The Ruffler and the Highwayman

© 1997 Stephen Hunt (UK)

Print this one out? Approx 7 pages of A4 text

Something dangerous screamed at the night from inside the white cathedrals of the forest. Something equally dangerous dismounted from his horse and approached the coaching inn, brushing a dusting of snow off his leather cloak. His sabre jangled as he walked.

 Don't let me be recognised tonight, don't let me be recognised tonight. The man repeated the silent prayer. But not one directed towards the God of the Martyr.

 Opening the door, two men stumbled into the cold night air, stopping in surprise as they saw the stranger. Their eyes flicked quickly from the man's brace of brass-framed muskets to the dead boggart still draped over his horse, the ugly forest creature's wounds frozen by a crust of red ice. If the brown-furred boggart had tried to ambush the stranger, it had picked on the wrong traveller. Seasoned merchanteers from Cornwall, both traders stepped out of the man's way and hurried wordlessly through the sleet towards their lodgings.

 Into the coaching inn. An assault of smells after the pot-holed snakings of the frozen forest road: beer hops and the vinegar reek of spilt wine, bacon fat from the roasting fire, everywhere people clogging the common room with their laughter and babble.

 "There were dragoons in here earlier," whispered the inn owner Hogg, sidling up to the stranger. "A damned bad business. They had prints with them this time. Your face on them, Maerdoc."

 "A good likeness, my son?"

 "Ha. You looked more like the beast of Narn Dearg. They'll not be many recognising you from that artist's work. The soldiers left two hours ago."

 "Yes, the beast. You can tell me the latest about the beast, Hogg. Bring me news of it with the food"

 Unlacing his cloak, Maerdoc sat down, wiping the froth from the warm beer Hogg's daughter brought over to him. His dark brooding eyes didn't invite conversation, but someone was foolhardy or uncommonly brave, the stool opposite screeching as it was pulled out.

 "I can be telling you of the beast. If you have the mind to answer me a question in return?"

 Maerdoc looked up. Into a face younger than its years, and by damn, they were features he recognised. Maerdoc silently palmed the tiny Sea Service flintlock he had hidden up his sleeve, keeping the puffer concealed under the table.

 "Ask me then "

 "When a fellow ceases to believe in the salvation of the Martyr, what does he believe in next?"

 Maerdoc leant forward, his voice low and angry, cocking the pistol's lock. "What does he believe in, you little toadshit? That the people should be more than slaves to the nobles and their lackies."

 He had been expecting many things, but Maerdoc was shocked by the burst of laughter which came from his uninvited drinking companion.

 "Martyr love me! But you're a right fast one, Maerdoc the godless. Put that fowling piece away. If I was angling to collect the royal bounty on you I'd have enough sense to take you from the back and unawares. It is coincidence we share the same road tonight, nothing more."

 "I know you, brother," Maerdoc said to the man. "I saw you at the stands in front of Rivergate prison due to have your neck stretched by the hangman, then your gang of rufflers distracted the watchmen and you did that jumping trick of yours. The papers called you the slipperiest thief in Llud-din after that. Five times the Queen's doomsmen tried to do for you, and five times you cut a merry flash with them."

 "So, an admirer? Light Jieck at your service, my godless friend. The prince of rufflers and friend to the honourably dishonest."

 Maerdoc still had his tiny pistol out, watching as the sly thief scrubbed at his straw-coloured mop of hair. "I heard you were in a different service these days, Light Jieck. That of Queen Annan Pendrag and her network of knives and ears ­ a spy, or an informer, depending who you listen to "

 "Now there's not many knowing that. But I forgot ­ you still have your sources from the old days. I hope that doesn't make us enemies, I might work for the quality, but I can't be saying the noble nobs owns my heart and soul."

 Maerdoc made a decision and slid his musket away.

"You're a long way into the tumble, Light Jieck. Tell me what you know about the beast."

 "I was on the mail-coach, travelling to Camlan from Gwynedd on a matter of some small discretion," Jieck tapped the side of his nose knowingly. "We had left the main royal highway and come a ways into the forest from the shire of Fawr Farrick."

 "I am aware of the turnpike there," Maerdoc said.

