Runaway (4 page)

I turned back to the frightened chestnut horse, speaking soothingly to him, and gradually he stopped struggling against the chain and harness that bound him. I gently unbuckled his traces and untangled them, but on my own I could do nothing about the chain that had trapped him and was bruising his legs every time he tried to move.

After some time, the boy who’d led the train of packhorses joined me. ‘You done well to calm that one,’ he said with a friendly grin. ‘Now let’s see if we can get ’im on his feet.’

He took hold of the chain and lifted it clear. I spoke to the chestnut horse again, encouraging him. He struggled to stand, scrabbling for grip in the mud and stones of the road. Then, with a great heave, he surged upright. The other horses, still unnerved by the accident, tossed their heads and tried to pull away. I took a firm hold of the injured horse’s bridle and kept speaking to him. He trembled and snorted, but didn’t fight me. The wagoner was back on his feet and staggered over to me, still looking dazed.

‘I’ll take him now,’ he muttered.

‘I’ll be fine while you see to the others,’ I tried to protest, but he was insistent. Reluctantly, I relinquished my hold on the horse and stepped back. It was sheer bad luck that at that very moment a chaise rattled around the corner from the London direction far too fast for the narrow road. Seeing the chaos ahead, the chaise driver pulled his lead horses up so hard that they sat back on their haunches, but it was too late. This latest incident was enough to make the injured horse, already terrified and in pain, rear wildly. He pulled out of the wagoner’s hands and stepped back onto the leg of the lad from the packhorse train. The boy screamed.

The boy’s cry brought the woman from the packhorse train running towards us. She pulled the boy out of reach of the frightened horse, and was much distressed for him. The wagoner recaptured his horse, but the harm was done.

‘You good for nuthin’ reckless, rich idiots!’ the woman bawled at the chaise driver. ‘What kind of speed is that on these roads? Tell me that! Tell me how I can manage now for two months with no boy to help me in my work!’

She was so fierce the coachman practically cowered on the box of the chaise, holding his horses well in hand now. In no time at all, she’d made him promise to take up the injured boy and convey him to the inn at Maidenhead. The servants carried the poor lad into the chaise, trying not to jar his injured leg, and the gentleman joined him, having promised to get a doctor to the lad as soon as they arrived.

I was free to go on, but I didn’t. So weak I feared I might faint, I sat on the damp grassy bank beside the road. I watched as the wagon was dragged clear by straining horses so that the chaise could go on past. I saw the packhorse driver pick up her boy’s stick as well as her own and go to her lead horse who was grazing at the side of the road.

‘Do you need help?’ I called to her. ‘I’m looking for work.’

She glanced sharply at me, her eyes taking in my bruised face. ‘I could have done wi’out gettin’ my boy injured,’ she snapped.

My heart sank. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t prevent it,’ I said and turned my face away, wishing I hadn’t asked. Who would want to employ me, after all? I realized she was still looking at me and flushed a little.

‘You know horses,’ she said. ‘I could see that much. Driven packhorses before?’

I shook my head. ‘Never, but I could learn.’

‘Where are you headed to?’

‘Dorset. But I cannot go so far without work.’

‘You sound like a young gen’leman,’ she said critically. ‘Ever worked in yer life?’

She was looking at me quizzically and, despite my weariness, my hunger and my unhappiness, I felt hope. ‘Not as such,’ I admitted.

‘Ah. A young gentleman fallen on hard times, is it? Well, there’s no slacking on a packhorse train. Yer keeps up with the lead horse and keeps her outta mischief. As long as she keeps going, the others’ll foller her. She knows the way. Think you can do that?’

I nodded. The woman rolled her eyes. ‘I must be goin’ soft in me old age,’ she remarked to the road. ‘I’m Martha Winters.’

‘Charlie Weaver,’ I said, standing to shake her hand. The world swam around me. I swayed and sat quickly back down. I mustn’t faint. I tried to breathe through the dizziness that was sweeping over me, but stars danced before my eyes.

‘If you will feed me,’ I said in a faint voice. ‘I’ll willingly walk all day for you.’

‘When did you last eat, Charlie Weaver?’ Martha asked me.

‘I don’t remember. Three, four days ago?’ I hated to confess to such poverty. It felt shameful. Martha sighed. ‘I’m taking on more trouble here than is worth my while,’ she complained to herself.

She called the horses off the road, some onto the verge and others into a gateway, and pulled a skin of ale from a saddlebag and handed it to me. I drank gratefully while she took bread and cheese out too and sat down beside me.

‘I don’t eat in the day as a rule,’ she said. ‘But if we’re stopping … ’

I fell on the bread, barely chewing in my rush to fill the yawning void inside me. ‘Slow down!’ Martha ordered me, snatching the bread back. ‘Chew or you’ll make yerself sick.’

Under Martha’s watchful eye, I forced myself to eat slowly and politely. By the time I’d finished, I was still weak, but lights were no longer dancing before my eyes. Martha strapped my satchel to one of the horses.

‘Right then, we’ll walk together while I teach you the commands. Here’s yer staff,’ She handed me the boy’s stick. ‘Hup!’ she called out to the lead horse. The horse jumped to attention and walked out into the road, heading westward. We both fell into step beside her and the other ten horses took their places in the train behind.

‘They wants to reach the King’s Head at Maidenhead,’ she told me. ‘Sooner they can get there, sooner they gets unloaded, fed and watered. It’s not them you has to look out for. It’s trouble from other road users, like that wagon and chaise. From robbers and no-goods. That’s why I need help. With that and all the unloading and loading at the start and end of each day. I’m not so young no more.’

