Prisoners heaved the wagon off the lane.

The remaining oxen stormed relentlessly in the wrong direction. Emerging from the shadow of Copper Piece Wood, the gamekeeper waved his arms in a feeble attempt to curb the runaway cattle.

*Fire over the beasts!' du Quesne yelled.

Herders lined up, ready to divert the oxen.

*Stay where you are, you dolt, you'll block the way,' du Quesne roared at a carter who was about to cross the bridge.

A violent blast rent the air. Abruptly, oxen at the head of the herd doubled back and pummelled into those directly behind. Cattle kicked, heads clashed. In a flowing, swaying mass they charged over the bridge.

Terrified, Eppie ran before them.

Only yards from home, a fresh horror fell upon her. Purposefully leaning on his spade at the garden gate, Jaggery barred her way.

*Eppie, get off the road!' Sam yelled.

She span round. Rushing to Claire's, her toes caught in a remaining pothole. Squealing, she thudded to the ground.

Restricted by his shackles, Sam knew he would never have time to whisk her to safety.

Horns primed, the cattle surged, relentless in their tidal race. Wild eyes rolled in sockets.

The oxen were almost upon her.

Someone fell upon Eppie, knocking her breath from her. Stifled, she opened an eye a slit. Sam's face was close to hers, his hair tickling her cheek.

Oxen stormed over. The ground shook. Intermittently, the sun was blocked out in a chequered pattern: light-dark-light-dark. Lancing blows caught Sam. His head pressed upon hers, his lips over her ear, he uttered abrupt cries of pain.

A strike to the back of his head, his hot, laboured breath ceased.

Silver light swam before Eppie's eyes. Swiftly a black vault of nothingness closed over her.

In Eppie's fitful nightmare every scratching noise was a rat coming to chew her face. Screaming, she awoke in the darkened bedchamber, her heart palpitating.

Martha laid down her sewing and hastened to her side, a lighted candle shielded in her hand.

At first Eppie could not recall the accident, or why, battered and bruised, every joint in her body ached. She tried, without success, to sit and peer into the wainscot bed. *Is pa asleep?'

*He'll be feeling sorry for himself and gone off with George to The Rogues' Inn, drinking himself under the table.'

It all came back: the stew on the wall, the stampede. *Sam!'

Gloomy shadows scoured Martha's pensive face. *Eppie, you should know,' she said softly. *Sam's went.'

*Where? Where's he gone?'

Martha sought to conquer her strong emotions of loss. *I didn't dare look upon him. Boyle shouted to a carter to find out where his brother's farm was and take his body there.'

*Dead!' Eppie cried, sobbing. *Mister Sam's dead! It's all my fault. I should've given him my crooked farthing, and he'd still be alive.'

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

CHOKING ON SOOT.

Eppie hopped into the carrier's cart.

Jenny had got worms and so Martha thought it prudent for her and Eppie to travel in the carrier's cart to market. She stowed baskets of produce beneath the back seat.

Reuben made a ticking sound with his tongue and his horse set off.

*Why d'ya call her Lightning when she trots this slow?' Eppie asked.

*So folk will think I run a speedy service. We wouldn't want the old mare to be too hasty; otherwise your ma's eggs will be scrambled by the time we arrive in Litcombe.'

The cart creaked past farms and cottages, picking up produce destined for shops and businesses, parcels and letters to post in town and bags of linen for washer women. A miller loaded a sack of flour for the master baker, Richard Crafts. *Fine man is Richard,' Reuben said. *The last time there was a famine he distributed bread to the poor, at his own expense.'

They came within sight of Lynmere, a shallow mere edged with waterlogged vegetation and an abundance of creeping mats of moss. Upon the island the canopy of an alder had shattered, several of its branches burnt.

Lightning trotted down the winding track to Mulberry Farm. The Williamson children were playing in a field with Smokey, their donkey. Gyles and Esmond marched like soldiers, rapping drums. Ella, wearing one of her mother's dresses, had tied a rag doll onto the donkey's saddle.

