A Grave for a Thief by Douglas Skelton EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
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- Author:Douglas Skelton
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Thrillers
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Many days earlier
Blackheath
The sun was dying but clung to the sky as if unwilling to be laid to rest.
Golden fingers reached out across the heath to gild the outlines of the gorse
and the trees, stretching their shadows across grassland rippling under the
breath of a soft breeze that came up from the river beyond Greenwich. The
air here was sweet, even if the gentleman swinging gently behind Jonas
Flynt was not. He had been a highwayman by the name of Bartram Allan,
but though Flynt knew of him they had never met and he was unsure if
being in close proximity to a lifeless body hanging in chains could be
termed a formal introduction.
A life on the road required many skills: a
steady hand with a horse and pistol; the wisdom to know which coaches to
stop and which to let pass; a keen focus on the task at hand, for a moment’s
thoughtlessness could provide someone with the opportunity to let off a
shot. Flynt was most skilled indeed in the art of the high toby, and his
mount, Horse not only in species but in name, had served him well on those
dark nights. However, the life also called for a plentiful supply of luck and
Bartram’s ran out with a short drop into eternity. Flynt shivered against the
warmth of the summer’s eve. He was uncomfortable being this close to the
rotting remains of the finishing of the law. That he had left his own days, or
rather nights, of land piracy behind mattered nought, for there was no
limitation on statute regarding past crimes and the man he was here to meet
knew that all too well.
‘Does being back on the heath make you long for your old ways,
Serjeant?’
Flynt was startled but he covered it by quieting Horse, who had reared at
the unexpected sound of Colonel Nathaniel Charters’ voice. That the man
could move with considerable stealth he was already well aware, that he
could make a steed tread on the baked earth as though its hooves were
muffled was nothing short of miraculous, but he didn’t wish his former
commanding officer to know that he had bested him in any way.
Flynt recovered quickly. ‘I have given up such pursuits, Colonel.’
Charters eased alongside him and gave the corpse above them a study.
‘Very wise, for in the end there be only two ends for such gentlemen of the
road, either thus…’ He jerked a thumb to the gibbet, ‘…or accosting a
fellow who would rather part with a barrel-load of lead shot than his purse.’
As ever, Flynt understood that this meeting place had been chosen to
remind him that Colonel Charters held his life in his hands.
‘It is a most bleak location,’ Charters observed as he gazed around. ‘I can
see why you and your fellow brigands would choose it for your work,
although it be exceeding pleasant on a summer’s eve, is it not?’
Flynt did not comment.
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