Peter Dickinson - The Ropemaker

Still gripping the bridle, Tilja rose and let Calico scramble to her feet, where she stood snorting and shuddering while Tilja hissed and murmured to her and Tahl ran round to help Meena and Alnor. Meena had rolled herself over and was sitting up, feeling her hips and legs. Alnor was lying on his back, retching for air.

“Meena, are you all right?” Tilja called anxiously.

“Won’t know till I stand up,” she answered. “Shook myself up a bit, but the old boy broke my fall. Winded him good and proper, by the look of him.”

Tahl was kneeling beside Alnor, trying to lift him by the shoulders. Alnor was making feeble motions with his hands to say he wanted to be left where he was. The tail of the convoy, pairs of old and young going to Goloroth, hurried past. Some of them didn’t even look, but one old man caught Tilja’s eye and shrugged apologetically, telling her he’d have liked to stay and help if he could. The guard at the tail of the line stopped.

“Rough luck,” he said. “How’s the old fellow? Think he can walk?”

Alnor grunted and somehow rolled himself up onto one elbow and felt for his left ankle with his other hand.

“I’ll do,” he croaked. “Just winded. Could have been worse. You go on. We’ll catch up. We can move faster than you’ve been going.”

“Right you are,” said the guard. “There’ll be a rest point two, three miles along, but Zovan won’t want to hang around there, not with this muck slowing us down. Never seen it this bad.”

“One moment, young man,” said Meena. “You can help me back up onto this stupid beast before you go. Gently now. My hip’s bad enough, best of times, and Lord knows what else I’ve done to myself.”

Good-humoredly the guard hoisted her up to the saddle and strode off into the murk. Tahl found Alnor’s cap and put it back on his head. They waited another few minutes while he finished getting his breath back, sat up and felt himself over more thoroughly. Tahl picked up the frayed bit of rope that had caused the accident, stared at it for a moment, frowning, and tossed it into the trees. Alnor rose groggily to his feet and stood, testing his weight on one leg and then the other. With his hand on Tahl’s shoulder he took a few limping steps.

“You all right?” said Meena, for once not trying to hide her concern. “I daresay this animal’s up to the two of us. Time she earned her keep.”

“I’ll do if it gets no worse,” he answered. “We must move now, or we won’t come up with them.”

So they started along the path, Tahl and Alnor in front and Tilja leading Calico by the bridle. It felt strange, after the companionable shuffle and chat of the convoy, to be moving through this silent, closed world, the only sounds their own footfalls and the drip of the fog from the branches. Before long Tilja saw that Alnor was limping more heavily, and leaning his weight on Tahl’s shoulder at each step, but he still strode fiercely on. His halt was so sudden that she almost allowed Calico to blunder into his back.

There was a man in the path ahead of them, standing straddle legged, blocking the way. He had a cudgel over his shoulder and a long knife stuck into his belt. Then movements either side of the path and five more men, also with cudgels and knives, came out of the trees.

Tilja’s heart slammed once, then hammered. Her stomach and limbs filled with the chill of the fog. She half heard Meena muttering fiercely above her. The men closed silently in.

“My grandfather’s blind,” said Tahl, urgently. “He’s hurt his—”

He was cut short. Tilja turned, but before she could see what had happened she was seized from behind, a bag was thrust over her head, a hard hand was clamped against her mouth and held there while someone else grabbed her arms and lashed her wrists behind her back. The hand left her mouth and gripped her elbow while other hands were thrust in under the bag and her scarf was forced between her lips and teeth and the ends tied behind her head.

“Lay off, you goat-get!” snapped Meena, above her. “There! How d’you fancy that!”

Tilja heard the swish and thwack of Meena’s cane, a curse from the man she’d hit, a yell of pain from Meena and a slithering thud. A moment’s silence, and then more heavings and rustlings, and mutters of command.

“They’re the fourteeners all right,” said a voice. “Get the old bag back up on the horse, and we’ll go.”

Now one hand let go of Tilja’s elbow while the other turned her and forced her into a blind shuffle back along the way they’d come, jerking her upright when she stumbled. To her immense relief, she heard Meena’s muffled groan from behind her. It was not much help, but it was something to cling to as she stumbled on, gagging again and again on the cloth in her mouth.

The man who held her stopped, heaved her onto his shoulders and carried her up a steep slope. She could hear curses and blows as Calico was forced to climb. Then the ground seemed to level out and she was set down and forced to stumble up a much rougher and narrower path than the one below. The sounds around her changed, and she guessed that they were now out above the trees, with the slope rising to her left and falling away to her right. Sometimes they climbed, but not so steeply that she needed to be carried again. At last she was told to stand still, her arms were retied, and she was pushed down and dragged into some kind of enclosed space and made to sit on a rough earthen floor with what felt like natural rock against her back. Her ankles were lashed together before they pulled the hood from her head and untied the disgusting gag. She retched but couldn’t vomit. Her mouth was too dry. Before she recovered a hand grabbed her hair and forced her head back. Something was thrust against her mouth.

“Drink,” snapped a voice.

She gulped. Water sluiced down her chin and blouse. The flask was snatched away without warning and instantly the scarf was stuffed back into her mouth. In the few seconds while it was being tied, unable to move her head, she rolled her eyes from side to side, desperate to know where she was and what had happened to the others. There was rock opposite her and rock above, darkness to her right and daylight to her left—a small, low-roofed cave. She could see part of Tahl’s legs further in on her right, and Meena and Alnor propped against the opposite wall. Then the hood was shoved back over her head, and she heard the other three being given their turns at the flask.

Footsteps left the cave. Ages passed, in aches and cramps and soreness. She managed to slump herself sideways and by nudging her head against a rock projecting from the cave floor loosen her gag a little. She could hear Tahl wriggling for comfort, and Meena’s soft groans. Poor Meena. She must be in agony—Tilja’s own intense discomfort would be nothing beside it.

It was almost dark in the cave before the hood was again removed and two men fed the captives turn by turn on some sort of porridge, hooded and gagged them and took them stumbling out, one at a time, to relieve themselves on the open hillside.

Then again they were dumped in the cave, but it wasn’t long before Tilja heard footsteps and brusque commands, telling her that another captive had been brought in. This time before the men left, one of them mercifully took the hood from her head.

Not that there was much to see. It was night, with stars showing at the narrow entrance to the cave. Almost at once these vanished as a boulder was rolled into place to seal the captives in, and then, to judge by the sounds, wedged into place with smaller rocks. Footsteps faded into silence.

Still sick with the same unchanging misery and fear, she lay down and wriggled for some kind of comfort. Beside her she could hear Tahl also shifting around, but it turned out he had other ideas. Something shoved against the back of her head, and she gave a protesting grunt. Tahl’s grunt answered somewhere in the darkness close by. Clumsy fingers probed among her hair, found the knot of her scarf, started to tug and tease. There were strands of hair in the knot. She winced at the pain. Tahl in his turn grunted as he pricked a finger on her hairpin. She felt the knot loosen, and now he had it free, and she could spit the cloth out and suck and swallow to work the saliva into her mouth and round.