Authors: Kerry Wilkinson
‘No idea.’
‘How many more Kingsmen are there here?’
‘Lots – more than there are of you.’
‘How do I get into the towers?’
I’m not sure what I expected but the laughter takes me by surprise. ‘You want to get
into
the towers?’
‘Yes.’
He shakes his head. ‘They’ve been saying you’re crazy and out of control but I didn’t expect them to be right. Do you know what they’re going to do to you when they
catch you?’
‘How do I get in?’
‘They won’t kill you, not at first; they’ll start with your friends. They’ll make you watch as they hurt them. You’ll see them bleed, hear them scream.’
Spittle flies from his mouth viciously, his eyes glinting in relish.
‘How do I get in?’
‘Then they’ll find your family. They’ll burn them alive right in front of you and pin your eyes open so you can’t stop watching.’
I want to stop him speaking but my arms feel limp and useless.
‘After all of that, they’ll start on you. They’ll strip the skin from your hands and feet but they’ve got enough doctors to stop you bleeding to death. They’ll do
it slowly and they’ll broadcast it to let everyone know what happens when you go against the King. They’ll . . .’
Before he can say any more, Hart steps forward and cuffs him fiercely across the face. Once, twice, three times he hits him until the Kingsman slumps to the side, blood dripping from his nose
and lip, a cruel grin still etched on his face.
‘You’ll see,’ he taunts, before Hart stuffs the glove back into his mouth.
The other Kingsman has not spoken, but Faith secures both of their gags. I am fixed to the spot until I feel Imrin’s hand on my back, guiding me to the far side of the room.
‘It’s all right,’ he coos, but I can’t think of anything other than the images of those I care about being killed in the way the Kingsman described. I refuse to look
backwards, even though I can feel his eyes burning through me.
‘What’s the plan?’ Jela asks quietly as the six of us huddle together.
I realise she is looking at me, expecting I have something in mind.
‘We have their uniforms,’ Imrin points out. ‘They’re not that much bigger than we are, so let’s wait until the sun starts to come up, then Silver and I can head
towards the centre. If we stay away from larger groups of people or Kingsmen, no one should pay us much attention.’
‘I want to go.’ The voice takes us by surprise and everyone turns to face Hart. ‘I can do it,’ he insists.
Faith would be too short, with the other girls the wrong shape. Aside from Imrin and myself, Hart would be the only one who could comfortably get into the uniform.
‘You’re not well,’ I start to say, but he interrupts.
‘I’m tired of being left behind. I’m fine – look at me.’
Unfortunately, his suggestion is exactly what rules him out. Although he has washed his face and hands, there are still spots of blood around his shirt and I can tell from the tickle in his
voice that another cough could erupt at any moment.
‘You should stay here and guard them,’ I say. ‘You’re the strongest of us all and it’s important someone keeps an eye on them.’
He is not fooled by my clumsy attempt to placate him and knows he’s not coming with me because I don’t want him to.
‘Imrin and I will head towards the towers in the Kingsmen uniforms,’ I say, even though it was his idea. ‘We’ll try to stay away from trouble and if there’s
anything that doesn’t feel right, we can return here and have a rethink.’ I nod backwards towards the guards. ‘Two of you need to stay here at all times. Give them water every
couple of hours but only when Faith is here to retie their mouths. All right?’
I look towards Faith, who nods gently, although I’m not sure she is listening.
‘We’re short on food but if it’s quiet, there are squirrels and rats around,’ I add. ‘We’ll be as quick as we can.’
I am trying to think if I have missed anything and it is Jela who states the obvious. ‘What do we do if they try to escape?’
‘I’ll deal with it,’ Hart says firmly, clutching one of their swords.
This time there are no objections.
I take off my thinkwatch and give it to Pietra, then slide one of the Kingsmen’s onto my wrist. If we get caught, I want to make sure the others still have the maps to help them get away.