 "That I am most certain you are. We were in an eight-horse rattler and riding like Old Shadow himself when our guard spies a fallen tree across the road. Down he jumps from the step with the driver to heave it out of the way, when what do you bloody know "

 "A tobyman rides out and shouts stand and deliver."

 "Exactly. But this is no ordinary footpad, mind. Even through the scarf wrapped around his face we could see that it was no human. Eyes like a cat and fur to match. Do you know your latin? It was a demisapi, a half-man, or I'm the damned Duke of Llud-din."

 Maerdoc pulled out a pipe and filled it with the finely grained black leaf the Realms people jokingly called gunpowder. His companion wrinkled his nose in disgust as the pipe was lit.

 "Bugger me, do you have to puff away at that? It stinks like burning dog hair. That powder'll bleeding kill you, old horse."

 Maerdoc ignored the thief's complaints. "The demisapi creature took your gold, sir?"

 "Our gold, sir, our silver and copper, sir, every brass angel we bleeding had on us. More to the point, it took certain papers in my possession."

 Maerdoc shook his head. "In the service of the Queen? What makes you think I'll help you recover those royal papers, what make you think I'll do anything which is a comfort to that murderous she-wolf who rules the Realm?"

 "You're not a revolutionary any more, Maerdoc. You're a gentleman of the road. The traveller's helper, relieving them of the lightness of their load. And a notoriously successful one if I may buggering venture. This beastman is depriving you of your trade, playing the same game as you and playing it well. I think our paths may coincide for a while. If I turn up at the Queen's estate without her nib's papers, some court topper is going to slide their assassin's steel into me ribs one dark night, and I likes me ribs a jot too much for that to happen."

 "An alliance then. But can I trust you, Light Jieck?"

 "Like your own mother, my godless friend. Like your own sweet mother."

*

Ice splintered under the steel-shod hooves of Maerdoc's mare, his horse clattering down the muddy artery which cut through the weirded forest the locals knew as the Narn Dearg. Frozen now ­ made passable by the grip of winter.

 "I heard something strange," Light Jieck said.

 Maerdoc was all alertness. "Where!"

 "Not here, man. Back in bloody Camlan. They said a highwayman matching your description was robbing the quality, and then ­ this is the really bumkin part ­ giving all the coin away to the villagers around these parts. To the poor." Jieck laughed at the absurdity of the notion.

 "And ?"

 "What! You mean it's true?"

 "I will not deny it, brother."

 Light Jieck's breath misted as he spoke. "Bloody Martyrs, a man has to be born rich to think like that. You trying to do the poorhouse authorities out of their customers?"

 "The peers and princes tax the people. I tax them in turn. I have found a certain equilibrium in the process."

 "Equi-what? Sometimes, old horse, you jabber away like a weirdsman or a priest."

 "I'm no sorcerer. So then I must speak latin because I was a priest," Maerdoc growled. "Why do you think they call me 'The Godless'? Not just for discovering the virtues of atheism, brother. I was a friar and I preached for adherence to the vows of poverty. The church excommunicated me for my sins, so in my own way I did much the same to them, falling in with the Levellers."

 "The Martyr blind me!" Jieck swore. "A vow of poverty? The church must have tossed you out of the orders faster than a pastryman found selling maggot pie. What does a fellow take the cowl for, if not the grub and a warm cot to sleep in every night? I'm travelling with a buzzard for brains. And as for the Levellers why, you were leaping from the dark to the deep taking up with that bunch. I saw them massacred in the streets of Llud-din and what else did the sorry fools expect? 'Well, your honour, we'd just like you and all your leeching noble friends to hand over your land and possessions to the people for a little redistribution. By the way, how do you feel about putting your neck in this here guillotine?'

 'A good question, my honest fellow. Now wait a minute and my lancers will be along to debate the matter with you more fully.'

 The Martyr blind me, if that's what being born to quality and learning latin does for you, I'll thank my father for leaving me in the gutter as soon as I find out who the bleeder was."

 About to retort, Maerdoc reigned in his horse. In the distance the wheezing sound of aelopiles could be heard, the labouring steam automata of a kettle-black. Only the rich could afford to travel in one of those shaky iron contraptions. It wouldn't be the Queen's regiments at this time of year ­ save for the occasional patrol of hussars, the stovepipe hats would all be cosy and dry in their barracks, muskets corked and sabres racked.

