When Signy knew that her brother was alive she held a grim celebration. So now she had to live. There was fish and cream for the cat and wine for her and the girl to toast the return of Siggy and the Volsons.
Cherry was in heaven. Her beloved mistress was going to live! She chased round and round the table, as a cat, as a girl, as a bird. She hung on Signy's neck and wept for the love of her, and swore she would never stop.
Signy banged her hands down on the table.
'And now we will destroy Conor,' she said. With that she put the darkness aside and began to make her plans.
The next morning, a small brown bird flew in through the window of a flat in Leytonstone, close to the edges of the Wall, where the shape-changer had hidden her find with the pig-woman, Melanie. Siggy had refused to move without her. She found them lying on piles of cushions in the middle of the floor, a huge fire blazing in the grate, blankets stuffed all around and under the door to keep out the draughts, duvets and eiderdowns piled up on top of them. All around were scattered paperbags stained with grease, crumbs, apple cores, empty bottles and small heaps of food. Cherry picked her way across the debris, her nose slightly wrinkled, and dropped a letter into Siggy's lap. Then she changed into a cat. The garbage was just too good to miss.
'Oh, God!' shouted Melanie from her heap of blankets. Cherry leapt into the air and turned back into a girl as she hit the ground. Melanie groaned; Siggy giggled. There was something sickening about seeing shape treated so lightly.
'Don't worry, Mels, she does it all the time,' said Siggy.
'Whow! One shape orta be enuff fer anyun,' grunted Melanie. She crept deeper under the blankets, but kept a sharp eye on the man and the girl. Melanie wanted to know everything that was going on.
Cherry stared at him, and Siggy smiled back as he opened the letter, then frowned and looked quickly away. She was a pretty girl. Just for a second he was flattered before he remembered the scabby wound that was his face. But Cherry was staring with the simplicity of a cat She had no feeling for looks at all. Actually, she was thinking that underneath the warm reek of grease and smoke that filled the room, the man smelt really rather good. She crossed her legs and began to purr under her breath as Siggy opened his letter and began to read.
It was the first communication between them since the massacre, and Siggy was filled with the overwhelming sensation that the letter was a fraud, written by a stranger. It was Signy all right; he knew her style as well as his own. But it was Signy as he'd never known her. And what nonsense she talked!
Revenge? Defeating Conor? Recovering the Volson lands? Restoring their father's dream? Siggy stared down at his wrecked body, and he began to laugh.
'Me, King! King Me. King of Shit!' He waved his hand around the room. 'King of Scraps! King of Pigs! King of…' He laughed weakly and stared at Melanie, inviting her to laugh with him. 'Me, King,' he snorted. 'You, Queen! Fight Conor.' But Melanie stared back at him, her face without expression. Siggy felt the laughter drained out of him.
'Cherry,' he said. 'We have to get her out of there.'
Signy
I'm information, I'm treachery. Here, on the inside, I belong here. I'm a spy. Conor wants me. He doesn't know what love is, but he wants me. He doesn't trust me – not yet. But he will. I'm the greatest asset we have and Siggy wants me to run away!
He doesn't want to see me humiliated anymore, he says. He has to understand; there's no such thing as humiliation. There's no shame except the shame of not destroying Conor to the last drop of his blood. If I have to sleep with him, I'll do it. I'll open my legs with a loving smile. If I have to kiss his lips and look in his eyes like a lamb and tell him I love him, and comfort him when the night demons come, I'll do it tenderly. If I have to bear his children, I'll do that too, just so that I can slit their throats before his eyes. He has to suffer like he's made me suffer. Like he made my father suffer.
I know Siggy's suffered more than me. He had to watch our brothers devoured. He had to give our father to Odin. But in the end it makes no difference. He can turn and twist all he likes but he has no choice. It's not in his hands. He'll see.
Odin gave him the knife. Odin embraced me. Our destiny is in the hands of gods.
Look at Cherry lying on the floor at my feet Why else is she here -shape-changer, part human, part animal, part god? See her! She looks up at me and smiles.
'There is a way,' she purrs. 'I can get you out if you want.'
'Did you tell him that?'
'No.'
'Good! Never tell him. He must think I'm trapped.' I chew at the flesh around my fingertips. 'Everything must be put right' Then I smile at her and say the terrible word 'Conor…' just to hear her growl deep in her throat.
'He wants to have you in the same way a dog pisses on its victim,' says Cherry. Yes! She knows. 'He wants you to love him because he can't love himself. He wants you to want him because then his victory would be complete. He wants you to forgive him.' She meows and creeps low on her stomach onto my lap. Poor Cherry! I stroke her between the ears as she turns back into cat.
'I'll let him do whatever he wants with me,' I say. 'And when the time comes, I'll kill him. I'll wipe out his armies, and I'll put my own family back in the place he's stolen. There will be no forgetting. Never.'
'… always hate him,' murmurs the little tortoiseshell cat on my lap. Her eyes are as hard as stones. She always feels exactly the same as I do.
I will have power. Already I've had some of the guards killed. I pointed them out to Conor from the tower while they were on parade. I told him they raped me. They died. Conor was furious to think that his property had been used by common soldiers. They were hung by their heels from the trees and beaten until they could scream no more. The guards know I hold the power of life and death. One day, everyone will know.
Conor wants everything to be just as it was. Sometimes I go along with it He fills my prison with toys and we pretend it's not a prison. He fills my ears up with promises, and we pretend I believe them. He fills my life up with his emptiness and I pretend I'm full. He doesn't trust me yet, but he will. He wants to, you see, and poor Conor lies so easily to himself. And poor man – do you know what? He has no idea what the difference is between hate and love. I can fool him into thinking anything. I can even fool him into thinking that I love him.
Each time he comes I think my heart will break all over again. I loved him so much – so much! You'd think he'd see the look behind my eyes and shudder, but instead he weeps, and kneels by my chair and begs me to forgive him.
'I love you,' he says, over and over. And then he looks at me with an expression like an animal. He raises his eyebrows slightly. He's waiting. I realise with surprise that he expects me to tell him that I love him, too.
I only know this; if I have to fall in love with him all over again to get him to trust me, I'll do it just so I can hurt him.
I say, 'I'm your prisoner. How can you expect me to love you?'
'You did love me.'
I look away. This is unbearable!
He inspects his clean hands and he asks, 'Do you think you could love me again?'
It astonishes me beyond words that he asks me this. I say, 'I am yours, the spoils of victory.'
When I say that, he blushes like a boy. 'It was out of my hands,' he growls. Oh yes, my darling, nothing to do with you. Poor, innocent one. See how I've hurt his feelings! But I lie so well that I could almost feel sorry for him.
I say, 'Then who did this to me?' I fling the blanket off my legs so he can see my pretty legs. He hates to see my legs these days. They offend him.
'It was an accident,' he growls. 'You know that.' He shakes his head, dismissing my legs. 'This had to happen, don't you see, Signy? It couldn't be stopped, it was all underway from a long, long time ago. The treaty was impossible. There were too many people in both camps who wanted it destroyed. It was Val or me. The gods wanted it!'
'That's why they gave you the knife,' I say. I nod at it hanging from his belt.
'Yes, yes.' Conor nods in agreement He is surprised that I see this, but not as surprised as I am that he believes what I say. Sarcasm means nothing to him.
'It was given for me to take,' he agrees.
I shake my head, which feels like it's about to explode. But nothing of this shows on my face. I never let anything show on my face. It would turn me to stone if anything showed on my face in front of him.
I say, 'If you want to love me, Conor, you have to win me. Nothing for free ever again. You must show me how much you love me.'
'How? Tell me how…? Anything.'
'Let me out of here,' I say. And I watch his eyes widen. What did he expect me to ask for? Chocolates?
'Not possible…'
'Because you don't love me.'
'No! But there are powerful people. Enemies – the same ones who forced my hand to kill your father.' He's lying, of course. But he already thinks I'll believe him because he's half convinced himself. He thinks so much of himself he even believes his own lies.
'I won't have you put at risk, you're too important to me,' he says.
'Then kill your enemies.'
'No, I need them! Not yet, not yet, Signy. Give me time!'
I don't understand. Why does he keep me here? Is he scared of me? Or does he realise in his heart that I am his destruction?
I nod at the door. 'Let me know when before you come back.'
'You don't understand.' Conor's voice drops. And now, already, he begins to talk politics. He paints a picture of powerful associations, groups of men and women working against him – against us – people too strong to be defeated. Unlike Val, I suppose he means. These people have to be humoured.
'For the time being,' he begs. 'Can't you see that?'
I sigh. I half nod my head as if I'm not sure whether to believe him or not, and poor Conor thinks I'm fooled. The only person he fools is himself. Of course it seems to him that half the world wants to destroy him. They do. They're just not necessarily in the places he expects them to be.
I nod, I listen, I nod some more. I frown. 'You should have told me all this before.'
Conor sighs and smiles apologetically. How lightly he passes over the lives of all my family!
'One day, I'll free myself of them,' he promises me. 'I'll kill them, every single one of them. You'll have your revenge. But it takes time!'
Ah, Conor, my darling, your promises! So many promises made! But I'll make sure you keep this one.
'I'll have their heads before I'll have you,' I tell him.
'They will die, you will have your revenge,' he repeats eagerly. We smile and nod at each other. The imaginary enemies have become real. They are why I have to stay trapped here in the tower. They are why my legs are hamstrung, they are the ones who destroyed our love. None of it was anything to do with Conor. On the contrary, he will help me take revenge.
I have to look away. How can I keep up this agreement of lies? How long will it take?
If it takes forever, I'll keep it up forever. That's how long.
'Conor,' I say. I say it sadly. 'Oh, Conor, Conor. Don't expect me to believe anything you say for a long, long, long time. Oh yes, I still love you…' He looks up in pleasure at that lie which comes so easily to my lips. 'Yes, I still do, despite everything. But I'll have to trust you before you ever touch me again. These are the people who gave the orders for me to be crippled. The ones who forced you to destroy my father. You tell me how strong you are, but it seems to me that you must be weak for these people to bully you like this. You say yourself that you never wanted this. Very well; prove yourself. Bring me their heads.'
He lost his temper then and stormed about, angry that I called him weak and accused him of being bullied, even though that's what he'd just told me. Of course, Conor is anything but weak. He is the bully. Well, let him choke on his own lies. He flings a chair at the door, just missing me, and for a minute I think he's going to rape me. Let him. I've survived worse than that. But strange to say he never lays a hand on me when I don't want him to – not then, not ever.
In the end he broke up a few more pieces of furniture and then stormed out. I thought, it's started. My revenge. I will have those heads he's promised me, the heads of innocent people, no doubt, but they'll give him an excuse to free me. I will take everything back. Conor wants everything, to kill my father and peg my brothers out for the Pig, and then have me love him into the bargain. Mad! That's his weakness. He truly believes he can have anything he wants. Even me.
It'll take time, but now it's underway. The problem is Siggy. I'm strong, but he's weak. How can I make my brother strong? Who is there to help him? Or make him?
This is a story that travels across years. It begins with children and ends with grown men and women. There are babies. The babies grow tall, some of them, at least.
Conor had Val's skeleton bolted to the high gates of the Estate. The words, 'King of All He Surveys', were cast in brass and screwed into the wall above him and there he stared blindly out over the world with weeds taking root in him and the rain weeping tears down his face. A robin nested between his ribs and for a while he had a heart fluttering again inside him.
Signy couldn't see it, but she heard about it. Conor had given orders that she was to know nothing of it, but the kids took to gathering outside the tower and jeering at her, 'How's yer father? How's yer father?' Signy closed her curtains and wept Conor told her that the children were lying, put up to it by his enemies to torment her. Signy knew otherwise; Cherry never lied.
One of the children got a jackdaw nestling and trained it to speak, 'How's yer father? How's yer father?' It sat in the eaves of the houses calling out its one phrase day after day. Signy had a word with Conor, and this time she wanted action. Both the jackdaw and the child disappeared and the woods around the tower became forbidden territory to the rest of the Estate. Signy's isolation in her tower increased.
In the world beyond, Conor's campaigns continued with undiminished success. The halfman lands were scattered with bizarre skeletons, pecked and gnawed as the famine dug deep. At the other end of their territory, the halfmen begged, stole and borrowed from their creators in Ragnor and the other towns and cities around them. These people beyond did not love the halfmen, but they didn't love London either. It suited them to have Conor and the halfmen at each other's throats. It saved them having to do it themselves.
The halfmen organised, found leaders, fought back. The name Dag Aggerman became known – a terrorist to the ganglord, a bogeyman to the people of London, a freedom fighter to the halfmen. But Conor was unstoppable. Race after race of halfmen found themselves staring extinction in the face.
Conor had planned genocide of the halfmen right from the beginning, but already he was suffering the madness of tyrants. His original military aims began to mutate into a philosophy of hatred, and finally into an act of faith. The halfmen were not just the enemy, they were abominations. Only the races the gods had made must walk the earth. Anyone with even the slightest trace of animal blood in them was all beast – dirty, foul, and monstrous.
For decades there had been interbreeding and secret traffic under the Wall and over recent months many of the more human-looking of the halfman races had crept in to try ami escape the raids. Therefore the search moved closer to home, into London itself and down through the family trees. Appearances could be deceptive; the evil was cunning. Conor saw halfman blood wherever it suited him.
Now no one was safe. Conor's strange ideas about racial purity caught on like a disease with many people. Secret police were out on the streets. Ordinary people turned into spies – children against their parents, teachers against the kids. If you had so much as a cleft foot or a spotted tongue you were inhuman. More than half the population in areas close to the Wall were turned into animals overnight.
While Conor raged and fought the whole world, the greatest enemy was at home, and of the purest blood possible.
Signy had Conor caught on a hook he neither understood nor believed in. She played him with a patience born of the certain knowledge of a lifetime's captivity. One day she allowed him to kiss her and hold her; the next she wept uncontrollably when he came near. One day she told him secrets she had only ever shared before with Siggy; the next she winced in fear when he lifted his hand to scratch his cheek. One day she allowed him to open her clothes and kiss her breasts; the next she attacked him when he tried to kiss her.
Then the time came, over a year after she began her campaign, when her teasing him had its inevitable result Signy allowed herself to get carried away, and they made love. Their pillow talk was of armies and generals, of surprise attacks and strategy. Conor was deliriously happy, he thought he had everything in the world he wanted, but on his next visit Signy was desperate with frustration, humiliation and fear.
'Let me out of here,' she wept, over and over.
'I don't dare. Our enemies…'
'Bring me their heads.' Over and over. 'Bring me their heads. Destroy our enemies.' Signy knew well enough that Conor's enemies lived only in his imagination. Cherry reported everything faithfully; it had been years since there had been any useful dissent under Conor and his father Abel. The tyrant's power grew daily, but so did his madness. The enemies that he told Signy about may have begun as useful lies to deny responsibility for what had happened, but they soon became real enough to Conor. They were like nightmares; the greater his control over the world around him became, the stronger they grew.
'Just kill them. Kill them all,' said Signy. 'You've done it once. Why not again?' Conor bit his lip and shook his head. He wanted Signy here, where he could keep his eye on her. She had already half convinced him that she loved him, but trust was harder. How could Conor trust anyone, when he didn't even trust himself?
Meanwhile, Cherry was everywhere. What a spy she made in her different shapes! Cherry sat under the chairs at conferences and committee meetings. Cherry hid behind the curtains or perched on the window-sill while the security chiefs tried plan after plan, not to depose Conor, but merely to convince him of their loyalty. Cherry listened to the great men and the little men, and Signy was able to astonish Conor with her insights into what would happen, by whom, and when and how.
'But how did you know?' he'd cry.
Conor was not just in love; he was also impressed. Signy had an almost magical grasp of affairs of state.
Two years after Cherry had found Siggy in the market place, Signy and Conor were sleeping together regularly. One night, for the first time since the murder of her family, he fell asleep as he lay across her thigh. Or so it seemed. In fact, he was pretending. Signy held him as gently as a baby, and stroked his neck and watched with wet eyes as Cherry stood in the doorway of a neighbouring room with a sharp kitchen knife in her hand.
She shook her head. Even if she hadn't guessed that Conor was only putting her to the test, killing him was too easy. It would ruin everything. She wanted his whole world in her hand.
When he opened his eyes he boasted, 'See? I fell asleep. I trust you.' But Signy sighed and shook her head, and told him that if he trusted her he would let her out of her prison.
'One day,' he said. And already he began to think that one day, maybe he really would.
Siggy
Muswell Hill's a scumbag of a place to live. It suits me fine. We got this big old flat on the fourth floor of a tatty, ugly brick building overlooking the main street. We could have afforded better, but better attracts attention. I like Muswell Hill. The criminal fraternity is thick on the ground. I mean, you can get lost in the crowd.
It's all oil lamps and old dusty furniture, but there's a great view out over east London and the market's right down on the street below us. You can see it all – half the folk chewing cabbage leaves picked up from the gutter, the other half swapping videos. You can get some good stuff in Muswell market. The criminal fraternity, see? I spend a lot of time sitting up here with my binoculars, keeping an eye on things. In fact, that's about all I do. It's called being depressed. Melanie goes on at me. She's always out and about, busy, busy. It scares me. I should go along with her, keep an eye on her. I love that smelly old pig. But I can't. Bring myself to do it, I mean.
About a year after Cherry found us I went along back to the City to see what Conor had left of our territory and you know what? It wasn't there anymore. All gone. He'd have changed the layout of the roads if he could have. It was stupid to go in the first place. Signy was on at me: there must be some people, you just have to dig deep enough. Well, I dug. I won't be going back.
Conor didn't just defeat us in battle, he annihilated everything to do with the Volsons. It wasn't just the family. It wasn't just the generals and the gangmen. It wasn't even just the merchants who had grown rich under Val, the importers and exporters, the smugglers, the big shopkeepers. It was everyone. It didn't matter how little they were. If they were little under us, they were dead. Even the poor men and women who had nothing, even the children. Anyone who spoke fondly of us, anyone who admired us, anyone who was thought to admire us – they'd all been wiped out.
It's an industry out there. All along Moorgate they have continuous sacrifices to the AlFather. See… Conor's even taken our god off us. I walked down there; I saw them. I knew them. Strung up by one foot, hands tied behind their backs, men, women and children dripping black blood from their mouths onto the pavements. Half a mile of them. They hung them on anything that came to hand – from lamp-posts, traffic signs, windows, from scaffold poles stuck from window to window or just nailed by a heel to the wall if there was nowhere else handy. Months after the defeat and Conor was still finding fresh victims every day.
So much for any little hopes we might have left. The people were gone, you see. A territory isn't land, it's people. Me and Signy are about the only ones left.
Andstill she wants me to fight Conor! What with? Melanie and Cherry armed with nail files? Yeah, well, Melanie goes on at me from time to time about 'the resistance'. Which is what? A bunch of farmyard animals waving rusty guns in the air. Yeah. OK, I've seen enough of halfmen to know that they're not the monsters everyone thinks they are, but that's not quite the same thing as fighting an organisation like Conor's. Melanie – her heart's in the right place; look what she did for me. I love her, she's all I have. But I wouldn't trust her to lay the table, let alone the plans for an invasion.
The thing that really does my head in, though, is Signy. How can she bear it? After all he's done! She carries the wounds on her own body, hamstrung. And yet she lets her jailer in. They fuck -well, how else do you want me to put it? Making love? And why? For revenge, so I'm told. Well, listen; I don't believe all that much in revenge. I mean, what's it for? What's it do? I don't buy it. It's an excuse. She's not there for the sake our family. She's there because she wants to be there. She could get out tomorrow. She could be with me right now if she wanted it, but she prefers to stay there with Conor. After all he's done! I mean, forget about what he did to Val and Ben and Had. Forget about what he did to me. Look what he did to her!
Sometimes it makes me want to vomit up my memories of her. But I can't, I can't. She's my sis and I love her. Even when I hate her I still love her. That's all.
Well, she was tough, Signy, but she's had a basinful, let's face it. It was bad enough what I went through, but she really did fall for Conor. She loved him. She believed it and now she can't let go. I guess it's driven her mad.
That's what I keep telling myself. She's crazy. It's not her fault, it's not even her doing it anymore. That's not my sister in there, that's someone else. Conor took everything away, even her own mind. And now he can climb up that ladder and shag what's left whenever he feels like it… and that… THAT… is the one thing I can't forgive. And I tell you, if there was anything,anything that might convince me I had a chance of sliding a knife under Conor's ribs, I'd do it, I'd do it tomorrow. I'd do it now. I'd die for it. I'd do it if it cost the lives of every soul in this town of London.
But I can't.
That's me, always the realist. Conor's too strong and I'm too weak. Conor broke Signy, yeah. But he broke me too. We both got away with our lives, but what are we good for now? She's a lump of meat Conor uses when the urge takes him. And me, I sit here looking out at the world and wondering what it's going to do to me next, and all I have left to love and hold dear is a lump of fat pork with a big smile on its face called Melanie pig.
Melanie
This uman, my Siggy, e's rich as kings and so'm I.
I goes out every day down the market. Bargins… oinky, Bargins! Everythins a bargin if you got the money. I thought stealin' outta dustbins was good shopping. Now I'm out all the time, buying grub, good grub, bad grub – it's all grub, innit? If it ain't no good fer me it'll be good fer someone else. I oinky-buys dented tins o fruit and vegetables cheap, n then gets meself ripped off. Oinky-oinky, ha-ha-ha! Well, that's what my Sigs thinks, but I'm too smart fer that. No, oinky, no-no. Groink. I beats em right down to a handful of pennies n then gives a fiver to some poor old thing or appen in a collection box for our Dag! Then I tell Sigs, 'Ah, Sigs, oinky-oinky, oinky-oink, boo-hoo-hoo! I got ripped off agin!' N e rolls is eyes n e says, 'Ow much more is it gonna cost keeping you in tins, Mel?' N then e goes, 'An ow come you spends so much an the cupboard's alway empty, then, eh, Mels?'
N I says, 'I jus need the practice, Sigs. Shoppin don't come easy to old Mels, I needs a bit o practice, see, Sigs. Groink.'
E don like me elping folks out, even though I elped im out. Where'd e be but fer me? Think e's jealous I do, yus. Groink. Well, it's a big flat, oinky, I'm an old old thing, I can't change me ways. Oh, I'm allus bringing things back, wotever I can find.
'S'all rubbish, Mels,' e goes.
N I goes, 'Yeah, n some of it's alive, same as you was.' But e don get it.
'Wot's this, then?' e goes, shoving this poor half-starved doggy-cur at me I'd let loose in the kitchen n told to elp isself. Sigs sticks his hoity nose in the air n e goes, 'Well, Melanie, I found this one rattling his fingers on the kitchen cupboards.'
'Oh, oh, hoity-oinky oinky-toity,' I says. 'Is Lordship bought a pound of pork, e'd ave it fer is dinna, But the pound o pork picks up is fork – "Your Lordship is fer dinna!"'
Nuther time e finds this birdy thing plucking its feathers orf in is bed, n e really went mad. Groink. 'What's this doin here,' e screams, stamping about the place. 'I ates birds, I ATES fuckin birds!' e goes. They musta give im a fright once. Well, e'd a bin crosser if'n e knew – that was one o Dag's spies got shot down. Groink. Oink. Yeah, I does a bit for Dag – not as I'd tell my Sigs that, e ates that sort of thing. Makes me promise that I'll have nothin to do with the resistance, but me, I don mind lying in a good cause.
One thing's true alright – it's gettin' dangerous oinky-out there. King Conor, e's doin is best t'finish off the alfmen. Even my ol uman, e's nearly copped it more'n once. Groink. Face like that, e got less chance'n I ave! E oinky-got caught up by Conor's men, oinky-oinky, yus – stripped and searched, n they only let im go inna end cause the gibbets was all full up that day. Oh, yus, you got a harelip, you're up to ang. They ave these public killings – butcherins, they call it. Only real umans c'n be executed, see. Sigs, e's always on and on at me not t'go out, oinky-stay in, oinky-don do this, oinky-don do that. Scared I'll get done, an I will too, groink, course I will! But watcha do, sit at ome when folks need elp? My Sigs, e loves me n I loves im, too, but e's a selfish little git and I wouldn't ave is little soul, not for all the money is sister sends im!
Course e tries to make out e's all equal rights, men an alfmen, oinky-all together, but, groink! I'll believe that when e puts up a fight Groink. I reckon e's like a lot of em, they'd rather be tortured under Conor than ruled by alfmen. Stooopid monkeys. It's their turn next! You ear these stories. This fella who used to be a general ad bird's eyes, this other one as the back teeth of a goat. Back teeth's a good un – you can't oinky-see em! Course, it might be true, I mean itmight be true. But as likely all made up, groink, so's Conor as an excuse to chop oo e feels like.
There was another pogrom coupla days ago and I nearly cashed in me chips. Oinky-aye – I was out onna street wiv this bloke – bigwig, big name, sent by Dag. I keeps tellin em Sigs is no good, give im time I says. But they wants im. E's a big man once, they think e should be again.
Anyow, we was caught in this pogrom. Groink. This bloke I was with reckoned e was hundred per cent uman, but oo knows these days? You got a mole on yer back, yer an alfman. We wuz walkin along – bang! There wuz gunfire. There was folk rushin about, runnin, screamin. Stalls agoin over, fruit and veg, meat in the dust, dogs abarking, dogs a-shoutin! An screamin n shoutin n brayin n gruntin-oinky-oinky, n everywhere those orange splashes.
That's the pogrom police. Other soldiers, they wears the colour o the ground, but this lot, it ain't their job t'blend in, see. They want t'scare yer. Groink. It works, n'all. I tell yer, if I sees so much as an orange in the fruit bowl it sets me heart a-banging. So me and this fella, we runs roun keeping low, outta sight, while the soldiers is getting their ands on anyone wi too much fur, or ose nose was too wet. Old pig like I am, orta be an easy target, but oinky-old Mels, no one notices the oinky-likes of me. They jus think, poor old woman, she's gonna die soon anyhow. Even but I was catching an eye or two, an I ad to duck outta sight behind a orse cart, an I coulda got ad, but the soldier wot saw me found a prettier littel pig t'poke. This fella a Dags -Armatage was is name – e jumps down, pulls me out and we made it the las fifty yards to our door. Oink! We pushes in through the door and straight off, there's Sigs yelling down, 'Melanie! Mel!' E's leaning over, gun in is and. E looks at me pantin away n e sez, 'Melanie, you stupid cow…'
'I'm a pig,' I grunts. But I'd ad a shock. I thought I oinky-was gonna get me apple sauce that time, I did. Groink.
