The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
Despite the coolness of the night, Audrey had waited with her window wide open, knowing he would come. Now she answered his whistle with a soft one of her own and leaned out the window to see him. He was dressed splendidly as always, and as always seeing him made the breath catch in her throat. "Riddick," she whispered softly. It was the only name he was known by, the name he had given himself as an orphan child living on the streets.
Audrey herself was an orphan as well, although her parents had died only six years ago, when she was twelve. She had adopted the abandoned inn as her home and was discovered sleeping near the hearth by the oddly dressed, dark-skinned man who had purchased the property. He gave her a home in the inn and told her to call him Imam. She later learned that he had traveled from a faraway land called Arabia. He had abandoned his home there after his three sons became ill and died within weeks of each other. He had traveled across Europe and finally ended up in Scotland, where he decided to stay.
"Audrey," Riddick said softly. "Is the old man asleep?"
She laughed quietly. "I doubt it, but you know he never interferes...unless you're trying to get me to come outside again."
"Can you blame me? I haven't kissed you since the harvest festival--"
"And only because you begged me until I gave in--"
"--and you're more beautiful every time I see you."
She blushed at his flattery. He was her first love, and as far as she was concerned, her only love. She had other suitors, but they held no appeal for her. Either they were drunken, dull, or in the case of the Frenchman, Paris, who handled the horses at the inn, downright creepy. Whenever he looked at her, he literally drooled, and the manic expression in his eyes made her skin crawl. Riddick was different. From the beginning, he had courted her with true love and respect and was more gentlemanly than most of the titled English lords that had stayed at the inn.
He broke her reverie when he spoke. "I can't stay long tonight, Audrey..."
And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like moldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—
"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."
She wanted to tell him to stop, to keep him safe with her, but she knew that wouldn't happen. Despite the risks that came from robbing the rich men that traveled along the roads nearby, he would continue to do so until he had enough money for them to cross the ocean to the new world and establish themselves, either in the English colony or farther west in the French territory. That was what they both wanted more than anything else. A place away from the oppression of the king, a place where no one would shout an alarm at the sound of Riddick's name, a place where they could own land of their own and have a family. So she simply said, "Be careful," and leaned out of the window, stretching her hand toward him.
He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the West.
As she watched him ride away, sitting easily on his galloping horse, she was reminded of the first time they had met...
She had gone to visit a friend in a neighboring village and had stayed until late in the afternoon. Rushing to get home, she found herself in the forest in the dark, a dangerous place for a beautiful young woman to be. As if to confirm her worst fears, she heard the hoofbeats of a rider approaching from beyond the curve in the road ahead of her. He appeared suddenly, before she could get to cover, and she froze, unsure whether to run or stand and fight. She chose to stand.
"I don't have any coin to give you," she told him as he stopped his horse near her.
He ignored her statement. "Pretty girl like you shouldn't be alone in these woods, especially in the dark. Never know what you might run into."
She gave a short, bitter laugh. "Believe me, I'm well aware of that."
He slid his left foot out of the stirrup and held his hand out to her. "C'mon."
"What?" she said. "I'm not stupid. I'm not putting myself at your mercy."
"Better mine than someone else's. I doubt they'll have any mercy." She shook her head, and he sighed. "I swear to you, I just want to see you home safe. I'm not the kind of man who forces himself on women, and I don't like to hear about it happening, either, especially when I could have prevented it." He kept his hand extended toward her. "Come with me."
She almost refused him again, but something in his demeanor and steady gaze made her want to trust him. So she took his hand, put her foot in the stirrup, and pushed herself upward to sit sidesaddle in front of him.
Once his foot was securely in the stirrup again, he took the reins and wheeled his horse around. There was a rustling sound in the nearby bushes, and three men appeared, clearly outraged by the turn of events. Audrey felt her blood run cold at the realization that only a moment ago she had been in imminent danger, but the man laughed. "Too late, boys, and too bad." Then he touched his heels to his horse's sides, and the animal moved off at a smooth canter.
One they were moving, with his arms wrapped around her, Audrey felt all the insecurities rise up again. What if he had lied to her? What if he simply rode away with her and no one ever saw her again?
As if sensing her apprehension, he asked, "So where am I taking you?" This close to him, his deep voice seemed to roll around in his chest for a minute before finally making its way up his throat and out of his mouth.
