Anger snapped inside me, mixed with dread. I dropped the stones I’d been playing with and jerked him roughly around to face me.
“What have you done, Peter?”
“Oww, Jamie, that hurt,” Peter said, rubbing his shoulder.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” I roared.
“Only what I had to,” he said, and he was serious in a way that I rarely witnessed. “Nobody will take you from me, Jamie.”
I could have killed him then. The rage surged up, pulsed in my blood like fire. I should have killed him then. It would have prevented everything that came after.
Peter took a half step back, just a little shuffle, but he’d never retreated from me before. Never.
He realized this immediately and stepped back toward me, but I was already turning, already running. Charlie was more important than dealing with Peter.
“I don’t know why you’re bothering to run!” Peter shouted after me. “It will be already done by now!”
I didn’t care what he said. Until I saw Charlie, I wouldn’t believe Nip had succeeded in whatever task Peter set him. I believed—I had to believe—that Del and Nod and Fog would look after him as I asked.
I ran, and the terror swamped my anger, and the fear that I would be too late drove me on, faster and faster. I cut into the forest, never wishing so much that I could fly as Peter did at that moment.
My legs burned and my chest heaved and my hair was soaked in sweat and I ran. The forest held no joy for me now. It was only an obstacle in the way, a thing that kept me from Charlie. I’d promised him he’d be safe. He had to be all right. He had to be.
I ran, and Charlie’s tiny face turned back to look at me as Del led him away, and his face said he was trying so hard to be brave. I didn’t think about his blue eyes empty or his yellow duck-feathered hair matted with blood. I didn’t think of those things, and I ran faster.
I burst into the clearing before the tree, gasping for air, and I was so wild with anxiety that it took me a moment to realize what I was seeing. All the boys were gathered in a still, silent circle—all but two of them.
One of them was tied to a stake that was driven into the ground. His face and chest were a mass of purpling bruises, but he was still alive. The other one lay on the ground.
He was white and still and he would never get up again. The pool of blood underneath him told me that.
“Oh, Del,” I said, and knuckled away the tears, because I didn’t cry in front of the others. “Oh, Del.”
His sword was in his hand, lying limp in his open palm. He’d fought, or tried to. I was proud of him for that.
“Jamie!” Charlie ran to me and I picked him up without even thinking about it. He trembled all over and his eyes were red and swollen because he was too small to stop himself from crying in front of the boys.
“He saved me,” Charlie said, weeping into my neck. “He protected me.”
I let Charlie cry because I couldn’t, not just then, not while the boys were watching, not while Nip was watching me with a sneer in his eyes even though he was tied to that pole.
Nod and Fog separated themselves from the others and came to me. They seemed unsure whether to be ashamed about Del or proud that they’d caught and tied up Nip.
“He went for Charlie so fast,” Nod said.
“Didn’t even think he could move that fast,” Fog said.
“Del was right next to Charlie and he was taking out his sword as he got in Nip’s way,” Nod said.
“Nip never got a finger on Charlie,” Fog said. “Not one. Del got off one slash”—here he pointed at an ugly wound in Nip’s thigh—“but Nip got Del’s throat before Del could do anything else.”
“Then we caught on to what was happening and jumped on Nip, and us and the others pounded him good and proper, ’cause we can’t have boys just killing other boys. That’s not how it works here.”
The rest of the boys murmured in agreement.
“We were just having a trial before we hung Nip, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, Billy says,” said Nod.
“You’re supposed to tell your story in front of a judge and then the judge says you’re guilty and then you’re hung in the town square,” Billy said proudly. “I saw a hanging once. The fellow’s neck didn’t break when he fell like it was supposed to, and his legs were kicking around and his face was purple for a long time before he died.”
All the boys turned to look at Nip, as if imagining him kicking and turning blue at the end of a rope. None of them seemed particularly troubled by the idea.
“We were just deciding who should be the judge,” Nod said.
“I think it should be me,” Fog said. “’Cause I noticed him killing Del first.”
“No, I did,” Nod said, and punched Fog in the shoulder.
“No, I did,” Fog said, punching back.
I knew it was a short walk from this to the two of them rolling on the ground bloodying each other’s noses. I shifted Charlie to my left arm and moved to break them apart with my right.
Nip’s laugh, slow and congested (he was laughing through broken teeth), cut in before I could. We all turned as one to stare at him.
“Ain’t none of you going to judge me,” he said. “Peter told me to do it, and he’s not about to let me swing from any rope when I’m just doing what I was told.”
Nod broke away first, running at Nip and punching him in the face. Nip’s head cracked against the pole from the force of the blow.
“You’re a liar!” Nod shouted.
Fog, who hated to miss out on anything his brother did, followed suit, punching Nip’s other cheek and shouting, “Liar, liar, liar! Peter would never do that!”
“That’s outside of the rules,” Nod said.
“It’s not fair play,” Fog said. “If we have something to settle, we go to Peter or Jamie, and if fighting’s needed, real fighting, we save it for Battle.”
“Yeah, we don’t stab the other boys just ’cause we feel like it,” Nod said. “And those are Peter’s rules, so we know you’re nothing but a dirty liar.”
