Dark Mist Rising (27 page)

‘Stop,' I said and seized him. ‘What about Maggie? Why is she here? Why are
you
here? How—'

‘Let me go, Peter, or you'll wish you had!' Tom glared down at me from his great height, fists clenched and face almost purple with rage. I let him go.

He stood there, panting and glaring and clenching, for several moments longer. Finally he said, ‘This is flimsy wood. I can tear this caravan apart! Four to one odds that I can!'

‘Yes, but don't. If you can do it now, you can do it later, and I want some answers first. Please, Tom. I need your help!'

That calmed him, as it always had. Tom was born to help, however ineptly. The rage drained from his face. ‘Well, I need answers too, but meanwhile we're getting further and further away from Maggie!'

‘Where is she?'

‘Hidden, don't worry about that. I got a cottager to take her in overnight. Said she was my widowed sister. The savages aren't molesting cottagers, they just want to leave The Queendom. You're right, Peter, I can tear this place apart and go get Maggie just as well in half an hour. Do you have anything to eat? Why aren't you in a dungeon someplace? Or dead?'

I wasn't in a dungeon, I wasn't dead, and – equally surprising – I did have something to eat. This caravan was much smaller than the other five, furnished with only a low table and, against the far wall, a few rugs obviously stolen from the palace and still rolled up. On the table were a basket of fruit, two loaves of bread, a wheel of yellow cheese and a few bottles of wine. Tom collapsed onto the floor, grabbed an apple and began to munch, eyeing the wine.

‘Tom,' I said, and heard the desperation in my voice, ‘please tell me what happened. Start at the beginning and don't leave anything out.'

‘Much the best way,' he agreed. The apple disappeared in three bites. He uncorked a bottle of wine, drained it in two gulps, and tore off a hunk of bread. ‘Well, after the savages knocked me out and carried you off, your grandmother nursed—'

‘My what?'

‘Your grandmother,' Tom said patiently. ‘Are you all right, Peter? She'd just found you at the top of the cliff above that little beach and you two were talking when the savage soldiers arrived – remember?'

Mother Chilton. She who'd somehow turned herself so old and dithering that the soldiers had dismissed her as not worth bothering with. Later she'd gone back for Tom and told him she was my grandmother.

‘I ... I remember now,' I got out.

‘Good. For a minute there I thought something was wrong with your brain, that the bastards had tortured you or something. They didn't torture you, did they? Why not? I thought that savage whose face got messed up by Shadow wanted to—'

‘Tom, I said desperately, ‘please just tell me your story. I'll tell you mine afterwards.'

‘Except,' he said with one of his sudden disconcerting flashes of shrewdness, ‘you won't tell me all of it, will you? You never do. All right, your grandmother bandaged my head and gave me some herbs to chew and they healed me very well. That's a useful grandmother to have, Peter. I wonder you ain't never mentioned her sooner. Your cousin George told me—'

‘My ... my ...'

‘Didn't you tell me to say my story straight through?' Tom said reasonably. ‘Then don't interrupt so much. Your grandmother and I stayed in that cabin above the cliffs that night while I got healed. I ain't never slept so well or so long. Not even when Fia ... well. When I woke up, George was there, and between 'em they explained to me—'

‘What did George look like?'

Tom stared at me. ‘Don't you know what your own cousin looks like?'

‘I ... I haven't seen him in a long time.'

‘Oh. Well then, I'm sorry to tell you he's aged a great deal. He looks old enough to be your father. Grey hair, green eyes. But still strong as a mountain. In fact, I was wondering if he could take me in a fair fight, and I really wanted to find out, but it ain't good to fight people who are helping you. Anyway, George and your grandmother explained to me that the savages wanted you because they believe you can cross over to the Country of the Dead. Well, they're savages; they'll believe anything, not that a lot of women in Almsbury don't believe the same nonsense! George also explained to me that the rebellion against the savages is real, and you told me it ain't, just to protect me. You shouldn't of done that, Peter. I can take care of myself.'

He scowled at me and then devoured an entire loaf of bread. I was speechless.

