TWENTY-ONE: Blaze
Elizabeth rushed over to her little baby, dragging Beckett behind her, and scooped him up, rocking and hushing him, pleading with him, wishing that he would be quiet. Beckett beckoned for his mother to quickly come over, and then turned his attention to William. Between him and Elizabeth, they managed to calm the wailing baby, but William did not seem amused, and looked like he may explode into another fit of crying at any minute.
"What're we going to do?" Elizabeth asked, clutching her baby to her, and her bag of belongings lying at her feet. Beckett raised a finger and closed his eyes, obviously thinking about it. "This would be so much easier if we weren't joined up!" Elizabeth sighed.
"Well," Audrey said slowly, crawling through the hay towards them, "I do have the spare keys that I stole from the guard on the day of the hanging..."
"The spare keys?" Elizabeth asked faintly. Beckett turned to stare at his mother in disbelief.
"There are spare keys? And... and you had them, and you didn't give them to us?" Beckett blinked, "I always knew that you were outrageously unintelligent, but this just takes the cake."
"When I tried to mention it, you told me to shut up," Audrey said, sounding offended. Beckett groaned—and then a second call came from the doorway. Also, Audrey had felt that it would be good for her son to be shackled to someone, and have some human company... though that hadn't worked out as expected. She'd kept a hold of the shiny keys on the day of the hanging; well, not all of them, but certainly the spare. Especially after her son decided to shackle Elizabeth up.
"We know you're in here; there's no point in hiding," the soldier bellowed, walking in further, "We're coming to the back now... you can't run, and you can't hide..." Beckett quickly held his hand out, and Audrey dropped the keys into his hand. With two clicks, he undid first Elizabeth's lock, and then his, before stuffing the keys into a pocket.
"Beckett! You're going to get us all arrested!" Elizabeth hissed, clutching William. "Killed, even!"
"Yes, we were followed... I didn't think of that possibility. I'm sorry," Beckett sighed and rubbed his forehead, "We have no choice—up. Into the hay at the back of the barn." They quietly ran to the very back of the barn, where there was a large stack of many bales of hay. However, whoever owned this farm obviously wasn't as organized as the other one, as they were stacked willy-nilly, not in neat piles.
"Are you sure about this?" Elizabeth asked, quietly, as she heard a horse snorting outside and more footsteps in the barn.
"There's no other option," Beckett helped his mother begin clambering up the hay, "Come on, we have to do this." After several seconds of furious scrabbling, they managed to reach the top. But Beckett had miscalculated the distance between the top of the hay-pile and the rafters. It was just too far up; they wouldn't be able to reach it. Beckett paused for a long moment.
When he turned to Elizabeth, he had an odd expression on his face. He took William from her hands, and made his mother hold the baby—and then he laced his fingers together and held them together like a stirrup, bending his knees slightly as if bracing himself.
"Beckett-?"
"Step onto my hands, and get up there," Beckett hissed, "I'll pass William and the sack up after. Mother, you're next," he nodded to Elizabeth. She looked uncertain for a moment, and he glared at her, "Hurry!" The urgency in his voice made her spring into action, and she stepped onto his hand. He straightened his knees and pushed her upwards—she grabbed a hold of the rafters, and eventually she swung up there. The sack and William were unceremoniously swung up to her soon after; the way William was passed up through mid-air making Elizabeth almost shriek. She looked around—the ceiling was made of many posts that ran dangerously from one side of the barn to the other, with some flat planks of wood like platforms, which had probably helped in the building of the roof. She stepped onto one now, putting the sack down on the wood and holding William close to her.
From up here, she could see around the maze of bales that was the barn; they were arranged like large shelves in the mother of all supermarkets, with small walkways in between them all to get around. The dragoons were at the front of the barn, coming closer every second.
"Cutler," Audrey said, "I don't think I'll be able to get up there. I'll fall. I don't like heights," her voice took on a fretting edge.
"It's that or death—up you go," Beckett said, not moving, his hands ready for her to step into. Audrey didn't look convinced, and Beckett sighed and gripped her shoulder tightly, "You can do it," he said, "You just have to-," before he could say anything moving and cheesy, a loud voice interrupted him.
"Stop right there! I see you, on top of that bale of hay! Get back down here!" The voice ordered gruffly. Audrey blinked, and Beckett spun around to see a man holding a flaming torch aloft, flanked by another man. "My friend here has a musket—he could pick you off right now f he wanted to." Beckett took a deep breath; and then exhaled loudly.
"Yes, sir," Beckett replied calmly, beginning to slide down the hay-pile; he kept a hand on his mother's shoulder, steadying her. The gesture surprised her. But not as much as the fact that he was admitting defeat.
Once they had reached the bottom of the bales of hay, Beckett showed his palms to the men, to show that he was unarmed. He looked towards his mother, and she did the same. The soldiers seemed surprised that he was giving in without a fight too—but not displeased. One of the dragoons walked forwards and grabbed Beckett by a shoulder, and began dragging him out of the barn. Beckett prised the man's fingers off of his painful shoulder.
"I can walk, thank you," he said acidly. The dragoon grunted, but did not grab his shoulder again.
"Where's the other one?" The dragoon asked him as they stumbled outside; it was considerably colder out here, the wind biting and chilling. Audrey coughed, the breath showing in the air in front of her, and clasped her fingers together—they were already beginning to feel numb.
"The other one?" Beckett asked. The dragoon snarled at him.
"Don't play innocent—the girl. The Pirate King," he growled. Beckett pursed his lips.
"She left. I did, after all, try to hand her in to the government. I don't know where she's gone," he said. Audrey nodded next to him, looking nervously at the muskets being hefted around.
"We've been watching the barn. Nobody's left the place," half of the dragoon's face was cast in shadow by the flaming torch he was holding—an abrupt picture of flickering shadows and harsh light. Beckett shrugged.
"Well, she certainly left," he said disinterestedly.
"In that case," the dragoon gave a grim smile; a cold one, devoid of emotion. Beckett frowned, thinking about how these dragoons seemed much more refined then the usual rabble. Obviously Lord Leonard had been very busy with the string-pulling. "You wouldn't mind me setting the barn alight?"
"Be my guest," Beckett said, giving nothing away, though his pulse quickened, "But you'll be the one footing the bill."
The dragoon looked at him for a heartbeat.
And then he threw the torch into the barn—the hay was alight in seconds.
NB: Why would Beckett help Elizabeth? He must have a plan--but what is it? And Audrey, as always, is a nice spanner in the works as well... also, in the next chapter, you shall find insanity! What fun it is...
Extract from the next chapter: Elizabeth realized that there was no way she was going to be getting out of that door—and that was the only door in the barn...