Time Slips & Tax Thieves, page 12
part #4 of Time Travelling Taxman Series
“You think she said something to him, then?”
Nancy nodded. “She did. And it did not go well.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, he was stomping around like an angry arsehole earlier. But she was crying. She didn’t tell me exactly what he said, but he didn’t listen. He got mad.”
The taxman sighed. “I don’t know, Nance. I know you think we can get through to them. But those guys are addicts, and they think like addicts. Their focus is on the elixir. That’s it.”
“The wives aren’t, though.”
“No, but they’ve been enabling them all this time, babe. Are they even going to know how to break the cycle?”
Nancy considered for a moment, and then nodded. “When it comes to their kids, I think they will, Alfred.”
Chapter Twenty-One
She was right. The next morning, the camp rose to distressing news. At least, it distressed the outlaws. Nancy discreetly flashed Alfred a wicked grin of satisfaction when she heard.
Gwen Whod had left, with young Richard and all the rest of her children. They’d disappeared in the middle of the night, while Robert snored away in an elixir-induced haze. She’d left a note, too.
Dearest Robert,
I’m sorry it has come to this. But you have lost sight of who you are. You have lost yourself to this fight, and to that damned elixir.
You’ve lost sight of everything: of your duty to the shire. Of me and our marriage. And of our children.
You may have forgotten that you are a husband and a father. But I must act as a mother, even if that means forgetting that I am a wife.
I must save Rick’s life. And if that means going to the public hospital, then I will swallow my pride and do it.
I love you, Robert. I hope you find your way back to us. But I can’t let your addiction kill our son.
Your Guinevere
Robert varied between blustering rage and falling tears. The tyrant had got to Gwen, he’d rale one moment. “Gwen, my poor Gwen: how could you be taken in?” The next, he’d vow revenge. “I’ll have his hide for this. That bastard has cost me my family.”
When mid-afternoon rolled around, and one of the Freemen reported seeing Gwen in Warkwick-on-Eden, and that she looked happy and not at all sorry, Robert’s mood turned darker. “I’ll torch all of Yngil-wode, if that’s what it takes to get my vengeance.”
Then, he’d returned to his tent, complaining of a flareup of back pain. “I need to take the elixir. I’ll figure out how to repay the tyrant tomorrow.”
One by one, the men of the camp meandered off to similarly medicate. The women remained a little longer, cleaning after the party. Eventually, the four time travelers were all who remained at the fire.
Nancy spoke confidentially but enthusiastically to the others. “I’ve been planting seeds of discontent,” she bragged. “Well, not planting so much as watering. The seeds have been there for a long time.”
Justin seemed more interested in this scheme than either of the Faveros. As far as Alfred was concerned, this was a long shot. Nance’s idea was to divide the camp, to convince the women to leave so that the men would have no choice but to reconsider their actions.
There was plenty in her favor. Their living conditions were appalling. The men of the forest were lazy and shiftless, focused on idealistic and often crazy schemes, and addicted to a snake oil salesman’s elixir.
But even if she could organize the women, even if she could convince them all to leave the forest and return to their homes – and he wasn’t convinced she could – that still left Whod and his band. Indeed, it left them angrier and more desperate than before.
Justin didn’t see it that way, though. “It’s brilliant, Nance. These bastards need a wakeup call.”
“Exactly. When no one’s left to feed them and clean up after them, they’ll be singing a different tune.”
Freddo, meanwhile, stared into the fire glumly. “Not as confident as them?” Alfred wondered.
He was, it turned out, projecting. The other Favero glanced up confused. “What? Oh, no. I was just thinking…I wish I was home.”
Alfred snorted. “God, me too. I wish I was out of this darned forest. Away from all these crazy people.”
“You said it.”
“So,” Alfred mused in a moment. “In your world…you like camping?”
Freddo seemed confused again, this time by the topic change. But he thought for a moment, answering, “I don’t know. It’s Justin’s thing, really. But it makes him happy. And that makes me happy, so…” He shrugged. “I guess I like it.”
