The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [79]
“I do. Our other possible route involved hanging by our hands and swinging between the buildings. While I know that physical discom-fort is nothing in your eyes, I should prefer to wait until later in the day to have your back opened up, if you don’t mind.” The strain of re-sponsibility was sharpening my tongue, and I bit back further words to concentrate on the route.
We eventually reached the noxious yard and stood before its pristine white surface, which obscured decades of horse droppings, kitchen slops, and other unmentionables. In the summer it rivalled my Stilton for olfactory potency.
We huddled in the door’s recess, and I spoke to Holmes in a whisper.
“As you see, other than this doorway and two others, neither of which could conceal anyone, the yard itself is secure. I see two possi-ble problems: one, that there may be watchers in the street outside the gate, and two, that when they find me gone they may search the area and find two sets of footprints. If you prefer, we could take to the roofs again.”
“Really, Russell, you do disappoint me, allowing yourself to be lim-ited by the obvious options. There is no more time for scaling the heights. They will soon know that you have escaped them; giving them your footprints will do no harm. We will not give them mine. If there are watchers, use your gun.”
I swallowed, put my hand in my pocket, and strode off firmly into the open yard, grateful for the heavy nails on my boots. I looked back to see Holmes mincing within my footsteps, his skirt drawn up to re-veal the trousers below. Were it not for the threat hanging over us, I would have given out with a girlish giggle at the sight, but I refrained. I passed the gates with the revolver in my hand, but there was no hu-man there, only a scurry in the dustbins.
We followed this singular method of travel up the alleyway to the main road, where the few early travellers had already turned the snow to mire. Here we could walk abreast, Holmes as a hobbling old lady, myself as a gawky farm boy. His dingy black skirt and cape of yesterday had been reversed to an equally dingy blue, and the mole on his chin had disappeared, to be replaced by a mouthful of rotten teeth. Not an improvement from my point of view, but few eyes would look past the mouth to the face beyond—what face there was between scarves and hat.
“Don’t stride so, Russell!” Holmes whispered fiercely. “Throw your boots out in front of you as you walk and let your elbows stick out a bit. It would help if you let your mouth hang open stupidly, and for God’s sake take off your glasses, at least until we get out of town. I won’t allow you to walk into anything. Do you think you could per-suade your nose to drip a bit, just for the effect?”
Soon I was slouching along blindly in the bleak dawn light, stum-bling occasionally while appearing to support my aged mother. By the time it was fully light we stood on the Banbury Road going north out of town.
“North, away from London? This is going to be a long day.”
“It’s safer. See if you can persuade that wagon to take us a few miles.”
I clumped off obediently into the road to intercept the farmer re-turning from town with an empty wagon and glad for thruppence, to “save me old mum a walk to Bamb’ry to see her newest grandchild.”
He was a talkative man and jabbered away the whole time as his horse meandered about the road. It saved us from having to construct a story for him, though by the time he left us in Banbury I was most weary of smiling stupidly out from under my hat brim and trying not to squint. As his wagon pulled away I turned to Holmes.
“Next time we do this, I will play the deaf old woman and you can laugh at rude jests for an hour.”
Holmes cackled merrily and shuffled off down the road.
t was a long day’s work that brought us to London, two cold and hungry travellers who kept moving largely through force of habit. We went north and west out of Oxford to reach London to the southeast, and covered a weary number of miles