Meat

by Joseph D'lacey

  ‘What should we do?’ asked Harsha as quietly as she could.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Maybe we should just have a look.’

  Harsha went to push the lid of their hiding place open and Hema grabbed her arm.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Harsha. ‘We’re only looking. We don’t have to run yet.’

  As silently as they could manage they shifted around until they could both peep over the lip of their secret place.

  They saw the hairy man, naked and yelling, with his back to them at the window. They looked at each other. Words weren’t necessary now. This was their chance to escape. They crawled up and out as quietly as snakes but Harsha, believing Hema had hold of the coffer’s lid, let it go. The lid slammed shut hard. The hairy man jumped and began to turn.

  A look passed between them and they both remembered the courage of the brothers in the story their father had told them. Instead of running away, they ran at the hairy man. Ran at him as hard as they could, arms outstretched in front of them, palms spread wide.

  Magnus woke with a start to the sound of boots stomping gravel and the cries of men in battle.

  He grunted and tried to get out of bed. Even simple movements like this were getting harder and harder. Finally he hauled his bulk upright and slid his legs over the side of the bed. The noise from outside was furious. Bodies and blades fell against the spiked railings that surrounded the main building. Right below his own bedroom window he could hear men cursing and roaring as blows landed and pain blossomed.

  There were shouts of frustration and failure.

  He pushed himself upright and staggered. Reaching out a hand he steadied himself against one of the bed’s four posts until the dizziness receded enough for him to walk. His legs were weak and unsteady as he shuffled to the great window.

  Outside, his men were lashing themselves against the enemy like the sea against the rocks. He felt a brief swell of pride over them. These were his best and they were fighting for Magnus and everything he stood for. The pride faded quickly as the reality of the situation became clearer.

  His men were tired. Their lunges and attacks were no longer crisp and sharp. They moved heavily, the more effort they put in, the slower they seemed to move. Great, wide, sweeping arcs of machetes missed their targets by inches or feet. Punches didn’t land or were ineffectual. Kicks were easily avoided. His guards outnumbered the opposition by more than double but already they were hitting the ground, felled by blows so swift they might have been imaginary but for the damage they inflicted.

  And this enemy! They looked so thin and tattered they might have been beggars from the streets. But they didn’t behave like pitiful vagrants. He had seen this kind of movement before and he knew what it meant. These were Collins’s followers, his fighters. They were fast. They gave no quarter. As he watched, more of his men fell to their birdlike hands. The odds evened.

  He had to do something. Struggling with the weight of it, Magnus pushed up the sash window. His men needed encouragement. They needed direction and he could see a way for them to land more telling hits if only he could speak to them. With the window fully open, he wedged it in position with a block of wood and leaned out.

  ‘Bruno! Timing, man! It’s all a matter of changing your rhythm.’

  He saw that Bruno had heard him, but the man dared not look away from his opponent. He watched as Bruno backed out of range and then darted in with a light left jab. The man he was fighting took the bait and blocked but Bruno was already swinging his machete. Even with a head start and the ragged man off balance, the blade only caught his jaw and not his neck as Bruno had hoped. The machete opened the man’s face to the mandible and there was a brief flash of white bone before the blood flowed.

  Unheeding of the wound and turning immediately into the attack, Bruno’s opponent hit back with strobing hands. Magnus wasn’t sure he saw the blows connect until Bruno stumbled backwards, his mouth a crimson grimace.

  ‘Don’t stop!’ shouted Magnus. ‘Take the initiative!’

  The man did not close on Bruno, letting him regain his composure instead. Bruno’s pride was wounded worse than his face. He seemed not to notice that he’d been given a chance and he advanced as though upon a child he intended to whip. All around the gravelled driveway, men in long black coats were crumpling; their frustrated blades still clean.

  ‘Fucking imbeciles,’ Magnus muttered. He began to think ahead a little. What if they got into the house? How many men did he have left inside?

