The Frost Child (14 page)

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Owen stared at it in horror, taking an involuntary step backward. As he did so, something snapped under his feet. He looked down. It was a pencil, and beside it was a notebook, also fragile with age. And beside that again was an odd-looking machine. It looked like an old-fashioned typewriter, except there were no keys with letters, just the little arms that would have had letters on the top of them. On the side of the box was a brass handle, and on the floor beside it an old and delicate wooden hoop, just about the size of a man's hand. Owen looked at it, puzzled. He picked up the hoop, and jumped, almost dropping it, as something pricked his hand.

The hoop was studded with tiny needles, hundreds of them. He looked down at the machine, and he remembered something he had seen on television--an old-fashioned machine for playing music, with cylinders with bumps on them. When a bump was struck, the machine played a note. What if this was something similar?

Very carefully, he placed the hoop into the machine in the place where the paper would have gone in a typewriter. Then he gently turned the handle at the side. Nothing happened.

He took the hoop out and reversed it, then turned the handle again. This time there was a whirring from inside the machine. The hoop started to move. For several moments there was no sound, then a wheezy crackling came from the machine. He looked at the hoop. It was too old. The little arms were striking the needles and

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stripping them away, making the crackling noise. He sat back in disappointment. He was sure there was something important on the hoop.

He heard a sound, and then another, and then, almost inaudible in the wheezing and crackling, but growing in strength--a child's voice, thin and eerie and somehow terribly familiar....

... to sail time's ocean wide

In time and time's divide

Till the book of the past

Thaws winter's child at last
.

The song the buccaneers had sung. And there was more....

Her earth mistress pride

More dead than alive

In her hands his fate

The boy she awaits...

Owen listened eagerly for more but, with a tearing sound, the hoop came apart. The machine ground to a halt as the remnants of the hoop became entangled in the steel arms.

What did it mean? Owen had forgotten about the notebook, but he reached for it now. Only two pages had been written on. The first page was a hurried sketch of the tapestry, showing the boy in the foreground and what appeared to be the shapes of a small king and queen in the background. The adults' features had not been filled in.

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The second page of the notebook had three words and a question mark scrawled on it.

The Long Woman?

Of course!
Owen thought. He had met the Long Woman on his trek north. She had rescued Owen and Pieta from the snow and brought them to her strange underground kingdom.

Her earth mistress pride More dead than alive

She had talked about being buried, and when Owen, shocked, had asked her about it, she had laughed. Owen was sure that something important was buried in the song and the images on the ruined tapestry, if only he could find it. Who had crouched in the same place, many years before, and why had they left the notebook and recorder? If he could just talk to that person ...

He sighed and carefully tore the two pages out of the notebook. People would be missing him. It was time to make his way back to the others.

The Raggies had been quartered in an old barracks just behind the Workhouse. They had made it comfortable in their own frugal way. There was no driftwood, so they gathered wood for fires along the river. Contessa had provided them with dried fish and potatoes, as they only

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ever ate fish and chips, and they had brought their bedding with them. But still they looked longingly toward the sea, and nudged each other when a hungry gull flew overhead.

Wesley was in a bad mood when he got back, but some of the younger children ran out to greet him, and soon he had a group of them sitting round him, as he told them stories about the sea.

His storytelling was interrupted by a loud banging at the door. Wesley frowned.

"I'll have to finish later," he said, to a storm of protest from the children.

He went to the door and opened it. The red-faced lieutenant named Moorhead stood at the door, with a group of soldiers behind her.

"What do you want?" Wesley asked.

"Your tone isn't particularly friendly, young man," the lieutenant said. She had the look of someone who thought that the Raggies needed a firm hand to make them behave more like everyone else.

"You and them ones don't look as if you're here to make friends neither," Wesley said.

"We are here to conduct a search for the missing Yeati ring," the woman said, trying to sound important. "It is considered vital that it is returned in order to treat the injured from tomorrow's attack."

"Is it now?" Wesley said. "Well, I can tell you for nothing, it ain't here."

"My orders are to search."

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"Samual don't give orders to the Raggies."

"While you are in the Workhouse, his rules apply."

"He's not even the leader of the Workhouse. Who are you, anyway, to be coming around here giving us orders?"

"Lieutenant Moorhead. Step out of the way, please." Wesley looked around. The brothers Uel and Mervyn were standing behind him. They were tall, quiet boys who didn't like to fight but were dangerous when any Raggie was threatened. They were also very good shots with the magno crossbows they now carried at their sides. Meanwhile Moorhead's soldiers had moved closer to her.

"Hold on a minute ..." Moorhead's eyes narrowed. With a speed that belied her size she darted past Wesley before he could stop her. Her hand shot out and grabbed a little girl who had been watching from behind the door. She yanked the girl off her feet and pulled her back through the doorway, then held her up in triumph.

"What is this, then?"

Wesley looked. Hanging loosely from the index finger of the girl's small hand was the Yeati's ring!

Wesley knelt down in front of her.

"Where did you get the ring, Hannah?" he said gently.

The little girl looked up at him with big eyes. "I ... I found it, Wesley."

"Where did you find it?"

"I did find it, Wesley."

"Stole it, more like," one of the soldiers muttered.

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"I didn't! I didn't!" The little girl burst into tears and buried her head in Wesley's shoulder.

"Take the child into custody," Moorhead said sharply. Two of the soldiers stepped forward. Uel and Mervyn looked at Wesley. Wesley got to his feet. His face was white.

"The child said she found it," Wesley said. Hannah was sobbing uncontrollably now.

"That will be for the Convoke to decide," Moorhead said. "Take her."

Wesley stepped in front of the girl, but the soldiers were much taller than him.

