Conflict and Courage Read online

  : Milking time : Louis sent to Ustinya : I’ll try and get in closer, I can see a light :

  He crept round to the farthermost end of the shed keeping to the shadows as much as possible. At the farthest corner he spied a chink of light showing through a gap in the planks. He was able to see the men and animals inside, but they were unable to see him.

  Louis recognised Gerry immediately, the man was sitting on a three-legged stool beside one of the cows. As Louis watched, the spy settled the restless animal with a few low words of encouragement and began to milk her; Louis could hear the soft whoosh as the milk hit the pans.

  This was too a good a chance to miss. It might well have taken many days to locate him and thinking quickly on his feet was a speciality of Louis. He put his mouth to the chink in the wall and whistled.

  Gerry’s head came up and he looked round the shed, every sense alert then bent once more to his task.

  Louis tried again.

  “Gerry,” he mouthed into the hole, sotto voce.

  This time Gerry’s head came up and stayed up, his eyes looking round. He stood up from his milking stool and approached the heifer’s head as if checking for her comfort. As he bent down, he half-turned his own head towards the crack.

  “I’m from the north,” Louis whispered, “meet you later at the prickly bushes this end of the woods? You know where?”

  Gerry showed no emotion. He nodded and returned to the stool where he began milking again as if nothing had happened. If his hands trembled, no one noticed.

  Louis took the hint and looked round to make sure he was not being watched. He walked away from the shed, ducking round behind a high fence. Using this as cover he made his way back to where Aglaya and Ustinya were waiting. Reaching them, he forced himself inside the bushes, ignoring the spiky dugo leaves that tore at his clothes; there, he cuddled down beside Ustinya to wait for Gerry, knowing that it might be quite a while before the man managed to get away unseen.

  Gerry’s fingers trembled anew as he finished milking the last cow. At last! Jsei has kept his promise. Help has come! His mind raced as he tipped the milk into the churn, not rushing but forcing himself to keep his movements slow and deliberate in keeping with his assumed persona of slightly stupid herdsman.

  He partook of evening supper with his fellow workers as he usually did, then, just as usual, excused himself saying that he was tired. They did not expect him to accompany them to the encampment for the evening’s entertainment so none were surprised.

  “Taking your usual walk before you go to bed?” one asked with a sardonic laugh.

  Gerry nodded, “aye,” in his usual taciturn manner.

  “See you in the morning then,” the man answered, still laughing.

  His disguise was holding. His cultivated reputation as a loner meant that they did not even watch as he left.

  Gerry looked round with care, making sure that no one else was looking and trod a leisurely path across the corrals to the edge of the woods. He had been this way often enough so that, even if someone saw him, they would think the route not unusual. Once past the corral fences he started up the low hill towards the prickly bushes at the top.

  Louis tensed as he heard the soft footsteps. It was fully dark now, the moon’s glow hidden by the night clouds. Gerry stopped for a moment when he was almost at the top of the hill, uncertain of just where exactly he should be making for.

  Louis coughed and the footsteps came nearer.

  “In here,” whispered Louis.

  There was a rustling of branches and leaves as Gerry forced his way towards Louis and hunkered down beside him. He did not seem surprised to see the two Lind, their eyes glinting in the moonlight.

  “Thought you’d forgotten me,” was Gerry’s comment as he tried to make himself comfortable. He looked at his contact’s face and his eyes widened when his mind registered just what he was seeing.

  “You’re a mite young for this sort of caper aren’t you?” he asked as he grasped the lad’s hand and shook it heartily, “but you are more than welcome.”

  “One grows up fast on this planet,” replied Louis. “Ustinya and I have already fought in one battle and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

  Gerry nodded understandingly. Tales from the war in the north had been discussed ad nauseam amongst those who had taken part.

  “Jessica and Jenny?” he queried.

  “Safe and well with one of the Lind packs.”

  “The horses?”

  “Well too from what we’ve heard. There are two young ones now.”

