Rocking Horse War (13 page)

The three children knelt by the rigid wooden horse.

Thomas took the gold ring from his waistcoat and placed it by the rocking horse’s neck. It turned once, then lay down. He said quietly, “Let’s get out of here; it’s not safe.”

Pearl hissed at him, “It was never safe.”

He just repeated, his voice flat. “Let’s get out of here.”

As they left the ballroom, the Earl put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “Sorry, my boy.”

“Why are you sorry?” Pearl said bitterly. “You gave false life to these creatures, you forced them into danger, then took that life away. Is that what you’ve done with the triplets? Created lives for your own selfish ends, planning to take them away?”

The Earl glanced at her, then turned to Thomas. “Why is she still here? She annoys me. Come and secure Swanhaugh for me.”

Thomas took one last look at the ballroom floor and walked out of the castle past his grandfather and the Laird, who was still controlled by the constant threat of the Earl’s lorefast.

Thomas picked a handful of pliable green reeds 
from the edge of the nearest canal, sat down and began to pleat them into a rope.

Pearl stood protectively beside the triplets, as Ruby wept and Emmie comforted her. But Jasper sauntered over to Thomas. “Can I help?”

Thomas looked up sharply, and Pearl thought he was going to snap at Jasper for disturbing him. But he nodded. “Yes, you can fetch me more reeds.”

By the time Jasper brought more, Thomas had finished the length of rope. He smiled at Jasper, and added one of his reeds anyway.

Thomas wound the rope round his lorefast, like a vine round a post or a snake round a branch. Then, holding his staff at the top, he pulled the rope steadily so it slithered all the way down the length of the staff.

Then he approached the Laird, threw the green rope around the old man’s arms and chest, tied it swiftly in a simple knot and stood back. “Now my power holds you prisoner,” he said with satisfaction.

The Laird tried to move his arms, but couldn’t.

“Follow me,” ordered Thomas, and walked off. The Laird moved after him, lurching from side to side as he tried to resist the boy’s command.

Pearl was suddenly glad Thomas had chosen to persuade the triplets, rather than force them, to follow him.

Thomas led the Laird in a circle back towards the Earl. “Stop,” ordered Thomas, and the Laird stopped.

The Earl laughed. “Good work! Good work indeed.”

Thomas gave a tight smile, then turned to the triplets. “Now it’s time to go to the castle.”

“They’re not going to the castle,” Pearl said firmly.

Thomas raised his eyebrows.

“You gave me your word that I would get a chance to persuade the triplets your nasty little plan isn’t their destiny. And you promised that if I persuaded them all, we could go home. Now I want my chance.”

“You promised her
what
?” boomed the Earl. “You promised a child who cannot even hear the land the chance to argue against my gemstones’ destiny and my rights?

“Thomas Horsburgh,” his voice fell to a threatening purr, “Thomas Horsburgh, you disappoint me.”

“I needed her help and it was an honest bargain.” Thomas’s voice was calm. “Anyway, it seems right to give the children a sporting chance, doesn’t it? Given what’s at stake.”

“What do you think is at stake, boy? My right to the crown, or your right to the Landlaw lorefast? What is at stake? What are you gambling with?”

“Actually,” Thomas said icily, “I meant what is at stake for
them
.”

The Earl glared at Thomas.

“Anyway,” the tall boy shrugged, “if it really is their destiny, nothing she says can change it, can it?”

The Earl nodded once, so Thomas smiled at the triplets and invited them to sit with him on the bank of the canal. Then he looked expectantly at Pearl. “The floor is yours.”

But Pearl had seen her father in the law courts 
and knew how to get a slim advantage in debate. “No. You’re proposing a destiny for them; I’m opposing it. You speak first.”

Thomas laughed. “A lawyer as well as a hunter!”

He leapt up, strode a few steps away and turned to face the triplets. Pearl sat down beside Emmie. The Earl stood beside the captive Laird. As Thomas took a deep breath, his grandfather snorted, “Play-acting!”

But Thomas looked very serious as he began to speak. “Emerald. Ruby. Jasper. I want to show you three things. I want to show that this is your destiny, because you were created to crown the Earl. I want to show that if you turn your back on your destiny, you risk giving the mountains to a man who will misuse their power. Finally I want to show how glorious that destiny can be. Then the choice will be yours.” He held his hands out to the triplets.

