Divided Kingdom (43 page)

I lay on my side, facing the river. The cold seeped up into my hip. I turned over, on to my back. These days I could sleep almost anywhere; I could even sleep if I was shivering. Once it was dark, Lum came and lowered herself on to me. Opening my underpants, she coaxed me into her. She began to move up and down, slowly at first, then faster, more rhythmically, her hands spread on my chest, her teeth clamped on her bottom lip. Afterwards she fell asleep beside me. Her breath smelled of onions and sour milk. Though I was tired, the rush of water kept me awake, and when we struck camp several hours later I didn't feel as if I had slept at all.

It seemed we had chosen to ignore the one road that led through the region, and for once I approved: we were in the heart of the Wanings, and it paid to be cautious. Still, there were repercussions. One of our number was attacked by a feral cat, which tore at his throat and hands. We bound his lacerated flesh as best we could, with strips of cloth and crushed dock leaves. Later, we found our way blocked by a rock-fall, and we were forced to retrace our steps. With its steep climbs and its sheer drops, the land itself appeared to be against us. The injured man wouldn't stop whimpering. A few more miles of this, I kept telling myself. Just a few more miles.

Towards dawn we filed down a farm track into a clearing. I saw no dwelling of any kind, only a barn and a wrecked white car. The wheels had been removed, and the sockets that once
held its headlights were empty. I walked over to where Ob stood. He was staring at the barn door. A rat had been nailed to the wood in a manner that made me think of crucifixion. I heard a steady crashing noise behind me and turned quickly, thinking people were coming through the undergrowth, but it was just the rain. A few of us took refuge in the barn. There was nothing much inside, only straw bales piled against one wall and some broken tools. The rain drew a heavy curtain over the doorway. I made a bed out of several old sacks and tried to sleep. The world beyond the barn was murky, indistinct.

Only seconds later, it seemed, I woke to see men standing in the entrance. Shotguns lounged in the crooks of their elbows. Their hat-brims dripped. Without saying a word, they hoisted their rifles and fired over our heads, and the air filled with sawdust, feathers and straw. I managed to roll sideways and duck through a gap in the wall where a board had come loose. Outside, I found Neg and Ob. As the three of us plunged back into the rain-soaked trees, Lum rose up out of the bracken where she'd been hiding. We moved deeper into the woods. All sounds came to me through a loud, insistent buzzing. It was hours before I could hear properly.

We didn't sleep again that day. Though we were able to link up with some other members of our group, there were, ominously, fewer of us than before. For the first time I sensed a loss of heart. Our supplies were running short. Every time our clothes dried on us, the clouds would open, drenching us in seconds. We could find neither food nor shelter. We continued to move in a north-westerly direction, but there was a drifting quality about our progress that did nothing to reassure me.

In the afternoon the clouds thinned to the west, and the sun slanted through at a low angle, its white light laying the landscape bare. The rest of the sky hung above us, a weighty, marbled grey. It seemed likely that the rain would sweep down again at any moment. As we rounded a bend, with farm buildings on our left and dark woods bristling to our right, a kind of stockade showed about half a mile ahead, the top as jagged as newspaper torn against the grain. What could it be for? Why
block a thoroughfare like that? Drawing closer, I lifted a hand to shade my eyes. In the pale glare of the sun the structure stirred and shifted, and now, at last, I could see what it was, not a stockade at all, not a barrier, but a line of people stretched across the road. A cry went up. I turned around. Neg stood motionless, his eyes pinned open, his skin congealed. The sound he was making was like no sound I had ever heard before, no consonants this time, just a note, soft and yet high-pitched, monotonous, and I was suddenly aware of my spine, the entire length of it, like something hard and cold inserted into me against my will.

I started running. Then we were all running, fifteen or twenty of us, our cloaks flapping round our legs. The road offered no hiding place, no protection. We made for the woods instead. A grass track led off to the right, trees closing overhead. We stumbled, fell. We scrambled to our feet. We were ungainly, almost comical, like a flock of birds that has forgotten how to fly.

