Runaway (7 page)

‘I thought you knew horses, damn it,’ snarled Phillips, watching my clumsy efforts with growing anger. ‘I employed you on that understanding!’

‘Not carriages,’ I confessed timidly. ‘I’ll learn fast, I swear.’ He was approaching me again and I had no way of escaping another blow, the buckle only half threaded as it was. The clout felled me again and I sat, winking away the spots in front of my eyes, under the horses’ feet.

‘Not fast enough,’ he said, aiming a kick that I wasn’t quick enough to dodge. ‘Get inside and carry on mucking out. It’s all you’re fit for.’

I crawled away from him and staggered unsteadily to my feet. Ever since Martha had left me here yesterday, I’d wished I’d set out for Dorset instead, whether or not I had enough money for the journey.

I rubbed my aching head as I set to mucking out the empty stall again, lifting the trodden-down mixture of horse dung and straw one heavy forkful at a time into the barrow. When I’d tipped the last barrowful out on the midden, I hauled heavy buckets of water up from the well and sluiced the stable floor clean, sweeping the sludgy liquid into the guttering that ran the length of the floor.

No sooner was that stall finished and strewn with fresh straw, than there was another to do and then another. By the time I was sent in to breakfast, I ached from head to foot.

I walked into the room where the stable hands were served their meals. A huge cauldron of stew and dumplings stood on the straw-strewn floor, a ladle resting in it. The smell set my mouth watering. I grabbed a wooden bowl from its place on the shelf and helped myself. Then I sat down on a rickety bench. As I began to eat, Tom came and sat beside me. He stirred his stew, examining the lumps of carrot and stringy meat in the brown gravy.

‘You mustn’t look so afeared of ole Phillips,’ he told me. ‘The thing is, you got to show him you’re useful. Then he won’t bully you no more. Work alongside me and Sam the rest of the day,’ Tom offered kindly. ‘Learn the ropes. Come on. That’s the bell ringing. That means there’s a coach coming in that needs a change. Go fetch two fresh horses and I’ll unharness theirs.’

Swallowing my last mouthful of food, I hurried to the stables. On the left were the horses that had already done a stint that day. I knew because I’d groomed them, washed the mud from their legs, and fed and watered them as they came in. To the right were the fresh horses. I picked out two and led them out into the yard. They followed me out, their hooves clattering on the cobbles, their ears pricked up. Tom had unhitched a sweating, steaming pair from the carriage. I led them away, handing Tom the fresh horses. Ben, a skinny, dark-haired youth, was helping him hitch them to the carriage. They worked so fast that the carriage was rolling out of the yard before I’d tethered the tired beasts in their stalls.

As the horses drank, Tom climbed up to the hayloft and tipped fresh hay through the slots into their racks. Meanwhile I sponged their mud-spattered legs, then rubbed one horse down while Tom saw to the other.

We had barely finished before the bell was ringing again. ‘Those two!’ Tom ordered, pointing at a bay and a skewbald horse in the stalls. He ran out into the yard to begin the next change as I untied the pair to lead out. Tom and Sam, an older boy with huge hands and feet, had unhitched two more sweating horses, but we’d barely led them from the shafts when another coach rattled into the yard and rang for the change, this time with four horses harnessed to it.

As I led away the tired pair, the coachman was already bawling complaints at us for slowness and Phillips was looking thunderous.

There was no time to feed or groom the horses now until we had the coaches done. I led out one pair and then another, while Tom and Sam tackled the harnesses and handed me the tired beasts to lead away.

It was a cool day, but I grew steadily warmer, required to work constantly at a run. When there was a brief respite from travellers, we rubbed down, fed and watered the tired horses. By late afternoon, most of them were going out for a second stint.

‘Is it always this busy?’ I asked Tom breathlessly, as we forked hay down from the loft into the horses’ racks.

‘This time o’ year it is. Bath season just beginning and everyone a-travelling down from Lunnon,’ he said briefly.

‘Are you wasting time talking up there?’ demanded Phillips’ angry voice from the stalls.

