Raiders' Ransom (4 page)

Father's ship cuts easy through the water, the dragonhead carved in her prow snarling and showing its teeth.

“Medwin! Medwin! Medwin!” shouts the crowd on the deckway.

“Angel Isling! Angel Isling!” shout the warriors on Father's warship.

Boss and Family.

Which is everything that matters.

The dragonboat's red sail is being furled, but she's still sliding through the water. Thirty long oars lift and pull with a creaking, splashing sound — like insect legs, powering her along. The holes in the lattice wall ain't showing blue or green now, just the brown and red of Father's boat. And the shining steel of the warriors' swords, and the red of their leathers, and the dull gleam of the helmets and armor. There's shouts and calls as the oars are raised, and the warriors on deck put their swords down and get ready to moor Father's dragonboat. One of them throws a rope to the deckway. It's red-haired Eadan, leaning right out from the prow. He looks well proud.

Straightaway, his mother's going on, “Oh my son! My wonderful son!”

Eadan's four years older than me, and this was his first journey as a warrior.

I wish it had been mine.

More lines are thrown from the boat and get caught by slaves, standing ready. But Eadan's mother grabs a rope and starts hauling it, which gets a laughing cheer from the warriors on ship. And soon everyone's pulling in my father's warship, not stopping until she's moored tight to the deckway.
Then it's like the crowd falls into waiting. Everyone's silent. The warriors on board move aside, making way.

Making way for Father.

And he's smiling, calling out as people press forward, trying to touch him. Steps off the dragonboat, onto the deckway. But he don't go into the hall, and now he stops smiling, looking around. He crosses his arms: frowning; searching. He sees I ain't there. He's wondering where I am!

“Where is Aileen?” he shouts.

Not me! Why not me? All he cares about is his skanky concubine, and the stupid mare's not even here. Like always.

There's the sound of footsteps out from the hall, and when I put my eyes to a different hole, I can see Aileen, walking out to him.

She's got a smile on her nasty face, probably coz everyone's looking at her. It ain't right: She's only his doxy! A slave, sold down by some Scottish smuggler. But she's got her claws in, for sure. If my mother was still here, she'd slap her into place in a second. But she ain't here. Nor Saera, neither. My mother and my little sister, both floated out into the marshes three years back. Sometimes I wonder if Father even remembers them.

“Here I am, my lord,” says Aileen, in her stupid Scottish accent.

And my father opens his arms and takes hold of her. Squeezing her.

“You're a sight to make a man happy. And I've got a sight as fine to show you, too. You'll never guess what luck we had.”

The smile on Aileen's stinking face gets bigger.

“Did you get it?” she asks.

“What a sweet time we had!” cries Father. “Those villages is like oysters ripe for cracking. And what a pearl we found inside!”

“So did you get it? Can I see it?” pants Aileen.

“This is the start!” shouts Father. “Everything starts from now!”

The warriors on the ship start laughing and shouting. I put my eye to a different hole, and I can see them pull something across the boat toward the deckway. It struggles. It wails. It's a well miserable, thin-faced little girl, with bare blue legs poking out from a white nightdress, ropes binding her arms to her sides. She's about the same age Saera was when she got sick. And she looks half sick herself.

Aileen pushes out of Father's arms.

“What is that?” she snaps. “Where's the jewel?”

“Forget the jewel!” says Father. “This little girl is far more valuable.”

“I want to go home. Please!” wails the little girl.

Aileen's fists are clenched. “Why didn't you do what you were meant to?”

My father laughs at her.

“Don't worry, my love. You can have all the jewels you want, but later. First let me introduce you to Miss Alexandra Randall, daughter of His
Glorious
Majesty Archibald Randall — Prime Minister of England, defender of their useless Last Ten Counties!”

Aileen's mouth drops open.

“What have you done?” she whispers.

“I've got one over that fool! Now let's see if the whining English puppy dares to leave his palace and test himself against real warriors!”

“But you were only supposed to get the jewel!” cries Aileen. “This will bring a war party down on us!”

“I pigging hope so!” shouts Father. “And then we'll give the English such a pounding! Those backstabbers have been wanting a war for years, so I say let them have one!”

A war with the English! My father is the greatest Boss in all the Families!

The crowd on the deckway starts cheering, and the warriors on the boat are cheering, and even I start cheering, here in my hiding place.

The only people who ain't happy is Aileen, who looks well sour and frowning, and the little English girl, who starts to cry.

Finding out about Alexandra Randall being kidnapped sends that soldier off in a hurry. He doesn't even stop to ask more questions — just turns his horse and gallops away. He races back to the coast road, whipping his beautiful horse like it's a wooden top.

And I suddenly realize what everyone else has been thinking on these last two days. The raiders came and kidnapped the Prime Minister's daughter! Which means it won't just be the captains at the Old Moon talking about the attack. Once that soldier gets word to Swindon, the Prime Minister and parliament and generals and who knows what other important people from all over the Last Ten Counties, they'll all be talking about our village.

Everyone's even more twitchy and jumpy now.

“No good's going to come to us from all this,” says Andy's pa, as we're sat round that evening, watching the fire fade to embers in the hearth.

“It'll be all right, you'll see,” says Andy's ma, knitting away. “The Prime Minister knows we're good folk. He'll look after us.” She looks my way, like the Prime Minister's going to take special care of me.

“His father might have, but I ain't so sure about this 'un,” says Andy's pa. “And that soldier was right, there's something odd in all this. It ain't like the raiders to only attack one village.” He shakes his head. “I don't reckon the Prime Minister and his kind'll go looking far and wide for folk to blame. Not when they've got us right here.”

