"Once a week they dress the boys up in uniforms and teach them to shoot things."
A flash of unease passed across the woman's face.
"Don't worry," said the man. "Matrons are exempt. You won't ever have to hold a gun again, Kate."
After a short pause she said: "It's Jane, remember? I'm supposed to be Jane now."
"Sorry, I know. But not forever. Once we catch the bastard you can go back to being Kate again."
The woman did not correct his misapprehension.
"The boys arrive tomorrow," he continued. "Then you'll be up to your elbows in Clearasil, TCP and black eyes."
"Can't wait." Another pause, and then: "Do you have any idea where he is?"
The man shook his head. "If I had to guess, Serbia."
The woman nodded.
"Were there any biscuits in there?" she asked. "I fancy dunking."
When Cooper had gone, the woman drew a bath and gently lowered herself into the near boiling water, letting her skin adjust to the heat in tiny increments, her lips pursed with the pleasure of pain.
She floated, weightless, closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing. She took long, slow, deep breaths and pictured the cares and stresses of her day dissolving out of her into the bathwater.
But there were no cares and stresses to disperse. It felt as if there was nothing in her at all. She was hollow.
The woman considered the emptiness dispassionately, turning it over in her mind as one would a vase or an artefact unearthed at an archaeological dig, feeling its weight and form, assessing it.
"Jane," she said out loud. "Jane Crowther. Matron."
She said the name in different ways, trying different intonations, a question, and answer, a hail, a statement.
"Jane. Jane. Jane."
It felt strange in her mouth. But it felt good on the inside.
Yes. She would be Jane now, the woman decided.
And it was right that she should be empty, she concluded, for that was what a newborn was — a vessel waiting to be filled with new experiences.
The woman who was now Jane ducked her head under the water for a moment and concentrated on the still warmth, the only sound her own heartbeat. Then she pushed her head back up to the air and took her first breath.
Part Three
Lee
Chapter Ten
The implications of what I'm seeing crash overwhelm me.
I stand there holding the gun, frozen in wonder and horror as the events of eight years ago spool through my head like a movie. Each event, each conversation, is suddenly reinterpreted with new and sinister emphasis.
It this is true then that means… which means that… in which case…
I stagger back from the Speaker's chair as if hit, almost losing my footing. I think maybe I let out a cry.
"Surprise," says the man in the cloak.
The sound of his voice brings me back to the here and now. I refocus my attention on him, steadying my wavering hands and aiming the gun right between his eyes.
"Oh Kate," says John Cooper. "Is that any way to greet an old friend?"
Chapter Eleven
I was a little nervous when I rode into Nottingham.
The castle was impressive and welcoming, although they insisted I leave my gun with them for the duration as apparently no firepower was allowed in the town. Hood had his own band of merry men and there was a family atmosphere that reminded me a little of St Mark's. I had some concerns when I saw the army of Rangers training in the grounds, but those fears were dispelled when I met the man and his entourage. These were obviously good guys, which was a blessed relief.
Jack had been there three days already when I arrived and had was fitting in nicely. There was something of the chameleon about Jack. He was good at blending in, finding the right tone to strike in a particular group or environment. In Nottingham he was blokier, more one of the lads than he was back at school. It had worked. He had met Hood a couple of times and been greeted with cautious warmth. As we'd discussed, Jack had proposed an arrangement whereby either of our settlements could, if seriously threatened, send a messenger asking for aid which would be immediately rendered.
Hood seemed open to the idea, but it was still early days. Jack was taken aback when I turned up intending to ask him to deliver on his end of the bargain so quickly.
"I don't know if he'll be up for that. Things aren't exactly quiet around here," Jack told me as we walked around the castle boundary on the day I arrived. "There's some nutty cult on the rise and it's got them a bit spooked. Plus, you know, they had a hard fight against that French geezer so they're cautious about going looking for trouble."
"Geezer? Really, Jack? Geezer?"
"What?" he replied, I thought slightly shiftily.
I laughed. "Was that the commonly accepted term at Harrow for French psychopaths?"
"No," he said, straight faced. "The accepted Harrovian term for a French psychopath was Le Geezer. But, you know, I didn't want to confuse you with the complicated foreign lingo."
"Right."
He gave me a sudden appraising stare, as if trying to work out what I was getting at which, since I was just joking, made me wonder what he thought I was getting at. I shook my head and filed it under the category of 'Jack being odd'.
"Anyway," he went on, "they've got quite a force of Rangers. As you've found, they don't carry guns, just knives, swords, bows and arrows, quarterstaffs. Proper mediaeval stuff."
"So where," I interjected, "did all De Falaise's firepower end up?"
"I asked that, but they're not saying."
"'Cause we could use it, if they'd let us."
Jack shook his head firmly. "No chance. Hood has a thing about modern weapons. If they had an arsenal somewhere, he's either destroyed it or put it somewhere no-one else can find it."
I nodded. "So how many men can he spare us?"
Jack winced. "I don't know if he's willing to spare us any, but I got the impression that the best we could hope for is maybe five or six."
