The New Day

by Lorraine Thomson

  “It is harsh, I agree,” Yolanda said, “but not as harsh as an entire city starving to death. Yes – there may be hard times ahead, but if we work together – if we share and look out for each other – Dinawl will survive. We will survive.”

  “Dinawl forever!”

  Yolanda raised a fist in the air and joined in the refrain as the crowd chanted Dinawl forever over and over.

  Sorrel walked the length of the scaffold again, partly to keep warm, but mostly to keep boredom at bay. Brig paced on the other side of the gate. Ten days had passed since Yolanda’s speech. Ten days with no fighting, and yet no peace. Dinawl was stuck in the twilight world of the unknown.

  A breeze blowing from the south carried the sweet scent of roasting meat from the army camp. Sorrel suspected the Monitors kept the bounty from their hunts until they could use the wind to torment those in the city. Sometimes, especially at night, voices could be heard singing. Meanwhile in Dinawl, the vast pots of the mass kitchen held barely a trace of meat and there was precious little revelry.

  Sorrel stopped and looked over the wall. They’d had another funeral that morning. Three people this time. One of them, a boy called Caleb, had been around Eli’s age.

  Eli was so small, Sorrel feared for him, but she reminded herself that he was robust while Caleb had, by all accounts, been sickly all his days. In Amat, he’d have been considered unviable and would have died without a name.

  Of the other two, one had been an old woman too frail to see out another winter, the other a man who had taken most of his victuals in liquid, preferably in the form of Skullcracker. With ale rationed along with everything else, his body had gone into shock at the sudden lack of alcohol. He’d had a seizure, collapsed and, aptly enough, cracked his skull before sucking his last breath. It was as well he’d been put to rest with the other two, or there would have been precious few to mourn his passing.

  Their bodies, wrapped tightly in sheets, lay in the snow at the foot of the wall along with the rest of Dinawl’s recent dead. There being little space to bury them within the city and a high fear of disease, the dead were simply deposited on the other side of the wall. She wondered how high the pile would grow before the siege was over.

  Sorrel had suggested storing the bodies in one of Metro’s vast spaces, but Yolanda had stared at her with her eyebrows raised.

  “Don’t you know? Metro is gone. The fire in the Dregs caused a weakening of the structure. The roof collapsed, and Metro filled with the muck and mire of the Dregs.”

  “But it was so big,” Sorrel said, “surely some of it still exists?”

  Yolanda had shaken her head. “Once the mud and water got in, that was it. The loss of the books – the knowledge – almost broke Sam’s heart. And of course, there was the loss of life. Ferris, Gladstone and Nell all perished. As did poor Rawson. Crushed to death. Niven wasn’t in the least bothered. He was in the Palace by that time, plotting his future. Little good it did him.”

  Sorrel had gone to the wall at the North gate and looked out over where the Dregs had once been, with Metro below it, but the landscape lay beneath a thick layer of snow, and the only features she could make out were the peaks of the snow-encrusted midden.

  Her thoughts had grown gloomy and she was grateful when Kala and Cyrus arrived to relieve them of their watch. Sorrel was happier yet to see David accompany her. They’d not seen much of each other over the past days.

  “Anything happening?” Kala asked.

  “They’re cooking meat again. Nothing else. What have you been up to?” she asked David.

  “That’s why I’m here – I want to show you. You want to come?” he asked Brig.

  Brig shook his head. “I’m going to check on Eli.”

  Sorrel watched him go. “It’s funny, you know.”

  “What is?” David asked.

  “Brig had barely a good word to say to Olaf when he was alive, but he misses him so much.”

  “He’s hurting in the sore place,” David said.

  David led Sorrel to The Three Rats. Most of the city’s inns and vittle houses had been converted into infirmaries for the weak and the ailing, but The Three Rats was locked up tight, the windows boarded.

  “Isn’t it a sick house now?”

  “No, The Three Rats is a special case.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see.”

