Christmas and then New Year passed quietly on the farm. They
were snowed in at the end of December, but by the end of the first week of
January the sun was out and melting much of it. Piles of dirty snow still
clogged up the farmyard, but most of the fields were uncovered and the slaves
were sent out, up the hills to the north to mend the fence that kept the sheep
out of the forest.
It was hard physical work as all
the rotten old fence posts had to be first pulled out, then the hole deepened
with a long metal pole called a pinch. Melissa was in charge of the pinch and
carried it around on her shoulder like an amazon warrior carrying a spear. When
it came time to work the hole, she brought it down into the ground with a
earth-rumbling thump. After that, Helen and Tina would take turns with the
sledgehammer on the new fence post to drive it into the hole. Melissa always
took over for the last five or six hits. After that the wire was applied, spun
out from a wooden spindle and attached to the posts by metal pegs with a
clawhammer. It was slow going, they would do not much more than a hundred feet
in one day and after lunch they got even slower as their muscles got tired. All
three of them were dressed in warm waterproof leggings and coats, with scarves,
gloves and woolly hats. There was occasional drizzle, but they were well
protected and would stay out even in heavy rain, only sheltering under the
trees in a downpour.
As they worked, they talked.
‘Was it just up there that you saw
them?’ asked Tina, pointing to the hilltops above the forest. The trees were
Forestry Commission pine trees, a crop that would now probably never be
harvested.
‘Yes,’ confirmed Helen. ‘You go
through the woods, then there is a path to the top. From there you can see the
windmills. After the windmills is the desert and that’s where I saw them.’
They were speculating about the
Fire Foxes, the tribe of lunatics that was said to live in the desert beyond
the hills. This had been one of the topics they had discussed for much of the
day. Melissa had heard rumours though that it was not the Foxes this time, but
Evermarch troops returning from their campaign in the north.
‘Was it an army Land Rover you saw?’
asked Melissa. ‘Maybe it army.’
‘I don’t know, maybe,’ admitted
Helen. ‘They weren’t dressed like army though. More sort of Laurence of Arabia.
They’d just come out of the desert.’
‘The army are back though,’ put in
Tina. ‘I heard Ruth and her brother talking about it.’
‘What would they be doing looking
over our valley though?’ wondered Helen. ‘Think about it. They were looking us
over. They looked down the valley with binoculars and left. If that was our
army then why would they be scouting their own land?’
Neither of the other two could
provide an answer to that. This wasn’t the first time Helen had thought it all
over. She got a bit of news from Ruth and a bit more from her occasional phone
calls with Ray, but the truth was that no one knew what was going on, everyone
was guessing, and actual facts were hard to get hold of out of all the wild
speculation. The men she had seen in the desert could have been anyone, but
there had been no word of Fire Foxes since then and a lot of chatter about the
army. She felt she was right. Why would their own army stop at the Zone Line
and look the valley over? Look it over for what? Most likely it was just random
desert dwellers, she generally came back to thinking that after her worried
analysis had run its course. She just wished there were better protected on the
farm.
When Helen tuned back into the
conversation, it had moved on to their lives before the reditus. Helen,
the most talkative of the three had long since told the others all there was to
know about her. Her marriage to Ray Lorric, and how it eventually crumbled for
what now felt like ridiculously petty reasons. Her affair with Gary Vincent and
their emigration to Australia where they had run a backpacker’s hostel for
eight years. And finally, how they had been there right up to the day when her
bit of Australia had suddenly ended up where Norway had once been.
Helen already knew much of Tina’s
story too. The young woman had told them about her life in what was known as
the backdam, a word that mean “out in the sticks” in Guyanese. She was
from a village called Paradise, and that was all there was to it for her. She
had been too poor to go to school, had been raised by an aunt who had six
children of her own and had had an upbringing that sounded so harsh and
neglectful that being sold into slavery probably hadn’t been much of a shock.
This just left Melissa, but when
questioned, like now as she hammered in a fence post with mighty blows of the
sledgehammer, she only said, ‘well, I’m a grown woman, I was married. But I
don’t think about me old life now. I been slave since de start. They took me
one month after de reditus. Been in camps ever since. Forgot me old
life. Not important now.’
Helen dared not pry any further
than that as she didn’t want to hurt her friend’s feelings. Melissa had put all
memories of her old life out of her mind as a coping mechanism, but for Helen
it was the opposite. She was nourished by her memories. From her comfortable
childhood, and the warm memories of her parents and younger brother. From her
dull and unsatisfying marriage to Ray, that somehow seemed like a vision of marital
bliss now. The tiny house with only one bedroom that they rattled around in and
the living room with a kitchen adjoining it that was no bigger than a cupboard.
That blasted piano too, that she had bought on a whim and that had she had
never learned to play, taking up half the room and that had become such a bone
of contention between her and Ray that it was the basis of all the bad feeling
that ultimately led to their divorce. It all seemed so stupid now and looking
back she realised how unreasonable she had been. She had expecting Ray to
provide her with everything, not just financially, but emotionally too. They
had been so young. She had been so young. She had wanted Ray to be more like a
father to her than a partner. Even so, all the fights early on, she enjoyed the
memories of the good times. They had enjoyed life back then, going out with
their collection of oddball friends to pubs and nightclubs, or the theatre, or
whatever else took their fancy. After that all came to its end, she met Gary.
He had been handsome and excitingly new. Running off to Australia had been an
adventure, but after a year she had come to realise that under the good looks
and well-maintained body he was a useless twat. So, she had largely ignored him
for most of their relationship and lived her own life, finally coming to
realise that she didn’t need a man in her life to be happy. Since becoming a
slave Helen felt she was beginning to realise something else about her life. It
was hard to put into words, but it was could perhaps be expressed as insipidly
prosaic as “don’t sweat the small stuff”. Even the worst of times in her previously
life were infinitely superior to the life of a slave. She hoped if she ever got
back to something resembling the life of a free woman, she would cherish every
moment of it. She probably wouldn’t, said part of her mind, but she didn’t care
about what her inner voice of criticism said much these days. Slaves didn’t
lose any sleep worrying about how they felt about something that may or may not
happen. Slaves, she told herself, that wanted to survive better realise that self-recrimination
was an indulgence that could not be afforded. You woke, you ate, you worked,
you slept. You got through it a day at a time. As Helen watched the winter sun
creep behind the hills, she smiled to herself. If only she was good at taking
her own advice. Being sold into slavery had not made her strong, it had made
her worse. Her neurosis was all that was left of her.
It was getting dark now, so they
put the tools under cover and started to walk back to the farm. Some light snow
was falling, muting the light from the house windows. The rolling hills, the
road down the valley, it was like a scene from a Christmas card.
‘You know something?’ said Helen.
‘I always felt guilt. All through my life. I always felt guilty because I did
so badly at school and disappointed my parents. I felt guilty when I left Ray
and I felt guilty when I fell out of love with Gary.’
Tina was listening intently.
Helen’s life was like tales from another land to her. She didn’t understand
half of it, but to her ears it reminded her of the TV shows her aunt used to
watch about the lives of the rich and famous.
‘But now, all that guilt has gone.
The world has gone to total and utter rat shit, but the good thing about it is
that none of this is my fault. It’s not my fault and there is nothing I can do
about it.’ Helen was trying to convince herself as much as anyone else, but it
struck a court with Melissa who uttered, ‘there are worse places to be.’
Helen obviously realised she was
better off on the Shielings when compared to Develde, with plenty to eat and
her own room, but she was not about to start waxing lyrical on how good they
had it. She’d be dammed if she would be grateful to anyone, even Ruth, while
she was a slave.
‘We’ll go soft here,’ said Helen
pessimistically.
Melissa laughed at that remark and
however it was meant, Helen thought she heard contempt in it. She had a sudden
vision of life back on Develde Farm, which sent a shiver through her body.
