Red Spikes (12 page)

‘I have seen no one but yourself today, sir.’ Diammid trembled, pinned to the ground by the heat.

And other days? Many years might pass in this place, that
do not signify for the duration of the Chase.
The eye came closer and hotter. Diammid squirmed.

‘But I have never been here before, sir!’

I could crush your head like an asp’s under my boot-heel,
rumbled the hero, pushing his face lower.
I could cut you
apart and hang your still-living pieces in the trees. Do not toy
with me.

‘Oh, but I’m not, sir! I wouldn’t!’

The hero brought the full heat of his amber eyes to bear on Diammid. The boy’s skin crisped and curled and flamed up like thin dry leaves. He arched on the ground. Screams forced themselves out of him, unconnected to his will.

Then the black mist closed in with a sifting sound. Diammid’s skin rose into iron fur. The mist blotted out the sky; from here to high in the Vale behind him the air turned hollow, so that his cries echoed lostly. And
something
emerged into this hollowness, heavy, scrambling, tearing the vegetation, breathing hard and steadily.

The hero’s head swung up to face that other, and his amber eyes glared and glowed.
Show yourself, coward!
He drew both swords; they tzanged and spat on the iron-rich air. The skulls at his waist clacked out a horrid laughter. The trees had turned to leafless bone on all sides.

He strode up the hill. His iron boot-toe kicked Diammid in the side; his following foot caught Diammid’s head a blow that exploded the world into fireworks. The boy lay gasping, the enemy crooned farther away and higher, the giant’s swords whipped the weighty air and the trees rattled and rubbed their bones with his passing.

It was nearly tea-time and Rickets was dozing, when Anderson pulled apart the coats and lifted him down from the coat-hook.

Rickets shook out the arms of his shirt and blazer, blinking up at Anderson, not daring to speak. Anderson seemed taller, thinner. His face was one big roughfeatured scab, incapable of expression without cracking.

‘I thought you were— Shouldn’t you be in the San?’ said Rickets.

Stillness and patience clarified the air around Anderson, spreading out from him like a pure oil.

‘Thank you,’ Rickets finally said, in a muted voice.

Anderson jerked his head,
Come on
.

Rickets bobbed along uncertainly beside Anderson, then settled to walking. He longed to ask,
What happened
to you in the Vale? What did you see? Will you ever tell, or was it
too terrible?
But the blunt, crusted ruin of Anderson’s face was too awesome; he could not quite bring himself to. And then they passed the last empty dorm and went up into the Prefects Wing.

These stairs, these halls, were richly scented with Taylors Imperial tea and woodsmoke and buttered toast. A carpet runner muffled their footfalls, and peaceable sounds came from behind each door – the clink of glass- ware, Victrola music winding up, assured voices in conversation.

They stopped at a door guarded by two big boys. Rowdier talk went on within. ‘I’m here to see Bully Raglan.’ Anderson’s voice was a burnt-out croak.

One of the guards gave a startled laugh, and Rickets stifled a gasp. No one called Raglan ‘Bully’ in front of his lads.

But the guard knocked on the study door and stuck his head round. The talk paused inside. ‘Anderson’s here to see you.’

‘Anderson?’ Raglan’s sharp voice shook Rickets like a gust of wind. Anderson’s hand rested briefly on his shoulder.

‘The boy who – the one who got burnt.’

‘I thought he was unconscious!’

‘Well, he’s here, Raglan, and asking to see you.’

Raglan gave some signal, and the guard opened the door wide.

Rickets stood on the threshold, his mouth sagging open. All was rich reds and browns in blazing candlelight. Every surface invited the hand, from curved polished wood to embossed wallpaper to gilded picture frames to plump velvet upholstery, to the rug on the floor, thick-napped, brightly patterned, quite unmarked by wear. The difference between this warm place and the scarred Prep Common Room with its mean coke fire made Rickets ache.

The prefects sat around a table that was crowded with a miniature city of silverware and porcelain. At its pinnacle rose a many-storeyed cake stand. Sweet buns gleamed and glittered on the lower levels; a merry-goround – an entire
carnival
– of iced and cream cakes ornamented the top tray. Bully Raglan’s bad-tempered face was all the uglier for peering at Anderson around such beauties.

The other prefects winced and goggled at the sight of the burnt boy. Teasdale looked to Raglan to see how he ought to behave.

‘What is it, Anderson?’ Raglan was rattled, but did not want to show it.

‘I’ve come to vouch for Rickets.’

Raglan’s gaze touched Rickets for the merest fragment of a second. ‘Jolly good. But I’m having my tea, boy. Can’t this wait?’ His voice was smooth as cream after Anderson’s croaking.

‘I’ve come to vouch for any other Prep boy who needs protection from you, Bully Raglan.’

A high giggle broke from Teasdale. The other prefects froze.

