‘Me?’ asked the fellow with the pitchfork.
‘Yes, you, Ollan.’
‘What, now? In the dark?’
‘Aye, now, in the dark, you lumpie.’ Finnach shifted his grip on me. ‘And be quick about it, before she can get up to any tricks. Light another lamp, and away up to Seven Pines Farm with you. That’s where he’s staying, isn’t it?’ A pause. ‘No, wait. I’ll go up. You tie the girl and guard her until I get back. There’s a good payment in this if we do it right.’
His hold slackened. I made a wild dive for freedom, my mind filling with those last images of my grandmother. No, please, no . . . Terror gave my limbs a momentary strength, and surprise made the men slow. I was almost at the entry when my legs gave way and I fell heavily to the earthen floor.
‘Iron,’ said Finnach as the other men dragged me up again. I hung between them, limp as a sack of grain. ‘Rope’ll be no use. Whatever stitched those shoes could unravel a rope and set the girl free in the twinkle of an eye. A body such as her will have uncanny friends in every corner. Fetch that chain from the hook over there, and some iron tools. Bind her and fence her in. That should hold her until I bring the Enforcer.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
They sat me on a stool and bound me to the post behind it with ropes. They took the chain down from the wall. Perhaps it had been used to hang up dead things. Now they wound it about the post and around me. It lay heavy on my shoulders and pressed tight on my chest. They fenced me in with a makeshift barrier constructed from iron implements: scythes, axes and the like. They went through my bag and took away the knife Flint had given me. ‘Stolen,’ I heard one of them mutter. ‘Has to be. What would a girl like her be doing with a weapon like this?’
The woman had gone, and the boy with her. I could not blame her for her hostility. I could not blame any of them. For their own survival, these folk had no choice but to hand me in.
I could not stop shivering. I saw Grandmother, sitting straight and proud, and two Enforcers coming to tip her head back, force her mouth open and pour a potion down her throat, a mixture that would send her into a deep sleep. From my hiding place in the wall, through the chink, I saw the Enthraller coming in, a man with deep-seeing eyes and a soft, terrible voice. He had tiny glass vials strung around his neck, one for each victim, to hold what he had stolen from them. I did not hear the charm he sang over her that night, for while he worked his magic I stopped my ears with my fingers, as she had bidden me do in those desperate moments between their arrival at Corbie’s Wood and the hammering on the door. I did see her wake. I saw the change in her face. I heard her stumbling, slurred words. I saw her wise, bright eyes turned dull and lifeless. Gone. Gone forever. Dear gods, let me face this with the same dignity and courage as she did. I fought down a longing to die now, quickly, before this mind-scraper came to take me away. That was a coward’s wish.
‘Weapons sharp. Backs straight. Hearts high,’ I whispered to myself, trying vainly to control the tremors that coursed through me. What if there was an Enthraller up here in the valley and they did it to me this very night? By daybreak I might be another like poor Garret, only I would have no loving family to tend to me. Or the mind-scraping might work as it should and I might wake up as an obedient servant of Keldec’s will. It was unthinkable. ‘Weapons sharp. Backs straight. Hearts high.’
‘Cease your muttering, girl,’ snapped one of the men. ‘We’ll have none of that canny stuff. This is plain folk’s land.’
There was no point in trying to reason with them, no point in defending myself. I could not give my true name. I could not tell them where I’d been going or why I’d had to shelter in their barn. They feared for their safety, for their farms and livestock, for those they loved. All Alban lived in fear. ‘I mean you no harm,’ I murmured.
‘Hold your tongue!’ the fellow responded, making a sign of ward with his fingers. ‘I won’t listen to your wicked lies.’ The two of them were half-turned away from me, as if they thought I could work a charm on them merely by looking in their eyes.
We waited. The barn was full of cold draughts. The two men blew on their fingers, and one went to fetch a couple of sacks, which they wrapped around their shoulders. I sat trembling on my stool, weighed down by iron, watching the shadows move in the lantern light. Deep inside me, silently, I sang the ancient song. I am a child of Alban’s earth . . .
