The guard pointed at the merchant and asked, what was the matter with the old chap, he looked green as a corpse.

         "Rien de tout," said Zillah and, to Robert's horror, she set her head down on Mr Wilkinson's shoulder and laid her hand upon his chest as if bestowing a caress upon her sleeping husband. The guard dropped back with a smile and Caleb, touching the reins again, drove the horses a little harder so that they trotted neatly through the gates and into the town.

         "Well played, Miss," said Emmet over the back of the hood and Caleb glanced back at them. "What did she do?" he asked.

         "Nothing at all," said Zillah demurely. She refused to meet Robert's eyes and instead folded her shawl and placed it gently under Mr Wilkinson's head as if to make him more comfortable.

It was too much for Robert to bear.

         "Stop!" he yelled. He threw himself awkwardly onto his feet. He nearly tumbled out of the gig as he did so, for there was no room for him to stand and only Zillah catching hold of his belt preserved him from a nasty fall. "Au secours! Help!" he screamed over Emmet's bewildered head. "Help me, please. They've killed my father and are robbing him. What the devil is the French for -- Meutre! Meutre, I say!"

Caleb slashed at the horses and the gig lurched forward. Emmet lost his grip and tumbled onto the cobblestones, adding his own shout to Robert's and to the growl of rage that throbbed in Caleb's throat. Behind them the guards ran forward, shouting in Breton and then lights appeared and horsemen leaped onto their mounts and set off in pursuit.

         "You fool!" Caleb spat at the boy, who was yelling accusations in broken French to the soldiers behind. "You bloody little tick. You think you know everything. But you - " he broke off as the gig clattered over a narrow bridge. "Don't know a thing. Didn't you ever listen to your bloody father? For God’s sake, boy, droit d’aubaine!""

The words meant nothing to Robert. He yelled again to the guards, who had for a moment disappeared from view. He would not let everything his father had worked for this season, all the wealth he had made, all his worldy goods, be stolen in this sordid manner. He wanted to see Caleb hanged, Emmet whipped, Zillah cast into the stocks and spat upon by the decent people his father had dealt with. The gig lurched again and Zillah seized his legs once more to keep him from falling.

         "We have to stop!" she screamed to Caleb. "We're too heavy. We're going to overturn." Indeed the gig, even without Emmet's weight dragging on the back axle, was juddering wildly from side to side and the horses were panicking. Caleb snatched a glance over his shoulder and, as the guards were not in sight, slowed the gig to a walk.

         "We'll have to put him out," he said hurriedly. He threw down the reins and turned in his seat, reaching for Mr Wilkinson's lapel.

         "What?" cried Zillah. "Oh no, Caleb. Don't do it, please, please!"

Caleb ignored her and with a groan almost as great as that with which he had lifted Mr Wilkinson's money chest, he lifted the man himself by his waistcoat and pitched him over Zillah's protesting arms and down into the street. He landed with a horrible, lifeless thud that made all of them flinch.

         "No!" cried Robert.

         "I'm sorry," said Caleb. Zillah started to weep. Caleb snatched up the reins again and once again they were rattling down the cobbled lane.

The streets of Rennes were narrow. Tall, elaborately beamed buildings whose geranium fringed upper stories jutted out over the roads. Signs and lanterns hung above their heads in profusion and as the sky above lightened as gradually as milk filtering through tea, lights appeared here and there and dogs barked and people shuffled round corners on their way to the boulangerie for their morning bread. It was a beautiful, bustling town that Mr Wilkinson had loved and had made his second home, returning year after year to deal in faience pottery, lace and other goods. Every year he had brought Robert with him, pointing out the brightly painted houses with their patterned beams, the lacy campaniles of the churches and, with a solemn aphorism or two, the forlorn beggars who congregated outside the cathedral. It was a city of many scents but always -- at least in the months when Robert lived there -- it smelt of flowers for every window frothed with scarlet and pink and white and every gentleman wore a carnation in his button hole and every lady a cluster of blooms in her bonnet. The smells came to Robert now on the damp air as he raced backwards through the familiar route through the city. His throat was sore from shouting and his face was wet again with tears.
 

