I heard more women’s voices, all angry.
‘But the bailiff …’ came the only male voice. A whining voice.
‘Smithy, you know the bailiff doesn’t know anything, up there in his fancy house. Why doesn’t he come out? See for himself.’
‘They told him down at the manor not to go into the village,’ the man said.
‘Is that right Smithy? Seems like you just make up all the orders.’ And that sounded like the woman called Elsa.
‘I’ll ask the bailiff again.’
‘Bailiff this, bailiff that,’ said Elsa.
‘You want to watch yourself …’
‘Or what?’ And it went quiet.
‘Or I’ll have them come up from the manor and take you down there.’
Another woman joined in, ‘Don’t just stand there making threats, get back to the bailiff and ask him.’
Smithy must have taken their advice and left. It all went silent. I had no idea what it was about. I looked at Kan and Van as they tugged at the door. It wasn’t going to budge. At the end of the barn Jenna and Mary were talking to Rosie again. Jack stared at the wood pile, I think he said we’d need more soon. After a while Jenna came over to me.
‘They want you to work on the fields,’ she said.
‘What? Let us out?’ That didn’t sound likely from what I’d heard going on outside the barn.
‘That’s what the women want,’ Jenna said crossly. ‘They’ve taken the men to work down at the manor. They just have to do it. That’s what all the ordinary people have to do, work just to be allowed to stay here.’
‘What about the people at the manor?’
‘Dead. There are two more villages near the manor but nearly all the people are dead from the plague. There aren’t enough men.’ Mary had joined us.
‘Is that what happens all the time? They just take all the labourers away?’ It sounded pretty desperate to me.
‘Rosie told me that before the plague …’ Mary turned her head, hearing another groan from the daughter, ‘… before the plague there were enough people. They worked for the manor but they had time to grow food near to the village. The stuff in the fields is ready to cut – barley I think – and no one to do it. If it’s left then it’ll rot. Rains a lot here.’
‘Why don’t the women do it?’
‘They are doing it but there’s too much and then there’s the sheep and hens and everything else. And they have to clear the fields for the next crop. It’s not long until winter and if they don’t store things soon then they’ll starve.’
‘No bears then?’ I tried to laugh.
‘Bears?’ asked Van.
‘Just something that happened before. Long time ago,’ I said. ‘But even if the women want us to help then the bailiff sounds set against it. What do we do? That man Smith must have the keys to the door.’
‘Rosie says he’s the blacksmith – they call him Smith or Smithy. Rosie spits when she talks about him.’
‘How are they?’ I asked, wondering about the groans which were becoming more frequent.
‘Worse,’ said Mary. ‘At least the daughter is. She’s about seven. I don’t think she’ll last more than a few days. Neither will Mum, I guess.’
‘Someone’s coming.’ Van had been listening at the door. ‘Sounds like more than one, sounds of boots.’
‘Oh yes, Hazel says there are two soldiers in the village, I think they’re more like policemen. They wander around and deal with trouble.’
‘Can’t the soldiers help with the crops?’ I said. Mary and Jenna just puffed angrily.
They were interrupted by a loud firm voice: ‘Stand back. Anyone near the door when we open it and they die.’
We moved away. The key turned in the lock and then the door creaked open. We all squinted in the bright light. It might rain a lot here but this was a late summer day with bright sunshine.
They didn’t explain anything. Smith and a group of villagers stood to one side as the soldiers grabbed Van and banged the door shut. Van gave a loud shout, we heard a thud followed by a lot of clanging and banging. Then the door flew open again and they took Kan. I was last.
They didn’t take Mary or Jenna, just the four of us – Petas, Jack and me. I rather thought they had it wrong. Jenna would have been more use in the fields than any of us. While we’d been in the cave she’d started growing all sorts of things. She’d make a good farmer.
And they weren’t going to ask us whether we’d like to help for a few hours. The banging and clanging was the Smith clamping leg irons onto the four of us: thick rough metal rings around our legs joined together by a length of chain.
The thuds were what happened if you complained. Kan was still rubbing his head by the time they’d finished with me. Then we were off. The two soldiers came along. They showed us the way by poking with their spears; sharp spears. Several women came with us. Even with the poking we were slow, stumbling along with our legs shackled. I could feel the iron rubbing into my skin. Could you catch plague from leg irons, I worried?
This must have been some strange sight. Five village women dressed in rough clothes for the fields led the way, then us in leg irons all dressed in the clothes we’d found in the village. Even so they still thought we were odd so it was a good idea of Van’s to say we were from Poland. I thought we mixed in quite well, although the women kept pointing to the shoes Kan and Van were wearing.
Clank, clank, clank we went, down a muddy lane coming out to an open field bordering the moor.
Van and Kan sat down. They’d been talking, making plans I thought. I wondered if it would work, but I decided we should join them and I dragged Jack down with me. I hoped Van knew what he was doing.
‘We need food,’ Van said loudly.
‘Get up, move it.’ One of the soldiers held his spear over him, but I could see uncertainty in his eyes.
‘No. Not without food and water.’ Van pushed the spear aside. ‘And don’t think you can get me to do something with that pointy thing. Can’t work if I’m injured.’