Raglan slowly, smoothly adjusted his head the way Rickets imagined a snake would, lining itself up ready to strike. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said almost soundlessly. ‘What did you call me, Anderson?’

‘Bully, sir.’

Only the faces changed. The prefects’ slackened in disbelief; Bully’s assembled like a fist. Even the cakes sat stiller on their stand.

Raglan was fast; he leaped around the table. But Anderson ran two steps and launched himself straight across it. Boy, vessels and cloth disappeared on the far side. A cake flew out of the crashing to the underside of the marble mantel, stuck there and then fell, leaving a smear of cream.

The prefects exploded from their chairs, shouting.

‘Collar him!’ said Raglan. ‘Burns or not, I shall beat him senseless!’

Anderson had landed in the fire. Now he rose, the back of his dressing-gown alight, the flames sheeting up behind his gruesome head. He dived again, between the prefects’ odd-angled bodies and upflung hands, fetching up against the wall, the bulwark, the immovable might that was Bully Raglan.

And the wall buckled.

‘Get him off me!’ The bully tried to step back, but Anderson had a death-grip around his knees. ‘Do something! Help me, you wasters!’ Batting at the boy’s flaming back, the blond floss of his own hair catching fire, Raglan fell.

‘It was
wonderful
!’

The circle of faces glowed back at Rickets in the faint light from around the dormitory window-blind. Soft laughter warmed the air at his face.

‘It
sounds
wonderful!’

‘Oh, I wish I’d seen it. Raglan on fire and screaming!’

‘Go on, Rickets. Don’t stop there.’

‘Well, then they threw Raglan’s smoking-jacket on Anderson to smother the flames, so
that
was ruined. And they rolled him on the carpet, so there were these scorch marks . . .’ Rickets sighed with pleasure. ‘And then they called Matron because Raglan was making such a racket, and she made him look like a goose with that bandage, and the pre’s had to carry Anderson back to the San on a blanket and, I tell you—’

‘He was unconscious, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes! And he
stank
of burning, and he was
filthy
, covered in ash and he was bleeding – his face, you know, where he had knocked the scabs – and all the – he must have fallen right
on
the cakes – he was all over jam and cream, and this big
splash
of tea down his nightshirt. He was soaked; he was a mess! And they carried him off in the blanket, and even with the mess and the cream and such, he was – I don’t know – like a prince being carried on a litter, or maybe a soldier with his comrades bringing him off the battlefield, with the gun-smoke hanging in the air still. The noble dead, you know? The glorious dead.’ Rickets’ whisper was breaking up with glee. ‘Lying there with his robe around him, and all these prefects his servants. It was –
perfect
. I can’t tell you!’

‘He didn’t have permission to leave the San,’ said Lowthal.

‘Really?’ said Tregowan.

‘He was supposed to be in bed, ordered by the doctor. O’Callaghan said he heard Matron say. She couldn’t believe he walked that far, let alone got in a fight.’

‘Let alone
won
!’

Hands clapped softly or covered laughing mouths.

‘So is he all brave because he went to the Vale?’ chirped Crewitt Minor. ‘Is that what happens to you?’

‘Well, it didn’t happen to Chauncey and Ark, did it?’ said Lowthal. ‘And that boy, the one who brought Anderson back – he’s a weed, isn’t he? He’s a very quiet sort of person. I mean normally, not when he’s blubbing and carrying on like he was then. Nothing brave or reckless about him, that I’ve heard of.’

‘He’s mad in the head, is all. Anderson, I mean. He’s sick. Delirious. Brain fever.’

‘Cave! Cox!’ hissed Harvey at the door, and they scattered to their beds.

Mrs Cox entered the suddenly silent dorm. She made one slow, suspicious patrol, sniffing and hmming as if trying to decide which boy she would pounce on and sink her long teeth into. Lowthal gave a creditable snore, but, ‘Don’t imagine I am fooled for one moment by you, James Lowthal,’ she said. And then she sat at the open door with her lamp, pointedly rustling the pages of her book.

Rickets lay full of his story, the darkness lit by the memory of that crowd of enthralled faces. Their owners fell asleep one by one around him. Things would be different now; things would be much improved, wouldn’t they? Bully’s reputation surely could not survive this? The whole of Grammar bubbled with laughter at him.

And if Raglan managed to live today down, if he came back stronger and crueller than ever, there would always be Diammid Anderson with his awful face and the absolute certainty of his bearing. Anderson would always be there for the Preps; he had said so.

And even – Rickets breathed happiness into the night – even if he wasn’t, even if Anderson died of his wounds, Rickets would have the memories to hearten him, of Anderson lifting him down from the coat-hook, of Anderson calling Bully ‘Bully’ to his face, of Anderson rising to his bare toes, and running two light steps across the prefects’ carpet, and taking flight over the laden table, and crashing to Rickets’ rescue, to
everyone’s
rescue, in a magnificent explosion of cakes, and plate, and sparks, and shattering china.

{ Under Hell, Over Heaven