The Accidental Highwayman

by Ben Tripp

  He shook hands with my seconds, and lastly with me, and clasped my hand with great force, whether out of aggression or a desire to weaken my shooting grip, I do not know. If a man must die, I thought, better to die in the course of a brave business. I didn’t much believe this, but that’s what I told myself, and returned Sterne’s grip with all the strength I could muster.

  Now we observed the usual formalities. There is a very particular set of steps to undertake in the course of a duel, whether with pistols or swords. Every boy knows them, for duels are famous occasions and it’s a popular game lads play to reenact the latest fights. I’d done it myself, never dreaming I was practicing for my own demise.

  “If I may intercede,” Dr. Mend said, “the cause of this quarrel seems to me a small one. I witnessed the offense, and in truth can scarcely call it an offense at all. If apology can be made, and with grace accepted, all may be carried from this ground upon their own legs.”

  This speech was not a spontaneous outburst of concern from the doctor. It was part of the ritual, intended to establish the point of honor. Duels were supposed to settle only the most egregious insults, although in practice—especially in Ireland—they were often fought for the most trifling of reasons, or none at all. In order that the victor should escape a charge of murder, the cause of the duel must be firmly established.

  “I disagree,” said Captain Sterne, his eyes fixed upon me and smoldering like coals. “To the contrary, the insult was a grave one, for this road agent and blackguard tried to ruin me, and then laughed about it. All you witnessed was the laughter.”

  This speech, too, was obligatory. Now he had, in his reply, insulted me. He had called me names. That meant I should have to offer him a challenge, whether or not I apologized for the original offense. Now both of us had cause to strike flint.

  “You will retract those words, sir,” said I, and to my great surprise my voice was steady and reasonably manful. I think I had begun to grow angry at this vain, quarrelsome man.

  “I will not,” said the captain, and that was that.

  Mr. Scratch handed the pistols to Mr. Bufo and the undertaker; each made a cursory glance at the weapon. Mr. Bufo was satisfied, having no reason to doubt its efficacy; the undertaker didn’t know a pistol from a candlestick, and so was equally satisfied. The weapons were then passed to the seconds, Scratch and Dr. Mend. These men, using the furniture provided in the pistol-case, loaded their respective weapons with powder, wad, and ball. All eyes observed the process and no fault was found with the arming of the weapons. Then they were handed to Sterne and myself.

  He took his almost negligently, holding it loosely in his hand as if considering the weight. For my part I wished to dismantle the pistol given me and inspect every part for tampering, then load it with fresh ball and powder—if only to delay the inevitable. But I could do nothing of the sort. Honor demanded I accept it without question. The only action I was permitted to perform upon it was to depress the trigger at the appointed time, and hope something like a pistol-shot occurred.

  So burdened, Captain Sterne and I stood a few feet apart and bowed at the waist. A droplet of sweat fell from my brow and I hoped none of the others saw it. My legs felt like columns of cold air; they were so weak it’s a wonder they held me up.

  “Dost thou wish to measure the ground?” hissed Mr. Scratch.

  “Not for myself,” Sterne said.

  “Nor I,” I replied.

  If he wasn’t afraid to blaze away at close range, then neither was I. Or, to be more accurate, I was so frightened of being shot that it didn’t matter to me if we stood an inch or a mile apart. Any distance was too small.

  Dr. Mend completed the ritual observances. “Then you, Mr. Bristol, take your ground, and inform the Captain when you are ready to settle the matter.”

  “Here is as good a place as any,” said I.

  I know not if I spoke faintly, or if the rush of blood pulsing in my ears was so great I could not hear my own voice. Sterne’s eyes were locked upon my own like cannon-bore: unfeeling, cruel, and certain. My own eyeballs felt as if they were mounted on clock springs, but I was able to master them sufficiently to maintain my stare against his.

  The rules of dueling have changed over time; most people now believe the practice has always been to stand back-to-back and march some fixed number of paces apart, then turn and exchange fire at more or less the same time. It was not thus when I fought my duel.

  This is how it went: now that my place was established, the seconds moved well back from the field of fire, so that none might be wounded. When they had found their ground, Sterne tore his eyes away from mine and nodded to them. Then—as if he was merely strolling a little distance to pick a flower, he walked away from me. When he stopped, he would turn and fire.

  I tried my best to stand still and ready, my eyes upon Sterne’s back. The pistol in my hand seemed to weigh as much as a mountain. How would I find the strength to raise it? In truth it took my entire will not to break into a run at full tilt across the field, pursued by the gibbering phantoms of unfired guns. Who would prosper because I fell to this ruthless man’s bullet? What honor should I gain in death? My opponent regarded such encounters as trifles, because he so often had them; he no more expected to fall to my shot than I expected to fall from Midnight’s back. Poor Midnight, thought I. He should never know what befell his best friend, and whomever became his master, he could never be the friend that I was.

  Each pace Sterne took brought to me a new specter of doubt and sorrow. I would lose Morgana, as well, and fail her cause, and all the Faerie people, for an absurd human ritual of destruction. I was giving up a life that promised two worlds. But most of all, I was facing the end of love.

