SEVEN - Tragedy

The girl looked up as her mother spoke.

‘When you’ve finished with that,’ Melda Merford said to her daughter Lorrie, ‘I want you to get the flax out of the pond.’

‘Mother, please!’ Lorrie protested.

She turned from where she’d been sweeping out the farmstead’s kitchen-hearth, wiping at her eye where a drop of sweat stung. She used the back of her wrist because her hands were black, but still she got a smudge on her cheek. The fine flying ash drifted up her nose, smelling dusty, like old wood smoke, and she sneezed: cleaning the hearth wasn’t a heavy chore, but it was disagreeable.

‘I was going to hunt today.’

She certainly hadn’t planned on pulling slimy bundles of flax out of the stagnant pond where it lay retting. Never a pleasant job, it would be more irksome still when her mind was fixed on a pleasant jaunt in the cool of the forest.

‘No,’ Melda said, not looking at her. She measured coarse flour out of a box into a wooden mixing bowl. ‘I don’t want you traipsing around those woods by yourself any more.’

Lorrie sat on her heels in astonishment. ‘Why not?’

‘You’re getting too old to be running around like a hoyden,’ her mother said calmly. ‘Besides, we need to get that flax ready. If we can make enough linen and thread to take to the market fair we’ll be able to pay our taxes.’ She looked at Lorrie with a frown. ‘We don’t want to lose the farm like the Morrisons did.’

Lorrie looked away, her frown matching her mother’s. The Morrisons losing their farm because they couldn’t pay the taxes had sent a shock through the whole community. There had been a lot of people losing their farms lately, but none here until the Morrisons. Everyone had assumed it was because of all the sons going to the war, or perhaps those farmers were lazy, but you couldn’t say that of the Morrisons; why, even the baby had chores. Taxes had gone up and up over the last few years, even before the war, and the smaller one’s farm was the harder it had become to pay them. Now even a medium-sized holding like their own had to struggle to pay the debt.

Still, it wasn’t exactly an emergency.

‘But we have hardly any fresh meat in the larder,’ Lorrie objected.

That wasn’t an emergency either—they weren’t nobles, or rich merchants, to eat fresh meat every day—but game helped stretch what they got out of the fields. The more they could sell rather than eat themselves, the better off they would be. The extra few coppers from grain sold rather than turned to bread could mean the difference between paying taxes and starving through the winter, or paying taxes and having enough put by to pay for fish from the town, and cheese from the dairy farmers.

Her mother bit her lip and raised her eyes to heaven. ‘It’s dangerous for a girl your age to go running around alone in the woods. Who knows who you might meet there with no one to help you.’

‘So when Bram comes back from Land’s End I can go with him?’

‘No! Absolutely not!’ Melda said firmly. ‘If anything, that would be worse.’

Lorrie stood to confront her mother, hands on her hips. ‘So I can’t go alone because it’s dangerous and I can’t go with a friend I’ve known my whole life because that would be worse than dangerous?’ she said, her voice ripe with sarcasm. ‘This makes no sense at all, Mother.’

‘Lorrie,’ her mother said wearily, ‘you’re growing up. And there are certain things, unfortunately, a girl can do that a woman can’t. One of which is keeping up with the boys she grew up with. You can do that as a child. But when you get older, sometimes . . . those same boys, when they get older—’ Melda sighed and looked her daughter in the eye, ‘—want things.’

Lorrie rolled her eyes. She was a farm girl and had seen animals mating since she could crawl. ‘Mother, I know about those . . . things.’

‘That’s why it’s dangerous! You think you know about the ways of men and women, but you don’t, and it’s not about watching a bull and cow or a cock and hen. It’s about going all crazy inside when a lad smiles at you and forgetting what you think you know. You’re a good girl from a good home, and some day when the right lad asks for your hand, you’ll be glad for this. I’m your mother, and it’s my duty and your father’s duty to tell you what’s right and what isn’t. And until you’re married and moved out, we’ll keep that duty.’ She took a deep breath, anticipating an explosion.

