Your Money or Your Life
Keywords: Queer romance, historical, adventure
Length: Estimated 225 pages
Size: 6”x8.5”, colour cover, greyscale or colour interior (open to either)
When: 1650-1710ish
Short Version: A brash teen highwayman keeps robbing the coach of a quiet university student in an effort to speak to him (and steal a trinket or two). After being captured, the thief manages to escape from the law, only to seek the student out and do it all again. With each successive hold up, the student grows fonder and fonder of him, until they actively look forward to seeing one another, and plot a way to run away together.
Full Story Outline:
A Scoundrel - Open on two guards hold a scruffy, roguish teen in shackles. He’s a criminal, charged with robbing the Easton family in broad daylight on the Dover road. The kid has a wild grin on his face, he’s almost enjoying the attention of the papers as their artist sketches him. Then they lead him away to his cell, where tomorrow morning, bright and early, he’ll go on trial and face the noose.
~ Cut back in time~
The Meeting - A quiet country road. A young highwayman is holding up a coach for the money, but upon entering the ornate coach (which is carrying a young medical student and his sister) he is struck by the loveliness of the student, and does his best to charm him in the moments before he sees a patrol coming and is forced to run away. The student is shocked. Sister is appalled. They’re both lighter a fair bit of jewelry, though neither of them are hurt.
Bragging Rights - The highwayman is eventually caught and brought to the local bailey to be held for his trial. The guards holding him assume his guilt, and this isn’t helped by the thief's delighted admission and his insistence that, “I’m a deadly shot!”.
Mercy - Out of curiosity, the student visits the bailey to speak to the highwayman, and instead of condemning him for the robbery he decides to be merciful and requests the thief be let free. Because of the rank of the student, with his father being mayor of the city, the thief is released, to the befuddlement of the guards. The student leaves, feeling a mixture of emotions. “But isn’t it a good thing to be merciful? To be kind to those with less?”
Hello Again - A few weeks pass, and the student heads back to university. As the driver is otherwise engaged with a suspiciously fallen tree on the road, the thief approaches and sneaks into the student’s coach, and this time the student is alone - it’s just him and his collection of medical specimens. The two have a really nice chat as the coach drives around the tree and down the road, the driver unaware of the new occupant of the coach. The thief's pistol is in his lap - he’s really not there to threaten, only to ask for a nice token from the handsome student, which is somewhat reluctantly given. They talk about the specimens, and the student becomes animated, while the thief looks genuinely curious. “Oh you're a doctor! We had a doctor come by once in my village, but that was ages ago.” As the thief leaves the coach he’s detected by the driver, and the alarm is raised.
Vanishing Act - Again the highwayman is captured and put in the jail, but this time, during the cover of night, he escapes on his own. Rumors about the slippery thief begin to spread. Safely at university the next morning, the student reads about this in the paper and is quietly relieved. The student speaks with his professor, a dry, retired battle medic of high academic renown. She’s responsible for both teaching and the wrangling of cadavers for the medical students, and she notes something interesting in the student’s choice of phrasing when he speaks about the young highwayman. Admiration?
Self Defense - In light of all these hold ups, and due to overwhelming pressure from the student's family to act less passive, the student is encouraged to take up shooting, which he does, with very little enthusiasm. The only thing he truly enjoys about the process is that it's an excuse to traipse around in nature in a socially sanctioned way, meeting new people on the land as he does. He writes about this to his professor, who is, as always, encouraging.
We Meet Again - When the student heads back home from university for winter break he’s once again visited by the thief, who drops from a tree onto the roof of the coach and speaks to the student from above, looking in from the window. The student is glad to see him, and they chat like old friends. This time, however, the driver is much more attentive, and notices the highwayman tucked behind the luggage. After a short chase, he’s caught for a third and final time, and this time he’s brought to a high cell in the bailey. There’s great public interest now, with people trying to get a glimpse of this mysterious escape artist.
If We Must - Due to overwhelming pressure from his family and the attention from the public, the student reluctantly challenges the thief to a duel. His family is furious after all this nonsense and need to rid themselves of scandal once and for all. This will show scoundrels and thieves not to mess with the Easton’s, and also shake the student free of his passiveness for good.
The Duel - The two meet in the morning by a riverbank, with the dissection professor as the student’s second, and nobody as second for the thief. No one is willing, and the thief seems fine, and even pleased with that. A small crowd assembles to watch. There’s a countdown, and an order to FIRE, and the thief wavers, then drops to the ground in a heap. The student pauses, seems surprised, then realizes he too is bleeding from the side. He loses his balance and topples to the ground, confused. The professor, acting quickly, stops the bleeding and waves everyone off, calling for a coach and hustling the injured student off to the university for treatment. She orders the body of the thief to be brought to her lab to become a study cadaver. It’s wrapped in a sheet and tossed on top of the coach.
Deceit - Back at the university the professor is alone in her lab, she tuts the thief for being a poor carcass, “They almost saw you breathing!”, and he climbs from his shroud, shaking it loose from his foot. The professor sets about stitching up the student, who seems delighted to see the thief, though a little worse for wear.
“I thought you said you were a great shot! You were supposed to aim for the trees!”
“I can’t afford gunpowder, are you kidding? I’ve never shot this thing in my life…”
The student’s family comes in to view the student (the thief hides behind a desk), but alas, reports the professor, I couldn’t save him, the bullet just did too much damage. She lifts the linen shroud to reveal a pale student, who lays still, his clothes still dark with blood. His family, convinced by the ruse, leaves in disappointment and anger.
The papers have an absolute field day the next morning.
By Cover of Night - With the blessing of the professor and a promise to keep their secret (“but please do write one day”) the two sneak away to the country together with a plan to return to the highwayman’s village. The student is going to open a small practice there to look after the village and surrounding area, and the highwayman is going to hang up his pistols and infamy and live in peace alongside him.
THE END