Rocking Horse War Read online

  Pearl tried not to smile. She had wondered the same herself.

  The boy continued his argument in a gentle voice. “When I find the girls with the Laird, they may not know which of us to trust, particularly if he’s charmed them rather than scared them. But if you’re with me, they’ll trust me. Then I can rescue them.”

  But Pearl wasn’t persuaded by a shared joke and a soft voice. “There’s a slight flaw in your rescue plan too, I’m afraid.”

  “Really? What flaw?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t trust you myself, and I don’t believe your story. Even if I did, I don’t think it’s my sisters’ duty to help you in some petty feud with your neighbours.”

  He wheeled away from her, and his voice hardened. “You heard what I said to Jasper, but you weren’t really listening, were you? Typical! You people stomp all over the surface of the land, but you don’t ever listen to it.”

  Pearl’s voice rose in anger to match his. “Are you telling me I don’t listen to the world around me? Are you telling me I can’t read the land? I tracked two horses here faster than you did.” She jabbed her finger in turn at each of them, her quarry successfully tracked and taken. “I found you, I crept up on you, I listened to your secrets and I stole Jasper from you with a trick a three-year-old wouldn’t have fallen for. I can read and hunt the land better than anyone else here.”

  The boy strode round her, flinging words at her. “You can read it, but you can’t hear its music or feel its pain! You might notice the thin grass, skinny game and flaking stones in the mountains, but you don’t know that the bedrock underneath is turning cold and brittle. And you can’t do anything to help or heal the land.” He paused, breathless with passion.

  Pearl frowned. Before she could ask the dozen questions his words had prompted, he spoke again, more quietly. “If we don’t sing with the land, it loses its music, then its strength. The Horsburghs and Swanns have fought over these mountains, rather than cared for them, for too long. We’ve even lost the key which lets us sing to them. If the war doesn’t end soon, there will be no mountains left to fight over. That’s why we need to defeat the Laird; that’s why we need the triplets.”

  Pearl waited. He seemed to have run out of words. So she asked the most important question. “Why the triplets?”

  “Because they can hear the music of the land too.”

  Chapter 8

  The tall boy called, “You can hear the land, can’t you, Jasper?”

  “Can’t I what?” Jasper looked up.

  “Shh, just listen.” He walked over and put his hand on Jasper’s shoulder.

  Pearl could hear the water shooshing, the birch trees creaking, the horses’ hooves shifting, the boys’ breaths whistling. She heard a stag boom in the tops, and the machine-gun call of a startled grouse on the moor.

  She watched Jasper and the boy. Their faces were still, their eyes half shut.

  The boy whispered, “Now sing back, Jasper.”

  Jasper started to hum a tune which swirled round and round, moving like the water at their feet, the air around them. The older boy smiled, a small serious smile.

  Then he joined in. Pearl shook her head. The triplets always did that: sang new songs no one else had ever heard, as if they came into each of their heads at the same time.

  The boy started adding consonants, vowels, syllables, almost but not quite words. Jasper’s eyes snapped open. Like he recognised something. Like he understood what the boy was singing. Then he started to sing along. After a few bars, his eyes bright and his purple mouth wide, he leapt ahead, anticipating, singing new sounds and words before the boy.

  Then the boy pointed his stick at the water, which swirled faster round the rocks, catching the sunlight in rainbows and sparkles. But Jasper didn’t look down, he looked up and sang his own melody more insistently.

  Suddenly a brace of pheasants rose from the heather by the Twa Corbies and circled above the gully. Another pheasant joined them, then two more. They were usually clumsy birds, but these pheasants twisted gracefully above Jasper’s head, until the boys stopped on the same note, and the pheasants bellyflopped into the heather by the rocks.

  The tall boy frowned for a moment, then patted Jasper’s back. He raised his eyebrows at Pearl. “Did you hear that? Did you hear the land sing back to us?”

  “She can’t hear any music,” jeered Jasper. “She gets lost in the middle of Three Blind Mice.”