Pearl groaned softly. She’d made a dreadful mistake. She’d created the perfect platform for a boy who’d already half-enchanted each child with his charm and fancy tricks. She’d agreed to a contest stacked against her from the start: she had to persuade all three children to win; Thomas only had to persuade one. She looked at their eager faces gazing at him and groaned again.

“I call my first witness,” Thomas said, the lilt in his voice betraying how much fun he was having. “Kenneth Horsburgh, Earl of this county, will you step forward?”

“Nonsense,” harrumphed the Earl, but he looked pleased to be asked and walked forward to face Thomas. 

“My lord, have you seen these children before?”

Pearl coughed to hide a nervous laugh. Would the Earl take a tiny notebook out of a pocket and consult it, like a police constable in the Sheriff Court?

“No,” answered the Earl.

“But do you know of them?”

“Oh yes. I knew of them before they were born.”

“Can you explain?”

“Well,” the Earl stood with his thumbs in his braces and leant back into the air, as if he was telling a tale by his own fireplace, “well, my daughter-in-law, your mother, Thomas, was a bit of a folklorist in her spare time. Loved to listen to the land, but also loved to listen to how the local folk tried to call on our power in their ham-fisted, half-hearted, ignorant, superstitious way. Jane knew I found them amusing, but I think she was fond of them.

“Anyway, during the Great War she brought me information she thought I might find interesting. The wife of one of my neighbours had just lost a son in the war, and as the mother of one remaining baby daughter, she was desperate for more children. She didn’t want the little girl to grow up alone, said my daughter-in-law. She was trying everything: getting up at dawn and tying ribbons to rowan trees; throwing coins to the spirit of the river; even, in a garbled sort of way, offering the souls of her unborn children to the powers around her, if only she could have more children. Of course, she didn’t get any of the words right, she threw gold when she should have thrown 
silver, she faced the wrong way, and stood in the wrong place, and sneezed at just the wrong time, so we could have ignored her requests completely. But Jane knew I was laying the groundwork for my conquest of the Laird and my victory in the mountains, and thought this woman might be useful.

“We don’t have to grant the requests of those who can’t hear the land, but when it suits our own ends, we do grant wishes. Though I don’t look much like a fairy godmother, do I?”

The Earl laughed heartily at his own joke. Pearl realised her teeth were clamped together; she looked at the triplets, white-faced, gripping each other’s hands. They were all beginning to understand why Mother avoided the neighbours to the south.

The Earl slapped himself on the chest to stop his chuckles, and continued his story.

“So on midsummer morning, the woman came to the riverbank, cut a lock of her own hair, and said, ‘I’d give anything if I could bear more children.’ Jane appeared cloaked in morning mist and asked if she really meant
anything
. When the woman sank to her knees and begged for more children, Jane said she could have three if she would let them have a destiny far greater than her other children, and if she would free them to that destiny when it was time. She agreed. So Jane gave the foolish woman a bag of herbs to help her get pregnant one more time. As she walked away from the water, I sent powers spinning after her to wait in her belly for her children: the deepest landlore I 
could summon, the strongest potential links to the mountains I could forge, and the power to crown the next lord in the castle of Landlaw Hold.

“And so,” he towered over the sitting children with a hungry grin, “and so, I made you. You are mine. Because your mother gave you to me.”

He stepped back to leave the floor to Thomas, but Emmie asked quickly, “Did you send the power of flight spinning into her belly?”

He frowned at her and shook his head.

“So who did?”

The Laird cleared his throat, and they all turned to look at him. He smirked.

“Perhaps you didn’t create us all by yourself, and have no claim over us,” Emmie said to the Earl with a charming smile.

“Whatever unnatural powers you had grafted onto you, you were my idea. If I hadn’t needed you, your mother would never have had you. Without me, you would not exist!” He walked off triumphantly.

Pearl patted Emmie on the shoulder, but they didn’t look at each other. They were staring at Thomas, who thanked his grandfather, then announced, “I call my second witness, the Laird of Swanhaugh.”

