Legends of the Riftwar (86 page)

‘Slow and steady gets the job done,' her father always said. ‘And a man can walk further than he can run.'

Her breath caught in her throat as sharp as a fish bone when she remembered that she'd never hear him say such a thing again; the pain was physical, like needles stabbing into eyes and heart.

Turning toward home she saw flames flash through the smoke churning over the hilltop. Everything was burning. Lorrie thought of her mother and father lying in their blood…

They're dead
, she forced her mind to say. Blackness threatened to rise up and overwhelm her. She wanted nothing so much as to awake from a horrible dream, or to discover this but a mad illusion from a fever. She kept looking around, expecting things to change. She knew that if she turned quickly, her father would be walking toward the house, or if she ran home fast, her mother would be standing in the kitchen doorway.

A great primal sob shook her, followed by a scream–more than a scream: a deep roar of rage, pain and defiance that caused her to clench fists and throw back her head and shriek until her throat was raw and there was no air left in her lungs.

Gasping for air, she forced herself to look clearly ahead. She had to put pain aside. Mourning would come later.
Rip's alive!
she thought again, and everything in her turned cold, her outrage and pain turning from fire to ice.
Rip must be saved!
Hysteria and confusion would serve only to put him at more risk. Obviously those who took him wanted him alive for a reason, otherwise he would be dead with his parents.

Rip might be facing slavery or worse. And there was nothing she could do for her parents. At least not now. She looked around once more, burning the images of this moment into her young memory. She would never forget.

With silent resolve, she set off toward her home.

Lorrie ran.

She wasn't quite home yet when she saw Bram's father, Ossrey, coming across the fields. His wife, Allet, was with him, and a field hand; behind them more neighbours were coming, the whole valley turning out. The men carried shovels and axes and the women carried buckets. Lorrie ran to them, throwing herself into Ossrey's arms, weeping so hard she couldn't speak.

Ossrey held her for a moment, stroking her hair then, keeping one arm around her shoulders, he guided her toward the house and barn.

‘Where are your ma and pa?' he asked gently. ‘Did they send you for help?'

Shaking her head, utterly breathless from weeping, Lorrie couldn't answer him. Just then they came in sight of the house and barn and the bodies of her mother and father.

‘Sung protect us,' Allet whispered in horror.

‘Stay here, Lorrie,' Ossrey said, putting her gently aside.

But Lorrie grabbed hold of his sleeve and wouldn't let go as
she struggled to get herself under control. Finally she was able to speak.

‘Men who did this…took my brother,' she managed to gasp out. Pointing down the road, she said, ‘Help me get him back.'

‘First we must see if we can help your parents,' Ossrey said calmly.

Lorrie shook her head, tears flowing down her face. ‘You can't, you can't,' she said plaintively. Then once more, ‘You can't.'

‘Oh, Lorrie,' Ossrey said, gathering her into his arms. Over her head he and Allet exchanged glances.

‘Please,' Lorrie said, pushing herself away from his chest, ‘help me find Rip.'

Just then a piece of the barn roof collapsed, sending up a storm of sparks, and Ossrey's head whipped round at the roar of the fire.

‘We must take care of the fire, girl,' he told her. ‘If it spreads to the crops, you'll not be the only one around here to lose your fields.'

By now other neighbours had come up and were staring in horror at the scene before them.

‘What's happened?' someone asked in a dazed voice.

Lorrie looked from face to face and could see that they'd all be occupied with the fire in a moment and deaf to anything she said.

‘Murderers have kidnapped my baby brother,' she said. ‘Help me get him back!'

‘Are you sure the boy is…wasn't in the house, girl?'

‘No, men took him!' Lorrie said, her voice verging on the hysterical. Exhaustion and fear were driving her to the brink of collapse.

Ossrey asked, ‘Any of you see any men riding along the road today?'

A murmur of voices answered in the negative. ‘I saw them!' shouted Lorrie.

‘Lorrie, girl, someone will go for the constable, he'll be the one to hunt these men down.' Ossrey nodded to several of the men who started to hurry to the other side of the barn, while others ran to the well to get water. They would see that any fire in the fields started by blowing embers was quickly quenched.

She looked up into Ossrey's kind face and knew that no one would follow the killers, at least not today. ‘I'll go,' she said impulsively. ‘I'll take Horace and ride to the constable. That will leave more men to fight the fire.'

But Ossrey was shaking his head. ‘You go with my Allet,' he said. ‘You've had a bad, bad shock, girl. Someone else will go for the constable. Try to rest,' he advised. ‘We'll take care of everything.'