  David rapped sharply on the door. A few moments later, it was opened by Stacey, a bailiff looming at her shoulder.

  “We’ve come for the supplies,” David said.

  The vittle house, normally packed to the rafters, was filled now by an eerie hush. While the bailiff bolted the door behind them, Stacey led Sorrel and David through the silent dining room to the kitchen where the huge grills lay cold and empty.

  Another bailiff, who had been sitting on a chair by a door, stood when they entered, but when he saw David he relaxed.

  “They’re here for the supplies,” Stacey told him.

  The bailiff nodded.

  Sorrel glanced at David. “What supplies – what’s going on?”

  “You’ll see,” he replied.

  “Down here,” Stacey opened the door. It led to a set of stairs.

  “Go on,” David said.

  Sorrel hesitated as an intense musky odour wafted up from the cellar.

  “What’s down there?”

  But then she heard the squealing. The sound transported her back to that night in the Dregs, and she knew. Rats. Many, many, rats.

  The cellar was vast and lit by hanging lanterns. The walls were lined with cages, while in the middle of the floor, there were at least a dozen large containers, about waist height and each covered with a mesh lid. There was a single rat in each cage, while the containers held writhing masses of the long-tailed creatures.

  Emanating from the containers and underscoring the refrain of squeaks and squeals, came the myriad sound of hundreds of claws scrabbling and scratching.

  “These are the nurseries.” Stacey indicated the containers. “The rats in the cages on this side are almost ready to go. The ones on the other side are still growing.”

  Several people, some of whom looked familiar to Sorrel, were working in the cellar, feeding, cleaning and moving individual rats from the nurseries to cages. They wore thick leather gloves that went all the way to their elbows.

  “Waiting staff from upstairs,” Stacey said when she saw Sorrel looking at them. “No-one knew we bred our own rats for the menu. We fed them wild garlic and basil – that’s why they tasted so good. Rolo didn’t want the other vittle houses to know, so everyone was sworn to secrecy. Now with the rationing, it’s even more of a secret.”

  One of the former waitresses was in the process of selecting a rat from a container. While she worked, two others used long sticks to knock down any rats trying to escape.

  She pinioned it with a Y-shaped rod on the back of the neck and picked it up by the root of its long, scaly tail. The rat twisted and snapped at her, managing to sink its teeth into her leather glove at the wrist. The woman yelped but kept a grip of the rat. She tossed it into a waiting cage while her co-workers replaced the mesh lid on the container.

  She locked the cage and pulled off her glove. “Vicious brute.”

  “Did it break the skin?” Stacey asked.

  “No, but I bet I’ll get a bruise.”

  “Arnica ointment will help – if you have any,” Sorrel said.

  Stacey nodded at the waitress. “Upstairs.”

  “Are they always so aggressive?” Sorrel asked.

  “They are now, hence the long gloves. Don’t know if it’s because there’s a lot more of them. They used to be quite easy to handle, but we killed them young.” She looked at David. “You wouldn’t eat three of these on a platter.”

  David laughed. “It would be a job.”

  “Who’s Rolo?” Sorrel asked, not particularly caring, just trying to distract herself from the bristling bodies and their revolting pink tails.
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  “Rolo owns The Three Rats – at least he did until he fell from the seating at the trial. Broke his neck. The bailiffs have taken over now.”

  “This is it, Sorrel – this is the answer to the city’s food shortage,” David said. He peered into her face. “You don’t look right.”

  “They give me the shudders,” she said.

  “But it’s meat – and lots of it. And there will be more when the breeding expands.”

  “Not just meat,” Stacey said. “By letting them grow so big, we get the pelts as well.”

  The squeaking and squealing of the animals had squirmed inside Sorrel’s head, along with the scratching of claws and the incessant scrabbling. She could barely hear herself think.

  “We’ve got some skinned and ready for you, this way.” Stacey led them to a chamber separated from the main cellar by an arch.

