The guards both bent their heads over the note, their fingers pressing on the numbers in the last line.
Bird, Chub, Itch and Bean were absolutely silent, but the tension in the wagon was so thick that Rye felt his head might burst with the strain of it.
‘It looks all right, Krop 4,’ the second guard said grudgingly.
‘Of course it is right!’ barked Rye. ‘Are you questioning the Master’s orders?’
‘No, sir,’ Krop 1 gabbled. ‘We were just—’
‘Then get the slaves! Make haste!’
The other guards had left the fire now, and were coming to see what was happening. There were eight of them, and a chill ran down Rye’s spine as he saw that they all looked exactly the same as the two already at the wagon.
‘Bring the mine rats from Tunnel 12,’ Krop 1 ordered, turning to the approaching group. ‘They’re wanted elsewhere.’
After that, there was nothing to do but wait. As the minutes ticked by with agonising slowness, Krop 1 and Krop 4 stood murmuring together by the wagon. Rye sat stiffly, staring straight ahead, pretending not to listen.
‘We’ll never make our week’s quota now,’ he heard Krop 1 mutter.
‘We wouldn’t have anyway,’ the other guard replied. ‘This area’s finished. Soon it’ll only be fit for Scour scum. The tunnels are caving in, and even up here the surface is sinking. It’s taking out all the jell that does it. They should leave some of it in the ground.’
‘We’ve told them that,’ said Krop 1. ‘But they never listen to us. They just—’
Suddenly he started, turned, and thrust his head through the open doorway of the wagon. Rye’s heart seemed to leap into his throat.
‘The jell scourings, sir!’ the guard said, pointing at the metal box. ‘Did you bring them, at least?’
Rye’s face felt frozen as he nodded. Bird had told him the guards would want the trader’s jell, but he had forgotten all about it.
He stood up and, awkwardly crouching, felt in the pocket of the stiff coat for the key he had been given. Trying not to fumble, he unlocked the padlock on the metal box and threw open the lid.
Inside was a large pottery crock, tightly corked. Rye struggled to lift it. It was extremely heavy.
‘Wait, sir!’ shouted Krop 4. ‘That’s a job for mine rats. I’ll round some up.’
‘No!’ snapped his companion. ‘We’re losing twenty workers tonight as it is. We can’t afford to take any more off the job. You get the jell—I’ll bring the replacement jar.’ He turned and marched briskly away.
His face impassive, Krop 4 moved around to Rye’s side of the wagon. One of the figures huddled in the storage space drew a sharp breath—Chub, Rye guessed. The tension in the wagon had risen sharply. For some reason Bird and the others were fearful of what the guard was doing.
And suddenly Rye realised why. Suddenly his mind was filled with images of dots and crosses inside a circle, dots and crosses inside a square.
The little patterns on the side of the wagon and on the metal box were messages. They had been put there by the jell-wet fingers of the slaves from Nanny’s Pride farm, when it was their turn to unload the trader’s jell crock at the Diggings.
And this afternoon, when Four-Eyes’ wagon had stopped at the farm, the messages had been seen and understood.
This was how Bird and the others had known which numbers to write into the false orders.
The circle meant ‘tunnel’. The square meant ‘hut’. The dots and crosses were simple sums that disguised the numbers. Three multiplied by two multiplied by two—twelve. Tunnel 12. And the sum inside the square equalled sixteen. Hut 16.
Krop 4 seized the heavy crock and lifted it with ease. As he stepped back he caught sight of the little square painted on the side of the jell safe. He squinted at it in dull puzzlement. Rye’s stomach fluttered.
Then he heard the thudding sound of hurrying feet. Twisting his neck to look through the front window of the wagon, he saw that Krop 1 was jogging back with an empty crock in his hand. Close behind him were twenty small shambling figures with guards marching beside them.
‘Stop dithering!’ Rye barked, swinging back to face Krop 4. ‘My cargo is here at last!’
The guard jumped back just as Krop 1 arrived at his side and jammed the new crock into place. With a snort, Rye slammed the lid, sat down on the box and pulled the hide curtain back over the doorway.
Bean crouched forward on the driver’s seat as the slaves were tossed carelessly into the wagon behind him.
Rye watched, his face a stern mask but his heart wrung with pity, as one by one the stolen workers from Nanny’s Pride farm crawled into the dim storage space. They were ragged and exhausted. But none of them showed surprise at seeing Rye, or happiness in seeing Bird, Itch, Chub and Bean. They knew better than to show any emotion at all. They simply crouched together on the hard metal floor as if there was no fight left in them, as if they had no hope.
‘Very well!’ Rye barked when the last of the slaves was on board. ‘Open the gates!’
Two guards hurried to do his bidding. Steam billowed upward as the wagon began to ease backwards through the gateway.
Rye heard pebbles crack and snap and felt a jolt as the back rollers reached the edge of the track. Bean hauled on the wheel and the massive, chugging vehicle began turning to face the way it had come. The Diggings gates closed.
We have done it! Rye thought, dizzy with relief. We have—
He jumped violently, almost falling from his seat, as there was a deafening bang, and the huge white rock beside the wagon’s left front roller exploded into dust. Bean yelled in shock, and the wagon came to a shuddering halt.
18 - Slave-hunter
There was a sound like approaching thunder, pebbles sprayed, and a high whinnying split the air. The hide curtain beside Rye was ripped aside, and he found himself staring out at the furious face of a woman on horseback.
Terrified by the hissing vehicle, the horse was plunging and crying out. Pushing a smoking, stubby black tube into her belt, the woman slashed at the animal savagely with a short whip, ordering it to be still, till at last it obeyed, trembling and sweating.
‘Didn’t you hear me calling, you buffoon?’ the woman shouted at Rye. ‘Get back off the road! There’s a cart coming behind me from the Harbour. You’ll have to wait till it’s passed. Our mission is urgent. We don’t want to be stuck behind this lumbering monstrosity all the way through the—’
She broke off, frowning. She peered through the doorway at Bean in the driver’s seat, at the small people huddled together in the back of the wagon.
‘What’s this?’ she demanded.
‘The Master’s business,’ Rye said, raising his chin.
‘No business I’ve heard of,’ the woman said slowly. ‘And who, might I ask, are you?’
‘Who I am is not your affair,’ said Rye, putting as much cold pride into his voice as he could. ‘It is enough for you to know that I am the Master’s servant, and my task is of great importance to him.’
‘Is it, indeed?’ the woman murmured. She stood up in the stirrups and looked over the wagon at the guards staring out through the gates.
Rye looked too, and for the first time read the notice fixed to the mesh.
‘Guards!’ the woman shouted. ‘Why have you allowed these mine rats to leave their work? Explain yourselves!’
The guards glanced at one another in confusion. They muttered together for a moment, then one slipped through the gates and came running. It was Krop 1 or Krop 4, Rye thought, because the grey paper was in his hand.
‘We were only obeying orders, Kyte,’ the guard mumbled, handing the paper to the woman. ‘We know Brand’s sign—seen it often enough.’
Kyte! Rye’s stomach turned over. ‘Kyte’ was the name on the top of the orders! Kyte was the slave-hunter who had led the invasion of Nanny’s Pride farm!