The Revenue troop also heard the shot. Instead of heading for home, they wheeled and cantered along the sands. Once they gained sufficient lead, Jack gave the signal to follow.
Battling faintness and a white haze of pain, Kit struggled to focus on what she should do. The hot agony in her shoulder was draining her strength. If she stayed on the sands, Delia would keep on until she fell from the saddle. As each stride the mare took pushed fiery needles into her shoulder, that wouldn’t be long delayed. And then the Revenue would have her.
Spencer’s image rose in her mind; Kit gritted her teeth. She had to get off the beach.
As if in answer to her prayer, the small track leading up the cliffs to Snettisham appeared before her. Gasping with the effort, Kit turned Delia into the narrow opening. The mare took the climb without further direction.
Waves of cold darkness welled about her; Kit fought them back. She rode with knees and hands, the reins dangling uselessly about Delia’s neck. It was all Kit could do to discern the direction of the quarries and head Delia toward them.
In her wake, her pursuers came on, noisily clamoring for her blood, all but baying their enthusiasm.
A cold, shrouding mist closed in. Kit hugged Delia’s glossy neck, her cheek against the warm wet hide. She tugged her muffler away from her dry lips and struggled to draw breath. Even that hurt.
The mouth of the quarries loomed out of the dark. Obedient to her weak tug, Delia slowed. Using her knees, Kit guided the mare into the quarries. If she could rest for a while and gather her strength, then Cranmer was not far away.
Delia walked among the jumbled rocks, hoofbeats muffled by the matted grass covering the disused tracks. Kit’s cheek rose and fell with each stride. There was blackness all around, cold and deep, empty and painless. She could feel it enshrouding her. Kit focused on the black gloss of Delia’s hide. Black rushed in and filled her senses. Black engulfed her. Black.
The scene Jack, George, and Matthew finally came upon was farcical. The Revenue troop had kept to the beach as far as the Heacham trail, then had gone up to the cliff top and continued south; they had followed quietly. The noise emanating from Snettisham drove them to pull away and enter the tiny village from the east, keeping within cover.
The place was in an uproar. The villagers had been woken and turned out of their houses; a large troop of Revenue men was searching the premises.
Jack, George and Matthew sat their mounts in stunned disbelief. One glance was enough to convince them that Kit and Delia were not present. With a contemptuous snort, Jack pulled Champion about. They retreated to a shadowy coppice separated by a field from the activity around Snettisham.
George drew his chestnut up beside Champion. “She must have got away.”
Jack sat still and tried to believe it, waiting for the explanation to unlock the vise that fear had clamped about his heart. Finally, he sighed. “Possibly. You two go home. I’ll check if she’s got back to Cranmer.”
George shook his head. “No. We’ll stick with you until all’s clear. How will you know if she’s already got in?”
“There’s a way into the stables. If Delia’s there, Kit’s home.” The memory of how the mare had stayed by Kit when he’d brought her down on the sands so many moons ago was reassuring. “Delia won’t leave Kit.”
George grunted, turning his horse toward Cranmer Hall.
Reaching the stables was no problem; ascertaining Delia’s presence in the dark took much longer. Twenty minutes after he’d left them, Jack rejoined George and Matthew outside the
stable paddock, his grim face telling them his news.
“Not there?” George asked.
Jack shook his head.
“You think she’s been shot?” It was Matthew, lugubrious as ever, who put their thoughts into words.
Jack drew a tense breath, then let out a short sigh. “Yes. If not, she’d be here.”
“She lost them at Snettisham, so presumably she’s somewhere between there and here.”
George jumped when Jack thumped his shoulder.
“That’s it!” Jack hissed. “Snettisham quarries. That’s where she’ll have gone to earth.”
As they swung up to their saddles, George grimaced. Snettisham quarries were enormous, new digs jostling with old. Neither he nor Jack knew them well; Snettisham was too far from Castle Hendon to have been one of their playgrounds. Not so for the Cranmers; Snettisham was on their doorstep. Finding an injured Cranmer in the quarries was going to take time, time Kit might not have.
George had reckoned without Champion. They returned to Snettisham to find the Revenue gone and the village quiet. At the mouth of the quarries, Jack let Champion have his head. The big grey ambled forward, stopping now and then to snuff the air. George wondered at Jack’s patience, then caught a glimpse of his face. Jack was wound tight, more tense and grim than George had ever seen him.
Champion led them deep into a section of old diggings. Suddenly, the stallion surged. Jack drew rein, holding the grey back. Sliding to the ground, Jack quieted the great beast and signaled for George and Matthew to dismount. Puzzled, they did, then they heard the muttering coming from around the next bend in the track.
Matthew took the horses, nodding at Jack’s silent direction to muzzle Champion. George followed Jack to the bend in the track.