A Whisper of Horses

by Zillah Bethell

  She pushed open the door and I was hit by an eruption of sunlight burning its way through the large, wide window. It took me a moment or so before my eyes grew accustomed to the brightness, then, looking around the room, I could see books. Hundreds of them. Queued up on shelves that went right the way around the walls. I’d never seen so many of them. Even the ones in the Professor’s office were nothing compared with this. There were big books and little books, thin books and fat books, stuffy-looking books with glossy leather spines and papery-looking books held together with creases. The walls were made of them.

  “Do you read?” Mrs. Wessex came alongside me.

  “No.”

  “You don’t read?” She looked amazed.

  “I’m afraid not. They never taught us properly in Lahn Dan.”

  “Criminal. Absolutely criminal. Everyone should know how to read. It is a basic human right. How on earth do you manage?” I shrugged. “It must make things very difficult.”

  “I don’t know. I just sort of get by—piece a few letters together. If you’ve never had something, I don’t suppose you ever miss it.”

  “But you are going in search of horses, are you not?” Her eyes narrowed and stared at me. “And, of course, you’ve never seen a real horse before.” There was more of a question in that last sentence than a sentence.

  She had a point.

  “You’ve … er … you’ve got a lot of books.”

  She pointed across the room. “Third shelf down, several books in from the left. A red-spined one. Do you see it?”

  I wandered across the room to where she had pointed.

  “There are a couple of them with red spines.”

  “The one I am after has a gold embossed picture of a horse’s head on the front.” She clipped over the wooden floor and joined me.

  We tipped them out of the shelf individually. The third book I looked at had the horse’s head. I pulled it out completely and turned to Mrs. Wessex, who smiled.

  “Can you read the title?” she asked.

  I stared at the ornate lettering on the cover. “Er … Bl … Black, is it?”

  “Good.”

  “Black … Be … Beau … I’m not sure.”

  “Beauty. Black Beauty. Ever heard of it?”

  “No, miss.”

  “It is the most famous book about a horse ever written.” I held it out to her. “No, I don’t want it. It’s for you. Take it.”

  “What?”

  “Take it. It’s yours.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. It’s yours. With the small proviso”—she gave me a solid glare that briefly reminded me of Mama—“that you will learn how to read it, and you will then read it through from cover to cover. Yes?”

  “Er…”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes,” I submitted. “Yes. I will.”

  “In fact…” Mrs. Wessex thought for a moment or so. “What if I taught you to read?”

  “Miss?”

  “I could teach you to read. It will be some time before your hand is fully recovered, and in that time I could help you to start reading. It’ll be fun. What do you say?”

  “Er…” I didn’t really know what to say. In Lahn Dan, reading was always thought to be unimportant. A frivolity. Was it that much different outside the city? “Yes,” I eventually replied. “Thank you, miss. That would be kind.”

  chapter 24

  A POLICE MAN’S TALE

  A FEW DAYS later, bleary-eyed and puffed, I stumbled out of my bedroom to find myself head to head with the Minister’s man. He looked almost as exhausted as I felt. His forehead was creased and gray and his chin was covered in scritchity-scratchity growth. The silk pajamas he was wearing looked more crumpled than any silk pajamas had a right to be.

  I froze to the spot, my insides telling me to scream. But I didn’t. I let the seconds pass like forever.

  But the police man didn’t seem all that interested in me. He put his index finger to his lips before creeping away from me towards the end of the corridor and the top of the stairs. When he reached the corner he squatted and leant forward, trying to hear something.

  I’ve no idea why I did it, but I followed him. I came alongside and crouched down, my ears straining to hear.

  Voices. Downstairs. At the door. One of them was Mrs. Wessex’s. The other … I struggled to catch it. It was deep and hoarse like someone who’d forgotten to drink all day.

  Mordecai.

  My heart squelched. I steadied myself against the wall. Seeing my reaction, the police man reached out and grabbed me by the shoulder. His hand was soft and strong. Reassuring.

