Of course, Betty had known all this. She was playing a long game; that was why she’d sent him to the Parish in the first place, to provoke some sort of response from Guz, bring the Chilterns under the control of someone who could protect them from whatever was going on further north. It was no wonder she and Guz got along so well. They had a lot in common. Always planning, always plotting, always preparing. Not bothering to tell anyone what was going on in their heads, no matter how many people got hurt.
“Well, they’re not going to have any choice,” she told him. “Not that they could do much about it at the moment, even if they wanted to. Completely disorganised. It’s a miracle they didn’t wipe each other out years ago.” She looked at the note she had been writing to herself. “We do need someone to have a wander up there and have a shufti, of course,” she said vaguely. “How’d you feel about doing that? A few days’ rest here, we can have a chat about Thanet, then you can go when you’re ready. No rush. Hm?”
She looked up from the desk, expecting Adam to stand up and storm out of the tent, but he had fallen asleep in the chair.
TWO DAYS AFTER the firefight, Albie emerged from hiding and saddled his horse. Peace had settled over the Parish, a silence broken only by the hissing of the rain and some occasional hail. He’d managed to avoid the soldiers and some black-clad people who looked even worse than the soldiers, had somehow slipped through their cordon in the chaos and found shelter in some little brick sheds behind a wall deep in the undergrowth. It looked as if someone else had been living there until quite recently. The sheds stank of piss and shit and human grease, and there were bits of abandoned clothing and gnawed rabbit bones everywhere. He’d spent the first night there too terrified to sleep, in case the soldiers or whoever had been using the sheds came and found him, but when it became obvious that he was secure, he fell into a fitful period of nightmares, from which he woke feeling even worse than before.
He let the horse walk slowly through the woods, senses at breaking point, listening for approaching danger. But nothing came. He found a track leading north, and shortly afterward he came upon a sign indicating that he was on the Ridge Way, and he turned towards his distant home. After a couple of hours, he began to relax.
Sudden movement right at his side, and he glanced round just in time to see what looked like a scarecrow rushing straight at the horse. He tried to bring his shotgun up, but the scarecrow made a remarkable leap and tumbled him out of the saddle, hitting the ground face down heavily enough to drive the breath from his lungs and break one of his arms. Something big landed on his back and a filthy hand like a bundle of bones clamped itself over his mouth and nose, and he smelled a terrible foul odour and heard a high, wordless sobbing, and the last thing Albie Dodd ever felt was something cold and razor-sharp sawing back and forth across his neck.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
IT WAS A long time before Max was well enough to drive the wagon. Rose didn’t want him to go, but one morning he got stiffly out of bed and washed and dressed and went out and hitched up the horses. He looked around the compound and noted the marks of the war and he shook his head.
Outside, on the road, the marks were even more obvious. He drove slowly past the scorched trees and burned-out buildings. He’d been expecting it to be worse than Rose had told him, but he hadn’t expected it to be this much worse. The road took him past the Tomlinson compound, and through the trees he could see that it was just gone. The gate stood open and the buildings inside were smoke-blackened ruins already being reclaimed by weeds.
It seemed that the area had been hit by an invading army. More than one, actually. At breakfast this morning, Sophie had leaned over to him and informed him, in a grave six-year-old’s voice, that Wayland was a devil who had come “to stop us all being cunts,” and Rose had lost it completely, cuffed her round the ear and shrieked at her about swearing and then stormed into the bedroom and locked the door. She still hadn’t emerged when he left.
No one could tell him with any great certainty what had happened. Nell sat in her room, refusing to speak to anybody. John Race was gone – when Max had asked after him, the hands had just shrugged and muttered, “Wayland,” and refused to look him in the eye. Patrick was dead. “Lyalls,” the hands said, and again refused to look him in the eye. While he lay in his bed, the whole world had changed.
At the Lyall farm, some of Harry’s labourers were working to repair the gate and the hole in the wall. Some of them looked up as Max approached, but most of them seemed shell-shocked.
Max pulled up just outside the ruined gateway and nodded down to one of the workers. “Morning, Reg,” he said.
“Max,” Reg said dully. Max saw a couple of people with guns among the group, but they kept them slung over their shoulders.
“Harry about?”
Reg gestured towards the main house.
“Mind if I go on in and have a word?” Max asked.
Reg shrugged and looked over at one of the guards, who also shrugged, so Max shook the reins and the horses walked on through the gateway and into the compound.
Inside, if anything, it was worse. The whole top floor of the Lyall house, the house Alice Lyall had been so proud of, was shattered and burned out. The compound was littered with rubbish and wreckage. People were working to clear stuff up, but more were just sitting around hollow-eyed, exhausted. Max took a brief, empty pride in thinking that at least his own people were in better shape.
He tied the horses up to a piece of farm machinery lying on its side near the house, got down, and walked over to the house. The front door was open and he rapped on the frame and called, “Lyalls?”
