graveyard. This gave them a vista over shop fronts on both sides of the road and multiple escape routes if anyone came near.
Monday was a waste of time, and Tuesday was early closing, but patience was rewarded on Wednesday when two furtive lads sprang from a field and bolted over the cobbles. They both carried poles hung with rabbits on each shoulder.
Rosie agreed with Justin’s assessment that they were about her age, possibly a couple of years older. Didier was tall and broad, with a tiny lower jaw and huge rat-like front teeth. Jean was short, but built tough with chunky limbs and bright red hair.
A girl who worked as the butcher’s apprentice met the pair in front of the shop, as Rosie scrambled deeper into the graveyard so that she could still see the action. After a quick look and a sniff at the dangling rabbits, the girl took the poles inside, then quickly peeled off paper money and handed over a small cloth sack.
‘We need to start moving,’ Rosie told Justin. ‘If they cut back through a field we could lose them.’
Approaching Jean and Didier anywhere near the shops would guarantee curious onlookers, so Rosie planned to follow them out of town. After giving Justin a leg-up over the graveyard’s stone wall, she vaulted it herself and followed him through long grass.
As they reached the shops, Jean led Didier up an alleyway between the baker and blacksmith’s. Rosie was anxious not to lose them after their long stake-out, but stopped Justin from breaking into a run because it would then be obvious that they were chasing.
Rosie and Justin reached the uncultivated land behind the bakery as Jean and Didier stepped over a gate into a cow pasture fifty metres further on. Crossing open ground risked the boys spotting them if they looked back, but they’d started to run and she had to take the risk.
She reached the gate with Justin a few metres behind, then peered down the line of a tall hedge, where she was relieved to see that the two boys had slowed to a brisk walk. After following for several hundred metres, Rosie and Justin dived for cover in the hedge as Jean took the sack off his back and used a pocket knife to pull the cork from a bottle of red wine.
*
Five kilometres and two bottles of red wine later, Didier and Jean stumbled into a dilapidated cowshed that hadn’t housed an animal in years. There was a crash of metal, followed by howls of drunken laughter.
Rosie had said little during the walk, but her expression told Justin that she was having doubts about using the lads as her guides.
‘There is another boy who hunts,’ Justin whispered, as they crouched at the base of a tree. ‘He might help us, but he’s mouthy.’
Rosie gave her head a little shake, then told Justin to stay put while she crept up to the long shed. The sides were vertical wooden slats and she peeked through. The boys had only colonised one corner, and had some fairly nice kit: fold-out beds with proper mattresses, a rug on the dirt floor, a pile of books and gas lamps fixed to the wall.
As Rosie moved around the building, she was less impressed to find grass spattered with animal blood, an undisguised washing line and black patches left by regular fires. Anyone approaching the shed from this end would immediately know that someone was hiding out.
‘Need a piss,’ Didier shouted from inside.
‘Have one for me too,’ Jean said, before howling with laughter at his own joke. ‘I drank too fast. It’s all spinning!’
The accents intrigued Rosie. They looked a rough pair, but spoke more like the sons of lawyers than the sons of peasants. This hint at their background, plus the stash of books, made her hopeful that she could whip them into shape with some common-sense advice.
But it was starting to get dark and it didn’t seem like a brilliant idea to approach two drunken strangers, so she decided to return in the morning.
Didier’s urine noisily splashed grass as Rosie crept back towards Justin. She was at the corner of the shed when her canvas pump caught in a rabbit snare. As the wire pulled tight it cut into her ankle. She successfully stifled a yelp, but her stride was off balance. Her hand shot out instinctively, but while it saved a fall her palm had thumped the side of the shed.
Inside Jean turned towards the source of