Worlds Unseen - Rachel Starr Thomson (beach books .txt) 📗

of his thrust shattered the bird’s skull. The Major threw himself clear as the raven shuddered. It let out one last scream and lay still.

Marja’s whistle rose over the silence, sending a note of mourning into the night breeze. As the Major’s Gypsies watched, the breeze turned into a wind and stirred the feathers of the creature. Slowly, the carcass began to dissolve, becoming no more feathers and bone and sinew, but ragged bits of energy that caught on the wind and disappeared, until all that was left of the great bird was a maze of ropes and stakes.

*

The Gypsies returned to their wagons. A few tried painfully to sleep; others sat and whispered away the last few hours before dawn. In the camp of the caravan, before the embers of the great bonfire, the Major and a few of his band stood with Nicolas and Maggie.

“I’m sorry to do this,” the Major said, his torn face dark with drying blood. “But I have my people to consider. We have enough battles of our own to fight.”

“I understand,” Nicolas said.

Maggie stood next to him with her head bowed. She was unable to look the Major in the eye. She had brought this upon them; she and the scroll. Brought it, too, upon Nicolas. Because of her he would have to leave these people with whom he was so much at home. She felt as though she had made him an outcast again. The burden of it weighed on her.

Nicolas began to turn away, but the Major stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “We part now,” the Major said in a voice deep with concern, “but we part friends.”

Nicolas turned back and placed his own hand on the massive shoulder of the Major.

“You have done more than I can thank you for,” Nicolas said.

Maggie looked up then. Her eyes wandered to the others who stood by the bonfire. Marja, her face white and her clothing stained crimson with blood where the raven’s claws had ripped into her, leaned heavily on Peter. She was silent and her face was racked with pain. But she had come to say good-bye-or at least, to make sure that the danger left with them.

The Major stepped back from Nicolas and looked at Maggie. His face broke into an unexpected smile. “I hope you will come back to us someday,” the Major said. “Tiny Paul will miss you. And we will all miss your storytelling.”

A lump rose in Maggie’s throat, and she blinked back tears. “I-” she began, and faltered. She thought she saw encouragement in the faces of Peter and Marja, so she continued. “I’m a long way from home,” she said. “But for a little while, you made me forget the distance. Thank you.”

The Major nodded. Nicolas and Maggie turned and began to leave the small company, but pipe-smoking Peter’s voice stopped them.

“You can’t go on foot,” he said. “You’ll never get where you’re going that way… anyhow, we have two horses for you.”

He walked past them and led them to the dark area where the caravan’s horses were kept. Maggie shook her head when Peter handed her the reins of his own little mare.

“I can’t,” she said. “Your own horse… No, Peter, I can’t take her.”

“She’s strong,” Peter said, puffing smoke and talking out of the side of his mouth. “She might not look like much, but Nancy’ll get you where you need to go.”

“I know she will, but…” Maggie’s voice trailed off. Nicolas shook his head at her. She took a deep breath and looked Peter in the eyes.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll take good care of her… and bring her back to you.”

Peter nodded. “No rush,” he said. “She’s not hardly a loss.” But he could not resist patting the mare’s neck one last time, and Maggie thought she saw tears glinting in his eyes.

She stroked Nancy’s shaggy head and smiled at the warmth in the little creature’s eyes. Away in the darkness she heard Nicolas holding counsel with Bear.

“I know you don’t want to stay, but it’s for your own good,” she heard him say. “You wait for me outside Pravik, you understand? I’ll come back to you soon. And stay with these Gypsies a while. Protect them.”

Bear made a sound that was a little like crying, and then Nicolas swung onto the bare back of a gelding, and they rode away.

*

It was noon when four passengers disembarked from a cab at the white-cliffed harbour of Daren. The harbour was busy as it was sunny, and a brisk wind threatened to take Lord Robert’s hat off of his head. He held it tightly as he went to inquire after fare to Galce, leaving the women behind to wander as inconspicuously as they could through the crowds.

Pat was the first to see the green and black police uniform through the morass of fishermen, sailors, and housewives. Hands in her pockets, she stepped in front of Virginia and Mrs. Cook and whispered, “Trouble.”

The three women moved in the opposite direction of the uniform, each holding one of Virginia’s arms a bit too tightly. As they went, Mrs. Cook and Pat saw another soldier, standing so close that a turn of his head would reveal them. He was talking animatedly to a fisherman, who was looking at the soldier as though he suspected he might not be quite right in the head.

Virginia’s sharp ears caught the words, “Dangerous fugitive… murderers…” and “blind.”

“They’re looking for us,” she whispered. Mrs. Cook moved to block Virginia from the soldier’s line of vision, and Pat hustled them through the crowd toward the water.

Behind them, they heard the laird’s voice begging pardon as he made his way through the crowds. He greeted them with an agitated whisper, his hat in his hand and the wind blowing his dark blond hair. It made him look wild and almost young.

