Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed, in the dark inn-yard.
Tim started up from the heap of straw that was his bed. Soundless save for the little rustle of the dry straw, no noisier than a rat's passage (and that a common enough thing) he pulled on ragged trousers and felt his way to the stable door.
The wind howled, and pushed the moon about in the sky. Less cautious, he crept to where he might see the inn yard. Could it be some honest traveler arrived, even so late at night? But he'd have hallooed, called for service. Ho, ostler, are you dead or dead drunk?
No call, no cry, even without the wind's muffling. No honest man would venture these roads by night, in any case.
The man and his horse were beautiful. Moonlight fell through the shifting clouds, slicked over his gleaming thigh-boots, his sleek horse (do you curry-comb him yourself, popinjay? Tim wondered), glittered on his silver pistols. Remembering the coach that had rumbled in, the coachman draped limply over the box, a whey-faced passenger at the reins, Tim drew back. Popinjay he might be, but his powder and ball were true enough, and no highwayman took kindly to spies.
The man rode up to the shuttered window that overlooked the yard, and stood in his stirrups. Tim's heart plummeted to his bare feet. "No, lass, don't let it be thou. Let it be some greasy chambermaid, some potboy." But the servants all slept belowstairs.
With the butt of his riding crop, the highwayman rapped at the shutters. No answer came, and Tim's breath started again through his throat. But then the man sat back, cocked his head, and whistled.
The shutter creaked open and was fastened back, so it could not bang shut and waken a sleeper. In the window was Bess, the landlord's daughter. Her jet-black hair was scarcely to be seen, only her face floating in the darkness, red lips black in the dimness. She leaned forward into the moonlight, and her hair fell about her shoulders, hung down like ribbons. She was plaiting it for the night, winding a ribbon through the coils.
Tim felt the warm blood leave his face, leave his heart. He turned sick and cold. Who gave thee that ribbon, Bess?
The lovers spoke, though he could not hear it over the thrumming wind and the blood that beat in his head. He crept closer, and clutched at the wicket for support. Pretty little Bess, who'd never called him halfwit, nor thrown clods of mud or horseshit, to be so taken in. "Don't thou know, Bess, what comes of girls who go along of highway robbers?" There were ballads and songs enough that told of it. He'd lurked outside the taproom and listened to them, heard drunken men roar along with the chorus.
The wind died a moment, and Tim heard Bess's lover say "Watch for me by moonlight. I'll come to thee by moonlight." Bess leaned from the window to take up a handful of white stuff that he gave to her, and the highwayman took a kiss for payment.
In the silence, the wicket Tim clung to creaked, and he drew back into the dark stable, the scents of horsedung and sleeping beasts rising up around him. He found his straw again, and curled in it like a dog, but could not sleep.
The next morning he braved the scowls of the cook and the jeers of the potboy, and entered the inn. "Get away, do," scolded a chambermaid. "Take your stable-stink and filthy feet off my clean floors." He bared his teeth at her and pushed past. Behind his back she called him a bedlamite and a rogue, but he'd heard worse.
He found Bess bent over a basin of water, squeezing something white between her fingers.
She whirled about as he entered, then gave a shaken laugh. "'Tis only thou! What brings thee within doors?"
He worked his mouth; speech had never come easily to him. "What have you there, mistress?"
Clutching it to herself, she smiled too widely. "But a little French lace a lodger gave me. Pretty, but of little worth. Kind, was he not? Shan't I look well with this sewn to the cuffs of my blue gown?"
The water was tinted pale red. "Whose blood was on it?"
Her face twisted, then resumed its smile. "Blood? A stain of wine, nothing more. How should there be blood on lace? Now go, Tim, thou knowst the stable is thy place, not here."
He slunk away like a whipped dog, and all through the day, as he ran to and fro with the horses, unsaddled and brushed them, brought water and oats, he hardly heard the shouts and curses of the men. Only the questions beating through his brain: what else has he given her, and whose was it before it came to her hand? He knew nothing of the worth of lace, but he knew it took little enough to bring a man to the gallows, or belike a woman.
