Blood Fever

by Charlie Higson

  It was Peter Haight, swathed in netting like a beekeeper. ‘James Bond,’ he said in an affected, sarcastic, schoolmasterly voice. ‘Could do better… James is a bright boy with a lively and enquiring mind, but shows a rebellious spirit that needs to be quashed. Good at games, though he is perhaps not a team player. His attitude towards masters shows particular room for improvement. James has a tendency to answer back and needs to learn that he must do as he is told without question.’

  ‘Very good,’ rasped James. ‘It’s always amusing when a master tries to be funny.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Haight, squatting down. ‘We used to be friends.’

  James forced a laugh, but his throat was so dry that it came out like the croak of some diseased frog. ‘Why are you doing this?’ he said. ‘Ugo Carnifex is an idiot.’

  ‘Why does anyone do anything?’ said Haight. ‘For money, for power, for his place in the world.’

  ‘No,’ said James hoarsely. ‘Some people do things out of friendship, or kindness, or because they think it’s the right thing to do.’

  ‘There will always be fools on this planet,’ scoffed Haight. ‘How do you think it was for me, James? A poor teacher, spending his every day with the wealthiest, most privileged boys in the country? The spoilt offspring of aristocrats and admirals, of politicians and royalty? How I hated them. Their arrogance, their smug belief that they belonged at the top of the tree.

  ‘And then one day, travelling in Sardinia, I heard about Ugo and I sought him out. He and I both shared a passion for the emperors of ancient Rome. We discussed all that they achieved, and how they achieved it. He opened my eyes. He showed me that it didn’t have to be like this. I could achieve something for myself. If I gave him what he wanted, I could be a wealthy man. So I did what he asked. First of all I gave him information. I was in a perfect position to spy on the ruling elite of Britain, through their sons. And the next step was logical: to take what they had and give it to Ugo in return for a reward.’

  ‘The only slight problem,’ said James, ‘is that you have to kill everyone who gets in your way.’

  ‘Look here, old chap,’ said Haight, squatting down to be nearer to James. ‘Why don’t you tell me the truth? Ugo will be eternally grateful to me and I can make sure you are unharmed. I’m your only friend here, James.’

  ‘Some friend,’ said James. ‘You tried to kill me, didn’t you? That first day at the tower. You planned the whole thing. You invited me to Sardinia so that you could find out what I knew, and if necessary, arrange an accident, away from the school, in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘I was in a very precarious position at Eton,’ said Haight. ‘With the death of Sir Cathal Goodenough everything changed. It was no longer a game. I couldn’t risk being found out. And when I talked to you, I realised that you already knew more than I had feared.’

  ‘So you gave me drugged water,’ said James, ‘with some kind of sleeping draught in it. That’s what caused the bitter, salty taste, not a water-purifying tablet. You drugged me, and told me to climb the tower…’

  ‘It should have been straightforward,’ said Haight. ‘A boy with heatstroke tragically slips to his death.’

  ‘But you hadn’t counted on Mister Cooper-ffrench turning up, had you?’ said James. ‘He saw you and tried to warn me. So, instead of pushing me off, you grabbed me and pretended you’d stopped me from falling. He saved my life. But you would have tried again, wouldn’t you? If you hadn’t found out about Victor and his paintings. Your greed got the better of you.’

  ‘You know,’ said Haight, ‘a lively and enquiring mind is not something to be encouraged in a boy. You shouldn’t ask too many questions.’

  ‘What’ll you do, sir?’ said James. ‘Put me in detention?’

  Haight placed a foot on James’s throat. ‘All I have to do,’ he said, ‘is press my foot down and you’d be dead within two minutes. I could do it. I could do it as easily as stepping on an insect.’

  He took his foot away and James coughed painfully. He peered up at Haight. ‘You weren’t always like this,’ he said. ‘I saw you with Mark Goodenough that day. You felt sorry for him. You wanted to help him. How could you change so quickly?’

