The Highwayman
Bess
Kay
The Highwayman: Act Two
A Brokeback A/u A/u based on Alfred Noyes's poem "The Highwayman"
Rated NC17 for m/m sexual situations
I borrow these characters from Annie Proulx, Ang Lee and the brilliant actors that embodied them.
Thank you, Jean, for taking time from your own writing to edit mine.
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“A pox on you! Get out o’ my light,” Kay growled.
Jim jumped to the side of the forge opposite his master, and watched the brawny man pound a bent horseshoe on the anvil. Only when Kay was satisfied that the metal was straight, did he lay aside the mallet and glare at the ostler.
“You might be interested in what I overheard in the grain shed,” Jim said.
“Why would I be interested in anything a tosspot like you might hear?”
“You might be thankful to know your brother is robbing you.”
Kay’s taurine features deepened in color from brick to beet. “Ennis? The boy doesn’t have the bollocks or the wit to steal from me.”
“Then you told him he could keep Jack Twist’s horse in your shed and feed it for free?”
Jim took a step back at the expression on the innkeeper’s face, but Kay didn’t leap over the fire and throttle him. With slow, deliberate movements, the big man removed his leather apron and put his tools away. His plan of catching up on some of the small tasks in the hours between dinner and bed were knocked askew like a weathervane in a sudden gust of wind. He’d done his best to raise Ennis, giving the lad an example of what a man should be, but he’d been unable to knock the softness out him. Instead of standing up for himself, Ennis receded into a distance where no one else could follow. When the boy’s eyes lost focus during a beating, Kay knew to spare his arm for Ennis no longer felt the lash. Kay was resigned to having a mooncalf in the family, but thievery wouldn’t be tolerated. “Come with me and tell me all you heard,” he said brusquely.
As they walked to the inn’s back door, the beady-eyed ostler repeated all that had filtered down from the loft to his jealous ears, not sparing the lovers, or Kay, any detail. By the time they entered the large kitchen, the space around Kay was weighted with tension like the air before a thunderstorm. The innkeeper snatched up a clay jug of ale and took several long pulls at it before setting it down with a thump and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. In a few terse sentences, he gave instructions to Jim and sent him on his way before picking up the jug again. By God, he needed a drink; it was going to be a long night.
“And what was all that about?” Bess asked, setting aside her broom as she descended the pair of stone steps to the cobbles of the kitchen.
“Never you mind,” Kay said, his surly tone warning Bess to tread lightly.
“If you aren’t expecting any more…” Bess paused at the sound of a horse leaving the inn-yard at a gallop.
“Go to bed, girl,” Kay said sharply. “You know Sheriff Aguirre will be by to take a drop with me on his rounds, but I can pour a drink as well as a wench. Where is your brother?”
“He is your brother too,” she said under her breath, before she answered. “In bed.”
“Good.” Kay turned from his sister, indicating that she was no longer needed. Bess took a last look at the loaves on the hearth and headed for the stairs to the second story. A glimmer of light in hall caught her attention and she went to see if a guest had come in unnoticed after she’d turned down the lamps. A slight silhouette stood framed in the doorway, a few fair ringlets identifying the prowler.
“Cassie,” Bess said softly. “Why are you not abed?”
The maid jumped guiltily and nearly dropped the candle she shaded with her hand. “Bessie! You nearly scared the life out of me!”
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting for my sweetheart. He will be riding by this way tonight and promised he would stop to see me.”
Bess pursed her lips at the lack of discretion shown in waiting for a man in naught but a nightgown, but Cassie’s life was her own when her work was done. “Have him out of your room by first light, lass,” she said. “You can never be sure what will anger Kay.”
“I will,” the girl said, before she caught herself. “If he should come to my room,” she amended quickly.
Bess smiled and lingered in the doorway for a moment. “Are you still seeing the cartwright’s son, Cassie?”
Golden curls bounced as the maid shook her head. “Adam has taken the king’s shilling and is even now on a ship bound for Spain.”
