Jimmy’s mouth twisted wryly. Suddenly all that good cooking was sitting in his stomach like a lead weight. Why couldn’t women think things through? It was always the emotional side of things with them, never the logical. He gave an exasperated sigh. He’d never sleep with his belly in this kind of torment; perhaps a nice evening stroll was in order.
NINE
Encounter
A lone figure trudged down the road.
Bram had left the merchant caravan—if that wasn’t too grand a name for two wagons and two pack mules, where the road branched off toward the village of Relling—just before sunset the night before.
There was a good inn in Relling; they had a first-rate shepherd’s pie, and they brewed a noble ale. Not as good as his mother’s cooking or his father’s home-brew, though. The young man had squared his shoulders, swung his pack over his shoulder on the tip of his bowstave, and set off down the road once he’d made his goodbyes.
By avoiding the loop in the King’s Highway where the road headed off to Relling, and by walking most of the night—he usually slept for four hours—he would see his home just before sunrise, just in time for his mother’s breakfast. There was little danger along the trail he hiked, few animals that would trouble a grown man, and no robber was likely to be lurking along such a byway in the dead of night.
Every hill that challenged his legs was a step nearer to home.
He recognized trees he’d climbed as a lad, fields he’d worked in or tended stock through, jumped over a creek that crossed the roadway and grinned at the memory of the first time he’d been able to do that dry-shod. He was already man-tall in his seventeenth year, with a little soft yellow fuzz on his cheeks and a shock of rough-cropped gold hair, broad-shouldered and long-legged, his open blue eyes friendly. A lifetime’s hard work had put muscle on his shoulders and arms, but it was stalking deer that had given him grace, and made his soft boots fall lightly on the dirt of the road.
And thinking of which, he thought, his head coming up. Something fairly large crashed off through the roadside brush. Pig? he wondered, then stooped. The false dawn gave him light enough for tracking. No, deer, right enough. The cloven print was a little too big and a little too splayed for swine.
Bram chuckled. ‘Run off and get chased by a nobleman,’ he said.
Nobles hunted deer on horseback, with dogs; which was rather like killing chickens with a battle axe to his way of thinking—easily done and not much sport in it—but there was no accounting for tastes. The joy was in tracking and stalking, not the kill. After the kill came the hard part, dressing out the carcass and lugging it back home. But then nobles had servants to do the hard work, he conceded.
He took a deep breath of the musty-cool air and continued down the roadway, whistling. A brisk four-mile walk had brought him almost to his own door and he paused with a smile on his face to look at the old place.
The lane to the farmhouse looked so welcoming in the early morning that the sight of it lifted his heart. There were lanterns on the fence posts on the way up to the house and one beside the door, while the downstairs windows of the house were aglow with candlelight, the flame blurred to a warm yellow through the scraped sheep-gut or thin-sliced horn that made the panes. There was a lantern by the barn door as well, he saw.
That’s a real welcome! he thought; beeswax candles were expensive, and tallow dips weren’t free either.
Then he remembered that they would have had no way of knowing that today would be his homecoming. Which meant that all this extravagant light was for some other cause. A wedding? But there hadn’t been any in prospect when he left. Besides, it wasn’t Sixthday afternoon, when most weddings were held. That meant a wake was the mostly likely explanation, since nobody stinted in honouring the dead. And many of the men would drink through the night until their wives said enough and took them home.
Everyone had been healthy when he left, but that meant little: illness or accident could take a healthy man or woman suddenly enough, and farmers knew that as well as any.
Bram hastened up the drive, pausing when he noticed Farmer Glidden’s wagon, which had been hidden by his mother’s lilacs. Then he glanced into the barn, where another lantern was lit, and he noted several horses belonging to the neighbours and a few beasts that belonged to Lorrie Merford’s family, including their dairy-cow Tessie.
Something was most definitely going on and it probably wasn’t good. Why was the Merford stock in his father’s barn? Bram knew that his family couldn’t possibly afford to buy them; nor would the Merfords sell them.