  The boy tipped his head back and looked down his straight nose at Pearl. “Jasper sings with the land, so I’m sure his sisters can too. Even though they’ve never been taught landlore, the land’s power is all around them. Can’t you feel it?”

  Pearl was silent. Of course she could feel it, everyone could. The triplets had always been special. She sat down on a rock away from the boys.

  Jasper hummed a bar of the tune. “We just sing these for fun. We didn’t know they were powerful. Can you show me how to be powerful?”

  “Yes, but first we have to find your sisters.”

  The boy turned to Pearl. “So that’s why the Laird mustn’t control Emerald and Ruby. That’s why you have to help me get them back.”

  “Why will they be worse off with the Laird than with you?” Pearl snapped. “You kidnap children! You set violent wooden beasts on them.”

  “I didn’t kidnap anyone!” Thomas said indignantly. “The horses were created to keep the triplets safe, so when they sensed danger from Swanhaugh this morning, they got the children out of your house. But the Laird may have forced at least one horse and two girls onto his own land.”

  “Will the Laird hurt them?” Pearl asked.

  “I don’t think so, they’re too valuable. But he might not persuade them with stories and songs. He might threaten them.”

  “Threaten them? With what?”

  “The Laird uses the land’s power differently from us. My grandfather and I listen to the land and store its power simply to keep the land strong.”

  Pearl snorted. “No one has land and power, and doesn’t use it for themselves.”

  “We don’t use it like the Laird.” The boy glanced up at the summits, and Pearl thought she saw fear in his eyes. “We no longer use blood to deepen the land’s music, but the Laird enjoys bloodlore too much to give it up. Also, he uses his stored power to force the land to move for him. My family would never do that either, because compelling the land harms it rather than heals it.

  “I think he used bloodlore to split up the horses today, so if your sisters won’t help him, he might use it to scare them. Do they scare easily?”

  “Ruby does,” Jasper answered, “but Emmie doesn’t. Emmie isn’t afraid of anything.”

  “Emmie is the sister on the white horse, isn’t she? The one that went round the mountains. I wonder if she’ll still be brave by the time we get there.”

  He faced Pearl with his hands open in front of him. “So, even though you can’t hear the land, I’ve given you our secrets. Will you give me your help?”

  She folded her arms. “I didn’t ask for your secrets. And I won’t promise you my help. However, if you show me where you think my sisters are, we can travel together until I get them back. But what do we do with Jasper?”

  “Yes,” said the boy. “What do we do with Jasper?”

  They both looked at him.

  He smiled back, covered in berry juice and confident, as always, that he’d get what he wanted if he just smiled nicely. “Can I come too? Can I ride my chestnut stallion and come with you?”

  “NO!” shouted both older children in unison. They glanced at each other, and the boy grinned.

  “No,” repeated Pearl more gently. “I don’t want you going anywhere near this Laird.”

  “He could stay here, guarded by the horses,” suggested the boy.

  “I don’t think that’s safe,” said Pearl. “Perhaps the horses aren’t as clever as you think. After all, the palomino lost Ruby.”

  The boy looked from Pearl to the
mare and back. “Yes. I wonder how that happened.”

  “The horses could take Jasper back home,” Pearl said casually.

  “That wouldn’t be safe either. There are too many swans over your land. He really must go to my grandfather.”

  “Where is your grandfather?”

  “Horsburgh Hall, just a couple of miles over the moor. I know you never come and visit us, but you must have seen it. He’ll be safe there.”

  “But you’re trying to involve him in a war. That’s not safe,” insisted Pearl.

  The boy sat down beside Jasper and thought for a while. Then he spoke softly to Pearl. “Let’s make a deal. Let’s work together to find the girls, then once we’ve reunited all three triplets, I’ll try to persuade them their destiny lies with me and the power of the land; and I give you my word that you will have an equal chance to persuade them their destiny lies with cocoa and cakes at home. Does that sound fair?”

