Raiders' Ransom (7 page)

“Now then, little madam,” says Father, “my good lady here thinks you need a bit of kindness, coz you're a child. But I know how you fought and kicked when we grabbed you, so I think we should keep you locked up safe like an animal. What do you think?”

The girl turns her little face to check my father, and stares like she's waiting for him to slit her throat.

“Please don't toy with her, Medwin,” says Aileen. “Can't you see she's frightened out of her wits?”

“And what do you want me to do? Wrap her in lambs' wool and sing her lullabies? I might have done that with my own daughter, but I ain't about to start with Randall's.”

“She's only a little lass! Isn't it enough that you've gone against all the plans? Are you also going to take your hatred for Randall out on a speck of a girl?”

Father hisses and glares at Aileen.

“Don't speak to me that way, woman! I do what I want, when I want.”

Ims steps in, checkin' Father with his dark eyes. It's all he ever needs to do.

“Maybe Aileen ain't so far out of line? After all, that Scottish agent wanted us to raid Denton's house for some jewel they're after, not the Prime Minister's daughter.”

“Are you going soft on me, Ims?”

“Never!” says Ims with a laugh. “I like the idea of an English war as much as every man here. I just wonder how we're gonna sort the deal when we next meet up with the Scots.”

“Let me worry about them and their schemes. When the Denton biddy started shrieking about the girl”— he chuckles —”how we wasn't to touch her coz she was Randall's kid … Do you think I was gonna miss a chance like that just for having shook the hand of some Scottish spy? I said it to Aileen, and I'll say it to them: I do what I want, when I want. Anything else is just slavery.”

“What do they need some jewel for, anyway?” asks Roba. “They must have plenty of loot with all their tech and democracy and the other things they're always boasting on about.”

Ims acts like he ain't even heard Roba.

“The Scots offered a crazy price for us to raid that village. You was right to break Family ways to make a deal with those northerners, coz the weapons smugglers is only interested in Scottish cash. But if we break that deal, they might tell the Family council …”

Father smiles one of his hard smiles. “Ims, you don't need to worry about the Chief and his Norwich cronies. I can work my way round that old fool any day. And he'd never believe the Scots, anyway; he hates them more than the English!”

“Why don't we just buy some cheap jewels in Lunden, and give them to the Scots?” says Roba. “Who'll know the difference?”

Now Ims notices him.

“Can we buy a seacat while we're at it?” he says.

“It weren't my fault the stupid thing weren't there!” says Roba, turning well red and angry. “That Lunden merchant swore there was a seacat living off the boats in that village.”

“And you believed the tavern gossip,” says Ims. “But at least you had your bit of fun, didn't you?”

“It were just some old lady. I didn't know she'd die so easy.”

Ims shakes his head at Roba, like he don't matter, anyway, then turns back to Father.

“The seacat ain't nothing. Even without one, we're the best sailors in the channel. But I got a bad feeling about the rest of it.”

My father's smile changes as he checks Ims.

“Ims, you gotta be the best Second any Boss ever had. But sometimes I think your sense of honor will be our undoing.” He slaps Ims on the shoulder. “If this was a deal with another Family, it'd be different. But we're talking about the Scots! Where were they when Lunden fell? Did they help the first Families escape when everyone in Lunden was killing each other to get out? No! We got away from old Isling by ourselves, just like the Brixt and the Kensings got themselves out of their parts of Lunden. And when the first Families ended up in the eastern marshes, did the Scots help them find food or places to live? Did they care how many Family kids died before we got it sorted? No! They was too busy grabbing every bit of land from Carlisle to Birmingham, turning old England into Greater Scotland. They only left the Last Ten Counties coz they're full of stinking English peasants and leeches like Randall. Us Families are the only free ones left, so anything that helps keep us free, like getting better weapons, that's gotta be good, ain't it?”

Ims opens his mouth, then shuts it and shrugs his shoulders.

“As you say, Medwin. You're Boss, not me.”

Father looks pleased at that. He turns to Aileen and pinches her cheek. Which she don't look pleased with.

“Lady, Ims thinks you spoke a bit of sense! For that, I may listen to your thoughts on our little worm here.”

He gives the English girl on his knee a squeeze. Her face changes from red to white.

“Perhaps I should make the hook she's dangling on a bit less pointed! And maybe I will, if she works for it.”

He lifts the little girl up onto the table, pushing her so her feet knock into the dishes. She ends standing in the middle, like a roast waiting to be carved.

“Not much meat on that bait,” says Roba.

Father laughs. “It ain't the size of the worm, but how you dangle it! Come on, little maggot, I've been feeding you these last few days, now it's time for you to earn your keep. How about a song for your Uncle Medwin?”

The girl stares bug-eyed at Father. She makes me think of Saera again. Not how she was at the end, but how she looked when Roba was playing one of his games with us. Games that always ended with a beating — out of sight, where no one could see. The little English girl gulps, and then she starts to sing, in a reedy little voice, so quiet it's practically a whisper.

“Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green, when you are king, dilly dilly, I shall be queen.”

Roba bursts into laughter.

“Here's hoping, your ladyship. Who knows what marriage your father was planning for you? But don't count on it now!”

The English girl looks like she don't know what's going on, and tears start coming. I reach forward and grab hold of one of her legs. She squeaks, and spins round to face me.

“Come down,” I say. “You can sit by me.” The English girl don't say nothing, but she looks grateful in her eyes. Father ain't pleased, though; looks like he's thinking about slapping me. Aileen puts her hand on his arm.

