The Highwayman

by Doreen Owens Malek

  As her gaze fixed on Burke, she was afraid to move. He slept on, not stirring, and eventually she found the courage to creep past him soundlessly, too terrified to breathe. Once she had made it to the flap of the tent she looked back anxiously, but Burke was still in the same position.

  She glanced out into the clearing, which was empty except for several smoldering campfires, doused but still sending thin trails of gray smoke skyward. She was sure there were guards around, but she couldn’t see anybody. The sky was the sapphire blue of pit water, moonlit, and the chilly spring night was filled with the faint sound of birds and nocturnal animals.

  Alex took a deep breath and bolted across the camp and out into the woods on the other side. She ran for her life, not sure where she was going but seeking only to put distance between herself and the rebel camp. She ran until her lungs were on fire and there was a violent stitch in her left side, until she could not remain on her feet an instant longer. Then she collapsed under a tree, falling onto a bed of crushed ferns and mossy twigs that received her yieldingly. Too spent for any further effort, she dozed and then drifted into slumber.

  * * * *

  Alex did not know it, but Burke never slept straight through the night. Years of insurgence against the British had trained him to take short, refreshing naps. Alex had only been gone a brief time when he stirred and glanced over at her corner. Finding it empty, he leaped to his feet, muttering profanities when he saw the frayed rope and the pottery shard lying on the ground. He dashed out of the tent.

  Curse the woman, she was clever. He didn’t waste time wondering how she had managed her escape or chastising his guards. Instead, he glanced up at the moon and realized he’d been asleep barely an hour. He shrugged into his tunic and checked the placement of the knife at his hip as he ran. He must not lose the English girl, as she was essential to his plan for getting his brother back.

  Tracking through the woods was second nature to Burke. He found her trail easily and smiled to himself when he saw that she had gone the wrong way, toward the sea and away from the castle. All guts, no skill. Still, he had to admire her. Not one captive in ten would have even tried to escape.

  Burke tracked her to where she had fallen, almost tripping over the prone figure. She lay limp, as if dead. Her short hair was plastered to her head with perspiration, her linen shift stained by dirt and grass, and her bare feet abraded from running through the underbrush. He knelt down next to her and shook her roughly.

  Alex opened her eyes and looked around helplessly. When she focused on his face, she tensed visibly, and he could see the pulse pounding in her neck.

  “I’ve a mind to tie you to a tree and leave you here for the animals to gnaw,” he said grimly.

  Her body went rigid as a drawn bow, and she fell back into his arms in a dead faint.

  Burke sighed wearily. Scaring her to death was not part of his plan. He scooped her up and carried her to a softer bed of long grass. Then he went to a nearby brook and wet a strip torn off from his tunic. He returned to Alex and wiped her face with the damp cloth briskly.

  Her eyelids fluttered, and she looked up at him fearfully, swallowing with difficulty. “Don’t,” she whispered.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Hurt me.”

  “I’ll not hurt you,” he replied gruffly, “but you must stop scampering away.”

  “You can’t expect me to stay with you and accept it,” she said, her eyes glistening.

  Burke considered the situation. Maybe if he told her why she had been taken, she would see reason and cooperate. Otherwise this chase scene might be repeated, and if she kept running, it would waste valuable time, and she might injure herself doing it.

  “It won’t be for long,” he said finally. “I took you to exchange for my brother, who’s being held at the castle. I sent a message this morning to Carberry, and I expect a reply in a short time.”

  Alex stared up at him, and he could see her turning over the information in her mind.

  “So you see, I have no plans to keep you as a slave, or throw you to the wolves, or whatever else you’ve been thinking. Calm yourself. Your uncle will soon buy you back with my brother’s freedom, and all will be well with you.”

  There was a timbre in his voice she had not heard before, not gentleness exactly, but an appeal to logic that convinced her he meant what he said.

  “Do we have to go back now?” she asked wearily, her lower lip trembling.

  “And why not?”

  “I’m so tired,” she said, brushing the auburn fringe back from her forehead.

  “We can wait for the light. It’s only two hours ‘til dawn. Rest now, go back to sleep.”

  Alex lay back and tried, but the dim outline of his large, lean form propped against a tree kept her awake, and the cold air didn’t help. The night was raw and misty, with a penetrating damp that seeped into her bones and made her shiver visibly.

  “What’s amiss?” he asked, his voice a deep basso in the encompassing darkness.

  “I’m cold.”

  There was a long pause. “Come here to me,” he finally said.

  Alex hesitated.

  “Do you want to shake yourself to cinders, my lady?” he asked.

  Alex climbed unsteadily to her feet and went to his side.

  He reached up and took her hand, settling her in next to him and draping his arm around her shoulders.

  “Better?” he said.

  “Yes,” she murmured. It was better; he felt so large and solid and warm, and he smelled like the homemade soap he had given her to use, not like a savage at all. It was difficult to remember that not long ago she had been running away from him.

  Burke held her loosely, wide awake. He was careful not to arouse any feelings beyond the desire to keep her safe so he could surrender her to the English when the time came.

  His body heat slowly melded with hers, and as Alex drifted into sleep she snuggled closer.

