by Jane Abbott
‘Funny. That’s exactly what the Disses thought.’
‘The Disses knew just what they were s’posed to know. What they were told. Like we were. But now that’s about to change, and then we’ll see who knows what,’ he said.
I stared at him, studying his face: wrathful and righteous and noble-looking, with dark eyes to match his dark heart, a straight, never-broken nose, and a mouth too ready to smile at another’s pain. Not a single scar marred that perfection. It was a bloody travesty, and eight years on I still couldn’t fathom it.
‘What the fuck’re you on about, Garrick?’
‘Lies. Treachery. Betrayal. Fucking the Citadel and the settlements and everyone in them. Fucking us.’ He sighed, all deep and dramatic. ‘But really, it’s the lies, Jem. They get me every time. And there’re enough flyin’ around this place to make your head spin. You might wanna think on that.’
‘Reckon I’d rather think of other things,’ I said.
‘Reckon you might, dickhead. But that don’t mean you should.’
I glared. ‘You ever thought of just coming out and saying what’s on your mind? It’d save us all a shitload of time.’
‘Nah. Where’s the fun in that? And I haven’t got where I am coz I’m free and easy with information. Unlike some. But I will tell you this, Jem. We’re not blocking every gate because of the Disses.’
There was a long silence, as though he was waiting for me to finally see the light. But I was still as blind as shit. ‘If you’re that worried, why use the raws? Where’s the rest of the Watch?’
His smile was slow, and not happy. ‘Like I said, see everything –’
‘Yeah, yeah, you’re the see-all-hear-all-big-bad-know-it-all. I get it, you crazy fuck. What I don’t get is why.’
‘Because you’re one shit stubborn son of a bitch, that’s why. You’re not asking the right questions, Jem. Never have. Not payin’ enough attention to what you should, coz you’ve been too busy getting your end in and trying to save the world.’
‘I don’t give a fuck about saving the world.’ I was having a hard enough time just trying to save myself.
‘No? Well, guess what, arsehole? Now you’re gunna.’
‘Fuck you!’
‘This is gettin’ us nowhere,’ Taggart muttered and, pushing himself away from the wall, he came across and squatted down, a barrier between Garrick and me. I looked at them both, expecting his hesitancy and waiting for Garrick to order him back. But expectations are real funny things; nice to have but hard to meet, and neither man did what they should have.
‘Garrick’s right,’ Taggart said at last. ‘You are stubborn. It’s one of the things I always admired about you, Jem. But now you need to back down, coz we’re runnin’ out of time. You think you know what’s goin’ on, but you don’t know shit.’
‘Not true,’ I said. ‘Reckon I knew shit already.’
He didn’t smile. ‘Like I said, lad, back down and listen up. We ain’t out to get you.’
‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘You two are all love and –’
‘Listen!’ He shifted on his feet, and I heard his knees crack. Old bones, but a razor-sharp mind. ‘Garrick’s told you, and now I’m tellin’ you. You’re gunna go up there and face up to what you did. And maybe, if you stop focusin’ on the words and start listening to what’s being said, you might just get through it.’
‘Fuck your listening!’
He eyed me calmly. ‘You were right all along, Jem. Before your assignment, when you got that report from the Tower, and you couldn’t work out why nothin’ was adding up? You were right. You knew it. Garrick knew it. Why d’you think we had no idea about the extent of the Diss operation? We’re the Watch. We should’ve known. Should’ve been told, right at the start. But we weren’t. And we had no idea about Reed, not until after you’d left. He was s’posed to go with you, remember? That was Garrick’s idea, coz he was gettin’ a real bad feelin’ about the whole thing. And he was right, as usual. But Reed never showed, and that should’ve warned us too. Then it was gunna be Garrick with you, but that was overturned as well and you were on your own. By the time you got back, we’d worked out just enough to get a plan together.’
It was the longest speech I’d ever heard him give and maybe it deserved more attention, but all I said was, ‘What plan?’
‘No, lad. You don’t get to know. You lost that right, and we ain’t about to fall at the end stroke.’
‘So the Tower’s been screwing with everyone. It’s not exactly news.’
