The Twyning (19 page)

I say nothing.

“Now, Mr. Smith.” The doctor points to one of the bottles. When he speaks, it is slowly and deliberately, as if to a fool. “Poison. When the bottles break, they will release fluid. When it reaches the water below, vapor will be released.”

Now I understand why the doctor has been keeping a distance from me. But when he points to the drain, I nod.

Together we lift the heavy wooden cover off the drain. Then he moves away. He smiles at me but looks nervous.

“Open the case,” he calls out.

Carefully I do so, feeling the cold air from the ice on my face.

The bottles are filled with a clear liquid. The glass looks unusually thin.

“Now, be careful, Mr. Smith.” The doctor looks around him. “The bottles break very easily. Pick one up very slowly, then drop it down the drain.”

With two fingers, I lift the bottle out of the ice. The liquid within is heavy. I hold it over the drain, and drop it.

Below us, there is a sound of glass shattering.

“Now the other two — quickly!” The doctor holds a white handkerchief over his mouth.

The second bottle falls and breaks, then the third. With his mouth still covered, he moves forward and, with me, lifts the cover back over the opening in the ground.

For a moment we stand over the drain as if expecting to hear sounds of death from below us.

The town is unusually silent.

“Well done, Mr. Smith.” The doctor folds his handkerchief and returns it to his pocket. Squaring his shoulders, he sets off down the path in the direction of his house. He is talking to himself as I pick up the case and follow him.

“The war has begun,” he says.

. . . with the citizens of the kingdom before me, waiting.

It was not terror that I felt, nor rage. Pain, yes, but even that felt distant. Death is wisdom. In that cold moment when you know for certain that all is over, you understand the truth.

And it is not fear you feel, but love and pity for those around you.

The citizens, staring up at you on the Rock of State, their eyes wide as if afraid to look away for even the merest moment. The courtiers, uneasy, in spite of themselves, about what was going on. The queen, pretending (badly) to be asleep on the ledge overlooking the Rock. Swylar, never entirely present, always scheming the next move.

Even the correctors, those poor lost souls. As they moved toward me, I smelled the sadness on them. Their only language was pain. Hurting others was how they felt alive.

It was as I faced my death that I changed forever. I loved the kingdom. I loved the citizens. At my most helpless moment, I felt strong.

— Efren.

The revelation of Swylar was a sharp stab to the brain.

— Yours is a sad case. So young, so foolish, so utterly evil.

I turned to face him. Mine had been a short life, but at least it would end with honor.

— I am innocent, Swylar. As you know.

— The Court of Justice has decided. Those who help and support traitors — he turned and faced the citizens of the kingdom — are traitors themselves. However young, however stupid. Loyalty is such an easy thing, after all. We all understand what loyalty is, don’t we?

A rustling of agreement spread across the Great Hollow. Only the Twyning remained still.

— Of course we do. — Swylar stood on the edge of the Rock of State. — Those who put our kingdom, our families, our little ones and their little ones, in danger by their disloyalty must pay the penalty.

— I am innocent.

Swylar ignored me, but there was a sudden restlessness among citizens. My revelation had been strong enough to reach every citizen in that hollow.

In front of me, there was movement among the correctors. They fell back as the large, soft figure of Ozorka shuffled forward. Her eyes shone bright. It was for these moments that she lived.

— I am innocent.

Ozorka moved closer. Her revelation, when it came, was almost tender.

— Innocent? Ratling, you are innocent only of the true meaning of pain. But not for long.

This, I now knew, was how it would be. No battle with the young torturers of the Court of Correction, no noble fight to the death. The punishment of Grizzlard and Quell had allowed them a sort of honor. Mine would be small, humiliating, a nip delivered to a ratling of the Court of Tasting. A nip that would kill me. Ozorka, alone, would face me and finish me.

Fight? I was no warrior. Yet, to the watching kingdom, not to fight would be an admission of my guilt. I bared my teeth. Even to me, it was unconvincing, pathetic.

— Crouch, ratling.

— Innocent.

Now Ozorka showed her teeth. They were brown, as if stained by the blood of her thousands of victims. I stood tall. Once she was on my back, it would soon be over.

She looked at me, not angry but amused by my defiance. Unhurried and confident, she circled me.

As I turned, facing her as she went, something I saw among the courtiers caught my eye.

A rat with one leg missing.

Could it be? The next time Ozorka reached the same spot, I looked more closely.

It was my friend Fang. Beside him was Floke, and they were both surrounded by warriors. With even a glance, I could tell they were battered and exhausted. Their pelts, scarred and bloody, hung on them as if somehow they had been hollowed out. Their eyes were dull, half closed. My poor friends had been tortured. What a terrible day it had been for them when I had entered their lives in this very hollow.

There was a splash from the water behind me, and for a trice, Ozorka was distracted.

Behind her, high on a ledge, the queen stirred. She yawned, and as if sensing that Her Majesty was tiring of my little dance with Ozorka, the correctors moved closer.

Another splash.

My eyes remained fixed on Ozorka; I became aware, from deep within me, of a singing in the blood.

Something was wrong.

I am a taster, and even as I faced my death, my senses were alerting me to danger in the air.

From a corner of the Great Hollow, I heard squeals of alarm.

— Poison! Poison!

