The Frost Child (13 page)

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"Just the beginning," Johnston said.

"They promised that we would stand in the light without fear," Agnetha said. Johnston could feel the Albions stirring in the darkness around him.

"And of course you will," Johnston said smoothly, "when you have played your part."

"Then we must talk," Agnetha said. She clapped, and the chamber was suddenly empty.

"Stand at the foot of the black chair," Agnetha said, and Johnston moved closer, his great teeth showing in the starlight as he grinned. The Harsh had given him instructions to pass on to Agnetha and the Albions.

It was dawn when Johnston left Agnetha. After he had passed on the Harsh message, he had been forced to listen to the Albion queen's lament, about how the creatures longed for the sunlight on their faces. She had reminded him many times about the promise made by the Harsh that they would walk in the light without pain. He did not go back the way he had come, but continued down the tunnel. He had work to do in Hadima, but the vessel that he had used to cross time had been destroyed. He would have to go on foot.

He came to the customs post that marked the frontier of the Hadima lands. The traffic lanes were empty and the great lights that kept the Albions at bay had been shattered. Of the customs officer who had once kept watch, there was no sign. Johnston wondered what the Albions had done to him.

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The road descended into another tunnel, and now he could smell snow. After an hour's walk he came to the end. Inside the tunnel it was quiet, but he stepped outside into darkness and a wind that blew snow horizontally along the ground. The pine trees around the entrance pitched and groaned as if they might snap at any minute. Without hesitating Johnston put his head down and walked into the shrieking wind. Within seconds he was lost to view.

After the initial attack, there was little activity from the Harsh. Standing on the battlements, the young Resisters could see eerie white shapes moving around the ships and in the town.

"They don't seem in too much of a hurry," Cati said to Wesley.

"What hurry would they be in?" Wesley said. "They got us trapped here."

Martha bent close to the radio she had brought with her. From time to time she picked up weak signals of emergency broadcasts--appeals for food and for shelter. News reporters talked about the new ice age that had struck the world. Even at the equator, apparently, there was snow.

"One thing's for sure," she said. "There isn't any help out there. We're on our own, and it's getting colder."

It was indeed getting colder. Contessa gave the children a stern lesson on avoiding frostbite, and

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even Wesley was forced to accept shoes and a warm jacket.

Samual had been arguing in the Convoke for an attack on the Harsh, and many of the younger soldiers agreed with him.

"Are we just going to sit here while they freeze us to death?" he said, and the soldiers stamped their feet in agreement.

"What does he think he can do against them?" Owen wondered aloud. But Samual was determined, and on the third day he forced a vote in the Convoke. Contessa and Rutgar voted against it. Pieta didn't bother voting.

"If they say fight, then I'll fight. If not, then I won't," she said, shrugging, and went back to teaching her two children how to use the magno whip.

Samual won the vote. They would attack the Harsh. After the vote Rutgar came over to him.

"Guard the Workhouse well if I fall," Samual said.

"We'll guard it together when we come back," Rutgar said. "I don't agree with the attack, but I won't let you and your men go out alone." Samual nodded. Rutgar clapped him on the back.

"Come. We have to plan."

"You need to fetch the Yeati's ring," Contessa told Cati. "There will be casualties. Guard the ring well, Cati. It is, aside from the Mortmain, the most precious and magical object that we possess. Many people's lives will depend on it, I fear."

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The Yeati, the wondrous bearlike animal with the light of the stars in his eyes, had given Cati his ring in thanks for releasing him from the cage in the Museum of Time in Hadima. It was a great gift. The ring could cure all manner of ills. Cati had already used the healing power of the Yeati's ring on those injured during the barrage of ice lances. The healing power faded the more it was used, and the ring took time to recover, so she had decided that she would use it only when there was no other option. She had told Dr. Diamond, and he had agreed. When she had tried to use it to mend his broken arm, he refused.

"Keep it for someone who needs it more than me," he said. He was now wearing a tartan-patterned sling to support a plaster cast, which he found very useful, he said, for writing equations on.

Cati went to her room. She kept the ring in a box in a locked drawer with other precious things, such as her mother's cornflower brooch--her only physical link to the mother she had never really known and the father who had given his life for the Resisters. She carefully unlocked the drawer with the key she carried around her neck and took out the box. Apart from its healing powers, she delighted in the feel of the gold ring, at once delicate and enormously strong, with a deep gleam that seemed to come from far within.

She opened the lid. The box was empty. The ring was gone!

Frantically Cati searched the drawer and then the

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entire room. But she was sure she had put it back--it was the last thing she had done before she went to bed.

She raced down to the kitchens. She swung through the kitchen door, almost knocking over two bakers carrying trays of loaves. Contessa was counting legs of smoked ham hanging from a rack.

"Contessa," Cati shouted, "it's gone! The ring!" She skidded to a halt as she reached Contessa.

"Hush, child," Contessa said with a frown. "The whole kitchen doesn't have to know your business. Tell me what happened."

Blushing at being reproached, Cati told Contessa what had happened. Contessa followed her back to the room. To Cati's surprise she didn't look at the box at all, but examined the drawer and the lock very closely.

"I put it away safely," Cati said miserably.

"I believe you," Contessa said, "but who would take it, and why? Particularly before an attack is mounted, when there may be many casualties."

"I should have looked after it better."

"You looked after it responsibly. Blame the thief, Cati, whoever he or she is."

Contessa went to find Dr. Diamond in the Skyward. He looked up at her knock and beckoned her in. She told him about the Yeati's ring.

"And she spoke to you in front of the kitchen staff?"

"Yes. The ring going missing is bad, but the thought of a traitor ..."