Melissa was fine now, almost a friend, but there had been a time when she had
not been so friendly. For months on the farm, in order to survive Helen had
become little better than Melissa’s servant, a slave to a slave. Helen had
always been soft was probably what Melissa was thinking. It had been much worse
for the displaced people that ended up on the farms around Goldengreens,
especially the white ones. If you didn’t seek the protection of one of the
locals you tended to end up in a bad way. She had had to learn quickly. She
remembered how naive she had been when she had first arrived there after about
a month of being moved around by the church. It had seemed so unfair, sure she
had done some bad things in her life, and even then, she was aware that all her
excuses were getting old. She had been adopted, she had been abused in her
youth. Yadda-yadda. I just seemed so irrelevant now. Even before the reditus,
Gary had started throwing it back in her face when they argued. ‘Your over
forty now!’ he’d shout at her. ‘Get over the things that happened thirty years
ago!’ She didn’t though and it was all so bound up in her sense of identity
that she hadn’t been sure if she ever would. Sometimes she would try, but it
never worked, and at first, she would accept the way she was, offer the same
excuses again, but after the excuses came the guilt and self-recrimination and
the whole cycle would begin again. All her relationships had ended the same
way, with the men in her life giving up on trying to “fix” her and throwing up
their hands. The sensible ones left her early on while the duller ones held on
sullenly as the years went by and everything slowly turned to poison. The reditus
had changed all that. No one cared about her excuses any longer, no one cared
about what a mess she was.
She remembered lying awake at night in her bunk, unable to closer
her eyes due to being terrified of being murdered in her sleep, thinking I’m
in hell. It was a reasonable assumption given what had just happened to the
world. God was back, and she was being punished. She’d lie there and think – what
did I do that was so wrong? Have I treated people badly? So, I’ve broken some
promises, but who hasn’t? Surely, surely though, I don’t deserve this?
All that was done with after just
the first three months at Develde. She went beyond self-pity. The horrors of
the beatings and the burnings hardened her up and she had thrown away every
last drop of self-respect by becoming an obedient slave to not only the muta
but to the other slaves too. She had to cope with the cold reality of the
situation and deal with it. It was either that or die. And some of the other
women had died because of their failure to given in, to bend. And it had mainly
been the westerners, mainly the white ones. Like it was all a dreadful mistake
and could they please speak to the manager. Luckily for me, Helen often
thought, I had very little self-respect to give up in the first place.
Even after a short time of
relative comfort though, she could feel her old self coming back. She was even
arguing with Ray again, even after – in his own cack-handed sort of way – he
had saved her. That was what she had meant, and Melissa laughing at her had
reminded her what their relationship had been like back at Develde. Melissa had
been quite happy to hit Helen if she thought she had a need to and had done on
many occasions. As time went on Helen had learned how to avoid being cuffed by
the larger woman, predicting her moods and desires, making sure she had no
reason to be angry at her. Perhaps Helen had been thinking that things were
different now, but hearing that laugh made her sure that if they ended up back
ad Develde or somewhere like it, then Melissa would go back to the way she had
been, a woman who would give Helen a black eye if she felt she had a need to.
The following morning Helen went
to feed the farm dogs. With the shepherd and his family gone, someone had to do
it, so this was one of the jobs that she had taken on to be entirely hers. She
loved animals, dogs especially, and kept dogs, cats, and the occasional horse
all through her life. Even in Australia, the hostel had become a home to
various strays that she had taken in and generally treated better than the
human guests.
She liked to visit the dogs in their
barn and would bring them treats from the dinner table. She would pet them and
stroke their ears, while telling them stories. She was even interested in
learning about the past history of the dog barn from Ruth.
Over the years had been home to
dozens of Border Collie sheep dogs, but its current occupants consisted of Fly,
a six-year-old bitch, Dirty Dave, who was only a year old and barely trained
and Sweep, a friendly and hard-working dog, but a bit long in the tooth. There
was Jed the Peg, who was not caged up in the barn, having the run of the entire
farm and slept underneath an old hay baler. He would have been shot, deemed to
be useless, had Owen been on the farm.
Fly was Helen’s favourite, she was
a friendly and intelligent dog, the best sheep dog out of all of the dogs and
the most eager to please. Dave had been bought as a pup by Owen, who had
planned to train the dog himself. It had not gone well and as a result the dog
was a wild neurotic mess, who – Helen had been told – tend to charge straight
at the sheep whatever the command given, sending the flock into disarray. Fly
was the only proper sheep dog on the farm now, since a dog called Jimmie had
died a year before the reditus.
Jed the Peg had just turned up one
day. The nearest farm was four miles away and Ruth knew all their dogs, so the
origin of Jed was a bit of a mystery. He had three legs, but the missing one
had been removed some time ago by a vet. Helen admired the dog for his
boundless energy and friendly nature. He was playful and was happy to tease and
play tricks on Helen and the other slaves, following them out on their jobs,
disappearing and then sneaking up on them to then yelp or bark behind their
backs, hoping to startle them. If he did, he would always say sorry by wagging
his tail and coming to lick their hands. Helen thought that anyone that wasn’t
keen on dogs would perhaps find Jed’s behaviour annoying, but Melissa and Tina
both loved him, more than any other being on the farm, for his cleverness and
spirit. The only dogs they had ever dealt with had been small yappy backdam
mongrels, that – through no fault of their own Helen was sure – were aggressive
and angry beasts who did not like humans anywhere near them unless they were
bringing food.
Helen was finishing up, putting
down some fresh straw in the byre. Tina had finished her jobs and was sat on a
bale of hay with Jed’s head on her lap.
‘I never know a dog could be so
smart,’ said Tina. ‘He look like – he know every word I say. I swear he does.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Helen. ‘Border
collies are very clever. You have to keep them entertained or they get bored
and restless. There is no beast happier than a working border collie.’
‘How you loose dat leg of yours?’
asked Tina, addressing the dog. ‘What happen to you Jed? Jed de Peg?’ Tina
laughed, her high-pitched musical laugh. Jed nuzzled and licked her hand.
‘He know he name! You see that,
Helen? He know I’m talking ‘bout him. You need a bath Mr Jed, you smell like a
wet dog. Do you want to have a bath?’
Helen smiled to herself as she
forked hay out a wheelbarrow onto the floor of Dave’s pen. He was the only dog
that was kept caged up at all times when not working due to his nature.
‘There you are Dave,’ she said to
the dozing hound as she finished off the hay. She knew not to go near him in
his cage. He was friendly enough, but unpredictable. He’d never bitten her, and
she doubted he ever would, but he had bared his teeth to her once or twice.
‘You used to sleep with your
dogs?’ asked Tina as she pretended to flick Jed’s ears and he pretended to snap
at her.
‘Oh yes. It was best in the winter
because they kept you warm. Ray wasn’t a fan of it, but I never cared. We
usually had at least one dog and two cats on the bed with us.’
‘Me uncle used to sleep with a
chicken,’ pronounced Tina. Helen looked up from her work, but apparently that
was all Tina had to say on that.
‘I think I’m done anyway,’ mused
Helen. ‘We can head back. Best leave Jed here. He’s not an indoor dog.’
‘I never knew there was a
difference,’ admitted Tina. She jumped down from the bales, landing with a
squidge in the mud. They then tromped across the yard in their wellies. Helen
admired the other two for how well they had adapted to life on a Scottish farm
in winter. But then, she supposed, they were well fed and provided with warm
clothes. There was very little danger of being burned at the stake or beaten to
death in your sleep as well, which would account for their personalities
becoming more natural.
As they approached the farmhouse
the sound of an idling tractor could be heard.
‘It’s that boy again,’ growled
Helen under her breath.
As they rounded the corner into
the yard, they did indeed see a boy, a young man really, standing on the first
step of the tractor’s cabin ladder, leaning down talking to Melissa who was
stood in a long muddy overcoat with a shovel in her hand.
As soon as the young man saw them
though he got into his cab, shut the door, and trundled his tractor out of the
yard, forcing the two women to step aside to let it pass.
‘What was he after?’ asked Helen
as she got closer to Melissa.
‘He just talking ‘bout himself,’
said Melissa.
