Wildlord by Philip Womack

Author:Philip Womack [Philip Womack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: xx
Publisher: Little Island Books

Chapter 13

9th June, 1846

I had a dream last night. He was with me – Rohenga. He said my name, and he talked of something called the Knot. What it is, I do not know. But it fills me with hope.

— From the diary of Margaret Ravenswood

Kit, Zita and Tom did not sleep that night, but sat in the kitchen, candles lit all along the windowsills, drinking cups of sweet tea that Zita seemed to be able to conjure from nowhere. Tom suspected that she was filling the pot with herbs for sustenance too, as he felt immeasurably better after the first cup. They did not feel tired, and waited for the dawn to come.

Kit and Tom, as soon as there was light, went out and strengthened the wards, and once more, Tom felt Jack’s malign consciousness in the silvery weft and warp of the power.

‘What did they mean, the Knot?’ said Tom, when they had returned to the kitchen. He slumped into a chair. ‘It sounds familiar.’ Kit sat, mutely regarding his hands. Leana was licking her belly on her bed by the range, seemingly unperturbed by the whole experience.

Zita looked puzzled. ‘I’m not sure. Margaret Ravenswood mentions it somewhere.’

‘The diary is in my room. I’ll get it.’

A few minutes later, Tom had returned with the volume and they leafed through it. Once more, Tom found himself sympathising with Margaret’s plight. Her portrait of Rohenga was so different from what they had seen of him.

‘Why is he nice to her?’ said Tom when they had found the passage.

‘Who knows?’ answered Zita. ‘Their ways are mysterious. As she says – they see everything at once. Jack had held the Captive already for two hundred years or so by this point – maybe Rohenga thought Margaret could help him release her.’

‘What do they say about the Knot?’ asked Tom.

‘Not very much. It’s something they hunt from time to time.’

‘Like an animal?’ Tom bent over the pages, trying to see.

‘No – it seems more like some kind of passage that allows them to bypass normal restrictions.’

‘You mean – with it they can cross water?’

‘Yes – and wards too.’

They would be able to come into the house. Tom shuddered. Perhaps that was what Jack knew, and that was why Jack was giving up – he knew his time was nearly up.

‘So Jack wants to get out before they get in. And he wants me in his place! So I can be killed?’

He rose abruptly from the kitchen table and hurried blindly out through the hall and up the stairs to his room.

There he found Leana, sitting on his bed, and he buried his face in her flank.

It was some time before noon. He hadn’t heard the clocks chime for a while. He turned over and stared at the ceiling. And as he stroked Leana, he remembered the hare she’d chased; and then the wooden flute with the hare carved into the end. It could help him. She could help him. He reached for it where he’d stashed it in a drawer.

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