by Arnot, Tim
Adam nodded.
Dixon addressed everyone once again, ‘While I’m away, Sergeant Wailing will be in charge. That is all. Carry on.’
There were groans all round, as everyone jumped and started packing the camp away. By the time Adam had a chance to look up, Barnes and Dixon in the flying contraption were a mere speck on the horizon.
35
Intercepted
‘WHAT WAS THAT thing?’ Flick asked. They were heading along the main road as fast as their horse could pull the vardo, which, wasn’t very fast.
‘Tracker,’ Chas replied. ‘That’s how the Kingsmen have been following us. They must have planted it on the vardo when they stopped us, before we met you. They went around to the back of the wagon. At the time I thought it was just because they didn’t know there wasn’t a door there, but now I know different. We’re well shot of it, and now they won’t know where we are.’
‘But this is the only road…’ Flick pointed out.
‘That’s why we’ve got to keep moving. Unless we can turn off, they’re bound to catch us up sooner or later.’
‘How many of them are there?’
‘I saw four when they stopped us, an officer, a sergeant and two men. But they had that infernal steam wagon of theirs, and there was probably more inside it.’
‘So if we can’t see steam, we should be all right?’
‘I wouldn’t count on it. This road might seem like it’s straight, but there are enough dips and bends that they could be almost upon us before we see them.’
‘But if we can see steam, that’s bad, yes?’
‘Yup.’
Flick looked back, but she couldn’t see anything through the canopy of the trees that stretched both sides of the road. It was obvious that they couldn’t turn off; not only were the trees and undergrowth too thick to get a cart through, but the steep slope up on their left and down on their right would quickly tip the vardo onto its side.
‘If we can find a turning before they spot us, then maybe we can get out of sight. It’ll be dark soon, and with a little bit of luck, they might miss us,’ said Chas.
A few minutes later, they started seeing signs of an old settlement. Low walls started to appear at the sides of the road, and suggestions of brickwork could be made out under big matted piles of ivy. Then they spotted a turning to the left. It was a narrow track between overgrown walls, and quite steep.
‘We’ll keep going,’ said Chas. ‘If they see the turning they’ll have to check it out, and that’ll slow them down.’
They passed a turning on the right that sloped steeply down, and another on the left, and another. Then just as they were almost out from the ruined settlement, they turned off. ‘This one will do,’ Chas said.
The road they were now on was not as steep as any of the others that they had passed. It wound right then left in a big sweeping curve. Chas pulled into a wide gap between ruined walls that was quite well hidden from the road.
‘We’ll make camp here,’ he said. ‘We should be quite close to the river Avon, and we’ll reach Bath tomorrow. Hopefully we can lose them there. But for tonight, no fires, no lights, nothing that’ll give us away.’
‘What made you go on the run?’ Hannah and Flick were sitting in the grass, looking down on the river below them as it meandered through steep banks. They had finished their cold supper and had strolled a few hundred metres from the camp to enjoy the twilight. A large flock of small birds, maybe swallows or starlings was swooping back and forth low over the river, attracted by the flies and midges.
‘It started with a Scav,’ Flick began.
‘This is about a boy! It is isn’t it?’ Hannah squealed excitedly.
Flick nodded. The flock of birds split into two and wheeled around each other in an intricate spiral, rising up and up until they broke apart, darting right and left.
‘I knew it! It always is!’ Hannah clapped her hands. And grinned. She shifted onto her knees, Her eyes were wide with excitement, ‘Tell me everything.’
Then she gasped with the horror of realisation, ‘It wasn’t the Scav who murdered your family was it?’
‘No, it wasn’t him,’ Flick said. Staring straight ahead, she took a deep breath, ‘It was a scumbag called Griffin who tried to get to the Scav through me, and when it didn’t work, he killed my family.’ The memory flooded back and a tear trickled down her cheek. Talking made the memories seem more real, more painful, and she didn’t want to hurt, not like this.
