The Amber Legacy

by Tony Shillitoe

  The rain had stopped, although Meg could see showers chasing each other across the plains and over the surrounding hills. She headed out of One Tree, followed for a short distance by a dark one-eared dog that she chose to ignore. She kept her hood up as Bridle Innman advised, wondering what the woman meant by ‘strange men’, and ignored the stares from two farmers who looked up from their ploughing when she passed them a short while later.

  Late that afternoon a dark shadow lurched towards her along the road and she was in two minds whether to meet it or to hide and let the shadow pass. In the end the shadow resolved itself into two riders and a covered wagon drawn by two more horses. As they drew alongside she stepped aside.

  A rider reined in, greeted her, and asked, ‘From around here?’ He was an older man with narrow eyes hidden between wrinkles. His mouth was equally hidden in his thick grey and black beard.

  ‘No,’ she replied. She glanced up at the wagon and saw the driver was a young woman. ‘I’m heading south,’ she added.

  ‘You know there’s a war?’ the man asked.

  ‘I’m looking for the Queen’s army. Have you seen it?’

  The rider tipped back his broad-brimmed hat and leant forward against the saddle pommel. ‘Seen it? It’s a bloody locust plague. Thousands of them eating everything that moves and doesn’t move.’

  ‘Where were they?’ she asked.

  ‘Last we saw they were camped at Quick Crossing, two days south of here.’

  ‘So where are you from?’

  The man’s mouth formed a wry smile. ‘Quick Crossing.’

  ‘Where are you going then?’

  ‘Anywhere that damned army isn’t going to be. We figured if they’ve come down from the north, it’s smarter to go north. We’ll find a place a few days on and start a new farm or something. The Queen’s army requisitioned almost everything we ever owned, so we got out before we lost everything.’ He leaned back and reined his horse around to ride on. ‘If you’re smart, you won’t be going down to Quick Crossing or over the river. It’s not safe for a young woman.’ And he trotted after the others.

  The rider’s news gave her hope that the river crossing was slowing the army’s progress. She quickened her pace along the road into another shower sweeping across the countryside.

  The sun was below the hills when she reached the outskirts of Woodman’s Springs. She’d passed other travellers after she’d met the wagon, but she didn’t stop to talk because they looked like local farmers. Woodman’s Springs sat on a knoll above a curve in the river. The village hall, the inn and a church jostled for prime position on the crest while the remaining houses and buildings seemed to be sliding down the slopes. A sturdy wooden bridge crossed the river to take travellers further west, but the road Meg was following continued south. A cluster of curious children watched her with dark eyes, and a big ugly dog bared his teeth as if to warn her to keep moving. A woman driving a flock of chickens towards a coop stopped to watch her pass as well, and for the first time Meg felt the unease of an outsider entering a suspicious world.

  The Black Kangaroo Tavern was easily identified by the wooden kangaroo statue and hitching post. It was a ramshackle building that pressed its haunches against the meeting hall as if it was determined to assert its right to be on the hilltop. Three farmers lounging on the porch, smoking pipes and holding tankards, studied Meg as she climbed the two steps onto the porch, and one ventured a gruff ‘Evening’ to her. She simply nodded, unsure of the men’s moods or intentions, with Bridle’s warning whispering in her memory.

  Inside was a room at least as large as the common room in Archer’s Inn, with eight tables, a bar and a barman, and a crackling fire. Four more men sitting at a table beside the fire, all bearded and dressed in rough grey tunics and trousers, looked up as she entered.

  ‘Evening, traveller,’ the barman called cheerily. ‘What’ll it be?’

  Meg noted that the barman was a solid chap, with broad shoulders and an equally broad black beard. She asked, ‘Are you Struts Overbridge?’

  ‘Who’s asking?’ he challenged, placing both big paws of hands on the bar.

  ‘Keys Innman said I should ask for you.’

  ‘Did he now?’

  Unsettled by the barman’s aggressive demeanour, Meg said quickly, ‘I’m not looking for any trouble.’

  The barman’s face cracked into a broad grin. ‘And I wouldn’t be giving any to a girl either.’ He laughed to himself, before saying, ‘And what is it you’re needing? Warm food? A good drink? Soft bed?’

  ‘How much is a room?’

  ‘All rooms here are the same price—one Queen’s shilling per night. You pay for anything you eat and drink.’

