Castle Barebane

by Joan Aiken

  “Don’t do anything stupid, my dear lady—I could shoot you, you know, just as easily,” he remarked. And the look he gave her suggested that he would relish doing so. He is just calculating, she thought, whether I am more use to him alive.

  “Why did you do that?” she said, shaking from head to foot with rage and terror.

  “Why—to make you understand that I am in earnest,” he said. “Come—we will go to the house and I will demonstrate to you how my men intend to conduct the search for those papers.”

  One of the men jerked her roughly along the path.

  “Don’t you think, if I knew where the papers were, I would have told you?” she shouted to Lord Clanreydon. “Why should I protect him? How much more harm do you have to do?”

  She twisted her head to look back at the snowy beach where David’s body lay; the mare had returned and stood beside it with hanging head.

  By the time she was pushed into the house, Clanreydon’s men were at work; they did not seem to be searching, but simply engaged in systematic destruction—shredding, splitting, hacking, ripping, tearing, stamping, smashing.

  Val felt sick with rage, and terror. What if the children came in—or Elspie?

  Elspie erupted in at this moment, from the back regions, wildeyed.

  “Whit the deil’s goin’ on here?” she screamed like a virago. “Who are a’ these blackavised scoondrels makin’ sic a collieshangie?”

  Val said quickly, lest Elspie should draw down more violence on herself, “They are looking for my brother, Elspie, and some papers he has got. Do you know where he went?”

  “Ay, I do,” said Elspie grimly. “He cam’ rinning to me, saying his foes was after him, an askit me whaur he could hide; an’ I showed him the way into the undergroond passage that leads tae the cliffside—but gin I’d knawed what was to follow I’d ha’ seen him in hell first—they could ha’ wheepit him with plew stilts for a’ I cared. Stop that!” she shouted at the men. “Stop till I get my hands on ye, ye ill-deedy raskills!”

  “Elspie, hush, don’t provoke them for God’s sake!” Val muttered in terror. “That man killed Doctor Ramsay; he just shot him dead, down on the beach.”

  Elspie stopped at that, shocked, silenced in mid-protest; her mouth dropped open.

  Clanreydon said, “You showed Hansen an underground passage? Take those two men to its entrance. And don’t try to mislead them or they will kill you.”

  Oh God, thought Val, looking after them. She had not the least vestige of sympathy for her brother at that moment; but still—to be trapped like a rat, in an underground tunnel—

  “Aunt Val?” said Pieter’s puzzled voice. “What are all these men doing—why are they spoiling Elspie’s kitchen?”

  Val turned to see the children walk in from the yard: Pieter struggling under the weight of a toy sledge, Jannie dragging a wheeled wooden horse behind her.

  “Ah, yes,” Clanreydon said, into the sudden silence that fell. “Hansen’s children. I had forgotten about them, temporarily. I expect they will be the best lever of all, to ensure his cooperation.”

  Jannie burst into wails of terror at the scene of desolation.

  “Don’t like—don’t like!” she sobbed.

  “Don’t come in here, children—run, run away!” Val had burst out, but it was too late.

  Clanreydon snapped out another order, and two men, picking up Pieter and Jannie as if they weighed nothing, carried them, kicking and screaming, out of the room.

  Val rushed in pursuit. But one of the men tripped her so that she fell headlong, and by the time she had picked herself up, the way through the dining room had been blocked by the huge table which had been turned on its side by two men, who were hacking it with axes. Val had to run back through the stable yard and all round the house. She saw the men carrying Pieter and Jannie far ahead of her, halfway to the beach. Clanreydon was with them. They had far too great a start for her to catch up, but still she raced after them screaming, “Stop! Bring them back! Stop!” No one took any notice.

  By the time she had reached the azalea hedge the children were in the boat, which had been dragged back to the sea’s edge. Clanreydon stepped in and the boat was pushed off; the two men began rowing. Val could hear the children’s thin, crying voices. She ran to the water’s edge and stood up to her ankles crying, “Bring them back!”