'Do you wanna get picked up by those bastards?'
'I don wanna stay sat in onna sofa like certain dunderheads I know.' I sits meself down on the stairs, waitin fer me heart to stop dancin in me.
'Pretty Molly went and strayed
N Dunderhead saw red.
Pretty Molly, she got laid
While Dunder made the bed.'
I told im.
'Pretty Molly got bloody shot,' e growls, all cross. E ates that one, cause o course e never gets laid isself. E'd bin moanin at me al mornin about it, and I said, 'Get yersel out an you might find a nice girl.' But e was right. Face like that, e ad no chance. Unless he went for a nice alfman girl, but e ain't that much in favour of equal rights.
Then me guest shows is face roun the corner of the stairs, and Sigs scowls like a dog. E sticks is face right out over the railings fer this bloke Armatage to see. Umans! I never knew a animal so vain about its looks.
'Got your eyeful?' e grunts Then e turns is back and trots back to is sofa like it was the only friend e as in the ole wide world.
Siggy
It was a young bloke, quite good-looking just to rub the salt in. I turned my back, but I could hear Mel taking him up the stairs. I was furious. We'd agreed – no people back at the house. If she wanted to throw money away, who cares? But I didn't want her little bits of crap littering the place up.
She's gonna give me a heart attack one of these days. She's always taking risks. They've put a gibbet up in the market, rows of beams and girders built into the brickwork. It was obviously a long-term structure. That's where they hang the corpses from, upside down by one foot, just like we used to do in the lift shaft. I can see part of that street from my window. Every day when I get up, first thing, I get my binoculars and look for the new additions. One day I'm gonna see Melanie there dripping blood on the cobbles.
The thing is, Melanie's just made for chopping as far as the Orangers were concerned. She isn't just a pig. She's old, ugly and useless. Every day you see people a hundred times more presentable than she is hanging by their trotters. The secret police stop and search anyone they feel like – just stop you and strip you, to make sure you're human under your clothes. It happened to me once. They beat me black and blue just for being ugly. So I don't go out much if I can help it, but I keep an eye on things as far as I can from the window, and I see some sights, I can tell you. There was this gorgeous girl the other day – I thought they were just getting her things off to get an eyeful – probably they were. But off came her knickers and what do you think? She had this charming little pig's tail at the base of her spine. It looked pretty sexy, from what I could see through the bins. She was standing there with her arms hanging by her sides, not even bothering to cover her breasts. She knew it was all up. It wasn't so sexy once you saw her face. She looked terrified. I saw her hanging up a couple of days later on the gibbet with all the others.
From my place on the sofa I could hear Melanie and the human muttering away in the kitchen. I stared at the screen and fumed. Human beings! What good ever came of them?
I heard Melanie saying, 'Cuppa tea, oinky-tea?'
Tea! I could have screamed. We had a couple of ounces. Tea was a total luxury, especially since the war. Cherry smuggled us a handful. What was Melanie doing offering this human tea for?
Suddenly, unexpectedly, tears started to trickle down my face. Don't ask me why. It was happening quite a bit these days.
I heard Melanie and the unwelcome guest come out into the sitting room. I got up to go but Melanie stopped me.
'I brung this'n to talk t'yer.'
I tried to ignore the human. I could feel his eyes on my ruined face. Well, I was about to ruin his if he wasn't careful. I swallowed my tears and tried to speak calmly. 'You're going to have to stop going out,' I told her. 'Do you wanna get killed? Do you wanna get me killed?'
All the time the stranger stood there staring. 'Last of the Volsons,' he said.
'How does he know that? How does he bloody know who I am?' I demanded. She had no right telling anyone that! I took a couple of steps towards her. I could have struck her I was so angry.
Melanie just stared. I thought, what is this? What was she up to now? You couldn't read anything from her face. One of the animal things about Melanie – she has no expressions. She'd make a real good poker player if she felt like it.
'Why make it a secret?' said the stranger. He was trying not to stare at me. I put my face towards him. 'Take a good look,' I told him. 'Not seen anything like that before, have you? Comes of having your face fixed by a pig.'
I said that to hurt Melanie.
'It's the face of a hero,' the man said.
I started in surprise. I stared at him. I scowled. All I'd done was survive. What kind of a hero was that? It was all crap, anyway.
The stranger put out his hand. 'It's an honour to meet you, Sigmund Volson. We all remember your father and the hopes he raised before he was betrayed.'
'All gone now,' I shrugged.
But the man shook his head. 'I've been sent here by Dag.'
I shook my head. The name was vaguely familiar. Melanie stamped her foot. 'The resistance!' she sang. 'The resistance. Groink! Dag Aggerman, e's our leader. Keep tellin yer, keep tellin yer, Sigs!'
It was true – she did keep telling me. And I kept ignoring her. What was the point?
'Couple of dogs with pop guns,' I sneered.
The stranger shook his head. 'Dag is the leader of the dog people. He's a great man,' he told me. And he smiled wryly.
Man? Halfman! I just laughed. Leader of the resistance? The people's friend, a sodding dog? Don't tell me. Men and halfmen had been at each other's throats since the first brewing. I looked closely at the stranger for traces of dog. Maybe his tongue was spotted.
'I'd thought you were a human,' I told him.
'I am. Pure blood. That was why I was sent.'
I shook my head.
'An alliance with the halfmen,' insisted the man. 'It's the way forward. We can stop Conor together. Life for the halfmen under their leaders has been better than life for humans under theirs.'
'We'm more civilised than you umans,' said Melanie smugly. She was always teasing me about our barbarity. Well, I couldn't deny it, could I?
'Men and halfmen are joining forces at last. Your father thought he could unite the people and defeat the halfmen before breaking out of London. But we have to all join together: men, halfmen, everyone.'
I shrugged. It was useless. 'Conor's too strong. Maybe Ragnor'll get him in the end, if he gets too far.'
'Ragnor's time is over. They've only kept us trapped by keeping us at each other's throats. They don't rule the rest of the county, let alone the country. It's just city states now -London, Birmingham, Glasgow. The other towns are as against Ragnor as we are. It's time, Volson.'
Now that was interesting, if it was true. But not interesting enough. 'Conor's too strong,' I repeated.
'Conor can't win this war,' said the man. 'The other cities are organising against him. They're arming us. The halfmen are strong and getting stronger. Conor's taken on too much, too soon. His trade lines are already too thin. Soon, he'll be having trouble supplying his own troops.'
The two of them were staring at me, all dribbly and excited, like a pair of schoolchildren asking for a lollipop. Well, I was fresh out of sweets. I waved a hand in the air. 'Do what you want. Don't bring me into it.'
'Youare in it. Odin gave you the knife.'
'Odin! Some cyborg from Ragnor.'
The young man looked defiant. 'Dag Aggerman believes it. So do I.'
'What possible difference could what you believe make to anyone?'
The stranger stood there looking. Suddenly I felt like crying again. Hadn't I had enough? Wasn't it time I was left alone?
'You were given the knife. You're a hero! And you have experience. You know how to organise people, you did this kind of work under Val. You're a general, a leader. Look…' The stranger was getting passionate. He really believed in this crap. 'The halfmen are united under Dag, but we need a human, someone people can gather round. We need you. You're a Volson! That means so much. You escaped Conor, you defeated the Pig! Everyone knows the story of how you fought him jaw to jaw. We need you.'
'We need yer, Sigs,' repeated Melanie. I just stared at her. She knew what a wreck I was these days. Just because I knew someone who filled the larder, she needn't think I was a leader of men, let alone halfmen.
'My people need you an so do yours,' she said. And she looked at me with those big catty eyes.
Well, she keeps surprising me, Melanie. Now she had her belly full, her brain came on. Now she was a fighter for the resistance!
I blinked back my tears and shook my head. 'Humans and halfmen -it'd never work,' I said.
Melanie just spread her arms and shook her head. She didn't need to say anything. It meant, what about you and me, Sigs?
I'd had enough. I said, 'No.' I pushed my way past them.
The stranger called out, 'Think about it!' as I left the flat. I just wanted to bawl my eyes out I ran down the stairs out onto the street. Who did they think they were? Asking for my father's dreams to be brought back to life by dogs and pigs! Fuck you, I thought. Yeah – fuck you!
Signy
It's spring. I can see the powdery colour of bluebells coming into flower under the trees. Soon the leaves will be too thick to see the ground, so I make the most of this flush of wildflowers. I spend hours at my window with my nose pressed up close soaking up the blue. I ask Conor to bring me bunches of them, or roots to grow on the window-sill. I fill my rooms with growing things -bluebells, primroses, daffs, tulips. If I bury my head deep into them I can smell the outside. If I close my eyes, I can imagine the wind which I haven't felt on my skin for over four years.
Cherry is out, I'm on my own. I'm on my own mostly. The endless hours spent on my own creep by like the hours of eternity.
It reminds me of a story my father once told me. In a great flat desert there's a huge mountain, the highest in the world. It stands there immense and unconquerable. Once every thousand years, a little brown bird flies across the desert and lands on the topmost peak of the mountain. It wipes its bill briefly on the stone, one-two, one-two, and then it flies away for another thousand years. When the bird has ground the mountain down as flat as the desert all around with its bill, then one second of eternity will have passed by.
One second of my imprisonment.
I'm alone, but I'm not isolated. Cherry flies to and fro with endless news. Conor tells me his lies. He wants me to have his child, a son and heir to carry his mantle. He imagines I should be proud to be chosen to be his queen. He makes promises about the day I shall leave my prison in triumph. To hear him you'd think it was his only wish, the one single thing he spends his days and nights working towards, but I've almost abandoned the idea of ever getting out of here. It suits him to keep me trapped. I'm at his disposal. His little whore, ready and waiting.
I take precautions against this child of his. I'm certain I should vomit it up if I ever became pregnant by him. A little pill every day keeps me safe. Cherry brings them to me.
There… see? A little bird flies across the windowpane, and my heart jumps. Is it her? She's been gone two days, flying across the battlefields to the east where Conor is fighting his way towards Ipswich. Already his territory is big enough for him to call it a kingdom, and himself the king. In this matter at least he tells me the truth. But they are fighting back. The people of the other cities, and the halfmen too. No one, animal or human, could be so stupid as to want to be ruled by my husband. The whole world is up for the fight. Only my brother sits at home and does nothing.
No sign of the little brown bird. I turn and go to lie on my bed, although I'm not tired. I stare at the ceiling. I have a little place I like to look at just above my bed to the right. Mostly I just stare at it, but sometimes I think of the things that part of the ceiling watches, down here on the bed. My eyes feel comfortable there. I stare and stare and wait for a little tap, tap, tap at the windowpane. Come on, Cherry -hurry up! I'm so lonely.
Cherry comes at last as dusk is falling. I feed her and listen to her news of war, of people near and far. We talk and laugh and cry a little. She's tired, but I can't let her sleep. I think I shall die if she goes to sleep! Cherry doesn't mind. She loves me, what for I can't imagine. Perhaps her makers told her to.
Later, during the long night, I pull my withered legs in and curl up close to the radiator while Cherry tells me other tales. I sip hot wine, and I listen to her voice, stirring me and lulling me.
'Here is one who lives in a tank year on year. Her only sight of the open is over the trees behind her prison. Here is one whose only friend is a creature with no shape and no soul. Hers is a heart where love and hate live side by side until they merge and become one. Hers is a soul who will fall in love for the sake of revenge.'
The wind is up, beating the sides of the water tower. Inside it's snug and warm. Cherry sweetly tells me the story I like to hear the most – my own. She knows what I think and feel before I know myself.
'At first her heart was open and raw for anyone to see, but gradually she learned to keep her tears in. When the tyrant came to see her, she learned to smile and be pleased. Of course…' And Cherry leans forward closely to watch my face as she stirs spice into the tale. '…of course she knew by now that she had gone mad, and not in ignorance either. Yes, yes, Signy's plan was to pretend to be sane. This was her madness.'
'Perhaps the gods wanted it that way,' I suggest, and Cherry smiles as if she knows all the answers.
I wonder sometimes who else she tells the story to. Siggy? The old pig-woman my brother loves so much? She's a problem, not the kind of company I want for Siggy. And where does Cherry learn these tales, that know the inside of things as clearly as if you could pick them up and count them? From her father, Loki? Or from Odin himself, perhaps? I listen to everything she has to say, I don't want to miss a word.
'Which one did the Pig eat first, Cherry? Was it Had or Ben?'
'Had, it was Had. The monster opened his jaws and took a bite out of his side as if the bones were crisp, sweet carrots. The blood gushed, Siggy and Ben screamed. Already, they were thinking, it was their turn.'
Every story my Cherry tells is the purest truth. She tells me about the dog leader, Dag Aggerman, who is beginning to score successes against Conor, with our help. Cherry passes information along, from time to time. There will be more when Siggy joins him. She tells me all the intrigue within the Estate and among the generals. I know who is allied to whom who is plotting against whom, who is strong and who is weak. But I already know that one: Conor is strong. Everyone else is weak.
Sometimes she tells the story yet to be.
'… and when the child was born the tyrant was full of joy, not knowing that the boy was to be his own destruction.'
'Which boy? Which boy, Cherry?'
But Cherry frowns and shakes her head, as if the words were put into her mouth. Me and my cat, telling tall tales that will one day come true. All alone in the night as the wind beats down.
'The father is not the father, the father is the brother. The son is not the son. The mother is sister…'
'Wake up, Cherry, you're dreaming.' But I remember every word she says. I lean forward and touch her mouth.
'And when she came down out of her tower, what does she see?'
'She sees heads sitting on sticks to welcome her. There are yellow flowers among them.'
'And what does she hear?'
'She hears the troops shouting, "Hail the Queen! Hail the Queen!"'
'And what does she feel, Cherry?'
'She feels triumph. But she is so, so tired…'
'Enough of that. Tell me about Siggy. Tell me, tell me…'
'Each day Siggy gets up and washes his face by splashing water onto it, but he takes care not to touch the flesh. He lives in a house without mirrors. His face is the only thing on this earth that scares him, but he has forgotten how to love.'
'But what about his heart? What about his plans, Cherry!' 'He has no plans, only to be left alone and to let alone. He has no heart, it was torn out of him. All he wants to do is keep his pig-woman fed and fat, and he counts himself as lucky as it's possible for such a man to be when she pats her belly and grunts.'
My poor Sigs! What have they done to you? Conor made you weak and now this halfman is turning you into an animal. How can I turn you back into a man?
Every day that he spends in the Estate my beloved comes to visit me, sometimes two or three times a day. He brings presents to my prison. Carpets made of silk, curtains plundered from some big old house. Pieces of electronic gadgetry captured from the halfmen, who traded or perhaps captured them themselves from Ragnor. He brought me a kitten once – 'To keep your other puss company.' I accepted it. I accept all his presents. I gave it cream and fish, but within a day it disappeared. When I asked Cherry where it was she licked her hand and said she had no idea, but I suspect it didn't live long. My Cherry is a jealous puss.
Another time he brought me a canary in a cage made of spun silver. He said it had been taken from the house of a rich halfman merchant, and I kept an eye on it for a week to see if it had other shapes. But it stayed the same, singing so beautifully every morning. It reminded me of the outside, but Cherry put an armchair close up to it and sat and stared all morning. I could hang it up out of reach from her cat for safety, but of course she could reach it as a girl. It was just a matter of time. In the end I let it go before I caught her with feathers in her mouth.
Other presents: information. News of his latest success in war. This is supposed to fill me with joy.
'We took Ipswich, or what was left of it. Those animals had pulled down every house.'
A lie. Yes, he took Ipswich. No, the halfmen hadn't pulled down every house – he did. A fit of pique because they held out too long. But of course I have to behave as if I believe it all. Fortunately Conor is a busy man with many enemies. I, on the other hand, have only one enemy. In the matter of Conor I have become an expert.
He struck me the other day – the first time he has ever raised his hand against me. It pleased me, because hurting me makes him angry with himself. He thinks it is a sign of weakness. He came with flowers and chocolate, and a little metal spy device his men found in a halfman office, so that I could look in secret into empty rooms in my own prison. To see what? In secret from whom? The irony of it made me want to hurt him. And there was a dress, and a leaflet about the womb tanks. Oh, yes he has plans to get some tanks and a technician to run them. The halfmen have them, apparently, captured from Ragnor. Then I can go into the womb tank and grow back my crippled legs.
I read the leaflet, put on the dress – it was very long and flimsy and low cut, the kind of thing that makes him want me. I ate the chocolates. I let him kiss my neck and nuzzle my breasts. I let him slide his hand up my leg and touch me… just touch me…
'Not here.'
'What? What do you mean?' He was angry at that. He is used to having me on demand these days.
'Not here.'
'Where, then?'
I nodded at the window. 'Out there.'
He was furious. How dare I put conditions on him! How dare I tell him what he may and may not do! How dare I lead him on…
'You wear my clothes,' he hissed. 'So you do what I want.'
'Oh, if it's an order, I will,' I said. 'So long as I'm not expected to like it.'
And he struck me, hard, on the mouth.
'For your cheek,' he said, and he left me licking the blood from my mouth.
'Let me out,' I screamed. 'Let me out!' But he opened the hatch and climbed down the ladder alone without another word.
My teeth popped right through my lip. I take it as a good sign.
What does he think I'd do if he let me out? Kill him? I could do that just as well up here. Is he scared that I'll be assassinated? Has he come to believe his own lies?
'I want you to be my queen,' he says when I ask him. But why must his queen stay out of sight, hidden away? He wouldn't say, perhaps he doesn't even know. But Cherry knows. She knows even what he doesn't know himself.
'He wants your child,' she grinned. 'You are to mother his dynasty. You see, he doesn't trust you. He wants to make sure the child is his.'
And I thought, of course. Of course. No other man can touch me.
Of course.
And I knew exactly what I had to do.
Cherry
The plans of the gods, the twists of fate – don't hope to understand. Just say this: that sometimes there's the sense that here the gods are focused, here is a moment, a person, a place where they can feed. Such a place or event may bring joy or sorrow or it may signify nothing at all to man or halfman. But when those of us who understand feel that sense of things coming together, then there is a taste of fate… yes, yes… even Odin will lick his lips at the thought.
I always knew she was right at the centre of things.
I can smell it around Signy. I can smell it around Siggy, even though he is an unbeliever. The gods, creations of Ragnor, he says! Bits of metal and mixtures of creatures! What difference does it make if your machines are flesh and blood or plastic and steel rods? Destiny is made of the flesh of moments and the breath of centuries. What technician in Ragnor can manufacture a single extra second of time? Or take it away?
That is a thing for the gods and I am their priestess.
'Cherry, can I leave here?' she said.
'Yes, yes. But not with me,' I said.
Shapes are easy. You just have to have more than one and you see at once how to take them off and put them on. All magic is like that; something given that you can never understand until you get it and then you see that there's nothing to understand at all. You have your gifts. Sight. Touch. Hearing. The feelings of sex. The gods gave you all these things. And they gave you a boy-shape or a girl-shape to wear. They gave me a girl, a cat, a bird and a nut.
The giving of shapes – or the loaning of them – now, that is hard. I had to write the runes and talk to the Givers, the gods themselves. I know how to call on the Cunning One, the god of fire and tricks, the giver of shapes. I spoke to him in the way we speak; he accepted the runes and allowed my request.
If I had known what she planned I would not have asked. 'Of course!' she cried. And she wore – me. My bird to get her out of her prison – my Signy flying on my fast wings, while I sat at home in her girl. She took my girl tucked away where shapes fit, deep inside, waiting to be taken out and swell and grip the flesh and make it theirs. All the time, I, obedient Cherry, lay on her bed, sat in her wheelchair, used her mouth to eat. I spoke with Conor and forbade him to sleep with me, as she had instructed. She, my Signy, wearing my cat – she wove her way north and made her way into his house, and there she dressed herself in my finest finery- in me, in my girl. As me she knocked softly on her brother's door…
Siggy
I heard the soft knocking and I was afraid.
'Who's there?'
No answer. But again, a soft knock. I thought, who gets in the front door in silence and then knocks on my bedroom door?
I crept out of bed and slid a gun from under my pillow. I was two steps over the carpet when…
'Siggy…'
It had to be trouble. I pulled on some pants and opened the door. She stood there, pale as the moon, anxious, not her usual self at all.
I said, 'What's happened?' It felt dangerous. Why had she come so quietly, so late – in secret, it seemed to me?
'Siggy.'
She stood and smiled at me, a little, odd smile. I made to go to her and take her through to the kitchen, but she leaned against me.
'You're trembling,' I said. There were tears in her eyes. She only shook her head and smiled at me.
'Cherry? What is it? What's happened?'
I sat down with her on the bed. She wiped her eye with the back of a finger and touched it on my face.
'You are beautiful,' she whispered.
I laughed. Me, beautiful! Then I went cold. I thought, she's teasing me.
'What do you want?' I asked her. My voice sounded hard.
'Poor Sigs, what have they done to you?'
I just shook my head. I didn't understand. She wasn't herself at all. This wasn't like Cherry.
She leaned forward and put her arms around my neck and buried her face in my shoulder. I held her very gently. I felt so tender! I felt, if I squeezed I could break her in half. I could feel her heart and my heart thumping – bang bang bang! She must have too, because she looked up and laughed. I didn't know what to do. She seemed so strange to me.
She put her head back down, laid her hand on my leg and stroked up, right up close. She kissed my neck…
… and I thought… ahhhh…
I waited a while. I didn't want to make any mistakes. Only a few years ago she had been a girl but now she was grown up. Her life moved so fast, you see? She was more cat than human, her life moved at a cat's speed. She was grown more than enough for this. My heart was going so hard I thought it'd scare her off. Was this what she wanted? It had been so long since I'd had a girl. No one could want me now, even an animal wouldn't want me now. But her hand was stroking me and she could feel me swelling up with her touch.
'That feels good,' she said. I lowered a hand and touched the side of her breast and she sighed, so gently she sighed. I wanted to be sure this was what she wanted. I wanted her to say, yes, sleep with me, do it to me. I wanted to be sure she wasn't just doing this because she pitied me. I wanted her to tell me she wanted me.
She kissed the hollow of my neck and smelled my skin. I did the same to her. Then suddenly I was in a hurry and I held her breast and touched her nipple.
'Mmmm.' She sighed and leaned back. I leaned above her and began to pull her dress up… slowly, gently, because I felt as if we were in a spell… as if she was dreaming and that I might wake her if I was too rough. But I had to try very hard to concentrate and not be rough.
'Siggy, Siggy,' she murmured. She moaned a little. I saw her eyes open and I watched her watching me watch her as we kissed, and then they shut suddenly. She stiffened under me and I thought, shit, she's waking up! But she was wide awake all the time, because she pushed her hand down my pants and began to pull at me.
I said, '…Yes?'
'Yes,' she said. 'Yes!' She laughed. I pulled up her dress and smelled her skin and…
And what kind of a coupling is that? Twin to twin, brother to sister, one not knowing who the other is. Or was it a threesome – human to human to halfman, and a shape that was a present from a god of tricks? Cherry, part human, part cat, part bird, part god – she was in there somewhere. The shape-changer, the mad crippled girl and the boy with the broken face.
As Cherry had predicted, the smell of destiny in the little room attracted those who feed off fate. Had anyone the eyes to see such things, they would have seen the newly awakened gods hanging from the walls, gathering around the window, peering in, watching, taking part. Odin, AlFather, he was there, watching what he already knew would come to pass. Frey and Freyja, gods of fertility, they would have been there. Other gods, newly born, who had arisen from the bricks and rusty wheels, from the broken machinery and concrete and steel, they came too, to breathe the smell of destiny as if this was the smoke of a sacrifice to them. And Loki, grinning and hanging off the wall like a leech, the god who could twist the passage of time and bring it to where it was doomed to go by sudden, unexpected routes, but who could change nothing. Certainly he would be there. He wouldn't miss it for the world.
Siggy
She told me that she'd learned to prophesy and that I would be a great man, a king, that I'd bring Conor down and rule further than any man now living. She whispered these things in my ears but I didn't care, I was too busy at the time. I remember vaguely thinking, Signy must have sent her, that was why she was doing this. But I didn't care why she was there by then… I was just so happy she was.
But even as we did it it began to feel like I was using her, although she was keen enough and I never talked her into anything. She seemed as if she was enjoying it. Later, we did it again and she took up various positions without me asking her – this way and that way, her face down on the pillow, peering round at me, looking appalled, now I think about it Maybe she just wanted to be held but somehow couldn't bring herself to stop the sex. But she came, it seemed good. We fell asleep holding each other and when I woke up she was gone.
I saw her again a few days later, but she was furious. Wouldn't let me near her. I didn't understand, not for a long, long time. I thought, maybe she was on heat like a cat and couldn't help herself. Whatever. But it was obvious that as far as Cherry was concerned, sleeping with me had been a bad mistake.
When Signy told Conor that she was pregnant, the tyrant was thrilled. A child! His child. The beginning of a dynasty.
Of course Conor had access to whatever women he wanted; the Estate and the streets around were littered with his children, but their mothers were dirt for the most part. Who knew what they were? Signy was a princess, pure blood, the daughter of Val Volson. Safely locked up in her tower, she was more his than any other man owned any woman.
A son. Every empire needs one.
But there were dangers at home. The child changed things, made them worse. Surely the unseen enemies had their own plans of succession. They sat up late, in unknown rooms, looking forward to the time when Conor's face would turn black as he hung upside down from a lamp-post. In the meantime they would do everything they could to kill Signy and her unborn child.
