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Authors: Jane Abbott

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BOOK: Watershed
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Their weapons were taken. A precaution, they were told, and they wouldn't need 'em any more. In return, they were given water and a little food – some kind of flatbread, stale and gritty (Sarah tore a piece for Jeremiah to chew) and some strips of stiff, salted meat. Goat, the man said. When they hesitated, he smiled and repeated:
It's goat. We ain't eaters either. He'd removed the scarf from his face; like Daniel, like all men, he was heavily bearded, and his face was lean and dark, the right side puckered, the eye closed over with melted flesh. At Sarah's stare, he smiled again and tapped at the scar. Namesake, he said. Burns.

Who are you? Daniel asked him.

Scouts, he replied. Sent out through the pass to track down anything of worth: supplies, people, didn't much matter. Some things they brought back, others they didn't. Sarah shivered; there was no need to ask his meaning. They'd been heading back when they'd found the group. Dead lucky for you, Burns added. Wouldn't be another party sent out for a while, and once the pass is closed there's no way through, 'cept over the mountains. Not likely they'd have made it though, he said, staring at them with his one eye. Not with kids. And even if they had there was worse to follow.

What do you mean? Cutler asked.

Burns swivelled his head to better see him, and said: I mean you still got a way to go. But you'll be in good hands. If anyone can get you to the Citadel, it's the lieut.

The lute? Sarah wondered. The Citadel? Daniel said.

That place you're lookin' for, Burns replied. The town that wouldn't die? Much more'n that now. When they stared, blankly, he shrugged. You'll see, he said.

But when they finally did, it wasn't what any of them had hoped.

3

Not as big as the old town that'd once sprawled in its place, but a lot more imposing, the Citadel had formed itself like a misshapen wheel. At its centre stood the Tower, half as wide as it was tall, with just a few windows high up to break its grey-stone façade; spreading out from that, and encircled by the original wall, was the inner hub, quartered into districts by the four main roads that spoked from the base of the Tower to run out through the gates and across the plateau. The outer rim, between the old wall and the new, was some forty strides wide in places, and had been given over to an assortment of uses: the east provided for the living; the west was taken up by the dead and the dying. Aside from the Guards who were garrisoned alongside each road to man the gates and oversee any traffic in and out, the only others to live in the rim were the Pickers. And I reckoned living was a relative term.

Southeast were the trenches, dug deep to escape the worst of the wind, some covered with bits of old glass or plastic to retain any moisture for whatever grew there. Like in-ground glasshouses, my grandmother had explained. Ingenious, she'd called it. Except there wasn't much to grow; just the pale grain (the Godders could call it whatever they liked, but since hearing Taggart's non-story
I'd always think of it as Willow grain), sedges and flax, and more of the silver saltbush that already grew in abundance along the coast; the black, bitter berries were no good to eat, but I'd been told they made a mean spirit. Spiky cacti and aloes filled any uncovered trenches, and stunted olive trees lined the walls. Northeast were the yards and cages to hold the goats and seabirds and whatever else was brought in for market, plus a few long pens for the camels. Both sectors had big tanks to contain the water that came from the Port: shunted along by feeble windmills that were always breaking, through pipes that often leaked, it was stored and guarded in the rim, ready for irrigation or distribution; anything recycled was steamed in the main part of the Citadel.

Southwest, the pyres were lined in rows. They smoked endlessly, the wood fires never kept hot enough for any kind of real furnace so the dead just hissed and bubbled slowly to char, the oily pall of cooked meat hanging like a fog. But it was easier, and a whole lot safer, than trying to bury them all. Every few days Guards would rake out the ashes, crush the burned bones, and cart the mess over to the trenches to nourish the soil, for what it was worth. To save themselves a bit of time and effort, a couple of execution docks had been set up alongside the pyres. Death was usually quick, depending on the mood of whoever had been assigned to the job: beheaded or run through with a sword, but a few were winched up and left to dangle and choke; bullets were too precious to waste on petty criminals. There was another dock inside the Citadel, at the base of the Tower, but you had to have done something real bad for them to make a public spectacle of you. Had the Watch not taken me on, there was a good chance I might've ended my days on that stand.

Last of all, in the hot northwest sector and hidden from sight (if not from memory), lay the refuse dump, crawling with its Pickers – all the outcasts, anyone diseased enough to be considered a concern. Why they were kept alive at all was a mystery to me. It would've been a lot quicker and a shitload more merciful to kill them straight
up, but it seemed even the diseased had their uses and the Pickers kept the rubbish from piling too high. Not much of a life for them, but never overly long either. Every few weeks the Guards would draw lots and the losers would have to mask up and go in to torch what remained of the dead and leave vats of water for the rest. And every day dumpers would push their loads over to the guarded hatches in the wall, open them up and toss the rubbish down the chutes. If you were close enough when a hatch opened, you'd hear the Pickers crying out for help; the sound of it haunted for hours. Other than that, they were left to themselves. Not allowed in, but not allowed out either, they were kept in a living purgatory for as long as it took.

