by White, Gwynn
“Get in the car. Now!”
The balloon bobbled in front of Leonie’s face. She slapped it over the back of the seats and started the engine.
“Is something wrong?” Madelaine finally sounded alarmed.
Leonie backed out of the space, U-turned, and pointed the Tiny towards the road. “MI5.” She jerked her chin at the black car. The license started with a 1 for London. “Don’t look!”
The Invisible Men were sauntering back towards their car. Madelaine had the sense to keep her head lowered. She was wearing Leonie’s sweatshirt with the hood up to hide her face. Two women and a baby in a clapped-out car with Cork plates (she’d switched them at the garage). No one’d ever give them a second glance … except the people who were looking for them.
“Why are we going this way?”
Leonie had swerved back the way they came.
“They came from Oughterard. They’re already there. We’d be pinged the minute we got into town.”
“We have to go into Oughterard! My father said she lives near here.”
“I’m not staying on this road, either.” Leonie slung the road atlas into Madelaine’s lap. “See if you can find a route that’ll get us around the town.”
Madelaine limply opened the atlas. Fiona seized a page and ripped half of it out. “Oh, God!” Madelaine shouted, prying the crumpled paper out of the baby’s fist.
The rearview mirror remained uncluttered. Leonie took the first turnoff anyway, her heart banging. She drove between scruffy hedges, and there was a road sign embedded in a clump of hawthorn, so old that its post was striped in rust-flecked MacConn colors. Lough Inagh 6 ¾, it said.
Lough Inagh.
Leonie said it out loud in her head.
Lowena.
“Lowena!” she whooped. “Your Highness, we’ve found it! We’re there!”
“Lowena?”
“Lough Inagh. Say it with the Irish pronounciation. Lowena. Good old Floyd.” She swung the Tiny onto the turn-off. “This’ll get us out of the Invisible Men’s way, anyhow.”
Madelaine leaned her head against the window and sighed. Fiona ripped another fistful of pages out of the road atlas.
Pitted with potholes, the road climbed out of the valley where Oughterard lay. Leonie prayed the car didn’t break down again. At last, topping a rise, she saw the dull glint of water.
She braked on the shoulder of the next rise, which was hardly distinguishable from the road at this point—grass without potholes, as opposed to with. “I’m going to do a quick appreciation before we go any farther.” She took the Z4. She didn’t like leaving it in the car with Madelaine. Didn’t like carrying it openly, either. It was small enough to stuff under her coat if she had to, but she’d look like a woman with a machine-gun stuffed under her coat. Top of her wish list was a sidearm. Right up there with a clandestine pick-up organized by Madelaine’s friends on the Continent. That is, if the gormless cow had any.
She angled away from the road, scrambled to within a few yards of the crest, then got down and crawled, the Z4 bumping under her chest. Damp grass tickled her chin. She smelled sorrel. She peeked over the skyline.
A lake flexed under the wind’s invisible buffing rag. Hills fell sheer to the water at the north end. The road curved around the near end and climbed over rough pasture to a cluster of houses, a church standing on a separate little knoll. Higher up behind the village, an old pithead. Leonie yearned for binoculars. But even from here, the place looked uninhabited. No color relieved the grey stone of the terraced cottages, except for a spot of white at the lower end of the village, which could have been a dead sheep. The church was ruined.
She waited five minutes. Nothing moved except a few crows.
She returned to the car and relayed her observations to Madelaine.
“Uninhabited? I’m afraid that’s nothing out of the ordinary,” Madelaine sighed. “The Sauvages have been confiscating the land of what was once the MacConn Corporation for decades. Daddy did make a policy of financing local enterprise. But apparently a lot of the Sauvages’ bondsknights are awful crooks, so the money doesn’t trickle down as it’s meant to. It’s all so futile.”
“Well, we’re here now. We might as well take a look around.”
“I suppose.”
Leonie coaxed the Mini along the lakeside ruts. In a couple of places she thought she saw tyre tracks, but rain had washed away any clear sign. As they approached the village, she saw that someone had been here more recently than the nineteenth century, anyway. That spot of white was an estate car.
