by Gwynn White
A shot cracked out. Up on the battlements, the old spairjack maester spun, robe flapping. She thought he’d been shot, but then he swept an arm around. The doll-like figure of a man cartwheeled over the battlements and fell into the bailey. Leonie heard the thump when he hit.
Someone’s having their little joke but it’s not very funny.
A puff of wind touched her face. It whistled in her ear. Crack!
Blood of the saints, that wasn’t a blank round!
Her training took over. She wrenched her hands free and threw herself to the ground. She wriggled into cover behind a stand of spindly alders, rose on her elbows. The Haymakers were scattering, sergeants trying to form them up, some of them firing their rifles. Tracer sputtered bright in the rain. That was all they had to fire, that and blanks, because this was just an exercise. Except someone obviously hadn’t got the memo about that.
She looked for the ROCK assault teams. She saw one of them stand, bring his PX-80 up to his shoulder, and take aim at the battlements. Then Sir Philip shot him in the back.
Everyone had gone mad.
She ran, hoping they would think she was just another Haymaker running for her life.
Everything looked the wrong size, at once too big and far away.
Sir Philip Lancashire’s head exploded. He fell over.
The king burst out of the weeds. He ran through nettles and briars to Sir Philip.
The ROCK knight in command of Chimera One dashed after him. Leonie recognized the knight by his missing left arm, the sleeve pinned up and flapping. It was Sir Alec Northumberland. His pistol was pointing at the king’s back and he was firing as he ran, at the king.
Leonie covered the last yards to the Rover, hurled herself in behind the wheel, gunned the engine.
Alec Northumberland stumbled. He went down and rolled across the rough ground as if someone were kicking him.
HM’s spairjack maester stood on the battlements of the motte. He swayed in a fighting stance, punching the air. Then his head jerked. He crumpled and fell into the bailey. Raspberry jam, Leonie thought numbly. Like Floyd.
She braked in a J-turn, slewing the Rover all the way around so that it faced away from the castle. “Sire! Sire! Get in!”
The king was still kneeling over Sir Philip’s body. He looked up, as if he were too gutted to realize that he was in the midst of a drama. Then another of the ROCK knights shot at him and the bullets chewed up the weeds, missing him by inches. That did it. He ran to the Rover, keeping low, and flung himself into the passenger seat. Leonie was already accelerating.
Automatic fire crunched into the body of the Rover. The back windscreen shattered.
Leonie cleared the gap in the curtain wall with all four wheels in the air. “I’ll get you back to Incident Control, Sire—”
“Keep going!”
“Uh?”
“Keep going! Don’t you realize it’s a plot? They’ll have killed Stuart already. Either that or he’s on their side. No telling who’s in on it!”
“Hold on, then, Sire,” Leonie yelled. The Rover flew over the potholes, scattering Haymakers, past Incident Control, through the rear holding area, and onto the access road.
There was a police VCP in place at the end of the road. A soft-skin ShortHOG parked halfway across the road, local constables waving stop flags.
Leonie set her teeth and floored it.
The Rover screamed through the gap in front of the Hog, offside wheels dipping sickeningly into the ditch. She shifted down into second gear, fed the wheel through her hands, and accelerated on the apex of the turn. They shot onto the A27. “Which way?” she screamed. “Sire?” but she’d already chosen the direction she had sandboxed in her mind, towards the hills between here and Crossbush, where neither of the Company OPs had been situated to get a view of the road.
In her ear, the squawks of the net turned into a monotonous static squeal. That probably meant the traitors had got to Lord Stuart’s control room. Leonie took one hand off the wheel to pull her earpiece out. She ripped off the mic taped to her throat and chucked the whole mess of wiring into the back seat.
“Treachery!” HM said, grey-faced. “I should have guessed! Should have known … but I trusted Oswald above anyone else. He is my son-in-law!”
“Yes, Sire!”
“Philip’s dead. They’ll kill the rest of my lads, too. And Ringgil died saving me. Oh God, Ringgil, old friend … they know not what they’ve done—we’re all lost. Lost.”