  I listened as hard as I could.

  “… a girl of about twelve. And a boy with a dog. You’re positive you’ve never seen them? Taken them in? Helped them in any way?”

  “As I said before, no. I’ve never seen them.”

  “I’d like to remind you, Mrs.…”

  “Wessex. Lady Wessex.”

  “I’d like to remind you, Mrs. Wessex, that these people are criminals. They’ve broken a number of rules of—”

  “How on earth did you get through the maze?” Lily sounded flustered, like she wasn’t listening properly. “Only a few people know the way through the maze.”

  “Ha!” The laugh was bitter and self-satisfied. Almost mocking. “If you can’t get around something then just cut a direct route straight through it. That’s always been my opinion.”

  “You’ve cut holes in our maze?”

  “Of course. We weren’t going to waste our valuable time by negotiating it, now were we? Not when we’ve terrorists to catch.”

  “Terrorists? But you say they’re children. How can children be terrorists?”

  Mordecai huffled a bit. “Terrorists come in many sizes and shapes, Mrs.… Wessex. These particular ones recently destroyed one of my men’s vehicles, killing someone in the process.”

  “Mr. Mordecai—”

  “Commander,” Mordecai corrected her.

  “Mr. Mordecai.” She ignored him. “I find your tone rather disturbing. I have not seen either of these children, so I would be grateful if you would remove your trucks and your men from my drive.” Lily Wessex tried to sound tough but I could detect the slight wobble in her voice.

  “Mrs. Wessex,” Mordecai hissed. “You have a very beautiful house. A very beautiful house. It would be a terrible shame if something were to happen to it.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “No, no, Mrs. Wessex. I don’t make threats. I merely make promises. Promises that I intend to keep if I discover I have been lied to.”

  “Get off my doorstep.”

  “Good day to you.” The smirk on Mordecai’s face was easily detectable in his voice.

  The door slammed shut.

  The police man and I quickly raced over to the window overlooking the drive, where we saw Mordecai huffling back to the modpod, his head shaking in a tightly controlled way. One of the other men gave a sort of shrug before spitting coarsely on the gravel. Another, more old-fashioned van was parked nearby. A few of Mordecai’s police men spilled out of it and they stood about for a few seconds, talking, glancing back occasionally at the house itself. After a while, they all climbed into the two vehicles and drove off through the freshly cut hole in the wall of the maze.

  “He thinks I’m dead,” the man standing next to me announced. “He actually thinks I’m dead.” I looked up at him. On his face was stuck a ginormously ecstatic grin. “Oh, thank the God Man for that.” He laughed out loud then turned to me. “I’m free. At last, I’m free.”

  “I’m glad.” I managed to smile, though my insides were quaking. Was this how a hunted fox felt?

  * * *

  It was over a late breakfast that the police man told us his story. Mr. Wessex was back from his trip into one of the villages; Tab had struggled to wake himself up; Mr. Trott had come in from the garden, his spadey hands all wanting a sparkle; Mrs. Wessex was spooning gray lumps into Lysa
nder’s dribbling mouth; and I was all hunched up footwise on my chair.

  The man finished his smoky coffee, leaned back in his seat and began.

  “My name is Saul Knottman. I was born in Lahn Dan and I think I’m about thirty-two years old.” His eyes dipped to his coffee and he idly twisted the cup on its saucer as he spoke. “My father was a police man under the service of two previous Ministers of Lahn Dan, eventually reaching the rank of Sturdy Inspector. He won a great many medals for gallantry and service to the Ministry and was well regarded amongst the entire Police Force.”

  From the corner of my eye I could see Tab stifling a yawn.

  “Growing up, you see,” Knottman continued, “what I think I’m trying to say is that … well … my father was a hero. My hero. So it was only natural that I should want to join the Police Force myself. That’s why, on or about my fourteenth birthday, I enrolled for training.”

