Stand and Deliver!

In the dawn, just before the sun finally strained over the horizon, a single figure leaned against the shop frontage and stared into the greyness. Around him was silence, not another creature stirred in the eerie half-light, but the man was as immobile as all around him, his gaze fixed on one thing.

Tyburn tree.

The gallows was half-shrouded in mist, dark and foreboding behind the attempts of the morning to soften the instrument of execution. No rope hung there, not yet. The noose would be affixed when those who’s job it was to place such things rose from their drunken slumber. And, then, when the bells of the church rang eight, the prisoner would be slowly hanged as a crowd of ghouls watched his final death throws.

He couldn’t not watch, though he knew he should not be here, that Billy wouldn’t wish him to see death so close, so personal, the irony of it making him almost laugh, but after all, it was not everyday you saw a highwayman being killed for his crimes, was it?

Dominic shuddered, the muscles in his jaw working as he sought to fight back the sobs that promised to wrack his body, and wished upon a God he knew didn’t exist that everything could be different.

*****

It had gone tragically wrong from the first instant Billy kicked his gelding into a gallop and had descended like an angel of Death upon the lone carriage. Something had itched in the back of Dominic’s mind, and he’d tried to wrap his hands around the reins of the other horse but had been a split second too late. And that split second, that tiny fractured particle of time, had proved their undoing.

As he forced his gallant brown mare from the copse they had been hiding, there was a single shot that split the darkness, and he’d screamed into the night with terror and a sick sense of Billy being lost, and then had catapulted upon the scene.

Dominic had seen a body, once, a long time before. His grandfather, dressed in his affected archaic fashion of before the Civil War, lying in peace in the oak coffin that was to buried in the family vault under the floor of the minuscule chapel in the village that was attached to their manor. So neatly he’d lain, hands crossed over his chest, eyes closed, as if he’d been asleep. The child had poked the corpse, almost expecting there to be warmth radiating from the slightly slackened skin, but it was alabaster cold and he’d had his knuckles rapped. He’d expected for the old man to open his eye at being touched, the twinkling blue saying that it had all be a frightfully wonderful joke. But the cadaver had not moved.

It was in contrast to the man that lay on the mud-spattered road, his clothing dripping with filth, and Dominic had been at once relieved beyond all measure and sickened when he’d seen that the corpse was not that of his lover. A musket, half-cocked, lay limply on the palm of the dean; an; he’d not fired the shot that he’d been struggling to.

And there, soaking into his shiwas was blood.

It seemed everywhere, smearing over the dead face from where the corpse had fallen from the coach seat, spattering up, soiling the white linen of the shirt breast, even over fingers that must have risen to the wound in shock before the man had realised he was dead.

Worse than the red-painted torso was the expression on the coachman’s face. Eyes should not be fixed like that, half-staring and glassy, chilled with death and fear and agony. The man who had died wasn’t young, he had a lined and careworn face, someone who had served his master for many years, and now he had ended up on the public road with a bullet through his brains. It was as if the cadaver was staring with hatred at Dominic, and his stomach roiled, before he tugged his horse back wanting to flee the scene, wanting to escape the inescapable fact that his lover had killed.

“Monaghan!” called a voice to him, and he turned slightly in the saddle, seeing Billy, white faced and visibly shocked, safe on his own steed.

“You shot him.” It was a cold statement of fact.

“Aye…come on, we’ve got to go.”

“You shot him!”

“For the love of God, Dominic, come on!”

The mare backed away more, and Billy was afforded a look that was almost of hatred before the younger man dig his spurs into her flanks, and she was away.

“Dominic!”

He didn’t look back, his own illusions shattered by the thought that Billy had murdered that man. Had pulled out his pistol and had killed him in cold blood for having the temerity to try and defend his master’s vehicle. That the man that he loved and had given everything for had turned out to be something lesser than Dominic thought he was. The blond had prided himself that he and Billy were not thuggish, they didn’t hurt or harm or kill, they were human in the crime that they committed and now every part of what he’d thought they were was ground to dust.

And still he didn’t look back.

*****

The rest of the night was spent pacing their room, the sound of hooves on the street below forcing him to the window to see if Billy had returned. Even though they were what was definitely termed wealthy they still resided at the Tabard, surrounded by the rentboys and the pimps, and those looking for pleasures of the male flesh.

