Robyn and the Hoodettes (16 page)

Robyn placed her bow and arrow into the back of the wagon,
where Joan and Georgia were sitting. Madge, Robyn noted, was
sitting up the front in the seat next to Wilfred.

The iced winds brought with them the smell of wet soil and . .
. smoke?

She and Marion looked at each other. “Do you smell that?” They
said in unison.

Looking up, smoke puffed out the narrow tower windows and
the hatch they’d climbed from.

It had to be some kind of terrible accident. Surely Maudlin
wasn’t so insane as to set fire to it?

Suddenly Mother Eleanor leaned out the hatch and called,
“Robyn dear? Change of plans! Can we come with you
please?”

CHAPTER NINE

Warning horns and shouts filled the Sheffield air. As did
billowing smoke. People ran from all directions, many of them with
ladders. Some of them with buckets. Some of those buckets even had
water in them.

“
Marion, get off the rope, we’ll be able to get two people
down at a time if it goes up empty,” Robyn said, holding the slack
end and hoisting it upwards. Then she shouted up to the window,
“Grab the rope! Climb on to the loop and grab someone to come down
with you. All right?”

“
Yes dear.” Eleanor called back. “Do hurry!”

People with ladders arrived and leaned them against the
walls. One person climbed up with a hatchet and cut wider holes
where the narrow windows had been. People scrambled out the gaps
and down the ladders. Before long, the tower was a sea of people
climbing up and down, helping people to get out, tipping buckets of
water in. It was a valiant effort, but Robyn feared the flames were
too strong.

Marion and Wilfred’s rope and pulley system managed two
people down at a time, usually a trembling mother and
wrapped-up-child.

“
What about Bella?” Eleanor said as she patted herself down
now that she was safely down.

Honestly, shouldn’t people come before livestock?

Timber creaked above them. In a harrowing ‘whoosh’
the
tower
roof caught alight.

Fear curdled Robyn’s stomach. “Please tell me everyone got
out?”

Marion grabbed her in a hug. “It wasn’t your
fault.”

Red mist covered Robyn’s eyes. “I never thought it
was!”

“
Don’t be so defensive!”

“
I can’t help being defensive when you’re saying it’s my
fault!”

“
I didn’t say th–”

At which point screams for help rang out.

People were still trapped inside, desperate to get
out.

A human chain of people with water-filled buckets couldn’t
compete with the growing flames.

How had this even happened, Robyn fretted. Had someone knocked
a candle over or had Maudlin deliberately lit it?

Desperate to help,
Robyn and Marion joined in the human chain and
hefted full buckets along the line.

Suddenly a stampede of people and a mooing cow poured from
the tower, bursting out into the fresh air. A cheer went up and
news carried down the line that everyone was out.

Not the fire, mind, it still had plenty of life in
it.

Relief swept through Robyn, leaving her as soggy as wet
bread.

“
Let’s get back to
the horses and get out,” Marion said.

No time to rest, Robyn s
crambling up the hill to where Wilfred,
Madge, Joan and Georgia stayed with the horses. Through the smoky
haze, Wilfred’s face shone like a red beacon of
itchiness.

Robyn scratched her cheek in sympathy. “You all
right.”

Wilfred dragged his sleeve across his face.
“
Aa-djaw
!”

“
I’ll take over if you like.” Robyn relieved Wilfred of
duty. Madge was beside him, her hands filled with sheep’s wool to
soothe his face and hands.

“
I must be a mess,” Will said.

Madge beamed. “You’re my hero. Now let me look after
you.”

A half-hearted protest from Wilfred followed. Robyn was
glad he had the wool over his eyes so he couldn’t see everyone else
making silly faces as Madge doted on him.

A stab of jealousy shot through. How come she and Marion
coul
dn’t be
this nice to each other? They had the occasional lovely moment
together, but then things turned tetchy and she wanted to kick him
in the shins.

Thoughts of boy problems were quickly pushed aside as she
took in the next hurdle facing them. Marion, Wilfred and Madge had
done brilliantly to get themselves, the horses and the wagon up
here in the narrow space between fence and the tower. But there was
only one way down and it was packed with people running back and
forth. Most were running away from tower, but a few brave or crazy
people were running back in, desperate to salvage whatever they
could from the burning building.

At least the stone part of the tower wouldn’t burn, so the
people of Sheffield wouldn’t lose everything. Not like they had in
Loxley.

“
Everyone ready to leave?” Robyn looked back to her motley
friends, all in various states of shock and exhaustion. They still
had to get down from the hill, and it was quite an angle. “You’ll
have to get out of the wagon, the steps are too steep. Will and
Marion, you two get the wagon down the steps. I’ll guide the
horses.”

Plus One hardly needed guiding. She
followed lock step with Marion and
the others, but Shadow had very different ideas. The noise and
movement of people rushing about, their arms full of flour bags,
clothes, cheese wheels, butter and tools, spooked the horse. That
was before Robyn even saw the steps they had to climb
down.

“
It’s OK girl. I’m right here,” she cooed, stroking the
horse’s nose. Reaching into her pocket, she found nothing of use to
bribe her. An apple would be brilliant right about now. She scanned
the base of the tower and found tufts of grass poking out. She
ripped the grass, pulling it out roots and all. “Here you are
darling. I’m going to guide you down the hill and you’re going to
be fine.”

Straight down the steps wasn’t going to cut it. The hill
was incredibly steep, the steps narrow and
clogged with people running up and
down. “Easy girl. I won’t let you go.” Not that the horse would
have any idea what she was saying, but Robyn hoped her soothing
tone conveyed the message.