  He gave a little grin and leant forward, helping himself to one of the pastries on the big plate in front of him.

  “I did well. Flew through all the tests they put in front of me, ticked all the right boxes, listened to all the right people. And then, after ten years of training—”

  “Ten years?” Mrs. Wessex dropped a lump of the gray stuff in her lap.

  Knottman continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “I eventually became a Constaple in the Minister’s Police Force. Proudest day of my father’s life, I think.

  “Then my mother passed away and my father became ill. It wasn’t good. Trying to juggle the needs of an ailing parent with my responsibilities as a Cu …

  “My father struggled on for some months and then…” Knottman paused before going on. “Then, on the day he died—literally just a few hours before he died—he pulled me closer to him and whispered to me.

  “‘Don’t let them trap you,’ he said. ‘Don’t let them trap you like they trapped me all these years.’”

  Like Mama. Just like Mama before she died.

  Saul continued. “It was scary, hearing my father talk like that. The loyal soldier, the decorated public servant. Scary. And it was then that I started questioning everything. The way Lahn Daners live. The isolation. The Minister. Everything. Like a time bomb tick-tick-ticking inside my head. It was bound to go off at some point.

  “So I volunteered for this job.”

  “What job?” Tab’s yawns were still tumbling out occasionally from his mouth.

  “This one. Finding you. Or more specifically finding you.” His finger was pointing straight at me.

  “Me?”

  “You.”

  “Why me?”

  “I don’t know. The orders from the Minister were quite specific. Find the girl. Bring her back alive.”

  “What about me?” Tab wasn’t yawning now.

  Knottman paused then sighed. “The rest of the orders were to—and I quote—‘Execute the boy and the old man. Leave no trace of them. Dispose of the bodies.’”

  Tab gulped. “Execute? Me?”

  Knottman nodded.

  “I don’t understand.” I could feel my brow all furrowed as I talked. “I don’t follow. Why kill the Professor and Tab but keep me alive?”

  “Make you the scapegoat possibly. I don’t know. A police man never questions their orders, I tell you. The subservient rule. The only one who possibly does know why is Commander Mordecai.”

  “The man who was here this morning?” Mr. Wessex asked.

  Knottman nodded. “Mordecai is one of the Minister’s closest confidants. He’s bound to know why we’ve been chasing you.”

  “So…” Mrs. Wessex steered the story back on track. “You signed up for this particular job. Why?”

  “To escape. To get away. Life in Lahn Dan had become unbearable over the last months, the hypocrisy as obvious and ridiculous as an old clown.” He paused again. “The Minister is not a good man.”

  “That morning, when we pulled you out of the modpod…” I looked at him. “You were escaping?”

  Knottman nodded again. “I had dropped everyone else off at the local villages. They were asking around. Trying to find you. Suddenly I found myself alone in the modpod. My chance had come. So I took it.”

  We all sat there silently for a while, weighing up all the information, allowing our minds to digest it.

  Then Knottman gave me one of his tight stares and said, “And then you saved my life.”

  “Er…”

  “And for that I will be forever indebted to you.” He waved a pastry in the air like a sort of salute before taking a bite out of it.

  chapter 25

  BLACK BEAUTY

  THE NEXT FEW days passed slickly. Knottman, Tab and myself were shown around the villages that the Wessexes were responsible for. Little clusters of houses and farms and schools and churches that were home to little clusters of people. Everyone was sworn to secrecy, of course. No one was to tell Mordecai where we were, and I could tell they were trustworthy. Everyone respected Mr. Wessex and everyone would happily do what he told them to. Mr. Wessex was kind of the boss. Only nice with it.