Bram hurried to the house. Hearing voices raised inside, he entered quietly through the rear door, the better to hear the fast and furious discussion that was going on. The big, single room that held the main hearth was filled with neighbours, many seated on the benches around the kitchen table, others on stools around the room, the rest standing or squatting against the wall.
‘It was animals! Wild dogs or something like that!’ said Tucker Holsworth, smacking the table for emphasis as he waved his pipe in the air. His face was black with soot and dirt.
‘But what about what Lorrie said?’ asked Bram’s father.
‘Y’mean about men doing it with some sort of tool?’ Holsworth puffed on his pipe as he sought to keep it lit.
‘Well, she was there. If that’s what she said she saw should we be doubting her?’
‘But those marks were made by some animal’s teeth! No knife did that to them,’ offered Rafe Kimble, who stood by the kitchen hearth. He was also black from soot.
‘And little Rip? Where did he go to if someone didn’t kidnap him, then?’ asked his wife, Elma.
‘He could have perished in the fire, and the girl just didn’t see it,’ insisted Allet.
‘If the animal was big enough then it could have dragged him off to its den.’ That came from Jacob Reese, who sat at the table with the other two men.
‘But how could an animal like that or even a pack of animals, be in the area and us not notice?’ asked Ossrey. ‘Where have they gone then? I’ve heard no rumours of such as happened to the Merfords happening anywhere else.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Bram exclaimed. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Bram!’ his mother cried. Allet jumped up from her seat and made her way through the crowd to embrace him.
‘Son!’ Ossrey said. ‘Good to see you, boy!’ He offered his hand across the kitchen table and Bram leaned through the crowd of neighbours to take it with a brief smile. From the leftover food on the table and the open jugs, it was clear the women had been in the kitchen all night, cooking breakfast for the men, who had just finished eating.
‘You must be starving,’ Allet said. ‘Sit down, Bram,’ she pushed him toward her place at the table, ‘and I’ll get you something.’
‘I’m fine, Mother,’ Bram said, but he did take her seat after he’d unslung his bundle and propped the bow and quiver against the wall beside the door. ‘What’s happened? It sounds bad.’ He looked around at his neighbours, then turned expectantly to his father.
Ossrey bowed his head and looked at Bram from under his shaggy eyebrows. He was a dark hairy man except for a thinning patch on top of his head, and broader-built than his son would ever be. ‘I’m so sorry you’ve come home to such bad news, son,’ he began. ‘The Merfords have suffered a terrible tragedy.’
‘Lorrie?’ Bram asked immediately.
His mother’s lips thinned and she frowned slightly, her eyes shifting to Farmer Glidden to see how he took Bram’s singular interest in Lorrie Merford.
‘She was fine the last time we saw her,’ Allet said, crossing her arms.
‘What do you mean the last time you saw her?’ Bram demanded. When no answer was forthcoming, he gripped his mother by the arms and asked, ‘Mother, what happened?’
‘Lorrie’s parents were both killed,’ Farmer Glidden told him quickly. ‘Their house and barn were burned down and we spent the night over there putting out fires in t
he fields. Just got back here an hour ago.’ He was silent a moment, then added, ‘Her brother’s gone missing. I’m told Lorrie took her horse and rode out. Probably gone after the boy.’
There was a flurry of ’tsks!’ both sympathetic and condemning, accompanied by nods and shaking heads.
Bram released his mother’s arms. ‘So Lorrie and Rip are both missing?’
‘Didn’t I just say so?’ Glidden said.
‘Has anyone gone after them?’
From the glances exchanged around the room, Bram could tell no one had.
‘When did all this happen?’ Bram ran a desperate hand through his hair, looking around in confusion.
‘The marks on Melda and Sam’s bodies looked like they’d been made by an animal of some kind,’ Ossrey said. ‘We think the boy must have been dragged away by whatever killed them.’
‘Animals!’ Bram said. ‘Here?’ He looked around again. ‘Has anyone tracked the beasts? Are you saying they . . . had they eaten Melda and Sam?’ Then it struck him. ‘Do you mean to tell me that Lorrie has gone alone, tracking some animal big enough and dangerous enough to kill two adults? When did she go?’
