‘All the horses have grown a bit fat in the stables of the White Horse Inn,’ Lily laughed, struggling to do up Nutmeg’s girth. ‘They’ll be very frisky for a few days.’
Saxon patted his own tummy. ‘A few more meals at the White Horse Inn and I’d be struggling to do up my girth too.’
Each horse carried a saddle bag, crammed with clothes and supplies, which was hung behind the saddle. Brimming water bottles were hung from the pommels. As usual, Saxon had to tickle Caramel’s pale chestnut tummy and walk her around until she blew out the air in her belly, so he could tighten the saddle girth properly.
Small coal-black Mischief was laden with extra saddle packs, as she would not be ridden on the journey north. Mischief carried most of the food and the blankets, and was tied by a lead rein to Toffee. Mischief snorted and pranced. When Ethan walked past, hefting Toffee’s heavy saddle, Mischief butted the boy with her head, sending him flying.
‘Oh, Mischief,’ complained Ethan, brushing grass off his breeches. ‘Watch it.’
‘Why do you think she’s called Mischief?’ Lily laughed. ‘I think she has the most adorable, wicked face I’ve ever seen on a pony.’
The barrels were stowed back in the cart and covered with a tarpaulin. Ethan strung the bows ready for action and checked the quivers were full of freshly fletched arrows. Master Drummond changed from his easily recognisable red velvet jacket and felt hat into a sedate tweed coat and cap.
Nutmeg, with her three white socks and long white blaze down her nose, gently nuzzled Lily’s ear, blowing air through her nostrils.
‘Stop it, Nutmeg. That tickles,’ giggled Lily. Nutmeg whinnied softly in reply, pawing the ground eagerly with one hoof, anxious to be off.
At last everything was ready. Farewells were exchanged with Master Drummond and everyone mounted, excited to be back in the saddle again. Soon they were off cantering to the north, waving wildly, Aisha loping at their heels.
Master Drummond watched them go, hope glowing in his heart, then turned Judy’s head and headed back to Tira.
‘I think we should cover as much ground as we can this afternoon,’ called Ethan. ‘The horses are fresh and well fed, and so are we. We’ll ride until it’s dark and we simply can’t stay in the saddle any more.’
The others agreed, and so they alternated cantering, trotting and walking, keeping the setting sun always to their left. It had been a month since any of them had ridden, so after a couple of hours their muscles were screaming in distress. They slowed down to a steady walk and shifted their positions in the saddle to get more comfortable.
The sun set to the west in a riot of flame colours.
In Tira, as the sun set, Burgis saw Sniffer crossing the courtyard of the palace. Burgis remembered the events of two nights before, when he and Sniffer had laid in ambush for the Tiregian children who Sniffer was so keen to track down. He remembered the embarrassing shemozzle of the fugitives galloping off on their night-black ponies, which slipped under the hand like melted butter, and the ferocious dog that had attacked Burgis and Sniffer.
A flicker of recognition darted through his mind, then eluded him. The dog. Where had he seen that dog? Another memory leapt out, of two children and a dog crossing a bridge. This time he was quicker and caught the memory before it disappeared. The eastern bridge of Tira today – children and a dog.
‘Sniffer. Sniffer!’ he called eagerly. ‘I think I know where the children are.’
Captain Malish tried to snap the Sun Sword. The steel was strong and amazingly resilient. It bent and curved but refused to snap, even with dozens of hammer blows. He tried to melt the metal, taking it to the palace forge and subjecting it to white-hot coals. In the end he decided on option three – the bowels of the earth.
After the captain had been handling the sword for a while, the rebellious thought came to him that perhaps he should not destroy the sword but keep it somewhere hidden, where he could take it out and admire it occasionally. It would be an impressive souvenir of this Tiregian campaign. Captain Malish repressed this thought. He must destroy the sword, on his emperor’s orders.
It was dark and long past curfew when Captain Malish slipped out through the palace gates with a bulky parcel under his cloak. The guards took no notice of his passing. Captain Malish crept through the empty streets to the south. He had no lamp or lantern to light his way, and he stumbled occasionally on uneven cobbles or potholes.