The Laird walked nonchalantly towards the children, as if he’d chosen to step forward.

Thomas spoke softly. “There are three possibilities for the mountains: first, no one takes responsibility for them and they fade away into silence; second, you crown my grandfather so he can use his power and their music to care for them; 
or finally, this Laird uses you to crown himself, then he takes control. But what would the Laird do with that power?

“Swanhaugh.” He coughed the name up as if it tasted foul. “Swanhaugh, tell us about bloodlore.”

The Laird spoke very quietly, but no one, not even the horses, moved as he spoke, so they heard every word.

“As you know, Tommy boy, bloodlore adds the power of the living creature to the power of the land. You cut open a vein and let the blood sink in. And as the creature dies, the land lives. The hot wet red blood calls back memories of molten rock more vividly than your waltzes and polkas. Land watered with blood resists the nasty fingers of weathering. Land fed with blood seeks more blood.”

“Do you use bloodlore?” asked Thomas.

“Yes I do,” leered the Laird.

“Does anyone else in this county?”

“No. Your weak-willed branch of the family called it barbaric and declared it taboo. So you perch on top of the land, singing little ditties to it, and you never reach to the heights nor dive to the depths of the power our ancestors had. You never feel the earth in your veins, nor breathe the sky into your lungs. You’re too bothered about rules and responsibility to
enjoy
landlore.”

Thomas shook his head. “But you’re so addicted to bloodletting and flying that you forget simple responsibilities like sheep shearing and grass cutting. You’re not fit to care for the land if you just care about your own pleasures.” 

The Laird laughed. “Bloodlore isn’t just about pleasure, Thomas. It’s about power too. Power and death. Don’t forget that.”

Pearl noticed dozens of swans circling far behind the Laird. But they came no nearer than the edge of the parklands.

Thomas spoke slowly. “I haven’t forgotten that. Did you use bloodlore three summers ago?”

“You remember that, little Tommy?” The Laird’s voice flowed like warm grease. “I killed a whole herd of deer that summer, and drenched the land at the north side of the Keystone Peak. The flood of blood sliced off a whole cliff. I heard the mountain scream and I heard you scream too, boy, when you found your mother. I got the Horsburgh hind that day, but not the calf. I was aiming for you then, and I know my swans nearly got you earlier today. Keep looking around you, above and below. I’ll get you eventually. If I don’t, one of my kin in the bloodlore will.”

Thomas was very pale by the end of the Laird’s answer, but his voice was still steady. “Did you use bloodlore this morning?”

“I hardly needed to. Your gutless horses fled at the first sight of my swans. Those children’s toys were split from each other with no more than a few drops of mousy blood in the woods. And the white mare’s hooves were persuaded onto the path towards my lands with nothing but a couple of bones bent into horseshoes and a bit of smoke from the top of the Anvil. Then I covered her tracks and my own with a breath of rain.

“But I admit, I did bleed a few hares dry round 
the rocks above my Towers, just in case anyone came sneaking and spying. I forced the rocks to twist and turn to my tune, and you very nearly joined in the dance, little girl, didn’t you?” He leant towards Pearl, his tongue poking at the gaps in his rotting teeth. “Perhaps I’ll get you next time.”

“You won’t get her,” Thomas said sharply. “You won’t get anyone ever again. Not if these children accept their destiny.”

He faced the triplets and opened his arms. “If you choose not to crown my grandfather, do you think the Laird will give you a choice about whether you crown him? Do you want to let him feed the land with death rather than life? Do you want to let him use his power to force the land to do his bidding? Do you want to let a man like him, and a lore like that, loose on the mountains?”

“It’s not that simple,” broke in the Laird. “You call bloodlore taboo, but there are ways of hurting living things without spilling blood.” He whirled round to face the triplets. “Ask him how their ritual …”

But Thomas flicked his staff at the green rope round Swanhaugh’s chest and it tightened so fast the Laird couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Thank you for your testimony. Return to your place.” The Laird walked stiffly back to the Earl.

“My third witness is … the land.”

Thomas crouched down in front of his audience. “I want you to feel the rhythm of the rocks, the pulse of the earth, and I want you to know you’ll lose that music forever if you don’t follow me up to the castle tonight.”