It is upon that malign and cobbled stretch through the peaks that he sees the wretch come skulking from the bushes, soaked by mountain rain and the tears from her eyes.
‘Av been robbed and beaten, good sir,’ she cries. ‘The scoundrels are still lurkin somewhere hereabouts. Won’t you ‘elp a poor soul, sir?’
Don’t they get tired of the same tricks? He supposes it works until the day it doesn’t. And that day is usually your last.
He stands - heavy, cloaked, unarmed - in the road, watching the wretch sob her false tears. She pleads with him some more before her face turns sour with frustration. He stands where he is, well away from where she wishes to draw him.
They come at him from both sides but have to run further than they’d have liked. A third man levels a crossbow from further back. The runners bear a club and an axe and probably think that with no arms to defend himself, they can rob this mark without killing him.
But before either can open their mouths to make their demands, there is a blur of movement. The runner with the axe stumbles back, his chest caved in, his mouth spewing blood.
The others blanch at their would-be prey, whose uncloaked hand, clenched in a fist, glitters in the murky sun; skeletal, golden, dripping with blood.
Paddy Dobson
26th September 2021