‘That’s a good thing?’ Col didn’t understand the pride in her voice.
‘Yes, because I was flapping and fussing so much the red armbands couldn’t catch hold of me. I made a distraction. And they couldn’t work out how I’d escaped from my leg-irons.’
‘Father used the key, then passed it to Mother,’ Gillabeth explained. ‘She passed it to Dunga, then Dunga to me.’
Quinnea rattled on. ‘So I made a distraction, and that girl Filthy came in through the door and attacked the red armbands from behind.’
‘Riff,’ said Gillabeth.
‘Yes, yes. Punching and kicking and dancing around so fast you could hardly see her. Then the other Filthy joined in too.’
Again Gillabeth supplied the name. ‘Dunga.’
Col had seen Riff in action and knew all about the Filthies’ hand-to-hand fighting skills. ‘But what about the rifles? I heard shooting.’
He indicated the hatch at the top of the ladder, and Gillabeth nodded.
‘The other red armbands were still up there,’ she said. ‘They didn’t realise what was happening at first. By the time they started shooting, it was so confused they couldn’t tell who was who.’
‘I got shot,’ said Sephaltina, and lifted a corner of her wedding dress to display the bullet hole. ‘Right through my dress.’
‘They shot one of their own too.’ Gillabeth pointed with her foot at one of the motionless bodies on the floor of the cage. ‘Then—’
‘Let me tell it!’ cried Quinnea. ‘I thought of it first! They were sitting round the hatch with their legs dangling down, so I reached up and got hold of a foot and pulled!’
She clapped her hands with delight. Col struggled to adjust to this new side of his mother’s personality.
‘Yes, she pulled the first one down, and his rifle with him.’ Even Gillabeth had a smile on her face. ‘We all copied her and did the same. We grabbed the rifles off them before they knew what was happening. Then Riff gave them a chance to surrender, and they did. Except for the ones who ran off on Bottom Deck.’
‘Is that where she is now?’ Col took a step towards the ladder.
Gillabeth nodded. ‘Riff and Dunga and Orris took the captured rifles, and went up to Bottom Deck. Antrobus too. There was no more shooting, though. We stayed behind to raise the rope.’
‘Let’s go see,’ said Col.
He led the way up the ladder. At first glance, Bottom Deck appeared exactly as it had appeared before: quiet and cavernous, with scattered pools of blue-white light. But when he looked along to the prisoners, they no longer formed a queue. They were moving freely about, rubbing their ankles. He breathed a sigh of relief.
Other figures stood around too: Filthies in singlets, talking with the prisoners. Obviously, Lye’s labour force must have changed sides and turned against the red armbands. From what Dunga had said, they had no reason for loyalty.
Emerging from the hatch and striding forward, Col saw Riff and Dunga unlocking the last of the leg-irons with Mr Gibber’s key. Further along stood his father, armed with a rifle, guarding a couple of red armbands.
A tug on his sleeve brought Col to a halt. It was his baby brother, appearing suddenly out of the shadows.
‘What is it, Antrobus?’
Antrobus pointed to a sign that hung from a cordon between two nearby piers.
KEEP OUTSIDE THE ROPES
Gillabeth, Quinnea and Sephaltina caught up and gathered around.
‘What’s so important about a sign, Antrobus?’ Gillabeth asked. ‘We’ve seen dozens like that. Mr Gibber wrote them.’
Antrobus seemed to swell as he prepared for one of his long, grammatically perfect sentences.
‘Since Mr Gibber served as Lye’s writer, might she not also have ordered him to produce the note that was pinned on the door of the barracks in Botany Bay?’
Col frowned and looked at his sister. Gillabeth pursed her lips.
‘You die tomorrow. Attack at dawn.’ He recited the words. ‘But who would’ve pinned it to the door? Not Mr Gibber.’
‘Lye herself,’ said Gillabeth.
‘You think she had time before the attack?’
Gillabeth nodded. ‘It wouldn’t have taken long. She could have gone down in a scoop while everyone was getting prepared.’
‘I saw her,’ said Sephaltina suddenly.