The Rover bombed through Arundel village at seventy. “Which way do you want me to go, Sire? They’re going to be coming after us!”
A bus pulled out ahead. Leonie double de-clutched, dropped a gear, and overtook blind, the needle of the rev counter flickering into the red. Missing an oncoming car by inches, she dived back into her lane and roared on.
HM was oblivious, his face slack with despair, hanging onto the roll bar, but slumping. “Oswald was always the most honest of my advisors. I tested his loyalty so often that I came to believe he couldn’t lie to me. But honesty is the greatest lie of all, isn’t it?”
“Sire, I am your sworn woman and I will lay down my life for you! But you’ve got to tell me where you want me to go!”
The king sighed exhaustedly. “What difference does it make?”
A black shape heaved into the rearview mirror. One of the other Rovers. Four up.
“They’re coming,” Leonie screamed.
A shot whistled through the shattered back windscreen and the glass in front of Leonie’s face cracked.
She strained to see, braking, panicking.
The king smashed his elbow into the windscreen. Crumbs of glass showered onto Leonie’s knees. She could see again. Up ahead there was a hedge on one side of the road and a graveled yard on the other with a big concrete building set back from the road, a sign saying Arundel Creamery. The other Rover pulled alongside her and two of the ROCK knights leaned out behind their assault rifles. It was murder trying to shoot from a moving vehicle but they were so close they couldn’t miss, unless—
A milk tanker was pulling out of the creamery yard.
Leonie accelerated across the tanker’s nose and wrenched the wheel over, turning into the yard. Behind her, the other Rover collided with the tanker in an explosion of screaming metal and the whole silver length of the tanker heeled over and hit the ground. A white flood of milk poured from its burst tank. Leonie J-turned, churning the milk up in arcs, using the handbrake to spin the Rover around, the wheel practically pulling her arms out.
Two of the ROCK knights had escaped the crash. They crouched, firing at her. Leonie screamed and drove straight at them. One threw himself back but the other one was stupid and thought she’d swerve or something and the bull bar picked him up and tossed him into the air like Colonel Roebuck wheeling off the battlements, like Floyd plunging off the top of Wembley Stadium.
Everyone falls.
She was back on the road. Driving with a bloody great hole in the windscreen, the rain whipping her face, back in the wrong direction. Through the village again, local yokels running and shouting because this wasn’t Ireland and they didn’t know to take cover, and now a police ShortHOG came lumbering towards her and behind it was Lord Stuart’s staff car with its top down and more ROCK knights standing up in it shouting, “Halt, halt, surrender!”
The king drew his pistol and fired at the staff car.
It ploughed up on the sidewalk in front of the post office at fifty miles an hour, and in the back seat, the ROCK knights loosed off rounds.
Leonie floored the accelerator.
Her ears were woolly from the noise but she could feel the Rover’s engine making a sound that was not good.
She dived down the first turning outside the village and then the next one, anything to get away. She was praying aloud, the words resurfacing from the depths of her childhood. “God the Father, have mercy. Ykhos, Lord of Miracles, have mercy. Nioine, Mother of God, have mercy.” When she heard her own
voice she made herself stop. “Sire,” she croaked. “All right there?”
“Yes,” HM said. His eyes were closed.
“There are farmhouses, Sire, look, we could go in and get help. We could ring the Tower, Sire—your ministers—” Lord Stuart was probably dead by now. “Lord Llywelyn, Lord Lancashire—”
“No help to be had there,” the king said without opening his eyes. “They’re all plotting with Vivienne Sauvage. I’ve suspected that for some time. That’s why we had to go to such lengths to conceal the true purpose of PREDATOR.” He let out a noise like a sob. “And all the time, Oswald was concealing a purpose of his own …”
“Sire, please—”
“I’m alone, do you hear me? Maybe I always was. Alone.”
Leonie felt alone, too. She’d always suspected that Oswald Day was a treacherous bastard, and she would feel hatred and anger towards him when she had time to dwell on it, but she had used up all her aggression on driving and now she was only afraid. She pushed the Rover on down the narrow country road. “This vehicle is going to crap out on us any minute,” she said, trying to sound calm. “Sire, I need to know what to do.”