  It’s difficult to explain romantic love to a person who has not been so afflicted. Some know the love of a parent, or both parents; some love also brothers and sisters and relations. I had never enjoyed this kind of love, being an orphan. It wasn’t unusual. There were many orphans, and many whose families did not love them at all, although they had them. Those were hard-hearted times, and it wasn’t advisable to indulge in sentimentality. Even husbands and wives were mostly joined of necessity, having fallen in together to improve their odds of survival, rather than from some bond of selfless love.

  Most times are hard, as I have learned over the years. So I expect romantic love is still scarce. If you’ve endured it, you can skip over this bit and get to the shooting a little farther down the page. But indulge me if you will. I speak of the species of love that causes all else to dwindle to nothing. It makes life seem trivial, and at the same time desperately important. In that moment, all my cares were but distractions compared to the consuming interest I had in Morgana’s well-being. The leaping fire in my heart drove out any chill, always spreading and never burning. The brighter it blazed, the more fuel there was.

  That aspect of love is what makes it most formidable. It nourishes as it devours. The more I loved Morgana, the less of me it seemed there was; that is, the part of me that was my own had dwindled until it was but vapor, like the mist that lifted away from the grass as it ascended into the heavens (as I expected to do within a few seconds). Yet I was no less for my love. My being was fed by the love Morgana had for me, until we were mingled into one bright soul with two expressions in the world, both together something greater than the sum of two.

  So Sterne’s leaden ball would not merely strike me down; I cared little for myself. But it would pierce Morgana’s heart as well. I was sure of it. Yet I was not. Had she not left me alone, without a note or word of farewell? Did I not feel some tremor of doubt, wondering if she might after all have forsaken me for the love of her people, a far more pressing and selfless cause? Had I any right to claim her, after all? I was a peasant, by any standards. She was a princess in two worlds.

  Thus did I occupy my thoughts as Sterne paced away, torn between anguish at the loss of so great a love as ours, and the terrible question of whether that love persiste
d still in her bosom; I would go to my grave not knowing. This was the worst thing.

  Even as I thought this, the captain ceased pacing, and the world slowed down until all around me might have been carved of marble. My fingers tightened upon the pistol-grip.

  I wondered what made honor the trajectory of man. Of all the things I should never know, this was the one that taunted me the most. I had known Morgana’s love once; I was certain she had truly loved me during our adventures together. To have earned such a love, even for a moment, was enough for my meager lifetime. But I would never know if she loved me still, or what became of her, or anything, because I had honor to satisfy. There may be some day when honor is not the central pillar of a man’s existence, bearing the whole rickety edifice up; there may come a time when fortune or fame or a fine garden are the things a man will not hesitate to die for.

  That is all conjecture. In my time, it is honor makes the man. So I stood there at the very end of my life, pistol at my side in a sweat-slicked hand, heart beating under my jaw. My opponent began to turn, twisting his heel in the grass as he came about, the pistol already rising in his hand. I doubted he was concerning himself with love or loss or the riddle of honor. He might be considering whether to have another breakfast kipper before resuming his day. He surely did not expect to die.

  But even as I dragged my own weapon upward, I realized I had measured his courage wrong. For he had scarcely completed half his turn about before his pistol was raised, which wasn’t good form. We ought to have faced each other and raised our guns eye-to-eye. He intended to shoot me like a pheasant, sweeping his barrel across me. It would make it harder for me to aim, as he would be moving when he fired. He was also afraid.

  In that moment I understood that no man faces a duel without fear, not even a gentleman accustomed to such contests; he simply learns to master it better. When the guns came up, there was no further time for showmanship. Only marksmanship mattered then.

  Even as I stiffened my arm to make it steady upon Sterne’s top coat-button, exhaling the breath I’d been holding since he began to pace away, there as a flash of fire. The black eye of his pistol bloomed like a yellow rose, from bud to flower all at once, and I hadn’t even time to hear the report.

  He shot me dead between the eyes.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  After attending the Rhode Island School of Design for illustration, BEN TRIPP worked as an experiential designer for over twenty years creating theme parks, resorts, museums, and attractions worldwide. The Accidental Highwayman is his first book for young adults. Visit his interactive Kit Bristol tumblr at www.kitbristol.com.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE ACCIDENTAL HIGHWAYMAN

  Copyright © 2014 by Ben Tripp

  All rights reserved.

  Illustrations by Ben Tripp

  Cover art by Sarah Coleman

  A Tor® Teen Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

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  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-0-7653-3549-4 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4668-2263-4 (e-book)

  e-ISBN 9781466822634

  First Edition: October 2014

  * Recidivism: returning to crime. During that period, the law was haphazardly (if brutally) enforced, and honest pay quite low, so criminal enterprise was more attractive than now. Criminal transportation involved shipping convicts overseas for use as cheap labor.

  * King George II of Great Britain and Ireland (1683–1760) was born in Germany, son of the Hanoverian dynasty that divided its loyalties between the German and English courts. He was a bureaucrat by nature, detested the arts and sentimentality, and was the last British monarch to lead his army into battle. His oldest son, Frederick, died untimely, leaving his grandson George III in succession to the throne.

