Darkburn Book 4: The Haunt of Ternss by Tayin Machrie - HTML preview

Chapter 28

The new home smelt of smoke. Aliya was not sure why, because there was no proper fireplace.

There was no proper anything. She was in a house inside a house. The outside house was made of stone, all black and cracked and ugly. It had high thick walls but no roof on top.

The inside house was much smaller, and it was made of wood, in a hotchy-potchy sort of way. It was a bit like the house she had tried to build for the little somethings, only bigger: it looked as if parts had fallen down or were about to fall down. The walls were planks and sticks with mud crammed in the cracks, and tiny windows made in funny shapes. The whole house was a funny shape. It was high at one end and low at the other as if the person building it had forgotten what they were doing. It made her giggle.

“Well, I’m glad someone’s happy,” said Flodda.

“I like this house,” Aliya said. She hadn’t paid attention to it until now, because she’d been too tired yesterday after a long time of being shaken in the cart. All she had wanted to do was eat and sleep. She hadn’t taken any notice of the strange arrangement of the houses, one inside the other.

Her bed was not inside the wooden house. It was tucked against the wall of the old stone outside house, where the smell of smoke was strongest. She thought she might have been sleeping in a kitchen fireplace, although she didn’t know why, except that it was quite big and had a chimney bit to cover it. There was enough room for Flodda to sleep in there with her.

But right now she was inside the hotchy-potchy inside house, where Olbeth and Camburé were sitting on two little stools. Olbeth was nursing the baby. She turned round and said,

“Hello, Aliya. Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you. Is my bed an old fireplace?”

“It is.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re the little rabbit, cooking on the fire,” said Camburé. Aliya did not think this was at all funny so she gave her a sternish look.

“Because this wooden shack won’t hold all of us,” said Olbeth. “If it rains, you can squeeze in here, underneath the roof.” Aliya looked up at the roof. It was cloth, like in a tent. “But while it’s dry, there’s more room in the old farmhouse.”

“Why is it called a farmhouse?” demanded Aliya. “Where are all the animals?”

“They’re a bit further away,” said Olbeth.

“Why?”

“Because they’re not here,” said Camburé, which was not a proper answer at all. Aliya gave her another look. Then she decided that she would explore later and find out for herself. There might be ducks but she did not ask in case they said No.

So she said, “Is there any breakfast?”

“It’s here,” said someone new. This was an old lady stooping to come in through the door. She had grey hair. But when she stood up again she was quite tall and straight.

“Hello, Bruilde,” said Olbeth.

Aliya looked at Bruilde curiously. She knew that this was Bruilde’s house, but it was a very strange house to want to live in. Bruilde was carrying a pot which steamed. She held the handle with a brown rag.

“Porridge,” she said, and setting the pot down on the floor of straw she began to spoon the porridge into bowls for everyone except the baby. The porridge was very hot so there must be a cooking fire somewhere close; just not in the house. Not in Aliya’s bed.

“Fires in wooden houses are a bit tricky anyway,” she said, because that was something she remembered Mama saying once. The thought of Mama made her suddenly want to cry. She wished Mama was here. But she didn’t want to cry in front of the tall old lady because it was her house and she might think Aliya hated it, which was not true.

So she sat and looked at the porridge and waited for the lump in her throat to go away.

“I’m just waiting for it to cool down,” she said, when she saw all the women looking at her. “I like porridge.” This was true, but she also said it because she was aware that they had had to move here, to this smoky house-inside-a-house, because of her. Because some bad people wanted to chase after her. She imagined the men sneaking through the woods looking for her. But they would not find her.

“Where is mister Veron?” she asked.

“He’s outside with his hunters. He prefers it out there.”

Aliya nodded. That was reassuring. She began to eat her porridge. After a while they stopped watching her so much. When she had finished the porridge Flodda hustled her outside to wash; there was a trough with a pump.

“This is a horse-trough,” said Aliya.

“Good enough for you,” said Flodda.

“I’m not a horse. Why are they chasing me?”

“Who?”

“Bad people.”

“Who says anyone is chasing you?” said Flodda. “Wash your face.”

That was not an answer. Aliya stepped forward and dipped her head right under the cold surface of the horse-trough to show Flodda that she was not afraid. But she was afraid. When she shook the water off her hair and opened her eyes Veron and Edrik were there.

“Why are they chasing me?” She addressed the question to Edrik. But he didn’t answer either. He looked at Veron.

“Unclear,” said Veron. “Either to capture or to kill. We’re not sure which.”

Flodda gave a sort of gasp of horror, putting her hands up to her mouth. Aliya wondered if she ought to give a gasp of horror too. She wasn’t sure what being killed was like. She knew you went to sleep and didn’t wake up again. But she could very clearly imagine being captured, because it would be a bit like being chased by Flodda when she wanted to do her hair or like Aliya chasing her pig. Only no cuddles at the end of it, only shouting men with swords.

She looked at Veron. “I think I would rather be killed than captured,” she said.

Flodda gave another sort of gasp. Veron’s eyebrows rose.

“We’ll make sure neither happens,” he said.

“How do you know the bad men aren’t following us?”

“We were careful,” said Veron. “And we’ve set sentries.”

“How many sentries?”

“Six.”

“Six is a good number,” said Aliya. “I am nearly six.”

“And there’s a man on look-out,” Edrik said, “up in the cedar tree.”