It was forbidden to climb the walls. Not because it was dangerous (which it was) but because the Guards didn't like anyone looking down on them. Even so, kids were always daring each other to the top, willing to risk any consequences. I'd done it myself a few times. They'd get a belting or worse if they were caught, but it really wasn't worth the effort, even for a minute, to stand on all that rubble and get a sky view of what lay outside the last wall. In fact, it was a real disappointment.

The remains of the old town, all the buildings and roads, all the lampposts and signposts and the dead trees, all the stopped-forever cars and trucks and other machinery, had been broken up and pulled apart. What wasn't deemed useful for anything else was piled to make the walls, any gaps in the jumble filled over time with driven sand and dust. Now, aside from a clump of old turbine stalks, silent monuments to what might've been had there been more of them sooner, and so tall you didn't need to scale any wall to see them, all that remained on the surrounding plain were base reminders of what had been. Like a colony of frantic ants, we'd raided what was and carted the spoils across to build what is. Every year the cutters had to trek further and further to fetch dead wood, and if anyone had given any thought to what might happen when the last of the trees had been chopped and burned, no one said.
Despite what had gone before, our survival depended on the now and few eyes looked to a distant future.

But within the confines of the inner wall, it was a different story. Buildings that hadn't been ransacked or burned during the raids had been badly patched and were now home to hundreds. The rest were rickety wooden structures, fire hazards that leaned precariously over narrow, twisting lanes that were shaded, where possible, by cloth or slat, keeping out the worst of the sun but trapping in the stench of unwashed misery: troughs of piss filled ready for boiling, carts of shit waiting to be rolled out and ploughed into the dust, the rich odour of rotting fish, the heavy aroma of slow-stewing goat meat, the pungent, old-sweat smell of cheese, wilted yellow and flyblown. And there was as much noise as there was stink – a deep clamour made by people living hand to hand and day to day, none of them knowing if it might be their last.

My grandparents had called this the new world, said when the place had come together everyone had been hoping they might've learned enough from past mistakes never to repeat them, but having heard their stories of how things used to be I couldn't see a whole lot of improvement. All those petty hatreds about the colour of a man's skin or the way he spoke had, for the most part, been put aside – though that magnanimity hadn't extended to include any kind of religion. But there were always plenty of new intolerances cropping up, enough to keep the law-makers busy, first one, then the next, then another, until no one could possibly remember them all and the only way they knew they'd transgressed was when they found themselves being hauled off to one of the garrisons to plead their case. Because, just like before, the only divide that really mattered was the one separating those in charge from those not.

Watchmen never worked too often in the one place, and I'd only been assigned a few cullings within the walls: my first, years ago; then, after I'd made my fifty, two more, both of them small jobs and quickly over. Usually, our visits topside were for pleasure rather than
work. That said, none of us were ever stupid enough to consider ourselves off-duty; our time in the compound was less about recuperation and more about replenishing weapons and tools, retraining and preparing ourselves for the next job. Coz if you weren't ready when the time came, Garrick would want to know why. And that was a question none of us ever wanted to be made to answer.

But for all its problems and its mess, I still enjoyed whatever time I had in the Citadel. Frequenting the odd whorehouse or wandering around the market stalls every few months, even for a couple of hours, was a good reminder of my relative fortune.

‘How much for two?' I asked, holding up the waterskins, the inner bladders covered with tanned hides, sewn tight with gut and plugged at the neck. They weren't big, but once filled they'd stretch a bit, each carrying just under a quarter. My old one had sprung a leak during the last assignment and I was glad of the chance to replace it. Added to the carrier I already had, plus whatever I recycled, there'd be enough to see me through a week.

The vendor eyed me, judging my worth, trying to figure how much he could fleece from me. I slumped a bit, hunching my shoulders, looking deflated. Not even the Sea had been able to wash away the stains on my shirt and I made sure he saw them.

‘One cup,' he said.

I grumbled about the expense, as I was expected to, while he shrugged in answer, raising his hands in that age-old you're-robbing-me-blind way, until I measured out the payment with a sigh, pouring it into the jug he proffered. Both of us winners.