“There are soldiers everywhere,” he said. “We don’t have a chance at boarding a ship. They’ve set every sailor in the harbour on the watch for us. Even if one would let us board, his mate would be sure to betray us. They’re offering a reward.”

“How could they know we’re here?” Pat asked. “Are they watching every harbour in Midland?”

“They have the men for it,” Lord Robert answered. His eyes fell on Virginia, who held her head high as she drank in her surroundings through every sense available to her. Her wrists were still bandaged and painfully raw. Mrs. Cook stood at her side, holding her arm. Overheard instructions came back to him: Stop them however you can… but we need the girl alive. Lord Robert set his jaw and turned back to Pat.

“We’ve got no choice. She’s not safe in the Isles.”

“Nor are you,” Pat said. “If I’m not mistaken, you’re on the hit list as well as she is.”

“Aye,” Lord Robert said, “but she’s the one they want.” His voice dropped too low for anyone to hear. “I’d give anything to know why.”

Lord Robert’s eyes scanned the harbour, looking over the heads of the crowd to the boats moored on the docks. A little fishing boat humbly bobbed on the water, barely noticeable in the midst of larger ships. It was tiny and, from all appearances, ancient, but it looked seaworthy.

“Come,” Lord Robert said, and led the way to the tiny boat. Pat and Mrs. Cook looked it over dubiously, but the nearness of the High Police choked their protests.

Lord Robert climbed aboard and held out his hand for Virginia. She took it and made the guided leap from the dock to the boat, her heart only in her throat a little. Lord Robert helped her sit near the back of the tiny craft. Next, Mrs. Cook jumped for the boat, gasping through clenched teeth as it rocked underneath her. Pat knelt on the dock and untied the thick knot that held the boat to the shore. In a moment she stood and jumped in, the rope in her hands.

Lord Robert grabbed the oars and began to steer the drifting boat away from the harbour. Waves lapped gently against its sides, and Mrs. Cook held on tightly. Pat dug around beneath the front seat and came up with a small spyglass, some maps, and a waterproof wooden box full of hard tack and tobacco. A fishing net, wet and tangled, lay at Virginia’s feet.

Pat put the glass to her eye and stood up, surefooted even on the waves, looking back at the harbour.

“Black-and-Greens everywhere,” she commented. “It doesn’t look like they’re onto us.”

She turned, looked out to sea, and whistled. “Black clouds rolling in. Methinks we’re in for a rough ride.”

“You don’t need the spyglass to see that,” Lord Robert said.

Pat put the glass down and saw that clouds were quickly blocking out the sun that had felt so warm in the harbour. The wind was picking up, and the water was white with choppy waves. Mrs. Cook’s face was pale. Virginia sat beside her, facing the wind with implacable courage. For a moment Pat wondered if Virginia was unaware of what was happening, but the changing temperature and motion of the water had told the blind girl all she needed to know.

No one suggested that they turn back.

The storm held off for hours, until Daren was nothing but a fading vision of white cliffs behind them. Then lightning streaked a path down to the sea, and deafening thunder tumbled after it. Rain lashed the craft and its inhabitants furiously. The waves stirred as though a giant beneath them had awakened.

The oars were useless against the crushing force of the water, and Lord Robert struggled to pull them into the boat. A cracking, splintering sound met his efforts, and the remains of the oars came suddenly up out of the water, jagged ends outlined in a flash of lightning.

A huge wave rushed violently down over their heads, and filled the little boat with water. Pat grabbed the wooden box and dumped the contents overboard, struggling to keep her balance as the boat bucked and tossed beneath her. The water was up to their ankles and cold enough to steal their breath away, and Pat bailed furiously. Mrs. Cook joined in, bailing with her cupped hands.

Again and again the wind and waves and rain battered the tiny boat, while its inhabitants bailed stubbornly and furiously. Only Virginia was calm. She sat in the back of the boat and looked up, unmoved, while her face met the onslaught of the rain without fear. She neither helped nor hindered the efforts of the others, and to them she seemed not to belong to them-to be a creature of the air.

As the numbing cold and painful lashing of the water drained the strength from those who tried to fight it, a great stillness overtook Virginia. No hint of expression passed over her face, and even the sea around her calmed. Pat wiped her hair out of her eyes and stared at the strange young woman, whose very calmness seemed to take the fury out of the storm.

“Look!” Virginia commanded suddenly, and the three ceased working against the water and raised their eyes to the sky.

They were surrounded by an army of beautiful giants.

In the blackness of the clouds warriors and horses waited, wearing golden armour and cloaks of deep scarlet and forest green. They stood facing the wind, and their horses stamped impatiently. The air was filled with the sounds of swords swinging, harnesses jangling, and hooves stamping. The wind made the white manes of the horses and the long hair of the warriors stream out behind them. For a moment only,