Brotherband 3: The Hunters (18 page)

‘That is the way I put it. Basically, all you can tell us is that there is a rift and that it’s a pretty frightening ride.’

Pedr said nothing. It was a fairly brutal summing up of his information. Hal glanced around his companions’ faces. They were concerned, he could see. But there was no sign of fear there.

‘And after all,’ he said to them, ‘do we have any choice?’

Thorn was watching them all carefully but he said nothing. He realised it was their decision to make and he had no right to influence it with his opinion. Hal was their leader and they were answerable to him.

It was Stig who replied. ‘No. We don’t.’

The others murmured agreement. Edvin offered a voice of reason in the argument.

‘At least,’ he said, ‘we ought to take a look at this rift.’

‘Then that’s what we’ll do,’ Hal said.

Ulf raised a hand in question. ‘Umm . . . aren’t you forgetting something? We have to get out of here first.’

Wulf turned a scornful look on his twin. ‘Do you think Hal hasn’t figured a way out by now?’

Ulf shrugged and turned to Hal. ‘So, Hal, how
are
we going to get out of here?’ he asked. Hal spread his hands in a defeated gesture and grinned.

‘I really have no idea,’ he said. ‘But I’m hoping Lydia will come up with something.’

There was a sound of footsteps in the passageway, and they all turned as the jailer appeared in the dimness by the door. Behind him, they could see the shadowy forms of several armed guards.

‘Stay where you are!’ he ordered. They were some distance from the door and he wanted them to keep it that way. He rattled the key in the lock and opened the steel grille, peering through the dim light at the group of prisoners seated by the wall. Finally, he made out Hal and pointed to him.

‘You! On your feet! The Gatmeister wants to talk to you.’

Hal began to rise, but Ingvar laid a warning hand on his arm.

‘Don’t go, Hal,’ he said urgently. Hal smiled at him and gently disengaged himself.

‘It’s all right, Ingvar. Talking can’t hurt.’

He had no idea how wrong he was.

Doutro looked up at Hal as he was ushered into the office. As before, the Gatmeister was seated behind his large table, with pages scattered haphazardly on its surface. He pointed to a spot in front of him and Hal moved to it. There was no chair, so he stood and waited. He became conscious of other people in the room. He turned and saw two of Doutro’s soldiers standing, backs to the wall. They had discarded their helmets and armoured breastplates and were wearing short-sleeved, padded linen undershirts. They had retained their sword belts, cinched around thick canvas trousers. Their boots were felt, with leather soles, held in place by criss-cross bindings.

‘Face me,’ Doutro said coldly.

Hal turned back to meet his gaze. The Gatmeister eyed him thoughtfully, his eyes steady and unblinking.

‘I’ve been considering your offer,’ he said. ‘It may have merit.’

‘My offer?’ Hal asked, not understanding.

‘Your friend suggested that you might pay me more than this . . . Zavac character you mentioned.’

Hal smiled, but without any real humour. ‘Why continue this pretence that you don’t know Zavac?’ he said. ‘It serves no purpose now.’

‘Very well. Let’s say I do know him. And let’s say you offer to pay me more than he did. I might well set you free.’

Hal studied the man for some moments. Doutro’s face gave nothing away. His voice was calm and unemotional.

‘Let’s say we did make that offer,’ Hal said carefully. ‘What then?’

‘I’d need to know that you had the money to back it up,’ Doutro said. His manner was matter of fact and he glanced away, seemingly disinterested. Too matter of fact, Hal thought. And too disinterested. And then he knew what Doutro was angling for.

‘You’ve searched my ship,’ he said. Doutro looked back at him, neither confirming nor denying the accusation. But suddenly, Hal knew he was right. Doutro wasn’t interested in extracting a bribe from them. He didn’t need to. They were his prisoners and he could take all that they had. But first, he had to find it. To that end, he had ordered his men to search the
Heron
, looking for valuables and money. But they had come up empty-handed.

Which wasn’t surprising. The
Heron
’s strongbox, which contained all their valuables – consisting of Thorn’s canvas sack of coins and jewellery, a few personal possessions belonging to the crew and a small parcel Lydia had entrusted to Hal when they had left Limmat – was hidden under an indistinguishable false panel in the central decking. The hiding place had been constructed by Hal when he built the
Heron
. The joinery was perfect and the seams were virtually invisible to the uninformed eye. The removable lid to the strongbox consisted of several deck planks of different lengths, so there was no even square set into the decking, which would have been an instant giveaway.

Hal was aware that most people built such hiding places in fairly obvious locations – either in the stern or the bow, and usually centrally located. Accordingly, he had selected a random position for his strongbox. It was positioned almost a third of the length of the ship from the stern, and offset to the starboard side. There was no logic or symmetry to its positioning. To find it, a searcher would have to rip up the entire deck. Doutro’s next words confirmed his suspicion.

‘Where’s your money?’ he demanded coldly.

Hal smiled at him. ‘Where you’ll never find it.’

Too late, he heard the sound of quick footsteps behind him, then felt one of the soldiers grip his arms, pinning them and pulling him back, off balance. The other moved in front of him, hands raised and balled into fists.

‘Beat it out of him,’ Doutro said.

