by Wendy Reakes
She must have gone two miles when the tunnel turned into a left-hand bend. She saw it up ahead and slowed down. And as she reached it, breathing heavily, she almost came to a stop as she edged around the curve of the wall. Around the bend and up ahead, the tunnel kept going. She halted and leaned down at her waist with her hands on her knees. She wanted to sit down for a while to soothe her aching legs, but the thought of her flashlight running out of power motivated her to keep moving forward, mile after mile.
Chapter 41
The boat Mark Buzzard was sailing on came to a stop at the dock where he had first entered the city only hours before. Cannes instructed him to get out and then he was pushed up the stone steps to the landing where the Llyns kept their rail boards in neat rows on racks. A man approached Cannes and whispered in his ear while he kept his eyes on Mark. The chief security guard, Cannes looked alarmed, as if the message was unexpected and unfamiliar. Mark was pushed to the side of the landing near the racks just as Cannes issued some silent orders to his men; tactical instructions Mark couldn’t comprehend.
He watched the four men disperse to the side of the landing, taking their positions at an entrance that looked like the gaping mouth of a cave. Mark couldn’t see inside, nor could he remember noticing it when he first entered the city. That made sense. He'd been more interested in saving his neck after he'd travelled the rails with Wren.
Wren! How frantic she was when her father made them take him away. He’d been in a spell, mesmerized by Wren’s beautiful voice and the music that had wafted around the cavern as if he was at the Royal Albert Hall itself. It was the smoke that had entranced him. It was dope, pure and simple, smoked by the elders in the corner of the market place where he had stood watching Wren with her father and the Bird Catcher. He couldn’t control his movements and when he found himself out in the marketplace in full view of everyone, he couldn’t believe he’d done it. They hadn’t given him time to explain, but he was confident that as soon as everyone calmed down, the king would realize they couldn’t keep an American citizen hostage like that.
Now, standing on the landing where Cannes’ men stood in anticipation of something happening within the next couple of seconds, Mark wondered how exactly he was going to exert authority over the people who held him captive. He could see the track opposite the cave entrance, running down from the level above, and just as the four security guards waited, it was only seconds later when all hell broke loose.
Chapter 42
A woman came out of the cave.
She was tackled by Cannes’ men just as a deluge of railboard riders swept down upon them, careering from the upper level one by one and skidding off their railboards like a circus act of trapeze artists. The one in front was spectacular. He was a young man with a formidable look, giving him an air that Mark couldn’t decipher. He wore black britches and a black studded shirt, and upon them he had a coat made of worn, rich brocade, in black, to match his long ebony coloured hair. Below his knees he wore black leather boots adorned with chains, and upon his head was a cap of black leather where, under the peak, covering his eyes, were goggles, resembling the ones pilots used when planes were first invented. His hands were dressed in fingerless black gloves and as he spun into the air before his railboard crashed into the wall of sandbags, his coat tails fanned out, making him look like a bat in the night.
Behind him, four more young men arrived at the bottom of the ramp. They were like stunt men, agile and skilled in the art of disembarking a railboard. As they collected themselves, and their boards, Mark looked back to the entrance of the cave where the woman was kicking and screaming as two of the guards held her at each side. “Let me go, let me go,” she was shouting.
The youth on the front railboard straightened his coat as he approached her and just as he came to a halt, he pulled up his goggles so they all could see his piercing green eyes. The other four riders joined him. Mark moved away from the wall and barged through to stand at the woman’s side. It was mayhem.
“Stand back, you’re scaring her…stand back.” They did not. Who was he to give them instructions?
Cannes began to bark orders at his men, until the young man in black shouted for them to be still. “Silence!” he shouted with an air of authority. Mark knew then he was someone of standing in that community. “Who are these people, Cannes?”
“Prince, the man is an upsider brought into the city by your sister, Wren. The king has instructed me to take him to Bedlam.”
“And, she? Who is the woman?”
Cannes shook his head. “We don’t know, Prince. She has just emerged from the smugglers tunnel.”
The prince stared at the woman while Mark held her arm. He tightened his grip, letting her know he was on her side, not theirs.
Chapter 43
Charlotte was flanked on all sides by strange looking men and one with an American accent. He was the one who was clutching her arm now, clutching it so tight she thought the blood would stop running through her veins. Perhaps he was as terrified as she and he needed someone to hang onto. She knew he was different from the rest just by the colour of his skin. The others were pale skinned, but he, the American, was tanned brown, clearly not an underground dweller like the others.
The one in black spoke. “Who are you?” He was a young man, a teenager really, with a fresh complexion and bright green eyes. The man at his side called him Prince. He was one of the royals the Prime Minister’s aide had told her about. His name was Herod…or something…No, it was Heron. That was it. He had the name of a bird.