‘No, sir, just giving instructions,’ Tom called down, and grimaced at me. We finished our task as quickly as possible and hurried back down the ladder, thankful that another peal of the bell had called Phillips back out into the yard.

I was about to run out to fetch the horses when I spotted a figure I recognized in the yard. I stopped so suddenly that Tom collided with me.

‘What’s up?’ he demanded. ‘We gotta hurry!’

‘Stomach ache!’ I improvised, bending over and clutching my belly. Tom sighed and pushed past me, running to take the horses and calling to another boy to help. I stayed out of sight, watching a thin, wizened man with stooped shoulders holding a roll of papers speaking to Phillips. It was the magistrate without a doubt. When Phillips nodded, he thanked him and went to nail a notice onto the wall. I knew what it was without going to look. I shivered and drew further back into the shadows. When Tom came running in leading the two steaming horses, I took them from him at the door and led them into the friendly gloom of the stalls.

So I was still being hunted. I rubbed down the horses with shaking hands and found excuses to stay inside the stable until the magistrate was long gone. Late that night, I crept out of the straw where I slept wrapped in a moth-eaten blanket, tore the notice down, ripped it into tiny shreds and buried it in the midden heap.

The bell that rang to wake us in the morning dragged me from the deepest sleep. For a few moments, I couldn’t think where I was. The stable was still in darkness, and all I knew was that I ached all over. When I remembered, I groaned and dragged myself out from under my blanket, trying to force my heavy limbs into action. Around me, the other boys were emerging yawning and stretching from whichever corner they had crawled into to sleep. In theory, we slept in the stable to keep watch over the horses. In practice, I doubted a thunderstorm right overhead would have woken us until morning.

Instead of growing used to the long days, I was constantly tired. ‘How are you getting on, Charlie?’ Martha appeared beside me in the stables one evening as I was grooming. I gave her a weary smile without pausing in my work. Her familiar face was a welcome sight. ‘I’m well enough, thank you,’ I said.

‘Getting enough to eat?’

‘Plenty to eat, just not enough time to eat it.’

‘Posting houses are busy places,’ she acknowledged. ‘I’m on my way back from Lunnon. Thought I’d see how you was settling in.’ She leaned closer. ‘No one suspects?’

‘The latrine is tricky,’ I told her, keeping my voice low. ‘There’s always a queue during the day, and no time to wait in it. The other lads piss in the midden and can’t understand why I don’t.’

Martha nodded. ‘And?’

I grinned. ‘I’m developing a strong bladder.’

‘And the sleeping arrangements?’

‘I’m in the stables with the horses.’

Martha nodded. She handed me a small package of coins wrapped in paper. I took it, looking questioningly up at her. ‘Money for your hair,’ she whispered and winked. ‘Got a good price for you.’

Phillips came striding through the stables just then, so Martha gave me a nod and departed. I hurriedly stuffed the packet into my shirt and kept working. I was sorry to see Martha go. I missed my days on the open road with Magpie, Sparrow, and the other packhorses.

‘This horse has a strained hock,’ I told Phillips two weeks later. He was walking past me as I groomed a tired horse from a team that had been brought in sweating and straining from one of the overloaded stagecoaches.

He checked the bay gelding over, running his hand over his leg and shook his head. ‘I can’t see anything wrong.’

‘It’s heated,’ I insisted. ‘It’ll be swollen by morning and needs to be cooled and poulticed now.’

Phillips stared down at me, his lower lip jutting out and his frown pronounced. ‘Nonsense!’ he said. ‘Are you setting up your knowledge against mine?’

‘No, of course not,’ I faltered. ‘I just think that … ’

I reeled back as a blow caught me on the side of the head. I fell back against the horse’s flank and sank to the floor. The gelding startled and pulled on his halter, snorting in shock, his hooves narrowly missing me where I lay in the straw.

‘Get on with your work,’ snapped Phillips. ‘Or you’ll be out of a job by tomorrow.’

As Phillips stalked off, I staggered groggily to my feet and leaned against the gelding, putting a soothing hand on his neck. ‘There, boy,’ I said softly. ‘Don’t fret.’ He grew calm again, turning his weary head to nuzzle me. ‘They work us all to death, old boy,’ I said sadly to the horse, stroking his velvety nose. ‘Horse and human alike.’

