by Anna Kendall
Crack!
‘Tom, you son of a whoremaster!'
No answer. It was another ten minutes before he came crashing through the brush holding up a brace of dead partridges, his face all a-glow, the gun hanging limply from his other hand. ‘Look, Peter! Breakfast! I did it!'
‘You idiot!' I was on him before he knew what to expect, hitting him about his face and great shoulders with my one good hand, shouting that he was a halfwit, a birdbrain, a clod of senseless dirt—
He pushed me away with a single shove, his face hurt and uncomprehending. ‘What? Look – breakfast! I killed them for us!'
‘You fired that gun!'
‘It ain't hard. I figured it out easy. You simply—'
‘ Tom.' I willed myself to calm. I – who had kept my temper under Hartah's beatings, Queen Caroline's schem-ing, Cecilia's moods – had just lost it, and with it, control over myself. We could not afford that.
‘Tom, the gun made a huge noise. If the savages are anywhere within miles, they heard it. Now they know where we are.'
‘Oh, piss pots. I cut the rope bridge.'
‘That was two days ago! They could have found another way across the ravine.'
He turned sulky. ‘I saw no sign of them in the woods. And I thought you'd be pleased by my partridges.'
How had he survived till age sixteen? I began to have sympathy with the father who had used him so harshly. Tom would try the patience of a statue. And yet he gazed at me so reproachfully – so crushed that I was not thrilled with the partridges he had shot for breakfast.
I sighed. ‘Just don't fire the gun again. All right?'
‘All right. But I still think the savages are far away. And I daresay you ain't never tasted a partridge as good as this one will be! Four to one odds on it!'
He was right. There is no sauce like hunger. The plump partridges, roasted over a hickory fire, seasoned with wild onions and washed down with cold water from a mountain stream, were the best breakfast I had ever eaten. ‘I told you so!' Tom crowed, belched, and froze, his eyes going wide.
I turned to look over my shoulder. Two savages stood at the edge of the clearing, guns pointed at us.
Tom scrambled wildly for his stolen gun, and I slammed my boot down upon it. He had no chance of shooting before they did. They would kill him. They were going to kill me, but the Young Chieftain had no grudge against Tom Jenkins. Maybe I could—
‘ Aleyk ta nodree!'
‘Hent!'
‘You sons of thieving bastards!' Tom screamed. ‘Don't you dare—'
‘Tom! Don't!' I yelled – futilely. Tom had jumped to his feet and drawn his knife. He charged forward. There was at least twenty feet between us and the strangers. Casually one savage sighted along the smooth metal tube of his gun. In another moment he would fire. I cried out again, something wordless and despairing.
A grey shape crashed into the savage and he went down, the gun firing harmlessly into the air.
The second savage let out a shout and spun in a quarter-circle, pointing his weapon away from me and onto the grey shape. By that time the dog had the first man on the ground. Tom sprinted across the remaining ten feet of ground and grabbed the second savage.
When Shadow had killed the four soldiers in the cottage in Almsbury, I had been gone to the Country of the Dead. I had not seen it. Now it seemed that every second was not only slowed but also exquisitely detailed, like the miniatures painted by court artists. I saw everything, and everything etched itself into my brain: the dog covering the fallen soldier and bending over him, graceful as a lover, to find his throat. The blood spurting in a strong jet, even as the soldier's eyes rolled in his skull and his body shook in agony. The other savage grappling with Tom. The clash of strong male bodies, the soldier older, but Tom larger and with his knife already drawn, as the savage had not. They fell to the ground so close to the other pair that the dog, now shaking his dead savage like a terrier with a rat, sent sprays of blood flying onto Tom. I saw the glint of sunlight on Tom's raised knife and the more brilliant flash as the knife descended, and all at once that blended in my mind with the flash I had once seen in the Country of the Dead, as something bright and terrible rent the sky in the second I crossed back over with my stolen army of the Dead. Bright and terrible – here, and there.
Then it was over, and Tom staggered to his feet, bloody and triumphant. ‘Hey! Oh, by damn, did you see that? Peter, are you all right? We got 'em, didn't we, Shadow? Hey, Shadow, good dog!'
