Around Calais, the coach ground to a halt with the crunching of bones resounding from within it’s wheels. Thomas, the coachman, drew his rapier from the side of his coach (where he kept it for practical, if not comfortable, reasons) and hopped lightly from his raised seat on the front of the carriage. The sword was a firm and familiar presence in his grip, the smooth metal work settling lightly between callouses. He held it aloft, edging outwards with caution in the direction of the front wheels.

Briefly, he thought of the young ladies who currently sat in the powdered box behind him. He’d picked them up in Paris- for a very good sum of money- and was expected to bring them to the port to be taken to England, within two nights. Having overstayed his welcome in the small inn three miles north, he had been reduced to travelling through the eventide and into the dawn, so to catch the nine o'clock ship. Apparently the girls themselves were the daughters of a famous and much admired spice merchant in the hallows of London, where he assumed they took up residence in a palace of a townhouse, some distance from the seedier smog of the city. There were a lot of jewels around the appendages of those two gentlewomen and he expected the silken corsets and cloaks would fetch a lot too, if the right auction was attended. That was why he’d decided to take them in the Cart, as opposed to one of his more regal carriages- he didn’t want highwaymen on his hands, thank you very much. They had poor immune systems and poverty-stricken sensibilities, so anything shocked them, let alone the butt of a pistol against their curly hair. They couldn’t handle the crushing of a bug under an experienced thumb, for God’s sake. But a prestigious job. One to be treated with dignity. A dignity which did not include late night, dangerous stops.

With much deliberating, he found his way to the front gyres, expecting the shadow of a phantasmal ghoul to stride up from within the thickening fog. Instead, there was nothing but his own paranoia, still diffusing into the air around him. No cloak, no Jack, no one riding over the purple moor. Just the silence and solemnity of France at late dusk, the dirty pathways stretching outwards into the dark cold, the dust caused by freights like his own too rushed or idiotic to stop at an inn. Shaking his head, Thomas put his rapier back on the cushion of the coachman’s seat and began deliberate the next step of this ferrying to the port.

A tiny wail suddenly assailed his ears. He drew the sword again, accidentally tearing the rough fabric of his trousers at his hip and leaving a small, smooth scar to be formed. Hissing with the sudden pain, he stowed the sword at his side again, momentarily considered his (so-far) silent passengers and dismissed his delusions of fear. Mostly likely a wounded animal, slaughtered by the spin of the wheels. The small sound came again.

The whine was very much human.

Bending down with the crack of his joints, he could see a child- little more than seven years old, perhaps less- trapped within the spokes. It’s limbs were mangled and coloured crimson, little drops of plasma unstopped by cruor, with it’s arm hanging at an unnatural angle and with the head just above the killing point of the turning crushers. Dark eyes, shark eyes, like a dying predator, looked out from under the half closed lids. He was almost virginal with white, trembling, shaking, static and inert, cerulean-tinged lips unable to form words.

Bile rose in his throat. It would probably come out of the throats of the sweet little things cased in the velvet lining of his transport. It would stain their dresses, cause tremors in their fragility. They would name him ‘Murderer!’- him! To name him as a killer. For yes, the grinding wheels had trampled over the boy, but he had been driving the cart! If anyone found out, anyone at all, even a passer-by (an incredible thought to be entertaining at night)- he would be ruined. His good reputation would be scattered to the winds.

Once one has thought of public opinion, it drives the heart of the man. Thomas was a disciple of secularity, so he was not moved by God, but by the next best thing, at least in his opinion. His mind became ravaged by the shame on him, more so than he had already from the poor clothes and dingy profession. An idea seeded the mind of the balding and fattening cabbie, so small and frugal, but there. Within an instant it was spreading, warming the mind with thoughts of respectability intact and livelihood preserved. That was all that was needed.

His fate was set.

Pulling his weight behind him, Thomas reached down and jerked the child out of the catchment of the spokes. Those dying eyes remained fixed on him, near unblinking, as he carried the almost-corpse over the dusty path, with a fragility conscious of the child’s friable nature. He laid the boy on the path, exposed to the elemental turmoils of night, and brought out his rapier.

He considered the weight briefly, considered bringing down the hilt on the child’s skull, then ran him through with the sharpest vertex.

Thomas threw down the foil at the roadside and begged a silent plea for forgiveness from God, if there was one. Any God, for at that moment the ingrained Catholicism had fled and his terror took over. He quickly turned his back on the executed youth and hurried to the small window that allowed him to talk to his charges. The eldest, Lucille, had a single gloved hand over the cusp of the window, leaning out slightly with a contemplative and serious expression on her pleasant face. Her sister was still sleeping, head pillowed on a lily white hand, aware of nothing. A good thing, too, for she would be more liable to have a free tongue and tell.

‘Are we moving again?’ asked the elder, in stilted and poor French. That was probably why she had remained so blessedly quiet: anything less than fluent would alert someone to the presence of rich foreigners. The image of the sword slitting the child’s pasty skin hit his mind again. Had he spoken French? Had be been rich? Poor? A foreigner, like the maidens?Thomas knew very little. But he’d killed him anyway- what did that make him?

He smiled a little shakily at the English rose, pink lips slightly parted and slightly wet, sultry without a thought. For a second he entertained a terrible notion- but he didn’t act on it. Thomas was good, despite his poor decisions and we can pity the man led astray by the idea of respectability, of mass love, of something no one has ever achieved in the history of the world. But that doesn't mean that one can't crave it. Thomas craved it and it led him to kill. Without a thought. The cries of 'Murderer!' still echoed in his ears- would they ever stop?

‘As soon as I go to the box, Miss,’ said he and scrabbled into the cab like a man possessed, eyes looking everywhere but the mangled and still shallowly breathing corpse of the wretch below.