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"Is bad for morale, I know."

"It is very cold," Contessa said, shivering.

"Yes. I wonder how much colder the Harsh can make it. We must think of what to do, Contessa. We can stand a long siege, certainly, but not forever."

"Samual's attack might succeed."

"I think we both know it won't," Dr. Diamond said, "but he has to be allowed to try. My job is to try to work out some way of getting his men back safely. But that is work for tomorrow. My feeling is that Owen is key to our chances of surviving, but I can't figure out why."

"Yes, he destroyed the Puissance and stopped time from going backward. Perhaps he can do something similar," Contessa said.

"That was different, though. We knew what we had to do--destroy the Puissance. This time we don't even know if there is anything we can do."

"We will find out," Contessa said, sighing and looking out the window toward the Harsh ships.

Owen, meanwhile, felt as if he might be better off facing the Harsh than the wrath of Silkie. The Raggie girl had got him to sail the
Wayfarer
to a quiet yard at the back of the Workhouse. She had brought all her tools to repair the vessel, and Owen stayed to help, a decision he was beginning to regret. Every time she asked him to pass her a tool he either dropped it or gave her the wrong one, and each time she let him know what she

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thought of him. In the end he didn't know what way was up.

"When I say a small chisel, I mean a small one," she said, "not one you could use as a spade!"

As Owen cast about for the right tool he saw Wesley looking down at him amusedly from an upstairs window.

"She's a hard driver, our Silkie," he said, "for all she looks gentle."

"You can say that again."

"Which bit? About the hardness or the looks? But don't mind the telling-off. She always cared too much, our Silkie. Ain't that right, Silkie?"

Silkie looked up at him, her face pink from her exertions and threads of fair hair falling over her brow.

"If you've got nothing better to do than hang out of windows talking about folk as can hear you loud as day, then you better go and do something useful." She pointed her chisel at him threateningly. Wesley held up his hands.

"I'm here with a bit of news, if you're interested."

"What news?"

Wesley told them about the missing ring.

"It's all over the Workhouse," Wesley said, "and fingers is being pointed as to who done it."

"What do you mean?" Owen asked.

"Us Raggies are being blamed by some folk."

"That's not fair!" Silkie protested.

"There's some folk never had a good opinion of the

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Raggies. Some of Samual's men won't talk to us ones now."

"Whoever took the ring, that's what they want," Owen said. "To start us fighting among ourselves."

"Looks like they got what they set out for, then," Wesley said. "Us ones aren't going to sit around here and be insulted."

"Take it easy, Wesley," Owen said. "Samual doesn't trust me either."

"Maybe," Wesley said, "but you're the Navigator. The Raggies is just harbor trash to them."

Wesley turned on his heel and disappeared.

"Wesley!" Owen called. "Wesley!" But the Raggie leader did not answer.

"You're better to leave him be when he's like that," Silkie said.

"He shouldn't be so touchy."

"You think not?" Silkie said. "Then you're not the lad I thought you were. Have you never noticed the way some of the Resisters look down on the Raggies?"

"No, I haven't, because they don't."

"I think people's been looking up to you for so long, it's hard to see when they're looking down on other folk."

"That's not fair," Owen protested.

"If the cap fits ...," Silkie said.

"That's it," Owen said. "I'm off to find Wesley. I'm not letting this go any further."

Silkie watched him go, wondering why she was always

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so hard on him and so short-tempered when he was around. And yet when he wasn't there, she remembered the way she felt when he smiled at her ... She sighed and turned back to sanding the splintered wood of the
Wayfarer
, soon lost in her task, in the rhythms of working on the living timbers.

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Chapter 14

Owen asked all around the Workhouse, but no one had seen Wesley. He found himself in parts of the Workhouse he'd never seen before, going deeper and deeper into a warren of corridors and storerooms. The further he went, the drier and warmer it became, a dim magno light showing the way.

In one room he found strange and beautiful weapons--swords and spears with still-sharp magno edges. In another he found armor, and the finest of chain mail, not unlike the suits in the
Wayfarer
. Here and there hung portraits of Resisters of times past, men and women in strange, old-fashioned clothes--the men with pointed beards and the women with tall headdresses. Owen wondered how long the Resister struggle had been going on.

In another room were trunks and trunks full of old clothing--long dresses and embroidered tunics, moth-eaten and faded.

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Then he found a set of tall oak doors. The handle was dusty and stiff. The doors swung open with a loud creak, and Owen found himself in a large hall. At one end was a huge stone fireplace, where the fire had not been lit for many years. There was a long table, with chairs lined along each side, but woodworm had attacked the timber, and the table had collapsed. On each wall hung giant tapestries. They reminded Owen of the tapestry he had seen in Hadima where he had first glimpsed the
Wayfarer
, but on most of these the color had faded, so you couldn't see what scenes were depicted on them. Disappointed, he sat down on the hearth. As his eyes grew used to the dim light, he could see that there was another tapestry, almost hidden in the recesses of an alcove on the other side of the room. He got up and went over, squinting up at it.

At first he could only make out dim shapes in the ancient fabric, but he found that if he stood a particular way, the light from a nearby magno torch caught the tapestry. A boy's face became apparent, a fair-haired boy, looking off into the distance. There was a terrible sadness in his face. Owen could almost feel the child's pain. There were other figures behind him. Were they the people responsible for his hurt? If Owen could just turn the tapestry a little toward the light, then he could make out their features. He reached up and took hold of the tapestry gently ... but it was too much. Just as he glimpsed cruel cold faces behind the boy, the entire tapestry turned to dust with a soft sound and collapsed onto the floor.