I said numbly, ‘That's not Shadow.'
Tom didn't hear me. He was patting the dog, play-cuffing him. Was examining the dead savages. Was admiring his own prowess. ‘Hey, look, they better not cross us, let me swear to you! We're too much for them, ain't we, Shadow? By damn, Peter! I daresay your cousin George couldn't have done much better! Could he, Shadow? Good dog, what a brave killer—'
‘That's not Shadow.'
This time Tom heard. He stopped burbling, looked puzzled and gazed down at the dog.
‘Sure it is. What ails you, Peter?'
I walked forward and stood beside Tom. The dog looked up at me and wagged his tail. Blood still stained his muzzle. I don't know how I knew this was not Shadow. This dog had the same short grey fur, small tail and great snout, green eyes. But just as a man knows which of two twin sisters he has married, despite how alike they may seem to others, I knew this was not Shadow.
Tom knelt. ‘Shake paw, boy.'
The dog kept his gaze on me and did nothing.
Tom straightened. ‘You're right, Peter, it ain't Shadow. This one don't know how to shake paw. Well, here's a strange coil! Two dogs that look so much alike, and both saved your life! A strange coil! Hey, now we have two more guns, and maybe the bastards had money, or food!'
Strange coils did not much bother Tom Jenkins. Whereas they froze my blood and haunted my dreams.
Tom, not at all squeamish, went through the corpses' pockets and packs. I crouched before the dog and said softly, inanely, ‘What are you?'
The dog did not answer, of course. Whatever else it was, or wherever else it had come from, it was a indubitably a dog. It licked my hand and wagged its tail, and bounded over to Tom when he found on one of the bodies a hunk of roasted rabbit wrapped in a clean cloth.
I straightened. ‘Tom, there could be more savages around. We need to go. Now.'
‘Yes ... just one more minute to get ... By damn! Silvers!'
He held out his huge hand. On it rested six or seven silvers of The Queendom, stamped still with Queen Caroline's picture. Her lovely profile rested upon his grimy palm, delicate silvery lines upon smears of drying blood.
13
Each day we climbed higher into the Unclaimed Lands, followed by the new dog. Tom named him Shep. I said, ‘I thought you told me you hated the sheep your father raised.'
‘I did. Stupid beasts.'
‘Then why name him Shep?'
Tom shrugged. ‘Why not? He's a good ol' dog, ain't you, boy? Good boy! Let's fight!' He rolled on the ground, the dog jumped enthusiastically on top of him, and they mock-fought for several minutes, both rising up muddy and satisfied. I watched, feeling like someone's indulgent grandfather.
I had been fond of Shadow, but this dog made me uneasy. Not his manner, which was just as affectionate and devoted as Shadow's had been – the same wagging tail, the same licking tongue, the same willingness to hunt and bring back game for Tom to cook. Shep had no collar – but what were the chances of two otherwise identical dogs adopting me within a month's time? But there was no use explaining this to Tom.
‘Tom, think. What are the chances of two identical dogs adopting us within one month's time?'
‘I don't know. What?'
‘I don't know exactly either, but—'
‘Then why ask me? By damn, I wish we had a pair of dice! Can you play sichbo?'
‘No.' More lies. Sichbo had been played at court. I had played it once with Cecilia, for a forfeit I had not understood at the time.
‘I could teach you. But we have no dice. I know – I'll whittle some!'
In the last few days, with The Queendom far behind us, we'd reverted to travelling by day and sleeping at night. That evening Tom sat at the campfire and laboriously carved a section of a branch into two lumpy cubes. On each face he gouged notches.
‘Now, see, Peter, you cast one die first, and if six comes facing up—'
‘Tom, I don't want to play sichbo.'
‘Oh, but it's the greatest fun! Let me show you!'
‘No.' I seldom gave him a direct refusal, but I could not bear to cast dice with him. All I could see was Cecilia in her green gown, her beautiful hair loose on her shoulders, her green eyes glowing with feverish excitement that was almost hysteria. ‘ Roger! I shall wager with you! For a silver coin with Her Grace's image stamped upon it! Come! '
‘I didn't take you for such a spoil-joy,' Tom said sulkily.