‘What?’
‘I saw her go down in a scoop.’
Col stared into Sephaltina’s wide, guileless eyes. ‘You said you’d seen her before.’
‘Why were you there?’ asked Gillabeth.
‘I wanted something to smash. I looked at the cranes, but they were too difficult. Then I saw someone go to operate the crane controls.’
‘Who?’
Sephaltina shrugged.
‘Not Lye, then,’ said Gillabeth.
‘Perhaps Shiv,’ said Col.
‘Then she climbed into the scoop,’ Sephaltina went on. ‘With her pale face and black, black hair.’
Another voice broke in. ‘What’s this?’
Riff came forward into the group, with Dunga behind her. They must have finished freeing the prisoners.
Col explained Antrobus’s theory and Sephaltina’s evidence. Riff wasn’t immediately convinced.
‘Why would Lye betray our attack? She hates the Imperialists more than anyone.’
‘I can think of a motive,’ said Gillabeth.
Col wasn’t interested in Lye’s motives. ‘We need to find Mr Gibber,’ he said. ‘If we can get him to admit he wrote the note . . .’
‘He’s probably still with Lye,’ said Dunga.
‘And Lye will be at the trial,’ added Riff.
Col had forgotten all about the trial. ‘Right. They were taking Victoria and Albert away to be tried, weren’t they?’
‘What for?’ asked Quinnea. ‘What will they do to them?’
Col didn’t know, but a sudden sense of foreboding gripped his guts. ‘Didn’t Lye say she had to get back to the Grand Assembly Hall?’
‘Obvious place to hold a trial,’ said Gillabeth.
‘They’ll all be there,’ said Dunga.
‘It’s now or never,’ said Riff.
‘Win or lose,’ said Gillabeth.
‘Let’s go,’ said Col.
They went up by steam elevator: Riff and Dunga, Orris and Gillabeth, Col and Sephaltina. Sephaltina insisted on accompanying her husband, which was fortunate because they needed her to present her evidence in person. She was the only one not carrying a rifle. Quinnea had opted to stay behind with Antrobus.
Gillabeth made a useful suggestion on the way up. ‘I know a special side-entry into the Grand Assembly Hall, if we want to sneak in at the front.’
Everyone agreed. They had no definite plan except to stage a confrontation and exploit their advantage of surprise. It seemed better to sneak in at the front than get stuck at the back of the crowd.
Gillabeth led them by way of tunnel-like service corridors and dimly lit storerooms. Col could imagine how Menials had once shuffled along these passages, wheeling trolleys, carrying food and drink. One storeroom was filled with unwanted urns and statues from the time of the old regime; another was packed with flags and banners bearing the Imperial initials, V & A.
Finally, Gillabeth halted them at a closed door. On the other side, they could hear a voice declaiming and the background murmur of a large crowd.
‘The Grand Assembly Hall?’ Col asked in a whisper.
Gillabeth nodded. ‘The trial’s already begun.’
‘Sounds like Lye’s voice,’ growled Dunga.
Gillabeth turned the handle and pushed the door a fraction ajar. Everyone craned forward to peer through the crack.
There was little t
o see, but enough for Col to get his bearings. This door was on the right side of the Hall, and their view through the crack angled towards the wall behind the speakers. They could hear Lye, but they couldn’t see her.
‘All done in her name,’ she was saying. ‘All that we suffered, every death and disfigurement. None of it could have happened without Queen Victoria’s stamp of approval. There was a chain of command, and she was at the top.’
Gillabeth pushed the door a fraction wider. Now they could see a raised dais that had been set up at the front of the hall. To Col, it looked very much like the one on which the band had played at his wedding reception. Shiv sat on the dais behind a table, and appeared to have taken on the role of presiding judge. Victoria and Albert stood in shackles alongside.
‘And all of you others from Botany Bay.’ Now Lye was addressing the convicts. ‘To whom did your Governor owe ultimate allegiance? Who founded the original colony? The system of tyranny began with the British Empire. And this woman is the British Empire.’