The taxman smiled. “Sounds like Nance, and her comic book conventions.”
Freddo wrinkled his nose. “Comic books? Ugh.”
“The things we do for love,” Alfred nodded.
“Isn’t that the truth? To be honest, I never imagined myself sleeping in a tent or spending time in the sun. Not on purpose.”
He glanced at Nancy, lost in conversation with Justin. The pair of them were laughing together, oblivious to the fact that they were under observation. “Still, it’s worth it.”
Freddo nodded. “My life was a lot different, before I met him. Not in a good way. It was just a lot of going through the same motions, day after day. Eat, work, sleep. Eat, work, sleep.”
“Yup.” Alfred remembered those days well. He’d been alive, but not living. There was no spark of light and joy, the way there was now.
Still, watching Nancy and Justin converse, he felt a pang. He remembered them as a couple, in that campsite in a universe he’d only temporarily visited. He thought of the Nance from Freddo’s world, married to Josh. He thought of all the versions of him and Nance and Justin he’d met, and the very different paths their lives had taken.
He glanced at Freddo, who was staring at them too, and thought of how different the other man’s life was from his own. “Doesn’t it bother you?”
“What?”
“That.” He gestured to Nance and Justin. “In your world, he’s…well, he is to you what Nance is to me.”
“So?”
“Well, doesn’t it…I don’t know. Seem weird?”
Freddo shrugged. “Not really. I mean, if you were dating Frank from hardware or something, sure.” He laughed. Then, seeing the crease in Alfred’s forehead, he sobered. “I mean, should it?”
“I don’t know.” The taxman shrugged, trying to feign nonchalance. “It’s just…I always thought Nance and I were soulmates, you know? That the universe brought us together for a reason.” He glanced up. “You don’t feel that way about Justin?”
“Sure, sometimes.”
“Doesn’t it bother you, then? That, in my world, I’m with Nance? That my Justin is a complete posterior orifice? No offense.”
Freddo frowned at this last bit, but considered for a moment before responding. “Not really. Why would it?”
Alfred sighed. In his mind, it seemed so clear. “It means you’re not soulmates. Nance and I aren’t soulmates. It’s just…random. Anything could have happened, there’s no order to it. There’s nothing special about it. It doesn’t…mean anything.”
Freddo stared at him, then laughed. “Hummus. You’ve got that completely backwards.”
The taxman frowned. “Have I?”
“It might be random, sure. There might be no order to it. But meaningless?” He shook his head. “No. It’s the opposite, Alfred. It means it does have meaning. It means it’s that much more special. None of this was written in the stars. Me, meeting Justin? Falling in love with him? That was me and him. We made that happen, we two, in this fudged up world.”
He gestured widely, as if the solution was plain to him. “And you and Nance? You made that happen. You made something special out of nothing. You made order out of chaos. There’s nothing more meaningful than that.” He shrugged. “That’s what soulmates are, dude.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Alfred went to bed shaking his head at what a hopeless romantic his doppelganger was. He wondered how two men cut from the same cosmic cloth could differ so wildly on such a core characteristic. While he was sensible and level-headed where love was concerned, Freddo was a wide-eyed dreamer with his head in the clouds.
Still, he did sleep a little better, having heard the other man’s perspective. His heart felt a little gladder as he held Nance tight against the evening chill. And, he had to admit, there was something beautiful in the thought that they two, of all the timelines and the worlds, had found each other.
Maybe that was their fate. If there was such a thing as destiny, maybe this was theirs: to be the couple who made their own.
Nancy, of course, was not privy to his inner musings. So she was a touch surprised to be greeted the next morning with warm kisses, and a more-than-usual number of I-love-yous. But it was a pleasant kind of surprise, and she smiled at him. “Well, aren’t you in a good mood, my handsome Sir Knight?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “Waking up with the most beautiful woman across any timeline in my arms will do that to a man.”
