Novel - Airman

by Eoin Colfer

  Bonvilain was struggling not to end Muldoon’s worthless life immediately. “You should probably go and raise the alarm.”

  Muldoon bobbed his head. “Yes, Marshall. Absolutely. But who is that boy behind you, sir?”

  Bonvilain blinked. “Excuse me?”

  Conor was a sharp young man, and it hadn’t taken him long to realize what was happening. Apparently Victor was not just the royal tutor, he was also a spy for King Nicholas. Bonvilain must have listened to this conspiracy blossom from his spot behind the wall, and intended to put an end to it before it put an end to him. But why Victor’s gun?

  His teacher’s own voice chided him. For goodness’ sake, boy. Is it not obvious?

  Conor paled in the darkness. Of course. Victor’s weapon. Victor’s crime.

  When Bonvilain went through the door, Conor had already formulated a rudimentary plan. He would rush through two paces behind, shouting a warning. Victor should react quickly and disarm Bonvilain without undue difficulty.

  He was on his feet and halfway up the stretch of stairs when the first shot rang out. So quickly? So quickly? Who had taken the bullet? Perhaps King Nicholas had fired first and all was well. Only one shot, after all. One shot for one man.

  Conor kept moving, but carefully now. He did not want to be shot for a traitor by his king or teacher. They would be nervous, on the lookout for Bonvilain’s men, and there was no need for a warning now. It was too late, one way or the other.

  Conor eased into the doorway, squinting against the sudden lamplight. His eyes adjusted in time for him to witness Victor shot down as he rushed Bonvilain.

  Conor froze, speechless, as his eyes took in the tableau of horror before him. The king, dead. Victor, too. Horribly. And Bonvilain grinning and talking to himself like a madman. Now he was placing Victor’s gun in the Parisian’s hand. These events were nightmarish. Too brisk to be true. They skimmed the surface of reality like skipped stones on a flat sea.

  A knock on the door, and in came a sentry. Conor recognized him from his corridor-roaming with Isabella. A dullard, in the Watch because of some relation. But a subject, nonetheless, and so should be warned.

  Conor was a breath from shouting when the sentry began to converse with Bonvilain. The man was a part of things! Bonvilain would escape completely. The king was dead, and Victor’s memory would be blackened. It was unbearable.

  This plot must be stopped. Bonvilain could not be allowed close to Isabella. Conor stooped low, creeping to Victor’s side, using the furniture as cover. The Parisian lay on his side, as though comfortably asleep. His eyes were wide with surprise and blood bubbled on his lips. Dead. Dead.

  Conor fought the tears. What would Victor have him do? What would his father have him do? Stop this conspiracy. He had training aplenty to do it, and there was a loaded gun inches from his fingers.

  Then Victor’s eyes blinked and found focus. The Frenchman lived for a stolen moment. “Don’t do it, boy,” he whispered, showing a remarkable grasp of the situation. “The Martello tower in Kilmore. Find it and burn it. Bonvilain must never learn our secrets. The eagle has the key. Go now. Go.”

  Conor nodded, the tears coming freely now, dripping from his nose and chin. Martello tower. Kilmore. Burn it. Go.

  He might have left then and avoided years of heartache, had not the Parisian rattled out his final breath. Dead. Again. Conor was stunned. To lose his friend and mentor twice in as many minutes. They would never fly together now. They would never fly.

  The Broekhart in him took over, pushing down the scientist. Victor had been trying to protect him, but there was no need: Conor was trained in all the weapons of combat, including Oriental and Indian, had they been available.

  Conor pried the Colt from Victor’s hands. The pearl handle against his palm brought both confidence and sadness. This was a gun he had twirled a thousand times while Victor chided him for being a show-off.

  He twirled it again to settle himself, then popped out the cylinder, checking the load. Five shots left. Plenty for some wounding. Conor came to his feet, the tears on his face drying quickly.

  The sentry saw him first. “But who is that boy behind you, sir?” he said dully.

  Bonvilain turned slowly, already pulling a sad face. “Ah, young Broekhart,” he said, as though Conor was expected. “A terrible tragedy.”

  Conor aimed the Colt at Bonvilain’s chest, a large enough target. “I heard everything, Marshall. I saw you shoot Victor.”

