فصل 8

Eight: Flight and the Follower

I told them nothing of Eloise, and what had changed my mind. This was not just because I was ashamed to admit that I had seriously thought of staying behind, of allowing myself to be Capped for the sake of the rewards that would follow; though I was bitterly ashamed. It was also because I did not want to talk about Eloise to anyone. Subsequently, Henry made one or two sly remarks which obviously referred to her, but I ignored him. At this time, though, he was still too shaken by my appearance to say much.

It sounded sensible and well-planned, the way I told it—that I had thought it best to give them twenty-four hours’ start, and then steal a horse and follow them: this gave us all the greatest chance of getting away. I did tell them of my experience with the Tripod. I thought they might be able to cast some light on it, that Beanpole, at least, would be able to work out a theory to account for it, but they were as much at a loss as I was. Beanpole was anxious that I should try to remember if I had actually been taken inside the Tripod, and what it had been like, but of course I could not.

It was Beanpole who said that Aristide must go. I had not thought about this, except in a hazy way of imagining that, if I found the other two again, I could generously let them have turns in riding him, myself remaining his proprietor. But it was true, as Beanpole pointed out, that three boys and a horse, unlike three boys on foot or a single boy on a horse, presented a picture that posed questions in the mind of any who saw them.

Reluctantly, I accepted the fact that I could not keep him. We took off his saddle, because it had the arms of the Tour Rouge stamped on it, and hid it behind a ridge of rock, kicking dirt and piling stones over it to conceal it to some extent. It would be found eventually, but not as soon as Aristide was likely to be. He was a fine horse, and whoever came across him, running free and without harness, might not search too far for an owner. I freed him from his bridle, and he tossed his head, at liberty. Then I gave him a sharp slap on the haunch. He reared, went a few yards, and halted, looking back at me. I thought he was unwilling to leave me, and tried to think of some excuse for keeping him a while longer, but he whinnied, tossed his head again, and trotted away to the north. I turned my head, not wanting to see him go.

So we set off, once more on our way, the three of us once more together. I was very glad of their company, and held my tongue even when Henry, by now recovered, made a few slighting remarks about how hard this must be after the life of luxury which I had enjoyed at the castle. In fact, Beanpole intervened, stopping him. Beanpole, it seemed to me, was taking it for granted that, insofar as there was a leader in our little group, it was he. I did not feel like challenging that, either, at least not at the moment.

I did find the walking tiring—the muscles one used were quite different from those used in riding, and there was no doubt that I was out of condition, as a result of my illness and the protracted indolent convalescence that had followed it. I gritted my teeth, though, and kept up with the others, trying not to show fatigue. But I was glad when Beanpole called a halt for a meal and rest.

That night, too, when we slept out under the stars, with the hard earth under me instead of the down-filled mattress to which I had grown accustomed, I could not help feeling a little sorry for myself. But I was so tired, having had no sleep the night before, that I did not stay long awake. In the morning, though, every individual limb felt sore, as though someone had been kicking me all night long. The day was bright again, and still, without the breeze that had cooled us yesterday. This would be the fourth, the next to last day of the tournament. There would be the mêlée, and riding at the ring. Eloise would still be wearing her crown, awarding prizes to the victors. And after tomorrow … We reached the pass marked on the map, not long after we set off. We followed a river which came down out of the hills, its course interrupted at times by splashing falls, some of them quite large. Higher up, the map showed a place where another river came close to this one, for a while running almost alongside it, and we came to it before evening.

This second river, except in a few places where it had broken its banks, was oddly straight-sided, and uniform in width. Moreover, it ran on different levels, the divisions between them marked by devices plainly made by the ancients, with rotting timbers and rusting iron wheels and such. Beanpole, of course, worked it all out to his satisfaction. Men had made the second river, digging out its bed and perhaps feeding water into it from the main river. He showed us that, beneath the grass and other vegetation covering the banks, there were bricks, carefully laid and mortared. As for the devices, these were a means of permitting boats to pass from one level of the river to another—a method of filling and draining the short stretch between the two sections that were at different heights. The way he explained it made it sound reasonable, but he was good at making fantastic things seem plausible.