She parked at the bottom of the rise where the church stood, fifty yards below the village. Turned the car around to face back the way they’d come. “Come on, then.”
Madelaine gave her a pleading look that meant: Won’t you carry Fifi? Leonie pretended not to see. She was carrying the Z4, inside Madelaine’s black shoulder bag this time. Just in case anyone was here, they had to look like harmless tourists.
She walked up the hill ahead of the princess. The wind wuthered in her ears. The air tasted so fresh it almost hurt.
Reaching the car, she circled it. “Bloody.”
“What is it?” Madelaine had stopped behind her. Frail and hooded, Fiona on her hip, she gazed back down at the lake.
“Literally. Bloody. Someone was kneeling behind the car, here, and they got shot. Splatter on the paintwork. And it can’t have been long ago or the rain would have washed it all off.”
Despite that grisly sign, Leonie opened the driver’s side door and had a hunt for the keys. This was a better car than their Mini. And changing vehicles again might help to throw MI5 off.
The keys were missing, of course. She straightened up and turned around. Madelaine was not there.
The red balloon bobbed around the outside of the churchyard and vanished down the far side of the knoll.
“Come back! Where’re you going!” Leonie ran after them.
When she got around the knoll, she saw Madelaine standing halfway down the slope to the lake, petting a small black pony. It nuzzled Fiona’s legs, and Leonie heard HRH giggling, a girlish sound that dissolved into the wind.
Leonie walked down the hill to them. “Where’d the pony come from?”
“Now you’ve frightened him. Come here, boy, come here …”
The pony obviously knew humans as a source of food. Its velvety lips nibbled Madelaine’s sleeve.
“Oh, I wish we had something to give you. Grant, go and get those apples from the car. We can give him one of those.”
“I think we ought to just leave, Your Highness.”
“What’s the hurry? Aren’t I allowed to enjoy myself even for a few minutes?”
“Horsey,” Fiona said, yearning with both arms. Leonie blinked. It was the first word she’d ever heard the baby speak. “Horsey!”
“Want to go ridey, Fifi? Ridey on the horsey? Let’s see if he’ll let you. See, Grant, she’s not scared of him …” Madelaine set Fiona on the pony’s back, supporting her astraddle.
The pony’s head came around. It was looking at Leonie, laughing at her, and deep in its liquid black eye she saw a spark of fire burning red.
She launched herself at Madelaine and Fiona, crying out, “No!”
Fiona flopped forward, twining chubby hands into the pony’s mane.
The pony’s ears flattened and it kicked, forcing Madelaine back. With Fiona clinging to its back, it galloped towards the lake. The red balloon, still tied to Fiona’s wrist, bobbled behind it.
Leonie fumbled the Z4 out of her bag, wedged the stock into her shoulder. Magazine loaded, selector on single shot. Did she dare to shoot? Did she dare to not shoot?
Twenty yards to the lake, the pony going like the wind. Fifteen.
Leonie fired a double tap. The pony’s stride faltered. She fired again, her target moving slower now, and the pony slowed. But still it was moving towards the lake, and Fiona was still stuck on its back, and now Madelaine was sprinting after them.
“Get out of
my fucking line of fire!” Leonie screamed. Finger splayed outside the trigger guard, she started to run, too.
Ten yards to the lake. The pony hobbled on. Five. Leonie’s feet splashed in the boggy bits between the tussocks. Injured or not, the pony was going to reach the water, and Madelaine was still cluttering up her shot.
Gunfire erupted from off to the left. Leonie’s training threw her flat on her belly, Z4 held clear of the bog, left hand plunging into muddy water to break her fall. She identified the chatter of a Myxilite. She rolled, ready to shoot back, and saw that the pony had gone down. It was rolling in the bog, kicking its legs and screaming.
She stumbled to her feet, knees and arse soaked.
A gunman ran around the lake towards them, Myxilite pistoning in one hand.
Madelaine reached the pony. Fearless for once, she pounced. With Fiona locked in her arms, she floundered back towards Leonie. The baby was screaming, her pink romper soaked with bog water. The red balloon had burst at last. It was just a rag of foil trailing on its string.
