All around was silence, an unthreatening lack of sounds that indicated he was miles from any human habitation. Still he sniffed, hoping to be assailed by the scents of trapped summer heat, the stench of the Guadalquivir mudflats. Nothing. He was surrounded by grass and shrubs, a landscape devoid of anything that resembled his city.
With a groan he rolled over to hide his face in his arms. This wasn’t Spain, nor was this his time. This was where Diego was, it had been Diego’s face he’d seen just as the funnel closed over his head, and now he was as elegantly trapped here as a fly in a spider web.
“Please God,” Hector said out loud, “please just let me die.”
Chapter 13
It was dusk when they found somewhere to settle for the night. Matthew had been walking in silence for the last few hours, hurrying her along dwindling paths and through thickets where gnats swarmed like blankets round their heads. She followed him like a sleepwalker, so immersed in the guilt of having killed two men that she didn’t register how he faltered, even stumbled.
“Here?” she said when he stopped. A miniscule stream, and only a stand of twisted junipers as protection against the rising wind.
He sat down with a grunt. “I have to rest, this’ll do.” He closed his eyes. His nose was a swollen mess, encrusted runnels of blood running down into his beard and down one side of his mouth.
“Are you okay?” She put a hand on his forehead. He was clammy to the touch, and she sat back on her haunches. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s just a scratch,” he said, moving his shoulder. His shirt must have been stuck to his skin, because there was a tearing sound and a hurried intake of breath from Matthew. She stood up, gnawing her lip.
“First things first, fire and water.” She wrapped him in their combined blankets and left him sitting, telling him in no uncertain terms that she’d flay him if he as much as wiggled a toe.
“You’ve done this a lot?” he asked a bit later. A small fire was burning at his feet, the dented kettle set to boil with the aid of some largish stones.
“It happens,” she said, concentrating on washing his nose. For an instant her palm rested against his cheek, and he leaned into it, closing his eyes with a soft exhalation.
“Right,” she said once she was done with his face. “Let me see.”
“Nay, it’s no matter.”
“In which case it doesn’t matter if I see it, does it?”
He undid his plaid and she put a hand on the dark stain that covered the right hand side of his back.
“Jesus! You’ve been bleeding like a pig.”
Matthew twisted, trying to see.
“Sit still.” A strong grip on his shirt, and she ripped it clean off him. It made him yelp, and the shivering increased when the cool evening wind swept down his bared back.
“Djävla skit,” Alex said, “Helvetes djävlar.”
“I know you’re swearing, even if it isn’t in English.”
“I’m only doing that to spare your sensitive male ears.” She’d never seen a knife wound before. Well of course she hadn’t; she lived in a world where people got shot rather than stabbed – no major improvement really. “When did he do this?” Her hands traced other scars, faint welts up and down his back.
Matthew raised his good shoulder. “I don’t rightly know, mayhap when he was on top and I was struggling to get back on my feet.”
She washed him and sat back to think. The wound was still seeping, and now that it was superficially clean she saw that it was deep, having sunk into the uppermost part of the back, just below the shoulder joint. She tore off a huge piece of lining from her jacket and drenched it in scalding water, almost dropping the burning cloth.
If it hurt when she washed the open wound with the dripping cloth he didn’t say, but his shoulders dropped when she decided she was done, pressing a piece of dry, soft cloth against the red skin. She found his spare shirt for him in his bundle, tore strips out of the discarded one to tie her primitive bandage into place, and sat back to survey her work.
“Does it hurt?”
He shook his head. She helped him pull the shirt over his head and motioned for him to sit closer to the fire. He closed his hands around the wooden cup of hot water and drank in gulps. He looked much better now that his face was washed, but it worried her that he shivered so.
“Talk to me,” he said through chattering teeth. She nodded and helped him lie down with his head on her lap, heaping as much plaid and blanket as she could over him.
“I never finished telling you about John, did I?”
“Nay, you didn’t, but you don’t have to.”