 The two men backed their steeds into the cover of the tree-line, Maerdoc pulling a black silk handkerchief out of his trireme hat and knotting it over his face.

 "You're of a mind to cut it fat with this carriage then, old horse?" Jieck asked.

 "No. I'm putting this mask on because my nose feels cold. Idiot. I intend to apply a small measure of the policies of redistribution you hold in such contempt."

 "I'm all for redistribution," Jieck said. "Give and take when it's us doing the taking and the local Squires the giving, that's a principle I understand. It's the give, take and give bit that muddies my waters, you understand. But I was thinking, this being such a rich and noisy cargo, maybe we'd be better off following the quality at a bit of a distance, eh?"

 Maerdoc saw the wisdom in the thief turned courier's plan. "Cast a little bread across the water and see what bites? It might work at that. Very well, we shall discover just how canny this beastman is."

 They let the kettle-black jounce past, her huge iron wheels flattening the road and pennants flapping in the morning mist. It was built for the more civilised cobbled tracts close to the Realm's cities and made an absolute furrowed muss of the forest road. Even without the plume of fumes staining the morning sky, they didn't need to be poachers or verderers to follow the carriage's clumsy trail. Keeping their distance, the highwayman and self-proclaimed prince of rufflers trotted their horses after the automata. There was a guard on the back of the device, an ugly brute cradling a blunderbuss, and no doubt the furnaceman had a flintlock too.

 Watching as Jieck drew out his finely decorated bell-mouthed puffers, Maerdoc leant over in disgust to examine the two pistols. "You haven't wrapped your lock plates with cloth ­ there's snow mixed in with the powder. You want to kill us with a misfire as we're about our business you damn fool?"

 "Blind me, I used to climb over people's roofs, not strike them down in the street like some common topper or assassin. Killing your customers is usually frowned upon by the city's watchmen."

 Maerdoc brushed the useless powder off the lock and refilled the spy's pistols with his own dark grain. "I trust you're a better agent than you are a highwayman. If you have to shoot, make sure I'm standing behind you."

 After an hour the sleet gave way to heavy snow, and every couple of minutes the savage winds snatched away their view of the kettle-black, the pair following the carriage by the automata's rattling cough alone. Light Jieck's mare whinnied her disapproval at the folly of continuing to travel through the worsening weather, kicking her hooves irritatably across the drifts of powdery snow. He rubbed her mane absentmindedly. They continued in silence through the biting cold, both men shivering in their saddles as the morning turned into a sunless afternoon.

 "We'll be at the hamlet of Oak-stones soon enough," Light Jieck called through the wind. "The quality are bound to stop there. Maybe for the rest of the day if things keep up as buggering foul as this. I think master beastman is showing sense enough to sit out this afternoon by the fireplace."

 "I agree. Therefore we will elicit a contribution to the local needy from our well-to-do friends ahead before marking this day finished."

 Light Jieck shook his head mournfully at the idea of passing on the proceeds of his criminal labours. "Bloody Martyrs. If the poor around here needed silver angels that much they'd be out on the bleeding road with us. Since they're not, it speaks to me common wit that they must be a hale bunch and in need of no bleeding help from the likes of you and I, old horse."

 "We ride!" Maerdoc shouted, spurring his horse ahead.

 "This novelty ruffling," Jieck spat, following at speed. "It'll never catch on."

 At last the weather was working to the highwaymen's favour. The first the guard saw of the footpads were twin black shadows leaping out of the silvery veil behind him, the hired fighter's numb fingers curled around a mug of blackstrap heated to boiling on the carriage's fire-plate. He scrambled madly for his flintlock but Maerdoc caught the man's heavy winter coat and yanked him out of the seat, up and suddenly flying back to be swallowed by the driving snow.

 Drawing level with the steersman's cabin, Light Jieck leapt from his galloping steed and ducked a blow from a coal shovel as he landed on the kettle-black.

 "You ungrateful bugger," Jieck kicked his boot into the furnaceman's stomach. "We're out a-levelling for the likes of you, me downtrodden brother. But like as you didn't know it, being just an uneducated lackey of the corrupt nobility, eh? Well, it's away you go for you then, old horse."

 The man's curses fell away as the thief tossed him out, the silence taken up by the screams of the passengers in the back as they realised what was happening to them. Maerdoc threw open the door as his accomplice slowed the automata to a hissing halt.