  To get to it, they had to pass the caged rats that were almost ready. They were much bigger than the ones Sorrel had seen run through the Dregs, perhaps half the size of Tailwagger, or more. One regarded her with sharp, intelligent eyes. It sniffed the air as she approached and as it raised its snout, she caught sight of its long, yellow incisors. It made a clicking sound as it looked at her, and she had the feeling that if it saw her again, it would recognise her.

  It was all too easy to picture it scurrying through the streets to get her and she was glad it would soon be dead.

  The skinned rats were packed into sacks and loaded onto wheelbarrows. Sorrel and David were greeted with wide grins and clapping hands when they arrived with their haul at the mass kitchen.

  The cooks, Warbles and Zee among them, prodded the firm flanks of the dead rodents, and oohed and aahed as they weighed the carcases in their hands.

  One cook, a tiny woman with a thin face and yellow hair, slammed a large rat on a wooden board and chopped off its scaly tail with a cleaver. She held up the tail by its fat root, her fingers barely meeting as they encircled it.

  “We’ll give ‘em a special treat tonight and do the tails separate – chopped and fried. That’ll lift their spirits.”

  The diners obliged the cooks. Their appetites were fired up by the appearance, no matter how little, of meat in their broth, and though they received barely more than a thimbleful of crispy fried rat tail each, the simple meal was savoured like the richest of banquets.

  Hollow though her stomach was, Sorrel had all but lost her appetite. She dabbled at her broth but could not suffer the meat in her mouth and the tail she forsook altogether.

  “You need to eat,” David said.

  “Not this.”

  “You’ve eaten worse.”

  “You must admit, the monkey was less than delicious,” Einstein said.

  “It was awful,” Sorrel agreed, “and I never was all that fond of bat. But the rats – I can’t. One of them looked right at me today and it was like being observed by a person. If Martin was an animal, he would be a rat.”

  Einstein laughed at this and, though Sorrel eventually joined in, she offered the meat in her bowl to Lizbit.

  The next morning, before dawn, the army began a new assault on the city. Initially taken by surprise, the defenders soon rallied and fought back with resin blasts and crossbows, but the resins blasts were less effective on the snowy ground and the army kept pushing. The wall was breached twice, and twice the invaders were beaten back, but there were many losses in the city.

  The army started early again the next day, setting fire to the North Gate. The flames were spotted in time by a watcher on the wall, but it was clear that the Monitors had had enough of squatting in the snow and ice. They meant to take the city.

  19.

  All or Nothing

  Yolanda’s speech had made its mark on the people. After Niven’s posturing, the precociousness of Willow, and the otherness of Juno, she was one of their own. Eating with them, fighting with them, suffering with them. But the continuing siege took its toll and the determined mood in the city changed as people became ever more fearful and agitated.

  The Monitors kept them on edge with sustained periods of attack followed by tense interludes of siege. When they were in attack mode, there was nothing in Dinawl to think about but defending the city. But when they withdrew, and the people had time to take stock of their lives, of what they had already lost and of what could yet be taken from them, they lashed out at each other. Fights broke out at a single word misheard, or a glance taken the wrong way, and it didn’t help that everyone was permanently hungry.

  Sorrel no longer eschewed the rat meat in her bowl. Like everyone else, she supped every last piece of every morsel served to her in the mass kitchen.

  Tensions ran particularly high during mealtimes. The city stores were running low and despite the fast breeding rate of the rats, they couldn’t keep up with demand. There wasn’t enough rodent meat to make up for the lack of everything else. The city was cut off from its suppliers. No fish, grain nor anything else could be brought into the city. Appetites were never satisfied. No-one ever felt like they’d had enough. Cheekbones became more prominent, clothes hung looser, and tempers frayed.

  Sorrel fretted when she saw how thin Eli was. David tried to reassure her, pointing out that the boy was lively enough, but he sounded as though he was trying to convince himself as much as her. When she saw how some of the other children had grown listless, she feared for the fate of her brother.

  Her fear only increased when Tailwagger disappeared. She asked Eli where the dog was. He put on a sad face and said, “Tailwagger gone.”