“You told me.” She ran her hands over his head, down his back, lost in thought. “We were one of those off and on couples, you know, for some months we’d go out, and then we’d break up, and I’d be really mad at him, so I’d go out with someone else, and so would he, then one day he’d call and we’d get back together again.” She decided not to go into too much detail regarding these reconciliations – after all, it was none of his business. Plus he was kind of oversensitive when it came to the sex thing.
“When he asked me to marry him, it wasn’t a surprise for anyone. We’d been living together for two years and it sort of seemed the natural progression of things, you know?” Alex smiled, caressing the ring on her third finger. “And then he went and ruined it.” And if they hadn’t fought so bitterly, if she hadn’t flung his ring in his face and stalked off, she’d never have met Ángel and…
“What did he do?”
“He screwed my best friend.” Stupid John, stupid her, and stupid, stupid Diane.
“Screwed?”
“Fucked.”
“Oh, aye,”
“Okay, so it wasn’t entirely his fault, we’d had one of our regular fights, this time it was him being mad at me for spending so much time at work, and I tried to explain to him that what with the Millennium looming, I stood to make the killing of my lifetime.”
Matthew twisted his head to look at her and she realised she’d totally lost him.
“You work?”
“Of course; all modern women work.”
“And the bairns? The home?”
Alex shrugged offhandedly. “Day care for the kids, and most men help out at home nowadays. Well, in the future.
“I stormed off back to Magnus and Mercedes, telling John he could stuff it, I wasn’t about to let his insecurities hamper my career, and for a whole week he didn’t call or drop by. So come Saturday, I decided to go for a night out with Diane, and I ended up in a bar down in Leith.” She smiled at his raised brows. “Somewhat gentrified in my day, not the dump it probably is now. Anyway, John was there as well, and he was still angry and hurt, so he said something about not knowing if he wanted to marry a power woman in a power suit, and that pissed me off so I threw my drink at him and left.”
“Power woman,” Matthew murmured, and she could feel him laughing. “He didn’t like that, did he?”
“No, I flung it in his face.”
She’d stood outside the bar waiting for Diane, but the twofaced bitch hadn’t shown up, so she’d made her way home. Once there, she was so inflamed with anger at John she decided to have it out with him that same night, so she’d rushed over to their apartment, thrown open the door, and stood stunned at the sight of John and Diane tangled together on the sofa.
“He just stared, you know? And I wanted to cry, but instead I turned and ran, and the next morning I took a plane to Stockholm, not wanting to risk running into him.”
He had come after, trying to explain, but it had all gone very wrong and she’d yanked off his ring and thrown it on the table in front of him and then she’d walked out, vowing to never, ever talk to him again – or Diane.
“My life unravelled a bit,” she said, grimacing at the understatement. “And one day I found myself back home with an unwanted child in my belly.” By the time she’d made it home, it had been too late for an abortion, and she’d fel
t so trapped, hating the invasive growth inside of her. Matthew raised his hand to where hers lay on his shoulder and squeezed it.
“John was very stubborn. He rang, he dropped by, he insisted on coming with me for all my appointments. And when Isaac was born, I think he loved him from the first moment he held him. I didn’t.” She hunched with shame, recalling waves of resentment washing over her as she stood staring down at her new-born baby.
Matthew was silent for a while. “He loves you a lot,” he finally said in a rather grudging tone.
“Yes, and I love him.”
“What happened to you?” he said later. They were pressed close to each other, she holding him tight to her chest in an attempt to stop his shivering. She didn’t reply, and he thrust his backside against her.
“When?”
He made a very irritated sound and twisted round to face her, his breath hitching when he moved his shoulder.
“You know when; when your life ‘unravelled’.”
She sighed, swallowing back on the fear that clawed its way up her throat.
“Some other time, okay?”
He placed a hand on her face, his thumb caressing her cheek. “I’ll hold you to it, lass,” he breathed and then he shifted even closer and kissed her, a soft feathery brush that made her lips tingle with want.