The worst question he tried not to ask himself, but it snaked through his thoughts regardless, showing its split tongue at him: what has she given him in return?
Tales of the highwayman's boldness had come to the inn, some in songs, changing his name over from Dick Turpin's, and giving him Turpin's exploits. No one ever made a song of how Turpin had sat an old woman on her own stove until she yielded up the hiding place of her money, how she'd died weeks later. Neither did anyone sing of the guards and coachmen who fell, or their widows' weeping.
Peering through the mullioned panes, Tim saw Bess's eyes shine brighter, saw her cheeks flush red as the ribbon knotted through her hair when she listened to the songs. The inn did good custom, for travellers would not stir out by grey dawn or twilight, only full daylight.
But highwaymen too have their living to make, and soon enough he fell on coaches in broad day, and an outrider rode in slumped and bloody over his horse's neck, the horse's eyes rolling with fear and its coat harsh with sweat. Thief-takers came from London, and the highwayman led them through woods and marshes until they returned home again, empty-handed and cursing. One never returned at all.
Some men, or even women, were reckless enough to resist the highwayman, and though he was courteous to those who yielded, he was ruthless to resistance. Rumour went around of a proud lady who'd refused the highwayman's bounty of a kiss, had drawn a pistol from her bag and tried to fire at him when he turned away with her necklace and earrings, and of how she was punished for her treachery.
The next morning Bess wore a little locket, that she said was only giltwork set with glass, but the chips caught the light prettier than glass ever did.
Two days later the soldiers marched in, their red coats bright under the rising sun. They made camp within an easy walk of the inn, and the landlord rubbed his hands at the thought of their custom. "Look thy best, Bess my lass," he said. "Belike thou'll catch an officer's eye, and who knows what may come of that?"
But when the officer came, he was an old man, white-haired even without powder, and his face lined with recent grief. A black mourning band wrapped his red sleeve. Nor was it Bess's fine dark eyes and red lips that caught his eye.
Tim took his horse, a fine grey gelding, by the reins, and held it steady. The officer dismounted easily, tossing him a penny and stern words about the gelding's care. Then he stopped in the inn-yard and caught Tim's arm.
"Who's the black-haired wench?"
"Bess, sir, the landlord's daughter." Tim's heart surged into his throat, choking.
"Call her here."
Tim coughed to clear his throat. "Bess! The gentleman wants you."
She came, smiling, but he saw wariness deep in her eyes, furtive as a fox in a thicket. She curtsied. "What would you, sir?"
The officer's voice was gentle, but his hand bruised Tim's shoulder. "That's a pretty trinket about your throat. How came you by it?"
Her hand flew to cover the glinting metal. "A fairing, sir, that a passing guest gave me, having no coin by him and me having done him a trifling service."
"Let me see it nearer."
Bess's eyes darkened with fear, from brown to black. Tim eased back a trifle, tweaked the gelding's bit. It reared, snorting.
"Here, what are you about?" The officer turned to quiet his horse and curse Tim. Bess slipped away.
She was not seen the rest of that day, though her father shouted and swore, needing her. After the officer released him from an hour at least of questioning, shut away in his own strong-room, he did not swear, but trembled, his ruddy face gone pale as a blancmange. "What has she done to us," he muttered. "What has she done?" He saw Tim standing mute and frightened at the stable door and shook his head. "I'd sooner she'd taken up with thee, lackwit. That would have brought only her to grief." His face tightened. "Didst thou know aught of this? And not tell me?" Two strides brought him to Tim's side, and his slap left Tim's ear ringing.
"I don't know aught, master, and never did." Tim rubbed his stinging ear.
"Know this, then! Twas the colonel's daughter that the highwayman--" The landlord broke off and swung his head about wildly at the noise on the roadway. The steady beat of marching.
A troop of red-coated soldiers poured into the inn-yard. In the midst of them, arms bound, pale as a white rose, stood Bess.