After a long, long time, men’s voices came from outside. I tried to breathe slowly. I tried to sit up straight. I hoped I could look into the Enforcer’s eyes and answer his questions with some semblance of calm. Tomorrow I might be a witless cast-off, a ruin of a girl who needed help to use the privy, to put on her clothes, to use a spoon. Today I would be someone my grandmother could be proud of. I sucked in a gasping breath and willed myself to stop shaking.
Finnach entered first, bending to get under the opening in the barn wall, coming through with a lantern in his hand. After him came a man in the dark cloak of an Enforcer, a man wearing boots and gauntlets. He straightened, and the stag brooch that fastened his cloak glinted silver in the lantern light. The king’s token.
‘The girl’s here, as you see,’ said Finnach. ‘Is she the one?’
The Enforcer stepped closer, scrutinising me. The light touched his features: deep grey eyes, a nose that had been broken in the past and had mended crooked, a scar here, a scar there, dark hair severely cropped. He folded his arms, and his steady gaze met mine, shocking in its familiarity.
‘That’s her,’ said Flint. ‘Get those bonds off and find me a blanket. The king won’t be well pleased if the girl perishes from cold before she can give any answers.’
I sat frozen, my mind reeling. Flint. Flint who had helped me, Flint who had left me his cloak and his knife and his food. Flint who had told me he wanted me to have a choice. Flint, an Enforcer? How could that be? It made no sense. Why had he let me go that first time only to close the trap now?
He was taking coins out of a pouch at his belt and counting them into Finnach’s hand. ‘That’s for now,’ he said. ‘There’ll be more later provided I hear you’ve held your tongue.’ A grim glance at the other two men. ‘That goes for every person on this farm. You don’t talk. You don’t speak a word to anyone about me, or her, or what’s been said tonight. You never saw us. You never spoke to us. If I hear you’ve talked, it won’t be silver on the palm, it’ll be iron in the belly. Understood?’
A muttered chorus of ‘Yes, my lord,’ as the three men hastened to clear away the barrier, remove the chain and unfasten the rope that bound me. I had sat still so long in the cold, I could not get to my feet. Tears of pain and frustration ran down my cheeks. I hardly had the strength to feel anger, but it was there somewhere, deep down, along with the memory of the chancy-boat burning.
One of the men brought a blanket. Judging by the smell, it had last been worn by a horse. Flint shook it out, draped it around me, then scooped me up, one arm around my shoulders, the other hand under my knees, as if I weighed no more than a child. He took a step toward the opening in the wall, then turned back. The three of them flinched.
‘Don’t forget,’ Flint said. Then, without waiting for a response, he ducked under the opening and we were outside, where a tall horse stood waiting. An Enforcer’s mount, dark as night, saddled in good leather, with silver rings on its bridle.
‘I . . .’ I struggled to draw breath. ‘Where . . .’
I might as well have stayed silent for all the notice Flint took. He hoisted me up, a long way up, until I sat sideways in front of the saddle. I swayed, close to falling. ‘Hold on,’ he ordered. I clutched the horse’s mane, wondering if the plan was to ride all the way to Summerfort tonight. Flint swung up behind me, pulled me back against him and took up the reins. ‘Sit still,’ he said. At some signal too subtle for me to detect, the horse moved off, leaving the barnyard behind. No galloping; no wild flight. We went at a sedate walk, and when we got to the road, a pale thread in a night now full of stars, the horse did not
turn south toward the king’s fortress, but north up the valley.
‘Wha . . .’
‘Quiet.’ It seemed Flint was not going to offer explanations. Perhaps I did not want them. My imagination could supply enough unpleasant possibilities. When we had gone on some considerable way, and I could see the lights of a dwelling drawing closer, he said, ‘Tonight, as far as the farm up there. Tomorrow, further. That’s all you need to know.’
I imagined a troop of Enforcers waiting at the farm, ready to prise answers out of me. I imagined a night spent in drugged sleep, while a mind-scraper turned my thoughts inside out. With Flint’s body warming mine and the horse moving steadily on in the darkness, I thought of betrayal and how it came so easily – in a word, a glance, a gesture.
