SIXTEEN

Developments

 

Rip tried to peer through the hole.

‘Chain him well,’ the old man’s voice said. ‘And keep that bag on his head, I told you!’

Rip slid back down with a muffled gasp. The problem with the peepholes in the secret passages was that they were made for grown-ups.

Another voice sounded - the weasel voice.

‘As you wish, my lord. Ah, my lord -’

‘You’ll get the rest of your money, oaf. I don’t keep that much cash here: my man of business in Land’s End will bring it up next week. I have need of you anyway, until then. Be silent, and go-’

Chains clanked. ‘Your son is waking, my lord,’ said the oily man’s voice. ‘Perhaps we should leave. I have examined him, and apart from a few scrapes and bruises, he is healthy enough. More than healthy enough to last three days.’

‘Do not call him my son, ever again,’ the old man’s voice said, softly menacing. ‘He murdered my lady Elaine.’

Steps faded away, and the lantern-light through the peephole went out as the outer door of the room thudded shut; they could hear the key turn in the lock.

‘They caught someone else?’ Mandy said. ‘And chained him up?’

Rip nodded, and made an affirmative sound in his throat.

‘That’s cruel,’ Neesa said. ‘I mean, even more cruel.’

‘But the old man said he was his son,’ Rip said, frowning.

‘You mean he chained up his own son?’ Kay asked, sounding horrified and delighted at once. ‘Like the Wicked King and the Good Prince?’

‘Let’s go and look,’ Rip said.

He felt for the catches of the secret door, and they stepped into the room. It was bare and empty, with a stone floor and stone walls, and was lit dimly by one barred window high up on the far side. It was not large, as rooms went in the big manor. Rip thought it might have been used to store things once: it was on the ground level near the kitchens, which made it chilly and damp.

‘That’s a grown-up!’ Neesa said, her whisper carrying too clearly.

The figure chained to the opposite wall raised his head. He was a tall young man with a burlap sack over his head; for the rest he wore only breeches and shirt. There were manacles on his wrists, running down to an iron ring that also held the ones that joined his ankles: if he’d been standing he’d have had to stoop, and take small steps. Another chain ran from one ankle to an iron bolt driven deep into the stone of one wall. There was a basin of water and a slop bucket within reach, but otherwise he couldn’t go beyond a semicircle six feet in circumference.

‘Who’s there?’ he asked groggily.

Hope blazed up in Rip, and he felt giddy with excitement. He dashed across the stone, making shushing sounds, and fumbled at the drawstring that held the bag over the young man’s head. Hands closed on him, strong but not hurtful.

‘Bram!’ Rip squealed, remembering to be quiet at the last minute.

‘Rip! Rip, lad!’ Bram said, and hugged him.

Rip hugged him back; it felt so good to see a familiar face.

‘I came to rescue you!’ Bram said, laughing, as he held the boy at arms’ length.

‘And now I can rescue you!’ Rip said, delighted. ‘I’ve got keys.’

Bram laughed ruefully and held up his manacled wrists, turning them so that Rip could see them in the dim, fading light. There were no keyholes, just an overlapping joint with a thin rod of soft wrought iron pushed through it and peened over with a hammer.

‘Did that on an anvil, and the feet are the same,’ Bram said ruefully. ‘I remember that much, and the two who caught me -folk’d pay to see that fight, and laugh themselves silly, I’ve no doubt.’

‘A big strong one and a skinny one who talks like a weasel?’ Rip said.

‘The same,’ Bram replied. ‘And so unless you’ve a cold chisel and a hammer, Rip lad, you’re not setting me free.’

He looked beyond the boy at the children, who stood looking back big-eyed; Neesa hugged her doll to her side, and stuck her thumb in her mouth. Bram’s expression softened.

‘Well, but you’re not kept close here, then?’ he said.

‘We were,’ Rip said. ‘We got out.’

‘It was Rip’s idea,’ Mandy said. ‘We tripped the man who came with our food.’

‘And tied him up!’ Kay said, grinning.

‘And then we pulled a sheet over him and tied that up,’ Mandy put in, shyly touching her white-blonde hair.

