The Traitor Game

by B. R. Collins

  ‘No, really, I would.’ It was weird how Francis could keep a perfectly straight face when you knew he wanted to laugh. That was the first thing Michael liked about him; only he didn’t admit it to himself then. He stared at Francis until his mother said, ‘Michael . . .’ and he had to stand up, walking out of the kitchen without a word, not waiting to see if Francis followed.

  But Francis did follow, although he didn’t tag along at Michael’s elbow; he left a decent distance between them, as though Michael had a bubble of space around him. That was the second thing Michael liked. He almost felt embarrassed that he hadn’t bothered to move the boxes of stuff. Francis didn’t really seem to notice, though. He looked round the room and said, ‘Nice.’

  ‘Not really.’ It sounded graceless, but it wasn’t meant to. It was just that Michael didn’t know what to say. It was an ordinary room. There wasn’t anything special about it.

  Francis glanced back at him, and shrugged. ‘I’ve got very low standards. I have to share with my brother. Belmarsh would be nice, if I was the only person in it.’ He grinned.

  ‘I thought you were –’ Michael stopped himself. He turned aside, hoping Francis wouldn’t notice he’d said anything. That was what happened when you let yourself talk: you started saying things you shouldn’t.

  ‘What?’ When Michael didn’t answer Francis put his head on one side and frowned at him amiably. ‘Go on. What were you going to say?’

  Michael shook his head. ‘Nothing.’ But Francis was still waiting, leaning loosely against Michael’s desk. ‘I just thought – I mean, you go to St Anselm’s . . .’

  Francis frowned, then laughed. ‘Oh, right, you thought we were rich.’ He put his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders ruefully. ‘’Fraid not. Scholarship boys, all of us. Except my sisters, obviously.’

  Michael stared at the carpet, wishing he hadn’t said anything. It wasn’t like it mattered. There was a silence. In the end he said, ‘You can sit down if you want. I mean – just stick the box on the floor.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Was there a gleam of humour, again? Michael didn’t know, and it made him uneasy. Francis lifted the box and looked round for an empty bit of carpet.

  ‘Wherever. It doesn’t matter.’

  Francis nodded; but he put the box carefully down in the space between two toppling piles of papers. Michael followed his gaze to the nearest one and felt his face burn. Stuff from primary school – maybe even infant school. Stuff that Michael didn’t even know his mum had kept. A face, with a sort of black crest, with three red legs. That was his self-portrait from Year 3. He started to bend down to pick it up and hide it under something else, but Francis got there before him. He looked at it appraisingly, then up at Michael. ‘Is this you?’

  Michael nodded, and reached for it. For a horrible moment he thought Francis was going to hold it out of reach, teasing him; but he passed it over quietly. Once Michael had it in his hand he felt safer.

  ‘Why have you got three legs?’

  ‘No reason.’ He shoved it between a couple of books.

  ‘Are you a tripod?’

  Here it comes, Michael thought. Michael the Tripod. Tripod Thompson. Or just Tripe, for short. There you go, Mum. At least it’s a better class of insult. He felt the dead weight in his stomach like tiredness. He turned round, slowly, as though his joints had gone rusty. He was going to say, ‘Why don’t you just piss off home?’ but Francis had a grin on his face. It was fading now, in the silence, but a real grin. Like it was a joke. It was as if he thought Michael was a normal person. Michael shrugged awkwardly.

  Francis picked up the papers that had been underneath the picture. ‘Can I . . . ?’ Michael wanted to say, No, leave them, they’re mine, get off. But something about the way Francis had asked made that seem rude. Or not rude, exactly (Michael didn’t have a problem with being rude, under the right circumstances) – sort of unfair. He watched as Francis leafed through, then leant back on his heels, holding one out to Michael. ‘What’s this?’

  It was from ages ago. Back in Year 7 they’d had a Geography assignment to make up a country. The idea was that you’d have to think about how the landscape affected where the towns were, and the imports and exports, and things like that. It was the sort of thing that Michael liked, and he’d spent a long time on it. And then, after he’d handed it in, he’d carried on drawing maps, which were good because you didn’t have to be any good at drawing. He had a whole pile of them, desert countries and green countries, post-apocalyptic cities and elaborate palaces. He’d stopped, of course, the way he’d stopped reading, because that was part of the Clever Boy stuff, the stuff that made him a target. He stared at the piece of paper. ‘Nothing. Just something for Year 7 Geography.’