  “Ah—Miss Montgomery!” Clanreydon called to her, across the widening gap of water. “I shall be sending back for you—presently. In the meantime, I strongly advise you to persuade your brother to come out of hiding—if he wants to see his children again, that is.”

  The oars dipped, the boat moved on. She heard Pieter’s voice, desperate, crying, “Aunt Val!” and Jannie’s high-pitched screaming—an incessant, piercing, hardly human note. The boat went farther and farther away. Beyond it, in the fog, wavered the outline of the ship, all white, like a ghost ship. This must be a nightmare, Val thought.

  Then something horrible happened; something that she could not have invented in a nightmare. Jannie’s screaming mounted to a new pitch of frenzy and abruptly stopped. Half an instant before this, Val had seen the boat lurch violently as something—a heavy something—was flung from it into the sea. The splash, then silence.

  Val said aloud, disbelievingly, “They’ve thrown her in the sea. They threw Jannie into the sea.”

  She started wading out but realised, instantly, that she could not swim in that bitter sea, in her heavy layers of petticoats and skirt.

  But—but—there was Greylag—David’s mare who loved to go in the water—standing disconsolately with hanging head, not far from where his body still lay on the sand. Running like a thing possessed, Val flew to the mare, who snorted and threw up her head nervously. Val somehow scrambled on to her back, sitting astride. The stirrups were all wrong. No time to change them. Greylag snorted again, in fright; she was not used to being ridden by a woman. But Val drove her into the sea, sobbing, “Find Jannie, please, Greylag, find Jannie—”

  Obeying the urgency of Val’s voice and hands, the mare walked into the water and soon began to swim, in the direction taken by the boat, which had now disappeared.

  Val had never ridden a swimming horse before and found it frightening; she clung desperately to the pommel. Her trailing skirts were soon drenched, her feet and legs numb with cold; she felt unbalanced and thought, suppose something frightens the mare so that she swerves and I slip off? No use thinking about that.

  But most of her attention was taken by the desperate necessity of finding Jannie—soon—immediately, now; her eyes raked the green water, she combed the heaving sides of the waves for a wisp of flaxen hair, a strip of floating tartan—

  “Jannie, Jannie,” she called hoarsely. No cry, no answer at all. The mare swam to and fro—but how long could she go on? How could Val tell where the child had gone in? And that had been five minutes ago now—seven—ten—twelve.

  It was hopeless.

  Jannie had gone. Already she was far below, deep down under all this heaving green water. She was gone.

  Val began to cry, bowed forward over the pommel in utter despair. She made no resistance when two men rowed to her in the ship’s dinghy, and dragged her off the horse’s back into the boat, where she crouched, dripping, sobbing, with her hands over her face, utterly broken down by all that had happened.

  The boat returned to the yacht, where Val was unceremoniously hauled on board.

  Lord Clanreydon, standing on deck, gazing at the shore through a telescope, looked at her with disgust. He said, “I do hope your brother turns up soon, Miss Montgomery. I cannot tell you how much I dislike these kind of scenes. I find them quite abhorrent. But I expect my men will discover your brother quite quickly. If they do not—well, I need hardly remind you what happened to your sister-in-law.”

  “I don’t know where my brother is,” Val said.
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br />   He shrugged and turned his back on her, calling something to the men, who hustled Val over the deck, and down a companionway. She was in a carpeted passageway; then she was pushed into a cabin and the door was slammed on her; she heard a key turn in the lock.

  The cabin seemed pitch-dark at first, for dusk was closing in. Val lay prone on the floor where she had been flung, exhausted with sobbing and despair. Presently her eyes became a little accustomed to the dimness. She lifted her head and could see a porthole’s faint circle of light. Pulling herself up she found the upright of a bunk and a folded blanket—then almost cried out as her groping hand touched something warm that moved.

  A small whisper said, “Aunt Val? Is that you?”

  “Pieter!”

  He was huddled at the back of the bunk. She pushed her arms round him and pressed her cheek against his. She could feel that he was shaking badly; tears coursed down his face. Presently he gulped out, “Th-they th-threw Jannie in the s-sea—”

  “I know, Pieter, I saw it. I know. I know.”

