Authors: Tony Shillitoe
The dumbfounded couple nodded vaguely. Meg felt her companion’s heavy hand on her shoulder, pulling her after him.
‘
Y
ou had no reason to do that,’ she said, staring back across the river at the buildings of Quick Crossing. The wooden ferry rocked and creaked beneath her feet.
Wombat, who was dipping his hands in the river and washing his face, looked up and replied, ‘Told you the reason. You didn’t deserve to hang. Injustice and I aren’t good mates. That’s enough reason for me.’
‘But now you can’t go back to your home. They’ll hang you for helping me.’ Wombat laughed. ‘What’s so funny?’ Meg demanded.
‘Helping someone escape from gaol isn’t a hanging offence in Quick Crossing. If I want to go back, they’d just put me in the cell for a full cycle and be done with it.’
‘But you hit the two men.’
‘I’ve hit bailiff Lockup Keeper more times than I or he can count. He should’ve known better, but his dick got the better of his brain. Again.’ Wombat chuckled and shook his head. ‘If his dick
was
his brain he’d be a dangerous man.’ Then he added, ‘Wasn’t too happy about having to lay out young Hearth, though. Thought he might be a bit smarter than Lockup. Apparently not.’
‘What about the money and things we’ve stolen? Isn’t that stealing the Queen’s property?’
‘The money Lockup owes me for all the times he’s cheated in card games. The swords and axe, well, it could be argued they’re property of Quick Crossing community since the Queen didn’t actually provide them.’
‘So are you going to go back?’
Wombat looked at the two men cranking the ferry’s turntable that heaved in the dripping hawser on one side and fed it out the other to pull the watercraft across the river. ‘Well, maybe. Later, though. For the time being, I’m hoping a little bird might appreciate some company in her search for her lover. Old Wombat’s been a bit lazy lately, and needs some fresh air and some exercise.’
‘I wasn’t counting on company.’
Wombat looked her up and down, and said, ‘But you sure need it, little bird. You sure need it.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ she demanded, glaring at him.
‘Well, look at you for starters,’ he replied, gesturing. ‘You look like a little girl who’s lost. That’s like hanging a sign around your neck inviting all the boys to come get you.’
‘I’m not a girl, and I’m not little,’ she retorted. ‘I’m fifteen and as tall as most men I know.’
‘You’ve got long red hair, a nice pair of tits under that dirty tunic, a face like an angel. I don’t think I’ve seen a girl,’ Meg glared ‘—a woman, quite as pretty as you in the whole bloody district around Quick Crossing. You’re a beacon, little bird. You’re a candle to the moths.’ He leaned closer, and added, ‘You don’t know how hard it was back in that cell to only
pretend
I was giving it to you.’
Meg blushed, and Wombat broke into laughter, his belly wobbling with his mirth. ‘It’s not
that
funny,’ she protested. ‘You’re lucky I trusted you.’
‘You’re
lucky I’m trustworthy,’ he answered, grinning. His face grew serious. ‘And that’s my point, little bird. Most men you’ll meet aren’t. All they’ll see is a fine piece of arse and then you’ll be in the same trouble again like you were with the Rebels.’
‘But the Queen’s soldiers—’
‘Will take you as hungrily as the Rebels would’ve,’ he interjected. ‘Men in armies are the worst. They’re away from their wives, their girlfriends, for cycles, sometimes years. They get used to taking women whenever they can get them. Whores. Village girls. Doesn’t matter who, as long as they get some. Most of them start out nice enough lads, but time and circumstance change enough of them to make them dangerous. A quick rape here and there, and who’s to say anything of it, eh? You can’t just wander around the countryside, little bird. There are predators out there who would make a quick meal of a tasty morsel like you.’
Meg looked away from Wombat’s beady stare, across the glittering river, at the approaching line of willows. Two wagons waited on the bank for the ferry, and children were chasing each other. Dogs barked. A group of buildings lined the road down to the ferry landing. A strong man could throw a stone across the width of the river through Summerbrook. The river at Quick Crossing was wider than she had ever imagined a river could be: a deep, strong, steady flow of water.
‘Don’t be fretting too much,’ Wombat consoled. ‘We’ll be all right, little bird. Wombat’s got a few ideas to help you along. First, we’ll spend some of those coins in Cooper’s Store, and then we’ll go find somewhere to sleep overnight, somewhere up in those hills to the south where prying eyes won’t bother us.’