But Hannah persisted. ‘Didn’t you go to the Watch, or the mayor or something?’ she asked. ‘They’d have locked him up.’
Flick sighed. ‘He is the mayor,’ she said simply.
‘Bugger. So he locked you up for a crime he committed.’
Flick nodded. ‘Anyway, I escaped.’
The birds swirled around in their intricate patterns, breaking apart and reforming like a big ever-changing ball, the noise of a thousand tiny wings thrumming in time to the pulse of their aerial dance. The two girls watched in silence.
‘What about you? Have you got a boyfriend?’ Flick thought this was much safer ground.
Hannah nodded. ‘I don’t see him much, ‘cos he lives in Bristol, and we travel around a lot. I haven’t actually seen him in, like, months!’
‘What does he do?’ Flick asked.
‘I don’t actually know. Something secret I think. He never talks about it anyway. We’re going to have our tattoos done next time I see him.’
‘Your tattoos?’
‘Yeah. Many Scavs have life tattoos. It tells their story, defines who they are. Whenever something significant happens it’s added to the tattoo. Not literally but like, a symbol.’
Flick wondered if Shea had a tattoo, and what it looked like and whether it now had her in it.
So have you got a tattoo? Can I see it?’ she asked.
‘I haven’t got it yet,’ she said, ‘but soon. Come on, it’s getting dark, let’s get back.’
Bad dreams kept Flick tossing and turning most of the night. When dawn finally came, four bleary eyed people staggered from the vardo, seemingly more tired than when they went to bed.
‘Let’s not do that again, please?’ Hannah begged. ‘Sleeping in the same room is bad enough, yet alone having to share a bed.’
Flick stomped off back towards the road, and flopped down next to a tree. The bad dreams were not her fault, and she didn’t see why she should apologise for them. She didn’t want to have them any more than the others wanted to hear her scream and shout in the night.
A moment later, Jules came up and sat down beside her. ‘It’s okay. Really,’ she said. ‘We’re just a little grumpy in the mornings.’
Flick said nothing and just stared down the lane.
Hannah came with a bowl of oatmeal. ‘Look, I’m sorry about what I said.’ She held out the bowl. When Flick didn’t take it, didn’t even look up, she put the bowl on the ground and went back to the wagon. Only then did Flick pick up the bowl and eat, never taking her eyes off the road.
‘Come on then, let’s get moving!’ Chas called.
They had never really set up much of a camp and so there was almost nothing to put away, just a few dirty dishes. ‘Don’t worry about them,’ Chas called. ‘We’ll clean them later. Amelia, you ride inside, that way you’ll be out of sight if we get stopped. Hannah will be able to hide you.’
The horse was hitched up and they set off back to the main road.
With no windows, and the door shut, Flick didn’t have much idea of where they were going. She could tell within a little if they were going down, or up, or turning left or right, but otherwise the little room she was in just bumped around a bit. This went on for some time until there were two sharp taps on the door. Flick felt the knot forming in the pit of her stomach.
‘That’s the signal!’ whispered Hannah. ‘You have to hide!’
‘Yes, but where? hissed Flick.
‘I’ll show you.’ Hannah pulled back the mattress on th
e big double bed to reveal a wooden panel inset with a brass ring. She lifted it, and Flick could see a narrow compartment beneath the board that was barely bigger than she was. ‘Get in!’ Hannah whispered.
Flick squeezed into the compartment, and the lid closed above her. It was actually roomier than it had looked from the outside; she had enough space that she could roll over and stretch out. Perhaps she’d end up sleeping here, she thought, although the only access point being underneath the master bed might make getting up in the night a little awkward.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could see that it wasn’t pitch black. There were small gaps between the boards and they let in tiny cracks of light. This must stretch out under the back porch, she thought, which would explain the small pieces of hay that she could feel, since the hay bales for the horse were stacked on the back porch. She settled down to wait; there was not much else she could do.
The vardo must have stopped, although she didn’t recall it stopping, but it was no longer bumping around. There were voices. She recognised Chas, indignant and bellowing. And there were others. A man she didn’t recognise, demanding to be allowed to search the vardo. There was another voice, male, definitely familiar… Adam?