He did not see a slight figure, wrapped in a black cloak, hiding in the shadows of a doorway, with a clear view of the main palace gate and the long carriageway. Captain Malish strode past, his eyes, accustomed to the palace lamplight, struggled to see in the darkened streets. The figure waited a few minutes then, unseen, slid silently from gateway to shadow to alley to doorpost following the Sedah soldier. Captain Malish stopped once or twice to check behind him or down a side street, but he did not see anyone.
Captain Malish came to the poorest part of Tira, just inside the city walls, where the streets were narrow and twisty, and the houses were dark and mean. There was a pervading odour of decay, damp and slime. The captain paused several times, unsure of his way, and each time the shadow trailing him paused too.
At last, Captain Malish came to a dusty courtyard. By the faint light of the stars he could see the darker outline of a decrepit well in its centre. Captain Malish looked around carefully, but there were no lights and no-one about. He darted across the square to the well, fumbling in the darkness with the lid, making a loud clatter. He stopped immediately, cursing softly to himself and glancing about to the shadows behind him. There was no movement, no other sound. He tried again and lifted the lid off. A terrible stench rose from the well, as though something had died down there.
Captain Malish gasped, then held his breath against the smell. From under his cloak he pulled out the long, thin package. He prepared to throw it down the well, but could not resist having one last look. He unwrapped the object, holding it up carefully. The starlight glimmered softly on gold and silver metal – the massive sword of kings. Captain Malish held the weapon above his head, feeling its weight, its strength, its power. It was a truly beautiful weapon.
Captain Malish sighed, then held the sword over the well and let it go. He waited for a few moments, waiting to hear a thud as it hit the bottom. There was no sound. The sword was gone, lost in the abyss. Captain Malish heaved a sigh of relief, tinged with regret.
He paused, staring down into the bowels of the earth. At last, Captain Malish turned and made his way quickly back to the palace and his bed.
The figure in the shadows followed him all the way back to the palace, then melted away in the darkness, heading for the White Horse Inn to make her report to her boss.
The next day the children rose early, before the sun had risen. They had camped in a copse of trees by the side of the road, wrapped in warm blankets. To save time, they breakfasted in the saddle – cold egg and bacon pie, with water from their water bottles.
No-one talked – they were still too sleepy, and very stiff from being in the saddle again. Ethan spent the first half hour of the ride thinking about the journey ahead of them and the dangers they might face.
‘I’m a bit worried about Sniffer,’ commented Ethan at last. ‘He has an uncanny ability to find us, even when we think he must have long since lost the trail. He is like something out of one of those nightmares you have, where you just keep running, but no matter where you hide, the troll finds you.’
‘Yes, but Sniffer isn’t a troll,’ Saxon replied. ‘He’s a human and doesn’t have any magical powers.’
‘The powers he does have, though, are frightening enough.’ Lily shuddered. ‘He really gives me the heebies.’
Roana shivered in agreement, glancing over her shoulder to check that the trail behind them was still empty.
‘Well, we need a plan,’ Ethan continued. ‘If he does track us, or ambush us again, we need to be prepared. The most important thing is to get Princess Roana and the
gems away safely. Saxon, that will be your job. Lily and I might be able to distract him with our bows and arrows, or some other way. But Roana, you need to forget about us and just run for it, whichever way you can.’
‘No, I could not just leave you,’ Roana argued. ‘If we all stood together, working as a team, we could fight him off.’
‘Roana, it’s too important,’ Ethan reiterated. ‘The other times we were lucky, or we had other people to help us. This time it’s just us, and somehow I don’t think Sniffer will come alone. He will probably have heaps of soldiers with him. Look, he may never find us, but if he does, it is vital that at least you get away with the gems. You and Saxon could find the rebels who are hiding in the forests and ask them to help you. Promise me you’ll run away as fast as you can?’
Roana shook her head mutinously. Saxon smiled at her princess pout, which they so rarely saw on Roana’s face anymore.
‘Why doesn’t Lily go with Roana, so both the girls are safe?’ Saxon suggested. ‘And I can stay with you and fight off the Sedahs.’
