Tales from the Gateway

by E. E. Holmes

  “No, sir,” I replied stiffly, keeping my eyes on the file in his hand. If I locked eyes with the man, I might just kill him.

  “Right, then,” Eamon replied, snapping the file folder shut and tucking it under his arm. “Well, we’ll see what we can find for you here to keep your mind on your sworn duty, won’t we? I expect you’ll be cursing the woman’s name in no time. Best thing for you. I imagine she’s just carrying on her cozy existence, isn’t she, and letting you take the fall?”

  I managed, with difficulty, to not tackle the man where he stood, but it was a near thing. It became clear in that moment that I was somehow going to have to bury an awful lot of what was raging inside me if I hoped to survive here without being court-martialed.

  Seamus and Eamon began discussing a litany of details related to my transfer, but I was only half listening. It was daytime now at Fairhaven. When would Jess realize I was gone? Would anyone explain to her what had really happened or—the thought occurred with a stab of horror—would they lie to her about what had happened to me? Would they perhaps tell her that I had left of my own accord? That something had happened to me? Would they say something to make her think—God forbid—that leaving her was my choice? I should have given a message to Bertie, to make him promise to deliver it. Why hadn’t I thought of it? What the hell was wrong with me?

  A roiling panic had begun in the pit of my stomach, the walls around me suddenly feeling as though they were closing in. I focused on taking deep, steady breaths. The last thing I could afford to do was to lose consciousness in front of my new Commander.

  “West!” Eamon shouted over his shoulder. A short and stocky Caomhnóir with a thick neck and the stubbly red beginnings of a beard jogged over at once, looking expectant. “Show Caomhnóir Carey to the sleeping quarters and then to the kitchens for something to eat.”

  West looked me up and down once, appraisingly, and then jerked his head over his shoulder toward the second set of doors. “This way, then,” he said, and strode off, leaving me to jog behind him to catch up.

  I looked back over my shoulder, to see Seamus watching me. I’m not sure what I expected; a wave? Some sort of acknowledgment that he was leaving me on this godforsaken rock to rot? If so, I was a fool. He turned without a word, without a gesture, and walked off in the direction of the front doors and the helicopter. Within minutes he’d be in the air again, on his way back to Fairhaven, where even now Jess must be realizing that something was terribly wrong.

  Damn it all to hell.

  “This way,” West called, and I turned back to him. He paused long enough to be sure I was following again, and then resumed his walk into the príosún. His legs were extremely muscular, but short, and he moved them almost comically fast to maintain his pace.

  “Carey, is it?” he asked, tossing the words over his shoulder as we walked straight through the cavernous central chamber of the príosún, stairs winding up around us dizzyingly high to doors and galleries and, impossibly, still more stairs.

  “Yeah, that’s right. Finn,” I answered distractedly as I tried to get my bearings.

  “Peter Westingbrook,” he replied. “We tend to go by last names around here, but Westingbrook is a mouthful, so everyone just calls me West. You can, too, I suppose, if you like.”

  “Right. Cheers.”

  “We don’t get many Council clan blokes around here,” West said, shooting me an almost amused expression. “You must have cocked things up good and proper to wind up with this here lot.”

  I didn’t reply, and when I didn’t, West seemed to realize he wasn’t going to get any details out of me and dropped it. He pointed a stubby finger over his left shoulder. “Mess hall just there, but it’s closed now until lunch. That’s where we all eat, normally. Meals at six, noon, and six sharp. Don’t miss the bell, because they won’t feed you in between, and shifts are long without a proper tuck in. Food isn’t bad and there’s plenty of it, unless you’re a prisoner, of course.” West seemed to think this was a jolly good joke, and chuckled to himself, but I left the laughing to him.

  “Sleeping quarters right through here,” West went on, pushing open a heavy oak door with a black latch on it and stepping aside to let me through. The room was cavernous and very long, with rows of bunks running the length of the space on both sides, interspersed with tall, narrow, leaded glass windows. The floor was bare stone, with a threadbare, faded purple rug running down the middle like a mockery of a Hollywood red carpet. There was no air of tidiness or military order to the place, like back at Fairhaven—personal belongings were jumbled under the beds and wrinkled bits of uniform and crumpled towels littered the backs of chairs and bedside tables.