  ‘I had to,’ said Haight fiercely. ‘I had to be more like my heroes. The ancient Romans were utterly ruthless. They cared nothing for their enemies. When they defeated Carthage they killed every man, woman and child, and all their animals, even the dogs, and then they ploughed the city into the ground and sowed it with salt so that nothing would ever grow there again. The only things that mattered to them were power and glory.’

  ‘It must be pretty glorious,’ said James, ‘murdering schoolteachers and torturing children. I’m sure you’ll be in all the history books.’

  ‘We’ll see, James,’ said Haight coldly. ‘We’ll see how cocky you are in the morning.’

  ‘Just go away,’ said James, and then added, with as much poison as he could, ‘sir…’

  Haight grunted and straightened up. Then he said goodnight to the guard and James heard him splashing away past the dying oak trees.

  James’s anger had distracted him momentarily from the agony, but now that Haight had gone the itching and burning returned worse than before. He pulled against the straps, grinding his teeth, and the pain of the leather cutting into his wrists felt almost like a relief.

  He was covered in the hateful insects; they sought out any tender parts to feed on, his eyelids, around his nostrils, in his armpits…

  ‘Go away!’ he screamed. ‘Get off! Leave me alone. Please, leave me alone…’

  But it was pointless.

  The mosquitoes carried on coming.

  Slowly he started to slip in and out of consciousness. He kept imagining he was somewhere else, as his brain sought to give him some release.

  He was lying on the beach at Capo d’Orso with Mauro. It was a golden afternoon. The sun shone in the azure sky, but it was hot – too hot – it was burning down on him and his skin was peeling and blistering…

  He shook his head and forced his mind back to reality.

  But he wasn’t back in reality; he was in his bed at Aunt Charmian’s cottage in Pett Bottom, cosy and safe. She was bringing him a cup of coffee in the morning, to wake him up, but she spilt it and it fell on to the bedclothes, seeping though and scalding him.

  No.

  Not that.

  There was no escape; every route he tried to take led straight back here, to this reeking swamp and these bloodsucking monsters.

  He gave in. He let go.

  Let them come.

  Let them do their worst.

  There was nothing he could do.

  He opened his eyes, looked up at the patch of slightly paler darkness above him that must be the sky, and accepted the pain. If this was how he was going to die, then so be it. He wasn’t going to waste his last moments fighting it.

  There were two Bonds now. One had a body that was crawling with mosquitoes, itching and sore and bleeding. The other was just a spirit and it floated above the body, observing it, separate from the pain, detached. Slowly his consciousness dimmed, like the flame turned down on a lamp. At last he must have fallen asleep, because when he awoke something was different. The patch of sky had gone. He was aware of someone leaning over him. The guard probably, come to gloat.

  James swore, but then he realised that it couldn’t be the guard. The figure was too small, its movements too quick and furtive. Maybe it was a wild animal of some sort. He strained his eyes and tried to clear his foggy brain and as his vision focused, he was amazed to see a girl’s face.

  She had dark skin and black, glinting eyes framed by a tangle of thick hair. He was about to say something when she put a finger to his lips and scowled at him with the fierce, intent look of an animal.

  He kept quiet.

  She held a jackknife in her brown hand. It had a 5-inch blade shaped like a long narrow leaf that tapered to a vicious point. Mauro had shown him a knife like this b
efore; it was a resolza, a shepherd’s knife, and it was deadly.

  Quickly and expertly, she cut the thongs and helped him up. It was agony but he managed not to cry out. He was stiff all over and his skin hurt dreadfully when he moved.

  She again signalled for him to be quiet, then beckoned him to follow her. She was small and wiry and moved like a cat, looking around her all the time, her whole body tensed and alert. She hurried away across the island and into the water on sure, bare, feet, making no sound.

  James suddenly froze. He had seen the shadowy bulk of the young guard waiting for them in the swamp, sitting utterly still. He wanted to call to the girl, but she hurried straight past the man, ignoring him completely, and James now realised why he wasn’t moving.

  The guard was sitting in the water, slumped against a slimy rock, his head tipped backwards, his eyes staring and white-rimmed, his mouth open in a silent scream of terror.