The other boys nodded, and the general feeling was that Nip’s lie about Peter was almost worse than his killing Del.
I knew it wasn’t a lie. I knew, but I wasn’t about to save Nip.
Nip’s eyes darted around the closing circle of boys, all of them ready to carve their piece of flesh from the liar in their midst.
“It’s true!” Nip shouted, desperate now. The sneer was all gone, and the knowledge that Peter might not be back in time to save him was dawning.
He was a wreck of himself, covered in the evidence of two beatings, but his strength—or fear—was so powerful that he was able to shift the stake a little as he wrenched to and fro, trying to break free from the ropes that bound him.
“I’m not a liar!” he screamed.
Nip looked right at Charlie and me, who’d ceased his sobbing and stared at the bigger boy with blank eyes. Charlie didn’t much care if they hung Nip either.
“Peter told me to take care of that little brat, and if he was here he’d tell you so! If you hurt me you’ll be sorry!”
“No, we won’t,” Nod said, shaking his head. “You broke the rules.”
“Jamie knows the rules better than anyone,” Fog said, and turned to me for assent.
“Yes, you broke the rules,” I said. I didn’t say that Peter would never tell Nip to go after Charlie. I couldn’t bring myself to speak the lie.
Fog nodded. “Jamie’s passed judgment. We’ll hang you now.”
“I’ll get some rope,” Billy said happily, and ran off to the tree.
We stole rope from the pirates regularly, as it was handy for things like setting snares and much sturdier than the vine ropes we sometimes wove.
In a trice Billy had fashioned a hangman’s noose and thr
own it over a branch of the tree. He fixed the rope around the branch in such a way so they could toss it over Nip’s neck and then pull the rope (with Nip in it, of course) up from the ground, sort of a pulley with Nip on one end and the boys on the other.
The rest of the boys surrounded Nip. Fog cut him loose from the stake. Nip immediately tried to fight his way out of the crowd, but he was so wild that none of his blows landed.
The boys were able to subdue him easily and dragged him, screaming incoherently, to his noose.
“Stop making so much noise,” Fog said, and stuffed a filthy rag from his pocket into Nip’s open mouth.
Nip’s eyes widened and he tried to shout through the rag, the result being a kind of intense grunting that made the other boys laugh. A couple of them picked up sticks and poked him to see what other noises Nip might make.
“I don’t want you to look when they string him up,” I told Charlie. I was reluctant to put him down again, sure that if I did, I’d find out that it wasn’t Del’s body in the middle of the clearing but his.
“Okay, Jamie,” Charlie said. “I’ll mind you.”
I remembered the way I’d lost my temper with him at the bottom of the cliff path. It seemed so long ago, and it was only yesterday.
“I don’t want you to have nightmares,” I said, by way of explanation.
Charlie nodded and turned his head away when the boys finished poking at Nip and put the rope around his neck.
Nod and Fog and three others grabbed the trailing end of the rope and pulled. Nip let out his longest scream yet, muffled by the rag.
They only managed to pull him far enough so his heels dragged in the dirt, even with five of them putting their backs into it. Nod gave a count to heave again in three, two, one . . .
. . . and Peter bounded across the clearing in two jumps. If any other boy had been looking, they would know his secret in that instant. It was quite obvious he wasn’t leaping like an ordinary boy.
He pushed into the fray and cut Nip down before the others realized he was even there.
Nip collapsed in the dirt, clawing the noose off his neck and yanking the rag from his mouth. All the other boys chorused, “Awwwwww,” for Peter had spoiled their fun.
“What’s all this, then?” Peter said sternly, looking around at all of us.
His eyes rested on Charlie a moment longer than the others. I saw the flicker of disappointment in them, but then, I was looking for it.
Nod and Fog rushed to tell what happened. I’d been standing a little apart from the rest, but now I set Charlie down and joined them. Of course the smaller boy immediately wound his fist into my coat, but I couldn’t blame him for that after Del.
Peter avoided my gaze. He also didn’t glance at Del once. Now that Del was dead, he was no longer interesting to Peter. If anything, Peter was likely relieved that Del had died before coughing out his lungs and annoying him with the noise.
Nip smirked up at the others. He obviously thought that Peter’s last-minute rescue confirmed his specialness. I had a feeling he was in for a big surprise on that front.
Nod and Fog finished telling the story, tumbling over each other in the rush to be first, but Peter got the sense of it. When the twins finished, Nip broke in before Peter could speak.
“I told them,” Nip said, “that I was only doing what you told me to do.”
I think he would have liked to drawl this out in a self-satisfied way, but the effect was ruined by his swollen face, missing front teeth and the need to spit out blood every third word or so.
Peter’s eyes went wide when Nip finished speaking. He appeared astonished at this news. “I?” he said, pointing his thumb to his chest. “I told you to kill Del? I never did!”
His outrage was almost believable, if you didn’t know what I knew. The other boys were nodding and muttering that they knew Nip had lied about that.
“No,” Nip said, his face twisted in frustration.
He still believed Peter would support him, that Peter would tell the truth when it came down to it. He didn’t know Peter the way I did.
