Chapter Text
It was an early autumnal morning in Oxfordshire. It was not terribly cold, but it still was not the kind of morning most people would want to spend outdoors. Not everyone had the choice to be tucked away in bed or languishing by the hearth; some were shut inside a chilly coach without space to fully extend their legs, never mind the option to lie back.
And some people were stuck driving coaches for the spoilt men. Men like Edmund Morris would be seated just near enough to hear their passengers moan about the cold, all while they were the ones who were taking the freezing wind directly to their faces.
But it would not have been nearly so bad, Edmund felt, if he had been allowed to use any other coach or horses. Unfortunately for him, he had to work with what he was given – and he felt this misfortune keenly with every nauseating lurch of the coach.
The horses – a couple of old brown mares – seemed to stumble right towards every dip in the road, and lest he resort to giving himself a headache squinting through the greyish light, looking out for what dips to avoid, the rocking seemed to be an inescapable discomfort. Edmund wasn’t a lazy man, by any means, but it was hard for him to find it in himself to care enough about the passengers’ comfort to fight too hard against the road’s cruelty. Besides, the mares, bless them, were doing their best, and that’s all that mattered.
Had Edmund his way, he’d be home with his family. His new grandson would no doubt be up already, wailing at the top of his wee lungs, and Edmund would tell his daughter Alice to go back to sleep – that her little one would do just fine eating pap for this one meal – that she was doing a fine job, but a fine job demands fine rest, too.
Instead, Edmund was expected to take the two men inside the coach at least another five miles by noon. When he set off on the journey, he wasn’t sure whether or not the old coach would even make it five miles before collapsing and making kindling of itself.
He was tired, hungry, and aching. The only grace he was given was that the passengers hadn’t yet awoken. The moment they did, they’d just start up their complaining again – as if they weren’t the ones too cheap to fix their coach and buy fitter horses.
So, Edmund stared ahead at the Oxfordshire road as the sun spread its weak warmth over the land. The brown leaves of the trees were painted with a golden glaze. It looked to him to be a fine start to a beautiful day, even if it was bloody cold.
He felt a jolt come from behind him. He turned in his seat, afraid some part of the coach had finally given out. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the entire coach had finally separated from its seat; if he would look back to see the coach shrinking into the distance, left in its own dust.
But it was still there, all right. Edmund gave a puzzled frown.
It had only been a second or two that he had taken his eyes off the road, so one could imagine his shock when he turned back ahead and saw the lane was now occupied by a tall figure, dressed in red, holding a pistol up to the sky.
‘Fuck,’ Edmund softly said. He knew exactly what was about to happen, and he knew it wasn’t something that could be avoided – not with horses like these, which were trotting blithely straight towards the danger.
It had been many years since Edmund had been unlucky enough to be ambushed by highwaymen. So long, in fact, that he had not gone grey yet, while he was completely silver now.
He raised one hand high to acknowledge the stranger, using his other hand to tug lightly at the reins; the horses already moved so slowly, it seemed cruel to bully them into stopping any faster. Inside the coach, he heard the confused mumbles of the waking men. Edmund rubbed his face for a few seconds. He wished he had brought a weapon, but he hadn’t, and he didn’t suppose either of the men in back would be armed, either.
Lifting his head, he looked once more over the twitching ears of the nickering mares, at the armed man in the road. He had a pale, grimy, mean-looking face. He was standing somewhat lopsided, as though he might have been drunk. And his deep red clothes...
In an instant, Edmund’s unhappy resignation was swept away by fear.
‘Sirs?’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Sirs, there’s a man out here! He’s drenched in blood!’
‘My God, man – help him!’ said one of the men, sounding more indignant than concerned.
Edmund wasn’t sure how to explain his situation, so he didn’t respond. Instead, he slowly put both his hands up and rose from his seat.
‘Good man,’ the blood-covered stranger said, gesturing with his pistol for Edmund to continue his descent from behind the reins. Edmund was not stupid enough to resist. He could barely take his eyes off the man’s gruesome coat and breeches – just the sight of them, he imagined, would have been enough to make even a butcher pale.
There was a sharp knock at the window of the coach, followed by the sound of the door being opened. Edmund figured his passengers had finally become curious enough to leave their seats.
He was surprised when he heard a woman’s voice.
‘Get out,’ she said.
‘Good Lord, it’s Nelly Jackson!’ came the familiar voice of the younger passenger, Phillip.