As we walked, Martha taught me the packhorse language, the ‘hup’ to encourage them on, the ‘whoa’ that was universal to stopping horses, and how to direct them to the right and the left. Apart from that, the main task was keeping up with the blistering pace the beasts set. I was half running some of the time.

At the Colnbrook tollgate, after Martha had paid the fee and all the ponies had passed through, she glanced at me. ‘Holdin’ up?’ she asked.

‘I’ll do,’ I said and then strode ahead with the lead horse. I was elated to have eaten and found myself work.

My relief was soon tempered by the weather, which rolled black and threatening from the west. We walked into a rainstorm that drove straight into us, drenching me through, despite my father’s cloak. The rain soaked right through my cap, plastering my hair to my head. Water trickled steadily down the back of my neck into my shirt. My boots leaked mud and water so that my stockings and eventually even my breeches became mired from the muddy road.

I kept doggedly walking the weary miles, while the road became a bog. The horses at my side put their heads down in misery, but barely slackened their pace, their hooves squelching and sliding in the mud as they struggled onwards. My feet chafed raw inside my wet boots. The strength I’d gained from the meal leached slowly out of me. My only comfort was that I wouldn’t be forced to sleep out of doors in this storm tonight.

The rain lessened at last. Towards evening the sun came out. My clothes steamed and so did the horses and their packs. Just as I thought I couldn’t walk another step, we entered Maidenhead, crossed the bridge and the horses swung off the road of their own accord, through the archway into the inn yard at the King’s Head.

Once we’d unloaded the packhorses, stalled them, groomed them, and Martha had checked they were receiving the full measure of provender she was paying for, she led me up to a plain room on the top floor and told me I’d be sharing a bed with her that night. Promising to come back and fetch me for supper, she disappeared to enquire after her injured lad.

Surprised but relieved that I wasn’t expected to share with her boy or to sleep in the stables, I pulled off my wet clothing and hung it over a chair to dry, slipping on my one spare shirt to sleep in. I thought I’d just lie down on the bed for a few moments to rest while I waited for Martha. The next thing I knew, the early dawn light was peeping through the window, and Martha was shaking me awake.

‘What?’ I uttered, confused. ‘Where… ?’

‘Time to get up for breakfast!’ Martha ordered, her voice loud in my fuddled head. ‘We’ll be off in an hour.’

Pulling my still-damp breeches and stockings on as quickly as I could, I collected my things together and stumbled down the creaking stairs after her. Eggs, bread, preserves and ale awaited us on a table in the taproom. Having missed supper last night, I made a hearty meal. Martha ate steadily in silence. On the way out to the yard, she remarked: ‘You’ll suit me if yer up to the work. Sleep instead of supper and a shared bed makes a cheap night. And no chatter. I like that.’

Together we loaded up the horses with no more talk than it took to instruct me on the correct way to tie on the packs and teach me some new words like ‘wantyes’ and ‘sursingles’: the straps that held the packs in place. ‘A badly-tied pack ruins a horse faster than a bad road,’ Martha told me as she checked each horse, adjusting the loads one final time.

‘The Bear Inn in Hungerford, by nightfall,’ she said. ‘Off you go.’

And I went.

The second day was longer but less gruelling than the first. My feet hurt more, but I’d slept well and eaten breakfast. And it didn’t rain. I was rubbing down the last of my six horses at the Bear when I noticed Martha leaning against a post, watching me.

‘Ah. You really do know horses,’ she said in her decided way. ‘Time to eat.’

We washed at the pump and then entered the crowded taproom and found a place at a greasy table. Martha ordered the house supper for us; a generous portion of lamb stew with potatoes. I tucked in hungrily. After a while, I noticed Martha’s steady gaze on me again. She was sharp-eyed, but so far my disguise seemed to have fooled her.

‘How’s your lad?’ I asked. ‘Will his leg heal?’

‘It’ll heal right enough. But not for weeks. It’ll cost me an arm and a leg to put him up. He can’t be moved yet.’

Her harshness wasn’t convincing. I’d seen enough to guess that she cared for him. ‘Is he your son?’

Martha gave a scornful grunt. ‘Jason? Do I look young enough to have a nipper like him?’ she demanded. I thought it tactful not to answer.

‘Fifty year old and still trekking to Lunnon and back every week,’ she sighed. ‘That’s the price of runnin’ yer own business.’

‘You don’t have a husband?’ I asked cautiously.

‘Had one once. The packhorse train was his business, but I bin a widow these fifteen years. I kept the business goin’ all this time. Three days up to Lunnon, three days back, and Sundays at home to rest.’

I nodded as I chewed. ‘Are there many women in your line of work?’ I asked curiously.

Martha’s eyes on me were sharp once more as she replied. ‘A few. You got to be tough to survive a life on the roads. Twice as tough if you’re a woman.’

I hoped I was going to be tough enough to last the six or seven weeks it would take Jason to heal; if Martha would employ me so long.

The road the next day took us through Savernake Forest. It was a wild place, a mixture of dense, ancient woodland, heath and grazing land.

The morning traffic on the road was busy. By noon, I’d overtaken several lumbering wagons with between five and seven horses drawing at length and any number of travellers on foot. I felt stronger after a day of good, nourishing food. The clean air and exercise out of the London smoke suited me too. I kept pace with the lead horse with ease, every now and then commanding her to ‘hup!’ if she slackened her pace.

On a deserted stretch of road in denser woodland, a bang echoed ahead of us. The lead horse, Magpie, threw up her head, but kept going. Another shot echoed and she shied violently. ‘Whoa!’ I called. I caught her halter, put my hand on her nose and spoke to her quietly.