“Let her down. She's frightened. And Zeph's a good boy, he can look after her.”

Now I wish I hadn't done it, coz I don't want Aileen's praise, that's for sure.

“Getting yourself a little doxy?” says Roba.

“Shut up, slave son,” I say, but quiet enough so Father don't hear.

The English girl climbs down from the tabletop and sits next to me on the bench. I can feel her shaking.

“Boss, what are you planning for the Prime Minister's daughter?” asks Faz.

She goes completely still next to me.

“Keep her here. Maybe I'll even demand a ransom,” says Father, smiling.

“You'd let her go for money?” says Aileen.

Father's smile twists up a bit.

“If Randall gave me enough, I might think about it. Say, ten million Scottish pounds.”

Aileen gasps; Ims chuckles.

“But the English wouldn't ever be able to raise that kind of money,” says Aileen.

Ims and Faz is grinning now.

“I don't understand,” says Roba. “Why'd you set a ransom the Prime Minister can't never pay?”

“Because he isn't going to let me go,” says a little voice next to me.

“Exactly!” shouts my father. “Now you're showing your worth, little maggot! Why would I ever let you go, when by having you here I can guarantee your father will come sailing in for a fight?”

“But the English navy —” says Aileen.

“Is made up of a dozen ancient ships held together with paper, and manned by press-ganged peasants who wet themselves at the first sight of a real warrior!” says Father.

“So you don't want the money?” says Roba.

“Course I don't, lad. I want a fight!” Father grins. “I still can't believe what luck we've had.”

“The Bosses of the other Families won't be pleased when they hear what you've done,” says Ims.

“But they'll come round, even old Biter of the Dogs Family. They'll see the benefits of battering the English.”

I feel something tugging at my arm. I look down, and the little English girl's staring up at me.

“Are you going to kill me?” she says.

“We ain't going to kill you,” I say, hoping it ain't a lie. But Roba leers at her, rolling his eyes back in his head, twisting his neck and sticking out his tongue, like he's hanging on a gibbet. The English girl starts shaking even more. “Come on. I'll take you back,” I say quickly, looking at my father. He frowns, then nods.

The girl looks up at me, still frightened, but maybe thinking I'm the best thing she's got going here, coz she puts her small cold hand in mine. We walk between the tables of noisy, laughing shield men, dodge the slaves and servants carrying platters of food and jugs of wine, and head out the cramped northern door of the hall into the starlit night. Outside, the marshes is talking their nighttime whispers, and the other huts and halls are just shapes poking out from the reeds. I lead the little girl down one of the narrow wooden walkways that's the only way of getting around without swimming, and the big lump of the slave house looms ahead in the darkness.

The girl walks slow and careful, holding tight to my hand; I guess she ain't used to this. Then we're out of the rustling, watery night and into the smoky, stinky murk of the slave house. I push through the sacking door and step inside, and the whole slave house falls silent. Not that there's many slaves in here tonight, coz most are working the feast. But them that are turn and stare at me. Then they look down quick, like they ought to.

A raggedy old slave woman comes quickstepping over to us.

“Oh lord, thank you, thank you. You shouldn't have troubled to bring the prisoner back yourself. One of us could have attended to it, lord.” “Well I did,” I say.

“Then let me take her now,” says the old slave. “I've got to put on her chain.” She leads the little girl over to a dark corner where there's a big stone with a metal ring sunk in it. There's chains hanging off the hook, and each chain's got a shackle on the end. The woman takes one, and puts the heavy metal cuff round the girl's ankle.

“She don't need chaining, she's only a little kid!” I say, and the slave gives me a funny look.

“But it's the Boss's orders.”

Then the old woman starts pushing and piling together a mess of straw. When she's finished, the girl sits down in it and the slave gives her a mangy blanket. The girl huddles down — knees pulled up, arms round her legs, shoulders hunched.

I know I shouldn't, but I feel sorry for her.

“You ain't gonna die, I'll make sure of it,” I say quietly, after the old slave is gone. And I get a cold feeling, hearing those words coming out of my mouth again.

“But that man Medwin doesn't want to give me back,” says the little girl, hunching up her shoulders. “So what else will he do but kill me?”

“He might keep you as a slave, or sell you on,” I say, trying to cheer her up. But she don't look very happy at that, neither.

“My name's Zephaniah,” I say, trying something different. “But everyone calls me Zeph. Medwin's my father. He's the greatest Boss in all the Families.”

She blinks. Then she says, “My name's Lady Alexandra Persephone Olivia Randall. But my mummy always called me Lexy.”

Then she pulls the blanket over herself, and lies down on the straw in a curled-up ball. She looks at me out of pale blue eyes.

“My daddy only ever talks about war and fighting. It used to frighten me, but Mummy said it's just the way he is, that a lot of scary things he says are just to make people respect him. Is that what your daddy's like?”

I don't answer, coz my father ain't nothing like that scumbag Randall.

So instead I say, “Don't worry. It'll be all right.”

But when Lexy checks me with her eyes like Saera's, I know she don't believe me.

“I'm scared being on my own here,” she says quietly. “Will you stay with me until I go to sleep?”

Andy. I've got to warn Andy. It's all I can think as I run down the lane, Cat helter-skeltering after me.
Slap slap
over the cobbles, my feet take me fast as they can for the harbor; scrambling over walls, jumping through the Hendrys' backyard. Cos I've got to get there first. Got to get there before Randall. Got to let everyone know! The Prime Minister's here! In our village! And he's out to get folk. Out to hang them, or press them. And either way, they'll die.