Conquest

  “Please, Syl,” she said. “I don’t want them examining me, not over this. It’ll pass.”

  “Has it happened before?”

  “A couple of times, when I’ve felt . . . stressed.”

  “What do you mean, stressed?” said Syl, but Ani didn’t want to pursue the subject.

  “Can we talk about it another time?”

  “We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” said Syl. “Just tip your head forward. We’ll wait for it to pass.”

  When the knock came on the door, it was Syl who answered. Meia stood before her, flanked by two guards, and Syl felt the blood drain from her face.

  Her earlier adventure on the Royal Mile must have been discovered. There could be no other reason for Meia to be there. Her fears were apparently confirmed when Meia spoke. “Your father wishes to speak with you.”

  Syl nodded dumbly. She looked to Ani, whose face now reflected Syl’s own concerns. She felt Meia’s hand on her shoulder.

  “You’re not in trouble, Syl,” said Meia softly, then added, with a quizzical look, “Should you be?”

  Syl felt a flood of relief so strong that her body sagged like a puppet whose strings had been relaxed.

  “No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Ani asked.

  “You’ll have to stay here,” said Meia. “I’m sorry. I’ll have her back to you as soon as I can.”

  Syl grabbed a cloak, for the castle had grown cold, and went with Meia.

  •••

  Syl had always been somewhat in awe of Meia. Nobody else on the governor’s staff was like her, so strange yet so composed, her life lived in the shadows. She deferred only to Lord Andrus, and no other. Everyone else she appeared to judge on a sliding scale that moved between the two extremes of contempt and amusement. Ani said that Danis, her father, hated Meia, but when Syl had asked Lord Andrus about it, he told her that this was not true.

  “They snarl at each other like chained dogs, but the truth is that they are more similar than different,” he said. “If anyone ever harmed Meia, Danis would hunt them to the ends of the universe, and if Danis does not die a natural death, Meia will slaughter those responsible in their beds.”

  Syl didn’t quite trust Meia, though. It didn’t pay to trust spies. Now she fell into step beside her, wondering why she had been summoned. She noticed that she and Meia were now as tall as each other, for Meia was short for an Illyri.

  “You didn’t look pleased to see me at your door,” said Meia.

  “I wasn’t expecting company, that’s all.”

  “Really?” Meia did not look at her, but Syl could see an eyebrow lift in disbelief. “So it had nothing to do with the fact that you were outside the castle walls today?”

  Syl didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. Meia, unfortunately, was a trained interrogator, and ignoring her wouldn’t make her go away.

  “Well?” Meia persisted. “I don’t suppose you saw anyone planting bombs while you were out shopping?”

  Syl swallowed hard. “I am in trouble, then. You were lying.”

  “I only lie professionally, not personally,” said Meia. “Your father doesn’t know anything about your little trip today, and with luck he won’t find out. He’ll chain you to a wall otherwise, and feed you from a bowl to make sure you don’t go wandering again.”

  “You’re not going to tell him?”

  “Why would I? You weren’t hurt, and neither was your friend Ani. You need to be more careful, though. Your disguises may work for you at a distance, but up close your skin will soon begin to give you away. It would be a significant coup if the Resistance were to capture the daughter of the governor. You’d be worth a lot in trade, assuming they didn’t decide that it was better to kill you straightaway.”

  “They’d kill me?”

  “They might, if you fell into the hands of the wrong men, and if I didn’t find you first.”

  “And would you? Would you find me?”

  Meia stopped, and looked her square in the eye for the first time since Syl had left her room.

  “Yes. Don’t doubt that for a moment. But let’s hope that the necessity for it doesn’t arise. In the meantime, try to restrain your exploratory impulses for a few days, both inside and outside the castle. The situation is volatile.”

  Meia walked on, Syl beside her.

  “Because of Gradus and the Sisterhood?” asked Syl, and knew immediately that she had said too much. Meia kept walking, but her steps faltered for a moment.

  “What do you know about Gradus and the Red Sister?” she said.

  Syl trod carefully.

  “I saw them arrive,” she said.

  “What keen eyes you must have. My understanding was that they were hidden from us all.”

  “And everybody in the castle is talking about it,” Syl continued. She hated being questioned by Meia, because Meia was immune to her charms and her evasions.

  “I told your father that you were clever, but don’t try to be too clever, and particularly not with me,” said Meia. “I know more about you than you might think, and you’d be better off having me as an ally than an adversary. So shall we be honest with each other, Syl?”

  “Okay.”

  Meia allowed the guards to move out of earshot.

  “I saw you and Ani in the vicinity of the Great Hall, and you were moving like criminals. What were you doing there? No lies, Syl.”

  “We were eavesdropping.”

  “That chamber is soundproofed. I checked it myself.”

  “I know a place, a hiding hole.”

  “Do you now? We might make a spy of you yet.”

  “I don’t want to be a spy.”

  “I’m surprised. Given your actions, you seem to be doing your best to apply for the job. You’ll have to show me how you managed that little piece of business. I’d be most interested to find out.”

