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.
13
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. I have 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 Hel.
14
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 nonstop 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 goin
g 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 bulletproof 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.
15
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 born. 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.
16
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!’ T
hey 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?’