‘I want Lily to be safe, but Roana would have a better chance with you to help protect her,’ Ethan replied obstinately.
‘I agree with Ethan,’ Lily stated. ‘We have come too far to risk the Sedahs getting the gems back now.’
Aisha whined, distressed by the air of tension. She ran back and forth between the different horses, looking up at the children with pleading eyes.
‘Oh, all right then. I promise I will run away like a yellow-livered coward at the first sign of trouble,’ Roana said reluctantly.
‘Not like a coward, like a precious royal princess.’ Ethan grinned, relieved that she had finally surrendered.
‘And I will gallop after you, like a trusty knight in shining armour to protect you, my beloved princess.’ Saxon bowed gallantly with a foppish twirling of his hand.
‘Trusty knight in rags, more like it,’ retorted Roana, laughing at Saxon’s caricature.
Lily and Ethan laughed as well, glad that the tension had dissolved.
‘So if Sniffer might be on our trail, do we take the most direct road north, or do we try to be stealthy – travel by night, take an indirect route, double back and so on?’ asked Lily.
‘We should take the direct road,’ insisted Roana. ‘Caspar is to be taken soon, so we have little time to waste.’
‘Stealthy would be wisest, but I tend to agree with Roana,’ Saxon said. ‘Of course, we need to be careful as we approach the tower, to have the benefit of surprise, but the sooner we get to the north the better.’
‘I agree,’ Ethan added. ‘Travelling by night would slow us down enormously, and we simply don’t have time to hide our tracks.’
‘Good, we all agree then,’ Lily summarised. ‘Hopefully we completely lost Sniffer on the moors west of Tira, and we won’t need to worry about him for a while.’
Two white-bobbed rabbits, startled by their passing, ran across the track in front of them. Aisha immediately gave chase, barking and racing, pretending not to hear Lily’s call to stop.
Three hours to the south, Sniffer was galloping on one of King Radnor’s prized grey geldings, using a short whip. He was followed by a troop of ten mounted soldiers and a pack of spare horses. Sniffer intended to swap horses regularly so he could gain on his quarry. He had sent out scouts the night before to interrogate local villagers and farmers to gain clues to the direction the children were travelling.
Threats, blows and enticements had been offered to peasants in a ten-kilometre radius of the city. A stocky farmer had finally succumbed and sulkily muttered that he had seen four children and a dog, riding on the road that led north towards Trowbridge.
Sniffer had organised supplies, horses and soldiers to be readied while he waited for the intelligence reports. Once he knew the direction the children were travelling, he had wanted to set out at once. However, the Sedah groom had convinced him to wait until dawn, to minimise risk of injury to the horses. Sniffer had hardly slept all night and had woken the soldiers long before dawn.
The guards on the city gates had to open up early to let the soldiers through. Sniffer had allowed the horses to walk while it was still dark, but as soon as it was half light they were galloping at full pace, laden with armoured soldiers and weapons.
Later that morning, Sniffer spied a scuff in the mud on the bank to the right of the track. He leapt from his horse and investigated. As he had thought, the scuff mark was caused by a horse’s hoof sliding in the soft mud. The hoof prints led off the track to a small camp site. He found five flattened spaces in the grass and the blackened ash of a recent camp fire. He found plaited wisps of grass, matted with brown and black horse hair, and he found greenybrown piles of horse dung. He estimated that the freshest dung was only two or three hours old.
In the roadway, the soldiers and horses were having a well-deserved rest – the horses lipping the grass, the men sipping from water bottles and stretching their legs. The groom was taking small groups of horses down to the nearby stream to drink.
‘On your horses, men. We continue north,’ barked Sniffer.
The groom cursed inwardly, worried for the horses in his care. ‘But Sniffer, the horses need to –’
‘I said we’re going, now,’ interrupted Sniffer, clambering up into his saddle. Every muscle ached. Sniffer was not a horseman, but he was determined to find Princess Roana and those pesky children this time. The other soldiers groaned but obeyed sullenly.