“Then who is it that has your favor?”
“I daren’t say.”
“Are you so ashamed of him?”
Cassie looked over both shoulders and Bess leaned closer. “I am afraid for him,” the maid said. “He takes great risks being abroad at night.”
“Is he a smuggler?” Bess could tell from the girl’s reaction that she’d hit close to the mark.
“Only the odd cask of brandy for the gentry,” Cassie admitted. “He says he is building a list of reliable clients, men of power in a position to do favors for the lad that supplies their tax-free spirits. Once he is set up, we can marry.”
“I wish you both luck. Have a care that Kay does not catch you dallying.” Bess blew Cassie’s candle out and went up to her room. She paused as she passed the slope-ceilinged cubby where Ennis lay on his narrow cot. Standing over the sleeping boy, she gazed on his face in the moonlight, at the handsome features still blurred by vestiges of adolescent roundness, as blameless as a child’s in repose. “Why did you have to catch the eye of such a wild lad as Springheel Jack?” Bess whispered as she bent to kiss Ennis’s cheek. “Why could you not take some willing lass like our Cassie to wife, tend the stock for Kay, and give me bonny nieces and nevvies to spoil?” Pulling the woolen blanket up to Ennis’s chin, Bess went to her own chilly bed to dreams of wind rushing past her as she sat upon a statue of a horse.
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Jack leaned against the mare’s warm side in the deep shade of a large oak. The road was striped with long shadows as the westering sun touched the horizon telling Jack he’d been waiting for more than an hour. He didn’t mind. It gave him time to daydream. Soon he would have enough coin to buy passage for two across the vast Atlantic Ocean. The New World accepted all immigrants, persecuted religious groups, convicts, and debtors among them. Surely a reformed thief and his sweetheart could find a place there.
Jack smiled around the stalk of sweet grass as he let his thoughts dwell on his green lover, on how pleasant it was to initiate the eager lad in the ways of the flesh, how it pierced his heart to the quick when Ennis looked at him a certain way, how unlikely it was that they should be together. One the scion of reduced aristocracy, the other the son of a tinker that had married the innkeeper’s daughter, a rakish outlaw and a shy stable boy. If Ennis had not been tending the neighbor’s flock last summer when the redcoats had driven Jack to earth, they’d likely never have exchanged words, but fate had other plans for them.
Ennis had hidden Jack, bandaged his wound and fed him, caring for him until he could travel. Of course, by that time, charming Jack had seduced the appealing shepherd boy, and fallen unexpectedly in love. So smitten was the highwayman that he was giving up everything he knew to start over with Ennis in a land where they knew no one, and more importantly, no one knew them. Jack didn’t know why his love for Ennis should be deemed a perversion, but that was the law of the church, and so they must go where that law did not reach. The word frontier had a grand sound to it that was sweet in Jack’s ears, and he was more than willing to endure the hardships of a life lived in the wilderness, if that life included Ennis.
The mare pricked up her ears and made a throaty, inquiring noise. A moment later, Jack heard the sound of hooves and peered through the screen of leaves. A team of matched grays trotted into view pulling a carriage that gleamed with gilding in the last rays of the setting sun. A coachman sat high in the front and two footmen hung on at the back. It was reasonable to assume that Lord Randall had not invited a friend along on the evening he intended to propose, so Jack had only four to deal with. It would be over in a trice and he would outride the hue and cry to the arms of his boy to lay a purse of gold at his feet.
Jack grinned as he put a boot in the stirrup and swung lightly into the saddle. He cocked both pistols and whistled to the mare, gripping tightly with his knees as she leaped down into the roadway. The sudden appearance of a horse and rider spooked the carriage team and the coachman had a few lively moments getting them under control again. Lord Randall stuck his head out the window to see why they had stopped so suddenly and Jack inclined his head to the nobleman.
“Stand and deliver,” the highwayman called out. “Your money, or your life.”
tbc