He clung to his father as the gig jounced out onto the road. The night was velvet dark. They had no lanterns lit over the horses' heads and there were no lights beyond the inn, which stood half a mile away from the city gates, but the trunks of the plane trees that marked the verges had been whitewashed and gleamed faintly in the starlight. They were ghostly things to see whilst cradling a corpse and Robert shuddered. He realised his face was wet with tears and tried to wipe them away with his sleeve.

         "Wait, I'm half-naked!" he remembered with a start. He had not noticed the chill of his bare skin before but suddenly he was frozen. Zillah looked round Mr Wilkinson at the boy.

         "You could..." she began and then stopped. "Your dear father wouldn't want you to go cold," she said gently. She shook her head as Robert started to protest. "Robert. You know he would tell you to take his jacket." She saw that he could not do it himself so slowly, with difficulty as the gig bounced and juddered its way towards the town, she unbuttoned Mr Wilkinson's frockcoat, tugged it from his shoulders and handed it to the boy. Her eyes were downcast as she gave it to him. Guilty, thought Robert. Guilty as all hell. He wanted badly to say something horrible to her, something that would sting and smart and make those downcast eyes fill with their own tears.

         "Thank you," he muttered and hated himself for it.

         "We'll have to go through Rennes to get to the coast path," shouted Caleb, over the rattling of the wheels. "If the axles don't crack, we'll be at the port by dawn."

         "More likely in a ditch with our heads cracked likewise," yelled Emmet from where he clung to the gig's retracted hood. His hair flopped continually over his high forehead and he grimaced as a stone under a wheel jarred his back. "I remind you, Mr Caleb, that I am a merchant-in-training."

         "Courage, mon brave!" Caleb called back with a laugh.

Soon they saw lights between the trees and the little shut up shacks along the wayside where flowersellers set up their baskets of wares and potters sold for cheap the faience dishes too faulty for the market stalls in the town. Despite the hour a few pedlars were already up and preparing for the day. They called out to the racing carriage in Breton as it passed but whether in greeting or warning or curse Robert could not tell. His father had not allowed him to learn Brehoneg as it was considered only the language of peasants with nothing sufficiently valuable to sell. But Caleb knew enough to go dancing and gambling with the locals and clearly thought it a language worth knowing. Perhaps he had understood a warning in their words for Caleb pulled up the reins and let the panting horses slow to a walk. He looked round at his passengers' pale faces as if to check he had lost none of them in their wild dash from the inn.

         "We look a fine sight for the guards. I'll have to bribe our way in and out. Miss, hand me up some tin and keep the lad quiet till we're safe, all right?"

         "How am I supposed to do that exactly?" said Zillah. "Robert is twice my size at least." She slapped Robert's feet from their resting place on the chest and raising the lid with difficulty, fished out a bag of coins and handed them over to Caleb.

         "My father loved you," said Robert in a low, bitter voice. "He gave you everything he could. He never treated my mother as well as he did you. Does that mean nothing to you at all?"

Zillah drew back as if he had slapped her face. "Bobby!" she gasped. He had managed to hurt her after all.

         "He thinks you and I are in cahoots, Miss," muttered Caleb. Ahead of them figures appeared at the gate and signalled for the gig to halt. "Lovers or what-not," he added with a smirk. "You were never so insulted in your life, I dare say."

         "Never," said Zillah quietly. "Bobby, my dear, you don't understand. Of course your father was a good, kind man. And we didn't hurt him, I swear. What we are doing now is all for your own good I promise. But there isn't time to explain. Please, trust me, if you can't trust Caleb."

         "Trust you? Like my father did?"

         "Yes, just like that," said Zillah. She put her hand on Mr Wilkinson's cold chest and looked briefly into his face. There was a sadness in her eyes, Robert saw, but still no tears.

         "I don't think you loved him," he said.

         "O Bobby, he was a dear, dear man but you must understand..."

The gig came to a stop and the blue and white uniformed city guards, their pigtails neatly tied with blue ribbons and their cheeks clean-shaven sauntered over to the horses and began to questions Caleb in French. One of them winked at Zillah and made her a bow. Robert leaned over the side of the gig to speak to him but Zillah's fingers dug into his shoulder and pulled him back.

         "Stay still," she whispered in his ear. "I have a...I have a knife at your back." Robert felt something hard needling his spine but after the first shock he shrugged her off contemptously.