  Below his chin was what looked like a second mouth cut into his throat.

  The girl had sliced clean across it with her knife.

  James retched and shrank back, horrified.

  He looked around for the girl and could just see her on the far side of the bog disappearing into the gully, crouched low and hurrying forward.

  James stumbled after her and caught up. She looked back at him and smiled, showing two rows of gleaming white teeth that flashed in the dark.

  Then she was off again, with James close behind her, not caring about the branches that lashed at his bare chest and face. Any sensation was better than the feeling of the mosquitoes on him.

  The girl led him out of the marshy area, down to the river and across it, using slippery stepping-stones. On the other side they climbed a narrow stone track that cut into the mountainside. James struggled to keep up. He could barely see 3 feet in front of him, and if he didn’t keep right behind the girl he didn’t know where to safely tread, but she was dressed all in black and was very hard to see.

  James was sweating uncontrollably and shivering at the same time. His vision was swimming and filming over. He wanted to tell the girl to stop or at least slow down, but he was scared of what might happen if they did.

  Finally he stumbled and fell forward, and found himself unable to get up again.

  ‘Please,’ he called out. ‘Wait…’

  He heard the girl stop and come back. She squatted down and inspected him, kissed him once, briefly, then ran off.

  James lay there panting, his head pressed against a cool rock. Maybe this was just a dream, another fantasy of escape. Maybe the strange, deadly girl hadn’t really existed.

  He rested there for some time, stones cutting into him, too weak to move, and then he heard male voices.

  Was it Ugo’s guards? What was going on? He felt so feeble and helpless.

  He forced himself up, ready to hide if necessary, but he saw the girl again, and she flashed her vivid, bright smile at him.

  She was with two tough, weather-beaten men wearing hairy shepherd’s jerkins, who looked at James with unblinking coal-black eyes. One was short and thickset with bandy legs, and the other was tall with a barrel chest and a huge drooping moustache.

  ‘Please…’ said James, and he tipped forward in a faint.

  The barrel-chested man caught him and lifted him as easily as if he was a baby lamb. Then he slung him over his shoulders and set off at a steady trot.

  James was dimly aware of being jogged and bounced through the mountains. The jerkin that his face was buried in smelt strongly of sheep, but he didn’t mind; he felt safe for the first time in two days.

  The journey seemed to take an awfully long time. They climbed ridges where the wind blew cold; they scrambled down steep slopes and clattered through narrow passes. At some point they padded through a dense wood. Then, as day broke, James opened his eyes to see that they were moving along a path that clung to the side of a mountain with a heart-stopping drop beneath them and a view out over a wide valley.

  They came into a village that seemed part of the mountain itself, built of crumbling, square stone buildings all huddled together and perched on the cliffside like Ugo’s palazzo.

  Old women in scarlet dresses and headscarves came to their doors as they passed. They looked at James with impassive, leathery faces. In a tiny square two old men with watery, malarial eyes and white beards were sitting on some steps smoking.

  James could see straight away that the people who lived here were very poor. They all looked worn down and craggy, like the granite rocks they lived on. There was tiredness in their faces, as if everything was an effort. He knew how hard it must be to try and scratch a living from this barren soil.

  The shepherds stopped and exchanged a few words with the locals. James was given water and bread, then the big man picked him up again and they left the village, climbing higher up the mountain.

  James dozed for a while and some time later he found himself in a dark place being gently lowered on to a soft bed of animal skins. The last thing he remembered before he slipped into oblivion was the girl’s brown, animal face, watching over him.

  24

  The Dance of Blood

  James awoke to an agony of itching. For a moment he didn’t know where he was; all he knew was that he was in pain. There wasn’t a bit of him that didn’t hurt; his whole body crawled with irritation. He knew he couldn’t move. He could feel the tight leather straps at his wrists and ankles, cutting into him. He remembered the dream he had had about being carried through the night and then he realised that he was scratching himself. His hand was somehow free. He could feel his chest studded with angry red lumps. He clawed at it with his broken fingernails before someone grabbed his arm and stopped him. He opened his eyes and saw a girl leaning over him, her black hair falling into her face, her eyes serious and intense.

