The Changes Trilogy (13 page)

“I'll climb through the window,” said Nicky. He opened it wide and she flicked herself through. The moment she was in he fastened it tight, while Nicky tucked herself into a corner where she couldn't be seen from outside.

“Sit like you were sitting before,” she suggested. “Talk as though you were talking to yourself. Mike Sallow came up to the farm and told us that robbers had come to the village and killed Mr. Barnard and taken all the children somewhere.”

“True enough,” groaned Mr. Tom. “They killed the Master. I was there, waiting for the fun of seeing him drive 'em off, but there was three of them on horses, wearing armor. They charged him down and skewered him through and through, so's he never got not one blow in with that sword of his. And then they cut his head off and stuck it on the pole of the Five Bells, for the wide world to see what manner of men they are. And herded all the children together, all as they could find, and took 'em down to a barn behind White House; and they put 'em in a loft with a pile of hay and timber down below, and they made old Maxie cry through the streets that they'll set fire to the whole shoot if they have a mite more trouble out of us during their stay.”

“How long will that be?” said Nicky.

“As long as there's a morsel left to eat, that's my guess. And the Master was that set on us coming through the winter short of starving that we've barnfuls of stores waiting. You mark my words, we'll have 'em for months yet.”

“How many of them are there?”

“Thirty. Maybe thirty-five.”

“But there must be more than a hundred men in the village!”

“I know what you're thinking, girl, but they fell on us that sudden, and we had't nothing to fight 'em with, save a few cudgels. The Master, he'd been set on getting us swords, so he could have his own little army, but your folk wouldn't make 'em for us, remember? And these robbers come with spears, and horsemen in armor, and now they've got the children—though I've none of my own, thank God—and we're bound hand and foot, hand and foot.”

“Do you think they'd actually burn the children if there was trouble?”

“I don't know, a course; but I do know they'd do
something
, and something pretty cruel, too. There was one of 'em, one of the ones on horseback, and while the footmen were hacking off the Master's head I saw him throw back his helmet to wipe his face. Curly hair, he had, and a broken nose, though he was scarce more than a boy. And when he saw Arthur's head dripping up there on the pole, he laughed like a lover. Like a lover in spring. I slunk away and come back here, and the rest I know from Maxie's crying.”

He had been half out of his chair, glaring around the room as he tried to tell her the horror of his story, but a faint rap on the window made him shrink and curl like a snail. Nicky made a dart for the window, heard the footsteps, knew it was too late and slid herself under an old Put-U-Up bed where she lay, barely breathing, against the wall. A hard fist thundered at the front door. She could see Mr. Tom's feet rise from the floor, as though he were trying to curl himself even further into his chair.

“Go and answer him,” whispered Nicky. “It'll be worse if you don't.”

The feet doddered back to the floor. The legs stumbled past the dying fire. Then a bolt was drawn, slap. Then voices.

“What's your name, gaffer?”

“T-t-tom Pritchard.”

“Tom Pritchard, eh? Fetch us each a mug of ale, Tom Pritchard.”

More than one of them, then.

Shufflings, another door moving, palsied clinking of glass, more shufflings. Silence. Then the smash and tinkle of deliberately dropped tumblers.

“We hear you were a crony of the big man's, Tom Pritchard.”

“N-n-no, not me. He broke my fork a-purpose.”

“What d'you know about the lot they call the Devil's Children, Tom Pritchard? We hear as you had dealings with 'em.”

“N-n-not much. They live up at Booker's, 'tother side of the bad wires. Three months back they came there. I had a bit of dealings with the girl as lives with them. She's an ordinary girl, to look at. The Master wouldn't have none of 'em but her in the village, and then only to do dealings in smithwork. They make and mend iron for us, they do, and sometimes I helped with the dealings. I never seen none of the others, saving the girl.”

“Ah.”

A low discussion.

“What are you doing still dressed this time o' night, Tom Pritchard? Thinking of going out, eh?”

“I … I couldn't sleep. I was sitting by the fire. I hadn't a light showing. I heard the orders.”