  Gerry smiled a happy smile and took a deep breath, “I have much to tell you and not much time. I might be missed if I stay out too long.”

  “Tell me what you can,” said Louis. Ustinya and Aglaya here will make sure what you say gets back to those who need to know.”

  “We have to get Peter Howard’s children away now,” Gerry began, “the Lords Baker and Cocteau have plans for the children, but first, other matters, the north must be warned.”

  He then proceeded to tell the trio all that he knew, of the building of strange ships, the new Lordships, the situation of the women and the location and numbers of the regiments.

  “But it is of paramount importance that Cherry and Joseph be got out. I promised their father before he died and their mother too. I don’t know either how long I can keep going here. Society is becoming more rigid, there are laws and rules now and people are beginning to ask questions, not the farmers I work with, but Baker’s men.”

  “Do they suspect you?”

  “Lad, they suspect everyone, even themselves.”

  “Then you’ll have to come north too,” decided Louis. Aglaya nodded agreement.

  “I’ll admit to relief at that,” said Gerry, “I could stay … but …”

  “There’s no reason for you to stay. You have done enough. Let’s get Jessica’s brother and sister out. What about her mother?”

  Gerry ignored the last question for the moment.

  “Lysbet and Gavin Quirke must go too. There will be five of us all told.”

  Aglaya agreed to this.

  “Five humans we can manage, especially if three are younglings. When?”

  “There’s a Conclave scheduled two days hence,” Gerry replied, “a feast is planned and the Lords will be drunk, most of the guards too if previous feasts are anything to go by.”

  “Get them here at moon’s height in two night’s time,” ordered Aglaya, “can you do this?”

  “Yes, I think so,” answered Gerry. “I’ll be up at Fort in the morning and can engineer a meeting with Anne then.”

  “Get them all here,” repeated Aglaya, “we take you north very fast.”

  “There are more Lind at the other side of the woods,” added Louis, seeing the doubt on Gerry’s face at the idea of two Lind carrying them all north, “they’ll not catch us. Remember, we’ll be mounted, they won’t. You are an experienced rider and the others will have to manage as best they can. We’ll tie them on if need be.”

  “I think I’ll be able to stay on all right,” Gerry answered, “and could manage one of the children pillion with me if required. Young Gavin is only five and his mother will need all her energies to keep herself in the saddle. They’ll try and catch us.”

  “They can chase us all they want. They not catch us,” opined a smug Ustinya, “they be on two feet and we on four paws,” she added, “much better.”

  “Do they have any means of distance communication?” asked Louis.

  “I don’t know,” was Gerry’s reply. “When they took over the Fort they ‘inherited’ most of the surviving equipment. I do know that Camilla intended to destroy all she could if things got bad but from what I have heard they were overrun pretty quickly.”

  “We must just hope for the best,” said Louis.

  Gerry put his hand in his pocket and drew out a small piece of much crumpled durapaper. Louis realised that it was a map. “Camilla gave me this before I left Fort with
the girls. I’ve added a rough map of the land dispositions here in Murdoch on the back. It’s amazing the information that can be picked up just by listening. The Lordship borders are pure guesswork mind and also the areas where I think the convicts are, mostly along the rivers at the moment. They use small river skiffs for communicating between them although Pierre Duchesne’s land,” he pointed it out with his finger, “is, as you can see, much more isolated.”

  Louis looked at it with interest. He pointed towards the area to the northeast. “You do seem to know a lot about this area,” he noted.

  “The most extensive annotations are round the Fort and the Lordship of Duchesne. I’ve spoken to the man who used to be his senior sergeant quite a few times, a good man. Duchesne’s Lordship is developing differently to the others. He’s pretty much obliged to keep a regiment for defensive purposes but the rest of his people are building farms and beginning to cultivate the forests. He’s keeping his alterations to Lord Baker’s directives hidden from the other Lords. To get anywhere in this benighted country you have to be strong and hard and he doesn’t want to be thought of as a weakling.”