Mother and child would have to be kept secret-safe. Conor, attacking the whole world, began to fear for the very precious things at home, never realising that the most dangerous thing of all was that which he was jealously guarding. He increased the guard on the water tower, fitted armour-proof glass to a handful of windows and sealed the others up with steel. The guard itself was guarded, lest the invisible enemies bribed them or infiltrated. No one could get in or out of the tower without his say so, unless they were a bird that could fly up to the roof.
Signy, the precious jewel in this strong box, went through her pregnancy seeing only Conor, Cherry, and glimpses through the glass of the guards circling her aerial dungeon. Every day, Conor laid his hand on her belly and spoke of his love. See how he kept her safe! What more proof could she need? One day soon, he promised her, she would come down the ladder and see their enemies staring up at her, their heads on sticks, just as she had requested. The day would come when this child, half of the Volson blood, half of his, would rule the country united at last under one king.
'Your father's dreams will come true after all!' he boasted, believing that this was still important to her.
Signy listened and kissed him and told him that he was forgiven, that she loved him. Lies and truth mingled closely in her. There were days when she felt her life could be happy after all, if only she could forget the past, but throughout her aim was unwavering -nothing less than the total destruction of Conor and all his works.
This was to be the child who would take everything back, this was the one of pure Volson blood who must replace her brother's weak heart and put him on the throne. She never questioned that the child would be a boy. She knew that, as if Odin himself had promised it. She sang him secret lullabies of hatred and revenge. The day would come – maybe she would be dead by then and Siggy an old man. But it would happen. It would happen because she planned it so. Her plans were destiny. Her revenge might take a lifetime, but there was nothing Signy was not prepared to do just so long as in the end the empire would fall and the man die like a dog.
Signy
I'm sitting in my wheelchair. Conor is on his knees by my side, pouring oils into the palm of his hand. The warm scents fill the room: sweet almond, frankincense, carrot oil, to keep the skin on my belly smooth. I'm vain enough not to want stretch marks when I get my shape back.
He opens my gown and we both laugh. How huge and swollen my body is and how thin, how spindly my little legs are!
'I'll give you back your legs. I'll give you back everything,' whispers Conor. He means it. In one of the rooms below us is a glass womb, one of the artificial wombs used to gestate genetically altered creatures. He captured it from a convoy delivering goods between Ragnor and Birmingham. Once the baby's born I shall go into it.
Once the baby's born. Of course, nothing may happen that might affect the baby. Heaven forbid!
Conor strokes my hard stomach. 'My king-pot,' he says. That's me, a pot of kings. He kisses my navel. I shriek at him, because the oil is dripping onto the silk of my gown. He growls and nips my navel with his teeth. It's sticking out far enough for him to do that. It feels dreadful! It tickles.
'You're supposed to be making me relax,' I scold. Conor apologises. He rubs the oil between his hands and begins to rub it into the skin of my belly, in slow, warm circles. He has warm hands, always very, very warm. Not like mine. I can make him shriek too by putting my cold ones on his stomach or on his thighs. He hates the cold. When he's finished stroking my belly, he'll want to do my big breasts.
Something to look forward to.
I feel as if I'm submerged in a pool of very still water -very still, very calm, very deep. I feel almost at peace, sometimes. But this pool is stagnant. The water is rotting. Conor is rotten, and me too – I'm the rottenest thing of all. Thoughts and feelings are like the dead bodies of drifting frogs and clots of rotting spawn.
Cherry says that you love whoever is there to love because it's human to love. We have no choice. 'It's like breathing,' she whispers. She loves me, too. See -I am surrounded by love!
Well, forgive me for not thinking so highly of love. Perhaps love is so strong that even after all Conor has done I can still love him. Ihave to love him, I always will love him, no matter what he has done or will do. Love is corrupt; it remains even when you love a monster, even when the most violent hatred for the very same person exists inside you, side by side in the same heart.
After his warm hands have done their work, we want to make love… is that the word? Conor wheels me over to the bed and I half crawl, and am half tipped onto the mattress. I remind myself of a pile of leftovers being tipped out, but I don't say so. I don't want to spoil the mood. I'm so big I have to lie on my side while he enters me from behind.
I close my eyes and an image of Siggy's ruined face floats dreamily in front of me. A reminder of why I'm here.
Conor is very gentle with me. Really, we're the best of lovers. We giggle at little jokes, we cling to each other against our fears. He even comforts me for my lost father and my brothers eaten by the Pig. Sometimes he weeps with me for pity. When we make love he arranges my body this way and that and sighs and groans, and his groans make me tingle with pleasure. Oh, yes, Conor is a man capable of great love. He loves me. And the child – how he loves his child, not even born yet! He lies with his ear on my stomach. He puts a glass against it to hear the better. He croons a lullaby to my hump, 'Rock a bye baby in Signy's womb…' Tears spring to his eyes, tears of pure, unbidden love.
Of course no expense is spared for the little princeling. I have my own private scanner installed so that Conor can see his precious boy even before he's born. He wants to know everything as soon as possible.
'Is that his hand? Is that his head?' he asks me, peering at the greyish blur on the screen.
And I laugh. 'How should I know? I'm just the pot.' Then I tease him for thinking I know my insides better than he does, but he won't stop. 'Is that his little head, Signy? Signy, what do you think?'
'You'll be free one day,' says Cherry, but I know I never will. Conor is the architect of jails with no walls, no keys, no way out. My heart is imprisoned. If I were to be taken away back to my father's house, my heart would still be here, in my tower, making love to my jailer. Nothing will ever change again for me. But the world outside – ah, now, that's another matter. There I can make a difference.
How could he ever suspect he is listening to the heartbeat of his own destruction? Conor can pump me full of his sperm, but the baby is Volson, Volson through and through. This baby won't crown his glory. It is his death.
I hold him close and feel his breathing grow slow, slow and steady. He's falling asleep, poor trusting Conor. I'm the only thing in the world he trusts. What madness! But we shall go mad together, my darling. We shall die together, you and me, my only sweet loving darling, my prince, my king, my true and holy love. And you'll be there to meet me in hell.
At one o'clock in the morning, hidden deep away in the bunkers carved out in the bedrock under his Finchley headquarters, Conor was shouting at his generals. He was certain one of them had betrayed him.
The bunkers were safer from attack than any other place in his kingdom, but Conor both feared and hated them. He felt cornered by these very men who fought his wars with him. He would have much preferred to be out touring the battlefronts at the centre of a fleet of armoured cars, his bodyguard on all sides to protect him. The bodyguard, a thousand strong, were the only men on this earth he fully trusted. They were the ones who guarded Signy. If it wasn't for her, Conor would have ceased to visit the Estate long ago.
Of course it was far too dangerous to bring Signy out onto the battlefield, and yet almost as dangerous to leave her here among his shapeless enemies, who were so clever at hiding. In the bright neon lights, with the maps spread out before them, Conor peered at face after face and hissed in distrust. The generals sweated and tried to look confident.
This week of all weeks it was important that Conor be near at hand to his secret treasure in the water tower. He was expecting the good news.
The reason for his anger was another failed mission. He had been plotting this one for weeks, a devastating raid on the centre of the halfman resistance in Swindon. He had his armies circling around, drawing close yet concealing their true objective. Then, when he was certain that the halfman general was resting at his own headquarters, a sudden unexpected rushing of forces into the area, some of them marching non-stop for days to get there, others using captured vehicles.
The move had been an important one. The halfmen were better organised, fiercer and more dangerous than the slack cities of the south and Midlands, who were using them as their war machine against Conor. If he could destroy the halfman resistance it would be an end to Conor's most dangerous foe. Dag Aggerman was a figure to be reckoned with.
The whole strike had been perfectly set up. The armies moving just within striking distance, but apparently ready to engage Dag's army elsewhere. The false sorties to lay a false trail, then the sudden attack. No one could have foreseen it. It was well planned and beautifully executed.
And when they got there the place was empty.
So how had they known?
Conor stared from face to face around the table. These were the only people who had known what was going on. One of them had given the game away. But who?
He pointed. 'Was it you?'
'Sir! No, never!'
'Then who?'
'I don't know.'
'And why not?'
Ignorance itself was a betrayal. Conor was furious. He stalked up and down screaming while the powerful men stood around like uncomfortable children. Conor was right; this was an inside job. It had to be one of them. No one else knew. One of them was a traitor. In this mood Conor was capable of killing them all just to be sure of getting the right one.
The conference was interrupted by a young soldier in the pale blue uniform of Conor's personal bodyguard. The generals watched anxiously as he leaned across to whisper in Conor's ear.
But Conor smiled. He clapped the soldier on the back and watched him greedily as he left the room. He took two steps after him, but paused; the conference was not yet over, but his heart was obviously not in it as he turned back to rattle through his list of accusations and queries yet again. He kept looking up and smiling, shaking his head in amusement.
And then, 'Gentlemen, you may congratulate me. I have become a father. My wife has given birth to a fine young son.'
Ah…! Surprise! But no one knew! Was it possible? Congratulations, sire!
Well, but the truth was the generals knew all about it. Such a thing could not be kept quiet. Everyone saw how often Conor went to the water tower and everyone knew who was kept there. You just had to be careful that Conor and his bodyguard never knew you knew. Indeed, that the whole Estate knew about the girl in the water tower was the real secret.
So the rumours were true: there was to be a child. The generals came forward and shook his hand.
'Congratulations, sir!'
'We had no idea!'
Conor nodded, but already the smile was fading from his face. How could he have been so stupid as to tell these traitors about his son? He had let himself slip. He began to scowl. The nervous men scurried back to their places around the table, glancing anxiously at one another. What now? It was the first time Conor had even referred to Signy, let alone announced that he had a son on the way, and he was regretting it already.
A few minutes later Conor left to see the child, the precious son, the future king. Behind him the generals mopped their brows.
'I wish he hadn't said that,' said one. Each man felt that he had been spared. They had all had a close encounter with death.
A few hours later Conor called his bodyguard to see the child, displayed from behind the bullet-proof glass in a window of the tower. A thousand men in blue bowed their heads and swore allegiance to the baby. Not one of those generals was included in the group. The wiser amongst them were already making moves to get out while they still could.
Signy
I was frightened before he was born that there might be something wrong with him, but there's not. He's just a beautiful, beautiful baby boy. Even the guards who were minding the doctors and midwives smiled.
Listen, he cries so loudly!
The room was like a… a hijack, a kidnap. It was a kind of crime. I didn't want any of them there with me, I only wanted Cherry, but of course they didn't want a cat in the room where the prince was being bora. But she fooled them. She hid under the bed the whole time and a few minutes after he was born she came out to congratulate me. She jumped up onto the bed purring like an engine, and started to lick the blood off him. It was right -the baby is hers, too. But the doctor was cross, and I was scared they'd tell Conor, so I let them chase her off.
'Later,' I mouthed at her, but she was offended and went out of the door with her chin up in the air, and wouldn't look back.
Then they wanted to take him away from me and wash him, but I put him straight onto my breast and he knew what to do at once. I whispered to him, 'May you always know exactly what to do.' He was so beautiful. I wanted to save the cleaning up for Cherry but when Conor came he was angry that the baby was dirty and made them wash him at once. Underneath, his skin was a beautiful pale peach, very fine in texture.
He's a secret, this baby of mine. Even his father knows nothing about him. Like Cherry, he will have more than one shape.
When he was all clean Conor began to smile and held the poor little thing to his rough cheek. Poor Conor, who knows nothing. The baby cried Conor looked so pale. I didn't want him there. I felt cold, because I felt so much love in me even though I know there can be no space for feelings like that. When he tried to give me the baby back I said, 'Here, take him away, I need to sleep.' And then he got angry because I didn't love my baby enough. But he took him away and showed him to the guard, and they all bowed down. Cherry told me. I could have laughed out loud, because they were bowing to Conor's destruction.
Much later, when the room was empty and I had my baby back, Cherry came in to see. She came as a cat and put her paws up on the bed. I picked her up and put her next to the baby and let her sniff him.
'You're his mother, too,' I told her. But she was still offended and jumped off the bed. I was distraught. I don't want Cherry to be upset. I got out of bed and crawled after her, but she hid in a cupboard. In the end I took the baby and tucked him in the cupboard with her. Very soon I could hear her purring all across the room.
I waited a few minutes and then I said, 'But we can't leave him there, darling, or Conor will see and who knows what he'll do?'
She forgave me and came out. We both snuggled up in bed with the baby between us, and that's how we went to sleep. In the middle of the night I woke up and she was licking him in her cat shape. I kept waking up all night listening to the purring, and the baby sleeping so still between us and I thought, if it could stay like this tomorrow and next week and next year! Perhaps I could be happy then.
It makes me weep to think of the kind of man he has to grow into.
It is the night of no moon, a week after the birth. In the wet, still air of a cloudy February night, the pale trees surrounding the water tower are vivid with inner life; this is a supernatural night. The child, Vincent, son of two mothers so far, lies in Signy's arms. Conor is at the southern front. The town of Portsmouth is under siege; he hopes to break the resistance to his claim to it within a few days and fill the dockside with sacrifices.
Under the belly of the water tower, the soldiers on guard are falling asleep one after the other like men in a fairytale. Heads slump; there are thuds as the men fall to the ground, pale blue, military fruits. Nearby among the birch trees, one with red hair and almost as many shapes as there are in creation rubs his hands together. This is the contribution of the sly god. Nothing to do with empires or vengeance, nothing to do with destiny or fate or the big emotions of jealousy or love or anger. This work is mischief for its own sake.
As the guards' sleep deepens, a silence that reverses things surrounds the tower. Usually it is noise that breaks silence, but this is a silence which breaks the noise. Above in the tower, the trap door opens as if in a dream; the sound it makes is interrupted by the quiet. Signy weeps and kisses her baby. What other mother would give up her child when she has no one? She is about to launch him, her little living missile, against Conor.
Now a girl with the same hair as the god standing in the trees emerges and climbs a few steps down the ladder. The baby is handed down to her. Cherry is once more about her mistress's business. Signy watches her quietly slide down the ladder, changing shape as she goes. The little cat disappears into the leafless trees, and Signy stares a moment longer into the damp air. Then, she wheels her chair across the room that she and her Cherry have so carefully wrecked, over to one of the secure rooms Conor has had built for her. Walls of steel, doors of steel, locked from the inside.
A few minutes later, the guards begin to wake up to the sound of the young mother's screaming. They rub their eyes and wince in disbelief.
'My baby – they've taken my baby!' They run up, their flesh creeps as they see the wreckage. Despite all his care and warnings, Conor's worst dreams have come true – and now, they may be certain, so will theirs.
The door is opened, Signy emerges. Tells them her tale of a gang of soldiers breaking in, chasing her, taking her baby away, of her escape with her life…
'They'd have killed me if I hadn't locked myself away!'
And while the scared soldiers raise the alarm and begin a fruitless search, below in the woods a little brown bird takes to the air and flies west. In its claws it clutches a small, brown nut.
Dag Aggerman was standing inside a long, low building housing a row of twenty-odd glass-fronted tanks – womb tanks. The halfmen captured, traded or stole these wonders of modern technology from Ragnor and other towns and cities beyond their territory and used them to repair damaged generals and guerrilla leaders, or sometimes to make specialists for certain jobs. They could be used to clone, too. Technicians worked busily around him, wanting to impress, checking temperatures, nutrition, proteins, development. By the halfman leader's side stood a strange looking girl with a baby in her arms. Dag didn't like what he was being asked to do, but he needed Cherry. This one girl was as important as an army. Without the news she carried to him, the resistance would have already been destroyed.
'Conor's kid, eh?' he barked. He grinned. 'He'll go crazy when it disappears.' His tail, cut aggressively short, wagged so violently that his backside shook and his legs twisted into the concrete floor in his effort to look pleased.
Cherry smiled and held the precious thing close to her heart.
'What's it supposed to be, eh? Eh? Some sort a substitute for Sigmund? I coulda done with the real thing, but he's out of it. Everyone says, he's finished. Ah, ah! Yeah, sits at home all day, don go out. So. What's this one for?'
'My mistress promised Siggy will join you and he will. This little one will help.'
Dag grunted. 'Is that why she wants this?' he asked curiously.
'My mistress wants anything that'll help destroy Conor.'
'And how'll this help? Ah?'
Cherry smiled. 'The gods have told her so.'
Dag grunted again. Cherry was reputed to be a daughter of Loki. Whatever else that meant, it was bound to be trouble; but not the sort of trouble you could do anything about.
'We make a clone, like she says. And this one?'
This one goes back to live with her.' Cherry walked over to one of the occupied tanks and rapped on the glass. Inside, the bleached white form of a man twisted away from the noise. He had whiskers around his chubby face and short webbed fingers. His legs had welded together into some kind of paddle.
'He's gonna join the navy,' said Dag, and barked a laugh.
Cherry said, 'You have the details?'
Dag looked at a piece of paper with instructions written on it, instructions of the additions Signy wanted added on to her baby in his glass womb.
'Sounds more like witchcraft than science to me,' he muttered.
'How long, then? When will he be ready to fight?'
'You gotta allow a month in a tank for a year out here. Full grown in eighteen months, yeah. But we take him out sooner, fourteen, say. He'll need a few years, make him a soldier. Can't make him grow up in a tank, eh?'
Cherry nodded. 'We'd better get on with it. The real one has to be back in a few hours.'
Dag nodded at the technicians. As they took the baby away it began to cry. It took only a moment to take a small sample of blood and a scraping from the inside of his mouth – all that was needed to start a clone. Other genetic material would be added, and the creature Signy planned would be growing within a few hours. Cherry watched as the needle slid in and the baby screamed. She winced. Then she gave Dag a long slow wink.
Corporal Haggerstaff
I was there.
I was there when the baby was born. I had a gun at the doctor's throat as he anaesthetised My Lady. I tensed my linger on the trigger just before he gave My Lady the injection and let my breath out, enough for him to hear and know that if anything went wrong, I'd kill him. I could smell his fear. There was no need for the gun to my temple. The loyalty of the bodyguard is absolute. We all drink the sacrifice of blood in King Conor's name on Odinsday each week. No one need doubt us. But I was watched. Everyone is watched.
I was there, too, when the alarm was sounded – not on guard, thank Odin, or I wouldn't be here to tell you this. I was off duty in the canteen when the cry went up. It was obvious at once, it was an inside job. The worst enemy is always inside. No, not the bodyguard! The bodyguard is beyond suspicion. But they are about everywhere else within the Estate, in secret. Our best efforts cannot uncover them. A man who has been favoured by the gods as highly as Conor creates a great deal of envy from those smaller ones who bob along behind him. There are many who bob along behind.
When the call went up, I dropped my spoon and ran to help. My Lady was distraught, cursing us, threatening us. She wanted to come down to help the search, but that is forbidden. All her wishes, even the smallest, are worth anyone else's greatest; but not that We pulled the place to pieces and flattened the woods, but it was all too late. The baby was gone. It was witchcraft. How else could they get past the bodyguard?
Not that I trust My Lady. Her eyes make me cold, her smell is wrong. That is not something I ever care to mention. For one thing, it is not wise to doubt the wife of King Conor. For another, the scenting is a private matter. It is matter of shame for me, a matter of secrecy. It is easy to see how it may be misunderstood. I, too, have enemies. There are those who would welcome an excuse to accuse me of being unclean. And it may be that they would be right.
From way, way back, you understand. It's not at all noticeable.
It became clear when I was a child that my comrades could not smell people as I can. That is not a good thing to know about yourself. It is a secret that would have me hanging by my heel if it ever got out. Only humans of the pure blood may serve in the bodyguard. I have kept my mouth shut about it all my life, but I do not doubt my senses. In My Lady, there is the reek of treachery. So I stay close, I watch her, but I can never say what I fear, as the proof of the scenting would prove nothing to anyone here.
I was there, too, when those on guard were executed. It was just. Even Ivan, who has been my closest friend since childhood, even him. I had no doubt as I hung him up, but I made sure the knife in his throat was quick and clean. We do not waste bullets on traitors, Ivan would have understood that. I could tell by his eyes. It was just, even though there was nothing that could have been done about it.
And, of course, as you will have heard, it was I who found the child. You could say that the search was rigorous; we tore the Estate to pieces, house by house. We had no hope of finding him; as I said, it had to be witchcraft, and who knows what witches may or may not do? But by all normal logic no one could have taken the child out of the Estate. Only the guard around the water tower had the sleeping fit. Reasonably, he should still be there – if he was alive, that is.
I for one was certain that the heir to the king was already dead and buried, eaten by dogs – whatever, disposed of. We tore each house to pieces and let the suspected know there would be no mercy if even the slightest hint of guilt was found, and most likely even if it were not. I passed through several houses and it was chance that I ended in Margaret O'Hara's place. Head of Security – who would have thought it? I'd never have suspected her, for she was always most ruthless in the execution of the king's will. She waited with a face full of threats while I and the others ripped open the cupboards. A powerful woman, strong enough to know how to look proud and not scold as her frocks were torn down and trampled on, as her drawers were tipped up, her diaries and private papers read.
Even as I searched I knew where the child was; I smelt him – milk and urine coming from the laundry basket. I was unable to prevent myself from turning sharply and taking two steps towards it, and I saw her look at me. But she had such control. I admire her for that. She must have known where the baby was hidden but when she saw me start towards him she did not so much as flinch.
Then I paused, because how would I answer if they asked me how I knew? I had to leave the room to reach the baby. But by good fortune the baby began to cry. I saw her face drain of blood. She knew she was caught, although by what stupidity she allowed herself to be caught like that I can only wonder. The baby yelled and kicked and coughed. I pushed the woman out of the way and ran to the laundry room. A cat ran out under my feet and almost tripped me. I lifted off the lid, and there he lay. I knew it was the king's child even before I saw him. One baby looks much like another, but the smell was distinctive.
I lifted him out and cradled the little one in my arms. The old witch was standing behind me.
'I have no idea how…' she began, but my foot cut her short. I had no fear of her now; her guilt was out. I kicked her to the floor and stood above her panting, the baby still close against my chest. My captain allowed me a few more kicks before he restrained me.
'Not too much, corporal. Save some for Conor.'
The woman began to cry – fear, I think. I stepped over her and carried the baby to the king.
Signy
There's a story about an ogre who could only be killed if his heart was destroyed. In order to stop this happening he kept his heart in an egg, hidden deep in a nest in a tree, in a forest, on an island in a lake. But one day the foolish ogre fell in love with a princess and gave his heart into her keeping.
This is the moment that Conor gave me his heart.
They're swinging me down from the water tower on ropes tied to my chair. The light hurts my eyes. On my lap, little Vincent gurgles and coos. Cherry's told me this story many, many times; it's always been one of my favourites. Now here it is in colour – the trees with their bare branches, the daffodils on the wet grass, the tarmac below shiny with rain, the pale blue sea of the bodyguard on their knees to me. Behind them the rabble from the Estate on the ground before me, babies and grandmothers, generals and gangmen. In front of them all, in the ringside seats, the heads of the imaginary traitors on sticks like a collection of Halloween toffee apples. The grass under them is red with bloody mud. And right underneath us, Conor, the ogre himself, chewing his finger as the most precious things in his world swing down from the place where he has kept us 'safe' for so long.
I named them for him, the traitors. It's taken him a long time to learn to believe me, but now he has proof. I tell him Odin comes to me in dreams. It suits him to believe that the gods are on his side. How else could I have known that the baby would be found in Margaret O'Hara's house? Poor Margaret, I remember her from formal dinners when I first came here. Her table manners were so neat. She treated me like a silly girl; I was. She had the blood of tens of thousands on her hands, but now it's her blood that's soaking into the grass – hers and all her family's. I said it would be so, and there the baby was. So, when I tell him that Simon Patterson, Ruddock Goodal, Randolf Carhill are traitors, of course he believes that too. And there they are now to greet me, heads on sticks, the crows sitting in the trees behind them waiting for their moment of privacy with them.
Trust is this heart of Conor's, that he's given into my hands. In the story the princess gives the heart to the prince to crush, but I shall squeeze this heart… squeeze it and crush it slowly over the years to come, until Conor is screaming with the pain of it. And when he has screamed as loudly as the people in my dreams, I'll kill him.
I swing down like a basket of eggs and when I reach the ground, frightened hands come to loosen the ropes. They know already how much I am to be feared. Only Conor doesn't understand. Little Vincent croons, lullabied by the swinging journey down. I give him the tip of my finger to suck and I think, you little helpless thing, you'll have less in common with me than the copy by the time I'm done. Conor comes and rests his hand on my shoulder and smiles anxiously at me, like a scared child. Who can blame him for being scared of me? I am the prophet, forewarned by the gods! Poor Conor, so weak he can be so fooled by his own trick. He thinks I love him!
He raises his fist in the air.
This is your Queen!' he cries. The eight hundred men left in the bodyguard and the entire population of the Estate shout back.
'Hail the Queen! Hail the Queen!' I smile at my husband. I'm the power here now.
Siggy
I hadn't even known she was pregnant.
I found out about a week ago. Cherry was winding me up. She's a real tease – always flirting, it drove me mad. After that one time I wanted another slice, and every now and then over the past year or so since, she let me have it Oh, yeah, and that'sworth living for. Cherry gets old fast, she looks about thirty now and I'm only twenty, but she's as gorgeous as ever. She'd let me kiss her, but nine times out of ten she was just leading me on. I'd think, maybe she means it this time and then as soon as I reached out for her – fittz! – and she'd laugh and fly away. It drove me mad, watching that little bird whiz away into the bushes. And then a burst of song that always sounded so sarcastic.
I couldn't help it, it was just making me crosser and crosser every time it happened. So, OK, I admit to being a bit of a bastard sometimes these days. I'd feel ashamed of myself if I thought I was worth it She pushed me a bit far that day – I hadn't had much sleep – and I grabbed her by the arm. I held her hard. I could see the look in her eyes. She knew I had her. Panic.
'And now I'm gonna have you,' I told her, and I reached for her face with mine.
Cherry did the shapes. First the bird, then the cat, then the girl again. I just held tight. She scratched, she pecked, she bit. Finally she became a cat and just waited there, crouching in my arms, staring up at me. Every hair on her body was standing on end.
'Tell me something I don't know,' I sneered, and I dropped her.