“Hush about it, then,” says Andy's ma, giving him a stern look. “Haven't these children seen enough bad things already?”

There's a knock at the door, and we all jump at the sound. But it's only Hetty's boy, Charlie. He's grinning his little head off.

“Guess what?” he says. Andy's pa smiles back.

“I can't guess. You tell me.”

“I got a penny,” says Charlie.

“That's very nice,” says Andy's ma. “Maybe you should go and give it to your ma.”

“I can't, not yet,” says Charlie, “cos I got to tell Lilly.”

“Tell her what?” says Andy.

“About Mrs. Denton. Martha gave me the penny. She told me to tell you to come and see Mrs. Denton. Tomorrow.” He beams proudly. “I done it now.” Then he shuts the door with a
bang,
and he's gone.

“Mrs. Denton?” I say, wondering what's going on. “Why'd she want to see me?”

“She's a good kind woman,” says Andy's ma. “She must wants to help you somehow. So you go along and be respectful.”

And I suppose she's right. Seems all the fine ladies of the village want to help me now I'm an orphan.

Next morning, Andy and his pa go down to the harbor to carry on patching their boats. Me and Cat ought to be helping, but instead I'm off to see Mrs. Denton.

I knock on the back door, like Andy's ma told me to, and it's opened by Martha, Mrs. Denton's housekeeper.

“Oh, it's you,” she says, not looking very happy about it. “I suppose you'd better come in.”

The door's newly mended, with planks nailed over the middle. The raiders must have smashed it in, cos around the mending there's still chinks and chunks of axe marks. Just like our door at home. It makes me shiver, and I don't want to go through. But I have to, and as I do, I get a sudden memory from years back.

There was a night when beacons got lit down the coast, and Granny woke me from sleep.

“The beacons is lit, we have to be going.”

Maybe it was waking into darkness, or Granny's face lit by a candle, or all the tales I'd heard of raider savageness, but straightaway I was screaming and crying, “Don't let them kill us! Don't let them kill us!” I can remember how scared I was, like a cold sword against my back.

But Granny just hugged me and said, “Don't you worry, Lilly-girl. We'll be gone before they gets here. Anyway, raiders ain't interested in little children, they want gold and boat cargoes and anything they can steal. Why, they'd see a little mite like you and pass right on by.”

And I always took that as a comfort.

But what about Alexandra Randall? She must have been woken out of sleep, and not for comforting words and a safe escape, but to the sound of the door being broken in, heavy boots tramping, and raiders shouting inside her own house.

I saw her once in the village with her ma: an overfrilled little girl being paraded about by a fancy lady in silks and ribbons. I reckoned then how she must be the luckiest girl I'd ever seen, to be so rich. Even when Granny told me a year back how her mother had been taken ill and died, I hardly felt sorry for her. But now I wonder if she hid under her bed when the raiders got in the house? I wonder if she screamed for help that never came? I wonder if they let her put warm clothes on, or just bundled her up in her nightgown, her bare feet kicking in the cold morning air?

Martha takes me into a big, flagstone kitchen, with a great oak table, heavy cookware, and a range glowing with fire. Then she turns to look at me, and scowls.

“First off, we'll get things straight. Mrs. Denton asked for you to come and visit, but that doesn't make you more than a fishgirl, nor her any less of a fine lady. So you'd better keep to your place, cos one wrong step and you're out on your ear.”

I nod meekly, cos Martha ain't one to cross. When we was little, scamping through the village, me and Andy knew just who'd smile at our chubby little faces and who'd give us a smack for sassing back. And Martha was always the smacking kind.

“And another thing,” says Martha, scowling down at Cat. “That animal of yours better not drop any fur on the furniture.”

Then she pushes me through a door into a wide, dark hallway. At one end is the brown wood of the front door, and at the other a set of wide, dark stairs. Facing us are some tall double doors. Martha knocks quietly twice on one of them doors, then turns to me. She pinches my arm and whispers harshly.

“Mrs. Denton's in her sitting room, so in you go. But mind you're quiet and meek as a mouse. She wants to see you cos of your granny, but that only shows how good she is, thinking of others' troubles when she's suffering herself.”

Then Martha opens one of the doors, and Cat trots in like he lives here.

Mrs. Denton's parlor is the loveliest room I've ever seen. It's so big, with pale yellow walls and a picture over the fireplace of a young man and woman holding hands. And there's sofas and soft chairs to sit on, and a carpet over the floor. But the curtains are closed, and the room is all shadows and no air. It smells a bit like lavender, a bit like sour breath.

Mrs. Denton's sat on one of the sofas, her head leaning to one side. There's a handkerchief over her face, and she's snoring quietly. At the sound of me and Martha walking in, she startles and squawks.

“Who's that? What are you doing? Help! Help!”

“Hush, madam,” says Martha. “It's only me. And I've got that Lilly Melkun, like you wanted.”

“Oh yes! Lilly Melkun!” Mrs. Denton smiles. “How silly of me! It was just a fright to wake and have someone in the room, it made me think of …” She shakes her head and pushes herself up from the sofa.

“And you brought your cat. How lovely of you to think of cheering me. Here, pusskin!” Martha rolls her eyes and stomps out. Cat carries on sniffing about and doesn't even look at Mrs. Denton. I keep an eye on him, thinking of his claws in all them carpets and cushions.

“Go and see the lady,” I say. But Cat hardly ever listens to me, and now he just sits down on her carpet and starts washing his butt.

Mrs. Denton coughs, looks away quickly, and says, “Be a dear and let some light in.”

I go over to the window and pull back a curtain. The morning light breaks into the room, picking out the dark circles under Mrs. Denton's eyes, the deep lines running across her forehead, and her hair all ragged and mussed.