I looked up at the castle walls, where we'd seen at least fifty Rangers being put through their paces. "Fuck, really? That's it?"
"He said he has to make the cult his top priority. Plus…" Jack trailed off, seemingly unsure of what to say next.
"Yes?"
"Well, what happened in Thetford? 'Cause whatever it was, those Rangers you came back with kind of hate your guts."
"Things got complicated."
He waited for me to say more, but I kept my mouth shut. Even I wasn't entirely sure what had happened back at the compound. I kept replaying the moment I killed the begging snatcher, trying to reconstruct what I was thinking at the time, trying to work out whether it was justified. But I came up empty handed time and again. It was like I hadn't been me at all when I pulled the trigger. I was beginning to suspect that I couldn't recall what I'd been feeling because I hadn't felt anything at all. And that scared me.
We rounded a corner and found ourselves back at the castle gates. Jack saw this girl called Sophie who he'd been mooning after, with a total lack of success on his part and no encouragement at all on hers, and took off to resume his charm offensive.
I went to find Hood.
The living legend was pacing up and down in front of a map of the area which was hanging from the wall of what used to be the visitor's centre.
Courteous yet taciturn, he had a weather-beaten face that spoke of a life outdoors. He seemed uncomfortable inside and every now and then I caught him flashing tiny glances at the walls as if suspicious or resentful of them. I don't think he realised he was doing it.
He indicated that I should take a seat in one of the moulded plastic chairs that were piled up in the corner.
"Tell me about De Falaise," I asked, substituting curiosity for small talk.
He regarded me coolly. "Like a good war story, do you?" The implication was unspoken but clear.
"My Dad and I had a run in with him, back in France," I explained. "I'
m deaf in one ear because of that bastard."
He looked surprised and I admit I felt a little pleased with myself. I got the impression he was not an easy man to surprise. I realised that something about his quiet authority made me want to impress him.
"You were in France?" he asked. "What were you doing there?"
"Making my way home."
"From?"
"Iraq."
Now he was really surprised. I intended to leave it at that, just be enigmatic and cool, but I felt a sudden need to confess. Something about this strange, solid man made me want to unburden myself to him.
Hood pulled up a chair and sat opposite me as I talked, listening without comment as everything that had happened to St Mark's since The Cull poured out of me. The choices, the killing, the monsters and heroes. As I spoke the sun went down until only a solitary candle lit the room, catching the lines on his face until it seemed I was speaking to a statue or a demon. Hood had an amazing quality of stillness. I don't think he even blinked while I spoke, and I spoke for a long, long time. In that quiet, half lit room it was as if there was something not quite natural about him, something more than human. Or maybe something less.
When I had finished — and I was completely honest about what had happened in Thetford — I fell silent and waited nervously for his response. He sat there, impassive, for what felt like a lifetime.
"Have you told you father this? Or Jane?" he asked softly, the voice seeming to come from the very fabric of the building.
"Some of it," I said. "Not all."
He rose from the chair and walked across to me. He laid his hand on my shoulder and looked down into my eyes. There was such compassion in them, but no pity. I felt a lump in my throat and realised I was about to cry.
"You should."
"I…" I found it hard to form feelings, let alone words to express them. "I want…"
"I know what you want, son. But I can't give it to you."
He turned and walked to the door then paused and said, over his shoulder: "You can have a team of men. My very best. They'll be at your disposal from dawn tomorrow."
He half turned and looked back at me through the gloom.
"And Lee, if things go badly, send word if you can," he said. "If it's at all possible, I'll come."
Then he opened the door and left.
I sat in that chair watching the candle flicker against the darkness until the first hint of light crept across the horizon. Then I wiped my eyes and made ready for war.
Chapter Twelve
Tariq felt the frost crunching beneath his feet as he walked across the grass towards the school. The air was crisp and cold but the sky was clear and the sun shone strong but heatless.
He loved this place. All his life he had dreamed of escaping from Basra, of never again seeing dust or sand or dun coloured buildings. This place, with all its rain and greenery, its tall palladian columns and huge windows, was as far away from his birthplace as he could imagine. When he had lain in his bed at night as a boy, this is what he had dreamed of. Another man might have felt a twinge of guilt when he realised that, in some ways, The Cull was the best thing that ever happened to him. But not Tariq. He rarely dwelt on the past and seldom paused to examine his motives or feelings. He lived in the moment and he liked it there right well, thank you very much.
As a teenager he had pictured his future as a journalist in the UK, lobbing perfectly formed gobbets of vitriolic prose at Saddam and the Ba'athists over the internet. But he didn't mourn the loss of his dreams and ambitions. He was a teacher now, and a member of a community that had taken him in and made him part of a family. He would settle for that and count himself lucky.
He'd fight for it, too. Fighting seemed as natural to him as breathing. He had stood in opposition to someone or something his entire life — Saddam, the militants, the Americans. It was only in the last two years that he'd had nothing to fight. Peace had brought its own challenges, though, not least the loss of his lower left arm after the Salisbury explosion. The pain had gone now but he still felt occasional flashes of feeling in his missing fingers, and the stump itched like hell if he wore his hook on hot days.
