Labyrinth Gate (20 page)

Sanjay saw her. He, too, stood up, and they met halfway. When they embraced, the others looked away discreetly.

“Do you remember anything?” she asked as she held on to him. Their sodden clothes seemed to fuse together.

“No. I don’t even remember hitting the water. I woke up on the grass.” She felt him shake his head, disbelieving. “Do you—”

“No, I just—” She paused. “No.” Just hallucinations, she thought, and she chuckled weakly, holding to him. Just a vision of an impossibly perfect youth, not quite a man, who stood protectively and lovingly over her and called her “mother.” “No,” she finished, pulling away from him. “I’m just glad we’re both alive.” She turned to the others. “How did you find us?”

Behind Southern she saw the five children they had freed from the factory. The youth stood, boathook in one hand, like a guardian angel over the others.

“We beached the boat,” Julian replied, “on the opposite shore, and cut through the woods. Southern seems to think the road lies in this direction.”

“I’m sure of it,” said Southern sharply, with a brief glance at Lord Vole. “My lord,” he added as an obvious afterthought, but Julian had gone over to the children.

Sanjay stripped off his coat and wrung it tightly to get rid of the excess water. “Then we’d better go.” As if on cue, a dog barked in the distance, accompanied by a shout and an answering hail.

Julian and Kate had already each picked up one of the unconscious children and were heading into the woods on the far side of the pool. Mog and Pin trotted gamely after them, Pin lagging behind until Thomas Southern came up beside her and lifted her up into his arms. Sanjay picked up the protesting Mog, leaving Chryse to bring up the rear with the youth.

She paused at the edge of the clearing and looked back. The pool was bathed in the mild glow of late afternoon sun. The debris of the boat floated on the water as if a hand had flung it there. The falls shimmered; at the center the water seemed almost to coalesce into an insubstantial being.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and then, embarrassed at herself, she hurried on to catch up, falling in beside the youth.

“What’s your name?” she asked as they made their way through the underbrush.

He hacked at bushes with the boathook. “Lucias, ma’am,” he answered.

“Wasn’t he a saint?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.” He flashed her a brilliant smile, fair as the dawn. “Fallen from grace because of his vanity at his own beauty, but redeemed by Our Lord in His mercy.”

“I see.” Chryse suppressed a smile.

Kate dropped back to walk beside them. The child in her arms stirred weakly and grunted, a tiny noise, at each step. “Are you making the acquaintance of our escaped prisoner?” she asked. “Quite an appropriate name, Lucias, don’t you think?” She grinned, gazing at the lad with undisguised appreciation.

“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the story, Kate,” Chryse said quickly, seeing that the boy was blushing under Kate’s scrutiny. “But tell me, Lucias, why were you locked up there?”

He looked troubled. “I don’t know, ma’am. Truly.” He shook his head, frowning. He had rich, blond hair that tumbled in waves to his shoulders. “I feel that I should, but I don’t.”

A shout from ahead. They had found the road. It bent off into curves on either side, screened by trees.

“But won’t we be in more danger on the road?” asked Sanjay as the group turned to walk along it.

“Yes,” said Julian. “But Miss Farr said she would try to bring a carriage, and we won’t meet it in the fields.”

Dogs barked again, closer now, and they heard horses and the sound of wheels. Julian raised his pistol. Thomas Southern set down Pin and took his shovel in both hands. Mog, struggling, wriggled out of Sanjay’s arms and ran over to Pin.

“Here.” Lucias handed the boathook to Sanjay.

Around one bend drove a familiar carriage. Kate shouted, and Maretha’s head appeared at the carriage window. She waved wildly, and called up to the coachman to stop.

Dogs barked, this time followed by a roar that reverberated through the air, and around the other corner came a wagon and about twenty of the factory hands, a dozen or so evil-looking dogs swarming at their feet. And striding alongside, Crudebelch himself.

Mog shrieked and Lucias huddled up against Chryse.

Julian levelled his pistol. “I wouldn’t advise that you advance any closer,” he called in a clear, firm voice. “I am Lord Vole, and these people are under my protection.”

The ogre growled. Not a canine sound, really, but drawn out and brimful of a crazed anger. “Ye’ll pay for this, my fine lord. Thieves must pay.” His voice had a low edge like knives being sharpened. “Surround them.”

