‘I suppose you have the machine gun,’ I told him, nodding at the ferocious-looking thing mounted on the railings.
Sadly he held out his hand. The stiff, short, stubby fingers were more like toes. ‘No fingers, no thumb. If you had a grenade I could have pulled out the pin with my teeth. I can’t hold so much as a hammer.’
As he spoke, the sound of the troops, the dogs, the four-wheel drives broke out loud as they thundered through the bushes under us.
The halfman turned to me. ‘Now I die. Have I a heart?’
I thought, what? I said, ‘Yes, I know…’
He laughed and he said, ‘Now, since you know me, look after this little one for me.’
He opened his coat and took out – a kitten. He’d had it hidden in a pocket inside.
I put out my hands, and he laid it into them.
‘Don’t let Conor or any of his men see it. They’ll kill it.’
‘How do I know you’re not just putting an enemy inside the compound?’
He shrugged. ‘You must judge for yourself. When she’s grown up a bit you can let her go, take her back to our lands. Or you can keep her if she wants to stay. But listen, princess…’ He leaned forward to me. He had only a second, the vehicles were close. ‘She wasn’t made like me, or born like you. She doesn’t come from Outside or Inside. You’ll see.’ He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, ‘She has more than one shape.’
‘What? What do you mean?’
At that second a bullet ricocheted off the metal next to us. The halfman laughed. ‘Are they such good shots? Or don’t they care so much about Val’s daughter? I’ll do you one last favour – yes, I’ve already done you one. The kitten’s name is Cherry. Look after her. Keep her secret…’
Then he stood up straight, turned and threw himself over the railings as if he was vaulting a fence. I screamed; I jumped up and looked down. The men were following the body with rifles but there was no need. He bounced halfway down off the metal struts a few times before he hit the ground and lay still. Bursts of machine gunfire came from at least six separate guns as he lay there.
The men leaped out of their cars and ran around the shattered body. Faces looked up to me. One of the generals raised his hands to his mouth and shouted through the wind, ‘So we got here just in time,’ he bellowed.
I tucked the kitten under my anorak. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Just in time.’
22
Afterwards, back in the compound the kill was put out on display. The bodies were laid out on trestle tables, as if the dead halfmen were some kind of picnic. It was late, dusk was coming down and the light summer rain was falling again. The stay-at-homes came out into the wet to see the monsters. Adults stood under umbrellas, shuddering, pulling up the lips to inspect the ugly teeth. The children ran amongst them, terrified, delighted and disgusted at so much death.
And Signy – Signy, who had in her pocket a small kitten that might or might not grow up into one of these creatures – she walked past the tables and she thought, now they’re nothing but dead meat. Uglier than ever.
Here were the bird creatures that had come after her in a flock when they saw her car on its own. Thin faces of girls and no skull at all to speak of; all shiny beaks and blonde hair. Here were the cat-people – or were they people-cats? – with bodies as powerful as cars. Here was something that might once have been a monkey – altogether too human for her to look at, like a child.
But mainly, the dead halfmen were the hyena men, of the kind she had spoken to on the pylon. She looked into their dull eyes and thought, is this a parent? Uncle, mother, daughter, son? Or just some half machine made only to fool us? She knew the reputation for cunning. No doubt it was all some trick.
In her coat, sleeping against her belly, hidden by the thick fleece of the anorak, perhaps there was a killer yet to grow. Signy hadn’t made up her mind what to do with the halfman’s gift. She’d examined it. It was quite big, almost a young cat already. It was bright and alert, but perfectly ordinary. It was a sweet little thing, and the halfman had moved her. Perhaps it was better to send it for a swim to the bottom of a pond.
It occurred to her that the kitten was the halfman’s pet. In its way, the idea that they kept pets was as shocking to her as seeing him laugh and cry. Later, she tried to talk to Conor about the halfmen having feelings but he laughed at her for even thinking about it, kissed her and called her sweet. That was not a good way of dealing with Signy, who did not in any way think of herself as sweet. So, for the time being, she kept her mouth shut about the kitten. She told Conor that the halfman had only just got up there when his men came, and that it had been trying to arrange some deal with her for its life when a bullet hit it. Conor was in no way suspicious; he only expressed wonder that it hadn’t torn her to pieces at once.
She felt uncomfortable about her deceit, but she told herself she would tell Conor about it sooner or later. The only reason she wasn’t telling him at once was because she was afraid he would take the kitten away and kill it. And that realisation made her think further that she had no say over things. Conor would have his way – had had his way, would have his way, no matter what she thought. And therefore, things were not quite as they seemed.
23
signy
Later when I played with it alone in the tower I found myself weeping. And this was why: the kitten was like me. I was lonely. I’d been lonely for a long time only I hadn’t noticed because I was in love.
The kitten was so sweet I fell for her at once, but she made me sad too, because I only wanted a friend and a kitten isn’t much of a friend, is it? I tickled her tummy and she tried to bite my fingers and chase her tail, and loved me back at once. I examined her from head to tail, but I found nothing that wasn’t pure little puss-cat. No human fingers or teeth, nothing in her eyes that I hadn’t seen in a kitten’s before. I knew I couldn’t let her go, not unless I had to.