“You told me to take care of that little yellow-haired brat. And I was trying to except that skinny one got in my way.” Nip jerked his chin in the direction of Del’s corpse.
“I told you to take care of Charlie,” Peter said with exaggerated care. “Look after him! He’s very small and you’re very big. I never told you to lunge at him with a knife.”
I saw then how Peter had done it, that he’d likely said those precise words—“take care of Charlie.” This was how he’d set Nip to the task instead of doing it himself—so he could deny it all if Nip failed.
Nip scowled at Peter like he couldn’t believe what Peter was saying. “You never did! You told me to take care of the brat and you knew just what you were telling me to do, and it wasn’t anything to do with ‘looking after’!”
“Don’t call Peter a liar!” Nod said, and ran at Nip.
He landed on the bigger boy’s stomach with his bony knees. Nip oofed out all his air and had no chance to get it back as Nod pounded his face.
“Peter’s no liar! You are!”
Peter pointed to Jonathan and Ed. “You two, get Nod off him.”
He put out a restraining arm to stop Fog from joining in the scrum. Jonathan and Ed dragged Nod off Nip, though it seemed to me they did so very slowly. Nobody was much interested in Nip’s well-being.
“Get up,” Peter told Nip.
Peter wasn’t concerned for Nip’s well-being either. I knew how Peter thought. Nip had failed, and now he was no longer valuable to Peter. The other boy would have to prove his worth again, or else spend all the rest of his days on the island on the wrong side of Peter’s attention.
Nip struggled to his feet, his nose freshly bloodied, his mean little eyes in their swollen sockets darting around for an ally and finding none.
“Now,” Peter said, his hands on his hips, and gave us his best angry glare. “Rules have been broken. First rule is that we don’t kill each other outside of Battle. That’s not our way.”
Nip opened his mouth to speak, to defend himself, to say again that he was only doing as he’d been told. Peter waved a dismissive hand at him and talked louder.
“Nip killed Del, but the rest of you were going to hang Nip for it, which means you broke the rules too.”
All the boys seemed slightly ashamed now—not for hurting Nip, necessarily, but for getting carried away.
“Nip’s done wrong, and so have you. That means there must be a Battle.”
A murmur started up immediately. The new boys weren’t sure what Battle was, and the older boys speculated that Battle wasn’t quite fair with Nip in the condition he was in.
“You’re right,” Peter said. “Nip should have a chance to heal, so it will be fair.”
He put his hand on his chin and twisted his mouth this way and that as he took in Nip’s injuries. “What do you think, Jamie? Thirty sleeps?”
That was overly generous, to my way of thinking, though there was always the hope that Nip would catch a fever and die before Battle day.
“Twenty,” I said, just to show Peter he couldn’t lead me by the nose.
He shook his head. “Thirty. We’ll mark the days off on a board. One of you find a good piece of wood for marking.”
This was exactly the sort of task I’d like to set Charlie on, but his hand clung to my coat in a way that said he would never let go. Anyway, I didn’t want him out of my sight until after Battle was over. I wasn’t so sure Peter wouldn’t plan something else now that his first idea had failed.
One of the new boys—Sam, I think—scampered off to find a board. I realized with a pang that there were now as many new boys as old—we’d lost both Harry and Del in the last day. It was down to me, Nod, Fog, Jonathan, Kit and Ed. The rest had been there less than a week.<
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And knowing that, knowing they didn’t know a damned thing about Battle, I knew what would happen when next Peter spoke.
“When Nip’s healed up, one of you will fight him to death in Battle. Then this disagreement will be ended forever.”
“I will,” I said, before Nod or Fog could volunteer.
They both loved Battle, whether it was in play or to the death, and surely both of them had more cause to fight than me. I hadn’t even been there when they tied Nip to the stake.
But it was my lot to stand for the boys, to look out for them. Nod and Fog were good fighters, but Nip was much bigger than them. And he’d have more reason to fight and win, for he’d feel his reputation as truth-teller was at stake. There was a slyness about him, too, that told me he’d try for any advantage in a fight.
Nod and Fog weren’t sneaky fighters. But I was. I’d do whatever was necessary to survive. We were the same that way, Nip and me.
And it came down to this—I wouldn’t lose the twins too, not after what had passed in the last day.
“Jamie, no,” Charlie whispered, tugging at my coat.
Peter gave me a curious look, one that I couldn’t read. “Why should you be the one, Jamie? You weren’t even here for the first part of it.”
“Aye,” Nod said. “It ought to be me.”
“No,” Fog said, “it ought to be me.”
Of course the expected thing happened. I shouted over the noise of them punching and arguing.
“It will be me, because I’m the one who passed judgment,” I said, and they stopped trying to hurt each other to stare at me. “I stand for all the boys.”
“But, Jamie—” Fog said.
“No,” I said. “It’s me.”
They both sighed.
“I suppose it’s only fair since you were the judge,” Nod said.
“But, Jamie, I could take him,” Fog said. Fog knew—or thought he knew—why I was putting myself in front of him.
“I know you could,” I said. “But it will be me all the same.”
Nip squinted at me, and I could tell he was already working out the best way to kill me. His thoughts were so plain anyone could read them without trying.
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