He walked round the walls, treading over the place where Fiorinda’s sprig of Rest Harrow had been crushed into the mud, thinking of the organisation, the heavy machinery, how many more of these places there were… As if the cleared ground, on which he had hoped to plant his renewal, had started coming out in weird, festering sores. Something new, and terrible, and totally unexpected: but that’s how it always feels, and it’s not, it’s the same disaster, things fall apart.
The thought of the interview he had to face in the morning was like a lead weight on his soul.
‘I don’t like this,’ muttered Fergal, up above. ‘Why’s he down there?’
‘That’s Ax,’ said Brock, proudly. ‘He’s not afraid of any fucking thing. You shoulda been with him in Yorkshire—’
‘Hey. There’s a metal panel, with a skim of clay plastered over it! Shit, there are sliding doors in the walls of the pit! It’s like an Eygptian tomb. I think I can shift it. Hey, this is it. This is how! You must be able to lock or open these doors from a distance, radio-controlled, but it’s…switched off, or something.’
Something made a sound: a hollow, guttural cough.
Even Ax Preston fails to think out of the box sometimes. He’d forced one of the sliding panels, found a black space behind it and gone to fetch his torch, which he’d left by the totem poles. It had not crossed his mind that the tunnel might be occupied. He heard that sound and froze, knowing it instantly, on a level older than conscious thought. Instinctively he moved to get his back against a wall. Mistake. Now the ladder was on the other side of the pit. He’d dumped his rifle before climbing down. He didn’t even have a pocket knife.
The tigers trotted out on big, soft feet. There were two of them, one larger than the other. In the moonlight they looked absolutely huge. They looked as if they could jump out of the pit itself. The barmies stared down, jaws dropping. The only one who had a weapon in his hands and a clear shot at the beasts was Brock, and he seemed paralysed.
The tigers had not fed, they were probably hungry. They wasted no time. Both animals, beautiful, calculating eyes fixed on Ax, crouched fluidly, poised to leap.
‘Oh, Jaysus fockin’ God!’ Fergal Kearney’s own rifle was on his back, he didn’t bother with it. He grabbed the gun that Brock seemed incapable of using and fired a rattling burst into the pit, eyes tight shut, raking wildly to and fro.
Sage had come into the clearing just in time to see this happen.
He crossed the remaining space at a leap, unslinging his own rifle. The pit held two very big dead tigers, and Ax, looking stunned but apparently unhurt.
‘What the fuck’s going on?’
‘Oh, God,’ Brock dropped to his knees, covering his face. ‘Oh, God help me!’
‘It was tigers,’ whispered Zip, awed, ‘it was tigers. We never thought of tigers.’
The policewoman stood by her pile of binbags with her mouth open.
‘They were going for Ax!’ yelled another witness, excitedly. ‘They were going for Ax, Sage. He couldn’t get out, an Fergal grabbed Brock’s rifle, an’ shot ’em!’
‘Those were Bengal Tigers,’ moaned poor Brock. ‘There isn’t a hundred of them left alive in the world. I woulda done it. I woulda done it, only—’
‘Make that ninety-eight,’ said Ax, climbing out. ‘Thanks, Fergal. Good shooting.’
Sage said, ‘Are you going to tell me why you were in the pit with two tigers? Proving something, huh?’
‘I have no excuse,’ said Ax. ‘I was being unbelievably stupid. You can beat me up later.’ Shoulder to shoulder, they turned to Fergal Kearney. The Irishman was sitting on the ground, the rifle discarded, holding his head and shaking.
‘Oh Jaysus,’ he was muttering. ‘Jaysus.’
‘Are you okay, Fergal?’
‘Just help me up, Sage, me darling,’ Sage helped him up. Fergal clung to tall Sage, almost a dead weight. ‘Ah, God, I don’t know what’s wrong wi’ me, it was a wee shock, I’ll be over it. That was fockin’ loud. That’s, that’s somethen I never just done before—’
‘You did good,’ said Sage, intensely. He had taken off his mask. ‘I owe you.’
