Shadows

The mysterious appearance of the unconscious girl was the talk of the wagon train. She was first discovered not long after dawn when they pulled up in the little hamlet of Shepsmoot. Godfrey, the driver of the rear wagon, had dismounted and gone round the back to check none of his cargo had fallen off during the night’s journey. He’d stacked the many boxes of produce he had bought at the festival high and hoped none had tipped over or been shaken loose by humps in the road. That said it had been a fairly smooth ride along the western road from Velayne, but he would have sworn he felt the wagon give a lurch not too long after they had passed out the city gate and wanted to check to put his mind at ease.

The frenzied barking of a dog was the first thing that alerted him to something not being right. Rounding the back of the wagon, he found a red haired girl, her navy dress torn about the hem and spattered with dust and dirt. Dried blood seeped out from beneath the fabric, which was stuck to her calf were the blood had congealed, and the front of her dress was encrusted in foul smelling vomit. Godfrey identified the source of the barking as a messy little mongrel that was barking at the girl, occasionally nudging and licking her face in an attempt to wake her up.

“Down boy!” He commanded the dog, which switched its attentions to Godfrey now, baring its teeth and growling. “Easy there, I don’t mean any harm.” He said as he climbed onto the back of the wagon and placed his fingers against the girl’s throat. The girls breathing was faint and ragged, but her pulse was relatively strong.

“She’s alright,” Godfrey reassured the dog, who seemed to understand the tone of his words if not the content. “Come now,” he said, lifting the girl into his arms, “Let’s get you seen to, miss.”

Shepsmoot did not have a doctor or a surgeon, or even an apothecary. What it did have however was about six or seven farmers and their wives who had over 600 years combined veterinary and husbandry experience between them. Most had been well awake since before the dawn and already out on the fields tending to their animals, but Mrs Gambol, who had dodgy hips, rose later and had taken on the duty of looking after the hamlet’s chicken coops. Godfrey found her collecting eggs from one of these, juggling her crutches, an egg basket, and a chicken that was trying to sit on her shoulder.

“Go away, Arthur! I’ve already fed you today, don’t think I don’t know! Oh, hello there sir…” she trailed off as she noticed Godfrey carrying the unconscious girl in his arms. Arthur the chicken tried pecking her ear and got swatted off for his trouble.

“Mrs Gambol, isn’t it?” asked Godfrey.

“That would be me, yes indeed dear. My eyes aren’t too good these days but I think I recognise you from one of the wagon trains coming through here recently. Mr Lambeth from Alderbay, aren’t you? The grocer?”

“Please, call me Godfrey.”

“Who’s that girl you’ve got there Mr Godfrey? I don’t know her face.”

“I don’t know myself, Mrs Gambol. Found her on the back of my wagon this morning.”

“She looks in a right state,” Mrs Gambol surmised, gently swiping chickens out of the way with her crutches as she hobbled towards them.

“Yes, I feared her for dead at first, and whilst her breathing is faint her pulse is strong.”

“She been drinking?” Mrs Gambol queried as she noticed the caked puke down the girls front.

“I don’t know for sure I’m afraid, but I couldn’t smell drink on her breath.”

“I’d be surprised if you can smell anything over the smell of that vomit,” sniffed Mrs Gambol. “Bit of luck for her she didn’t choke on it. Very well,” she said, ambling out of the fenced area the chickens were in, “bring her over to my barn and I’ll have a look at her.”

Mrs Gambol got a few more steps before she found herself stopped in her tracks.

“Mr Godfrey, would you please tell that dog of yours to take his teeth off my crutch.”

“Oh, sorry,” mumbled Godfrey as he tried to gently kick the dog away. “It’s her dog I think, Mrs Gambol.”

“Well you just keep it away from my chickens or you’ll pay for each one it eats, got that?”

“Yes, Mrs Gambol.”

Robert was perched in the back of a different wagon, deep in concentration as he read Tobruk’s Guide to Travelling, and wishing that the wagon drivers would shut up and let him read in peace. They had parked their wagons up just outside the hamlet and were leaning against one, chattering about some passed out girl on the back of their friend Godfrey’s wagon. Robert couldn’t help but hear them as they talked.

“Well I didn’t see any girls on the road here, did you?” said one man.

“No, and we all know you would have been looking out for one!” guffawed a second.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” replied the first.