Shadow took a diagonal step. They were going down, the long
way.

“
Good girl. Now the next one.”

Shadow
walked across the face of the hill. Robyn walked beside
Shadow all the way, her body on the lower side to protect the horse
from slipping. And to keep guiding her downwards.

“
Good girl!” Robyn said as they reached the fence on the other
side. “Now turn around and we do it again.”

Shadow dropped her head and made for the grass growing near
the step.

“
Fair enough. I’m pretty hungry myself.” She turned to see
how the lads were getting on with the wagon and the other horse.
They were half-lifting half-guiding the wheels over each step,
careful not to jostle too hard.

A
strange thing was happening. As people ran from the tower,
they threw whatever they’d salvaged into the back of the wagon and
then ran back in.

They think the wagon’s part of the rescue.

“
Come on girl,” Robyn clicked her tongue and guided Shadow
diagonally down the face of the hill again, all the while giving
her praise and compliments. They were half way down now, which
wasn’t a bad effort. They’d also caught up to the back of the
wagon, so she could see what people were piling on to it. A bag of
oats fell and spilled onto the ground.

Nice one.

Robyn scooped the oats into her palms and offered them to
Shadow.
The
horse’s whiskery lips tickled Robyn’s palms, making her giggle. She
turned to get more oats and found Marion and Wilfred had already
moved on.

Lured by the oats, Shadow followed the wagon all the way down
the hill to the flat ground of the bailey.

Brilliant!

“
Right, are we all here?” Robyn said. “Everyone get on
board.”

There were so many of them. Wilfred, Marion, Madge, Mother
Eleanor, Joan, Georgia and herself. They wouldn’t all fit on the
wagon.

A wagon now groaning with winter supplies. How could there be
so much in reserve when the people of Sheffield looked so
destitute?

With blinding clarity Robyn knew what she had to
do.

Filled with a sense of purpose she scrambled to the top of the
wagon and handed out supplies to people.

A window opened, revealing her future. A life that involved
looking after people and making sure everyone had what they needed.
Why should people starve when others had too much?

With winter on the way, how could she do anything
less?

The wind blew icy and cold. Robyn pulled her hood up to
protect her ears as she handed food to the people. People who
looked cold and thin and miserable. Their faces lit up as she
passed a sack of–she had a quick look, it was kale–into a woman’s
grateful arms. An incredibly skinny woman with three children
hanging on to her skirts.

“
God bless you, child,” she said.

Oh yes, this was absolutely the right thing to do. As if
all her previous life experiences had led her to this very
point.

A woman screamed with rage, breaking Robyn’s wonderful
fantasies of spending her life feeding the needy.

“
What are you doing?”
She raged.

Robyn knew that voice. It was Maudlin, even before she saw
the black bird fly at a peasant to make her drop her sack of food.
The peasant clung to the food as if it were a child to protect.
Robyn grabbed a stretch of rope and whipped it in the air towards
the crow. The end of the rope cracked with a deafening snap. The
crow stopped attacking and wheeled around, then landed on the roof
of the nearby buttery.

“
Give that back! It’s the property of Sheffield!” Maudlin
stomped closer. The grim look on her face changed to outrage when
she recognized Robyn. “You! I should have known you’d be at the
centre of this!”

“
Me?” Anger overflowed in Robyn. Instead of letting the
anger rule her, she turned it against Maudlin. “You’re the one
who’s crazy enough to set your own tower on fire!”

It was a gamble to accuse someone of deliberately starting
a blaze. Silence snapped in the air around them. A palpable sense
of “Did she really say that?” passed between everyone.

Robyn went even harder.
“You’re mental!” She kept grabbing bags of
food and butter churners and wheels of cheese, passing them out to
the crowd to share the goods.

Maudlin cried out, “You’re nothing but a robbing
hoodlum!”

“
You’re the thief!” Robyn yelled back. “Look at these
people. They’re starving. They won’t make it through the winter if
they have no food. And the whole time you had my people up the
tower working like . . . well, working like peasants–”

“–
T
hey
are peasants!”

“
You weren’t going to share the food, were you? No matter how
hard everyone here worked, there’s no way you were going to look
after them!” It’s amazing how much poured from her mouth now that
she was in a right temper.

At which point, Mother Eleanor handed Robyn the bag of golden
coins. “I’m so proud of you darling.”

The coins. Robyn felt all kinds of hypocrite as she looked
at the coins. She was going to share them, but only with her people
from Loxley.

Maybe the people of Sheffield needed them more? Before she
could change her mind, Robyn pulled the top of the bag open, then
flung the coins out across the bailey. People scrambled over the
ground to snatch them up.

The wagon below her jerked forward. Robyn lost her footing
and buckled. Wilfred and Marion were hitching the horses into their
harnesses. With another jolt they headed for the castle
gates.

Finding her feet again, Robyn kept handing out food and
other goods to whoever came near. It felt amazing to be giving
people what they wanted. It also caused so much chaos immediately
around the wagon there was no way Maudlin could get near
them.

That horrid little crow landed back on Maudlin’s shoulder.
Despite the distance growing between them, the sight of that crazy
woman and her jackdaw made things wobble in Robyn’s
tummy.

“
Let’s get out of here,” she urged Marion.

Not that she was a coward. Not really. But the thought of
taking on an angry Maudlin turned her knees to butter.

“
Run away little girl. Run as far as you can,” Maudlin
yelled. “And when you get there, keep running!”

Ahead of them, the gates were still closed.

“
Georgia, can you and Joan open
them?”