Meg watched the ferry’s rippling wake, her mind troubled. This adventure was nothing like she’d dreamed. The world was huge and its people strange and threatening. Her only friend in it was a giant in height and girth with a bizarre mind and an endless store of humour, and she was no longer certain that her dreams could be trusted.
The clear sky revealed the panoply of stars sparkling around the half-moon. The crackling fire enticed Meg to squat, and watch the flames curl around a branch, setting it glowing red and gold.
Wombat learned from the families on the wagons at the ferry landing that the Queen’s army was only a day’s travel ahead, still pushing south towards The Whispering Forest, moving slowly because of increasing Rebel forays. ‘Keep that fire going, little bird. It’s going to be a cold one,’ he advised, as he stirred a thick gruel in a makeshift tin bowl. ‘I’m a basic cook, but I never go hungry. This stuff will stick to your stomach for days and you won’t feel hungry.’ He uncorked the scrumpy jar and poured a measure of cider into his mixture. ‘Gives taste,’ he informed her, and took a swig from the jar, belching immediately after. ‘Ah, yes. Good stuff.’
As they ate by the fire, the light throwing dancing shadows across the white gum bark and mallee bush, Wombat outlined his plan. ‘First, the hair has to go. You’re tall enough to pass for a man’s height, and we can stick you into a man’s clothes right enough, with some padding and binding to make the right places stick out, but that hair has to be cut short.’
‘Do we
have
to cut it?’ Meg asked, touching her hair protectively.
‘Look,’ Wombat said, rising from his log seat. In the flickering firelight, his towering frame seemed to double in size. ‘I don’t intend spending every day, while we
search for this love of yours, fighting with every other horny young kangaroo who sees what I see and wants some of it, eh? All right? The hair goes, and we’ll put what’s left of it under a hat of some kind too.’
‘You don’t have to come with me,’ she said quietly.
He snorted. ‘Look. We’ve been over that ground, little bird. All right? End of discussion. I’m sharpening a knife.’
Meg chewed the warm gruel, listening to the blade sliding across the whetstone Wombat had procured with supplies from Cooper’s Store. Despite its pasty appearance, the gruel smelled good, and tasted sweet because Wombat had laced it with a liberal dose of sugar. But she was still apprehensive. Cutting her hair seemed a small price to pay to be able to continue on her journey, and Wombat’s observations of men in the world coincided with her experiences in the past three days so his disguise for her seemed sensible. Besides, Bridle Innman had warned her to keep her hood up to mask her appearance, although that had proven to be a superficial disguise. But she’d always worn her hair long, and she liked its distinctive colour. Taking it away was like taking a piece of her inner self away. ‘All right, little bird, time to clip those red feathers,’ Wombat announced as he approached, knife gleaming in the firelight.
Red eyes stared at her in the darkness. She tried to move but felt as if her feet were fixed to the ground. Who are you? a voice whispered. Tell me your name. Wherever she turned her head the eyes were there, like glowing embers. Tell me who you are, the voice ordered. The eyes faded. Beneath her feet there was nothing, just the stars as if she was looking into a clear night sky. And the darkness dissolved all around her and she was standing again on a familiar battlefield,
one of thousands in ranks facing a forest. She couldn’t hear anything, and yet she knew there were horns bellowing across the countryside…
‘Wake up!’ A hulk of a man was bending over her, his great hand extended. ‘Sun’s rising and we should be going. Queen’s army moves slower than we walk, eh, but we need to be on the way early and walk till late to make up ground.’
She rolled up her blanket, feeling the stiffness in her muscles steadily dissolve, but the air on her bare neck was cold and she shivered. She reached up and rubbed her hand through her chopped locks, and felt a pang of disappointment.
Wombat buried the campfire ashes and covered the space with a dead bush. ‘Old habit,’ he said, when he saw her watching. ‘And a good one for you to learn.’ He looked Meg up and down, with her hair short and tucked under a dark blue cap, in her new grey overshirt and tan trousers he’d bought from the store. ‘It’s a start,’ he said. ‘Pack that old tunic around your stomach, little bird, and up to your tits. It’ll fool a casual onlooker that you’re just another fat bastard like me, maybe even my son.’ He threw a sword at her feet, the point sticking artfully into the ground. ‘Stick that in your belt as well. It’s wartime. You need to look like a man who knows his business with a weapon.’
‘I have no idea what to do with a sword,’ she said.
‘You wear it in your belt, and it stays there,’ Wombat told her.
