Chapter Three
I felt completely frozen, unable to move a mussel. I wasn't aware of making a noise but suddenly Cook was shaking me.
"Genevieve, get a hold of your self!" He shouted in my ear. "You can still get away. He wants you to take a bath first, that will give you a ten minute head start as long as no one sees you." He stopped a moment to think. "This is what we will do. I will take you to my house under pretence of taking the bath there if any one asks. Mary will get together some supplies in a sack and off you'll go. It will be fine." He said reassuringly. "This is not my first time doing this Genevieve." He winked, trying to get me to stop being so glassy eyed.
I'd have to say it didn't work.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and followed Cook out of the pantry.
I didn't know how to feel about it. There was a chance, a hope! And yet, I had a foreboding feeling in the pit of my stomach. It seemed to be settling in for a long stay.
Out in Cook's little two room hut, Mary was playing with Leah on the floor. She stood up and wiped off her skirt when we came in.
"Ben?" she frowned, "why are you back so early?"
Cook was about to reply when there was a cry of, "Aunty Gena!" and Leah jumped up. She ran over and hugged my knees. "Did you come to play with me?" she asked hopefully.
Even in the state I was in, I didn't want to disappoint her. I crouched down. "I can't play right now, Leah, I'm sorry. I have somewhere I have to go." I said sadly.
She looked at me and a look of understanding crossed her face, something not expected from a four year old. "Are you going to the same place the others go? The ones papa brings home some times? They always say they can't play either because they have somewhere to go too." She studied my face for a moment. "Will you be coming back?" she asked in a small voice. "The others never come back."
I wasn't sure how to answer that. "I don't know Leah." I said as a tear slid down my face.
Just one single tear.
That was all I was allowing my self for the moment. To be truthful, that was all I had ever cried since I was six-years-old. That was the second lesson I had learned, never show your tears. It never did you any good to cry or scream when they beat you. Sometimes it made them hit you harder.
"Okay." Leah said solemnly. That just made me want to cry all the more. The fact that this little girl could just up and except that there was nothing she could do about it was heart wrenching.
An idea popped into my head that had me mentally staggering. I could take them with me. Not Cook and Mary but Leah and the baby. If we were given enough of a head start and we weren't seen, we could make it. We weren't too far from the Telamrine\Narnian border. It was true that Narnians didn't waste any love on the Talmarines, but I was certain they were too honorable to harm a lady and two children. Especially since slavery was not condoned in Narnia in any shape or form.
I was starting to see the little sliver of hope now, could feel it glowing warmly in my heart. I looked at Mary who was in the middle of filling an old flour sack with supplies.
"I won't be taking that with me, Mary. Just a blanket or two will be fine. Something I can make slings out of."
Both Cook and Mary were looking at me know. I could see that they didn't understand.
"Leah is getting quite big now. The blanket must be made of strong enough material to support her wait on my back." I continued. "And the other must be able to hold the baby."
Cook still looked slightly confused but Mary's expression had turned to one of understanding and hope. Hope for her children. Hope that they wouldn't have to grow up in this world of work, pain, and heart ach.
"Yes," she whispered, "yes, it could work. Are you sure Genevieve? They will slow you down."
I knew what she wanted me to say and I was fully prepared to follow through with it to.
I smiled thinly, "Yes, Mary I'm sure. I can't believe you had to ask."
Mary went into the bedroom and came out a minute later with a bundled baby Jeremiah.
Cook, who had followed the conversation if not understood it fully, started when Mary proceeded to tie Jeremiah in a sling around my front.
"Wait a moment…. What do you think you are doing?" he asked.
I didn't let him carry on. "Cook, think about it. Do you really want Leah to grow up in the world of slavery and men like Master Braden?" I shuddered as I said the name, "Do you want to live with the possibility that your son could be sent to his death in the mines and you had no power to stop it? Do you?"
He shook his head dumbly and watched Mary finish lashing the unresisting Leah to my back. She had always been an excepting child.
"I didn't think so." I said in a low voice. "Don't worry about us, I hear they take very good care of there women in Narnia." I smiled at him and he smiled back. "I hope to see you two over there some day."
And with that, I turned and walked out the back door with a baby on my front and a four year old strapped to my back.
~…*…~…*…~…*…~…*…~…*…~
Cook returned to the Kitchen to see how everything was going in his absence and to see if anyone had noticed his and Genevieve's disappearance. No one seemed to be paying attention to him short of dodging his ladle. He let out a silent sigh of relief and melded back into his role as lord of the kitchens as if he had never left.
He watched the clock hands move across the face as time flew by. Half an hour later, he was approached by a maid say she was sent by Master Braden to fetch 'the girl' from the bath. Cook broke out in a cold sweat but did his best to keep it together.
He frowned in what he hoped was a convincing way. "I do not know ware she is. Have you checked the place she normally goes to wash?"
The answer he got was not what he had expected.
The maid looked up at him with fear in her eyes and he realized a little too late that she was looking at something, someone, behind him. That someone wrenched him around by his color. He found himself staring into the cold eyes of Master Braden.
"You miserable excuse for a servant, you let her get away, didn't you?" He growled.
He let go of Cook, dropping him on the floor in an undignified heap. Braden kicked him in a rage and swore.
"You!" he said, pointing to the terrified maid, "Go fetch the men. We've got prey to hunt."
An icy shiver went down Cooks back at the look in his eyes. If he caught Genevieve….there was no end to what he would do to her.