‘These are teeth marks,' Farmer Roben said, looking down at her father's body. ‘An animal did this.'

Lorrie looked at them in wonder, more and more of them were starting to fight the blaze. It was as though they hadn't heard her, or understood what she'd said.

‘It wasn't,' she started to say.

Allet put her arm around Lorrie's shoulders. ‘We'll leave it to the men, shall we?' She turned the girl toward her own farm and patted her. ‘You could use a nice rest.'

Lorrie pulled away, or tried to. Allet took her arm in a strong grip.

‘I need to find my brother!' Lorrie shouted. She waved her free arm frantically. ‘Does anybody see him here? He's been carried off by murderers, not animals, and he needs our help! We have to follow them now or we'll lose them forever!'

‘That's enough!' Allet snapped, shaking her arm. ‘You leave it to the men and come with me right now! Don't you get hysterical on me, girl,' she warned.

Lorrie stared at her, open-mouthed. Then she looked around at the circle of her neighbours, those who weren't already fighting
the fire. ‘You don't believe me,' she said at last, her voice full of wonder.

One of the women stepped forward and put her hand to Lorrie's cheek. ‘It's not about believing you, child. It's about doing what we can. You wouldn't catch anyone on your old Horace, and any of us would have to run all the way back to our farms to get horses not much better.' She sighed. ‘Meanwhile that fire might get out of control–you've lost the house and barn, but there's still the crops, and if they go, the fire could spread to other farms. Besides, if we left now we'd be no closer to your brother. We'll send word to the constable; he'll know what to do about this. Try to have faith, dear.'

Lorrie started to weep again from sheer frustration, then began a keening that she was horrified to discover was beyond her control. Allet gave her arm another shake and a hard look. The other woman moved in to hold her gently but firmly. ‘What can one girl do against grown men except get herself into trouble?' she asked quietly.

‘You leave it to the men now,' Allet said, ‘and trust them to do their best.'

Lorrie let them take her to Ossrey and Allet's farm knowing that wouldn't be enough.

How can I trust them to do their best for Rip when they've already given up?

Her mind stopped whirling, and a coldness came over her, like a wind cutting through smoke or fog.
If I make a fuss, they'll watch me close. Go along with it, and I can slip away,
she thought.

Allet put her to bed in Bram's room–it was a mark of a good farm and a small family that even the eldest son had a room to himself–and Lorrie felt a pang at being surrounded by his familiar, dearly-missed scent.

‘Here's a posset for you,' Allet said: she was a notable herb-wife. ‘Drink it right down, dear.'

Lorrie gagged a bit at the taste–sharp, musky, and too sweet at the same time. Then the world spun as she set her head back on the feather-filled pillows.

 

Waking was slow; her head was splitting with pain, and her chest burned, and she had aches and bruises all over.

Gods!
Lorrie thought, as memory came back with a rush.
What's the hour?

She started to cry and buried her head in Bram's pillow, forcing back her sobs by sheer will. There was no time for that now.

Rising quietly, she went to the door and found it barred–barred on the outside.

Stifling a hiss of anger, she moved to try the shutters. Mercifully they opened, letting in a flood of bright moonlight that revealed that her clothes were missing. Shaking her head and mentally cursing Allet's thoroughness Lorrie went to the chest at the foot of the bed. After a bit of rummaging she found some of Bram's outgrown clothes and shoes. They felt strange when she put them on, but she reckoned she'd get used to them quickly enough. She swung an old cloak over her shoulders and started out the window. Then stopped. Moving on instinct, Lorrie felt beneath the straw-stuffed mattress on Bram's bed. Her fingers touched soft leather: a purse, half the size of her fist, half-filled. The small, edged metal shapes of the coins inside were unmistakable under her fingertips.

She hesitated for an instant–it was probably the savings of years, from odd jobs he'd done off the farm–and then took it. Like any farm-child in the district she'd been raised to despise a thief even worse than a sluggard, and nearly as much as a coward, but her need was great.

It's like borrowing an axe or a bucket when there's no time to ask
, she told herself; people did that as a matter of course.

Lorrie looked out both ways; Bram's family had the rarity of
a second storey to their home, added in a prosperous year by his grandfather, and it was ten feet to the ground below. A quick look at moon and stars told her it was halfway between midnight and dawn; not a time anyone was likely to be stirring. There was a narrow strip of sheep-cropped grass beneath the window; she let herself out, hung by her fingertips and then let herself drop.

Thud.