  When Alice overheard, she took Sorrel aside.

  “I don’t know if I should say anything,” Alice whispered.

  “Tell me,” Sorrel said. She was in no mood for easing the words out of her friend.

  “One of the bailiffs kept looking at the dog – I don’t know what happened for sure, but everyone is hungry, and Tailwagger…”

  “What about her?” Sorrel asked.

  Alice shrugged. “She might have a name, but she’s an animal – people eat animals.”

  “Who was it – who took her? Was it the blond one you’re friendly with?”

  Alice blushed.

  “I’ve seen the way you look at each other, Alice – was it him?”

  The words came out more intensely than Sorrel meant, and Alice backed away. “Kyle? No – he wouldn’t do that. I probably got it wrong. She’s sure to turn up.”

  When Sorrel left Eli, she shouted the dog’s name up and down the streets, but there was no response. She would have wept, but rage ate her tears.

  “I don’t like this,” Sorrel said to David and Einstein later. They were in a huddle, talking in low voices.

  “First Tailwagger, then what – people?”

  She looked daggers at Lizbit, who was hovering nearby.

  “She doesn’t do that,” David said.

  “You do not know for sure that the dog was taken,” Einstein said. “She is a sensitive animal. She will have picked up on the ugly mood in the city and is no doubt hiding. As for Lizbit – she is not a threat, but others may be. We need to stick together, not turn on each other, and remember that Lizbit is one of us.”

  “You’re right,” Sorrel said, “we should stick together. I’m taking Eli out of the jailhouse – he should be with us.”

  “And who will take care of him when we are on the wall defending the city?”

  Sorrel stared at Einstein, her heart battling her head as she tried to come up with an answer that fitted her wants.

  “I miss Eli too,” David said, “but he’s safer where he is.”

  The next morning, Sorrel and David were on watch, she on one side of the South Gate, David on the other. They walked up and down, bracing themselves against the cold, then met in the middle, on the ledge above the gate.

  Sorrel stared out at the army camp. After endless days of grey, the sky was clear blue, and a thick crust of ice had formed on top of the snow.

  The Monitors had been busy usin
g the snow to build a wall around their camp to protect them from the elements. They were smart, working with their environment, while inside Dinawl’s walls, the city was unravelling.

  At first, the camp looked still, but the longer she watched, the more movement Sorrel noted beyond the icy barricade. People walking between tents, moving things around. To the west, a hunting party heading to the forest. They had dogs with them, but fewer than she’d seen before.

  Sounds occasionally carried: hammering, the chopping of wood, a voice calling out.

  “Have you noticed,” she said to David, “we don’t hear their dogs howling as much as before?”

  David stared at the camp for a while before answering. “You’re right – though I can’t remember when it stopped.”

  “I don’t think it’s stopped, there’s just less of it. Look at the hunters going to the woods – they only have three, maybe four dogs, with them. They used to have lots. I think they’ve eaten the rest.”

  “Good,” he said, “if they’re eating the dogs, it must mean they don’t have anything else.”

  “It means they’re desperate. Do you hear the hammering?”

  “I hear it.”

  “They’re up to something.”

  “Another attack.”

  When she looked at David, Sorrel saw the weariness she felt reflected in his face. She was about to speak when she was distracted by a ruckus in the streets behind them: voices hollering, someone screaming.

  David frowned. “What now?”

  A mob appeared below, a swirl of bodies eddying around a woman whose hair was a mass of yellow curls. She was screaming, protesting that they’d made a mistake.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” Sorrel shouted.

  “She’s been hoarding food.”

  “We caught her and now she’s going to pay the price.”

  “Cast her out of the city – that’s the punishment.”

  “Nooo-oah!” the woman sobbed.

  “I know her,” David said. “She’s Goneril, wife to Quirke the blacksmith.”

  “Open the gates!”

  Goneril howled.

  “Stop!” Sorrel yelled. “You can’t do that. You can’t pass judgement.”