‘George told me the best thing I could do right now was go find your wife and ... Why didn't you never tell me that you are married, Peter? I wouldn't have devilled you about Fia – not that the lying bitch turned out to be worth it after all, and when I think how sodden I was about her for a while ... This is damn good bread. Want some of the other loaf?'

‘No.'

‘All right. George wanted me to go to where you left your wife at Haryllbury and stay to take care of her, but what kind of task is that for a man when there's a rebellion going on? Still, I thought I might just go there first, and then I could take you word of her. But when I told her about you, she threw a pot at my head, and then she cried, and then she swore she was coming with me. And even though I tried to sneak out in the middle of the night, she heard me and she came. Her and your little brother. Women!'

My ‘little brother'. Jee. I could picture it all: Maggie's fury, Tom's high-minded consternation, Jee's stubborn determination to go wherever Maggie went. My head whirled.

‘Although I will say this for that boy – he's useful. He laid snares and caught nearly as much game as ol' Shep ever did – what happened to Shep?'

‘He ran off.'

‘Oh. Too bad. Good ol' Shep. So do you think we should bust out of here now?'

I pulled my wits around me. It was not an easy task; Tom had effectively tattered them. I said, ‘No. No, Tom, listen to me. George didn't tell you everything because he didn't know everything. I'm not going to bust out of here. George was right about why the Young Chieftain wants me – he believes I can cross over to the Country of the Dead. He wants me to teach him how. Eventually he'll send for me. I think I'm the only one who can get that close to him, do you see?'

‘Yes!' Tom glanced around the caravan, bounded to my side and whispered in my ear, ‘You'll get close to him and then you'll be able to kill him! Good plan! Only they'll disarm you, won't they? And ...' He trailed off, pulled away and gazed meaningfully at the stump of my wrist.

I leaned close to his ear and breathed, ‘My grandmother's herbs.'

‘Ahhh.' He nodded and smiled.

Poison made sense to him, at least if it came from a woman. Women used herbs and women believed in superstitions and women were to bed, not marry. Men used knives and men joined rebellions and this was a great adventure, thrilling and important. We were going to kill the Young Chieftain, Tom and I. His impulsive brain did not think what would happen next if we actually succeeded in such an impossible plan. Tom did not look as far ahead as the punishment, or the consequences for The Queendom, or the subsequent fate of little Princess Stephanie. He lived moment to moment, inventing reality as he went along.

Yet, was I so very different? I did not know either what would happen on this journey to the Young Chieftain's homeland. All I had were the orders of my father – who may or may not have been the man posing as my ‘cousin George' – to go along with the idea that I could teach witchcraft to the Young Chieftain. My orders were—

‘The only thing is,' Tom said, his face clouding, ‘what about Maggie?'

—to stay alive until I could be rescued, and—

‘On second thoughts, she really can't come with us,' Tom said.

—to do ‘whatever you can
except
bring anyone or anything back from the Country of the Dead'.

Tom said, ‘It will be much too dangerous for a woman, don't you think?'

How was I to teach the Young Chieftain what was unteachable?

‘Much too dangerous,' Tom repeated. ‘Maggie will have to stay behind. I didn't even want her to come with me this far. After all, a pregnant woman really should be more careful.'

Tom, looming over me.

‘Peter, by damn, when was the last time these piss pots fed you? You fainted!'

I had not fainted; I had been conscious every single second of my legs giving way, of the caravan walls swoop-ing around me, of what Tom had just said. Of that afternoon on the sunlit hill, with Jee and Shadow gone into the village spread below us, to buy bread and cheese. Of the heavy drone of bees and the fragrant grasses rustling in a sweet breeze. Of Maggie crying, ‘Then if you're really going, you cannot deny me this. You can't, oh you
can't
...' Of her body so warm and soft next to mine ...
Pregnant.

‘Here,' Tom said, ‘eat this!' He thrust an apple at me.

‘All this food sitting right here and you fainting with hunger. Sometimes, Peter, I think you don't have the sense of a rabbit.'

‘No,' I said, ‘I don't.'