What was Adam doing here? She tried to hear what they were saying, but it was muffled through several layers of wood. It sounded like the usual Kingsman rhetoric, and she caught the odd word here and there that sent a shiver down her spine; fugitive, capture, murderer.
What hurt most was that these words were spoken by Adam, or at least the voice that sounded like Adam. He couldn’t believe them surely? He couldn’t! She wanted to call to him, to shout out that she was innocent and at once it would all go away, but she didn’t dare speak, didn’t dare utter a sound.
Then the shiver turned to terror. She felt the vardo rock. Someone was climbing onto the front porch.
They were coming in!
‘Search the inside, and be thorough!’ she heard, followed by the sound of shuffling feet. Then she heard the sound of cupboard doors being opened and banged shut, drawers sliding open and closed, all getting nearer the back, coming closer. Then she heard the doors to the cupboards under the bed. She could almost touch whoever was searching, feel their breathing. Then there was silence.
‘Did you check under the sofa and under the bed?’
‘Yeah. Nothing there, just cupboards full of stuff,’ an unidentified male voice replied.
‘Look under the mattress? They sometimes have hidden compartments!’
Flick’s heart stopped.
‘Yeah. Just boards. Nothing there.’
Huh? How did he not see the brass rings?
‘Okay, move out.’
The voices faded until there was silence once more, and Flick lay there hoping that when finally the cover was lifted, it would be a friendly face.
‘Turn it upside down! Search everywhere! It’s got to be here somewhere!’ Chas was running around, frantically pulling at drawers and cupboards, and throwing their contents about willy nilly. Jules, Hannah and Flick stood back and watched bemusedly.
‘I reckon they replaced the tracker we found,’ Chas called from inside the vardo. ‘Just gotta find it…’
‘The tracker Amelia found, Dad,’ Hannah called.
‘Yeah, whatever.’
For several more minutes, Chas continued to search through the interior of the vardo, attempting to find the Kingsmen’s device.
‘Perhaps they hid it in the hay again?’ Hannah suggested.
‘No.’ Chas was adamant. ‘They put it there last time; they won’t put it there again. They know we found it there; it’s the first place we’d look.’
‘And did we look there, Dad?’
‘Of course not, there’s no point!’
‘Come on Amelia, let’s go and search it just in case. Those Kingsmen are devious!’ Flick and Hannah started pulling the hay bales out but they didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.
‘Well, at least we know,’ Flick said.
‘Aha! Got you!’ Chas shouted at last. He climbed down from the vardo clutching the little black box in his hand.
‘Where did you find it?’ Flick asked.
‘This’ll make you laugh,’ Chas said. ‘They put it at the back of the stove. They’re telling us they know we found the last one and burnt it.’
‘Hang on…’ said Flick. ‘If they’re sending us a message, doesn’t that mean they expected us to find it?’
‘So? We found the last one.’
‘But if they knew we’d find it, why plant it there? These things must be expensive.’
‘Because they are sending us a message, of course!’
‘So why didn’t they just say something when they stopped us?’
‘Aargh!’ Chas threw up his arms. ‘Because it’s all a game to them!’ he yelled.
‘It isn’t a game to me,’ Flick pointed out.
‘Yeah, well we found it, so let’s just kill it, clean up the mess and get on our way.’
‘I’ve got a better idea,’ said Flick. ‘Why don’t we keep it, and get rid of it on a passing wagon going somewhere else? If they want to play games, we can play games too.’
‘Yes, Dad, we should do that. They’ll think we haven’t found it and go chasing off in completely the wrong way!’
Flick could see a light go on in Chas’s head, and a big grin spread across his face. ‘I’ve got a better idea,’ he said. ‘We’ll split up.’
‘I’m certain that was the bag we gave her,’ Corporal Ross said, ‘and the arrows confirmed it. She was definitely there, or at least she had been.’