‘I'll play with you tomorrow night,' I said.
‘Oh, all right.' He rolled over on his belly and instantly fell asleep.
By tomorrow night I would be gone.
For now I knew where we were. Our rough track had joined another, equally rough but with landmarks I recognized. I had come this way before, more than once. Soulvine Moor lay a day's strenuous journey to the south. Tom obviously did not know that. Although a splendid tracker, he had never been far from his village of Almsbury, and the geography of the world was as unknown to him as it had once been to me. I dared not enter Soulvine itself, but at the border I could stay in the Unclaimed Lands in body, and enter the Moor only in the Country of the Dead. That way I could search safely for my mother. More safely, anyway.
But I could not do so and also keep company with Tom. What would he do if I stayed too long in my tranced state? Drag me to some rough cabin, shouting for a healer? Decide I was dead and bury me? Try to revive me by dumping so much water on my head that I drowned?
Worst of all, he might actually recognize my trance for what it was. Country folk were usually more willing to believe in the old ways, the old powers. No one at court, save Queen Caroline, had believed that I could cross over. But the country people Hartah had cheated through me at summer faires too often knew that the gift was real. However, many of them also believed it was witchcraft, and what would Tom Jenkins do if he decided I was a witch? I didn't believe that he would betray me deliberately, but there was no wall between his brain and his mouth. Always he babbled the first thing that came into his head. The less he knew about me, the less he could tell ... anyone.
So I had made a plan. The next evening, I put it in motion.
Never trust plans.
We stood in a place I recognized all too well, the home-stead of Jee's family.
The cabin, always ramshackle, was now deserted. In the strong afternoon sunlight the door hung crazily, half off its rope hinges. A hole gaped in the roof. The straw pallets swarmed with lice and spiders, and not even rats could find any food to tempt them to nest-build.
‘Nobody lives here,' Tom said, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
‘No, not now,' I said. But they had lived here, two and a half years ago. Jee had run away from here, leaving a father much more brutal than Tom's. Here I had left Maggie, furious and tearful, in order to venture alone onto Soulvine Moor. And here, or rather in its coun-terpart in the Country of the Dead, I had lain with Cecilia in my arms, she dead and tranquil, unknowing that I held her. Behind the cabin, the little waterfall beside the pine grove where we had lain still tumbled over rocks into its shallow cold pool.
‘Peter?' Tom said. ‘What is it?' And then, with perception unusual for him, ‘Have you been here before?'
‘Yes,' I said, forcing myself back to the present. ‘And the water is good to drink. We should fill the bag.'
‘All right. Shep didn't hunt today – bad dog! Bad dog! But I can try to, although maybe I should ... I think I smell wild onion.'
‘We don't need it,' I said absently, my mind still on the past. ‘The dried meat you took from the dead savage is already seasoned well.'
He stopped and turned to look at me. ‘How do you know that?'
I stared at him.
‘That the savages' meat is well seasoned already,' he repeated, his forehead wrinkling. ‘Have you eaten it before?'
‘No, of course not. George told me.'
Tom nodded, willing as always to accept my mythical adventurer cousin as the best authority on anything. Lies – I could not open my mouth without adding to my store of lies, which now loomed over me large as any mountain. And now I must add more.
‘Tom, it's George I want to talk to you about.'
‘George?' He looked around, the limp water bag dangling from one huge hand, as if he expected to see George stride out from the trees.
‘Yes. George. Remember I told you that George killed savage soldiers, and that's why they are looking for me – to tell them where he is?'
‘But you didn't tell,' Tom breathed. ‘And you never would, not even under torture!'
‘No, I didn't tell them where George is,' I said, and truer words have never been uttered. ‘But I am going to tell you. Because George needs our help.'
Tom's eyes glowed. ‘Anything!'
‘George is planning a rebellion against the savage army. To fight them. Not in a big battle, such as happened before at Glory, but in small raids. By night, and using our superior knowledge of the countryside. We can do it, George says. And he needs soldiers.'
‘He wants us!'
‘He wants you, Tom. I have only one hand, remember? I am no use as a fighter.'