  They moved on to her father’s chambers, stopping within sight of the door, and Meia raised a finger to Syl in warning, the nail short and unadorned.

  “Tell me truly, Syl. Did you come face-to-face with the Archmage Syrene at any point during the day?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “There is no way that she could have known of your presence at the meeting?”

  Syl took a moment before replying. It was one thing giving up her own secrets, but another betraying Ani’s.

  “I was hidden from sight,” said Syl. “I don’t see how she could have known. But . . .”

  “Go on.”

  “There was a moment when the Archmage seemed to look around the room, as though she knew someone was present who shouldn’t have been. She stared straight at . . .” careful, careful, “. . . at me, at where I was hiding, even though she couldn’t have seen me.”

  Meia didn’t look pleased to hear this.

  “The Sisterhood is an unknown quantity, Syl. Some refer to them as witches, and it may be that, in the depths of the Marque, they have developed skills that are beyond the rest of us. Does she frighten you, the Archmage?”

  “A little.”

  “Good. She should. How do you dance, Syl?”

  “Dance?” Syl looked confused. “I’ve never really tried. Why?”

  Meia put a hand on the small of her back, and guided her to where her father was waiting.

  “Because,” she said, “you’re about to dance with the Red Sister.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  P

  aul and Steven had been separated from their mother. Their last glimpse of her came as she was being helped into a regular police patrol car, the copper placing his hand on her head so that she wouldn’t injure herself. That, at least, was cause for hope: she was with the Lothian and Border
s Police, not the Securitat. The Lothian and Borders didn’t torture women, or lose them in their secret prisons.

  Not yet.

  The armored Securitat transport had two metal benches along either side of its interior, and a pair of cages at the end. The boys were spared the cages, but their heads were covered by hoods as soon as they sat down, and magnetic collars were placed around their necks and activated, holding them uncomfortably upright against the body of the truck as it wound its way through the city streets.

  It was Paul who risked speaking. He could hear wet breathing nearby: one Galatean at least, maybe two.

  “Are you okay, bruv?” he asked.

  The reply came not from Steven, but from their captors. Paul’s body jerked as he was tapped in the side with an electric baton, and a white light exploded in his head. It lasted only a second or two, but it was long enough for Paul to bite his own tongue. When the baton was removed, his body still trembled. He fought the urge to be sick. He didn’t want to vomit in the hood. He brought his breathing under control, just as he had been taught to do, and just as he had taught others. They had all been questioned in the past, usually in the course of the random searches and street sweeps that the Illyri regularly conducted. Routine questioning was carried out in the backs of vans, or sometimes at one of the L&B police stations. Paul had even spent a night or two in the cells, but he’d always been released once dawn came. This was different, though: these were Vena’s Securitats. He and Steven weren’t going to be held for a couple of hours at the station in St. Leonard’s Meadows, or the West End, or Portobello, and offered a cup of tea by a decent human in a uniform. No, they could only be going to one of two places: the Securitats’ special interrogation center in Glasgow, or the castle.

  The truck slowed, then ground to a halt. Paul heard the doors open, and his collar was deactivated and removed. Hard hands dragged him from the van, and he briefly tasted night air through the hood before the atmosphere around them changed, becoming dank and noisome. He gave a little whistle, and his brother answered in the same way, but then there was the sound of something hard impacting on soft flesh, and Steven cried out in pain.

  “You leave him alone!” said Paul. “He’s just a kid.”

  He waited to receive another jolt from a baton, but none came. He was simply hustled silently along until he was forced to turn to his right, and a hand pushed him forward. For a moment he had an image of himself standing at the edge of a huge pit, about to tumble into a void, his hooded form falling forever. Instead, he hit a stone floor, followed seconds later by another body. He heard Steven sobbing.

  “Don’t cry,” said Paul. “Don’t give them the satisfaction.”

  The door slammed shut behind them.

  •••

  Paul had no idea how long they were left there. It might have been an hour, or it could have been three. Once they had established that they appeared to be alone in the room, the boys found a wall and leaned against it. When Steven tried to speak, Paul said only one word: “Careful.”

  The Illyri would be listening to them: listening, and watching.

  With the index finger of his left hand, Paul began tapping softly on the wall: two short taps, two long, two short. It was Morse code for a question mark.

  After a moment, Steven replied with three long taps, followed by long-short-long.

  OK.

  The Resistance had learned too late that the Illyri were embedded in all forms of electronic communication, and many groups around the world had lost operatives in the early days. The Internet still functioned, although it had more bugs than an ants’ nest; the Illyri had guessed, correctly, that if they allowed the flow of money, and permitted business to proceed worldwide with some degree of normality, then much of humanity would fall into step. But every keystroke was monitored, and only fools transmitted essential information through the Net, or spoke and texted on telephones of any kind. Thus the Resistance had fallen back on simpler means of staying in touch. They used dead drops, secure locations where paper messages could be left and collected. They sent signals and instructions over short-wave radio, just as spies had done in the Second World War.