The barmies crowded round, jabbering with shock and adrenalin and relief. The tigers should be measured, no they should be left as they were. The Irishman was a natural marksman, but he’d made a fuck of a mess of his tiger-skin rugs, that’s one thing you’ll have to learn, Ferg, you don’t want to use an automatic rifle on anything you plan to use for a souvenir after—
Police officers and barmy squaddies came running from the lane: Ax’s unbelievable stupidity instantly became a deed of valour, but at least Fergal got top honours. The tigers were hauled out and found to be wearing radio control shock collars, which explained how they’d been trained and handled, but wouldn’t have done anything for Ax. Ax tried to comfort Brock, who was a shattered heap: a situation not improved by his tactless mates telling him that the man-eaters would probably’ve had to be put down anyhow.
And now we’d better find this Irishman a drink.
‘Why didn’t you use your own rifle, Fergal?’ asked Sage, as they left the haunted grove.
Fergal grinned sheepishly. ‘Oh, I knew I woulda been firing blanks. If I was in your shoes, I would not’ve given meself live ammunition tonight, either.’
Sage had taken the PM across country to the M1, where he’d spent the night under guard at a run-down Travelodge. The debriefing happened at nine the next morning, by the roadside. Fiorinda’s van stood on the hard shoulder. Ax and Sage had been to Coventry after Ax’s adventure in the tiger pit. They’d brought Richard Kent, the barmy army’s chief of staff, back with them. The Prime Minister arrived in the barmy army truck with his guards, looking exhausted by his short journey. He wasn’t wearing his mask. Barmies brought him over to Richard Kent’s big, dark, unmarked car. Richard joined the guards, leaving Ax and his Minister to talk to David alone. Fiorinda stayed out of sight.
Sage sat in the back, unmasked. Ax sat in the front with the Prime Minister; who started off in a blustering mood. He’d been kidnapped, the police had over-reacted, the barmy army should never have been involved. Last night’s whole operation had been outrageous, unsanctioned, illegal—
Ax said he didn’t think anyone over-reacted. After seeing the bodies displayed in the pit, they hadn’t known what to expect. They’d had to respond with maximum force. As for the numbers, it’s standard procedure. Numbers minimise violence in any kind of crowd control. If you can trust your men.
‘And I can trust mine’, he added, without any bluster at all.
David took this in, and changed his tune.
‘Is this interview being recorded?’
‘No,’ said Sage.
‘There would be no advantage,’ said Ax, ‘in preserving this conversation.’
They spent an hour with him, this haggard, unshaven, sixtyish bloke in his dishevelled evening casuals. It wasn’t meant to be an interrogation, but he talked. He’d known he was taking risks. Yes, he knew that digital masks are transparent to infra-red. He wasn’t an idiot! (Like hell, they thought…) But it was an issue of trust. He had believed he was with people he could trust. He’d had no intention of giving the Celtics political support. He had no sympathy with their anti-recovery, neo-feudal rhetoric. His involvement in the rites had been personal, a pilgrimage, a sincere religious impulse.
He’d never visited Spitalls Farm before (where the Wethamcote grove was located). He’d known nothing until he saw the bodies. No one had told him, he had not been warned. He’d thought he was hallucinating. He’d been off his head, a waking nightmare. You surely don’t believe I would condone—?
At one point Sage had to leave the car and take a walk up and down. But he came back, and talked the businesslike compassion that the Triumvirate had decided had to be talked. The man must not be humiliated, or terrorised. He must come out of this feeling good about his rescuers, or else it was all for nothing.
They told him that they
were going to try and save him.
‘I called you to the scene of the horrific discovery as soon as it was secured,’ Ax explained. ‘You’d already approved the barmy army and police operation. Now Richard’s going to drive you back to London. He’ll stay with you for the next few days, and between reacting like a statesman to the hell that’s going to break loose, you’re going to tell him everything. Every detail. Please. We need to how this happened, and just how much we have to hide.’
‘Ax, why are you doing this?’ David asked, tears of gratitude, and afterburn in his eyes. ‘You could throw me to the wolves.’
‘I don’t want to. I want you to lead the government for me.’
There was another ground-shifting pause.
‘You can come back from this, David,’ said Ax (and using the man’s first name, always a little awkward before, felt different now). ‘We’ve come through a lot together. We can go on working together: we can get the country through this bad patch and reach the future we both believe in. We’ll let you go now. You must be exhausted. Call me when you’ve had some sleep and we’ll talk it all over properly.’
