The Future King: Logres (24 page)

‘Still—’ Tom started.

‘Still nothing, Hareton—’ Gavin snapped, ‘—he’s being
sarcastic
. Obviously.’

Tom reddened, as did Bedivere.

‘You know, given what Ravioli said to me, I was hoping that Mr Hall
would apologise too.’

‘Yeah right,’ Gavin remarked. ‘He wouldn’t do that, and definitely
not in front of your whole tutor group. If he does, it’ll be in a private
meeting with you and your parents, with the principal’s hand up his arse,
puppeteering his mouth.’

Lancelot smirked at this, and Tom sniggered.

‘The Furies didn’t look too happy, either,’ Viola went on. ‘None of
them actually apologised for what they got Hector to do.’

‘No, but Emily
did
apologise for the prank at least,’ Gwenhwyfar reminded her. ‘Sort of.’

Gavin looked to Bedivere. ‘Didn’t you make out with her?’

Bedivere’s face lit up with immediate embarrassment. ‘We kissed, if
that’s what you mean.’

‘Didn’t she apologise for that too…?’ Viola started, looking to
Gwenhwyfar. ‘She did, didn’t she? Completely unprompted.’

‘Christ, Bed, how bad was she?’ Tom laughed.

‘It was a
prank
, remember?’
Gwenhwyfar pointed out. ‘That’s why she was apologising, because she used
Bedivere to get to Arthur and me.’

‘Oh, really? And here I was thinking that she snogged you because she
has the hots for you,’ Viola teased, rolling her eyes.

‘Emily has the hots for Bedivere?’ Tom asked. His face crinkled up
drastically at such a notion. ‘What happened to her fancying Lance?’

‘I almost feel hurt,’ Lancelot quipped.

‘At least you came out of it unmolested.’ Gavin nudged Bedivere in
the side. ‘I can’t say the same for you, Bed.’

‘Jealous?’ Bedivere scowled.

‘Completely,’ Gavin gesticulated. The table laughed.

‘Well, you’re welcome to her if you like,’ Bedivere retorted. ‘She’s
a crap kisser.’

Viola gasped, and the boys all voiced non-verbal opinions of his
daring.

‘Ooh, that one’s going to go around like wildfire,’ Gavin observed.

‘Well, she is!’

‘Emily won’t like that,’ Tom mocked.

‘I couldn’t care less,’ Bedivere muttered, his cheeks blooming with
crimson. Angrily he twisted his hair.

‘We’re only teasing, Bed,’ Viola tried. ‘We know it was a prank. It
was cruel of her.’

‘At least you didn’t have to knock her out with a lamp,’ Gavin added.

‘Yeah, and if you can’t laugh about it, what can you do?’ said Tom.

‘Nothing,’ huffed Bedivere, irked.

There was an uncomfortable silence. ‘Someone got out of the wrong
side of bed this morning,’ Lancelot muttered. To Bedivere’s obvious relief, he
then changed the subject; and as Gwenhwyfar watched Lancelot talk and joke with
Gavin, her thoughts soon returned to Arthur.

She met him when the final bell of the day went, and together they walked
under the long shadows that cut across the school grounds, out of the gates and
onto the main road.

‘So how was Politics?’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I mean, it was all right. It’s all a load of
nonsense, really. I feel we never learn anything.’

‘I have that in General Studies,’ she smiled. ‘Sometimes I think there’s
no point in attending. It’s all just general knowledge that’s not really
general and not really knowledge at all.’

‘At least you don’t have to write propaganda papers,’ he reasoned.
‘In Politics it’s all I ever do. I feel like I’m being brainwashed.’

She laughed. ‘Science is a reprieve, at least. We’re looking at
man-made cells tomorrow, right?’

‘Oh, don’t get me started on those.’ They crossed the road, and then
meandered up a gentle hill lined with small, suburban houses. ‘The Second
Genesis. Well, the third technically, as they discovered a cell completely
separate to the one we’re all descended from at least fifty years ago. But they
can’t use that to produce natural resources. Or incurable diseases.’