  West walked straight down the middle, pausing only to kick a boot back under the foot of a bed I was quite sure wasn’t his. I followed him about three-quarters of the way down the carpet until he halted and pointed.

  “Anywhere you see a pile of blankets folded on the end of the bed, that bunk is free for the taking. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, but a bit of advice, and you can take it or leave it. Makes no difference to me, as it goes. Knox snores like a bloody freight train, so you’ll want to steer clear of him, he’s third from the end, this side. And Wells is a right knob, he’ll steal your cigarettes soon as look at you, and he smells like a bull in summer no matter how often he showers, which is never often enough. He’s that one there with the newspaper on it, though I’m buggered if I know why, the thick bastard can hardly string a sentence together, let alone read one. Other than that, it’s luck of the draw, really.”

  Deciding to accept the free advice, I gave both of the indicated beds a wide berth and chose a bunk on the end right in front of a window through which, if the sky was clear, I might just catch a sliver of sunset above the outer wall. West nodded his approval of my choice, though I did not ask for it, and stood by casually picking at a scab on his elbow while I unpacked a few things and shoved my duffel bag under my bed.

  “Right. Nosh?”

  “Yeah.”

  He turned and walked back the way we had come in, leading me back through the circular central chamber and onward into the kitchens. Generally, kitchens are kept somewhat hidden from diners, in the hopes of keeping the public from contaminating an otherwise clean and orderly workspace. In Skye Príosún, it appeared that the opposite was true. The place was truly chaotic. Pots and pans loudly clattering, as workers cursed and shouted to be heard. Cleanliness did not seem to be a priority, and it was with an internal mantra of “stiff upper lip” that I accepted the bowl full of beef stew and the hunk of bread West managed to scrounge for me. Luckily, it tasted much better than it looked, and I tucked in without further hesitation, not because I was truly hungry, but because I was smart enough to know that I should eat when food was offered to me.

  “What happens now?” I asked when I had eaten my fill.

  “You’ll follow me and a few of the lads on shift. Shadow them, like, so that you can learn the ropes of how we patrol all the parts of the príosún. There’s different protocols, see, for different wards and different times of day. You’ll have to learn ‘em all quick, because Eamon will have you on your own before the end of the week, and he’ll expect you not to fuck up.”

  “What’s the shift schedule?” I asked.

  “Six hours on, six off, five days a week, with one day reserved for training and one for rest,” West said. “And believe me, you’re going to need that day of rest.”

  “What about the boundaries? Where can we go?” I asked.

  “Within the castle, we’ve got the bunks, the mess hall, the gym, the library, the weapons hall, the rec room, and the courtyard. In the rec room, they’ve got computers, which you can use to send emails and the like, but be warned—they monitor everything that comes in and out. There’s no privacy, like, and the same goes for phone calls, so best not try to ring anyone you’re not supposed to be talking to.”

  He mentioned it casually enough, but I knew that meant the reason f
or my posting at Skye had already spread like wildfire through the ranks. Still, it was decent of him to warn me off trying anything that might get me into further trouble. Even so, I felt my heart sink. No chance of getting a message to Jess somehow.

  West went on, “Outside the castle, we’ve got the grounds, which extend all the way to the beach, though it’s a bugger of a climb down there, and the ‘round about forty acres to the inland side. And twice a month you can get leave to drive into Portree for a pint and a glimpse of civilization. Although, whether you actually get that leave will depend on the reasons you’ve been assigned to this outpost.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, a bit more sharply than I intended.

  “Come on, mate, we all know why we’re here,” West said, with a surprisingly cavalier shrug. “This is the last stop for Caomhnóir, and there’s no use pretending it’s not. We’ve all wound up here because we’ve made a right mess of things in one way or another, and now we’ve got to make the best of it. Leave to Portree is considered a privilege, not a right, and like any privilege, you’ve got to earn it from the higher-ups.”