Helen screwed up her face but
wasn’t sure what to say about whatever it was that was going on. ‘We all done?
Tea time?’
A few days later, the roads were
clear enough for traffic and Ray skidded and slid his way up to the Shealings
in his battered old Civic. Helen had seen it come up the road-end from out on
the farm and followed it into the yard. Ray, still dressed like a tasselled
idiot, got out of the car, shut the door, and watched as she trudged through
the muddy field, climbed a gate and then crossed the yard. He looked tired, she
thought, as she walked up to him.
‘You’d better come in. Take your
boots off at the door.’
Ray did as he was bid and followed
Helen into the main room where Tina was making tea. Melissa was sat up the back
of the room, reading a copy of Horse and Hounds from a stack next to a table
lamp.
Once the tea was made, Ray and
Helen talked. Helen warmed her hands on her mug.
‘Well, what’s the latest?’ she
asked.
‘It not great news. From what I’ve
learned, your two friends here, and many like them, were sold to the church in
Goldengreens with very dubious paperwork. There may be some grounds for
emancipation on that, but right now the church in Evermarch is not doing
anything about it. For you though, Ray sold you perfectly legally. The church paperwork
is all in order. I suppose I could try and buy you, but the Temple very rarely
sell slaves. I could maybe get you transferred back and then put in a request
for a slave and have you assigned to me.’
‘Fuck off, Ray!’
‘Yeah, I wouldn’t want that
either, I assure you. Besides. You are better off here. Evermarch has gone nuts
again since the army came back. They are imposing martial law. They’ve killed a
lot of the muta.’
‘That doesn’t sound like a bad
thing.’
‘Not just them. There is blood on
the streets again. Just after the reditus, the city went bananas. It was
anarchy for months. Hundreds of people died. It calmed down when the church
formed all the hot heads into an army and sent them north on a crusade. Now
they are back though and it’s all kicking off again. Believe me, you don’t want
to go there.’
‘Well FINE. I’ll give Evermarch a
wide berth. There must be other places I can go.’
‘Nowhere I know for a freed
slave.’
‘Then here then! Why not? Free us
and we’ll stay here.’
‘You don’t need emancipation
papers to be free up here. It would be easier to just pack your bags and walk
out the door,’ gestured Ray. ‘All three of you. Make a fresh start in Galloway.’
‘The fencibles will catch us and
we’d end up in the concentration camp at Mossdale.’
Helen knew all about Mossdale, as
every opportunity she got, she earwigged on conversations and gave Ruth the
third degree whenever she got back from the village or had talked to a family
member.
‘What’s a fucking fencible?’
‘Local militia. You must see them
as you drive up, guarding the villages.’
‘I thought they were out hunting
rabbits.’
‘Prick,’ snapped Helen, very much
not in the mood for humour.
Ray waved her insult away with a
gesture then said, ‘Ok then, what about this, your pals stand out, but you don’t.
Just leave. Go to a village and pretend you’re a refugee from Evermarch or
Strake. No one would care even if they thought you might be a runaway.’
‘That’s just like you! Do you
think I’m as selfish as you are? And racist! Haven’t you been listening?
Everyone not from here are being herded into camps. I’ve definitely had enough
of camps.’
‘I’m just saying,’ grumbled Ray,
turning his empty mug round and round.
‘Don’t you have a direct line to
God? Get on the phone then! What’s the use of being able to talk to the big man
unless you use it?’
‘It doesn’t work like that.’
‘How then?’ she asked with genuine
curiosity.
‘Mostly we gather information from
people that have had God speak to them. Then send it on to the church. Well, I
say “we”, there is a team of people do that and I supervise them. When I put in
my monthly report I, well… I have an online meeting with God, but mainly He
talks, and I listen.’
‘Utter bullshit!’
‘I don’t care if you believe me.’
‘A Zoom call with God? Fuck off,’
Helen laughed and then sighed. ‘Well tell him to help me out. Sort out all of
slavery.’
‘Turns out God is quite a fan of
slavery.’
She scowled at him, which prompted
him to say ‘I know you’re angry. You’re angry with me. But what can I do? I’m
middle management at best.’
‘…’sake’, snarled Helen.
‘Look, I got you out of
Goldengreens, and I can maybe get you freed. But not right now. Thorman is the
only person who can sign that sort of paperwork and well… he’s a bit
preoccupied. And I’m sorry about this, but also, he doesn’t like freeing
slaves, he thinks leftovers and post-reditus DPs are safer being church
property. Otherwise, they get scooped up by the muta or criminal gangs.’
Ray paused, as if trying to decide
to tell her more. She stayed silent, hoping that he would slip up and reveal
something he hadn’t meant to.
‘Well,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t
want to complicate the issue, but after I let Bishop Thomas know the first
time, you know, when Samuel was sent to get you… Well, it spiralled out of
control. Some daft twat involved the army, and they rounded up all the slaves
in the Goldengreens area and now Angster Stadium is full of them. Look, don’t
be mad at me or think I’ve got some sort of messiah complex – God knows there
is enough of that around - all I’m saying is let’s not act in haste. You’re
doing fine here. You’re better off here. The world’s just not safe right now.’
Helen, who had been holding her
head in her hands, slammed them down on the table.
‘You think you need to tell me
that? So that’s it? Slavery for the end of my days?’
‘Just for now. Think of it more
like a job you can’t leave.’ Helen snorted. Ray went on ‘ok, sorry a bad way of
putting it. Look on the bright side or something. For a slave you’ve landed on
your feet. And you love the outdoors, and you love animals. This is the sort of
life we talked about having when we were married. And Ruth looks after you.
There are people starving down on the Delta, who…’
‘Spare me the starving kids in
Africa schtick.’
Ray threw his hands up, evidently
deciding there was nothing more he could say that would make it any better.
They sat in silence for a while. Tina had gone to her room and the only sound
in the living room was the crackling of the wood in the fire.
Eventually he spoke again. ‘I give
up. I should have remembered there is no talking to you. I don’t know what else
to say. Life was baffling enough for me even before the reditus. I spent
years of my life trying to figure out how to make you happy. I could never work
out what I was doing wrong. And when you left me, honestly it was a blessing. I
was broken hearted, but I felt like a great weight had been lifted from my
shoulders. Life has never made any sense to me. I was still leading the
bachelor life when it all changed. I still hadn’t figured out what I was meant
to be doing. And now look at us. You don’t think I can help you, and you are
most likely right. I can barely help myself. I don’t know what I’m doing, I
just kept my head down during the purges and as one by one the people above me
got purged, or fled, or died of a Splinter virus I moved up the management
chain to where I am now. Do you think any of this makes any more sense to me
than it does to you?’
‘Forget it, Ray. I remember what I
was like. It wasn’t your fault. If feels like another life anyway.’
‘Yeah, I guess your life had a
bigger upheaval than mine,’ Ray paused. He seemed to chew something over then
went on. ‘Just three days ago there was a dead body at the end of my street. It
was there days before it was taken away. I’ve started sleeping with a loaded
gun under my pillow again. Everything is in chaos again since the army got
back. I’ll do what I can do, that’s all I can say. You’ll just have to wait
until things calm down.’
Helen was exhausted from talking
too. She was frustrated with Ray, but there was nothing to be gained from
shouting at him. It didn’t even make her feel any better.
‘Well just fuck off then Ray.
Don’t bother, I’ll sort it out myself. Just fuck off.’
She pointed at the door.
He grumbled and muttered as he put
his coat and boots back on but didn’t even have the energy to slam the door as
he left. She watched through the window as the Civic span its wheels on the ice
as he turned the car around and drove back out of the farmyard and onto the
track.
Helen was still fuming the day
after his visit, so-much-so that Ruth didn’t come to give them any work to do
in the morning. So, Helen spent the day indoors, splitting her time watching
out her bedroom window as the melting snow fell off the tree branches, or
making and drinking tea in the bothie living room.
She was watching out of the window
above the kitchen sink when that boy turned up in his tractor again. Melissa
had been out at the woodshed and came into the yard to see what was going on.