  ‘No,’ she said, and shook her head.

  So it wasn’t a dream. Slowly the details of last night began to come back to him. The arrival of the girl, the young guard with his throat opened up, trying to follow the girl through the swamp, falling over and being carried by the shepherd, first to the village and finally to this place.

  He propped himself up and looked around.

  He was lying on a bed of straw and animal skins inside a massive cave with a domed roof. At the back were a row of ancient, worn steps that led up to a vertical crack in the rock and a bright slash of sunlight. Four swallows flew through the crack, dodging and swooping, but always keeping in formation. James watched as they darted up through a jagged round opening in the roof. The light from the opening fell on the remains of a Nuraghic village that filled the cave. James could make out the low stone walls of some fifty or sixty huts, and thought that this must once have been a fairly substantial settlement.

  A group of Sardinian men had made camp. They had lit a fire below the hole in the ceiling to keep the insects away, and were sitting around it, chatting in low voices. They wore the traditional black and white peasants’ outfits with shaggy sheepskin waistcoats and black stocking caps.

  Each man had a rifle at his side.

  James twisted his head and looked the other way. Here, the cave wall was partly open to the outside world, and through the low, wide gap he could see thick vegetation baking and shimmering in the heat of the day.

  He felt something cold on his skin and turned to look at the girl. She was sitting on a low wooden stool with a bowl in her lap, smearing a thick greenish-grey paste on to him. She began to gently rub it in with her strong, bony fingers.

  James lay back and tried to keep still. It was very difficult. He badly wanted to scratch himself but whenever he moved his hand she slapped it away and gave him a nasty look.

  The girl had her own small fire on which aromatic twigs and leaves were burning and sending off scented smoke. A little kettle hung over it on a tripod. The girl stopped what she was doing and peered into it. She then pounded up some wormwood leaves, bark and berries on a flat stone and scraped them in. She stirred the mix
ture for a while before pouring some into a tin cup and passing it to James to drink.

  It smelt foul, but he didn’t want to annoy the girl, so he took a sip. It was disgusting – bitter and gritty. He fought back the urge to vomit and caught the girl’s eye. She evidently expected him to drink the whole lot. He forced down another couple of sips before handing her back the cup and shaking his head.

  She looked cross and went back to applying the paste to his bites with intense concentration. The paste felt cool and soothing, but it did little to stop the horrible itching.

  After a while the girl grew impatient with his fidgeting and left.

  James took the opportunity to scratch himself all over, even though he knew that he shouldn’t.

  His arms were the worst affected and he raked them till they bled.

  The girl suddenly returned and yelled at him. She was with the big barrel-chested man who had carried James last night. He stroked his long black moustache, smiled at James, and then lashed his arms to his sides with thin ropes so that he couldn’t move his hands. The man gave him a friendly, apologetic look and wandered back over to the fire.

  Even though James knew it was for the best, he felt humiliated and helpless.

  He struggled up into a seated position and the girl fed him a cup of water like a baby. He drank some and dribbled the rest down his front.

  She laughed, and suddenly looked years younger. She became a cheerful, happy child, not the grim-faced assassin who had rescued him last night.

  A couple of minutes later there was a shout from across the cave as Stefano came down the steps. James was so relieved to see a familiar face he almost wept.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he said as Stefano hurried over. ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘The girl is Mauro’s sister, Vendetta,’ said Stefano. ‘She is crazy, but she will look after you. Her mother has taught her about herbs and healing. The men are from all around, from Orgosolo and Oliena and Fonni. The tall one, who brought you here, is Calogero, the chief of my village. He is a great warrior. He is feared in all Sardinia. He brought you here to be safe. Our people have always come to this cave when there is danger. Even before Roman times.’ Stefano stopped and grew more solemn. ‘I am sorry, James,’ he said. ‘I ran away and left you.’