“Let’s be honest here Edgar,” explained a third, “You have been a bit desperate on the woman hunt lately, haven’t you?”

“I have not!” scowled the first, who Robert assumed must be Edgar. “I’ll have you know Tom that the girls were throwing themselves at me in Velayne!”

“Oh really?” said Tom, “The only one of us four I saw the girls making googly eyes at was Mr Music over there!”

A fourth man, who up until this point had said nothing and was plucking away absent-mindedly at a lute, grinned to himself and played a harmonious chord.

“I can’t help it if the ladies love me,” he drawled.

“Look, that’s all beside the point!” sighed Edgar. “What I want to know is when she got on the wagon.”

“Did you see her, Ed?” asked the second voice again, which belonged to a self-assured comedian named Ben. “She’d had loads to drink, I don’t think she’s on the wagon at all!”

There was a brief pause as they all considered the pun.

“I don’t get it,” said Tom.

“Well, to be ‘on the wagon’,” started Ben, but he was interrupted by the fourth man strumming on his lute again.

“I don’t think explaining it’s going to make it any funnier, Ed.”

“You just don’t appreciate good humour, Dan.” Ben sniffed.

Robert groaned and dropped his head. He’d already read the same line of his book four times and not properly registered it, his subconscious too caught up in the men’s conversation and trying to remember which voice belonged to which name.

“E-excuse me, c-could you please be a bit quieter?” interjected Robert from inside the wagon, as the four men started talking again.

“Oh hello, who are you?” asked Edgar, poking his head inside the canopy of the wagon.

“That there’s Rob, he’s paying me a nice sum to take him to Alderbay,” Tom replied from outside, cutting across Robert’s reply.

“Right, well look here Rob – we’ve been on the road for a good number of hours now and this is the most interesting thing that’s happened on any number of similar journeys we’ve undertaken, so if you don’t mind we’re going to talk about it,” stated Edgar in a very matter of fact way, before turning back to continue finding out about the mystery girl.

“C-could you talk about it elsewhere p-please?” chirped Robert from behind, “Only I’m trying to r-read my book and you’re making it v-very difficult.” Edgar sighed theatrically and shot a look at Tom.

“Is this guy honestly this thick?”

“Not thick, I don’t think. He’s got a lot of books. I think he might be a scholar.” Tom shrugged.

“Ah yeah, you can’t have a thick scholar, Ed.” Chimed in Ben.

“Says you,” muttered Edgar, “I knew one scholar who swore that wolves wouldn’t attack you if you covered yourself in honey and ran at them whooping at the top of your lungs. Wanted me to take him up to Mt Ares to try it out. Suffice to say I didn’t get paid on the return trip, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh right,” replied Tom, “Well yeah, I agree most scholars are bleeding nutters and I don’t think our Mr Books back there is any different, but you don’t call them thick, you call them eclectic or something.”

“Eccentric,” Dan muttered in between tuning the strings on his lute.

“Yeah, that’s the word!”

“Can we get back to talking about this girl?”

“You think she’d had a bit too much to drink at the festival?”

“When Godfrey brought her round she looked half dead in my opinion.”

“What colour hair does she have?”

“Oh yes, because that’s the important thing to ask about when I say she looked half dead!”

“Leave off, I was only asking!”

“If you must know I think it was red, you pervert.”

The conversation faded into the distance as Robert lowered himself from the wagon and began to stroll off in search of somewhere quieter to read. Tom had told him they’d be stopped in Shepsmoot for the morning whilst the horses ate and the wagon drivers slept, so Robert figured he had a goodly while before he’d need to head back to the convoy. Plenty of time to read up on travelling and work out quite what he was supposed to be doing with himself.

Angie blinked awake and winced at the bright light shining in through the rafters above her. Her arms and legs felt like rigid slabs of pure, refined, pain, her head felt like a blacksmith’s anvil and her throat burned with the acrid tang of sick. Still, at least she was alive. How lucky I am, she thought as she lay staring at the ceiling of what seemed to be an old barn. When she closed her eyes the room span, and when she opened them again the sunbeams drifting down made her temples throb. I’ll have to settle for squinting then, she sighed.