  He heard a sound like a heavy wooden door slamming behind him and the patter of feet over carpet. He turned to face the intruders but never quite finished the manoeuvre. Instead he felt small hands pushing him back.

  As he lost his balance, he heard giggles.

  Then he was falling.

  Twenty-five

  Collins wasn’t used to fighting but it didn’t make any difference. A kind of pulse thrummed between all of them and somehow their movements were coordinated. They fought as if they were a single being, each part communicating with every other. The pulse had a rhythm and, in most cases this rhythm moved them out of sync with those they faced. The result was the enemy got hurt but they didn’t. It was like a dance. Only the bad dancers were struck.

  He felt nothing for the enemy. No pity or respect. He knew none of his followers did either. The people that opposed them were a lower order of humanity. They’d have done better to step aside.

  When Rory Magnus fell from a second floor window of the mansion, Collins caught the movement like a shimmer across one side of his body, peripheral vision of his very skin. He kept fighting but his black-coated opponents were suddenly distracted and moments later, all the fight went out of them. Their leader hung by impaled legs upon the spiked railings that surrounded the house; a means of protection that had turned against him. As Magnus’s men fell back towards the house and the fighting stopped, Collins took in the scene.

  Forty men lay dead or unconscious around the gravel driveway. None of them was his. There was only one sound now, signalling the fight was finished: Magnus screaming.

  If he’d fallen a little further from the mansion, he’d have landed on his head and might have died instantly. As it was, he’d caught the rusted steel spikes of the fence just above his knees. About a foot below the points, a flat, horizontal brace had prevented him from sliding to the ground. He was a heavy man and the spikes had not simply pierced him. Because of his forward and downward momentum, the spikes had torn the flesh from mid-thigh to kneecap before penetrating through to the backs of his legs. Two spikes through each limb protruded redly upward from the wounds. Both patellas were dislocated onto his shins, the flesh of which was scraped to the bone. His full weight was suspended there, inverted.

  Even as Collins watched, the pain and realisation of the damage was sinking into Magnus’s diseased mind like volley after volley of falling arrows. He begged to be let down, his voice hardly recognisable as human any more. The blood was rushing to the fat man’s head, worse with every forced-out scream, and Collins could see the veins standing out on his neck, his cheeks close to bursting with pressure.

  Bruno moved towards his boss and a few other guards made motions to follow. Collins held up a hand and it was enough to stop them. Meanwhile, Magnus tried to free himself. All he could do was push down on the lower ends of the railings, hoping to force himself up and off their points. But the rusted poles were wet with his blood and his hands slipped again and again, dropping his weight more firmly onto the spikes each time. It was clear he was too fat and weak to succeed but You never know, thought Collins, people become capable of extraordinary feats when their survival is at stake. They would see what Magnus was made of.

  The man’s great bulk shook now as he cried tears of frustration and agony, as he moaned and begged for help that wouldn’t come.

  Collins gestured to Staithe and Vigors.

  ‘Take these men inside.’

  His followers herded the exhaust
ed guards in through the front doors.

  ‘Wait,’ said Collins to Bruno. ‘Not you.’

  Bruno turned back and Collins approached him.

  ‘Take me to Shanti.’

  The light hurt his eyes, forcing him to keep them closed. Magnus or his men had come for him and the ordeal, whatever was planned for him, was about to begin.

  The hand that reached into the cell and pulled him up was full of warmth and strength and its touch was enough to assure him he was safe. The hand belonged to John Collins.

  ‘Let’s get you cleaned up. Can’t have your daughters seeing their father in this condition.’

  ‘You’ve found the twins. Are they…?’

  ‘You can see for yourself as soon as we get this filth off you. Come on.’

  Without power, the pressure washer was no worse than a hosepipe. With Collins holding the jet on him, Shanti stripped and washed himself with brisk, vigorous strokes.

  ‘Put these on,’ said Collins. ‘They’re not exactly you but they’ll do for now.’

