TimeBomb: The TimeBomb Trilogy: Book 1 (17 page)

‘I am,’ he said. ‘You also have changed, sister. Though not as much as I would have expected.’ There was a note of suspicion in his voice that made Dora uneasy.

Dora took a step backwards. She had been so overwhelmed with surprise and joy at seeing James that she had forgotten her strange clothes and inexplicable youth. But James had last seen her when she twelve years old, and while the changes that two years’ growth had wrought were slight enough to give him pause, she was still older than when he had last seen her. She hoped that would be enough to quell his doubts.

‘I know,’ replied Dora with a nervous smile and a kind of apologetic shrug. ‘I was grievous ill three years ago. It is only through the grace of God that I survived, but it withered me and I have not grown as I ought.’ It was a desperate lie, but James nodded, seeming to accept her story.

‘I am saddened to hear it, Dora. You are well now?’

Dora did not think he sounded especially sad, and the cold calm of his response served only to increase her nervousness.

‘I am.’

James surveyed the bakery. ‘It is smaller than I remember.’ There was no fond nostalgia here. His tone of voice conveyed both surprise and contempt. He returned his gaze to Dora. ‘Where are our parents?’

‘I … I do not know,’ she stammered. ‘I have returned from Sweetclover Hall this past hour. I am as vexed by the village’s desertion as you.’

James reached forward and grabbed her arm roughly. ‘The hall? You’ve been at the hall?’

The urgency in his voice told Dora that she had made a mistake. She had thought her lie a good one, but the force of his grip told her otherwise.

‘James, you’re hurting me.’ She wriggled but he did not relinquish his hold on her.

‘These garments you wear, are these new fashions brought in from Spain?’ Now his voice was colder still, full of hatred and fury. ‘Do the Royalists at the hall consort with popish agents? Is that what my home has been brought to?’

His grip was very tight now, and Dora squealed in pain as she struggled to free herself. ‘James! Let me go!’ she cried.

James turned and dragged Dora out of the door and into the street, even as she writhed and kicked.

‘Any sign?’ he called as he emerged.

‘No, sir’ and ‘All empty’ came the shouted replies of two other soldiers who were working their way down the street, checking the houses for occupation.

James stopped and turned again to Dora. ‘No more lies, sister,’ he said. ‘Where are they?’

‘James, I swear to you, I do not know,’ shouted Dora. ‘Now let me go.’

Her brother’s only response was a hard slap across the face that momentarily stunned her into silence. Her eyes watered and her ears rang as he dragged her towards the green. She stumbled along behind him, barely keeping her footing, trying to make sense of what was happening.

Throughout her ordeal in the future, Dora had longed to return to her own time. In Pendarn she knew the rules, knew her place, how things worked, what people expected of her, how to behave and how not to. But ever since she had crossed the time bridge back to her old home, she had found things even more confusing. The total strangeness of her experiences in the future was somehow less disorientating than the world turned upside down to which she had returned. The familiarity of the setting, and her knowledge of the people, made the uncharacteristic fear and cruelty far more upsetting than anything she had seen in the future.

She had escaped inexplicable danger and returned to her place of safety only to find that it was every bit as perilous as the future she had fled.

As her feet dragged and tripped across the thick, dew-wet grass of the green, Dora realised that her home had been taken from her. She was vaguely aware that this required a response from her, that she needed to decide how she was going to cope with a world now lacking in all certainty and kindness. But she needed time to gather her thoughts, and that was not to be allowed her.

‘Sir, there is but one inhabitant remaining in the village,’ she heard her brother say as he stopped abruptly, and she struggled to orient herself. ‘She is the baker’s daughter and claims she has lately returned from Sweetclover Hall to find the village deserted.’

Dora’s vision cleared as she found her balance. She was on the green, surrounded by soldiers. In front of her stood a tall man, his hard grey eyes reflecting the glint of sunlight from James’ metal breastplate. His bearing and position amongst the soldiers told Dora he was their commanding officer.

From the depths of her confusion and shock, Dora pulled a hard kernel of anger. ‘Baker’s daughter?’ she spat, outraged, into her brother’s face. ‘James Predennick, I do not know what has befallen you since you left home, but when our parents …’

She was not allowed to finish her diatribe, silenced by another ringing slap from her brother’s gloved hand. He released his grip on her arm as he struck, and she lost her footing, tumbling to the ground at his feet.