‘And I hit him with a candlestick,’ Neesa put in with a grin.

‘Well done, the lot of you,’ Bram said. ‘Though I should have known Rip was up to it, after he put that itchweed powder in my breeches while I was swimming, last year.’

Rip blushed and others looked at him with awed respect.

‘Did Ma and Pa send you?’ he asked eagerly.

Bram’s face changed. ‘Lad -’ he said. ‘I have grave news, and no time being gentle in telling you.’ He explained about Rip’s parents, glossing over the details of their death, then rapidly assured him Lorrie was safe in Land’s End.

Rip collapsed against him; the tears didn’t last long, though. He’d done his fair share of crying since being taken, in the dark where nobody could see. After a moment he felt the children crowding around, and Bram’s other arm went around them too, as far as he could reach.

‘I want you to kill them!’ Rip said after a moment, wiping at his face with his palms. ‘They’re .. . they’re evil!’

‘That they are,’ Bram said. He clanked his chains a little, ruefully. ‘But I’m a bit tied up at the moment.’ His smile turned to a frown. ‘I still don’t know why they’ve taken you, or me,’ he went on. ‘Even a baron can’t do this sort of thing for long. Stealing children - there’ll be rebellion if it gets out. Parents won’t wait for the Prince’s Magistrate to come down from Krondor. Those who’ve already lost children will be the first to riot.’

‘They had kids before us,’ Mandy said in a small voice. ‘After a while they’d come and take them away and they didn’t come back.’

Rip swallowed. ‘I think ... I think one of them is a magician,’ he said.

Bram frowned. ‘And the old man -

‘The Baron? I don’t know. Everyone does what he says, though.’

‘The Baron,’ Bram confirmed. ‘Baron Bernarr of Land’s End.’

‘And .. . Bram, there are ... things here.’ Rip looked around at the shadows; he could feel them. ‘Wrong things.’

Bram nodded, and his voice went hard and grim. ‘So now we know what he’s been doing with the silver we sweated to give him all these years, bought with the good bread we didn’t eat and the cloth we didn’t wear come winter; not paying men-at-arms to keep us safe, or to hold court and give justice, or patch the roads. Yes, I felt it too. Even the cut-throats who brought me here did. There’s something bad here, something rotten.’

He looked up, almost bristling, bruised lips curling back from his teeth. A breeze they could all feel cuffed at their heads, stirred the dark air.

‘What was that? Who calls?’

Impressions blurred and memories returned.

The children!

They were not where she had seen them last. She didn’t understand the cycles she endured, pain, blackness, being in her body, being out. Forces tugged at her and sometimes she ached just to remain in oblivion. There were times she raged in frustration at her inability to interact with those around her, and she often felt confused by the sudden jumps from night to day and back, and the rapidly changing light outside the windows, sometimes the cold and foggy skies of winter common to this coast, other times the brilliant golden sun of summer. It confounded her senses as much as anything else, not knowing how long she had lingered in this state since the baby was born. She floated away from her body, looking for the children.

The girl, the one the others called Neesa, she was almost able to talk to Elaine, and Elaine hungered for some human contact. No matter how long it had been since the birth of her son, it felt as if she had not known the touch of a hand or the sound of a voice in a very long time. She sensed the children had moved to another room, and she hastened there. As she entered, she saw the black cloud, the spirit presence of some unnamed evil that had avoided her for so long. It hovered over the children.

Elaine swept toward the black cloud furiously, snatching at one of its tendrils. It pulled back, retreating slightly, then it fled. Rather than waste her energy chasing it, Elaine hovered protectively over the children, pleased by their presence, delighted with the littlest one, the boy, and feeling a connection with the girl.

Then she realized something had changed. There was a new presence! It was ...

Zakry! Elaine called.

They had brought Zakry - chained him, beaten him. Her rage swirled about the man she loved, and they retreated before it, afraid, drawing back their looming presence like the fading of the stench of rotten meat.

Her anger was palpable, enough to ruffle their hair and stir the burlap sack on the floor beside him. Beaten! Chained!

