Carack

Ch1 p4

‘Why don’t you call or text and find out, or perhaps he could send a car?’ Gerent asked.

‘Why don’t I what? Call, he’d never ear me from here and text? Be that some kind of magic? And what’s a car?’

‘Don’t you have such things then?’ Gerent asked

‘The master, I expect he has them, he be having all kinds of things. Things I do know nothing about.’

‘I just bet you don’t,’ said Gerent with a laugh. He turned his thoughts to the game, which he had watched Hugh play. Once the riding bit was completed the scene had gone to an inn as the second challenge and Hugh had lost a life a life by being stabbed he remembered. If, as he supposed, he was ‘in’ the game that should be where it ended and he would wake up. But Gerent didn’t want to get stabbed either, this dream was too realistic. He would have to be alert to prevent that. But if he prevented himself getting stabbed he wondered if his game dream would just continue. As he could not recall watching every part of the game Gerent thought that there was no way he could continue in this dream as he did not know how it progressed. But it would still be something to tell Hugh when he woke up.

They were now in the lane and Wampa urged his horse forward at a slight trot, Gerent touched his mare’s flanks with his heels as Wampa had shown him and she began to trot on. This was a lot bumpier than he had expected. He was jolted up and down and from side to side in the saddle. It made him feel as if every joint in his body was coming loose and added to the pain he already felt. He developed another headache and grew dizzy. The motion caused him to lurch forward and he grabbed the horse’s mane to save himself from falling off. He hauled back on the reins so hard that the mare tossed her head and neighed in protest. Wampa glanced back over his shoulder as Gerent struggled to regain control over the horse. Wampa then turned and circled round behind Gerent to come along side him.

‘I can’t do this, I’ll fall off, I think I’ll walk,’ Gerent moaned.

‘Well that will mean you will be out in the rain, for it will take you a brare while the get the inn. Try rising with the mare as she do step for’ard and you will find it easier like.’ Wampa advised and demonstrated what he meant. Gerent was fed up with riding already, he didn’t even want to try.

‘I can’t,’ he said

‘All right master Hugh, we’ll keep her to a walk then. Dare say us might still beat the rain,’ Wampa sighed. He gazed up at the approaching large dark cloud, which filled the sky behind it with inky blackness. It was coming towards them at a greater speed than they were going towards shelter.  As they rode along Wampa told Gerent a little more about the country but when it came to his master, Madron, Wampa would not say much.

‘He has been good to old Wampa. I do be beholding to him, there’s not many as would take the likes of old Wampa in. Some do say a deal of things, but I’ve never seen anything. Then there’s his daughter, Miss Morvah. She be a picture right enough and such a winning child, though she be a woman now I suppose. You’ll see when us gets to the castle.’

He was more forthcoming about the land and how his former master, Zoy, had changed the area from marsh and poverty into good farming land and prosperity. There were no large towns, only villages or hamlets in the area. Wampa explained that the people who lived around there worked on the land and had good trade at the nearby seaports where sailing ships from other lands docked to pick up those crops. Gerent got the impression from Wampa’s wistful mention of ‘other lands’ that Wampa would like to go and see these for himself. When he said that Wampa shook his head.

‘Wampa belongs to the Master , always been a serf, can’t just do what I likes, no, no. It is a good life, better than some.’ Wampa had sounded sad but he cheered himself with the closing words. They both rode on in silence for a wile. Gerent pondered on a life where a person always had to abide by the will of another and could not do just what they wanted, as he was able to do. The place was nothing like London Gerent mused as they passed very few houses on their ride. They rode between well cropped green fields, laid out in squares and crossed with rivers or dry ditches. The time wore on and in the late afternoon it got dark and threatening. Gerent still could not see any sign of a house, inn, or any other building ahead when it began to spot with rain.

He watched large single drops hit the dry surface of the road, splashing and raising the dust at the same time. Then they fell back to earth to make a tiny patch of mud that dried as in the same time as it had taken to form. Wampa looked skyward as he noticed the drops. One fell in his eye making him look down quickly and curse, Gerent laughed.

‘You may well laugh, young master. If we don’t get to the inn soon it’ll be more than a drop as will be in my eye, or yours too come to that. Soaked we’ll be, soaked and likely the catch summat and the master will have something to say to old Wampa then, if you gets ill. That he will.’

A violent bright flash of lightening flooded the underside of the cloud with a layer of brilliant light It reflected back of the face of the dark cloud. It was accompanied at the same time by a very loud bang. The bang then turned into the loudest, longest and most threatening peal of thunder Gerent had ever heard. The horses were startled and Wampa’s shot forward, with Wampa clinging on. Gerent’s reared up so that he slid and fell off backwards, ending up sitting in the road watching the frightened animal run away down the lane. As he sat there in the lane getting over the shock of the thunder and the sudden unexpected fall, he heard a strange hissing sound, which appeared to be getting louder. It started to get much darker and he looked about, with a little trepidation, for the source of the growing noise. Then he knew what was generating the sound as a curtain of heavy rain washed over him just as though someone had turned a hose on him. The weather front had overtaken him and it was raining in torrents. Heavy, large drops that soaked right through his T-shirt at once.

Before he even realised it he was wet through and sitting in mud. He put his hands down to support himself and discovered the ground was not as solid as it had been. He got up as fast as he could.

 ‘Boy,’ he said, his words masked by the pounding drops. ‘When it rains here it rains! I have never had a dream like this before. This could be real, it stings too!’ He ran to the hedge to get some cover as the force of the rain intensified. Gerent found it difficult to look in any direction as the water ran into his eyes so much. He decided that the best thing would be to find shelter by walking on in the direction he had been going. It was also the direction in which the horses and Wampa had disappeared.