As her senses reeled again she heard the officer, muffled as if through a blanket, say, ‘The girl is your sister?’

‘In blood only, sir,’ replied James. ‘Her garments and her lies betray her popish corruption. I only give thanks that I departed this place before I, too, could be sullied.’

Looking up, Dora saw the ghost of a smile flit across the officer’s lips. ‘I do not think, Corporal Predennick, that the devil himself could have corrupted one as zealous as you.’ The hint of mockery seemed not to register with her brother.

Carefully, fearful of losing her balance and toppling over, Dora regained her footing. She resisted the urge to hold her cheek, which she could feel was already swelling from the blows, because she did not wish to seem weak. Ignoring her brother, she turned to the officer and curtsied as best she was able.

‘Sir,’ she said, trying to quell the tremble in her voice. ‘My brother, who has been a stranger to his brethren for many years, is mistaken.’

James raised his fist once again, but this time the officer raised his own hand and gestured for him to stand down. ‘What is your name, girl?’ he asked.

‘I am Theodora Predennick, sir,’ she replied, not quite able to prevent herself flashing a hateful glance at her brother as she did so.

‘Dora, in what respect is your brother in error? You must own, your garments are passing strange. What say you to his charges of popery and falsehood?’

Dora thought furiously and began to spin a yarn.

‘I no longer reside in Pendarn,’ she said. ‘I married a tailor from Lostwithiel two years ago and have resided there since. The clothes I wear represent his artful craft – he is a most creative cutter of cloth. Yesterday I rode to Sweetclover Hall to visit my mother, who works in the kitchens there. This morning I journeyed on to Pendarn to visit my father, who still resides herein. I found the village as you see it. This strange vacancy is as great a puzzle to me as to yourselves.’

The officer considered her curiously for a moment. ‘You have been to the hall?’ he asked.

Dora’s heart sank as she remembered that it was this admission which had triggered her brother’s ire only minutes earlier. Had her senses not been so scrambled by his beating she would have remembered. ‘Indeed, sir, I have.’

He stepped forward, his eyes fixed hard on hers, narrowed with intent. ‘And how found you the lord? Was he well?’

‘He is not one to mix with the likes of me, sir. I saw him not.’

‘We have been sent to ascertain the allegiance of this lord of yours. This very morning your brother brings me intelligence that suggests he is at the heart of a Royalist plot.’ The coldness of the officer’s voice scared Dora more than the violent fury of her brother.

‘I know not his politics, sir,’ she replied, casting her eyes to the ground. ‘It was my mother with whom I went to visit, not her master.’

‘A godly woman would not cross the threshold of such a place,’ said her brother, his voice low and threatening.

‘My corporal refers, no doubt, to the stories of witchcraft that swirl around Sweetclover like vile miasma,’ said the officer.

Dora’s blood chilled at the uttering of that word. ‘I have heard no such stories,’ she said.

There was a low murmur from the crowd of soldiers who stood around them, watching the interrogation. They obviously did not believe her.

‘Corporal,’ barked the officer, turning his attention to James. ‘When you were a child, did your mother ever show signs of witchery?’

Dora looked up at the boy with whom she had shared a childhood, the big brother who had kept her safe from bullies, the boy she had adored and loved only a few years earlier. She saw not one ounce of the kindness she had known in him. This absence, more than the words he spoke next, were what shocked her to the core.

‘Once, when I was a boy, I fell and hurt my leg most grievous,’ he said. ‘A gash, deep and poisoned. My mother mixed a poultice which, when applied to the wound, did rid it of poison and allow it to heal.’

No longer able to restrain herself, Dora raised her hand and inflicted her own blow upon her brother’s cheek. Before he could retaliate, the officer stepped back and shouted, ‘Bring forth the prisoner.’

Dora was gripped from behind by one of the other soldiers, her arms pinned at her back. ‘Keep still, witch,’ hissed the soldier in her ear.

The crowd of soldiers parted to reveal a man dressed in the clothes of a farm labourer, his hands and feet bound with rope, his face a blurred mass of bruises and swellings. His tatty shirt was red with blood. He limped forward at the point of a soldier’s sword until he stood before Dora and her brother. The officer reached out, grabbed the man’s shirt and casually shoved him to his knees. The prisoner was so weak it took hardly any effort at all.