‘She wouldn’t go far without it,’ Adam added, ‘at least not willingly.’
‘Any other comments?’ Sergeant Wailing asked.
The truck had parked on a ridge overlooking the ancient city of Bath. Adam and the others leaned against the black metal side panel, gazing down on it. Like many other places, the centre had survived largely intact, hardly surprising as parts of it dated all the way back to the Romans; it had already survived The Collapse of civilisation several times.
‘There was a secret compartment under the bed,’ Young said. ‘The cupboards simply weren’t deep enough to go all the way back.’
‘You think she was in there?’ Adam asked.
Young shrugged. ‘Probably. You heard the sergeant, she’s no longer our concern.’
‘That’s my sister you’re talking about,’ Adam pulled Young to his feet and squared off against him. ‘She’s the reason we’re here in the first place.’
They circled round each other. Adam took a swing, but Young skipped back and Adam’s fist only connected with air, throwing him off balance.
‘Maybe at the start, but you heard the new orders.’
Adam charged in, grabbing Young around the midriff and pulling him to the ground, but Young was fast and grappled Adam onto his back and his fist swung into his face.
When Adam opened his eyes several seconds later, his jaw was throbbing and he could taste blood in his mouth. Something tickled his nose and he wiped at it, feeling a sticky dampness on his fingers. More blood. He realised someone was leaning over him and he blinked until they came into focus. Anderson. She held a finger up and waved it in front of him
‘Nothing’s broken,’ she said, ‘You’ll live.’
Adam managed a half smile. ‘Oww.’
‘Guess I’m on report for fighting now eh, Sarge?’ He looked up at the sergeant sheepishly.
‘Fighting? I didn’t see any fighting,’ said the sergeant. ‘Did you see any fighting?’
‘No sarge,’ Morgan replied.
‘Young, were you involved in any fighting?’
‘No sarge,’ Young replied.
‘What I saw, cadet, was a young and foolish man not looking where he was going and walking into the side of the APC. Is that what happened cadet?’
Adam swallowed. ‘Yes sarge.’
The sergeant turned to go. ‘And don’t do
it again.’
‘No sarge.’
‘I think they’ve found it!’ Fletcher called from inside the truck.
Adam and the others crowded around Mo’s console. She pointed at the display. ‘See. These are the two trackers.’ She indicated the two yellow dots.
‘But you’ve still got both signals,’ Adam was confused. ‘Surely if they found a tracker they would have destroyed it, like last time.’
Mo grinned. ‘They’re trying to outsmart us. Those signals are going in different directions.’
‘So which one is the vardo?’ Adam asked.
‘Where did you plant them?’ Mo asked Young
‘One behind the stove, where it should be easy to find,’ Young replied, ‘and one in the lining of the girl’s backpack.’ He shot a look at Adam.
Adam finally twigged. ‘She would never go anywhere without that backpack. So… as long as she has the backpack we know where she is.’
‘And we can find her any time we want,’ Young added.
‘But which dot is the backpack, and which dot is the stove?’ Adam asked.
‘Ah, that’s the clever bit,’ Mo grinned, ‘The trackers are coded. Assuming that Young here told me the right numbers…’
‘Four-six-Two-Three is the one I put in the backpack,’ he said firmly.
Mo pointed to one of the dots. ‘Then that’s where she is.’
36
The Kingsman Princess
THE GRAND COUNCIL met in a building on Spike Island, the strip of land separating the floating harbour to the north from the tidal New Cut of the River Avon to the south.
There were six elected members: Pat Pearse the Master of Ships, Neema Hassan the Master of Technology, Alice Cain the Master of Information, Jim Sharif the Master of Justice, Enda Quinn, Chancellor, and Tomas Bradbury the Master Scavenger. The three men and three women, were seated around a large table. They were the policy makers, arbiters, lawyers, exchequer, decision makers. To the extent that the Scavs had a government, they were it. To the extent that the Grand Council had a leader, Tomas Bradbury was it. He had the casting vote.