‘Lorrie, girl, someone will go for the constable, he’ll be the one to hunt these men down.’ Ossrey nodded to several of the men who started to hurry to the other side of the barn, while others ran to the well to get water. They would see that any fire in the fields started by blowing embers was quickly quenched.
She looked up into Ossrey’s kind face and knew that no one would follow the killers, at least not today. ‘I’ll go,’ she said impulsively. ‘I’ll take Horace and ride to the constable. That will leave more men to fight the fire.’
But Ossrey was shaking his head. ‘You go with my Allet,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a bad, bad shock, girl. Someone else will go for the constable. Try to rest,’ he advised. ‘We’ll take care of everything.’
‘These are teeth marks,’ Farmer Roben said, looking down at her father’s body. ‘An animal did this.’
Lorrie looked at them in wonder, more and more of them were starting to fight the blaze. It was as though they hadn’t heard her, or understood what she’d said.
‘It wasn’t,’ she started to say.
Allet put her arm around Lorrie’s shoulders. ‘We’ll leave it to the men, shall we?’ She turned the girl toward her own farm and patted her. ‘You could use a nice rest.’
Lorrie pulled away, or tried to. Allet took her arm in a strong grip.
‘I need to find my brother!’ Lorrie shouted. She waved her free arm frantically. ‘Does anybody see him here? He’s been carried off by murderers, not animals, and he needs our help! We have to follow them now or we’ll lose them forever!’
‘That’s enough!’ Allet snapped, shaking her arm. ‘You leave it to the men and come with me right now! Don’t you get hysterical on me, girl,’ she warned.
Lorrie stared at her, open-mouthed. Then she looked around at the circle of her neighbours, those who weren’t already fighting the fire. ‘You don’t believe me,’ she said at last, her voice full of wonder.
One of the women stepped forward and put her hand to Lorrie’s cheek. ‘It’s not about believing you, child. It’s about doing what we can. You wouldn’t catch anyone on your old Horace, and any of us would have to run all the way back to our farms to get horses not much better.’ She sighed. ‘Meanwhile that fire might get out of control—you’ve lost the house and barn, but there’s still the crops, and if they go, the fire could spread to other farms. Besides, if we left now we’d be no closer to your brother. We’ll send word to the constable; he’ll know what to do about this. Try to have faith, dear.’
Lorrie started to weep again from sheer frustration, then began a keening that she was horrified to discover was beyond her control. Allet gave her arm another shake and a hard look. The other woman moved in to hold her gently but firmly. ‘What can one girl do against grown men except get herself into trouble?’ she asked quietly.
‘You leave it to the men now,’ Allet said, ‘and trust them to do their best.’
Lorrie let them take her to Ossrey and Allet’s farm knowing that wouldn’t be enough.
How can I trust them to do their best for Rip when they’ve already given up?
Her mind stopped whirling, and a coldness came over her, like a wind cutting through smoke or fog. I’ll make a fuss, they’ll watch me close. Go along with it, and I can slip away, she thought.
Allet put her to bed in Bram’s room—it was a mark of a good farm and a small family that even the eldest son had a room to himself—and Lorrie felt a pang at being surrounded by his familiar, dearly-missed scent.
‘Here’s a posset for you,’ Allet said: she was a notable herb-wife. ‘Drink it right down, dear.’
Lorrie gagged a bit at the taste—sharp, musky, and too sweet at the same time. Then the world spun as she set her head back on the feather-filled pillows.
Waking was slow; her head was splitting with pain, and her chest burned, and she had aches and bruises all over.
Gods! Lorrie thought, as memory came back with a rush. What’s the hour?
She started to cry and buried her head in Bram’s pillow, forcing back her sobs by sheer will. There was no time for that now.
Rising quietly, she went to the door and found it barred—barred on the outside.
Stifling a hiss of anger, she moved to try the shutters. Mercifully they opened, letting in a flood of bright moonlight that revealed that her clothes were missing. Shaking her head and mentally cursing Allet’s thoroughness Lorrie went to the chest at the foot of the bed. After a bit of rummaging she found some of Bram’s outgrown clothes and shoes. They felt strange when she put them on, but she reckoned she’d get used to them quickly enough. She swung an old cloak over her shoulders and started out the window. Then stopped. Moving on instinct, Lorrie felt beneath the straw-stuffed mattress on Bram’s bed. Her fingers touched soft leather: a purse, half the size of her fist, half-filled. The small, edged metal shapes of the coins inside were unmistakable under her fingertips.