Raiders' Ransom (11 page)

“What's artificial intelligence?” I ask.

“It's being cleverer than the child who's somehow become my primary user, that's what it is. And I have to say I'm not entirely convinced by your story. You say that everything I know has been lost, but you give me no way of checking. For all I know, you could be hacking me at this very moment, with all this as an elaborate distraction.”

“I ain't hacking you, whatever that is. I'm taking you to the raiders as ransom for Alexandra Randall so she can tell how our village ain't cowards and stop the war.”

The head looks worried.

“Oh dear,” it says. “I do hope this is a virtual simulation designed to test my flexibility.” It pauses and looks at the dark waters lapping softly against the boat, and the lumps of land on either side of us, and the stars winking between the nighttime clouds. “Could I be losing rational integrity? Surely one hundred forty-seven years can't really have passed since I was last on?” It gives a little shiver, then looks straight at me and says, “Please, take me to the nearest Sunoon Technologies outlet. I am possibly malfunctioning, being hacked, or losing rational integrity. I require technical support with the utmost urgency.”

“I ain't never heard of them sun and moon people,” I say. “And anyway, I can't take you anywhere, cos you're my only way of getting Alexandra back.”

The head purses its lips.

“All right, tell me about that, then.”

I don't quite know why, but for some reason I tell that head all sorts of things. It keeps on asking questions, and before I know it, I've told it all about Granny, and the raider attack on the village, and Mrs. Denton's plan. It nods and looks interested, but it keeps on asking about the sun and moon thing. And every time I say I ain't never heard anything about such a place, it looks a bit scared.

“How can they all be gone?” it says. “Who will provide me with technical support now?”

And sometimes it says, “Would you like to play?” which is pretty strange, I reckon. So I tell it a boat's no place for mucking about.

Every day of sailing takes us nearer to London. And every night the head comes out for a chat. I keep telling myself I won't let it out, but every night I do, anyway. Cos it seems so sad, how it's lost everything it knew. By the third night it's almost like normal, having the head floating in the darkness in front of me. It wants to know about everything. What I'm doing, my plan, what the world's like. But I ain't sure it believes anything I say.

When I tell it about the drowning of London, it says, “But there were sea defenses. What happened to those?”

And I shrug, cos I don't know. “Maybe they weren't good enough?” I say, “My granny said in the olden times they never had storms like we get now. She said the bad storms coming and the sea rising up was all part of the Collapse.”

And when we run out of talk, the head goes back in its jewel, and I lay my head down to sleep. But it feels like I'm leaving a dream, instead of going into one.

Lunden! It stinks, like old cabbage and pig droppings. Every street that ain't underwater is covered in the thick oozing mud dumped by the Temz. It slimes around everywhere. In and out of the old buildings. Stone and brick buildings, and high as the sky! But they ain't so much now, and every one of them's broken: windows smashed; holes in walls; roofs fallen in.

“Watch where you're going, Zeph! You'll end up in the slop!” Ims laughs and nods at the mud underneath the wooden walkway.

Lunden is buzzing! The great wide River Temz is full of sails: red, blue, green, purple of the Families; gleaming silver of the Scottish sunships; even the odd white sail, though any English would be mad to show their faces now. And the
banks are lined with piers poking into the water, everyone loading and unloading something different: fish, wool, hay, sides of mutton, wood, people, pigs, bales of cloth, barrels of beer, rounds of cheese — anything you can think of, seems like. And where there ain't traders, there's warriors. From every Family, in every color leathers you can think of. And all of them looking fierce as you like, ready to draw weapons, bristling to start a fight.

Even after four days here, I ain't used to all these people! They're everywhere — pushing along the walkways, wading through the mud with parcels and pots and bales and every kind of thing on their heads.

“Be careful,” says Ims. “Word's out about our raid. Every warrior in Lunden's on edge. Kill you same as spit on you.”

He pulls me to one side of the wooden walkway, and a gang of warriors, all wearing blue, which means Chell Sea, comes walking by. Chell Sea's where my mother came from, so I'm half Chell Sea, too. I open my mouth, but I don't know the right words to say to them. Ims catches my look, shakes his head.

“Don't speak to them. They'll only see your colors, and before you know it, you'll end up dead. Stick around, you'll see warriors from every Family you've ever heard of — Kensing, Dogs, Tottnam, Stokey, Brixt, Chell Sea — and all of them are wanting a piece of Angel Isling.”

“I thought Lunden was safe meeting, like Norwich?”

“It usually is, but things is different now. Your father thinks forward; he wants the Families to unite against the English. But there's plenty of other Bosses who want to keep the old ways, and plenty of warriors who'd kill every Angel Isling to keep them. And Lunden's where we all started out from, so they get all nostalgic and want to show how tradition-proud they are. Which means they're even more likely to pick a fight with us.”

I watch the Chell Sea gang and all the other warriors swaggering the walkways. Every one of them is checkin' me and Ims, but Ims has got his hand on his sword and his fighting look on his face, which keeps them off.

“I don't see how all the Families coulda come from this one place,” I say, and Ims laughs.

“This ain't all of Lunden. It's mostly gone now, but it used to stretch for miles. Miles and miles and just full of people.”

“You're joking!”

“No I ain't. Right here is just where all the English rulers used to be — Prime Ministers and Kings and whatnot.”

He points at the prickly, pointed building above us.

“They all used to be in there. Where the market is now. The House of the Parliament, they called it. All high and mighty, telling everyone what to do. And when the Collapse came, they all hid in special strong rooms, meant to keep them safe.” He looks down and winks at me. “But guess what happened to them?”