‘How about cures for diseases?’ asked Gwenhwyfar. ‘Can they use it to
do that?’

He looked to her and smiled. ‘Good point.’

‘So what happened to you at lunch? We waited for you.’

‘I was going to come,’ he offered, ‘I just lost track of time. Sorry.’

‘That’s all right. Tomorrow, maybe?’ She smiled up at him, but he kept
his gaze fixed steadily ahead. ‘How long have you got to work for tonight? It
must be hard having a job and studying at the same time.’

‘Two hours. It’s not too bad. If it’s quiet they let me do my
homework.’

‘Which library is it?’

‘Lower Logres. It’s connected to the school—that’s how I got
the job.’

They fell victim to a prolonged silence. As they walked together
Gwenhwyfar almost thought she could feel his body heat transcend the gap
between them. The sensation was swiftly interrupted.

‘Is there a reason you hang around with Lance?’

She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, why are you friends with him?’

‘I’m not friends with him,’ she disagreed. ‘I actually can’t stand
him.’

‘No?’ He looked at her quizzically. ‘Then why do you hang around with
him all the time?’

‘I don’t hang around with him all the time. He just has the same
friends as me. We don’t even talk.’

‘You don’t?’

‘No. Would it make a difference if we did?’

He shrugged. Gwenhwyfar turned her eyes back to the road. They were quite
far from the school now, and she realised that she should have been paying
attention to the route they were taking. She lived in completely the opposite
direction.

‘I was just wondering. Last I heard Lance and Hector were pretty much
best friends; Tom, too.’

‘Well, all that’s changed now,’ Gwenhwyfar assured him. ‘None of them
even speak to Hector anymore.’

They turned the corner at the end of the tree-lined road. Across the
street, by a small playground skirted with balding grass, sat a dismal building
with a damaged sign indicating it was
ower
ogres bra
.

‘Is this it?’

‘It needs new funding really,’ Arthur told her. ‘At the moment we’re running
on donations. It’s the last one in the area.’

She looked up at the grey concrete block that was her local library.
At least she knew where it was now, and since Arthur worked most nights she
could do her homework here to be near him. ‘It doesn’t look too bad.’

‘It’s nicer on the inside. Want to see it?’ His eyes always seemed
wider when he looked at her, as if he was trying to see her whole.

‘I’m all right, thanks. I’d better get home. Though I might have to
come and find you if I get lost. Which way is it?’

He sidled closer, his front lightly brushing her back, and pointed.
‘That way: down George Street, then left at Victoria Lane. You should come to
Potters Park. Do you know your way home from there?’

‘I should do.’

‘If not you can always come back and find me,’ he said.

‘I hope you’re not sending me the wrong way on purpose, Arthur.’

They gazed at one another. He was much more amiable when he wasn’t
talking about Lancelot, Gwenhwyfar thought.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he breathed.

‘You will,’ she promised. As she turned to retrace their steps,
Arthur retreated through the library doors and waved at her with one last
lopsided smile.

‘Did you hear about Scotland?’

Gavin clenched his abdominals into his twenty-second sit up. Beside
him Lancelot rose and reclined in a long line of Cadets, all exercising on the
order of their SSI, the Staff Sergeant Instructor.

‘No.’ Lancelot sat up again, his breathing controlled, his words
effortless. ‘What about it?’

‘The
New Celtic Rebels
have
occupied Fort William. Killed fifty people.’

‘I didn’t hear that,’ Lancelot murmured, his cheeks hollowed with
concentration.

‘I found an eyewitness account on the Internet,’ Gavin remarked,
lowering himself onto the cold grass, wet against his back. ‘They’re talking to
the Irish and the Welsh. They think they should have full independence, and
that this is the only way to get it.’

‘Let me guess, any Scot or person of “Celt-origin” not on their side
is an English bastard? I know they want what they feel the New Nationals have
taken from them; I know that they don’t want to suffer under this government
any more than the rest of us—but blowing up buildings and shooting
civilians—? That’s not going to get it.’

