The more I considered it, the more I realized how nasty it could have been.
‘You took a big risk for us yourself, Uncle Axel,’ I told him.
He shrugged.
‘Very little risk for me against a great deal for you,’ he said.
Presently we came back to the matter in hand.
‘But these inquiries can’t have anything to do with Alan. That was weeks ago,’ I pointed out.
‘What’s more, it’s not the kind of information Alan’d share with anyone if he wanted to cash in on it,’ agreed Uncle Axel. ‘There’s one thing,’ he went on, ‘they can’t know much, or they’d have called an inquiry already, and they’ll have to be pretty damn sure of themselves before they do call one. The inspector isn’t going to put himself in a weak spot with your father if he can help it – nor with Angus Morton either, for the matter of that. But that still doesn’t get us any nearer to knowing what started it.’
I was pressed back again into thinking it must have something to do with the affair of Petra’s pony. Uncle Axel knew of its death, of course, but not much more. It would have involved telling him about Petra herself, and we had had a tacit understanding that the less he knew about us the less he would have to hide in case of trouble. However, now that he did know about Petra, I described the event more fully. It did not look to us to be a likely source, but for lack of any other lead he made a note of the man’s name.
‘Jerome Skinner,’ he repeated, not very hopefully. ‘Very well, I’ll see if I can find out anything about him.’
We all conferred that night, but inconclusively. Michael put it:
‘Well, if you and Rosalind are quite satisfied that there’s been nothing to start suspicion in your district, then I don’t see that it can be traceable to anybody but that man in the forest.’ He used a thought-shape rather than bothering to spell out ‘Jerome Skinner’ in letter-forms. ‘If he is the source, then he must have put his suspicions before the inspector in this district who will have handed it on as a routine report to the inspector in yours. That’ll mean that several people are wondering about it already, and there’ll be questions going on here about Sally and Katherine. The devil of it is that everybody’s more suspicious than usual because of these rumours of large-scale trouble from the Fringes. I’ll see if I can find out anything tomorrow, and let you know.’
‘But what’s the best thing for us to do?’ Rosalind put in.
‘Nothing at the moment,’ Michael advised. ‘If we are right about the source, then you are in two groups; Sally and Katherine in one, you, David, and Petra in the other; and the other three of us aren’t involved at all. Don’t do anything unusual, or you may cause them to pounce, on suspicion. If it does come to an inquiry we ought to be able to bluff it out by acting simple, as we decided. But Petra’s the weak spot; she’s too young to understand. If they start on her and trick her and trap her, it might end up in sterilization and the Fringes for all of us. …
‘That makes her the key-point. They must not get hold of her. It’s possible that there’s no suspicion attached to her – but she was there, so she’s liable to be suspected. If there’s any sign of interest in her it’ll be better to cut your losses and get her away – if they do start on her they’ll have it out of her somehow.
‘ Very likely it’ll all blow over, but just in case it does get sticky, David will have to be responsible. It’ll be your job, David, to see that she isn’t taken for questioning – at any cost. If you have to kill someone to prevent it, then you must. They’d not think twice about killing us if they had the excuse. Don’t forget, if they move at all, they’ll be doing it to exterminate us – by the slow method, if not by the fast.
‘ If the worst comes to the worst, and you can’t save Petra, it would be kinder to kill her than let her go to sterilization and banishment to the Fringes – a lot more merciful for a child. You understand? Do the rest of you agree?’
Their agreements came in.
When I thought of little Petra, mutilated and thrust naked into Fringes country, to perish or survive as it should chance, I agreed, too.
‘Very well,’ Michael went on. ‘Just to be on the safe side, then, it might be best if the four of you and Petra were to make your arrangements to run for it at a moment’s notice, if it becomes necessary.’
He went on explaining in more detail.
It is difficult to see what other course we could have taken. An overt move by any of us would at once have brought trouble on the rest. Our misfortune lay in our receiving the information regarding the inquiries when we did, and not two or three days earlier. . . .
12
The discussion, and Michael’s advice, made the threat of discovery seem both more real and more imminent than it had been when I talked to Uncle Axel earlier in the evening. Somehow it brought it home to me that one day we should find ourselves faced by the real thing – the alarm which wasn’t simply going to work up and blow over, leaving us much as before. Michael, I knew, had been increasingly anxious during the last year or so, as if he had a feeling that time was running out, and now I caught some of that sensation, too. I even went as far as making some preparations before I went to bed that night – at least, I put a bow and a couple of dozen arrows handy, and found a sack into which I put several loaves and a cheese. And I decided that next day I would make up a pack of spare clothes and boots and other things that would be useful, and hide it in some dry, convenient place outside. Then we should need some clothing for Petra, and a bundle of blankets, and something to hold drinking water, and it would not do to forget a tinder-box. …
I was still listing the desirable equipment in my mind when I fell asleep. . . .
No more than three hours or so can have passed before I was wakened by the click of my latch. There was no moon, but there was starlight enough to show a small, white night-gowned figure by the door.
‘David,’ she said. ‘Rosalind -‘
But she did not need to tell me. Rosalind had already broken in, urgently.
‘David,’ she was telling me, ‘we must get away at once – just as soon as you can. They’ve taken Sally and Katherine -‘
Michael crowded in on her.
‘Hurry up, both of you, while there’s time. It was a deliberate surprise. If they do know much about us, they’ll have tried to time it to send a party for you, too – before you could I be warned. They were at Sally’s and Katherine’s almost simultaneously just over ten minutes ago. Get moving, quick!’
‘Meet you below the mill. Hurry,’ Rosalind added.
I told Petra in words:
‘ Get dressed as fast as you can. Overalls. And be very quiet.’
Very likely she had not understood the thought-shapes in detail, but she had caught their urgency. She simply nodded, and slipped back into the dark passage.
I pulled on my clothes, and rolled the bed blankets into a bundle. I groped about in the shadows till I found the bow and arrows and the bag of food, and made for the door.
Petra was almost dressed already. I grabbed some clothes from her cupboard and rolled them in the blankets.
‘ Don’t put on your shoes yet,’ I whispered.’ Carry them, and come tiptoe, like a cat.’
Outside in the yard I put down the bundle and the sack while we both got our shoes on. Petra started to speak, but I put my finger to my lips, and gave her the thought-shape of Sheba, the black mare. She nodded, and we tiptoed across the yard. I just had the stable door open when I caught a distant sound, and paused to listen.
‘Horses,’ whispered Petra.
Horses it was. Several sets of hoofs and, faintly, the tinkle of bits.
There was no time to find the saddle and bridle for Sheba. We brought her out on the halter, and mounted from the block. With all I was carrying there was no room for Petra in front of me. She got up behind, and hung on round my waist.