The old man shut off the engine, so they floated with the current. There was a sudden startling quiet. Ahead of them, forested flatlands stretched away beneath the sun.
* * *
—
With the attack over, the occupants of the raft assessed their losses. Scarlett and the little girl were unharmed. Albert’s head felt sore where some of his hairs had been yanked out. Only Joe had actually been wounded. He was bleeding profusely from one ear.
Scarlett got her first-aid kit from her rucksack, located cotton wool and antiseptic spray, and offered it to the old man.
He waved his hand. “I don’t need any of that.”
“Don’t be a martyr. You’ve been bitten. This will help.”
“It’s just a nick.”
“Your ear’s hanging off. Do you want the child to run screaming from you? Shut up and get it fixed.”
“Worse things happen every voyage. Quit fussing. It will dry. Now who wants breakfast? That fight has given me an appetite.”
Breakfast on the raft Clara turned out to be black coffee and scrambled eggs, which Joe prepared on a griddle concealed beneath a section of board in the center of the deck. It was surprisingly good. The little girl drank milk and, with a huge white mustache across her upper lip, tucked into her egg under the watchful eye of her grandfather. Everyone sat in silence, eating from battered metal dishes. There was a general state of numbed exhaustion.
Scarlett took the opportunity to study Joe and Ettie well. Close scrutiny did not improve her opinion of either of them. The child had very pale, straight hair, so fair it was almost translucent, like the wheat stalks left in the fields after harvesting. She had a round stomach and a large head, and she supported herself on two splayed, pudgy legs. Her eyes were wide and black and her cheeks red, suggesting a capacity for high emotion. The mouth was small and tightly drawn. It was a capricious mouth, thought Scarlett. In fact, the girl looked both thoroughly helpless and possessed of an iron will. This combination of neediness and determination did not appeal to Scarlett.
As for the old man, he did not display any of the meekness or caution to be expected of someone who had fallen in with a pair of desperate outlaws. For a poor, itinerant raft dweller, he had a surprisingly proud bearing. His glittering eyes were never still, flitting from Scarlett to Albert and back again in a cool and calculating manner. Scarlett frowned. No question about it, he would have to be closely watched throughout the voyage.
At length Joe set his dish aside. “Since we have a moment’s rest, let us recap our situation. You are two felons, running away like cowardly dogs to escape the consequences of your crimes. I am being paid a large sum to help you do this. You want to be dropped off at one of the Great Ruins, at which point the rest of my money will be handed over. Correct?”
Scarlett frowned. “Not entirely. You missed the part where we are forced to cohabit on a listing wreck with a thistle-haired geriatric and a fat-thighed infant. Let’s be precise here.”
“I’m not quite sure about the ‘cowardly dogs’ bit either,” Albert said. “I actually have a positive quest, which is to seek the free peoples of the lagoon, where I may live a life of fulfillment, beyond the reach of repression and cruelty. As for Scarlett, she has her rather tangled business affairs to sort out, plus one or two secondary misunderstandings caused by her falling in with me. She’s simply looking for a place to take stock and make appropriate arrangements, so she can return in due course to the bosom of her friends and comrades. Isn’t that right, Scarlett?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
The old man took a swig of coffee. “In short, you’re both scarpering. Clear as day.”
“Well, whatever we’re doing,” Scarlett said, “we need to move fast and avoid trouble. The Surviving Towns are no friends of ours, and word will spread about what happened in Lechlade. Pigeons will be flying far and wide. Can you get us to the lagoon quietly and safely? If not, we’ll need to find alternative transport.”
“Good luck with that.” The old man picked at his teeth with a grubby finger.
“Have no fear, Scarlett!” Albert said. “Joe knows every inch of the Thames! He is a master of countless routes through the Oxford floodlands toward the lagoon. Secret ways, which few others know. Is that not so, Joe?”
The old man stared at him. “It is, though I don’t know how you know it….” He shrugged. “Ettie and I travel the great river from the herring fisheries in the estuary to the fens of Cricklade. We sell our kippers in the Surviving Towns. It is our life. There is little more to say about it. However”—he reached into the inner pocket of his denim jacket—“it means I know the river like I know my own backside. Intimately and well, every imperfection, every unexpected detail. Here is a color diagram.”
“Of the river?”
“Of course of the river. What else would it be?” He handed over a folded parchment. Scarlett saw that the paper was old and stained and much repaired, and glued into a leather binding. It concertinaed out to show almost the whole length of the Thames, running west to east, with the river neatly drawn in blue and black ink and tiny red-walled buildings marking the Surviving Towns. There was Lechlade, set on its river bend. There was Chalgrove, Reading, Marlow, and the rest…. The floodplain was a cat’s cradle of interlinking streams and channels. Weirs, cataracts, and other hazards were marked in green. The lands around were mountains and forests, with tiny beasts drawn in them, and also humanlike figures, stick thin, sitting on piles of bones. In the extreme east, the river broadened into the London Lagoon, where red-walled ruins rose from the shallows, and there were sketches of giant fish and water monsters. Beyond that was the sea.