“At least you ain't deaf, then, Tom Pritchard. Well, it's time good little gaffers were in bed, even them that can't sleep. I want to see you going up them stairs, Tom Pritchard. You can sleep now, gaffer. The Devil's Children needn't fright your dreams no more, not now we're here to look after you. We'll nip up there and sort 'em out for you, soon as we're settled. Up you go now, like a good gaffer.”

A grunt, and the stumble and thud of Mr. Tom being shoved so hard along the hallway that he fell. Slow steps on the stairs. More talk at the porch, then footsteps coming, but turning off through the other door. A curse as something fell from a larder shelf. Voices in the hallway.

“Nice drop of ale they brew, leastways.”

“Yeah. Cozy old spot to winter out. Scour around for more hosses, get them Devil's Children to run us up armor for the lot of us …”

“How'll you manage that, then?”

“Same as here. Devil's Children got children of their own, ain't they?”

Laughter.

“Be getting along then. Hey, Maxie, who's next?”

The crow of the clerk's voice from the street, shrill with terror.

“Sim Jenkins, sir.”

Heels crunching through the broken tumblers on the doorstep. Going.

Nicky lay in the stillness and counted two thousand. She had an instinct that the robbers were the sort of people who would do the thing properly, when they wanted to scare a village into obedient terror. They wouldn't leave Mr. Tom quivering in the shameful dark without letting him know that they were still keeping an eye on him. And sure enough, when she was in the sixteen hundreds, another light tap came from the window. Thirty seconds later the front door slammed open, feet drummed on the stairs, more doors crashed and banged upstairs, and the hard voice shouted “Just come to tuck you up, gaffer. See that you
are
in bed, eh? Sweet dreams.”

Feet on the stairs again, and the door walloping shut, and the crunched glass. Then the dreary business of starting once more at one, two, three …

She was so stiff when she edged the window open that she had to clamber through like an old woman. Halfway up the garden Gopal floated beside her from behind the runner beans; he touched her cheek with his hand in gentle welcome, then led the way back across the school playground to where the faint whiteness of their rag in the hedge marked the cut wires.

They took the journey home as carefully as they'd come, but nothing stopped or even scared them until their own sentry hissed at them out of his hiding and made their tired hearts bounce. Though it was well past midnight, every adult Sikh was awake and waiting in the dark farmyard. Nicky told her story in English, breaking it into short lengths so that Uncle Jagindar could turn it into Punjabi for the old lady. The pauses while he spoke enabled her to think, so that she left nothing out. When she had finished, five of the men crept out to relieve the sentries; for them she told the whole story all over again. Now every Sikh knew, and Nicky could sleep.

They held a council as soon as breakfast and the morning prayers were over. Daylight meant that Gopal and Harpit and the other children could stand sentry; from the upstairs windows of the farmhouse, from the hayrick in the big barn, from the upper branches of the wych elm, every scrap of country could be seen. The sheep were driven out to a new pen, close to the farmyard, but the hens were left to cluck and scrattle while the council talked. Nicky was there, with Ajeet to tell her what was said. Otherwise there was nobody younger than Kewal.

“Uncle Jagindar is asking if there is anyone who thinks we must move from here … they all say no … Mr. Kirpal Singh says we can either wait and defend ourselves if they attack us, or attack them before they are ready … Aunt Neena says they may not attack us … several people say they will … my grandmother is calling for quiet.…”

“Nicky,” said Uncle Jagindar, “you heard the men say they would not leave us alone, I think.”

“Yes,” said Nicky. “They told Mr. Tom that they were going to come and, er, ‘sort you out' as soon as they were settled in the village. And they want you to make more armor for them. They were going to take the children as hostages.”

The murmur of voices broke into fresh clamor. Ajeet sorted out what mattered.