         "I don't believe you," he said. Then he saw the blade. She held it shielded from view with the lace of her sleeve but the small bright sharpness of a penknife was undeniable.

         "I just want you to be quiet, please," she whispered and then smiled at the guard as he peered over the side of the gig at them both. "Bonne soir, Monsieur," she said.

         "Enchanté Mademoiselle," said the guard. He bit one of the gold coins that Caleb had just passed him. "And good evening to you too," he said in with another wink. "And to..." He stopped and peered at Mr Wilkinson.

         "Drive on, Caleb," said Zillah quickly and Caleb touched the reins at once. The horses set off towards the slowly opening gates. The guard, suspicion contracting his brow, walked alongside them while Zillah smiled at him and reached out a white hand to blow him a kiss.
 

         "Arretez-vous!" cried the landlord as he thundered down the stairs. In his hand he brandished a walking stick that Robert immediately recognised as belonging to Madame St-Aubert, the landlord's mother. Sure enough the old lady tottered into view on the landing above, calling down prayers and complaints on her son and les voleurs alike.

         "You can't shoot him," said Robert angrily. "I don't believe you will, anyway." Caleb's eyebrow lifted and the landlord swore under his breath as he took in the pistol in Caleb's hand. "Maman, va-tu en lit," he hissed. "Il est fou, cet anglais!" He stopped where he was, his hands half-raised and fingers spread, as if about to try to catch some invisible assailant.

         "I don't have time for your melodramatics," Caleb said. "Either of you. Mr Wilkinson is very ill."

         "Why are you saying that?" wailed Robert. "He's dead. Anyone can see that. You killed him."

M. St-Aubert frowned. "Il est mort?"

         "Qui est mort?" quavered the old lady from above.

         "Le viel anglais, Wilkeenson."

         "Tant pis." said the old woman with a shrug of her white-frilled shoulders.

         "Madness boy, he's only ill," Caleb insisted. "Malade, Monsieur. Pas 'mort' And this is more than we owe you," Caleb threw down a cloth-bound bundle of notes. "So doff your britches again, get into bed with Maman if you must, but hold your tongue else. Comprenez-vous?"

         "You have to stop him," said Robert to the landlord. "He won't shoot, I'm sure of it. Hit him with that stick." M. St-Aubert made some curt comment that Robert did not understand, though Caleb, smirking, clearly did.

         "We are going to drive to the doctor now," said Caleb. He stressed the word 'doctor' meaningfully. "We will be back when Mr Wilkinson is better, all right?"

         "Mais bien sur," said M. St-Aubert with a snort of disbelief. "Do not think to get the same price for the rooms, Monsieur," he added to Robert with a contemptuous gesture.

         "I'm not the one doing this," said Robert. "Just hit him, will you?"

As the landlord made no move to obey Robert snatched the cane from his hand, elbowing the frenchman in the ribs to loosen his grip as he did so. M. St-Aubert bellowed with alarm and cuffed the boy's head with a resounding slap that set Robert's earsringing. He flailed with the stick in Caleb's direction, missed and the next moment staggered to the ground as the pistol discharged with an earsplitting roar. The landlord landed heavily beside him.

         "Sacre Vierge!" wailed Madame St-Aubert. "Il a tue mon fils. Ah! Ah!"

Robert staggered upright, only to be jerked nearly off his feet again by Caleb's sudden grip of his arm. "Out," snarled the servant and thrust the boy before him so that his legs carried him out of the doorway and slap into the side of the carriage before he knew what had happened. A great roar juddered the inn's walls as Caleb once more heaved the chest up onto his shoulders and slowly, inexorably as a glacier carries its great weight of ice and stone, followed the boy outside. Zillah pulled Robert into the gig and Emmet helped Caleb slide his massive load into the cramped footspace of the tiny vehicle. There was not room for it to lie flat so Zillah and Robert sat with their knees bent high on the leaning side of the chest with Mr Wilkinson jammed between them. Caleb flung himself up into the driver's raised seat and snatched up the reins.