“Looks about right,” she said. “Well, we should get on. We don’t know who might be behind us.” She saw a shadow cross Albert’s face.
* * *
—
The old man’s ear was troubling him. Before starting the engine, he retired to wash and bandage it. The small girl lolled on the edge of the deck, sticking her fingers in the water. Albert went to sit beside her. After a moment, Scarlett got out her prayer mat. She had not used it since Lechlade, since before the bank job. It had been too long, and she could feel the unworked tension coiling in her limbs.
Even the feel of the tattered cloth was enough to calm her a little. She unrolled it at the front of the raft, as far from the others as possible. The stained red-and-orange mat fitted perfectly on a bare patch of the decking. Scarlett sat cross-legged on it, took a piece of gum to aid her contemplation, and closed her eyes.
She knew it would be a hard one, that she would struggle to lose herself. She had much to think about and several issues for her conscience to resolve. It didn’t help that Albert almost immediately started a conversation with the old man, warning him loudly about what would happen to him or the child if they disturbed Scarlett’s state of grace. Scarlett did her best to shut it all out. Her heart began to slow; the fierce tautness of her nature relaxed. She thought through the events of the past few days, the treachery of the Brothers of the Hand, the encounter with Shilling and the pale-haired woman…And Albert—always Albert. Albert at the center of it all.
A sound broke in on her meditation, a distant humming, like a trapped and angry fly. Scarlett frowned, trying to concentrate…. There was so much she didn’t yet understand about Albert’s past or the people who were chasing him. Stonemoor, Dr. Calloway, the Faith Houses…it was all slightly out of focus. But the implications of his abilities were far-reaching. She had to investigate them, if she could. One way or another, the journey down the Thames gave her the chance of uncovering a little more.
The odd buzzing noise was still there. Scarlett opened her eyes—to find the old man standing not three feet away, a bloody bandana across his ear, staring down at her with bog-eyed intensity. In fact, he was multitasking, since he was also eating an apple and scratching himse
lf in a private area. Scarlett cursed. Scrabbling for her gun, she sprang to her feet, almost tripping on the prayer mat in her haste. “Albert!” she cried. “Look at this! So much for my state of grace! You let him get right close to me!”
Albert Browne glanced up from the map, in which he was engrossed. “I think he was just interested in your meditations. I’m not surprised. I am myself.”
“He might have had a weapon!”
“He had an apple.”
“It doesn’t matter what he had! You are so useless!” Scarlett gestured angrily. “And you—what do you want, old man?”
“Joe.”
“What do you want, Joe?”
The old man took a bite and chewed it shruggingly. “I came to tell you that the birds are rising again.”
“The birds?”
“The birds in the gorge.”
Scarlett assimilated this. The sun shone on the river and the purple-brown mudflats and the forested wastes on either bank. She looked back along the curl of the river to the spur of high ground in the west. Above the ruin, dark forms were circling against the sun. As they watched, first one bird and then another wheeled and plummeted out of sight.
“Something else is coming through the gorge,” Joe said.
From somewhere, faintly carried on the still air, came the distant buzzing. A soft, persistent burr. An engine running.
“Yep. I reckon that’s a motorboat,” the old man said.
A punch on the nose, a kick in the pants; being grabbed by his bony neck and hurled out into the river—Albert could see from Scarlett’s thoughts how close the old man came to regretting the lackadaisical manner of his announcement. Outwardly, though, she controlled herself.
“Please start our engine, Joe,” she said. “We have to go.”
She came over to stand with Albert, who was gazing upriver toward the gorge. Nothing was visible behind the raft, but the thrumming sound told its own story. Far off, but not too far, something with a smooth-running motor was cutting through the river’s brightness, water fountaining from its prow.
“Coming fast,” Scarlett said.
“Do you think it’s—”
“Yep.” She glanced across at the old man, who was bending over the engine box, pulling vainly at the throttle with a frown on his face. “Do we have problems, Joe?”
“The engine’s not come on.”
“I can see that. Why?”
“It’s not the oil. I did that last night. Everything lubricated. Never done a better job.”
“So it’s not the oil. What else might it be?”
“The ignition cable is always giving me jip.” He peered into the box. “Yeah…the little bozo’s come unstuck. Either of you have a tube of glue or bonding agent?”
“No.”
“Didn’t suppose it was the kind of thing that murderous brigands carry about. Course, if I’d asked for a disemboweling knife or a knuckle-duster, I’d have had more confidence.” The old man tapped his fingers on the side of the box. “I need something sticky. OK, girl”—he held out his hand—“give me the gum you’re chewing.”
Scarlett took the gum from her mouth and passed it over. Albert stared back along the river. The birds were returning to their nests in the tower. The distance was too great for certainty, but he could see something on the water now. A dot, suspended on the silver…. It might almost have been a piece of grit hanging on his eyelash.
He knew who it was. She was coming. Terror spread like rust inside him.
Joe fixed the gum, reached for the throttle. This time the engine started with a roar. The raft jerked, the little girl fell over, Albert nearly capsized into the river. Scarlett stayed perfectly balanced, arms folded, face calm, staring upriver toward the distant boat.
