Year's Best Scifi 3 Part 30

She squatted with her back to a signpost, running fingers through her hair to rid herself of tangles and snaps of thorn.

The engine noise was nearer and louder. She considered putting a nail in the nuisance-maker's petrol tank to pay him back for the rabbit. That was silly. Whoever it was didn't know what he'd done.

She saw the stranger was straddling a Norton. He had slowed to cope with the winds of the moor road. Every month, someone piled up in one of the ditches because he took a bend too fast.

To Allie's surprise, the motorcyclist stopped by her. He shifted goggles up to the brim of his hat. He looked as if he had an extra set of eyes in his forehead.

There were care-lines about his eyes and mouth. She judged him a little older than Susan. His hair needed cutting. He wore leather trews, a padded waistcoat over a dusty khaki shirt, and gauntlets. A brace of pistols was bolstered at his hips, and he had a rifle slung on the Norton, within easy reach.

He reached into his waistcoat for a pouch and fixings.

Pulling the drawstring with his teeth, he tapped tobacco onto a paper and rolled himself a cigarette one-handed. It was a clever trick, and he knew it. He stuck the f.a.g in his grin and fished for a box of Bryant and May.

"Alder," he said, reading from the signpost. "Is that a village?"

"Might be."

"Might it?"

He struck a light on his thumbnail and drew a lungful of smoke, held in for a moment like a hippie sucking a joint, and let it funnel out through his nostrils in dragon-plumes.

"Might it indeed?"

He didn't speak like a yokel. He sounded like a wireless announcer, maybe even more clipped and starched.

"If, hypothetically, Alder were a village, would there be a hostelry there where one might buy breakfast?"

"Valiant Soldier don't open till lunchtime."

The Valiant Soldier was Alder's pub, and another of Squire Maskell's businesses.

"Pity.""How much you'm pay for breakfast?" she asked.

"That would depend on the breakfast."

"Ten bob?"

The stranger shrugged.

"Susan'll breakfast you for ten bob."

"Your mother."

"No."

"Where could one find this Susan?"

"Gosmore Farm. Other end of village."

"Why don't you get up behind me and show me where to go?"

She wasn't sure. The stranger shifted forward on his seat, making s.p.a.ce.

"I'm Lytton," the stranger said.

"Allie," she replied, straddling the pillion.

"Hold on tight."

She took a grip on his waistcoat, wrists resting on the stocks of his guns.

Lytton pulled down his goggles and revved. The bike sped off. Allie's hair blew into her face and streamed behind her. She held tighter, pressing against his back to keep her face out of the wind.

When they arrived, Susan had finished milking. Allie saw her washing her hands under the pump by the back door.

Gosmore Farm was a tiny enclave circled by Maskell's land. He had once tried to get the farm by asking the newly widowed Susan to marry him. Allie couldn't believe he'd actually thought she might consent. Apparently, Maskell didn't consider Susan might hold a grudge after her husband's death. He now had a porcelain doll named Sue-Clare in the Manor House, and a pair of terrifying children.

Susan looked up when she heard the Norton. Her face was set hard. Strangers with guns were not her favorite type of folk.

Lytton halted the motorcycle. Allie, bones shaken, dismounted, showing herself.

"He'm pay for breakfast," she said. "Ten bob."

Susan looked the stranger over, starting at his boots, stopping at his hips.

"He'll have to get rid of those filthy things."

Lytton, who had his goggles off again, was puzzled.

"Guns, she means," Allie explained.

"I know you feel naked without them," Susan said sharply. "Unmanned, even.

Magna Carta rules that no Englishman shall be restrained from bearing arms. It's that fundamental right which keeps us free.""That's certainly an argument," Lytton said.

"If you want breakfast, yield your fundamental right before you step inside my house."

"That's a stronger one," he said.

Lytton pulled off his gauntlets and dropped them into the pannier of the Norton.

His fingers were stiff on the buckle of his gunbelt, as if he had been wearing it for many years until it had grown into him like a wedding ring. He loosened the belt and held it up.

Allie stepped forward to take the guns.

"Allison, no," Susan insisted.

Lytton laid the guns in the pannier and latched the lid.

