Taylor was reeling, as she tried to consider her options.
The captain’s order to flee towards the home of Doctor Livesey was something of a kind, but it came without hope.
The doctor would not be found there, and Taylor might not be able to gain entrance. Whilst she stood in the freezing cold, hoping for the man’s arrival, it was doubtless that the family inn would be burning to the ground.
The other guests seemed to sense the danger of it all, and had quickly disappeared.
The last footprint of her father upon God’s earth, was not something Taylor was willing to let go. She knew it wasn’t logical, but if there was a chance that the Captain’s shipmates might be convinced to walk away, then it was one that Taylor wanted to take.
She knew that something needed to be done, that she couldn’t just sit and wait. As the thought hit her, she found herself halfway out the door. Without coat, scarf, or hat, she was dashing towards the neighbouring hamlet through the fog and frost.
The hamlet lay on the other side of the cove, and was in the opposite direction from which the blind man had appeared, and presumably returned. Taylor was not long upon the road. She heard nothing unusual on her way. Nought but the low wash of the water, and the croaking inmates of the surrounding wood.
It was candlelight by the time she reached the hamlet.
She just about cheered when she saw the yellow shine behind doors and windows, the presence of other souls, not tainted by the black flag. Unfortunately, that cheer was about all she could find.
She went from door to door, begging for help. Yet, for all the men that she found and spoke to, none had the spirit to be called a man. The more she spoke of her trouble, the more they clung to the shelter of their houses.
No man, woman or child, had anything to offer to her.
Taylor did learn one thing. Though the name of Flint was unknown to her, it was not for these people. It carried some kind of weight of terror that instantly resulted in the slamming of doors that were once charitable.
Some of the field workers that she knew from serving at the Nightingale mentioned that they had seen strangers upon the road, and thought them maybe to be smugglers. That they gave up, before hearing the name of Flint, and abandoning all conversation.
Taylor tried and tried, and yet the most she could get, was one or two who were willing to ride to Dr. Livesey’s, but none to help defend the inn.
“Cowards!” She yelled, loud enough for all to hear, “If none of you dare, then I bloody well will! Back I go, the way I came, and small thanks to you chicken-hearted bastards! The Nightingale will be no home to you gutless cretins!”
She was jeered, of course. People telling how foolish it was, and to give up. Not that any of them had so much as offered her shelter, though they believed her home to be imminently destroyed.
A single man stepped forward as she left, but all he did was offer her a loaded pistol, in case she really was attacked. Before fleeing back indoors, and away from it all.
Taylor’s heart was thundering in her ears when she set forth on that cold night, back towards the only home that she had.
A full moon was beginning to rise, glowing a soft blue light through all the fog. Instead of any cheer, it brought further anxiety, and sped her feet. She could not afford to be caught in full exposure, to the eyes of any watchers.
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Taylor’s feet continued to increase in pace, in lockstep with her fear, until the door to the Nightingale was closed behind her.
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She slipped the bolt on the door, and stood alone in the dark for a moment, eyes drifting over towards the dead captain’s body, and the hell it was bringing down upon her.
She turned and drew down the blinds, and then headed over to the dead man. She knelt down beside him. By one of his hands was the letter he had received so poorly. Taylor unfolded it quickly, and looked at the simple wording.
> “You hav until TEN tonight”
Her eyes flew to the clock, and breathed a sigh of relief into her fringe, as she found it to be not quite six. In fact, as she was breathing, it chimed off the hour.
Then, Taylor rummaged through the old man’s pockets. She produced a few smaller coins, a thimble and thread for some unknown reason, a twisted braid of tobacco - bitten away at the end. His gully-knife with the crooked handle.
A pocket compass, and a tinder box.
However, no key for the mysterious trunk in his room, that Taylor suspected might be able to dissuade the coming strangers from lighting her home into a blaze.
Wrinkling her nose at the man’s scent, she tore open his shirt at the neck, and found a string around it. The rope was twisted, fraying, full of sweat and dirt. However, at the end of it was an iron key.
She snatched it from his body, cutting it free with the gully knife, before dashing upwards to the man’s room.
At the end of the narrow bed that he had slept in for so long, lay the box, in the same place where it had sat since the day of his arrival. It looked no different than any other seaman’s chest. A simple initial, ‘B’ burnt into the top of it, with the corners battered and broken by many years of use.
Taylor knelt in front of it, and inserted the key.
For a moment, she doubted it was the right one, the lock was so stiff. However, it creaked, groaned, and turned. The lid shifted a little as the lock came free, and released a strong smell of tobacco and tar.
Throwing up the lid, Taylor found herself staring in confusing. There was nothing at the top, except a suit of very good clothes. Carefully brushed and folded, and seemingly never worn at all.
Taylor pushed those to the floor without regard, and revealed a number of small and pointless things. Nothing worthy of the threats currently poised above her head.
A simple brass quadrant, like any seaman might have. A tin cup, holding several sticks of tobacco. Two brace of pistols, which Taylor put aside quickly. A chunk of silver, an old Spanish watch.
Five or six shells with swirling colours, and a pair of compassed mounted with brass. Taylor looked at the shells, wondering why the man had kept these in his guilty and haunted life.
There was nothing of any value, but the silver and tools. Beneath that there lay an old boat-cloak, whitened by sea salt.
Pulling that aside impatiently, Taylor found the last things in the chest. A bundle tied up in oilcloth, looking like papers, and a canvas bag that gave off a metallic sound as she picked up the bag.
Opening it, she found not the gold or silver that she was owed, but copper coins of many countries, some of which she didn’t know. No order or sorting, just heaped into the bag freely.
Just as Taylor was about to set to and count them, she heard a noise in the silent and frosty air that pierced her through and through.
A gentle tapping of a blind man’s stick upon the frozen earth.
It drew nearer and nearer, as she knelt in terror, holding her breath without realising it. It struck upon the inn door, and then she heard the handle being turned, and the bolt rattling as the wretch tried to enter.
Then there came a long silence.
Taylor found herself offering desperate prayers, and clenching her hands in the quiet dark of the captain’s room.
The tapping recommenced, and slowly faded out of hearing.
At once she gave up any idea of only taking her due, and hoisted the bag, shoving everything blindly into it. As she headed down the stairs, she noted that the clock was only now reading seven, far from the promised time.
The idea of staying, of bargaining and protecting the inn, was lost in the fear pounding through her bloodstream.
As she left the inn, the fog was just beginning to disperse, but it was not slowly going. Taylor turned and headed for the hamlet quickly, moving as silently through the disappearing fog as she could.
When she was about halfway towards the hamlet, she dared to look over her shoulder, and saw a gentling rocking light of a lantern, approaching the way of the Nightingale.
Taylor was just near to a small bridge, and she ducked beneath it quickly. It was too low to let her do more than crawl beneath it, leaving her almost entirely exposed - and still within earshot of the inn.