The other members of the Court of Tasting were sensing it, too. There was restlessness among the citizens, the scent of fear.

Near me, Ozorka bared her teeth and moved toward me.

Beyond her, I saw a movement in the river. The water was bubbling. A thin blanket of steam covered its dark surface.

Citizens near the banks seemed agitated. They tried to move but appeared only able to twitch their limbs.

— Danger!

The revelations were louder now.

— Danger in the water!

— Flee, citizens!

The warning in my blood was raging now, but Ozorka had only thoughts of death, my death, on her mind. I saw the muscles around her hindquarters tense, but before she could pounce on me, I moved in the one direction she least expected.

I darted forward, hurling myself off the ledge of the Rock of State, through the steam, and into the bubbling water.

Dive. Dive.
I swam deeper and deeper through the foaming waters, defying the scream of warning from within me.

Better to drown than be killed by Ozorka.

Keep swimming. Dive.
My body was bursting, agonized by lack of air, but still I forced myself downward in the water.

I must have lost consciousness, because the next thing I remember was floating to the surface. I took a breath of air. It was like drinking fire. I gulped water, but that only made the pain worse.

What was happening? On the shore nearby, I heard the groans and screams of rats, twitching and writhing, their eyes protruding from their agonized bodies. Something was killing the kingdom.

I dived again and was swept downstream by the river.

Deeper. Deeper. Darkness . . .

I was floating on the water. My insides felt as if they had been scoured by a knife, but I was alive. There was something bright above me. It was the moon.

I was in the world above.

. . . when he finds those dead beasts.

It is the following night and I am at home, in the tip, with Caz. I am tired after another day working with the doctor, but there is a warmth in my heart that comes from a full stomach.

It was not happy work I had done today, but I had made another shilling.

“Do his face.”

Caz lies under the coverlet she has sewn together from rags, sacking, feathers, and wool she has found around the tip. The pet rat lies asleep near her hand.

“Go on. Do his face, Peter.”

I think of the doctor, how his face seems actually to get longer, his eyes widening, his eyebrows heading for his hairline, when he is excited.

I make the face, and Caz laughs and hugs herself.

She likes my stories. Sometimes it is as if the things I tell her have not really happened but are part of a story land that has nothing to do with the two of us, alone with a pet rat in a rubbish tip.

But it is no bedtime story, what happened today. I have told her how the doctor and I went to a small building near the drain where we dropped the poison, how we met two men from the council, Mr. Woodcock, a man with a mustache and a stomach that tugs against his waistcoat, and Mr. Robinson, a tall man with the look of someone who has just been given some really bad news.

I tell Caz about the arrival of Mr. Petheridge in his carriage. He was late and made no attempt to disguise his lack of interest.

“The building wasn’t really a house at all, Caz. It was the top of some steps that led underground into the sewer.”

“Was it dark?”

“Pitch-black. All the men are carrying lanterns. I’m at the back, trying not to fall into a sewer.”

So the story continues. How we reached a narrow path beside the underground river that looked so dark and slow in the lamplight it might have been molasses.

“I used to love molasses,” Caz murmurs sleepily.

“So there we are, walking beside the river. It smells strong now, and when I catch a glimpse of Mr. Petheridge’s face, I almost burst out laughing. He is looking around as if a ghost is about to jump out at him.”

“Does he say anything?”

“He turned to the doctor and said, ‘I really hope this is worth it, Gibbon. I shan’t be able to wear this suit in decent company for weeks.’  ”

After about five minutes’ walking, there was a bend in the path and the river. Mr. Robinson, who was leading us, stopped as we entered a large cavern. He lowered his lantern slowly.

“Oh, jeepers. Oh, my goodness, me.”

“That was Mr. Petheridge?”

“It was. He looked as if he were going to faint clean away.”

Ahead of us, the path was blocked by the dead bodies of rats. Beneath the walls nearby, they were two or three deep, as if the beasts had scrabbled to escape.

“Poor things.” Caz placed her hand over her pet rat’s head. “Don’t listen, Malaika.”

“So the doctor gave this little speech about the diseases carried by rats. He said he had conducted a little experiment to show the gentlemen from the council how serious the problem was. He said these rats were the tip of the iceberg. Then he went on about the need for a war on rats. I began to fill the sack I had brought with me with the bodies.”

Caz squeezes her eyes shut.

“I was doing what the doctor told me to do,” I explain.

“I don’t like the sound of your doctor.”

“While I was filling the sack, the MP, Mr. Petheridge, began to speak. He told the men from the council that public health was important with an election coming up. He said he expected the council to support his campaign. He was just beginning to explain how he had called a public meeting when he gave a little scream.”

“What? Why?”

“He thought he saw something large swimming toward him in the water. He pointed down at it and said, ‘It’s a rat! I think it’s still alive.’ One of the men from the council held his lamp up. ‘That is not a rat, sir,’ he said. ‘Thank goodness,’ said the MP. ‘What is it?’ ‘Human waste, sir.’ ‘Oh, God!’ said Mr. Petheridge.’  ”

And I make my revolted MP’s face again.

Caz laughs. “What of the sack of rats?”

“The doctor wants it for the public meeting outside the town hall tomorrow. In the morning.”

“More work for Mr. Smith.”