But Lorrie was icy in her response. ‘So what you’re saying is that from now on I can’t go hunting, which I’m very good at and which I love, and which I’ve been doing since I was younger than Rip; but I can stay at home and do all the messy, smelly, dreary chores you can think of just because I’m a woman? Is that right?’

‘You’ll do the chores I tell you to do because you’re my daughter and that’s your place in this house. Your hands are needed here today and I don’t want to hear another word about it. So finish that up and get going down to the pond.’ Melda glared at Lorrie with her arms folded across her ample chest and hoped that she wouldn’t hear any more argument. She probably should have dealt with this before; but Lorrie loved the woods so. As she had herself when she was a girl. Melda had never forgotten what a wrench it was to give that up. All that freedom, she thought wistfully. With an effort she suppressed a sigh. Well, she was dealing with it now.

With a long last glare and a pout Lorrie knelt down and went back to work, but with her stiff back, brusque movements and unnecessary clatter she let her mother know exactly how she felt. At last, with a last clunk of the wooden shovel, she stood up and silently bore the ash bucket from the kitchen.

No more hunting, hmm? she fumed to herself. We’ll see about that.

The flax would be safe in the pond until tomorrow. Her mother would be angry with her she knew; very, very angry. But fresh meat, especially if she brought home some pheasant, would go a long way toward soothing her.

Lorrie dumped the ashes in the barrel where they waited to be leached and the potash used for soap, and brought the bucket back to the house. Then she marched to the barn and gathered the peg-toothed rake for mucking out the bundles of flax and the tarp for carrying them to the drying field. She also tucked her sling and bag of stones into her waistband under her apron, then headed for the retting pond.

The packed earth of the farmyard was littered with things—a broken plough-handle, an old wheel, foraging chickens that scattered clucking from around her feet, bundles of kindling—but she walked among them without needing to consciously use her eyes. They were as familiar to her as all the smells—smoke-house, the outhouse, the manure-heap. Too familiar; right now it all seemed like a prison.

Lorrie could sense her mother watching from the house through the warped boards of the closed shutter and knew her mood. Annoyed; that was how Mother felt. These days she and her mother struck sparks as often as not.

But how can I help it? Lorrie asked herself. It’s always, ‘you’re almost a woman’ or, ‘you’re almost grown up’. Then they treat me more like a child than ever! Who wouldn’t lose their temper? And now, suddenly, no more hunting! Not even, no, especially not with Bram! That just isn’t right.

As she walked along the hedge-bordered path, brooding, Lorrie slowly became aware of her younger brother’s presence and sighed. This strong awareness of family was a gift inherited from her great-grandmother, who was secretly a witch, or so her mother said. She could always tell when her mother was thinking about her, or was nearby. But she was especially aware of her little brother, Rip. Right now Lorrie sensed he was as focused on her as an arrow speeding toward its target.

Wonderful, she thought, a wry twist to her mouth.

Her brother would be seven on the next Midsummer’s Day but he’d already discovered the benefits of blackmail and he was disturbingly adept at it. She supposed she could work on the flax until he got bored or disgusted by the smell and went away.

But if I start then I might as well finish, she thought. Once you got that smell on you only soap would take it off. And the stink could drive off rougher creatures than the birds and hares she was after.

Maybe even the robbers and murderers her mother was so frightened of. So it wouldn’t be worthwhile to go into the woods.

Rip was off to the right and a little ahead of her, uselessly creeping from bush to bush in the bit of scrubby pasture-cum-orchard to the right of the path. He knew she was aware of him.

He could sense her just as clearly as she could sense him. Sometimes she thought he was better at it. Lorrie didn’t call out to him because she needed time to think of some way of getting rid of him.

At last the stand of currant bushes ended and he leapt out with a cry of, ‘HAH!’ His hands raised over his head and curved into claws.

Lorrie raised an eyebrow in his direction and marched on without comment.

After a short pause he skipped up beside her.

‘Can I come?’ he asked, bouncing up and down in excitement.

‘You want to help me clean flax?’ she asked dubiously.

Rip laughed and Lorrie frowned. He knew, he always knew when she was up to something.

