Aleksey and Emilia went riding every day whatever the weather, determined to have these last few remaining days together. She was staying just long enough for the great party, and then she was departing for her new life.
She was packed and ready.
And, as she pointed out, if she had a car she could drive herself up, couldn’t she…?
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Six
Molly only had eleven other children in her reception class. It was that kind of school. So, in the end, she was well able to inviteeveryone. Ben had scheduled her party the day before her actual birthday for some reason known only to the party-planners who had once both done resistance to torture training, so certainly weren’t giving away anyOp Squirt’s Shindigsecrets—as one of the planners had immediately named this enterprise. Ben had only insisted that the party needed to be the day before because of the presentthey’dbought for her. Aleksey had been given no part in this gift purchase. Not that he was bad at buying presents Ben assured him—the opposite in fact. His presents were always exquisite, wildly expensive, and usually things he’d have liked to have received himself if anyone had ever bought him something when he was a child. But Ben had different ideas, and so that task had been taken out of his hands as well. But whatever this mysterious gift was, it had to be given after the party
The planning group had grown, it seemed to Aleksey, to everyone in the family but him. And he didn’t take this badly at all. He knew Ben too well after all they’d been through to see this as anything other than what it was: by keeping him out of the loop and organising everything himself, Ben was showing him how badly he wanted live up to the boast on the bracelet his daughter had given him.
Aleksey never bothered what other people thought about him, never had, which was possibly why his life had been oddly challenging at times, but Ben was different. He did care. He might not show it under a cover of bluff and bluster, but he was intensely keen for people to like him, to see him as normal. Ironic really, as Ben never really had to worry what anyone reckoned about his character, as most people were too awed by his beauty. In Aleksey’s experience, people with that level of intense attractiveness could pretty much do want they wanted with other people’s feelings, be as spoilt and badly behaved as they liked, and they’d still be worshiped, still loved.
So Ben was planning this day forhimas much as for Molly, and so it had to stay a surprise.
Aleksey didn’t like surprises. He wondered if Ben had overlooked this minor fact.
The October day picked for the party dawned cold with a severe early frost whitening the moors, but not a cloud in the sky to ruin the fun. Aleksey had expected to wake and find the house decorated with balloons and such like, but no. Instead, he was in a pub car park on Dartmoor at three o’clock in the afternoon on the last day Molly was three, waiting for eleven very small children to arrive.
Aleksey hadn’t worried that Ben had booked the pub for the party. He knew him slightly better than that, but he would allow that it had crossed his mind for one fleeting second until he saw that the country inn was boarded up and not in operation. It was, however, in the centre of the moors and therefore a very convenient and well known place for locals to park before hikes and riding and other such activities.
The invitations, which Molly had helped make, had specified the time, the place, and to wear oldest, warm clothes. Even now, Molly was hopping in and out of some mud, dressed in jeans, a sweater with a fleece and some tiny new wellies which looked like ladybirds. Jennifer and Reginald, unable to come to their only grandchild’s party because they were on a cruise around the Fjords, had sent these little boots in the post with a matching umbrella.
Emilia was the only one waiting with them. Squeezy’s absence from the event didn’t bode well in Aleksey’s opinion: he preferred to know where the moron was at all times.
One by one, expensive cars began to arrive. Extremely small people emerged and were left with them. These babies slightly shocked Aleksey. He’d gotten used to Molly, but her personality perhaps made her loom larger in his mind than her actual stature ought.
These party-goers were little more than toddlers, and twelve in one place suddenly seemed a bit overwhelming. He was keeping well in the rear anyway, just lurking with the dogs by the stream which ran below the car park. He could have been a stray walker for all the notice any of the parents took of him. Which suited him just fine.
When everyone had arrived, Emilia shepherded them all to the rear of their car and corralled them neatly into a group while Ben handed them each a miniature sword, a belt to wear it on, and a shield to fasten over one arm, and, by demonstrating with Molly, showed them how to put the costume on.