"Wait." A voice spoke from behind him. He turned around in surprise. Uel had put his crossbow on the ground.

"I took it."

"What?" Wesley looked around, his eyes narrowing.

"I took it and I hid it in my stuff. Hannah must have found it when she was playing."

"Where did you get it?" Wesley said.

"The two of us done it," Mervyn said, stepping forward as well.

"You're not taking any Raggies out of here," Wesley said angrily. "I know what's going on with these two."

Moorhead reached down and snatched the Yeati's ring from the little girl's finger. Her sobbing got louder.

"Hush now," Uel said, putting his hand on Hannah's head. "We know you done nothing wrong."

Gently but insistently the two boys pushed past Wesley. The soldiers seized them.

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"Don't fight them, Wesley," Mervyn said. "We don't want Resister fighting Resister."

"I know you two done nothing wrong," Wesley said despairingly.

"Aye, but there's more than one way to skin a cat," Uel said. "This'll have to be got to the bottom of anyway, so why not like this? Calvin," he said, addressing a sleepy-looking boy, "go and fetch Silkie. She can calm down the lass." He gave a meaningful look at Hannah.

"Come on then, you two," Moorhead said, and the soldiers grabbed Uel and Mervyn. Wesley saw Owen running toward them.

" ... What's going on?"

"They say Uel and Mervyn stole Cati's ring," Wesley told him.

"Don't be stupid," Owen said to Moorhead. "Uel and Mervyn never stole anything in their lives."

"They're coming with me," she stated firmly. Owen moved toward Uel and Mervyn, but they turned and started walking away, followed by the soldiers.

"Wait," Wesley said, putting his hand on Owen's arm. "Uel and Mervyn are right. We got to do this the way they say. First thing is find out how that ring got here."

"You find that out," Owen said. "I'm going to talk to Contessa."

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Chapter 15

Owen had set out to find Contessa, but the first people he ran into were Samual and Cati.

"Samual got my ring back," Cati said, but she looked confused and worried.

"My instinct was right," Samual said. "Lieutenant Moorhead is escorting the two prisoners to the barracks."

"Mervyn and Uel no more stole the ring than I did," Owen said. Samual gave him a look that said that he thought Owen was well capable of it.

"It's not that I'm not grateful, Samual," Cati said, "but I don't believe it either."

"The two boys have confessed," Samual said. "We can't have thieving going on. We must have discipline in wartime."

"We cannot have summary justice either, especially in wartime," Contessa's cool voice said as she entered the room.

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"You can't just let them go!" Samual exploded.

"I did not suggest that," Contessa said. "I was thinking of a trial."

"A trial has not been held for many years," Samual said, watching her closely.

"An accusation of theft has not been made within the walls of the Workhouse either," Contessa said.

"And who will conduct the trial?"

"The tradition is that the accused will be judged by all the Resisters."

"All right," he agreed. "A trial it will be. But with confessions ..."

"With confessions, a conviction is certain, unless there is other evidence," Contessa said.

"But that's not fair," Cati burst out. "Uel and Mervyn didn't do it."

"That may be, Cati," Contessa said, "but if the two boys say they did it, then it is not up to the court to deem them liars." Her voice was steady but her eyes were sad. There was a barely perceptible smile on Samual's face.

"Let's go, Cati," Owen said. "We have evidence to gather."

Silkie was soon with Hannah. But no matter how gently she quizzed her, she got the same answer. She had found the ring lying on the floor and picked it up because she thought it was pretty. Cati and Owen joined them.

"Why did Uel and Mervyn say they did it?" Cati asked, puzzled.

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"Because they are honest," Owen said.

"I don't understand," Cati said.

"They couldn't bear to see Hannah being took off," Wesley explained. "They put the blame on themselves."

"They have to tell them they didn't do it," Cati said.

"They won't do it," Wesley said, "not without new evidence."

"If they do take back the confession," Owen said, "then blame falls back on Hannah. Besides, people will say that they confessed and only took it back to save their skins. We have to find out who
really
took the ring."

"I need to talk to Dr. Diamond," Cati said.

"And Dr. Diamond needs to talk to you," a voice said. They turned to see the scientist standing in the doorway, his face serious.

The four friends and Dr. Diamond found a warm room away from the rest of the children. The doctor had brought fresh oatcakes and a steaming can of tea with him, reckoning, rightly, that the children had forgotten to eat that day.

"And you can't think on an empty stomach," he said. They ate the still-warm oatcakes with melted butter dripping from them, and drank hot, milky tea.

"Now," the doctor said when they had finished, "tell me exactly what happened."

The friends told him everything that had taken place. Sometimes he made them go back over a particular incident several times, and he cross-examined Cati closely

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about how and when she had returned the ring to its box. In the end, he sighed and sat looking into the fire for several minutes.

"Can you make head or tail of it, Doc?" Wesley said.

"I can, in a way," he said, "and it isn't good. The attack with the ice lances was only a disguise for the real attack."

Owen held his breath, thinking that the Harsh had some strange new weapon, but Dr. Diamond shook his head.

"I know what you are all thinking, but there is nothing new out there for us to fear, I think, apart from a long siege and hunger. No, the real weapon works from within, turning us against each other."

"What do you mean?"

"Look at the theft of the ring, what it has done. Everybody now suspects each other. And there is another part to it. Samual was always ambitious--he wanted to be the Watcher before your father got it, Cati, and now he wants to be leader of us all."

"What has this got to do with the ring?"

"He has a chance to look good in front of the rest of the Resisters by catching the culprits--and the Raggies are associated with Cati and Owen in everyone's minds. It will be a blow against the two of you."

"But surely the Resisters won't vote against the boys," Owen protested.

"They need to find someone to blame. Unless we find something new, then Uel and Mervyn will be judged thieves."