Sitting up took considerable effort, and as she swung her legs round to the floor she inhaled sharply as her wounded calf scraped against the wood of the table she had been sleeping on. She went to pull her dress up to look at how bad the wound had got, but before she even got that far she registered she was, in fact, no longer wearing a dress. Gone was the navy dress that had suffered along with her last night, leaving her sat wearing nothing but her cream underdress, which Angie grimly noted stank of sweat and vomit. She felt very exposed by the idea that someone had taken her out of her dress, but was somewhat reassured by the fact they had left her underdress on. Even so, she felt uncomfortable as she rolled up the hem of her clothing to inspect her calf.

Someone, presumably the same someone who had brought her from the wagon to this barn and disrobed her, had bandaged her leg neatly with gauze. Angie could detect only a faint crimson mark seeping through the bandage at the back, which was comforting. She’d been worried the blood loss might have been more severe, though she did feel fairly light-headed. As she went to stand she winced as a familiar pain shot through her leg, more intense now the adrenaline of last night had run out of her system. Angie took a deep breath and tried a step forward, gritting her teeth.

The barn door swung open and an old woman tottered in on crutches. She was struggling with something squirming around her legs, and Angie heard the woman moan in a chastising tone:

“They are not chew toys you pesky little pup! Leave my damn crutches alone!” Angie gave a sigh of relief as she saw the ‘pesky little pup’ harassing the lady was quite familiar to her.

“Polo!” she croaked, and the dog turned at hearing his name and bounded happily across the hay-strewn floor towards her.

“That’s the menace’s name, is it?” grumbled the old lady as she made her way across the barn towards Angie, a man entering the barn after her and closing the door. “Sit down girl, you’re in no fit state to be up and about yet.” Normally Angie would have argued with the woman, but she was finding standing up straight enough of an effort as it was.

“How are you feeling?” asked the man, who Angie noticed was carrying a tray with a breakfast of bread, smoked herring and a jug of cow’s milk.

“Awful,” groaned Angie, slouching back down onto the table. The man set the tray down on the side of the table next to her and nodded.

“Not to be rude, miss, but you looked it when I found you on the back of my wagon this morning. What nature of activity led you to such a sorry state?” Angie hesitated. Memories of last night flashed before her mind. She remembered talking with that strange boy, learning about the Skadirr, then confronting it in the flesh aboard – she faltered at the name – Verne’s ship. She had watched the man who had raised her, taken care of her all these years, die before her very eyes. They had been talking; joking together, getting on better than they had in weeks – and then all of sudden he had died, murdered by a terrible creature of shadow and death. After that all she remembered was running. Running and running for her life.

“The girl doesn’t have to answer such a pers’nal question if she don’t want to,” muttered the old woman, seeing Angie’s discomfort and elbowing the man in the ribs idly.

“Begging your pardon Mrs Gambol, but I need to know. She’s been on my wagon, if she’s a danger to herself or others I need to know in case she’s done something to the goods I’m carrying.”

“Shame on you, Mr Godfrey!” tutted the lady Angie gathered to be Mrs Gambol. “Caring more about goods and cargo than a poor lass. Eat up m’girl, I didn’t get Mr Godfrey here to carry that tray down from my farmhouse for it to be stared at.”

“I am a bit hungry,” admitted Angie, gingerly reaching out for the chunk of bread and tearing a bit off.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” nodded Mrs Gambol. “From the looks of it you heaved half your guts up last night. You need filling up, lass – those boots of yours make up about half your weight or so Mr Godfrey here says. Good boots though, don’t get me wrong. Won’t surprise you to know they were a bit mucky and bloodstained, so I dunked them in a barrel o’ water and stuck them out on fence posts to dry. Eat, girl, eat,” urged the lady.

“What happened to my dress?” asked Angie, suddenly realising what had been nagging at her and starting to panic. “I had something very important in it, where has it gone?”

“I had to throw the dress girl, no – don’t panic,” calmed Mrs Gambol as Angie’s eyes shot wide open. “I dug out what I could find in its pockets – don’t often see a good dress with pockets, damn shame to throw it – and placed them up at the house near your boots.”

“Did you come across a box? A small wooden one?”

“I did, along with a little sewing kit, a few handkerchiefs, an odd bit of pocket change and some smashed glass vials. I threw out the vials, I’m sure you’ll understand.” Angie nodded, relieved that the root of all her current problems had at least not fallen into the wrong hands.

“Thank you,” Angie sighed, and at last took a bite of the bread she had been tensely gripping in her hands.

“Now m’girl, I’ve answered a few of your questions so I would be grateful if you could answer a few of mine. What’s your name, first? Can’t keep calling you girl.”