         "Go!" he shouted and Emmet slapped the nearest horse's flank. The gig plunged forward, bucking the chest up against the passengers' feet for a moment and was soon rolling out of the inn's yard at a pretty pace. Emmet pelted alongside them. "Alley-oop!" he yelled and leapt onto the back of the gig, which shuddered terrifyingly and nearly overturned. Zillah screamed and Mr Wilkinson would have pitched forward and knocked Caleb from his seat had Robert not bodily restrained him.There was no response in his inert body. Oh God! thought Robert. It's true, he's really dead.
 

Mr Wilkinson was a tall, sturdily built man who seemed somehow fallen to pieces as he lay on the worn carpet. He looked as if all the strength had gone out of him, like a plant suddenly stripped of its vigour by autumn winds. His shirt was stained with cognac and his mouth was open enough for Robert to see the gold cap in his upper jaw. Robert went no closer.

         "Bobby!" Zillah called hysterically from without and Robert backed towards her, his fists balled and sweating. "Bobby, come out of there, please!" She grabbed at his wrist and dragged him out into the corridor. Her arm went round him convulsively in a bony hug that lasted a mere second before he shrugged himself free. He scowled at her but she was no longer looking his way.

The landlord stood halfway down the stairs in his shirt tails and socks, with a blown-out candle in his hand. His legs were thickly hairy and purple with varicose veins. "Where are you going?" he blustered. "What is this infamy? All this noise!"

Zillah dropped Robert's wrist and hugged the bannisters in order to look up at the landlord through the tears in her eyes. "Mr Wilkinson is taken terribly ill," she told him.

         "Disease?" exclaimed the landlord. "In my house? Pestilence!"

         "Not so 'terribly' as that," said Caleb. He had reached the door that led out into the crisp blue night and had set down the trunk to rest his back. The landlord took in the money chest and his eyebrows contracted angrily.

         "Yes, I think 'terribly' if you pay all that to the medcin," he observed. "You are flying off, yes? You think to cheat me of my rent, n'est ce pas!" He spotted Robert in the doorway. "Your father is not ill," he shouted down at him. "He is a villain, a dog."

         "He is not," Robert retorted. "How dare you!"

         "Monsieur St-Aubert!" cried Zillah. The landlord noticed her for the first time through the bannisters and convulsively tugged down at his shirt-tails to cover his legs. "Madame," he muttered and then with a snort of irritation turned and thumped up the stairs.

         "He won't be long," said Caleb. He wrestled a shoal of keys from his pocket and knelt to unlock the chest. As he worked he called out of the door for Emmet to join him and then said: "Zillah, forget your things. Help Emmet with Mister and get him out after me in a moment. Master Robert..." They hurried to obey him. As he brushed past him, Emmet's sleeve was cold against Robert's skin from the night air outside.

Caleb glanced quickly round and lanced Robert with his acid green stare. "Master Robert," he said again, "Tell me, can I trust you?"

         "He's dead, isn't he?" said Robert. "You killed him and you're stealing his money. You're nothing but a sneaking, dirty-fingered servant. I should get Father's whip and thrash you for it."

Caleb sighed. "I'll take that as a 'no' then," he said and unlocked the money chest with a crack and rattle of keys. It was stuffed with cloth parcels, clinking bags of coins, rolled up papers and other oddments.

         "Don't touch those," cried Robert. He rushed forward but stopped as Caleb snatched up the pistol Mr Wilkinson kept on top of his treasures and cocked it with a menacing click. "You're a fool," said Caleb viciously. Caleb's eyes slid from Robert's own to the staircase. From above they heard feet returning, booted this time. Emmet and Zillah appeared at the door of Mr Wilkinson's room, with Robert's father slumped between them. Even shared between them his weight was almost too much and they staggered as his inert legs buckled and caught on the threshold.

         "I can't..." Zillah began but then compressed her lips, kicked her skirt out the way and they carried Mr Wilkinson down the corridor towards Caleb. Zillah gasped when she saw the pistol in his hand but said nothing. Caleb shoved the chest out of their way and together they disappeared into the night.
 

         "I'm much obliged to you," he said. "Did you wake Emmet, Miss?"

         "I did," said Zillah. "And I opened the door, Caleb, but naturally I couldn't enter. He asked what stirred and I told him to come at once."