‘It’s messy and smelly,’ she warned.

‘You’re going hunting!’ he accused, then covered his mouth to hide his grin.

‘What makes you think that?’

Rip rolled his eyes at her elaborately casual attitude, put his hands on his hips and gave her a look of such adult condescension that she had to smile. ‘You promised you’d teach me to hunt and track,’ he said. ‘You said you would.’

She nodded, feeling rather sad. ‘I know. And if I can talk Daddy around I still mean to.’ She stopped walking and looked at him. ‘I really do mean to, Rip. Honest.’

Looking down, he scuffed the earth with his bare foot. ‘I know,’ he muttered. ‘But if this is the last time you can go . . .’ He looked up at her from under his eyelashes. For an instant she realized what a beautiful boy he was, and he knew it. He had used those long lashes more than once to wheedle his way with his father and mother.

She gave him a small smile. ‘It’s up to Daddy.’ She shrugged. ‘If I took you today then we’d both get punished.’

He considered that, still scuffing his foot back and forth.

Lorrie watched him sympathetically. ‘When Bram gets back from his uncle’s in Land’s End I’ll ask him to take you. Hey,’ she gently punched his shoulder, ‘maybe that way I’ll be able to go, too.’

He rubbed his shoulder and smiled ruefully. ‘That’s all right,’ he said.

‘Then that’s what we’ll try to do,’ Lorrie said positively. ‘But it would be a bad idea today.’

Rip nodded wisely. ‘Yeah. You’re gonna get it.’ He thought about this, then added, ‘You’re really gonna get it.’ He looked at her, his expression somewhere between awe and doubt.

Lorrie saw the moment his mind turned to making the situation work for him by the slight change in his expression and headed him off. ‘If you tell on me I’ll tell Bram not to take you, ever. And you know he’ll listen to me.’

Rip’s brow furrowed and he gave her a considering look. Lorrie folded her arms and looked back, one eyebrow raised. He tried, unsuccessfully, to imitate that and gave up after a moment with a frustrated hiss.

‘All right,’ he muttered resentfully. ‘But if Mummy asks me where you are I won’t lie.’

‘Of course not,’ Lorrie said, picking up the rake and the tarp. ‘Tell her the truth, tell her that you don’t know where I am. Which you won’t.’ She grinned and ruffled her brother’s hair to his considerable annoyance. ‘You won’t be sorry, Rip. I promise.’

He snorted and after a moment turned and walked away. Lorrie smiled at his back and headed off toward the pond and, just coincidentally, the beckoning woods beyond, humming a dancing tune.

Rip was confused and a little angry. Why couldn’t Lorrie go hunting any more? And if she really couldn’t, then why couldn’t she wait to stop hunting until after she’d taught him everything she knew? And what was it that boys would want and make Lorrie give them? Her hunting knife? Rip craved Lorrie’s hunting knife. It had a deerhorn haft and a seven-inch steel blade that took an edge so sharp there was nothing in the world it couldn’t cut.

Some day it would probably be his, but not yet. If Lorrie was too old to do certain things then he was still ‘too young’. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction his sister had been walking. He hoped she’d be all right. Mummy had sounded like she really was worried about her. Even about Bram.

Why would she worry about Bram? Rip wondered. Bram was the best person ever. And he liked Lorrie, you could tell. Rip shook his head. Grown-ups worried about all manner of things that he didn’t understand. And asking questions just made things worse mostly.

With a sigh, Rip looked around. He’d done his morning chores so he was free to play until lunch time. I’m a warrior! he decided and galloped off on an imaginary horse to slay the invaders from the other world. He swept up a likely stick and waved it with a flourish.

‘Ah ha! Villains! Attack my castle will you?’

And the battle to save the Kingdom began.

Come to Lorrie, the girl thought.

The coney was young, plump, and even by rabbit standards not too bright. Right now it was hopping slowly through the undergrowth along the forest edge, which was emerald and colourful with the first spring growth, stopping to nibble at berries or shoots now and then. And it was about to find Rabbit Paradise—a stretch of wild blackberry canes.