  “Go on.”

  “According to Michael Wallace he treats the women and children he has well. He has to keep his men happy, don’t get me wrong, he still keeps a whorehouse but the women are not treated harshly. He seems happy to entertain them forming permanent relationships with his men. He certainly is the most popular Lord. Other men not so fortunate would like to settle there. He’ll have to tread carefully though, if he goes too far the other Lords might well see him as a threat and seek to topple him.”

  “Politics a bit murky then?”

  Gerry nodded then thrust the map at Louis. “Too dangerous to keep this on me now. You take it. I’ll get the three children and Lysbet Quirke here in two night’s time. Once it is fully dark.”

  “Anne Howard?”

  “Impossible. She’s pregnant by Murdoch and the babe is to be their King. It’s some sort of agreement with the Larg. I don’t know all the details but I believe they’ve ceded the country to the heirs of Murdoch’s blood. She’s too far-gone to travel, brave woman that she is. She intends to stay at Fort and try and give us time before the escape is discovered.”

  After a short mental conversation with Aglaya through Ustinya, Louis nodded.

  “Right, two nights from now. You must travel light.”

  “Nobody has much in the line of personal possessions anymore,” was Gerry’s wry comment as he began to push himself back through the bushes. “Keep out of sight.”

  * * * * *

  The Lords of Murdoch arrived to attend the second Conclave called by Sam Baker. They began to discuss the coming agenda, sounding one another out.

  “Yes,” Bryan Brentwood was saying, ”the men are restless and bitter about being forced to retreat from that settlement of theirs when they were winning. A few more hours and it would have been ours. They need an outlet for their pent-up energy.”

  “My land is not full of restless men, whatever yours is like,” retorted Henri Cocteau. “It is full of men working hard. I have plans to divert their energy into something more productive than a never-ending war of attrition with the north. We have to start thinking logically and begin to set up an infrastructure for our future here. We will, however, always need regiments to guard us from the Larg, I do not trust them.”

  “My regiment is ready for anything,” confirmed Alan Smith.

  “That is not the point,” said Cocteau.

  The talk moved on to the more mundane topics of crop growing and the allocation of the finite resources. It droned on for hours and more than one of the Lords were becoming increasingly restless when Pierre Duchesne got to his feet.

  “If we can resume this tomorrow,” he announced, “I think I will pay my respects to Anne Murdoch. We must keep up appearances in front of the men. They know the importance of the child she carries and will think it odd if I do not.”

  Indeed, in the embryo court that Baker was developing, the pregnant Anne had a visible role to play. With Murdoch dead, the clever Baker had realised that the nation of Murdoch was in dire need of a figurehead with which to focus the men’s allegiance and therefore insisted that Anne was present during all he called ‘state’ occasions.

  “Anyone else joining me?” invited Duchesne. He needed to speak to Anne in private but he was in no mind to arouse any suspicions that there was more to this visit than simple courtesy.

  As he had hoped, no one else could be bothered. Sam Baker had provided some of his best ale for the occasion and the lords were taking full advantage of his largesse.

  “I wish to see for myself that she is healthy and the pregnancy developing as planned. Our continuing safety and existence here depends on the safe delivery of this child and, unlike those of you whose demesnes are near, I cannot inspect her often.” He spoke of Anne as if she was a prize heifer.

  “Naturally you must visit,” answered Baker with a laugh, unsuspecting of Duchesne’s ulterior motive. Pierre Duchesne had taken great pains to cultivate an outwardly objective interest in Anne’s wellbeing.

  “Then I will do so now,” replied Duchesne as he took his leave.

  It must be admitted that Pierre Duchesne’s suspicions that something was afoot were aroused as soon as he entered Anne’s outer room, although she was sitting composedly enough, her arms round Cherry and Joseph, telling them a story.

