‘I have to meet him at Emily’s. How am I supposed to do that?’
‘He won’t pick you up here?’
‘No, he can’t. He thinks I’m at her house. And they still have my bag. That’s if they haven’t burnt it already.’
‘Where does she live?’
‘High Ashbourne?’
Gavin frowned. ‘I know it. That’s through patrol. When will he be there?’
‘Fifteen minutes.’ She drew in a sharp breath of cool night air. It expanded softly in her head. ‘How bad is it?’
‘They’ll stop us if they see us,’ Gavin said. ‘It’s after twelve. I know how we can avoid it, though. It shouldn’t be too difficult here. It’s a rich neighbourhood.’
‘You’ll come with me?’ she asked hopefully.
‘Of course I will.’
‘Thanks.’ They set off at a brisk pace. Gwenhwyfar kept her phone clutched in her fist, just in case her father called. ‘And thank you, for saving me earlier.’
‘Viola was the one who smacked him round the head with a lamp,’ he confessed.
‘Still, if you hadn’t been looking out for me…’ Once again her eyes threatened to overflow.
‘Not everyone calls them Charlotte and Emily, you know. We call them the Furies. Emily’s the Avenger and Charlotte’s the Jealous. You know, Trisiphone and Megara.’
Gwenhwyfar’s frown told him that she didn’t.
‘From the legend?’ Gavin tried. ‘They torment sinners in Greek mythology. Except everyone’s done wrong, in Megara’s eyes.’
She eyed him curiously, and smiled. ‘Who came up with that one?’
‘Arthur. It was brilliant, because they had no idea what we were talking about. They still don’t.’
‘Arthur?’ Gwenhwyfar asked, surprised. ‘Are you friends with him then?’
‘I used to be.’ Gavin shrugged. ‘He’s all right, but he keeps his distance and I keep mine. Lance hates Arthur and usually reminds everyone else to as well.’
‘Lance…?’
‘Yeah, he’s suspended.’
‘You mean the idiot that slashed the principal’s tyres?’
Gavin snorted. ‘He didn’t do anything. Lyndon framed him. He knew Lance would get blamed for it.’ They turned onto a new street. ‘Lance and Arthur used to be best friends, until the Furies started a rumour about Lance and a girl Arthur liked. It got pretty nasty. Arthur ended up spending all his lunches in Mr Caledonensis’ room. Until Bedivere arrived, at least.’
‘What was the rumour?’
‘That he’d kissed her, or slept with her, or something crazy like that. It’s complete bollocks. Lance and Ellie denied it, but Hattie insisted she’d seen them together. That was when Hattie became Alecto, the un-resting. The third of the Furies.’
They fell into a long silence.
‘If you still liked Arthur,’ Gwenhwyfar began, ‘why didn’t you stay friends with him? Why side with Lance?’
‘Same reason you wouldn’t speak to Viola when you were friends with Emily,’ he quipped. ‘To fit in.’
Gwenhwyfar scowled.
‘Besides,’ Gavin muttered, ‘Arthur doesn’t associate himself with thugs.’
‘You’re not a thug.’
‘Tell him that.’
Suddenly, he stopped her. They were at the corner of one of the wider streets, hidden by the shrubbery skirting someone’s front garden. ‘What?’ asked Gwenhwyfar. Gavin shushed her.
‘Watchmen.’ He pointed to the end of the adjoining road. Gwenhwyfar saw two men dressed in the grey uniform they shared with their Welsh counterparts. ‘They’ll check to see if we’ve been drinking. They’re always looking to give out penalties round here.’
He waited with his arm barring her for a minute, but the moment the Watchmen had turned the other way he hurried quietly across the street. Mindful of her heels, Gwenhwyfar tiptoed after him as quickly as she could.
‘Come on!’ he whispered, waving her over. ‘Seriously, faster would be good.’
‘I’ve never had a penalty before,’ she admitted as she joined him.
‘You’re lucky,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve heard stories.’
‘What stories?’
‘They like to do something they call a forfeit, if they don’t feel like logging a penalty. It’s a complete abuse of power. It can be pretty nasty. Especially if you’re a girl.’
