Second Night Read Free

thick meaty soup was set ready on the kitchen table. Three large loaves of freshly baked bread were sliced and stacked in a dish beside it. She hoped she had prepared enough food to help Caz through the worst of the terrible hunger spasms until he went back to the lodge for supper with the family, who appeared to have accepted that he would only join them for one daily meal. There were potatoes and a chicken roasting in the oven, and more bread and some cakes and a bowl of fruit in the scullery for him to eat later when he returned. If he was still hungry after that, there was a big chunk of cheese in the fridge and more biscuits in the tin.
    She limped down the passage to the dining room, opened the double doors to the reception room and went to one of the tall latticed windows that looked out over the rose garden and into the stable yard. Cold rain pounded the cobblestones and flooded the water trough. A steady stream of water bubbled into the drain. There was no sign of Caz but the lights were on in the boxes and the yard gate was open.
    Out of habit she craned her neck, looking past the garden wall towards the bleak expanse of water edging the elegant sweep of the lawns. It grieved her that there had been no waterfowl on the lake since the swans had left on the night of the red moon. She had been born in the manor house and brought up on the estate. Yet this was the first time she could remember in all her long life when there had been no dabchicks scuttling between the reeds in the springtime and no geese stopping over on the flight from their Arctic breeding grounds.
    She saw movement by the barn. Caz was bringing in the horses from the winter paddock. He was riding Kyri, bareback and with no bridle as he always rode her, at the head of three tall grey mares. A bay-coloured weaner foal skipped ahead of them across the wet cobbles. Freyja and Rúna, the two larger mares, took themselves into their respective loose boxes. The third fussed after the foal, trying to follow him into the box next to the tack room. Kyri put herself between them while Caz leaned down and closed the door.
    â€˜Go on, Nanna!’ he said, shooing the mare away. ‘He’s not your baby.’
    The mare went reluctantly into her box at the other end of the line. Rúna paced the partition wall beside her, whickering to her newly weaned foal, already happily head-down in his feed bucket. The mare in the first of the two boxes between them snorted irritably and stamped.
    â€˜Lighten up, Freyja!’ Caz told her.
    He rode into the empty stable, ducking his head under the beam over the door. Kyri shook the raindrops out of her glistening mane and put her head to one side to accept the handful of horse nuts he held out to her. He slid down from her back and she bent her head, touching her forehead to his.
    â€˜Rest now and eat,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll be back soon and then we’ll ride.’
    A white-hot spasm searing his entrails made him gasp and stagger. The filly whickered softly. He leaned against her, breathing heavily and groaning.
    â€˜I’ve got to go,’ he panted. ‘See you later, Kyri.’
    The filly stood by the stable door, watching him leap up onto the garden wall and run sure-footed along its length. She watched the outline of the woman at the window raise a hand to lift the latch, heard the bent wooden frame creaking as it opened to let him jump down into the dimly lit room. She raised her head, looking eastward, her luminous eyes searching among the grey shadows of the hills where the evening was fading quickly under a covering of sombre cloud driven down from the north. She called once, deep and resonant, before she turned her attention to her feed bucket.
    Daisy closed the shutters and drew the curtains. One brief glance had been enough to see the sweat pouring down Caz’s face and the strained look of pain beyond control in his eyes. He was deathly pale. By the time she came to the