"You have me defenseless," he told Susan, spreading his arms.

Susan squelched a smile and opened the back door. Kitchen smells wafted.

A good thing about Lytton's appearance at Gosmore Farm was that he stopped Susan giving Allie a hard time about being up and about before dawn. Susan had no illusions about what she did in the woods.

Susan let Lytton past her into the kitchen. Allie trotted up.

"Let me see your hands," Susan said.

Allie showed them palms down. Susan noted dirt under nails and a few new scratches. When Allie showed her palms, Susan drew a fingernail across the red strop-mark.

"Take care, Allie."

"Yes'm."

Susan hugged Allie briefly, and pulled her into the kitchen.

Lytton had taken a seat at the kitchen table and was loosening his heavy boots.

Susan had the wireless on, tuned to the Light Program. Mark Radcliffe introduced the new song from Jarvis c.o.c.ker and His Wurzels, "The Streets of Stogumber." A frying pan was heating on the cooker, tiny trails rising from the fat.

"Allie, cut our guest some bacon."

"The name's Lytton."

"I'm Susan Ames. This is Allison Conway. To answer your unasked question, I'm a widow, she's an orphan. We run this farm ourselves."

"A hard row to plough."

"We're still above ground."

Allie carved slices off a cured hock that hung by the cooker. Susan took eggs from a basket, cracked them into the pan.

"Earl Gray or Darjeeling?" Susan asked Lytton."The Earl."

"Get the kettle on, girl," Susan told her. "And stop staring."

Allie couldn't remember Susan cooking for a man since Mr. Ames was killed. It was jarring to have this big male, whiffy from the road and petrol, invading their kitchen. But also a little exciting.

Susan flipped bacon rashers, busying herself at the cooker. Allie filled the kettle from the tap at the big basin.

"Soldier, were you?" Susan asked Lytton, indicating his shoulder. There was a lighter patch on his shirtsleeve where rank insignia had been cut away. He'd worn several pips.

The stranger shrugged.

"Which brand of idiot?" . "I fought for the southeast."

"I'd keep quiet about that if you intend to drink in The Valiant Soldier."

"I'd imagined Wess.e.x was mostly neutral."

"Feudal order worked perfectly well for a thousand years. It wasn't just landed gentry who resisted London Reforms. There are plenty of jobless ex-serfs around, nostalgic for their shackles and three hot meals a day."

"Just because it lasted a long time doesn't mean it was a good thing."

"No argument from me there."

"Mr. Ames was a Reformist too," Allie said.

"Mr. Ames?"

"My late husband. He opened his mouth too much. Some loyal retainers shut it for him."

"I'm sorry."

"Not your problem."

Susan wasn't comfortable talking about her husband. Mr. Ames had been as much lawyer as farmer, enthusiastically heading the Sedgmoor District Committee during the Reconstruction. He didn't realize it took more than a decision made in London Parliament to change things in the West. London was a long way off.

Allie brought Susan plates. Susan slid bacon and eggs from the pan.

"Fetch the tomato chutney from the preserves shelf," she said.

Outside, someone clanged the bell by the gate. Lytton's hand slipped quietly to his hip, closing where the handle of a revolver would have been.

Susan looked at the hot food on the table, and frowned at the door.

"Not a convenient time to come visiting," she said.

Hanging back behind Susan, Allie still saw who was in the drive. Constable Erskine was by the bell, vigorously hammering with the b.u.t.t of his police revolver.His blue k.n.o.b-end helmet gave him extra height. His gun-belt was in matching blue.

Reeve Draper, arms folded, cringed at the racket his subordinate was making.

Behind the officers stood Terry and Teddy Gilpin, Browning rifles casually in their hands, long coats brushing the ground.

"Goodwife Ames," shouted the Reeve. "This be a court order."

"Leave your guns."

"Come you now, Goodwife Ames. By right of law..."

Erskine was still clanging. The bell came off its hook and thunked on the ground.

The Constable shrugged a grin and didn't holster his pistol.

"I won't have guns on my property."

"Then come and be served. This here paper pertains to your cattle. The decision been telegraphed from Taunton Magistrates. You'm to surrender all livestock within thirty days, for slaughter. It be a safety measure."