“All right, all right! Robert. He can’t possibly be in on it.”
“Robert?”
“Penzance, girl! We’ll go to Penzance.” HM sank back, as if making the decision was enough to get them there.
Leonie knew where Penzance was. Right on the very tippy-toe of Cornwall. A long way from here, but that wasn’t her biggest problem right now. Her biggest problem was the Rover.
Dump it and crack on on foot? But they were driving between hedges and fields, every square inch farmed. There was nowhere to hide.
She rounded a bend and there was a little blue Morris pootling along ahead, two up.
Leonie sucked in a breath. “Sire? Can I borrow your weapon?”
“What?”
“I’m not armed, Sire. We weren’t allowed. I’m going to commandeer that civilian vehicle.”
“Saints. The rule of law ... No.” HM straightened. “If it has to be done, I’ll do it.”
“Sire, you’ve got the most famous face in the country. We don’t want them to know we came this way.”
Expressionless, the king plucked his pistol from the holster on his baldric and slapped it into Leonie’s hand. It was a sleek P&K automatic. Rubies made the eyes of a lion on the butt.
Leonie overtook the Morris and braked, forcing the little car to stop. “You pull your hood up and cross-deck—get into the other car—when I wave.” Without giving herself time to think, she leapt out and pointed the pistol at the driver of the Morris. A little old man in a trilby, an equally old female beside him. “Out of the vehicle! Out of the fucking vehicle!” Leonie screamed. She yanked open the driver’s side door. “Out! Out!”
Moaning incoherently, the old couple tried to raise their hands. Leonie lost patience and dragged the old man out of the car by his collar. “Get into that field! Run! Run!” She shoved the pistol in the old woman’s face, keeping her sleeve over her hand to hide the ruby-studded butt. “I’m counting to five and if I can still see you when I’m finished, you’re going to be very sorry! Run!”
They ran, stumbling. The old man stopped to open the nearest gate, fumbling with the latch. “One, two, three, four, oh fuck it.” Leonie fired a shot into the ground behind them. They climbed over the gate.
She waved at the king, who ran around the Morris and jumped in. Leonie got back into the Rover and drove it into the field which the old couple were now fleeing across. She tucked it behind the hedge, then yanked out the ignition keys, hurled them away, and dashed back to the Morris. HM sat quietly in the passenger seat with his hands folded, like a nobleman awaiting his chauffeur.
The Morris had to be twenty years old if it was a day. Leonie hitched her seat forward, putting herself closer to the pedals for better control. She cursed herself for not waiting until they came up on a fitter vehicle.
They came to a turn-off with a sign for Portsmouth. That was away from Castle Arundel, so she took it.
“Thank you,” the king said.
“Don’t thank me yet, Sire.”
Stop flapping! she ordered herself. Someone has to keep their head on here and if it’s not him it’s got to be you.
HM hadn’t quite lost it, but he was obviously sinking mentally. She’d seen it before, on operations in Ireland. The desperate attempt to understand, when there was nothing to understand except that the whole world had gone down the crapper. The loss of ability to react and make decisions. She’d had enough trouble getting Penzance out of him.
Now he slumped beside her with his eyes closed, knees jammed against the dashboard. She dared a glance directly at the pale face, tormented in its stillness, and felt horribly sorry for him.
I’ll do whatever I have to do to save you, Sire.
At the moment, it looked as if that would have to include doing his thinking for him.
She pictured the maps she’d studied yesterday. “Sire. Sire? Here’s what we’re going to do …”
27
Ran
That Night. Dublin Castle
Down on that floor with you and say your prayers! Would you want your poor uncle to know what a bold wee thing you are?”
“Shan’t, shan’t!” Ran danced away. “I’m glad Uncle Tristan’s dead. I hope he burns in hell!”
He dodged his nurse and leapt by way of his old rocking-horse onto the top of the chest-of-drawers.
“And old Grim-Guts Stuart is dead, too. So I don’t have to go to Edinburgh. Hurrah, hurrah!” He grabbed the knot of his dressing-gown sash and thrusted his other fist in the air like a tourney champion. “I am the Lord Protector of Ireland, and you can’t make me pray for anyone!”