 "A fine day to you, gentlefolk," Maerdoc called, pointing his brace of puffers through the opening. "The shire had asked us to collect for all those still suffering from last year's repressive grain taxes. You seem to have a girth around the belly that indicates you have some silver angels to spare "

 A few squeals of protest sounded, these quickly silenced as Jieck jumped down and angrily stuck his dagger into the walnut crest on the door. Purses were flung onto the ground, silver coins minted with the regal features of Queen Annan spilling out across the icy dirt.

 " ­ no, it's him."

 " ­ damn the fellow's eyes."

 " ­ Maerdoc the Godless."

 " ­ oh but my jewellry."

 Light Jieck grinned as he scooped the valuables up. "Martyr blind me, but I've missed this business."

 "You've missed more than that today," the voice came from behind them. "Put your pistols to the ground. Now! Do it."

 Maerdoc and Light Jieck slowly turned around. It was the beastman, dressed almost identically to Maerdoc ­ a black trireme hat and silk scarf concealing most of its face. Their attentions remained focused on the octagonal barrels of the creature's duelling pistols.

 "Now you have discovered just how canny I am. More wits than you two turnips, it seems."

 "You were close enough to listen," Maerdoc cursed himself.

 "Obviously. It certainly took you long enough to get around to my work for me. Now kick that silver over to my horse and careful how you do it."

 As Light Jieck made to do the thieving beast's bidding, a heave of smoke from the kettle-black's flues startled the robber's mount, the animal rearing in the air as the aelopiles restarted. One of the carriagemen they had ejected had made use of the footpads' distraction, stealing back inside. Jieck was flung to the dirt by a glancing blow from the horse's flailing hooves, the demisapi fighting with its terrified stallion as the kettle-black rattled away down the forest road, wealthy occupants screeching and flung rudely about by the sudden motion.  

 Grabbing the beastman's riding boot, Maerdoc lifted the rival highwayman up and out into the bushes, then pulled his sabre clear and pushed the blade ­ a hussar's yard of steel stamped with the Realm's crown and dragon crest ­ against the creature's chest. Wearily, it signalled its surrender, both hands empty, flintlocks fallen away into the forest.

 Maerdoc calmed the horse, then opened the riding bag; coins in plenty, the smell of old leather from the sack, but no sign of the ruffler's royal papers.

 "Pass the bags over here." Light Jieck was back on his feet, his musket pointed towards Maerdoc's spine and the beastman's head. The courier was striking his true colours at last.

 "Your papers aren't there, Light Jieck."

 "Too true they ain't, Maerdo. They never were, me godless friend. There was no damn documents for the Queen. No meeting with the famous beast of Narn Dearg."

 Maerdoc flung the heavy saddlebag towards Jieck. "For this then? A fistful of silver angels? I thought they paid the Queen's spies well enough."

 "No, no you bleeding turnip. I knew the lure of the papers was the only thing that was going to get you out here ­ the chance of some juicy seditious details for you to pass back to your Leveller rebel friends in the cities and workshops. The coins are just an extra bonus."

 "But an extra to what, my son? You could have put a blade in my back long before now ?"

 "Blind me," Jieck grinned. "You're a fast one, old horse. For all your commoner's rant, you still think with the lord's title you were born to. Me ­ me ­ me. It's not you! It never was. You're a forgotten man as far as the Queen's agents are concerned, what trouble are you out here in the tumble? None. The soldiers can chase you ragged like every other bleeding ruffler and higwayman."

 Getting out of the bush, the beastman pulled off its scarf. Maerdoc stepped back in shock. It was a young woman, her features only partly touched by demisapi blood, wide feline eyes and a thin frill of golden fur around her gentle features.

 "So you've come for me at last," she said, a simple statement of fact.

 "But ­ you're not full demisapi," Maerdoc said.

 "Of course not," Jieck waved Maerdoc away from her with his musket. "As you can see, their kind can interbreed with real people. Not that there's many who know that, their kind being so thin on the ground in the Realm."

 Maerdoc was dumfounded. "If the church's militant orders gets hold of her "

 "She's too beautiful to burn as Old Shadow, old horse. Besides, I've been bleeding well paid to see her returned in one piece."

