VIII

dark figures move hurriedly through, blocking and unblocking the light. Are they servants or more soldiers? And where’s my grandmother – and my mother? Have they been captured too?
    “Nearly there,” says the soldier as he turns down the passageway towards the back of the house. “We’ll be outside in a moment, sir; it’s really important that you’re quiet.”
    So I breathe in through my nose, filling my lungs as deeply as the panic will let me, and then – as the soldier steps out through a door into the cold air of the courtyard – I yell as loud as I can into the muffling hand.
    “Hllfff! Hllfff! Suuwu hllfff!”
    Even I know that the sound is pathetically thin, lost in the wide damp space. And – oh, mercy – out here, soldiers are everywhere.
    They won’t take me – they won’t; I twist and thrash for all I’m worth.
    “Hey, don’t kick the horse, sir. It’s not fair on the poor beast.”
    For a flash I think I’m going to be slung on my stomach across a saddle, the way Compton says prisoners or dead bodies get carried, but the soldier swings my legs up and I land on my bottom – hard, but the right way up.
    I hear the soldier say, “Sorry, ma’am. He was asleep when I picked him up. Got himself a bit agitated.” He puffs out a breath. “Strong for a little ’un, isn’t he?”
    And an arm grips me around my middle, pulling me back against a body, warm and solid, and a voice in my ear says, “Calm yourself, Hal. It’s me. We’re in a hurry, that’s all.”
    My mother.
    I want to snuggle into her and cry with relief. I don’t understand what’s happening, my heart’s still banging, my lungs and stomach still heaving, but if I can cling to her, I can cope.
    As my mother tugs quickly at my blanket, draping it over my head like a hood and wrapping it firmly round my body, I sit, dazed for a moment, staring at the horses that fill the courtyard. They stamp and snort and toss their heads, harnesses jingling. Each one of them has a soldier in the saddle.
    Then I say, in a thin, croaky voice that doesn’t sound like my own, “What’s happening, Mama? Are we running away?”
    “No, sweetheart. Just moving to a safer place. Hold on. Here.” She pats the front of the saddle. I grip it and look back, trying to squint up at her. But my head turns and the blanket stays where it is, so I can see only with one eye, and nothing more than the edge of her face.
    She’s hooded too, in a black cloak. I catch sight of the tip of her nose, and part of her cheek. In this weird light – not dawn yet, but not proper night either – her skin looks blue.
    As I turn back she reaches around me to adjust the reins and says, “Let’s go, Captain. Steady pace.”
    Hooves clatter on the cobbles as the mounted soldiers form a guard around us. Then we set off, filing out through the courtyard gate and turning right, up the lane, away from the river. Though it’s summer, dank mist creeps into the streets from the water behind us; the air tastes wet.
    The lane is narrow and dark, squeezed between black walls. The soldiers riding at the front are carrying flaming torches; when we turn right again into a wider street, they fan out to surround us.
    There’s something exciting about being out at this time, but I know that no one moves in the night for a nice reason. And it’s the second time we’ve had to move in just a few days.
    First we came from Eltham, outside London, to my grandmother’s house here, because it’s inside the protection of the City walls. Now we’re moving again. Last time we went in daylight. Now it’s barely dawn. And there hasn’t even been time to get me dressed.
    My feet are bare and cold: I reach the left one backwards, tucking it under my mother’s skirts; the right curves towards the warm flesh of the horse, trying to hug it.
    Over my head, I hear my mother say sharply, “No faster than this. We’ll attract too much attention. I don’t want to spread panic.”
    A man’s voice – one of the guards – replies, but I don’t catch the words.
    She says, “I was told the rebels’ plan was to march at dawn. They won’t come in sight of the City for a couple of hours, surely?”
    The man twitches his hands on the reins and his horse moves closer to ours. “It only takes one, ma’am, to’ve ridden ahead. Any doorway, any alley entrance could hide a man with—”
    “I understand.”
    She’s cut him off deliberately. I see him glance at me, then he drops his horse