‘True enough, but it is when they screw with us. And it’s a mistake. What we got, the Citadel and the settlements? It ain’t perfect. Not by a long shot. But them messing with it – messing with us? That’s the worst thing they could do. Coz if this goes down, a shitload of people are gunna die. And war always attracts the wrong kinda crowd.’
I knew what he meant, but I stared, trying to focus, not on him, but on something else. That picture I thought I’d seen downstairs was fading out and in again, reshaping and reforming right in front of me. Kind of blurred and fuzzy and all dark around the edges, but real funny too, a macabre joke, sick and sorry and just so fucked-up. And, as it became clearer, I heard myself laugh.
‘Something amusing you?’ asked Garrick.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. And maybe it was hysteria, maybe the futility of it all had finally got to me, but whatever the reason I couldn’t stop. Taggart waited, patient and watchful.
‘You two,’ I said, when I finally had control. ‘Ah, fuck me. Don’t you see? You’re Disses.’
‘You little –’, growled Garrick, but Taggart held up his hand, stopping him dead. And I was still too busy chuckling to wonder why.
‘In a way,’ said Taggart. ‘Only we ain’t lookin’ to break the system. We wanna keep it going. Coz without it, we’re all just gunna slide right back to where we were before.’
‘Save it, Taggart. The only thing you two give a shit about is the Watch.’
He nodded. ‘Right again. Coz without us there’d be no system at all. That first wall never would’ve been finished, and you and me wouldn’t be sittin’ here talkin’ this out. So yeah, the Watch is real important.’
‘If the Tower’s such a pain in your arse, why don’t you just go up there and deal with it?’
Behind him, Garrick gave one of his fuck-me snorts, but Taggart nodded. ‘Be the simple solution, wouldn’t it? Except for the hundreds of Guards they’ve got. And the fact that we still have no idea why we’ve been left out of whatever’s going on, or who’s with who. We don’t even know if Reed’s the only plant in the Watch, but we’re pretty sure they’ve got others, in the Guard and with the Disses.’
‘Reckon I’ve managed to work that much out myself. So you can stop with the “we”. It’s not helping any.’
He cocked his head and eyed me sharp. ‘That ain’t why I’m saying it, lad. I’ve been saying it all along.’
There was the longest pause, while I looked from him to Garrick then back again. And I cursed.
Told you, we like things the way they are.
I’d wondered how different things might’ve been with Taggart in charge, and now I knew. No fucking different at all. And maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing, to go out knowing there’d never been an alternative, that fate only ever deals one hand to everyone. But I was pretty sure I knew why he was finally letting me in on the secret, and that wasn’t much of a comfort.
‘For fuck’s sake, why can’t any of you people play something straight for once?’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘Suited us then, and our reasons are none of your business. And having Garrick take over freed me up for other things.’
‘What things?’
He gave a grainy half-smile. ‘Never mind. Reckon it’s best you don’t know. Safer for all of us that way.’
‘Not all of us.’ I pointed out the obvious before shooting a glance behind him. ‘Never figured you for a yes-man, Garrick.’
‘You never figured a lot of things, arsehole,’ he shot back. ‘That’s why you’re here.’
Taggart frowned, his brows coming together in a cloud to shade his eyes. Shuffling on the balls of his feet, trying to get more comfortable, he said, ‘Don’t read this wrong, Jem. Garrick runs the Watch. Always has, free rein. And he does a real good job. I just – oversee things.’
I laughed again, though there was nothing funny about what I was hearing. ‘Yeah, Garrick deserves a medal for everything he’s done.’
‘Garrick has his grounds, and they’re not your concern. What he does works and that’s all I care about. And it’s all you should care about too, coz it means that now we’ve got eighteen experienced Watchmen ready to do whatever needs doing at his say-so.’
I stared at him. Eighteen? But with Reed out and Jackson dead, that meant –
I was part of something before.
No!
And scrambling, desperate to halt the slide, I clung to the memory of that night, of Alex, her coming to me and giving herself, felt again her liquid heat, remembered my strength, recalled our passion; but the memory wouldn’t stick, wouldn’t lodge, and I was slipping, falling back. And Alex wasn’t there to make me strong again.