  When the sun finally rose and penetrated the thick canopy of leaves above their heads, its light shone on two people entwined on the ground like lovers.

  Chapter 3

  A device fit for the Irish and other such savages...

  —Queen Elizabeth I, on the installation

  of a water closet in Richmond Palace

  Burke awoke at first light, as he usually did, and studied the still figure asleep in his arms, clutching his tunic in one fist like a child. Her skin was poreless, with the faint blush poets associated with an English rose. The chopping job she had done on her hair could not disguise its vibrant color or fine texture, and he was restraining himself from touching it when her eyes opened and she looked directly at him. His hand fell away.

  Alex gave a start when she realized where she was. She sat abruptly and pulled back from him hastily, arranging her clothes. She drew her legs up and hugged her knees, avoiding Burke’s eyes.

  Burke stood in one smooth motion and held out his hand to help her up. She ignored it and got to her feet herself, wincing when her lacerated soles took the weight of her body.

  “Can you walk or shall I carry you?” he asked.

  “Of course I can walk,” she snapped as she stumbled.

  Burke took a step toward her. “Put your arms around my neck,” he instructed.

  Alex hesitated.

  “Do as I say or on my oath I’ll leave you here where you stand,” he said. “I must get back to my men, I’ve wasted enough time on you already.”

  Alex hooked her arms around his neck, and he hoisted her into the air as if she weighed no more than the morning mist that surrounded them. He set off through the trees without another word, taking them back the way they had come the night before, his deliberate pace covering the ground quickly. Alex tried not to think about the solid feel of his shoulder under her cheek or the strong grip of his hands as he held her. She closed her eyes and drifted into a dreamless somnolence, which ended abruptly when his arm dropped and he set her once again on the ground.


  They had reached the camp in less time than Alex would have believed possible. It had seemed so far when she was fleeing the night before. Burke sent her back to his tent and instructed Rory to tie her up again and, in the future, to serve her food in a napkin.

  Alex didn’t see Burke for the rest of the day. She was almost asleep that night when a commotion at the entrance to the tent disturbed her. She looked up to see Burke gesturing for two other men to carry a prone figure inside and put it on his pallet.

  Alex sat up straight when she saw that what they were carrying was an injured man. His wound, obviously long festering, was badly inflamed and draining from his side. Burke didn’t even glance in her direction as the men laid the invalid on Burke’s bed and then stepped back, making room for Burke to crouch by the sick man’s side.

  Alex looked on as he spoke soothingly in Gaelic to the feverish man, who sweated and rambled incoherently, seeming to fix on Burke’s face in rational moments and then descend into delirium again. Alex sucked in her breath when she saw Rory coming through the tent flap with a white-hot knife, recently withdrawn from the flames of a campfire.

  Burke gripped the mumbling man’s shoulders and spoke a sentence clearly, holding his gaze. The man’s eyes widened as he realized what was about to happen to him, and a second later Rory plunged the knife into the festering wound.

  The man screamed and Alex looked away, unable to watch as Rory cleaned and cauterized the wound, making several trips out to the fire to reheat the knife. By the time she looked back, the injured man’s moans had subsided, but he was still gripping Burke’s hand with enough strength to whiten his knuckles.

  Burke never stopped talking to him, keeping up a line of reassuring commentary while signaling with his eyes to the other men, directing them what to do. He didn’t let go of the invalid’s hand until the man had subsided into blessed unconsciousness. Then Burke stood watch while Rory washed and bound the wound, not moving until Rory had drawn the rough woolen blanket up to the man’s chin and left the tent.

  “What were you saying to him?” Alex asked.

  Burke glanced at her as if he had forgotten she was there. He didn’t answer.

  “Will he be all right?”

  “I know not. If not, one less savage for your queen to worry about,” he replied shortly, and left the tent.

  Rory came in a while later to offer water to the sick man, but he was too weak to drink.

  “May I have some?” Alex asked.

  Rory looked at her sourly but came to her side with the flask.

  “What was Burke saying to him? When you were cleaning his wound?”

  Rory took the flask back and replaced the stopper in silence.

  “Please, I want to know.”

  “Why?” Rory asked, examining her with the first hint of curiosity he’d shown since she was captured.

  “It seemed to comfort the man so much. I would love to have that consoling effect on another person, especially someone so sick.”

  Rory considered for a moment, and then said, “Burke was telling him how brave he was, that he had never seen another man take such an injury so well.”

  “And was that the truth?”

  Rory shrugged. “I’ve never seen a man take a wound as well as Burke, and I’ve seen a lot of English weapons gouge into Irish flesh,” he said meaningfully, turning his back and disappearing through the flap of the tent.

  Alex watched the injured man, who was very still, until she fell asleep.

  * * * *

  The sick man died during the night. His body was gone when Alex woke up in the morning.

  Rory said nothing to her all day as he brought her meals, and when Burke finally arrived, well after nightfall, he looked exhausted and dispirited.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” Alex said in a small voice.

  “Oh, indeed you are,” Burke replied.

  “It’s true. I hate to see anyone suffer.”