“Angie.” She said, swallowing a mouthful of bread.

“Nice name, Angie. Short for Evangeline I’d bet? My aunt was an Evangeline, lovely woman she was. My name’s Catherine, but everyone round here either calls me Cathy or Mrs Gambol, I don’t mind which. Very well, next question. What’s so important about that box, Angie? What’s in it?”

“An object of great importance,” Angie hesitated, “Left to me by a… good friend. I have to get it to the capital. And I can’t let it get into the wrong hands.”

“See, Mrs Gambol?” spoke Godfrey, who had stayed quiet until this time. “This is what I mean when I say I need to know what led this girl to being in the back of my wagon looking close to death. It sounds like you’ve got someone trying to get that box off you, is that right lass?”

“Yes.” Angie nodded.

“They do that to your leg?”

“Yes.”

“They willing to kill to get their hands on that box?”

Angie shuddered.

“…Yes.”

Godfrey flung his hands up in the air and brought them to rest upon his head. He groaned inwardly.

“You realise me and the other wagons are headed to Alderbay, don’t you? If you wanted to get to the capital fast you should have caught a ship from Velayne.”

“I couldn’t,” Angie muttered, “It… my pursuer… was there.”

“Right. I’ve been up too long to deal with this now. Mrs Gambol, Miss Angie – I’m going to the back of my wagon to rest and will be setting off with the rest of the convoy not long after noon. If you’re to come with you need to pay 3 hussars like anyone else, understand? And if there’s the slightest hint of danger I’m off, okay? I’m a wagon driver, not a bodyguard.” Angie nodded blankly, and watched as Godfrey strode out of the barn, stopping only at the door to thank Mrs Gambol for her help before closing the door behind him.

“Don’t worry about him, dear. He’s come through here a few times, and he’s a decent man. Grumpy when he’s tired or stressed though, as I suppose most of us are.” Mrs Gambol nodded to the tray of breakfast. “Eat up and try and get some more rest Angie, you look tired. I’ll wake you before they set off, and I’ll bring your stuff down from the house, including your boots once they’ve dried. I’ve got an old thing of my daughter’s that might fit you too.”

“Mrs Gambol, you do too much for me.”

“Nonsense m’girl, I do what I can. As I’m sure you do.”

Mrs Gambol tottered out the barn, steadily rocking herself forward on her crutches and giving Polo a glare when he looked like he might try and gnaw on them again. Soon Angie was left alone with Polo, who scampered about and rolled in the hay. Angie had a few more bites of bread and some of the delicious smoked herring before washing it down with a large gulp of milk. She laid back on the table and Polo leapt up onto her stomach, making her jump.

“Ooh, careful Polo!” she groaned and gently scratched behind his ear. The dog settled down on her, nestling its head against her chest. Angie exhaled and closed her eyes. Painful and frightening images of last night danced across her mind, and she doubted she’d be able to go back to sleep.

Eventually though, fatigue and exhaustion won out, and the sounds of soft snoring soon resonated through the barn.

When again she awoke from a restless sleep the sun was high in the sky and beating down through the rafters, particles of dust dancing in the sunbeams. Polo had got bored of resting on Angie and gone for a walk, possibly to see if there were any chickens going spare. Angie sat up, body still aching and mind still reeling, and noticed a weathered old walking stick resting against the table. Her boots had been placed on the floor next to it, and Angie could see on the left one where her blood had stained the leather. Hanging on a nail by the barn door was a long green dress, which Angie viewed favourably as it had been cut very simply and sensibly. There was a thick leather belt with it too that had several pouches and holsters on it, and Angie saw that Mrs Gambol had placed a hunting dagger into one of these. There was also a crisp white underdress on the nail as well, and a pail of fresh water on the ground.

Angie gratefully slipped out of her old and foul smelling underdress and began to wash herself down, taking care not to wet the bandage around her leg. After a short ablution she slipped the new underdress on over her head, enjoying the feel of the fresh fabric against her clean skin and feeling relatively happy about the fit. The sleeves were a bit long, but she could roll them up, she thought. Next came the green dress, which Angie fought on, the fabric being heavier than she first assumed. As she finally pulled it down and into place, she noticed that what she was wearing wasn’t a dress at all.