“Is she all right?” Leonie demanded, her attention alternating between the pony and the approaching gunman. She held the Z4 low, not displaying open hostility, but wary. The bloke could’ve killed Fiona! But he had saved her. But he was still a bloke running around in the cuds with a Myxilite.
The pony thing was still dragging itself towards the water. Leonie thought about putting some more bullets in it. But she only had a few rounds left.
She urged Madelaine back from the shore, watching the gunman. He’d given up sprinting and was now jogging clumsily towards them.
“You could have killed her!” Madelaine shouted over Fiona’s wailing.
“That thing could have killed her! Why’d you let her ride it?”
“How was I to know it was wild?”
“It was more than just bloody wild!” Out of the corner of her eye, Leonie saw the pony roll heavily into the water. It sank beneath the surface. Ripples spread and vanished. “Look at that, would you, it just dived into the lake like a bloody fish!” The ripples broke on something else submerged just under the surface. The roof of a car. Maybe Fiona wouldn’t have been the thing’s first victim.
Madelaine’s mouth squared. She was going to start crying, too. “What was it?”
“How would I know?”
“It was a nympie,” said the gunman, panting up to them. “Your wee one had a narrow escape. Lucky I was here!”
Leonie scowled at him and started walking back the way they had come, steering Madelaine by one elbow. “What’s a nympie when it’s at home?”
“Sure it’s that fey beast that just went in the water. There was always one or two of them in this lake.” The man’s gaze fastened on the Z4 in Leonie’s hand. She read on his plump, sideburned face a mixture of lust for the weapon, and contempt for her shooting, as well as resentment of the very fact that she, a woman, should own such a rifle. Yet his voice stayed solicitous, warm with the chumminess that Irishmen typically showed to women, especially ones as pretty as Madelaine. “Is she not hurt, then, the wee one?”
“She was thrown clear.” Madelaine smiled and bobbed her head in thanks. “The ground is soft there, it broke her fall. We are in your debt, my good man.”
Short hair and a hoodie might disguise Madelaine’s appearance but nothing could disguise her accent or her highborn condescension. Despair plugged the bottom of Leonie’s stomach as the incongruity registered on the gunman’s face.
“What are you doing out here, then?” he demanded curiously. “It’s a long way from town, and as you can see no one lives here.”
“Don’t you?” Leonie said.
At the same time Madelaine said, “It was my—my bodyguard’s idea. She thought we might find what we’re looking for here!”
“Oh aye, and what’s that?”
This fellow was no farmer. He didn’t have the reddened face from working outside, and his clothes were too good, his hair longish but neatly parted. A Oughterard man out for rabbits? With a bleeding Myxilite? Leonie tried to send Madelaine a message with her eyes: shut up! But Madelaine did not see, or ignored her.
“It’s rather a long shot, I’m afraid. But … we’re looking for a woman. Diarmait MacConn’s common-law widow. Don’t worry, she isn’t in trouble of any sort. In fact she—she’s inherited some money. A legacy from my father. You wouldn’t know of her, I suppose?”
The man grinned. “I know her well! In fact I’m staying with her at the moment. She lives just up there.”
He pointed up past the village. Leonie followed his gesture to a thread of smoke, the same color as the clouds; you’d miss it if you didn’t know it was there.
Madelaine looked stunned. “That is—well, that’s marvelous!” Leonie felt stunned, too. So Tristan had been right. Or had he been? The wind blew the gunman’s fringe off his forehead and Leonie saw beads of sweat at his hairline, despite the cold. She didn’t trust him at all.
“Tell you what, m’lady, why don’t you come up the hill with me? You want to dry the wee one’s things before she catches a chill, and you can talk to herself. She’s there now.”
“That’s very kind of you, my good man,” Madelaine started to say.
“We’re not going anywhere with this bloke,” Leonie interrupted. “Come on, Your H—my lady. Let’s go.”
The man smiled mockingly. “Twitchy, sweetheart?”
“Just bugger off back to where you came from,” Leonie said.
“Oh—oh! Why must you spoil everything, Grant?”
“There’s the car. Get in.”
“If she doesn’t want to, you can’t make her.” The man circled towards Madelaine. “There now, m’lady, you’ve had a terrible shock.”