Helen tutted as she watched the lad talk to her, gesturing and smiling, all the
while never getting down from his tractor cab, as if wanting to remain at a
higher level.
‘She’s twenty years older than
him,’ muttered Helen although she had to admit Melissa looked younger. The Guyanese
woman may have been massively proportioned but her skin was still smooth and
unwrinkled. Helen continued to watch from the window, resisting the urge to go
out there and interrupt whatever it was that was going on. In the end it was
Naomi, who came out to the front door of her cottage, a barber jacket on over
her dressing gown that but a stop to his advances.
‘You here for the trailer,
Daniel?’ called the old woman over the noise of the idling tractor.
The young man looked up. ‘Yes
nana! Just going to get it now.’
‘Well, be on with you. I’m sure
that slave has got work to do.’
Daniel winked at Melissa and
turned back into the tractor’s cab then gunned the engine, churning up the
muddy snow as he trundled over to the rear of the cow shed. Melissa kept her
eyes on the ground as she walked past the cottage back to the woodshed. Naomi
watched until she was out of sight then went back indoors.
In the evening Helen went into the
main house to talk to Ruth. She got straight to the subject of Melissa’s
suitor.
‘Is that appropriate, do you
think?’ she asked. ‘She can hardly say no if he makes advances.’
‘Oh, I don’t think it will come to
that, and I’ll back her to the hilt if he does anything unwanted.’
‘It’s not right, what does he even
want with her anyway? She’s a good deal older than him.’
Ruth was sat at the kitchen table.
She had been reading a book when Helen had come in. ‘I don’t know,’ she
admitted. ‘He’s my nephew, but from Owen’s side of the family. They moved up
here after the reditus and are working one of the old Meldrew holdings.
They send Danny up to borrow farm equipment. His mum is nice enough. If he gets
out of hand, I’ll have a word with her.’
It wasn’t just Melissa that Helen
was worried about. This boy Daniel could be in danger too. Melissa was all
demure sweetness and submission around him because she was a slave and she knew
what was good for her, but two years of being constantly around violence and
death had tempered her into being utterly ruthless. Helen had once seen Melissa
break another woman’s arm with her bare hands and was in no doubt she was
capable of worse.
Helen said no more on the subject
and started to zip up her coat for the trip across the yard.
‘Any interesting news from
Evermarch?’ asked Ruth. Helen knew she was probing a little about Ray and his
efforts to emancipate her.
‘Nothing good,’ she replied. ‘And
nothing you’ve probably not heard already. The army are stirring things up.
Mostly on the Delta.’
‘I wonder if all of the army is
back or just some of it…’ said Ruth quietly. As Helen shut the door behind her,
she realised that the old lady must have been thinking about her husband.
***
Acolyte Acton had gone down to the
cells officially to attend to some of the tasks set him by Father Boniface, but
really, he was there to gloat at Shadwell. He was getting bamboozled by the
Welshman’s quick with though and as Acton stood in the doorway, trying to find
something to say that would break through Shadwell’s strange fatalistic
optimism, he was starting to realise that Shadwell was far smarter than him. He
had no choice but to fall back on threats of violence.
‘They’ve
got you down for crucifixion you know!’ he cried. ‘I’ve seen the order. Any day
now.’
‘This
is what Bishop Thomas wants, is it?’
‘Yes,’
lied Acton.
‘So
be it. Didn’t fancy the whole thumbs and toes thing to be honest. And if that
is what Bishop Thomas thinks is best, then who am I to gainsay him?’ Shadwell
considered for a moment. ‘And if I’m punished for my sins before I go, I
suppose that me all paid up and it’s off to heaven with me, is it? Better to
get it over and done with here, eh? Rather than have to account for it at the
pearly gates.’
‘No
wait,’ stuttered Acton. ‘Crucifixion is a horrible death!’
‘Oh,
I don’t know, could be worse.’
‘What?’
‘Well,
you could be stabbed.’
Acton
was lost for words, not realising that Shadwell, with his deadpan delivery was
quoting Monty Python, but still knowing he was being mocked in some way.
Shadwell
waited a beat, but when Acton failed to deliver the follow up, he was hoping
for, he ended the quote with, ‘at least I’ll be out in the open air.’
Acton
was in a bad mood for the rest of the day after that. He had wanted to revel in
Shadwell’s impending demise, but instead had come away with the feeling that
the idiotic Welshman had been laughing at him the whole time. He walked home
after finishing at the temple for the day, by the usual route and he smiled to
himself as he passed the canal where he had drowned that old homeless man.
This
remembered happiness nourished him for as long as it took him to walk the rest
of the way home. He liked to look out over the city before entering his house
and over to where the Temple could be seen, lit up on the distant skyline, but
even this small pleasure was denied him when he saw the front door was open.
It
was a small, detached bungalow, taken by the church from a heretic the year
before and had been Action’s home ever since. He shared the place with his
slave Abishag, a ruddy-faced old bag formerly of Glasgow and now a church slave
of the lowest sort.
As
he entered and shut the door, he picked up the thin stick he used for beating
her from the hatstand in the hall.
‘Abishag!’
he shouted ‘Abishag! Where are you? Are you
sleeping? Why is the front door open? Where is my dinner?’
He
heard noises from upstairs and then the rotund figure of his slave thundered
down the stairs and rushed into the kitchen. She was wearing a dressing down
and her unkempt hair suggested she had just woken up. He raised the cane and
followed her down the hallway.
Abishag
went to the freezer and started pulling food out of it at random.
‘What
are you doing you old witch?’ he cried and poked her with the stick. He dared
not beat her properly – not after last time.
‘Aye
aye,’ she screeched back. ‘I’m getting yer dinner!’
He
snapped the cane off the back of her bare legs. ‘Why was the front door open,
you old bitch? Has your husband been here again?’
‘Fuck
off with that stick, will you?’ she yelled. ‘No he fuckin’ hasnae. What do I
want with that old cunt anyway?’
‘What
your language!’ he cried and hit her across the back. Most of the blow was
absorbed by the thick pink dressing gown. ‘Watch your mouth when you address
me! I don’t want that man anywhere near this house!’
‘Neither
do I!’ she yelped and moved out of range of his cane. She then warded him off
with a frozen pizza.
‘My
dinner is supposed to be ready for me when I get in! You lazy old biddy. Stop
going to sleep while I’m out.’
‘I’m
an old lady!’ she whined. ‘I was up all night with the gripe. I’ve got to sleep
some time. Just fuck off will ye?’
He
raised his cane again, but she backed off into the corner and held the pizza up
like a shield. Acton realised that this was going nowhere and would just end up
like the last time he tried to beat some sense into her. She was short, fat,
grey haired and rosy cheeked, somebody’s favourite granny probably, but from
some God-forsaken part of former Glasgow. All the stubborn stupidity associated
with that breed, baked into her for nearly seventy years.
He
stormed out of the kitchen and sat down in the living room, muttering over his
should, ‘just make my bloody dinner.’
He
picked up the TV remote control but did not switch it on.
When he had first
moved into this house the church had issued him a slave from the Delta. In
Acton’s opinion these people made better slaves, but the one that he had
received had done nothing but weep all the time. She’d hardly done any
housework and would rarely answer any question put to her, even when reinforced
with a lash of the cane. In the end he had grown frustrated with her and had
literally thrown her in the bin. In a fit of rage, he’d picked her up and
chucked her in the wheelie bin in the street outside. Later as he’d sat fuming,
he had expected her to come scratching at the door, but she hadn’t, and a few
days later she was found dead, having either been run over or, perhaps more
likely, thrown herself under a truck.
He
always seemed to get the rubbish slaves. They were always too lazy, or too
sullen, too old, too young, too useless. The priests got the good slaves while
the acolytes got any old rubbish. He’d gotten a reputation for going through a
lot of them so by the time they issued him Abishag it had dawned on him that if
he got rid of this one, they probably wouldn’t give him another. It had been
the same with that old car they had given him, which was why he walked to work
now.