David nodded, wiping his eyes. His hands were shaking. ‘Is Fiorinda here? Could I…could I have a word with her?’
Sage and Ax looked at each other in the rearview mirror.
‘She’s listening,’ said Ax, ‘but she’d rather not talk to you just now.’
They left the car. Richard came over, they spoke to him briefly.
It was another hot day, bright sun in a blue sky over the flood-damaged plain. They watched the dark car drive off and walked down to Fiorinda’s van. As soon as he was inside, Sage exploded like a coiled spring released—nearly put his fist through a window, managing at the last minute to punch the upholstery instead.
‘Shit! I do not want this. I want go back to being the giant toddler, right now!’
Ax collapsed on one of the back seats and held out his arms.
‘One condition. I go back to being your mum.’
‘Deal.’
‘Idiots,’ said Fiorinda. ‘If people knew what goes on… Sometimes I’m embarrassed to be in a relationship with you two.’
She pushed herself between them and hid her face in the hollow of Sage’s collar bones; Ax’s chin digging into her shoulder. She’d spent the night doing street-parties and bonfires, acting relaxed and imagining horrors: which had not come to pass, but she’d heard about Ax and the tigers.
God! This life.
But soon Ax freed himself, and stared out of the window. The heart of the country. Not far from here, on Bosworth Field, a long and ruinous mediaeval civil war had ended… He remembered the vows that he had made, at the beginning of all this. That he would keep the peace. That he would hold this country together, and keep faith with the future, by any means necessary. That he understood what it would cost him, and he accepted—
Except, of course, I didn’t understand.
‘You remember that coup we were worried about? The next blood-fest change of government, and how would we survive? You’ve just witnessed it. That’s what happened last night. A paramilitary takeover, by me.’
‘Without bloodshed,’ offered Sage. ‘And you didn’t have any choice.’
Ax ignored him. ‘The fuck of the thing is, we might not even preserve the last illusion of legitimate government, because I don’t know if I can save David. There are gaping holes, and I can’t keep a news embargo going for long enough to stop them all. Fuck. I wonder how many people, including whatever bastards set this up, and Fergal’s mates, and David’s friends of the hardcore persuasion, and God knows who else, know just where the PM was last night?’
‘There are always people who know the truth,’ said Fiorinda. ‘It never matters. We’ll pitch our version so the public will prefer to believe it, and get it out first. If you’re in power, that’s all you ever need.’
Ax’s expression became even more desolate, if possible. ‘Thanks a lot.’
‘Nah.’ She took him in her arms, his weary head against her breast. ‘Thank inexorable fate. It’s not your fault, Ax, I know it’s not your fault. You were born to be king. Sssh. It won’t be so bad, you’ll feel okay about it soon.’
‘Oh, I’m okay now. I just wish I was dead, that’s all.’
Wethamcote had celebrated the new bread—the wedding of the Sun God and his Flower Bride—with street parties and bonfires: throwing bouquets, cheering while burning wheels were sent rolling down the streets into the river. Summer’s consummation was over for another year. Market Square was empty, silent and bedraggled. Fiorinda slipped into the Rose and Crown by the back doors and was waylaid by an anxious landlady.
‘Oh, Fiorinda, there you are, thank goodness. I’m afraid I have a bit of an emergency!’
Oh God. What now?
What now was an industrial-sized sink full of posies, in the pub’s kitchen on this very busy morning. ‘I have no idea what to do with all your lovely flowers!’
‘Is there a hospital that might like to have them? The crew could deliver.’
‘I can’t ask them, dear. It’s a bank holiday, and the phones aren’t working.’
Fiorinda, who disliked cut flowers intensely, was tempted to suggest the compost heap, but Wethamcote punters didn’t deserve to have their feelings hurt, and Fiorinda didn’t deserve the infamy.
‘I’ll see if I can get hold of a plastic bath. Will any shops be open?’
Mine hostess exclaimed that of course that was it! She could have Mae, (the kitchen help) put the flowers in the guest bathroom! She thanked Fiorinda effusively, and bustled off. Damn. That probably means no bath for me.
