“I’m not going to bind you at all. As for a weapon, you’ve got surprise. And you’ve got something far more lethal. The human mind, and will to survive, are not to be underestimated.” He shaded his eyes and looked up, saw the sun already approaching the noon. “Enough of this. You’ve got to eat, and then think. I’ve got to work.”
Without further speech, they set out for the cottage. But as Stephen passed the grave of Michael Scott, he could not help but wonder at the identity of his worn but indomitable deliverer. And looking back to the place where Stubb would lie, who but a day before had walked and breathed, been proud, and stubborn, and afraid like himself, he felt a cold shudder run through him.
For he, too, had been given a taste of Death.
Twenty-Nine
Michael rode in full daylight toward the sea. It was a little used road, linking the fishing village of Kroe to the uplands; and if what Purceville said was true, he was, for the moment, no longer a wanted man. But he had little choice in any case. Riding against the sea-winds at night would be the death of him, and plans must be laid for the twilight after next.
Even so, he could not help feeling apprehensive as he slowed his horse to a canter, and turned down the single brick street of the town, overlooking the bay, then the sea beyond. As he passed through its center---small shops, a public house, plain, two story homes joined at the shoulder---he found himself looking down and straight ahead, subconsciously drawing his shoulders together as if to fade into every shadow, afraid of every eye. James Talbert’s phrase, “skulking thieves,” came back to him. At the same moment he passed a sturdy lad of fifteen or thereabouts, who looked up at him with a fearless eye, almost mocking.
And all at once his fugitive life became intolerable. For in the boy he had seen himself, half a lifetime before.
With sudden resolution he checked his horse, and sat up straight and proud in the saddle. Shading his eyes he looked out to the sea, and beyond. Somewhere, across the unfathomable waters, there had to be a better life: a new land, where he could start again.
He would never submit to Imperial rule; this he knew with absolute certainty. And he would not live like this. What had begun in his mind as a means of short-term escape---fleeing the Castle by sea---now branched out into thoughts of a new home, a new world, where the skies were freer and a man could still dream.
He turned back again to the hills of his beloved Scotland, the land of his birth. A great sorrow filled him, and an ache that was almost physical gripped his chest, for a dream that had died, and a home that was lost.