"The inn where the road forks," she replied.
True to his word, he rode into the inn-yard and stopped his horse. Imam hurried out the door into the yard as the rider helped Audrey to the ground. "Child, where have you been? I was so worried..."
"I know, I should have left Carolyn's earlier. I'm sorry." Audrey turned to the horseman. He seemed different to her now that he had done what he said he would; more noble, more of a gentleman. "Thank you for bringing me home safe. I...if there's anything..."
He smiled. "Can I come see you again?"
She blushed and smiled back. "Yes...if you tell me your name."
"Riddick." His grin widened as she looked up at him in astonishment, and before she could think of anything to say to the most infamous highwayman in the area, he turned his horse and galloped away on the western road.
Now, Audrey shook herself out of her memories and closed the window. It was late, and she was tired and ready for a good night's sleep. So she snuggled under the quilt on her bed and didn't see Paris creep out of his shadowed hiding place and hurry down the road toward the nearest town.
He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching—
Marching—marching—
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.
Captain William Johns led his men into the inn's common room and glanced around at the occupants. Some ignored the soldiers completely; others gave them dark looks before turning away. Johns sneered mentally. In this part of the country, the common folk had no love for their king or his army, which made this job all the more enjoyable. If that sniveling Frenchman had been telling the truth, Riddick would be returning to this inn tonight.
Johns had been pursuing this particular robber for a while. Riddick stirred up trouble everywhere. The noblemen who'd been robbed blamed the king for the unsafe roads, and the peasants looked up to him as some sort of hero. He was a man that needed to be put in his place--which in Johns' opinion was six feet underground. And it was going to happen tonight. When he saw the girl emerge from the back, he smiled. It was a smile that could appear charming when he wanted it to, but tonight it didn't hide the contempt and malice in his soul. "All right, boys, let's get to work," he said, and headed toward her.
They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.
They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now, keep good watch!" and they kissed her.
She heard the doomed man say—
"Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!"
Audrey held herself as still as possible, but the barrel of the musket still dug into her skin, so tightly had they tied it to her. She could still taste the beer on her lips from when that bastard Johns had kissed her, to the immense amusement of his drunken troops. "You keep good watch, now," he told her after he was through, which made them laugh even harder. Then he'd taken a cloth and gagged her mouth, so that she couldn't scream to warn Riddick when he came that night. Maybe he won't, she thought. Maybe other soldiers are pursuing him and he'll need to stay in hiding. Somehow she knew that wouldn't be the case. He would come tonight, and they would kill him--shoot him from her window--and Riddick's last thought would be that she had betrayed him. No, I can't let that happen! I have to get free somehow; I have to warn him... Desperately she began to struggle.
She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!
When her finger touched the trigger, she froze. Suddenly she saw everything with complete clarity, and she knew what she had to do. The musketfire would warn him. He'd think they were shooting at him, and he'd ride away. He'd be safe. He'd be safe and he wouldn't think she'd betrayed him, and that was all that counted. Her own life didn't matter.
Intent on her thoughts of Riddick, she was oblivious to the tears that streamed down her face.
The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain.
Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!
She could see him. Oh, she could see him coming, and she cried out against the gag in spite of herself. The hateful Captain Johns turned and glanced at her, but his concern was for the security of the gag in her mouth and he didn't see her finger touching the musket's trigger.
He smirked at the tears on her face and turned back to his soldiers. "Steady now, boys, don't fire until he comes up to the window. We don't need him getting away again."
Audrey barely heard what he said. The full moon was shining into her window, and as she gazed into its blank face, she felt her love for Riddick beating with her heart, beating out of her body and flying out the window and along the road to him. She imagined that he felt it as he came, wrapping him in its passionate touch.
The men were getting ready, and Riddick was near enough now to hear the musket if it went off. She stood upright, her wide eyes focused on the moon, not realizing how her pale face reflected its light. She closed her eyes, her heart sending one last thought to the man galloping along the road toward the inn. Riddick, I love you so much...
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.
He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.
Riddick jerked back on the reins when the musket went off, and his horse skidded to a dust-raising stop in the middle of the road. He wheeled around and raced back the way he had come, half-expecting a musket ball in the back. Where had that come from? Why only the one shot?