Charlie, the youngest of the Lyall kids, stepped into view down the hallway. “The old man in, son?” Max asked in what he hoped was a kindly voice. “Just want a word.” The little boy just stared at him. After a moment, he brought his fist up to his mouth and started to gnaw his knuckles.
Harry came out of one of the rooms behind Charlie. He looked at Max for a moment, then put his hand on his son’s shoulder and said gently, “It’s all right, Charles, it’s only Mr Taylor come to see us.” His voice sounded as if it was coming from some awful distance. “Say hello to Mr Taylor, there’s a good lad.”
Charlie muttered an almost-inaudible “’lo,” and then bolted down the hall towards the kitchen.
And then it was just Max and Harry, standing staring at each other.
THEY WALKED. NOT because Harry didn’t want to rub the wreckage of his home in Max’s face, particularly, but because the house was all but uninhabitable. They were quiet for quite some time, neither of them willing to start the conversation. Eventually, they came to the brow of the hill and looked out over the flooded Vale, two middle-aged men standing side by side, hands in pockets, contemplating unimaginable loss.
“How’s Rose?” Harry said in the end.
“Poorly. But getting better.”
They stood there in silence for a few more minutes. Harry asked, “What happened?”
“They were waiting for me on the road,” Max said. “Rob and two other lads, I don’t know who they were.”
“Brannings,” said Harry. “From up Risborough way.”
Max nodded. “They wanted my stuff, although fuck knows why. I shot Rob, he shot me, I killed the two Branning lads. I’m sorry it happened that way, but that’s what happened.”
Harry scratched his unshaven chin, put his hand back in his pocket. Max thought he looked shrunken, diminished. His clothes seemed too large for him. They stood in silence again. Birds sang, the sun continued its battle to break through the clouds. Max thought that if the sun ever did come out properly, people would fall to their knees and worship it.
“Brannings legged it,” Harry said eventually. “I sent their boys’ bodies back but the place was empty. Last anyone saw of them, they were heading west. Dunno what they thought they had to be afraid of. We buried the boys at their house.” He shrugged.
“I never knew them,” said Max.<
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“She was all right,” Harry said. “Antoinette. The husband was a twat. Boys took after him, I expect.”
Max sighed at the thought that all this had been caused by three cocky lads. If they’d killed him on the road that day, none of it would ever have happened. He’d just have disappeared quietly, no one would have been able to prove anything. Maybe Rob and the Brannings would have done it again and again until someone finally stopped them. Maybe not. He started to say something, then wondered what on earth he could say that would do any good.
“People keep talking about Wayland,” he said instead.
Harry nodded. “Don’t know what that was all about. It wasn’t us. I went over to the Smithy and someone had been living there.” He shrugged. “Hard to work out what was him and what was us, really. Your Patrick...” His voice trailed off.
“What about our Patrick?”
Harry shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. We were all to blame. Maybe there never was a Wayland. Maybe it was us all the time.” He looked at Max. “I want to apologise for what my boy did.” It sounded as if he was saying it from the depths of his soul.
There was still a dead place in Max’s heart where Patrick had been. He didn’t think it would ever go away. “We’re never going to be able to apologise enough to each other,” he said. “Best we can do is stop all this and try to sort ourselves out.”
Harry bunched his fists in his pockets, and Max saw there was something else, another weight to add to the already huge burden he was going to have to carry for the rest of his life. “It was James shot Faye Ogden,” he said finally.
Max groaned and closed his eyes. “Oh, fucking hell, Harry.”
Harry didn’t look at him. “He told me a couple of days ago. Said he wanted to get back at your family for Rob, and for killing our chickens.”
Max snorted a laugh. Couldn’t help himself. “Chickens.”
“Someone broke into one of our hen runs and killed all the chickens, not long after you were hurt. Sort of thing an angry kid would do.”
Max felt a falling in his heart. “Patrick.”
“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter now.”
“What are you going to do? With James?”
“Sent him down to Newbury.” He sounded as if he was fighting back tears by an effort of will. “Faye’s people will want him dead if they ever find out, and I can’t...”
Max reached out to put his hand on Harry’s shoulder, thought better of it, put his hand back in his pocket. They were silent for some time, looking out over the Vale. Max thought he could see smoke rising from distant buildings, here and there.
“So,” he said finally. “What are we going to do now?”
“You and me?”
“No. We’ll sort things out. There’s been too much killing. No, I meant everything else.”
Harry thought about it. He said, “The others, they were from Kent, as best we can work out. Some of them got away. If they ever make it back there and talk about what happened here, whoever sent them’s going to be pissed off with us. That’s on top of whatever they were already pissed off with us about.”
“Someone said they were looking for a traveller.”
Harry nodded and fought to remember the name. “Harvey. Hardy?” He shrugged. “I wasn’t exactly paying a lot of attention. Maybe I should have.”
“Poor fucker probably wasn’t even here.”
“Not if he had any sense.”
Max said, “If these people in Kent are pissed off with us, we’ll need to be ready for them. Just in case.”