  Meg fished into her purse and withdrew a silver shilling, which she passed to the barman. ‘How much for a meal?’ she asked.

  ‘Three pennies.’

  She paid, and asked to be shown to her room. Her pack stowed and raincoat hung to dry, she returned to the tavern common room and waited for her food, aware that the four men were staring at her. When her meal came, it was a bowl of thick vegetable soup followed by a plate of steamed vegetables.

  ‘No meat,’ Struts Overbridge told her. ‘The Queen’s army took anything that looked like it could be eaten as meat three days ago. You’re lucky we hid a store of vegetables from the bastards. The dogs are lucky we hid them too or they’d have ended up as stew.’ He chuckled at his own humour.

  She was grateful for the warm food, her body still cold from the damp weather, her legs aching from the long walk, but she was surprised when Struts dragged a chair to her table and sat opposite. ‘Don’t mind my curiosity,’ he said, ‘but where’s a pretty little thing like you going?’

  Meg told him part of the truth, explaining she was following her husband who’d marched with the army.

  ‘Silly bastard,’ Struts grumbled, ‘leaving a young beauty like you.’ The taverner’s steady green-eyed stare made her feel uncomfortable. ‘You look a bit young to be a wife already,’ Struts suggested. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty,’ Meg lied, hoping her height carried her lie.

  Struts nodded, scratching his beard, and said, ‘My Star was seventeen when I married her, Jarudha bless her soul. She’d given me three children before she died trying to give me the fourth. She had red hair like you.’ Meg looked away rather than meet the man’s stare, and she only looked back when she heard the chair scrape against the floor. ‘I’ll leave you to eat in peace,’ Struts said, standing. ‘You need anything, you just call.’ He bellowed, ‘What are you buggers gawking at?’ at the men by the fire and headed over to join them.

  Meg returned to her room after she’d finished the vegetable plate, her stomach full and her body weary. She latched the door and collapsed onto the bed. She hadn’t ever travelled quite so far for quite so long a time as she had that day. Walking in search of food and useful materials in the bush around Summerbrook was part of her normal life, but sustained travel was an unfamiliar exercise, so she was glad to undress, blow out the candle and climb into the chilly sheets of the bed. Sleep rushed in quickly.

  The warrior on horseback, his blue armour shining as if it held its own light, wheeled his beast and charged the ranks of soldiers where she stood, watching. She was certain the horse was Nightwind. Treasure was already dead then. The blue-armoured warrior had slain him…

  Her dream was shattered by something solid smashing against the door. It thumped again and the wood cracked. She scrambled out of bed, grabbing her trousers and tunic as the door splintered and lantern light spilled into her room. An axe blade flashed and retracted. Terrified, she wrenched on the clothing and pressed against the corner, trying to sink into the shadows. The axe shattered the door and a man stepped in, backlit by the yellow lantern light. ‘A woman!’ he yelled. ‘A pretty one at that!’

  Meg heard another man whistle and cheer. Blinded by the light, she couldn’t see his extended hand as he coaxed, ‘Come on. We won’t hurt you, gorgeous.�
� She charged and met a solid wall of resistance. Arms enveloped her. ‘Ease up, gorgeous,’ she heard near her ear, and felt the hard press of a metal breastplate against her back. She tried fighting the hold, but the man was too strong. Beaten, she capitulated and let him half-carry, half-drag her through the splintered door.

  The tavern common room was a mess. Tables and chairs were overturned. Struts Overbridge’s butchered corpse was slumped against the bar, legs spread, his left hand clutching a broken chair leg. Men were plundering the stores, carrying bags of bottles and food from the kitchen door, and Meg heard a woman scream briefly. ‘That’s a fair treasure you’ve got,’ a brawny man with a half-beard and snarling expression declared as he reached out to play with her hair.

  ‘Hands off!’ her captor warned, as he smacked the offending hand aside.

  ‘We share, remember?’ half-beard said, leering at Meg.

