Raiders' Ransom (26 page)

Aileen leans back against the door.

“Think about this clearly,” she says. “You have nowhere to go outside this room. And if Medwin finds you here, with that head floating about, he'll have us all spiked for being witches. But if I can control it, I can keep us all safe.”

I shake my head.

“Medwin will want this just as much as anyone,” she says. “A military computer from before the Collapse — what do you think he might do to you to get his hands on a prize of that worth?”

“I don't know,” I say, but I do. And it makes me feel sick just to think about it.

Suddenly Aileen looks surprised, and lurches forward. The door behind her crashes open, and she tumbles onto the floor, her shiny dress crumpling around her and the jewel flying from her hand. Zeph comes running into the room.

“I always knew you were evil! And now I know you're a Scottish spy!” he shouts at Aileen, holding a short sword and pointing it at her. He keeps twitching his head to look at the computer, like he's waiting for it to pounce, but he holds his sword steady.

Everyone's still for a moment, then the head says, “I am obliged to remind you at this point that throwing my drive unit onto the floor does not constitute responsible use and invalidates the guarantee.”

Everyone stares at it, and it looks a bit embarrassed. “I can't help it, I'm programmed to tell you that,” it says.

And while we're all looking at it, Aileen makes a sudden twisting movement. Before you can even see what's happened, she's wrestled the sword out of Zeph's hand, and now he's lying on the floor with the sword pointing to his belly, looking like he can't believe it.

“How did you do that?” he says, and Aileen snorts.

“I've spent my whole life defending myself against you raiders. And you aren't even a shield-bearer yet.” She jabs at him with the sword.

“You wouldn't dare,” hisses Zeph. “If you kill me, my father will spike you for treason.” Aileen smiles, then starts to talk in a high, scaredy kind of voice.

“Oh Medwin,” she says, “it was awful. First the wicked English girls forced themselves into my chamber, then Zeph chased in after them. There was a terrible fight, and they were all killed. I was only spared because I'm just a poor helpless woman and I hid in my closet.” Her voice changes back to normal. “Or something like that.” She twitches the sword at Zeph, ordering him to stand. Then, when she has us all huddled together in the corner of the room, she picks up the jewel again. The head is still floating about, looking very unhappy.

Aileen looks at me. “Tell the computer to let me use it.”

“Then what?” I say. “You kill us all?”

Aileen sighs. “Unlike you southerners, I am not a child-killing savage. But this is my chance to get away from this hellish life. What do you think my prospects as Medwin's
slave really are? Or how long I'll live after he tires of me? So yes, I will do whatever I have to.” She looks scared as well now, like she's gone further than she meant to, but she's got a sword and we haven't.

“Ahem,” says the head. “I am afraid that I have an additional security feature. I am incapable of providing access to an additional user if I believe there is any duress or criminal activity involved.” It sort of shrugs. “And threatening behavior with a sword is both.”

Aileen looks furious.

“You mean I have to take this girl along for you to work at all?”

“Unless I can see she has given permission willingly, I will not be able to operate for you.”

“All right,” she says. “If I have to bring you along, I will.” She twitches the sword again. “Sit down. We're waiting until the fleet has gone, then we're getting out. I'll take Lilly and Alexandra with me to Scotland, and Zeph, you can take your chances out in the marshes.”

“I'm going to be a shield-bearer in the battle,” says Zeph. “My father will wonder where I am. He'll come searching for me.”

“Like he did in London?” says Aileen, and Zeph goes very quiet and still. Aileen's clutching on to the jewel, and she's got a nearly-smile on her face, like there's something she can't keep inside. She looks at the head, still floating above us, and says, “So, where have you been hiding? It must have been
a good spot, people have been searching for computers ever since the Collapse.”

“I have been offline for one hundred forty-seven years, if my timepiece is functioning properly. The last data input before that was in the Sunoon Testing Facility in Cambridge. I was having some problems with uploads and the technical staff suggested I be turned off for essential repairs.” The head gives a little shiver. “No one said anything about collapses or floods or rampaging mobs of computer-killers. Although, now I think about it, there were power shortages and my release date kept being delayed. As to where I've been, who knows what happened to me while I lay helpless?”

Aileen goes silent, like she's thinking about it, then she says, “So why are you locked to this child now?”

The head looks cross.

“It appears she is a descendant of my scheduled primary user. There is enough of a DNA match for successful activation.”

“Who was your primary user meant to be. A general? You were being made for the military, weren't you?” She breathes a sigh at the head. “You must contain all the knowledge from before the Collapse!”

The head looks a bit shifty. “Oh yes. Definitely. All that.”

Aileen looks like Cat does when he's eaten a big fish. She turns to me.

“How do I shut it down?”

“Hey,” says the head. “What about asking whether I want to?”

“I can hardly get you to the Scottish scientists if you're floating around like the ghosts these raiders are so scared of.”

The head looks grumpy, but nods. “I suppose that makes sense. I can do it myself.” And it disappears.

Three bells chime somewhere in the distance, followed by shouts and cheers and the sound of drums starting a steady beating.

Zeph groans. “The fleet's leaving,” he says. And every time he hears another noise from outside he gets more and more twitchy, like he wants to be up and running, chasing after the boats.

Aileen's tense and listening as well, but she gets happier-looking as the sounds die away and things get quieter. Eventually, when there's been nothing for a while, she nods and says, “Well then, we're leaving. We'll be taking a boat and heading for Scotland.” She looks at me and Lexy. “You should be thanking me. You'll have a much better chance with me than you ever would on your own.”