 "I don't want to go back with you," pleaded the woman. "Please ­ "

 Light Jieck sighed and looked at Maerdoc. "There's a prominent noble, and a stable of horses isn't the only stable he keeps, if you take my meaning. Strange tastes. But that's the quality for you, eh? Trouble is, his household is a jot too useful to the Queen to let this kind of scandal ruin him. So back our lovely must go, before anyone finds out who she escaped from."

 "Then you're the man's daughter," Maerdoc gazed at the fey creature. "His own daughter."

 "And you're a grim-hearted bugger, Maerdoc," Jieck observed. "With some damn strange ideas about ruffling. But I like you enough that I'm not going to kill you. So I'll take your rival, your sword and your silver and be on me merry way."

 "You can't take her," Maerdoc spat. "In the name of the Martyr, you're returning her to slavery."

 "The Martyr? You don't believe in religion anymore, old horse. Besides, how long is she going to bleeding last out here? Silver coins aren't going to be enough to bribe every poacher and verderer in the forest. Or would you rather she went feral with the rest of her kind, hiding out in the tumble? I've spent enough time in cages to know that a gilded one's better than a hangman's rope around this little lovely's neck."

 "I'll take my chances out here." She looked emploringly towards Maerdoc. "I'll never go back ­ I'll take my own life if you make me."

 "Just so long as it's after I've been paid, milady."

 Maerdoc's fists clenched. "You were wrong, Light Jieck. The quality do own your heart and soul."

 "Ah," Jieck shrugged sadly, motioning the woman towards his horse, "but then, the soul's a rich man's toy. If there's any of your Leveller comrades that weren't born to velvet and silk, you ask them next time you see them. Me, I was born in the gutter. Maybe one day I'll be able to afford a heart, eh?"

 Stopping the woman, Maerdoc stepped in front of her. "Take my mount, sister. You're not going back to that twisted noble monster."

 "Don't be stupid!" Jieck shouted. "Don't make me do for you now, you stubborn bottle-head."

 "We're leaving, prince of the rufflers."

 Jieck's bell-barrelled flintlocks were levelled directly at the highwayman. "Don't test me, Maerdoc. The only conscience I've got is in these sacks, and it's brass and silver."

 "Then you have a choice to make." Maerdoc picked up one of the fallen pistols.

 Twin flints struck metal with a fizz and the smell of burning dog's hair. Light Jieck stared in bewilderment at his brace of undischarged flintlocks, then reached frantically for his weighted throwing dagger. The highwayman's ball took Jieck in the shoulder and lifted him out of the saddle, the detonation like a tree trunk splintering. Down across a snowdrift. It felt colder than it had any right to be.

 Maerdoc pulled out his pipe and lit it. "That powder'll kill you, old horse."

 "You ­ spiked ­ my pistols. With ­ that ­ buggering smelly ­ pipe leaf ­ "

 "It's a clean wound, Light Jieck. They should be able to save your arm without cutting it off."

 "Damn ­ you."

 Maerdoc took the woman's hand and left the wounded ruffler in the snow with his coins.

 "Yes. But where will they find to damn an atheist and Leveller?"

*

Snow had nearly covered Jieck's legs by the time the two riders came across him, the moon making the wounded ruffler a dark mound by the side of the path.

 The tallest of the riders waded through the drifts and knelt by the moaning thief, his oil lamp swaying in the night air.

 "Where is she?"

 Light Jieck coughed. "I'm touched by your concern."

 "I said where is she?"

 "With Maerdoc the bleeding Godless. Give it a rest, eh? She's with the rebel priest."

 "You see," the rider called over to his companion, pulling Jieck up as he spoke. "I told you Maerdoc would rescue her. Levellers are such romantics."

 "But then the beastwoman was well-trained," muttered the other blade. "Although I fancy the Queen will miss her."

 Jieck winced as he took to the saddle, his shoulder throbbing with pain and numbed by frostbite. He glanced at the trail Maerdoc and the demisapi rider had made.

 "So, old horse, it seems I am a better spy than I am a highwayman. But not half as good a one, I think, as the milady you're going to be introducing to all your bleeding revolutionary friends before the year's out."

 The wind followed the riders out of the forest, howling about them until all that lay behind was a single frozen coin and the wail of the hunting boggarts.


FINI

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