He grew quite enthusiastic about the idea as we traveled alongside the river. This could be—had been, he was sure—an aquatic Shmand-Fair, with boats pulling carriages along the level waters, and people getting on and off at the places where the wheels and things were.

“With your steam-kettle pushing them?” Henry said.

“Why not!”

“Plenty of water for it, anyway.”

I said, “Some of the stops seem to have been very close together, and others miles apart. And there are no signs of villages having been there. Only the ruins of a cottage, sometimes not even that.” He said impatiently, “One cannot understand all the things the ancients did. But they built this river, it is certain, and must therefore have used it. It could be fixed to work again.” Where the straight river turned sharply back on itself, toward the north, we left it. The country that followed was much rougher, with even fewer signs of cultivation or human habitation. Food was beginning to be a problem again. We had got through that which we had brought from the castle, and the pickings here were small. At our hungriest, we came on a wild chicken’s nest. She had been sitting on a clutch of fourteen eggs, and ten of them we found we could manage to eat, with the aid of the sharp spice of hunger: the rest were bad. We would have eaten her as willingly, if we had been able to catch her.

At last we looked down from the hills into a broad green valley, through which a great river flowed. Far in the distance, other hills rose. Beyond them again, according to the map, were the mountains which marked our journey’s end. We had come a long way, and still had far to go. But the valley was patchworked with fields, and one saw houses and farms and villages. There was food down there.

Foraging, though, proved less easy than we had expected. Our first three attempts at raiding were frustrated, twice by furiously barking dogs, the third time by the farmer himself, who woke and came after us, shouting, as we scattered through his yard. We found potato fields, and managed to stave off the worst of our hunger, but raw potato was a poor diet for traveling and living rough on. I thought unhappily of all the food that went to waste at the castle—this, I calculated, would have been Capping Day, when the feasting was on an even more magnificent scale than during the tournament. But, thinking of that, I thought of Eloise, who would not be at this feast. There were worse things than hunger, worse ills than physical discomfort.

The next morning, our luck changed. We had come more than halfway across the valley (having swum the river and afterward let the sun dry us as we lay exhausted on its banks), and were moving into higher country again. There was a village, to which we gave a wide berth, but even from a distance we could see activity down there—flags and banners were out for some local celebration. I thought of Capping, but Beanpole said it was more likely to be one of the many Church feasts they had during the year—these were more common in his land than in England.

We watched for a time, and while we were doing so witnessed an exodus from a farmhouse, a few hundred yards from the copse where we lay. Two traps were brought around to the front door, the horses decorated with ribbons, and people piled into them, dressed in their Sunday clothes. They looked prosperous and well-fed. I said hungrily: “Do you think they’ve all gone?” We waited until the traps were out of sight before we made our reconnaissance. Beanpole approached the house, while Henry and I waited nearby. If there were someone in, he would make an excuse and get away. If not … There was not even a dog—perhaps they had taken it with them to the celebration—and we did not have to break in. A window had been left far enough open for me to wriggle through and slip the door bolts for the others. We wasted no time, but headed for the larder. We polished off a half-carved goose and some cold roast pork, and spread brawn on crusty bread. When we had eaten as much as we could, we filled our packs and went, replete and somewhat sluggishly, on our way.

And guiltily? It was the biggest act of piracy, or theft if you like, which we had committed so far. The bells still rang out in the valley, and a procession was moving along the main street of the village: children in white, followed by their elders. Presumably including the farmer and his wife, who would come back to find their larder stripped. I could imagine my mother’s distress, my father’s angry contempt, at such pilfering. In Wherton, no stranger was sent away hungry, but the rules of mine and thine were sacrosanct.

The difference was that we were not strangers—we were outlaws. In our pitifully puny way, we were at war. Essentially with the Tripods, but indirectly with all those who, for whatever reason, supported them. Including—I forced myself to stare it in the face—those I had known and been fond of at the Château de la Tour Rouge. Every man’s hand was against us in the enemy country through which we marched. We must live by our wits and resources: none of the old rules applied.