The unending blackness of night turned into daylight somehow, not that Dominic noticed in his pacing, though when exhaustion overtook his body he collapsed to the bed, in a fitful and unsatisfying comatose sleep. Dreams haunted him, nightmares that did not halt when he came to gasping and soaking with sweat, before falling into the visions and not realising he had some respite from the demons that tormented him. There, Billy died a thousand times, bleeding to death as Dominic rode towards him, always passing from this life before the blond could fling himself from his horse and crawl towards the stricken figure, not even being able to say goodbye. There, in his subconscious, the coachman rose from his grave, flesh mouldered from bones and dripping down his skull to squeak and gibber in the madness of the dead. There, there is was he who wielded the murderous pistol and he laughed as he shot the man, then Billy, and then finally drove a lead ball into his own brains.

*****

A hand roused him, finally, touching his cheek.

“Billy?”

“No, darling”

Dominic’s eyes flickered open, looking haunted in the candlelight, and fixed on a painted face and a sensual gaze, though the look that was being given was one of pity, before he gave a groan and refused to look any longer.

Only Satan could have a face like Rochester.

“You must get up now.”

“No.”

The earl gave a small sigh, and pulled a chair over to the bedside, his cool almost girlish fingers stroking over Dominic’s face. The innkeeper had sent word to him as Mr Monaghan was in a deep fever, and Mr Boyd had not been seen for several days. Of course, being their closest friend, he’d rushed to the inn and had taken care of the grievously ill young man. Four days of caring for a man who had lost all sense, who had screamed and sobbed in his dreams like a small child and, who, in the midst of the agonising sleep had had brief periods of wakefulness, though tortured by a deeply-seated insanity that tore at his body and twisted his mind.

“Where’s William?”

How could he breach that?

“Dominic, sweetard, you must sit up and take a little broth.”

“Where’s my Billy?” He sounded like a little boy asking for his best friend.

Rochester, who was strong for his size, managed to fight the other man into a sitting position, propping him up with pillows. He’d wanted to move Dominic to his own London house, but the seriousness of the fever had prevented such an act. When he’d healed a little, then his friend would accompany him to the beautiful home, and would recuperate in luxury. Pushing the bowl of broth into the now rather wasted hands, the earl bade him drink a little. Too weak to argue, Dominic did as he was told, sipping at the soup, choking it down and then realising that his stomach was painfully empty.

“How long?”

“A week, dear child. You have been desperately ill; a fever of epic proportions.”

Another mouthful of broth, some of the liquid escaping down his chin and Rochester wiped the trickle away with gentle fingers. The boy – the earl always thought of Dominic as a boy, though in reality they were not dissimilar in age – looked rather too broken by his illness, and he was aware that what news he brought of William Boyd would make his friend deteriorate further.

“Billy?”

“I am sure that you were present at the shooting?” The look on the blond’s face confirmed this. “For the family who owned the carriage were sure that there were two highwaymen, though only one was taken. William was detained, my love, he was found a little way from the carriage by the master of the family and taken at gunpoint to Newgate by the guards. He’s…to be hanged. At Tyburn.”

In that instant Dominic’s world fragmented into nothingness.

*****

Half an hour before the prisoner was due to arrive, and the crowds were milling around the square. William , af, after all, was a highwayman, a hero to the commons and the nobles alike. Many sovereigns had changed hands between those who desired a better place to watch the hanging, those who could afford the fees renting the rooms of houses overlooking the gallows, their powdered and rouged faces as hungry for the sport of deat tho those baying unwashed commoners on the street below. Those who had not quite the means or had been too slow in finding their viewing points had their coaches to lean out of; it also meant they avoided mixing with the filthy mass that seethed and boiled and chattered in excitement.

None of them even noticed the man who was paler than those who used lead paint on their faces, all colour leached from his cheeks until he looked like Death. Indeed, the severe black clothing, priestly almost in appearance, gave him an even more sickly pallor.

Dominic in his mourning weeds.

He’d exchanged his mare for a different horse, an iron-grey full-blood with a wall eye, a creature that was not associated with death, that had not trampled the blood from the coachman into a churned mud-foam. It was a decent animal, not as kind as the old mare had been, but it was fleeter of foot and stronger in the body.

Something that he’d need today, he thought, mounting the creature, looking for the world like a hunting cleric ready to hear the confession of the dying.

*****

The cart was no place for a gentleman of the road, not for their last journey. Billy had asked for his final boon to be granted the dignity of riding to his own death, but the authorities had refused, reasoning that it would be too easy for him to escape. Not that it mattered, anyhow, for what was the point anymore? Death was not the problem.

