‘We’d better get out,’ I said, pulling my jeans on and losing the dream completely. ‘We don’t want them to find us here.’
Mal and Kaylinn, who had, after all, had more time to get used to the situation than I had, exchanged a look. ‘They can’t,’ Mal said. ‘They literally can’t. But Lachlan said to come and get you anyway, because it looks like this place is going to fill up fast and we don’t want to get split up if any doors get locked. He and David are out in the yard, where apparently Fergus is going mad and Jeannie is doing something with food, so come on.’
He watched, seemingly with no interest in our dignity or privacy, as we got dressed, and then hustled us down the staircase to the ground floor. The main doors stood wide open to the weak sunshine and our previously dank and quiet cellar had been opened to become a centre of activity as men ran up and down both sets of stairs carrying boxes and sacks, dropping the odd vegetable and handful of grain as they went.
‘The forward baggage train perhaps?’ Lachlan said as we all arrived together in a corner, where the headland walls wrapped around the cliff to enclose it at an angle. A passing horse shied dramatically and looked at us with its nostrils flaring until a young man in grubby breeches and a long coat led it away, still snorting. ‘They’re bringing the supplies to the castle, so something big must be happening.’
I stared at the huge cart occupying the corner with us. We were half crouching in the cover it offered, although David had found an apple rolling loose and was eating it furtively. We huddled together as though our village had been invaded by bandits. ‘How?’ I asked. ‘I mean, it’s like the ascent of Everest getting up here, with the steps down and back up again – how the hell are they getting horses and carts up that?’
‘There’s a postern,’ David said around the apple.
‘How lovely for them. What’s a postern?’ Again I wished I’d listened to Dad when I was young. He and Lenny would sit and discuss things like this for hours, while I’d do a jigsaw and wish Dad had a TV.
‘Don’t pull that face, Mal, Pax isn’t meant to know,’ Kaylinn said fiercely. She didn’t seem to have taken being woken abruptly well, clearly not a morning person.
Lachlan took pity on me. ‘It’s a back way in with a path up to the castle. Small and easy to block off if you’re under attack, but a way to bring supplies in. They’re probably hauling stuff up the cliffs too from the beach.’
The word ‘beach’ triggered memory and the dream I’d had floated back in glimpses of images and a half-remembered mood. It had felt – important, somehow?
Kaylinn sighed. ‘Isoneed coffee.’
We stayed behind our cart and watched the general melee of horses being unsaddled, shouting men wearing ruffled linen shirts like extras from a historical drama unloading boxes and crates and barrels, groups of bare-chested men seeming not to feel the bitter edge of the wind chatting together and the ground being churned up to mud under hooves and feet. The occasional dog would run in our direction sniffing along scent trails, then stop dramatically, stare over at where we hid, bark a few times and then run back with their tails tucked low.
‘I wonder if those are talbots?’ Lachlan said. ‘I’ve only ever seen pictures.’
‘Talbot who?’ I took the apple that Mal handed me. There was a basket lined with straw and full of apples on the cart and as long as we were sure nobody was looking – in case levitating fruit drove anyone to madness – we were helping ourselves.
‘Breed of dog. Extinct in our time.’ He smiled at me, which made me feel a bit better. Maybe, I thought, biting the apple, which was small and sweet and tasted delicious after all the soupy stew, I should have paid more attention in GCSE history, but as that had mostly concerned itself with the causes of the Second World War it probably wouldn’t have helped much.I should have listened to Dad…
I pushed down the residual feeling of resentment that memory threw up and stifled the panic that replaced it.
‘Why are we hiding?’ David said. ‘I’m going out there. This is stupid.’
‘Be careful,’ Lachlan said, almost automatically.
‘Of what? They can’t see or hear us and they can’t touch us – what’s going to happen? Spontaneous combustion?’
‘Well, no, but if the horses all bolt there could be a bit of a riot.’
‘I’ll be careful. I just need – some space.’ David slid out to walk cautiously through the milling throng. Literallythroughmost of it, although the carts and equipment seemed solid the people and animals treated him as though he were a shadow.
‘Poor Davey,’ Lachlan said, gazing after him. ‘He’ll be worrying to get back.’
‘Lachlan.’ Kaylinn still sounded fierce and in need of a coffee. ‘Weallwanna get back, right?’ She looked at me. ‘Right?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I agreed. I noticed though that Mal didn’t immediately chime in withhisfervent wish to return and a quickglance at him showed his hair had flopped forward and he was sucking in his cheeks. He looked like a deflated choirboy.
‘I’m going to fill my pockets,’ he said, still without confirming a desire for immediate relocation. ‘There’s fruit and things rolling about everywhere, might as well. Come on, Kay.’
Kaylinn gave him an uncaffeinated glare but reluctantly got to her feet and followed Mal, who now looked more like the Artful Dodger, grabbing handfuls of anything loose on passing carts.
I took the opportunity to sit next to Lachlan, while Kaylinn and Mal stole some more food. ‘I had a dream,’ I said.
‘Go on, Martin Luther King.’ He ate his apple core. ‘Although if this is some tedious New Age thing…’
I was glad he was taking the piss. It made me feel less stupid. ‘Can we go down to the sea?’ I settled my back against the wheel of the cart and felt the wooden hub dig into my spine with a renewed sense ofthis can’t be happening. ‘I know the water will be cold, but we could get in and have a quick splash. We might feel better after a good wash.’
Lachlan gave me a thoughtful look. ‘I think Davey went down to the postern gate to try, but it was closed and locked so he couldn’t get through even if he wanted to. Do you feel that maukit?’
