Gilded Cage

by Vic James

  The cottages of the Row were still out of sight beyond the steep rise that hid the slave quarters from the mansion. Abi was trudging up it when something monstrous and snarling plunged down towards her from the crest. She threw herself to one side as Gavar Jardine’s motorbike gouged past, the beam of its gaze dazzling her for one terrifying instant.

  The heir was heading off on parliamentary business, Lady Thalia had said. So what was he doing out here? Suspicion blooming in her brain, Abi jogged up the incline.

  From the top she saw the long line of whitewashed cottages, almost luminous in the moonlight. And moving towards them was a shape so large and lumpy that Abi at first thought she was mistaken, until she puzzled it out.

  ‘Wait,’ she called, and her sister turned and stopped.

  Daisy had put on every coat from the hallway pegs: her own, then on top of it their father’s fleece and Mum’s down jacket. She carried an immense nest of blankets in which the swaddled form of Libby Jardine was barely discernible.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ Abi demanded. ‘It’s freezing. Why did you let him drag you both outside?’

  ‘He didn’t drag me anywhere,’ her sister said stolidly. ‘It was my idea. He’s being sent to Millmoor again and came to say goodbye to Libby. I said I’d bring her out and told him to wait beyond the end of the Row.’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  Daisy narrowed her eyes. It would have been comical, if what she said next hadn’t been so disturbing.

  ‘I wanted to talk to him privately.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Her little sister shook her head. ‘Might not happen. If it does, you’ll know.’

  Daisy wouldn’t be drawn further. She bent over the blankets, fussing needlessly.

  ‘You know what Gavar’s like,’ Abi snapped, her frustration finally finding an outlet. ‘You know what Silyen told us about Libby’s mother. He’s not someone you should be having secret conversations with. Don’t be a baby; we’re not in a playground now.’

  Daisy glared up at her.

  ‘It’s Heir Gavar,’ she said. ‘And he’s always been good to me. I’m appreciated. Can you say the same?’

  Daisy stomped off back towards the cottage, but Abi had no comeback to that anyway.

  It was strange – she had been so certain that an estate would be the best way to keep her family together, safe and comfortable during their days. And yet here they were, divided and vulnerable like they had never been before: Luke in Millmoor, Daisy under the sway of Kyneston’s volatile heir.

  What have you managed to achieve, Abi Hadley?

  Not much, she told herself. Not nearly enough.

  She thrust a hand into her coat pocket and felt around. There it was, the small square of metal cold against her fingertips.

  There was at least one thing she was doing that made a difference. She turned her back on both the Row and the great house, and began to walk across the frozen grass.

  Inside the kennels, the man was doing press-ups, muscles bunching in his arms and across his back. The cage was too small for him to stand up in, and this was the only exercise he got. As Abi’s shadow fell across him he instantly dropped to the floor, motionless. Which meant his exercise routine was covert.

  Which meant that he was not entirely broken by his captivity.

  ‘It’s me,’ she said, edging closer. The light had been on in the Master of Hounds’ rooms in the eaves, which meant that the kennels would be unstaffed, but he would be close enough to hear any disturbance.

  ‘I’ve got your antibiotics. And something to help them down with.’

  Sinewy fingers thrust through the pen and took the palmful of pills. They ignored the offered apple. The dog-man shoved the medication in his mouth and gulped from his water bowl.

  ‘I thought . . .’ Abi hesitated, not quite able to believe what she was doing. ‘I thought we could take a walk. Not with the leash, I mean. Upright.’

  His eyes, when they looked at her, were wary.

  ‘Yes,’ he rasped eventually.

  ‘And you won’t run away? Or . . . or, hurt me?’

  She hated herself for having to ask that. But during her visits to the kennels she had realized that whatever had been done to the dog-man – she still didn’t know his name, because he couldn’t remember it – had chipped away at not just his humanity, but also his sanity. Occasionally on previous visits he had snarled at her. Once he had even snapped his teeth at her hand. Shaken, she hadn’t gone again for nearly a week.