Their father was busy inside the carpentry shed.

Reuben swivelled his pipe to the side of his mouth. *All's well, George?'

George followed the carrier's cart into the yard. *Times have been better. There's a glut of barley on the market.'

Reuben helped Kath, George's portly wife, to load baskets of pears.

Eppie gazed at swallows, swooping and soaring.

*Snow's on the way,' Ella said, dashing up. *They're getting ready to fly into the heart of the earth. Smokey's foal is due soon. You must come and see it when it's born.'

Eppie beamed. *I'd love that.'

The cart wound back along the lane.

*The other day a balloon floated over with a man in a wicker basket,' Kath said. *Gyles and Esmond were fishing. They dragged that mad Doctor Burndread out of the mere. He'd jumped in the water when he realised the basket was heading straight for the trees on the island. When it crashed into them there was a massive explosion.' She peeped beneath the white and yellow gingham cloth that covered Martha's basket. *Another pie for Wakelin! He does enjoy his home comforts.'

Ezra, Reuben's son, worked alongside Wakelin as an apprentice cloth-dresser in Strutt's cropping shop. *This is Ezra's last month. He's going to be a journeyman.'

*You'll be proud of your lads, croppers being the highest paid in the cloth industry,' Kath said.

*Not for long, I fear,' Reuben answered. *With competition from gig machines, hand work is a dying art.'

They left a shelter of ash trees. Gusting wind scattered dust across the travellers.

Eppie sneezed. *That nearly blew my tooth out.' Whimpering with the dull pain, she wiggled her milk tooth.

Approaching a tollgate, Reuben dug into his pocket. *Where's me tuppence? Pete Mabey, a coal-merchant by trade, complains bitterly about the tolls. He's no option other than to put up his prices.'

*I'm thankful we're allowed to collect fuel from Copper Piece Wood,' Martha said. *At least fallen branches and those we can knock down with our sticks are free.'

Only half-listening to the adult's droning voices, Eppie thrust out her legs and enjoyed the tickly brush of Lightning's tail on her ankles. Around them, fields dipped and rolled glossy green on a blanket of clay.

Reuben noticed her preoccupied look. *Got any more of your interesting notions?'

Gabriel gave her history lessons in the Crusader Oak. She cogitated on the carrier's waxy, sun-worn skin. *When the Archbishop of Canterbury was executed in the Tower of London the axe man took masses of chops to get his head off. D'ya reckon if the bishop had run off he'd still have been alive?'

*I shudder to think! Here, take the reins; give me a rest. Let her have her head. Lightning could do this journey trotting backward.'

*This is making my tooth smile. When it comes out I'm going to bury it in the woods for the faeries. If I'm lucky, they'll leave a whole farthing under my pillow, like they did last time.'

Topping the hill, the town was laid before them. Below the towers of the Norman castle nestled a medley of cottages with peat-brown thatched roofs, their white cob walls shining in the rays of the climbing sun. Lapping to their sides, the roofs of cruck-framed cottages jumbled in a desultory fashion.

Reuben took the reins and they trundled up Swine Market Street. *We'll be lucky to find a tethering post.'

Crowds bustled around rows of open stalls that stretched to the butter mart. Folk rattled cooking utensils, rifled displays and bartered for boots.

A wooden window shutter had been pushed down, forming a counter. The smell of freshly baked cakes and biscuits drifted from piled displays. *Next!' Richard Craft's wife shrilled to the short queue.

Poker-faced, a fishmonger was wrapping fish in brown paper.

A black coach sped past, heading towards the castle.

*That'll be Melchoir,' said the carrier. *There must be a petty sessions on.'

*What's one of them?' Eppie asked.

*Where Melchoir and a couple of other magistrates stick their heads together for the trying of minor offences. Depending on what mood they're in, they'll sentence some poor fellow to a few years in jail, even death. It's entirely arbitrary. Judge Baulke comes along once a month to hold a sessions. Things don't get so fiery then.'