Gillabeth kept opening the door until they could see as far as the front of the crowd. With all attention focused upon Lye, nobody noticed the widening crack.
‘Where’s Mr Gibber?’ muttered Riff.
‘Could be further back.’ Col indicated the stacks of folded tables that blocked their view.
‘We have to be sure,’ whispered Gillabeth.
Lye was pacing about before the dais, swinging her arms as she spoke. Padder and Gansy stood a little further along, looking very ill at ease.
‘You’ve heard that this ex-Queen is pregnant,’ Lye went on. ‘Does that incline you to mercy? But what mercy can we expect from the Russians? I say it’s too late for mercy. Now is the time for justice. She must pay with her life, and her consort with her.’
If anyone in the crowd put a higher value on mercy, they didn’t say so.
Only Gansy raised an objection. ‘Why now? If now is the time for justice, why wasn’t it time three months ago?’
‘Because now we must have total commitment!’ Lye raised her voice. ‘Before we launch our assault! When we execute these two, we reject the old ways forever! No reservations, no going back!’
Col eyed the stacks of folded tables. What blocked their view also hid them from view. If he could creep up behind the folded tables, he could scan for Mr Gibber in the crowd.
Out in the hall, Victoria cleared her throat. ‘Am I allowed to speak?’ she asked Shiv.
‘Are you allowed to speak?’ Shiv exchanged glances with Lye, who gave the tiniest shrug of indifference. ‘Yes, I’ll allow that.’
Victoria stood facing the crowd; all eyes were upon her. Now was as good a moment as any for Col. He lowered his rifle and left it on the ground.
‘I’m going to take a look,’ he whispered.
He crouched down low, gave the door an extra push, and slipped through. If anyone at the front of the crowd had glanced towards his side of the hall, they would easily have spotted him. But no one did. He scurried across the floor and into the shadow of the stacked tables.
‘I never wanted to be Queen,’ Victoria was saying. ‘And I know Albert didn’t marry me to become Prince Consort. We were only ever figureheads, and we never enjoyed it. We like it much more being ordinary people.’
Albert backed her up. ‘The Liberation was the best thing that ever happened to us.’
‘We want to be an ordinary mother and father.’ Victoria touched a hand to her visibly swelling belly. ‘And Henry – or Henrietta – will be our beloved child. We promise to live quietly and not be a trouble to anyone.’
Narrow channels separated the stacks of folded tables. Col squeezed his way forward in one channel, and peeped out.
‘Ordinariness isn’t a possibility for you,’ Lye answered Victoria. ‘You are what you represent. What you represent is a line of tyrants.’
The crowd was again mostly made up of red armbands, about a third of them Botany Bay convicts. Even among the Filthies, few faces were familiar to Col. But there was Mr Gibber – not standing with the crowd, but lurking behind one of the marble columns. He was at the side and near the front, not far from Col.
‘Your unborn child represents the same.’ Lye went on with her harangue. ‘The continuation of the line. An ongoing tradition of injustice. It represents a potential future of suffering for us.’
Col doubled back in the channel between the stacks, looked towards the door and gave a thumbs-up. He couldn’t see faces in the crack, only a space of darkness. Hopefully, they had observed his signal.
‘That’s not fair!’ Albert spluttered with indignation. ‘You can’t say that about an innocent child!’
Lye sneered. ‘What do you know about fairness? You don’t have the right to talk about justice.’
‘Maybe not!’ The door swung open and Riff marched out. ‘But I do!’
Behind Riff marched Dunga, then Gillabeth, then Orris, then Sephaltina. They were all unarmed.
The crowd was shocked into silence – but not immobility. As Col sprang to his feet and stepped forward to stand with the others, the only sound was the raising of rifles, the clicking of safety catches. Dozens of barrels were trained upon them.
Lye was beyond words, blazing with fury. Riff confronted her, eyeball to eyeball.
‘You like to talk about justice,’ she snapped, ‘but only for other people. You’re the one who should be judged and punished for what you’ve done.’
Shiv recovered the power of speech before Lye. ‘What are you doing here? You’ve been convicted, all of you. You were sent down as prisoners.’