“My name is Charlotte Croft. I have come to find my husband, Ben Mason.”
“Your husband?”
The guard, Cannes, interjected. “Prince, he is the British Prime Minister’s aide. He arrived today with the Jellalabad.”
Heron looked at her with a smirk on his face. “How did you find the entrance from the bridge?”
“I…my husband showed it to me before he left. He said I should come and find him if he didn’t return.”
Cannes was shaking his head. “The king is displeased with the recent breach in security.”
The prince looked at the Cannes. “Take them to Bedlam,” he said. And that was that.
Chapter 44
Ben Mason checked his watch. It was 0500 hours. He had slept well, despite the drama of the day before, not forgetting that blow-up with the American guy at the banquet. Who was he? No one knew. Not even the colonel and he always acted like he knew everything.
The girl…the princess, said she had brought the American into the city. But the king had proclaimed her duped; that the brown skinned stranger was in fact a spy sent by the Jellalabad to seduce her. The king had called her a fool for allowing herself to be taken in by an upsider and commanded her to go to her rooms in the palace and stay there until he had forgiven her. Her name was Wren. She had run into the night with her hands covering her pretty little face and her body wracked with sobs. It was the biggest cliché Ben had ever witnessed. It was like watching a friggin’ fairy tale?
And the colonel. What was it about him and his secret agenda that made Ben uneasy? He clearly had a thing going with the Bird Catcher, but from what Ben could make out, nobody knew that except him. If it was a secret love affair, was Wren the missing link to the whole Sous Llyndum project? Would she be the one; the one who had the ear of the king, who would ultimately have the final say on whether or not the Llyns accepted the British government’s proposal of sharing its resources? And why would they? What would they have to gain?
As far as Ben was concerned, he intended to get to the bottom of it soon, so that he could get the hell out of there and pick up his life with Charlotte. At least that was the plan.
Chapter 45
Geoffrey Barnes had only been temporarily thrown off guard. The arrival of the American had done that. Who was he? Where did he come from? What did he want? Perhaps he had been sent in by Weed. After all, wasn’t the American President concerned about losing what he ha
d already invested in the Sous Llyndum project? Maybe he needed someone on the inside to report back its progress? Yes, that was it. Mark Buzzard was surely an American spy.
Last night, the evening had taken a turn for the worse. The crowds had dispersed after the American was arrested and the colonel and his men had been commanded by the king to return to their quarters until their usual high level of security was maintained. Barnes had been escorted by some guards, wearing gloves with jagged blades embedded into their knuckles. They’d kept their fists rounded, making the blades protrude, giving them a threateningly dangerous edge.
The colonel had seen the guards before. Normally invisible, they had come out of hiding the last time he had visited, when they'd had another security breach and Barnes had to get his men out of there pronto. It appeared as if the guards only ever emerged when the king ordered it and the transference from a normally placid state, to men wearing blades on their hands, was a stark contrast within that strange city.
The blades weren’t their only weapon. The guards wore tight black trousers which were belted on their hips. And from the leather strap, which held them fast, were devices the colonel knew nothing about. The armoured straps went round their legs and attached to them were knives, silver bullets, keys and chains.
They wore waistcoats over collarless, button-up shirts. Around their arms, more straps held more armoury, until their entire bodies resembled one big utility belt, except they remained agile, their weapons unrestrictive, giving their limbs freedom to manoeuvre in time of conflict. A silver coloured mechanical contraption was strapped on their backs at a vertical angle. Barnes had no idea what it could do, but judging by the ammunition the guards bore on their arms and legs, it was a firing weapon of sorts.
Finally, on their heads, they wore bandanas, tied at the back, with long bedraggled hair sprouting beneath. The headscarves were different colours, determining rank: black and grey for the regular guards, dark blue for the seniors, and dark red for the high ranking. The chief security guard, Cannes, had also come out attired in battle dress. He had worn the red. He was the only one.
Chapter 46
Byron was pensive. The events of the day before had her worrying throughout the night. Not that that was different from any other night. She had been an insomniac ever since she had been given her high office as second-in-command to the king.
As she pulled on her robes of green, Byron’s thoughts went to the American. Why did he reveal himself like that, when she had left specific instructions for him to remain in Cannes’ quarters? She knew he wasn’t a spy. He was too naive for that. Besides, after years of living underground in Sous Llydum, Byron had become a good judge of character and it was rare for her first impression to be wrong.
She wasn’t wrong about Barnes either. She had no doubt in her mind he was using her to get to the king. But she was using him too. It had been a long time since she’d lain with a man and Barnes had become a most distracting guilty pleasure.
They had begun their affair when he'd come to Sous Llyndum two years before. That night, there had also been a banquet with revelry, wine and good food. They had talked and he had shown an interest in her background, wanting to know how she had come to live in the city underground. Not often flattered by the attention of men, it was not usual for her to talk about herself. But that night was special. Along with the wine and the atmosphere, and his obvious desire, she dropped her guard for once.
