TimeBomb: The TimeBomb Trilogy: Book 1 (18 page)

She had not thought her will would be so easy to break.

‘You are right,’ she said. ‘Sweetclover Hall is infested with sprites. Demons and ghouls that serve a fearsome witch named Quil. She has enchanted Lord Sweetclover and his servants and she bends them to her will.’ The words poured out of her, almost as if spoken by someone else. She gave full rein to her darkest imaginings and fashioned them into words designed to both save herself and condemn a brave man to death in her stead. She cried as she testified, each word feeling like a thorn in her flesh, mortally wounding herself in the name of base salvation. ‘If you approach the hall you will be beset by goblins of all sorts – those that fly and swim and crawl, those that breathe fire and those that will chill your blood to ice in your veins. They made me dance with them only this last night, and suckle a black goat that walked upon its hind legs and did sing lullabies composed of the stolen screams of babes bedevilled by succubae.’

The crowd of soldiers began to cry out in alarm, to step away from her in fear. Dora rose to her feet, the noose still around her neck as she cried and shouted and raved of the devil and all his works. For a moment she detected horror in James’ eyes, but then it was gone, replaced by cold indifference and superiority.

When finally she had finished, Dora fell to her knees again and buried her face in her hands, weeping hysterically.

‘Hang the spy,’ the officer said.

She looked up to see Mountfort being dragged to his feet, but her view was swiftly blocked by the officer, who walked over to her and held out his hand. She reached up and took it, and he hauled her to her feet, looped the noose off her head and pulled her in close to him.

‘As for you,’ he said. ‘You shall languish in the church this night, and we shall hang you at dawn.’

With a contemptuous leer, he threw her to the ground again and walked away. A circle of soldiers enclosed her, and many hands reached down to carry her away as she screamed for mercy that she knew would not be offered.

Behind her, she heard the gruesome rattle of the spy’s final, desperate breath as he was hauled skywards.

Thomas Predennick did not consider himself a brave man, and he certainly did not consider himself a violent one. But he was a proud man. Proud of his home, the value of his labour, the place he held within his community. With his wife and children gone, these were the only things left in which he could take pride.

The loss of James, seven years before, had not been unexpected. The boy’s eyes had always been wide and excited at the promise of adventure. As much as he tried to deny it, Thomas had known that his son would leave as soon as he was able. In his darkest moments, when the night was still and there was nothing to distract him from his thoughts, he could admit his own guilt – that he had tried so hard to keep the boy close, to groom him for a baker’s life, that he had driven him away.

But the loss of Theodora two years later had unmanned him entirely.

His daughter, whom he had adored utterly and without caveat, had always been a homebody. She was not timid or foolish, but she lacked the adventurous spirit that had pulled James away. Thomas had taken comfort in the knowledge that even though he had lost a son, his daughter would stay close to him for the rest of her days. He had looked forward to grandchildren. He knew she hadn’t wanted to take the job at Sweetclover Hall, but it was only three miles yonder, an easy walk on a sunny day. Yet it seemed that much as he had underestimated his son’s lust for adventure, so he had underestimated his daughter’s determination to stay at home. The best explanation anybody could provide for her disappearance was that she had run away from the hall at night, intending to return home, and been waylaid on the road by persons unknown. Robbers or vagabonds, gypsies perhaps. Thomas knew that she would have fought them but he knew also, by her absence, that she must have lost the fight. She was dead, of that he was certain, and it was his fault, for it had been he who had insisted she take the job at the hall.

In the year after her disappearance, Thomas had barely spoken to a soul. He baked his bread and wandered the woods and fields, the paths and byways, searching for a sign, a clue of any sort to the fate of his little girl. He found nothing. Eventually his wife, Sarah, locked deep in the well of her own grief, lost patience with him. She cultivated the opinion that Dora had not run away. She became certain that some fate had befallen her at the hall itself. Thomas could not believe it; certainly the lord had strange ways, but there had never been gossip or stories about him that indicated the kind of dark purpose Sarah suspected. Still Sarah clung tight to her suspicions. She became possessed by the idea that Lord Sweetclover himself must have done their daughter wrong. Eventually the tension came to a head in a furious argument and Sarah had spoken the words she had been holding in for so long. She screamed into his face that Dora’s fate was his fault. So Thomas, unable to form words that could express so much guilt, did something he had never done before. He raised his hand and struck his wife.