‘Ever since we left Europe there’s been unrest,’ Gavin puffed, now on
fifty-two. ‘The upper one percent has nothing foreign to blame anymore.’

‘They’ll find someone, they always find someone. The disabled, for
example, or the poor—it’s
their
fault that we’re circling the plughole. Don’t you know it?’

‘I know it,’ Gavin remarked. ‘If the New Nationals place the blame,
the average citizen will be happy to point the finger, too.’

‘As long as it’s not at themselves,’ Lancelot said with a sidelong
glance.

The SSI wandered their way, scrutinising every rise. It was cold, and
the frigid air burned Gavin’s dry throat. He waited until their superior passed
them, nearly at the benchmark. ‘You changed your mind yet?’

Their gaze crossed again as Lancelot sat back up. ‘About what?’

‘Joining up when we finish school. If you studied, got through your
exams, I reckon you could sign on as an officer.’

‘Don’t you need a degree for that?’

‘Not these days.’

Lancelot frowned, his heavy brow darkening. ‘Where are you getting this
stuff from, anyway?’ He paused to rest a moment, and Gavin sat up to join him.
‘You’ve been banging on about rebels, rights and the poor for weeks.’

‘I told you, the Internet.’

‘Not on one of those crackpot conspiracy sites?’

Panting, he shook his head. They had just done track. ‘Nah. Some
encrypted blog that posts up eyewitness accounts. Whistleblowers use it. It’s
one of the ones that helped blow the lid on the Poppy Scandal.’

His thick eyebrows twisted. ‘What, the one about that girl?’

Gavin nodded. ‘It was a mass cover up. People being too poor to
afford healthcare: more specifically the new generation of antibiotics. People
dying of throat infections, cuts and scrapes.’

‘I remember,’ he said solemnly. ‘What did they do about it?’

‘After the fuss? Nothing. People are still dying. Christ, it’s bad
enough paying my own health insurance, let alone contributing to my brothers’,
but my parents think it’s fair. Those who work, chip in. Until I sign up, of
course.’

They both leant back and resumed the exercise.

‘You’re not still taping over your webcam, are you?’ Lancelot asked
with a huff.

‘Webcam, phone camera, any camera on any device I own.’

‘You know it’s illegal now.’

‘I know. I also know they’re not going to find out. I don’t want the
New Nationals watching me shit, shower and shave. You can’t tell when they’re
using them.’

‘I’m beginning to think you’re wasted on the army,’ Lancelot said.

‘It’ll be a waste if I don’t join. You too, Lake.’

‘Don’t think there’ll be a regime change. What we’re stuck with now,
we’ll be stuck with then. If you sign up you’ll be taking your orders from
him.’

‘Is that what put you off? Milton?’

‘I don’t want to be anyone’s attack dog,’ Lancelot scowled.

‘You know what they say. If you’re not police or army, you’re little
people.’

‘I thought you were all for the little people,’ Lancelot duelled.

‘I am,’ Gavin frowned, ‘but I can hardly watch out for them if I’m
one too.’

There was a moment’s silence between them. Gavin had hit their target
about ten sit-ups ago, but there was no order from the SSI, so he kept going.

‘Maybe,’ Gavin said after a while, ‘maybe things can be changed from
the inside.’

‘You’d need to be top dog, for that.’

‘I could manage it,’ he grinned.

The SSI stalked back towards their end of the line. Gavin had a shift
at Bellini’s after this: an evening of dealing with the punters, customers who
were inflated with a false sense of their own autonomy; because they had money,
because they had comforts, even though they were nothing but small pebbles at
the bottom of a vast and unchanging pyramid.

Lancelot sat up to join him, panting with his arms draped over his
knees. ‘You’re wasted on the army, Miles,’ he said again. His smile was short
and quick, and as they were all told to stand to attention, he sprang
obediently to his feet.