Although the Kingsman’s is made of a harder material, the screen seems identical to my own, though without the orange colour. I flick through to find routes and instructions and then try to
see if there is any other information that could be useful. The search function throws up nothing about ‘Rom’ and there are no other codes, passwords or anything I think we could
use.
Although I have held borodron before, the weightlessness of the armour is amazing. The sleek curves and the way the light almost bends around it makes it look as if it should be heavy but I am
able to pick up the upper part one-handed with no effort. The inside of the armour feels as if it has been individually shaped to fit the person to whom it belongs and although it is tight around
my chest, the body fits well. Pietra helps to secure me into the armour as Faith replaces the Kingsmen’s gags with thicker twine so we can use the gloves. The boots are a couple of sizes too
big but, aside from that, I am able to move easily.
The biggest problem is the helmet. Without it, we may as well not be wearing a disguise, but it is completely the wrong shape. It isn’t that it is too big or small, just that each one has
been moulded to the circumference of the guards’ heads. Imrin’s is a little snug and the remaining one pinches the top of my scalp but is loose around my chin. If I turn too quickly, it
feels as if it is going to slide forwards, but when I tilt it backwards it exposes too much of my face.
After the drama of the last few days, I find myself laughing when Pietra suggests I should wrap a sock around my head to make it fit. I even try it, just to make the others laugh and suddenly
some of the stress seems to lift, even if it is only for a moment.
It is a much tighter squeeze to get out of the makeshift entrance to the house with the uniform on and although I can just about walk in the boots, I realise how hard it is to do anything other
than move in a straight line. I hold the helmet onto my head and then gaze up to see Imrin looking entirely different decked out in the uniform. If it wasn’t for the colour of his skin, I
wouldn’t know it was him under the helmet. The early morning sunlight slides around him elegantly as he smiles.
‘You look ridiculous,’ he says.
I can’t help but laugh. ‘Thanks a lot.’ The humour quickly fades as we stare at each other. The way he holds himself makes him look like a natural in the uniform. ‘Do you
think we can do this?’ I ask seriously.
‘I know you can.’
Hart slides the sword into the sheath on my belt and then, with a thud of boot on concrete that doesn’t feel as if it should be coming from me, we begin the walk towards Middle
England.
As we near the towers, the number of people on the streets increases dramatically. At first there is a handful scurrying across the pathways from small shacks on the edge of
the city, but when we enter the shadows of the towering steeples, the streets become a hub of activity.
I didn’t expect the central area to be like Martindale but things are so different we may as well be on another planet. At home, we dress for the seasons – thick rugged materials to
shield us from the winter cold; lighter, shorter clothes for the summer. Here, all of the men seem to be wearing suits, crisp shirts and shiny shoes. Some of the women are wearing suits of their
own but with skirts above their knees and heels I don’t think I could even walk in, let alone hurry from place to place at the speed they are. There are hundreds, thousands, of people: an
army in a rush to get somewhere.
No one pays any attention to Imrin or me as we move into the central plaza. Unlike at home, Kingsmen are a regular sight around Middle England. In between the four towers is a large paved area
interrupted only by a railway line that connects the North Realm to the South, with bridges that let people cross from one side to the other. As we watch, a train stops in the middle, giving me an
almost overwhelming feeling of déjà vu, as I remember our journey through here to Windsor Castle. Another crowd of suited men and women emerges from the carriages, joining the rest
and pouring through the main doors of each of the four buildings until, almost in an instant, the steady but deafening clatter of footsteps is over.
With the sound of people gone, I notice a low but audible hum that seems to be coming from all around us. The scale of the area is almost beyond comprehension, the sun bouncing brightly around
the four buildings in a light show that is as impressive as it is disorientating. At first I move to shield my eyes but then remember it is not something a Kingsman would do. I stare up, trying to
figure out where the noise is coming from but the helmet slips backwards, landing on the ground with a clatter. Imrin has drifted away and turns back sharply, although he doesn’t say anything
as I pick the helmet up and put it back on my head.