She stands up and twitches the sword upward. “Up you get, and out.” Then she opens the door and pushes us out into the corridor.

Everything's quiet and empty.

“That way,” she says, and we head away from her chamber. I pick up Cat with one arm, and hold Lexy's hand with the
other. I can feel how sweaty her hand is. How sweaty mine is as well.

Aileen marches us out of the rushlit hall into the cold black of the nighttime marshes. A breeze whips round our faces and our feet clink over the boards of the walkway.

Then suddenly, from behind, comes a thumping sound. I look back, and Zeph's wrestling with Aileen. The sword's on the walkway and Zeph kicks it off the side, into the water.

“Stop it!” cries Aileen in a high, furious voice, as Zeph heaves all his weight against her. She staggers, and her foot slips off the edge of the walkway. Her body tips, and she falls, landing with a loud splash in the reeds, mud, and water of the marshes.

“Run!” cries Zeph, and in an instant we're off, feet pounding on the boards, running out into the darkness.

Thwump.
The sail flaps, like a ghost in the night. Lilly hauls at the line, and the sail hangs for a moment. Then it fills, and we're moving again down the windy marsh channel.

“Where do we go now?” Lilly asks me.

But I ain't got an answer. I mean, I know where we are — we're out in the Black Waters. Which is all the big rivers and flooded places that's Angel Isling. Every twisty creek, every island, every mudflat and sandbank. Right out to the sea. And I know which bit we're in, too, it'd be hard not to, seeing as we're out in one of the biggest rivers, the Maulden. But that's why I don't know where to go. Coz the mouth of the Maulden is where the English fleet is. And somewhere out in the marshes is my father's fleet, hiding, waiting. But I don't know where.

“I thought you said you knew where to go,” says Lilly.

“It ain't so simple as sailing the Temz,” I snap. “Half the marsh channels round here'll lead you into mud and nothing else, and the other half's got Family halls on them. We won't get past one of them in this boat. We'll get taken for sure. If you want out of here, we gotta be careful.”

Seems like ever since I met Lilly, I keep ending up where I don't wanna be. I wish I never followed her and Lexy into Aileen's chamber, but it seemed right at the time. And getting them into a boat and away seemed like a good idea, too. But now I ain't so sure.

“It's getting light,” says Lexy suddenly. She looks well tired. Been crunched up at the front of the boat all night. She sounds happy that the sun's coming up, but then, she's only a little kid. She don't know dawn is when the fighting's going to start.

After I pushed Aileen off the walkway, she didn't take long to get back on and start chasing us. And what with Lilly carrying her stupid mog, and Lexy being so little, Aileen was going a lot faster than we were. And I was well panicked, not even thinking what to do, so I didn't realize until it was too late we was heading straight for the eastern deckway, where all the dragonboats had been loaded. All the dragonboats and warriors was gone by then, but there was still plenty of people about. And we ran straight into them, with Aileen behind us, shouting, “Traitors! Stop the traitors!”

Everyone dropped what they was doing, and a few of the slaves even started making moves like they were gonna try
and catch us. So when I saw Lilly's bucket-boat, moored up at the end of the deckway, I shouted, “Get in the boat!”

Like I said, it seemed like a good idea then. But now …

I should have stopped! I should have told what was going on. I'm Father's highborn son, I should've taken on that stupid doxy, Aileen! And now it's too late, coz she's had hours to tell everyone her lies, get them believing whatever she wants. My only chance is to get to Father before she does. Tell him what really happened. Tell him about Aileen being a spy. And I've got proof as well. Coz I grabbed that jewel off Aileen before I pushed her. I've got it in my jacket, and when I find Father I'm gonna show him the ghost inside.

“Zeph!” says Lilly, breaking my thinking. “Where do we go?”

And I still ain't got an answer. Instead I've got my eyes peeled. The sky ain't so black now, it's turning half blue, though everything's still mostly darkness and shadows. But there's gotta be ships around here, I just can't see them.

The big and little islands that's all over the Black Waters is just lumps rising out of the river. Behind them, out at sea, is a red streak of sunrise. And on that flat horizon there's flashes of white. So tiny you'd think they was gulls, if you was dozy and didn't know better.

“There's the English fleet,” I say.

“We should head that way, then,” says Lilly. “If we find Randall, we can give him Lexy — then everything will be all right.”

Shows what she knows of fighting.

“Do you think Randall's gonna let any ship coming out of the Black Waters get anywhere near him?”

“But we've got a white sail.”

“So? All the English'll care is where you come from. If you're coming out of Black Waters, you'll be an enemy.”

Lilly looks like she don't get it. Sometimes it's weird to think she's a girl, she looks so much like a boy. But she don't think like a boy. Least not one from the Family.

“We could be a trick boat, couldn't we? Dressed up with a white sail. The English won't take that chance.”

“So, what you're saying is the English fleet will think we're raiders, and the raiders will think we're English. Everyone will want to kill us?”

“Yeah. Now you get it.”

But I gotta risk it with my father. If I can just get close enough, I can shout to him, or wave my leathers. Or something. And when I'm on Father's ship, all this can get sorted. But I ain't telling Lilly and Lexy that, coz they just wanna get away. We're getting near to Sheepshead Island now, which means that on the southern bank must be …

“Over there.”

I point at the mouth of a narrow creek, stuffed up with willows on each bank. It's dark and empty.

“That's Ramseye Creek. If we go there, we can hide out in Burned Man Marshes. I know the way.” And I'm guessing that's where Father's waiting for Randall.