But Paul was good—better even than Trask suspected—and he had taught his brother well. They had fed the Illyri tidbits of information, but it was all useless: the locations of safe houses long abandoned or burned to the ground; the names of operatives who were dead or had never existed; codes that were years old. It was the kind of information that a couple of low-level boys in the Resistance might have been expected to have overheard from others. Paul had drummed it all into his brother, going over it again and again as they lay in their adjoining beds at home.
If we’re captured, this is what we say, and we never, ever deviate from it. Understand?
Yes, Paul. I understand.
And he had. He was screaming in pain, and there was nothing that his older brother could do to stop it, but still he gave them only what Paul had taught him to give. This is the safe house. This is the man who told us where to go. This is the code.
Useless: all of it useless.
From time to time, Trask or the other man would leave the room, and Paul knew that they were checking what he told them against what his brother was saying. By the time Trask said, “Enough,” Paul’s head ached, he desperately needed to go to the bathroom, and he wanted to shower because he could smell himself. He was left alone while Trask and the masked man went outside to confer. When they returned after about twenty minutes, the second man was no longer masked. His head was shaved, and he wore a white T-shirt, exposing arms covered in tattoos. On his right forearm was a thistle that dripped blood from its leaves: the symbol of the Highland Resistance.
“You did good, laddie,” said Trask. “You and your brother.”
“Sorry about the slaps,” said the tattooed man. “You know how it is.”
Paul knew. He didn’t have to like it, but he knew.
“This is Joe,” said Trask. “Just Joe.”
Paul had heard the name. Just Joe was the Green Man’s lieutenant, which made him the second in command of the Highland Resistance. The Highland Resistance was scattered, but disciplined; if it had a leader, it was the Green Man, and Just Joe stood at his right hand. He was the face of the Highland Resistance. The Green Man’s identity was kept very secret, and there were those who claimed that he did not exist at all.
The Highlanders did not use surnames because no one wanted family members intimidated or friends tortured for information should their true identities be revealed. All that was known of Just Joe was that he had an army background, he was fearless and loyal, and completely ruthless, doing what needed to be done without flinching or sentiment. He was respected, yes. Feared? Absolutely. Liked?
It had never occurred to anyone to try.
There were stories about Joe, of course. They all had stories. Joe’s, it was whispered, was that he had once had a wife and a baby boy, and they’d lived together near Aviemore. Being a military man, Joe had been an early prisoner of the invading forces. According to rumors, his wife had received a visit from an Illyri intelligence officer while Joe was in jail. The officer told her that Joe had died in custody, and she and her child were to be thrown out of their house because of evidence that her husband had been conspiring against the Illyri, and the property of all conspirators was automatically forfeit. It was an act of casual cruelty, committed because, it was said, this particular intelligence officer had developed an early liking for human women, and Joe’s wife was exceptionally pretty. She was also very delicate—physically, emotionally, and psychologically. The intelligence officer told her that he might be able to find a way to look after her and her child, in return for certain favors. He gave her until the morning to think about it. She didn’t need that long. She killed herself before midnight. They’d shown Joe pictures of the bodies of his wife and child beside each other on the bed, their faces transformed by the gas. It was only later that he found out why she had done it.
The intelligence officer vanished from Fort William the following year, on a clear, cool March evening not long after Just Joe’s release from internment. The Illyri’s head was found impaled on a fence post a week later. The rest of him was never discovered, although the story went that it had been fed to pigs. His head had still been attached to his body at that point.
He couldn’t have screamed otherwise.
But it was just a story, although it might have explained why Joe’s small guerrilla fiefdom in the Highlands was known as Camp Glynis—the name of his Welsh wife, murmured the gossips, or perhaps it was just because Glynis meant “narrow valley” in his late wife’s tongue. Anyway, it no longer mattered. Camp Glynis, like Glynis herself, was now merely a memory. Joe’s band had allied itself to the troops of the Green Man many years earlier. The Green Man promised Joe that more Illyri blood would be spilled if they fought together than if they fought alone, and he had kept his promise.