Tom frowned. I could almost see the slow turning of his brain, like a millstone ponderously grinding sparse grains of wheat. Finally he said, ‘But you could help George in other ways, maybe.'
He was casting his dice to my numbers, did he but know it. ‘Yes, I can. And George has a task for me to do. I cannot tell you what it is, but I can tell you what George wants you to do. He wants you to travel this track here north-east. In two days' time you will come to an inn. Wait near there for George and his men. Stay hidden in the woods.'
‘How will I recognize George?'
‘He looks a lot like me, but older and stronger. And he will be wearing an emblem embroidered on ... on the shoulder of his tunic – the left shoulder. A ... a red boar.'
‘A red boar,' Tom repeated. ‘On the left shoulder. Yes, I understand. But, Peter, how does George know about me? You and I ain't spoken to anybody since we met.'
‘Shadow took him a message. That's why he left us, you know. I sent him to George.'
‘You use dogs to send messages! What a good idea! And is Shep—'
‘Yes, he brought me a message.'
‘And when you said it was strange to find two identical dogs, why, you were testing me, weren't you, you rascal! To see what knowledge I already had about all this!'
‘Yes.' He was doing half my lying for me. Shame and relief mingled in me. But surely the shame was misplaced. Weren't all these lies for Tom's protection as much as mine? He would travel for two days and discover there was no inn, no George, no red-boar band of fighters against the savage occupation of The Queendom. Tom would be disappointed, but he would otherwise not be harmed, and he would be away from my dangerous company. The savages had caught me before; they might do so again. I was, in one sense, saving Tom's life, as he had saved mine.
Tom said, ‘When should I start for the inn?'
I squinted through the pine trees at the sun. ‘There are still several hours of travel possible this day.'
‘You're right! I'll go immediately. Peter, I'll leave you one gun and take the other two. Oh, wait – can you hold and fire it with one hand? No, you cannot, and perhaps George's men can use the guns. Yes, of course they can! A good thought! I'll leave you my big knife – here, take it – and also the water bag and the savages' meat because – no, you'll have Shep to hunt for you. He prefers you to me, but that's all right because I have two hands so it'
s fair you have Shep. You can keep my cloak and—'
I could not stand it: his enthusiasm, his good-hearted concern for me, his simple mind. I said, ‘You should go now, Tom. The sooner you reach George, the sooner you will be of aid to the rebellion.'
‘Yes, of course. Goodbye then.'
He held out his hand and I shook it. He had forgotten about the water bag in his other hand, and it flapped against his thigh as he strode off, the three guns strapped on his back. I watched him disappear down the faint track, a healthy young man eager to fight in a rebellion that existed only in my deceitful brain.
When I was sure he had gone, I turned my steps towards Soulvine Moor.
14
I walked south until nightfall and made camp beside a woodland pool. Frogs croaked in the darkness, splashing into the pool when I bent my lips to the water to drink. The moon spilled silvery light across the water, and in the branches of a tall pine an owl hooted, mournful and low.
Shep brought back a rabbit. Slowly, without Tom's deft, two-handed energy, I made a fire, skinned the rabbit with Tom's knife and roasted it. After dinner I destroyed all signs of my fire and hid myself in a thick deadfall of branches and rotting logs. Shep crawled in beside me. My bed of moss was comfortable, but I could not sleep. Soulvine Moor was less than half a day's journey. Soulvine Moor, and my mother.
She would talk to me. She must. I would rouse her from her death trance. ( But, whispered my logical self, you have never yet roused anyone who died so young.) She would tell me how she died and why my father abandoned me to my Aunt Jo. ( But Mother Chilton told you to not seek that very knowledge.) She would tell me who my father was. ( But always the dead speak only of their own childhoods.) Most of all, she would tell me what I am, why I am cursed with this ‘gift', and what I must do to live in the peace I had never yet found: not with Hartah, not at court, not at Applebridge with Maggie. I remembered her so clearly, my mother in her lavender gown with lavender ribbons in her hair, and myself safe and happy in her arms. She would tell me where I must go, how I must live, to be safe and happy again.