The Edinburgh Dead - Brian Ruckley [45]
There were plenty of folk in the lane—millworkers, barrowmen pushing along handcarts piled with bloated sacks and rolls of cloth—but the spectacle and cacophony of a big horse hauling a cart at such speed cleared a path quickly enough. People pressed themselves against the walls as the wagon thundered past with Quire and Rutherford in furious pursuit.
Merry Andrew was all elbows and wild gesture as he beat at the horse, twisting now and again to look back over his shoulder. He and Spune were bouncing violently on their seat, and Spune at least seemed less than happy with the situation, for he clung with both hands to the bench and hunched down.
The lane sloped gently up, and the river bent away in a sharp loop, a cluster of grim-looking manufactories crowding the triangle of land thus enclosed. There was another bridge up ahead, Quire knew, and beyond that only countryside and the long, straight road out to Queensferry on the distant shore of the Forth estuary. Whatever Rutherford’s thoughts on the matter, he reckoned he was not paid nearly enough to be chasing a cart on foot all the way out of the city, and he redoubled his efforts, racing over the cobblestones with a certain sense of exhilaration.
Jack Rutherford evidently shared the sentiment, for he put in a burst of speed and got himself up to the back end of the cart, seizing hold of the rocking frame.
“Merrilees, you daft beggar…” Quire heard his fellow sergeant shouting, and then Rutherford fell and Quire was leaping over him.
He glanced back—Rutherford was sitting on his backside, rubbing his arm but wearing a look that said that his pride had taken the worse injury—and then threw himself onward.
The bridge was up ahead, much higher and broader than the one Quire and Rutherford had kept watch from. The cart was heaving up and down and from side to side as it approached. Coming to a quick calculation of where his best interest lay, Spune suddenly jumped from his seat and rolled inelegantly to a halt in a heap up against the low wall bounding the lane. Quire ran past him, interested only in the chief of this particular gang. If Baird would not let him pursue Ruthven and Blegg, and wanted him chasing Merry Andrew instead, that was what he would get, and let him try to complain about Quire’s inability to take instruction then.
The clatter of the cart’s wheels took on a deeper, heavier sound as it rattled out on to the bridge. The wind, much brisker up on this exposed viaduct, snapped the hat from Merry Andrew’s head and sent it tumbling out over the parapet and spinning down towards the river far below.
It took Quire several paces to catch the wagon, and get a grip he could trust on its bucking bed. His weaker left arm ached at the exertion. Man and cart, the one clutching the other with fierce determination, flashed by a couple of washerwomen, who stopped and stared at the unlikely coupling.
Quire jumped up, and flung himself on to the back of the cart. It bounced and smacked him hard in the face and chest as he came down, which did nothing to improve his humour. He looked up from his prone position. Merry Andrew seemed oblivious to his arrival, and was lashing at the horse with ever more wild abandon. A long roll of white cloth, tied with coarse rope and containing something heavy to judge by the way it thumped up and down, lay close to Quire.
He got carefully on to one knee, swaying from side to side, and edged himself further up the cart’s length, all the while clinging to the side.
“I think you’re done now,” he shouted to Merry Andrew.
Who looked round, at first startled and then fiercely resolved. Twisting on his seat, he raised the switch with which he had been belabouring the horse.
“Don’t be…” Quire began, but was too busy ducking