“You’ll be going to the Highlands,” Trask told Paul, “you and Steven. It won’t be safe for you in the city. The Illyri will tear it apart looking for you.”
Paul nodded. He had guessed as much.
“The Green Man has also decided that a little more cooperation with us city boys might not go amiss,” continued Trask.
And then Paul understood: somehow this was related to the attack on Birdoswald, and it was the Highlanders who must have been responsible for it. The Highlanders had never struck so far south before, but they were still the only ones outside Edinburgh equipped to carry out such an assault. Clearly someone in the Edinburgh Resistance had let the Highlanders know that they couldn’t simply start blowing up Illyri bases outside their own patch without first asking permission. It wasn’t polite.
“You’re to be our ambassador to the Highlanders. I’m sure that pleases you as much as it will please them. You can get up from that chair now. There’s a hot shower waiting for you, and clean clothes, and a proper meal before you leave.”
But Paul didn’t move. He wanted to. He wanted it all so badly: the shower, the clothes, all of it, but it wasn’t time, not yet.
“I have more to say,” he said.
Trask looked puzzled, and Just Joe scowled in a manner that suggested some more slaps might be on their way.
“You haven’t asked me what we found under Knutter’s shop,” said Paul. “I have to tell you about the bodies.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
S
yl slept the sleep of the dead that night. She would have laughed in disbelief had anyone told her earlier that in the wake of the successful rescue of two human prisoners from the vaults—an act of treason that might well be punishable by death—she would rest deeply, but she did. She went to her bed exhausted and strangely exhilarated, with the memory of a kiss brushed softly on her lips.
She had been kissed before. The previous summer she had engaged in a brief, inquisitive romance with Harnur, one of her classmates, before Harnur’s father had been transferred to Bolivia—a transfer that might not have been entirely unconnected with Governor Andrus’s suspicion that Harnur had feelings for his beloved daughter. In truth, Syl had been more intrigued by the notion of being in love, and the highs and lows that might go with it, rather than holding any particular feelings for Harnur himself, who had been clumsy, self-absorbed, and a little too free with his hands for Syl’s liking. If her father had found out just how free he had been, Harnur’s own father might have found himself posted somewhere even worse than Bolivia: Kabul, for example, or Lagos.
Syl slept so soundly, in fact, that initially the banging at her door was incorporated into a dream of blood and water, the sounds becoming the beating of a great heart hidden beneath the earth, a heart that beat in time with the rhythms of her own. Only when the door burst open and lights shone in her face did she wake up. Vena advanced toward her bed, and Syl knew that she was lost.
•••
A quartet of Securitats stood outside Ani’s door. Their sergeant swiped his skeleton key through the electronic lock, but nothing happen
ed. Instead, he was forced to resort to more old-fashioned methods. It took him three kicks to break the door down. By the time he succeeded, the window was open, and Ani was long gone.
•••
Alerted by the noise, Lord Andrus rushed to the corridor in time to see Syl escorted from her room, her hands cuffed behind her back, her feet bare against the cold stone. He wore his red dressing gown, and his hair was tousled. With him came two of the castle guards who always remained posted at his door, and behind them Syl saw Althea and Meia. Immediately she looked away from her father’s spymistress, afraid that even a lingering glance might reveal Meia’s involvement to Vena. This was about the prisoners’ escape. It had to be, even though Vena had remained entirely silent during Syl’s arrest. If Meia was still free, then the Securitats did not yet know of her part in what had occurred.
“Father!” cried Syl.
“What is the meaning of this?” said Lord Andrus. “Let my daughter go!”