‘No talking. Get up. Get to work.’ The other soldier came closer.
‘No,’ Van said, and the two brothers stood up, quite close to the soldiers. They had a way with themselves. I suppose it came from their families. Back home the Peta boys had some role – enforcing – which I guess meant getting money out of people who didn’t want to pay. It wasn’t a good business, same one as my dad; their family sold drugs. I’d been trying to escape that world, but I thought the Petas were pretty menacing even in leg irons. They were taller, bigger and probably much stronger than the soldiers, even if they were several years younger. Jack and I joined them.
‘Never should have let them out,’ the first soldier said, shifting from foot to foot. ‘If we kill them there’ll be trouble.’
At that point one of the women came over to us. ‘Oakes,’ she called one of the soldiers. ‘Just give them something. They can’t work without food. They can’t work if you stab them. There’s food in there.’ She pointed to the packs they had been carrying. ‘Go on.’
Oakes obviously wasn’t happy with that idea, but the woman – Elsa, who turned out to be his wife, knew how to make him do things. She picked up the pack and tossed us two loaves and a leather flask holding what turned out to be weak beer.
‘Is it safe?’ Jack said as he pulled out the stopper and smelt the flask.
‘Jack,’ I said. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Oh,’ said Jack and we both laughed. When we were all together everyone kept asking me questions like that. I never had any idea, but it didn’t stop them asking me. We just drank. At least the streams around here were probably clean, although Jack still worried about the dead sheep he’d seen.
‘Some of them were lying in that river,’ he said.
&
nbsp; ‘Who cares,’ I replied. ‘Probably we’ll all be dead of plague soon.’
The women stood round us while we ate and drank. They were pretty curious about the Petas’ shoes, having never seen such material, but perhaps Kan and Van were a bit too menacing so they turned to Jack and kept asking him questions.
Then they set us to work. The field rippled golden brown with a ripened crop. Jack said it was barley and something else.
‘Rye. Don’t you know that?’ said Elsa.
None of us had any idea what rye was. Looked much like the rest of it to me.
It soon became clear why they needed us. The women set about collecting the tops of the crop, which they put into a hand cart. That was the easy bit. Then we had to chop off the stubble they had left and pile that up. Then the worst bit. Digging up the soil.
That started an argument with Oakes. We couldn’t chop or dig with our hands. But Oakes held one of the farm implements as though it was dangerous – a wooden pole with a flat blade at the end. I don’t think I’d have been happy giving the Petas anything like that, but with Elsa shouting at him, Oakes eventually handed them over.
Van made a pretend thrust at Oakes. The soldier jumped back and toppled over. All the women giggled. Oakes gave a vicious glare at Van. I didn’t think we should upset those two. We’d pay for it later. But we set to work on the shallow soil. Just below the surface there was nothing but stones.
‘Don’t you have a plough?’ Jack called out to Elsa.
‘Have to pay the manor if we want to plough,’ she said. ‘Have you anything valuable to part with? Those fancy shoes might fetch a day’s ploughing.’ She pointed at Van’s feet. ‘Don’t suppose he fancies walking around with no shoes on those dainty feet.’
Van just gave her a wink and she blushed. The other women joined in laughing. Oakes told them all to shut up and keep working. I realised that the soldiers weren’t just there to keep us at the task. This wasn’t a very willing work force.
Everything stopped mid morning. I think we must have done quite well because they fed us again. Bread with a small piece of cheese. I’d kept myself apart and quiet, trying to work out what we should do. Should we try and stay in the village? There didn’t seem much of this plague here apart from in our barn. Were we safer here than escaping and wandering into the rest of the country?
From what I heard from the women, and all their talk was about the plague, the first village we’d stayed overnight wasn’t the only place abandoned. There were other villages on the moor which had just died out. But if it spread that quickly then this place would be under threat. I didn’t like the idea of being covered in black oozing lumps before it carried me off – like the boy who died in the night.
‘Back to it,’ ordered Oakes after we’d eaten, and we returned to hacking at the soil.
Jack tried to keep as close to Elsa as he could and pushed her for information. I’d catch up with him later, but I did notice that the information didn’t just pass one way and she was doing her best to interrogate Jack. He tried to be as vague as possible.
I hoped Jack stuck to Van’s Poland story. I wasn’t sure how they would treat us if we said we’d come from somewhere completely different, hundreds of years different. I had some idea they hanged people for much less than being weird – hanged or worse.
Kan and Van were good at hacking. When they weren’t smashing up the soil and rocks I noticed the women had lost their fear of the two boys and were hanging round them. Van had an easy way of talking, or most likely flirting. I could see Oakes wasn’t happy about that. We’d have to watch him.
I wondered if they were going to work us to the end of the day. We started to slow down. I could feel the aches and pains as my body struggled. One of the other women told me they had to get the ground ready for the next crop. If they didn’t sow it soon then the weather would make the ground too hard. But even with the need to get that finished we stopped work early in the afternoon. The women needed to get back to their houses, to feed their kids and their husbands when they returned from the manor fields.
