The Skull by Christian Darkin Read Free Book Online Page A

looking at anyone in particular.
    â€˜We know who you are, Mathew Allen,’ said Elizabeth. ‘You search our house almost every week, and you always find nothing.’
    The man waved his cutlass in a way that was probably supposed to be threatening. William would have laughed at him, but this was not a good time for the customs to call.
    â€˜Well,’ said Allen, ‘somebody is smuggling fleeces out of England. Somebody is selling brandy and tea.’
    â€˜Oh, great crimes indeed,’ said Elizabeth, smiling. William edged into the darkness towards the door.
    â€˜And somebody is bringing French Jacobite traitors into England!’
    â€˜Well, it’s not me,’ replied Elizabeth. ‘Please, feel free to look around.’
    â€˜I will!’ said Allen, poking the air with his cutlass.
    â€˜Put it away, Mathew,’ said Juliana curtly. He wheeled round.
    â€˜Mother?’ He sheathed his cutlass instantly. ‘What are you doing here?’
    â€˜They were just seeking my advice on a farming matter,’ she said. ‘Now do what you have to do and run along.’
    â€˜Right,’ said Allen. William took advantage of the distraction and slipped out of the room.
    Behind him, he heard his mother say, ‘The only reason you bother us is because you’re afraid to goafter the real smugglers. You know who they are, sure enough. What are they paying you?’
    It was true. The organised smugglers basically ran the coastline and the law couldn’t stop them. But they were dangerous people. Mathew Allen was obviously under pressure to show he was doing something, but if he tried to take them on, he’d probably wind up dead. So instead he turned up at William’s house every other week on the off chance of catching them with a couple of sacks of wool.
    William would have felt sorry for him on any other day. But not today. Today he just hoped his mother could buy him enough time to get the woman out of the coal shed and up the hill into the tomb.
    He could hear Allen crashing about in the bedrooms upstairs as he ducked outside and into the garden. He beckoned the woman out and grabbed her hand, keeping her low as they skirted the edge of the garden and slipped out towards the woods.
    Once they were safely under cover of the trees, he stopped and straightened up. In the moonlight, she had a slightly odd-looking face. Pale and sharp. Sculpted down into a slender neck.
    He realised he still had hold of her hand, and let go abruptly.
    â€˜They’re searching the house,’ he said. ‘We have to go now.’
    â€˜Thank you. I know this is for you a risk,’ she replied, softly.
    This close to France, words and accents merged and mingled across the Channel, but her voice marked her out as having been on a much longer journey before she’d turned up on the Normandy coast, looking for safe passage to England.
    â€˜Life in France is not easy if you carry new ideas,’ she went on. ‘Perhaps it will be better here?’
    â€˜Perhaps.’ William thought about the meeting he had just crept out of. He didn’t think it would be easier at all.
    â€˜But your parliament now can overrule your king, no? You have Mr Isaac Newton. Your church, she cannot do just as she pleases.’ She smiled. ‘The way people think… it is changing.’
    â€˜It’s not quite as simple as that,’ he managed. It was true that the king and queen were invited to rule and more or less told how to do it by parliament nowadays. It was also true that the more people knew how to read, the more resistance there was to mindless unfairness. William felt proud to have played some small part in that himself, but he was alltoo aware how far his England was from the England those fleeing persecution in France imagined. The secret library was, after all, still secret. ‘Things change slowly,’ he said.
    They made their way in silence up to the tomb.