She left immediately and never returned.

Thomas only discovered his wife’s refuge a week later when he did a favour for the miller and took the monthly delivery of flour to Sweetclover Hall; he found her there, in floury aprons, ready to take receipt of the sacks. If he would not investigate Dora’s disappearance, she told him, she would. With that cold rebuke she turned her back on him. To the miller’s surprise, Thomas had offered to deliver the flour every month thereafter.

For six months she refused to talk to him, and Thomas sank even deeper, this time taking solace in the only thing that could help stem, briefly, the tide of guilt – strong drink. The days, weeks and months blurred into one long haze until, one day, he just … stopped.

He did not know how he managed to stop, or why. He just did. Had he been a man of deep conviction he might have concluded that he had been touched by the mercy of a divine God. In reality he simply reached a point where he had to choose between grave and granary, and he chose the latter. From that day he had not touched anything stronger than small beer, and he’d resumed an active role in the civil and social life of the village. While there were plenty of people who judged him harshly for the dissolution of his family, plenty more were willing to offer understanding and forgiveness. He kept delivering the flour; she gradually began to be civil to him, but nothing more.

Three years later, he was a respected elder of the village, his opinions given weight by the experience of loss and grief that he had borne. He found what little contentment he could in this newly garnered respect, but it did not dispel the shame he felt, and he would trade it all in an instant for the companionship of the family he had lost.

Now, with the coming of the war, he had sworn to protect the families of his fellow villagers in a way he had not been able to protect his own.

‘We shall circle the village,’ he said as he led the men of Pendarn through the graveyard to the woods that marked the settlement’s boundary. ‘There is a good vantage point on Potter’s Hill. From there we can observe the soldiers unseen.’

The men murmured their agreement as they hurried into the half-lit woods.

‘And what provocation shall be sufficient to spur us to action, Thomas?’ asked Squeer.

‘If they look set to burn our houses, then we have no choice but to intervene,’ he replied firmly.

‘Or if they find the womenfolk,’ added young Henry Chandler, who awkwardly brandished a sword as long as he was tall.

‘We need have no fear of that, son,’ said Thomas, trying to sound more certain than he felt. ‘They are well hid.’

The sound of smashing glass and the crash of splintering wood echoed through the trees from the church behind them as the men moved with silent, practised ease through the undergrowth, skirting the south side of the village, heading for high ground.

They had not gone far when Thomas spotted motion ahead. He stopped and the men behind him did likewise, following his lead. Thomas knelt down and squinted, trying to identify the source of the movement. A moment later he caught sight of two figures moving stealthily through the woods ahead of them. He could not make out much detail but their gaits were unfamiliar, and he already knew exactly where every inhabitant of Pendarn was this day. Whoever these two were, they were strangers, keen to remain unseen.

He turned back to the men and addressed Squeer. ‘Edward, take everyone up to Potter’s Hill,’ he instructed. ‘I’m going to track these two, see who they are and what they want.’

‘On your own? Is that wise?’ questioned the thin-faced man.

‘I can handle myself,’ Thomas reassured him with a smile, brandishing his cudgel. ‘Look at them. They wish to remain hidden, so I think they are not with the soldiers. Perhaps they are spies for the Crown. If so, they may be able to render aid to us, to help us drive out the invaders. They warrant investigation, but meanwhile you must follow our original plan. If you are forced to attack, I will hear, and will come with haste if able.’

Squeer held out his hand, and Thomas took it. ‘Good luck, Thomas.’

‘And to you.’

The men of Pendarn stole away through the trees as Thomas forged ahead, stalking the two strangers who in turn stalked his home. He was not a hunter by nature but he had grown up in these woods, playing hide-and-seek almost as soon as he could walk. He could be as stealthy as the most practised poacher. His quarry were not as adept. To Thomas’ ears they fair crashed through the woods like a herd of bulls, though he doubted their noisy progress would be heard by the soldiers on the green. Keeping his distance, Thomas watched as they nipped out of the woods and tried the doors of each village house in turn, checking briefly inside then leaving and closing the doors behind them before skulking back into the woods and moving on to the next dwelling. Were they searching for allies or enemies?

