Chapter 13: The Axes

The captain of the watch looked at the merchant.

Then he looked at me, sitting in the roots with my father's knife in my lap.

Then he looked at Cassian.

"Chains," the merchant said again. "She's a wanted thief. There's a notice on every wall."

"I know what's on the walls," the captain said. "I've got eyes."

He took a pair of irons off his belt. He didn't look happy about it.

I stood up.

I didn't step away from the tree.

"You'll have to cut it down with me against it," I said.

"That can be arranged," said the merchant.

Cassian stood up beside me.

He didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

The timber men with the axes found something interesting to look at on the ground.

Behind them, the orchard gate creaked again.

It was the widow from next door, still in her nightcap, with her poker.

Behind her came the baker and his two sons, with flour on their arms.

Then the old couple from the end of the lane, who used to buy our plums every August.

Then the cooper, and the cooper's wife, and three of their children in their nightshirts.

They didn't say much.

They walked across the wet grass and stood around the Queen tree with me.

"Morning, Clemmie," the cooper said.

"Morning," I said. My voice wasn't steady.

"Your father fixed our cider press for nothing," the cooper's wife told the captain. "Twice."

"He grafted my pear when the frost split it," said the old man from the end of the lane.

"He sat with my husband the night he died," the widow said. "All night. Nobody asked him to."

The merchant laughed.

"Very touching. I paid good money for this orchard. Captain, clear them off."

Above my head, something rustled.

I looked up.

Dulcie was sitting in the fork of the Queen tree, in her too-big jacket, swinging one muddy boot.

I hadn't even seen her climb.

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