  It felt like Francis looked at him for a long time. ‘It’s good.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Michael held out his hand for it. But this time Francis didn’t give it to him. He held it round to the side where Michael couldn’t reach it. Michael took a deep breath. ‘Give it here.’

  ‘No, seriously, I like it.’ He scrutinised it, turning his shoulder on Michael.

  ‘Give it to me.’ He didn’t dare say please. Please was always when the game really got going. Please was when they started throwing whatever it was to one another like malicious piggy-in-the-middle. That was when the little pushes began, the nudges that got harder and harder until they hurt like punches; that was when they started whining to each other, Please, pretty please, what’s the magic word?, in vicious mimicry of his accent. He took a deep breath.

  Francis followed the line of the sea with his fingernail. ‘The names are great. What language is it? Cornish?’

  ‘I said hand it over.’

  ‘Not that I’d know Cornish if it came up and gave me a pasty.’ He stared at the map, his forehead creased. ‘Looks more like East Anglia, though. Are these marshes?’

  ‘Give it here. Or –’ He wanted to say, Or I’ll smash your face in. But the voice in his head said, Oh yeah, you and whose army?

  Francis glanced up. ‘All right.’ But he didn’t. He looked back down at the piece of paper, eyes narrowed. ‘But why is –’ he peered closer to read one of the names, ‘why is Than’s Lynn that shape? With the bit here like a peninsula?’ He gazed up at Michael innocently, with that expression of benign enquiry that Michael knew better than any other look. We were just wondering, Thompson – why are you such a loser?

  Something snapped. He lunged for the map and grabbed roughly, tearing it out of Francis’s clenched hand. He fell forward, felt his other hand connect with something hard – Francis’s face, maybe, his shoulder – and didn’t care, felt his knee hit something with a sort of bony impact that meant a bruise at least and didn’t care about that either. He dragged himself sideways, holding the piece of paper screwed up in his fist, breathing hard. He’d got it. He struggled to his feet.

  Francis was staring at him. He wiped a hand across his mouth and his fingertips came away red. ‘What the hell . . . ?’

  The map was ripped across the middle. Michael screwed it into a ball, his hands shaking, and threw it at the wastepaper basket. It bounced off the side and dropped on to the carpet. He couldn’t look at Francis. He knew now he’d got it wrong. He couldn’t even talk to someone without mucking it up. He swallowed. ‘Sorry.’ His voice was almost steady.

  Silence. Francis probed inside his lower lip with his middle finger and winced. He wiped the blood off on his jeans. ‘What the . . . ?’ Then he looked back up at Michael. ‘Do you always hit people? Is that how you make friends?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t have any.’ He didn’t mean to be honest; it just came out.

  ‘Right.’ Francis’s voice didn’t give anything away, but there was something odd in the way he was looking at Michael. Like he’d seen him before somewhere and was trying to work out when: speculative, interested, not unfriendly. Then his mouth twitched. ‘Frankly, I’m not surprised.’

  It should have sounded snide, but som
ehow it didn’t. Francis was laughing at him, but with a kind of warmth, daring him to laugh back. Michael thought, Like I’ve done something right, and then told himself that was mad . . . Of course! It was pity. It had to be.

  Francis was still looking at him, his eyes narrowed, like the beginning of a smile. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Yes.’ But I hit you, Michael thought. Don’t ask me if I’m OK.

  Francis leant forward, picked up the little ball of paper and started uncreasing it gently. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have looked. I just . . . it looked, you know, I liked it, it looked interesting.’ He slid his palm over the coastline, flattening it. ‘Sorry. Mum said you – well, she said shy, so I guess that means just averagely discriminating about who you show your Year 7 Geography projects to . . .’ He looked up and smiled properly, suddenly casual. ‘You’re planning to store your GCSE notes in a vault at the Bank of England, right?’