  Tab and I helped out on one of the fields, spooning up potatoes with mud-clumped forks. The potatoes here were much fatter and fuller than the squiggly little ones that didn’t even struggle out of the ground in Lahn Dan, and as for the carrots … I had always thought that carrots were a dull yellow color, finger-thin and rubbery. But these carrots snapped in two when you snapped them in two, and had sucked up much of the orange sun that was so obvious the farther west we had come. Taking a nibble out of one, you could almost feel the sunshine on your tongue. Not like the tasteless, watery Lahn Dan carrots. These carrots were flavorsome.

  Knottman was especially good with machinery, helping Mr. Wessex and the other men fit blades on harvesters and buckets on diggers. He knew a fantastic lot about sprockets and shafts and pistons, and his face seemed to brighten as the days clicked by and his hands got dirtier. You could tell he was enjoying himself, finding his new role much more satisfying than chasing innocent children around the countryside.

  Not that we were entirely without worry, of course. We were all aware that Mordecai and his men might be prowling the area still. I hoped that perhaps they had gone farther on or had even given up the chase altogether, but secretly I worried that they might be just around the corner, about to pounce. Tab thought so too, I know, but we never talked about it. Probably in case we cursed ourselves by doing so.

  * * *

  One morning, Knottman took me aside.

  “Something I haven’t told you yet—I don’t know why—but before I escaped we had news from Lahn Dan.” He seemed to be talking in a whisper, despite the fact that there was nobody else around. “There is talk of unrest.”

  “Unrest?”

  “A revolution. They are saying that a revolution is imminent.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Cus and Pbs are protesting on the streets. Doing things they shouldn’t. Not doing the things they should. General disobedience. Naturally the Minister is trying to crush it before it begins.”

  The Professor? Could it be?

  Knottman swiveled his head left to right to make sure nobody was listening in. “They are saying the storytellers are behind it. It all started with them.”

  I felt like cheering.

  But I didn’t. I just gave a happy little nod and continued on my way.

  * * *

  In the evenings Knottman, Mr. Wessex and Tab tried training Mouse while Mrs. Wessex helped me with my reading. It was slow at first, painfully slow. But Lily Wessex was a good teacher, surprisingly patient and particular, and after a few nights I began picking things up quicker and quicker.

  Two weeks later, it was time for my first recital. That evening, after dinner, Mrs. Wessex coughed and, as agreed, I stood up from my place at the table.

  “Serendipity has been preparing something for us all,” she said as I bent over and scooped the book up from under my chair. “Some entertainment.”
She grinned at me.

  “Oh, fantastic!” Mr. Wessex seemed particularly pleased about it. Tab looked up at me with a raised eyebrow before turning back to his pudding whilst Knottman put his spoon down and sat back in his chair to take in what I was about to do.

  “Er…,” I stammered. “Mrs. Wessex gave me this book and … er … she has been teaching me to read it. She’s been helping me with the first few pages. And I’d like to read them to you.”

  I cleared my throat and started to read.

  “‘Chapter One. My Early Home. The first place that I can well … re … remember was a large … pl … easant … meadow with a pond of clear water in it. Some trees … over … oversha … overshadowed the pond, and rushes and water … lilies grew at the deep end.’”

  And so I read on. A bit stoppy-starty, not very smooth, but I read on. About the plantation. About Beauty’s mother. About how Beauty’s father was a very distinguished and important horse. About the rough farmboy who throws stones and sticks at the colts for fun. All words I’d been practicing with Mrs. Wessex.

  When I reached the end of the first chapter, I thudded the book shut. Lily Wessex gave me a wink.

  “Well done!” Mr. Wessex clapped his hands together. “Very well done, Serendipity. You read that beautifully.”

  Tab was staring at me, his mouth so wide-open I could see the last of his pudding disappearing. Knottman nodded and smiled.

  I gave an embarrassed sort of shrug. “It wasn’t that good. Some of the words are hard. You know? Difficult to say.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Knottman said. “What matters is that you read it. You read it and understood it. I wish I could read like that.”

  I puffed up a little bit.

  “Do you want to know what happens next?” Lily Wessex was grinning at me.