No! I am Jeremiah and I am – I am – oh fuck! I am –
‘A true Watchman ain’t just made, lad. He’s gotta be born to it,’ said Taggart, his voice as soft as settled dust. ‘Now, I ain’t askin’ why you did what you did. Garrick’s real pissed about it, but it’s not important any more. Reckon a man’s got his reasons, and fuck knows you got more than most. But everything we do stays with us. Good and bad. All the time. So whatever happened up there in the Hills, you ain’t finished with us yet, and we ain’t done with you. And you gotta own that too. What you did, as well as what you are. Time to bring ’em together and find some kinda balance. Coz if you don’t, you won’t ever make it through.’
There’s no doubt I’d had my share of epiphanies. And there was no doubt I’d pretty much wasted every single one of them. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been kneeling on hard stone with my nose smashed and my wrists bound, facing Taggart and Garrick and not really giving a shit any more about what was to come. But insight’s stubborn too, always ready to find a place in a stupid mind, and when it appeared in mine, squeezed by fear and despair, I understood straight off what Taggart meant. He’d spent his life pretending to be less than he was; I’d spent mine pretending to be more than I deserved. And maybe our reasons for doing it weren’t all that different, his disguise as necessary as my shame. But somewhere between the two of us, between what I’d found and what I thought I’d put behind me, there had to be peace, a kind of purgatory where a man might wear his guilt without any need for penitence. I just had to find it.
‘And the Disses?’ I asked. ‘Alex?’
He shook his head. ‘No deals here, lad. You know that. You need to start thinkin’ on what we’ve said, in this room and before. And you need to start askin’ yourself some questions. Starting with why they chose you for that assignment. This is shit-serious now. The Tower wants heads, and plenty of ’em. But we ain’t giving ’em ours.’
‘No,’ I said, bitterly. ‘It’s always do unto others, right?’
‘That’s right, Jem. And take care of our own.’
Like they’d taken care of Jackson? I laughed, and that was bitter too. ‘Doesn’t help me though, does it?’
‘No, it doesn’t. Coz you did break, and you did side with those Disses, and you’re gunna have to pay for it. And it ain’t like we didn’t give you plenty of chances to come clean, so you’ll pay for that too.’ He cocked his head, and stared at me straight. ‘You’ve taken your shot, lad. Two’s stretching it.’
Then, reaching down, feeling along my thigh, he pulled the knife from its hiding place. I stared, not even wondering how he’d known. He was Taggart.
‘Not even a fighting chance?’ I asked.
‘Never said that.’ He tapped my head and gave a ghost of a smile. ‘This is your weapon now. The only one you got. So make sure you use it, you hear?’ Not giving me a chance to reply, he grabbed my arm and helped me up.
‘You should’ve met Ballard, old man. I reckon the two of you might’ve had something in common.’
‘Not as much as you might think. I remember Ballard. Young. Talked a shitload. A real dreamer. The Watch ain’t no place for dreamers, Jem.’
No. No room for dreams when the place was stuffed full of nightmares.
He looked at me, flint-eyed and serious. ‘Reckon I’ll say goodbye, lad. Just in case.’ That’s what I liked about Taggart: never big on the sentiment. A quick nod to Garrick, and he left.
‘Well, well. The things you learn, eh, Garrick?’ I said, watching him pull on his shirt and tuck it into his trousers, suddenly all business.
‘Let’s just hope it’s not the only thing you’ve learned.’ He sheathed the last of his knives. ‘C’mon. They’re waiting.’
‘Can we take the long way, at least? And walk real slow?’
He laughed. ‘That’s the spirit, Jem. Keep that up and you won’t feel a thing.’
But it was going to take more than a few jokes for that to happen. Being an optimist was all well and good, but reality could be the meanest bitch.
‘Before we go,’ I said, needing to know. ‘Why’d you send Alex straight downstairs?’
‘Gettin’ warmer, but still not right. Now move it.’ He slapped a hand to my shoulder, but I shoved back, standing my ground.
‘She told me to kill you, Garrick,’ I said. ‘And I will. You and Reed.’
