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

her head and spoke so quietly that Lord Robert could hardly hear her. “Laird,” she said, “must we go to Pravik?”

It was such a strange question that Lord Robert was taken aback by it. Then annoyance flared up in him, and he said, “Of course. What would you rather do, go back to the High Police?”

Virginia’s head remained bowed. She did not respond.

“I’m sorry,” Lord Robert said, suddenly weary-far too weary for first thing in the morning. “Of course we must go to Pravik. I need the help of Jarin Huss.”

“I have seen,” Virginia said. “Last night.”

“What was it?” he asked. The foreboding still hung over him; contesting now with his curiosity.

“I saw you,” she said. When she looked up, her face was pale. “You were falling into darkness, and I could not reach you to stop your fall.”

Her voice broke. Lord Robert could see that she was struggling not to cry.

“If we stay away from Pravik, it may not happen,” Virginia said. “Please, let us go anywhere but there.”

Lord Robert looked out Virginia’s open window at the town that spread below them. He could see the train station just down the street, and the black smoke of the iron serpent waiting to leave. As he looked away from the view, his eyes rested on something on the windowsill. A feather.

With a suddenness that took him by surprise, he turned to Virginia and said, “No. We are going to Pravik. I have traveled too far to turn back now!” His voice gentled, and he knelt down by Virginia’s chair. “It will be all right,” he said. “You’ll see.”

He took her arm. They left the room and the inn behind.

*

Across the countryside, beacon fires called the Ploughman’s men to him. They arrived with the dawn, filling the barnyard with the sounds of hooves and creaking wooden wheels. Maggie awoke to see pale sunlight filtering over the low windowsills.

Pat was still snoring, and Mrs. Cook breathing deeply, as Maggie slid out of bed and pulled her shoes on. Outside, someone poured water into troughs for the horses. The choir of birds on their way south for the winter was just beginning to sing.

Maggie pulled her coat around her and stepped out of the bunkhouse. A low mist blanketed the ground, blurring the fields and the yard in watercolour shades of grey and green. Young boys, thirteen or fourteen years old, tended to the horses. Men stood in small groups, talking in low voices. No one seemed to notice Maggie.

There were about thirty men crowded in the barnyard. Some of them had perhaps been at Pravik Castle, but they were a different set entirely than the university students who had led them there. These were men with the creases of hardship drawn deep across greying brows. Their shoulders were broad; their hands rough; their faces coarse. They wore hand-sewn clothing, many times patched, mud-spattered from the early morning ride. They filled the barnyard with the smells of pipe smoke and soil and the singed smell of too many nights spent inches from the hearth. At first glance Maggie thought them all old enough to be her father, but as she looked closer she realized that they represented many generations. Here were young men, not much older than herself, with hands as rough and weathered as those of their grandfathers, men stooped and grey but still strong.

Lamplight cut a path through the mist from the farmhouse door, and the Ploughman and Libuse, warmly dressed in woolen cloaks, stepped into the barnyard. Mrs. Korak stood behind them with a ladle in her meaty hand, scowling, watching as the Ploughman greeted his visitors. Libuse, too, walked among the men and greeted many by name. They bowed their heads in deference as she approached. They held respect for her as did the people of the city-but not, Maggie noticed, more than they held for the Ploughman.

A young boy led two horses into the yard and stood near the Ploughman, silently holding the reins. The Ploughman turned and took hold of his tall black horse. He mounted, and Libuse mounted the sorrel beside him. The boy jogged back to the barns.

The Ploughman galloped over the field, and the men mounted up and followed. A flock of geese burst up from the field before the horses, filling the early morning with their cries.

Maggie turned to see Mrs. Korak still standing in the doorway. The woman’s eyes looked to Maggie.

“You’ll be wanting breakfast, I suppose?” she asked.

“I’m not hungry,” Maggie said. “Can I help you with anything?”

“Not unless you have ears to hear a meeting five miles away.”

Maggie looked at the elderly woman with a new appreciation. “I wish I knew what was happening, too,” she said.

“Well,” Mrs. Korak said, “there’s a horse in the barn.”

“Do you mean it?” Maggie said.

“Boy’ll show you the way.”

“I shouldn’t,” Maggie said. “They didn’t invite me.”

Mrs. Korak snorted. “They should have. Get going now. You might hear a thing or two.”

Maggie lost no time in mounting a bay mare. One of the farm boys-by now Maggie had counted six or seven youngsters doing chores around the yard-sat behind her in the saddle and pointed the way.

“You see that hill yonder?” he said, pointing over her shoulder.

“I see it.”

“Under the hill is a great meeting room. Just below the oak tree.”

Maggie squinted as she looked across the misty fields. The hill was shadowed.

“Go,” the boy said. “You’ll see it as we draw near.”

The horse made good time across the fields, but when Maggie arrived at the base of the hill, there was no sign of human life except for the tracks of horses, mysteriously ending at the base of the hill-which Maggie realized was really more of a mound, man-made many long years ago. She took a deep breath of cold air and looked up at the tangled branches of an ancient oak that grew up at the top.