Back in Tira, over breakfast, Captain Malish heard that Sniffer had set off before dawn with a troop of soldiers, on the trail of some children and a dog seen crossing the eastern bridge. He swore loudly. His ears were still ringing from the invective that had been shouted at him by Governor Lazlac yesterday afternoon. Apparently those children had not died at sea after all but were causing more trouble.
Captain Malish thought of a plan that would earn him a lot of points from Governor Lazlac. He sent orders for Lord Mortimer to be fetched from his cell and brought to the stables at once. He would take Lord Mortimer with him to identify the princess. He wanted to be sure that there were no mistakes this time.
So for the second time that day, a troop of heavily armed, mounted Sedah soldiers clattered over the eastern bridge, and took the northern road. Captain Malish travelled more slowly than Sniffer, pausing frequently to check they were taking the right path. In their midst rode an eager, foppish Tiregian lord, dressed in ragged finery, his hair neatly tied back in a ponytail with a crimson ribbon.
At last, Lord Mortimer thought, his heart singing in time to the rhythm of the horses’ hooves. At last, we will find that spoilt princess and my plans will finally come to fruition. At last I can marry the brat, claim the throne of Tiregian and rule as king. King of Tiregian. Then Princess Roana can be quietly locked away in a remote corner of the palace, out of trouble and out of sight. King, I will be king.
To the north, the children were riding deep in a forest. It reminded Saxon, Lily and Ethan of the forest of Kenley, making them homesick. When they came to a merry, babbling brook meandering through the trees, they decided to stop and water the horses, and let them crop the sweet spring grass.
When the packs were taken from Mischief’s back, she rolled over and over on her back, scratching away at the itchy patches, her four legs waving in the air.
‘Isn’t she gorgeous,’ laughed Lily.
‘What’s gorgeous is what Mischief has been carrying,’ contradicted Saxon. ‘Cookie’s supplies! I’m starving!’
The children were hungry and tired and hot. After they had unsaddled the horses, watered them and rubbed them down, they were relieved to take off their own sweaty boots and paddle their feet in the stream, splashing their faces and hands. Soon they just could not resist stripping down to their underwear and swimming in the icy water.
Feeling invigorated and refreshed, they rubbed themselves dry on the blankets and dressed. Saxon built a fire of twigs to boil a pot of tea. Roana and Lily rummaged through
the packs and found a parcel of food prepared by Cookie. There were sandwiches with roast beef and mustard, and boiled eggs in their shells. These were followed by moist apricot cake, topped with crunchy brown sugar, with a mug of tea.
They all sat on the stream bank, resting their backs against a large rock. Ethan threw pebbles into the stream. Charcoal stalked through the long grass, hunting shadows and crickets, enjoying the freedom to move after the confinement of her wicker basket. Aisha flopped in the shade, exhausted, one paw hiding her eyes.
‘Mmmm,’ sighed Roana. ‘That was delicious. We should enjoy Cookie’s fresh food while it lasts. I suppose it won’t be long until we’re down to the dry biscuits.’
‘The part I hate is when we run out of fresh milk and have to drink black tea,’ moaned Lily.
‘We might be able to buy supplies at Trowbridge and Bryn,’ Saxon commented. ‘We still have plenty of gold crescents left, don’t we, Roana?’
‘Yes – a whole pouch thanks to Fox,’ agreed Roana, feeling the heavy leather pouch tucked on a thong inside her shirt.
‘I suppose we should get up, saddle the horses and be on our way,’ suggested Ethan half-heartedly.
‘Oh, just five minutes more,’ begged Lily. ‘My legs feel so stiff – I don’t think I can move.’
It was another fifteen minutes before they finally clambered slowly to their feet, groaning and moaning. The horses were tacked up, the packs buckled on. They splashed their faces with water once more, filled their bottles and extinguished the fire. Charcoal was scooped up and popped back inside her carry basket, meowing loudly.
Aisha sat watching the preparations, her left ear turned inside out to show her displeasure. She was looking forward to a lovely afternoon nap. When Saxon and Caramel led the procession back onto the path, Aisha stayed behind pointedly, her back turned. Only when Lily whistled did she reluctantly follow.
The Snowy Tower Page 4