He raised the artificial limb and flexed the metal claw. It made a soft clicking sound as he did so. The younger kids called him Captain Hook, but he didn't mind that. He'd even play along sometimes, bellowing a piratical "ARRRR!" and chasing them down the corridors as they screamed with terrified delight.
The thought of anyone taking them away and making them slaves caused an old familiar anger to rise inside him. He'd almost missed it.
He pushed open the doors and walked inside. The first person he met was Green. Tariq thought Green was a bit odd. Gawky, with acne scars and floppy blonde hair, he was very quiet and reserved in company. But give him a classroom of students or, better still, a gang of people wanting to put on a play or a musical, and he was driven, focused, funny and inspirational; a natural performer. Tariq had assumed he was gay, but recent rumours suggested otherwise. The oddest thing, though, was that he didn't take part in any of the military training exercises. Matron had exempted him, and only him, from all such activities. She'd never told Tariq why. She'd just said: "He's earned it."
Green nodded a greeting as Tariq entered, then smiled in relief as the four kids he'd brought back with him shuffled past in search of baths and bed. But his face fell as he realised no-one else was following on.
"That's it?" he asked.
"Call an assembly, ten minutes, dining hall," replied the Iraqi. "All kids of ten and up. I need to get some food in me first."
He hurried off to the kitchen and left Green to round everyone up.
Tariq had been a leader before, in Basra. Giving orders came easily to him, and he felt no nerves as he stood in front of over forty children and twelve adults.
"Hands up everyone who was at the original school during the battle with the Blood Hunters," he said.
About twenty hands went up.
"And how many were here when we moved from Groombridge?"
About thirty.
"And how many of you want to move again?"
There was a murmur of disquiet.
"Because there's a chance we're going to come under attack. And I, for one, am not running and hiding this time!"
He was hoping for a chorus of "Damn straight!" but instead Mrs Armstrong spoke up for the back.
"Why not start at the beginning, eh, love?" she asked. "Tell us where the others are."
Tariq looked down at his audience and shook his head in wonder at his own stupidity. These weren't his fellow rebels from Basra, these were bloody kids, and he had started off like he was a sports coach gearing his team up for a big match. What was he thinking?
So he told them, honestly, without sugar coating it or hiding anything, exactly what had happened and what they had learnt at Thetford.
"We've prepared for a siege, over and over," he said in conclusion. "You all know your roles and positions. My job is to make sure that this place stands firm, no matter what. And with the defences we've got and the strategies we've drilled, anyone who attacks this place is going to find they've bitten off more than they can chew."
He fell silent then, waiting for some kind of response.
"No," came a voice after a moment's silence. It was not shouted, but it was spoken forcefully. It took Tariq a second to realise that it was Green speaking.
"You want to say something?" asked Tariq.
Green got to his feet and gestured to the podium where Tariq stood, asking permission to address the room. Tariq nodded and stepped aside, surprised.
Green cleared his throat and looked at his feet as he prepared to speak. Then he looked up and addressed the room.
"Somewhere in London there's an army of kids fighting a war," he said. "Kids like you and me. Kids who should be here, with us. We've been looking for allies recently, building trade relationships with the Steamies and the rest, and trying to arrange mutual defence pacts with Hood a
nd Hildenborough. We know some of the people we encounter may be hostile or dangerous, but we keep looking for allies who can help us.
"These kids in London don't know it, but they are already our allies. Because they're us. They're you and me and her and them, if we'd never found this place. If Matron hadn't stuck her neck out and fought for us. If Lee hadn't seen off Mac. If Rowles hadn't sacrificed himself to keep us safe.
"If not for their efforts, we would be those kids. Scared, alone, fighting a war against kidnappers. Or worse — shipped to America already, where God knows what would have happened to us.
"And how do we repay the sacrifices our friends have made to keep us safe? We hide here and hope the bad guys don't come looking for us? Well, yeah. Of course Matron and Lee want us to do that. It's natural. They've fought hard to keep us from harm, to create this place for us. They don't want to risk it or lose it. Of course they want us to stay here and protect this perfect haven they've built.
"But the thing is, they've also taught us by their example. And their example teaches us a different lesson.
"It tells us that the only safety worth having is the kind you fight for.
"It tells us that sitting around waiting for other people to look after you is asking for destruction.
"It tells us that protecting people weaker than ourselves is the most important thing we can possibly do with our lives.
"They're out there now, fighting for us. God knows where Matron is, or what's happening to her. Lee's dad has gone to London to try and lead a gang of kids against an army that will almost certainly kick their ass. Lee's gone riding off into potentially hostile territory with a bunch of men who we don't know he can trust.
"And we're supposed to sit here and let them do all this for us because it's what they would want us to do?
"Fuck that.
"Fuck hiding.
"Fuck defences.
"Fuck keeping a low profile.
"If we want to justify what they've done for us, we don't do it by staying here and letting them risk their lives for us again.
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