Then she heard what the children called him. Bram. She looked - somehow, like this, she could look deeper into a man than she’d been able to do before, see the links between things.

Not Zakry. Although the image of him; but he was younger, ten years younger, and different. Features softened a little, and hair a deeper yellow, not quite so fair. Eyes a darker blue. Shoulders broader and arms thicker.

My son! The knowledge hit her, impossible to deny. My baby, Zakry’s son! Despair threatened to overwhelm her. How many years! How long have I lingered in this place between life and death? Clarity arrived and she understood now; those darknesses, those times when she thought she had slept for minutes, those had been days, weeks even. The changing light had been the passing of seasons. She had been trapped in this horrible state of not-living, not-dying, for years. Years when she had thought it but days! Rage rose up. Who has done this thing to me? She wailed a soundless cry of pain, and Neesa seemed to sense she was near. She looked right at where Elaine floated, and there was sadness in the girl’s eyes. She inclined her head toward Bram, as if saying, See, this is what you came for. Elaine looked again at her son and a soft yearning began to replace the anger. She wanted to hold him in her arms, to comfort him, to tell him of her love. And she wanted to protect him, for now she understood the presence of the black tendrils of evil, the need for a child of hers, and she knew without doubt Bram’s life was at risk. Someone must warn him.

Tell him, boy! Tell him! Elaine shouted.

‘Tell him, boy,’ said Neesa, as if listening to another voice. ‘Tell him!’ she repeated softly.

‘Bram . . .’ Rip said.

‘Mmm?’ Bram said, his strong white teeth tearing at the bread.

It was stolen from a guard’s table while the man went to use the privy, and it was tough and black, made from mixed barley and rye and full of husks. That didn’t disturb either Rip or the young man; it was much like what they ate every day.

‘Sorry,’ Bram said when his mouth was free; he took a long drink of water and a bite of smoked pork. ‘Right hungry. Haven’t had much to eat today, except hard knocks.’

‘Bram, the old man - the Baron - said something really strange.’ Rip frowned, remembering. He couldn’t stop remembering. It played over and over again in his head. ‘And the oily man. He said you were the Baron’s son, and the Baron said not to say that, because you’d killed his lady.’

‘Me the Baron’s son!’ Bram laughed. ‘Baron Bram of the Barn! My lord of the Muck-heap!’ Then his face changed. ‘What did he say about a lady?’

‘That you’d killed her, and that was why he wanted the bag over your head.’

Kay cut in. ‘It is like the Wicked King and the Good Prince!’ he said. ‘The evil stepmother wants to kill the Prince, and the King hates him ‘cause his mother died having him, so she puts him out in the woods, but the woodcutter finds him and fights the wolves and takes him home to raise him as his own!’

‘That’s just a story, youngster,’ Bram said uneasily. ‘Right now, we’re in the part before the happy ending.’

Rip looked at him. Bram doesn’t think we will have a happy ending, he thought. But we will! Bram’s a hero!

‘What are they doing?’ Flora asked curiously, pointing.

Lorrie goggled at her, and then at the field beside the road. The strong sweet scent of the cut hay drifted over to the two girls in the dog-cart, and the scythes flashed as the mowers moved down the flower-starred field. Birds burst up out of the grass before them and circled above, diving at the buzzing insects that the blades disturbed. The mowers were singing as they worked - that made it go easier, as she well knew, with memories of days at hatchet and churn and spinning wheel and hoe and rake -until one of them called a halt. He unslung a little wooden barrel he wore around his neck on a cloth sling, pulled the bung with his teeth and tilted it back until a stream arched into his upturned mouth; cider, probably.

She could see the worn shirt sticking to his back with sweat; he looked up as he passed the little barrel on and waved at her with a grin. He’d be the farmer, the Lord of the Harvest. She knew she was right when he gave the signal to start work again a moment later.

There were six working with scythes, five men and a woman: swinging a scythe took strong arms and back, much more than harvesting grain with a sickle. Women and girls and youths followed them, raking and turning the cut hay and pushing it into a long roll on the ground, a tad. They’d be back, of course, to keep turning it until it cured, and then to pitch it onto a cart and bring it home to go under cover and feed stock through the next year.