  Bonvilain dropped the act. His face was once again its sharp self: angles and shadows. “No one will believe you.”

  “Some will,” said Conor. “My father will.”

  The marshall considered this. “You know, I think you might be right. I suppose that means I must kill you too, unless you kill me.”

  “I could do it. And that oaf, too,” said Conor, cocking the Colt.

  “I am sure you could, theoretically, but the time for theory is over. This is not the practice field, Conor: we are at war now.”

  “Stand where you are, Marshall. Someone heard the shots. They will be coming.”

  “Not through these walls. No one is coming.”

  It was true, and Conor knew it. Victor had told him that one night he and Nicholas were testing fireworks in the grate, and not a soul in the palace had heard. “You, soldier. Put down your rifle and sit on the chair.”

  The sentry did not appreciate being ordered about by a fourteen-year-old boy, but then again, the boy seemed very familiar with the weapon in his fist.

  “This chair? There’s blood on it.”

  “No, idiot. That chair. By the wall.”

  The sentry laid his weapon on the stone floor, shuffling across to a stool by the wall. “This is a stool,” he mumbled. “You said chair.”

  Bonvilain took a sneaky step forward, hoping that Conor was distracted by the sentry’s inanities. Not so.

  “Don’t move, traitor. Murderer.”

  Bonvilain smiled. His teeth were glossy, like yellow pearls. “Now, Conor, I will explain to you what I am about to do. I intend, and this is a promise, to take a leisurely walk across the space between us and then choke the life from your body. The only way you can stop this coming to pass is to shoot me. Remember, this is war; no school today.”

  “Stay where you are!” shouted Conor, but the marshall was already on his way. Five steps divided them. Four now.

  “Take your shot, boy. Soon I will be too close, and it will be difficult to get a bullet past my hands.”

  I chose badly, Conor realized. I should have fled down the passage and fetched my father. He had never shot a person. Never wanted to. I want to build a flying machine. With Victor. But Victor was dead. Murdered by Bonvilain.

  “I am upon you,” said the marshall.

  Conor shot him twice, under his outstretched arms, in the upper chest. I had to do it. He gave me no choice.

  Bonvilain’s steps faltered slightly, but he kept coming. He was purple in the forehead, but the light in his eyes never wavered. “And now,” he said, batting the gun from Conor’s fingers. “To choke the life from your body. As promised.”

  Conor was lifted from the floor, his flapping arms and legs battering ineffectively against the marshall’s flanks, which seemed to jingle when struck.

  “I am a Templar, boy,” said Bonvilain. “Have you never heard of us? We like to wear chain mail going into war. Chain mail. I have a vest on at the moment, just in case things did not play out as I’d planned. Prudence is never wasted, as we see here today.”

  This revelation did not matter much to Conor now. All he knew was that Bonvilain still lived. He had been shot, but lived.

  “You hold him, Marshall!” said the sentry, reclaiming his rifle. “Hold him still, and I will shoot him.”

  “No!” shouted the marshall, imagining the indignity of an epitaph that included the phrase accidentally shot while strangling a youth.

  “You prefer to do it yourself,” said the sentry, sulking slightly. />
  Bonvilain thought as he strangled. He held in his hands, literally, the solution to his Captain Broekhart difficulty. Victor Vigny had been right: Declan Broekhart was his only real opposition in the Saltee army. Surely there was a way to win the captain’s loyalty from this situation. And if it required a little manipulation, was that not his speciality?

  An idea poked from the depths of Bonvilain’s brain, like the head of a sly serpent from a swamp. What if the rebel Victor Vigny had not acted alone? What if he’d had an accomplice—the sentry, for example? The sentry was certainly expendable.

  Bonvilain felt a shiver run up his spine. He was on the verge of brilliance, he could feel it. For Bonvilain, it was moments like these that made life tolerable. Moments that presented him with a challenge worthy of his specific talents.

  “You there, idiot,” he said to the sentry. “Open the window.”

  “That one?” said the sentry, though there was but one window in the apartment.

  “Yes,” said Bonvilain innocently. “The one overlooking the cliffs.”