He grinned suddenly. ‘Well, shit. The cost of a fuck’s sure gone up since I last paid.’ Then, spinning me, he grabbed my neck, closing one hand around it and squeezing tight while the other curled into my hair, tearing and bending me back. ‘Reed’s mine, arsehole. So before you start dreamin’ the impossible, you’d better start workin’ on the practical. And just to show you I’m not fucking around –’
Ignoring my struggles, he propelled me across the room and into his quarters, jerking me around to face the back wall. He didn’t let go, but he didn’t need to hold me either. I stilled and stared, not feeling what I thought I would or, maybe, what I should.
‘This is just the start, Jem,’ he growled. ‘This is what’s gunna happen to everyone who thinks they know better than me, or who doesn’t have my back and disobeys an order. I fucking told him, but he didn’t listen.’ He gave me a rough shake. ‘And before you start gettin’ any ideas, gettin’ all mopey and dopey and thinkin’ I did this for you – or that cunt – you’d better think again. I did it coz it needed to be done. For the last time, no one fucks with the Watch. Ever.’
I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. I just kept staring at the body pinned to the wall, stripped naked, arms outstretched, knives driven into both wrists and a third through the throat, pinning flesh and bone; the belly slit crossways, entrails dangling in thick ropy ribbons, all grey and red-brown and stinking of unready shit. Took in the wide-mouthed grimace, that final mark of agony just under the paltry break in his nose where I’d punched him. Looked at what remained of Cobb and felt, not surprise or any kind of regret coz fuck knows he’d had it coming, but a deep, deep coldness in my bones and in my gut, rising to close around my heart and still my blood.
No, Garrick wasn’t fucking around. So neither would I. The time for that was done.
Excerpt ~ Letter #22
My eyes have been opened and now I know things I shouldn’t. I see what you saw, what your grandfather understood, and what Rachel feared. But I’m not alone. Weak and strong, old and young, alive or dead, all of us brave and all of us afraid, we’re united by something much greater than ourselves.
At first it seemed almost a game, and one she was reluctant to join. Not because she was afraid, but because she could see little point. Hadn’t it been played before, too many times and the stakes too high, and didn’t the guards always win? Wasn’t she too ol
d and tired for games? Age didn’t matter, Tee insisted, and wasn’t everyone tired?
He introduced her to others, just a few, ordinary people like herself, who worked and struggled and hungered and thirsted, who loved and longed as she once had; ordinary people with an extraordinary purpose. She imagined their faces were like hers, grey and drawn, some mistrusting and hidden, but when they congregated, in secret shadowy places, they would cast off that façade to reveal another beneath, animated and passionate, angry and vengeful. And she wondered whether she too wore a different face when she was with them, whether the light in her eyes blazed as strongly as in theirs. And when she wasn’t with them, when she worked, feeding thread onto the wheel through knotted fingers, or passed people on the streets; when she greeted neighbours or handed over her water to vendors at market, she wondered if others could see it too. Did they see just another old woman, or could they glimpse her rejuvenated heart?
The group grew slowly, new members brought in by others or, more usually, by Tee, all of them nameless; not a congregation to praise a god, but a movement that swelled gently with remembered humanity. Sometimes Tee would join them, always sitting to one side, listening, nodding to encourage but rarely commenting. It was enough that he’d rallied them, arming them with his tale and reminding them again of their own. Besides, weren’t there plenty of others only too happy to take the lead and talk the talk? Sarah didn’t mind that it was mostly talk – she knew her limitations – but she knew others wanted more, their frustration leading to calls for action, louder and more urgent.
And perhaps she couldn’t blame them because, despite all the talk and all the meetings and all the hope and all the hatred, what had changed? The sun still rose, the dust still scoured, the Citadel thrived and the tower loomed, its cold stone minding a cold heart; water trickled in and was doled out, people scrapped over food and wares, over rights and wrongs; the criers still called the laws, the guards punished anyone who broke them and the rain continued to fall over the sea. The same pattern repeated, over and over, and all of it dreary. And within the great walls, twisting and turning like the filthy dusted streets, there circled unquiet whispers about the Watch.