Now!

The coney’s head was down and its ears forward, its full attention on what it was eating. The next generation would be more alert.

Lorrie had the sling ready, a rounded pebble in the cup, the inner thong gripped securely between thumb and forefinger, the outer pinned against her palm by the middle fingers. She came out of her crouch with a smooth steady motion, the sling beginning to move as she came erect. Then it blurred as she whipped arms and shoulders and torso into the movement, one full circle around her head. The coney rose on its hind legs, eyes and ears swivelling to find the sound, herbs dropping from its still-working jaws.

Whupp!

The stone went out in a long sweet curve, travelling almost too fast to see as more than a grey streak. It caught the rabbit on the side of the head just as it began its leap, striking with a flat smack sound that always made her wince. Still, food was food, and the rabbit died before it had more than a moment of fear—she hated pig-slaughter time far more, because the pigs were smart enough to know what the preparations meant.

The long furred shape was kicking its last as she loped over.

‘Two or three pounds at least,’ she said happily, picking it up by its hind legs. Good eating. Rabbit stew with potatoes and herbs, grilled rabbit leg, minced meat pie with onions and carrots . . . The guts wouldn’t go to waste either: the dogs and pigs loved them, and the bones would be broken and thrown onto the compost heap.

A good day, she thought happily. Four pheasants and four fat little coneys. And since they wouldn’t keep, dinner would be like a harvest festival all week.

The sun was low on the horizon as she lay at her ease beneath a great oak, daydreaming. Bram would be home from Land’s End soon and she was imagining what it would be like when he came to see her. He might bring her a small gift, a hairpin, or some fine cloth for a shawl to wear at a dance. If he lacked the means for those tokens, he’d almost certainly bring her meadow flowers. He’d hand them to her with that charming smile of his and perhaps he’d kiss her. She felt her cheeks grow warm at the thought.

At fifteen Lorrie was more than ready to start thinking about who her husband would be and Bram was the best candidate in the neighbourhood. Handsome, skilled at everything a countryman needed to know, and heir to a good farm. He was hardworking, honest and sincere, but not without intelligence and humour, qualities the hard life of a farmer often beat out of a man even as young as Bram’s seventeen years. And she was sure he felt the same way about her. With a contented sigh, Lorrie remembered his handsome face, his golden hair and the special smile he’d given her when he’d come to say goodbye.

Bram’s mother, Allet, wanted him to concentrate his attentions on plump, spoiled Merrybet Glidden, whose father owned the grandest farm in the area, and who put on airs that she never had to turn her hand to honest work, what with three maids and a dozen farmhands. Lorrie smiled grimly; no doubt that stuck-up Merrybet would prefer it that way, too. Then she wrinkled her nose, and grinned, settling her shoulders deeper into the soft grass beneath her. Both Bram’s mother and Merrybet were going to be disappointed—Bram was going to be hers. She just knew it.

Lorrie sighed. It was time she headed back, even though it was earlier than she’d intended. The plan had been to stay out until just after dark. If this was to be her last time hunting alone, or ever, and she was going to catch some punishment anyway, Lorrie hadn’t felt obliged to be considerate. Let them worry, she’d told herself. She’d wanted to have as much time as possible in the cool, green solitude of the forest amongst the musty autumnal smell of mushrooms and fallen leaves—she was going to miss it so.

But guilt was calling her home. Lorrie hated the thought of worrying her mother, and her father. Daddy would patiently take the brunt of her mother’s worried temper until she turned up, listening to threats that became more dire with each passing minute. But then they’d argue about her punishment, each claiming the other was being too harsh, until they settled on something that was hardly a punishment at all. Lorrie smiled: they were so predictable.

As she stood up to go a strange feeling began to grow in her, flowing down her neck to curdle in her stomach. At first she thought it was her imagination, but then she felt a flash of something that shrilled like fear. Or even more than fear, but it was gone almost instantly. Lorrie was so far away from home that the feeling had to have come from Rip. It shook her so that she started back at a jog, trying to think of every possible thing that could cause such a spurt of terror in a six-year-old boy.