  Conor awoke from near strangulation in a damp, windowless cell, where he languished for hours. His solitude was interrupted periodically by a brace of guards who stomped with considerable gusto on his slim frame. On their final visit, the pair stripped him of his clothing and bundled him into a Saltee army uniform—As yer own clothes stink of blood and fear.

  Conor wondered about this briefly through his pain. Why a soldier’s uniform? Before his addled brain could reach any conclusion, the beatings recommenced, backhanded blows across the face. Conor felt one eye close and the blood flow down his nose. The guards propped something soft on his head. A towel, perhaps? To staunch the flow of blood, maybe? It seemed unusually compassionate.

  There were more confusing meddlings with his person. One guard swabbed his cheeks with what smelled like gunpowder. The other scratched on his arm with an ink pen. This went on for what seemed like hours.

  When the guards were satisfied with their arrangements, the fatter of the pair clamped a set of manacles on Conor’s wrists and a lunatic box over his head, pulling the head-cage’s leather mouth strap tight until it forced Conor’s teeth apart, ratcheting back between his jaws. The only noises he could make now were groans and grunts.

  The cell itself was a ten-foot block of hell, and Conor could not credit that such a place existed on the Great Saltee. The walls and floor were granite. Hewn from the island itself. No bricks or mortar, just solid rock. There was no escape from here. Water trickled through grooves worn by centuries of erosion. Conor did not waste a second thirsting for it. The combination of the lunatic box and manacles meant that he could not pass anything through the metal grille to his mouth. In any case, the grooves themselves were flaked by salt. Seawater.

  They left him for an age, wallowing in his misery. The king was dead. Isabella’s father, murdered by Bonvilain. Victor was gone, too. In the blink of an eye, his mentor and friend had been cruelly killed. And what was to become of Conor himself ? Surely Bonvilain would not leave breath in the body of a witness. Conor felt the weight of the cage upon his head, the gall of manacles chafing his wrists, and the threat of his own impending death weighing heavy on his heart.

  The metal slab of the door swung, dragging on the hinges. A tallow-yellow light filled the room with a sickly glow, and in that glow stood the unmistakable silhouette of Sir Hugo Bonvilain. The king’s marshall and murderer. Because of this man, Isabella was an orphan.

  Rage took hold of Conor’s body, filling his limbs with strength. He lurched to his feet, arms outstretched toward Bonvilain. The sight cheered Bonvilain tremendously. The man actually whistled as he grasped the bars on the lunatic box’s grille, stuffing his thick fingers between the bars. Bonvilain stepped aside and casually swung Conor into the wall, wincing at the clang and clatter.

  “I used your own momentum against you,” he said, as though school were in session. “Basic training. Basic. If one of my men made that mistake, I’d have him flogged. Didn’t that French dandy teach you anything?”

  Bonvilain squatted, propping Conor against the rough damp wall. “A great day, isn’t it? Historic. The king is gone, apparently assassinated by rebels. Do you know what that means?”

  Conor could not reply even if he had wanted to. If it had not been for the pain, this would have all seemed like a cruel dream. A night terror.

  Bonvilain rattled the lunatic box to make sure he had Conor’s attention. “Hello? Young Broekhart. Still with us?”

  Conor tried to spit at his captor, but all he could do was gag.

  “Good. Alive, for now. Anyway, about the king’s being dead, let me tell you what it means. It means an end to these ridiculous reforms. Money for the people. The people? Unwashed, uneducated rabble. No more money for the people, you can bet the blood in your veins on that.”

  Everything King Nicholas has done will be undone, thought Conor dully. All for nothing.

  “Isabella becomes queen. A puppet queen, but a queen nonetheless. And can you guess what her obsession will become?” Of course. It was so obvious that a boy could see it, even in Conor’s dazed state.

  “I see by your eyes that you can guess. She will dedicate her life to stamping out the rebels. It will consume her, I will make sure of it. There will be no end to the number of rebels I will unearth. Any merchant who refuses to pay my tax. Any youth with a grudge. All rebels. All hanged. I am closer now to being king than any Bonvilain has ever been.”

  This statement hung between them, heavy with centuries of treason. Conor heard the creak of manacle chains and the drip of water. Bonvilain yanked Conor’s boxed head as close as the bars would allow, and unhooked the box’s mouth strap.