The comment elicited a self-deprecating eyeroll. Still, Nance suggested, a twinkle in her eyes, “Hey, you think we’d be missed at breakfast if we slept in this morning?”
He was half way through his, “Definitely not,” when angry shouting interrupted. They frowned in unison, listening to the commotion. At first, they heard a man’s voice, raised and raging.
Then another joined, and another. Alfred couldn’t make out the words, but the anger transcended language.
“We better check that out,” the taxman groaned reluctantly.
She sighed. “I know.”
They emerged from the tent into a chilly early morning. A crowd was forming at the far end of the camp, and they set their steps in that direction. Justin and Freddo intercepted them about half way there.
“There’s been more defections,” the former imparted, a hint of glee in his tones.
“More women leaving,” Freddo explained, “in the night.”
Nancy’s eyes sparkled. “It’s working.”
“Yeah. And they are pissed.”
Alfred felt a measure of guilt. He thought of waking up with Nance in his arms, and how happy it had made him; and he contrasted it to the men who had found themselves alone this morning, and how miserable that must have been.
It was irrational, he knew. The women of the forest had been treated abominably. Leaving was the right call – indeed, they should have done it long ago. Theirs were not relationships like his and Nance’s, of mutual respect and love. Gwen Whod had been more a nanny and live-in servant to Robert than a wife.
Still, he couldn’t entirely repress the pricking of conscience. “How many?”
“I don’t know. Five or six, from what I can tell. John Naylor’s wife is gone.”
Alfred shuddered, trying to picture anyone marrying the burly giant who wanted to use taxmen as targets. “Naylor’s married?”
“Maybe not anymore. But he was, yeah.”
“Ugh.”
“This is perfect,” Nancy said. “Gwen’s going must have been a wakeup call to them.”
She was right. The notes the women of the camp had left behind mentioned Gwen more than their own husbands. John Naylor’s wife wrote that she was done playing nursemaid and housekeeper. “Five children is enough, John. I don’t need to be married to one too. I’m following Gwen to the city, and I’ll make my own way. Don’t bother coming after us – not until you’ve sworn off the elixir.”
A young man stared with bewildered eyes at a sheet of parchment. When he read, his voice seemed hollow. “Even Gwen has had enough. I can’t raise a baby here, Derek. I’m sorry, and I love you. But our baby deserves a normal life.”
Allan Clare got the worst news of all. “I suppose this is goodbye, Allan. It’s been a long time coming, but I didn’t know how to tell you. Well, yesterday, Cecil asked me to marry him. I know marriage is only a social construct to you. But you know it’s more than that to me.
“I said yes. So, this is goodbye. We’re leaving the forest tonight, and we’ll be married by time you read this. All the best, Allan. I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m sure you’ll be fine. Love is just an emotional construct, after all.”
There were tears and recriminations and fury aplenty. Some of this fell on Nancy’s shoulders. “You and your talk about free hospitals,” Robert growled. “You put this nonsense in our women’s heads.”
“Oh like hell I did,” she shot back, and Alfred found himself hoping her frankness wouldn’t wind up with them hanging from the trees, peppered in arrows like human pincushions. “This has been a long time coming. It’s a miracle they put up with you all as long as they did. When’s the last time one of you lazy bastards lifted a finger to help your wives? When’s the last time you fed yourselves, or helped look after your own children? When’s the last time you picked up after yourselves? You do what you like when you like. If you want to roam the forest playing at banditry, you do. If you want to stay home and drink, you do. But when’s the last time your wives had a day off? When did they get to decide not to work?”
“A mother can’t take a day off,” one of the young men snorted.
Nancy raised an eyebrow at him. “But fathers can take every day off?”
“We keep the forest safe,” John raged. “We protect our families.”
“From what? Free medicine at the local hospital? Clean beds and rooves over their heads?” She shook her head in exasperation. “When’s the last time Basil bothered you people?”