‘Yes, and when we were down there, we found a whole lot of other prisoners.’ Riff swung to face the crowd. ‘People who’d never been convicted. Shiv and Lye’s hidden prisoners.’
‘Only Swanks,’ said Shiv.
‘No,’ said Dunga, stepping forward. ‘I was one of them.’
There was a murmur of amazement as the crowd focused on Dunga. ‘A Council member?’ ‘What crime?’ ‘I thought she was injured.’
Then Padder spoke up. ‘I don’t understand. What are you doing here, Dunga? Where have you been?’
‘I’ve been tied to a bed and wrapped up in bandages. On their orders. Ask them why.’
Gansy turned to Shiv and Lye. ‘Why?’
Again it was Shiv who answered. ‘She needed time to heal properly. We had to keep her still or she’d have re-opened her wounds.’
‘Do I look as if I needed time to heal?’ Dunga demonstrated with a whirl of her arms and a kick of her legs. ‘They wanted to keep me from voting at Council meetings.’
‘You recovered eventually,’ said Shiv. ‘Thanks to our care. Then you volunteered to go Below and inspect the engines.’
‘Not true!’ Dunga barked. ‘You planned for us all to die down there!’
‘Enough!’ Lye cut in suddenly. ‘No one believes you.’ She appealed to the crowd. ‘It’s nonsense. Does anyone believe we would actually try to kill a Council member just to keep her from voting?’
There were scattered cries of ‘No!’ and a general shaking of heads. The idea was too much for anyone to swallow.
‘Shall we send the prisoners down again?’ Lye asked.
More shaking of heads. The crowd didn’t believe Dunga, yet they didn’t totally disbelieve her either.
‘Not including Dunga, of course,’ said Shiv.
Still the crowd wavered. Col exchanged glances with Riff. It was time to move on to the most telling accusation.
He stepped forward. ‘That’s not all. Lye and Shiv have committed a crime against everyone on board this juggernaut.’
‘This is stupid,’ snarled Shiv. ‘We’re not the ones on trial here. I won’t allow it.’
Col hurried on regardless. The red armbands at the front of the crowd ha
d lowered their rifles and showed no inclination to use them.
‘Remember the ambush at Botany Bay? When our attack was betrayed because someone wrote a warning note and pinned it on the door of their barracks? We know who wrote that note – and it wasn’t the saboteur.’
He was aware of the risk he was taking. He hadn’t said ‘we suspect’ but ‘we know’. Lye and Shiv didn’t appear worried; the expressions on their faces conveyed only scorn.
‘Not Lye and Shiv?’ said Padder. ‘You can’t be accusing them?’
‘Yes,’ said Riff firmly.
Lye laughed outright, and there were a few titters from the crowd. But everyone was still listening, still waiting for further developments.
‘Why would Lye and Shiv betray our attack?’ Gansy asked. ‘They hate the Imperialists more than anyone.’
Col and Riff looked to Gillabeth – and she didn’t let them down.
‘Because they hate the Imperialists so much,’ she said. ‘By warning the enemy, they turned a secret raid into a full-scale battle. They needed people to die on our side so that everyone would hate the Imperialists as much as they do.’
‘Right.’ Suddenly it all made perfect sense to Col. ‘It was supposed to be an attack without bloodshed. Take hostages and force the Imperialists to supply us with coal. But Lye and Shiv wanted more than that.’
‘They probably never expected so many deaths,’ said Gillabeth. ‘But they were willing to sacrifice lives in order to drive everyone to extremes.’
The expression of contempt had frozen on Lye’s lips. Shiv glared.
‘You’ve forgotten one thing,’ he said.
Riff took the lead again. ‘You think so? Are you going to say you couldn’t have written the note because Filthies can’t write?’
Shiv’s mouth opened and closed. Obviously that was exactly what he had been going to say.
‘We’re not accusing you of writing the note,’ Riff went on. ‘We’re not accusing her of writing it either. We’re accusing her of ordering him to write it.’ She pointed. ‘Come forward, Mr Gibber.’
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