up.”
Hamish was instantly alert, his dark eyes bright, his sword held in his small fist. He understood the danger, even if he didn’t grasp the severity of our current predicament. It helped that his lifelong dream was to travel to the Highlands, a desire that seemed almost innate. He’d yearned for an adventure for as long as I could recall.
And now, despite the gravity of our situation, I almost smiled at his sparked excitement. He loved the open majesty of this place, so different from the enclosed, squalid streets of the city. “You’ve taken ridiculously well to this life on the run,” I told him quietly.
He perched at the edge of the wagon’s deck, his sandy brown hair tousled and flecked with hay. He looked back at me, a smile on his beatific face. “So have you, Ami,” he whispered, pronouncing the address with all the flair of its French meaning: friend. He was the only person who used this shortened form of my full name, Amelia. Once, a short lifetime ago, I had attended one of the most exclusive schools in Edinburgh. Hamish had never had such a privilege. So I’d taken it upon myself to teach him everything I knew. It was one of the few things I had to be proud of: my nephew, at the age of nine, could read, write, do sums and speak basic French better than many of the fully grown men who frequented my family’s establishment. I was slightly less proud of Hamish’s uncanny knack not only for counting cards but also for dealing them. I’m only taking after you, Ami, he’d said to me. You’re the best dealer in Edinburgh. Whether or not it was an accurate accusation was no longer relevant. I’d only done what I needed to do to survive, as I would again, in whatever way this new life required.
I held his arm, taking in the details of our surroundings. It was dusk now and the dimming daylight would give us an advantage. A thick copse stood behind the tavern: a place to take cover until we could fully assess the clientele of the inn. Wagons of many descriptions were parked along the road, and upward of twelve horses had been tied to a hitching rail. They were slow, sturdy farm horses. None were coated with sweat as though they’d been ridden at pace all the way from Edinburgh. I felt confident that there was nothing to fear here, that our pursuers were a long way from tracing our trail to this unlikely hideout.
“Now,” I whispered.
The slow pace of the wagon made the disembarkment easy enough. Our only belongings were Hamish’s sword and a small bag I carried, which contained two woolen blankets, a single spare, fine dress of my sister’s, a wineskin full of water and a few coins I’d managed to take from the cashbox as we’d made our escape. I had also brought the small red book that was my most sentimental possession; in it, I had recorded dreams, scribbled poems and wishes, and drawn pictures of trees and stars and fanciful yearnings. An impractical possession, aye, but symbolically precious to me nonetheless and light enough to carry. Holding on to Hamish’s hand, I led him past the entrance of the tavern and into the woods. We needed to check our appearances and get our story straight.
Tonight, it seemed, we might need to put all our skills of deceit and persuasion to good use. We were both, it had to be said, somewhat gifted in the ways of trickery, since we’d had a regular need to fabricate tales to various people and on a daily basis, like debt collectors, upset wives or the law, to name a few. These were skills we had honed over many years: an unfortunate necessity of our lifestyle, but one I was now glad we had some practice with.
“I’m hungry,” Hamish said. “I want some meat and potatoes with gravy, some stew with bread fresh from the oven and melted butter and some—”
“Aye,” I said. “But first, what’s it to be? This tavern is sure to be full of local farmers and traders. They’ll likely know each other, and they’ll know that we’re not from around here. We’ll need a convincing story. I could get work here possibly, as a cleaner or a cook. We need money.”
“A cook? You don’t know how to cook, Ami. They’ll probably want you to perform other services. Why don’t we just offer up a card game and win some money?” Regrettably, my nephew was far too worldly for his own good.
“We’re not playing cards anymore,” I said. “We’re starting a new life. An honest one. One that doesn’t involve cheating, stealing, smuggling or gambling.”
“But gambling is so much easier than working. And besides, it’s the only thing we know how to do.”
This riled me. But it would hardly do to get upset with him. It was my responsibility to be not only his guardian but also his role model. I would have to show him that honesty was more effective than the life we were used to. I hoped I could. I wasn’t sure whether my new philosophy was even true, nor did I have any idea how to employ it. “It seems easier, Hamish. But it isn’t. Look how it’s turned out for all of us. Hiding, separated, on the run. Gambling is like stealing, when you use the kinds of tricks we do. Stealing makes people angry. You know it as well as I do. ’Tis up to us to find a better way for ourselves.”
My nephew looked up at me, unconvinced.
“Or at least try to,” I said, a suggestion that was met with at least a degree of acquiescence. His eyebrows furrowed in the middle as he mulled this over. And I continued to formulate our plan. “I propose that we are well-bred travelers from Edinburgh who have fallen on hard times, whose carriage was—”
“Taken over by bandits!”
I considered this. It wasn’t a completely unreasonable suggestion. How else might we have parted ways with our transport? Were there bandits in these parts?
“Mr. Fawkes told me he once got robbed by bandits as he traveled the Highlands, years ago,” Hamish said.
The very mention of my nemesis was enough to see my blood run cold. My voice sounded frayed when I quickly changed the subject. I hated the sound of that vulnerability, that fear. “Or maybe a wheel broke off and we had to make way on foot.”
“But why wouldn’t we have an escort or a driver with us, in that case?” Hamish said.
A good point. “Maybe he stayed behind to fix the carriage, and promised to come for us as soon as—”
“Why can we lie but not play cards?” my nephew asked.
I paused. This was a difficult question and one that I wanted to answer with careful consideration. “We’re only making up these stories to keep ourselves out of harm’s way. As soon as we’ve secured a safe situation for ourselves, then we won’t have need to lie anymore.”
He appeared drawn to the novelty of this approach. “Let’s try not to lie, then, as much as we can—except the part about the bandits,” he said. “We’ll say our father was a doctor—yours was, after all—and our parents have died, and we were forced to flee to escape our creditors.”
My heart thudded in a grief-stricken beat. This lie was upsettingly close to the truth. It was then that I felt the first twinge of brittleness since we’d left Edinburgh. Making a concerted effort to be as fearless and resilient as I needed to be, I hadn’t allowed myself to think about any of it, or any of them, for my nephew’s sake. Hamish’s words were shards of truth in the smashed pane of our history, with too many broken pieces to ever mend. It was true that my parents had died, years ago. The thought of Hamish’s own parents and their precarious situation almost brought me to tears. But I held them back, concentrating instead on the task at hand. My father had been a doctor, aye. And we had fled to escape, although “creditors” was a generous allowance to what our pursuers actually were. “That makes us sound like criminals.”
Hamish thought about this, and then his small face lit up with his idea. “Let’s say we were
