Free The White Horse Trick by Kate Thompson Page A

way you can hardly grow food any more. Do you know that we have some of the last apple trees in the whole area? Everybody else’s have died or been cut down for firewood. But they won’t be enough to keep us alive with things the way they are. Some people say we’ll only last a few more years, if that.’
    The change in her tone irritated Aengus. He likedhappy women, not miserable ones, and he had no intention of staying around and listening to a torrent of woes.
    ‘You’ve only yourselves to blame,’ he said.
    ‘What?’ she said. ‘What do you mean by that?’
    ‘Well, it’s not as if you didn’t see it coming, is it? You could have stopped it happening if you had put your heads together and come up with a plan. But you weren’t prepared to give anything up, were you? Your cars and your central heating and your aeroplane trips around the world!’
    ‘Aeroplane trips?’ The young woman was practically shrieking now. ‘What are you on about? I’ve never seen an aeroplane in my life. It wasn’t me. My generation never had anything – how can you not know that? It was our grandparents that ruined everything, not us.’
    The apple basket was growing heavy and Aengus was half inclined to give it back to her and make a run for it. He couldn’t take much more of this ploddy hysteria, but there was no sign of the woman calming down.
    ‘Don’t you feel the same? Don’t you hate your grandparents for what they did to us? Using up everything in the world and ruining the climate and leaving us in this mess? How can you say we had it coming? We never did anything to deserve it!’
    He hadn’t meant her in person. He meant ploddies in general – her entire restless, ambitious, acquisitive race. But if he tried to explain all that, he would have to reveal whohe was and why he and his people were different, and it was all far, far too complicated.
    In any event, he was beginning to devise a better plan. His head was a lot clearer now and the coins he’d created had worked out fine. But he still wasn’t ready to risk becoming a raven again. What he needed was a bit more practice first.
    ‘How much further is it to your house?’ he asked.
    ‘Oh, not that far,’ she said. ‘A couple of miles perhaps.’
    ‘Thing is,’ he said, ‘it’s a bit further to where I’m going and I’m finding it quite tiring carrying all these apples.’
    ‘I’m not giving you your money back,’ she said. ‘You bought them fair and square.’
    ‘Oh, I did,’ said Aengus. ‘That wasn’t what I had in mind at all. It just occurred to me that you might come with me to Liddy’s castle.’
    ‘Liddy’s castle?’ said Maureen. Her face paled, as though he had just asked her to accompany him to the gates of hell. ‘What would I want to go there for?’
    ‘Just for the ride,’ he said. ‘Because we’d both get there much quicker if you were a horse.’

24
    As Donal returned to the barracks he was met by another of Aidan’s guards. The man looked cold and bad-tempered, as though he had been waiting to deliver his message for quite some time.
    ‘Boss wants you,’ he said.
    ‘I’ll be in when I’ve dried off and had a cup of tea,’ said Donal.
    He predicted the response he would get to this and he wasn’t wrong.
    ‘Now, General. The boss wants you now.’
    Donal sighed and followed the goon to the castle. He was tired and wet and depressed and he had no desire to know what new schemes his brother had come up with to make everyone’s life more miserable. But there was no sense in trying to thwart him. It would only mean more trouble in the future.
    Aidan Liddy’s living quarters were like a museum displaying the final days of consumerism. His large sitting room had three leather sofas, their patches discreetly hidden beneath fat cushions. The floor was carpeted andthe insulated walls were hung with beer adverts and posters of football teams. A polished sideboard held glass candlesticks and a bowl of shiny plastic