         "It'll take more than that to rouse the lazy devil," said Caleb. But even as he spoke, Emmet, the apprentice Mr Wilkinson had taken on that summer, appeared at the door, combing his yellow hair with his fingers and blinking in the light. He was a year or two older than Robert, not as quick witted as Mr Wilkinson had hoped and, like Caleb's doctors, passionately fond of his bed.

         "Miss Zillah said you wanted me for something or other," he said to Caleb, still blinking stupidly. "Master Robert," he added with a nod. He did not appear to notice that the boy was shirtless and wild-eyed with alarm. "It's a bit early but heigh ho, I suppose."

Caleb put his finger to his lip and then gestured across the room to the chaise longue. Emmet's head swung to follow his direction and stayed staring for a long moment at his master lying prone on the floor. Without comment he looked back at Caleb. "Go out and ready the horses," said Caleb quietly. "Make no noise and don't dawdle or I'll whip your hide till Whitsun. That is if they have a Whitsun in this godforsaken land."

         "Are we all going?" Emmet asked, without apparent concern. Caleb moved out of Robert's sight and Robert heard him kneel down beside his father. "Because if we are," Emmet went on. "It'll have to be the coach and four and that'll take a while, you know. And I'm not an ostler, you know Caleb. I'm a merchant in training."

         "You're a pain in Mister's backside and in mine," said Caleb. "The four will take too long. Ready the gig."

         Zillah looked up sharply. "Then who will stay?" she asked. Caleb ignored her but rose up in a hurry, pushed Emmet out of the door and with a grinding, shuddering creak that jarred Robert's nerves like a blow, pulled the table to the corner of the room to reveal Mr Wilkinson's money chest underneath.

         "Caleb? Who'll stay?" cried Zillah.

Robert shoved her aside and leapt up. "Thief!" he cried. "You won't take it. I won't let you." He ran forward and slammed both of his hands down on the trunk.Caleb slapped the boy aside and, crouching, with a great cracking of tendons and moan of exertion he raised the trunk onto its side and then heaved it onto his shoudlers. For a moment it seemed that the man's legs would buckle under this herculean effort. His face grew red and disfigured, he blew out spittal-laced breath and then, judderingly, one foot followed the other in an agonised trek to the door. Robert tensed to leap at him but the weight of the chest terrified him. He could hear the splintering of bone if he misjudged; and the strength of the man was phenomenal.

         "Open the door," Caleb spluttered.

         "No."

         "Zillah!"

Moaning, Zillah hastened to obey. With milimeters to spare the chest, with the braced and trembing man beneath it, swayed between the door jambs and hoved out into the dark passageway beyond. Robert and Zillah followed, both crying out to Caleb, all attempt at secrecy thrown to the winds for a shuffling of slippered feet and calls of Qu'est ce que ce passe? and Au secours! filled the inn about them.

         "Help me, he's robbing my father," Robert cried. He dared not tackle Caleb himself but at the sight of the landlord and the woken guests, he trusted to them to stop the man while he rushed back to the room to where Mr Wilkinson lay alone. On the threshold he stopped and tried to slow his breathing.

         "Father?" he whispered. The man on the floor did not stir.
 

Caleb propelled Robert across the room and sat him in a high winged chair beside the unlit fire. He held him there for a moment, breathing heavily through his nose and then, when he was sure the boy would not at once jump up, he released him and straightened up. "Come now, lad," he said. "Don't jar your father's nerves. Can I rely on you?" The wings of the chair limited Robert's view of the room to Caleb and the fire place. His palms were sweating.

         "Yes," Robert said quietly. "Let me up."

         "You stay there," said Caleb. He held out a hand to keep him in place. "Lean forward and you'll see him. But no sudden movements and no shouting, do you hear?"

         "Sudden movements like dragging me across the room?" muttered Robert but as Caleb made no move to let him stand, the boy nodded, held his breath and leaned forward. At first he saw nothing, just the oil-cloth covered table with a pool of cognac softly draining itself onto the floor, a few dropped playing cards and shards of glass and beyond, the chaise longue where Zillah rested sometimes while his father worked. Mr Wilkinson liked to have her with him at all times, unless colleagues came to call, and she would lie there for hours in silence to oblige him. Robert could see the clutter of novels and hankerchiefs that had accumulated under the fringing of the chaise's swags, the little blue bottle of smelling salts she kept there and twists of paper from innumerable bon-bons. And then he saw the feet.

