“You,” the guard growled, pointing a wicked looking cudgel at Iain.
Iain flinched back. “Me?”
“Aye, you, come ’ere!”
Iain shuffled closer, expecting the club to fall at any moment. Instead, the jailor grabbed the front of his filthy shirt and yanked him close enough that Iain could smell sour ale and rotting teeth on his breath.
“Be ready, boy,” the jailor threatened, shoving him back so hard Iain’s head banged against the stone wall behind him and he slid to the floor, bells ringing in his skull.
The door slammed shut, plunging the hut back into near darkness.
Fielding sidled up next to him. “What did he want with you?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” Iain’s head was throbbing so bloody badly he would have vomited if there’d been anything left in his stomach to bring up. He scrambled to sit up and something scratched against the skin of his chest. When he felt the front of his torn shirt his hand encountered a crumpled piece of parchment.
“He put a note in my shirt,” Iain whispered to his friend and savior. Excitement pulsed through his weakened body as he smoothed out the small piece of paper and tried to read it in the gloom.
“You know your letters?” John Fielding asked, surprise coloring his voice for the very first time.
“Aye.” Iain lurched to his feet and staggered to the narrow slit that served as a window. He stepped on somebody’s foot and earned a volley of curses as he collapsed against the far wall, holding the precious paper to the line of gray light.
“Be ready to leave when the moon is at its peak tonight. Feign sickness and—”
A hand shot over his shoulder and tore the paper from his fingers right before a body slammed him against the wall.
“’Ere then, wot’s this?” an amused, grating voice demanded.
Iain twisted and lunged for the paper but another hand grabbed his ankle and yanked him off his feet. He landed on his back in the filthy straw, his head once again screaming.
“A love note, my lord?” the same voice mocked while a foot descended on Iain’s chest and held him pinned to the reeking floor. “Anybody ’ere as can read a lovey-dovey letter?”
The others laughed while his tormentor peered through the gloom at Iain, who lay gasping for breath under his hobnail boot.
“I fink maybe ’is nibs ought to read it out loud. What do you fink, boys?”
“Bloody right, Danno!” another voice yelled while loud cheering shook the small shed.
His persecutor—Danno—tossed the letter down just as a big arm snaked around Danno’s neck and yanked him off his feet before flinging him against the far wall.
Iain drew in a ragged gulp of air once the boot disappeared and scrambled for the note. He snatched up the precious scrap of paper and held it to his face.
“Be ready to leave when the moon is at its peak tonight. Feign sickness and scream for the guard. He will take you to a small side door in the prison wall. I will be waiting in the prison cemetery.”
It wasn’t signed, but Iain recognized his uncle’s small, careful handwriting. He tore the note to bits just as scuffling and yelling filled the room. He looked up to find John facing not just Danno, but another three who’d sprung up like noxious weeds from between the cracks in the flagstone floor. The huge boy was holding his own, but he couldn’t take on the entire group.
Iain scrambled to his hands and knees just as a shadow broke away from the group of cheering boys and circled behind Fielding. Iain launched himself across the filthy floor, managing to lay hands on the shadow’s foot as he raised it to kick John in the back. He yanked with all his strength and the man lost his balance and hit the floor, taking Iain down with him.
John turned at the sound and flicked at glance down at Iain, his face a terrifying mask of hatred and rage. His huge fists made fast work of his aggressors and their own cowardice took care of the rest, until Fielding was left standing alone.
Iain flailed and punched, landing one or two good hits to the other boy’s head and neck before kneeing him in the groin, an action he knew to be all too effective. He scooted back toward the rear wall of the hut, leaving the boy curled up on his side.
Fielding slid down the wall not far away, his chest heaving like a bellows as Iain crawled crablike until he was beside him.
“Thanks for saving me yet again.”
John ignored him, his eyes fastened on the now silent group across the room.
“They’re coming for me tonight,” Iain whispered. “You can go with me. My uncle will help you.”
The boy’s bitter laughter spilled out of him like a dead, bloated body floating to the surface of a deep, dark lake.
“What?” Iain asked, stunned by the other boy’s ill-tempered reaction to an offer of freedom.
“The only place I’m going is Norfolk Island.”
Even Iain—bumpkin that he was—had heard of the infamous penal colony. “You’re being transported?”
“Aye, on the morrow, as yer luck would have it.” He gave Iain something that passed for a grin. “I doubt you’d have lasted another day without me,” he added.
Iain already knew he wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.
“Come with me tonight, John. We’ll talk the guard into it by promising him more money from my uncle. Surely the guard won’t care if two go rather than one if it means more coin in his pocket?”
John snorted. “Tain’t the guard puttin’ me on the boat. My life ain’t worth a bucket o’ warm piss after getting’ on the bad side o’ Fast Eddie. Leavin’ this miserable shitebox of an island is the only chance I ’ave left.”
“Fast Eddie?”
“Aye, Fast