'All right,' she said. There was the girl again. It always gave me the creeps, that. And tell me she did.
'Your sister has had a baby.'
'What?'
'And it's yours.'
'What do you mean, mine? Don't be stupid.'
'I mean…' Cherry smiled coldly. 'I mean, she wants you to have him.'
She explained, but it took a while to sink it She wanted me to bring up a souped-up version of her and Conor's kid. What? Why? I mean, what's a clone? Not just a copy. It's a forgery. That's how I felt about it. And transgenic! I wonder what optional extras dear Signy's had fitted? Strengthened bones, something from an eagle at the back of the retina? Improvements. What'd she done to his mind? What'd she done to his soul, if you can call it that?
Then I got angry. Signy had no right! She had no right to sleep with that shit in the first place. How can she stand it! Him lying by her side… on top of her… inside her! How come she doesn't vomit in his face? How come her insides don't just abort anything he lodges inside her?
'Why has she done this?'
'She has no choice…'
'She could escape! You know she could escape! What's the point of staying there? Conor can't be defeated, you know that. Why don't you tell her, Cherry?'
'…if she wants to keep his confidence she has no choice but to sleep with him. And she has his confidence. Dag Aggerman knows every move Conor makes.'
'But that's you, Cherry! You get that information and pass it on to him, she doesn't need to be there at all. And now she's had a baby by him! What is it with her? She's mad, isn't she? That's what it is, she's mad. Can't you see that? Can't you help me, Cherry? We could get her out of there, you and me. You used to like me, Cherry. We slept together. I thought I could fall in love with you. Cherry? Why won't you help me?'
And then I was crying, tears running down my face, trembling all over. Cherry stood there looking at me and for a second I thought she was going to cry herself. Her face seemed to be changing. When she spoke her voice was unsteady but her words were so clear.
'This is how the gods have seen it, Siggy. Don't argue. Don't try. It's all already as it has to be and nothing can change it. You can only do it in the best way you can.'
How many times had I heard my father say such things?
'The gods can keep it, I don't want anything to do with it. It stinks. Conor's child!'
'Herchild. And her child is your child,' insisted Cherry, but I shook my head.
'A clone,' I said. I just couldn't understand what she was up to. And why should I have anything to do with it? I tried to say something but the words were getting all blurred. Cherry was staring at me and I could see that she was upset too. I stumbled towards her and put out my arms and then she was there, in my arms. It felt so good. She squeezed me tight. I was sobbing. Then, I couldn't help it, I just fancy her so much… it turned me on and she must have felt stirring down there, because she drew back and looked into my eyes. Her lips were open. Her eyes were soft and wet. I would have leaned forward to kiss her but I was scared, my face is so fucking awful…
… And there was a whirr of brown wings and she was off into the sky like a thrown stone. But there was no jeering birdsong from a bush this time. I saw the tears in her eyes as she changed.
I thought to myself, I wish I'd made her pregnant. I could love a son of my own. But this thing of Conor's, this thing in a tank that Signy wanted to give to me, it made me feel sick. One thing I knew for certain: I wasn't going to have nothing to do with it. Nothing.
Dag Aggerman
Sheee-it! Tell you, that thing gave me the spooks even before it was out. Yeah… ah! Mind, them tanks always gave me the spooks. Ah, ah! Those things all pruney from being so long in the liquid, long squinty babies, giant foetuses with that bloom on their skins, all puffy and swollen, gaping like fish. Their necks sorta swell up when they take down the Oxyjuice. Yow! Some of 'em got tubes going in at the navel, some with blood in them, some with wires. Yuk, yuk, yuk. Yeah, I went in one time to have a look-see, check it out. You hadta walk past rows of dog things and cat things and pig things till you got to the people things; and there he was, lying curled up like a big white shite at the bottom of his tank, oh, no, ah ah ah! – about the ugliest thing I ever saw. Eyes staring out, neck puffing up and down. He was bigger'n a man already.
Yeah, Mummy made a few changes to her darling boy.
I didn't see him again till he was born. Woulda stayed away at the birth too, but I hadta be there. Cherry was coming too, see – oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta stay in with the likes of that! Nah! Mind, she didn't do much talking. Stayed a cat the whole time. Yeah, fuckin' furball, she was just doin it to wind me up!
Tank birth don't look like much fun. It was all bright neon tights. His face pulling faces as he gave up the Oxyjuice and got used to the air. When the tank was empty he was leaning on the glass; he looked like a dead man choking. When they opened the door, he fell out on the floor. The techs jumped on him and hauled him upside down to drain out the Oxyjuice. Me an' the cat, we just watched. She was licking her paws, but she didn't fool me. She didn't like this guy any more than I did. I could smell that.
He began coughing and heaving as the Oxyjuice poured out of his jaws like he was being sick. But I knew at once, whatever changes they made they were good ones, 'cause those guys had a real struggle holding him, he was strong as an ox. Then they dropped him and we all stood around staring at him as he heaved about on the floor trying to get his breath.
He looked like they all look when they come out – puffy skin, all white, bloated up from months in liquid. But he was good looking under it – good muscles, tall – fine young man. Yeah. We helped him up and led him outside into the sunshine. Cherry, she didn't say a thing, just whisked off with her tail up high out ahead of us. Me, I was curious too. I wanted to watch him as he saw the world for the first time, the grass and the air and the sun. Oh, yeah, you can't help but like it, the old world, even with all the shit. I wondered if it was gonna be as amazing to him as it was to me, but I guess he had enough to do without being amazed.
He came out of it slowly, his breaths became clean. He got up all shaky, kneeling for a while on the ground to recover. He was growing more beautiful all the time. Cherry, she sat up on her tail and sniffed the air. I was watchin' her, too, and I tell you, all the hairs on her back came up in a long stripe. Me, I just wanted to bark and bark but I kept my mouth shut. I came forward to help him to his feet, but as soon as I got close I was growling right in my throat. I couldn't help it. I put my snout to him and gave him a good nosing. And you know what? His smell? He don't have one!
Shit! They all smell of something. Engine Oil, ever hear of him? Transgenic horse, thick as a sheep, strong as a wagon. Bit of an experiment, us with so few motors. Someone had the bright idea -make an animal one, a machine of flesh and blood. They called him Engine Oil because that's what he smelt of, horse sweat and engine oil. Weird! Trouble was, he was soooo thick. No gearbox, no dashboard, no steering wheel, just legs and a brain that couldn't drive a weevil, let alone five tons of muscle and alloy. He got killed at Slough and, yeah, his blood was twenty-five per cent engine oil. They drained it outta him, used it to keep the lorries going. Boy, it sure worked good! Ah! Yeah yeah! Living oil, see – kept the engine in good nick, attacked the rust, rebuilt the wear and tear. Living oil! Engine Oil was more use dead than alive.
'Where's my father?' the clone said. His first words. Soon as he spoke, the little cat thing was gone – ran off into the bushes. She'd seen what she came for and she wasn't hanging round. But I put on a show anyhow, just in case.
'Oh, you'll see him soon enough, you betcha,' I said. I put my arm around him and led him off, give him some food and drink, y'know? But I wasn't fooling no one. I had to hold back, stop myself from snapping at him, ah, yow-yow-yow! Trying to keep my tail up but it kept creeping back down. He just didn't smell of nothing! Every hair on me was standing on end.
Transgenics- you can keep 'em! Nah nah nah! Give people a hand in creation, they make an even worse mess than the gods did. See, it's not just, we give you a tail, go wag it. They gotta tell you why you go wag it, when you go wag it. They give you feelings. They give you thoughts. Nah nah nah. Scrub that out. They give youinstincts. Well, what's the point of giving 'em thoughts? Instincts work better. You gotta think of the poor manufacturer. He goes to all that trouble and expense, he don't want his creature turning round and saying nah, don't feel like it today.
So what little gifts had Signy for her son?
Listen, don't get me wrong, I gotta lotta time for instincts. They're some of my favourite things. You eat, you have sex, you shit, you sniff. I love 'em all! What else? You suckle. Maybe you talk, maybe you know how to fall in love, maybe you gotta make friends. OK, fine. Good! Lotsa nice gifts!
But what kinda little gifts does Signy give her boy?
Hatred, that's what. That's what he was here for, right? Hatred for Conor, everything he stood for, had done, could do. Nah! And then the other things, the take-aways. You don't just add what you want, you take away what you don't want Styr, he wasruthless. You never saw a lad so bad! You don't add that! No fear, see? That was all taken out.
Dangerous mix, yeah! I thought, maybe, this one we could do without.
First thing, before he goes to Siggy – Mummy's orders -he gotta get some training. He's a soldier, this boy. Not a general, she don't make him for that. He just wanna fight.
So I sent him out on a few jobs – dirty jobs, as a common soldier. You should have read the reports! He had some trouble fitting in. Him, behaving like royalty. He was a Volson, son of kings! Yeah, well, my dogs and bitches ain't too keen on that sort of attitude. You gotta fight for your respect. So he got in a few fights, a few hard fights. It's the way with us. You gotta hold your own or you get pissed on.
Oh yeah! Gotta say it, he was excellent. Signy sure knew how to put together a soldier. He got in the fights, he won the fights. Let's face it, he tore those boys to bits. Followed his orders, mind, even when he thought he knew better, but he fought like a bitch for her pups. Oh, yeah, he was the best, the very best. And every single one of my dogs who spent time with him came away wishing they hadn't.
'So what's up with him?' I asked.
'He don't smell right,' they'd say. Yeah, yeah, well, he had a smell by now. You don't live in this world and get no smell. But like they said, his smell weren't right. See, he smelt of what he'd just been doing and never of himself. Know what I mean? No, you dumb-nosed human, how could you? You don't know nothin' with your nose. Nah! See? Yeah! You stoopid monkey!
There's a secret bunker. Call it a strongroom, perhaps. It's a place for treasures to be kept safe. In this strongroom were two women, one younger than the other, an elderly man and an upright glass tank which opened at the front. The younger woman, still almost a girl, really, was crippled. She leaned forward in her wheelchair with a lipstick in her hand, and scrawled in deliberately childish writing on the glass, 'I love Mother.'
She smiled up at her friend. The elderly man kept his feelings away from his face.
Signy's real mother died in childbirth, bearing her and Siggy.
Cherry chewed her lip anxiously. She bent down with a question. 'I know what you're adding, but are you taking anything away as well?' she wanted to know.
Signy raised her eyebrows. She can't resist the temptation to tease. 'Pity? Mercy? Grief? What about that old handicap love?' But Cherry looked so put out that she laughed. 'Don't believe me – how could I stop loving my puss?' Cherry laughed and embraced her, believing it all. 'And I wouldn't take grief away, either. What would I be without that?'
The old man kept his thoughts to himself.
'Undress me,' said Signy.
Cherry glanced at the man. 'What about him?'
'He'll have to see me, who cares?'
Cherry helped her mistress with the buttons. 'Conor'll care.'
'Conor's at the front. The war's more important than I am.'
'That's not true!'
'Well, but he's away. Anyway, I want to be born naked.'
Seeing the powerful is always a curious business; seeing them naked is even more so. The old man was as curious as anyone, but he tried to keep his eyes away from the Queen. She was the second most powerful person in the country, after Conor, and as far as he was concerned, every little bit as scary.
Signy felt herself blushing at this exposing of herself, but she was certain she wanted to go naked into the tank. Her body was ridiculous – flabby and soft above, and those diddy little, weak little, useless legs. But now she was about to take back everything, and more.
When her clothes were off, Cherry and the man helped her up and into the open door of the tank. She kissed Cherry goodbye. She was going on a journey that would last two months.
'Take care of everything for me,' she whispered. This was the most dangerous time for her. She was out of action, like a crab that had shed its shell. She would be helpless in the tank; it cost her dearly to make herself like this, but the, rewards would be very great.
'Bring the boy to Siggy when he's finished his training with Dag.' Signy smiled. 'He knows how to bring Siggy into the fight.'
Cherry hesitated, then asked, 'What about the other one?'
'What other one?'
'The baby. Your son. The real one.' There was hardly a trace of reproach in Cherry's voice.
'That! My real son is with Dag. Conor can have the other one.' Signy laughed. 'Or you. You can have him if you like.'
Cherry shrugged. She would have loved to be the boy's mother but she had too much to do. With all her shapes she could only be in one place at the same time.
'Sorry. I know. Keep an eye on the little one for me then,' said Signy, but just to please her puss.
Cherry smiled and withdrew, and the old man, a technician captured along with the glass womb, was ordered to close the door. But he paused for a second and looked at her.
'What is it?' asked the Queen.
'Are you sure? I mean, Ma'am, there are other changes I could make, if you wanted.'
'What changes?'
'Peace of mind.'
'What would I want with that?' demanded the girl.
The old man paused, before he could get out the word he wanted to.
'Sanity,' he whispered.
'What do I want that for, in this madness? Close the door.'
Cherry, angry at the way he had dared speak to Signy, hissed at him, and he closed the door hurriedly and turned the pressure keys to seal her in. She waited, sitting at the bottom of the tall tank. Cherry chivvied the man, and he turned the tap that fed a sleeping gas into the little chamber.
It worked in a second. Signy slumped. Now came the part Cherry was not looking forward to – the drowning that accompanied the return to the womb. They did not dare use paralysing drugs too heavily, in case they affected the breathing response. Although Signy was asleep, her body would fight against the initial intake of liquid into her lungs. Cherry hid behind her back and peeped as the liquid crept up, over her mistress's thighs, up her waist, over her breasts. Signy twitched as it rose to her face, jerked in her deep sleep as it tickled her mouth and nose. Then, as it rose above her, she began twitching and jerking in a slow motion panic, fighting for the air that was no longer there. The tank filled rapidly. In a few seconds it was full and in ten more seconds, Signy was pumping bubbles up through the liquid. Then her neck began the characteristic puffing as she pumped the liquid in and out down into her lungs. More struggles, as the last of the air was expelled, then a slow peace descended on her as her shocked body sank into stillness. Gradually she would grow used to the liquid in her lungs. She would be allowed to regain consciousness in three or four days.
Down here, locked up once again to keep her safe, Signy would be rebuilt. Legs, of course. But she had also specified, without Conor knowing, certain other features. She wanted to be better, bigger, faster, stronger than she had been. Her bones were to be strengthened, her muscles helped with new technology. She wanted to be sterile. She'd had all the babies she wanted.
And a treat or two for Conor, too. Bigger breasts, for instance.
Cherry looked at the still girl, collapsed, ungainly, helpless and naked at the bottom of the tank. You could see parts of her that shouldn't be on show, and Cherry wanted to get in with her and make her decent. She glanced sharply at the technician, to make sure he wasn't looking where he shouldn't.
'Her orders had better be carried out exactly,' she said quietly.
'They will be, ma'am,' the old man answered. He'd done what he could. The girl could have made herself a force for good, a benevolent ruler, but it was always so with the powerful – they only did whatever they did for themselves.
He looked at the dials on the side of the tank. 'Exactly as she said,' he repeated.
Cherry nodded, happy that the man would not dare lie. She was still staring fascinated at Signy in the tank, at the thin clouds of bubbles rising from her hair and out of one tipped nostril. Tiny silvery bubbles glistened on her arms and legs and in her pubic hair. The lipstick scrawl, 'I love Mother', hung above her on the glass.
Cherry began to cry. She didn't know how she could survive two whole months without Signy to cuddle up to, without her lap to doze on. She would have the wheelchair taken somewhere safe and sleep on that, as a cat, until her mistress was ready to emerge.
Siggy
Muswell Hill's still a scumbag of a place to live, and it still suits me fine. The market, the criminal fraternity. They know me a bit better these days. I get out and about a bit more than I used to. I don't need to, of course. Cherry brings more than enough money for me and Mels, but I like to keep my hand in. You know the story… big fat pig, full of dripping. Conor will win the war, I suppose it's pointless really, but it does give me some pleasure pricking the feet of some of the fat bastards who benefit from his regime.
And it keeps Melanie happy.
We still have the old flat up above the market, but there's a few more hideaways these days. You need boltholes in these days of pogroms against the halfmen. Me, I only ever go out at night -my face makes a halfman of me – but bloody stupid old Melanie, I can't get it through to her the danger she's in. She's always out and about, hunting down bargains, giving handouts to anyone who asks for them. She costs a fortune. One of these days they're going to get her. And what will poor old Siggy have left in the world then? I love that fat old pig. She saved my life. She didn't have to, she was starving herself half to death for a poor old lump of meat belonging to a race that never did hers any favours. And she's taught me a lot. For one thing, that humanity doesn't have to come in human form. Melanie is more human than most people I know. More human than Conor, or Signy, or me – or Val, for that matter. There are times when the world seems to me to be built of wall to wall shit, but then I think about her. Oh, yeah, Melanie's the real thing, my fat, ugly, porky ray of sunshine.
It was February, bloody cold, foul day, the slush brown with horse shit all over the roads. Melanie was out. We'd had another row. She's always on at me to join the resistance. She's almost as bad as Signy.
'Nothing'll change without you tries,' she growled.
'Nothing's gonna change with I tries,' I replied. Like a lot of saints, Melanie knows how to use her mouth. And she's so unrealistic. I mean, what's the use? This is how the world is.
'I'm… no… hero,' I told her, nice and clear so she'd understand.
'None of us is. So what?' she grunted, and stomped out of the house to do more good to some poor sap.
I put a vid on, lay on the sofa to watch it After about an hour or so I heard the rapping at the window, but I was feeling sulky so I just lay for half an hour listening to the little bitch rat-a-tat-tat for ages before I got up to open the window and let her in.
A little brown bird came skimming low across the floor and landed on the arm of a chair.
I said, 'Hi.'
Cherry shook herself back into herself – that's the only way to describe it. She sat sideways on the chair a moment scowling at me.
'I've been pecking away for half an hour,' she said.
'Ah…'
She was furious. She didn't say anything else, just peered sideways at me out of her tawny eyes and stalked off into the kitchen.
'I was watching a video,' I said.
She came back in with a drink and stood in front of the screen.
'Crap,' she said, turning away. She was right; it was crap – an old American video, all faded and cheap to begin with. The only people making good quality ones these days were in the Far East.
I didn't complain about her standing there in front of the screen. She was – I dunno, maybe late thirties, but she was a good deal better to look at than anything on it. She ages so fast, but somehow it doesn't make so much difference as if she was human. I mean, she's only been alive eight or nine years.
She turned round and plonked herself next to me on the sofa. I decided it was an invitation. I stroked her face with my finger and she looked sideways at me. I turned my face to hers and kissed her.
Kissing Cherry is like honey. OK, her breath tends to smell a bit these days, but it still made my head spin. I put my hand on her waist and pulled her shirt out of her skirt so I could stroke the skin and that neat little stripe of soft fur that grows down her spine. I followed the fur up her back right up between her shoulders, and then down, down, until I had to hook my finger under her tights and pull them down an inch or two to carry on my way…
'Mmmmm,' she purred. And then she wriggled away and pulled the tights back up.
'Cherry, you're killing me!'
She scowled. 'You're too young.'
'I'm older than you are…'
'I'm here on business, Siggy. Here…' she said, and she chucked me a little plastic bag with some paper folded up tight in it. It was still wet in the creases, and I made a show of wiping it on my arm.
'You never know where it's been,' I said. Cherry ignored me and sat down to drink her cola and watch the video, even if it was crap.
Actually, of course I knew where the letter had been; she carried things in her crop when she was a bird. But I couldn't resist the tease. I glanced across at her. She'd been keeping away from me more as she got older, but I still had the hots for her. Who knows, maybe it was because I had no chance with anyone else, but still…
She was all downy, all over – I can vouch for it. I keep thinking about that lovely furry stripe. Not hairy – a neat, sandy, soft stripe of short hair that tapered as it went down her back. Very pretty, right down to where it disappeared. I kept wanting to run my finger all the way down. Yeah, yeah, her and me. Maybe she was trying to soften me up to take Styr on, maybe Signy ordered her to do it. But I like to think it was because she wanted to, despite the face. Halfmen women aren't so fixed on what the front of your head looks like.
I tried to shake Cherry out of my mind, sat down to read the letter from Signy, and I might have known. In fact, I'd been waiting for it.
My sister scares me sometimes.
I keep saying to her, all I want to know is where Conor is going to be at a certain time so that I can be there to put a bullet in his neck. But no. That's not good enough. Signy wants everything done 'properly'. Not just Conor but the whole empire has to be shot down the drain, and the Volsons put back in his place.
Those days are gone forever. The Volsons are an empty house. I don't even think of myself as one anymore. Me and her – what are we worth? She can't escape Conor even though she has the means if she wanted to, and me, I'm just dead meat walking.
She's been getting worse ever since the baby was born. Going on about Odin, the knife, about Val, about the empire. The current thing was Styr, of course: the clone. The thing from the tank. I kept telling her, I wanted nothing to do with her plans, any of them – but especially not Styr. And yet she never seemed to doubt that I'd do what she wanted. Look at this – a letter written weeks ago before she went into the tank. She didn't even wait till she emerged to find out if I was going to do it.
'Shit.'
Cherry looked across at me with that wry smile of hers.
'I won't be a nursemaid for Conor's brat.'
'He's nearly fifteen years old, Sigs.'
'It's all wrong, he was only conceived a few months ago,' I grumbled. I crumpled up the letter and chucked it at the window. 'I don't like it, I don't want it, I won't have it.'
Cherry smiled at me and held out her hand. In her palm lay a nut. I stared at it sullenly.
'I thought you couldn't lend shapes,' I said.
She shrugged. 'I had to get help. I was surprised he agreed.'
She meant Loki, of course.
Sometimes I feel the gods hanging around me like crows. There was Odin, of course, putting in a couple of appearances – distant, stern, all-knowing. A bit too stereotyped for me. I still don't know whether he's something out of Ragnor or not. Either way, it doesn't do to fall out with such a patron; you can see what'll happen even with him on your side. But Loki – what good ever came out of Loki?
On the other hand if all he was doing was mucking up Odin's plans, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. But no, I don't mean it! Not if it involves Styr.
Cherry muttered her charms; the nut sprouted.
You can't help but watch, even though it makes you feel sick. This was worse, because the kid was a real monster as far as I was concerned. He ended up on all fours and scrambled to his feet, in the way a dog might jump up. You know, without self-consciousness at how foolish he looked. Then the change was over and I could see him for what he was and…
First thing, I wanted to run out of the room. Next thing… Well, then I was just mesmerised. He was like me. I thought, what? Why? I mean, OK, Signy and me are twins, but not identical twins. But he was so like me. Except, of course, a better version. Bigger, stronger, beautiful. I never used to think of myself as beautiful. I found that I was touching my face and I thought, did I used to look like that? I tried to walk away but I found myself circling round him like a dog. It was like… is this me? Am I looking at myself? Had she cloned me, somehow?
As I walked round I could feel all the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. It was extraordinary. I felt like I was turning into an animal. I thought, no! I'm not the animal – he is. But despite that – listen to this, despite that, despite everything, I knew right at that second that I loved him. I loved him and I had no choice. And that scared me more than anything.
I glared at Cherry and snarled, 'What is this?'
'Your boy,' she told me.
'Get him out of here,' I said.
'Signy wants you to train the boy.'
'No.'
'She wants…'
'No!'
I turned to go, I got to the door with my hand on the handle, when the boy cried out,
'Father!'
…and I stuck there with my hand on the handle. I couldn't move, I couldn't move. The awful thing was, I knew. Even before he said it, I knew it was right.
'How can that be?' I whispered.
And Cherry said, 'I lent her my shape.'
So that was it. I didn't need to question it, I knew it was right. I must have looked awful because Cherry stepped over to me and put her arm protectively around me. 'Why?' I asked her.
'She asked me to,' said Cherry.
'And the other times?'
Cherry gave me a crooked look, half smiled. 'No, that was me, Siggy.' She wriggled her small hand into mine and whispered, 'I'm sorry. I didn't know she was going to do that.'
'But you'd have done it anyway,' I told her, and she didn't deny it.
All the time the boy stood there watching me intently, as if his life depended on what I did next. His face, it was always like this, it gave nothing away except that his eyes looked like two hot stones. Now he moved, took steps towards me to join us, his hands held out wanting to touch me.
'No!' I couldn't bear him to touch me. Then I found myself staring at him to see if I'd hurt him. I thought, my flesh and Signy's flesh. No wonder he knows me better than I know myself.
'Test me,' he said.
I shook my head. Test him? For what? Blood? He meant his strength, of course, his skill as a soldier. Signy wanted him to help me destroy Conor. Suppose he was the best in the world. What difference would that make to anything?
'Dag Aggerman taught me,' said the boy in a clear voice. 'He sends his greetings, Father, and asks when you will join him to lead the human resistance against the tyrant.'
I shook my head. I wanted out of there. I even took a step towards the door. Cherry squeezed my hand gently, I pulled away. But I couldn't leave. It was impossible to deny him. Maybe Signy arranged it like that. Or Odin, or Loki. Or is it just that I'm too soft? I don't know, but instead of going out of the door, I found myself sticking my head out of the window for a breath of fresh air.
It was market day. Most days were market days, there's always a few people with something to sell spread out on the ground. Today was official, though, and it was busy. It went from people with a cloth on the ground with a few sad knick-knacks they wanted to swap for a few sad scraps, to stalls with striped awnings selling some really good bits. All around the stalls were the shops, some of them poor, some of them rich; and some of them powerful.
I turned round to look at Styr. He held his arms out 'I want you to teach me. I want to be a good soldier. I can help. Test me.' He paused a second and then said, 'I love you, Father.'
I laughed. How could he love me, he'd never even met me before? But he did. I knew he did. And I loved him.
I thought to myself, what right has this creature to my feelings? I wished him dead… truly, I wished him dead. I was filled with fear of him, at where he'd come from, out of a glass tank, out of lies, out of incest. Then I had another thought and I said,
'What about the other one?'
Cherry scowled. 'Sigs, don't,' she said.
'The real one, what about him?' I asked the clone.
A kind of shudder went through the boy. He struck himself in the chest. 'I am the real one,' he cried out. 'I am the reason why…' He spread his arm out, and of course it was true. He was the reason the other one, the baby in Conor's Estate had been born. In that sense, he was the real one.