Heads up. Weapons sharp. Hearts high. I heard Sorrel’s hideous scream as the iron touched him. I saw his limp body, and Sage’s wise little face suddenly aged by grief. I considered how acts of kindness could spring from the unlikeliest sources. A woman whose husband’s misfortune had cut them both adrift from the fabric of community; a lonely creature under a bridge. Courage, I told myself. Be that woman Grandmother said you must be. In the back of my mind was the defile, and the rhyme, and the stanie mon. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps I really was a Caller. I wished I could slow my thumping heart.
We reached the farm and halted before the door. Flint dismounted and lifted me from the saddle. Something was wrong with my eyes; I could see two or three of him, and when the door opened and a shaft of light spilled out, I shrank back from it, my head shrieking protest. There was a terse conversation, Flint giving orders, someone murmuring agreement. Then I was in a big kitchen, and a grim-faced woman was stripping off my clothes, helping me into a tub of hot water, scrubbing me, washing my hair, speaking hardly a word save, ‘Lean forward,’ and ‘Lift your arm.’ I sat in the bath and let her do it. My body was a traitor, soaking up the heat, filling with a sleepy sense of wellbeing, despite everything. It was so good to be warm at last. My mind was a blank, drifting.
The water began to cool and she got me out. I could not stand up on my own. The woman dressed me in someone else’s garments: a shift, a gown, a shawl. She put a comb in my hand, sat me down on a stool and went out, taking my filthy clothing with her. My big cloak, the one Flint had given me the day we first met, she had draped before the fire to dry. My shoes, too, she had left behind, placed neatly together by the hearth. My fey-mended shoes. I wondered how much Flint had paid this household for its silence.
He came in after a while. Even without his Enforcer’s cloak and gauntlets, he looked formidable. I was struggling to get the knots out of my hair. This was the first time it had been properly washed for many moons – the kind of shelter folk had given Father and me had not included warm water and cleansing herbs.
Flint stood by the table and watched me in silence, his arms folded. I could see only one of him now, but he wavered in and out of focus. I tried to guess what he would say when he finally decided to speak. He would ask me about the shoes, perhaps. Try to make me tell him I had friends among the Good Folk. Beat out of me the names of everyone who had helped me. Or maybe hand me over to a mind-scraper right away. A shiver ran through me, despite the warmth of the chamber. Tears built behind my eyes, and I willed them back. Stupidly, what seemed to hurt most was that I had almost trusted him.
‘You’re cold,’ Flint said.
I shook my head. The comb snagged in a tangle, and I pulled it out with more violence than I intended.
‘You lied to me,’ he said. His tone was flat.
I looked at him, but his expression was expertly guarded. He had, no doubt, conducted hundreds of interrogations before and had it down to a fine art. I did not answer. What did he expect, that I would come straight out with a confession?
‘You said you could look after yourself.’ His eyes were no longer on me but turned toward the hearth, where my shoes sat side by side. ‘You’ve done a pretty poor job of it so far.’
Had I told him that? It seemed so long ago, the night Father died. Now I was sick, weak, dispirited, afraid. I had allowed myself to be caught. I could not argue with him. I wanted to tell him that he had lied too. He had said that with him I would be safe. How dare he say that when all the time he was an Enforcer?
‘Here.’ Suddenly he was standing right beside me, a knife in his hand.
I shrank away, lifting my arms to shield myself.
‘Your hair,’ Flint said. ‘You won’t get that out by combing.’ With a swift motion of the knife he severed the knotted lock, catching it in his free hand. He stepped back and sheathed the weapon. I breathed again.
‘We won’t be staying here,’ Flint said, resuming his stance by the table. ‘We’ll be moving on.’
‘Now?’ I croaked, imagining stepping out of the door into the cold night, getting on the horse again and riding all the way to Summerfort.
A glimmer of expression crossed his impassive features. ‘In the morning. I told you.’
I couldn’t bear this. My stomach was in knots of anxiety. If he was going to hurt me, if he was taking me in for questioning, let him get started on it now so I need not endure this fearful time of waiting. ‘Move on where?’ I managed.