  ‘Not when we’re in the bloody middle of a raid!’ her captor retorted. ‘Get these men organised and let’s get out of this shit hole. And fetch me some rope.’ He pushed Meg to the floor, and knelt on her back. Face pressed against the wood, she saw boots stomp past and light swaying and flickering, throwing twisted shadows across everything. The fireplace was cold. The air was cold. The knee in her back was burning like fire, and her lungs strained against the pressure. Her arms were twisted behind her back, and rope wrapped around her wrists. ‘That should keep her still,’ her captor announced. She was hauled to her feet, and she saw her captor’s face. He was a youngish, thick-bearded man, with a prominent scar across his cheek and the brow of his left eye. His eyes were blue. He spun her around and pushed her towards the darkness of the open door, yelling, ‘Let’s get going!’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  She shivered from the bitter cold and her fear. Her back and shoulders, her neck and her legs ached from being strung across the rump of a horse, and her arms and hands were numb from being tied behind her. When her captor wrenched her down from the horse, she screamed at the sudden pain of her muscles moving after being stretched in one direction for the night’s horseback journey. She was dumped against a cold rock like a sack of grain, and ignored, while the gang of men set up a makeshift camp in a shallow gully beside a narrow billabong. The men passed around food they’d taken and quickly and quietly drank bottles of ale, before they bedded down in the rocks to sleep as the dawn’s rays washed the distant treetops.

  Her captor was lying on a rock nearby, curled in a foetal position, wrapped in a red blanket, snoring, while his hobbled horse nibbled at stray blades of grass. She looked around the gully and spied a man under a gum tree, watching over the surrounding countryside. The rest were asleep. She couldn’t stop her teeth from chattering, or her body shaking. Kookaburras called in celebration of the sunlight, but for the first time in her life she found their laughter irritating. She stared at a black ant scampering across a stone near her head, willing herself to feel warm.

  The scrape of boots against stone made her flinch. She didn’t feel as though she’d fallen asleep, and yet the light seemed brighter. Shadows stood over her. ‘I haven’t had a decent piece of woman for many cycles,’ a man remarked.

  ‘Well this looks pretty decent,’ said another, and they laughed.

  ‘Red hair and all,’ another added. ‘Never had a redhead. Is it true what they say about them?’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  Meg’s shivering restarted. The peering faces were all unshaven, but young. She knew what was going to happen. It was something she’d never considered, never heard of in Summerbrook. In the village, girls gave themselves to the young men they loved or wanted, as she had to Treasure. Men didn’t take what wasn’t offered. Not like this. She flinched as hands took hold of her shoulders, and a man’s face moved closer. ‘Come on, girlie. All we want is a little fun. I’m sure you’ve given plenty of soldiers some fun, eh?’ he said. His front teeth were dirty yellow and chipped. He had a black mole below his left eye, and his brown hair was long and thick.

  ‘I don’t want to,’ she stuttered through her chattering teeth. ‘Please?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ the young man said, as his fingers unlaced her green tunic. ‘We don’t intend to hurt you. Just a bit of pleasure, that’s all. For us and for you.’

  ‘Oh give over on the lovey-dovey stuff, Metal,’ another voice growled. ‘She’s not your wife, mate. Roll her over.’

  Hands grabbed her trousers and dragged them down. ‘There!’ a voice cried triumphantly. ‘See, boys? Told you it’s true.’

  ‘I have got to have some of that!’ another declared.

  ‘Stop it!’ she shouted desperately, wriggling and kicking as the man named Metal wrenched her tunic open. He stared at her necklet and the sliver of amber. ‘Nice,’ he said, and reached for it. She wriggled violently, screaming, ‘No!’ over and over.

  ‘Roll her over!’ someone bellowed.

  When she opened her eyes she glimpsed another man loosening his trousers, and realised it was the half-bearded one who’d tried to molest her in the tavern. ‘Roll her over!’ he ordered again.

  Meg was rolled roughly onto her stomach, the small sharp stones cutting her skin. She screamed into the dirt, trying in vain to roll away as heavy hands pressed down on her back. The voices above and behind her degenerated into furtive argument, and dropped into harsh whisper. ‘Shut the bitch up!’ someone hissed. ‘Gag her.’

  ‘Where?’ someone else whispered.

  ‘Down there, along the tree line. See?’

  ‘Queen’s bloody cavalry. Worse than bloodhounds.’

  The hands melted from her back, but when she tried to roll to her side someone heaved her onto her back. The scar-faced man who’d carried her out of the Black Kangaroo Tavern produced a strip of rag and hastily tied it across her mouth. ‘Have to, gorgeous. Can’t have you bringing any attention on us,’ he said apologetically. As he finished gagging her, and laid her down, she saw the other men were crouching against the wall of the gully, weapons drawn, watching the distance intently. She imagined that their nondescript outfits, mainly varying shades of green and ochre-tan, would blend into the bushland effectively. A brief memory of Treasure leapt into her mind.