Hal tried to duck the first blow, but the man behind him held him still. The big fist exploded off his cheekbone. He grunted in pain. He saw the fist draw back again, tried to hunch down protectively, but couldn’t manage it. Again, he felt the jolting power of the man’s fist, smashing into his nose. Warm blood ran down over his upper lip. His vision was blurring as tears filled his eyes – a reflex reaction to the blow to his nose. Dimly, he saw the next blow coming, felt a smashing pain in the bony part of his eyebrow. It occurred to him that the man was wearing a ring. He felt it cut the eyebrow, felt more blood running down his face.

After that, he was aware of more and more blows smashing against his unprotected face. But they merged into one continual blur of pain until he was unable to distinguish one from another.

Then, mercifully, he lost consciousness.

T
he light through the window was fading and Lydia estimated that it must be early evening. There was no source of light in the room – no candle or lantern. She guessed that people in the detention room, as Doutro had called it, weren’t trusted with a naked flame.

The door rattled again and the same woman entered the room. Lydia sat upright, swinging her legs off the bed.

‘You stay where you are!’ Erlic’s shrill voice came from the doorway. He was watching proceedings, as before. She shrugged and remained sitting on the bed. The woman placed a bucket by the door, then brought a tray to the table. Lydia could smell the hot food. Her stomach rumbled appreciatively. She hadn’t eaten all day and whatever it was on the tray smelled remarkably good.

The woman pointed at it.

‘Dinner,’ she said, unnecessarily. She checked the level of water in the jug on the table and was satisfied that there was enough there. Then she turned back towards the door.

‘Just a moment,’ Lydia said, and the woman turned back to her. ‘I need to use the bathroom.’

She didn’t, but she wanted to know more about the routine in the house, and how much freedom of movement she’d be allowed. The woman pointed to the bucket by the door.

‘There it is,’ she said, then turned and left once more. The door rattled closed behind her.

Lydia rose and walked to the table. The meal was on a tin plate, with a large spoon the only implement provided. No naked flames. No sharp objects, she thought. It was a chicken and potato stew, with a chunk of rough bread beside it. As she had already noticed, it smelled delicious. She sat down at the table, taking care as she set her weight on the now damaged chair, and made short work of it, mopping up the last traces of gravy with a piece of the bread.

She sat back unwarily, and the chair lurched underneath her. It was definitely less stable without that support rod, she thought. She belched lightly. After years spent hunting alone in the woods, Lydia’s manners and social graces left something to be desired.

Well, at least they don’t plan to starve me, she thought. She had a sudden flash of concern that the meal might have been drugged. But then she shrugged. Why would they bother? As far as Doutro was concerned, she was a homeless stray, possibly a petty criminal, and of little interest to him.

She rose and prowled restlessly around the room. Outside, she heard the creak of Erlic’s chair as he shifted position. She went to the window and tried to peer out, but her field of vision was limited. The window was on the side of the house and she could see other houses directly across what seemed to be a relatively wide lane. The house facing her was a storey lower and she estimated that it was eight metres away – too far to reach. She had already decided that her most logical escape route was out the window.

A thought struck her and she walked to the bed, pulling the straw mattress aside. As she had hoped, the bed was fashioned from a wooden frame, with a rope net to support the mattress. The net consisted of two long pieces of rough rope, strung lengthwise and crosswise. She took the knife and cut the lengthwise rope, unthreading it through the holes in the timber and pulling it loose. The result was a five-metre length of rope. She removed the crosswise rope next, and gained another four metres. She replaced the mattress, balancing it precariously on the edge of the frame. It sagged in the middle but in the dim light, if anyone came, she hoped it would pass muster.

She sat and waited until she estimated that an hour had passed. It was dark outside the window now, although there was a half moon that threw some light into the room. And she noticed now that there was an angled fanlight above the door, leaving a twenty-centimetre gap, presumably for ventilation. It admitted a dim light from the hallway.

After an hour, when nobody had returned to collect the tray, she guessed that she would be left alone for the night. She rose and tiptoed to the door, bending to listen through the latch hole. She could hear nothing for a few seconds. Then she heard the sound of Erlic’s chair creaking as he shifted position. She grinned unsympathetically. Obviously, he was destined to sleep in the chair all night.

Taking the small knife, she moved silently to the window and inserted the blade in the crack between the two halves, underneath the exterior latch bar. She felt a wave of frustration as she realised the small paring knife was too short to reach all the way through. The heavy window frames were thicker than the length of the blade.

She withdrew the knife and pursed her lips thoughtfully. Using the knife to open the window had been central to her plan of escape. She hadn’t considered that the blade might be too short for the task. Then an idea struck her. She padded quietly back to the bed and retrieved the dowel rod she had broken earlier. She went to work with the knife and whittled the last fifteen centimetres of the rod down to a narrow, flat shape. She tested it periodically until it was thin enough to fit through the narrow gap between the window frames. She rested it against the latch bar and began to move it upwards. But the latch hadn’t been raised in a long time and it was stiff. She felt the weakened rod bending ominously.

Her pulse raced and she forced herself to wait a few minutes to calm down. If she broke the rod in the window gap, she might not be able to remove the broken piece. The gap would be blocked and there would be no way she could force the latch up. Frustration built in her. The idea had seemed so simple. Slip the blade into the gap, unlock the windows. Now it might all come undone because the blade was a centimetre too short and the rod was too weak.