Raiders' Ransom (20 page)

Father pulls his thigh knife from its scabbard and tests the weight in his hand. Then, still with that smile, he hurls it at me.

For three heartbeats the gleaming tip glitters and slices through the air. In the first heartbeat, I fight against my body, which wants to throw me onto the floor. But only a toddling sword boy would do that, and I hold still. In the second heartbeat, my palms slick up with sweat, getting ready for the catch. In the third heartbeat, I lift my hand. Everyone's watching; I've got to look good. I wait until the
tumble of the blade brings the hilt into my hand, then I close my fingers. I fumble! I can't let Father see me drop the knife! I manage to stop it slipping out of my hand by clamping down with my palm, holding on even as the blade slices in. So at my fourth heartbeat, I'm holding up the knife, turning my hand so no one can see the blood trickling warm and secret into my sleeve.

Father nods at me.

“Use that knife when we bring in the witch. If it don't talk, you can do the trialing.”

Ims smiles at me, looking well pleased. I swallow, coz I ain't never used a knife on anyone, not properly. Well, I did once frighten Amufi into telling me where he'd hidden that bar of French chocolate he was given by his mother, but I don't think that counts.

Aileen's checkin' me. Looking sour. I put my hand down quick, coz she's staring at my hand, right where the blood's trickling out of my sleeve. She opens her mouth, like she's gonna tell on me, but she don't get the chance, coz there's a load of shouting and rucking out on the deckway.

“Come on! Let me through!” comes a voice. A pimply, snot-headed voice.

The warriors crowded at the northern gate shuffle about, making an opening. Pushing his way through is Roba. He don't even ask entry, just stamps his way in. And then he don't ask leave to sit, don't take his place on a bench, just leans against one of the pillars, arms crossed, head cocked.

Trying to look like a big warrior, like he don't care he's been left out of this meeting. But when the spots on his face get all red like that, he's really angry.

“The runt's back, then,” he says.

“The Boss's son is back,” says Ims. Roba gets even redder at that.

“I'm the Boss's son, too!” he says. He looks at Father. “Ain't I?”

Father nods, but quick, like he don't care. “You didn't bring me in a spy, though, did you?”

“Didn't look like much of a spy to me!” says Roba. “Looked more like some stupid fisherboy.”

“And how should a spy look, Roba?” says Ims. Roba's spots glow like sparks in a fire.

“You know what I mean,” he says.

Father scowls at him. “I didn't invite you to this council.”

“Sorry,
Boss.
I just thought how I'm your son, the only son who's fought in raids for you. I just thought how you'd want to talk to me, instead of the runt.”

“Don't tell me how to act!” roars out Father, nearly standing up from his chair.
“I
choose which of my sons is in favor, not you!
I
choose who gets to be Boss when I'm gone, not you! And I certainly won't let any lowborn, even my own lowborn, tell me what to do!”

Roba stumbles, flinches, looking well frighted. And he should be, coz Ims is on his feet, sword half drawn, and Faz is standing, too. My brother looks down, at his feet.

“I'm sorry, Father,” he mumbles. “Forgive me for disrespecting you.”

But his eyes flick to me, and there's a promise in them of pain for later. Everyone sits back down, and Father half smiles at Roba.

“Well, you surely let me know you're my son, the temper you've got on you. But it's gonna get you spiked one day, if you ain't more careful. Sit quiet, at north, and you can stay.”

Roba does it, but he don't like it. Being made to sit next to Aileen. A lowborn next to a slave! He keeps checkin' me with evils from the sides of his eyes, so I stare at him. There ain't no need to speak, we both know how it stands.

But my father, he don't see what's going on with me and Roba. He just sits back in his chair, claps his hands together, and says, “Now then, let's see this English spy-witch.”

“Wake up, boy. Girl. Whatever you are.”

Someone shakes me, and I come out of a dark dream like I'm crawling out of a well. My neck hurts cos my head's been lying on hard wooden boards. My arms hurt cos my hands are tied together with scratchy jute rope. My ankles are sore from wearing heavy metal shackles. My face aches with a fat bruise.

“This ain't no time for you to snooze, little spy! Medwin wants to see you.” I get another shake and open my eyes. A mess of wrinkles and gray hair is leaning down over me, one hand holding a smoking tallow candle. The candle's like a blaring sun in my eyes, and I'm squinting to stop from being blinded.

“Good, you're awake.”

The wrinkly gray head pulls back a bit, and now I can see the raggedy sackcloth this person's wearing for clothes. There ain't no way to tell by looking, but it sounds like a woman.

“Up you get.” And one of her clawlike hands reaches down, grabbing my shirt collar, pulling me up in a strong yank. There's a clanking from the chain connecting my shackled feet to a big iron ring in the floor. My feet scrabble like numb things underneath me, and then I'm standing, wobbling about and trying not to fall down.

“Where is this?” I ask.

“The slave house,” she says, matter of fact. She gives a tug to the rope at my wrists, checking the knot. “You got yourself some special treatment, getting tied
and
shackled. They doesn't usually bother 'less you've already tried escaping.”

She smiles a little bit, like she wants to be kind, but then comes a man's shout from behind her.

“Come on, woman. Stop your dawdling. Time to get the little rat out of its cage. It's got some dancing to do.” The man starts laughing, and her little bit of smile is gone.

“Of course, master,” she calls. “I've just got to get the creature.”

The old woman clumps off. When her candle's gone away, my eyes get used to the gloom, and I start to see other things about me. Mostly it's the lumpy shapes of people, lying and sitting all around, pale faces silent and staring. Like they daren't even move. There's a dull fire, sending dirty smoke up
to a hole in the roof. Closing us in are rough wooden walls, bristling with dirt. Above, specks of daylight peek through the smoke hole and a tattered thatch roof.