The boy slid off the horse and cautiously approached a thicket at the base. He crouched low and listened, then, finding things to his satisfaction, he pulled back a thick curtain of brush, opening a dark space wide and tall enough for Maggie to walk through. She dismounted and approached the hole. Just before ducking inside, she looked at the longing face of the boy.

“Can I come with you?” he said. “The horse’ll be all right.”

“No,” Maggie said. “How would I protect you from Mrs. Korak when we got back?”

The flushed look on the boy’s face told her she had hit on a sore note. She grinned. “Thank you,” she said, and disappeared into the darkness.

Maggie found herself in an earthen room with roots growing through the ceiling and walls. The smell of horses was strong, and as Maggie’s eyes adjusted, she saw that she was standing in a stable full of animals. The room stretched to either side and disappeared around what Maggie thought was the curve of a circle. Across the stable was a wall, and in it, a door.

It was standing partially open, and Maggie could hear voices. She made her way past the horses, who ignored her, and slipped through the door into a circular room orange with lantern light on earthen walls. It was a large room, wide enough to seat two or three hundred men, and it was full to the bursting.

The old men sat on rough-hewn benches; the younger men cross-legged on the floor. In the center of the room the Ploughman stood, quarterstaff in hand, his face solemn. He had only just stopped speaking, and now his eyes swept the faces of his men. He saw Maggie and his eyes rested on her for a moment, but he said nothing. Libuse was standing on the far side of the room, against the wall.

An old grey farmer with a hump in his back and strong arms spoke. “We will follow you,” was all he said.

“You risk everything,” the Ploughman said.

The old man smiled, an ironic smile. “We have nothing to risk,” he said.

“Your lives,” the Ploughman said. “Your families.”

“We live in slavery,” the old man said. “Yearly taxes will starve our lives; the Man Tax will take our families. Fight them then or fight them now, we will fight.”

The Ploughman motioned toward a group of thirty or so men: those who had gathered with him in the farmyard. “These at least have an obligation to fight with me, though I would not force them,” he said. “They are my tenants. I am their lord. The rest of you own Zarras as your landlord.”

“He has our lands,” a younger man said. “You have our loyalty. You have fought for us. We will fight for you.”

“If we win,” said the changing voice of a boy who was barely a man, “perhaps the Emperor will listen to us.”

“Perhaps he will kill you,” the Ploughman said.

There was silence.

Libuse moved from the wall and came to stand by the Ploughman. “Enough now,” she said. “You have your army.”

“And there is much to do,” the Ploughman finished.

*

Pat and Mrs. Cook were in Mrs. Korak’s kitchen when Maggie returned, picking at bowls of porridge. Maggie and the farm boy had left the mound ahead of the Ploughman, slipping away while the rebel leader spoke with a few of his men.

Maggie pushed open the wooden kitchen door. The warmth of the hearth and the smell of food wrapped around her and she yawned.

“Tiring morning, was it?” Pat asked. Maggie ignored her and glanced at Mrs. Korak, who was eagle-eyeing her. The farmwife looked down and pounded a lump of dough as Maggie brushed past her.

“They’re going to Pravik,” Maggie whispered. Mrs. Korak nodded and pounded harder.

Maggie sat down next to Pat. Mrs. Cook shoved a bowl of porridge in her direction. Pat had stopped eating, and was looking at Maggie with one eyebrow raised.

Maggie stirred her porridge. “I don’t know how much I should tell you,” she said, finally. “I followed the Ploughman to council this morning.”

She was interrupted by the clatter of hooves in the yard. A boy poked his head in the door and said, “Ploughman’s back! Twenty men with him.”

“Good boy,” Mrs. Korak said. “Go take the horses. On with you!”

The boy darted back outside. “Twenty,” Mrs. Korak said. “His leaders. There’ll be more talking today. And eating.” She grimaced. “There’s porridge enough for all, anyway.”

Maggie, Pat, and Mrs. Cook sat quietly while boots stamped and voices filled the next room where the Ploughman and his men gathered around the long table. Libuse entered the kitchen after a few minutes.

“Twenty-three, Mrs. Korak,” she said.

The farmwife shook a spoon threateningly. “I’ll teach that boy to count one way or another. Twenty-three. Do their lordships require porridge with or without milk?”

Libuse smiled. “Without is fine, I’m sure. We mustn’t overtax the cow.”

“If my kitchen’s going to feed them, they’ll eat milk,” Mrs. Korak said. “I’m not stingy.”

“Of course not.” Libuse laughed.

Mrs. Korak laid out two dozen wooden bowls on the counter and began ladling porridge into them. Mrs. Cook jumped to her feet to help, following Mrs. Korak’s lead as she added milk to each bowl.

“Double in that one,” Mrs. Korak said as Mrs. Cook added milk to the largest of the bowls. The farmwife picked up the bowl after Mrs. Cook had filled it and handed it to Libuse.

“For the master,” she said.

Maggie and Pat stood to help carry the bowls into the rough dining room, leaving their own breakfasts half-eaten on the kitchen table. The Ploughman had a roll of paper spread out in