Gwenhwyfar felt her stomach turn. ‘Isn’t that just a rumour?’
‘Rumour has to come from somewhere,’ Gavin argued.
They rounded another bend and were suddenly on the approach to Emily’s house. More sirens keened in the distance. Gwenhwyfar faltered.
‘Oh God, maybe I should just leave it?’
‘Why? They’ll freak if you show up after what they’ve done. It’ll be worth the photo.’
‘But I don’t even want to look at them.’
‘You just have to pretend like you don’t care, that it doesn’t bother you. That’s the thing that annoys them most, trust me.’
He was right. She could do this, she knew she could; but that didn’t make the prospect any less terrifying. Her sudden lack of courage only upset her further. She drew a deep breath and quickly walked up to the house. A glance down the drive told her that Gavin was still there, eyeing the street apprehensively. She rang the doorbell. Emily’s mother answered.
‘Gwen?’
‘I’m here to pick up my stuff,’ she blurted, ‘I have a headache.’
Confused, Mrs Rose stepped aside. ‘Of course! I’m sorry, Emily told me you’d gone home already.’
‘I forgot my bag,’ she excused, her heart pounding.
‘Oh. Well, the girls are upstairs.’
She didn’t bother to knock when she came to Emily’s bedroom. The surprise on their faces would have been amusing had she been there for revenge, and she envisioned how much more dismayed their expressions would be if she had brought a police officer with her. Unfortunately the fantasy didn’t last long.
‘Where’s my stuff?’ she snapped. Emily opened her mouth. Silence. It was funny how scared they all looked. Gwenhwyfar’s dark eyes cut through the room. Her bag had been opened, and many of her belongings were strewn across the floor.
‘You went through my bag?’ she hissed in disbelief. Stomping around the room she whipped everything up. She noticed her hoodie was missing and then saw it in the bin by Emily’s desk. Pulling it out from under the soiled make-up wipes, she eyed it furiously. It was ripped. ‘Which one of you hippos did this?’
The girls all looked to one another for help. High on adrenaline and fear, Gwenhwyfar grabbed her sports bag and stuffed everything into it, swinging it onto her shoulder. Charlotte’s dress was hanging on the door to the wardrobe. She couldn’t resist.
‘No!’ screeched Charlotte, as Gwenhwyfar tore the skirt from the bodice. Satisfied, she rushed out of the room and flew down the stairs. Emily squealed for her mother. Gavin was waiting for her in the drive. When he saw her running, he fled too.
‘What did you do?’ he demanded as they charged down the street then stopped for breath round the corner. ‘You trying to get us clipped?’
‘You should have seen their faces—horrified, all of them. It was like I was some sort of ghost.’
Gavin looked over his shoulder, as if he half expected to see the three Furies flying after them. ‘Did you vanquish them?’ he panted.
‘No. I vanquished Charlotte’s meringue, instead.’
* * *
Gwenhwyfar waved to Gavin as the car turned and then set off down the road. She knew that her father was plucking up the courage to discover what she had been doing out on the street with a strange boy, but kept her eyes fixed ahead in the hope that he might not ask. After a few minutes of silent driving, however, Garan tried his luck.
‘He seemed nice.’ Gazing out of the car window, he indicated to go left.
Gwenhwyfar held her forehead in her hand, feigning her headache. ‘I suppose.’
‘Is he a friend from school?’
‘He’s in one of my classes.’ The movement of the car made her feel queasy. ‘He walked us home from the party.’
‘That was good of him. Did you have any trouble with patrol?’
Gwenhwyfar shook her head. ‘We didn’t see them.’
For a few moments nothing was said. Her father looked for relevant road signs, as always choosing not to use the navigation system installed in the car’s dashboard. Gwenhwyfar ignored his concerned glances, glad she had remembered to use Viola’s sprays.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Not too great,’ she admitted. Her stomach lurched when her father slowed the family car to a halt. Police tape cut across the road ahead, and blue lights flashed off of the dancing ribbon. He wound down the window as a bright-vested man approached.