'He doesn't count,' said the clone. 'He's just a child.'
'And what about your childhood?' I said spitefully.
He shrugged. 'It's too late for that.'
I turned back to look out of the window. Out here in Muswell Hill it was tough. You had to know the right places to go, you had to know what to do. You had especially to know what not to do. I figured it wouldn't be so hard to find a test he couldn't pass.
I beckoned to him and he came to stand next to me. Straight away there was this feeling – it never left me, every time he stood close to me. Repugnance and attraction, love and hate, all in one.
'There.' I pointed. 'See? The pawn shop…'
It was Do Hawkins' place. He does a lot of good stuff. It isn't just the poor people go to Do's if they need cash. Plenty of rich people pawn the family jewels there. You didn't have to have a good reputation or a decent credit rating. Do's insurance policy was a little different from just making sure he lent to the right people. If he didn't get it back, and the rest, his helpers paid you a 'little visit'. Do was the nearest thing to a ganglord left in north London. He had any number of scams, theft, extortion, murder. I'd done a few jobs with him myself. There were a great many people who didn't even need the money found themselves obliged to borrow off Do, just so he could have the pleasure of them paying him back at a good rate of interest.
He was good at it, too. There was a small fortune sitting in that shop. An ideal attraction for thieves, you'd have thought, but you'd be wrong. No one – and I mean no one – bothered trying to steal off Do. It was just too dangerous. You'd have to be a genius just to get in there.
'Do the till and you're in,' I told him.
I was shaking as I walked back to the window to watch. Cherry was furious.
'You've killed him.'
I was gritting my teeth.
'He's only fifteen, Siggy.'
'A test, he needs to have a test,' I insisted.
She shook her head and came over to stare down at the street below. Then she smiled.
'Look, there he is.' I peered out of the window. That was quick. I was impressed. The kid was there in amongst the crowd, circling about, getting in closer.
'He's gonna have a go,' I said in surprise.
'Oh, yes,' said Cherry. And she laughed at seeing me put out. 'Stop him,' she said. But I couldn't move.
Styr was in close already, squeezing his way through the crowds, getting right up to the counter. Then he whipped out a gun.
I jumped and shouted. This was mad! The whole shop froze. I could see the big guys eyeing him up, but they didn't dare do anything – yet. Styr was as cool as you like. People were moving in behind him, but he got them out of the way with the gun. The guy behind the table emptied the till into a bag, handed it over. Shit, he'd actually done it!
He was gonna die.
Suddenly my heart was in my mouth and I was thinking, come on, kid, come on, you can do it! But at the same time I knew he stood no chance. He might get out of the shop, but he'd be dead in a few steps.
Styr turned and began to edge out of the shop.
'They'll bloody kill him!' I leaned out over the sill. I was scared! 'They'll kill him!'
'Your own son,' said Cherry.
I cursed her. Below us, Styr turned and ran. There was a crackle of gunfire. The crowd opened and closed to let Styr through. He was running… and suddenly the street was full of big men in good suits running after him.
'Stupid kid!' I screamed. I leaped backwards and got to the door. He didn't stand a chance! As I belted down the corridor I heard Cherry over my shoulder.
'Better hurry.'
I went down that corridor like a pinball. I fell down the stairs and out of the door. He'd be dead already! I grabbed a passer-by. 'Which way?' I screamed.
'What?' The man didn't know what I was talking about. I dropped him and ran towards Do's. I grabbed one of the big men. He recognised me, everyone knew my face, or what was left of it.
'Where've they gone?'
'Was he yours? What you playing at?'
'WHERE?' The man paled. He didn't like being shouted at, but he knew better than to argue with me. He just pointed.
I ran off, down behind Queens Avenue where the clothes stalls peter out and they sell broken bits of machinery and tools. I grabbed another passer-by. It took me two more before I found them. They had him up against a wall by a load of wooden boxes full of cabbage leaves and rotten fruit. There were about six of them, teaching him a lesson for everyone else to see before they finished him off. The slush was red with blood. He'd done a lot of damage himself. There were a few of them flat out on the ground, some dead, some wheezing and gasping. But the ones still standing were serious with their boots. I figured the aim was to kick him to death.
The kid was flailing about with his arms. He was a real mess already. They were making a meal of it.
'Drop him!' I shouted. They turned to look at me. I'm not that big to look at. The one standing back spat, the other pulled back his boot and smashed it again into the lad's face. Styr sort of twitched.
I lost it. I really lost it. I do sometimes. It was just a red haze. When I came round, I had my back to the wall with Styr at my feet and the thugs were grounded. There was blood everywhere, up the walls, in the gutter. I finished off with a last shot. That guy who did that last kick, he shouldn't have done that. I helped Styr up, and it says something for him, and for the changes Signy made to him, that he was still able to walk. I marched him back to the pawnshop. Do had heard about the fuss and he was waiting for me. The whole market place knew what was going on.
Well, Do was a big player. Bigger than me. But he knew me. And he knew who I was.
I flung the moneybag down at his feet. Money spilled over onto the floor. 'If he steals your wife and you touch him, I'll do to you what I just done to your thugs,' I hissed. Do Hawkins looked at me. He glanced at his other blokes.
I leaned across and I yelled right in his face. 'You know me, Hawkins. I'm Volson.'
I made sure it was loud enough for people to hear. That name means something still. The crowd muttered. Hawkins nodded.
'Well, Den, we didn't know, did we?' he said. That's what they call me round here. I kicked over the table and helped myself to a handful of money, just to rub it in, before I left them to it and dragged the bits back upstairs.
'Made a bit of a mess of him, didn't they?' Cherry scolded me. She had out the disinfectant and bandages and all the rest, dabbing the grit out of his face. They must have rubbed it in the road for him. He sat there wincing while she dabbed his face.
'Are you going to send me back?' he asked.
'What if I do?' I wanted to know.
'I failed,' he said. And he put his face in his hands and began to cry, harsh, dry sobs from his very heart.
I felt like crying myself. Poor kid, he was just a kid after all. I dug out a nail from the drawer and I hammered the note I kept from Do onto the wall.
'Your first trophy,' I told him. 'Pass. You passed. You stay with me.'
Siggy
He got round me that day by being so young and so brave but I regretted it because I knew he was no good. I mean, what sort of a mess were Signy and Loki going to make of him between them? In the end I had to add my dollop too, because he loved me, you see. Love makes you love back, I couldn't help it. Even though my sister manufactured the love, it worked.
I took him out to try him out – you know, big fat pig jobs, the sort of thing me and Signy used to like. 'Go in that window shaft, find your way round to the corridor, get out and let me in the door…' I'd say. His hard white face, nodded at me. In he'd go, all alone in the dark organs of the building. And guess who starts sweating? Me!
I'd start thinking, Holy Mother of Hel, what if he gets caught, they'll string him up. I'd stand in the shadows, scared silly. And then there'd be a rattle at the lock and the door'd open and there he'd be, looking all serious at me. Never so much as a smile or I-told-you-so.
'You stupid kid, what did you do that for?'
'You told me to.'
'Yeah, well go and jump in the fire…'
His life was worthless if it came down to an order and I was weak enough to love it. Whatever words fell from my mouth were the Gospel, no question. If I told him to peel the spuds, they got peeled. If I told him to hide down that shit-filled drain, he hid. If I told him to point the gun at that man's heart and shoot him if he moved, he pointed. He never had to shoot, though. He was only a kid but they knew, even the hardest of them knew just by looking that he'd do anything if he had to. Or maybe even if he just felt like it.
Oh, Styr put the spooks on everyone, man, animal or halfman but I reckon he wasn't any of those himself. For instance, he had my memories. He knew Val. He remembered him. He remembered sitting on his knee. I said, 'Listen, Val died before you were born.' And Styr'd smile and nod and say, 'But I knew him. I knowhim.' And he'd look me in the eye and dare me to contradict him, because he did know him – in his bones, the way a dog knows bite, the way a swallow knows where to fly in the winter. He knew things better than a man ever could.
He remembered my brothers being eaten by the Pig, too. Thanks, Mum! What a christening gift. What spooked me was, they were mymemories. So how'd Signy get her hands on them? Who stole them for her? Cherry? Odin? Loki? And it wasn't only mine. Styr could remember seeing Val's body strung up on a frame as Conor marched through town back to the Estate. Signy's memory. Would you give your child memories like that?
No Easter eggs. No Father Christmas. No bike rides, no toys or little friends. No you-show-me-yours-and-I'll-show-you-mine in the hedges. Just murder.
Some mother.
Apart from Conor, there was one other thing he hated. His other half, the one living with Conor. Little Vincent, my real son. Maybe it was because the little boy was the real one, the one who had the childhood, the one who had the mother. I tried to talk to him about it, but talk meant nothing to Styr. He never questioned his loyalties or his hatreds; they were given.
'He has no business,' he used to say. No business. No reason to be.
But he was loyal to me, and I was loyal to him, and I had to love him even though he filled me with fear. I was like a child. I was even jealous of his other loves. Oh, he had other loves, but not people. He loved revenge. You could see his eyes sort of glaze over when he talked about what we were going to do to Conor when we got our hands on him.
And one other thing he loved: Odin's knife. 'When you have the knife back,' he'd say. 'When the knife is in Conor's throat,' he'd say, all dreamy and soft. The knife was the bottle this baby never had. Except that he wanted me to have it. Now isn't that weird? To love something so someone else can have it? I mean, you do that for your kids, not for your parents. That's the tanks. You can make a man love anything, even a knife. But, funny thing, the more he went on about it, the more I wanted it. It was almost the only thing that seemed to make sense. I began to feel that all this mess was nothing more than a journey Odin's knife was making back to my belt.
It was the old routine – big fat pig, full of dripping. But these pigs were different.
James and Percy Wallace. Heard of them? You should've, but you won't. They were businessmen. Owned a lot of operations in and around London. They'd made themselves useful to Conor in the past and he gave them plenty more operations outside London in the new territory he held. He knew he could rely on them to do a job properly.
James and Percy were not popular. Well, so what? Nobody expects businessmen to be nice. What you expect businessmen to do is to make a fat profit with a fat slice for Conor, and that's just what these two did. They ran dirty operations, same as a lot of others, and perhaps the only difference was that these two were richer and dirtier than anyone else. They ran a chemical works in Hackney Marshes, the dyeworks in North Islington, the weapons unit in Kilburn – the one no one knew about until those seven streets collapsed, including a day school, with about three hundred dead.
The typical Wallace brothers set-up was the sort of place no one wanted to work in because you didn't live long. Life under Conor was no joke and you could usually find someone who was prepared to do any job, no matter how dangerous it was and no matter how low the wages. But not Wallace Brothers operations. Their places were manned by slaves from the new territories or people kidnapped off the street. No questions asked.
I reckon hundreds of people from our days – Val's days, I mean – had been underground when those streets fell in, and God knows how many Midlanders or central Londoners had died in the dyeworks. Who cared? So long as Conor got his slice, no one dared care. And of course out of town, all the really dirty work Conor left behind was handled by the brothers. They ran 'private security operations' (protection), 'information services' (torture), 'personnel management' (spying and assassination) – that sort of thing. And less obvious ones, too. A tyrant like Conor needs a lot of cleaning up afterwards, and who do you suppose it was dealt with the bodies? Genocide makes a big mess. What about when Conor decided to make an example of Ipswich? Where do you think those hundreds and thousands of bodies went? You have a think about it next time you buy a packet of bone meal from the corner shop.
So, big fat pigs. There were none bigger or fatter or piggier than these two. Now, I don't fool myself. Ridding the world of the likes of James and Percy wasn't going to change anything; there's always plenty more to pop up from whatever stinking pit they come from. But it made me feel better, and then again, news got out. People got to hear that the real dirt of this world had met the fate they deserved, and I like to think I gave a little satisfaction by doing it.
You'd've thought it was the sort of thing to please the dear pig, but none of it.
'You oughta be out there wi our Dag, you be a general, not risking yer life for a coupla old geezers.'
Thanks, but no thanks. I prefer to work on me own.
Styr was up for it. Yeah, Styr was up for anything. I'd have to say, you couldn't call Styr a force for good in this old world, but him and me, we were just about unbeatable when you put us together.
These two guys were big stars for Conor and they could have had a place in the Estate if they wanted, ten times over. No one really knew why they didn't. It was safe there, the security was watertight, no one ever even coughed without security knowing about it. And these two needed security; they had a lot of enemies. But they preferred to live on the outside.
They spent most of their time in a huge mansion in Kentish Town. Bloody great place, built more like a safe than a fortress. Steel walls – honest to God, I've seen it. No one got in or out of there, not even me and Styr. And so they got away with it year after year after year.
It was Cherry, as always, who brought us the news. She was getting on by this time, Cherry. It was only a couple of years after I'd taken Styr on, but she'd aged eight years or more. I'd put her about fifty. I was twenty-four. She was still good looking, but not really fanciable as far as I was concerned. The time was, I could have fallen for Cherry and maybe she could have fallen for me. We had an affair for a few years, on and off, at Signy's command probably. I sometimes wonder if I have any relations out there, running around living off mice. What a thought! It makes you a lot nicer to cats, I can tell you. It faded out shortly after Styr came on the scene. I've got a couple of catty girls I see from time to time – not too much animal, but I like a bit of fur and a nice purr, although they do tend to have rough tongues.
Cherry was a bit like an aunt to me these days. Tell the truth, the way she looked at me sometimes I think she must've felt about me the way I used to feel about her. Getting old so fast couldn't be much fun for her. At this rate she couldn't really have much more than five years or so left. Anyway, that's getting off the point. The thing is, there was a chance at the Wallace brothers. Like I say, they spent their time locked in that stainless steel castle in Kentish Town. We knew they came out, but when? I was always on at her about it, and finally she came up with the goods.
She had all the info – when they'd be arriving, the address of the house, even down to the security details for the evening. It was a godsend. Even so, it wasn't gonna be easy. They were well guarded, they had vehicles, they had fire power – big fire power. It was pretty obvious it was a job for more than two, but my usual helpers weren't so keen on this one. For a start, I couldn't promise them any loot. For another, it was just too dangerous for the likes of my mates Fumble and Skunk, and maybe it was a bit out of their depth. So, in the end, I let Styr convince me that we should let Dag help us out.
Yeah, well. I want clear blue water between me and the resistance movement. Like I say, it's not that I don't sympathise, but I've had enough of that sort of shit to last me several lifetimes. It's true that a few of my targets these last few years have been political, which has made me popular with the resistance. I don't mind my fat pigs being political targets, or maybe even military ones, so long as there's some decent reward in it for me. I don't think for one second it'll do any real good, except that it keeps people's spirits up, and there's nothing wrong with that. But this was the first time I'd worked together with the soldiers, and I didn't like it.
It was the same guy Melanie had around that time, in Muswell Hill. Same old crap, reeling off the list of military targets me and Styr had polished off, and begging me to join up.
'It's not in me,' I told him.
He slapped his head as if I was being stupid. 'Half of Conor's top generals under your belt and it's not in you!' he howled. Meanwhile, old Melanie was prowling up and down honking and grunting.
'When'm you gonna see sense, my Sigs?' she moaned.
'Dag Aggerman…' began the emissary, but I'd had enough. I didn't want to know how great Aggerman thought I was. I stuck my gristle in his face and snarled, 'Do you wanna help me take out the Wallace brothers or what?' He shrugged and looked all sulky, but he knew better than to cross me, so we got down to details. Hard bargaining, but we got about twenty men and a bit of serious artillery. It was enough for a surprise attack.
Cherry did us proud, but even so we weren't entirely sure of how many men we were up against. Knowing the Wallace brothers there could have been any number hiding around or riding about, but in the end it looked as though they were relying on secrecy because there weren't that many after all. Dag's men were all just that- men. I did the commander bit, talked hard, clapped them on the shoulder, made 'em feel like I'd known'em all my life. Val taught me how to do that. We had a couple of practice runs at night round Hackney before we did the real thing. Aggerman had them well trained, despite all the whingeing about human troops. We had half our force approaching underground through the drains, and the rest of us attacking simultaneously from front and back.
We didn't have long. There were only a handful of blokes guarding the house, but it was a fair bet there'd be a few more arriving double-quick from the barracks in Station Road. It was easy to start with. Their men were good, but they were outnumbered and we really caught them on the hop. Half of 'em were round the table playing cards when we came in through every window in the house- BANG! We cleared the hall and front room, and Styr and me were up the stairs before you could cough, leaving the rest of them to finish off the guard and hold off any help from outside.
We found 'em still in their beds: two skinny, grey old geezers in a pair of neat single beds tucked up against the wall with a couple of little oil lamps on as if they were scared of the dark. And you know what? They were still asleep. We'd unleashed a holocaust, men were dying and the whole place was being smashed to shreds, and there they were, on top of the volcano, sleeping soundly.
We stood looking at them. They were weird looking people, like the ghosts of children, lying all peaceful in their little bedroom. You could hardly believe they'd killed maybe a million people between them.
'What is it with them?' I demanded. Styr frowned and shrugged. I was put off… killing two sleeping men? But he had no qualms. He did it with his knife, first one, then the other, and wiped the blade calmly on the duvet cover.
'That was what we came here for,' he said.
Then it was time to get out, quick. We'd made enough noise to wake the dead. I was about to leg it when I spotted something very strange hanging up on the wall by their beds.
It was a funny little room. Neat wallpaper covered in little pink flowers, chest of drawers. Small wardrobe, a little book shelf. Very cosy, really. But these two things hanging by the bed were out of place. I thought at first they were dressing gowns with hoods. Grey, furry dressing gowns. But they were too hairy. Too ugly. Then I saw the ears, and I went and took one off the hook.
It was a wolfskin. It'd been hanging on the peg by the tip of the snout, and the heads were what I'd taken for hoods. I held it out over my arms and glanced at Styr. He reached out and stroked the coarse, thick fur.
Outside there was trouble on its way. I could hear cars revving up further down the street. Cars meant weapons. We had to move.
Styr grinned. He shook the other skin over his arm like a tailor showing off a bolt of cloth. 'Werewolves. They were werewolves.'
'Are there such things?'
'Them sleeping through all this.' He shook the skin again and nodded at the two dead men. They looked no different dead from when they were only sleeping. 'They're not real, you see,' he said. 'They're only real when they wear these.'
I thought, how do you know? But I just said, 'Come on…' I was in a hurry to get out.
Styr grinned at me, a kind of leer, and he said, 'Let's try 'em on.'
I stopped. Why should a man want to be a wolf?
'Try them on… come on,' he repeated.
'Don't be stupid. What for?'
'Are you scared?'
'Why should I be?' I was scared, of course. I always was, every time we did a job. But I don't think Styr knew what the word meant.
'Come on, Siggy. Try it on for size…'
I knew better of course. But, let's face it. I was tempted. Wouldn't you want to know what it's like? And the other thing, since I'm being honest – I should have known sense, but he was my son and he was taunting me with cowardice. My blood was still hot from the killing. Outside the cars were drawing up. I kidded myself it would just be a good way to slip past the troops. I nodded and grinned a leery grin back at him. I slipped the hood over my head. He did the same.
The first thing was – it hurt. It hurt so bad! A pain like molten metal poured over me. I stiffened, I screamed, and as I screamed I fell down on all fours and my scream became a howl…
I come from a proud family, but look at my life. My brothers fed to a pig, my father slaughtered and his skeleton hung from the gateway of our enemies. My sister is a concubine and I've been brought so low that it's an old pig-woman with spit on her lips who has to rescue me. I've slept with my own sister, though I swear to all the gods, I never knew who it was at the time. These things I couldn't help but the most shameful thing I did to myself when I put that wolfskin over my head. It began with shame, because I only put it on because Styr taunted me into doing it. A father has to show his sons how to be brave, but he also has to show them the difference between bravery and foolishness. Styr was a poor learner at that lesson, but to let his ignorance become my sin, that was unforgivable. And it ended… well, you'll see.
It was like a drug. I don't remember much. It was like the Berserker troops, the ones who dedicate their lives to Odin before a battle and take hallucinogenic drugs to drive them mad. I remember leaping out of the window and coming down among the gangmen in the street. Styr was coming down too, out of the other window in the bedroom. First floor – should have broken our legs to bits. At the back of my mind – yeah, I still had a little mind at that point, with the skin fresh on me – there was the thought that this was it, I was bound to die. All those guys, and we were jumping right into the middle of them. It was mad, I couldn't understand what drove us so crazy that we dived down straight into the gunfire. Those men were armed with automatic weapons, some of them had armour-piercing cannon mounted on the roofs of their vehicles. There was a stream of gunfire headed straight at me; I could see the tracers coming my way.
As soon as I hit the ground I discovered my size. With all four feet on the ground I could stare straight over the top of a parked car. My mouth felt like a bomb ready to go off. I was in an incredible rage. I fell in among a group of gangmen and tore at them. I could hear Styr's howl close at hand. Then as I turned into a stream of gunfire, I realised I was immune. The bullets just grazed over me. Someone released a small shell; it burst against my side like a warm flower and I knew in that second that nothing could stop us. I howled like a demon; Styr howled too, in triumph, and we turned on our attackers. Our strength was another drug. We could do anything. We didn't just tear the gangmen to pieces, we tore their vehicles to pieces. We even twisted their weapons between our teeth.
I don't know which god or devil made those wolfskins. They were evil things, because when we'd finished with the gangmen, we turned on our own people. And when they were finished, we headed off away, looking for still more blood.
I remember snatches. The wolf had taken over by this time, but there were moments when I was lucid. Not that it stopped me. I was an observer of my own jaws. How they tore the limbs from a man. How they seized a child and severed it at the waist. Yes, yes – children. The monster had no mercy. Bits like that I remember, but most of it I found out afterwards. The story amongst Londoners was that two monsters from the halfman lands escaped into the city. They – we – left a swathe of death and destruction right into London as far as King's Cross. People torn to pieces, animals torn to pieces. The good, the bad, the rich, the poor. Most of it was in the slums, though. Now, why should that be? Why should creatures loving only blood want to kill the poor first? All I can think is, that there's more blood in the slums; the people are packed closer together.
After, when I was a man again, I went to visit the homes of the killed and maimed. I saw the houses ripped to pieces, the teethmarks in the brickwork, the body parts littering the ground. The endless procession of shocked faces. I went there as a spectator. I couldn't believe that the fragments of memory were real; I wanted them to be dreams. I pretended to be a benefactor to the victims. I gave money; I was generous. But I'm a Volson. Before this I never had to feel guilty. Now when I look at myself in the mirror I see that I lost something holy inside when I put that skin over my head, all because of my foolish son.
Enough of this talk about killing. The whole world's full of blood, I'm sick of it. But there's more to tell about that night.
When I came to myself I was in the halfman lands. The light was colouring the sky. I was still a wolf in form but inside I was turning back into a man. I found myself growling low in my throat, crouched on all fours. I seemed to have shrunk. My mouth was thick with the taste of blood. I had wounds on my head and shoulders.
The red mist of the death-rage cleared away from my eyes, the wolfskin fell away as the light brightened the air. When the skin lay under me and I was myself, I saw what it was I was chewing. It was a wolf: Styr. It took a while for me to realise.
I'd killed my own son.
In the end we'd turned on each other. I don't remember the fight, but it must have been something to behold. We were in among the derelict remains of a row of shops. The earth was torn up by our struggle, the masonry knocked down, the brickwork smashed to pieces. One of the shops had once sold electrical goods, and we'd scattered the rusted hulks and innards of old washing machines, fridges and dishwashers all around. Styr lay over a heap of crushed metal, still a wolf. His throat was missing.
Nearby I could hear running water and I crawled off to wash my mouth in the stream. I drank, splashed water on my face, stared at the early morning light flickering on the running stream. I thought to myself, is this real? I thought, will I really have to live with this? Because I couldn't see how I could do it.
As I came back to him the sun was coming up over the broken buildings, lighting up the world of no-one's land -rusted cars, fallen brickwork, scattered joists, weeds and small trees breaking up the roads and pavements. I was human. I lay down by his side and began to cry.
I lay for hours. By the time I pulled myself upright and tried to see through my grief, the sun was high. I was human again, but less than I'd been the day before. I laid my hand on the wolf. He was as cold as the stones. I thought, where's my Slyr? Is this really him? I had this crazy idea that I could bring the human part back to life.
There was no question of burying him. No matter how deep his grave the halfmen monsters who still lived close to the Wall would have got him back out. No flesh went to waste in this place. Instead, I gathered sticks and bits of dried wood. There wasn't much. All the old house timbers had been taken away ages ago, but there were old branches from trees and the weather had been dry. There were more than enough for my purpose.
I got some comfort from the work, heaving at the branches, building the pyre. It was about half built when I saw the fox. It came out of the buddleia and silver birch trees growing in a copse nearby, and sniffed the air in my direction, before emerging into the open and stepping daintily across the weeds, towards the dead wolf.
It was good to see it, the little vixen, a pretty little thing trotting over the rubble and through the tall weeds. It had a spring in its step and it's always a pleasure to see a wild thing. It came right up to Styr and leaned forward to sniff lightly at his head. I tensed up. Was he just meat to it? It climbed up the body onto his face, and began to lick him.
I let out a shout and ran towards it I thought it was after the blood. I ran about three steps expecting it to make off, but it didn't. It stopped and turned to stare at me – a long, cool stare. I met its eyes, like you would a man's, and I knew then, that was no fox…
Unlike most men, I've seen the gods. Odin has laid his hand on my shoulder and made me a present of a knife. But this wasn't Odin I was watching.
The fox turned away from me and carried on, licking and nuzzling with its pointed nose. It was stretching out its bushy tail in an odd way and making strange little movements with its jaw and feet, as if it were singing and dancing under its breath. I just stood and watched. With its nose, it began to push at the wolfskin. I saw the skin part. The fox nosed and pushed, and the man Styr was inside the skin. The fox turned to look at me again for the second time, a knowing, clever sort of look. Then it tipped back its head and it laughed at me. I felt my body tingle from head to foot, because that was a human laugh. A fox that had a voice! A mocking, knowing voice. What did it mean? I have no idea, unless it was that Styr could never die because Styr had never truly been alive. Maybe. It said nothing, but it looked at me again and I knew that it wanted me to help it. I ran forward and together we stripped the wolfskin from Styr's body. It was hard work, he was cold and stiffening by this time. I myself pulled the skin over his head. His eyes were open, glazed and grey. But the wound in his throat had gone; only the wolfskin was torn in that part.