  He handed Shanti the clothes and boots of a fallen guard. Knowing there was no choice, Shanti hardly hesitated before slipping into the clothes. With the black coat over it all and his beard and long hair, he looked exactly like one of Magnus’s men.

  ‘Did you find my wife?’

  Shanti could see that there was more Collins wanted to say or at least that he wanted to say something other than the truth. In the end his words were simple.

  ‘She died, Richard. I’m sorry.’

  Shanti placed his right palm over his mouth, as if making some kind of judgement.

  ‘They buried her outside. I can show you the place if you want but we’ll have to be quick.’

  Shanti looked up.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  Collins led him out of the basement and up to the ground floor. Hema and Harsha were waiting in Magnus’s living room. When they saw him, they ran straight to him. He knelt and gathered them in, kissing their heads and stroking their hair. He couldn’t find a way to ask them what Magnus had done. When he was able to speak he said, ‘Did he hurt you?’

  They shook their heads and his tears began afresh. Collins placed a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry, Richard. We have to go. All of us. When the townsfolk realise there’s no Meat Baron, they’ll panic. They’ll go and kill the Chosen themselves. There’ll be chaos. The Parsons won’t be able to stop them and there are far too many for us to deal with. If we’re going to do this, it has to be now.’

  Shanti nodded and stood up.

  ‘We’re all going on a long walk,’ he said to the girls. ‘Mr. Collins and I are going to go ahead because we’re faster.’ He gestured to the followers who had been sitting with the girls. ‘You’ll be safe with them until you catch us up. Do exactly as they say. Understand?’

  ‘We want to come with you, Papa,’ said Hema.

  ‘I know, sweetheart. I’ll be waiting for you. I promise.’

  He leaned down, kissed them both again then turned away. He couldn’t let them see the heartbreak in his eyes. To regain them like this and then let go again; it was almost more than he could bear.

  In the hall he said to Collins, ‘Surely there’s a truck left with some gas in it.’

  Collins shook his head.

  ‘They’ve used it all up. There may be some stashed somewhere but we’d be wasting time looking for it. If the townsfolk got here before we found it…well…’

  He slit his throat with his index finger.

  ‘You’re right. Let’s go now. Run with me.’

  Together they sprinted for the main door. Shanti stopped when he saw Magnus, still trying to free himself from the railings that had impaled his legs. His weight had snapped him at the knees and now he hung not at an angle but straight down. He wept manic, disbelieving tears. Shanti walked over and stood beside him. He had worked in an environment of pain all his life and had a keen sense for it. He could feel the waves of suffering emanating from the hanging giant next to him. He looked down and caught the man’s inverted eyes. Streaks of tears and blood ran from his face to his forehead and into his hair. The whites of his eyes were yellow and cracked with broken capillaries. There was insanity there.

  ‘Have pity, Ice Pick. You’re a man of compassion. I understand that now. Release me from the spikes, I beg you. Lay me down on the ground here to die quietly. Do the right thing, Mr. Shanti, please. Help me down.’ The big man snivelled and shook, more tears coming from a place that he could not resist. ‘Down, down, down,’ he said. And then. ‘Forgive me, Ice Pick. Please forgive me.’

  Shanti looked into Magnus’s mad eyes for a few seconds longer. Magnus saw the hesitation and hope sparked behind his staring pupils.

  ‘I do,’ said Shanti.

  He turned away.

  He and Collins ran down the gravel driveway. Twenty followers fell into step behind them. The rest left the mansion at a fast walk to escort the twins. Inside, the remainder of Magnus’s men and the maids were locked in the basement. Both Collins and Shanti knew they’d find a way to get out eventually but by then it wouldn’t matter.

  At the entrance to the mansion they turned right onto the main road out of Abyrne. When the sound of boots, some running, others walking on the cracked tarmac faded, the town seemed very still. But something ugly was rising up behind them and each of them knew it.

