River of Destiny (32 page)

Daniel grimaced. As soon as he had seen the empty stall, swept and bare of buckets, he had known. He strode towards the great open doors. ‘I’m going after her. There’s no more use in that horse for riding. They don’t need her up at the Hall.’

‘Dan –’ George called. ‘Be careful. That woman is a schemer.’

Dan ignored him. He was already striding across the yard.

Sam, the head groom at the Hall, was watching Pip clean a saddle as Dan strode into the stables. He stood up. ‘Go, Pip. Go and get your tea, lad,’ he said sharply. The boy looked surprised. He threw down the soapy rag and with a glance at Dan scuttled out of sight.

‘I know why you’re here.’ Sam put his hand on Dan’s arm. ‘I’m sorry. Her leg was broken. The knacker’s taken her away.’

Dan stared at him in shock. ‘Bella?’ he whispered. He could feel a great sob rising in his chest. ‘What do you mean, her leg was broken? How?’

Sam looked away. ‘Just as she got here. She caught it in a rabbit hole.’

‘Oh, she caught it in a rabbit hole, did she! And did you see it happen? Did you see it with your own eyes?’ Dan shouted. ‘No, I thought not. Happen they took a hammer to her, the bastards! Who was it? Zeph came down and took her. Was it him?’ His voice broke. He was striding up and down the tack room, kicking at the floor. ‘That poor horse. She was sweet and gentle, would never hurt a fly. She deserved better than that! That woman did this! Out of revenge. She knew I had grown fond of Bella. The bitch! The utter and complete bitch! Where is she? I will strangle her with my own hands!’

‘Leave it be, Dan.’ Sam folded his arms, leaning against a saddle tree. ‘Come on, old friend. Let it go. You can’t do anything. That mare is beyond pain now. She can’t be hurt any more.’

‘But I can!’ Dan’s face was white with rage.

‘Aye, and the more you show you’re hurt the more you play into her hands.’ Sam reached into his pocket for a clay pipe and his baccy tin. Against the rules to smoke anywhere in the stables, but he packed the little bowl and lit up anyway. ‘I’d heard you refused to play her game any more,’ he said gently. ‘She didn’t take kindly to being refused, eh?’ He shook his head, puffing out a small cloud of blue fragrant smoke. ‘Let it be, Dan. Think of Susan. You don’t want any more trouble.’

Dan paused and rubbed the back of his hand across his face, suddenly overwhelmed with sorrow. ‘That mare was the kindest soul. She had grown to trust me.’

‘And you gave her comfort and a good home for her last days, my friend.’ Sam watched as Dan sat down on an upturned bucket and put his head in his hands. He said nothing, waiting for the spasm of grief to pass. He knew how the smith felt. Even a man who had been with horses all his life, seen them come and go, grew especially fond of some. He smoked quietly for a while, giving Dan some time to get a hold of himself.

‘I let Zeph go today,’ he said at last as he reached for more baccy. ‘He wasn’t suitable for this job. I told Mr Crosby I didn’t want him working near my horses any more.’ He concentrated on the bowl of the little pipe. ‘Vicious streak. He’ll not get another job as any kind of groom, I’ll see to that.’

Outside the daylight was leaching out of the sky. In the stables nearby they could hear the sound of the horses moving restlessly back and forth. They always knew when one of their number had died.

In the drawing room in the Hall Emily was standing staring out of the window down towards the river. Night was creeping in and with it the slow cold mist which smelled of the sea. She wondered if Dan had heard about Bella yet. She gave a small angry smile of triumph. When he did he would realise that it did not pay to cross her. In future he would do as she ordered. Either that or it would be his fat common wife who would be the next to suffer.

She pulled her shawl tighter round her shoulders. She had changed into a tea gown and the room was growing cold. She stepped across to pull the bell for one of the maids. The fire was a miserable smouldering apology which failed to heat the room at all, and no one had brought the tea things. Going back to the window, she gave a last glance out towards the river. A pale square sail was slowly drifting up on the tide. She looked at it for a moment. There was the head of a great beast of some sort on the sail. A bear, she thought. How odd. She turned her back on the view. It was cold and depressing and somehow full of menace.

The hall had fallen silent at last. Men and women were sleeping on the benches, wrapped in their cloaks, and the great fire had died to a smouldering heap of embers. The air still held the smell of roasting meat, and the stench of fear. Pushing the door open Eric let himself in and crept past the first sleepers. Two wolfhounds were lying nearby in the rushes beneath the table. They looked up but made no sound.

The sword he had chosen, almost finished and set aside when he received the commission to make the Destiny Maker for Lord Egbert, was carefully secreted under his arm beneath his cloak as he made his way silently through the hall towards the back door which led to the lord’s house. The candles had died. The only light came now from the occasional lamp which someone must have filled before they went to sleep. He reached the door and pushed gently, frowning as it creaked in the silence. Behind him someone let out a loud snore and he froze. Another man coughed and stirred and fell silent. The hall was strangely quiet considering there were so many people there. The shock of what had happened had fallen like a blanket over the whole company.

In the lord’s bedchamber behind the mead hall two more lamps were lit. Eric could see the figure of the dead man lying in his bed. His hands were crossed on his chest and held between them he saw the hilt of the Destiny Maker. A figure was seated at his side in one of the great chairs which had been pulled up close to the bed. His wife was keeping watch. He scanned the room carefully. Where was the sorcerer? He couldn’t see anyone else. There was no sign of Hrotgar and the shadows seemed empty.