By the time we were easing his foot from the paw, his body was becoming supple again.
When the skin was off I stood back. The fox began to lick him. Its long pink tongue washed his feet, his body, his face. I was there to see all this; I saw the colour come back in his limbs as it licked away the cold of death. I watched his face as the fox licked the grey film from his eyes. I saw his mouth twitch under her tongue. I saw his eyes flicker and open.
He sat up. 'What's the matter, Father?' he asked. Because I was weeping. He never saw me weep before.
I came to my son and I held him, carefully at first, because he'd been to a place you should never return from. Our embrace was awkward, ugly, and I realised as I did it how rarely I'd held him over the years he'd been with me, which made me sad for him. I remember thinking how he'd had no mother, no childhood, just blood all his life. That was no way for a boy to grow up.
By the time I made sure he was warm and truly living, the vixen had gone. I never saw it again, but I think I know well enough who it was. Styr remembered nothing of the night before, only the raid, and the moment as he put the skin over his head. I asked him where he had been while he was dead, but he had no knowledge of it. It was late in the day by this time, and getting cold. The wood I'd gathered for his funeral pyre was heaped behind us, and we fired it now to keep warm. I was wounded from the fight the night before; I'd begun to shake and tremble. But Styr was unharmed. He looked at me, his face lit by the flames, with a rare smile on his face and said,
'Do you know what the worst thing about it all is?'
'What?'
'That you beat me in a straight fight.'
Styr carried on building up the fire, with the idea of burning the two wolfskins. I sat and watched him as if he'd disappear at any second; I was more scared of him than ever after that. He worked like a machine until the blaze was roaring, and then we chucked on the skins and stood back to watch them go up. I was thinking, at least I'd rid the world of those horrible things. But you know what? The skin of the dead wolf, Styr's skin, that one burned well enough. But mine was untouched; the fire couldn't damage it any more than the bullets and shells of the night before. It just lay there on the fiery embers, quite a sight, glowing red with heat but without a single hair singeing.
We argued a while about what to do with it. Styr thought we'd better take it with us, but I wouldn't trust him with that thing. In the end, we buried it. We dug down about eight feet in the thick clay and dumped the skin at the bottom of the hole, and then filled it in afterwards with stones and sticks and twisted bits of metal to make it difficult to dig up. Finally, we scatted masonry on top to conceal the place. Looking back I suppose we should have taken it with us to make sure it was disposed of properly. Someone would know how to destroy it. But I was sick with it and wouldn't have it near me.
That's the story of what happened that day. It left us both changed. I had less heart for the fight Styr, I would say, went the other way, as if the taste of so much blood had made him greedier for it.
And the fox? Even Cherry couldn't tell me who that was. Perhaps Odin sent it. But I believe it was Loki, who in a funny kind of way is related to my son.
As for the Wallace brothers, you can imagine I was pretty surprised when I heard they were back in operation a few months after we'd killed them. Or at least one of them was. James had disappeared, but Percy was still active, apparently. Cherry told us he'd accepted an offer from Conor to organise some disposal in East Ham when there was finally an uprising some months later on. I couldn't believe it at first I'd seen them both bleeding on the end of Styr's dagger. But Cherry told me the only way to kill that sort was while they were wolves. Sticking any number of daggers in them had obviously done no good; so we'd missed our chance after all.
After I heard about it I went back to no-one's land, alone, to check it out. I found a great mound of stones and earth, and a huge pit dug in the ground where we'd buried the remaining skin. I searched the area but found nothing more, only the remains of a human body, just bones now, scattered widely over the site.
My guess is that the brothers came looking for their skins, maybe their souls sniffed them out. When they found only one there was a fight, and if the rumours are true it was Percy who won. He took the skin and left the body of his brother to the halfmen, who came and ate his flesh and gnawed his bones, which we found scattered about months later.
One again, it is the night of no moon. A year has passed since Siggy and Styr fought to the death, and since then Siggy has helped the resistance many times with money or with assassination, but still he refuses to join them. The arguments between the halfmen leaders and the rabble of human fighters goes on. Proud humans, unwilling to take their orders from a dog, even though they have no decent leaders of their own. And the only man who could do the job prefers to play Robin Hood rather than take up the mantle his family left him.
It drives everyone crazy – Signy, Dag, Styr, the whole resistance movement. This is what he was born for. Signy continues her flow of information in dribs and drabs, promises more, far more, when Siggy joins. But Siggy will not and nations suffer for his stubbornness. Styr begs, Melanie pleads, Dag sends emissary after emissary, offers to come in person. But Siggy is unmoved. All he wants is to be let alone to live his life. As if his life is his own! As if he is not right at the heart of this story.
Melanie pig, grumping and groinking her way past market stalls and in and out of side streets. It's dusk. No longer possible to oink and grunt your way around out here in daylight. Muswell Hill has more than its share of halfmen, but with pogroms running at about one a week, no one's safe. Melanie knows how to snuffle around out of sight. She's had plenty of practice in no-one's land. These days she has to keep her do-gooding for the hours of darkness.
Do-gooding! Fat, porking old do-gooder she is and always was, as Siggy found to his advantage. Now she wants to spread her good deeds to the whole of London and beyond.
Get-rid-of-Conor. That's what it all boils down to. Get rid of Conor and down comes the Wall. Get rid of Conor and there's an end to pogroms. Get rid of Conor and there's a chance for people to live a decent life. One bad man more or less doesn't alter the great sum of human happiness or misery too far, unless he happens to be Conor. What tyranny was ever more total than that suffered by Londoners under him? Sometimes it seems to her that the only thing that keeps the tyrant in power is the illusion of humans that it's only the halfmen he wants to crush.
'Your turn next,' mutters the fat old thing, as she spies a hoarding above a bakery shop in Closewell Street: 'Full blood humans only.'
Your turn next. Certainly. Already, in fact. The baker has to give up half his earnings to the war effort, and keeps his youngest son, who has a face like a pig anyway, in during the hours of daylight. The lad had already been beaten half to death on his last day at school, where he grunted in an unfortunate manner during lunch hour. But the baker blamed the halfmen, not Conor. You could kick the halfmen. You could keep them out of your shop. What could anyone do about Conor, except obey?
Melanie's feeling cross now, and somewhat out of breath. Out of breath because these days she really is fat. Courtesy of her Siggy. Do-gooding doesn't mean to say you don't have to eat well. Always on the lookout for extras, just as she always was, only these days the extras aren't just scraps and crusts, a couple of chops, a rusty oil drum to make a spare bedroom out of. Extras these days are juicy joints of roasted meats, basketfuls of cake, fish, fresh veg, butter. Interesting stuff, food. Fascinating, in fact. But even more interesting to Melanie are other extras. Hatfuls of jewellery, bullion, gold, silver. Dag Aggerman has no better worker on his behalf within the whole of London. On her back now a rucksack full of glittering necklaces, bracelets and rings, to be handed over under a badly-lit awning behind a pie shop in Cresswell Street.
One of Siggy's hauls.
'What does it cost to keep you in groceries, Melanie?' he asked, when he dumped the jewels on the sofa a few days past.
'It's not me as needs grub, you knows that,' she grunted, fawning over the pretty things. She put one around her neck and cavorted about, while Siggy grinned.
'Keep one – evening wear. You look gorgeous,' he told her and kissed her ear till she squealed. Well, what use does a pig have for jewels? Truth to tell, Melanie would have liked to keep one, but Dag needed the money more. Food for soldiers, food for guns. Conor's success was slowed, but not stalled, let alone reversed, for all Signy's information. Only let Siggy join the fight and the information would be endless. Last of the Volsons! Signy would not defeat Conor for the sake of the people. Her father's dreams meant nothing to her now. Unless it was a Volson doing the glad work, the glad work meant nothing to her. For its own sake, justice was meaningless.
It made Melanie furious. Her Sigs, didn't he love her? Didn't she love him? Yes, yes, her ugly old face was all he had in this world, and she knew his heart was in the right place. Face to face, Siggy would do anything for you. He'd go out and raid fat old pigs of their dripping, play the outlaw, give fortunes away every day. But, like Signy, not for justice, not for the sake of the common folk. He did it because he liked to please his Melanie. And perhaps, because he needed the exercise.
But certainly not for the sake of the alliance.
'No, nothin to do with you, eh, Sigs?'
Humans! Always arguing, always knowing best. And the last of the Volsons, the one man who had the name, the skills and the reputation to lead them spends his time making raids on individual old men with too much money, as if a splash of outlaw do-goodery was any answer to the genocide he saw out of his window every morning.
'It pleases some folk,' he said to her. Sure. Robin Hood Volson, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Volson steals, and the old sow hands the money over to Dag Aggerman. Wonderful, how these aristocrats can sympathise with the common folk! But Melanie didn't want some folks pleased. She wanted an end to the tyranny, she wanted justice, she wanted hope. And her beloved Siggy wouldn't help.
'Can't help…'
'Won't help,' she finished for him, and off he goes to sulk on his beloved sofa.
Oh, don't underestimate Melanie. She has a big heart, but there's a brain in there as well. It's politics these days for our Mels. She passes information to and fro, picks Cherry's brains, tries to send messages to Signy, although they are never answered.
('Won't do business with a pig,' purrs the cat-girl.)
She knows everyone, who to trust, who not to trust Gold and information: what more could the halfman leader ask for? The answer, Siggy. The alliance needs him, and she cannot deliver and that's why she huffs and growls and stamps her trotters on the cobbles as she makes her way to her rendezvous.
Under the awning, wet with drizzle, with the smells of cheap pies made of potato peelings, swedes and turnip tops filling in the air around them, the jewellery is handed over. The bag, waterproofed with wax, which Melanie always uses for this purpose is turned upside down to make sure that no little link of gold or silver, no tiny gem that might be turned into a bullet is wasted. The recipient, an old man who clips his whiskers and has to shave right up to his eyes, giving his face a curiously bald look, packs the goods on his own back.
'And how's Sigmund?' he asks her in a gruff voice.
'Ah, groink! Same as ever. Stoopid.'
'Stoopid monkeys,' agrees the old man, who has a long journey in the tunnels to the other side of the Wall ahead of him tonight.
'But e's coming,' insists Melanie. 'E makes all this, don't e?'
'For you, Melanie, he does it just for you,' says the old man, and pulls his own bag onto his shoulders.
'E as an eart.'
The old man nods. The two part, he to a drain that has a secret connection to the old Northern Line, she back through the little byways to the flat she shares with Siggy in Muswell Hill. Crosser than ever. What was wrong with Sigs? Why wouldn't he fight? Already, he was out again for his Melanie, out again that very night, off to Hyde Park, making more for the good fight. He'd come over soon. Surely no one could watch this evil for much longer. You just had to do whatever you could.
Old Melanie was scared for her liddle uman. Folk didn't understand how much he'd been through. It took time.
Back through the streets. Up Wayward Road, scurry across Caversham and into the mire, mud and cobbles of Harlow Square, full of burrows and submerged basements, relics of houses long since knocked down for wood and stone. Many good folk lived underground these days, and hardly dared come out.
Coming up Battle Grove… oh, dear, Melanie, look, now! A figure appears out of an alleyway a little ahead. Melanie pauses… pauses… looks back to see where she may run. No drains near here to hide in. She sniffs with her whiffly nose and smells leather shoes, boiled fish for dinner, a damp woollen hat and hair. Didn't like it. It was a human. Never trust a uman. Flashing through her mind, rhymes she used to scare her little piggwiggikins with:
The Lamb, the man, the pig an the goat,
Went fer a ride in a liddle red boat.
The lamb, the pig and the goat got ate,
The man was the ony one left afloat.'
'Melanie, it's me.'
She recognises the voice, and relaxes, but just a little. Who ever felt relaxed in such company, even though she knows the man and where his loyalties lie? Her decision not to run for it is an intellectual one. Every bone in her body cries out for escape.
'Oh. What you doin ere?'
'We need to talk, Melanie.' The man steps forward, close enough to touch her. Close enough to hold her. Beware, Melanie Pig! 'About Siggy.'
'What about Siggy?' Nervous, her little eyes shoot from side to side. She steps back. Too close, too close! Is he alone? 'Why here?'
'There's a way to make him join Dag, I know it.'
Now, that's interesting. No one knows Siggy better than these two. If he has a plan, it's worth hearing.
A step closer, he takes another step closer. 'Conor hasn't done enough to make him see what he has to do.'
'Not enuff? What more could e do?'
The answer comes faster than piggy eyes can see, shot out on an arm of steel, fingers of iron seize her by the throat and crush her voicebox. No cries for help, no grunts; her words end here.
'He loves too many people,' hisses the man. He flings her down on the ground where she writhes, clutching at her ruined throat, struggling for the strangled air. He hauls her back up and throws her over his shoulder. 'This will show him, see, Melanie? Conor will never be content until everything worthwhile is destroyed.'
If there was any irony in the phrase, 'everything worthwhile', Melanie didn't appreciate the compliment. Gagging and straining for those precious last breaths, struggling in vain against his cyber-grip, she jolts up and down, up and down on his broad high back. Another wee rhyme spins through her brain:
'I as no eart and I don care,
Me skin's as bare as an ogre's lair.
Trusting you, you can trust me true,
TO EAT YOU DOWN TO THE TINIEST AIR!
He flings her down again on the cobbles like so much pork. Two startled Orangers spin round to see who walks so boldly up to them outside the barracks.
'I found this pig pretending to be a woman,' says the man. He lifts his hand to his woolly hat in a salute, steps backwards, eyes still on the soldiers, and before they can even ask, is gone.
'Who goes there?' cries one, far too late. The Orangers start in pursuit, but it's obvious there's no threat and anyhow, Styr has melted away. The streets are silent. Spooky! He came so quietly, he could have strangled them both and they wouldn't have known he was there.
They turn back, irritated, to where the pig is crawling like an animal up the road.
'What's going on?' With three well aimed kicks, they get her on her back. 'Speak!' Melanie croaks and gasps: no words. One reaches down and rips her dress open.
'She's a pig all right. More tits than fingers.'
The other snorts. They kick her head a few times to calm her down, and drag her into the station. Melanie's thinking that Styr could at least have finished her off; he could easily have finished her off if there were even a drop of decent blood in him. The Orangers never killed halfmen quickly. It made a better example for the rest of them.
Siggy
It was two in the morning. Hyde Park. Not my normal stamping ground. I was out doing a job with a few 'friends'.
I wasn't getting out much, but you gotta work. Well, tell the truth, I didn't have to do even that Cherry provided for everything we could want, even allowing for the fact that Melanie was getting greedy. Once a week Cherry dropped off a little bag of bits and pieces – jewellery, gold, you name it But by the end of every week the cupboard's always bare. Well, it's expensive times but you can't tell me a pocketful of gold and silver won't pay the groceries for a week. Nah. It's the resistance. Melanie gives every penny to Dag Aggerman. So who says I don't do my bit? The money me and Styr bring home must keep the halfmen in swill for a year.
Of course it all goes. If I filled the house with diamonds we'd be eating left-overs by the end of the week, but I don't begrudge the old girl, not a penny, or Dag Aggerman, for that matter. Not that it'll do anyone any good. Keeps their spirits up, the idea of fighting back, I suppose. I moan a bit when there's no beer in the fridge, but my basic reaction is to supplement the income. But it gets me out of the house, it keeps Melanie happy, and let's face it – I owe her one.
And it keeps Styr happy. It's the only thing that keeps Styr happy, seeing as I refuse to join the resistance. My sister took out any kindness from him, took out pity. What use has a soldier with pity? Instead of pity, he has loyalty, to me. Plenty of that. He's bad news, my son. No good'll come of him, I know that. Too much hatred. But he's mine. Sorry, not my fault, but there it is.
Normally he'd have been out with me, but when I mentioned this job, he went all embarrassed, and it turns out… guess what? He's got a woman. A girl! Don't they grow up quick, one moment they're newborn, two years later they're off trying to get laid. I let him off the job like a shot. Hel, it's the first time Styr's ever had a private life. I was pleased. Maybe the boy will grow up into a human being yet.
Mainly we work on our own ground: Muswell Hill, Barnet, Wood Green, maybe Hampstead or Stoke Newington – places a bit further in where there's a bit of wealth but not so much that you've got a private army barracked round the corner. It's quite good pickings, but of course the real challenge is further into town – the private estates behind iron gates or set in little parks of their own. That's where the real business is. Not the sort of job you do on your own.
It was me, Fumble, Skunk and Dozey. Dozey was a hard man, used to be a gangman with Conor but he got chucked out. Things kept disappearing as far as I could gather. You could trust him with your back, but don't give him your coat to hold. He was basically a decent bloke so long as you didn't expect him to give you your share. He just couldn't help himself – a bit like old Melanie. Skunk's real name was Jo, but he had a dash of the old furball in him, if you see what I mean. He reckoned it was dog but in the general opinion it was most likely skunk. Well, not really… It's just that he didn't like being called Skunk so of course we all did. As for Fumble, he was a stoat pure and simple, but not of the animal kind. Well, listen, work is work. I didn't pick these blokes as friends.
We'd targeted a big house on the edge of Hyde Park. It wasn't hard. They weren't used to being picked on. They had half a dozen blokes in some weird family uniform, but there was only one way in or out of the barracks, so we just locked the door. Simple! When they started shouting we shot a few arrows in; that soon shut them up. These idiots, they keep thugs just for show, like owning a lawnmower, it shows you have the cash. They hadn't even read the instruction booklet.
We tied the family to the banisters. I terrorised them with my face, then we went through the drawers. Jewellery's the stuff, you can't transport anything big. And money, of course. Fumble and Skunk smashed the place up. They seemed to feel it was compulsory. Fumble had a shit in the piano. We left by the back windows. The guards were staring out of the window looking all scared.
'Let us out! Let us out!' they whispered as we left, scared of what the family would do to them when they got loose. Serve 'em right for being so stupid as to be employed by arses.
Way home. Cross the park. Lovely, lovely day, but that was the dangerous bit. In the house you were safe enough, unless they were big enough to have an outside line to the police or army. On the way back, the Vermin were everywhere.
Hyde Park isn't so bad at night, but as you got further out there was a curfew. We waited in the park until the sun came up and people were moving before we went on. The others, didn't have much to worry about. They looked reasonably human, even Skunk, who wasn't. No, I was the animal. One glimpse of me and half the population's yelling for the Vermin. You saw it all the time. Kids, quite often. Maybe they thought it was a game. You'd hear them: 'Animal!' And some poor mutt'd start legging it before the Vermin came.
It'd happened to me more than once. A couple of times I even had a set-to with the Vermin, but they usually got a surprise with me. They didn't expect a civilian to be packing hardware.
I'd more or less stopped going out except to work. I had to slink along, eyes peeled all the time. I kept a scarf round my face which wasn't very convincing even though it was a chilly morning. The three others went ahead and warned me if there were people about. It was a dicey business. I should have worked nearer to home, but I couldn't resist the big hits. We made one hell of a haul that day.
It was a long walk, nervy like I say, but I was enjoying it – nice cool air, early morning, leaves changing colour. We were doing well. We got to Kentish Town, where the guys had some horses waiting for them. Fumble and Dozey went off, but Skunk and me walked on. Horses were no good for me, of course, put up on high with my face, so everyone could get a good look. No thanks. I stayed on foot It was good of Skunk to keep me company, though. I appreciated it.
So it was just the two of us walked into Muswell market.
There was some sort of fair going on. Music belting out. Someone had one of those old steam-organs rigged up. It was boiling merrily away, rattling out its dumb old tunes. There were bands bashing it out, lot of drums. Someone even had an amp connected to a generator, and they had electric guitars. The Vermin were everywhere, some of them trying to get into the spirit of it, others looking pissed off. They don't tend to approve of electric music. Maybe it's the sound. More likely they just thought it was a waste of good petrol.
The market was fun, even though I was worried about bumping into Vermin in the crowd. People know me round there; I'm not so likely to be given away and even if I was, there were plenty of people willing to tuck me away out of sight. The whole place was all brightened up, stalls everywhere, food cooking, kids. People have fun, kids play, even under Conor. Down the street the corpses hung from their heels like a butcher's shop, and the band played on. You live under that sort of shadow, you think about it often enough. You can't begrudge people a morning off from being miserable.
We walked around looking for a drink. Stalls selling clothes, old tools, bright ornaments, past kids selling little animals moulded out of silver paper. We walked past the mouth of the gibbet street. I turned my head and there she was.
I recognised the dress. It was pink, gold and blue stripes, hanging down over her head. She had one leg splayed out, arms stuck out at angles, more like a pig than ever. She was pretty human, Melanie, apart from the big pig jaws, but she had porky little arms and legs. Shit, even a full human looks like an animal if you do that to them.
'Get on, Sigs,' said Skunk. 'We'll be seen.'
He was right. It wasn't a good idea to be seen staring. There were Vermin up and down the street; they questioned you if you looked upset.
'She'll be missed, anyhow,' said Skunk. 'A lot a people thought a lot of your Melanie.'
That made me cross. Platitudes I could do without.
'Shut up, Skunk.'
'Don't take it out on me, man. I mean it. She was spending a lot of money, wasn't she? Helping people out buying supplies for Dag's men, that sort of thing. She had that flat up Talbot Street as a hideout. It's how she'd've wanted it, Sigs, going out fighting…'
Skunk rattled on, glancing nervously up and down the road and gripping my elbow and trying to pull me away, but I was rooted to the spot.
Suddenly I wanted to see her face, to make sure, you know? Or maybe just let myself see her dead. They'd ripped her skirt down one side so you could see her face. They always did that so people would know who it was. I reached out to push her round so she was facing me. Skunk grabbed my arm. 'Don't be mad, man!' But I shook him off.
I pushed a foot and she swung round. Her face was badly bashed about. There was blood and spit all down her front She looked like so much butcher's meat. That was the idea.
I heard Skunk groan, but it was too late. The Vermin were on us. This one marched up in his nice orange uniform, all sneers and smiles, like he was in for a good time.
'Found your mother, son?' he began. Then he stopped and jarred when I looked at him. My face, see? It's not animal, it's worse than that.
'Right…' He reached out to take me but he wasn't going to lay a hand on me. Like I say, firearms take them by surprise. I banged him straight through the cheek. I heard Skunk yell. Half the Vermin didn't get guns, either. They were needed at the front. I had to pop off another couple and then did a bunk for it. The crowd split in two for me like the Red Sea; a cheer went up. Conor is not a popular man, not even in his own country.
I did a few enquiries after that and found out which garrison had been involved. Me and Styr paid a couple of them a visit – found their beat, caught up with them on the pavement outside Graveries' supermarket. I tapped one on the shoulder and we showed them what we were holding in our hands.
'You're mad,' one of them said in surprise. But when they saw my face they looked really scared.
'You're going to die, now,' I told him. I said to the other one, 'As for you, here's a message for King Conor. Tell him, Siggy's back.' Then I shot them, one through the head and the other in the knee.
After that, me and my son had a journey to make.
It was a three-day inarch west down a stripe of yellow grass and seeding wildflowers a hundred miles long. A thin soil had been slowly building up on the M4 for a couple of generations. It was still too thin for grass, but the wildflowers loved it. Siggy and Styr, father and son, what a pair! United in warfare and – loyalty? Well, Siggy believed it. They walked their way scattering seeds and grasshoppers in their wake. On each side the wilderness had covered the pastures in tangles of bramble, scatterings of silver birch, and here and there a young oak wood. The forests were returning, but there were still squares of pasture with sheep and cows, and quiet plantations of cabbages and other crops. People had to eat, even in wartime.
They walked mainly in silence; Styr was never one to talk, but on a hillside scattered with the ruins of old housing, there was a furious argument. Siggy wanted his son to understand what all this was about, this journey to join Dag Aggerman in the good fight. Not because the gods willed it. Not because Signy wanted it. Not for the greater glory of the house of Volson. Nothing, nothing, nothing of those. If anything they were reasons to turn away from this war. Siggy despised revenge and he despised glory. What good did such things ever do?
This was for justice, for Melanie, for mankind. Conor was a piece of evil who had to be removed forever from the surface of the earth, not just because of what he had done to the Volsons, but because of what he did to everybody. Standing among the broken walls on the outskirts of the halfman lands, with the Wall towering above the trees behind them, Siggy raged against the gods and pleaded for justice in his son's dark heart. Siggy knew that the gods had lined him up for the role of warlord and he hated the knowledge that his hatred of injustice was nothing more than a net to catch him. But what did the gods matter, their wills and whys? Justice was what counted, justice and the giving of all of yourself to make life one jot better for the millions who suffered because Conor had power.
Styr swore allegiance – to Siggy, to justice, to the cause. Struck the ground with his fist and promised his life for his father's fight But Siggy was not fooled by his fervour. None of these ideals meant anything to Styr. It was like trying to persuade an ant that it was good to die for the glory of the nest. Styr would die, but not for the cause. It was an instinct in him. Just as he had known so thoroughly how to bend his father to his will, he knew Conor had to die. It was as simple as that.
Siggy raged; Styr was uncomprehending. Hadn't he agreed with everything his father said? The truth was Styr would be happy if the Volsons came to power even if they ruled ten times more harshly than Conor had.
So they stumped their way forward, stealing cabbages and carrots, until at last they stood on the ledge of a long, low hill and looked down at their destination – a smoky camp, struggling to hold itself out of the trees, brambles and ivy that crawled over the rubble in which it stood. Like many halfmen towns, there were not many full houses. Some of them just slept in shelters, but it was a matter of choice. The halfmen were not such tropical animals as full humans, and had less need of warmth and cover.
In among the crooked houses and stables the creatures of the halflands walked. Pigs' heads, birds' wings, dogs and cats strolling around in each other's bodies. In paddocks realcows grazed, real chickens clucked – or were they? Where the animal ended and the halfman began was as difficult to define as where the halfman ended and the human began. And who knew where the halfmen themselves drew the line? Maybe a lamb with a human face was as toothsome to a dogman as one without.