But now more heavily armed Securitats had been summoned, and among them was Lord Consul Gradus. Syl noticed that he was fully dressed, even though the clock in her room read 4:15 a.m. when she had been dragged from her bed. He must have known in advance about her arrest; even Vena would not have dared to come for the governor’s daughter in the dead of night without the agreement of the Lord Consul. Meia had a blast pistol in her hand, and Lord Andrus’s guards carried blast rifles, but they were outnumbered, and the possibility of hitting Syl if they fired was too great to risk a gun battle.
“I’m afraid it won’t be possible to release your daughter just yet,” said Gradus. His hands were buried in the sleeves of his white robes. Only his head remained exposed. It was as though a great white slug were swallowing him, slowly consuming him from the legs up.
“Gradus, you overstep your authority here,” warned Andrus.
“I think not,” said Gradus. “I am the authority here, and your daughter is a traitor.”
Lord Andrus looked at Syl in disbelief. “What is this, Syl? What are they saying?”
Vena stepped forward. She held a plated millipede on the palm of her right hand. The tiny camera on its head looked like a dewdrop. She called up a screen, and Syl saw life-size flickering versions of herself and Ani, dressed in Securitat uniforms, standing at a cell door, then stepping back to allow Paul and Steven Kerr to emerge. The film lasted for only a few seconds, but it was enough to damn them.
As the images of Syl and Ani vanished, Vena smiled at Meia.
“Spies are not the only ones who find lurkers useful,” she said. She displayed the little arthropod for a second longer, than crushed it in her fist.
Meia did not reply, but the look on her face left no doubt that, like the unfortunate millipede, Vena would not survive long in Meia’s hands if the opportunity presented itself.
“Your daughter and her friend conspired in the escape of the terrorists,” said Gradus. “We are not yet certain of how they fooled the guards, but rest assured that we will find out.”
But Andrus was not listening. He had eyes only for his daughter.
“Syl, is this true?”
Syl tried to answer, but she could not. Instead, to her shame, she began to cry, and she could not stop the tears from coming even as she was led away.
•••
Ani flitted through the castle courtyard, moving from shadow to shadow. She had felt the Securitats coming. She had dreamed them, and then the dream became real. Luckily, she was practiced at slipping from her bedroom unnoticed, and had become adept at using a knotted rope to climb from the first-floor window to the ground. When she heard the door burst open, she was already halfway to St. Margaret’s Chapel, and by the time the alarm was raised, she was lifting the flagstone behind the altar and lowering herself into the tunnel. There had been no time to find a flashlight, and so she was in total darkness as she started to make her way, by memory and touch, back to the one Illyri who might be able to help her: Meia. She already knew that it was too late to warn Syl. It seemed to Ani that revealing to Meia the extent of her gift had somehow increased its potency, for she had been subduing it before in order to keep it a secret from others. Now she sensed Syl’s anguish, but there was nothing she could do for her, not yet. Later, perhaps, but her own priority was to stay out of the clutches of the Securitats, and find the spymistress.
As the darkness pressed in upon her, Ani thought that she had never liked Meia, had never trusted her because she could never sense her thoughts. Meia just always smelled of trouble and deceit.
All things considered, Ani concluded, she had probably been right.
•••
Syl was not taken to the Vaults, or to the Securitats’ interrogation rooms, or to any of the places usually reserved for prisoners. Instead, she found herself in Syrene’s chambers once again, this time alone. The light was dim and the air was strangely scented, an aroma at once familiar yet completely alien, an inherited memory given form. An enormous vase of flowers, the likes of which she had never seen before, stood on a polished oak table, their curling, tangled heads glowing softly in the moonlight, their outsize stamens drooping with thick, wet, heady pollen.
“Are they not beautiful?” said a silken voice, and there was a movement from the shadows at the back of the room. Syl had not heard Syrene enter, and the door had remained closed. Perhaps Meia was not the only one with knowledge of the castle’s secret ways, but Syl suspected that Syrene had no need of tunnels in order to move without being seen. She recalled the image of the ghost of the Red Witch standing over her, and her temples tingled unpleasantly at the memory.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think they’re beautiful at all.”