  Michael nearly managed to smile back. He looked away from Francis, down at the papers on the desk. ‘Than’s Lynn – it’s not a peninsula, it’s the ruined bit of the city that got abandoned when the occupying forces left, only I can’t draw.’ It came out before he had time to think, in a long incoherent squirt. Oh, Michael, you idiot, what did you want to say that for . . . ? First you tell him you don’t have any mates, and then . . .

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  Now, Michael thought. Now he’ll take the piss.

  But Francis only nodded, as though Michael had said something interesting. ‘Why was it abandoned?’

  A deep breath. He meant to say, Oh, I dunno, I can’t remember, it was ages ago . . . But he heard himself say, ‘They had to rebuild the city walls and they built them in a different place. So the cathedral, and the old slums, and the bits that used to get flooded were all outside. And no one wanted to live there, so everything just went to rack and ruin.’ God, listen to him! What was he thinking? He couldn’t believe he even remembered that stuff – and now he was saying it aloud, to someone he didn’t even know. He might as well hang a sign round his neck saying I AM A WANKER. He bent down suddenly and picked the map off the floor. ‘Forget it.’

  ‘I’m sorry you tore it.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ They stared at each other for a moment. Francis really did look sorry. Michael shrugged. ‘It was from ages ago. I don’t even remember doing it.’ It might have been convincing, if it hadn’t been far too late.

  ‘Can I fix it?’ Francis reached forward and started to tug the paper gently out of Michael’s hand. Michael started to take his hand away and Francis held on to his wrist. That was strange. It should have been really weird, it should have made Michael flinch, as though Francis was coming on to him or something. But it was more like Michael was a kid and Francis was a grown-up.

  Michael said, ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll take it home, see if I can do anything with it.’

  He stepped back and pulled his wrist out of Francis’s grasp. ‘It really doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I’d like to.’ It was funny, the way Francis could get you to agree to things just by expecting you to say yes. It made you think you were being childish and unfair for wanting to say no. ‘I promise I’ll bring it back.’

  That wasn’t the point. But what was the point? Unless Francis was going to scan it on to his computer and email it to his mates from St Anselm’s: Guess what, I met this bloke who’s coming to our school, he’s such a prat, look what he does in his spare time . . . The idea made Michael go cold. Really cold; he actually started to shiver. ‘No.’

  Francis sighed. ‘Suit yourself.’ He pushed the map deep into one of the piles of papers on the desk. Then he looked up, smiling. ‘I’m just going for a slash, back in a minute.’ He slid round Michael out on to the landing. As the door closed behind him, Michael felt himself relax; somehow he’d been expecting Francis to keep going until Michael agreed to let him have the map. He had the air of being someone who got his own way. But then, Michael thought, maybe he was really only being polite.

  A week later Michael found out Francis hadn’t put the map back into the pile at all. He’d only pretended to put it back; he’d hidden it in his back pocket as he went out of the room. It was only the next Saturday, when Francis, much to Michael’s (and his mum’s) surprise, came round again, that he found out; and then only because Francis, with a shamefaced grin, laid two maps on his desk – the torn original, and Francis’s own beautiful, detailed copy. ‘I wasn’t quite sure about the contour lines,’ he’d said. ‘I guessed it was all pretty flat, because of the marshes – but maybe Arcaster should be built on a hill?’

  That had been the beginning. And Michael still couldn’t quite work out how it had happened. Once he’d tried to ask Francis about it – ‘I don’t get it, you must have thought I was a complete freak’ – but all he’d said was, ‘Well, I just thought, you know, us complete freaks should stick together.’ And that didn’t help much. Francis didn’t even know about the stuff at the comp, so it wasn’t like he was making allowances. When Michael said again, ‘I don’t get it. How could you possibly have wanted to come back, after that?’, Francis looked up, irritated, and sighed.

  ‘Give it a rest, will you, Thompson?’ he’d said. ‘It just happened, OK?’

  ‘I hit you. For no reason.’

  ‘Maybe I like the masterful approach.’

  ‘But –’

  Francis shook his head, like Michael was just being childish. ‘What do you want me to say?’ He leant back in his chair and looked at Michael reflectively. ‘You were just sort of – interesting. And it gave me somewhere to go on a Saturday.’

  That was as much as Michael could get out of him, and he didn’t push it. It wasn’t like it really mattered.