Turning, I saw Neg behind me. His mouth gaped open, a black hole ringed by mangled gums and stumps. He had been beaten once before, somewhere down south. I knew that now. They had threaded his teeth into a necklace and hung it, bleeding, round his neck. His own teeth. They'd made earrings too. He had showed them to me in a picture, flashed from his head into mine. I watched him run. He seemed to be leaning backwards, both hands clawing at the air as if it were in his way. Beneath his clothes, his breasts and belly hurled themselves about. He was carrying too much fat. One look at him, and you knew he was done for.

They'd been waiting for us. Dusk hadn't fallen yet, and us in our white cloaks. A cruel colour, white. No mercy in it. We had passed through a village only minutes earlier, its doors and windows shut. Eyes to keyholes, though. Curtains twitching. Then a crowd of figures looming, the winter sun behind them. Men mostly, though I saw women too. And children. Heads shaved on account of lice. Or was it the custom in these parts, to shave the heads of children? They must have been told of our approach. They had weapons. The kind of things you end up
with when you don't have too much time. A bicycle chain, a tin of paraffin. A scythe.

Once, I could have reasoned with them, perhaps. I had the words back then, the charm. Not any more. Only noises issued from me now. I could do a cow in labour, rain on leaves. I could do a foot sinking into a bog. None of that would be much use. But even if I'd talked fluently, I doubt they would have listened. They'd worked themselves up to something, and they weren't about to be denied.

I looked for Neg again. He'd fallen back. I heard him calling me – Gsh?
Gsh! –
but I faced forwards and ran faster. Trees jumped out at me. Trunks moist and black as if they had risen from a swamp, roots like tentacles. My breath burned in my throat. Soon, please God, it would be dark.

In my veins my blood was chasing its own tail.

A shriek came from somewhere, and I turned. They had him now. I heard them laughing as they ripped his clothes with vicious downward movements. In the half-light his naked body had the texture of a mushroom. The delicate, creamy underside – the stalk. They bound his wrists behind him with fencing wire, his elbows too, then they stood back. His eyes were closed, and his feet stamped up and down in the mud, but in slow-motion, almost tenderly, as though he was trampling ripe grapes. Making wine. They unleashed one of their hunting dogs, a blunt-looking thing, all jaws and shoulders. It tore at his genitals, and then, when he pivoted in agony, his buttocks, then his genitals again.

It's hard to run with your hands over your ears.

Was I complacent once? Was I too full of myself? I don't know. I don't remember. If I was, I regret it. I take it all back.

I denounce myself.

One of our number had been set on fire. No, more than one. Deep in the woods, white birds were sprouting bright-orange crests and wing-feathers.

On I went, the spit thick in my mouth. Trees jolted and staggered as ships' masts do in a storm. The earth heaved, threatening to unburden itself of all its darkest mysteries. Any moment it would vomit blood-stained treasure, murder weapons,
human bones. It was just me running, though. Just me running. The world stood still like someone frightened or amazed.

Over to my left I saw a woman go down, two men in hunting clothes on top of her, their mouths split open, red and wet and grinning. You'd think somebody had taken an axe to their faces. One of the men had pulled the woman's head back by the hair, as if she were a horse and her hair the reins. Her throat stretched tight against the air, the crown of her head almost touching her shoulderblades. Was that Lum? I couldn't tell. In any case, I didn't want to see what followed. It would be worse than I could possibly imagine. There were more of my companions among the trees, most of them with dark figures fastened to their heels or curved against their backs. We were trying to outrun our shadows.

I'm not sure how I came to lose my balance. In taking my eye off the path for a moment, I missed my footing, perhaps. Then I was rolling and sliding down a steep bank that was slippery with mud, wet leaves and ivy. Down I tumbled, branches whipping at my face and arms. A tree brushed one of my legs aside. I even turned a somersault, the sky whirling like the skirts of a woman doing some old-fashioned dance. At last I reached the bottom. I lay on my back next to a track, my heart about to spring from between my ribs, the breath crushed out of me. I stared at the bare branches laid out peacefully against the clouds. All the cries came from high above me now. I got to my feet. My leg hurt, but not too much. I didn't think I'd broken anything. On the other side of the track were more trees, then a river, and in the wide green field beyond I saw a building that had the look of a ruined church or priory. As I stood there, uncertain what to do, the sky appeared to shift and then disintegrate. Out of a heavy charcoal greyness, something incongruously light and soft began to fall.