‘Road’s closed due to an incident,’ the man barked. ‘Power’s out—you’ll have to follow the diversion.’ Gwenhwyfar met the policeman’s eyes. He sniffed in consideration. ‘Been anywhere nice, this evening?’
‘I just picked my daughter up from a friend’s house,’ said Garan. ‘She wasn’t feeling well.’
The policeman shone his torch into the car. Gwenhwyfar felt her pupils contract in protest. ‘I see. Party, was it?’
‘Sleepover,’ Garan corrected. Another car pulled up behind theirs, hooting. The policeman was distracted.
‘Just follow the signs.’ He waved them on.
A long while passed. For some reason the diversion took them through the outer wall to London, where they were stopped and asked to show identification. Such checkpoints could be troublesome at the best of times, but it was late, and the sentry seemed unconcerned enough to let them pass without too much fuss. When they didn’t come back through the wall in the opposite direction Garan grew concerned. The scenery soon changed to the densely populated area of South London, litter as well as decay becoming frequent. They were lost.
‘Bloody diversion,’ Garan muttered, peering about. Gwenhwyfar sat forwards and turned on the car’s navigation with a huff. It recalculated their route home, and Garan turned the car around in a side street. They drove back. Traffic was sparse.
‘Awfully quiet, isn’t it, Gwen?’
A brick collided with the bonnet and bounced up the window, spider-webbing the glass. Garan swerved, but then veered to get back on the road. The car behind them blasted its horn and careered into a lamppost.
‘Dad!’ Gwenhwyfar yipped. The bonnet of the other car bellowed with smoke. No one got out. Garan thrust his phone into her lap. She grasped at it, shaking.
‘Call the police,’ he advised.
‘Dad, stop! Why aren’t we stopping?’
‘Call them!’
‘We need to stop!’
‘Just call them, Gwen!’
Fumbling, she punched in the digits. A figure ran across the road, followed by another and then another, and then scores of people were streaming through the street, slipping between buildings and jumping fences. Windows were smashed; buildings were torched. A toothless man bounced into the side of their car and then dozens of hands were grasping at the body. They were surrounded. Garan slowed but kept the car moving. In his rear view mirror a man was pulled from the crash site.
‘Can’t we help him?’ she cried.
‘The police will help him,’ her dad responded, his jaw rigid. ‘Have you called them?’
‘I’m being transferred!’
He revved the engine. Eggs splattered onto the windshield. Small gangs of children swamped the vehicle and, laughing, pressed their grubby faces against the glass. Gwenhwyfar turned to see riot vans descending. Officers armed with bludgeons pulled the man free from the mob. The windshield wipers came on, the washers squirting, the broken eggs smearing across the glass.
‘Galla i ddim weld blydi unrhyw beth!’ I can’t see a bloody thing! Garan swore, slipping into Welsh. A woman leapt up onto the bonnet. There was an opening in the crowd. Garan’s foot hit the floor and Gwenhwyfar was thrown back in her seat. The woman vanished over the windshield, tumbling over the roof. Several houses were on fire. Gwenhwyfar snapped the phone shut and abandoned it on the dashboard. They accelerated away.
‘Are you all right?’ her father asked, his voice urgent. ‘Gwen?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Good. I’ll get us home.’
He didn’t stop the vehicle to scrape the mess off the windshield, but pressed on, hunched over the steering wheel to peer through a thin sliver of clear glass. It was nearly three by the time they heard the crackle of gravel sound their approach to the house. They pulled up by the front door, and then the engine fell silent.
Garan sat still, his eyes lingering on the destroyed, sticky windshield looming before them. He expelled a long sigh. ‘Your mother’s going to go crazy. She was going to the spa in this tomorrow.’
‘Why did they pull that man from his car?’ Gwenhwyfar asked.
‘I’m not sure, cariad,’ Garan admitted. He withdrew his keys from the ignition. ‘Maybe they wanted to steal it.’
‘But it crashed,’ she scowled.
‘Or take things from it,’ he tried.
‘It was on fire!’
He paused. ‘A lot of people can’t afford cars, Gwen. And they resent people who can.’
‘Why?’