  Those eyes met hers. Human. Mostly.

  ‘I won’t hurt,’ he growled. ‘You. I won’t hurt you.’

  ‘Anyone,’ Abi insisted. Her hand shook. What was she thinking? She had no idea what he had done to be sentenced in this way – to be Condemned. All she knew was what the Master of Hounds had told her: that he had deserved his punishment at the hands of Lord Crovan. And given the horror of that punishment, she didn’t want to guess at the awfulness of his crimes.

  ‘I’m trusting you,’ she said, fitting the little key to the padlock.

  ‘Trust,’ the man rasped, before being racked by a ghastly, wheezing paroxysm.

  It was laughter, Abi realized a moment later, feeling sick.

  She could walk away now and leave him penned. The lock had clicked open, but it was still threaded through the clasp, holding the door shut. Her hand hovered over it.

  Then she remembered Lady Thalia’s veiled dismissal. Jenner unpeeling her fingers from his sleeve. The fuzziness in her head as she came to in the Great Solar. The pain, afterwards, as thoughts and memories swam through her brain and tried but failed to connect.

  Something had happened in that room. Something had been done to her by the Equals. What?

  ‘Let’s get you out,’ said Abi. She plucked off the padlock, lifted the cage door slightly on its hinge so it didn’t grate across the floor, and swung it open.

  For a moment, the man simply stared. Then he crept out on all fours and lay on the damp concrete. He rolled onto his back and stretched his arms above his head, straining to point his toes. He looked like a man on the rack. Every one of his ribs was visible; his abdomen a shallow dish; the hair at his groin dense and matted. His face was twisted with what could have been pain, or equally ecstasy.

  Turning back onto his stomach, he hauled himself onto hands and knees. His fingers clawed their way up the side of the cage until he was kneeling upright. He paused there a moment, diaphragm ballooning. Then with a horrible broken-boned movement he dragged each leg into a squat.

  And silently – though he must surely have wanted to howl, because what it cost him was plain on his face – the man stood.

  He staggered around. It was horrible to see. Like a parody of walking performed by something inhuman. And all the while, he didn’t utter a sound.

  There was a scream outside, and Abi froze. Above, a window clattered open and the Master of Hounds bellowed something obscene before banging the casement shut again.

  ‘Owl,’ gasped the dog-man.

  Abi checked her watch. It was later than she’d thought.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but you’d better get back in the pen. I need to go home. But I’ll come again soon, I promise. There must be something we can do. If they see you walking and talking, can see you recovering, they surely can’t make you carry on living like this, whatever it is you’ve done.’

  The man wheezed again. That mirthless laugh. He dropped to the floor, slung back his haunches and crawled inside. Turned.

  ‘You’re in – the pen – too.’ He peered through the bars, fixing Abi with glittering eyes. ‘Just – I see – my cage – my leash.’

  Abi’s hands shook as she snapped the padlock shut.

  16

  Luke

  Luke had never imagined he’d be so thrilled to hear ‘Happy Panda’ again. The catchy beat was still doing its oh-wa-woah-wa-wa in his head as he loped downstairs. Just hearing Oz’s voice had put a spring in h
is step, and he took the stairs two or three at a time, eager to see how this day would unfold.

  He pushed through the front doors. Their paint was flaking, rubbed thin by the pressure of hundreds of hands daily. Men going out to work, men coming back. Another lick of paint every few years. Another batch of men to fill the foundries and factories, to do the maintenance shifts and cart away the rubbish. Then when they were gone: more men, more paint.

  Would today be a first step towards ending all that?

  It was icy outside, and Luke turned up the collar of his too-thin jacket and stuffed his hands into his armpits as if trying to hold in his body heat. His boilersuit was uncomfortably hot inside the shed, but worn outside it had been uncomfortably cold for months, though January was proving the worst. They probably designed the garment carefully for maximum thermal inefficiency in all conditions.