Later, we saw a Tripod, coming along the valley, the first we had seen for some days. I thought Beanpole had been wrong, that it was heading for the village and a Capping, but instead of going there it stopped, well clear of habitation, a mile or so from us. It stayed there, as motionless and seemingly inanimate as the one at the castle had been. We went on a little faster than before, and kept in cover as much as we could. Though there seemed little point in it: there was no reason to assume that it was concerned with us, or could even see us. It gave no indication of wanting to follow us. In an hour or so, we lost sight of it.

We saw the Tripod, or a similar one, the next morning, and once again it halted some way from us and stayed there. Again we moved on, and lost it. There was more cloud in the sky than there had been, and there was a blustery wind. We had finished the food we had taken from the farmhouse—Beanpole had wanted to ration it out, but for once Henry and I had overridden him—and did not find any more as the day wore on. We were hungry again, probably the more so because we had eaten well the day before.

Toward evening, we climbed up through fields closely set with plants, supported by sticks, on which were clusters of small green fruit. These would be picked when they were fully grown and ripe, and their juice squeezed out of them to make wine. There had been a few fields of them in the neighborhood of the castle, but I was amazed by how many of them there were here, and how the fields—or terraces, rather—were laid out to catch the rain and sun. I was hungry enough to try one or two of the larger fruits, but they were hard and sour, and I had to spit them out.

We had been sleeping in the open, but we realized that, with the possibility of the weather breaking, it might be a good idea to find some shelter for the night. In fact, we discovered a hut, a rough-and-ready affair set at the junction of three of the fields. Remembering our last experience we were wary of going in, but Beanpole assured us that it was a place that would only be used at the time of picking the fruit, and certainly there was no dwelling in sight—only the long ranks of sticks and plants stretching away in the dusk. It was very bare, with not even a chair or table, but the roof, although it showed the sky in places, would keep most of the rain off us.

It was a relief to have found refuge and shelter and, poking around, we also discovered food, although it was barely edible. It consisted of strings of onions, such as the blue-jerseyed men from across the sea sometimes brought to Wherton, but these were withered and dry, in some cases rotten. They might have been brought here by the workers at the last picking, though it was hard to see why they should have been abandoned. At any rate, they stayed the protests of our bellies to some extent. We sat in the doorway of the hut, chewing on them, and watched the light fade behind the line of hills. It was peaceful and, even with a supper of stale and wilted onions and the prospect of a night on a hard clay floor, I felt more contented than I had done since leaving the castle. The things that had disturbed me seemed to fade with distance. And we were doing well. In a few more days we should be within reach of the mountains.

Then Henry went around to the other side of the hut and, a moment later, called to us to come, too. He did not need to draw our attention to it. The Tripod stood anchored to the hillside, not much more than half a mile away.

Henry said, “Do you think it’s the same one?”

I said, “It wasn’t in sight when we came up to the hut. I looked over that way.”

Henry said uneasily, “Of course, they all look alike.”

“We must go on,” said Beanpole. “It may be accidental, but it is better not to take chances.”

We abandoned the hut, and toiled on up the hill. We lay in a ditch that night, and I did not sleep well, though fortunately the rain held off. But I doubt if I should have slept at all in the hut, aware of the monstrous sentinel outside.

The Tripod was not in sight when we set out in the morning, but not long after we stopped at midday, it, or another, heaved across the brow of the hill behind us, and halted at much the same distance. I felt my legs trembling.

Beanpole said, “We must lose it.”

“Yes,” Henry said, “but how?”

“Perhaps we help it,” Beanpole said, “by staying in the open.”

Ahead of us lay fields, some with vines, others with different crops. To the left, a little off our course, there were trees—the edge, it appeared, of a forest which seemed to extend over the folds of land beyond.

“We will see,” Beanpole said, “if it can watch us through leaves and branches.”

We found a field planted with turnips before we entered the forest, and filled our packs with these, realizing there might be small chance of provender ahead. But it was an immense relief to be concealed: the green ceiling was thick over our heads. We saw only occasional fragments of the sky, the sun not at all.