  The Grand Bishop sat behind his desk and appraised the three Parsons standing on the other side of it. They seemed no different than three schoolboys in a headmaster’s study. There was apprehension. And something else.

  Fear.

  Not fear of a caning. Not fear of losing their jobs. Not even, and it would have been a most appropriate emotion at that moment, the fear of God. He knew, therefore, that it wasn’t merely the breaking of the news to him that had them so stirred up.

  Parson Atwell had led their scouting mission and the Grand Bishop addressed his questions to him.

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘Nothing, Your Grace.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Not exactly nothing but certainly no enforcement party. What we found were their gowns and their weapons. That’s all.’

  ‘But where Atwell? In what condition?’

  ‘Forgive me, your grace, I still don’t understand it myself. We found their garments littered as though they’d fallen in battle but there were no bodies. Not one.’

  ‘What do you think happened?’

  ‘They may have been overcome and taken prisoner, their gowns arranged over the ground as…some kind of message. Or they were thoroughly bested and their bodies taken away – again with the clothing left as a sign.’

  ‘A hundred of our best Parsons captured or killed by thirty tunnel-dwelling starvelings? I don’t believe it.’

  He’d meant the outburst as a challenge, to get Atwell to speak up. It had the opposite effect. Atwell looked down, clamping back an angry response. Nor would the other two Parsons meet the Grand Bishop’s eyes. He softened his tone.

  ‘All right, Atwell. I wasn’t there and I didn’t see it for myself. You can imagine how it must sound to my ears, though.’

  Some of the tension went out of Atwell’s jaw.

  ‘Of course, Your Grace.’

  ‘I want your assessment. What do you think happened out there?’

  Atwell hesitated, glanced at his two companions and then appeared to realise it was no use looking for answers there. He faced the Grand Bishop.

  ‘I think they’re dead. All of them. I believe Collins and his followers are far stronger than we’ve given them credit for. I also think they plan to take over the town.’

  ‘Do you?’ said the Grand Bishop. ‘Do you really?’

  He was angry but not with his scouts. In his heart he believed exactly the same thing. How could he have let all this happen right under his nose?

  ‘Where in God’s name did they acquire this strength?’

&nbs
p; ‘I can’t answer that, Your Grace.’

  ‘I know, Atwell. I’m sorry. Just thinking out loud. What else have you discovered?’

  ‘We’re fairly sure Magnus was tipped off about Collins’s whereabouts because we watched seventy of his men returning from the tunnels. They were tired but looked unhurt. I don’t think they found him.’

  ‘Unless he sent a hundred and seventy men and only seventy returned.’

  ‘That wasn’t how it looked, Your Grace.’

  ‘I know, I know. Dear Father.’

  The Grand Bishop sat back and closed his eyes for a moment. It was difficult to think.

  ‘Your Grace?’

  He opened his eyes.

  ‘You can go now, Atwell.’

  ‘No, Your Grace. I…haven’t finished.’

  ‘What else, then?’

  ‘It’s only a rumour – we haven’t had the time or the manpower to go and check for ourselves yet – but it seems that Magnus’s men did meet Collins in combat and also suffered defeat. Magnus himself was seriously wounded. The townsfolk know something is wrong. Word passes quickly. It’s only a matter of time before they begin to demand order. Already people are clearing out the butchers’ shops in expectation of a shortage of meat. When the butchers run out, the townsfolk will go up to MMP in numbers too great to control. If we’re going to prevent that, we need to act now and put a curfew in place.’

  ‘Yes. See to it immediately.’

  ‘There was just one other matter, Your Grace.’

  The Grand Bishop no longer tried to maintain his stature and sighed openly.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Doctor Fellows reports that Parson Mary Simonson is no longer in the convalescent room. He thinks she’s been gone some time.’

  ‘Not there? But she’s far too sick to go anywhere.’

  ‘Apparently not, Your Grace.’

  ‘All right. Thank you, Atwell.’