Raiders' Ransom (5 page)

She puts out a hand.

“Come and sit by me, Lilly.” There's tears in her eyes. “We two have gained something in common this last week.”

She takes my hand in hers and pulls me down onto the sofa right next to her. Her head comes forward, like a heron sighting for fish.

“You know, I think you're the only person in the village I can bear to see right now … The only one who could understand what's happened to me.”

And she's proper crying now, wiping at her face with her handkerchief. This ain't what I want! I've had enough crying of my own these last days.

Maybe I could say Cat was sick and we have to leave? But he looks pretty healthy, licking away at himself, one leg in the air.

“Oh Lilly,” sobs Mrs. Denton, “I can't sleep for worrying over Alexandra and what she must be suffering. And when I do sleep, I am tormented by nightmares. I keep thinking what they may be doing to her.”

And then I don't know who's worse off, me or Mrs. Denton. I'll never see Granny again, but at least I know she ain't
suffering. Cos everyone knows raiders chop up their captives a bit at a time and boil them for stew, or hang them in cages and use them for shooting practice.

“I'm sorry about Alexandra,” I say, and Mrs. Denton gives me a watery smile.

“You're a good girl, Lilly.” She sighs, and wipes at her eyes again. “I wanted you to come here so I could see if there was anything I could do to help you in your time of need.” And I get a little bit of hope. But then Mrs. Denton says, “Except, you have to understand, I'm not a rich woman.” Which doesn't sound so hopeful after all. “I married for love, not wealth, and against the wishes of my brother. Dear Eustace, my husband, was wonderful with everything except money, and he left me with almost nothing. It is only by an allowance from my brother that I can even live here. So I hope you understand that I can give you very little …” She puts her hands over mine, and stares at me. “But if there is any other way I can help you, just ask.”

I'm trying to think of anything she can do if she can't give me money, but I can't. So I'm sat there, my mouth open like a fish's, when there's a great thumping on the front door knocker.
Clank clank clank!

Mrs. Denton is up and fluttering in an instant.

“Oh! It's them! They're back!”

She almost makes me panic, too, but then my sense comes back.

“It can't be raiders. They don't use door knockers, they use axes.”

Mrs. Denton sits down at that, flapping her hanky over her face.

“Of course, dear, how practical you are.”

I can hear Martha's feet clumping as she heads to the front door, and then, as soon as it's opened, a loud voice says, “Let me in! I'm here to see my sister!”

Mrs. Denton's brother? The Prime Minister!

“Oh dear!” says Mrs. Denton, turning pale. “It's Archie!” She turns to me. “What will I do? What can I say to him?” And now she's flapping and flustering even worse than before. “He always had such a temper, even when we were children!” She starts pulling at me. “Quick! You can hide! Go in there and he won't see you!”

And before I can say anything, she picks up Cat, making him squawk as she pushes him into my arms. Then she shoves us through a door, not the one back to the hallway, but another one, and slams it behind us.

So now we're stuck in another room. A completely different kind of room. No sofas and pretty chairs here, just a big old desk by the window. And there ain't any pictures or mirrors on the walls, either. Instead it's books — shelves full of them, covering a whole wall. Them books make me think of what Granny said about Mrs. Denton's dead husband.

“Married some scholar, didn't she. Caused a great big scandal at the time, cos she ought to have been marrying some prince or such like. And him having such an interest in the olden times as well. That's how she ended up living in such a poor little pl ace as this village, cos none of them lords and ministers and such would have anything to do with her after. And then Mr. Denton went and headed off on a tour of all the drowned places looking for his relics, and came back dying of the wasting plague.
I
could have told him no good would come of fishing about in them dead towns.” I get a shiver.

In Mrs. Denton's sitting room I can hear her sobbing and crying. “Oh Archie, I'm sorry! So, so sorry!” And I know straight off I don't want to hear her. Cos she makes me think of Hetty, sat crying next to Granny's body. So I head off across the room and set about putting my mind to anything else.

Against the far wall are two tall cabinets with little labels pasted onto the front of all the drawers, as well as a glass-fronted cupboard, crammed inside with all sorts of jars and pots and stuffed creatures and a whole lot of other things that I don't know what they are.

Cat's struggling in my arms and saying, “Mwaaarow!” which means
let me down,
and he wriggles out of my grasp onto the floor. Straightaway he's sniffing around the cabinets. And since there ain't anything else to do while we wait, I end up doing the same.

It takes me a while to pick through the words on the labels. On the first cabinet, they all say stuff like M
ILITARY
C
ENTERS
D
ROWNED BY
R
ISING
S
EA
L
EVELS
and R
UINS OF THE
D
UST
P
LAINS
. I know what some of that means, cos the vicar's always sermoning about how the sea rose up and swallowed whole towns, and the sun got hotter and frazzled the land, and all the crops died and turned to dust, and that's why we're hungry. He says it's punishment for the greed of the olden times, and that's why we've got to be humble. He says the olden-time people were wicked, and their machines were wickeder.

I wonder if Mr. Denton ever listened to the vicar's sermons?

D
EVELOPMENTS IN
C
OM
P
UTING
says the label on one drawer. I take hold of the handle and ease it open, but it's all just paper and close-set writing, so I push it shut again. Granny used to tell tales about puters, how the olden-time people used them to do their thinking for them. She said they probably was wicked to do that, but I shouldn't worry too much what the vicar says cos he's always in a fret about something.