“They are called avatis blossoms,” said Syrene. “I grew them on the journey to Earth. They are of Illyr, just as you are. I felt that I needed a reminder of my home on this alien world. Perhaps, had you been surrounded by similar tokens, you might not have found yourself in this unfortunate situation. It strikes me that your father has fallen too much in love with this planet. It is he who has made a traitor of you. He planted a seed in your heart, and from it grew treachery.”
“No,” said Syl. “That’s not true.”
Syrene advanced. She raised a hand, as though to stroke the avatis. Instantly the heads of the flowers closed, and a puff of foul-smelling gas erupted from its leaves.
“It’s a defense mechanism,” said Syrene. “All species have one. The avatis is trying to protect itself, even though it’s already dying. It was dying from the moment it was cut and placed in this vase.”
She turned to face Syl.
“Your father too is dying. He was dying from the instant he fell in love with this planet. Away from the soil of Illyr, his influence and power have slowly waned, even though he did not realize it. Now his own daughter has dealt him the fatal blow.”
Syl’s cheeks burned. She lowered her eyes. There was a truth in what Syrene was saying, a terrible, humiliating truth. Syl had fatally undermined her father by committing an act of treason, even though she had believed it to be the right thing to do.
“My husband believes that your father planned the humans’ escape, and somehow contrived to have you do his dirty work,” said Syrene. “Is this true?”
“No,” said Syl. She breathed deeply. She would not cry again. She had cried enough that night.
“But you’re just a child! You could not have planned this venture alone.”
“I did.”
“Aided by your friend Ani.”
“It was my idea. I forced her to do it.”
“Really? From what I hear of your friend, I doubt that she could be forced to do anything she did not want to. But somebody aided you. Who gassed the guards?”
“We did.”
“Come, come. And you disabled the main surveillance system, too?”
“Yes.”
“I should like to know how you did that. If we were to take you to the control room, perhaps you could show us.”
“No,” said Syl. “I won’t. It’s a secret.”
“Oh! A secret? Of course.”
Syrene went to the drinks cabinet by the window. Among the bottles of whisky and wine now rested a number of curved decanters of liquids in various hues of amber that seemed lit from within. Syl had seen such bottles before. They contained Illyri cremos, a drink made from berries grown on Taleth, a distant moon of the Illyr system. It grew darker as it aged, and some of these bottles contained cremos that was very dark, and thus very old, and very valuable. Even Syl’s father—an Illyri so in love with Earth and its treasures that he owned vineyards of his own in France and Spain—prized cremos.
Syrene poured two glasses from the darkest of the bottles, and handed one to Syl.
“No, thank you.”
“Drink it,” said Syrene. “Don’t be ignorant, child. You could fill this glass with diamonds from Earth, and it would not be worth as much as the liquid that it now contains.”
Syl took the glass. As she raised it to her lips, she smelled cloves, cinnamon, and hints of plum and cherry, but she did not share this with Syrene. She did not think the Red Witch would find it amusing that the only points of reference she could find for the delicate scent of fine cremos were entirely terrestrial in origin. She sipped the drink. It tasted like she imagined sunset might: a deep, red, beautiful summer sunset.
“Sit,” said Syrene.
Syl did as she was told. Once more she faced the Red Witch across this table.
“Vena wants you to be handed over to her for interrogation,” said Syrene. “Marshal Sedulus feels the same way. I don’t think you’d enjoy their company very much.”
“No,” Syl admitted.
“I wouldn’t like it very much either,” said Syrene. “Did you know that Vena was rejected by the Sisterhood? A streak of cruelty that we found unappealing manifested itself during her novitiate. Cruelty is always a sign of weakness, and the Sisterhood has no time for weakness. You, on the other hand, are not cruel, and not weak. Tell me truly: why did you free those boys?”
Chronicles of the Invaders 1: Conquest Page 20