The washing-up in the other sink looked very fucking inviting. Gimme a pair of rubber gloves. Let me work here, for the nice fat lady, live in all found. I could meet my funky boyfriends in the bar, after I’ve done up the breakfast tables, and we could dream of being rockstars. It would be heaven.
But fate says no. I must live and die playing Stone Age Royalty.
She turned away and found herself looking through the open door of the kitchen straight at Joe Muldur, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed NME journalist.
‘Hey, Fiorinda,’ cried Joe, ‘what’s up?’
‘Fuel starvation,’ said Fiorinda. ‘Two million clueless people—I’m lying, it’s really far more—insanely determined to give up everything and be new-age nomads. Empty supermarket shelves. Plunging literacy rates.’ She tucked her hand through his arm. ‘But you don’t want to hear about that, and I’m tired of it. Let’s get some breakfast and talk about wheels on fire.’
The Rose and Crown was like a rock-festival morning after, full of music journos and other hepcats who had caught up with Fiorinda: bog-eyed after the night’s fun, drinking on hangovers and eating Full English. No one was phased by the dead landlines; that was commonplace. They wouldn’t find out what was really going on unless they tried to leave town early, before the roadblocks were dismantled; or until Ax decided to lift the news embargo. Or someone local made an announcement, (the locals always find out). But they’d have to shout pretty loud to get heard in here.
She stood at the bar with Joe, chatting merrily and letting her compadres know, by glances across the crowd, that the debriefing had gone okay. So far so good. When Joe took off to find Jeff Scully, his photographer, she joined the Adjuvants, and a famous West End theatre director who’d become a passionate Few ally. He wanted to tell Fiorinda what a cunning little vixen she was, stealing the Ancient British (I’m sorry, I mean Celtic) Tendency’s turf from under them.
‘But politics apart, this is a wonderful place! These people are Ax’s children, living the life, rural style. Were you at the Ponds? My God, spectacular, terrific use of the moon and water, I must talk to that team. And all that fire. One could do something terrific here, cast of thousands, raw, Brechtian—’
‘You’re booked,’ said Fiorinda, automatically. ‘Do it, we’ll finance you, someway. Wethamcote needs something. They’ve been on thei
r own too long—’
Mae brought Fiorinda’s tinned tomatoes and fried slice, apologising because there was nothing else left. Chip nobly handed over his last sausage.
‘Hey, where did you get to the other night, you naughty stop-out?’
‘I think she knows a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,’ suggested Verlaine, grinning. ‘And she met there with Oberon and Robin Goodfellow—’
‘You know, Sage would make a great Puck!’
‘Don’t fancy Bottom’s chances much—’
Tim the theatre director luckily had been distracted by a passing acquaintance.
‘Stop it,’ muttered Fiorinda, ‘Have you no sense?’
‘Did you know,’ announced Tim, ‘we’re completely isolated? Like a J. B. Priestley. It’s all telecoms, not just the landline phones—’
‘Yes, and I find it exquisitely nostalgic,’ boomed Roxane, arriving with hir preferred breakfast: a large Bloody Mary. S/he raised hir glass, with a grave nod, to Fiorinda. ‘Just when one thought boring normality had returned. Where were you, Tim, the morning after Ivan/Lara struck?’
The director took the question seriously: Fiorinda decided she’d better take the Adjuvants for some fresh air. They appeared to have been drinking since dawn, and they were getting out of hand. It was dead quiet outdoors. Shops were shuttered. A little red car sat alone in the middle of the carparking by the statue of Queen Victoria, a defunct firework lying on the roof.
‘So tell us, beautiful Fiorinda,’ demanded Chip, ‘we can be indiscreet as we like out here. What’s the story, morning glory? We want the gory details!’
A mud-spattered old jeep roared into the square. Joe Muldur jumped out, Jeff Scully close behind. ‘Hey!’ cried Joe, leaping over to them. ‘Spooky things are going on! We drove out to see if we could get network coverage, and ran into a roadblock. There’s been a huge Celtic Hardcore bust! The barmy army was involved, and hundreds of armed police. The naked nutters have been caught eating babies, boiling innocent aliens, decimating the endangered contents of some deviant’s private zoo! A pair of Bengal Tigers got killed and eaten!’
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