Abishag
was awful though, the worst of the whole lot. She was so stupid that she just
did not understand that she was a slave. Acton was sure she thought of herself
as an unwanted houseguest. She had no idea what was going on, with the reditus,
the Splintering, with anything at all. He imagined she hadn’t had much idea
about anything even before everything changed. Her and that moronic husband of
hers – who was still skulking around in Evermarch somewhere – had sat in their
council house doing nothing except waiting for the next benefit check so they
could get drunk for three days straight. People like that, who had survived the
purges and everything else, had to be taken in as church slaves because someone
had to look after them. The benefits system had collapsed, and famine stalked
the streets. The church had dusted off the Covenant Code and rounded up as many
wastrels as they could catch and took them into slavery. People like Abishag
and her husband would have been all for it – anything to avoid any personal
responsibility. How Action despised them.
She
was rude, she was a bad cook, he couldn’t leave any alcohol in the house, and
she constantly answered back. He’d only just got her and already he wanted rid
of her. At the first sign of trouble, he had tried to administer a corrective
beating, but after the third or fourth stroke she’d yanked the cane off him and
hit him back. After that he used it more as a symbol of authority than an
implement of punishment. If he was a priest, he could order some guards to come
round and give her the hiding of her life. He smiled at that thought. Getting
ordained was always an option for acolytes, but it was rarely done in
Evermarch. If he did get ordained, then the next step up would be to become a
deacon. And then from there, work his way up to joining proper priesthood. Father
James, they would call him, Father James Acton. Never Father Jim.
And he’d have the pick of the slaves then, he would make sure of that.
If
Archbishop Sinclair became a Judge though, that would really mix things up.
Bishop Thorman would surely be out, along with all his cronies, and other men
would rise. Acton could rise with them. He sensed a kindred spirit in Sinclair,
someone who saw ruthlessness as strength and who would mask any and all cruelty
behind God’s supposed will. Acton was of the opinion there needed to be more of
that sort of thing – ruthless cruelty – until the stubborn, bloody-minded
people of Evermarch got the message. The message that men like Sinclair and
Acton were in charge now, and things were going to be taken seriously from here
on in. No more lip service. No more turning up at the Temple with a turtle
under each arm and a smirk on your face. No more turning a blind eye to the
drinking and fornicating in Evermarch and the criminal gangs in the lawless
areas of the Delta.
Acton
smiled at these thoughts. A priest, why not? And then when Sinclair saw how
dedicated Acton was, then Bishop of Evermarch? That surely was God’s plan for
him. And why not help that plan on a little? That shoogly peg that Thorman was
on could probably be made a little more shooglier. It wouldn’t be too hard to
engineer something. What was it that made Sinclair keep Thorman around after
all? Initially it had been because Thorman did what he was told, but Thorman
had become a bit more independent recently. Sinclair had been furious about
Angster and now there was the army here. There were a lot of opportunities for
Thorman to put a food wrong and if Sinclair was a Judge then… Quick to anger,
impulsive Sinclair, would have nothing at all holding him back from visiting
instant and fatal justice on Thorman.
The
people of Evermarch did not come to the Temple unless they had to. Maybe they
had a police-issued fine to pay, a penance issued to them by the Committee, an
offering that had to be made or some other business that had to be dealt with
by the church. The Temple performed many functions and was kept busy enough,
but they did not get many jealousy offerings. A man had to be pretty annoyed at
his wife to want to put her through that particular ordeal – namely, the
drinking of the bitter waters.
Due
to its rarity, there was no one specific assigned to this type of offering, so
anyone that happened to be on hand would oversee it.
It
was another cold January morning when Mr McAdam hauled his wife up the Temple
steps and into Merric College to request a jealousy offering. No priests were
available, so when the word went round, Acton jumped at the chance and after
arranging cover in the Burning Rooms headed up to the main entrance to collect
the McAdams.
Mr
McAdam was a large ugly man with more neck tattoos than teeth. His wife was a middle-aged
overweight woman who smelled of cigarette smoke and vodka. She was still
wearing her pyjamas under her coat. A more disgraceful pair of Evermarchers
Acton could not have hoped to find.
‘Cow’s
being seeing that cunt Hamish behind my back again, Your Grace,’ explained
McAdam to Acton as they went down to the offering room. Two Temple guards
followed them down and waited outside the door.
‘You
don’t address me as “Your Grace”,’ corrected Acton. ‘You call me Mr Acton, or
Brother Acton if you prefer. In here. Sit over there.’
They
had descended into a windowless room that contained a row of chairs, and a
table with several containers on it of various shapes and sizes. At the back
wall were two sinks and a shower cubical.
Acton
walked to the table then turned and smiled at the couple.
‘You
have nothing to fear, Mrs McAdam, if you have done nothing wrong and perform
the ritual exactly as instructed. All you must do to prove your innocence is
drink the bitter waters and hold it in your stomach. If you are sick then you
are guilty, do you understand?’
Mrs
McAdam nodded and scowled at her husband.
Acton
turned back to the table and took an earthenware bowl and placed it before him.
He then took a bottle of holy water and poured half of it into the bowl,
carefully replacing the stopper in the bottle once he was done. Next, he picked
up a jar and opened the lid. Inside was dust from the floor of the tabernacle,
a toxic mix of ash, dried blood, ground up bonemeal and bits of rotten meat
from the drains and scuppers from the burning room floor. He took a spoon and
ladled a generous amount into the water. The amount of dust was at the
discretion of the person performing the ritual. The more forgiving would put in
only a half-spoonful, while others put in more.
The
foul smell of it hitting the water caught in his nose, causing him to gag and turn
his head.
‘Please
cover your head,’ he instructed Mrs McAdam. He waited while she sulkily pulled
the hood of her dressing gown up. Satisfied, he turned his back on her again
and with a smile put in four more spoonfuls, then began to mix the contents of
the bowl into a thin grey sludge.
He
straightened his face and then with the bowl carried in both hands approached
them.
‘You
must drink all of this now,’ he said to Mrs McAdam. She took the bowl and
looked at is suspiciously.
‘Aw
oh et?’ she asked.
‘All
of it indeed, woman,’ confirmed Acton. ‘And all in one go please.’
She
snarled a profanity at her husband then put the bowl to her lips. She then took
a breath and gulped the whole lot down in one go.
‘Fuck
ye!’ she gasped in triumph and handed back the bowl, before hiccupping and
belching. She very nearly brought the whole lot back up again, but somehow managed
to force it back down. ‘Aw Jesus,’ she groaned.
‘Aye,
see how you like that yah cow. What happens now Brother?’
‘And
when he hath made her to drink the water, Mr MacAdam,’ quoted Acton. ‘Then
it shall come to pass, that if she be defiled, and have done trespass against
her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and
become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot and the woman
shall be a curse among her people.’
‘She’s
already a curse among her people; I can tell you that. How long does this
take?’
‘It
takes as long as it takes,’ said Acton as he went to the sink to wash out the
bowl. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of it. The mixture of water and dust
was a disgusting gunk, that if Mrs MacAdam somehow managed to hold down would
give her a horrible dose of food poisoning.
‘And
if she’s sick, then what?’
‘She
is punished.’
‘How?’
Acton
sighed. ‘Did you not read the form you filled in? She’ll be stoned to death or
hung in her cell depending on the weather. If she was a special case, she’d be
crucified.’
‘Oh
aye, right.’ The reality of the situation was beginning to dawn on MacAdam. His
wife was too busy with trying not to be sick to listen to what was being said.
‘She’s nae a special case?’
‘Where
is your form?’ Acton waited until MacAdam had fished out some papers from his
coat pocket. He then turned over two pages and pointed at the paper. ‘Section
12, See? She’s not formerly of a heretical religion. She’s doesn’t have a
criminal record. She’s not homosexual. There is…’
Acton
stopped when Mrs MacAdam appeared to be sick into her mouth, before
determinedly swallowing it all back down again.
‘Nearly,’
said her husband.