Aliya’s heart gave a little leap. “In a tree? Does he have a rope ladder?” She had seen a rope ladder once, in Lord Hapligan’s hay barn, and it had been a wonderful thing.

“He has a knotted rope,” replied Veron.

“You may take me there,” she said to Flodda, because she didn’t think she could order Veron around any more, now that he wasn’t ill. But Flodda was supposed to do everything she said.

“What’s the word?” said Flodda.

“Please.”

“Later on,” said Flodda. “We have things to talk about first.”

That sounded boring. But it turned out that Aliya didn’t have to join in with the talking. They left her in the house-inside-a-house with Edrik and the baby while they all went outside.

Baby Doval was trying to crawl. He lay on his stomach on a blanket and did swimming things with his arms and legs, grunting all the time. He wanted to get onto his hands and knees but did not seem to know how. When Aliya tried to help him he collapsed onto his stomach again and began to cry.

Edrik went to pick him up.

“I can do it,” said Aliya, although she could only just manage to lift the baby. Then she couldn’t stand up with him in her arms. He was heavy. She had to instruct Edrik to take him after all and then once she was on her feet she commanded Edrik to hand him back.

“No, the other way round,” she said. “Please.” Doval seemed even heavier now that she was standing up holding him but she was not going to admit it. So she walked around the little house with him, telling him all about how it was made, from the twiggy walls and straw floor to the roof which seemed to have branches laid over the cloth. She could see the shadows so she went out to make sure. Edrik followed her. Yes, there were leaves dangling over the roof edge. It was all very untidy.

Standing holding the warm wriggly weight of Doval, she could hear the voices of the others coming over the black wall but she didn’t want to listen. Just sitting and talking was a boring thing to do. So she set off walking through the outer house to discover what was there, with Doval heavy in her arms, and Edrik following her. As well as the kitchen with the bed in the fireplace there were several other rooms, all roofless, some with burnt furniture inside them, and puddles and lots of bird droppings. In one room there were grey-black lumps that might have been a bed and a chest. They were the right size but not the right shape. She touched one with her foot and a bit of it fell off.

Edrik tried to get Doval off her again and this time she let him. The room gave her an anxious feeling. She didn’t know much about fires except that you needed to be very careful with them, but somebody must have been very careless here because you could see that it had been a huge great fire. Once the gardener at Lord Hapligan’s had built a bonfire and it had got quite scary, with the wind seeming to pull up flames that jumped higher and higher and smoke everywhere, until Lord Hapligan had come running out shouting and then buckets of water were thrown until the fire went down again, and the flames and everyone stopped jumping.

“Come this way,” she said to Edrik. “Bring the blanket. Please.” She led him right outside the house, not to the place where everyone else was talking, but to the little courtyard on the other side, where the pump was. She walked around the yard peering in the sheds for animals but there weren’t any. The sheds were burnt as well. There was a stable with the black remains of stalls and grass growing in some of them and more puddles on the floor. But no horses.

So she went back to the middle of the courtyard, which was dry, and ordered Edrik to put down the blanket so that Doval could practise his pretending-to-crawl and play with bits of straw. Edrik objected. He seemed to think that even bits of straw might hurt the baby.

Aliya did not agree. She was annoyed when Edrik started going on about eyes. He took the straw away. Then she had to find something else for the baby to play with. So she played finger games and tickled him and told them both stories about different pets and their little houses until Doval began to cry.

The others came round to find them and Olbeth scooped Doval up.

“Thank you for looking after them,” she said.

“Hard work,” said Edrik, wiping his forehead.

“Yes, babies are very hard work, aren’t they, Flodda?” said Aliya.

“Some are,” said Flodda.

Aliya looked at Veron. “You said there would be animals here. I can’t find any.”

He shrugged.

“I am very disappointed,” said Aliya, because that was something else Mama used to say, although usually to servants. She felt very bold saying it to Veron and immediately wondered if she had gone too far. He wasn’t a Lord but even so.

So she turned round to face her nursemaid so that he might think she had really been talking to Flodda. “I am going to explore,” she said.

“Not on your own,” said Flodda.

“Of course not,” said Aliya haughtily. She looked at Bruilde. “Where may I go?” she asked, because she thought this land must be Bruilde’s even though the house was burnt.

Bruilde shrugged. “Go where you like,” she said, “though you won’t get far in places.”

“Go with her, Edrik,” said Veron, and Edrik groaned.

Aliya took his hand, which was big and knobbly. “It’s all right,” she said, “we won’t carry the baby with us this time. You can help me build some houses.”

“Who for?” asked Veron.

“For baby pigs,” Aliya said, although she actually intended to look for little somethings that might be hiding. She had never seen any at Lord Hapligan’s estate but that had all been very neat and square. There had been a little square wood with pigs in it but she had not been allowed in.

This place was much wilder. She walked with Edrik huffing alongside. For a hunter he was rather noisy but she didn’t tell him so, because she quite liked Edrik. She found some fields but they were boring, with no animals in them.

So she headed for the trees at the fields’ edge, and plunged in. Soon there were trees all round her, some tall and thin, some short and bushy. In many places it was so tangly that there was no path through at all.

But there were lots of hiding places in the trees for little somethings. There were lots of twigs and branches lying around as well. And although Aliya couldn’t see any little somethings at the moment, if she built them nice new houses, they might come.