*
He was burning with fever next morning, huddling under his plaid. She had him sit up and drink some more hot water, and then she stood and scanned their surroundings, wondering what to do. Further away she could see smoke, and when she stood on tiptoe she could make out a roof.
“Would it be dangerous for you if I got help?” she asked him, crouching down beside him. He opened bloodshot, watering eyes and squinted at her.
“Aye,” he croaked. “I wouldn’t want to be like this with strangers.” He groped for her hand. “And you, it might be dangerous for you, what with your clothes and hair.”
Not her major concern at present. She smoothed a non-existent lock off his forehead.
“Stay here, I’ll be right back.”
Alex approached the little cottage on her toes, an eye out for dogs. Everything was silent, a small garden dug at the back, some hens clucking in the yard. She sneaked as close as she could, tensing to turn and run, but there were no movements, no sign of life except for that plume of smoke. Someone had to be there, she thought, inching towards the door. She knocked. No response, and she knocked again, louder. Nothing.
She considered trying the door and stepping inside but decided not to, overwhelmed by fear of being trapped in the gloom. Instead, she raided the garden, found eggs in the little coop, but as she turned to leave she felt a twinge of unease. She shouldn’t steal, not from people this poor. So she took off one of her earrings and placed it on the stoop, a small stone laid on top of it.
“Thanks,” she said, and sped away.
Late that afternoon she understood she needed help. He was shaking with cold, and lying in the damp was not making it any better. She tried to make him eat some leek soup, but he turned his face away, a racking cough making him bend double.
“This won’t work. If we stay here you’ll get pneumonia or something.” She heaved him to his feet, ignoring his protests, and half dragged him down in the direction of the cottage.
By the time they reached the door, she was as shaky as he was, and she lowered him to sit against the wall before knocking, calling for help. This time the door opened and a small, round woman stepped outside, peppercorn eyes regarding them both with interest.
“Aye?” she said, eyes travelling up and down Alex. Her eyes stuck on the jeans, they flickered over to Matthew, returned to the jeans and locked down on a wheezing Matthew.
“He’s ill,” Alex said, taking in the starched white collar and equally pristine cuffs. A white cap completed the ensemble, covering most of the braided and coiled hair. It made Alex feel scruffy in comparison.
“Aye, I can see that.” The woman leaned forward, and raised a stout finger to Alex’s bare earlobe. “You were here before.”
“Yes. I’m sorry, but I did try to knock, and I had to find us some food.”
The woman shook her head. “You paid,” she said, a twinkle in her black eyes. “You didn’t steal. Not like some. You’d best come in,” she smiled, showing a row of white teeth. “Get inside before someone else passes by.” She stood aside to allow Alex to help Matthew inside, threw a look down the dirt track, and closed the door.
The inside of the cottage surprised Alex, not at all the cluttered dirty interior she’d expected, but a tidy, very bare home. Matthew was bedded down beside the hearth, and after inspecting his shoulder, Mrs Gordon sighed and set water to boil.
“It isn’t clean.”
Matthew barely stirred when they rolled him over on his front, but he gasped when Mrs Gordon sank her knife into the half-scabbed wound, slashing it wider than it had been before. Alex sat on him while Mrs Gordon poured hot water over his shoulder, finishing off the procedure by upending a small flask of what smelled like cheap brandy on the raw flesh. Matthew bucked, shrieked, and slumped into a dead faint.
“Ma…!” Alex caught herself in time – Mrs Gordon had insisted she didn’t want to know their names.
“It’s the pain,” Mrs Gordon said with a shrug. “No great matter, aye?” She produced a curved needle and stitched him together, patted him on the cheek, and creaked herself upright.
“Wow,” Alex was very impressed by her handiwork.
“I’m a midwife,” Mrs Gordon said, “and I do some healing on the side. Stitching is more or less the same wherever you do it, no?”