“Can’t I just,” his nurse said, and charged.
The pursuit ended with Ran crawling under his bed. He realized his mistake when his nurse’s hand, feeling under the bed for him, instead fastened on the saddlebag he had hidden there this afternoon.
“What’s this?”
She opened the saddlebag. Ran hovered with dust in his hair, begging, “Please don’t!”
Books spilled out. There was also a package of raw steaks, which had leaked onto Ran’s spare clothes.
His nurse wiped her fingers on her uniform. “What were you thinking of, my lord?”
Ran had an inspiration. “I was packing for going to Edinburgh,” he claimed virtuously. “That was before we heard about Lord Stuart’s treason and everyone being dead and all that. I wanted to make sure Honor didn’t get hungry on the way.”
She frowned suspiciously at him. “I’ll take these steaks back to the kitchens; shame to waste ‘em. Those clothes’ll have to be laundered.” Surging to her feet, she aimed a slap at his bottom. “When I get back I want to see you on your knees, praying for the poor dead king’s soul.”
Ran, his heart beating wildly, judged it wise to comply, outwardly at least. He knelt on the cold floorboards and hid his face in the covers of his bed.
I can’t go now, she’s taken my supplies.
But Honor can hunt, can’t she?
And if I don’t go tonight, who knows whether I’ll be able to go at all? Mother might find somewhere else to send me away to.
His nurse clomped back into the room. “Good,” she said grudgingly, seeing him on his knees. “Into bed with you now.”
Ran did as he was told and pulled the covers over his head. His nurse turned out all the lights but the little one in the corner and sat down in her rocking-chair.
I will go. His nurse had taken away his saddlebag, but she had not found the other things hidden under his bed.
He started to breathe heavily and slowly. She came and leaned over him. “Poor wee lordling,” she muttered. Her steps retreated. The light in the corner went off. Scrape, clunk, he heard her maneuvering her bed across the outside of his door. They said servants slept outside your room to protect you, but as far as Ran was concerned, his nurs
e slept there to stop him from getting out.
Fortunately, he had a trick up his sleeve worth two of that.
He slid out from under the covers. Shivering, he stripped off his pyjamas and dressed in a fuzzy old flannel-lined flying suit. He put on two pairs of socks, his trainers, and a muffler. Then he extracted from under his bed a knapsack and a small dragon saddle.
He knelt on the window-seat. Honor. Come to me, my straker. He’d sneaked down to the mews after supper and left the door very slightly ajar. He hoped no one had closed it again. Honor, Honor, he called silently.
A bright orange spark flashed in his mind, coming closer, winging up from the mews. He eased the sash up, gasped at the cold of the night. Honor hurtled out of the darkness. Her wings racketed as she scrabbled with her claws to balance on the windowsill.
Sssh! Sssh! Hold still now, my straker …
She helped him saddle her, turning around and lifting each foot in turn to put them through the straps, which he had buckled in advance. Frantic with haste, he clambered onto her back and fastened the harness around his waist. Then they were tumbling into the night— “Wait! Honor, go back up! I’ve got to close the window, or they’ll guess …” Dragons could not hover, so all he could do was lean over and shove the sash halfway down with his fingertips as Honor swooped past. “All right! Fly, my straker, fly!”
Honor stretched her neck out and soared high over the bailey wall. Ran craned down through the icy torrent of wind. He glimpsed movement behind the parapet, men-at-arms patrolling in the dark. They usually stayed in the sentry towers. Mother must have ordered the security alert level to be raised. What if they thought Ran and Honor were invaders, and shot at them…? But no sooner had the awful thought occurred to him than the bailey fell behind.
They flew over the outer ward, with its neatly packed barracks and blocks of flats for the servants. Ran smelled smoke from the chimneys. He glanced back at the huge neon sign on the seaward side of the bailey, which was visible from all over Dublin: Faith, Chivalry, Enterprise. He kicked his heels into Honor’s sides. The wind was at their backs; she glided on it, scarcely having to flap her wings.