‘A very handsome child,’ he remarked to be friendly, and won a beam of pleasure. He just hoped it wouldn’t cry throughout the journey.
The coach rattled off at great speed, lurching and bounding. ‘Someone’s in a hurry,’ Daizell said.
‘At least they keep to time,’ one of the opposite passengers remarked.
The baby mewed. The buxom woman jiggled it soothingly. ‘Nasty rattling things, aren’t they, my poppet?’
‘Very tolerant young person you have there,’ Daizell observed.
‘Oh, she’s a good girl, aren’t you? Say hello to the gentleman. Hello, sir,’ the woman added in a high-pitched voice, presumably on her child’s behalf, and flapped its pudgy wrist. A little starfish hand reached out towards Daizell.
He extended a finger out of curiosity and found it caught in a hot, sticky fist. Enormously round blue eyes stared at him with a look of uncomprehending examination, as though the baby was trying to establish what manner of man he was. Daizell wished it luck, and attempted to extricate his finger, only to realise that babies had rather stronger grips than he’d expected. He tugged discreetly; the baby held on like grim death with chubby cheeks. A choke at his shoulder indicated that Cassian found his predicament amusing.
His smile faded soon enough as the coach continued on its reckless way. If anything, it was speeding up, and Daizell felt the drag as they took a corner too fast. Cassian gripped his knees with white knuckles. ‘My God,’ he muttered.
There was noise from above now, a few cries of encouragement, more of protest. The mother clutched the baby to her with a little scream as the coach hit a rock or some such and a wheel left the ground. ‘Lord!’
The baby wailed, but didn’t release Daizell’s finger. The coach bounded on.
‘This is too fast,’ Cassian said. ‘Can we make him stop?’
‘How?’
Cassian’s hands flexed, making fists as though he held reins. ‘It’s toofast. If we take a corner at this speed with the coach top-heavy from all the people up there—’
‘Bless you, young fellow, this is nothing,’ a man opposite said. ‘I’ve seen eighteen crammed atop a coach before now, and never—’ They hit a bump in the road that jolted Daizell right off the seat despite the close-packed interior. Someone swore, in a mumble that suggested a bitten tongue. The coach lurched sideways, and down on one side.
‘The axle’s going,’ Cassian said sharply. ‘The axle— Hey! Fellow!’ He shoved his head out of the window, yelling for the driver. ‘Stop!Stop!’
Daizell hauled him back in by main force. ‘Stick your head out when we roll and the window will chop it off quicker than a Frenchman,’ he snapped. ‘Grab the strap.Everyonegrab a strap. When that wheel comes off, we’re going over.’
‘My baby,’ the woman said on a terrified breath.
Daizell looked at her, at arms that kneaded and scrubbed longer than he ever could but shoulders that weren’t used to taking weight, and at the tiny hand that held on to hisfinger as though he were someone to be trusted. ‘Give her to me. I’ll hold her safe. Use the straps and brace with your feet when we go.’
‘There’s no need to fuss,’ said one of the men opposite, but his voice suggested he knew that was wishful thinking.
‘No, he’s right. Hold on!’ Cassian said.
The mother gave a sob of fear. ‘Please,’ Daizell said. ‘Look to yourself and I’ll hold her.’
She held the child out. Daizell pulled the heavy little bundle into his arms, grappled her to him, wrapped the strap round his other wrist, and readied himself for the moment he knew was coming.
And it came, with a crunch he felt more than heard. The axle gave; the wheel was off. The speeding coach lurched and rocked from side to side, so for a terrifying moment it might have gone either way. Daizell poured every ounce of concentration into locking the baby-holding arm immovably against his chest – why in God’s name was he doing this, he’d probably break his neck – and then the coach tipped and fell sideways.
It was one of those moments that seemed incredibly slow. Daizell, who’d been braced and waiting for it, pushed himself up and off the seat with both feet, feeling the strap dig round his wrist, timing the motion to the inevitable crash as the coach hit, and skidded along the surface of the road on its side, and the screams rose.
Chapter Four
The toppled coach dragged along for a few terrifying seconds that felt like forever. They’d gone down on the left side, so Daizell thumped on top of the buxom woman, and Cassian landed on top of them both, with extra feet and legs flailing from the other passengers. It was a maelstrom, a dizzying chaos of movement and bodies and pain and screaming.
They rocked to a stop, in what might have been a deathly silence except for a loud, enraged noise close to his ear.
The baby. He’d still got the baby, and it was howling with infant fury. He felt a moment of bone-melting relief that it wasn’t forever silent, and then started wishing it would stop.
He was squashed in a heap of bodies with bones, heels, and elbows sticking into everything of him that was soft and vulnerable. ‘Cassian?’ he managed, shouting over the squalling. ‘Cassian!’
‘Urgh.’