“So, what are you running from?” Mrs Gordon handed Alex a bowl of what tasted like salty porridge. Not entirely unpleasant, and Alex could make out bits of carrot and parsnip, the odd piece of salted pork.
“We’re not running.”
Mrs Gordon shrugged. “You’d best be careful. The countryside is swarming with soldiers. It’s a dangerous fugitive they’re looking for.” She threw sleeping Matthew a glance. “Not that he’s much of a threat, about as dangerous as a new-born babe in his present state – and just as vulnerable.” Her eyes drifted over to Alex, who squirmed under her slow inspection.
“He isn’t a fugitive.”
“No, of course not; and I’m the Queen of Sheba.” Mrs Gordon laughed, apparently very amused. “They had a hanging planned some days back in Lanark, aye? Big, burly fellow with a bad leg. He gave them the slip, and now they’re looking everywhere for him.”
“Well, he’s not got a bad leg.” Alex tilted her head in the direction of a sleeping Matthew.
“Nay, that he doesn’t. But his wrists have been fettered recently, and his back has been scourged and you seem to be travelling very light.” Alex opened her mouth, but Mrs Gordon patted her hand. “Nay lass, you don’t have to tell me. But you must be careful.”
Alex nodded, thinking about Sanderson. It could be him, big and burly with a wounded leg, but why would they want to hang him? She felt a chill in her gut and sneaked a look at Matthew. From what she’d overheard several days ago, the soldiers were convinced Sanderson was Matthew, and on the surface there was some similarity, both of them tall and with dark hair.
“Is it a hanging offence?” she asked in a casual tone. “To escape from prison – err – gaol?”
Mrs Gordon looked at Matthew and sighed. “Not always, but right now it might be, with all turned upside down as we sit and wait for the Protector to die. Especially if you’re an escaped royalist.” Her mouth pursed together as if she’d bitten into a sour rhubarb.
“He isn’t a royalist.”
“Well, that’s good, no? I don’t hold much with them myself.”
*
Alex didn’t sleep at all that night, Matthew’s head pillowed on her lap, his dirk held in her hand. He sweated and shook, and his breathing was loud and raspy, coughing fits racking his body. Alex tried to muffle the noise as best she could, conscious of Mrs Gordon in
her bed, however tightly closed the bed hangings.
“Is this my fault?” she asked next morning. “Because I didn’t manage to clean it properly?” She stroked his head, strong fingers massaging the base of his skull in a way that made him groan and burrow closer, still fast asleep.
Mrs Gordon shook her head. “He’s not been well fed for a long time, lass. Look.” She picked up Matthew’s hand and let her fingers close round his wrist. It looked very fragile, all knobs and tendons, and as Alex ran her hand up his arm, down his back, she could count his bones, feel the ridges of muscle and sinews but very little else. “He’s been on starving rations for months, poor lad.”
Matthew slept through most of the day, but Mrs Gordon seemed unconcerned, assuring Alex that this was in the normal order of things. She did, however, prod Matthew out of sleep long enough to have Alex help him to the privy, plied him with a large mug of willow bark tea, and watched Alex turn the blankets up tight around Matthew’s sleeping form. She was knitting, her needles flying back and forth at an astonishing speed.
“What’s your middle name?” Mrs Gordon smiled down at Alex.
“Ruth.”
“I’ll call you Ruth then, shall I? I can’t go on calling you lass.” She extended her knitting in the direction of Alex. “Can you knit?”
Alex realised this was some kind of test and nodded.
“My grandmother taught me, but I haven’t been doing it much.” Actually not at all, not since that Christmas when her single gift to her father had been a narrow but very long muffler, in orange and purple stripes.
“It’s restful,” Mrs Gordon said and handed Alex needles and a ball of yarn, studying her as Alex clumsily cast the first knots.
“I haven’t done this in years.”
“Ah,” Mrs Gordon nodded.
*
Early next morning, Mrs Gordon came rushing into the house, the full chamber pot still in her hand.
A Rip in the Veil (The Graham Saga) Page 14