Something stirred. She waited, then let out a gasp of relief when she saw it was only the family dogs, Grip and Holdfast, big mongrels who'd known her since they were pups. They were out at work, making sure no fox tried for the poultry or a lamb.

‘Quiet,' she said, letting them sniff her hands–they were conscientious dogs, and wanted to be sure she wasn't a stranger violating their territory. ‘Quiet!'

A glimpse around the rear corner of the farmhouse, her face pressed to the gritty, splintery logs. No lights, only silver moonlight across the yard, and the two barns, a shed, and a rail-fenced paddock where the working stock and the family's milch-cow were kept.

As she'd thought, they'd brought her family's stock home with them and she found Horace easily; he wouldn't be fast, but she'd ridden him now and then all of his life, taking him to be watered in ploughing season, or shod, or sometimes just for fun. He nuzzled and sniffed at her as though happy to see someone familiar and she rubbed his velvety nose. Lorrie bit her lip and thought about what she had to do. She needed a saddle and tack and some grain for the horse. It was stealing, plain and simple, and she knew that her mother and father would be disappointed in her.

Maybe not
, she thought fiercely,
maybe they'd be more disappointed in their do-nothing neighbours
.

There was an old saddle just inside the smaller barn's door–a simple pad affair, for farmers didn't ride often.

If I don't do it, nobody will. Rip will die, or worse.

And that, she knew, would disappoint her parents even more.

She led Horace from the barn, slid the bridle over his head, arranged the blanket carefully, then slid the saddle on his back with a grunt of effort, for it weighed about a quarter of what she did, and tightened the girth. The horse gave a resigned sigh, knowing that meant work.

Back into the barn. She looked through a gap between the boards back toward the farmhouse, but there was no sign of life, only a drift of smoke from the banked fire through the chimney. That made her hands start to shake for a moment, but she forced herself to be calm, taking deep breaths.

Oats
, she thought firmly. The sweetish smell led her to the bin, and there were always a few sackcloth bags near it. She filled two, then added a few horse-blankets to her loot for nights spent on the road.

Horace gave a whicker of interest as she threw the sacks over his withers; he knew what that smell was. ‘Later,' she whispered to him, taking a moment to soothe him quiet before scrambling up on his back, for he was a tall mount for a fifteen-year-old girl, and tightened her thighs around his broad barrel of a body.

Obediently, the horse set out down the road which wound like a ribbon of moonlight to the south.

I'm coming, Rip!
she thought.

 

Finding Flora's grandfather had been easy; there weren't more than a couple of law-speakers in a town this size. Getting up the nerve to see him had been harder.

‘What if he hates me for my father's sake?' Flora asked anxiously and for the hundredth time, looking at the tall house of pale mortared stone, not far from the town's main square–it oozed respectability, right down to the costly diamond-pane glass windows.

‘Then he's not much of a grandfather,' Jimmy said stoutly. ‘And in that case, who needs him?'

His answer was the same one he'd given her almost as many times as she'd asked the question; by now it was automatic right down to the tone of his voice. Jimmy had pretty much stopped listening to her and was pretty sure she wasn't listening to him at all.

They were at the entrance to Legacy Lane, a prosperous-looking street. They were beautiful buildings, with large glass windows curtained in embroidered cloth, the red tile roofs making a pleasing contrast with the honey colour of the stone and each window bearing a flower box overflowing with brilliant blooms. There was even a sweeper, a ragged youth with broom and pan and box, to keep the cobbles free of horse-dung.

It was clean, it was neat.

It makes Jimmy the Hand's mouth water
, Jimmy thought.
Oh, the silver services and candlesticks they'll have here, all put out for the guests to admire! The glassware, the little strongbox ‘hidden' somewhere that a merchant thinks is safe, then…Stop that, man! You're the foster-brother of a respectable woman come to see her safe with her kin!

Then a thought made him smile.
And if Flora's grandfather turns us off at the door, why, then I'm not a respectable woman's foster-brother any more; I'm Jimmy the Hand, and in need of funds!

One way or another the old man would contribute to his granddaughter's welfare. And Jimmy's as well if the haul was big enough.

At last a man came up to them and said, ‘What is your business here?' He spoke with authority, but mildly, and he wore the badge of Land's End's Watch.

‘We were looking for this young lady's grandfather, sir,' Jimmy said. He had put on his favourite lost waif expression, hoping he wasn't too old to use it effectively.

‘And who might that be?' the man asked.

He didn't seem to be affected one way or the other by the lost waif expression, from which Jimmy concluded that it was no longer effective, but not completely ridiculous.

‘Mr Yardley Heywood, sir,' Flora said softly.