In the night I awoke thinking of something. I got up, half asleep and went to the drawer where I kept the letters from home. I’d been dreaming of Siggy. Funny… I’d started missing him in my sleep.
I sat there reading the letters. There’d been quite a few from Sigs but I hadn’t answered any of them. I thought, jealous! Poor old Sigs! I was just settling down to read them when there was a rattle from below. Conor, come to visit me. It was the first time my heart sank when I heard that trap door rattle.
I got up to hide the kitten, but it wasn’t necessary. She’d been asleep on a cushion by my bed while I read, but she was in hiding already. I wondered how she had understood to do that.
Conor came in. I didn’t run to welcome him this time. He knew something was wrong. He stood in front of me the way he used to when he was courting me, scowling and awkward, a shy man who didn’t know what to do with himself. I thought, pal, you’ll have to be sweeter than that to get round me this time.
He lifted his hands and let them drop. ‘I was afraid for you,’ he said.
I said, ‘I can be afraid for myself, thanks. Is that why you’ve been keeping me up here? It’s easier for you not to worry about me?’
He scowled, but he ploughed on, trying hard. ‘I mean, I was afraid. For myself.’
‘What?’
‘The halfmen,’ he explained. And he blushed like a child. ‘They scare me to pieces.’
I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ I didn’t understand. Why should his being scared affect how he treats me?
But he went on, ‘It scares me… so much. I don’t know why. Like with heights.’
‘Then don’t do it.’
‘It’s… it’s weak.’ He tried to stare me in the eye, but he was finding it hard. ‘I have to. There’d be no respect. So I have to. But I couldn’t bear to have you there with me because…’
Conor stopped talking and his eyes filled with tears; and my heart melted. I said, ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry…’ And I didn’t want it to, because he had to give me some freedom, much more freedom, but my heart melte
d and I ran up to him and held him tight, wrapped my arms around his big ugly mug. He buried his face in my shoulder and he let out a couple of harsh, trapped sobs.
‘They scare me, they scare me,’ he kept saying. And I still didn’t really understand why his being scared meant he had to keep me locked up on top of an old pylon while everyone else had the fun. But I knew it meant he loved me. And I realised then for the first time that he had to fight so, so hard to be what he wanted to be… stupid man! As if he wasn’t already enough. As if he wasn’t already enough for me!
‘It’s all right,’ I told him. I kissed his precious tears. ‘It’s all right.’
‘Do you despise me now?’ he begged.
‘Sssh. Ssssh. It’s all right.’
24
siggy
Promises were made of gold; you kept them if they were made with a treaty-partner. Enemies were different, of course. You expected them to lie. These days, Conor was counted a friend.
We’d agreed to go to visit Conor right at the beginning. It was only fair, as Val kept pointing out. He comes to us, we go to him. The difference was, as I kept pointing out, we were as good as our word.
But you have to hand it to Conor. He put himself entirely into our hands when he came here. We could have snuffed his entire operation out. But that’s the point. We never would. We gave our word. Val would have said that Conor’d started to behave like us by showing us trust, and even I had to admit he had a point. Maybe if you can show trust you can offer it too.
Maybe.
Hadrian reckoned Conor had made peace because he had no choice. Conor had been losing the battle for a long time. It was just sense to make peace while you still had something to hang on to. The question was, was it true peace or just a way of buying time? Yeah, there was a lot of debate about whether it was safe to go or not but no debate at all about whether or not to go. Promises had been made. The new policy had to be carried through. If we didn’t go, everyone would know there was no trust and, no trust, no peace. So we went. We made sure, of course, that we were armed to the teeth – the best men, the best weapons, the best cars. But as Had said, if you have to make a treaty visit into a war party, you ain’t got no treaty.
As for me, I was planning on doing my best to be out of the way when the visit came, well out of the way. Like Antarctica or something. But in the end I wasn’t so sure any more. Signy for one thing. Do you know, she really was in love? And I mean, Signy’s idealistic and silly as half a pound of bacon sometimes, but even she couldn’t be that wrong. When she first went she was so pissed off with me she wouldn’t even reply to my letters, but over the summer she warmed up a bit. She even began to see my point of view about the knife.
She was sounding a bit more realistic about the whole thing, but not half realistic enough. It was like she’d been completely pie-eyed about Conor to start with but since then she’d seen through him somewhat. I thought, yeah… somewhat. She wrote pages about him to me, and I have to say, he sounded like a seriously damaged case to me. But, maybe his heart was in the right place. Signy certainly thought so. Maybe it really was his father who’d been the bastard; maybe Conor really did want things to change. Signy was going on about the old guard, and how she and Conor were fighting them, and how great it’d be for us to get together again. Well, it was difficult. I didn’t trust him but… I just wanted to see her so bad!
And the other thing – this is kind of weird – there was that knife. I didn’t believe in the gods then, and I’m not sure that I do now. Most likely the dead man and his knife were out of Ragnor or one of the other cities out there. But how come I feel the way I do? That’s the difficult thing. I don’t really think men, no matter how clever they are, can manufacture the way I feel just by giving me a knife. And I feel good. In fact, I feel marvellous. Don’t ask me how or why, but I just know I’m going to be around for a long to come… a long time to come. And that makes me think that I can visit Conor and come away in one piece.