  “He said, ‘One of them will be enough, we don’t want that bawling brat—’ Jannie was screaming and screaming because she was frightened, she had been all the way—so—so they just threw her in. Like a rotten potato. Her arms went up. She just sank.”

  “Oh, God,” Val muttered.

  She knelt by the bunk, holding Pieter. A long time passed. Neither of them said anything. Val thought, What can be happening on the shore? Have they found Nils? What did they do to Elspie? And the house? Did they find Mungo? Why does nobody come back on board?

  The ship was very silent.

  Val thought about little Jannie, with her bright wits and her terrible problems, which she was learning to solve. And about David Ramsay. She thought about Kirstie, also, floating, sinking somewhere in that vastness of water. Almost certainly Pieter was thinking these things too.

  She thought, I ought to talk to him, distract him. His whole past life has been torn from him in tatters; he ought to have some kind of future to aim at.

  “Why does everybody have to die?” he cried suddenly in anguish. Val could not answer. All she could do was hold him and murmur from time to time, “There, there, Pieter. There, there, my lamb.”

  Presently, kneeling by Pieter, she slept a little, and he did too.

  They were roused by the increased pitching of the yacht. More wind was getting up; even down here they could hear it wail in the rigging. Timbers groaned, cables creaked, metal clinked. But still the ship seemed strangely quiet.

  Then Pieter’s voice said, “Aunt Val?”

  “Yes, Pieter?”

  “I think I can hear someone at the door.”

  Chapter 17

  The door moved gently, inch by inch. Val’s mouth was dry. She tried to swallow but could not. Pieter gripped her hand so tight that she could feel the bones of his. Neither of them said anything. The door opened a thread wider, so that they could see light from the lamp in the passage outside. And it was not a bearded Arab face that they saw in the opening, but Mungo’s—lined, anxious, his finger at his lips.

  “Mungo!”

  “Whisht, lassie! Not a sound. Ye have Pieter in there too? That’s fine. Come out quick, the pair of you.”

  They were after him before he had finished speaking.

  In case he intended seeking farther for Jannie, Val caught his arm, as they climbed the companion stair, and murmured in his ear, “Mungo—Jannie’s dead. They killed her.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know.” His face was bleak, set like rock, and he said no more, while they crept along the deck to where a black dinghy was made fast at the stern on a long rope. The yacht was silent and seemed deserted. Brass lamps burned here and there.

  Mungo pulled on the rope and they climbed into the boat; Val went first, then turned to receive Pieter from Mungo, who came last. He untied the boat and cautiously pushed off from the stern of the yacht, then sculled with one oar over the boat’s gunwale until they came abreast of Dragonfly’s anchor cable, which he cut, sawing through it with a knife.

  “Cutting them adrift?” breathed Val, amazed at Mungo.

  “Ay.” She could not see his face but his whisper, just audible, sounded as stern as a judge pronouncing sentence. “The tide’s making. In half an hour they’ll be driven on to the Kelpie’s Fangs and the world will be rid of that man, please God. Folk that could kill a defenceless man and a wee bairn do not deserve to live.”

  By now they had made the circuit of the ship. Mungo cut the other mooring rope, and then pulled away rapidly. The sea was much rougher now; his boat rode bouncily over big choppy waves that cut and crossed each other in the cross-currents of the bay. Overhead the sky was beginning to clear; white drifts of cloud scudded sideways, giving glimpses of stars; a full moon showed, ghostly, for a moment, then was lost in cloud again. The cold wind bit; Val, in her soaked clothes, shivered, and said, “Let me row with you, Mungo. I do know how, and if I don’t I shall freeze to death.”

  “Ay, if ye wish.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To Wolf’s Hope, to give the alarm, in case there are any of yon blagyards left.”

  Val found she had to concentrate to keep in time with Mungo’s stroke; they rowed in silence for a while. Pieter, who had been wrapped by Mungo in an old boat cloak, was curled up on the bottom boards and seemed almost asleep.

  Val said, “How did you know where to find us?”

  “I climbed aboard an’ went looking till I found a door that was locked,” Mungo said simply. “Probably the good Lord was helping me—yours was only the third I tried.”

