‘Emmett?’
‘Yes,’ I said. Alta jumped and took a step forward to peer at me.
‘What are you doing there? Were you asleep?’
‘No.’
She hesitated. Behind her the light from a lamp crossed the upper window as someone went to bed. I started to pull myself to my feet and paused, wincing, as pain stabbed into my joints.
She watched me get up, without offering to help. ‘Did you mean it? That you’d go? Tomorrow?’
‘Pa meant it when he said I didn’t have any choice.’
I waited for her to disagree. Alta was clever like that, finding new paths or different ways of doing things, picking locks. But she only tilted her face upward as if she wanted the moonlight to bleach her skin. I swallowed. The stupid dizziness had come back – suddenly, dragging me one way and then another – and I swayed against the wall and tried to catch my breath.
‘Emmett? Are you all right?’ She bit her lip. ‘No, of course not. Sit down.’
I didn’t want to obey her but my knees folded of their own accord. I closed my eyes and inhaled the night smells of hay and cooling earth, the overripe sweetness of crushed weeds and a rank hint of manure. Alta’s skirts billowed and rustled as she sank down beside me.
‘I wish you didn’t have to go.’
I raised one shoulder without looking at her and let it drop again.
‘But … maybe it’s the best thing …’
‘How can it be?’ I swallowed, trying to fill the crack in my voice. ‘All right, I understand. I’m no use here. You’ll all be better off when I’m – wherever she is, this binder.’
‘Out on the marshes, on the Castleford road.’
‘Right.’ What would the marshes smell of? Stagnant water, rotting reeds. Mud. Mud that swallowed you alive if you went too far from the road, and never spat you back … ‘How do you know so much about it?’
‘Ma and Pa are only thinking about you. After everything that’s happened … You’ll be safe there.’
‘That’s what Ma said.’
A pause. She began to gnaw at her thumbnail. In the orchard below the stables a nightingale gurgled and then gave up.
‘You don’t know what it’s been like for them, Emmett. Always afraid. You owe them some peace.’
‘It’s not my fault I was ill!’
‘It’s your fault you—’ She huffed out her breath. ‘No, I know, I didn’t mean … just that we all need … please don’t be angry. It’s a good thing. You’ll learn a trade.’
‘Yes. Making books.’
She flinched. ‘She chose you. That must mean—’
‘What does it mean? How can she have chosen me, when she’s never even seen me?’ I thought Alta started to speak, but when I turned my head she was staring up at the moon, her face expressionless. Her cheeks were thinner than they had been before I got ill, and the skin under her eyes looked as if it had been smudged with ash. She was a stranger, out of reach.
She said, as if it was an answer, ‘I’ll come and see you whenever I can …’
I let my head roll back until I felt the stone wall against my skull. ‘They talked you round, didn’t they?’
‘I’ve never seen Pa like that,’ she said. ‘So angry.’
‘I have,’ I said. ‘He hit me, once.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘well, I suppose you—’ She stopped.
‘When I was small,’ I said. ‘You weren’t old enough to remember. It was the day of Wakening Fair.’
‘Oh.’ When I glanced up, her eyes flickered away. ‘No. I don’t remember that.’
‘I bought … there was a man, selling books.’ I could recall the clink of my errand-money in my pocket that day – sixpence in farthings, so bulky they bulged through my trousers – and the heady, carefree feeling of going to Wakening Fair and slipping away from the others, wondering what I’d buy. I’d wandered past the meat and chickens, the fish from Coldwater and the patterned cottons from Castleford, paused at the sweetmeat stall and then turned towards another a little further away, where I’d caught a glimpse of gold and rich colours. It was hardly a stall at all, only a trestle table guarded by a man with restless eyes, but it was piled high with books. ‘It was the first time I’d seen them. I didn’t know what they were.’
That curious, wary expression was on Alta’s face again. ‘You mean …?’
‘Forget it.’ I didn’t know why I was telling her; I didn’t want to remember. But now I couldn’t stop the memory unfolding. I’d thought they were boxes, small gilt-and-leather chests to hold things like Ma’s best silver or Pa’s chessmen. I’d sauntered over, jingling my money, and the man had glanced over both shoulders before he grinned at me. ‘Ah, what a golden-haired little prince! Come for a story, young sir? A tale of murder or incest, shame or glory, a love so piercing it was best forgotten, or a deed of darkness? You’ve come to the right man, young sir, these are the crème de la crème, these will tell you true and harrowing tales, violent and passionate and exciting – or if it’s comedy you’re after, I have some of those too, rarest of all, the things people get rid of! Have a look, young sir, cast your eyes over this one … Bound by a master in Castleford, years ago.’
I hated the way he called me young sir, but the book fell open as he passed it to me and I couldn’t give it back. As soon as I saw the writing on the pages I understood: this was lots of pages all squashed together – like letters, lots of letters, only in a better box – and a story that went on and on. ‘How much is it?’
‘Ah, that one, young sir. You have wonderful taste for a young ’un, that’s a special one, a real adventure story, sweeps you off your feet like a cavalry charge. Ninepence for it. Or two for a shilling.’
I wanted it. I didn’t know why, except that my fingertips were prickling. ‘I only have sixpence.’
‘I’ll take that,’ he said, clicking his fingers at me. The wide smile had gone; when I followed his darting gaze I saw a knot of men gathering a little way off, muttering.
‘Here.’ I emptied my pocketful of farthings into his palm. He let one drop, but he was still staring at the men and didn’t stoop to pick it up. ‘Thank you.’
I took the book and hurried away, triumphant and uneasy. When I reached the bustle of the main market I stopped and turned to look: the group of men was advancing on the man’s stall, as he threw the books frantically into the battered little cart behind him.
Something warned me not to stare. I ran home, holding the book through my shirt-cuff so that I didn’t stain the cover with my sweaty fingers. I sat on the barn steps in the sun – no one would see me, they were still at the fair – and examined it. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen. It was a deep, heavy red, patterned with gold, and it was as soft to the touch as skin. When I opened the cover, the scent of must and wood rose up as though it hadn’t been touched for years.
It sucked me in.
It was set in an army camp in a foreign country, and at first it was confusing: full of captains and majors and colonels, arguments about military tactics and a threat of court martial. But something made me go on reading: I could see it, every detail, I could hear the horses and the snap of wind against the canvas, feel my own heart quicken at the smell of gunpowder … I stumbled on, absorbed in spite of myself, and slowly I understood that they were on the eve of a battle, that the man in the book was a hero. When the sun rose, he was going to lead them to a glorious victory