They
waited for a while. Mrs MacAdam sat down and gripped her stomach.
‘Well,
she held it down, eh? We can leave?’ asked MacAdam. ‘I mean, she looks rough,
but she must be innocent.’
‘Oh,
I think we’ll give it a bit longer.’
Mrs
MacAdam continued to get greener and greener but was determined to hold down
the bitter waters. Acton knew though, that they were more likely to vomit once
it had made its way properly down into their digestive systems. He looked at
his watch, then decided to help things along a little.
He
opened the door and gave instructions to one of the guards. The guard left and
they waited.
‘Just
one last ordeal and its all over Mrs MacAdam,’ said Acton.
She
just groaned and hunched over. Mr MacAdam patted her on the back.
‘I
want to take it back,’ said MacAdam, looking up. ‘She’s suffered enough. That’s
plenty.’
‘Too
late for that, once the form is signed off, the process follows through to completion…
ah, here we are now.’
The
guard had returned, with a bowl of rotten offal from the burning rooms.
Acton
took the bowl, then came up behind Mrs MacAdam and quickly stuck it right under
her nose. Her head shot back, she stood up then hunched over and vomited onto
the floor. ‘In the sink if you please!’ demanded Acton and she dutifully rushed
over to the sinks and finished voiding herself, leaning over the nearest one,
holding onto it like a drowning victim holding onto a life raft.
‘That
was cheating,’ said MacAdam sullenly. ‘I think she was innocent after all.’
‘You
are not the judge of that sir,’ said Acton. He waved at the guards who were
lingering at the door. ‘Take her away.’
Acton
was happy once more. It felt so good to be doing God’s work.
***
Thorman had gone back to Angster
and was now spending most of his time there. It was late at night, but he was
expecting company. He had moved his office into one of the executive boxes so
he could get a view of the stadium. He stood overlooking the field as light
snow drifted down over the tents. Guards patrolled the lanes between the
campfires, and around the stands. There was not much space left now that there
were so many people here, but it was well past midnight now and the stadium
slept.
The days after Thorman had
returned from the Botanicals, trouble had started brewing at Angster Stadium
again and he had had to go there to take charge. The trouble had started with the
army throwing out “non-economic” slaves, just dumping them out onto the streets
and a sort of unofficial support network had grown up in the Delta that was
sending them north where they knew the church would take them in.
Then more came from the north.
Refugees and stray slaves, moved on by the valley villages who were already
overwhelmed, arrived in the city every day. They then trickled through the
streets, moved on by the locals. ‘Go to Angster, you will find food and shelter
there,’ they were told. It seemed that the more he did to help them, the more
that came. Once again, the stadium was a beacon for everyone that had nowhere
else to go. No one had organised it, it was like the flow of water downhill,
they just knew, or were told when they arrived, that the only place for them
was Angster.
It meant that he now had nearly a
thousand children too young to work, eight hundred old people too frail to do
much of anything and twelve hundred invalids to take care of. The nay-sayers in
the Evermarch Council could call it a breeding ground for Splinter viruses if
they liked, but Thorman was sure these human castoffs were better off at
Angster, where they could be fed and kept warm - up to a point. The breaking
point would be when the money and goodwill of the people of Evermarch ran out
and starvation hit the camp.
Where else could they go? This was
history repeating itself, was the worry that ate away at him, and this had been
why he had closed the stadium in the first place. Not only did it have a lot of
bad memories from when public executions had been more common – it was also a
magnet for suffering.
Any of his people that went north
brought back stories of even larger groups of slaves that had been left by the
army up and down the old Scottish glens. The local were gathering them into
what sounded worryingly like concentration camps.
And then, when he came to think
of, where had the army stashed all the slaves that they thought were worth
keeping? From what he had heard, some were in the Delta now, in a camp maybe as
far down the coast as Fort Wellington. And what then? That was the wrong
direction for Strake. Would they be marched west through the splinters of the
Gobi Desert and Ukraine? Taken by train to the slave markets in
Ashton-Under-Lyne and sold all across the Divided Kingdom?
Thorman didn’t know and all he
could do was cope with the problems right in front of him, which was why he preferred
staying at the stadium. As a small benefit, it also got him away from the Temple
and all the backbiting and treachery that went on there.
He’d noticed over the last few
weeks that generally all the useful priests had come to the stadium to help
out, while all the worthless ones had stayed at the Temple where it was warm,
and you didn’t get bothered by the needy. No, Thorman corrected himself, most
of the priests were good men really, but they had no idea of how to cope with
large numbers of unoccupied slaves, civil unrest and a simmering war on the
streets between the army and the Committee.
As he surveyed the sea of misery
he had collected in this place, Thorman felt more worthless than ever. What use
did he think he was being to anyone? There was Bacon skulking in the Delta and
there was nothing he could do about it. The civil authorities in Evermarch were
quaking in their boots, watching impotently from the other side of the Zone
line as the army occupied Georgetown and the towns further down the coast.
Useless as he felt, he knew he
couldn’t leave Angster yet. If he did, people would die. What little power he
had he could use here, to bring in food, shelter, and medical supplies. He had
his office in the executive box, his desk, and his three old rotary dial phones
from which he ran the whole enterprise. He had three priests, five acolytes and
thirty guards which had been enough to begin with, but with more slaves and
refugees arriving every day they were becoming in danger of being overwhelmed.
He was waiting for Major Harper.
This was not the major’s first visit to Evermarch since Thorman had talked to
him in the Botanical Gardens, and like the last time he would come unannounced
at some point in the night. It was three in the morning when he eventually turned
up. Thorman had nodded off in his chair, but when the young man was shown in,
the bishop boiled a kettle and made them coffee. Harper looked as handsome and
unruffled as ever. He sat in one of the armchairs in the shadows away from the
window, calm and collected, as if he was here to swap idle gossip.
‘Bacon is strengthening his grip
on the Delta,’ he said reaching for a biscuit. ‘Gathering the other officers
and making them swear loyalty oaths to him. Putting down any regional
resistance with force.’
‘I’ve noticed more of your mean on
the Transition Zone line as well. What’s to be made of that?’
‘Just keeping the chaps busy. We
may be setting up another base or two in the city, but nothing to get overly
worried about.’
‘I’m not overly worried, but Elder
Ritchie is. I get an earful of it every time I go home to my wife.’
‘Well, they do keep on getting in
the way,’ observed Major Harper dryly. ‘We’ve only killed a couple of them in
the city. And a few handfuls in Prospect. If they would just take the hint and
bugger off whenever the army shows up, then they’d be all the happier for it.’
Thorman liked Harper a lot, but he
was not so naive to think that underneath the major’s easy charm there was a
very intelligent mind at work.
‘Things were just beginning to
settle down. We’d just about come to an agreement with the Committee. Then the
army showed up again.’
‘You never wanted to see us again?
You cut me deeply, Your Grace. This is why I am here, to act as a liaison. To
make sure we don’t step on each other toes.’
Thoran stood and looked out of the
window. ‘It’s not that I’m unhappy to see the army again but look at what
you’ve brought back with you. If you want to help, get me more tents and
medical supplies.’
‘I’ll see what I can do, Your
Grace. Like before it will be off the books though. Mum’s the word.’
Harper joined him at the window. A
lone guard in the stands opposite shone his torch in front of him as he
patrolled along the top rows of seats where people slept in makeshift shelters.
‘Bless you my son, but don’t put
yourself at risk.’ Thorman said this not only because he did not want his
illicit army supplies to dry up, but because he also cared for the young man’s
wellbeing.
‘Oh, don’t worry, my head is safe
for the time being.’
‘Even so.’
‘That sort of thing used to bother
me once, Your Grace, but I’ve long since reconciled myself to my own death. No
one can survive in this army without a certain sense of fatality. I’ve done
what I’ve had to do, to survive, and I make myself indispensable to Bacon. Any
qualms, any lingering sense of honour, or - I don’t know - duty, everything
they drummed into us at Sandhurst has long since departed me. I cower and
tremble before Bacon like a whipped dog, along with all the others that have
abandoned pride, abandoned decency, in the hope that my survival may do some
good. That I am currently better alive than dead. Or so I tell myself.’