Dominic had left him.

He’d been almost viciously overjoyed at hearing of his lover’s illness, the desperate need for vengeance slicing through his veins like arsenic. He’d been betrayed, after all. Haunted by the remembrance of Dominic’s fine eyes staring at him with disgust, and watching the man ride away without a backward glance.

It was mostly because of Rochester that the burning anger had been extinguished, eventually. Without the earl the highwayman would have suffered far worse indignities. For those who did not have the means, Newgate meant being left in a dark cell packed with others condemned, the stench of urine and human waste filling the air, the pile of filthy straw that served as a mattress infested with fleas. It meant being dragged from prison emaciated and fishbelly-white, dayblind, to execution.

Rochester, heavily disguised of course, had provided enough money for a half-decent and private cell, food, enough rum for the hours of dark sude ude to pass a little less agonisingly, and an ear to listen with. Catharsis at the hands of a man that if he had to admit he was jealous of. Billy had almost never forgiven the earl for wanting Dominic, but over the beakers of rum and the whispered conversations they grew closer. Close enough, at least, for the Scotsman to talk of his emotional state, something that only his lover was ever privy to, and in return Rochester helped him through the days and come to terms with the immediacy of death.

And now that death was only a few minutes away.

Small in the rickety cart, hands resting lightly on the wooden strut before him, Billy was almost pleased that so many had turned out, that at least his death would be an occasion. Deaths likes has had the tendency to be written about, to melt into myth, and for those who suffered at the hands of the hangman they would live forever on the tongues of ballad-makers and in books of villains.

Immortality through words appealed to the slim upright man, his attractive face composed even as he entered the cauldron of the square. The noise was deafening, a torrent of cheers and insults, screams from women and children. Someone threw something at him, and it exploded over his shoulder, the rotten stink of whatever vegetable it had been sour in his nostrils. It was the sign, it seemed, for other things to be thrown. Yet he stayed dignified even as he was pelted, though Billy did flinch as a stone slashed his cheek open, to the drunken roar of the man who had thrown it.

Up onto the platform, and they could see him properly now. William Boyd, highwayman. His clothing was ripped and stained, the black shirt sliding over one pale shoulder though as his hands were lashed together with rope the man couldn’t make himself decent. The slight loosening of his famously skin-tight leather breeches showed that prison hadn’t been overly kind, some of the slight softness that he always carried being lost from his entire body. And there, he stood, the slight breeze ruffling hair that had grown a little in captivity, blood trickling over the shocking curve of his collarbone, looking out quietly upon the crowd.

His composure made the mob quieten, almost to a whisper.

“We bring thee before us, William Boyd, on account of the murder of one Bernard Hill, formerly coachman to the Duke of Beaufort and on charges of highway roy. Yy. You have been found guilty and have been sentenced to death. You may, if you wish, make confession and therefore your peace with the Lord.”

Billy was still for a moment, almost a statue carved from granite and nacre, before he moistened his cracked lips, still beautiful, that mouth that was made for kissing and talking with his gentle lilting accent.

“Today I go to my death, and I am expected to make a confession of my crimes here, to you the people of London. It is a confession that I shall not make, good citizens of this noble city. Among you here are those who have given me monies to live comfortably on, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Here I am expected to show my sorrow for my crimes, to attempt to make good in some part at least what I have done. I will admit one thing; I am sorry that I shot that coachman. However, good people, the confession I am supposed to make is to make peace with the Lord. I am already at peace with the Lord! There are those who are predestined to enter Heaven at His right hand – deeds done in life do not count for it is decided at birth whether we are to be in His Kingdom, or that of Satan. I have accepted my death and my place in whichever sphere of the next life I am to be in.”

He halted, watching with satisfaction the Calvinist creed washing over the crowd, shocked into silence over the heresy that Billy spoke. His father, he reflected in a momentary pang of nostalgic pain, would have been proud of that speech.

“Do not pray for me, people of London. Do not say masses for my soul if you are Catholic, or sink to your knees and beg for the Lord to forgive me if you are Protestant. Do not pray for a man with a black and wicked heart. Prayer does not matter.”

In the stunned nothingness of the following seconds, he had stepped back, and the executioner, a brawny man, sticky with sweat already as the day promised to be close, had tightened the noose around his neck. And then, with no ceremony at all, the lever was pulled and William Boyd felt the rope tighten with a sickening pull.