On the way back most of the women ran on ahead. One stayed behind and whispered to Jack, ‘Don’t trust Elsa,’ as she ran off, leaving us with the soldiers. Oakes didn’t feel he had to be so gentle and he soon started poking Van along with the pointed end of his spear. Not a good idea I thought. Then Oakes jabbed Kan in the leg. The spear point broke the skin. Kan stumbled.
I don’t think Oakes had any idea that jabbing the Petas might be a very bad thing to do. I’d heard about them from my dad. Dad thought they were a laugh, and he was much worse. Van might not have experienced leg irons before, but he’d find a way to use them.
It happened so fast. Kan rolled, Oakes followed him with the spear, Van grabbed the shaft, smashed Oakes to the ground and jumped in the air, landing with the leg iron chains across the soldier’s neck. Van smiled as he stared down at Oakes. Van turned the spear round, pointing it at Oakes’s chest.
The other soldier gave a terrified shriek and took off at a run. I couldn’t let him get away and get help. I dived, took him by the legs and he rolled in the mud, his spear bouncing away. Kan picked it up and stood ready to impale the man.
I knew what would happen next. Right from the first day on the moor it had happened and I didn’t really know why. Jenna had set it up, she said it was me but I didn’t believe it. And it did happen.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Van.
Yes, they were asking me what to do. I could see we either had to kill them or let them go. Kill them and then get the others out? Kan and Van might be from some violent background, but they were really just kids, like me. None of us wanted to kill these two and I didn’t think we could do it anyway. Could Van really drive his spear into Oakes’s heart and watch him bleed to death? Perhaps he could, but I didn’t want to find out.
I hobbled over to him. Tackling the other soldier had hurt. I could feel the blood from where the iron ring had smacked into my leg. I reached out and took the spear from Van. I could see the relief on his face. He wouldn’t have killed Oakes. Van lifted his leg and took the chain away from the soldier’s neck. I still held the spear over him and he didn’t move.
I didn’t think anything I could say would make any difference. We’d just have to take our chances. I leant down and grabbing Oakes’s arm pulled him to his feet. Looking into his eyes I saw that he really wasn’t much older than us. Whatever life he and Elsa had, it must have been hard. It had made them appear so much older. And he looked bewildered. He really didn’t know what to do when I handed him the spear, and I heard a sort of gasp from Van when I did that. Kan followed my actions and the other soldier was soon on his feet.
I wasn’t sure what the soldiers would do. Perhaps they wouldn’t hold back. Had they killed people already? Had they been in battles? I felt this needed more so I stuck out my hand to Oakes. I wondered if it meant anything – when did people start shaking hands? None of the cavemen we met shook hands, if anything they just smacked you on the shoulder as a friendly gesture. So I wasn’t sure if Oakes had any idea what I was doing. But slowly his face changed to a grin, he took my hand and shook it.
Then Oakes took the spear and made a pretend jab towards Van, who jumped in the way he would be expected. Oakes just laughed. I think he felt he’d restored his position. I was happier that Van had jumped away – I don’t think jumping away came naturally.
We shuffled off up the mud track towards the village with no more poking.
Nurse-Mary
-7-
We fell into the barn exhausted from the day’s work and the door slammed shut. While we’d been away things had happened but I was too tired to ask questions. Jenna pointed to a pile of clean straw. I collapsed on to it along with the others. Within seconds the barn almost rocked to the Petas snoring. It wasn’t long before I drifted off to
sleep as well.
I came round to darkness.
‘Good day’s work?’ Jenna smiled, seeing me sit up and moving stiffly.
The fire was burning and a new pile of wood stood in a corner. Jenna was standing over the cauldron and cooking something. I could smell the food. It might not be the most delicious smell in the world, but to me it smelt more than good enough to eat. Jenna dipped a bowl into the liquid and carried it over to me. I sat up on the straw and grabbed for it.
‘Wait,’ she smiled. ‘It’s hot.’
‘Can’t wait.’ I took a sip and burnt my lip.
‘Have some of this.’ Jenna ripped off a piece of stale loaf and passed it to me.
I stuffed it in my mouth, chewing away at the hard bread.
‘So don’t you want to know what’s been happening?’ Jenna put her arm round me and gave me a hug.
That felt good but I pushed her away, wanting to eat my stew. ‘Tell me,’ I said with my mouth full.
‘We’ve to thank Mary,’ Jenna said, and I looked at her. Mary and Jenna had sometimes found it difficult to be friendly. Jenna rolled her eyes, which I just caught in the light from the fire.
‘Mary?’ I chewed, wanting her to go on.
‘Yes Mary and the gold charm bracelet in her pack – it’s amazing what she has in there, but we’ll come to that later. Anyway when you’d gone Hazel managed to persuade someone to unlock the door and let her in.’
‘Smithy let her in?’ I thought the blacksmith was probably the worst of any of them apart from … I let that thought slide.
‘Smith isn’t the only one with a key,’ Jenna said. ‘There was a key in the church. The vicar, or priest or whatever they called him, had one.’
Tregarthur's Revenge: Book 2 (The Tregarthur's Series) Page 6