“Ben.” Jonah sprang close to him, hand out, hovering. “Ben, listen—”
“No.” Ben forced control on his voice. “Because, if you weren’t a thief, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“It would,” Jonah insisted. “Lady Bruton needed a windwalker, she’d have come and got me.”
“But you wouldn’t have been arrested first. I wouldn’t have been there at all. You could have appealed to the justiciary. I could have helped you. Don’t you see that?”
Jonah made a strangled noise, shoved himself back onto the opposite bench and turned away, staring out of the window as the train slowed, entering Reading Station. Drifts of steam rolled past the glass. “All right. Fine. It’s all my fault, I brought it on myself. I know. Well, what now? You get off the train, and go and live your life somewhere else? Doing what?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. We’re bad for each other,” Ben said. “You lied to me. I betrayed you.”
“You didn’t.” Jonah spoke urgently, trying to make it true, or to make it better, eyes wide with sincerity. “Ben, you did not.”
And that, suddenly, was it. Too much. Far more than Ben could bear. “I can’t do this any more. I’m going.”
“Ben?” Jonah asked, bewildered, and then, “Ben!” as he stood, jerkily, and pushed his way out of the compartment.
No more. No more of the misery in Jonah’s face, his uncomprehending, stubborn hope. No more of the ridiculous longing to kiss it away and make him happy again, or to bury his face in Jonah’s chest and lose his own misery in the warmth and scent of him. No more being dragged from disaster to disaster in the wake of Jonah’s chaotic, irresponsible progress—because he would be, he could feel the pull that made him want to stop thinking once more and slip back into happy, false, lethal ignorance to the sound of Jonah’s laughter. No more of any of it, because it all hurt too much to be borne, and the thing that hurt the most was to know that Jonah wanted to spare him pain.
Chapter Eight
Ben blundered off the train, not looking forward or back. He shoved his ticket at the inspector, made his way blindly out into the unfamiliar town, and, with no idea where to go or what to do now, began to walk. Long strides, moving without thinking, trying to outpace the storm of memory and unhappiness and wishing that raged through him, and failing.
After a while, he wasn’t sure how long, he stopped for a rest. He was hungry, he realised. He should have eaten something on the train—
That was when Ben realised that he was destitute.
Jonah had the stolen money, and the food they hadn’t eaten. Ben had nothing in his pockets—he searched them now, to be sure, hoping for a few pennies, but they were empty. He had nothing to sell, having pawned his watch months back. He knew nobody in this town. The train was long gone. He was alone.
Ben stood, staring blankly, trying to understand what he’d done to himself and to think what to do now. There would be a workhouse, if he could beg for a place, but that was a last resort for desperation. He was able-bodied, strong still. Surely he could find a few pennies’ worth of labour.
There was a policeman on the street corner. Ben plucked up his courage against the shame of poverty and went over to him.
“I beg your pardon, Constable. I’m looking for work. Can you tell me—”
“No begging, no soliciting.” The constable folded his arms.
“I’m not begging,” Ben said, as evenly as possible. “I want to work, and I don’t know this town. If you can tell me where to go—”
“I said, no begging.” He was a big man, and he leaned down over Ben with an officious loom, taking in his dishevelled, dirty clothes, the ugly scar. “Are you a vagrant?”
Vagrancy was a legal offence. To have no home and no money, while being able-bodied, made Ben a criminal by his very existence, one of the undeserving poor. He knew that well enough; he’d picked up plenty of men for it in his time.
“I’m not a vagrant,” he said stubbornly. “I’ve somewhere to stay. I just want to find work.”
“Well, you’d better get on and look, hadn’t you?” the constable told him. “Because it’s three of the clock now, and if I find you loitering after dark…” He gave Ben a significant look, leaned back and returned to doing nothing on a street corner.
Ben’s hands were shaking as he walked off. He’d have liked to believe that the man was just a single bully, but he doubted it. The parish funded the workhouses, and they would have made their feelings known to the local force. This would not be a sympathetic town.