  Pearl considered his offer. Ruby was safe in the woods, separated from her rocking horse, hidden from this tall boy and his destiny. So he wouldn’t be able to get all three together anyway. And she might need his knowledge of the southern lands to find Emmie.

  She looked at Jasper. Was it wise to let him go to Horsburgh Hall? Her mother had never let them meet the neighbours, but Pearl knew that their housekeepers occasionally nodded to each other in the shops in Perth. Surely Jasper would be safe for a few hours in a building filled with adults? Surely he’d be sensible enough to wait there for her?

  Then she wondered, if they ever did have to argue their cases, what choice would Jasper make? “Are you hungry, Jasper?”

  “Starving,” he groaned.

  She laughed. “A choice between destiny and cakes. That sounds fair. Once we have all three, not before. So first, we go and get Emmie. And Ruby, of course.”

  The boy pulled a small notebook out of his pocket and scribbled a note. He handed it to Jasper. “Give this to my grandfather, so he knows who you are and where I’ve gone.” He glanced at Pearl. “And the housekeeper will feed you as many cakes as you can eat.”

  He led the horses up the side of the gully. Pearl and Jasper followed.

  Pearl gave Jasper a hug. He squirmed away. “Be polite to his grandfather,” she said sternly, “but don’t agree to anything until I arrive. And stay there until I come to collect you. Do you hear me?”

  Jasper grunted and leapt onto the stallion’s back. Pearl watched as the two horses galloped west across the moorland, carrying her brother even further from home.

  The tall boy turned to her and smiled. Pearl scowled at him. He held out his hand for her to shake. She ignored it.

  “I should introduce myself. I’m Thomas Horsburgh, grandson of the Earl of Horsburgh. May I ask your name, Miss Chayne?”

  Pearl stared at him. She’d guessed who he was when he first mentioned his grandfather, and realised her guess was right when he admitted to living at Horsburgh Hall. Thomas Horsburgh. The beloved only grandchild of the biggest landowner in the county. Local gossip said Thomas was sent off to the poshest school in England, and only came back to Scotland for short holidays, but he was still provided with the best horses and guns. The best of everything. When the women gossiped, he was a spoilt brat. When the girls giggled, he was tall, dark and handsome. But no one had said he was dangerous.

  He repeated the question. “May I ask your name?”

  “You may ask, but I can’t be bothered telling it to someone so small and insignificant.”

  His eyebrows rose into his shiny black curls, then he laughed. “Was that what I said at the gate? I’m sorry, that was rude of me. I underestimated you. But we’re allies now, aren’t we? Maybe you aren’t so small and insignificant after all.”

  “That shouldn’t matter, though, should it?” she said quietly. “You can’t just despise people until you need them.”

  “I’m sorry. I was worried about the triplets and I didn’t want to be protecting anyone else. I was trying to annoy you, so you would go safely home. It didn’t work, did it?”

  “You did annoy me. But I won’t go home until we find the girls.”

  “We will find them. Together.” He held out his hand again.

  “Alright. Together.” She took his hand. It was warm and smooth. “My name is Pearl.”

  He looked at her with sudden sharp interest. “Pearl! A gift from the water! I wonder …”

  “It’s just a name. It doesn’t mean anything. I’m not an ingredient in anyone’s magic spell.”

  “All names mean something.”

  Pearl shook her head. “We’ve no time for wordgames. We have to find the Laird. Which way do we go?”

  Thomas settled the gun and the stick in the crook of his arm, and pointed south. “We go through the mountains.”

  Chapter 9

  Pearl didn’t wait for Thomas to lead the way through the mountains.

  She studied the range before her, matching it to her memory of Peter’s maps. The most direct way through the mountains was the saddle-shaped pass cutting low between the Anvil and the Keystone Peak: the pass called the Grey Men’s Grave.

  Pearl marched up the edge of the gully, heading for the curved line of the pass, harsh and dark against the bright sky. She walked faster than she normally would on steep heather, determined not to let Thomas get ahead, determined to reach Emmie before him.

