treasure, captured in a famous battle. It was under my bed now.
I reached for it, slid it from its scuffed nest, and regarded the singular weapon. Created for ceremony and ostentation, it nevertheless had seen a history of gore.
“This lovely beast,” Tom once told me, “was forged by a master-smith and not from the usual mixes either. Iron to bite, see, copper and tin for strength and longlife. See the bronze colour? Made to last. Carbon and silicone, too, I reckon. Hardest edge I’ve ever knowed. Hammered and forged, me sprat, layer upon layer, a hundred times and more. That steel wasn’t just built up, ‘tis a creation of the sacred, a prayer to Mars by a Catholic nobleman. And you know there’s none worship more devoutly at the altar of war.”
Alone with it now, I clasped the hilt, finding its gold-laced mounting fitted perfectly to my clenched fingers. When I sighed and raised it, ever so softly, the long blade seemed to give out its own gentle sigh. Its shimmering metal reflected my eyes like two jewels embedded within it.
Pommel and guard breathed a message of assurance, and I recalled Tom’s yarn.
He won the sword in the Peninsula advance. His officer, my father, had fallen to a musket ball and a tall Spanish nobleman on a big white stallion was going to finish him off.
Tom charged and they fought from the saddle – hacking, thrusting and slashing while my father lay paralysed in the ditch.
Tom’s fierce strength prevailed. The Spaniard as he lay dying raised one hand in a blessing and with the other extended the bloodied hilt. “Englisher, the great sword is now yours. You earned it. Honour it.”
And now the trophy was mine, and despite Tom’s praise I was unworthy of it. In the candlelight, those eyes reflecting back at me from the blade held only guilt and shame. The steel that had tasted pain and valour now mirrored only my cowardice.
When I thought of the terrible wounds it had inflicted, like Tom’s scooped cheek, I shivered. I imagined slicing it through Fat Hector’s belly or stabbing it into the sneer of Cousin Fletch, yet these were not thoughts of hot vengeance. Such visions made me retch.
The razor-sharp gleam was mocking me. I pushed it back into the scabbard and flung it beneath my bed.
“Mother,” I prayed that night, and my strongest emotion only shame. “I shall hurry to your side, to defend you in the Swan River wilderness.”
IN the darkness of morning, one week after Tom’s murder, only the first birds discussed my departure for a new life. No friends to bid adieu, no special lass to pine, but Orion, the starry warrior, flared bright in the heavens above me.
It was one constellation I could identify: three stars for his belt, while others formed his great sword, his legs and torso. Never before had he beamed in the sky so fiercely, an omen I failed to recognise.
The horse and saddle I would sell in London before taking passage in the barque Bright Spray, as named on the ticket which Uncle Naaman’s lawyer had presented to me. My saddlebags easily held my few belongings and sufficient food for a five-day ride.
Beyond Banbury Cross the highway stretched rigidly straight, as decreed by its creators – invading Roman infantry on their ancient march. Just beyond the town, where the legions of old had deviated around the edge of an oak forest, my cousins sprang their ambush.
Fletch placed his mount between, but slightly in front of, the others to establish his leadership. “Dear cuz, you didn’t think we’d let you sneak away without a parting word?”
His evil grin brought the familiar hollow in my stomach. To his left sat Hector, filling the saddle like a barrel with legs. The stubby arms held a whip, as employed by wagon masters to tease the hide of a stubborn team. And the imbecile Cedric was big-mouthed as his own blunderbuss, which he clenched in wobbly hands.
“Hand over the purse,” Fletch snapped.
“Please, Fletch, it’s all I’ve got. Your father meant me to have it. Would you dishonour his arrangement?”
The money was little enough, but it would get me started in Australia and perhaps buy seed and some farming implements in the new land.
“You won’t need it.” His taunt set the others snorting and snickering.
“Why harm me?” I was trying to keep the tremor from my voice. “I’ve done you no wrong.”
“True, and that fact will make your death more pleasurable to me. Now, Little Jeriwoozims,” he mocked, “isn’t that unfair?”
“Death!” shrieked Cedric, and he waved the musket so wildly that Hector yanked rein and moved to a safer angle.
Fletch scowled. “The purse! Now!”
“Or my life?”
“No, cuz, it’s and your life. Give me the purse and you’ll go quick. Painless. Won’t know a thing. Otherwise Hector will use the whip. You’ve seen him castrate a bull with it.”