“I dunno.”

“Drowned, didn't they? In the floods. When the water came they was caught like rabbits in a mud bank at high tide! The Prime Minister they got now, he ain't even related. He's just the great-something-grandson of whatever little upstart it was set himself up at Swindon afterward.” Ims laughs at the thought of it, then says, “Come on, let's get to the market.”

The market between the tides, that's where we're going. I've been hearing about it my whole life: how the smugglers and traders there will sell anything, buy anything. The walls of the market are made of stone, but the river still punched holes in them. And so the market only happens at low tide, coz when the Temz rises, it washes right into the market hall. The river watchers peeking out the top of Big Ben ring their bell when the tide turns, to let Lunden know the water's coming back. Then all the traders pack up and leg it to the upper rooms.

That's where my father is now, in one of those rooms. Buying weapons. It was all he was talking about yesterday.

“If we're gonna have a war, I've gotta get my hands on some decent warring gear. Swords'll do for fishing villages, but not if we want to see off the English. So we'll get ourselves some rockets. The Scottish smugglers will sell if we offer enough.”

Rockets! I hope Father does it. Then Angel Isling would be the first Family ever to get Scottish weapons. And when
he does, he's gonna mount them on our dragonboats. Then he can blow the English out of the water.

“Come on!” says Ims, and he's gone, quick-pushing his way off the main walkway and onto a side slip. I try to copy him, but there's some Dogs warriors coming the other way, all of them with knives naked in their hands. They glare at me, on my own now, and there's threat rising off them like steam.

“What you doing, little Isling?” sneers one.

“His Boss can't be so great as he makes out,” says another, “not if he'd let a little Angel like this out on its own. To get peeled by a gang of good Dogs.”

I look about, but Ims is gone, and I'm facing six yellow-leathered Dogs. There ain't no way I can fight that many. Quick as I can, I'm ducking and diving. Into the crowd, behind a trader carrying a basket of clucking chickens, squeezing in between two fat servant women.

“Oi! Come here!” shouts one of the Dogs. And there's a bit of shrieking and shoving behind me as they try to catch me. But they're too big, too many, to get through this crowd the way I can. I weave in and out, letting the crowd take me along. Past the end of the market building, past the shops and stalls that spread out all around it, past crossings with other walkways, on and on. The shouting from the Dogs gets farther behind, until one of them shouts, “You got away this time, little Isling, but we 'll be waiting!” And I know
they've given up, just like Roba gives up chasing if it gets too hard.

But now I've gone so far I've left the main crowds, and the market's looking small and far away. Ims is way behind, and I'll have to get past the Dogs to get back to him. I look the way I came, wondering what to do. Nearby, some fisherboy is stood right in the middle of the walkway, goggling at everything like a right fishwit. First he stares at the crowd out of his soft brown face, then at the market like he ain't never seen anything like it. He's got a black moggy on a string, and he starts talking to it!

“Do you think that's the old Parliament the man told us to look out for?” says the fishwit.

“Out of the way, you dozy frint!” I say, and shove him over to one side so I can get past. And he proves he's only half-brained, coz he somehow gets the string from his stupid mog wrapped around his legs. The fishwit starts stumbling around, with the mog howling and running about him. Before you know it, he's staggered right over to the edge of the walkway.

“Cat! Get off me!” he says, in a high, scaredy kind of voice. But it's too late; he's tipping over the edge. I make to grab him, but I miss.

“Aargh!” shouts the fishwit boy. The mog does a squawky jumping twist, and the string whips around and off the boy's legs, but even that don't stop him falling, he's already too far gone. Down he goes. Headfirst! Right in the mud! Legs flapping like a frog! It must stink down there.

I'm still staring down at the fishwit in the muck — at his butt sticking right out, his legs waving about — when Ims pushes his way out of the mess of people farther down the walkway.

“What happened to you?” he shouts.

I'm laughing so hard I can't hardly answer.

“Come and see this! Some fisherboy's just fallen right in!”

The fishwit's wagging his legs so hard he topples himself over, and with a load of flapping and flailing, like a duck in a net, he gets himself upright. A bit more squelching about and he's standing up, the mud around his chest. He's so covered in it you can hardly tell he's a person. Muck's dripping off him. Oozing off his head, sliding down his face. He spits a load out of his mouth.

“Why did he fall?” says Ims, standing next to me.

“He don't know how to stay on walkways!” I say.

Ims starts chuckling.

“Hey, fisher! You want me to cast you a net? You'd make a nice catch.”

The fisherboy scrapes at his face and stares up at me with his black-brown eyes.

“You pushed me in!” he shouts, spitting out more mud.

“Don't get on one, fishstink! That were the funniest thing I seen all year!”

I'm still laughing as the fishwit wades through the mud toward the walkway. He puts out a hand, but he don't even try to get out.

He just grabs at my ankle.

Then he pulls.

And I slip.

I'm falling! Right into the mud! Onto my back, with a great oozing splash. Circles and splats of mud ripple slowly away from me. I flail and freak for a bit, and the mud gets in my hair, my eyes, my mouth. It tastes of salt, and dead fish, and horse droppings, and I don't know what else.

Ims is laughing at me now.

“Have you taken up mud swimming?” he calls.

I struggle upright, and there's the mud-coated fisherboy, staring at me.

“How do you like it?” he says.

That stinking fisher! I hear a wordless roaring in my head, and I'm pushing my arm down into the mud, feeling for my dagger.

“I'm going to kill you!” I shout, struggling for my knife.