  .

  That was the beginning of it.

  Now Michael stared at the wall of the toilet cubicle and wondered if this was the end. He could see I KNOW WHERE ARCASTER IS as clearly as if it was written on the wall in front of him. He still felt sick, and empty, and his mouth tasted of bile. He wished his mind would go blank and white, like the wall. Somewhere a long way away the bell went for the end of break.

  He closed his eyes.

  .

  .

  Ter

  . . . yesterday my brothers went on a foray to a rebel village . . . they set off on little Mereish ponies, sounding their horns and singing psalms . . . they captured ten rebels, all men, except two boys and a baby, which will fetch eighty crowns all told, they say . . . they [the rebels] are very thin: poor but vicious, as my eldest brother said . . . (Flora to Valens, from the Fabianus Letters, trans. MT)

  When I open my eyes I wish I hadn’t. When they were shut, in the moment between sleep and waking, the world was bad enough: painful, tasting of blood and smelling of something worse, a world that you’d want to keep at bay for as long as you could. But now, staring into the silvery half-dark, I can see enough to remember where I am, and why, and I wish I’d had the sense to keep my eyes closed. It’s difficult to tell if any of the others are awake; no one’s moving, but then I know from pulling against my own bonds that the more we struggle the tighter the knots get. The only sensible thing to do is to stay still. My hands have gone dead, which should be a relief – one part of me, at least, that doesn’t hurt – but I know what it’ll be like when they untie them. It’s absurd to feel squeamish about that now, but all the same I’m dreading it.

  It’s either early morning or dusk. I’ve lost track of time. If I could remember which route we took up to the castle, which gate we went through, the turns and doors and staircases we went down to get to this room, then maybe I could work out which direction the light was coming from. But all I remember about that walk was the misery of it, how hard it was to keep going, and the biting cold that made my shirt, still wet from the marshes, chafe against my back. The Evgard men behind us were whistling and laughing. When they rode up to Skyph we’d heard them singing psalms, and knew to gather what we could and run; but as they dragged us through Arca
ster the songs were jaunty, with comic words about hunting and bringing home the spoils and what they’d do with the virgins they’d captured. Thurat swore at them in Mereish, varesh sbythagerdim, shudfargtts, and they stopped chanting for a moment to slice off one of his ears. We were quiet after that.

  It was a long way. I was so tired that I was almost sleeping as we walked. I found myself calculating how much they had reduced Thurat’s selling price by, and wondering why they had. Surely they had more to lose than to gain by it? There was an idea that nearly came to me, the way you solve a riddle as you fall asleep and forget the answer before you wake up. But it slipped away when Geron took a false step and slid on a patch of ice, jerking the rope that linked us together, so that I caught my breath and nearly fell.

  I think once we’d got here, after they tied our feet again, they gave us food and water. I’m not sure. My mouth tastes of blood and dirt and salt, but I think I’d be hungrier if they hadn’t. Or perhaps I’m feverish. It wouldn’t be surprising. I hid in the reeds next to the Tharn for hours, so long that I thought I’d freeze to death if I stayed there much longer, so long that I was sure they’d have gone. My hair had frozen into spikes, like a hedgehog, and the sun had gone down. I was too cold to move smoothly, and I wasn’t thinking straight. I should have known better than to stand up while the sky was still glowing blue; I must have been easy to spot, as clear as a raven on snow, clear as fire. They were only a few hycht away, crouched and waiting, fat and warm in their coloured coats. I ran, of course. But I was too tired, too cold, slipping on ice or falling through it, into water up to my knees, tearing my hands on the marsh-reeds. And I was lost. I didn’t know where to aim for. There was nowhere to go to ground. In the end, when they surrounded me, I crouched down on the ice like an animal and waited for them.

  I waited for them. And I knew what they’d do. I’d heard the stories, we all had. I’d heard what they did to boys like me, the worse things they did to girls. I should have fought to the death, or carried on running until I collapsed or stepped on a marsh-adder. There are some boys in our village who carry poison, who’d rather die than be sold for a slave. Ryn would have slashed her own throat with her knife. But I squatted on the ice with my hands clasped in front of me and waited.