  His breath steamed in the frigid air. The only time steam looked clean in Millmoor was when it came out of your own mouth. After a few minutes, he’d adjusted to the temperature sufficiently to lift his head and straighten his back from an instinctive, heat-conserving hunch.

  Usually, there wasn’t much worth looking at in Millmoor, although he still did Doc Jackson’s exercise of searching for details. But today was different.

  Today was party day.

  With a six-day work week, Luke had never been in the streets on a Friday before. It seemed busier than when he was out and about on club business on Sundays.

  Just in front of him walked a couple holding hands. The man had draped his jacket around his girl’s shoulders. He must be freezing. The dark hair buzzed short at the back of his head bristled with cold, and his neck had a raw, red look. There was a slapping sound as they walked. Luke identified it as the heel of her boot, which had come loose. That wouldn’t keep out much on a rainy day.

  The woman stopped, uncertain, and the man’s arm pulled tight around her shoulders. Somewhere up ahead was a hubbub of raised voices and angry shouts. The couple turned aside, taking a different route, but Luke thought he knew what was going on.

  His feet had unconsciously carried him to the nearest shop, several streets from the dorm. It looked as if Hilda and Tilda had pulled off the unlimited credit trick, because there must have been about fifty people gathered round the store.

  Metal shutters were pulled down over the frontage and two nervous-looking blokes, not all that much older than Luke, stood in front of it. They wore the uniform of Millmoor Security and were holding batons. They kept looking up and down the street as if hoping for backup, which showed no signs of coming.

  One of them was trying to ignore an angry man who was shouting and gesticulating. The man’s finger was stabbing at the guard’s face. Kessler would have had you on your back in a second with a snapped wrist and piss-soaked pants for that, but the guard just cringed.

  Two lads in their early twenties had scrounged a dustbin lid and a length of metal piping from somewhere and were attempting to prise up the shutters. A group of women were cajoling the other guard to open up. One of them was flirting in a way that wasn’t exactly appealing, but was certainly distracting.

  For the first time Luke properly understood what the ditcher sisters had done. Letting people have free stuff was only a small part of it. At every store across Millmoor, the scene would be much the same. Dozens of guards would be taken up on this policing. And these younger, more inexperienced ones weren’t doing a great job of looking fearsome – which might make people bolder, more willing to risk defiance. If trouble flared up at one location, hopefully Security wouldn’t be able to call in reinforcements either, thanks to Renie’s busy night with her knife.

  All that achieved on the ground, with just a little computer mischief. Luke let out a low whistle. Impressive.

  He hurried on, keen to see more of the club’s plans unfold. He’d steer clear of Zone D for now. Would the place be eerily quiet, or would people have bottled at the last minute and shown up for work? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  But he knew where he could admire one of Jackson’s banners – his sector’s Labour Allocation Bureau. The same sods who’d waved through his solo assignment to Millmoor, despite the requirement that under-eighteens could only do days with a parent or guardian. The same ones, he had learned during his months in the club, who were responsible for many more outrageous decisions.

  The banner was half hanging off by the time Luke arrived. The West Sector LAB was a pitted concrete building some six storeys high. It wasn’t as tall as the towering accommodation blocks that ringed Millmoor’s outskirts, but it still loomed over the smaller administrative buildings around it. The Doc’s little message was slung across its top floor like a jaunty bandanna.

  It had been detached at the top right corner, and two nervous members of Security were dangling a third guy over the edge of the roof. He must have been having even less fun. He was slashing at the fastening on the bottom corner with a blade tied to a broom handle. The banner sagged but the slogan was still clear, so neatly lettered it must have been done by Asif: ‘UN-EQUAL’.

  A small crowd had gathered to watch and a woman near the front was heckling. Her skin seemed somehow too large for her, as if she’d been a big lass before coming to Millmoor and being put on the Slavery Diet. The place had done nothing to shrink her voice, though.

  ‘Shame on yer!’ the woman bawled up at the roof. ‘Policin’ yer own kind. Git a proper job. You was my kids, I’d tan yer hides!’