She had seen the city guards in Velayne wear similar items of clothing at times, and seemed to recall they were called gambesons. A thick padded jacket made of quilted cotton – it would certainly provide her more protection than her old dress, she mused to herself as she patted it down. The downside of course was that it was definitely warmer and the greater weight added more pressure to her wounded leg. Angie limped over to the barn door, supporting herself on the walking stick with one hand and the other resting on the dagger on her belt. She felt much more self-assured with some rudimentary armour and a weapon, though she still felt like she could sleep for another few days. Her confidence in the protection granted by the gambeson and dagger wavered, however, when a treacherous thought of Willem being struck down quickly swam into view.

Don’t think about it, Angie muttered to herself, and began to pull on her boots. Thoughts like that won’t help you now. She spotted on the floor by her a small sack and paused halfway through lacing up a boot to inspect it. Inside was, as promised, her sewing kit for small wounds, a few handkerchiefs, some pocket change, and a small wooden box. Angie lifted it up carefully and inspected it. It hardly seemed worth all this death and destruction, she thought to herself, gripping the box angrily.

Angie struggled to vocalise the swirling maelstrom of emotions raging through her head, and, falling back on a time-tested method many in similar situations have inevitably resorted to, threw the first thing she could get her hands on very hard at the nearest wall. The wooden box thudded heavily against the panelled wall of the barn and dropped dejectedly into a sparse pile of hay. Angie panted heavily and felt tears running down her cheeks. “Stupid, bloody stupid!” she groaned, and tucked her head in her hands.

After a short while she stopped shaking, sighed deeply, wiped her eyes dry with her sleeve and hobbled over to the corner to pick the box up. Angie crammed it into a pouch on her belt wordlessly, then turned to step outside.

She limped out, walking stick in hand, and raised the other to shield her eyes from the sun high in the sky. From the look of the sun’s position it was nearly noon and Angie knew she had to be heading off to find the wagon train soon. Still, Angie thought she had best say thank you to Mrs Gambol before she headed off, and began to make her way up towards the nearby farmhouse. She thought she could see the old lady hobbling back and forth in the yard.

“You’re holding that crook w-wrong.” Came a voice from the shadows of the barn. Angie turned with a start, hand darting to the dagger on her belt but stayed her hand the moment she heard the stutter. There was only one person she knew who spoke like that.

“What the hell are you doing here?!” she gawped as Robert peered back at her from atop a milk churn, a book lying open on his lap.

“W-well it was quite noisy back at the wagons so I decided to come and read here instead. The animals are making quite a b-bit of noise in the fields and at least here there was only the sound of your sn-snoring.” Angie stared at Robert incredulously. Her mind was still unused to following the startlingly direct and literal routes of conversation Robert’s mind wandered along, and today she had little patience for it. She fumbled for a reply, and settled on:

“I do not snore!”

“You do. Though it’s very c-consistent. When Mr Colywick snores it’s a real m-multitude of sounds; I struggle to sleep.”

Angie blinked.

“What I meant before was, what are you doing here in Shepsmoot?”

“Oh. W-well, as I was saying yesterday I n-needed to leave Velayne so I’m on my way to Alderbay. One of the wagon drivers is taking me there.”

“Right. That at least makes sense.”

“You are holding that crook wrong though.”

“The walking stick? How am I supposed to hold it then?”

“W-well you’re trying to hold it around the hook. You’re supposed to hold it b-by the r-rod. It’ll grant you more support that way. Why are you limping?”

“Long story.”

Robert paused.

“That doesn’t r-really answer the question. Or were you going to tell me the long story?”

“No.” Angie replied flatly.

“Only, Tobruk says in his Guide to Travelling that stories are apparently a g-good way of passing the time on long journeys.”

“Well good for him. I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about. Look, have you seen Mrs Gambol around anywhere? Little old lady, moves around on crutches?” Angie asked, miming her characteristic shuffle.

“She c-came by not too long ago to drop off some clothes for you. She asked me who I was and what I was doing here, and if I was planning on being indecent. I told her I didn’t know what she meant by that, though I do know the meaning of the word indecent, of course.”

“That’s very interesting,” Angie grumbled sarcastically. “But do you know which way she went?”

“Up t-towards that farmhouse, I think.”

“Wonderful.” Angie huffed. “So this conversation was largely pointless.”

“Well, you’ve learnt h-how to hold that crook.” Robert added helpfully.

Angie fought the temptation to hit him with it.