Page 30 of By Marsh and By Moor
“Evening, friend,” he said.“Any reason you’re loitering in the shadows there?”
Jed grunted and moved on down the street.
When Jed was a young man, he’d lived from day to day, never needing to plan far ahead.It was clear he’d take over his father’s route, and beyond that, he didn’t need plans.He had a life that suited him perfectly: long, pleasant hours alone on the road with his horse for company, and a welcoming village to come home to.A decent livelihood, with enough work to live comfortably.And an excellent excuse for travelling to towns where he could enjoy the anonymous company of other men of his kind.
The sea had taught him that life was a series of hard knocks you couldn’t see coming: impressment, shipwrecks, friends killed and maimed, being turned over from ship to ship like so much cargo.But throughout it all, he’d always clung to the idea that his home in Ledcombe was there waiting for him.
He drifted through the dark streets, past bursts of talk and laughter from open windows.Two young women stood giggling in the light spilling from an alehouse door.A group of drunken seamen went stumbling by.To Jed, they were all figures in an eyeglass, small and far away.
He wished it was two days ago, and he was up on the moors with Solomon, with everything to look forward to.
Down by the quays, the tide was low in the river, and the briny smell of the mud flats met his nose.The vessels moored there were small merchant ships, fore-and-aft rigged, much smaller than anything he’d served on.His eye rested on two men aloft on a lugger out in the middle of the river.As he watched, two other seamen came to the river bank and hollered to their shipmates to send them a jolly boat.
It was a bloody peculiar world: seafaring men could walk the streets without fear here, merely because the local J.P.happened to be a wealthy shipowner with no love for the Impressment service, while twenty miles away, the press gang scoured the coastline for victims.
That was decidedly an argument in favour of staying in Barnstaple for the moment, at least as long as the press gang remained at Minehead.And as long as Penwick and Carrie were ranged against him— But the thought of Carrie was a sore spot in Jed’s heart that he could not yet bear to poke at.
He turned his back on the river and walked uphill.Where was Solomon now?With his friend Wallace, most likely.Jed’s cheeks heated.What on earth had Solomon thought of him this evening, running off like that?
In another, happier, world, they could be lying now in some private place, Solomon’s skin warm under his fingertips and Solomon’s mouth hard and eager on his.
The shudder of desire that ran through him was so melancholic as to be almost painful.
At the top of the street, he sat on a low wall, some way apart from the people going by in the dark.He sat there for a long time, turning things over in his head.
In the Navy, they sometimes withdrew from an engagement, the better to regroup and live to fight another day.Jed came to a decision.He would be at the Boar tomorrow at seven.He’d work for this Mrs Drake, if she was willing to take him on.
But only until he could lay his hands on his horse and cart again.
Chapter Eight
The following morning, Solomon was waiting for Jed outside the Boar, lounging against the wall.He tilted his head in greeting.“There you are,” he said easily, but something in his manner told Jed that he hadn’t been as carefree as he seemed, waiting to see if Jed would turn up.
Jed felt a prick of guilt.“Sorry about last night.”
“Nothing to apologise for.”
“Well, then—thank ‘ee.This will be just what I needed.Even if it en’t for long.Only until the press gang leave Minehead and I take up my old route again.”
“Of course.”Solomon pushed himself away from the wall.“Come on.Mrs Drake said to be there at seven.”
“Wait,” Jed said, catching his arm.When Solomon turned back, Jed hesitated.“Up at the pithead, what we did—” He searched Solomon’s face, seeing wariness in his eyes.“I wouldn’t be averse to a repeat.”
Solomon relaxed.“Neither would I.”
There had been other men Jed saw on the regular.They sought one another out if they happened to run into each other in the dark alleys around Exeter docks where men of their habits met.But most of the time he hadn’t even known their names.He had no map for this situation.
“But, just—I can’t offer you anything besides, well, my prick.”
Solomon laughed.“That’s all I’m asking for.”
“Well—that’s all right, then.”Still, Jed had more to say.“And I need you to be clear about one other thing.This friend of your’n, Wallace—” He scratched his head, wondering how to put this.“Nothing wrong with fooling around with more than one man at once— without one of ‘em had expectations as how he were the only one.”
“And you’re asking if Wallace has such expectations of me, or me of him?”Solomon shook his head firmly.“No, nothing like that.I’ve warmed his bed on occasion, but that’s all in the past.Indeed, these past three years, Wallace has been”—he seemed to hesitate over the right word to use—“involved with someone else.”
That sounded complicated, but Wallace’s affairs were none of Jed’s concern.“Good enough for me.”
They stood there for a moment, just looking at each other.Solomon was smiling his half-smile, and Jed wanted to reach out and cup his face, run a thumb over those crooked lips—