Now, as she grew closer to home, her worry increased, until she was running flat-out, her long slim legs flashing like a deer’s as she hurdled bushes and ran right through a sounder of half-wild swine grubbing for acorns.

She could sense Rip, but it was as though he was asleep, and with a stab of fear she suddenly realized that she couldn’t sense her mother at all. All her life there had been that contact, the warmth of her mother’s presence somewhere in a corner of her mind. Never had she felt an absence there, like the aching void left by a pulled tooth. The bag holding the string of coneys and pheasants banged against her leg, and then her lungs began to burn and her heart to hammer. She ignored it all.

Gradually she became aware that she was smelling smoke. What’s burning? she wondered. Lorrie stopped and tried to tell where the smoke was coming from. If this had been midwinter she’d have thought her father was burning off a field. But it was far too late in the year for that: the new seed was already in and any pile of weeds being burned wouldn’t put this much smoke in the air. Besides, it was too late in the day. Her mind jumped to the ashes she’d thrown out this morning. No, she thought. The barrel wasn’t big enough to throw up this much smoke and it was right next to the watertub by the eaves which captured soft rainwater from the roof for the leaching process, and you could dump it right in with the pull of a rope.

A new thrill of horror ran through her stomach as she thought: The house is on fire!

People died in fires—there was a bad one in the district every couple of years . . . ‘Mother! Father! Rip!’

Panic left her gasping. She threw down the game-bag and left the trail, vaulting over the snake-rail fence that separated the seven-acre field from the woods. The hay had been cut, stubble only calf-high, and she raced across it like the wind.

As she dodged around a huge and ancient oak, that her father had judged too much trouble to uproot—leaving it as a marker between fields, her foot caught on a gnarled root. Her arms windmilled for balance, but it was too late. The ground rose up and struck her as she landed full length with enough force to stun; she could taste blood in her mouth—iron and salt—where her teeth had grazed the inside of a cheek.

She lay panting for a moment and was about to rise and run again when she saw two strangers. Both male; they were a rough-looking pair and Lorrie dropped down again, frightened. The brown homespun and leather of her clothing would be hard to see against the earth and faded straw, and her hair was much the same colour. The late afternoon sun was throwing long shadows, and the landscape was now painted in bright edges around opaque darkness. In the shadow of the ancient oak she was invisible to the men. They would have had to have been looking straight at her as she ran down the hill to have seen her before the fall.

The men looked exactly like the kind of men who seemed to haunt her mother’s nightmares, with their greasy hair and filthy clothes and faces that bore witness to a life lived hard. They were young and strong, though; she could see the corded muscle in their necks and forearms.

They were standing over something on the ground that she couldn’t see from where she lay, and one drew a tool out of a stained burlap bag. It looked like the sort of long-handled pliers the blacksmith used, but with a broad front end.

One of the men worked the handles of the tool while the other bent over something on the ground. With a cry of disgust the man with the tool yanked and stepped back, something wet and floppy held in the grip of what looked like teeth.

Lorrie realized that it was blood and meat and her breath froze in horror. If they’d butchered a sheep, why tear it apart like this? Why not cut it up with the perfectly serviceable-looking knives they wore at their waists?

‘Makes me want to puke!’ the man with the pliers said. He dropped the torn meat into a sack and reached forward with the tool again. ‘Why do we have to do it this way?’ He dropped another strip of meat into the sack.

‘We have to do it this way,’ the other said, rising, ‘because this is the way we’re being paid to do it.’ He gave a snaggle-toothed grin. ‘And if I’d known you was a girl, I could have got more use out of you.’

The other man spat close by his companion’s feet by way of comment, but not quite on them.

The second man studied what they’d been tearing at. ‘Do you think that’s enough?’ he asked.

‘It is for me,’ the one with the pliers answered, dropping the tool into the sack. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

They moved away as Lorrie watched. She waited until they’d vanished behind a hedge and she scuttled over to see what they’d been doing, staying low. Glancing nervously in all directions Lorrie caught sight of one of the strangers disappearing over the hill toward her home and froze. She held her breath until she was sure they were gone, then cautiously moved forward again until she stood over what they’d been tearing apart.