Her disguise complete, they struck out across the narrow range of low hills, sometimes climbing and descending, sometimes following shallow valleys. The sun shone weakly through the clouds and on every crest Meg noticed the chill in the breeze, warning that
another cold front was coming in from the south-west. By midday a bank of rain clouds was sweeping inland. ‘We’ll push as far as we can, but keep your eyes open for shelter. A farmhouse or even a barn will do,’ Wombat said, when they paused on a low hilltop to share water.
Meg saw that the big man was breathing heavily and sweating profusely from the sustained walking effort. ‘Should we rest?’ she suggested.
He raised a chuckle, replying, ‘Too hard for you, eh? Come on. We’ve got a long way to go,’ and he headed down the slope into the thick bush.
A solid wall of rain drifted across the countryside towards them by late afternoon, and the wind picked up strength. Wombat pointed to a solitary farmhouse nestled among a stand of trees by a small creek and they headed for it, reaching the animal yard as the rain pelted down. They jogged to the farmhouse door and Wombat banged on it, yelling, ‘Open up! We’re just travellers looking for a decent shelter! We got our own food!’
The door swung open and a startled man holding a sword stared at an equally startled Wombat. The man went to slam the door, but Wombat dropped his sack, barrelled against the door with his weight and forced it open, pushing the man back into the room.
Meg heard several shouts, saw Wombat swing his poleaxe, and the sounds of frantic fighting erupted. She stepped into the doorway, trying to get a better view, when the door swung wide and a man charged into her, knocking her to the ground. Winded and crushed under his weight, Meg tried to get free, but she was pinned. She looked up at an angry face and a fist raised to smash into her face. Then a shadow loomed above, a hand wrapped around the raised wrist, and the man was lifted off. She sucked in her breath and staggered to
her feet, the rain coursing off her face. Wombat, leaning against his poleaxe, stood over a man lying on the raindrenched ground. To Meg, he said, ‘Get inside.’
The farmhouse had three rooms. Most of the simple wooden furniture was broken and upended, the doors hung open, and three more bodies were lying in the common room. ‘See if you can find something dry to wear in the bedrooms,’ Wombat said. ‘I’ll clean up our hosts.’
‘Who were they?’
‘Rebels, I’m guessing. Or maybe just thieves. This isn’t their place. I don’t know what they’ve done with whoever lived here.’ He began hauling a body out of the house.
Meg found a clothes chest in the first bedroom, filled with women’s dresses and shawls and bonnets, and a heavy raincoat. Items of men’s clothing hung from wall hooks. The second room had another chest of clothes: children’s clothes. She returned to the first room and swapped her wet shirt for a dry one. She kept her trousers on despite their dampness, hoping there was wood for a fire. The rain drummed on the wooden shingles.
Wombat finished dragging out the bodies and came back inside, soaked and dripping. ‘Well, this weather will slow up the army for you,’ he said.
‘And us,’ Meg replied, as she stacked kindling under a log in the hearth.
‘For a little while. Until we’ve rested and eaten, eh? Then we go on.’
‘In the dark? In the rain?’
‘Why not? We’ll catch up that army of yours even quicker.’
‘But how will you know where to go?’ she complained.
‘I’ve worked as a labourer a little further south of here—’ then he saw Meg’s cynical expression, and
added, ‘When I was a younger, fitter man, all right?’ She grinned, and he went on. ‘The creek outside runs almost due north and south, give or take a bend or two. We know the army’s going south. How can we miss it?’
Meg used the flint box to ignite the fire, and breathed on the tiny flame to give it strength. ‘Well now, look here,’ Wombat remarked as he entered the bedroom, and Meg heard a frantic scratching followed by a thump. Wombat emerged carrying an orange fur ball of claws and hissing by the scruff of its neck. ‘Cat doesn’t like me,’ he said as he marched past Meg. He opened the door and threw the cat outside.
‘Why did you do that?’ she protested.
Wombat set a steady gaze on her. ‘When I was six or seven, or something near that, I woke up one night in complete darkness, fighting for my breath, my mouth full of fur. Claws ripped my face, and I screamed until my father and mother came in with a lantern. There was blood all over me. Well, it turned out one of the village cats had gotten in my room and decided to sleep on my head. Cats do that for warmth. But it ended up on my face, nearly suffocating me in my sleep. I hate cats. For a long time I was just frightened of them. But then it became hatred. I won’t sleep anywhere with a cat in a house.’