He peered cautiously out through the drooping canopy of a white oak. The road ran by a furlong or so from his hiding place, and while it was blessedly vacant at the moment, the muddy track was clearly well traveled, pocked and churned by the recent passage of horses.
He’d heard them coming, thank God, in time to get Bart off the road and hidden in a tangle of saplings and vines. He’d crept close to the road just in time to see some of the men from whom he’d won money the night before, now halfway recovered from their sodden sleep and of a mind to get it back, judging from their incoherent shouts as they passed.
He glanced up at the flickering green light that came down through the leaves; it was no more than midmorning. Too bad. He didn’t think it wise to go back to the tavern, where the other militiamen were doubtless stirring, and he had no idea how far it might be to the next hamlet. He shifted his weight and sighed; he didn’t fancy hanging about under a tree—which, it struck him, was the perfect size and shape from which to hang a man—until the lot pursuing him got tired and went back the other way. Or nightfall, whichever came first.
What came next was the sound of horses, but fewer of them. Three men, riding slowly.
Cloaca obscaena. He didn’t say it aloud, but the words rang clear in his head. One of the men was the gentleman from whom he’d purchased Bart, two days before, and the others were from the militia unit.
The other thing that was clear to him was the vision of Bart’s right fore, on which the shoe was missing a large triangular chunk.
He didn’t wait to see whether the ex-owner could pick Bart’s track out of the morass in the road. He dodged round the oak and made his way as fast as he could through the brush, devil take the noise.
Bart, whom he’d left nosing about for edibles, was standing with his head up, ears pricked, and nostrils flared with interest.
“No!” William said in a frantic whisper. “Don’t—”
The horse neighed loudly.
William snatched loose the reins and swung up into the saddle, gathering both reins into one hand and reaching for the musket with the other.
“Go!” he shouted, kicking Bart smartly, and they broke through the screen of brush and slewed onto the road in a shower of leaves and mud.
The three riders had gathered at the edge of the road, one man squatting in the mud, looking at the mass of overlapping tracks. All of them turned to gape at William, who bellowed something incoherent at them and brandished his musket as he turned sharply to the left and charged back in the direction of the tavern, bent low over his horse’s neck.
He could hear shouted curses behind him, but he had a good lead. He might make it.
As to what might happen if he did … it didn’t matter. There wasn’t anything else he could do. Being trapped between two groups of hostile horsemen didn’t appeal to him.
Bart stumbled. Slipped in the mud and went down, William shooting off over his head and landing flat on his back with a splat that knocked the breath out of him and the musket out of his hand.
They were on him before he could remember how to breathe. His head swam and everything was a blur of moving shapes. Two of the men dragged him up and he hung between them, blood roaring in his ears, helplessly vibrating with fury and fear, mouth opening and closing like a goldfish.
They didn’t waste time in threats. Bart’s ex-owner punched him in the face and the others let go, dropping him back into the mud. Hands rifled his pockets, snatched the knife from his belt. He heard Bart whuffling nearby, stamping a bit as one of the men pulled at the saddle.
“Oy, you let that alone!” shouted Bart’s owner, standing up. “That’s my horse and my saddle, damn your eyes!”
“No, ’tisn’t,” said a determined voice. “You’d not’ve caught this rascal without us! I’m having the saddle.”
“Leave it, Lowell! Let him have his horse, we’ll share out the money.” The third man evidently belted Lowell to emphasize his opinion, for there was a meaty smack and a yelp of outrage. William suddenly remembered how to breathe, and the dark mist cleared from his vision. Panting shallowly, he rolled over and started trying to get his feet under him.
One of the men cast him a brief glance but clearly thought him no threat. I’m probably not, he thought muzzily, but he wasn’t used to losing fights and the thought of simply slinking off like a whipped dog wasn’t on, either.
His musket had fallen into the thick flowering grass along the road. He wiped blood out of one eye, stood up, picked up the gun, and clubbed Bart’s ex-owner in the back of the head with it. The man had been in the act of mounting, and his foot stuck in the stirrup as he fell. The horse shied and backed with a shrill whinny of protest, and the men who’d been engaged in dividing William’s substance jerked round in alarm.
One leapt back and the other lunged forward, grabbing the musket’s barrel, and there were a few seconds of panting confusion, interrupted by the sound of shouts and galloping horses.
Distracted, William glanced round to see the larger group of gamblers from last night bearing down on them, hell-for-leather. He let go of the musket and dived for the grassy verge.
He would have made it had Bart, frightened by the onrush and the insensible weight still dangling from his stirrup, not chosen the same moment and the same goal. Nine hundred pounds of panicked horseflesh sent William flying down the road, where he landed on his face. The ground shook round him, and he could do nothing more than cover his head and pray.
There was a great deal of splashing, shouting, and impact. William suffered a passing kick in the ribs and a jarring thump to the left buttock as the fight—Why are they fighting? he thought dizzily—raged over and past him.
Then the shooting started.
His position couldn’t easily be improved. He went on lying in the road, arms covering his head, as men shouted and cursed in alarm, more horses came galloping toward him, and the rolling fire of muskets crashed over said head.
Rolling fire? he thought suddenly. Because that’s what it bloody was, and he rolled over and sat up in amazement to see a company of British infantry, some efficiently rounding up persons attempting to flee the scene, others efficiently reloading their muskets, and two officers on horseback, surveying the scene with an attitude of fierce interest.
He palmed mud away from his eyes and stared hard at the officers. Reasonably sure he didn’t know either of them, he relaxed slightly. He wasn’t injured, but the impact of Bart’s collision had left him shaken and bruised. He went on sitting in the middle of the road, breathing and letting his brain begin to restore its relations with his body.
The altercation, such as it was, had died down. The soldiers had rounded up most of the men he’d been gambling with and prodded them with bayonets into a small group, where a young cornet was efficiently tying their hands behind them.
“You,” said a voice behind him, and a boot nudged him roughly in the ribs. “Get up.”
He turned his head to see that he was being addressed by a private, an older man with a good deal of assurance about him. Quite suddenly, it occurred to him that the infantrymen might suppose him to be a participant in the recent fracas, rather than its victim. He scrambled to his feet and stared down at the much shorter private, who took a step back and flushed red.
“Put your hands behind you!”