  She spat emphatically on the pavement. Several others in the crowd took up a chant of ‘Shame! Shame!’

  Whether through fright, or because he did indeed feel ashamed, the guard being dangled upside down fumbled with his pole and it slipped from his fingers. The group of onlookers scurried back to avoid the blade as it fell, then surged forward to cover it. Luke didn’t see what happened to either pole or knife in the scuffle that followed. But by the time the crowd eased apart again, there was nothing on the ground.

  ‘You wait!’ the woman yelled at the roof. ‘You tell your lords an’ masters we’ll give ’em a Millmoor welcome if they ever come to visit!’

  Well.

  Luke knew he shouldn’t be surprised. Mancunians were a feisty bunch. But when all you saw, day in, day out, was people looking knackered and hungry, you somehow forgot that.

  He grinned. Decided to do a circuit through South Sector to see what else was going on.

  Everywhere he turned there was something to catch his eye. He stopped short when he saw a woman standing in a dorm block doorway with some friends.

  She was wearing a dress.

  She was nearly old enough to be his mum, and it wasn’t a terribly nice dress. In fact, it looked like it’d been run up from bedsheets. But he hadn’t seen a woman in a dress since coming to Millmoor. Mostly, ladies escaped the boilersuits, which were for heavy labour. But trousers and tunics were the order of the day, and non-regulation wear was banned. The frock might not be much of a fashion statement, but it was a political statement all right.

  One of the woman’s friends noticed him staring, and pointed him out to the others with a laugh. Luke felt himself go bright red and wanted to bolt, but the lady in the dress turned round and saw him. An embarrassed but proud smile lit up her tired face, and she brushed out the creases in the skirt, which was kind of sweet.

  He lost track of how far he walked after that. He’d left the areas he knew well some time ago, and was straying into unfamiliar districts. But it must have been long past lunchtime, because a sudden whiff of something delicious made his stomach cramp with hunger.

  The smell was coming from a second-floor window at the back of a dorm block. It was one for ‘small family units’, which meant single parents with few enough kids that the whole family could be housed in one room. ‘Few enough kids’ could apparently be as many as three.

  A woman stuck her head out the window, fanning steam, her brown skin glistening.

  ‘Sorry, pet,’ she called down when she sa
w him standing below. ‘Coupla lil’ chickens flew out the factory yesterday, but we’ve none spare, even for a proper lad like you.’

  She gave a deep, throaty laugh and disappeared back inside. Luke didn’t begrudge her refusal, just stood there feasting on the aroma.

  Then another face appeared at the window: a girl, maybe early teens, whose frizzy hair was barely contained by two plaits. She put her finger to her lips then held up what looked like a wodge of tissue and tossed it to him. Luke darted to catch it. It was actually toilet paper, but concealed in the middle, like an improbable prize at the end of a game of pass the parcel, was a hot sliver of meat speckled with salt and pepper.

  Luke stuffed it in his mouth and looked up to thank the girl. But she was staring over his head at something behind him. Then she broke her self-imposed silence.

  ‘Run!’

  Startled, Luke looked over his shoulder.

  His feet took off before his brain caught up, by which time he’d managed to get a few blocks away. He could still hear the boots behind him, though. They were going surprisingly fast given the man’s size.

  But Luke knew what he’d seen when he’d looked back. There was only one person in Millmoor who wore that uniform and was built like that, albeit the massive bull neck had been in silhouette. And Luke knew the voice that had roared his name just as he took to his heels.

  Kessler.

  Luke had to slow his pace a little. His work in Zone D might have made him stronger, and his illicit roaming around Millmoor had wised him up to the city’s layout. But neither of those things had made him any quicker on his feet.

  Kessler wasn’t catching up just yet, though. Could he shake him off?

  But the man had plainly known where he was. It would be too much of a coincidence for him to have simply run into Luke way out on the edge of South, in the depths of the family blocks. How had he known?

  The chip. The bloody microchip! Luke clawed at his arm as he ran, as if he could scratch the thing out.