On the other side of all this, there's a doorway into daylight. Standing in it is a man, the one who shouted, and he's holding back a piece of sacking, which is all there is for a door. I can't quite see him against the light, but from the way he's standing and the shape of the sword at his side, I know he's a raider warrior.

The old woman's candle has bobbed over to one of the lying-down lumps. A little one, right against the wall.

“Come on, lovey,” I hear her saying. “You got to give up your little pet.”

There's a whisper, like a child pleading, and then the old woman says, “Sorry, little duck. There ain't nothing I can do. Mebbe when the girl-boy's dead you can have the fur bag back.”

The old woman clumps back, holding Cat in an awkward, squirming grip.

“Here's your helper, little girl-boy. He's been comforting that poor little ducky while you were out of it.”

“Get a move on!” shouts the man in the doorway. “Stop your prattling.”

As soon as he sees me up and standing, Cat leaps from the old woman to me. He digs his claws into my clothes like he doesn't want to ever let go.

“It's all right,” I whisper as he nuzzles and purrs at my face, and I try to hold him with my bound hands.

But it ain't all right. Not at all.

“He's a funny creature and no mistake,” says the old woman. She leans in and whispers. “I seen his gray fur coming through that dye. You got yourself a seacat there, and you'd best think about trying for a bargain. I don't say it'd get you free, but it might save you from a spy's slow death.”

“I ain't a spy!”

The old woman shrugs and bends down to fiddle at my shackles with a key.

“Mebbe you are, mebbe you ain't,” she says. “Don't matter none, not now you're here. Look at me, I got a whole house of my own, and four grown children back home in Dorchester. But do you think Boss Medwin cares about that? Course he don't. He just cares he's got hisself another slave.” She looks at me, and there ain't even a tiny smidge of hope in her eyes. “Take my advice. Just fess up to whatever they throw at you. If you're stubborn, you'll only give them the fun of torturing you.” My legs set to shaking, and my palms to sweating. There's a click, and the shackles fall open.

“Time for you to meet the Boss,” she says, leading me and Cat through all the people with their sad, staring faces.

“Get it done!” shouts the warrior at the doorway. “They're waiting!” He stamps into the dim and dingy hall, the people on the floor sliding and scuttling out of his way. When
he reaches us, I get a hard, biting grip on my shoulder, and I'm yanked outside.

Which is another world. Open, wide, full of sunshine and the shushing of water. We're on a wooden slat walkway, up on stilts. It's a bit like the ones in London, but we ain't over stinking mud; we're over sea-flavored green marshes, stretching away to far-off horizons. And we're under a bright, big sky, with small clouds bumping through the blue. I take a deep breath of ocean and the last warm days of autumn, and Cat's sniffing and happy. But he doesn't get any chance to take in this new world.

“Time to put the creature in its cage,” says the raider, smiling nastily. He grabs Cat and stuffs him into a little wicker basket.

“Don't!” I cry. “He doesn't like it!” The warrior smiles even nastier.

“Please fight me, little spy-witch,” he says. “Then I'd have an excuse to kill you.” And I ain't any match for a raider warrior, even without my hands being tied. So I just pick up Cat's basket, and carry it gentle as I can, whispering comforts to him through the holes.

The warrior drags us toward a big, carved, wooden hall, riding on its stilt-legs above the marshes and the open water beyond. Where the slave house is tumbled and broken, this hall is well made and solid. It must be a hundred paces across, with a jumble of smaller buildings and side structures nestling under its wings. And where the slave house has
moldy thatch, the hall's thatch is neat and golden-gleaming in the sunlight.

“Get your stinking English legs moving,” says the raider, digging his fingers into my shoulder. Cat meows inside his basket every time I stumble.

“It'll be all right,” I whisper to him, but I feel like the biggest liar ever for saying that. Cos who knows what'll happen in there? What'll happen to me and Cat?

“It's lying! Of course it's gonna lie to get out of this,” shouts a young, gangling raider with a spiky red face.

“I ain't lying!” I say. “I came here to pay for Alexandra. I got a ransom and everything.”

The raider wearing the red robe, the only one who ain't dressed like a warrior, he slaps me across the back of my head. Not really hard, but hard enough.

“You speak when told to,” he growls.

I'm in this strange building, out here in front of the raider hall, facing the sea. It's mostly just a wooden frame: pillars holding up a flimsy-looking roof, thin walls made of woven willow. In all four of the walls, massive door-shutters have been thrown open, and the breeze blows in and out through the empty doorways, fluttering the red flags that cover the ceiling and every spare bit of wall.

I'm stood right in the middle, Cat's basket at my feet. Right in front of the raider Boss, Medwin, who's sat on the ugliest chair I ever seen. It looks like it's been carved out of a lump
of old plastic, and it's a nasty green, like a dank pond. All the carvings on it are of heads with tongues hanging out, and roaring creatures, and some horrible-looking things that could be people. The other raiders are sat on low wooden benches, probably to make clear who's Boss. As well as the young gangly one and the one who slapped me, there's the big raider who was there when I met Zeph in London: Ims. Zeph's sat next to him. And there's a woman.

I ain't never seen a raider woman, and she's not what I'd expect. She's got a face like a china doll, and red hair twisting and curling down her back, and she's wearing this silky blue dress, draping down to a pair of sparkling blue shoes with spiked heels. I ain't never seen such gorgeous clothes; not even the Prime Minister's wife has clothes like that. But the raider woman looks stiff in them, like she's holding herself ready for whatever happens next. Which gives me a cold, scared feeling inside. Cos she knows what's coming, and she doesn't like it.

Ims turns to Zeph. “When you met this English. What did it say it was?”