  “Before he died your teacher said that I would never stop them all. Was Victor Vigny working with the French Aeronauts? Or La Légion Noire—the Black Legion?”

  Conor’s lip was swollen from one punch or another and his jaws were shot with pain, but he managed to speak. “There is no Black Legion. You will destroy the Saltees fighting an imaginary enemy.”

  “Let me tell you something, little man,” snarled the marshall. “If it weren’t for the Bonvilains, these islands would be nothing more than rocks in the ocean. Nothing but salt and bird droppings. We have nursemaided the Trudeaus for centuries. But no more. This island is mine now. I will milk it dry, and Queen Isabella stays alive so long as she does not interfere with that plan.” Bonvilain rattled Conor’s cage. “I am interested to hear what you think of this plan, young Broekhart.”

  “Why tell me, murderer? I am not your priest.”

  Bonvilain shook the lunatic box as though it were a mystery gift. “Not my priest. Very good—I will miss our exchanges. I tell you, little Broekhart, because these are the very moments that make life worth living. I am at my best in the thick of action. Stabbing, shooting, and plotting. I enjoy it. I exult in it. For centuries, the Bonvilains have been behind the throne, steering it with their machinations. But never anything like this.”

  Bonvilain was almost dazed by happiness. Everything he had planned for was now within reach.

  “And you, my little meddler, have transformed a good plan into a perfect one. It’s your father, you see. He is a great soldier, I can admit it. A wonderful soldier. He inspires great loyalty among the men. I was planning to remove him, and weather the storm. But now, the rebel Victor Vigny and you, his indoctrinated student, have killed the king. Your father is honor-bound to protect the new queen with every breath in his body. And because I will promise to keep his son’s name out of the investigation, Declan Broekhart will owe me his reputation—and so you have made him loyal to me. For that, I thank you.” Bonvilain leaned closer, his face stretched in pantomime sadness. “But I have to tell you that he hates you now, and so will Isabella when I tell her my version of tonight’s events. Your father, I would go so far as to say, would kill you himself if I would allow it. But that’s family business and none of mine. I should let him tell you himself.”


  And with that, Bonvilain hooked up the lunatic box’s bridle and threaded the manacle chain through a ring on the wall. He stood, his knees cracking; his huge frame filling the cell; his broad, scarred brow suddenly thoughtful.

  “You would think I suffer, with all the people I have killed, the hundreds of lives I have destroyed. Should not demons visit me at night? Should I not be tormented by guilt? Sometimes I lie still in my bed and wait for judgment, but it never arrives.”

  Bonvilain shrugged. “Then again, why should it? Perhaps I am a good man. After all, Socrates said: ‘There is only one good, knowledge; and one evil, ignorance.’ So, as I am not ignorant, I must be good.” He winked. “Do you think that argument will fool Saint Peter?”

  Conor realized at that moment that Bonvilain was, in a very dangerous way, completely mad.

  Bonvilain came back to the present. “Anyway, let us continue the philosophical discussion some other time. Why don’t I fetch your father? I fancy he has a few words for his errant son.” Bonvilain strode jauntily from the cell, whistling a Strauss waltz, conducting with an index finger.

  Conor was left on the floor, neck aching from the weight of his cage. But in spite of the pain, there was now a spark of hope. His father would see through this charade, surely. Declan Broekhart was nobody’s fool, and would not leave his son to wallow in a filthy cell. In minutes, Conor felt certain, he would be free to expose Bonvilain as a murderer.

  Bonvilain had not even bothered to close the cell door. A moment later, he shepherded Declan Broekhart into the room. Conor had never seen his father so distressed. Declan’s back, usually ramrod straight, was hunched and shuddering and he held on to Bonvilain like an old man leaning on his nurse. The face was the worst thing. It was dragged down by grief: eyes, mouth, and wrinkles running like candle wax.

  “Here he is,” said Bonvilain softly, with great compassion. “This is he. Just a few seconds.”

  Conor inched along the wall, straightening himself. Father, he tried to say. Father, help me. But all that emerged from between his swollen, hampered lips were thin groans.