“I have.” On cue, Madelaine started to cry. “Fifi’s all I’ve got left, you see. My mother died when I was nine. And then my brother. My father. Everyone’s dead. And my h-h-husband …”
“Ah, now!”
If he lays hands on the princess, I’ll shoot him. Her thoughts were cold and definite, like bullets travelling through a void.
“My h-h-husband betrayed me. He’s an utter swine. And he’s got our son. So all I have is Fifi. Oh, my angel, my poor sweet little angel.” Madelaine covered Fiona’s face with tearful kisses.
“There, now. Better out than in.”
“Don’t you see, I simply can’t take any more! I simply can’t go on, and it’s no use asking me to!”
Leonie went over to the princess and patted her shoulder. That put her within reach of the gunman. She shifted her weight onto her forward foot and seized the barrel of his Myxilite, pushing down and twisting. His fingers loosed the weapon and he bent to reach for it. Leonie remembered her Company training. Their spairjack instructor had singled out the handful of female trainees: Here’s how you even up the odds. They had had to unlearn all their manners, learn to be aggressive instead of nice. She kicked the man in the groin. He dropped to the ground, yelping and weeping. She seized his ankles—luckily, he was a little fellow—and dragged him towards the Mini, his head bumping on the ground.
“Get the tow rope out of the boot!” she screamed at Madelaine. “Secure his weapon!”
She dumped the man beside the car and held the Z4 on him. The sky was vast and silent, a mouth full of clouds ringed by the fangs of the Twelve Bens. She had slogged up these very mountains, proving herself. Not around here, of course. The ROCK base the Company used for their selection courses was on the far side of the range, in County Mayo. Might as well have been a thousand miles away.
“Who are you?”
The man huddled against the wheel of the Mini, silent.
“Who told you to fuck with us?”
She kicked him in the stomach.
“Where’s Alyx O’Braonain?”
“Aaagh! She’s not here!”
“Is she up there on the hill?”
“No! Aaaarrgh!”
The howl of pain sounded exaggerated and the wet eyes were flicker
ing around, looking for some way to escape. He’s not frightened enough. He should be kissing my boots and begging for mercy. If she couldn’t frighten him, how could she make him tell her the truth?
“What’s your name?” She menaced him with the Z4, and he smirked at her hopefully. “Are you IRA?”
“Is it joining up you’re here for? We don’t take English. We don’t take bints, either. Alyx doesn’t like competition. Not that you’d give her any, you ugly bitch.”
“Who’s the Black Mother? Is it Alyx herself?”
His smile broadened, blood trickling from a split lip. “You know nothing.”
“Right.” Leonie turned to Madelaine, who had put Fiona in the car, but made no move to fetch the tow rope. “Here’s his weapon, hold it on him!” She thrust the Myxilite at Madelaine. “Shoot him if you have to.”
She headed around to the front of the Mini and released the bonnet. She’d seen this done when she was in the Tabbies. She unclipped the jump leads and stood over the man. “Last chance. Where’s Alyx O’Braonain?”
“Fuck you.” The man surged up, trying to headbutt her. Ready for that, she stomped him in the stomach. He collapsed again, bleating. She clamped one of the jump leads onto his neck, catching a fold of skin, then touched the other clip to his ear.
He squealed, stiffened—all his limbs flying out like one of those dancing dolls when you pushed on the base—and slumped, legs lolling wide.
“Oh my God,” Madelaine said.
Leonie prodded the man with her toe. “Well?”
He lay snivelling with his face in the mud. “Belfast. She’s gone to Belfast. Ah God.”
“Pity I don’t believe you,” Leonie said. She laid the jump lead tenderly against his cheek. Held it there until he stopped screaming and was just twitching. “Now then, where is she?”
He was drooling blood, he’d bitten his tongue. Maybe she’d given him too much juice. “Belfast! Gone—to—Belfast!”
Do I believe him, or don’t I? She had to make up her mind, or they could go on like this all day.
She risked a glance over her shoulder, up the mountain. Amid the gorse, something moved. A goat. But that wasn’t what she’d seen.
An old woman, dumpy, grey hair escaping from a headscarf. Just standing there. Watching.