Eventually his patience wore thin. He could see no weapons about their persons, and although the taller of the two was freakishly tall, they moved like children rather than adults. From their clothes he could tell that they were boys, although the gait of the smaller one had initially led Thomas to identify him as a girl. He did not think they posed an immediate threat, but he was curious and wary. Thomas hurried swiftly into the deeper woods and cut ahead of the two strangers. Selecting a good wide oak behind which to hide, he lay in wait.

When the tall one came alongside the tree, Thomas lunged forward and tripped him. The boy fell hard onto the ground with a muffled cry of alarm and surprise. Thomas stepped out and confronted the smaller stranger, all the while keeping his cudgel in plain view, close to the fallen one’s head.

‘Stay down, son,’ he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the smaller one, who had taken a step back and spread his arms in the universally recognised sign of submission.

‘If you say so,’ came a strangely accented voice from the woodland floor. Thomas was immediately suspicious. This was no Englishman.

‘Who are you, and what are you doing skulking around my village?’

The smaller one answered, at first in a high voice but then, after a clearing of the throat, in a deeper. ‘We are … huhhhuggh … we are strangers to this land, good sir, but we offer you no threat.’

Another foreigner, but with a brogue far removed from the tall one’s.

‘Where do you come from, then?’ he asked.

‘I am lately voyaged from the New World,’ said the short one. ‘And my companion is from, um, Poland …?’

‘You say that as if you are not sure,’ said Thomas. ‘Tall one, hail you from the eastern lands?’

‘Uh, yes. I do. Long story. Can I get up now?’

Thomas swiped the cudgel through the air before the tall one’s face. ‘OK, I’ll stay here,’ he said.

Thomas gestured for the short one to step forward. As he did so he stepped into a shaft of sunlight and Thomas was surprised to note the girlish aspect and dark skin of this slender boy. ‘The New World, say you?’

‘Aye,’ said the girlish boy. ‘I am a savage of that land. Hence my dark skin, and strange accent.’

Thomas nodded. ‘’Tis true you look and speak most oddly. What shall I call you, savage? And what brings you to Pendarn?’

‘My name is Jana. And Pendarn is but a way-station on my journey to visit the lord of Sweetclover Hall.’

‘What business have you at the hall?’ asked Thomas sharply.

Jana shrugged apologetically. ‘Sorry, can’t tell you that.’

‘Can I get up now?’ groaned the tall one. ‘My arse is wet.’

Thomas stepped aside and let the tall one rise to his feet.

‘Thank you,’ he said, as he brushed leaves and moss from his trousers. ‘I’m Kaz.’

‘So it’s Kaz from Poland, and Jana from the New World. Hiding in the woods by my village, inspecting the houses, who knows why, on their way to a secret meeting at Sweetclover Hall. That is the matter?’

‘Pretty much,’ said the small one.

‘Yes,’ agreed the taller.

Thomas regarded the curious strangers closely, and as he did so his eyes widened in surprise.

‘I could ask you about the strange footwear that adorns your feet,’ he said, gesturing to Kaz’s bright blue boots. ‘But I would perhaps do better to enquire as to how and why you are both wearing my shirts.’

‘Ah,’ said Jana, pulling an embarrassed face. ‘That’s, um …’

‘Your shirts?’ interrupted Kaz urgently. ‘You are the baker?’

‘I am. Thomas Predennick,’ replied Thomas, his confusion nothing to that which he felt a moment later, when Jana asked, ‘Dora’s father?’

At those words the world spun around Thomas’ head and a thousand thoughts raced through his mind. The most obvious being that these thieving vagabonds must be the ones who had stolen his daughter away. If that be the case, and if they referred to her in such terms, then she must be alive and in their company. He felt his knees buckle a little, but he regained his composure sufficiently to ask, haltingly, ‘What know you of my daughter?’

‘Wow,’ said Kaz after a moment’s silence.