As Meat Loves Salt

‘O, but you will,’ he replied.

‘Jacob,’ she quavered, ‘let us stay. The Mistress loves me, she will not permit—’

‘Can she turn back musket balls? There are armed men.’ I urged my horse forward through the door and we were out in the stable yard. Despite having Caro behind him, Zeb soon passed me. I saw his hair whip back into her face. The cobbles shone in the sun; there was a flash, and one of the sapphire earrings dropped into the straw and muck of the yard.

FIVE Over the Edge (#ulink_ef1e32a1-699f-5bec-9fb3-526d33f85961)

Ihad never learnt to sit a horse. Now I banged up and down, hoping only to stay in the saddle. My brother, light and easy in his seat, had his own trials for I could see how Caro dragged on him. Her face was pressed up against his coat, eyes closed, lips forced back over her teeth, and she looked to be crying. A foul smell wafted to me and I saw that she had vomited onto her gown. My own gorge rose at it, and I turned my head aside.

We were headed for the woodland which lay behind Beaurepair, and which was still unenclosed. To get there we had to go through the gate. I had not seen the keeper at the betrothal, but we might yet be in luck, for he was in love with one of the dairymaids and none too fond of his work. We pounded along the track towards this gate, leaving by the back of the house as our pursuers approached by the front.

‘God be praised!’ Zeb screamed. I looked: it was one of the keeper’s days for courting, and the gate stood open. We were through it without his having so much as seen us, and clattering along the open road. On the horizon lay the wood, and I prayed we might reach it without being seen.

Zeb kept up the pace. My shirt was soaked, from the labour of staying in the saddle and the terror of being thrown. An ugly twist of sickness came upon me without warning, and my mouth brimmed with bitter juice; I spat, breathing hard to keep the sickness down. There was something metallic on my tongue: I had chewed my lip, and drawn blood.

I am watching out for you, came the Voice, so sudden that it frighted me.

I looked back as we plunged into the wood. There was nothing on the road. A green scent of moss and darkness closed about us and the air at once grew cool. Zeb urged his horse on between the trees until he turned into a narrow track on the right and straightway went crashing down a steep slope, then up a bank on the opposite side. I was hot and cold from feeling the ground drop under me, and I could hear Caro’s sobs. They slackened as the terrain levelled out, and the track widened into a clearing. We continued more slowly. I shifted, trying to ease the pain in my thighs, and spurred my mount until it drew level with Zeb’s. ‘Are you going right through?’

He shook his head. Caro stared piteously at me. She was still wearing the rose chaplet and it vied for pallor with her brow and cheeks. There were blood smears behind her left ear. I reached across and lifted the cursed thing, tossing it into a bush.

‘Here’s as good as anywhere,’ Zeb said, wheeling about. He slipped from the saddle and put up his arm for Caro. Something in me hoped he would not be strong enough to support her, but she got down leaning heavily on his shoulder. I too dismounted, hearing my legs crack as I put foot to ground. We tied our beasts to a thorn bush.

Caro sat on the ground shuddering, her face cupped in her hands. At last she lowered her fingers, sliding them along her arms for warmth, and I saw the bandage was come off. Staring at the grass she said, ‘We have done a terrible thing.’

‘That may well be.’ Zeb looked steadily at me.

I bent to Caro and laid my hands on her shoulders. She was cold as marble. Taking off my coat, I put it round her, but she continued to shake. I remarked a vomit stain on the lace of her gown.

Zeb stood a while watching us. ‘If we knew where they were,’ he said. ‘If I could see them, now,’ and he began pushing his way through the scrub. The branches closed over him.

‘My thighs are skinned,’ I said.

Caro made no reply.

Feeling the lack of my coat, I walked to and fro. My wife laid her head on her knees and snuffled into her blue silk.

‘I’ll starve with cold,’ she mumbled. ‘All this is madness.’ She held up the gold chains around her neck. ‘We can return these, Jacob. Say we went in pursuit of thieves.’

‘You know that won’t wear.’

‘How will we sell them?’ Caro screamed. Some small creature skittered through the bushes at her back, and she collapsed again into silence.

Zeb’s voice suddenly rang out, anguished. ‘Jacob! Jacob!’

Caro leapt upright. I plunged through the branches where Zeb was gone before, seeing nothing but scrub and trees, my wife stumbling after me.

‘There are footpads in these woods,’ Caro hissed.

I shook my head. ‘He’s seen something.’

We stood straining our ears.

‘Zeb?’ I called.

And then I saw him, not far off. My hands flew to my mouth as I took it all in. Zeb had climbed a tall tree as a lookout. Now he dangled from a branch by his arms, legs kicking free. Below him, on the grass, lay a freshly broken bough. A strip of torn bark drooped like a hangnail from the trunk.

Caro’s eyes had followed mine. ‘Elm,’ she moaned. ‘Hateth and waiteth.’

I moved forwards, wondering if I could catch him. He had about fifteen feet to fall. A man dropping from that height might well break the bones of one beneath.

‘He’s going!’ Caro screamed. I saw Zeb’s hands peel from the branch. There was not time to get beneath the elm. His legs strained upwards in a wild attempt to scissor them round the trunk, but it was much too thick for him. He fell fists clenched, with a howl which exploded in terror as he struck the ground.

There was silence, broken by Caro’s whining, ‘O Lord, Lord, O Lord, O.’ We clambered over logs and leaves. He was stretched on his back, face white and eyes closed. She wet her finger and held it to his nose and mouth. ‘I can’t feel anything! Jacob, there’s no breath, he’s not – he’s – Jacob—’

‘Calm yourself’ I felt under Zeb’s coat and shirt, pressing my palm flat to the skin. Strangled sobs came from Caro. My brother could not be dead. He was warm. Only that morning, looking on his nakedness, I had remarked how strong he was grown.

‘He lives, be at rest,’ I said, feeling Zeb’s heart leap under my hand.

‘Let me.’ She pushed my fingers aside, pressed her own to him and at once sighed. I saw her shoulders loosen and her head drop forward as if praying. Then she stiffened again.

‘He’s not right here.’

Here was his waist. I unfastened his coat properly, from top to bottom, and pulled up his shirt. Zeb groaned without coming back to us. I saw now that his flesh was darkened and puffed up round the lowest rib, and he was not lying straight.

‘There’s something broken,’ Caro wailed. ‘O, look there!’

I did look and saw that he had landed across a branch lying in the grass. I covered him up again, thinking that we were in the very worst plight for tending him – no surgeon, not even a blanket. He groaned again and opened his eyes.

‘Zebedee!’ Caro kneaded his hand. ‘Do you know us?’

He muttered, ‘Too well.’ But even this feeble joke lost all relish when he tried to sit up and fell back crying.

‘Move your foot,’ Caro implored him.

His right foot flexed.

‘Your back’s not broken,’ she whispered, but he had swooned from the pain.

‘We have to go on,’ I told her. ‘Here we are like to be surprised.’

‘He can’t.’

‘Do you want him hanged?’ I urged.

Caro wrung her hands. ‘Will you carry him?’

‘We’ll put him on horseback.’