He shook his head. ‘They just do. They were probably from the protest in London. They must have started looting once the power went out.’
She gazed through the mottled glass. ‘What were they protesting?’
For a moment Garan’s features were suspended with the look of someone with an opinion dangling on their tongue, but then his eyes softened, and his words were swallowed.
‘Nothing, cariad. Don’t you worry about it.’
* * *
‘I had another one of those dreams the other day, Marv.’
Mr Caledonensis looked up from his desk, his lanky frame bent over an open drawer. ‘Oh yes?’ he invited, rummaging for a pen. The playful screams of year sevens could be heard through the closed windows, but Arthur kept his eyes on his desk. ‘Was it the same as your other one?’
‘Similar,’ he admitted. His mind was still on Friday night. History that morning had been difficult, but by ignoring Gwenhwyfar and Bedivere completely he had made it through. ‘It was different, though. This time there was a lion.’
‘A lion?’ Marvin sat down. ‘And in what context did you see this lion?’
Frowning, Arthur looked out beyond the window. He was perched on one of the tables with his feet in a chair. ‘It’s not important, really.’
‘I will be the judge of whether or not it is important, Arthur,’ Marvin encouraged. ‘Come on, your dream. Tell me what happened.’
‘Well, I was in a forest, lost. I came across that alligator, you know, the one I’ve dreamt of before? It was sitting on a rock. It hissed at me and snapped, and I knew it was going to eat me.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then a lion leapt out of the forest, just as the alligator was about to spring, and tore the head off and dropped it at my feet. There was a flash of light—something like a comet, or a fireball, exploded in front of me, and suddenly the lion’s mane turned to fire—white-hot flames burned all around it.’
There was a silence. ‘Is that how it ends?’
‘No.’ Arthur went on. ‘It burns so big that all the trees catch fire and it traps me with it. The lion’s skin burns too. It turns from gold to black, like charcoal, and leaps towards me. I try to run but the claws—they’re hot—like coals—tear me down… and that’s… that’s when I wake up.’
He glanced across to his teacher, who gazed at him with glinting eyes. ‘Interesting,’ Marvin murmured. ‘And the lion you say is new, but the alligator isn’t?’
‘That’s right,’ Arthur nodded. ‘I’ve dreamt of that before.’
‘How curious.’
‘I’ve tried looking the meaning up. My grandmother has this old en
cyclopaedia on dreams, but what I read hardly makes sense,’ Arthur said, twisting his thumbs.
‘And what did you read?’
‘Something about hardships, and great strength, but it all seemed to unravel after that. It’s strange… my dreams keep getting more and more destructive. I keep dreaming of death.’
Marvin expelled a releasing sigh. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, Arthur. It’s probably just part of growing up, like nosebleeds and spots.’ He smiled at him kindly. ‘I remember having bad dreams when I was your age. Not of flaming lions and evil alligators, but they were quite interesting.’
‘But do dreams actually mean anything? Are they important? My grandmother says they’re just your brain organising memories or recent experiences—like it’s filing them away in a big archive,’ he recited.
‘Anything’s important, Arthur, if a person believes it is. Were you at the protest, on Friday? The people there believe change is important, even though most do not.’
‘No. I heard it got quite violent after the power cuts. Several people were injured. I saw it on the news.’
‘Typical! Don’t tell me, the news focused on the riot and hardly mentioned the peaceful protest at all?’ Marvin shook his head. ‘Yes, there were a few people taking advantage of the situation, but that wasn’t part of the protest. Though it is a sign that people aren’t happy with their lot. Not that the government will see it that way, though. I assume you’ve heard about what they plan to do?’ When Arthur gazed at him blankly, Marvin ploughed on. ‘The New Nationals were just waiting for something like this to happen.’
‘Waiting for what to happen?’
‘This riot! A riot, any riot: any illegal, dangerous activity to justify the nation-wide increase to the area where protesting without the police’s consent is illegal. Do you know what that means? Censored speech for all. If they don’t like what you decide to protest against, then your freedom of speech, your right becomes illegal by default.’
The Future King: Logres Page 7