His gaze came back to the Lady Hilda. Her head had drooped on her chest and she was swathed in a heavy cloak. Was she asleep? He took a small step forward and held his breath. She made no movement. Another step. He could smell the stench of death in the room and he gave an involuntary shudder.

There were other things there as well, he realised now his eyes were adjusting to the near darkness. Heathen amulets he himself had made for Lord Egbert. He had a vision suddenly of the fertility charms he had made years before at Egbert’s insistence, charms to ensure his wife’s fecundity. Eggs, a small silver hare and the figure of the goddess Frige, made of the living iron, and, in the tradition of the most ancient times, another figure, grotesque and swollen in belly and breasts, the mother goddess, shaped in his own forge, a talisman which would bring fertility to whichever woman touched it.

Lady Hilda had given them back to him and demanded they be melted down once their job was done and she had her sons. He had ignored her instructions, leaving the bag of charms in the cottage for his wife to find. He smiled in spite of himself. Again they had proved their power and Edith had conceived. He prayed to the one god and all the gods that this time they would be blessed with a living child. He shivered, wondering how the Lady Hilda could sit there in their presence. She must have loved her lord very much to suffer the indignities this sorcerer had inflicted on her over the years.

He glanced round again and jumped as the sleeping figure beside the bed let out a small gasping moan in her dream. He held his breath. Nothing moved; even the lamp flames were steady.

He tiptoed towards the bed and carefully drew back the bed cover, then he reached out to unclasp the man’s hands from the hilt of the sword. The cold fingers were stiff; they held on tightly. Eric struggled, tugging hard, trying to force them apart. The woman beside the bed moaned again and shifted in her chair. He froze. Time passed and he waited, then he began to work on the fingers again, one by one freeing them from the hilt. Quietly he loosened the sword at last and lifted it away from the bed. Then he withdrew the replacement from beneath his cloak and carefully laid it on the man’s body, trying to refold the hands. The fingers wouldn’t bend back. Nervously he tried to force them to clasp the hilt of this unfinished sword but they refused. It was as if the man knew what was happening and rejected the substitute.

Sweat dripped from Eric’s face. He could feel waves of panic beginning to build in his chest. He clenched his teeth desperately and with one last effort somehow folded the hands in place. He rested his own hand for a moment over the other man’s loosely clasped fists and muttered words of blessing, then he turned away. He gathered up Destiny Maker and tucked it under his arm, then drawing his cloak around him he tiptoed away from the bed towards the door.

In the silent room the figure by the bed moved and stood up. Hilda stooped over the body of her husband and, bending, kissed his forehead. Then she drew the fur covers up over the sword and the clasped hands and tucked them tightly in to keep him safe. Only when she was satisfied that there was no sign of any interference did she resume her seat and quietly begin her prayers again.

‘If you say a word about me or my affairs to anyone ever again or stick your spotty little nose into my business once more I will ring up Mum and tell her to come and fetch you,’ Jackson yelled. ‘Is that clear? And I will tell her you got chicken pox deliberately.’

It had taken Jackson and his sister three calls to convince Sharon not to come and fetch them when she heard about the chicken pox and she had rung every few hours since. Only her worry about Darren and Jamie being left alone with only their father to keep order prevented her from jumping into the four-by-four and racing back to fetch Jade home.

Jade sat on the kitchen chair without moving for several minutes after her brother slammed out of the house, trying very hard not to cry. She was feeling ill, her throat was sore and she was a little bit frightened. No adult had said anything to her about what had happened except her brother, to whom she had confessed her betrayal. ‘If you had killed her you would have gone to prison,’ she had wailed.

‘We weren’t going to kill her, you prize muppet!’ he yelled back. ‘Just scare her off.’

They had both seen the police car outside The Threshing Barn and seen the policemen go over to The Old Barn and then to The Old Forge. Jackson was white to the gills. He had already cleaned his gun and taken it upstairs to his father’s gun cupboard where he had slotted it into the rack and locked the door on it. The key he had hidden under a floorboard in the family bathroom.

Miserably Jade let herself out and made her way over to The Old Forge. She knew Leo was out. She had seen him leave early on without coming over to see them, without thanking her and giving Jackson the bollocking he deserved.

She groped for the key in its hiding place in the flowerbed and let herself in. He was obviously coming back. He had left stuff lying around and there was half a bottle of milk on the kitchen table next to a sketchpad covered in drawings and workings-out of some sort. She glanced at it, uninterested, and then made her way through the cottage to the stairs. She stood for a long time in Leo’s bedroom, looking down towards the river. She could see the
Curlew
attached to her buoy in the freeway and she frowned.

She had followed him and the Zoë woman down there yesterday after the shooting incident, which she had watched from the shelter of the hedgerow. She had seen them talking and laughing and seen how he had helped her into the little dinghy and then into the cockpit of the boat where they had kissed. Watching from her concealment behind one of the ancient pines, Jade had felt a pang of excruciating jealousy which had deepened into fury and pain as she saw them begin to undress, there where anyone could see them and then as she watched they had disappeared into the cabin. A few minutes later she had seen the boat begin to rock up and down at its mooring. She wasn’t born yesterday. She might be only eleven but she knew what was going on and her anger at Leo’s betrayal was overwhelming.