‘Why, they’re cutting the hay,’ Lorrie said, conscious of the long silence of her astonishment. ‘First cutting, but a bit late. Haven’t you ever seen hay cut before?’

Flora shook her head, and Lorrie almost lost control of the reins as she gaped.

They were going along at a slow trot: Aunt Cleora’s carriage-horse was a big glossy gelding, far finer than poor old Horace, but not noticeably faster. Leather slings gave the dog-cart an odd greasy sway too, not like the forthright jouncing and jolting of a farm-cart, but she had to admit it was easy on her leg, which pained her little more than it would have done while she lay on a featherbed in her friend’s house.

‘Never seen hay cut?’ she cried.

‘Well, you’ve never seen the Prince’s men parading through the streets of Krondor,’ Flora said.

‘Oh, I wasn’t mocking you,’ Lorrie assured her. ‘It’s just . .. well, I’ve never met anyone who’s not seen haying, before. That’s all.’ She sighed. ‘That’s when Bram kissed me first,’ she said shyly. ‘At a dance at the end of a haying-day, last year.’

‘So you’re going to marry Bram?’ Flora asked, plainly glad to change the subject.

‘Well, I think he wants to,’ Lorrie said shyly, keeping her attention on the reins and the horse.

‘Gods of love, he’s handsome enough!’ said Flora with a giggle.

Lorrie giggled in return. ‘He is, isn’t he?’

She felt a spurt of happiness, absurd under the worry. He isn’t dead, she thought. He cant be dead! But if her mother and father could die, the pillars of all her life, what was safe? Resolutely she pushed that aside, enjoying the day. She looked at Flora. ‘Flora,’ she said suddenly. ‘Why are you helping me?’ Then, hastily: ‘Not that I mind! But you and your foster-brother, you’ve treated me like your own kin - and I’m just a girl from a farm with four cows and one horse, not a fine lady like you.’

Flora had been frowning, slightly thoughtful. At that she laughed. There was an edge of bitterness to it. ‘Fine lady!’ she said.

Lorrie blinked at her, confused. ‘Well, you are,’ she pointed out.

The furnishings in Aunt Cleora’s house alone were worth a decade’s rent for any ten farms in her home valley, with the inn at Relling ford thrown in, and possibly the gristmill.

‘I’m Aunt Cleora’s sister’s daughter,’ Flora said slowly. ‘But she ran off with a baker. Ran off to Krondor.’

‘Ah!’ Lorrie said, understanding. ‘And your father’s Da cut him off?’

That happened sometimes back home, too. Young men seemed made to quarrel with their fathers about the time their beards sprouted, and sometimes it grew hot. Even Bram, good-hearted and willing, butted heads with Ossrey sometimes, like rams in spring. That was one reason he had hired himself out to merchants’ caravans as a guard and wrangler now and then, besides the cash.

‘Right. And then the baker . .. my father proved his judgment right and my mother’s wrong when he crawled into a brandy-barrel, and stayed there.’

Lorrie nodded. That certainly happened back home, too. ‘Ah, you’ll have had to work out,’ she said. ‘Do laundry and sewing and suchlike.’

Vaguely, she knew that was one of the things poor women in towns did; she didn’t suppose they could hire themselves out as maids of all work or dairy-hands.

‘Yes, suchlike,’ Flora said shortly, then chuckled. ‘A town can be a hard place for a young girl. All alone, and everyone a stranger. I ... came back to Land’s End, and things worked out for me, but you didn’t have anybody.’

They drove on in companionable silence. After a while the land rose; they went through a patch of forest, cool grateful shade that reminded Lorrie painfully of her day hunting. Beyond that there was a man bent nearly double under a load of faggots, his axe on top thrust through the loop of twisted bark that held it together. The woodsman set it down as they passed, rising to rub the small of his back and look - a dog-cart and fine horse with two pretty girls in it wasn’t something that he saw every day. He took off his shapeless wool cap. ‘Missies,’ he said respectfully, bowing slightly.