*****

Only Satan could have a face like Dominic. A twisted and sick amusement from Lucifer, it must be, though the hand that was tracing down Billy’s face was cool and infinitely gentle, and the look in the attractive eyes was not of hellish evil but of agonised relief.

“Am I dead.”

“No.”

“That is good. I do not feel dead.”

He was aware that they were moving, in some sort of coach, and Billy’s forehead wrinkled slightly with wonder before he brought his hands to touch the livid tissue that encircled his throat. He must have been cut down.

“I saved you.”

“Had to wait until I was physically hanging, did you?”

The accent, bespeaking of moss on ancient stone circles and dark peat bogs, was slightly changed, the compression of the rope on his voicebox having damaged him a little. Swallowing, Billy tried again, though the action did not achieve any better vocality, so he gave up. More and more, as reality seeped back into his mind, he realised that he was laying against Dominic, that this must be some sort of bed inside a carriage, and that the blond was stroking the flat of a palm over his chest, impossibly soothing.

“What happened?”

“I cut you from the noose, and rode with you to where Rochester had this coach waiting for us.”

“And where are we going? Why am I going? You left me!”

Dominic smiled very slightly, and leaned over, his torso slightly heavy against the Scotsman, capturing that exquisite mouth with a kiss that was partly sensual and partly apologetic, before he turned to extinguish the little lantern that lit scenscene, plunging the interior into blackness.

“For my sins I have suffered, Billy, and there is nothing that I can say that could show my sincere apology for leaving you. It was the most foolishion ion that I have ever had the idiocy to do, and I am sorry, my love.”

Desperate to say that it took more than an apology to right the heinous wrong that had taken place, he found that his need to express his anger grew weaker as Dominic continued to kiss him, those raw caresses full of savage emotion that poured from one set of lips to the other. Billy gave a soft cry, pained, before he was settled back on the cushions and the blond began his trailing journey from mouth to exotic destination.

The darkness that surrounded them both, thick and impenetrable made the experience all the greater. Billy was aware that his lover was moving, was now atop of him, and that the lips that were playing over his mouth were kissing and petting at a soreness on his cheek. The mark that had been made with the flung stone had been stitched closed, though the area was tender, and there was a squeak as the delicate tip of the blond’s tongue traced the line. It did not cease at the encountering of unharmed flesh, lapping over the Scotsman’s jawline, then up in a broad sweep to tickle and torment his earlobe.

“I love you,” whispered Dominic, and he was rewarded by a wordless gasp, Billy’s torso pressing needily against the younger man, who gave a smile that could have made angels fall from heaven. Teeth grazed the softness of an earlobe and tracked over the rope burn to the hollow of the throat that was quivering, the pulse at the base trembling with desire.

It was made even worse as hot moist lips sucked at the throbbing point.

The need was building, Dom sen sensing this, and he moved a little more hurriedly. The filthy black shirt had been discarded before the injured man had been let into the carriage and the naked chest offered opportunity for more caressing, lips, tongue and teeth in a pagan ritual, roaming over flesh that was so familiar to the younger, that was so beautiful to feel. He’d always joked that Billy’s body was like claret velvet to touch that he didn’t have skin but the finest quality fabrics draped over his body to act as such. The delicacy of the curves and dips in muscle and sinew, over the slightly too exposed ribcage and to the naval, eliciting another squeak as the tongue flickered into the little hollow. Past experience knew that the Scotsman was surprisingly sensitive there, that the playing with the little organ increased his desire, and Dominic took advantage shamelessly, teasing Billy to soundless writhings.

He descended lower, laving at hipbones and skin with his oral touch, before he found the main prize. A shaking hand caressed the blond’s hair, pushing it back gently from his forehead, and he placed a kiss at the base of the palm as it stroked his face before he redressed his ministrations. Softly, with care and love and a desperate desire to please the man he’d treated appallingly, Dominic took his beloved Billy to a Paradise that the Calvinists had never even dreamed of.

*****

The Duc d’Orleans and his lover, travelling through the exquisite French countryside towards Versailles, did not even consider that they would be held at gunpoint before a cry of “stand and deliver!” shattered their peace. His lover, a boy even more painted and effete than the Duc himself gave a gasp of horror, clasping a lily-white hand to his breast, his breath coming in gasps. Orleans, however, was made of sterner stuff.

“Do you know who I am?!” exploded the Duc, his rouged and whitened face a mask of anger, cat’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“No. Dominic, who is this man?”

“William, I have no idea. Do we care?”

“I think not.”

Boyd and Monaghan, back in business.