‘These are bleak thoughts,’
observed Thorman who was no stranger to thoughts like this himself.
‘I’m numb to it now, Your Grace.
Do not worry yourself on my account. Bacon doesn’t trust Intelligence, but he
can’t do without it either. I’m safe enough for now.’
The talked, in a friendly manner,
drinking coffee and making plans until Randy Jack came into the room to fetch
Major Harper back to the Delta. The lad saw Thorman and stepped forward, but
then hesitated. Thorman was blank for a minute, then realised the young man had
just held back his impulse to approach the bishop for a hug. Thorman smiled and
held out his arms. Randy came and gripped him around the chest and rested his
head on Thorman’s shoulder. It was so long a hug that eventually Harper had to
say, ‘that’s enough Sergeant. You can unhand His Grace now.’
Randy stepped back. ‘Yes sir.’
‘Sorry, he hugs everyone,’
apologised Harper.
‘Don’t worry, Major. I’ve known
Randy since he was, sixteen is it, Randy?’
‘Something like that, Your Grace,’
smiled Sergeant Jack sheepishly, then turning to Major Harper he said, ‘we had
better head back sir, before it gets light on the Delta.’
Thorman slept a few hours in the
morning, then word came to him that Sinclair was on his way to Evermarch, so he
summoned a car and went back to the Temple. He slept all the way, his head
hanging down onto his chest as he was driven sedately back into the city.
Archbishop Sinclair was at prayer
when Thorman arrived, so he waited in the residence. One of the old lazy
Temple-bound priests, Father Spicer, was in the living room, having in all
likelihood nothing better to do.
‘Did you see the archbishop? Did
he give any indication as to why he is here?’ Thorman asked.
The old man shrugged. ‘No. Seemed
in an odd mood. Not his usual jovial self.’ Thorman noted the sarcasm of the
last comment.
Not entirely sure what he should
do, Thorman positioned an acolyte outside the chapel with instructions to come
tell him when Sinclair was finished. Thorman met him in the corridor. Sinclair
scowled and said, ‘let’s go to the roof,’ as he tapped out a cigarette and lighter
from a crumpled packet.
Back on his usual perch up on Grayfriars
Church tower, Sinclair blew out some smoke and with a sideways glance at
Thorman he asked, ‘how do you feel Thomas?’
Thorman wondered if it was a trick
question. He wondered how close he was to joining Shadwell in a cell.
‘Nothing you want to share with
me? Nothing important happen recently?’
‘Nothing springs to mind, Your Excellency.’
Sinclair took a few more puffs of
his cigarette, each time seeming to start to say something then stopping.
Eventually he cleared his throat.
‘Well Thomas. Well. Well, word has
come down from above. A little meeting with Him and the archbishops of the
Divided Kingdom. We were given the names of who is to be the Judge for our
region.’
‘Oh,’ said Thorman through a
forced smile. ‘May I offer my most heartfelt congratulations, Your Excellency.’
‘It’s not me.’
Thorman leaned back, lost for
words for a moment. ‘But then who? Archbishop Flag?’
Sinclair looked Thorman up and
down, grunted and flicked his cigarette butt out over the parapet where it was
whipped away by the wind.
The archbishop then straightened
himself up. ‘It’s you Thomas. You are to be the Judge for the Divided Kingdom.’
Thorman was dumbstruck. He felt
adrenaline start to course through his body. His heart was suddenly pounding.
‘Do you feel different Thomas?’
asked Sinclair with open curiosity.
‘It’s a lot to take in,’ he manged
to gasp. ‘What do I do?’
Sinclair curled his lips and spoke
with obvious frustration. ‘Well, since I thought it was fucking going to be me,
I did a bit of research on it. Basically, you judge. You make judgements, sure
in the knowledge that whatever you decide has been guided by God’s hand and everyone
must accept them. The process is being formalised in Strake. I’ll email it to
you.’
‘Right, thanks,’ muttered Thorman.
‘I don’t understand. God told you this, Himself?’
‘Fuck’s sake Thomas, yes! A pillar
of cloud, a blinding light, the full monty. And I’m surprised He hasn’t had
anything to say to you. You should pray on this Thomas. Pray for guidance.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Yeah well,’ said Sinclair pulling
out his cigarette packet, ‘I wanted to be the one to tell you. To see the look
on your face if nothing else. I’m going to have one more fag and then retire to
my rooms.’
‘Yes, of course, Your Excellency.’
‘Another thing, Thomas. You may
want to check who is actually running this place while you are away being a
bleeding heart at Angster. Looks to me like the acolytes are getting above
themselves. You need some younger priests in the mix, not all these Craggy
Island rejects you’ve surrounded yourself with.’
‘Yes, I’ll do that.’
Sinclair grunted and looked up at
Thorman once more, his round face and pitted skin made even redder by the
winter wind. ‘Why you I wonder? Well, we’ll see…’
Thorman at that moment did not
doubt that Sinclair was thinking of the best way to rid himself of this
troublesome bishop. He took a step back from the parapet. Sinclair looked down
at his feet and then headed for the door. ‘We’ll see. I’ll be leaving first
thing in the morning.’
Thorman went and hid in his office
for an hour to let himself recover from the shock. The implications were
immense, weren’t they? He didn’t know. At the very least it meant Sinclair
wasn’t a Judge, which was definitely a good thing. Was Thorman safe now? Was
his life no longer in constant danger? He hadn’t heard anything from God about
it, but then, he had never heard anything from God, ever. What did that mean?
Thorman took the sleave he was chewing from his mouth and gripped it in his
other hand, feeling its dampness seep through his fingers.
His mind racing, he remembered the
last bit of advice he had received from Sinclair. He felt agitated, his legs
twitching and jumping, perhaps the walking would do him some good. With that in
mind he did a tour of the Temple to see how it had been running since he had
been away. It was all about as chaotic and ill-organised has he might have
expected, but his biggest shock came when he passed along a corridor that
overlooked the courtyard at the back of the college grounds known colloquially
as the “drying yards”.
He then sought out Father Boniface
who was supposedly in charge of the cells and other underground areas.
He found the old man sitting in
his private quarters smoking a pipe and reading a trashy looking romantic
novel. He dusted the pipe ash from his robes as he stood to greet the bishop.
‘Your Grace!’ he exclaimed.
‘You’re back!’
‘Yes, Stephen, I am. And I need to
ask you about the people in the drying yard.’
‘The cells and slave pens were
filling up since New Year, Your Grace. We were running out of places to put
them all. What was I supposed to do?’
‘You were supposed to keep me
informed, Stephen.’
‘Never used to be a problem, Your
Grace. When the cells were full before we just emptied them.’
‘Things have changed since then,’
explained Thorman patiently. ‘And you always need to get me to sign off on any…
movements. Don’t do anything else until I’ve reviewed the logs.’
‘Of course, Your Grace!’ snapped
back Father Boniface, who was all too happy to get out of some rather
depressing paperwork.
Back in his office once more, he
thought about going down to the yards, but he found he could not take one step
towards the stairs that lead to its entrance. Those steps, the last steps
anyone coming up from the cells would ever take. He imagined being one of them,
coming up from the cells, then back down the ten stone steps to the yard. The
unimpressive fire exit door opening, and the sun right in your eyes (in his
imagination it was always a cold, but sunny, winter’s day), making you blink
and shield your eyes as one of the guards pushed you forwards…
He was stuffing his sleeve into
his mouth again. And him a Judge now. He felt like he was going insane. Nothing
made any sense.
An acolyte brought in the handwritten
cell logs and he looked over the entries for the last couple of weeks.
‘Jesus,’ he muttered as he read.
Sixteen executions since he’d been gone. Including a failed Jealousy Offering.
Carried out by, and authorised by, an acolyte acting on his own authority. Mrs Evie
McAdam of Trimcapel, body released back to husband for burial. He needed to
have a word with Brother Acton. And find another job for Father Boniface outside
of the Temple, maybe even outside of the city entirely. See how the old fool
like that.