  And they relied on Morse code. It was one of the first things that young people learned when they joined the Resistance. Sometimes Paul and his colleagues didn’t even have to go through the basics with new recruits, for older brothers and sisters had already taught the code to their younger siblings, as had parents who had not succumbed to the Illyri methods of subduing them, chemical or otherwise.

  Now slowly, painstakingly, the boys contrived a cover story. They kept it to simple keywords.

  Exploring. Vaults. Storm pipe. Adventure.

  Nothing.

  We saw nothing.

  The hoods began to stink. They had grown moist from the boys’ exhalations, and very, very hot. Paul began to feel that he was suffocating, and he could hear Steven’s breathing growing panicked.

  “Easy,” he said. “Easy.”

  Their arms ached, and their circulation was being cut off by their restraints. Paul could no longer feel his fingers.

  A door opened. There came the sound of metal objects being placed on the floor. A table and chairs, thought Paul. Maybe they’re going to give us dinner, a real slap-up meal with beef, and roast potatoes, and gravy. Even though he was frightened, he was also very hungry. They had not eaten since they’d shared that fruitcake with those two funny girls, the ones with the old-fashioned names and the layers of clothes, their hats and glasses encasing them like swaddling so that all that could be seen was smooth tanned cheeks and chins and foreheads, no eyes, no hair. . . .

  Oh! Paul thought, as he realized that the “girls” might not have been girls at all. I’m a fool. I’m such a fool. I was so caught up with the explosions, and not being caught, that I never stopped to think. . . .

  But any further regrets were halted as hands pulled him to his feet, and then led him to a chair. He sat down and his hood was removed. He blinked hard at the fluorescent lights, and for a few seconds he could not see anything at all. Gradually his vision adjusted, and he took in the table and chairs, and his brother seated beside him, also blinking, his eyes watering.

  Sitting across from them was Vena. Her head was bald, and her scalp was adorned with silver stripes. She was not finished with them, not by a long shot. Paul had feared as much when he saw her standing in their home. Even by the brutal standards of the Securitat, Vena was regarded by the Resistance as psychopathic. On the list of targets for assassination she even ranked above Governor Andrus. As far as the Resistance was aware, Andrus was not in the habit of using skimmers—so-called because they skimmed the limits of Earth’s atmosphere—to take captives to high altitudes and then toss them out. For Vena, it practically counted as a hobby. She was also believed to report all she saw and heard in the British Isles to her lover, Sedulus. She was his second-in-command in all but name.

  “Do you know who I am?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am,” said Paul.

  “No,” said Steven.

  “You’re lying,” said Vena. “I’ll record every lie that you tell, and I’ll cut off one of your fingers for each one.”

  Neither of the young men responded. Well done, little bruv, thought Paul. She’s fishing. Stick to the story, and we’ll be okay.

  “What were you doing in our tunnels, and who are you working for?” said Vena. Clearly there were to be no serious preliminaries, no getting-to-know-you questions, no “you may be wondering why we’ve brought you here.” That was for films. The Securitats had a reputation for getting down to business.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” said Steven.

  They had discussed this in their coded exchange. They had to find a way to leave the cell, even if only for a short time, so that they could get some sense of their location, of security, of guards. In here, they were blind.


  “That’s unfortunate,” said Vena.

  “I need to go bad.”

  “When you tell me what I need to know, you’ll be made comfortable. Until then, you’ll stay where you are.”

  “I’ll wet myself,” said Steven.

  Vena smiled at him, and leaned across the table.

  “If you do, I’ll slice off the organ responsible and give it to the Agrons as a treat. They’ll eat anything.”

  Steven went quiet. He didn’t think the bathroom ploy was going to work, and he wasn’t prepared to risk losing his manhood on the slim chance that it might.

  “Again: what were you doing in our tunnels?”

  There was no point in denying that they’d been there. The Agron had given that much away by telling Steven that it had followed his scent.

  “It was an accident?” said Steven. His voice went a little high at the end so that it came out sounding like a question, which he hadn’t intended.

  “An accident?” said Vena. “Really? You can’t do any better than that?”

  “Yes, an accident,” said Steven. “I was just messing about in the Vaults when I found a new pipe and followed it.”

  He stopped talking then; the Resistance had taught them to keep lies short and succinct so as not to trip themselves up on the words they were weaving. But he had slightly changed the story that he and Paul had agreed on, and Paul wasn’t sure that was wise.

  He had said “I,” not “we.”

  Vena frowned, and Paul knew then that Steven had made a mistake. He’d told him over and over again: the best lies were the ones wrapped in the thickest of truths. You hide the lie, and you don’t adorn the truth.

  “But surely your brother was with you?”

  Paul bit his lip.

  “No, it was just me. My brother wasn’t there.”

  “Odd,” said Vena. “That’s not what your friend Knutter told us. I suppose we could bring him in here and ask him to confirm his story. Oh wait, we can’t, because he’s dead, and so will you be if you keep wasting my time. Even if your friend had tried to conceal the truth, your scents would have given you away. The Agrons have five hundred million olfactory receptors. You have only five million. Do you think they can’t tell the difference between your stink and your brother’s?”