His people fanned out, widening into a loose chain around the party. The coachman pulled the carriage to a halt with difficulty. The horses, catching the ogre’s scent, were beginning to back and fight against their harness.

Maretha flung open the door and stepped out, a pistol in each hand.

“Stop, or I’ll fire!” she cried.

Crudebelch roared and strode forward towards the carriage. Julian fired. Two more shots, from Maretha. All three bullets hit, one showing like a red spot between the eyes, but Crudebelch merely batted at his face as if at flies and lumbered on. Sanjay and Thomas ran forward, swinging, but the ogre swept them aside with ease, and with such force that they both landed sprawling on the hard surface of the road.

He reached Maretha, who was trying frantically to reload, and with one huge hand grasped her under one arm and lifted her bodily up into the air. His cronies closed in around the others. Pin began to cry. Lucias clung so tightly to Chryse that her arm hurt.

“Interfere with what is mine,” Crudebelch growled. “This for you.” He reached with the other hand towards the horses. They pulled back away from him, neighing and snorting; above, the coachman fought the reins, eyes on Maretha.

With a swift, violent swipe, Crudebelch raked his claws through the neck of the lead horse. Blood spattered Maretha. She was pale, eyes wide, but her face was controlled and she did not struggle in his grip.

The animal collapsed, pulling the other horses down in their traces. At the same moment, the earl rode into sight. The dogs ceased barking and slunk whining back to the wagon, huddling at the wheels. He pulled up his horse, his gaze raking the scene in a single, frozen instant, centering on the ogre and Maretha.

“Put down my wife,” he said, his voice glacial. He was not armed.

Crudebelch laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. “You can’t harm me,” he growled. “Whoever you be.”

“Is that so,” replied the earl. His horse stood uncannily still beneath him.

“It is so,” retorted the ogre. He brought a blood-tinged claw up to touch, tenderly, Maretha’s throat. She shut her eyes. “I’ll have you know that I am protected by one higher in state than any of you, mere commoner though I be.” Could his features have managed a sneer, he would have sneered now. “You can’t threaten me.”

“Can’t I?” said the earl, even quieter now. It was amazing his voice could be heard at all. “Put down my wife.”

For the first time, Crudebelch hesitated.

“Put her down.”

The factory hands had drawn back now, slinking away like the dogs.

Crudebelch’s lips curled back. “Very well,” he growled, and with a roar he flung Maretha aside, launching himself at a run for the earl.

The earl did not move, nor did his horse. The ogre, halfway to him, burst into flames.

His shrieks were terrifying. Everyone but the earl shrank back, covering their ears; some shut their eyes. The flames burned with vivid brilliancy, completely soundless.

Crudebelch threw himself on the road and rolled and thrashed about, but the fire only burned with more vigor, pulsing as if to the beat of his heart. He shrieked and roared until his vocal cords were burnt away. After that, he merely thrashed more and more weakly until there was too little of him to move. When he was reduced to blackened skeleton, the flames at last faded and died.

There was a long silence.

The people from the factory, and their dogs, were gone. Lucias had fainted against Chryse. The rest could only stare at the remains in horror.

The earl rode forward, with no change of expression, and prodded at the skeleton with his quirt. The bones disintegrated at its touch. No one moved.

Maretha, in a heap by the carriage, picked herself up at last and brushed off her hands and hair. She did not touch her dress. She limped over to Pin and Mog and shepherded them to the carriage. They were too terrified to resist, much less speak. She was, with Kate’s help, loading the third child into the carriage when the earl turned from his silent perusal of the ashes and saw what she was doing.

“Maretha!” His voice cracked like the snap of ice through the air. She finished settling the child onto the seat before she looked at him. “You will remove those children. Gutter rats have no place in the Elen carriage.”

“I will not,” she said calmly, taking the last child from Kate’s arms and motioning her away with a glance. Kate retreated as the earl approached, halting his horse beside Maretha. “These children are ill, perhaps with their death.

We are taking them to the inn.” She turned and gently laid the fourth child, as dirty and tattered as the other three, on the plush velvet of the seat. Mog and Pin cowered against the far door.

