Free Harry Cavendish by Foul-ball

Proton’s instruction, and had quite a picnic of bread and cheese and chocolate, propped on a succession of terraced bands, evidence that the land had once been farmed.
    The tropical fug of Bartislard had dissolved into a temperate balm, and it felt summery and fresh. The cow was able to turn herself to one side inside the straps and whisper to Cormack that she wanted grass.
    He pulled a handful from the side of the path, and fed her some, putting the rest in his backpack. Soon enough they were off again at Proton’s command.
    It was tougher going now. The path was rising more steeply, but the Guards and the Boschs, even with the cow as a burden, made a good pace and Cormack struggled to keep up.
    They were closing on the mountain inexorably. They could see how the path bent around the rocky outcroppings of solidified lava, and how it would lead them west and through a small gorge, and then to the volcano’s base. And they could see the threaded way that was scored back and forth along the southern flank, and wound up it like a piece of looped cotton, and how it would take them to the summit.
    It looked impossibly steep.
    ‘Aye, it’s a tough march. Not many attempt it this time of year. You see the snowcap?’ Now they were closer, Cormack could see the white frosting that from afar had been lost against the sky. ‘It can be a dangerous place up there.’
    They stopped at six as the sun was setting and made camp with the tents there in the bracken.

Chapter Twenty
    Mrs. Bellingham broke it down for them.
    ‘You can still continue. The Pastry Chef does not know his wife is dead. How can he? He will still cooperate. We will send him the balm from the Fractious Jub-Jub tree.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘I will deliver it.’
    ‘You will deliver it, Pamela?’
    They were in yet another meeting of the Resistance Committee in her dining room. She wondered why they couldn’t acquire another venue, now that she was no longer Chairwoman.
    ‘I will deliver it. The tree is native to Crampton. It is not much known throughout the Empire. I suppose that’s why the Pastry Chef wants it. There would be little chance of his getting caught. The sap is highly poisonous when it’s distilled and incendiary if it’s oxidized. It requires careful handling. Really, I am the expert. It should be me that goes. I will carry him news of his son and perhaps of his wife. It will sound better coming from me.’
    ‘You can’t just go to Zargon 8, Pamela. It will be highly suspicious. You will be watched.’
    ‘But I have been invited.’
    ‘Invited?’
    ‘Yes, Douglas. By the Emperor himself.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘He’s having a tournament. A polo tournament. He has invited a team from Crampton to compete.’
    ‘Well, what luck!’
    But Mrs. Bellingham didn’t feel luck had much to do with it.
    She had told Traction to wait outside and that he was no longer to attend to them during committee. He had shuffled anxiously and almost spluttered an objection before thinking better of it. Then he had nervously slunk to the kitchen, and she had caught him in the back larder, amongst the Double Gloucesters, with a glass to the wall.
    But she would go anyway. She had had enough. Enough of being alone in that huge, draughty house, just her and the dogs and Traction; enough of Douglas, and his fumbled solicitations; enough of that peculiar new man, who sat at the head of her dining room table as though he were in a restaurant and about to order trout; enough of Crampton; enough of everything.
    She would feed the dogs, and there were the horses to attend to, and then she would cut the grass on the farthest remote with the Bratton Davis. Stripe the bailey.
    Time enough for the composting tomorrow.

Chapter Twenty-One
    The night passed with little incident. They were up early and, after a breakfast of beans and bread, ready for the off again.
    They walked for close on two hours, across scrubby grassland that led to the base of the volcano, and then they came