  “I see,” I said, absorbing this information. It seemed likely that Seamus’ main concern would be that I would somehow try to communicate with Jess, and I knew that he would do whatever he could to prevent that. It was possible, therefore, that my file, currently being perused by Eamon, would contain instructions to limit my privileges in such a way as to make that a virtual impossibility. I could feel my anger toward Seamus—toward the entire system—curdling into a diamond-hard lump in my chest.

  “Anyway,” West went on, rather cheerfully, “regardless of why you’re here, keep your head down and work your arse off, and you’ll likely have leave privileges in no time. Eamon cares much more how you handle yourself here than how you fared before you walked in the doors. They post the weekly list on the notice boards outside the Commander’s offices. Matter of fact, I’ll take you there next, and we can get your marching orders for the afternoon.”

  West talked my ear off all the way down to the Commander’s offices, explaining the locations of the different wards and the protocols for handing off shifts. West was an affable enough sort of bloke, but I was in no mood to make chums. To admit I should form alliances and maybe even friendships meant admitting that I would be on this godforsaken rock indefinitely, and I was in no way ready to face that possibility.

  Over the next few days, I found myself reverting to survival mode. At night, when I could not distract my brain from the grief of losing Jess, I was plagued with terrible nightmares, most of them involving me wandering through misty woods or winding castle passages, trying to answer her desperate cries for help but unable to find her no matter how long I looked. When the fear of drifting back into the dreams left me sleepless, I tried to write. I pulled one of my black books out from beneath my mattress and opened it to a blank page, staring down at it, willing my pain into words so that I could exorcise it from me, siphon it off onto paper and cast it away from me. But for the first time in my life, I found that the words would not come—that I had reached a mental space where the words could not reach me, could not help me make sense of what I was feeling. Again and again, I was forced to give up, put my pen away, and pore instead over the delicate strokes of Jess’ artwork in the margins until sleep swept me off into wandering nightmares once again.

  During the waking hours, I slogged through shift after shift, committing the regulations for each ward to memory, which was a welcome distraction for my overwrought brain. I endured the whisperings and mutterings of the other Caomhnóir, who were no doubt sizing me up, trading the rumors and stories they’d heard about me, and determining whether they ought to make overtures of camaraderie or join forces against me. I expected nothing less. There was a pecking order in any Caomhnóir setting, and these men wanted to know where I was going to fit into it. I had no desire to assert myself in any way, and yet I knew I had to protect myself if I wanted any peace within the walls.

  At the end of my first week, I had my first training day, which I must admit I had been dreading. Physical combat was the bluntest way, the most animal way, to establish one’s place in the pack, so to speak, and I was not keen to put myself on such obvious display. If I performed too well, I would be deemed a threat. If I performed too poorly, I would be relegated to target status. There was a fine line to walk if I wanted to maintain the privilege of being left alone, and I did not relish the idea of having to fight people to do it.

  Sparring training took place in rotating groups. After a ten-kilometer run out on the cliffs and a battery of physical exercises, we were split into two groups, one for sparring with weapons and one for hand-to-hand combat. I buried myself safely in the middle of the pack during the running and the rest of the training exercises, but there would be no more blending in once we were paired off and began to fight. I was sorted into the hand-to-hand group first and paired off, by chance, with West. I breathed easily for a moment. West was as close to a friend as I had in the place, and he had continued to be helpful and cordial to me since I’d arrived. We locked up and began to fight. I let him land a few blows and I made sure to get in a few of my own. When the instructor called us off a few minutes later, we shook hands and looked each other in the eye, and I thought I saw respect gleaming out at me. Whether he knew I had held back, I didn’t know, but there was no resentment in his gaze, so I chalked it up to a win.

  The next round, when my name was called, a bloke I knew as Knox loped into the circle. He fancied himself something of an alpha, I had gathered. He was tall and muscular, with dark hair and rather close-set blue eyes. His nose had the permanently bulbous appearance of having been broken on more than one occasion. He was rarely seen around the place without a few hangers-on, and he was one of those who liked to draw attention to himself at meals or in rec, besting people at games of cards and boasting crudely about conquests. He had also not troubled to keep his voice down when speculating at meal times what a Council clan darling was doing knocking around with the lot of outcasts on Skye. I would have to play this a little differently, I knew. West’s pride wasn’t so easily wounded, but Knox, for all his bluster, had the kind of manhood that bruised like an overripe peach.