For a moment Lorrie couldn’t even breathe; was so shocked that all she knew was that this used to be a man. Suddenly something went snap behind her eyes, and she realized she knew him.

It was Emmet Congrove, the man of all work; she could tell by his clothes, and the thinning grey hair, and the wart on the back of his right hand, always inflamed where he picked at it.

He’d been with the family since just before Rip was born. How could they do that to him? How could anyone do such a thing?

Tearing her fascinated gaze from the terrible wounds on the body Lorrie turned aside, her hands covering her mouth. Falling to her knees she was instantly, helplessly sick; heaving and sobbing uncontrollably. Finally the nausea passed and Lorrie hugged her middle to ease the ache, spitting to clear her mouth.

A sudden stab of fear that was not her own sobered her. Rip! Lorrie leapt to her feet and ran toward home. Rip was in danger. But where is Mother? Why can’t I feel her? In her heart Lorrie feared the answer, and she refused to believe it.

The smoke was growing thicker.

Coming over the hill that hid the house and barn from view she ran into a pall of black smoke so thick that she could see nothing. Lorrie stopped, choking. She heard hoofbeats and the neigh of a horse, but no longer felt the panicked fear that Rip had projected just moments before. A puff of wind parted the smoke and she could see that the barn was wreathed in orange-red flame, thundering where it had got to the packed hay in the loft and turning almost white along the rooftree. Beyond she thought she saw two figures on horseback riding fast down the road.

Thick sooty-black smoke poured out of every window of their house; wisps of it were coming out of the thatch too, and as she watched a few tentative tongues of flame. Lorrie let out a cry like the wordless shriek of a hawk and ran down the hill, careless of where her feet went, not minding the pounding shock as they hit the ridged furrows.

The wind shifted again, sending billows of smoke toward her, blinding her, blurring her eyes with tears. She coughed with a racking intensity, her lungs dry and burning with her effort and the harsh smoke. Then she tripped over something and fell forward with a thud. What had she tripped over? Slowly she turned, her heart hammering with dread, and looked behind her. It was her father, his throat torn out, his eyes staring sightlessly upward, his beard moving slightly in the wind that bore the smoke. His blood pooled out around him, so much blood that the ground was turning to mud beneath it. His wood-chopping axe lay not far from his outstretched hand, the edge still shiny.

She tried to scream, but her throat closed and all that came out was a pathetic squeak as she scuttled backwards across the dirt. Then with a choked sob, she forced herself to stand. For a long moment she looked down upon the grisly sight. Lorrie reached toward him, halted and drew her hand back, holding it against her chest, shaking her head in disbelief. Then she looked toward the house—her head moving in little jerks—and saw her mother, mercifully lying face down. There was blood pooled beneath her too, so much blood that Lorrie knew her mother could not possibly be alive.

Lorrie gave one sob and stopped herself. Rip was still alive! Rip had only her now, and only she could save him. Forcing herself to turn away from the horror, she wrenched her gaze away from her mother’s body, turned and ran around the house, and down the road after the vanishing riders.

She ran until her lungs ached and she could taste blood in the back of her throat. She raced up one hill and down another until she came to the top of a rise and saw them; two men, one of them struggling with a small boy.

Rip, she thought. One of the boy’s shoes fell off, and the man holding him clouted him across the side of the head. In what seemed like a moment they were out of sight around a curve in the road and soon she couldn’t even hear the hollow sound of the hooves on packed dirt.

Running full out Lorrie came to the place where her brother’s shoe had fallen. She reached for it and fell to her knees, gasping as she was overcome with sobs and desperation. Finally, still weeping, she forced herself up and staggered down the road in the direction the kidnappers had gone. After a few steps she stopped.

I need a horse, she thought. The only one they had was Horace, their old plough horse. He was no champing stallion, but he was better than shanks’s pony. The kidnappers couldn’t keep galloping, they’d have to slow down sometime.

‘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.