Eppie leapt to her feet and pointed to a space beside a horse drinking-trough. *There! Where that wagon's leaving the saddlers.'

Whilst Martha served customers, placed eggs in bags, counted carrots, and pocketed coins, Eppie squatted on a step, her back against the stone pillar of the market cross, watching the activities around her.

Fresh water slapped into muddy puddles from the pannier buckets of oxen driven through the streets. The sign over the liquor shop, a painting of a green bottle, creaked.

She jingled coins. *I'll go and fetch those things for Betsy and Sarah.'

*Whilst you're at it, take this to Wakelin.'

Mingling with the crowds, she bought tea and sugar.

Upon the pavement outside his workshop, the shrivelled cobbler seemed forever rooted to his chair, rap-rapping with his hammer.

A greasy odour drifted from the candle-maker's shop, where a woman was dipping a row of candles into a bath of liquid wax.

Leaning heavily upon a crutch, a one-legged, red-coated soldier climbed the steps to the elegant front of The Rogues' Inn. The door of the sandstone building was flung wide and Thurstan bounded down. *Ah, Miss Strutt, it is a fine morning.'

Eppie was traversing Corn Street. Intrigued by this meeting, her steps faltered.

Nervously, Alicia smoothed the pagoda sleeves of her gold leaf-patterned frock. *Certainly, Mr du Quesne, it is.'

Thurstan drew her hand to his narrow lips and kissed it. A dusting of powder from his bob wig sprinkled upon her wrist.

*Might I compliment you on your delightful hat,' he remarked of Alicia's fashionable black beaver hat with its purple cockade.

A petty hawker tramped past, his backpack brimming with cheap crockery, thimbles and song-sheets. He ogled at her bonnet.

*Yours also,' Alicia said bashfully. *Most becoming.'

Thurstan whipped off his three-cornered silk hat. *It is from London, designed to fold, thus, making it most suitable to sit upon at the theatre. Perhaps you would care to accompany me to the next play?'

*That would be delightful, Mr du Quesne.' Hearing a farmer bellowing, Alicia turned to see Eppie dithering in the road. She dragged her out the path of the wagon. *Is that a pie for Wakelin?'

Thurstan's passion was cooled now that Eppie had joined Alicia. He bowed. *I bid you a good day, Miss Strutt. I am required to attend the sessions. Might I request your brother call upon me at his convenience? There is a matter of delicacy that I wish to discuss with him.'

*Mister Thurstan didn't half skem at your new hat,' Eppie said.

Heading towards Charlotte Street, they dodged a dishevelled trapper from the countryside, pheasants, rabbits and hares strung upon his back.

Alicia blushed. *Did you not consider him most handsome in his black silk coat?'

Eppie gazed at her, blank.

Alicia laughed short and clear. *I know I should not say such things to a child, but I must admit to finding him most gallant.'

Eppie could not think why. He looked creepy to her.

They scurried up the covered alleyway to the side of the finishing shop. Only feet away an evil-smelling river lapped, gurgling on grassless banks. Scurrying from a dilapidated shed, a rat plopped into the water beside fragments of floating timber.

Ezra leant over the trestle table, skilfully cutting cloth by squeezing metal shears. Rolling his shirtsleeves higher, he revealed his biceps to Eppie. *Bet you'd like some of these?'

Shyly, she shook her head.

*Wake won't be long.' He whispered, so that Alicia would not overhear. *Between you and me, he's taking a detour whilst Mr Strutt is out, if you get my meaning. I don't think you've met our latest apprentice?'

*Hullo,' muttered the bored-looking boy. Stood before a wooden frame fixed upon the wall, he was brushing cloth with spiky bracts. The teasels rasped as he raised the uneven nap.

*Wake and I are taking wagers as to how long he'll last, aren't we Simon? So far it's been three days. The last apprentice ran off after an hour of using the shears, his hands soaked with blood.'

Kicking back the door, Wakelin blundered in, a bundle of cloth on his shoulder.