Pregnant
. I had never thought. But perhaps Mother Chilton had: ‘Go back to where you left that poor girl who so unaccountably loves you.' Had she known that Maggie carried my child?

Fresh guilt washed through me. I had not only abandoned Maggie at Haryllbury, I had abandoned her pregnant. She seemed to have managed – Maggie could always manage – but that did not excuse me. What had Mother Chilton said to me? ‘You are not a speck of dust floating in empty air. What you do has consequences ...'

Tom said, ‘Well, don't just hold that apple, Peter, eat it! I'll open another bottle of wine.'

My child. The child of a
hisaf
, carried by a woman of The Queendom. As I myself had been seventeen years ago. As my sister had been, when my mother died in childbirth.

‘Tom,' I said swiftly, ‘you can't come with me. You have to go back and take care of Maggie.'

‘Me?'

‘Yes. There's no one else, don't you see? I'm a prisoner here. And I—'

‘I ain't going back to take care of Maggie. What do you think I am, Peter, a midwife? You said this is —' he leaned close to my ear again ‘—a rebellion, and we're going to poison you-know-who, and you want me to desert to take care of a
woman
?' He pulled away and scowled ferociously. ‘No.'

‘But she has no one to—'

‘She has the cottagers I left her with. She can work there, or in the palace, or someplace – she's a worker, that one! Two to one she finds a really good place. Besides, if I was with her, more than likely she'd throw more pots at my head. You married a furious girl, Peter. I don't envy you, I'll tell you that.'

Maggie had good reason to be furious. But it was clear that Tom was not going to be budged. He stretched, yawned hugely, looked around the caravan. ‘Comfortable, ain't it? I don't think I've had any sleep for two days. Well, maybe one hour. I'll just pull out one of those rugs and ... You should sleep too, Peter; you'll need your strength.' He looked doubtfully at my gaunt body. ‘Well, maybe not strength, but all your wits for ...
you know
.'

‘Tom—'

But he was already asleep, with the instant transition of the blameless. His bulk took up half the floor of the small caravan.

I stepped over him and pushed aside the yellow curtain. Behind it, the window was barred. It looked towards the city, but the stone walls of the island were all but hidden by the great clouds of dust raised by wagons, animals and soldiers. Now everything was on the move.

Including Maggie? Was she somewhere behind the rearguard of the army, following on foot? I would not put it past her. In the last two and a half years she had followed me from the palace to the Unclaimed Lands, from Soulvine Moor to Applebridge, from Applebridge to the hillside above Haryllbury, from Haryllbury to this caravan. On the other hand, now she had the child to think of. My child.

If it was a boy, he might well be a
hisaf
.

All at once I hoped passionately that Maggie would not risk coming after me. When my father succeeded in rescuing me ... Although how was he going to do that, locked in the palace dungeon? He might in fact already have been executed, along with Lord Robert Hopewell and his two hapless cell mates. My father might already be a permanent dweller in the Country of the Dead. But I did not believe that. He had got himself put in the dungeon specifically to confront me, and he would have a plan to get himself out again. And he
must
rescue me before the Young Chieftain realized I could not teach him witchcraft. Otherwise I too would be sent to the Country of the Dead, and my son would grow up as fatherless as I had. But at least my child would have Maggie, who would take better care of him than poor Aunt Jo had taken of me.

Maggie, don't follow me again. I am not worth it.

At my feet, Tom snored on his thick rug. I unrolled another, thick soft wool with a design of stylized flowers, and stretched out beside him. I felt weary in every muscle and did not expect to sleep. I was wrong. Within two minutes I slept, and within three minutes the dream came. But this time different.

Not at first. It began as it always did, with a
flat upland
moor, with a round stone house. There is the taste of roasted
meat in my mouth, succulent and greasy. In the shadows beyond
my torch I sense things unseen. Inhuman things, things I have
never met in this land or in that other beyond the grave. Moving
among them is a woman's figure, and the voice coming to me
from the dark is a woman's voice, and I can see the glint of a
jewelled crown: ‘Roger
. Hisaf
.'