'Seems like a good reason for going vegetarian,' Siggy muttered to himself.
This was Dag Aggerman's camp, the centre of the resistance against Conor. From his vantage point, Siggy and Styr could see the divisions of the army: the army of the dog people, the pig people, and to one side the smaller army of the humans. To one side of this camp was a field with neat row after neat row of gibbets. Hanging from them, a familiar sight in these pagan days, row after row of bodies, upside down, hanging from one heel, sacrifices to Odin.
'Looks like everyone loves Odin these days,' said Siggy. 'Except me…' He noticed that the sacrifices were not just human.
Siggy sighed and led his son downhill.
Dag Aggerman
I pissed on the walls three times before I went near him, twice to let him know who I was, once for luck. He could be a good thing for us, yes. Ah! Let it happen! I'd give the gods my pups!
He was standing with the clone. Yuk. Had hold of a young dog, had him by the neck in the air, just to let me know who he was. I knew, I knew. Ah! And he knew I knew or he wouldn't have risked it. A human, in my yard, pawing my soldiers! Nah nah! I'd have to want them bad. I wanted him bad!
I came rushing up, hair up. He turned to look at me and up went my hair again. That face! Not human, not animal. Nothing on this earth. And he knew how to use it, too – ah ah! Pulling faces, twisting it, ugh! It made you growl to look at it! And the clone, Styr, standing there – the pair of 'em, enough to make you eat shit.
'Leave my guard! Leave my guard!' I barked.
'He's lippy for a guard,' he said. 'Do your guards treat everyone like that, or just humans?'
'What's it to you?'
'You know who I am.'
I thought, yeah! 'What if I hadn't?' I said.
'But you did.'
'Yes, yes, yes. Ah!' And I laughed! I thought, yes, yes, you're a soldier. You'll do. And he respected me. He knew I'd have good spies. How else would a human walk into my camp? Only if I wanted him to.
He smiled at me. 'I'm unmistakable.'
'You're welcome! You're welcome, Volson!' And he even stood still while I sniffed his arse.
'I hope you're not going to make a habit of that.'
'Sorry, sorry, ah! Just getting to know you. It's good manners!'
'Not where I come from.'
The boy- young man by now – he stood to one side, respectful. Never saw him respectful to anyone but Siggy. I gave him a sniff and shook all over.
'How's life?' I asked him. An' he said nothing, just gestured at Siggy and this cute little smile, all proud, like he was presenting me with the crown jewels. Holy shit! He was! Yeah, he was! I led 'em to HQ. I wanted to see what strategy sense he had. 'Let loose the men of war,' he said, and he was surprised when I laughed.
Me an' Sigs stuck into the maps and he did what a good general would do- looked glum when he saw the extent of Conor's conquests and then cheered up when it became clear he'd overstretched himself. Ah, ah, I could tell! His face? That meant nothing. I'm a sodding dog! I can't read faces like you monkeys. But we have our ways. Moods stink! Yeah, yeah, I liked him. He smelled good.
He was a practical type, y'know. No visions, none of that stuff you heard about his father – uniting the nation, that fizz. Siggy, he just didn't like suffering and Conor was a bit of filth he needed to scrape off, that was all. An' that's good, y'know because…
Well, listen, there's only room for one top dog! Me! Oh, I want unity. The country, the species – everything. Under me. Yeah! Yeah! I don' wanna be just top dog. I wanna be top pig, top man, too. So- no vision, maybe he won't wanna fight me for it. Yeah?
Maybe. Maybe not. I never knew no general didn't want to hold the power.
I took him round and showed him the divisions. Everyone wanted to see him. Volson, the name means something. He was the same as the rest of his kind, hair standing on end and trying to show he was cool. But they don't know, see? They stink! Yeah, yeah you get every whiff of fear. I was grinning and laughing and laughing and grinning until he asked me why and I told him. He laughed at hisself! I like that.
Well, people, they expect to see spider-cats and bird-dogs and beehorse-men and babies that fly and get in your hair, but all that fancy stuff died out a long time ago. Nah, nah, nah! Not fertile – types are too different. There's dogs and there's pigs, stuff the rest. Horses? Taste good! Cats? Yeah, well, never trust a rucking cat, pal! Never. Nah, nah! Birds? Stooooopid! Yeah!
People? Dangerous! Ah. Oh, yeah.
So, later, Sigs got to speak to the human troops. Yeah, well, now that was something. Listen, it's part of the job, know what I mean? You gotta make them think you know everything, man. You gotta make'em think you're really one of them. Oh, boy, he had them in his damn hand. He knew how humans work, and listen, when it comes to species, there's dogs, there's pigs and there's people, and it's the people you got to watch! Yeah!
And it wasn't just the monkeys – 'scuse me, no offence, nickname for mankind, y'know; stoooopid monkeys. Everyone pricked up their ears when Sigs spoke. His voice ringing over the fields. His flame lighting them up. At the end of it they cheered themselves hoarse. He more or less promised them victory and they were stoopid enough to believe it!
I said, 'Some speech, got 'em going, dincha?'
And he said, 'You need to. Morale.' Yeah, as if it was just another practical thing, y'know. You gotta be inspiring or you don't win.
And then right at the end of the day I showed him the glass wombs.
Monkeys and their faces. You're a dog, you lose your ear, you break your tail, you get your chops ripped up – who cares? The bitches? Hah! If it's a bitch, do the dogs care? Nah, nah! See, you're a dog, it's smells that count. You lose your smell you've had it, but who loses their smell? That, you keep till the end, you can get every bone in your body broke and you still smell! But people! Get a scar on your cheek and it's sex-death, the way they go on. I remember this kid, one of yours, brave boy, fought like a dog. Got his face smeared off with hot oil and he was weeping and you know what? Sod the pain, it was his looks bothered him!
'My face, how'd I look, how'd I look!' he kept going. I reckon he'd rather have his tackle chopped off than lose his face. So right away when I saw Sigs I thought of the wombs. Y'know? The tanks.
These days, we like to go at the breeding the ol'-fashioned way, but if you want something a bit more specific – bit more special, y'know? – then you gotta use a tank. They say maybe the gods was born outta tanks. Yeah, some technician did a few tricks. I mean, you get a priest of Odin knows how to operate a womb, what happens? Nah, but I don' go along with it. Ragnor never made the gods, but maybe the gods made Ragnor.
We use them sometimes to make cray-zee soldiers. Something with steel teeth or claws. Made a few man-bombs. Yeah, they creep into the enemy camp and then go BANG! 'Course, you don' tell 'em that. Ah, you can do anything with a womb – just depends how long it lives afterwards. You can get a pup, put a few toenails clippings from a man, a leg of a spider, a few shavings of stainless steel, type in the right notes – it takes a technician to do that, but we got them too – and away you go. The tank takes out DNA from the clippings and the leg, organises the steel, and yeah! You got you a dog with steel teeth and hands that shits webbing! Yow!
But it's a dodgy business. They don't live long. And they don't like it much, either. It's kinda, 'Whatcha give me this crap tail for! What for the shit teeth?' Or it's, 'You ain't getting me to do that, I ain't no machine!' So we mostly use the tanks like a hospital, you know? A tank'll take your DNA and fix you up. That kid with the melted face. We put him in, a week later, out he comes pretty as ever. Yeah! Did the girls love that kid!
So I thought at once of Sigs…
You shoulda smelt him! It's a sight, the womb shed. The technicians wandering about checking up on stuff and making notes. The tank-things, bloated and pruney and necks puffing up and down…
'How about it, comrade? Ah, ah – new face? Old face back? Yeah, why not?'
He thought a while. That heap of gristle at the front of his neck. Even I wouldn't want that.
'Nah,' he said. 'There's a war on. I'll get my good looks back when the peace comes. This is a face for war.'
He was focused, man! I just yelped I was so fucking happy 'bout that! A face for war! Yeah! Oh yeah! Me and Sigs, me and Sigs – we work well together!
Time passes, children grow, hearts harden. London was at last opened up to the rest of the world, if you could cross the battle zones to get in or out In these days of war, it was crumbling faster than ever. One January night a hurricane ripped across the city, flinging tiles through the air, clawing down the crumbling brickwork, tearing the panels from tall offices. It blew out a thousand windows from the old Galaxy Building. You could see the dust of a century blowing out the other side as dawn rose over the wrecked city. Conor, fearing it unsafe, had explosives put in the sides of the great building and had it levelled to the ground. In the mass of rubble and twisted steel, the lift shaft lay, a great cylinder unscratched by hurricanes, explosives or time itself. The only damage was a narrow slot right at the bottom, where a dead man once struck with a stone knife.
Once Conor had let Signy out of the water tower, his fortunes began to change. Now, with Siggy in the fight and Signy doing all she could to help the enemy, it became his fate to watch everything he had achieved crumble under his touch. At first he raged and fought harder. There were purges, massacre after massacre of his closest and most powerful generals. Who else but they could know enough to give away his careful plans? In the early days he had still suspected Signy, had her watched and monitored and checked and double checked, but everyone agreed: there was no way she could get the information out It was simply impossible. And at night didn't she hold his head and comfort him when another battle was lost? Didn't she weep with him as city after city fell from his grasp? As the months lengthened into years, he came to trust her even to the point of letting her help him lay his plans of war. General after general was hung by his heels, but Signy's loyalty and love was unquestioned. His plans continued to fall waste. In the end Conor himself began to believe the whispers that were abroad on the streets of London about him, that Odin was against him.
'Not forever…'
The years passed… one, two, and still the fortunes of war went against him.
'Not forever.' He would whisper that to himself as he watched another front collapse, another battle lost. The fortunes of war continued against him – but not forever. Deep under the ground in the very bottom of the great network of bunkers he was building in the rock under the Estate, he still had Odin's knife in his keeping. How could the god be against him when he held his gift?
Other treasures he kept deep in the secret bunker: his only child, Vincent, the future king, now seven years old. Conor wished and prayed for more children, but they never came, not from Signy at least. The boy grew up alone with his nurses; his mother and father were strangers to him.
And of course Conor kept his queen safe down in the bunkers. Few ever saw her apart from him, not the generals who followed her plans, not the gangmen who lived and died by her word, not her own son. Certainly not her allies, Dag and Siggy, even though they depended on her so much in fighting the war.
Conor did not have to force her underground. Gladly, she retreated down into the earth and there she remained like a termite, playing the war on both sides to her own tune. Here, all information came through to her – who, where, when, what, how. She was the one who decided where the battles would be fought, who would win and who would lose. Sometimes for the sake of appearances or even just whim, she let Conor win – a birthday present perhaps, a Christmas treat. She was the real seat of power, building her network both for and against him, laying plans of conquest for him only to betray them to his enemies. Conor suspected nothing. He never saw the little brown bird that flew up the ventilation shafts and into the open sky and back and forth and to and fro about the endless business of Signy's ambition.
Siggy, making war with increasing ferocity, began as Dag predicted, to lose his humility and carelessness for power. Why else fight so hard and see so much suffering, if not to take power himself? Hadn't Odin touched him? Hadn't he given him the knife? Before him he felt the knife all the time, calling him, waiting for him. Sometimes he was scared that Styr lusted after it, but he forgot that Odin had embraced Signy too, on that day long ago in the Galaxy Building.
Very often in the quiet empty periods in between the battles, Siggy wondered to himself what all this meant, where it came from. Was it after all some plot out of Ragnor that was now spinning out of control? Ragnor was being dragged into the war these days. Conor had once reached out so far as to send raiding parties into the golden city at the height of his power. Now, in decline, he heard stories of the halfmen making demands there: more money, more weapons. The demands these days had the power of threat. The human-halfman alliance was now becoming the power he had hoped for himself.
Or was this strange history truly the work of the gods? And if so, was it simply the unfolding of things that had to be, the world moving on like a perfect machine into eternity, unfolding these events in the way a keyboard makes a letter? Perhaps the gods were simply a part of the machine of the world, perhaps they watched and took part just as people did. Or was the world dancing to their tune? And could one stop that tune, or change it, despite their wishes? Siggy did not know it, but someone else was asking herself very much the same question.
Signy
'Tell me a story, Cherry.'
She sits cm her chair, leaning forward to peer at me. She's an old woman now, her face creased with a network of fine lines, her eyes as black as holes. Holes through to a future where I am not welcome.
She purses her lips. 'There was once a woman who gave everything for the sake of revenge…'
'Yes! But tell me what I don't know…'
'…she gave everything to avenge her family.' She leans forward. 'Everything,' she repeats.
'No, no, Cherry, not that one! Tell me something else.'
'…she had the fortunes of war at her fingertips. She forced the king to murder his best people…'
'No! Not the past – the future. You know what I want.' Cherry looks at me and frowns. 'That's the story. I don't make it, I just tell it,' she scolds.
'Tell me the end. Tell me the very end,' I say.
She pouts like a sulky girl. 'I don't know the end. The gods don't show me the end,' she says.
I smile to myself. 'That's just what I tell Conor.'
Cherry leans forward in her chair and tries to weave me into this web that I've been a part of for so long.
'Here is one who never forgets. Here is one who lived a life of love in order to destroy it. Here is one who followed the hard stone of her heart, right back into the flames of destruction.' She settles back and watches me closely to see if I'm listening. I stare quietly back.
'When she let Siggy into the bunkers, the end was very near. Conor, still unable to recognise that the traitor lay in hisown bed, raved and shouted at his generals to save him, but not one of them could guess where the real danger lay. Only when he was about to die did Conor realise that it was his heart's love who had destroyed him.'
Yes, yes, Cherry, I've seen it too, in dreams sent to me. But… 'What happens to me?'
She shakes her head angrily. Is she cross because she doesn't know enough? Or is it because… is it because I've started to want too much?
She tells her stories. There is Siggy the King… King Sigmund. The nation united just as my father dreamed it. But where am I in all this? Why should it be him? This is my war.
Where am I under this new regime?
She looks away and won't answer. Am I supposed to die with my husband as if I'm some part of his body?
'Listen, Cherry. I have a story to tell, too. There was one who would not be a part of someone else's story. Cherry… Cherry? Look at me, Cherry!'
Cherry looks at me with hard, deep, angry eyes. She hates all this.
'I want you to tell it my way!'
She shakes her head. 'No. You have to do…'
'What I'm told?'
'As it is. There's no other way.'
She sits in her chair staring at the fire and won't answer any further questions. 'There's no other way,' she repeats.
'Is it the flames for me?' I ask her. 'Is that what's in store for me? Won't you lift a finger to save me from that?'
But there's no answer. To that question there never is.
Three years after Siggy joined the alliance, thirteen after the massacre of Val Volson and his people, Dag Aggerman was killed in an attack from within his own camp. The common view was that Conor had brewed halfmen of his own and used them to infiltrate the dogmen's bodyguard, but others claimed it was an internal coup; they said that Siggy had arranged for the halfman leader to be killed while the war was still on, to make a clear way for himself to the throne when the fighting was over. Certainly, Styr was there in camp that day and Styr and Siggy were like fingers on the same hand. Certainly, Styr survived the massacre that took place – the only one out of over fifty from both sides. Of course, Styr was a machine of war that has not been, equalled before or since, but even so…
Dag's assassination was followed by a lull in the allied progress while a ferocious struggle for succession took place. Another dogman, Jack Tebbs, emerged after six months of fighting as the new leader of the halfmen, but the real winner was Siggy. He was the allied commander, and it was understood by all that he would rule London and the lands around it when Conor was finally vanquished.
With his power consolidated, Siggy rejoined the war with terrible ferocity. Conor watched the towns under his control licked up like crumbs by the allied armies. Bournemouth and Portsmouth had long gone; Winchester, Salisbury and Bracknell had fallen. Now he saw his enemies advancing on Guildford. In the north, he had once laid siege to Birmingham, but now a confederation of allied and city troops, under the command of Siggy himself, chased the tyrant south from field to field, from town to village. All around the little empire shrank. Desperately, Conor tried to find allies abroad, but no one was interested in the local wars of an obscure little island. Defeat heaped upon defeat. The direction of the war was obvious now, even to the blindest of his followers. It was just a question of working it out. As the circle shrank, Conor gave wild and contradictory orders. Some towns were burnt to the ground. In other cases he ordered his men to loot them of all their treasures, what was left after the period of occupation. He developed a taste for great monuments, and as the enemy shells whistled overhead, his troops were engaged in dismantling whole buildings stone by stone and packing them in numbered crates to be re-erected within the London Wall. Churches, cathedrals, the ancient office headquarters of multi-national corporations, all were taken down piece by piece and boxed by numbers. The Great Hall at Winchester was burned to the ground. Stonehenge was removed and re-erected on Hackney Marsh. When a pincer movement closed in around Oxford, the allied troops found Christ Church dismantled on a railway siding, each stone carefully numbered. But no one ever found the plans to put it back together again.
Other treasures were successfully whisked away -statuary, jewellery, old cars, trains, aeroplanes – relics of the age of science stolen from museums and stately homes. Paintings, pieces of electronic equipment, books, records, documents – anything of value or importance. Many of these thefts were displayed around London in a belated attempt by Conor to placate his desperate population at home. But there was rarely enough time to rebuild properly. Londoners looked with bewilderment on half-built churches, odd battlements from ancient castles, or sheets of glass and steel or polymers from fancy office blocks. For a short while it may even have helped Conor's popularity. Londoners were infamous for their sense of superiority, and it was a soft touch to play up to it. But soon they were to be desperate not for status, but for food.
The war in London was entering its final phase.
Now that he could see the end in sight, Conor began to use every means at his disposal to turn the tide. Chemical, gas, radioactive and bacteriological weapons, hoarded from long ago, were released. Overnight the winds filled with poisons that could reduce lungs to blisters, viruses that could turn your liver inside out. The plagues went on for months, carrying off thousands of lives on both sides. But there lay the trouble; such terrors could not be contained. They attacked everyone, and Conor could afford the losses less than Siggy. Terrible though these weapons were they could do nothing to change the outcome, only delay it Antidotes were found; Conor's supplies dwindled and could not be replaced. After an apocalyptic year of destruction, the, winds blew clean and the war continued back on its relentless path.
Within a year of Dag's death, the fighting had returned home to where it had started over a hundred years before, when the government forces abandoned the cities: no-one's land. The old monsters – the Pig, the spider woman, the birds – had long ago been dealt with. This time, no-one's land would find its owner. Human and halfmen fought side by side, and London responded as it had done the last time the halfmen threatened, by retreating behind the Wall. The troops fled into their stronghold, the gate was bricked up, the fortifications strengthened. Inside, the population waited in terror to see what the monsters would do next. And outside, on the churned-up earth of no-one's land, halfman and human made their camp under the banner of the Volsons.
Conor now had all his troops concentrated into one small area. Signy's information was helpful, but no longer decisive now that he was no longer on the attack. He had enough ammunition to keep him going for years, if need be. Siggy was conscious that Conor might still have deadly poisons and bacteriological weapons in his arsenal and feared that he might use them even to the extent of destroying the population of the city: Signy hinted as much, and Conor had proved careless of the lives of his own people before now. What use would all this war be to Siggy then, if there were no people left for him to liberate and to rule?
So here, for a while, Siggy halted, and determined to bring Conor to his knees at the very end by siege.
For two long, still years the war was frozen. Nothing came in or out of the once great city. London was big, the population had shrunk over the decades and the people had for a long time been experts at pushing the land to produce food. Even so, as the weeks passed into months and the months gathered towards the end of the first year, starvation began to bite. The pigeons that used to flock around the derelict buildings disappeared from the sky. Cats and dogs, then mice and rats disappeared from the streets. Another few months and the ribby torsos of starving men, women and children began to appear, walking like zombies from place to place in the vain hope that they might stumble by chance on something to eat.
The population starved, but what of the troops? It was to be expected that they would get the best of what supplies there were, but as the second year drew on it was strange how well-fed and healthy the soldiers still were. Rumours began to spread. There were reports of ever-increasing sacrifices to the AlFather. These days, it was said, the bodies did not hang for long, and all that was buried in the end were the bones.
Conor had found the final and most literal way of devouring his own people. Starvation would not bite close to his heart until every last soul in London had been used up to feed his armies. It was clear that the siege was not going to work. As the second year of starvation drew to a close, the order to attack was expected daily.
Signy
Conor is asleep, snuffling in the half darkness in front of me. He seems to be trembling, or is it me? For the thousandth time he's at my mercy, but now at last, he's in danger. It's just a question of when.
Tonight, darling? Conor – wake up! Wake up, my dear, and tell me you love me. Perhaps you're about to die.
I take a step across the thick carpet, warm on the concrete floor which is heated from beneath. Conor stirs and speaks, but I can't make out his dreamtalk. Shall I kill him tonight? But let's see what it has in its pocketsies first.
I'm back in the water tower. This is where Conor wants us to spend our final hours. He's had it taken down and rebuilt down here months ago, in the rock under the Estate. A sentimental gesture. It's where we made love when I first came here. It's where our child was born. Conor is so romantic.
One week ago the first shells began punching holes in the Wall. Siggy grew tired of waiting when he realised there will be no such thing as starvation for us or for our soldiers. What does he expect? If he can have animals as his comrades, we can have human meat on our table. War is war, comrade brother. But he grew tired of our tricks and now we're overrun. Their troops are everywhere. I saw it. They have television! Ragnor has lifted the blockers over London, the satellites are back in action. Siggy and the halfmen broadcast their success all over the world. We watched with all the other admiring hordes, how the great general Siggy Volson drove in honour through the streets of London. Liberator! Conqueror! Man of Peace!
Of course the television never mentioned me. I am the little wife of the big tyrant Pity me or hate me, but do not admire the little wife. Yet right up to a few months ago I could have made this whole war swing the other way!
Too late now. Conor's side – or is it my side? – will never rule again. The Volsons are back in charge. But don't forget this, don't forget this ever – I am a Volson too.
I take another few steps. No danger of the floorboards creaking here, where everything is five metres thick rock on all sides. No wind sighing in the eaves, no frost on the glass, although it's winter above. Our windows here look out into the blind stone, but we have a view even so. Conor had men take pictures from the water tower windows before it got taken down. He had the pictures blown up and pasted on the appropriate windows, so that from each window we can see what we would have seen. That's the kind of thing he occupies himself with these days. He leaves it up to me to co-ordinate the defeat.
I think what Conor cannot bear is not defeat: it was the crowds that finally broke him. That's when the trembling began, the old man shaking of his limbs and his little noddy head on his little sticky neck – when he saw our people on the television cheering and yelling, throwing handfuls of coloured paper and rice and flowers at the great Volson returning, as if Siggy was some sort of bride. Rice! After starving them almost to death, he gives them rice to throw away. I didn't say a word, but I looked out of the sides of my eyes at the tears trickling down Conor's face and yes, yes, it almost broke my heart to see him like that. The way his people turned on him! As soon as they saw that the fight was lost, the whole of London turned against him like one man. He'd led them for so long, taken them out of the city, conquered the halfmen, taken town after town, city after city – even made camp in sight of Ragnor. It was for their glory as well as his. I remember how there were postcards and posters made for each city we conquered. People collected them. It was their victory too! It wasn't just the priests and the commanders and the rich, either. The raggediest little beggars, the whores and the pimps, even the thieves who had to hang for Odin, they were all as proud as if they were the ones who had led the army of London so far.
And now a rabble of beasts come through the city gates and they cheer them. What pride they have now!
Well, what did my dear expect? He failed. Conor has been driven back into his own dirt Believe me, if he had taken Ragnor, if he'd ruled the world, they wouldn't have deserted him, they'd have loved him for it. Like my father, Conor aimed too high. But that wasn't his fatal weakness. He had another weakness that my father never had: his love for me.
Siggy is billeted outside the walls of the Estate. In the next few days, they'll launch their final attack. He'll be the king of London; Conor will be dead. And I – what will I be? Alive or dead? Who will decide my fate for me this time?
I see so many jailers and so many jails in my life. So manymen shaping me. My father, who made me marry for his sake. Conor, who locked me up with his heart as well as with his keys. What about Odin and his games? So, who's next? Roll up, give me a try. Which king wants me? Odin? Am I to die? Or King Siggy? Oh, sorry, I forgot… it seems he's going to change his name. Siggy doesn't sound right for royalty. Sigmund is his name from now on. King Sigmund… much better.
I brought all this about. They could never have conquered us without my help. I worked tirelessly for the Volsons, but at the end it seems that only a man can be a Volson. I've done this, all of it! And now I have to watch him take the crown, the credit, and the power.
Not much chance of ruling from behind Siggy's throne.
Why him and not me? No, don't tell me, I know the answer to that one. I've heard it already. Odin gave him the knife, Odin chosehim to rule. Well, I say kingship is won, not given. And besides, who says Odin did any such a thing? Didn't he embrace me too? And what chance was I given to pull the knife out? Of course, only the men were given a chance. We poor girls and women had to sit and watch. The knife worked for Siggy, but maybe it will work for me, too.
I could be the one. The knife could have been mine. Perhaps it evenshould have been mine.
Sssh…! Conor stirs in his sleep, muttering under his breath. Don't wake, my darling – don't you dare. Why bother waking up when you're already as good as dead? Within a day or two. Perhaps within hours. Perhaps it'll even be in minutes, if things work out the way I want.
But first, the knife.
It's been a long time since Conor wore it at his side. It's too valuable. In any case, he could never cut more than cheese with it. If he used it on anything tougher it had to be cut out. He keeps it locked away, like the ogre did with his heart: inside a box, under a floor, inside a house, inside a mountain. There is a safe made of titanium half a metre thick set into the floor of this very room. Only he has the key. I can talk Conor into anything, but he will not tell me where that key is. And here's a strange thing; even Cherry hasn't been able to tell me where he hides that key. You see how secretive my husband is. He won't even allow a cat to see what he does with the key.
I creep towards him. Every night I get up and steal around the apartment looking for it. I search all corners, in all drawers. I lift up the chairs and feel inside the covers. I stick a sharply pointed little knife into the joints in the woodwork, looking for a hollow. He never leaves these few rooms, it must be here somewhere. I need that key. Oh, Conor, it keeps you alive, because the second I have it I'll kill you!