  “But if you’d met somebody—one of the men—Lord Clanreydon?”

  “I’d ha’ fought them. But I didna. There’s only two-three left aboard.”

  “But how did you know to come to the ship?”

  “Elspie told me that. One o’ the sailors had told her yon man had ye on the ship. And he’d said to her, ‘Best hurry up and show us where yon skaterumple is that we’re seeking, for our master is no’ a patient man, he’ll hae ye spitted against the door gin the callant isna found soon.’ An’ he told her what had been done to the wee lassie.”

  Mungo fell silent. Val wondered what Elspie had replied to the sailor and, as if guessing her thought, Mungo presently went on, “I knowed that Elspie was a powerful, fremit, deep-thinking woman, with an uncommon strength in her for good or evil. But I ne’er guessed at the power that was in her till I saw her after she heard that.”

  “What happened?”

  “Ye mind Elspie had shown your brither the way through the smugglers’ tunnel, thinking that would give him a bit start on them, and then he could climb up the cliff path and so away.”

  “Yes. Did they go after him?”

  “Ay. When she saw how they were smashing a’ the furniture, she took them an’ showed them the entrance to the passage. ‘But ye’d best gae cannily,’ said she, ‘for he has ta’en a crossbow from the hoose, an’ he’ll shoot ye if ye follow through the tunnel. Best if ane or twa follow, but slowly, keeping well back, an’ the lave o’ ye gang saftly roond by the shore, through the posts, to the cave mouth in the cliff, so as to take him where he’ll no’ expect it; then ye can kepp him like the rat he is,’ she telled them.”

  Val shivered.

  “Did they catch him?”

  “No, no, he’d got clear awa’ by then—she allowed him time for that.”

  “So the men found nothing?”

  “They found a shortcut to Eternal Fire,” said Mungo grimly. “For Elspie’d neglectit to tell them about the Kelpie’s Flow. A’ that gaed along the shore walked into it, every man o’ them, for the fog was that thick, by there, that none o’ them could see what happened to the ithers.”

  “Oh my God,” whispered Val incredulously, “you mean they are all dead?”

 
; “Ay, they are. Elspie followed to the edge of the shore, and there she waited, an’ syne the fog lifted, but not a man was to be seen.”

  “What about the ones who went through the tunnel?”

  “They came out the far entrance and found naebody, so they went daikering about; twa o’ them went into the quicksand also. So there was only twa left, and they in a fair puzzle what had come to the lave o’ them. After an hour or so, a light flashed on the yacht, a signal, maybe, for them to go back on board, for Elspie an’ I, watching, saw them jump in their dinghy and start rowing.”

  “Where were you, Mungo?”

  “Elspie was on shore; I was in my boat, already halfway to the yacht Maybe they have reached her, by now; or maybe they had a longer trip than they reckoned for.”

  “Where is Elspie?”

  “I tried to get her to come in the boat with me. Yon man will be fell angered when he finds what’s come to his crew an’ his ship Gin he swims to land he’ll be dangerous,’ I said. ‘Ye’d best be awa from the hoose.’ But she wouldna. ‘My place is here, Mungo my lad,’ she said. ‘Maybe he’ll want to burn the place doon, but he shan’t if I can stop him. Come back as soon as ye’ve gie’n the alarm at Wolf’s Hope and left Mistress Val and the bairn in safekeeping. An’ if ye dinna come back, knaw that ye take my love and respect wi’ ye, for you’re a good man, Mungo Bucklaw, and I like you fine, and gin we come through this trouble, I’ll be pleased to wed ye if ye still wish it.”

  “Oh, Mungo,” said Val, greatly touched that he had told her this, “I’m very happy for you. And it’s only what you deserve. You’re the one who’s come out best in all this—you saved me and Pieter, and you’ve told no lies and done no harm. I’m glad you never met that horrible man.”

  In fact she had a shrewd suspicion that Elspie had deliberately kept Mungo out of the business, only summoning him when the worst was over; and very sensible too, thought Val. “It was just a mercy that you had been working so hard on your boat, and got it finished.”