Lorrie felt embarrassed by that: if she’d been walking by the road in her own clothes and met him back home, he’d have called her ‘lass’ and waved instead.

‘We’re looking for a young man,’ she said.

At the sound of her voice the man relaxed a bit; they were twenty miles from Relling and his own accent was slightly different from hers, but nobody could hear her speak and doubt she was a commoner too - perhaps a well-to-do farmer’s daughter, at most. Just as he would have placed Flora as city-born and gentlefolk, if she’d opened her mouth.

He not only relaxed, but also grinned as he straightened. ‘Not a young man any more m’self, miss, but I could wish I were, seein’ the two of you pretty as the spring daisies,’ he said. ‘From over to Relling, are you then?’

Flora laughed, and Lorrie felt herself smiling despite her worry.

‘Hard by Relling,’ Lorrie agreed. ‘We’re his kin, and we’ve a message he’ll want to hear, family matters. He would have passed through day before yesterday, riding - on a good grey gelding. A young man, just seventeen, but man-tall and strongly-built, hair the shade of ripe barley and blue eyes, and a yew bow over his shoulder.’

‘Ah!’ the woodcutter said, rubbing his back again and stretching with both hands pressed to it. ‘Yes, I do recall; not seeing him myself, you understand, but Bessa - Bessa at the Holly Bush, just up the high road and off on Willow Creek Lane - mentioned him. No mistaking, from your telling of his looks. Fair mooning over him, she was!’

‘That’s my Bram!’ Lorrie said.

‘Ah, kin of yours, this Bram, lass?’ the woodcutter teased. ‘Lucky man, to have such sisters!’

‘Kin by marriage soon, like enough,’ she said. ‘We’ll ask at the inn, then.’

The man frowned. ‘Well, I’d not do you an ill turn, so be careful,’ he said. ‘There are some rough sorts stop there.’

‘Drovers? Badgers?’ she said. Those who took stock on the road for sale did have a bad reputation - a man didn’t feel as restrained outside his own neighbourhood, in a place where he wouldn’t be back. Drovers and guards often caused more trouble than the money they brought justified.

‘Soldiers, down from the manor,’ the woodcutter said, and spat. ‘I’ll not say anything ill of the lord baron, you understand -

Not wanting a whipping or the stocks or your ears cropped, Lorrie thought, nodding.

‘- but some of the guardsmen he’s hired these last years, they’re right cut-throat, skirt-lifting bastards, and times they’ve lifted skirts will-she, nil-she.’ He winked and put his finger alongside his nose, as if making a locally recognized gesture. ‘Outsiders. Foreigners. No offence,’ he went on.

‘None taken,’ Lorrie said mildly- everyone back home thought of anyone from more than a day’s walk as foreign and somewhat suspicious, too.

‘Maybe your kinsman was thinking of taking service with the Baron?’ the woodcutter said. ‘Manor’s only a brace of miles further on. It would do the neighbourhood good to have some better-mannered boys wearing the Baron’s livery.’

Lorrie shook her head. ‘Bram’s a farmer’s son, and badgers for caravan-masters now and then,’ she said. ‘Thanks for your time and help, gaffer.’

‘No trouble, talking to a pretty girl on a fine spring day. Summat to talk about, this next season!’

Lorrie nodded thanks and they drove on, after she made sure of the directions twice; she knew how hard it could be to give good ones, when you knew your district like your own house and couldn’t imagine someone who didn’t.

‘We’re close,’ she said to Flora. ‘I can . .. feel Rip.’ She frowned; the sense wasn’t really very directional. ‘Back in Land’s End, I could say “northward, and a bit east” but here all I can say is “close”.’

‘And where Rip is, Bram will be, and Jimmy,’ Flora said. ‘And I know where we’ll be, if we want to find out anything.’

Lorrie looked at her, and Flora gave a wry smile, seeming older than her age; she often did, to Lorrie’s way of thinking, like a woman grown. ‘Where?’

‘At the tavern. Where men drink, they talk.’ With a flick of her wrists, Flora moved the gelding to a slightly faster pace, anxious to get to the tavern.