“Remove them,” he repeated. His eyes were as cold as his voice.

“No.”

He lifted his quirt. “You dare?” he whispered. His hand tightened.

“Yes,” said Maretha. “I dare.”

For a long moment their eyes remained locked. Then the earl lowered his whip with a jerk, reined his horse around, and galloped abruptly away.

It was a quiet journey back to the inn, and they saw not a soul either on the road or in the village lanes. They buried one of the children in the village churchyard the next morning. By noon, they were well on their way north.

T
HE SECOND CHILD LASTED
for almost a month before fading to a peaceful death. She was buried in the graveyard of an old abbey, attended by a handful of aged monks. Pin grew quite ill and lapsed into a semi-coma.

Only Mog flourished. Although he sat often by Pin with a concern that was touching in one so young, not even the graveness of her condition could dampen his spirits. He began to trail after Julian, aping his walk and, to the best of his ability, the way he dressed.

Chryse had some days ago given the little boy one of her white handkerchiefs to use as a cravat, and she was now helping him tie it into a poor imitation of the more elaborate styles Julian and Kate sported, when Julian walked into the inn parlor and stopped short, seeing them.

“Lady help us,” he said, surveying Mog. “What do you call it?”

Chryse laughed, looking from the complicated tie of Julian’s cravat, which, she had learned, was named the Waterfall, to the disorder at Mog’s neck. “I call it the Futile. Mog needs your valet, I’m afraid.”

“My dear lady,” said Julian, looking shocked. “You don’t suppose I let my valet tie my cravat, do you? Here, boy.” He knelt and with a few neat twists formed the handkerchief into a simpler model of his own.

“’Cor!” breathed Mog, standing on tiptoe in order to admire himself in the mirror that stood atop one of the sidetables.

“What do you say?” prompted Chryse.

“Thank you, your lordship.” Mog completed the phrase with a stiff little bow, spoiling the effect by immediately jumping around again to preen in the mirror. “Cans I go show Pin, ma’am?” he asked.

“May I go,” corrected Chryse, but she nodded and he ran off.

Julian chuckled as the door shut behind the tiny figure. “Civilizing him?”

“I rather thought you might adopt him.” Chryse rose from the well-worn sofa on which she had been seated. “Since he’s doing his best to take after you.”

She walked over to a window and gazed out. A light spring rain cast a smoothing mist over the landscape: low hills, a few cottages huddled in a vale. Green shone in the low trees that surrounded the tiny village; wildflowers lay scattered along the slopes of the hills, when Julian did not reply, she looked back at him. He appeared pensive, examining her. “Any luck in the town?” she asked.

“No.” He came to stand beside her. Even so far north, in these half-wild lands, in shabby inns like the one they stayed in now, in the occasional manor house of some provincial squire whose children wore fashions a good five years out of date, Julian looked immaculate, as likely to be leaving for an evening in the most fashionable of polite society as travelling along dusty lanes in search of a mythical, buried city. “As Southern predicted, the folk round here are not at all eager to go farther into the highlands.”

“You’d think they’d need the money, at least.” She gazed out the window again. “Their homes look as if they hadn’t been repaired in years, and their children wear rags. It makes me wonder if these are the sort of people who have to sell off their third and fourth and fifth child to factory owners like Crudebelch in order to feed the rest.”

“I doubt if the factory owners need come as for north as this to buy children from the destitute.”

“No.” She frowned, pensive in her turn. “There are poor everywhere.” By the stables she saw Sanjay emerge from a side door, speaking with Professor Farr and Thomas Southern. “But if we can’t hire more workers, how will we be able to do the extensive digging the professor wants?”

“Southern, who seems to be an expert in these matters, and unusually well informed, evidently feels that given time laborers will come forward. Hunger is ultimately a stronger drive than fear.”

“It’s a terrible thing to think about in the spring.” Chryse watched Sanjay until he disappeared into the small wooden village church together with Thomas Southern. The professor backtracked towards the inn. Charity appeared a moment later on the church porch looking, Chryse thought, a little flustered, and hurried after her uncle, avoiding the shallow puddles that dotted the lane dividing the inn from the church. Chryse turned away from the scene in time to see Julian smile.