‘Do not call me Nelly Jackson,’ said the voice again, her tone dangerous.
Nelly Jackson. Edmund couldn’t help it – he had to look. Sure enough, there was a woman there in the doorway of the coach. She had a pistol in one hand, pointed directly at the face of one of the men inside; her other hand gripped so hard at the door, Edmund thought she might snap the wood. He realised then that the jolt he had heard earlier had been from her jumping onto the side of the slow-moving coach.
‘You idiot,’ said the older of the two men to the younger one. ‘Don’t you keep up with the news? Jackson is a hero! She saved the Queen!’
‘Get out, now,’ said the woman as she backed out of the door to allow them room to obey. Edmund still hadn’t gotten a good look at her face, but he had seen all the drawings of Jackson that were circulating a couple months back. This woman’s black hair was plenty evidence for him that she wasn’t the renegade-turned-hero.
‘Of course I knew that, Roland,’ scoffed Phillip. His wig was askew, but he couldn’t fix it while his hands were held up in surrender.
‘Oh, I don’t believe you,’ muttered Roland as he followed. He hadn’t put his wig on in time before being forced out, and now his bald head shone in the weak sun.
‘I swear, I knew it wasn’t Nelly Jackson! Jackson wore men’s clothes, but this one’s in a dress,’ Phillip insisted, pink in the face. He nodded hard enough at his own words that Edmund almost couldn’t see that he was shaking. Sometimes it stunned Edmund to see just how much toffs ran their mouths in situations where anyone else would have had the sense to keep them shut.
‘Oh, really!’ Roland huffed. ‘I’m sure Nelly Jackson knows how to change attire.’
‘Stop,’ the woman snapped, ‘talking about Nelly Jackson or I swear...’
She did not finish her threat, for she had no need; the pair of men had finally laid eyes upon the bloodstained man; a sight which would make anyone fall quiet, if they didn’t scream. To their credit, they did not start shouting, like Edmund was expecting. Instead, Phillip brought a hand to his mouth, looking as if he might be sick. Roland’s arms fell weakly to his sides.
As the other two men gawked at the highwayman, Edmund turned his eyes upon the young woman – highwaywoman. She was certainly less physically intimidating than her accomplice, and not only because her clothes did not appear to have been laundered in a vat of blood. Her dress was clearly quality, even if its condition was deplorable, with holes about the ragged hem; and he assumed the entire garment was supposed to be black, not the dirty brown colour which it had absorbed from the woods.
Even the way she held her pistol was less certain than he’d expect from a practised highwaywoman. She wasn’t tall, though she seemed to try to make herself taller by holding her chin slightly up.
She reminded him of his Alice – particularly, his Alice when she was being defiant, usually over something silly. They had the same dark hair: long and thick. Alice had never allowed hers to be cut after the lice incident when she was six.
It was because of those little similarities that he felt a sting of pity for the woman, despite her involvement. He looked at the obviously-dangerous man whom she was with and wondered if she was even there of her own volition.
‘Get away from the carriage,’ said the vicious-looking man. He spoke through gritted teeth and breathed heavily between his words. ‘Go stand there – That’s right... Now stop right there. Good.’
Edmund turned around once he and the other two had reached the edge of the road. He cast a look at the two men beside him; he wondered if they were surprised to be treated no better than him, if they were offended. All he saw in their faces was fear. The horses were still calm, though. Nobody had shouted, no violence had broken out; they hadn’t sensed danger yet.
‘Would you look at that? We finally found some who know how to listen,’ the highwayman said, sneering at his companion. ‘How refreshing.’
The woman said nothing. Her expression was distant as she watched him draw nearer to them. His pace was slow and his jaw was tight, but there was a vicious eagerness in his eyes.
‘Here’s what is going to happen,’ he said once he was standing in front of the toffs; he did not seem to pay much attention to Edmund, much to his relief. The highwayman reached out and plucked the wig off the top of the younger man’s head. Though it was far and away cleaner than anything he had on his body, he still made a show of dusting it off before placing it upon his own head. Edmund looked over at Phillip, whose balding head was now on full display. The embarrassed pinkness in his cheeks had long since faded, leaving him white as a ghost.
‘We’ll be taking as much of what you have as we want,’ he told them with a nasty smile.
Edmund had driven a lot of toffs around over the years, which had given him an ear for accents – moneyed ones, in particular. It surprised him to hear one now coming from such a wretched man.