“I was thinking of sending someone over there to talk to them, find out what the fuck’s going on.”
“You think that’s a good idea?”
Harry shrugged. “That’s what Betty Coghlan said, but she’s caused enough trouble round here.”
“None of this had anything to do with Betty. From what I hear, she’s the one who stopped it, bringing those soldiers with her.”
Harry hawked and spat. “Plymouth,” he said. “Call themselves Guz. Sailors.”
“Soldiers, sailors. Whatever.”
“I talked with Betty and the woman from Plymouth.”
“Hm.” Max had missed them; he was going to have to go over to Blandings at some point and have a quiet word with Betty himself.
“They say there’s something bad going on in the Cotswolds.”
Max thought back to the last conversation he’d had with Betty, the conversation which had, in its way, started all this. “I told her that,” he said. “Sort of.”
“She says someone’s going up there to take a look, report back. Then she and the Plymouth people are going to work out what to do.”
Max had driven past the Abbot farm on his way to the Lyalls’, had seen the Marines camped there. They’d started to make repairs, cleared out the compound. “They look like they’re settling in for the long term.”
“I think that’s the plan. Nobody knows what to do about it yet.”
Max made a rude noise.
“They’re quite scary actually,” Harry allowed. “But they’re on our side.”
“They say.”
“The woman who was here, she seemed to know what she was doing. I wouldn’t mind going down there one day and seeing what they’ve made of the place.”
“I might come with you.”
Harry nodded. “I’m not going yet, anyway. The monsoons will be here soon, then it’ll be winter. Spring’ll be soon enough.”
“There’s too much to do here, anyway.”
“That’ll be right.”
“And there’s always Wayland,” said Max, and he saw Harry wince. “I was thinking,” he went on, “that maybe we should go and knock that fucking tomb down.”
“No.” Harry seemed to gather himself a little. “No. We leave it. To remind us.”
ON THE WAY back to the farm, Max saw a figure some distance ahead of him, marching along the track in a determined manner. It took him a few minutes to catch up. The figure was wearing a long hooded coat, a big rucksack on his back, and a battered nylon case slung over its shoulder. Max pulled the wagon alongside, but the figure made no sign of paying any attention.
“Afternoon,” said Max amiably. “Give you a lift?”
“No,” said a voice from within the hood. It sounded angry.
“Just passing through, are we?”
“Trying to get out of this fucking madhouse as quickly as humanly possible.”
Max couldn’t fault him there. “Where are you off to?”
“Oxford.”
“I’ve heard some bad things about Oxford.”
“Yes. Me too.”
They made their way, side by side, down the track for a little while, until they came to the turnoff leading to the Taylor farm.
“Well, this is me,” Max said.
No reply.
“You take care,” said Max. This time, there was a quiet grunt from the figure marching along beside him. He drew the horses to a stop and sat watching for a few minutes as the figure stomped off into the distance, then he flicked the reins and clucked his tongue and turned the horses towards home.
A MINUTE OR so later, what had once been Morty Roberts stepped out onto the track. Muttering to himself under his breath, he looked in the direction the wagon had gone, then in the direction the determined figure had taken. Where to? To stay? Or to go? Whole vistas of possibility opened up in his mind. He shouldered his rifle and picked up the sack containing Albie Dodd’s head, and set off for Oxford.
About the Author
Dave Hutchison is the multi-award winning author of the critically acclaimed Fractured Europe series for Solaris: Europe at Autumn, Europe in Winter, Europe at Midnight and the forthcoming Europe at Dawn.
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THE AFTERMATH: A hundred years after asteroid strikes wiped out civilisation, the new communities rising from the ashes struggle to survive.
AFTER THE WAR: The Armies of Light gathered, and after a long, bitter war, the Dark Lord was slain. But glory is easy; true peace is hard, and bitter.
Young Forktongue Davy has visions. Epilepsy, his Ma calls it, and they mean he’s barely able to help around the family farm. But something about the lad, weakling though he is, is attracting attention. The menacing stranger, who might be the angel of death himself; the inhabitants of the women-only community at Wycombe, whose reach extends over the whole of the Chilterns; Daniel from the mysterious Guz. They all want Davy for their own reasons. But what use can he be to anyone? How can he be the key to the coming war between Father John in the North and the women of Wycombe. He has visions of flight, but how can flight ever be possible in this shattered world, where technology has almost wholly reverted to pre-industrial levels? A simple farmboy, kidnapped for reasons he cannot fathom, caught up in events beyond his power to control—but his visions may be the key to the future...Young Forktongue Davy has visions; epilepsy, his Ma calls it. He’s barely able to help around the family farm.
But something about the lad is attracting attention: the menacing stranger who might be the angel of death himself; the women-only community at Wycombe; Daniel, sent by the mysterious Guz.
They all want Davy for their own reasons.
But what use can he be to anyone? He has visions of flight, but how can flight ever be possible in this shattered world?
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