Snow.

It was as though bits of us were falling through the air. Bits of who we were. A snowflake landed on my sleeve and promptly vanished. If the snow settled, I would vanish too. A disappearing trick. This was more luck than I could ever have expected. Just
then, though, I heard a shout. Several figures had paused on the ridge above me, motionless and wizened. They were staring at me through the snow, one in a cap with ear-flaps, one in fatigues. A third was looking back over his shoulder, his arm raised, beckoning. I hurried across the track, then climbed down to the river's edge, its water the colour of beer, its flow interrupted here and there by smooth round boulders. Weeds stretched full-length beneath the surface like a drowned girl's hair. I began to splash through the shallow water, my boots skidding on the smaller stones. I was alone, I realised, alone for the first time in I didn't know how long. I felt a flicker of something against my stomach walls.

On the far side, hoof-prints showed in the mud. Sheep, I thought. Or deer. This was where they'd come to drink. A bank rose in front of me, red earth bound in roots. Above it, outlined against the sky, I saw a battlement. I climbed the bank and found myself in the lower reaches of a field. There was no cover here at all. I glanced over my shoulder. Two men were scrambling down the slope towards me, cursing as their feet caught in the brambles. One had a pitch-fork and a coil of rope. The other was carrying a pair of shears. At least they didn't have a dog. I couldn't explain the calm that welled up in me just then. Was it the snow, which was falling still more thickly now, flakes the size of oak leaves sticking to my cloak? Or did I have an inkling of what was about to happen?

As I set off across the field, a girl jumped out in front of me. She seemed to have appeared from nowhere. I let out a cry. She put a hand over my mouth, then placed one finger upright against her own. Her face was covered with freckles. I'd never seen so many. She gave me a queer blurred smile.

‘This way,' she whispered. ‘Quick.'

She wasn't one of them. She was somebody else.

Thank God for that. Thank God.

She ran ahead of me, her hair and coat-tails flapping. Snow poured into the gap between us. We passed to the left of a church, its roof partly gone, its stone floor open to the sky. There were other buildings, ancient-looking, some with walls still standing, some torn down to their foundations. Through a hedge and into a garden, the grass waist-high. Buildings here too. More recent. Tall chimneys, narrow windows. All in a state of disrepair. I looked round, eyes half-closed against the swirling snow. I thought I could hear men's voices, but the men themselves weren't visible.

We had reached the back of a house, the whole wall hidden behind a screen of vines and creepers. The girl heaved on a door and pushed me inside. Brick steps led down to a cellar. The smell of cold ashes and mouse-droppings. The faintest memory of candle wax. She motioned for me to follow, then parted a frayed curtain to reveal a second door, the wood untreated, dark as peat. She bolted it behind us and started up a narrow staircase. I could only tell where she was by listening to her footsteps on the bare boards. Once, a light flared in my head and I saw a hand splayed on the earth, pale as something that had just been disinterred, and I knew that it belonged to Lum, even though I couldn't see any other part of her.

At last we came out into a room with a low ceiling and a single round window. There was no view, only a tangle of greenery, the snow a constant slanting movement just beyond. Again the girl bolted the door behind us, then she went to the
window and put her face close to the criss-crossing bars. I squatted on my haunches, my heart beating so hard that it seemed to shake my whole body. Blood sizzled in my ears. They were still out there, all the rest of them.

The girl turned from the window. ‘Do you know who I am?'

I stared at her. It had gone all blank inside me. All hollow.

‘You don't remember me, do you.'

What was she saying?

‘Can you talk?' She moved towards me, knelt in front of me. I felt her eyes searching my face. All hollow. Just a space. ‘It doesn't matter,' she said. ‘It's not important.'

I'm sorry
, I said inside my head.

‘Don't cry,' she said. ‘You're safe now. You're going to be all right.' She placed her hand over mine. I was aware of its weight, its heat. ‘They'll never find us here. It's too rundown, too overgrown. There are too many rooms. They'll lose interest. I know what they're like.'