By their excited reaction to these accessories, it looked more as if they’d been given flying unicorns and magic powers. Perhaps in their minds they had. Emilia then explained that they were squires lost in the wilds, and that they had to get back to their palace and to safety. They had to walk through great dangers and battle dragons, and along the way they might find treasure which the dragons had stolen, which they must rescue and take with them to earn their knighthoods. She then handed each of them a little cross-body leather satchel which they could use to collect this treasure.
With this, Ben led the way down to the stream and started along the valley. His little flock followed, screaming, fighting with their swords, losing their shields and occasionally needing help with shoelaces and other such necessities.
The brook ran along a narrow streambed, bordered both sides by flat grassy banks, which quickly rose both sides to bracken-covered slopes topped by wind-blasted and stunted trees, with glimpses of tors at the very top. Before they had gone very far along, Ben called them to a halt, and then using Molly as his assistant, showed the group of astonished babies how to take cover, lie concealed and move unseen.
For the first time, Aleksey had an inkling of just what father and daughter got up to when they weren’t with him. Molly kitten-crawled on her elbows like a trained sniper taking position and slid into the dense bracken without a qualm. She was entirely silent and still as Ben pretended to hunt for her. He practised the whole group a few times, shouting, ‘Take cover,’ at which the eleven untrained soldiers ran around like headless chickens, screaming with glee, or genuine terror (it was hard to tell), until they fell over, entirely visible, squirming and wriggling, calling out, and asking endless questions.
Ben declared they were ready and got them back into order and they set off again. Four bags, half the swords and almost all the shields had been lost, so Emilia jogged back to retrieve them. Suitably attired once more, they had not gone very far until they rounded a corner and the grass appeared to be…sparkling. Curious, amused and bemused in equal measure, Aleksey and his two sensible companions trailing behind got closer. The grass had been scattered with gold-foil chocolate coins. Ben shouted, ‘Treasure!’
The children naturally squealed in delight and began picking them up and stuffing them in their bags, until one of them, glancing up at some movement on the tor above the slope let out a piercing scream so genuine that Aleksey’s heart sped up and Radulf’s hackles flicked to standing on a low menacing rumble.
There was a dragon at the top of the hill. It had apparently had a cave in the rocks of the tor and had emerged from its lair at the sound of its treasure being stolen. It was green and purple, oddly man-sized, with an enormous long, spiky tail. It roared and began to jog (with great difficulty given the tail and the fact it couldn’t really see where it was going) down towards them. Ben screamed, ‘Take cover!’
The children were frozen to the spot in complete horror. Then the dragon tripped over its tail and fell flat on its face, and Ben changed his cry to, ‘Kill it!’ and Molly drew her sword and with a tiny, squeaky battle cry ran to the struggling creature and started to bat it over the head. Fortunately the swords were only made of light balsa wood, because on seeing this all the other babies recovered and joined in, giggling as they beat the poor animal, who was suspiciously making sounds that sounded like laughter, until it groaned theatrically, rolled onto its back and expired with an impressive, drawn out, final moan.
Ben quickly got the children to gather the rest of the coins, and they were off again.
Aleksey went up to the dragon and helped him to his feet. Psycho lifted the head piece. ‘Thanks, boss.’ Before Aleksey could comment on any of this bizarre turn of events, the dragon picked up its tail like a debutante overstaying her welcome at the ball and trotted back up the hill.
Ten minutes later, they rounded a bend of the stream to find a low, stunted tree, which grew right on the banks where the water formed a natural pool. The tree was covered in brightly coloured ribbons. There seemed to be hundreds of them. The children screamed again and ran to the branches, pulling at the trailing ends, stuffing the fluttering silks in their bags.
Suddenly, something moved in the pool. One little boy, who apparently wasn’t quite as keen on the ribbons as he had been on the chocolate, and who had consequently been eyeing the pond instead, shouted in alarm. All the children crowded to the bank to observe. The thing appeared again, for all the world like a miniature Loch Ness monster—a humped, slick, black shape.
It suddenly exploded from the water with a bellow. Aleksey wondered if Radulf’s heart would stand the shock. A few children fell over. Ben swept them up and shouted once more, ‘Take cover.’