There had only been one other man since the king had passed her over when she was struck down by the falcon in the Forest of Birds. He was Cannes, the king’s chief security guard. He had courted her, despite the scars on her face and despite her ill-humour as she prepared herself for the role ahead. He had broken down her barriers and seen the woman she was and she had loved him for it.
When the king learned of their love affair, he demanded they stop. He said it was against the principles of the forefathers. Byron had argued that she had been the first female Bird Catcher since time began in Sous Llyndum, but he was unmoved. In the privacy of the palace state room, the king had given Byron an ultimatum: finish the affair or he would banish Cannes.
Banishment! It was the Llyn’s greatest fear, along with being sent to Bedlam and Damnation. Banishment from Sous Llyndum meant a life upside, in the light of day, and living among the people of the world above and their strange ways. Most of those banished ended up living on the streets of London until they died of starvation or the cold. Byron knew that for Cannes to be banished wasn’t an option, but she also knew that he would fight for her if he was prevented by the king from seeing her. Finally, for the safety of all, she broke it off with Cannes, explaining that her loyalty to her people was far greater than the love she bore him. It was only half true. She would have put her people first, but not at the expense of losing Cannes.
There had been no one since, not until Barnes had seduced her and she him.
A knock on the door startled her. “Who is it?” She knew from the light tap that it was Wren.
The princess swept in. She ran to the bed in the corner of Byron’s chamber, and threw herself down upon the mattress. Byron sighed, then went over to the girl and placed a hand on her shoulder. Wren had her head buried inside the crook of her arm and her hair was tousled and spread out upon the coverlet. She looked up and Byron saw her eyes were red from crying. Her cheeks were flushed a pale pink, which Byron recalled as the tearful face she had when just a baby.
“Don’t take on so.” She smoothed a curled lock of fiery red hair from the child’s cheeks. Child! She was a woman now and it was about time she found someone to curb those desires of hers. Wren was one of life’s angels; an innocent; a breath of fresh air in a land of black. She was a natural; unsullied by all things bad and corrupt. She saw the best in people and she trusted everyone. That is why the king had to protect her.
“Your father knows best. You must listen to him, girl.”
Wren leaned up on one elbow. “He doesn’t know my Mark. He doesn’t! If he did, he would love him as I love him.”
Byron gave an ironic laugh. “How can you love someone you have only just met? It is preposterous. If the king says you have been duped, then it is true. You don’t know how the world up there works. You are innocent. How could you know?”
Wren pouted. “I’m not so innocent, Bird Catcher. I have feelings here…” She took Byron’s hand and placed it on her breast. Byron could feel her heart pumping as if she had run a mile or more. “And here…” she moved Byron’s hand down, to below her waist to that place between her legs. Byron snatched it away.
“Girl, you don’t know what you’re saying. You are a danger to yourself.”
“Mark would look after me. He would protect me from danger.”
Byron stood up and looked down at Wren lying on the bed. “He can’t protect you here and you would not survive upside. What are you thinking?”
Wren sat up at the side of the bed. It was a canopied affair, draped with gauze-like veils, sprinkled with sparkles catching the flames from the candles. “I can try.”
“You cannot. You were born here. You would never survive the sunlight up there.”
“Dear, Byron.” Wren stood up and pointed her chin defiantly at the Bird Catcher. “Will you help me get my Mark out of Bedlam? Will you speak to my father in his good favour?”
Byron paced two steps and then stopped and turned. She took a deep breath to clear her mind of the ill words they had spoken. Then she said, “No, I will not.”
Chapter 47
Alice Burton took breakfast in her office. She had papers to work on, letters to write. The Sous Llyndum project had already taken too much of her time and she needed to catch up.
She spooned more sugar into her coffee, stirred it once, and placed the spoon onto the saucer. It made a tinkling sound as the silver touched bone china. The coffee was her favourite French blend and, with the taste of buttered toast still in her mouth, it was like nectar. As she sipped slowly, she stared
out of the window to the garden behind Downing Street, pondering the outcome of her conversation yesterday evening with the head of English Heritage. She had used her private line and caught up with him on his mobile. “Henry, this is Alice.” She pictured him at the other end of the line. She could hear people talking in the background. He coughed, as if he was clearing his throat.
Henry Radcliff was old school. He had a strong political background, and had once boasted the title of Mayor of London. He was a straight-talker, nobody’s fool, and he fought his corner with gusto, which was probably how he got the job in the first place, as Head of English Heritage. It was a plum post, one that was acquired only by knowing the right people, having the right background and talking the right language. More importantly, the holder of such a post had to be British through and through, and incorruptible. The latter part of those particular traits had yet to be proven.