“Mr. Wazir Singh says we could defend ourselves here forever. My father says no, not against thirty-five men with the only water on the other side of the road. My grandmother says the place would be a trap—a week, safe; a month, death. Mr. Wazir Singh says how can fifteen men attack thirty-five. And they have hostages, my mother says. Take them at dawn before they are ready, says Uncle Jagindar. Take the barn where the children are first, says the risaldar. Kill as many as we can in their beds, says my grandmother. My father says first we must watch them, to find out where the sentries are and what they do, especially at night. Scouts must go and watch, says Uncle Jagindar, but they must be careful not to be seen lest they put the robbers on their guard. Watch for two nights, strike on the third, says my grandmother. Mr. Surbans Singh says that meanwhile we must seem to be farming exactly as usual, but keep a secret watch out everywhere around the farm. They will send scouts up soon. Aunt Neena says that the children must stay near the farmyard. My grandmother tells me to tell you that the order includes you, Nicky.…”

Nicky nodded, to show she had understood.

“… now the risaldar says we must pretend to be felling wood for the winter, and cut the nearest trees in the row beyond the cottage so that they cannot creep up on us that way. And set fire to the barley, says my grandmother.…”

“Nicky,” said Uncle Jagindar, “is there anything more? You know the village and we do not.”

“I think White House must be that very big one out on the far side, but I haven't seen it since we first came through. The other thing is the hostages. We've got to think of a plan to keep them safe. It's not just because they're children. If we attack the robbers and the robbers kill the children in revenge, then the village will come and massacre all of us. There's over a hundred men in Felpham, and once they really get angry …”

“You are right,” said Uncle Chacha. “We must be quick and careful when the time comes. And we must be ready to run away if we fail.”

The council shambled on, going over the same points several times, but slowly reaching the practical business of sentry duty and scout duty. At last they all dispersed to the tense charade of pretending to be innocent farmers while watching every hedge and hollow in case it should hide an ambush, and at the same time planning a murderous onslaught on an army more than twice their size. There was one false alarm that day: the enemy spy, sneaking up the line of trees in the dusk, turned out to be Mrs. Sallow, bedraggled and terrified but determined to know whether her son was safe. She sat in silence by Mike's straw, but after supper Nicky wheedled out of her some useful news of the robbers' arrangements.

Next day tempers were short with lack of sleep. The men took turns to rest, but some had to be on show for the benefit of the robber spies who lurked along the hillside; they thought they spotted three of these, but had to act as if they hadn't.

In the dark hour after the third midnight a whisper went around the farmyard. The women turned out with swords and spears to stand sentry, while the raiding party stole up the hill; fifteen grown men, and four lads. And Nicky. If the first phase of the attack succeeded, somebody would have to keep the rescued children from squealing panic, or the sleeping robbers would be woken and the second phase ruined. And that would have to be Nicky.

She thought she was the youngest of the long line creeping through the dark, until a hand took hers. It was Ajeet. None of the men noticed the extra child.

The wide loop around the village, taken at a stalker's pace, with many pauses, lasted hours, but they were still too early.

In that first faint grayness when the birds begin to whistle in the copses, they struck.

Chapter 7

BLOOD ON THE SWORDS

Nicky lay on her stomach on the chill bank of a ditch; or perhaps it was the beginnings of a stream, for her legs were wet to the knee, despite the dry spell they'd been having. To left and right of her, like troops waiting to attack from a trench, was the tiny Sikh army. The blackness of night seemed no less than it had been, but now she could be sure of the hulk of the barn; the big house, over to her right, was still an undistinguishable mass of roof and treetops and outbuildings. She was rubbery cold, and thankful that the Sikhs (full of the sensible instincts of campaigning) had made her wear twice the clothes she'd thought she'd need.

In the dark ahead of her Uncle Chacha was stalking the sentry. Two of the robbers slept in the barn, taking turn and turn to watch outside while the other slept by a brazier. An oil-soaked torch was ready there, which the inside man could thrust into the brazier and bring to crackling life. Dry straw, dry hay, dry brushwood were heaped along the tarred timber of the walls; and there were two wicked cars there, whose tanks would explode if the fire blazed hot enough. The whole room was a bomb, and above it slept the children. (Mrs. Sallow had told them these details, because the robbers had shown the mothers of Felpham their precautions on the very first morning.) The Sikh scouts had studied the movements of the sentries; and the first thing was to catch the outside one just before the time for the last changeover. About now, in this dimness …