“Think about it,” she'd say. “Them Scots use all sorts of teknology, and they got their solar power and whatnot. Have they been cursed or struck by plague? Why, we have it far worse than them.” And then she'd whisper, so there was no chance of anyone hearing, “Chances are, we'd be a lot better off if we lived in Greater Scotland.” But we both knew there wasn't much chance of that, cos there's plenty of soldiers at the border to stop anyone who wants to try leaving.

Instead, I turn to the glass-fronted cupboard. Mr. Denton's strange collectings are staring out at me. There's little flat boxes in different colors, with two wires coming off, and buttons attached to the end of the wires. And there's a stack of thin silver discs with holes in the middle. There's curvy little boxes with knobs and buttons on 'em, just the right size for holding in your hands.

Some of the things are really strange. Like the statues of tiny women, with blond hair and long thin arms, staring out with big dead eyes. And there's another statue, of a fat old man with a white beard and dressed in red. He looks like a raider, cos only raiders dress in a single color, but on his stand the label says S
INGING
S
ANTA.
Maybe he was a really nasty raider boss, who sang while he chopped up people?

But mostly it's just dusty old stuff. There's a whole half of the cupboard just filled with boxes: On the shelves near the floor, they're big and gray; on the middle shelves they're smaller and mostly black; on the topmost shelf, the boxes are no bigger than your hand, flat and sparkling, in different colors of pink and red and green. A bit like seashells. Next to them is a paper label, but when I manage to pick out the words, it says L
ATE
T
WENTY
-F
IRST
C
ENTURY
C
OM
P
UTERS.
It's all a bit creepy, and I get another shiver. Can you catch the wasting plague from old-time things?

I'm still looking at them shell puters when I hear the Prime Minister shouting, “Don't be an idiot, Clare! I can't just pay a ransom!”

After that their conversation's so loud I can hear every word. At least, I can if I creep over and put my ear to the door.

“Why not? Don't you want your daughter back?”

“Of course!”

“Well it hardly seems like it! Just like you've hardly seemed interested in the poor little mite up until now.”

“Don't be ridiculous. I have as much interest in her as a father should in a daughter. Why, only last week I met with Lord Brown to discuss options for her betrothal. And now I've dropped everything — matters of state you couldn't hope to understand — in order to rush to this wretched village and find out what's happened to her.”

“Is that all she is to you? Marriage fodder? Another tool in your plottings? “

“Spare me your sentimental nonsense. Since she couldn't be a boy, getting married to my advantage is the most useful and important thing that child will ever do. Or would be, if you hadn't let her be taken by raiders.”

Mrs. Denton lets out a sob.

“I never meant …” She takes a big sighing breath. “Archie, please, you have money. The raiders must have taken her for the ransom. Why not pay it, and then she can come back home.”

“Don't be ridiculous! What message would that send?”

“It would get her back!”

“Which just shows how little you know of the real world. How could I, of all people, possibly make a deal with those
outlaws who trade in terror? I assume this is another example of your willful naïveté. Like your wretched marriage.”

“Please! If you won't pay a ransom for Alexandra, what's going to happen to her?”

“Maybe you should have asked
yourself
that before you pleaded with me to let her stay here with you. I don't know why I gave in, she would have been far better off at court.”

“Don't you think I wish I hadn't asked? I've regretted it every second since she was taken. And the moment she was taken plays in my mind, over and over. But I just wanted her to be with family. She's become so quiet since Anne Marie died. I never imagined this would happen! Anyway, if you were so concerned, why did you only send two soldiers to guard her?”

“Because I foolishly assumed that Englishmen would fight to defend a member of the Prime Ministerial family. Instead these wretches just ran away!”

“No one in this village could be any match for the raiders.”

“Because they're whining commoner scum!”

“For goodness' sake, Archie, they're just fishermen; they can't fight raiders. They need garrisons and protection, not punishment and persecution.”

“That's enough! What on earth makes you think you're in any position to judge on this matter? When were
you
last in charge of defending the Last Ten Counties? “

“I just think —”

“No! I don't want to hear it! You had your way, and my daughter was taken by the raiders. Now I shall do things properly, and get my daughter back with force of arms, not force of money.”

“But Alexandra —”

“Is daughter to a Prime Minister! She will be resolute and determined. She will learn fortitude.”

“She's seven!”

“You were seven when Father took us with him on his marshes campaign.”

“I don't remember it teaching me fortitude. I did learn what a soldier looks like when the top of his head has been sliced off and his brains are oozing out into the mud. Is that what you want your daughter to find out?”

“Don't be so pathetic! I'm recruiting the militia from whichever of these sniveling fishermen is worth pressing, and then I'm going on campaign, just like Father did, so there's an end to it as far as you're concerned. Now, order me something to drink from that servant of yours. The archbishop told me I have to forgive you for losing Alexandra. So I'm just going to have to sit here until I can bring myself to do it. And I should think it'll take at least a couple of bottles of wine.”

Through the door, I hear a heavy
thump,
which I reckon is the Prime Minister sitting down. Then a bell tinkling, more footsteps, and Mrs. Denton ordering red wine for him. Then nothing. Even when I put my ear right to the keyhole.

So I put my eye to it instead, and I can just make out the two of them, Mrs. Denton and the Prime Minister. They're sat, glaring at each other.

So much for Mrs. Denton's short visit. I could be here all day waiting, the Prime Minister ain't known for being much on forgiveness. Well, there's another door out of this room. All I have to do is sneak out through it, run down the hall to the front door, and then I'll be off. Cos I've got to warn Andy. The Prime Minister said he was going to press the villagers into the militia and send them to fight the raiders.