Chapter FourteenI screamed at the report of the guns. The horse tossed its head and kicked out with its back legs, shattering the wickerwork. Matilda clapped her hand over my mouth. I stared at the gaping wound in the carriage’s side and didn’t move.
The driver wrapped his arms around the horse’s sweat-drenched neck, whispering words I couldn’t hear. Its eyes rolled back in its head, showing the whites.
‘Are we hit?’ I asked, pulling Matilda’s hand away. ‘Did they get us?’
‘We’re fine,’ said Matilda, using exactly the same tone on me as her paramour used on the animal. ‘Everything’s fine now. We’re too high for them to reach.’
I looked down onto a child’s model of Bearbrass, split in two by the elegant ribbon of water, and knew she was right. The sun glinted off shining new railways le
