The Pesthouse Read Online Free PDF

inexperienced or incautious robbers might make their den, well positioned for picking off stragglers, even though anyone with any sense would give it a wide berth. But Franklin would take the risk — despite Jackson's warnings but also because of his brother's stinging accusation earlier that day that 'Only the crazy make it to the coast' — and see if he could bargain any shelter there. He'd lost his bearings in the storm and in the darkness, though, and couldn't quite remember where he'd seen the hut. On the forest edge, for sure, but where exactly, how far off? What residue of light remained was not enough to spot its chimney. He sniffed for wood smoke but sniffed up only rain. He'd have to stumble in the dark and trust to luck, and still take good care not to wake any hostile residents, though the chances were it was just a woodsman's cabin or some hermitage, a no-choice place to rest his knee and stay dry for the night.
    No matter where he stumbled, he could not see the outline of a roof, as he had hoped, or any light, but he was old enough to know where anyone would build a hut if there was free choice. Not entirely under trees, for a start, and not in earthy shallows where bogs might form. But half in, half out. Not too exposed to wind or passers-by. But looking south and on flat ground, preferably face on to a clearing.
    It was her coughing that led him to her, finally — the hacking, treble cough of foxes but hardly wild enough for foxes. A woman's cough. So now Franklin knew the place, and where it stood in relation to the far-too-open spot where he had rolled his cocoon. He took his bearings from the coughing — waiting for it to break out, then subside, and then break out again — and from the heavy outlines of the woodlands and the hillside. He shuffled through the soaking grasses, taking care not to snap any sticks, listening for beasts below the clatter of the storm, until he could hear the tell-tale percussion of the rain striking something harder and less giving than the natural world, something flat and man-made. And now indeed he could hear and see the black roofline of a hut and a chimney stack. Then, between the timbers of its door — but for a moment only — he caught the reassuring and alarming flicker of a candle flame, just lit from the grate. He knew exactly what that meant: whoever was inside had heard him creeping up. They had been warned and would be ready.
    Franklin hung his back sack on a branch, pulled off his tarps and took out his knife, its blade still smelling of the meadow onions they had found and eaten raw earlier that day. The lighted candle meant that the occupant (or occupants) was nervous, too. So he grew more confident. Now he made as much noise as he could, trying to sound large and capable. He called out 'Shelter from the rain?' and then, when there was silence, 'I'm joining you, if you'll allow.' And finally, 'No cause for fear, I promise you,' though he was more than a little fearful himself when there were no replies. The boulder hut was big enough to house a gang of men in addition to the coughing woman, all armed, all dangerous. A man with a knife, no matter how tall he was, could not defend himself in the dark against missiles, or long pikes, or several men with cudgels. He tried again: 'I'm a friend. Just say that you'll welcome me out of the storm, or else I'll step away.' A test of hospitality. Some coughing now, as if the cougher had to find a voice from far away, and then, 'Come only to the door. Don't open it.' The woman's voice. A youngish voice. Already he was blushing.
    For a door, the hut had little more than a barricade of rough pine planks. Franklin said, 'I'm here.' He peered between the planks and could just make out the dark form of one person, resting on one elbow in a bed, backlit by a wood fire in a grate. Nothing to be frightened of. Nothing physical, at least. Some traveler, perhaps, who just like him was suffering from knees and needed shelter for