“I’m glad you didn’t end up calling him King or I might feel insulted.”
Montgomery swung around incredulously to glare at his charge, who hadn’t done as he’d been told. “I warned you to stay inside the coach. I did, didn’t I? I remember it, so why didn’t you?”
“Because the danger is gone and I need to stretch my legs.”
“Well, now you can stretch them by getting my trunk off the coach, retrieve two more flintlocks from it, and come finish off these fellows.”
Charley’s eyes turned owlishly wide. “Point taken.” He scrambled back to the coach.
“Too bloody late, boy,” Montgomery called after him for good measure.
The gibberish was coming louder and faster from the assailant on the ground. Montgomery turned and saw the man trying to sit up, his eyes avidly following Charley’s departure. With a frown, Montgomery took one of the ties for his hair out of his pocket and gagged the man.
The boy in the cloak tossed a saddle by his feet. “I thought you said you were tying them up.”
“I am, and I expect to be in Portsmouth by the time either of these miscreants is capable of remounting a horse.”
“If that’s where you’re going, you’ve taken the wrong road out of London.”
Montgomery rolled his eyes. Two children, both know-it-alls. He wasn’t going to explain that he was misdirecting the two attackers instead of killing them. They hadn’t spoken English, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t, or wouldn’t recognize the name of an English port on the south coast. They might even have entered the country from that very port.
But while he worked to get the straps off the saddle, he could see the boy out of the corner of his eye waiting for an answer, so he merely offered, “I’ve other stops to make before turning south.”
“Why would the boy with you be insulted by a horse that is named King?”
Montgomery gritted his teeth, trying to keep in mind that boys were naturally inquisitive. Still he had to stop the lad from asking more questions.
“My ward is delusional, imagines all sorts of ridiculous things about himself. I simply ignore it. Now I’m curious. How did those pistol shots knock you off your horse?”
“I was sleeping on his back, which is much warmer than the hard ground.”
“Another one for tall tales, are you?” He laughed as he started binding the feet of the noisy miscreant.
“Look at Snow. He has a very wide back, and I’m skinny.”
“Why’d you sleep so close to the road if you didn’t want to be disturbed?”
“It was quiet in the middle of the night, but I didn’t want to oversleep, so I was counting on the early-morning traffic to wake me. Though I wasn’t expecting pistol shots.”
“If you are on your way to London, it’s less than an hour from here.”
“I know. I went, didn’t like it, and left.”
Montgomery finally looked up from his task. “What’s not to like about a grand city like London?”
“Too many people, too much smoke and soot, and everyone gawked at me as if they’d never seen a horse before. And it took me nigh two hours to brush all that soot off Snow last night.”
“If you were riding that giant shire into town, it’s no wonder people stared at you. Horses that big and hairy are usually only seen pulling large loads.”
“He’s only half shire. His dam was a Scottish mare from Clydesdale county, but yes, she was very tall as well.”
Montgomery took another look at the boy when he dropped the other saddle near his feet. The lad’s garb was expensive, a finely tailored coat, polished boots under long trousers, and the dark brown hooded cloak pushed back over his shoulders with the hood pulled forward to cover most of his face. No cravat, though, just a fine linen shirt likely fastened to the neck beneath the bulky plaid scarf. He’d used proper diction so he must have had some education, but his voice shifted in pitch, occasionally sounding rather gruff. At the age when it changed from boyish to mannish?
“You don’t look like a ragamuffin,” he pointed out. “What’s a boy from money doing traveling alone? Or did you steal those clothes?”
“I’m not actually alone, and don’t ask me to explain.”
Montgomery had purposely asked a goading question that should have offended the lad and made him ride off in high dudgeon, which would have prevented any more questions. But while the boy had turned away from him so he couldn’t see if he looked angry, not that he could see much of his face with that hood he was wearing, he had answered in a neutral tone.