‘Lorrie said something about men doing it,’ Dora Commer said, looking defiantly at Allet and Ossrey. ‘Said they tore up the bodies with some sort of tool to make it look like a beast did it, then headed down the road toward Land’s End. She wanted to follow them at once, but of course we couldn’t let her do that. We thought she was in a panic.’ The woman shrugged, looking guilty. ‘And there was the fire, we had to take care of that. For all we knew the boy had been in the house or the barn and she just couldn’t take the idea. Besides,’ she continued into his silence, ‘if there were men and they’d killed both her parents what could one girl do against them?’
‘We brought her here and put her to bed,’ his mother said. ‘The men had to fight fires in the fields all night, and have been arguing this thing since they got here. When the Lormers were leaving, a little before you got here, they saw the Merfords’ horse gone. I checked your room and it was empty. She’d gone out of the window, wearing some of your old clothing, and she stole your purse from under the bed!’ She said the last as if it was more important than the other news.
‘She’s welcome to it,’ said Bram, ‘if she needs it to find Rip.’
‘I checked her farm,’ Long Paul, the foreman of Glidden’s farm said. ‘I took a lantern, rode out there and checked. No sign of her.’
‘Well, there’s nothing there for her now, is there?’ Jacob Reese’s wife asked, sniffing sadly.
‘We’re going to send word to the constable after sunup,’ said Glidden officiously. ‘It’s their job to deal with things like this.’
Bram looked incredulous. ‘The constable?’
Glidden looked displeased. ‘Doubt much will come of it. No doubt they’ve much more important things to do than be after a girl looking for her brother.’
‘But wasn’t he right there on the minute when it came to evicting the Morrisons from the farm their family had worked forever?’ Dora said indignantly. ‘They jump right to it if you’re a money-lender needing to foreclose.’
At this more arguments broke out and threatened to go on for some time.
Bram watched them in wonder then finally shouted over the uproar, ‘What have you been doing to find Lorrie and Rip?’
‘And what should we do?’ his mother asked, sounding offended. ‘We offered her our home and our comfort and she ran away, with your purse, without so much as a thank you or a farewell. If she doesn’t want us we can’t force ourselves on her.’
He looked at her, then turned to his father. ‘And there’s been no further sign of these so-called animals?’ he asked.
‘None,’ Ossrey said. ‘None before, and none since.’
‘We didn’t find any tracks to follow,’ Long Paul told him.
Bram stared at him. Long Paul was the best hunter in the district; it was he who had taught Lorrie and Bram to hunt. If Long Paul couldn’t find tracks then there were no tracks to find. ‘Doesn’t that strike anyone as odd?’ he asked. ‘The Merfords’ farm is seven miles from any sizeable stands of woods. Any animal large enough to savage a full-grown man and woman would have been seen by someone if it was crossing the fields from the Old Forest or the Free Woods. Unless you think it just trotted down the King’s Highway without a trader, traveller, or horseman noticing it, then it turned down the Old Mill Trail to Lorrie’s farm.’
His neighbours looked at one another in confusion.
‘Well, yes,’ Long Paul said. ‘Not that it signifies. Tracks I mean. Those marks on the bodies were definitely made by an animal’s teeth, Bram. I’d swear to that. The fact that it’s odd doesn’t change the evidence. Could have been a flyer.’ He shrugged.
‘A flyer?’ asked Bram.
‘Well, never saw one, but heard tell of some things on the wing up in the mountains that are big enough to attack a man, wyverns and the like.’ Then he cocked his head, frowning. ‘What are you getting at?’
‘That something’s not right here,’ Bram told him. ‘Lorrie said she saw men taking her brother away, and you didn’t believe her.’ He glanced pointedly at his mother. Her face became more pinched. ‘But the only evidence of animals is the marks on the bodies and she said that men did it with some sort of tool. Meanwhile Lorrie has run off alone and everyone’s just sitting here talking about it.’
Ossrey looked shamefaced and he wasn’t the only one, but no one spoke up and no one moved a muscle. Bram picked up his pack and rose.