He turned over the page and the
latest entry only had one name on it. He read the name, leapt up from his chair
and called loudly for the guards.
Nathan was back on shift after
being off for two days. There was no system of ranks within the Temple Guard. Nathan
didn’t know why. This meant that when he was off the rota, he usually went to
the guard’s tea shack and played games on his phone or chatted to anyone else
that happened to be there. Today the only other guard in the shack was a newbie
even younger than Randy. Nathan had already seen him smoking a joint at the
back gate (on his first day!) and so was not all impressed and was making no
effort to talk to him.
Bunn opened the door and stood in
the doorway, letting the warmth that had been generated by the gas heater bleed
out into the cold corridor. There was nothing written down anywhere that Nathan
had to take orders from Bunn, but he was much older and a former policeman. When
Bunn asked Nathan to do something, he usually just did it without any backchat.
He would occasionally forget to do the things he was tasked with doing, so Bunn
or whoever would have to find him and shout a reminder. This was genuine forgetfulness
though not out of laziness, as he found that just doing what he was told was
easier than arguing and besides his mother had taught him to be a nice boy.
‘There you are,’ said Bunn. ‘On
that fucking phone as usual. I’ve got escort duty today, be a good old chap and
go down to the Drying Yard and bring in the washing.’
‘Aww…’
‘Shut up, oh and take Kim with
you,’ said Bunn, pointing at the new guy.
‘Why me?’
‘Why not you?’ asked Bunn who then
left without shutting the door. Nathan extended one of his very long legs from
where he was sitting on a ratty old armchair and pushed it shut.
Kim looked up from the old
newspaper he had been flicking through. ‘We have to bring in washing? That’s a
job for slaves innit?’
‘It’s code. It means haul down the
crucified bodies from the crosses. Slaves are meant to do it, but they won’t
unless a couple of guards are there to supervise.’
Kim stood up, apparently eager to
see some corpses. Nathan sighed, put his phone away, grabbed his submachinegun
from the coffee table and shouldered it.
First, they went down to the Posticum
and picked up two slaves. These were property of the Temple, mostly elderly men
and women that were of no use anywhere else and unlikely to ever be
redistributed. As they took the steps up to the Yard one of them stumbled and
Kim clubbed her in the back with the butt of his gun.
‘Hey, don’t do that!’ said Nathan,
pushing Kim to one side. ‘Don’t hit the slaves.’
He then leaned down to pick up the
old lady. ‘Sorry Mrs Jaffery. He’s new.’ He then turned to Kim. ‘Listen, don’t
hit anyone, ok?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m telling you not to,’
said Nathan with more than a hint of a threat in his voice.
Nathan hated the Yard. He didn’t
talk to anyone at home about this part of his job. He was ashamed of it, but
what could he do? The door at the top of the stairs was opened and bright sun hit
his eyes. The harsh light reflecting off the concrete seemed to magnify it.
Although the walls of the yard were tall if felt like there was never any shade
in this place. It somehow made it worse. In Nathan’s mind it made it worse
anyway when he thought of the poor people that ended up here.
There were three crosses up, but
only two were occupied. His looked at the nearest. A very old, and very dead man,
still wearing his black overcoat, was crumpled on his cross like a desiccated
crow. Nathan didn’t recognise him, so he walked further into the yard and
glanced up at the next cross. He saw a thick set man slumped with his head down,
his shirt covered in dried blood, his arms and legs purple and swollen. Nathan
edged closer to see if he was still breathing, when the man raised his head and
smiled weakly.
‘Hello there, boyo,’ whispered
Shadwell through cracked lips.
‘Jonesy!’ cried Nathan. ‘Oh no!’
‘Don’t worry boyo, it won’t be
long now. I can feel myself going.’
Nathan beckoned over the slaves
and shouted, ‘help me get him down!’
Thorman was summoned to the
archbishop’s residential rooms in the morning. These chambers were the finest
Merric College had to offer, set up like a pleasant three-roomed hotel
apartment.
Sinclair was in his dressing gown
and slippers frying eggs in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette out of the side of
his mouth.
‘You’ve still no ash trays in
here,’ he commented, gesturing at the coffee cup he had filled with butts.
‘All the residences are
non-smoking.’
‘Yeah?’ asked Sinclair, blowing
out a cloud of smoke as he pushed his eggs about in the pan. ‘It’s clean in
here at least, not like in Vindal. And warm too.’
‘Did you sleep well?’ enquired
Thorman.
‘Like a baby. So, Thomas. You are
a Judge now. Fair enough, but listen, I’m still the Archbishop and Judge or
not, you promised me a proper temple.’
‘Of course, Your Excellency.’
Sinclair tapped his cigarette
packet on the table. ‘And just to make sure you keep your promise and since I’m
sure you’ll be very busy being a Judge I’ve decided to send over some
contractors to help you.’
‘That would be very kind of you.’
‘Wouldn’t it just?’ smirked
Sinclair.
There was a rather pregnant
silence which Thorman broke by saying, ‘a firm of builders from Strake is it?’
‘No!’ scoffed the archbishop.
‘Cherubs. And you can make sure they get everything they need.’
As Sinclair went over some more of
the details, Thorman began to get nervous. Cherubs? In Evermarch? That would
not be good news. He had seen them once or twice in Strake and they had been
terrifying. He shuddered to think what sort of commotion they would cause in
his city.
He was still in a state of bemusement long after Sinclair
had gone home to Strake in the back of his armoured four-by-four. He’d grumbled
about the increase in army checkpoints before he left, but evidently, he still
preferred to be chauffeured around in a car than take the train.
That evening Thorman had to go
home, to lie in his own bed and sleep on the events of the last twenty-four
hours. His wife had caught wind of the archbishop’s visit, so she would not let
him sleep until she had got everything out of him. He slumped down into his
favourite chair to eat a sandwich with a can of lager. As he chewed and drank,
he told her of his conversations with Sinclair and revealed that it was he, her
husband Thomas Thorman, that had been chosen by Him to be the Judge of the
Divided Kingdom.
‘This is wonderful news!’ she
exclaimed, literally dancing around the living room in joy.
‘Is it?’
‘What are you talking about? Of
course it is! You’ll have power over all of them now, you can do anything!’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of. Sit
down, will you? You’re creating a draft.’
‘We need to plan this all out,
Thomas! Wait until Elder Richie finds out about this!’
Thorman took another bite out of
his sandwich and watched as his wife went into the hall and dialled a number on
the land line. That will keep her busy for an hour or two, he thought as he
finished his dinner and went upstairs for a bath. He could hear Erica’s shrill
excited voice as she concocted her schemes with that tosspot Richie.
After his bath he went downstairs
for a glass of water. His wife was off the phone now and working on her laptop
in the kitchen. She’d be up to something, he could be sure of that, but at this
moment he didn’t want to know.
‘And another thing,’ he said as he
filled his glass at the sink. ‘Sinclair is sending some cherubs over.’
‘Oh, that will be nice,’ she said
distractedly as she typed.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why not? Little babies with
wings. What’s the problem?’
‘Have you even read…? I mean,
that’s cupid, not… Oh, never mind. You should refresh your memory, Erica. Read Ezekiel
again.’
She was distracted too much by
whatever she was typing so he left it at that and went to bed. It took him a
while to get to sleep, which did not surprise him. He worried at his nails and
pulled stray hairs out of his cheeks. He wondered how far his power went. Could
he defy the archbishop? Could he make things better in Evermarch? Could he even
use his new powers to stop some of the excesses carried out by Sinclair in
Strake? That city was ruled by fascism in all but name. Could he help everyone
in the Divided Kingdom? In the whole world? He realised he didn’t even know how
many other Judges there were, and how he would even contact them if he did
know.
Eventually, in the small hours of the morning he came to a decision.
There was only one thing for it, he needed to talk directly to God. He picked
up the landline handset by his bed and called Ray Lorric.