The dazzling combination of the sun and the glass is hurting my eyes, so I close them for a few moments, trying to adjust, before opening them to examine the front of each building. There are
rows of rotating doors and above them a digital clock, flashing red curved numbers. I cannot stop watching as they hypnotically tick away each second.
It is one minute past nine in the morning.
As I watch the numbers climb, they swirl into a message, ‘WELCOME TO EAST TOWER’, before giving the date and completing the cycle by fading back to the time.
‘Silver?’ At the sound of Imrin’s voice, I realise I have been watching the messages for over a minute. ‘That’s the North Tower,’ Imrin adds, turning to one
side.
If it wasn’t for the way the letters and numbers blended into one another telling us which tower was which, it would be almost impossible to distinguish one from the other.
Only a smattering of people now remain in the plaza, making us stand out far more than is probably advisable. There are no other Kingsmen around that we can see. Feeling self-conscious, we hurry
over the bridge that crosses the train track until we are directly under the North Tower’s clock. In the full shadow of the titanic glass behemoth that soars over us, I feel a chill ripple
through me; a sudden sense that I am a small, utterly insignificant sixteen-year-old.
‘Silver?’
Imrin brings me back to the present again. He is pointing at a small box next to the tower’s doors identical to the ones that operate the doors at Windsor Castle. There, we swiped a strip
of borodron to make the doors open. Now I press the stolen thinkwatch to the pad and am relieved as the door begins to rotate with a steady buzz.
Inside, the air is crisp and cool, breezing across my face artificially, even though we are surrounded by glass. The floor is a hard bright white marble, stretching into the distance as each
step we take echoes ominously, announcing our location.
We know we have to look confident and authoritative, so I stride purposefully across the ground-floor concourse of the North Tower. On the far side, there are a few men and women in suits
sitting behind a desk, with another clock etched into the glass above them, ticking away. Despite the hundreds of people we saw pouring into the building minutes ago, there are barely a dozen on
this floor.
Lining the wall on the other side of the concourse is a row of stalls, with a small group of men in brighter clothes standing close by talking to each other. It reminds me of the market we have
once a month in Martindale, where traders come to the village to sell their products and villagers gather to barter. When I was younger, my mother would sell clothing she had made to try to get us
a little more food. I once made a bracelet out of dried grass which she took for me, saying she would do her best to sell it. She gave me extra food in the evening, saying it had been sold
instantly to one of the traders who thought it was ‘beautiful’. A few years later, I found it in a drawer, pressed carefully between the pages of an old book I didn’t know she
had. She had kept it herself and given me her own rations.
Although it seems like a market, the products are completely different to anything that would reach Martindale. One of the signs says ‘Stay young, trust the green pill’; another
stall has rows of creams and powders promising everything from smoother skin to the ability to stay awake for up to a week.
Despite the noise of our boots, no one is paying attention to us.
As we head in the direction of the desk, I spot a digital board made of glass on the wall next to a row of lifts. Imrin follows me and as we cross the floor, one of the lift doors fizzes open
and a stream of people pours out, heading in unison towards the main entrance.
In Martindale, we are used to the power flickering on and off and have become accustomed to nights without warmth but there seems to be unlimited electricity here. I now realise the hum I could
hear outside is from the power swarming around us. Inside there are bright overhead lights, conditioned air, doors and lifts that are all using energy. All of this could keep our villages warm for
months.
After the group of people has passed, I turn my attention back to the board. As with the clocks, information is displayed within the glass itself, images and words fading into view. The first
screen shows a map of the country before zooming in to show the North and then it fades to yellow. ‘76% RATION EFFICIENCY’ slides across the screen, before being replaced by the words:
‘DAILY TRADES: 41’. The total is climbing one number at a time, as the ration figure moves up to 77%.
I’m not sure what everything means but the essence is clear – that the people packed into the floors above us are busy controlling the lives of everyone dotted around the Realm.
I remember the weeks when the ration train would arrive with less food than we expected, Kingsmen standing imposingly around the carriages, daring anyone to complain.