Next door, I cad hear a low, persistent growling. Cherry is anxious, poor dear. She doesn't approve. Odin's knife is not something you play games with. See what's happened to Conor for his effrontery in taking it from its rightful owner! My fate is sewn up, although she won't tell me what it is. Odin has made his mind up. Cherry says, what is to be is to be, even the gods can't change it. But I'll change what is to be, and stop me if you can! Yes, Cherry, this is blasphemy. If I can find the knife I shall stick it into Conor sleeping there, and I'll stick it in you and in Siggy, too, if that's what it costs. Poor Cherry, I've left her behind. She mews and cries but look! I already have cloths and bowls ready to sop up Conor's blood. Do you think I can't kill Siggy, who I haven't seen for years, when I can do this to my Conor?
Dear Conor. When you die there'll be a hole inside me but not where my heart is – that went long ago. Hush! I pull the sheet away but his skin is bare; no key there. Here are his clothes in a heap by the side of the bed. I reach down and lift the trousers up and give them a gentle shake and I hear – yes! – the rattle of keys.
So close! I put my hand in the pocket and take out a bunch of keys, but even as I see them I know already that the one I want isn't here. I know the lock on that safe too well. None of these will fit. Well, I hardly expected it to be so easy.
I take up his shoes and bend the soles. Has he tucked the key in there? In the leather sides? I take a small, thin, sharp knife out of my dress and slip the blade between the layers of the sole, feeling for the scratch of metal. Occupied with my task, I forget for a second where I am, and that's why it makes me jump and gasp when I look down and see him lying there, eyes open, watching me.
'Not there, Princess,' he whispers, and closes his eyes.
It makes me stiffen in fear. See, I'm still afraid of him! He can still make me tremble, although he's lost everything, even his wits.
How much does he really know?
I turn to glance at the other room where Cherry is hiding. I hear her stalking out of the room in human form again. She won't be surprised. The ways of the gods, Cherry says, are not to be foiled.
I slip my dress off over my head and creep in next to Conor, who is now pretending to be asleep. I cuddle up close, nudge him with my belly. He curls towards me and puts his arm over my shoulders. See, the loving couple.
And so we are, so we are. Until one of us kills the other.
There was a way in. There's always a way in when there's someone on the inside willing to open the door.
Siggy waited until he got the all-clear from Signy before launching the final attack on the Estate itself. He wanted to be sure there were no uncontainable weapons ready to go off, but it wasn't just that. He was mindful of his public duties – conquest at any cost- but he did not forget the private ones, too: murdering Conor and rescuing his sister. Somehow, he still considered that she needed to be rescued. These two things he wanted for himself and Styr in person. He had to be sure he knew where to find them before he gave the final orders of the war.
When he gave those orders a hail of shells and missiles tore the sky to rags and hit the Estate in a concentration such as even Europe had never seen before. It was a fire storm; the air itself began to burn. In such a man-made catastrophe there could be no survivors. It didn't just destroy life, it left no trace of it behind. When the troops came in afterwards, they found a hard layer of muddy glass on the ground where the buildings had melted. Then they had to use still more shells to blast the meltrock away before they could find the entrances to the system of bunkers below ground where the fire had been unable to penetrate. This was where Conor made his last stand.
The bunkers were built in the bedrock, a labyrinth of tunnels, rooms, underground buildings and escape passages. They could survive a nuclear explosion had such devices been available anymore. The whole thing was booby-trapped and guarded by layer after layer of the blue uniformed bodyguard, like a computer game made flesh. Conor and his queen could be anywhere inside and to search for them could have been a long and deadly game, perhaps an impossible one to accomplish. Except, of course, that Siggy had a map.
He waited to hear the first missiles howling overhead before he entered the bunkers. It was a matter of honour to see the beginning of the attack, but Siggy could hardly wait. He wanted the knife once again at his side, or even better, at Conor's throat, while the bombs were still sounding above ground. He could hear it, almost – certainly feel it, calling to him with its silent voice through all the rock and darkness beneath the ground, where it had been hidden for so long.
The entrance began in the cellar of a small, derelict terraced house in Hamilton Road, a couple of miles away from Conor's HQ. By the time the red bricks of the Estate were powder, and the stones melting in the heat, Siggy and his men were already two hundred yards underground, creeping along the narrow passage like rats. Above them they could hear distant gentle thuds, and when they put their hands to the rough stone around them, they could feel a vibration – all the evidence there was of the holocaust above their heads. This passage would lead them directly into Conor's living quarters, below the guard, below the booby traps, below everything. Once again, Signy had come up with the goods. Siggy was to be given all his wishes on a plate, but he wasn't feeling all that glad.
The tunnel was tight, narrow and damp, and Siggy was sick with fear. Sick, partly because he was always terrified before every mission, and this was the first one he had been on personally for six years, since the Wallace operation. A general doesn't risk his own skin. This was the culmination of so much. Conor was a bogeyman in his eyes, too. Then there was Signy. His beloved sister. He knew she was mad, but he didn't realise that he was scared of her, too. He trusted her. Hadn't she always delivered to him whatever she promised? Whose side could she possibly be on if not his own?
Siggy
I wasn't just feeling sick. I had a migraine, a fever and the squits. I had to keep hanging behind and squirting yellow stink on the stones. Some soldier! Some king. It'd been years since I'd done anything like this. I was cursing myself, wishing I'd let Styr do it on his own. I mean, maybe it was no worse than it always had been, but I used to be used to being afraid, you know? And now I was just so scared. I could see Styr looking at me every time I stopped.
'Maybe you should go back,' he teased. I didn't even smile. The passageway was getting narrower and narrower, I was feeling claustrophobic and I was thinking to myself, if the gods want me to do this sort of thing, why don't they make me enjoy it? Look at Styr, he was practically having a tea party. It just wasn't fair.
I don't know how far we got. There weren't many landmarks at that point, but we must have been quite a way into the main part of the bunker because we could hear Conor's troops. They were in different tunnels, of course, but ours ran pretty close to some of theirs, and you could hear them quite clearly. At least once, they must have been just a foot or so away. You could hear their voices and their kit banging on the walls as they ran along.
All of which meant we had to be dead quiet ourselves in case they heard us. Actually, they probably wouldn't have known who we were even if they had; as far as they were concerned our boys were all coming down from the top. But even so, we were on our own, miles from any support, behind enemy lines. Even though we knew our tunnel didn't meet up with theirs until right at the end, just the thought kept us on tip-toes.
Trouble is, it didn't matter how quiet we were. Someone knew exactly where we were.
It started with a scraping noise – quite soft to start with but it stopped us in our tracks. This noise wasn't muffled; it was in there with us. In our tunnel. You could tell. It began slowly, then it got louder and it was followed by an almighty BANG – a real big bang like a giant hammer coming down behind us. It made the rock shake under our feet, it made your insides shake. There was a pause and a brief movement of air in the tunnel. We stood still eyeing one another.
'What the fuck was that?' said someone suspiciously, but it was pretty obvious what it was. Then it happened again, right in front of our eyes this time. We could see it in the lights of our head torches – a section of the tunnel coming down. It wasn't a collapse either, it was far too neat a job for that. It was a slice of rock about half a metre thick. We had a fraction of a second to look under it as it came down -BANG! I can't describe how huge it was. It thudded down a few feet in front of us so violently we were sure it was going to bring the roof down. The men shouted and we all turned and ran back the way we'd come, but we'd had it, we knew that at once. We ran about ten steps and there was the other block, the one we'd heard before, cutting off the way.
Styr said, 'Now that's what I call a trap.' And that's what it was. Conor must have known about this way in the whole time and he'd got the last cut in after all. I stood there thinking, is that it? So we were going to win but I wasn't gonna be there?
Of course Conor would be long gone. The bunker would be empty, except for the body of my sister. Let's face it, if he knew we were coming down here, he must have known who told us, too.
Someone said, 'They'll rescue us when they get down here,' but I was already thinking it was a good job we had weapons on us, because I didn't fancy dying of thirst down here. The only other chance, I suppose, was that Conor wanted to get us in person to bargain with.
We sat down, leaning against the walls of the tunnel, and waited. No one was really scared yet It was almost like a relief because we weren't going into the fighting, despite the knowledge that it was going to get awful in there soon enough. Only Styr was up on his feet, pacing the section of tunnel, leaning his ear against the walls to see if he could hear anything.
And then – it was only half an hour later by my watch, although it felt like hours – there was a clatter far above us. We all looked up towards it. There'd been other noises in that time, knockings and rumblings, the sound of voices once or twice, so we knew there must have been other passages quite near us. But again, this noise wasn't heard through rock, it was inside with us. Someone shone a torch towards the clattering and we could see a small opening. An airhole. There were lots of them all the way along the tunnel. Something was falling down this one towards us.
It clattered and rattled on the rock, getting louder rapidly on its way down. Everyone was cringing and getting ready to duck, because they were sure it was going to be a grenade of some sort. But not me. I was staring up there and smiling away because… Iknew. Don't ask me how. I just knew. I could feel my hand tingling where I was gonna be holding it in less than a minute. Yeah, baby was coming home. I opened my mouth to say, 'It's my knife,' but the words never came. What for? I just looked up and waited. I burst out laughing when it came through the hole and everyone threw themselves on the floor. I didn't even leap for it. I let Styr pick it up. He knew too, he knew at once. And trust Styr, of course he had to try it for himself before he let me have what was mine. I watched him strike it into the side of the tunnel and then the way his body shifted in surprise as he tried to pull it out He glanced at me, put both hands to it and heaved for all he was worth, but of course nothing moved. Only then did he step aside for me.
I felt it leap into my hand like it did before. I just stood there with my whole heart and soul singing with the strength of it. Then I walked forward to the block of stone that stopped our way forward, struck my knife into it hard, and I began to saw a hole in the rock under London.
Under two hundred metres of rock the only evidence of the fire-bombing was the sound of distant thuds, like the footsteps of a giant far above their heads. Sometimes the light fittings shivered ever so slightly. Later, as the evening came on in the day so far away, the lights went out.
Above, the blue-uniformed soldiers waited in the passages leading up to the surface, armed with heavy weapons, laying their booby traps. Conor could have run, but where to? No one would hide him, but he would never go anyway. He had not yet lost everything. There was one thing left, something more powerful than cities or armies or reason itself. He still had the knife.
The knife meant everything to Conor, and it meant everything to Signy, too. Over the past weeks and days, she had quietly and systematically made her way into every cranny and slit and crack in the whole bunker, but she still hadn't been able to find where Conor kept the key. On that last day she stuck close to him, watching, waiting; but he gave no sign of going in the end to his most sacred treasure. On the morning of the final attack he had his son called to him. Vincent, now eleven years old, stared in horror at this strange, trembling fattier who had never had anything to do with him before now. Conor made him read to him and watched his face closely as he stumbled over the words; it was all the boy could do to keep his eyes on the page. After half an hour, Conor turned away abruptly to scold his wife for spending no time with the boy.
'Now look, what's his life been for?' he asked. He meant, that the boy had been brought up for a future that would never happen. Now he would die without ever even enjoying the present Vincent understood something of this.
'We can escape. Why can't we escape?' he begged. But neither parent answered him and he was scared to question these dangerous people any further.
Conor sent the boy back with his tutor and moved to a table to eat, but he was able to take nothing. He stayed there for over two hours with his head sunk on his hands. When the lights went out, he groaned. Signy stood and stared at him fiercely through the darkness before she sent for candles and oil lamps. There were tears in her eyes, who knows what for? She herself did not know. She came and stood behind him in the candlelight, her hands on his neck, and tried to rub the knots of tension away.
Conor watched her in a mirror opposite. 'Maybe the way up is blocked. Do you think we're already dead?' he asked.
'Not yet,' she answered. She leaned against the wall, dunking to herself, if he doesn't go to get the knife soon, I'll have to make him.
'Siggy will make sure he can get to us,' she said at last.
Conor looked up at her with a curious little smile. 'And what will he do with you?' he asked her. 'He'll think of you as a traitor against his own family, won't he?' By that smile she knew he did not really believe it, but she had no idea how much he knew of her double role.
Soon after, the distant footsteps of the bombing stopped, but as yet there was no sound of fighting in the tunnels and passages of the bunker. Elsewhere, the servants waited. In among them an old woman with a fierce face sat close to Vincent, and tried to comfort him when he wept. She had strange black eyes that gave nothing away, and deep lines on her face. Her hair was strangely textured, full of grey and white and red. For the last couple of years she had been nanny to the boy, more of a mother than his mother was. Cherry, old but still strong, was not with her mistress today. Signy did not want her there for the final hours.
At six o'clock in the evening, the first sounds of fighting began to come down from the upper corridors. Signy was becoming scared; if she left it much longer the soldiers would be here and she would lose her chance. But she did not say anything to Conor; she still hoped that he would be unable to resist the urge to go to rescue the precious dung, to have one last look before the end. And sure enough, as the sounds of the battle came down, Conor grew agitated and cast little looks at her which he tried to hide. Another fifteen minutes and he got up and left the room. Signy, sitting at the table with a cup of tea in her hands, nodded and tried not to show her excitement.
Conor closed the door behind him and still she waited, trembling with desire. She would give him five minutes and then she'd go to the room with the great safe built into the floor. She didn't have to wait so long. Conor burst into the room where she sat, white with fear.
'Where is it? Where is it? What have you done?' he cried.
Signy jumped up. What was this? No need to ask what he meant. She pushed past him, past his fingers clutching at her, and ran into the room where the safe was built into the solid floor, just a few metres down the passageway. There it was, the sight she had never seen – the thick door gaping open out of the floor. She ran to look in. It was empty.
'What have you done with it?' she hissed, but even as she spoke she was certain this was no trick he was playing. Conor was terrified. Despite everything he had somehow believed that nothing could harm him so long as he had the knife. Now he had opened the safe and the sacred treasure was gone.
He stared at Signy in disbelief. If not her, who else? No one else even knew! This was one lie too far.
'You have no right,' he hissed, furious, in fear for his life truly for the first time. In the adjacent room, the servants trembled. Murder was in the air.
But Signy was staring around her as if she would be shown the clue. 'But who? Who…?'
And even as she spoke she knew the answer; there could only be one answer. She turned her head to look for her before she reached the end of her sentence and heard it – the furious, scared hiss of the trapped animal coming in through the door to the next room, where Cherry had been waiting and watching for this moment of discovery.
'You!' hissed Signy. 'You!' In the last moment, the shape-changer had been more faithful to the gods than to her mistress, who wanted to change what the gods saw.
Signy ran for her; Cherry without another sound pelted out from the doorway as she opened it Conor stood in Signy's way, but she brushed him to one side. He stared at her in horror. He had never seen before so much as a hint of the strength she had given to herself during her time in the tank. Cherry came quickly to a locked door, but rather than change to her human form – so great was her habit of never doing this in front of Conor – she tried to double back and then Signy had her. There was a ferocious second of clawing and struggle before Signy had her by the neck. She whipped the little body, one, two, three times like a rag, and then dashed her brains out on a sideboard by the door.
'There, you traitor!' she hissed, and flung the body down at her feet.
At the door, Conor stood, the blood gone from his face, staring at the smashed mess on the floor. Suddenly, the woman he had known and loved for so many years was as fast as an animal, as strong as a machine. Where had all this been hiding for so long? And why was she destroying this animal she had loved? Signy stood there before him panting, her face white, tears streaming down her face. She had shown herself to him at last but even now, Conor was more scared about the knife.
'You've done this… you've done all this,' he cried. Only now, half mad with fear, was he able to act against her. He went for her throat with his hands like claws but she brushed him aside. He half fell but managed to seize a heavy glass sculpture from the sideboard. He brought it back to smash against her head… but there he paused, mid-murder. Signy was the one thing Conor was never able to destroy. There was never any danger to her from him.
Signy stepped to one side and knocked the glass out of his hand. It fell to the carpet with a heavy thud. Then she grabbed his arm, swung him round like a child and had her knife in his back.
'Goodbye, my darling,' she whispered in his ear, and took the knife home up to the hilt in his blood. Conor gasped, his eyes swivelled to try and meet hers, and he fell dead to the floor.
It seemed to Signy in that second that her heart broke. It took her by surprise and before she knew it she was on her knees, grieving over the body of the man who had loved her, and whom she loved back in spite of the deformities of the years and the acts of bloody treachery. Now everything had been taken from her, the last by her own hand. She bent her blood-spattered face over the body, heart-broken, amazing herself, and wept for what might have been until her throat was dry.
Some time later, she became aware of sounds around her – the servants huddled up in terror in the nearby rooms, the sounds of battle coming down the passages towards the apartments. She didn't care for any living thing now; she was horrified with this world that had no Conor in it. She sat up and looked at the dead cat a few metres away and shook her head. She had never dreamed that Cherry would betray her. For the first time she was truly alone with her ambition.
As she stared, there was a noise to one side she turned her head and saw… her son. Vincent, taking all his courage into his hands, had made his way out of the room next door to see what had happened, and been confronted with his dead father and his bloodstained mother. The soldiers from above were drawing in and he wanted to know…
'Mother?' he asked. 'What's going to happen to me?'
Signy stared back at him. It was of course she who had trapped Siggy and his men in the tunnel. She had intended to feed and water them, although whether or not she would have done it is another matter. A few years later, when all the power was safely in her hands, she might even have released them. But Cherry had stolen the knife. Signy understood very well that Siggy was now out and that there were no walls strong enough to keep him in when he had that knife in his hand. Her plans were all undone, but she still had certain advantages. For one thing, her brother had no idea that she was now his enemy. For another, she had his son.
'Mother?' asked the child again. Signy rose up on her knees; then she made up her mind. She stood up suddenly, scarcely noticing how her son winced as she did so. Ignoring him, she went to wash the tears and blood off her face. Then she seized him by the arm. 'Come with me, we'll go and meet your father.' The lad stared at Conor- this was his father, and his father was dead! Signy half led, half dragged him down the passage, where she knew Siggy would be coming up.
Odin's knife was miraculous, but the stone was hard. It took Siggy two hours to cut his way through the half metre of rock blocking him off from the rest of the passage. It was another half an hour before the hole was large enough for a man, and one after the other, Siggy, Styr and their men crawled back into the main tunnel.
As far as Siggy was concerned, it was Conor who had trapped them and Signy who had somehow stolen the knife and got it to him down the ventilation shaft. Therefore he went to finish his task full of fury and anxiety that Conor had pre-empted her rescue with murder.
They could hear the sounds of fighting even before they broke through. By the time they got out of the trap, the allied forces were already over a hundred metres deep into the bunker, clearing their way down with machine guns, grenades and gas. Siggy led his men at a fast run up the passageway towards the family apartment. It was vital to get to Signy before the troops did. They had been informed of her role, but probably not all of them believed it. Right up to these last days, she had been regarded as a traitor, perhaps even in league with Conor from the start If she got caught up in the fighting, by accident or design, it was unlikely she would survive. He had no idea that Conor was already dead and that Signy was on her way down to meet him.
It was vile air down there. The system of pumps and air conditioning had been blown hours before and poisonous gases from the explosives were filling the passageways. The men were gasping and choking on the hot air, but they ran as fast as they could, urged on by their commander's fear. They were only a short run from the family quarters when they saw another lamp swinging into the passageway ahead. Someone was coming down to meet them.
Siggy hissed, 'Don't shoot.' The men fell to the floor, some taking sight along their weapons while others shone their lamps forward. The strong beams poked through the murky air onto the tall figure of a woman in the act of bending to put her lamp on the floor. By her side was a child. She stood up and peered ahead, one hand on the boy's back, the other in the air as if in greeting. Siggy stared. Was it? She seemed taller, older. Well, of course she'd be older…
'It's her…' he gasped, and he was on his feet and running. His men glanced nervously at each other; they didn't trust this woman who had shared a bed with their enemy for all these years. Only Styr ran after him. As they ran, they blocked out the light behind them and saw Signy illuminated from below by her own lamp, making her seem taller than ever, grotesque and ancient. She was terrible enough as it was, covered in blood, maybe her own.
As they stared another figure appeared in the gloom. A man loomed behind her. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and held out his arms as if he were making them a present of all this.
The two men ground to a halt. Signy frowned and looked behind her, following their gaze.
'Odin!' She took two steps towards him and reached out to him, but the god let his arms fall to his side and stood still, silently watching her. They could see his single eye glinting from under his hat.
'One of the Volsons will die today,' hissed Styr. He stretched his lips into a sudden grin, jumped up, his gun in his hand, and fired at the dark figure. Twelve shots; the gun was empty and he sank to one knee to reload. Odin waited until the magazine was empty. Then he turned and in two steps disappeared back in the darkness of the passage.
Styr already had his gun back up, but Siggy slapped his hand down. What did he care for the god? It was his sister he wanted. He ran to her and flung his arms around her and hugged her tight, full of joy at having her back. She touched him lightly on the shoulders.
'King Sigs,' she said, smiling at Styr over his shoulder. But her cloned son had no eyes for her. He was staring at the boy… at Vincent… at himself… and his face was a mask that made her wince.
'Your brother,' she said. She smiled at Siggy and said, 'Your son.'
Styr didn't move his eyes from the boy, but she saw him flinch. Vincent backed away from these terrible men. He understood nothing. Brother, father? But his father was Conor. And why did this new brother, who looked so much like him, stare at him with such hatred?
'What did he say?' Siggy asked her, thinking that maybe Odin had spoken.
'Nothing, but he came to bless us, Siggy, I know it.'
'To take one of us, more like,' said Styr. He stared at Signy for the first time. If a Volson had to die today, it was clear to him who it would be. But first there was the main prize. 'Where's Conor?' he demanded.
Signy shook her head over Siggy's back. 'Dead.'
Styr cursed.
'My big son,' said Signy, watching him closely, trying to work him out, but Styr shook his head and scowled. He wanted no other mother but the glass tanks.
Signy stood back and held Siggy at arm's length, as if he were a child himself.
'You've grown,' said Siggy, confused. She used to be smaller than him. Now she was taller by a head. He had forgotten about the tank.
She smiled and nodded. Her eyes filled with tears to see him… yes, in the end she was glad to see him and to hold him. This was how it used to be between them, the twins who had been so close. Now that they were together again, it all came back.
'I'd forgotten,' she whispered, and Siggy smiled, knowing exactly what she meant. Then, carefully, she looked down at her brother's belt 'Is that the knife?' she asked. 'I never got to touch it, Conor always kept it locked up. Can I?' And she held out her hand.
Siggy at that moment would have given her anything, anything, but he paused just for the second with his hand on the hilt, thinking, that's odd – because hadn't it been Signy who slid the knife down the ventilation shaft to him? But then he thought that perhaps she'd got Cherry to do it for her. So he passed the knife to her, and watched her hand close around it. Signy smiled, her lips parted in pleasure. Holding it for the first time she felt just as Siggy had – that this was her purpose, that for this shape her hand had been made.
Siggy said, 'Where's Cherry?'
Signy said, 'Dead,' and moved her hand like a snake.
The soldiers had drawn up to them but it happened too fast in that dull light for anyone to see or understand who was the traitor, who the betrayed. Siggy himself had no idea afterwards whether the blade had touched him or not, not that it made any difference. Odin's knife could cut anything in the world except his flesh. He saw only that as his sister moved her hand…
Styr fired. The first bullet entered Signy's stomach, penetrating up under her ribs and grazing her heart. Siggy snatched her as she fell, held her in his arms as she groaned and bled. He screamed, 'What? Hold him!' as he went down with her. Styr yelled, 'She tried to murder you!' and in the same second fired again. If the first murder left any doubt how heartless the cloned man was, the second expelled it. Who would kill a child, even though that child was yourself? The stubby barrel of his gun spoke savagely twice more; the blood rushed out and Vincent fell dead to the ground.
'He was mine to kill!' Styr screeched. He had fallen into a berserk frenzy for killing, and began to run up the tunnel towards the sounds of fighting. He still wanted to murder the god and perhaps, too, he was scared that having begun killing, he would never be able to stop. Siggy bawled after him, a terrible shout with no words in it.
'They were both mine to kill!' screamed Styr, and ran on.
Siggy turned back to his sister, cradled in his arms. They stared at each other for a second; he was watching the life ebb out of her. She tried to say, 'The gods got their way this time,' but she was already too weak to speak. Then she died.
Siggy laid her gently on the floor, and as he got up he was ready to murder his son. But Styr was gone, out of sight already, running fast towards the battle.
One of the men put his hand on Siggy's arm. 'I saw her, it's true, she tried to stab you,' he said. Another nodded; another said, 'No, she fell. I don't think…' But Siggy waved them to silence. They stood gazing at the body, listening to the sounds of battle raging closer.
Siggy said, 'Go ahead, find him if you can. He'll answer for this. See if you can find Conor and get him out, and her servants.' He was thinking of Cherry. 'I want them all alive. Tell him that.' He nodded at where Styr had gone, but what chance was there he would show mercy to anyone if not to his own mother?
'Go on…' Siggy waved them forward. He bent and loosened the knife from Signy's hand.
The men paused, not wanting to leave him alone, but again he waved them on. 'Can't we stay and help you?' one asked. Siggy looked up and nodded, unable to speak as he fitted the knife back into his belt Three waited with him; the others ran up the tunnel to hunt for Styr. Those left behind waited awkwardly until Siggy stood and gestured to them to pick her up and carry her back down the passage away from the fighting. He followed on, with no taste at all for the battle raging behind.
Bloodtide is based on the first part of the Icelandic Volsunga Saga.
'Since this tale nor anything else can be made to please everyone, nobody need believe any more of it than he wants to believe. All the same the best and most profitable thing is to listen while a story is being told, to enjoy it and not be gloomy: for the fact is that as long as people are enjoying the entertainment they won't be thinking evil thoughts.
I'd like to thank those who've listened and enjoyed the story, and since those who don't like it won't ever be satisfied, let them enjoy their own misery.
AMEN.'
From Gongu-Hrolf's Saga, translated by Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards, Canongate, 1980.