He hid himself and his horse in the forest to throw off any pursuit and it was only as dawn approached that he stopped at another inn farther along the road to get something for the two of them to eat.
When he walked in the door, conversations stopped. The other people in the room glanced at him and each other, but no one spoke. They knew him here, and usually welcomed him, so this sudden silence was unnerving. As he headed across the room toward the kitchen, the innkeeper came out and saw him. "Oh dear God," he said. "I wish it had been any inn but mine you came to now..."
"Why? What's going on here?" Riddick asked.
"The girl...Audrey...she's dead."
"What?" Riddick's hands gripped the man's shirt. "What the hell are you talking about?!"
"Everyone's been talking about it. Someone told the king's men you would go to the inn, and they set up an ambush in her room. They had her tied to her bed...they had a musket tied next to her, maybe to keep her quiet, I don't know...but she managed to work a hand loose and she set it off...it went right through her. The old man, Imam, he thinks she did it on purpose...to warn you away."
All the strength went out of Riddick's body and his hands dropped limply to his sides. "I heard it," he said numbly. "I thought they were shooting at me...I thought..." He was silent for a long moment, and then his voice came, softer and more plaintive than anyone had ever heard it before. "Why did she think she had to die for me?"
"That Captain Johns--" the innkeeper faltered as Riddick's gaze suddenly fixed on his face. The look in his eyes was unnerving. "Captain Johns, they say he was so enraged that he...that he kicked her body down the stairs into the common room...called her a whore and said she didn't deserve a decent burial. He..." The innkeeper trailed off, unable to continue in the face of the intense rage that suffused Riddick's face.
Riddick turned and went out the door, vaulting himself into the saddle and kicking his horse into a gallop. He had faced Johns before and always escaped, but now none of that mattered. Audrey was dead, and it was Johns' fault. The bastard had used her as bait and had given her only one way out of having a front-row seat to the death of the man she loved. If he was still at the inn, he would pay. He would pay for her death and the desecration of her body. I loved her, you son of a bitch, he thought. I loved her and of course you just had to use her like that, didn't you? Didn’t you?!
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
When Riddick crested the hill, he could see that some of the soldiers were still standing in the inn-yard, including that dog's son Johns. Raising his sword, the highwayman shouted one word, making it a curse, as he barreled toward them: "Jooohhhnnns!"
Blinded either by his rage or the bright sunlight, unfamiliar and hurtful to eyes used to working in the dark, Riddick didn't see the two soldiers hidden in the forest on either side of the road. Their musketfire lifted him out of the saddle and he landed on his back in the road. Still enraged, barely feeling the pain, Riddick tried to get up and go after Johns again. The second round of musketfire dropped him back in the dirt, and now he struggled merely to breathe around the holes in his chest.
Johns sauntered over and smirked down at him. "Guess you loved the little bitch after all." Riddick's eyes blazed with hatred and he tried to reply, but couldn't get enough air to do it. "Nothing to say?" Johns asked. "Well, then, I guess the only thing that's left is the 'coup de grace', as they say in France." He pulled his pistol and pointed it at Riddick's head.
With an extraordinary effort, Riddick said one last thing: "See you...in hell...murdering bastard..."
Johns snarled and delivered a pair of savage kicks to the side of Riddick's head before he finally pulled the trigger of the pistol and ended the highwayman's life.
~~A few days later~~
Imam settled his robes more firmly about himself as he bid the last of the villagers goodnight. It was empty now in the inn. Only he was staying in it tonight. Tomorrow, he was heading back to Arabia, back to his homeland in hopes of rebuilding a life that had been damaged for a second time.
As he headed toward the stairs, he thought he heard hoofbeats outside. Sighing, he turned and walked back to the door, intending to tell the traveler that he or she would have to go a bit farther tonight. But when he opened the door and looked outside, there was no one there. He took a few steps outside and looked around again, but there was definitely no one in the inn-yard.
He shook his head, deciding that he had been hearing things, and turned to walk back inside. As he stepped across the threshold into the inn, he thought he heard tapping at the wooden shutters and then a familiar whistle. He half-turned, then turned back and resolutely stepped inside. It was only his mind was playing tricks on him and he didn't want to see the empty yard again until morning.
And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding—
Riding—riding—
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
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