  “Do you now? Isn’t that a charming sentiment? On this island we’ve been suffering at English hands for generations, and I’ve never seen any fine ladies like yourself weeping buckets about it.” He tore off his tunic and tossed it in a corner.

  “I would have helped him if I could.”

  “My fault,” he said as if talking to himself. “I waited too long to open him up, and by that time he was too weak from the fever to fight.”

  “How was he hurt?”

  “He was on a survey mission around the castle and he was picked off by an English sentry.” Burke looked at her narrowly. “You should be celebrating, shouldn’t you? Another glorious victory for the Crown, to be sure.”

  He unfolded a clean tunic from a pile in the corner and yanked it over his head.

  Alex glanced down at her bound hands, unable to answer.

  “Why don’t you bloody people get the hell out of my country?” he said as he stalked back out of the tent.

  * * * *

  Alex’s monthly flux started during the night. By morning she felt sticky and uncomfortable, and paralyzed with embarrassment about her situation. There was little she could do about it without confiding in her captors.

  She didn’t consider talking to Rory; he would just think it was another ploy to get loose and probably ignore her. She knew instinctively that Burke would listen to her, but even the prospect of discussing her problem with him made her flush crimson.

  When Rory brought her breakfast she said,

  “Will you tell Burke that I crave the favor of a talk with him?”

  Rory glanced at her but did not reply.

  “Please. It’s important.”

  Rory left, and she began to calculate miserably how long she could last in her current position before her dilemma became obvious.

  Fortunately, Burke appeared shortly thereafter, his blue gaze impassive as he stood before her.

  “What is it now?”

  “Have you had any message at all from my uncle?” she asked, delaying.

  “If so, you would be long gone from this place, my lady,” he said, turning to leave.

  “Wait. I... I have a problem.”

  He turned and faced her, his arms folded.

  “I’m bleeding,” she blurted out, her cheeks burning.

  He scanned her figure, looking for an injury. “What are you saying?”

  “As a woman bleeds with the change of the moon,” Alex mumbled, staring at his boots. She could feel more hot color flooding into her face.

  There was a long pause, and she sneaked a glance at him. From his expression it was clear that he was as discomfited as she was.

  “What is it you need?” he asked gruffly.

  “Some clean strips of nappy cloth for folding.” She paused. “Aren’t there any women in the camp?”

  She hadn’t seen any since she came.

  “They’re all inland. I’ll see that Rory brings you the linens. Anything more?”

  “I would cherish another bath, and I’ve been tied up for long days now without exercise. Can’t you turn me loose for just an hour to wash and walk about a little? I am galled with cramps, and I can feel that my legs are weakening.”

  Burke studied her suspiciously.

  “I have no plot to run again,” she said quietly. “‘Twould be folly, when I’m surely close to safe and happy reunion with my kinsman.”

  “Would that it were nigh at hand,” Burke said dryly.

  “Amen,” Alex responded. She could have sworn she saw a trace of a smile on his lips.

  “There’s a stream on the other side of the camp, in a different direction from the one you took when you ran. Rory will bring you there tonight and you can bathe and have exercise, see to your needs.”

  “Oh, can’t you bring me yourself? Rory makes me so nervy. He ... hates me.”

  Burke shot her a glance that implied that he was not exactly fond of her, either.

  “If you would escort me, I shall not forget it when I’m restored to my uncle. I will report to him that I wa
s treated fairly, as befits a gentlewoman of my station. No doubt it will influence him in future dealings with you.”

  He studied her in silence and then left the tent.

  * * * *

  That evening, Alex waited anxiously as the camp settled down for the night. It was a long time before all the voices had ceased and the sound of the sentry’s pacing had become as monotonous as a musician’s metronome. Finally, Rory appeared at the opening of the tent and regarded her without enthusiasm.

  Alex’s heart sank. She didn’t realize how much she had been counting on going with Burke, until she saw his lieutenant.

  Rory had a bundle of clean rags and clothing under his arm. “Come along, then,” he said in his accented English as he cut her bonds. “I have my orders.” His dull manner made it clear what he thought of this duty. “And no tricks,” he added, fixing a length of rope to her wrist and leading her by it. “You ken what will happen if you try to get away.”

  Alex stumbled along in his wake, noting the smoldering fires and the stillness of the sleeping camp. She knew that Burke kept her close confined when most of the men were around to see her. The timing of this excursion was not accidental.

  Rory set a quick pace, and Alex was trotting to keep up when she crashed into him as he suddenly stopped short.

  Burke had stepped out of the shadow of the trees, appearing like a phantom. He said something in Gaelic to Rory, who stared at him for a long moment, and then glanced quickly at Alex. He handed her the bundle of linens and dropped her rope. Then he set off through the trees, surefooted as a deer, without looking back.

  Burke picked up the length of rope and cut it swiftly, leaving a circlet of hemp around Alex’s wrist. Still stunned by his unexpected appearance, Alex stared up at him.

  “Well, don’t take root there,” Burke said, returning his knife to the sheath at his waist. “I call to mind that this excursion was Your Ladyship’s idea.”

  He started off along the path, and Alex hurried after him. She kept silent until they reached a clearing where she could hear, but not see, the splashing of a brook.