  He half-bowed to her as she raised her head at his entrance. He could hear noises of someone moving around in the inner chamber and raised an enquiring eyebrow.

  “Lysbet Quirke,” Anne said by way of explanation. “She is sorting out some clothes.” She rose awkwardly to her feet.

  “Why don’t you two go and help Lysbet and Gavin?” she said to Cherry. “I’ll come join you in a minute.”

  As her two children happily trotted towards the connecting door, Pierre looked hard at Anne. She looked flushed, bright-eyed and something else – if he thought about it, nervous, yes that was it. What had happened to make the normally unflappable woman like this?

  “What’s wrong?” he asked with concern, “are you ill?”

  Anne began to talk in a low voice. “I got your message when your sergeant last visited. Did you mean what you said about helping us?”

  Duchesne nodded.

  “You know Sam Baker is planning to relocate the children?”

  “I did try and argue him out of it,” he answered, “but the population crisis is very real and he and the other Lords were having none of it.”

  “I have to get Cherry and Joseph away,” whispered Anne, “you remember Gerry?”

  “Michael Wallace has been in touch with him but not recently. Has he got a plan?”

  “He’s coming for them tomorrow night,” she said with a catch in her voice. “Today and tomorrow are probably the last hours I will ever spend with my children. It’s breaking my heart, but I must do it. Peter would expect it of me.”

  “Peter?”

  “My husband. He was Captain of the Electra.”

  “I had forgotten that.” Duchesne looked uncomfortable at the reminder then pulled himself together. “How can I help?”

  Anne looked at him. “You mean this? You’ll be acting against your friends.”

  “They’re no friends of mine,” answered Pierre. “I was one of them once, I admit, but the war sickened me right down to my bones and the Larg, how they can ally with such creatures I don’t know.”

  “Gerry seems confident that he can get them away. I think friends have arrived from the north to help but he didn’t say, probably thinks it safer that I don’t know.”

  Pierre Duchesne assumed the Lind were involved in some way, “your problem is how to get them out of Fort itself then?”

  “Lysbet and I thought that, perhaps during the feast that’s planned for tomorrow night, we could get them out past the guards, but we’re at our wits’ end as to how.”

  “You need a diversion of som
e kind,” said Pierre. “Leave that to me.”

  Pierre Duchesne thought long and hard about how he could help and next morning he sat in Anne’s apartments making polite conversation. Lord Cocteau and his wife Carla had decided to visit Anne on hearing from Duchesne that she was feeling unwell. Pierre had tagged along, hoping to slip two messages into her hands, knowing full well that Anne’s illness was a subterfuge; it was not in the plan for Anne to attend the feast.

  Anne looked tense and worried, as well she might Pierre thought as he let Carla’s voice drone over him.

  During the goodbyes as Anne pled for a need to rest, Pierre managed to slip the two messages into her fumbling hand as he moved past her on his way to the door.

  The coast clear, Anne sped into the inner chamber and read the smallest. “Diversion ready for tonight,” she read to Lysbet, “it doesn’t have a signature.”

  “What’s the other one?” asked Lysbet.

  “It’s sealed and addressed to ‘The Rulers of the North’.” She looked at her friend. “It seems that Lord Duchesne’s redemption is more complete that we thought. I think he wants to open up a dialogue with them.” Anne looked at it for a moment, “its very existence marks him guilty as sin if I chose to tell Lord Baker. It would be his death sentence if this were to fall into unfriendly hands. I do believe that it’s only at this precise moment that I actually trust him.”

  Lysbet looked at the tightly folded paper as if it might bite her.

  “I like him,” Anne added, “you take it with you.” She thrust the paper at Lysbet, “hide it well.”

  But Lysbet was looking at Anne in horror. “You only now trust him and you have been telling him all about tonight’s escape!”

  Anne shrugged, “beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “I’ll guard it with my life,” said Lysbet, putting it in a small pocket attached to the front of her skirt. “I’ll eat it if I have to.”