Lief’s heart jolted. He had just remembered where he had seen the name ‘Riverdale’ before! And with the memory had come a vivid picture—and an idea. A wild idea…
‘It might matter a great deal,’ he exclaimed, kneeling and fumbling in his pocket for paper and pencil. ‘Remember the Happy Vale noticeboard? Everyone in the troupe saw that as we moved through the town. Did you, Steven?’
‘Of course,’ Steven said gravely.
Lief put the paper on the ground in front of him. ‘The main notice is not important,’ he said. ‘But I want you both to help me remember all the small ones. Word for word, if possible.’
‘I did not read them all,’ murmured Jasmine, flushing a little. She still felt awkward because she read so slowly.
‘You may not read fast, Jasmine, but you observe without even trying,’ said Lief. ‘That will be your part—and the most important one, if I am right.’
Quickly they finished the first notice, and the second. Jasmine could help no further after that, but Steven and Lief soon worked out the next three between them.
‘I cannot help you on the last one,’ Steven said. ‘It concerned that villain Laughing Jack, the moneylender. I did not read it.’
‘It does not matter,’ Lief said. ‘I remember it. I noticed it particularly, because the first words—”Seek the Nomad”—were odd.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Steven sourly. ‘Laughing Jack is a great one for eye-catching notices. And he is a nomad, for he has no fixed home. He appears without warning outside one town or another, and in between it is as if he vanishes. Where was he camped this time?’
‘Here,’ Lief said, writing out the last notice and drawing a border around it. ‘At the Riverdale signpost!’
12 – The Chase
Jasmine exclaimed with interest, and craned her neck to see the words Lief had written. But Steven’s frown had become a scowl.
‘Ah!’ he said in disgust. ‘So now we know whose wagon stayed so long! Laughing Jack never leaves a place until he has wrung it dry.’
He shook his head. ‘No doubt most of the other tracks were made by the poor fools who came to do business with him.’
‘What is so wrong about lending money?’ Jasmine asked, puzzled.
Steven snorted. ‘Nothing, if it is done fairly,’ he said. ‘But Laughing Jack preys on those who are desperate.’
He saw that his companions did not understand him, and raised his voice slightly as he explained.
‘Laughing Jack lends his victims what they ask, or more, and makes them sign a paper that half of them cannot even read,’ he said. ‘A season or two later he returns, demanding that the loan be repaid.’
He paused. Dark shadows flickered in his golden eyes.
‘And then?’ Jasmine prompted.
Steven’s fists clenched.
‘And then his victims discover that they have sworn to pay back ten or twenty times as much as they borrowed,’ he muttered. ‘If they do not pay, which most often they cannot, Laughing Jack takes possession of their homes, their beasts, their furniture—everything they own.’
‘I have not heard of this!’ Lief exclaimed.
Steven shrugged. ‘Laughing Jack has been a plague in the land for years without number, and dark rumours have gathered about him. His victims are too afraid to complain to anyone in authority.’
‘Afraid?’ Lief murmured.
Steven grimaced. ‘He is an evil man, and when they have given him all they have, and it is still not enough, what else can he take from them, but their lives?’
As his companions exclaimed in horror, he shook his head.
‘I am wasting our time by speaking of things that we cannot change at present,’ he said gruffly. ‘Lief, what are we to do now?’
Lief spread his paper out before them on the ground. He had drawn borders around all the notices, shaping them as he remembered.
‘Now it is your turn to test your memory, Jasmine,’ he said. ‘See the Happy Vale board in your mind. All the notices were pinned into place, were they not?’
Jasmine nodded. ‘Pinned untidily, too,’ she said. ‘The people who put them up had taken little care.’
‘I think they took a great deal of care,’ Lief said.
As she raised her eyebrows in surprise, he gave her the pencil. ‘See if you can remember where the pins were placed on each notice,’ he said. ‘Mark the places with a dot.’
He crossed his fingers for luck as Jasmine bent over the paper and began to mark it.
She finished the first notice, and then the second. Now and then she would close her eyes, as if seeing a picture in her mind, before going on.
By the time she had finished marking the third notice, Lief knew he had been right.
He glanced at Steven. The big man’s eyes were bulging with astonishment. He seemed about to speak, but Lief shook his head warningly. He did not want Jasmine’s concentration to be disturbed.
Jasmine moved on with increasing speed. In moments the work was done. She threw down the pencil and pushed the paper away.
‘There,’ she muttered. ‘I have done it. Though I cannot see why—’
She glanced up and saw their faces.
‘What is it?’ she asked blankly, looking down at the paper again.
‘Read the words beneath the dots aloud,’ said Lief grimly. ‘Read them in order.’
Shaking her head, Jasmine began to do as he asked. ‘The… three… are… with… you…’ she read, and caught her breath.
‘Go on!’ Lief urged.
‘Follow orders,’ Jasmine went on, her voice rising. ‘Send goods… to… Laughing Jack… at Riverdale signpost.’
‘And that was how it was done,’ Steven exclaimed, slapping his knee. ‘The simple cunning of it! A message in plain sight, but perfectly disguised. “The three are with you. Follow orders. Send goods to Laughing Jack, at Riverdale signpost.’”
Lief was only half listening. He was staring at the paper.
Something about it was still nagging at him. But what? The hidden message had been revealed. What further secrets could the notices hold?
‘The “three” are you two and Barda, of course,’ Steven went on excitedly. ‘The “orders” must be Zerry’s standing orders to steal the Belt of Deltora if you crossed his path. The “goods” are the Belt itself.’
He shook his head. ‘This guardian of the north must be well organised indeed, with a secret network of allies who go about their usual business unless and until they are needed. Zerry was used because he was with the Masked Ones. Laughing Jack was used because he was plying his evil trade in the north. No doubt he himself put the notices on the board just before you arrived.’
‘But how did the guardian learn that we were with the Masked Ones in the first place?’ Jasmine frowned.
Steven was not interested in more mysteries. The one that had already been solved was enough for him.
‘So Laughing Jack is in league with the Enemy,’ he muttered. ‘Why does that not surprise me?’
Abruptly he turned and strode towards the caravan.
‘Let us be on our way,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘We must make haste. Our quarry’s wagon, I hear, is as fast as the wind.’
‘Then we will never catch him!’ Jasmine cried anxiously, scrambling to her feet.
Steven reached the van, jumped up to the driver’s seat, and began fossicking in a sack crushed into one corner.
‘Certainly we will,’ he said, without looking up. ‘I have a trick or two up my sleeve.’
He pulled a small green bottle from the sack, and nodded with satisfaction.
By the time Lief and Jasmine reached him, he had climbed down and was whispering in the horse’s ear. The horse snorted eagerly and whisked her tail.
Steven smiled. ‘I am looking forward to this,’ he said softly. ‘My brother and I have long wanted to meet Laughing Jack.’
He opened the green bottle and emptied it into the horse’s bucket. The unmistakable apple smell of Queen Bee cider filled the air. The horse plunged its nose into the bucket and drank eagerly.