Traveling was more difficult, of course, and more exhausting. In places, the trees were very thick, and there were others where the undergrowth was so tangled that we were obliged to find a way around rather than force a path through. At first, we half expected to hear the Tripod crashing through the forest behind us, but as the hours went by with nothing but ordinary woodland noises—birds, the chatter of a squirrel, a distant grunting that was most likely a wild pig—we grew confident that, whether or not we had been right in thinking we were being pursued, we had put the idea out of the question now.

We stayed in the forest that night, ending our day a little early on the lucky chance of coming across a woodman’s hut. There was kindling, and I made a fire, while Henry took a couple of wire snares that were hanging on the wall, and set them at the entrances to some rabbit holes nearby. He caught one, when it came out for its night run, and we skinned it and roasted it over the burning logs. We ate the rabbit by itself. There were still some turnips left, but by this time we were heartily sick of them.

The next morning, we headed for open country again, and reached it in a little over an hour. There was no sign of a Tripod, and we set off in good spirit, over land which was more wild than cultivated, having a few meadows grazing cows and goats, and occasional patches of potatoes and the like, but mostly moorland—scrub grass and bushes, including one that bore great quantities of a blue berry with a sweet and delicate taste. We gorged ourselves on these, and filled our packs with little potatoes.

Steadily the land rose, and equally steadily grew barer. The forest had fallen away to the east, but there were clumps of pine which thickened to form a wood. We walked through its soft silence, where even bird song was hushed and far away, and came toward evening to the crest of a ridge, below which, for a hundred yards or more, the pines had been felled not long since: the axe-scarred stumps gleamed white, and many of the trees were still lying where they had fallen, waiting to be dragged away.

It was a vantage point. We could see down the slope of land, over the dark green tops of the standing trees, to other higher hills. And beyond them, so remote, so tiny seeming, and yet majestic, their tops white, flushed with pink by the setting sun, pressed against the deep blue of the sky—I marveled to think that that was snow … At last we were in sight of the White Mountains.

Henry said, sounding dazed, “They must be miles high.”

“I suppose so.”

I felt better, looking at them. In themselves they seemed to challenge the metal monsters who strode, unchecked and omnipotent, over the lower lands. I could believe now, fully believe, that men might shelter beneath them, and remain free. I was thinking about this when Beanpole moved suddenly beside me.

“Listen!”

I heard it, and turned. It was behind us, and a long way off, but I knew what it was: the crash and splinter of wood under the massive impact of metal—the great feet stamping their way up through the pine wood. Then they stopped. We could glimpse it through a small gap in the trees, etched against the sky.

Beanpole said, “We have not been in sight all the afternoon. We are not in sight now. And yet it knows we are here.”

I said, with a sick heart, “It could be coincidence.”

“Twice, yes. A third time, even. But not when the same thing happens, again and again. It is following us, and it does not need to see us. As a dog will follow a scent.” Henry said, “That’s impossible!”

“Where nothing else explains, the impossible is true.”

“But why follow? Why not come and pick us up?”

“How can one tell what is in their minds?” Beanpole asked. “It may be that it is interested in what we do—where we go.”

All the elation of a minute earlier had faded. The White Mountains existed. They might provide us with refuge. But they were still a journey of many days away, the Tripod no more than a few giant’s strides.

Henry asked, “What are we going to do?”

“We must think,” Beanpole said. “So far it is content with following us. That gives us time. But perhaps not much time.”

We set off down the slope. The Tripod did not move from its position, but we were no longer under any illusion about that. We slogged on in a dispirited silence: I tried to think of some way of shaking it off, but the harder I concentrated the more hopeless it seemed. I hoped the other two were having better success. Surely Beanpole could think of something.

But he had not thought of anything by the time we stopped for the night. We slept beneath the pines. It stayed dry and, even at this height, was fairly warm, and the bed of needles, inches thick it seemed from the long years of shedding, was softer than anything I had slept on since the castle. But there was not much consolation in that.