‘One step at a time.’ His voice had fallen to a murmur. ‘Tonight, eat, sleep. That’s all.’
‘But –’
‘Don’t waste your strength arguing. Do as I tell you and keep your mouth shut.’
‘But I –’
The door opened and the woman came in, followed by a tall, thin man. The man dragged the tub of water out; the woman took foodstuffs from a shelf and assembled a meal of bread, cheese and onions, with a jug of ale. All the while Flint stood there in silence, watching her, watching me. His presence made the whole room feel dangerous.
I had no appetite. I swallowed a morsel of bread and a sip of ale, then began to cough uncontrollably. Nausea churned my belly. I struggled up from the table and staggered over to the hearth, where I stood with my back to the rest of them, struggling to keep down what little I had eaten. After that, it was all a blur. Someone carried me to a corner, someone put me into a bed, and darkness rolled over me.
Flint’s mount was as tireless as its master. The miles of the Rush Valley passed beneath its hooves as the last leaves fell from the oaks and the winds of autumn whistled down from the mountain passes, singing songs of snow. The days were a tangle of waking dreams. The nights saw me fall into exhausted sleep in one makeshift camp after another. Later, I could not have said how long we travelled, five days or five-and-twenty.
My cough grew worse. I was hot and cold, sleepy and restless. My body ached; I could not remember a time when I had been so weary. Somehow, at the end of each day’s ride, there was a fire, food, somewhere to lie out of the wind and rain, under an overhang, or beneath a shelter of fallen branches, or in a cave. I was beyond wondering where, why, how. When I became so weak that I could not go into the woods to relieve myself without collapsing, Flint took to coming with me and holding me up, his gaze averted, until I had finished. I was past caring.
If Flint was worried that his prize might die before he could do whatever it was he planned to do, he hid it expertly. Only, sometimes, I saw a flicker in his eyes as he knelt to lay a hand on my brow, to feel if it burned hotter than before. He went about the routines of making and striking camp with orderly calm, as he’d done on that very first night, the night we walked out of Darkwater, setting our backs to the scene of flame and death. But it seemed to me each day saw his mouth set a little grimmer and his eyes a little narrower.
At a certain point I ceased even to notice this. I simply lay shivering and shaking, and the only thought in my mind was, I want to die. And not long after that, the travelling stopped, and I was in a house or hut, and in a bed, and there was a little fire on a hearth, burning steadily. I thought maybe it was a dream, a wishful sort of dream, and that I would wake soon on the horse’s back with long miles to go before nightfall.
I woke, then I slept. It was light, then dark. Perhaps I dreamed, but those dreams were like none I had experienced before; they were twisted and strange, and I could not tell what was real and what was not. I did not know where I was, and I did not care. I would open my eyes a crack to see Flint there with a cup of water or a bowl of gruel, and I would swallow obediently, my throat tight and sore, then close my eyes and sink back onto the pillow. I would feel myself being lifted and taken out to the privy, brought back in again, tucked under the covers. Sometimes he wiped my face with a cloth dipped in warm water; sometimes he bathed other parts of me. He made a sombre nursemaid.
There were sounds: a bird screeching outside, small creatures rustling in the thatch, shutters rattling in the wind. There was light: the flames of the fire, always burning, as if Flint feared a chill would carry me off; the warm glow of the lamp in the evenings. There was the profound darkness of night, and the knowledge that he was there, sleeping on a bench by the door, guarding the house. Guarding me. Wasn’t he supposed to be the enemy? That couldn’t be right. He was keeping me safe.
Despatch: for the eyes of King Keldec only
Three Hags district; late autumn
My respectful greetings to you, my lord King, along with my profound regret that there was no way of sending word to you earlier. It has become necessary for me to go to ground, beyond reach of Summerfort and my comrades. The matter of which I wrote earlier is still unfolding, but unforeseen complications have delayed its resolution. It is a delicate mission. Undue haste could precipitate disaster. Rest assured that, should the venture bear fruit, a season or two’s delay will weigh nothing against the strategic advantage to be gained.