  Her feet moved across land she had only traced with her fingers on maps before today. She knew the names, the heights and the contours of these mountains, but she had never breathed their air.

  To the east, the Anvil was a massive wedge of a mountain, scarred by gullies and corries, weeping with burns and waterfalls. It cast a thick cold shadow over the whole pass.

  The Keystone Peak, on the west side of the pass, was higher than the Anvil, its sharp summit soaring up into the sunlight from a long narrow ridge and a silver plateau.

  Pearl saw the Keystone Peak’s elegant summit every day from her bedroom window. It was only sketched on Peter’s maps, with very little detail. Perhaps it was the only one in the range he hadn’t climbed. Would she ever climb it herself?

  Pearl wasn’t afraid of the mountains’ grey shadows, though she’d never climbed with so little equipment, nor without a companion she could trust. But if Father wanted to take Jasper into the mountains instead of her, she’d better get used to climbing alone.

  She glanced behind her at the moor. To the north, she saw the square grey box of her home, with a pair of swans circling the roof. Over to the northwest, almost hidden in the wrinkles of the moor, she saw an older, darker house, with many more stable buildings. Horsburgh Hall.

  Pearl sometimes felt Mother didn’t care where her eldest daughter wandered, but now she realised Mother cared enough to warn her about the Horsburghs. And Pearl had just sent Jasper to their Hall.

  She imagined the wreckage at home as Mother scrubbed and rearranged, and she strode even faster up the slope. She had to get all three triplets home soon.

  Pearl moved like a gamekeeper or a shepherd, in long smooth strides. No effort wasted, nothing disturbed, hardly any noise.

  When she heard Thomas break into a ground-smashing run to catch up with her, she grinned, but hid the smile before he reached her shoulder.

  He said, “So you know the way to the Laird’s home, do you?”

  “I know the way through the mountains.”

  She speeded up, but with his longer legs, Thomas kept pace easily. “And how did you get out of your garden, jewel of the deep?”

  Pearl hesitated before answering. Was every question from this boy a trick question?

  “Over the wall.”

  “Very resourceful. How did you find Jasper and his horse?”

  Again, she gave a short but truthful answer. “I followed the rolling ring.”

  “You followed it. How clever. From where?”

  “From the woods.”

  “Why did you think it would lead you to the triplets?”

&nbs
p; Pearl numbered the reasons on her fingers. “Because they’d left the garden on horseback, because I noticed the ring by some hoofprints, because it was obviously a piece of tack, and because it was rolling uphill all by itself, which seemed a little mysterious.”

  “Only a little mysterious? Do you find me a little mysterious?”

  “I find you very irritating.”

  She could see him trying hard not to react to this insult.

  “Don’t you have any more questions for me?” he asked. “You were interested enough in my private business when you were eavesdropping.”

  “There’s no point in asking questions if you can’t trust the answers. Let’s just find Emmie and Ruby. So long as I get them home safe, I’m not curious about your feuds with your neighbours.”

  “It’s not a feud. It’s a battle to the death,” Thomas said grimly. “And now you’re involved, ignorance won’t protect you.”

  “Then why have you involved children? Why pick my sisters and brother?”

  “I didn’t pick them. They were involved before they were born. It’s their destiny.”

  “And they have no say over it?”

  “Of course they do,” Thomas insisted. “I want them to embrace their destiny willingly. That makes it much stronger. Jasper loves the idea of displaying his powers at a crowning ceremony.”

  “The girls will have much more sense.”

  “Will they? Don’t they love being important too? Won’t they want power and glory? Do you really know them better than their brother does? You don’t sing their songs; perhaps you don’t know them at all.”

  Pearl couldn’t answer. She loved her sisters and brother. But Thomas was right: she didn’t sing their songs, and she wasn’t one of them. Perhaps they would listen to this charismatic stranger rather than their boring big sister. Perhaps they would want a destiny, even a dark one, because destiny sounded more exciting than going home for hot buttered toast.