Behind the highwayman, the woman was focused on her accomplice, rather than their victims. Her worried eyes took in his grisly attire.
‘Please, sir, we don’t have much,’ said Roland, his tone weak and pleading. ‘We’ve only enough supplies to make it to Wantage this afternoon.’
The highwayman shook his head and gave an unsympathetic laugh. One of the mares began to dig at the ground with her hoof. The woman behind the highwayman shut her eyes and leant her head back against the outside of the coach. Edmund watched her place her pistol down on the seat near her. She looked unhappy and disappointed.
‘Listen,’ Edmund finally spoke up. He lowered his hands slowly, the whole time bowing his head just enough to show he wasn’t a threat. He had no pistol, after all, nor anything else to fight back with. ‘Listen...’ he repeated more softly. ‘You won’t find much in there. Just some bread, maybe a little lolly...’
Out of the corner of his eye, Edmund saw Roland turn to Phillip and mouth, ‘Lolly?’ in evident confusion.
‘Unless you think your sweetheart there would like horse feed, you’ll have to temper your expectations.’
Edmund didn’t know exactly what he said to cause the two robbers to recoil in disgust the way they did, but he figured it might have been the idea of eating horse feed.
But it was all the distraction he needed.
He yanked the pistol out of the man’s hand with more ease than he had been expecting, sending it flying off to the side.
Now, it had been a long time since Edmund had punched anyone – which wasn’t anything of which to be ashamed, in his opinion, as he was no ruffian. His fist made contact with the young highwayman’s face, firmly colliding with his cheekbone.
‘Thomas!’ shouted the woman as the man stumbled back from Edmund.
The punch had made Edmund’s arm ache all the way from his knuckles up to his shoulder. He gave the hand a shake, flexing his fingers. He couldn’t help but feel a little proud of himself for the solid hit.
But when he looked up to the woman with compassion in his eyes, he was met with a fury he never could have imagined.
His heart swooped within his breast – so did all his organs – as he was flung backwards. He hit the ground and was sent rolling from the force of – the force of what?
Gasping in pain and fresh terror, he tried to hold himself up off ground, for the sharp rocks and sticks were digging into his soft belly. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stand right away, so instead he dragged himself along the ground, trying to turn himself enough to see what it was that had even hit him.
His dull pain wasn’t centralised anywhere in particular, but at first, all he could assume was that the man had managed to get his pistol back; that he had shot him. Edmund then spotted the pistol near the stomping hooves of the horses, which were beginning to panic. The men he had been supposed to bring to Wantage by noon were cowering; the older man had taken a knee and looked as if he was trying to protect his bald head.
Edmund coughed a little as he looked to the woman next. If she had shot him, when he was only trying to –
But the expression on her face was so terrible – so cruel – that Edmund could no longer see any resemblance between her and his dear Alice.
She raised her empty hands slowly; it was not in itself a menacing gesture, but he felt the purest dread gathering within him as he waited for her to bring them back down.
He was right to be afraid.
Edmund screamed as he felt himself being crushed against the ground. All the sticks and rocks stuck into him and he was sure they were poking through his clothes and piercing at his flesh. Dirt spilt into his open mouth – for he was being pressed with such force that he was being ground right into the packed dirt of the road. There was an anthill near his brow which had become disturbed by his torture; he panicked as he saw the little creatures spilling out, ready to defend themselves.
‘Please!’ Edmund cried out desperately as the ants began to crawl upon his face – their creeping was even worse to him than the pain. He could not move an inch; not even his limbs nor fingers. His frantic blinking to try to keep the ants out of his eye only served to draw dirt into it. Oh, he hoped it was only dirt.
The last of the air in his lungs was being squeezed out and it was getting increasingly difficult for him to draw breath enough to replace it. He was quickly becoming dizzy, but still vividly felt the amassing of the swarm on his face – every sharp little foot, every stinging bite.
He forced his eyes back open, trying again to figure out what was happening to him.
The highwayman he had punched to the ground had not returned to his feet; he stared up at the woman not with pleasure or admiration, but with terror. Edmund closed his eyes tightly, taking no comfort in the sight of the other man’s fear.
There was a terrible pressure inside his head. In his teeth and gums, he felt his heart’s frantic pounding. His nose was filling with blood, which promptly spilt out of it, washing away some of the ants in a river of red.
‘Sofia! Sofia!’ he heard the man cry, just barely.