         "Why's he on the floor?" he asked and Caleb had to push him down again and hold him still.

         "No noise, I said," Caleb whispered forcefully.

         "Why? So the landlord won't come?" said Robert. He pushed up at Caleb's chest with no avail and then kicked out at him. "What have you done to him?"

         "Stop that," said Caleb. He trod hard on Robert's foot and his ring bit into the boy's shoulder as he thrust him down again. "Listen to me - "

         "I could hear you," said Zillah tearfully as she appeared at the door. "O Caleb they'll hear us too. They'll come down for sure."

         "Tell the boy that," said Caleb.

         "What's wrong with my father?" Robert demanded. He spoke loudly and Zillah's face crumpled with alarm.

         "O Bobby, don't!" she cried and threw herself down at his feet. "Your father's fine, he's fine only please be quiet, my dearest." She was wearing a deep blue dress with white lace across the bodice and her perfume leapt over him swiftly as a cat.

         "Then why won't he speak to me?" asked Robert. His voice sounded truculent and Zillah petted his arms with her soft white hands. "Why he's sleeping, my dearest. And that's best because he's very ill and we must get him away so the doctor can make him all better. Now why don't you go back to bed and let Caleb take care of things for us?"

         "I don't trust him," said Robert shortly and Caleb, despite himself, laughed in his face.
 

The bannisters gleamed dully in the yellow light that emanated from the small room Robert's father rented from the innkeeper as his private office during his sojourn in Rennes for the market season. It was not unusual for Mr Wilkinson to stay up late at night with his books, or occasionally smoking and gaming with Caleb or one or two mercantile aquaintances of his when they passed through the town. But the door was usually kept shut on such occasions, with only the muffled thunder of male laughter or the clinking of glass to tell Robert not to bother his father with his bonne nuit before bed. A shadow passed over the light as Zillah exited hurriedly. Her room was on the ground floor near Mr Wilkinson's so there was no fear of her discovering Robert but he drew back instinctively and wetted his lips. Then he put his hand on the rail and went downstairs with a loudly beating heart.

He did not make it into the room. Caleb must have heard the steps creak for he came to the threshold at once, the creases of his clothes bathed in honey-coloured light, his face an impenetrable shadow. His balling fist relaxed into a tug of his waistcoat as he saw Robert's face in the shadows.

         "Master Rob," he said. "You've a reason to be up, have you?"

         "I heard something break," Robert began. Then, with a boldness his voice belied, he asked "Where is my father, Caleb?"

The man said nothing for a moment then swiftly rubbed his chin and half turned to gesture into the room behind him. The light caught his features as they turned in half-profile. They were the same as they had always been, older than his years, the eyes acidly green, the cheek stubbornly stubbled.

         "Mr Wilkinson has had a turn, lad," he said. "He's not well. Zillah and I have to get him to the medcin. There's no need for you to stir though. Back to bed with you and it''ll all be well in the morning."

         "Why can't the doctor come to him?" Robert asked. He made to enter the room but Caleb stood in his way. His hand came heavily to rest on Robert's shoulder, pinning him in where he stood. Robert tensed at once, as if under attack but Caleb kept his voice light as if trying not to scare the boy. "Ah, you know how these doctors and medics can be, boy. They love their beds better than a common man loves his wife. You have to chuck a patient down beside them on the bedspread before they'll stir to take a look at him. Mr Wilkinson would be all night a-waiting on them if we didn't jump first."

         "I want to see him."

         "Of course you do. Run and get dressed and that will be fine."

         "I am dressed," Robert insisted but Caleb snorted and pushed him away.

         "Let you in like that? Shirtless as a beggarman? Do you want your father to..." He stopped. "Go on. lad," he said and shut the door firmly in Robert's face.

Robert grabbed the doorknob but it refused to budge, which meant that Caleb was holding it tightly on the other side. Robert grew cold with alarm.

         "Father!?" he cried. "Father?"

Instantly the door burst open and with a tug that twisted his arm in its socket, Caleb jerked the young man into the room. "Quiet!" he hissed in Robert's ear and he shut the door swiftly with one hand up against the boards to muffle the click.