“He doesn’t bother us because he doesn’t know where we are,” Robert said. “He doesn’t bother us because we do such a good job at protecting our forest.”
“Or maybe,” Nancy countered, “he doesn’t bother you because he has no interest in bothering you.”
The outlaw snorted, and several men laughed. “Ridiculous. I’ve never heard anything so preposterous.” Now, he turned to Alfred. “My God, how do you put up with this? I thought it was bad to lose my woman. But you’ve got yours, and you’re the one who deserves pity.”
The taxman gazed at her and smiled. “No, Robert. I’m not. She’s right. Your wives are right. You’ve dragged them out here to live like hobos, because you’re mad about taxes and drugs.” He shook his head. “You don’t deserve pity. Gwen deserves pity. All of your wives deserve pity, for putting up with you as long as they have. Your kids deserve pity, for everything you’ve put them through. But you?” He held the other man’s outraged gaze. “You don’t deserve pity, Robert.”
The outlaw’s nostrils flared, and for a long moment they stood face-to-face, eyes locked. Then, Robert spoke, and his tones were low and constrained. “I think, Alfred Favero, your time in the Freemen’s Forest is at an end. You and your friends should seek shelter elsewhere.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” the taxman nodded. “I choose to be a truly free man: one who pays my own share in society and steals from no one. One who is master of my own head, and a slave to no elixir. One who gives as much as I take and respects my fellow human beings.”
His speech was interrupted by a fist, flying fast and hard into his face. Alfred found himself sprawled out in the dirt a moment later, staring up at the trees and sky overhead. He tasted blood, and pain coursed through his head. Nancy, meanwhile, flew to his side. “Alfred. Oh my God, Alfred, are you alright?”
It took him half a second to realize what had happened. He sat up, brushing the point of impact, his swelling lips and cheek. His fingers came away with blood on them. “Ow. You punched me.”
“You’re lucky that’s all I did,” Robert growled. “Now get your shit and get the hell out of my camp.”
And here, the taxman’s discretion bested valor. He fell silent, and under the poisonous gaze of the woodsmen, they gathered their belongings and left.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It was a long walk back to Warwick-on-Eden. His feet ached and his head throbbed. But Nancy regarded him with admiring eyes. “You were so brave, Alfred. I couldn’t believe the way you stood up to him. He looked like he was going to kill you.” She squeezed his arm. “But you didn’t flinch.”
His read on the situation had been a little different. Whatever mortal peril Nance had observed, the taxman had missed. He’d been stunned by the punch, and oblivious to any darker intent.
Still, he didn’t feel it necessary to remark this out loud. If Nance wanted to believe him a little more courageous, and a little more reckless, than he actually was, well, he’d let her.
Freddo seemed impressed too. “Well, you certainly gave them something to think about.”
Even Justin acknowledged a grudging respect. “Ballsy, Freddie. Dumb, for sure. I mean, you could have got us all killed. But definitely ballsy.”
“It’s Alfred. I don’t do nicknames.”
“Neither did Freddo. But he changed his mind.”
“Well I’m not Freddo.”
“That’s for sure. He’s much cuter.”
Nance and he rolled their eyes in unison, and she leaned into his embrace. “My heroic Alfred.”
All things considered, the taxman was in good spirits by time they reached the town. His mood improved as he saw familiar faces. He didn’t know all the names, but he recognized women of the forest. These were the people he’d seen laboring over cooking pits, toiling over wash buckets, working in the camp. And now, he saw them – a lot of them – here, in Warwick-on-Eden.
“Oh my God,” Nance gasped, as she waved greeting to a thin young woman. “Edith left too.”
After running off to embrace a stout middle-aged mother, she returned to gush, “That was Francesca. She actually did it: she’s living with her sister, now.”
They made their way through town one reunion after another. After a while, Justin shook his head. “Well damn. I don’t think those dumbasses realized just how many women had gone.”
“No,” Alfred agreed. “They must have lost half the camp in two nights.”