  The bell clanged, signaling the start of our fight. Knox wasted no time going on the offensive, and I had no choice but to call on my reflexes to avoid being pummeled. I dodged blow after blow, watching Knox’s ire rise like the mercury in a thermometer. The more frustrated he got at his inability to land a blow, the sloppier his technique became, and I was able to turn the tables on him, stunning him first with a hook to the jaw, then a knee to the ribs, and finally, executing a leg sweep that left him panting on the ground on his back. The bell clanged again, signaling my victory.

  I held out a hand to help him up, not sure he would take it, but after a moment of consideration, he did. He looked me over, his eyes still blazing.

  “So, you got by on more than your Council connections, did you, Carey?” he muttered.

  “Can’t have mummy fighting all my battles for me, can I?” I replied smoothly.

  Knox’s expression was hard to read, but there might have been a nugget of respect in it. I didn’t think we’d be chums by any stretch of the imagination, but he knew now I wasn’t to be trifled with, I was confident of that, at least.

  By the end of training that day, I had managed, with some strategic effort, to earn myself a bit of leverage. My Commanders knew I was capable, and my fellow Caomhnóir knew better than to tangle with me. For the first time since I’d arrived, I felt just a bit of solid ground beneath my feet, which was good, because I needed something to anchor myself to, or my grief over Jess threatened to carry me clean away. I dug in as the days, and then the weeks, and then the months slipped by.

  Keep your head down, I told myself. Keep your head down and your mouth shut and show them you can be trusted. I would have to earn any respect or privilege there was to be had within the walls of Skye Prí
osún, and there was no hope of seeing Jess again without both. My reputation was the only leverage I had, and I had to start rebuilding it here.

  §

  Just as I began to wonder if anything could possibly break the monotony or the isolation, I found myself eligible for leave to Portree for the first time since I had arrived. I had no expectation, given the manner in which I had been reassigned, that I would ever be considered for such a privilege, but there I was, having my back slapped by West, who began rattling off the many pubs, restaurants, and shops I would have the pleasure of visiting when I was there.

  “Are… are you sure my name’s on that list?” I asked, for I hadn’t even bothered to check.

  “Dead sure, mate, I just read it myself!” West replied jovially. “Well done. That may be some sort of record, earning leave that quickly.”

  I forced a smile. The last six months had been the longest of my life. The idea that this development had happened “quickly” was a concept my mind could not properly wrap itself around. “Brilliant,” I managed, and left him to prattle on about Portree, for which I gave not a care in the world because it did not contain Jessica Ballard. Instead, my mind began to reel, wondering if there was any possible way I might use my time in Portree to communicate with Jess. Might I simply find a local public telephone box? Would there be an internet café I could perhaps sneak into? Did internet cafés even exist way the hell out here, and would the leadership have some way of preventing me from using them if they did? Would I be allowed to go anywhere alone, or would we all be expected to keep tabs on each other, like a pack of children tasked with babysitting one another? It seemed I was about to find out, and yet, I’d barely had the chance to imagine the possibilities when a second opportunity fell, seemingly from the cold, star-strewn Scottish sky, right into my lap.

  It was Monday, my day of rest that week, which meant I could luxuriate in unconsciousness for as long as I liked. The dreams still popped up, but that day they left me mercifully to my own devices, and so I slept like the dead until nearly ten o’clock in the morning. I’d missed breakfast by hours, but I wasn’t bothered. It had been so restorative just to achieve the kind of sleep where both body and mind rested simultaneously, I felt I could have gone all day without food and been quite cheerful about it. I took a long shower—I’d long ago grown used to the tepid water temperatures which were all the príosún had to offer—and dressed at leisure. I’d just decided that a stroll along the cliffs was what I needed, and had begun to make my way out to the grounds when I noticed the clump of Caomhnóir hovering around the notice board. I was used to seeing this sort of thing on the day the leave list was posted, but that had gone up two days earlier. I made my way to the back of the group and found West trying to elbow his way to the front.