  Gravel scraped to her right and a hand simultaneously clutched her breast, and when she turned her head she found a green-eyed young man grinning through his rough dark beard. ‘Can’t be dying without getting a good feel of a beautiful girl’s tit,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t be fair.’ She wriggled, but he laughed silently and kept fondling her as he turned to peer over the ridge.

  ‘Where are they?’ a voice asked.

  ‘Still coming,’ someone else whispered.

  ‘Tracking us,’ scar face said.

  ‘Then they’ll come here,’ said another.

  ‘We have to run,’ scar face announced calmly. ‘Everyone to their horses. No one breaks until I say. Spread the word.’

  Meg watched the men assemble. ‘What about her?’ asked the young man who’d fondled her breast.

  ‘No use to us,’ scar face replied. ‘Get on your horse!’

  The men mounted. Scar face stood in his stirrups to check the progress of the Queen’s cavalry. He sat and yelled, ‘Now!’ and spurred his horse up the steep bank.

  One rider wheeled, instead of following the others, and the young green-eyed man dismounted and wrenched Meg to her feet. ‘Sorry to be rough, but I can’t leave you to them. They’re worse than us,’ he explained, as he struggled to load her over the rump of his horse, hooking her binding ropes around his saddle. He clambered back onto his horse and urged it up the slope.

  The ground flashed by as Meg bounced on the horse’s rump, the rhythm smashing the wind from her lungs, the gag making her desperate gasps for breath difficult, her dangling legs hitting the horse’s striding back leg. She watched the hooves flinging away sand and stones and grass in clumps and felt the shock flex through the horse’s muscles as it leapt logs and depressions. Branches and leaves whipped her head and
legs and bare buttocks. Then the horse was climbing, the pace less painful as its hooves dug into the soft earth, pushing it up a steep slope. It lurched over a crest and back into a gallop. She glimpsed a deep valley between trees as her head bounced against the horse’s rump, before they plunged down another slope, the bush again trying to rip Meg from the horse’s back. She felt as if she was steadily slipping away, the rope attached to the saddle stretching. And then the horse slowed to an amble, walking along a creek bed, its hooves splashing and clattering on the stones, the reins dragging through the water. When she turned her head, she saw the horse was riderless.

  She waited for the young man to notice how she was almost slipping off the horse. She waited for him to unhitch her and put her on the ground. She waited, her back and arms aching, while the horse, tired of drinking, stood in the shade of a big gum tree, grazing. Birds trilled in the branches. Flies crawled across her skin, making her itch. She lifted her head, but the young man was nowhere in her limited field of vision. She cursed the muffling gag.

  Eventually, the horse wandered further along the creek, halting to snuffle in grassy patches, sometimes drinking, sometimes standing patiently as if awaiting an order. Meg’s back was screaming from the pain. She could feel the midday sun beating down on her exposed backside and legs and cursed the bastards for leaving her trousers around her ankles when they’d run. The rope lashed to the saddle was chafing her underarms and pulling excruciatingly against her shoulders, and her jaw ached from gritting her teeth to fight the pain. She was thirsty. She was tired. She’d tried to wriggle off the horse, but the last loop of rope held her tight. Whatever cruel game the young man had decided to play, it was time he stopped it or she would die like this.

  When she’d bitterly accepted that she’d been abandoned to an ugly death, strapped half-naked to the side of a horse, she heard a voice coax, ‘Easy, fella,’ followed by a racking cough that made the horse shudder. ‘Easy. It’s me. Hey.’ A hand patted her backside. ‘You still alive?’ She lifted her head, but the speaker was still behind her. ‘Poor bugger,’ the voice continued. ‘They got you, too. Bastards!’ A figure appeared in Meg’s vision, coming around the rear of the horse. The mottled green trousers above the brown boots were torn, and the left knee was caked with dried blood. More blood covered the front of the khaki tunic, but she couldn’t see any higher to the young man’s face. ‘I’m going to cut you down,’ he told her. ‘You’ll fall backwards. I can’t stop you. You’ll be all right.’ A knife appeared in his bloodied right hand and Meg watched him saw at her rope. The last thread separated and she fell, thumping her head against the ground.