"The God of the Hive" - читать интересную книгу автора (King Laurie R.)

Chapter 4

When we reached the coastal track and turned towards Kirkwall, the light strengthened with every step. Earlier, I had been forced to choose between the dangers of blind speed and the threat of being seen. Now I hitched the child up on my hips and leant forward into a near-jog. Her light body rocked against mine, and her own arms had to be getting tired, but she did not complain.

Half a mile down the road, I spotted a farmer coming out of a shed, to climb onto a high-sided cart. A tangle of shrubs marked where the farmyard lane entered the road; I let Estelle slip to the ground behind them, stifling a groan as my shoulders returned to their proper angle. I hunkered beside her (my knees, too, having aged a couple of decades in the past hours) and said in a low voice, “We have to wait until this man has gone by, and I don’t want him to notice us. We need to be very quiet, all right?”

“Can we ask him for a ride?” she said in her loud, hoarse, child’s whisper.

“No, we can’t,” I said. “Now, not a word, all right?”

I felt her nod, and put my arm around her tiny body.

The metallic sounds from the cart indicated milk canisters, and as I’d feared, it was headed towards town: We should have to wait until he was some distance down the road before we followed. This was clearly a daily ritual, since the reins were nearly slack and the cart was controlled less by the farmer than by his nag. Who was in no hurry-its pace was no faster than our own, and the high sides… I stared, then pushed aside the branches to see.

The cart was a purpose-built creation with a flat-bedded base on which had been fastened a large crate, some five feet on a side, tipped with the open top facing backwards. The dairyman sat in front, feet dangling, back leaning against what would originally have been the crate’s bottom.

The only way he could see inside the cart would be if he were to walk around and look inside. Better yet, he had no dog.

I snatched up the child, warning her again to silence, and trotted forward, grateful now for the blustering gusts that concealed my footsteps. Aiming at the rattling cans and hoping for the best, I tossed the child into the shadows and hopped in beside her. As the noise had suggested, the cans came nowhere near to filling the space, and there was room for us to creep around behind them. The road was rough enough that the driver took no note of the shift our boarding caused, and if the horse noticed our weight, he did not complain.

Estelle snuggled against me. The milk cans rattled; the waking island scrolled past the rear of our transport. We dozed.

The cart slowed, and stopped. I wrapped my arms more securely around the child, placing my finger across her lips. The farmer’s boots crunched to the road, the cart jerking as his weight left it. I followed the sound of his footsteps, braced for sudden flight, but the steps continued away from us a few feet, paused, then returned, moving more slowly and with a hitch in their gait. A figure suddenly loomed at the back of the cart, and another canister of milk swung inside. He added a second, then climbed back onto his seat and chirruped the horse into motion.

He repeated the milk pickup half a mile down the road. Once we were moving, I worked my way towards the back, to ease the heavy canisters to one side. The road was smoother here, which meant that our sudden exit would be difficult to conceal. I waited for a rough patch, but before one came, I caught a faint odour of distillery, and knew we had run out of time.

I gathered the child in my arms and more or less rolled off the back to the road. The horse reacted, but by the time the startled driver had controlled the animal and reined it to a halt, Estelle and I were squatting behind a wall.

The man would have seen us, had he got down and walked back, but to him the jerk of the cart must have felt like a result of the horse’s shy, not the cause of it. After a moment, I heard him repeat the noise between his teeth, and the music of milk cans retreated down the road.

I rose to get my bearings, and found that we were a scarce half-mile from where Captain Javitz had set us down.

“Can you walk for a bit, Estelle? We’re nearly there.”

In answer, she slipped her hand into mine and we set off up the road. It took two tries to find the correct lane, but to my relief, the ’plane was there, in a long field surrounded by walls and a hedgerow. Lights shone from the adjoining house, and I led my charge in that direction.

I stopped outside the gate to tell the child, “My friend Captain Javitz, who drives the aeroplane, may be here. There’s also a nice lady and her son. But, we don’t want to talk to them too much. We’ll only be here for a few minutes.”

“And then we’ll go in the aeroplane? Into the air?”

“That’s right,” I said, adding under my breath, “God help us.”

I knocked on the door.

It opened, to a man pointing a gun at my heart.