  * Matches of that period were made with phosphorous. The smoke from them was poisonous in sufficient quantities.

  † Weskit: waistcoat or vest.

  * Cocked hat: a hat with the brim turned up to form two or three sides. Also bicorne and tricorne, respectively.

  * Redingote: riding coat. A jacket with long, voluminous tails, cut for horsemen.

  * There is no record of a forest named Kingsmire, but it may have been a local name for part of the New Forest, which at that time covered a broad band of southern central England.

  * Mummers’ plays are a very old dramatic form featuring dialogue spoken in rhyming couplets. They are often performed around Christmas by roving players. A central element in these plays is the death and resurrection of a primary character.

  * Feyín is an approximate rendering of the original feþyn, in which the thorn character (þ) represents a voiceless palatal fricative about halfway between “sh” and “th,” sounded close to the base of the teeth. Borrowed from the Faeries themselves, it may originally have been the source for the Old English fæcce, pronounced “fethch” or “fetch”; by Shakespeare’s time the species distinction was lost, and all magical folk were described by mortals as fey or Faerie, much as in modern speech.

  * King George III (1738–1820), grandson of King George II, was English-born. He was a shy, conscientious man by most accounts, and his nearly sixty-year reign saw the rise and fall of the first British Empire. Although it is claimed he suffered from insanity caused by the congenital disease porphyria, in fact he was suffering from the effects of a Faerie curse, which is another story.

  * “Halfsie” is a colloquial Faerie term for one of mixed human and magical blood. “Elf” means the same thing but is considered an appalling slur.

  * Tatterdemalion: raggedy fellow.

  * Slubberdegullion: all-around wretch, completely without virtues.

  * Jeu de paume: precursor to tennis, played mostly on indoor courts. The game has the oldest actively contested trophy in the world—since 1740, when Kit would have been a small boy.

  * Kippage: confusion, turmoil. Also a ship’s company.

  * Cullan, legendary Irish blacksmith; had a hammer that sounded like Midnight’s shoes.

  * Jerrycummumble: toss, tumble.

  * Ventricose fustilarian: herring-gutted stinkard.

  * Traveler: Gypsy. Also Romani or Romany.

  * The word Willum used in the original manuscript was nymphs, which is the feyín term for infant.

  * Rod: about five meters.

  * A dark lantern was a kind of early flashlight. Unlike most lanterns of the period, the light was directional, rather than diffuse, its beam shining from an aperture in an otherwise opaque canister. The opening was sometimes fitted with a colored lens for signaling.

  * Astley’s circus ring was not premiered until 1768, some years after the date of these events. Lily must have been referring to an early prototype. But the earliest known ring of Astley’s design was sixty-two feet in diameter, so this may also be a slip of Kit’s memory, as the events herein were recorded after the fact. As an interesting side note, Charles Dibdin, himself a famous equestrian, jealously mentions in a letter that “Ph’p Astley, Kitt Brystol, and divers others didd ride at Waterloo to muche acklaimme”; we may assume therefore that Philip Astley and Kit knew each other.

  * Quadrille: A French square dance popular at balls.

  * Anachronisms have been introduced into Kit’s description of the wagon for clarity’s sake; in fact this was probably the first specimen of such a vehicle ever made, and may have served as a model for later examples.

&
nbsp; * Spatterdashes: spats, shoe covers.

  * Qui-tam horse: can be ridden, can also draw a vehicle.

  * “I’m sorry, I don’t speak English.”

  * Thomas Herring, Archbishop of Canterbury 1747–1757.

  * A group of gryphons is called a strike. A juvenile gryphon is called a kite.

  * Pin: a cask containing 4.5 imperial gallons, or half a firkin.

  * There are two known phantolorums in the world today: One is the Kudara Kannon, an ancient camphor-wood statue of the Buddha now housed in the Tokyo National Museum’s Horyuji Treasures gallery; it has been inactive for four hundred and fifty years. The other is a single page in the Book of Armagh, housed in the library at Trinity College, Dublin. The page purportedly depicts four evangelists. They are in fact denizens of Faerie. This phantolorum is still active.

  * Senescence: old age and decrepitude.

  * Scylla and Charybdis were the original ‘rock and a hard place,’ crushing ships that passed between them. Odysseus managed to survive the experience.

  * Leather-End is a popular character in Faerie stories, a hapless human farmer who goes to great lengths to destroy the feyín on his property, always with disastrous results. The name “Leather-End” is derived from the fact that humans have ordinary skin in the parts where feyín are luminous.

  * Snuff, or tobacco powder, was believed to improve the eyesight, among other things. It is the only form of tobacco used by Faeries, although they don’t consume it, but burn it to ash and compound it with walnut oil to create a polishing paste for silver.

  * Rope.

  * Scurfed: taken into custody (eighteenth-century slang). Not to be confused with scurf, flaking or scaly skin.

  * Oliver Cromwell was an immensely powerful and controversial seventeenth-century soldier, politician, and Puritan. After his death, his remains were dug up and hanged at Tyburn by way of posthumous execution.

  * Galligaskins: loose trousers.