But it was Cedric I feared the most. A year previous, Uncle Naaman had unusual difficulty bribing the High Sheriff, because it wasn’t just rape: Cedric was said to have left his victim in pieces. His big skinning knife always sat in a saddle sheath near his thigh.
“Fletch, why make trouble for yourselves? Here is the purse. Let me pass.” I pulled it from my belt and tossed it. As he leaned in the stirrups to catch it, I raked spurs for dear life, my startled farm-mare shouldering aside their finer mounts. I was past with a good start of twenty yards before the musket roared and she went down, hurling me into the dirt.
As they came for me I rolled back towards my saddle, which held Tom’s blade of valour. I was terrified but that didn’t mean I was ready to die. I drew the sword and it beamed at me. With the three of them bent on killing me, I would need all its magic.
While I stood taking guard, defying them, leather bit my forearm and hauled me helpless across the mare’s body, causing me to drop the weapon. “Don’t it sting!” mocked Hector, lazily flicking to loosen the whip and eager to give me more.
The saddlebag was at my left hand, a primed pistol inside, my security against footpads on the London Road. I snatched it out, cocked it and fired before that whip could snake it away. The ball hit Hector’s throat. I saw the hole it made, dark and neat, an instant before the blood spurted and spurted.
We all stood gaping.
Fletch and Cedric, awed like me by the fast, pumping flow, watched Hector collapse, and still his blood poured into the earth until it formed a big red halo about his head. His eyes had turned to saintly marble. In the silence, Fletch strode towards me hissing, his sword aiming for my heart. “You coward," he roared. "Now you die.”
The usual sneer would have served him better, the one that always weakened my knees. His anger only startled me. I hurled the discharged pistol at him and, when he ducked, I lunged for my sword among the ferns.
He was fast, though, and I was still on one knee when he made his thrust. I parried awkwardly, feinted and jumped clear. He came after me without haste, the weapon held low, teasing in little stabs at nothing. It was this same tactic he always used to demolish my confidence in the county bouts, yet today it lacked the oily sneer. Shock and anger at Hector’s death claimed his whole face.
I laughed for joy at this discovery. In my fist I could feel the heroic weight of the blade as it pushed cold hatred into my soul.
Whatever Fletch saw in my expression caused him to fling up his weapon as I chopped at him. The blow never landed. I hadn’t meant it to. At the last moment I changed its direction and almost had him, but managed only to nick his ear.
This sent him into a rage and he charged wildly, using his advantage in height and weight.
Fletch was incredibly fast, forcing me to back off, one pace then another. From the corner of my eye I was aware of Cedric gibbering and clumsily trying to muzzle-load the gun that had killed my mare.
The sight distracted me as Fletch feinted and thrust. Even as I dodged aside, I felt the burn of his blade on my sword arm and the warm flow of blood from the gash, bicep to elbow. I could hardly move the arm as we circled and parried, clashing steel against steel, breathing hard, sweating,
grunting.
Pain attacked my senses, the wound made my sword terribly heavy, impossibly heavy. In my chest was an alarming tightnes, until each breath came with a straining sound. But the hate remained. It had taken Tom’s death to hatch it in my soul. Now the force of it boiled in my brain. Never would I let Fletch kill me, never, never.
He nearly took me with a sudden lunge that ripped my coat and sliced a rib but I had spotted the chance and took it by instinct.
I saw the fear in Fletch’s eyes, just before my swordpoint thudded heavily into his chest. Then I felt the meaty resistance of his flesh and the scrunch of bone as I twisted the metal and withdrew.
Fletch fell, his face pale as the new day, his lifeblood bubbling from his mouth. “Call me coward now,” I snarled, which were the last words he heard.
I turned for Cedric, my hate still sizzling, but he threw his musket away and bolted for the trees in terror, arms flailing comically and his head stretched back in a scream.
My hate vanished. My breathing returned. Again the joyful laugh came, a whoop, a thrilling release. I regained my purse and transferred my saddlebags to Fletch’s stallion, biting my teeth at protest from my wounds.
I regretted the slaughter of my mare, a gentle and willing workhorse around the farm, but for my dead cousins I felt nothing but a glow of personal triumph. The monsters were slain.
It was then I remembered Orion, now faded overhead, and for long moments I