Moving on, pushing past vendors who shouted and harassed – the wood-sellers and wool-spinners, skinners and fishmongers, harvesters and herders, smithies and scrappers – all of them desperate and happy to haggle whether you were interested or not, I stocked up on provisions I could now afford: new leg wrappings, soft hide sewn into long strips with the coarse hair left on for extra warmth; a good length of tightly woven flax rope, always useful; another
wide-brimmed pot with its crooked funnel cap, my old one too worn, clouded by ammonia and almost cracked in places; a thicker, heavier cloak; a coarse shirt, loose-sleeved but snug-fitting; a couple of flat discs of bread and two cup weights of cured meat. An old woman grabbed at me, jingling strings of old coins and other useless bits, but I shook her off. Only an idiot had water to waste on decoration.

Buying a hot stick – the few bits of meat were tough and dry, and not worth the half cup I'd paid – I stood in the shade of an awning and watched some kids kick a rag ball around the square. They weren't causing any trouble, but a couple of Guards chased them off anyway, spoiling their fun. From a raised platform in the middle of the square, a Tower crier was reading out yet another long list of dos-and-don'ts; no one paid much attention. And in an alley further down, a gaunt man had leapt onto a box and was deploring everyone's evil ways, threatening godly fury; most passers-by either ignored him or jeered –
that god of yours has done enough, you crazy fuck!
– but a few stopped to listen.

They might've mastered the art of punishing a man for his actions, but not even the Council had found a way to subdue a person's innermost thoughts, or his private beliefs. At least, not until those beliefs were made public; then he could be guaranteed an earlier meeting with his maker than he might've hoped. But the Godder had chosen his spot well, his added height giving him a clear view up and down the road, and the only Guards in sight were preoccupied with baser things: a group of them had congregated outside one of the whorehouses and were ribbing each other and staring up with longing; above, a couple of girls leaned out of a window, calling and laughing, their long tits swinging in the wind to tease and tempt the poor bastards below. The chance to wield authority was supposed to make amends for a Guard's single-vat salary, and it was a safe bet none of them could afford what was on offer. Even so, his common sense overcoming any reliance upon a higher power, the Godder kept glancing at them between
every rant, ready to run in case they showed any inclination to do their job. It seemed to me there were more and more of these mad zealots slithering out of nowhere but, until such time as Garrick told me otherwise, dealing with them wasn't my responsibility.

Across the way, an inker was tattooing a shirtless fool in the full glare of the sun, pricking his upper arm with the pusher, the needle piercing the skin, the black liquid injected with a quick thumb press. The customer would regret it tomorrow; what the sun didn't burn, the needle and the putrid ink – maybe squid but more likely, because it was cheaper, charcoal and seawater – would surely infect.

Always ready for a bit of fun, I tossed the remains of my stick into a dumper's cart and wandered over.

The inker looked up hopefully. ‘You interested?' he said.

‘Maybe,' I lied. Even if I'd been idiotic enough to risk sun and filth, they'd be nothing compared to Garrick's wrath; the only marks allowed a Watchman were his. ‘What can you do?'

The man shrugged. ‘Anything you want. Pictures. Words. You decide.'

I stared at the mess he was making on the man's arm. ‘What's he getting?'

‘My name,' the fool answered for himself, wincing when the inker stuck him again.

I peered closer. The tiny black dots weren't spelling out any word I knew. ‘Yeah? What's that then?'

‘Digger,' he said. He even sounded proud of it.

I chuckled; the inker's eyes narrowed. ‘If you say so,' I told the duped customer.

‘What d'you mean? That's what it says, right?' the man demanded. Whirling to face us, suddenly suspicious, he twisted and pulled at his arm to see what was there. Not that it'd do him any good; he clearly couldn't read.

‘Sure,' I placated, with a nod and a wide smile. ‘That's what it says.' And laughing, I left the two of them to argue it out.

Most vendors sold in the squares, but there were plenty of other trades tucked into laneways and dark passages, all of them ready to scramble at the approach of any Guards: thieves and pickpockets waiting to relieve the unwary, nests of gamblers easily talked into splashing out for a kiss of luck, cons and tricksters relying on the stupidity of others, fight-dens visited by those who hadn't yet had their fill of death, whore-masters touting thrills never found in any of the lawful houses; all of them doing their bit to keep the water circulating.

Pushing through the crowd on one of the busier streets, I browsed the weapon stalls (some legitimate, some not) more out of interest than looking to buy. I'd get what I needed from Taggart, purpose-made and better value. But it was always worthwhile to see what was on offer, and to see who frequented those stalls. Mostly it was Guards, swaggering around, pretending they knew what each weapon was for, how best to use it, how much it was worth. But others bought too, and they were the ones to watch, just in case.

BOOK: Watershed
4.08Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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