“Good,” she said. “Now we’ll see.”
They sailed on, and the Thames shone milk white with morning. The raft was surprisingly swift, skimming lightly across the surface. It seemed more than a match for the motorboat. Almost at once, the dot behind fell back and was lost to view. Albert waited for a long while, stomach knotted with anxiety, but it did not reappear. The raft’s propeller throbbed confidently, turning the water to foam.
The river progressed in long, easy loops between forested hills. There were small villages tucked beneath them, each ringed by its iron or wooden stockade and with nets strung across the rooftops to ward off the great toothed birds. Fishing boats idled in the Thames shallows, and people watched from the fields as the raft went by.
The old man worked the tiller. Scarlett sat on a crate in the sunshine, cleaning her gun. Ettie started playing a game, walking round and round the tent at the center of the raft, patting each of the four poles in turn. There was no obvious reason for what she did, but her thoughts were identical to her actions, which suggested she was content enough. Albert felt his tension ease somewhat as he watched her. It took his mind off what pursued them.
Scarlett approached. The light shone on her hair, and her eyes sparked green. “Feeling worried?” she asked.
“A little, Scarlett, yes.”
“Well, I’ve got to say this heap of junk’s going better than I expected. It’s at least as fast as whatever’s behind us. We may actually outrun them….” She regarded him speculatively. “Course, if I could do what you do, I wouldn’t be too fussed either way. I’d just sink the bastards when they got near. Or blow them up or something.”
He shuddered. “I can’t do that.”
“You did something bigger last night.”
“No. That was just one petrol drum. And it’s worn me out. I couldn’t lift a finger today. Besides”—he shook his head in disgust—“even if I was strong, I can’t always manage it. Sometimes in the tests I manage nothing, no matter how much she hurts me. Other times, the Fear comes—and that’s worse.”
“The Fear?”
“It’s when I lose control. I call it that because it happens when I’m scared—and because I’m terrified of what it does. I get upset, Scarlett, and when I get upset…” His voice trailed off. He was back in the alley with the slavers. One moment with three people, the next alone. With an effort, he blinked the sunlight back into him. “You wouldn’t want to see it,” he said. “That’s all.”
Scarlett’s eyes were on him. “So she tests you, does she, this Calloway?”
He thought of the chair, the wires, the blank, white-tiled room. “Yes….”
“Does she say why?”
“To cure me. To teach me control. I’ve got none, Dr. Calloway says. Not in the tests, not anywhere. I’m too dangerous and unpredictable. That’s why they put the mind restraint on me.”
“Well, you’re not wearing the mind restraint now,” Scarlett said, “and we seem to be knocking around all right, don’t we?” She gave him a swift half smile. “And if we can get to the floodlands, the old man says there are endless tributaries to hide in. So don’t start fretting yet.”
The raft chugged on. The river villages fell behind them. Woods rolled unbroken into the distance across countless rounded hills. They passed great ruins, rising above the forest like the vertebrae of giant beasts. Noon came; the sun tilted to the west. It shone brightly on the treetops, but the ground was black with pooling shadow. There had been no sight or sound of the pursuing boat—if such it was—for several hours.
The trees thickened, broad-trunked oaks of extreme age congregating on opposite banks, stretching out enormous branches that laced overhead to become a solid canopy. The river ran onward through the emerald tunnel. The water was greenish, darkly dappled, glinting with sparks of sunlight. The air was warm and close, and Albert began to grow drowsy.
A somnolent atmosphere enveloped the raft. The old man remained at the helm, half dozing, his bloodied bandana askew across his forehead. Scarlett sat in the deck chair at the front, legs crossed, arms folded, hai
r over her eyes. Albert went to sit near Ettie at the awning. She was a busy little girl. Right now, she was rolling a wooden ball along the deck, trying to strike the colored blocks. Albert found a yellow block and held it out to her, which the child took after only the slightest hesitation. Presently she brought him another, handed it over with great ceremony, and coquettishly danced away.
It pleased Albert to be with Ettie. He liked her company. She reminded him of some of the smaller inhabitants of Stonemoor, the little children he had seen wandering on the grounds of the house. It was different with Scarlett, he noticed. She didn’t acknowledge the girl at all, seldom even looked at her. There was a stiffness in her response to the child that surprised him. She was normally so flexible.
All at once, he saw the old man walk past with his blunderbuss in his hand.
Joe reached Scarlett and nudged her awake. She was instantly alert. “What is it?”
“Up ahead.”
Getting to his feet, Albert looked too. A wisp of gray smoke was rising among the trees, close to the riverbank on the left side, twirling and twisting in the noonday light. It was very thin and nebulous, hardly perceptible against the green. It didn’t seem much to Albert, but Scarlett and the old man stood and watched it, side by side. Albert became aware of their stillness, of a new seriousness between them.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “What is going on? It’s not…our enemies, surely? I thought we’d lost them.”
Scarlett didn’t answer him. She spoke to the old man. “You got other weapons?”
The old man pointed. “That box at the stern. A rifle.”
The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne Page 19
