in two days.But Solomon didn’t appear.
Jed stamped hard on the flash of disappointment he felt.It was stupid of him: he was the one who’d been avoiding Solomon, not the other way around.He picked his way across the muddy yard to the stables, where one of the inn’s stable hands was mucking out a stall by lanternlight.Jed gave him a nod of greeting and continued along the line of horses to the six sturdy carthorses that pulled the Barnstaple waggon.Their water trough had been refilled but their feed troughs were empty.
The stable hand put down his shovel and came hurrying up.“Sorry, I en’t got to it yet this morning.I’ve no oats left in the grain store.I’ll have to go up to the loft.”
“I’ll go,” Jed offered.
“Thanks, friend.Toss down a couple of extra sacks too, will you?”
Jed climbed the ladder in the corner of the stables, emerging into a loft filled with bales of hay at one end and stacked sacks of grain at the other.Small, paneless windows at either end of the loft let in fresh air and the first glimmer of dawn.Jed dragged a sack over to a hole in the floor and emptied the sack into the grain store below.
There was probably a loft like this at the Jarret Arms.It was a decent way to earn a living—working in the stables of an inn.Hard work, but with Solomon by his side it could be a good life.
Solomon certainly thought so.Jed heard again the enthusiasm in Solomon’s voice, saw the hope concealed under the feigned indifference.
In another life, it was something Jed could have had.Another life where he wasn’t a jumble of bad dreams and waking nightmares.
Would they still manage to see each other when Solomon was at the Jarret Arms, way up on the moors?In the old days, Jed had only gone past the place once or twice a year.Wallace, telling the other passengers about the reason for his journey, had said it would probably be a few months before the inn could open again.Jed didn’t even know where he’d be in a few months’ time.He couldn’t think about the past, and when he tried to think about the future, it seemed to slip through his fingers.
A crow cawed up on the roof, and he realised he had been standing there he knew not how long, an empty sack limp in his hands.He set it aside.As he dragged a second sack over to the hole, he heard faint voices from the stable below: Solomon and Wallace, talking to the stable hand.
Jed’s eyes were gritty, his head heavy from his restless night.He tugged sharply on the loose end of the twine holding the sack closed.What wouldn’t he give for a peaceful night’s sleep?
Then a sudden commotion out in the yard caught his attention, bringing him back to life.He let the sack fall and hurried across the loft to look down through the nearest window.The inn’s front door stood open, light and people spilling out into the yard.Lanterns bobbed around, held by shadowy figures.Women’s voices were raised in alarm.Jed caught a glimpse of a kitchen maid he’d spoken to the previous night, her face revealed by the light of the candle she held up.
Was the inn on fire?Jed was about to hurry down to help, but then he saw something that chilled him to the bone: a burly fellow armed with a cutlass guarding the inn’s front door.
In the yard, other dark shapes milled around, and Jed caught another glimpse of candlelight on a drawn cutlass.
His breath caught in his throat.The press!A dawn raid!
He ran to the ladder to shout a warning—but then swallowed the words.Two burly gangers had already entered the stables.They stood blocking the main door, looking about them.Jed drew back from the ladder, skin crawling with the sick feeling of being trapped.
He stepped back out of sight, quietly and cautiously retreating into the corner of the loft.Through the wooden boards under his feet came confused noises: stomping footsteps, shouts, horses neighing in alarm.
Through the confusion, Jed heard one sentence, in Solomon’s voice, quite clearly.“There’s an able seaman up in the loft.”
For one long, horrible moment, Jed couldn’t move.He stood frozen, crouched under the beams.All the breath had been driven from his body as though he’d been punched in the gut.
Then footsteps approaching the ladder broke the spell.He turned and ran to the opposite window, the one at the back of the stables overlooking the moors.He leaned out, heart in his mouth, looking at a sheer drop to the ground twenty feet below.Movement caught his eye: a tall, fair-haired figure fleeing down the lane behind the inn.Wallace!
Behind him, boards creaked as someone climbed into the loft.In desperation, Jed wondered if he might survive the jump out the window.But the gangers were already on top of him, dragging him back into the loft.
He struck out wildly, flailing with fists and feet, biting any flesh that came near enough.But there were two of them, and soon he was on his face with his arms twisted behind his back and a knee on his shoulder.Cold steel was pressed to his neck.A rough hand searched him and took away his pocket knife.
“I’m going to let you up now, and you’re going to climb down that ladder,” a voice said in his ear.“Otherwise we’ll truss you up and throw you down.All right?”
The knee on his shoulder pressed down harder.Jed swallowed around the pain.He nodded.
At the bottom of ladder, he made a break for the door and ran headlong into the guard they’d left there, cutlass drawn.
The two gangers behind him caught him and trussed his hands behind his back with the efficiency of men who spent their days taking prisoners.They marched him out into the yard.
The rising sun lit a scene of confusion.Men armed with cutlasses were everywhere.Three of them guarded a group of prisoners by the stable doors.Solomon was among them, his hands tied behind his back.His gaze met Jed’s, his eyes bright with some wild emotion.
