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The trees’ long evening shadows darkened the field, chilling the air.In the distance, a fox barked.Jed shivered, his old fears painting a cold trail down his spine.

But, as Solomon said, now he was free.He managed a grin.“Could’ve been worse.At least I came ashore in a place I knew well.Unlike yourself, lost in a part of the world you’d never before set foot in.”

“I was lost, sure enough.But it en’t strictly true that I’d never been in Somerset.I think I must have crossed the county at least once, as a baby, for I know I was born in Barnstaple.”

Jed stared at him.“You were born in Barnstaple?”His voice sounded odd to his own ears.

“Well, yes.But I was a babe-in-arms when my parents left town.”His voice trailed off at the sight of Jed’s expression.“What’s the matter?”

“Just… you never mentioned.”

“Well, maybe not…” Solomon sounded uncertain now.He loosened his arm, drawing back from Jed to better see his face.“What of it?”

“Nothing.It’s not… Only that sometimes I think I don’t know you very well.”

There was an odd silence.

Jed thought Solomon was going to brush it off with a smile and a lightly spoken quip.But then Solomon said, “I think perhaps… it has become a habit with me to guard my tongue, in recent times.I didn’t mean to take that out on you.”He paused.“What would you like to know?”

“Nothing.That is, I didn’t mean…” Frustration made Jed’s voice come out louder than he intended.Deliberately, he broke off.It was surely the height of stupidity to say he didn’t know anything of a man who’d lain naked under him a day earlier.“I spoke without thinking.”

“My parents were followers and servants of a travelling preacher,” Solomon said.“I think I’ve mentioned that before now.They left Barnstaple to follow him.My father was his manservant, and my mother kept house for him as he travelled about from town to town.He drew crowds of thousands everywhere he went.People would flock from miles around to hear him preach.”

This wasn’t what Jed wanted to know.He wanted to know what made Solomon tick, not what manner of life some old churchman had led.He wanted to know what put the nervous tension in Solomon’s face, and what could take it away.How long he could hope to go on enjoying Solomon’s company, and whether Solomon thought about that too.

“Good preacher, was he?”he said instead.

“I suppose.”Solomon’s lips twisted in a wry smile.“I reckon many of them were there for the entertainment of it.He knew how to rouse a crowd.Fire and brimstone and the Second Coming.Better nor a play, I’m sure.”He shrugged.“I don’t rightly know what the crowd thought of him… We weren’t allowed to talk to them.”

“We?”

“His inner circle.His twoscore and ten most faithful followers.We were forbidden to speak to people outside of the Converted.”

Jed blinked.That sounded downright miserable—and not a little strange.

“I’m not one of the, ah, Converted,” he pointed out.“But then, you said as how you left when you were sixteen.”

“I did say that,” Solomon agreed.Surprise tinged his voice, as though he didn’t realise that Jed had noted and memorised every scrap of information Solomon had ever let slip.

“Well, good for you.Or at least, I mean, that seems to have turned out all right for you.”Despite himself, the end of the sentence rose into a question.

Solomon didn’t answer immediately.Finally, he said, “Sometimes I wish I’d run when I was much younger.Not waited so long.And sometimes…” He broke off.“I left people behind.Friends.I don’t know what’s become of them.I should have made more of an effort to bring them with me.”

His voice was even, but the muscles in his jaw had tightened.

“But that’s hardly your fault, is it?They could up and leave too, had they wanted.”

“It en’t so simple.Sometimes you don’t realise you’re in chains until you’ve escaped them.”He shrugged, and when he spoke next it was in a lighter tone, with a laugh in his voice that wasn’t quite convincing.“Anyroad, then I went up to London, and found paradise.”

Following his cue, Jed said in the same lighter vein, “Paradise in the form of many willing young men, you mean?”

“That’s right.”

It was dark enough now that Jed could safely slide an arm around Solomon’s waist.The rough linen of Solomon’s smock was warm under his hand, and soft hair tickled his cheek.They sat like that for a while.Jed wished they were curled up together in the waggon, just the two of them.But this was better than nothing.

“You were never tempted to move to a big town yourself?”Solomon asked after some time.“Not as far away as London, of course.But to Bristol, maybe?”

Jed thought of his first time driving to Bristol with his father, and how long the journey had seemed.No one from the village had ever travelled half so far.Going up to London would have been unthinkable.But since then, he’d been halfway around the world and back.