By morning, the bay gelding had a swollen hock and was dead lame. Tom tried to lead him out only to find he could barely walk. ‘This one’s lamed, Phillips,’ he called out.

Phillips cursed colourfully. ‘Put him across the other side,’ he said, nodding at the stalls where the horses that had already done a stint rested. The bell rang in the yard once more. ‘I’ll look at him later,’ he added, hurrying out to direct the next change.

Phillips tended to the horse himself. I didn’t expect him to admit I’d been right, of course. But neither did I expect to be hauled in front of him at suppertime by Matthew, his senior groom, and told I was dismissed. ‘I want you gone within fifteen minutes, no gossiping to anyone in the yard,’ Phillips ordered me, leaning against the wall of the tack room. Matthew, an ill-favoured rogue with a sneer, lounged behind him, grinning. I felt the shock catch me like one of Phillips’ blows.

‘Dismissed?’ I heard my voice say faintly. ‘What about my three weeks’ pay?’

‘Your pay is forfeit for injuring that horse. We can’t afford to have animals standing idle because they’ve been lamed by clumsy stable hands who don’t know their work. Nor to employ lads who aren’t strong enough to lift a shovel full of muck.’

I bit my lip and flushed with anger. ‘You must know I didn’t harm him.’

‘Get out, Weaver,’ spat Phillips.

‘I won’t miss the place, or you!’ I retorted. ‘You’re a cheat and a liar!’ I dodged out into the yard before he could think about belting me.

An open carriage had arrived with two fine-looking horses between the shafts. It was late and most of the boys were at dinner. They’d sent Jim, the youngest lad, out to deal with the carriage; none of the older boys would leave their meal unless they had to. Young Jim approached the high-bred horses nervously. ‘Stay away from them,’ called the driver from the box. ‘They aren’t used to strangers!’

I looked up at the driver of the vehicle. Both his appearance and his voice were familiar to me. His groom, an elderly man, was climbing down from the carriage to go to the horses’ heads. The black horses were pulling and fretting on the reins restlessly, and I guessed from looking at them that they were a young pair only just broken to traffic and still unpredictable. One was a stoned stallion, huge, strong, and fiery. Such horses were always difficult to manage.

At that moment a chaise drawn by four horses, driven at a shocking pace, swept under the archway and into the yard. It took the driver a moment to react to the fact that there was a vehicle straight ahead of him and to pull his horses up. Before he could stop entirely, there was a glancing collision and frightened screams from the horses involved.

Complete chaos ensued. The black stallion reared wildly, and then dropped to all fours and kicked out with tremendous force. There was a splintering sound as the dashboard of the open chaise stove in, and then the horse was on his back legs again, screaming out a wild neigh, his fore hooves pawing the air. His fellow tried to make a break for it, and succeeded in dragging the shattered chaise sharply to the right. The elderly groom, still in the act of climbing out of the carriage, was thrown headlong onto the cobbles.

The horses of the chaise and four were hardly in any better case. One had been kicked by the young black stallion and was frantically trying to back away from him. Another horse had got his leg over the trace, whilst the driver, who appeared either drunk or incompetent, failed to get his team under control or away from the enraged young horse.

It was no longer any part of my duties to help. I was free to collect my belongings and walk away from the John of Gaunt for ever. But I could no more see horses in trouble and not help them than I could cease to draw breath. I plunged into the fray.

It was the young pair that most needed calming. The team with the chaise were blown and sweating and would calm of their own accord if the firebrand stallion could be removed from their midst.

I dodged flailing hooves and made for the young stallion’s bridle. As I approached, he laid his ears flat back, bared his teeth, snaked his neck and bit the lead horse from the other team in the neck, causing him to scream and plunge forward afresh. I managed to reach his side. Ears still flat back against his head, he lunged at me, his handsome face twisted with fury, his lips drawn back over his white teeth. The strong teeth caught me a vicious bite on the arm, but I managed to catch his bridle.