Thomas. His name was Thomas, hers was Sofia. Edmund’s brother had been named Thomas. It was a struggle for Edmund now, with all the pain and all the years gone by, but the image of his brother’s young face settled behind Edmund’s stinging eyes. Like Edmund’s breaths now, Thomas’s last few days had been laboured and painful; he had died of a wasting disease that made his lungs, he had said, feel like a spider had crept in and spun webs. The vision of his face faded into red, which then faded into black. Edmund felt one final vengeful thrust of the invisible force...
Then it was gone.
Edmund thought he died. He lay there, waiting to be taken to his brother, his parents, and everyone else he had lost over his many years. He hoped the aching would be taken away, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to hug them proper.
Slowly, the expectation of reunion faded, and his relief concentrated into consciousness – then fear once more.
It was painful, yet so easy now, to lift his face from the ground. He had already begun to brush off the ants before he realised he could work his limbs. He scrubbed at his beard and neck; he spat and spat, but still tasted dirt and blood – still felt unnatural movements within his mouth. He was shaking and twitching like a madman in his efforts to make himself clean.
He stopped himself, however, when he heard the low chuckle of the man on the ground.
When Edmund raised his watery eyes to look at the fearsome woman again, he saw that she was leaning back against the coach, her head lolled back with her face to the sky; she looked exerted, yet content, of all things, judging by the faintest of smiles which she bore.
He began to feel a sickness rising that had little to do with the physical suffering he had just experienced – what she had just put him through. The fact that neither of the pair were armed with their pistols now meant very little to Edmund.
‘You saw what will happen if you don’t comply,’ Thomas said, rubbing his cheek. He stood up with visible difficulty. Over his stomach, he had his arm slung protectively; his hand looked so pale against the garnet background of his clothes. He walked over to the frantic horses and scooped his pistol up off the ground by their feet, careful not to get too near. His face bore a grimace, but he hid it by the time he straightened back up.
‘Now, stand,’ Thomas said wearily, facing the cowering toffs. His pistol was pointed to the sky. ‘Stand and deliver. Strip yourselves – we’d prefer not to touch you.’
Sofia turned around and began to rifle through the contents of the coach. Edmund got up off the ground, but only onto his knees. He watched in an agonised haze as the toffs complied hastily; layer by layer, they reduced themselves to the barest of clothing.
So quiet was everyone as the evil deed was done, the horses had calmed themselves down. Even when Sofia walked over to the mares to look them over, to see their condition, they only nickered and snorted softly. Edmund felt his skin crawl as he watched her give the closest one a couple gentle strokes along its neck. He had always been taught that animals had a natural fear of witchcraft.
‘We will let you keep your shabby carriage and half-lame horses,’ Sofia said in a voice that suggested such an unearned authority, it made Edmund feel even sicker. ‘You may go.’
Her pistol had returned to her hand – not that it meant much, after her true weapon had been revealed. She gestured with it for Edmund to retake his seat at the reins. It took everything in his power to walk in her direction to comply, as getting any nearer to her was a hideous thought. Phillip and Roland rushed to the coach so quickly he thought they would compete for who would get to go in first. They weren’t so foolish, surprisingly. Phillip allowed Roland to go first before hastily throwing himself into the coach after him.
The horses, sensing their imminent departure, became alert. The mare on the left took a couple steps forward, but found herself held back by the dead-weight as the right one did not budge. The pair of them always did just that when it came time to leave, and clearly this was no different a circumstance than usual. Bless them, they didn’t know.
Neither the passengers nor the highwaymen gave Edmund the order to go, so he waited with a stiff back, an itchy face, and a nose that still dripped with blood.
‘Thomas, change right now,’ he heard the woman mutter. ‘Do it, before you attract animals to us.’
‘Give me just a minute,’ Thomas replied in a thick voice; it was clear that his mouth was full. They had already begun to feast on their ill-gotten food.
‘You’re disgusting and you’re going to make yourself sick if you don’t change first.’
The man groaned loudly.
‘Oh, God, at least try to wash your hands first!’
As he listened to them bicker, Edmund gingerly dabbed at the blood under his nose with his sleeve. His forearm bumped painfully against his nose when Sofia’s voice came from closer to him: ‘Go! Before your horses starve.’
Edmund didn’t need any more direction. He picked up the reins again and had the horses take them away from the hellish pair as fast as their old legs could.