Free The Fugitive Queen by Fiona Buckley

to go round. Some of us at least have got to get out of the way.”
    â€œFran and I can stay with Pen, madam,” Brockley offered. “Fran will be the better of a full day’s rest. Mistress Penelope will be better soon, I take it,” he added in lower tones.
    â€œShe’ll be all right by the end of today; she always is,” Sybil said. “I’d stay, gladly, but if Dale is tired, then perhaps she should take the chance of breaking the journey. Brockley could bring them both to Tyesdale tomorrow. What do you think, Mistress Stannard?”
    â€œThat might be best,” said Ryder, looking down at the stricken Pen in compassionate fashion. “Mistress Stannard can have Tyesdale made ready for you, Mistress Pen, before you get there.”
    I went down to talk to our hosts. It was very early still but only the farmer and the two women were in the kitchen. Their sons must be out on the farm already, mist or no mist. I explained that most of us were leaving at once but that one of our girls was too unwell to ride until the next day.
    The women seemed sympathetic but worried. I suspected that the way we had accounted for nearly all of that ham had something to do with that. The farmer said bluntly that what that lass upstairs needed was to get herself up and on the move and that’ud shift the vapors fast enough. I myself wished that Pen could leave at once. I was sure her mother wouldn’t have liked her to stay here.
    However, there was nothing to be done. I worried about leaving Brockley to act as sole escort next day. One outlaw had been hanged but where there was one, there might be others. Grimsdale denied this quite passionately, assuring us that the district was quiet, but I decided to leave Tom Smith behind as well as Brockley. Grimsdale was visibly annoyed, even when I said we would buy a sheep from him, which he could slaughter for supper. “You’ve surely got one old ewe that’s had her day!”
    â€œAye, happen I have, but . . .”
    I insisted, however, and he subsided, grumbling. When we set off through the foggy morning, therefore, cloaked and hooded against the damp, we had an escort of three armed men—John Ryder, burly Harry Hobson, and Dick Dodd.
    Three should have been enough but it wasn’t. When the attack came out of the mist, there were seven of them at least. If we had had all our men with us, we would have had a chance. As it was, we were defeated from the beginning.

4
Abduction
    We were riding at a walk, on a stony moorland track in a clinging hill mist that spangled our clothes and our horses’ manes with gray droplets of water. Visibility was perhaps fifty yards; sufficient to show us the track stretching ahead and allow us to recognize landmarks. Master Grimsdale had told us more about these. After a couple of miles, he said, there was a fork where we must take the right-hand path.
    â€œThough thee’d soon be put on t’right road again even if thee did go wrong. There’s a farm or two over that way and a bit o’ mining.”
    â€œMining?” Ryder inquired.
    â€œAye. Sea coal,” Grimsdale had said indifferently. “Not as much as on the east side o’ t’Pennines—them’s the hills away east of here—but some. At least, there’s likely a lot more coal down deep where no one can get at it. Most o’ the seams run off downward. I’ve an uncle who’s a miner and that’s what he says. But there’s enough to make a living for them as likes t’notion. I’d sooner herd sheep up top, myself.”
    We had passed the fork, taking care to choose the right-hand way. We had seen no sign of mines or other farms, but could assume, we told each other, that we were on the right road and probably, if Grimsdale’s directions were accurate, within four miles of our destination.
    And then, without warning, there were shapes in the mistiness, shadowy forms