Jerusalem Man 02 - The Last Guardian by David Gemmell Read Free Book Online Page A

scrubbing them with grass. Beth stood and stretched her back. 'You've a lot still to learn, Samuel,' she said. 'You want something, then you have to fight for it. You don't give ground, and you don't whinge and whine. You take your knocks and you get on with living. Now help your sister clear up, and put that fire out.'

    'But it's cold, Ma,' Samuel protested. 'Couldn't we just sleep out here with the fire?'
    "The fire can be seen for miles. You want them raiders coming back?'
    'But they helped us with the wheel?'
    'Put out the fire, snapper-gut!' she stormed and the boy leapt to his feet and began to kick earth over the blaze. Beth walked away to the wagon and stood staring out over the plain. She didn't know if there was a God, and she didn't care. God had not helped her mother against the brutality of the man she married - and, sure as sin, God had never helped her. Such a shame, she thought.
    It would have been nice to feel her children were safe under the security of a benign deity, with the faith that all their troubles could be safely left to a supreme being.
    She remembered the terrible beating her mother had suffered the day she died; could still hear the awful sounds of fists on flesh. She had watched as he dragged her body out to the waste ground behind the house, and listened as the spade bit into the earth for an unmarked grave. He had staggered back into the house and stared at her, his hands filthy and his eyes red-streaked. Then he had drunk himself into a stupor and fallen asleep in the heavy chair. 'Jus' you an' me how,' he mumbled. The carving-knife had slid across his throat and he had died without waking.
    Beth shook her head and stared up at the stars, her eyes misting with unaccustomed tears. She glanced back at the children, as they spread their blankets on the warm ground beside the dead fire. Sean McAdam had not been a bad man, but she did not miss him as they did. He had learned early on that his wife did not love him, but he had doted on his children, played with them, taught them, helped them. So devoted had he been that he had not noticed his wife's affection growing, not until close to the end when he had lain, almost paralysed, in the wagon.
    'Sorry, Beth,' he whispered.
    'Nothin' to be sorry for. Rest and get well.'
    For an hour or more he had slept, then his eyes opened and his hand trembled and lifted from the blanket. She took hold of it, squeezing it firmly. 'I love you,' he said. 'God's truth.'
    She stared at him hard. 'I know. Sleep. Go to sleep.'
    'I... didn't do too bad ... by you and the kids, did I?'
    'Stop talkin' like that,' she ordered. 'You'll feel better in the morning.'
    He shook his head. 'It's over, Beth. I'm hanging by a thread. Tell me? Please?'
    'Tell you what?'
    'Just tell me ...' His eyes closed and his breathing became shallow.
    She held his hand to her breast and leaned in close. 'I love you, Sean. I do. God knows I do. Now please get well.'
    He had slipped away in the night while the children were sleeping. Beth sat with him for some time, but then considered the effect on the children of seeing their father's corpse. So she had dragged the body from the wagon and dug a grave on the hillside while they slept.
    Lost in her memories now she did not hear Mary approach. The child laid her hand on her mother's shoulder and Beth turned and instinctively took her in her arms.
    'Don't fret, Mary love. Nothing's going to happen.'

    'I miss my Pa. I wish we were still back home.'
    'I know,' said Beth, stroking the child's long auburn hair. 'But if wishes were horses then beggars would ride. We just got to move on.' She pushed the girl from her. 'Now, it's important you remember what I showed you today, and do it. There's no tellin' how many bad men there are
    'twixt here and Pilgrim's Valley. And I need you, Mary. Can I trust you?'
    'Sure you can, Ma.'
    'Good girl. Now get to bed.'
    Beth stayed awake for several hours, listening to the wind over the grass of the plain, watching