‘Dora Predennick, meet Richard Mountfort,’ said the officer. ‘He is a Royalist spy who was unlucky enough to encounter your brother last night.’

The prisoner looked up at Dora and, despite his pitiful condition, he nodded a greeting. She thought he tried to smile but it was hard to tell, his face was so badly beaten.

‘Richard, this is Dora,’ the officer continued. ‘She is at best a Catholic whore, at worst a witch.’ He clapped his hands together, as if an idea for an amusing game had just occurred to him. ‘Come, let me show you both something.’ Without waiting for an acknowledgement, he spun on his heels and strode away, the crowd of soldiers parting around him as he walked.

Dora found herself being pushed in the officer’s wake, but at least she was still upright. She saw Mountfort being dragged across the ground by a rope that had been looped around his wrists. Dora lost track of her brother in the crowd.

She was now so rigid with fear that she had almost stopped thinking entirely. All anger forgotten, all hope abandoned. She allowed herself to be pushed forward, a sick feeling building inside her as the certainty of her fate dawned on her.

When she was roughly pulled to a halt she was standing at the foot of the large oak tree that dominated the far corner of the green. The officer stood underneath one of the huge boughs, his hands clasped in front of him.

‘Corporal, the ropes, if you will,’ he shouted. The crowd of soldiers was growing rowdy at the prospect of entertainment. James stepped forward and threw a rope over the bough. The officer caught it and quickly, with an ease that spoke of an action many times practised, fashioned a noose.

Meanwhile the soldiers dragged Mountfort to his feet beside her. Dora wanted to reach out and help steady him, but the soldier who held her had a grip of iron.

The officer called for silence and the hubbub faded away.

‘You.’ He pointed to Mountfort. ‘You were taking secret intelligence to the hall. Perhaps news of reinforcements? Were you to warn them of our arrival? Tell them to prepare for a siege? Or was it that you were going to beg for their intervention? What hellish armies would have spewn forth from that place had you delivered your message? And you.’ Now he pointed to Dora. ‘In your wanton garments. All of Cornwall knows the stories of the black mass that is performed at Sweetclover Hall. By your own admission you have been keeping company with the infernal denizens of that cursed place. What devilry did you enact? What have you done to the people of this village? Did you sacrifice them to Satan, hagsdaughter?’

Mountfort did not protest, but Dora most certainly did. But as she loudly proclaimed her innocence she heard the desperation in her voice and fell silent, shocked at the stark terror apparent in her own pleas for clemency.

The officer then gestured for the men who held Dora and the spy to drag them to the foot of the tree, beneath the bough over which James was throwing a second rope.

‘I will give you each a chance,’ the officer said, his voice quieter now, as he fashioned the second rope into a noose. ‘The first one to confess, entirely and completely, to their sins, to fall at my feet and beg the forgiveness of our merciful Lord, to offer up their accomplices and familiars, shall be spared the rope.’

The officer gestured again. Dora and Mountfort were forced to their knees side by side. Dora cried out in fear as James placed the noose around her neck.

‘James,’ she said, staring into his eyes in a fruitless search for any sliver of the brother she had once loved. ‘Why would you do this? I am your sister … James.’

He turned away with a cold sneer as the rope scratched the soft flesh of her bare throat. Dora felt hot tears run down her swollen cheeks. If there was no pity to be found in the heart of the boy who had shared her childhood, what hope could there be anywhere in this awful mirror image of the safe, secure village she had once called home?

Dora tried to focus her thoughts, to banish despair and think of possible escape, but despair had driven all rational thought away. She looked across at Mountfort, who caught her gaze and this time definitely smiled. First he shook his head, wincing at the effort it took, then he nodded to her. He would not break his silence, and she understood that he was giving her the chance to save herself at his expense. Faced with the unexpected opportunity, Dora didn’t even pause.

‘I confess,’ she said, hating her weakness and cowardice as she did so, but also unable to prevent herself clinging desperately to the slim chance of survival. More than anything, she realised in a moment of sudden clarity, she wanted to live. She felt a deep rush of self-loathing race through her as she understood that, right at this moment, there was nothing at all she would not do in order to stay alive.