‘Where are you going?’ Allet asked, alarmed.
‘Mother, Lorrie is a neighbour, more, she’s my friend and she’s only fifteen. She’s just lost everything in the world and she’s out there on her own. Rip may be out there too or he may be as dead as his parents, that’s something we don’t know. But we do know about Lorrie. We have an obligation to help her.’
‘No,’ his mother said, thin-lipped. ‘No, I don’t see that. We tried and she spurned our help. As far as I’m concerned that ends our obligation. And as for her being fifteen, you’re only seventeen yourself. So there’s no reason to think that you’ll do more going after her than she could do for herself.’
Bram was disappointed in her, but not surprised. As soon as he’d begun taking an interest in Lorrie his mother had turned against the girl: this was just more of the same. He looked at his father.
‘Do what you think is right, son,’ Ossrey rumbled.
Allet hit Ossrey’s arm and glared at him.
‘Would anyone else like to help me hunt for Lorrie?’ Bram asked.
There was a certain amount of foot shuffling and mutterings about not liking to be away from their families while a threat lurked near. And the constable, they should wait on the constable.
‘All right,’ Bram said. It was what he’d expected. He kissed his mother’s cheek and nodded to his father, then turned to go. ‘I’ll be back when I’m back, then.’
Allet reached out, her face a study in astonishment, but her husband held her back. He placed a large finger athwart her lips as Bram threw a few things into a haversack—a loaf of coarse brown bread, a lump of cheese and some smoked pork—and then took up his bow and quiver, nodding to the assembled company before he stepped back out into the night.
Lorrie drew rein half a mile from the gates of Land’s End. The sun was burning down over her shoulder. It had taken old Horace longer to cover the distance than she had thought. Rather than reaching the city by early morning, the poor old creature had managed to get there by midday. She’d been to the city as a child, of course: it was the only market town for the area within two weeks’ travel, and her father had let her come along to the Midsummer’s festival once, but she hardly had any sense of the place.
And I’ve been all night on the road.
It hardly seemed possible that only one night had passed since her world had ended.
A mule-drawn wagon went past her, and pack-horses;
folk were hurrying to get to town and settle their business before the market stalls emptied out. A half-day’s commerce still waited those seeking to trade. She urged Horace into a fast walk, scanning ahead.
The town lay in the cup of the hills. Those immediately around it were too steep and rocky to be good farmland, but they’d been logged clear and a good deal of the traffic on the road was firewood from further away. Behind her rose hills dotted with lovely farms, many reminding her of her own, and but a day’s ride away the smouldering ashes of that farm were all that was left.
There were some sheep about, but mostly dairy-cows, which surprised her, until she realized that a city would be a good place to sell fresh milk. Nearer to the town there were worksteads on both sides of the dusty white road: trades that weren’t allowed in the city or needed more space—a big tannery whose stink made her blink and cough, a potter’s kilns like big stumpy beehives sending off waves of heat she could feel a dozen yards away, some smithies, and . . . yes, a stock-dealer. Horses, mostly. She could see them milling about in the pens behind chest-high fieldstone walls. And a saddler’s next door, with some of their own. Probably they both rented mounts or draught-animals, as well as dealing in them.
Lorrie felt her stomach rumble at the smell of cooking from a booth; she had had nothing to eat since the previous morning, the shock of the day’s events having driven all hunger from her. Now, yesterday morning seemed a long time ago to her stomach.
She’d known that she couldn’t keep Horace once she got to Land’s End even though the thought broke her heart. There was no money to board and feed him and only the little in Bram’s purse for herself.
I’ll make the money up to Bram! she thought. I’d better get the best deal I can.
The saddler was sitting in his open-sided booth, packing his tools before shutting down for the day. He looked up as she swung down from the saddle, a man in his thirties in breeches and a sleeveless jerkin, his arms ropy with muscle and his hands big and battered, scarred by awl and knife and strong waxed thread. His eyes were green, and shrewd. ‘Can I help you, lad?’ he said.
Jimmy the Hand Page 15