Crazy? OK, crazy. And you know what I think about the gods – never trust someone who’s gonna live forever, they don’t have enough to lose. Even so, Siggy’s on a roll, and Conor ain’t gonna stop me now.
25
signy
We spent weeks preparing for the visit. Me and Conor planned it all – everything. No expense spared, no trouble too much. I told him how much care and money went into funding his visit and he wanted ours to be every bit as good. We even stopped planning the schools and hospitals and all the rest of it. Oh, I know it’s easy to say we were spending money on ourselves while people were going hungry and the sick weren’t being treated, but that’s not the point.
We were building trust. We were making a new world. That’s a hard thing to do. I knew what it’d be like for Val and my brothers. They’d be suspicious. They’d be afraid. They’d hope it was all going to work out, but they wouldn’t know, not for sure. They’d drive in and the crowds would be cheering and yelling and everything’d be great, and they still wouldn’t know that there wasn’t going to be an ambush. They’d sit down to eat this gorgeous meal, but they couldn’t know for sure that the food wasn’t poisoned. It’d be just the same for them as it had been for Conor and his people. Not until they were on their way home and back in their own territory would they know they were safe and that the whole big gamble had paid off.
I know they have so many doubts, but they’ll see. It takes an act of faith to make trust where there’s been only murder and war before. The people have done it; Conor has done it. I know that my father and my brothers will do it too.
I know Conor better now. I know he’s not Superman. I know he can be weak, I know he’s scared. I know he finds trust hard. But he did it! That’s the amazing thing, that’s what I say to him when he starts doubting – he did it! He came to my father’s lands. And if he can trust, so can all his people. Even the old guard, even the security. When they see Val on their own land maybe even they’ll come over to the new way.
My father and my man. The new way.
Conor is terrified – terrified! It’s hard to imagine; I keep suddenly realising, this man is so scared! Every bone in his body is telling him that what he is doing is wrong. Everything he’d ever been taught, everything he knew, it was all telling him that what he was doing was wrong. But still he went ahead with it – for the love of me, I sometimes think. But that’s not to do him credit. I make too much of myself sometimes. I know he tried to make this peace work before he even met me.
That’s what makes him a great man. His vision is bigger than he is, just like my father. But what Conor is doing is even harder, because he can’t do it by being himself; he has to reinvent himself as a better man than he really is.
Half the Estate of course are hating every second of it. Conor told me about all the arguments in meetings, how they are trying to stop it at every turn. They know that if Val comes here and goes away safe, nothing will ever be the same again. But it’s too late. They’ll see. Everything’s set and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.
26
He came to her on that last night. It would be safe to say that Conor was as alone then as anyone ever was. He was so tense he was weeping with anxiety. Signy by contrast was full of excitement. She couldn’t understand what made him so fearful, but she’d seen him like this before on big occasions. She did her best to make it all right. She held him close. Later she tried to make love to him, but he couldn’t do it.
‘Soft as a little mouse tonight,’ she teased. Conor lay trembling in her arms. His heart was in a vice of ice.
‘Will it go off properly? Will it work?’ he asked her, and he smiled in a way that terrified her. But Signy was touched once again by what she saw as this grim man’s weakness, his vulnerability. She kissed him and held him tight and reassured him that everything would work out.
For Signy had no idea of the scale of the deception. She believed in her father’s vision and she believed in Conor’s heart. How could the one be so wrong
, and the other so treacherous? She believed she was turning war into friendship with the strength of her love. It was quite beyond her to imagine that she was just a maggot on a hook to catch a fat old fish.
Long after she had fallen asleep, Conor lay and stared up at the ceiling, holding her gently, but unable to shed a single tear. He had set himself on a course and was unable to turn away from it, even for love. All his life he had been able to hold his feelings deep inside himself, like tiny fish frozen in the icy tightness of his heart. He had learned to do this long, long ago, when as a child he had dared show no weakness to his father, and now it served him beautifully and horribly in his deception of Signy. So deeply and tightly had he frozen his feelings, he had no idea what they were.
He didn’t know it, but Conor was breaking his own heart first of all. And where would he ever find the wealth and the power to put that back together again?
27
siggy
The crowds! It felt like the whole world had come to see us off – beggar girls, shop men, street kids, bigwigs, merchants, local councillors, smugglers, thieves. Everyone. Big and little, all waving and cheering, because even though they may have had everything or nothing, they all had King Val; and here he was. The king bit was a sort of nickname, but everyone believed it’d become real one day.
It was great. It made me wish I wasn’t part of the convoy, so I could stand with all the others and cheer King Val and his sons on their way to show King Conor what was what.
It was first gear the whole time. It was a public holiday. Little fairs, street sellers, jugglers, comics, theatre. There were so many stalls and entertainments we had to keep stopping and waiting while the guard cleared the way so we could get through. You could have gone quicker on a bike. You could have gone quicker on foot. You could’ve hopped there quicker. We’d have been pulled to pieces before we got there, that’s all.