The Future King: Logres (23 page)

‘I don’t know.’ Arthur pushed himself to his feet and checked on
their supper. Deciding it was suitably heated, he served two large portions,
knowing that he would finish whatever his grandmother didn’t. She always ate
sparingly, and yet was constantly insisting that she was full, and had just had
breakfast, lunch or dinner.

This wasn’t the first time she had almost set fire to the house, and
such incidents were becoming more frequent. Coming home from school was often a
gamble in itself—sometimes she would be out, and then he would spend the
evening worrying whether she would return, and if she didn’t, who might find
her lost and confused across town—whether it would be a neighbour, or the
police, whom he often had to call.

Later, when his grandmother had settled down to watch her favourite
show, Arthur snuck upstairs to her bedroom and found the wooden box in which
she kept her frugal savings. Into it he placed the ten new-pound note she had
given him, shuffling it into the bottom of the fives so that she wouldn’t get
too suspicious.

Gwenhwyfar waited nervously in
Mocca
Coffee
, a hot chocolate clasped firmly in her hands.

She was early, and kept her eyes on the swinging door. It was busy in
the small café, as it was Saturday, and many walkers were taking refuge from
the flash storm outside. She didn’t know how she was going to recognise Isolde.
Several blonde girls had already entered and left the building, some with dark
coats and a few with green.

She checked the clock. It was just gone one. Suddenly it dawned on
her that she should have told her parents where she was going and when she
would be back. What if Isolde wasn’t who she said she was? Another candidate wandered
into the heat of the coffee house, with near-white hair and a pink flush to her
cheeks. She was clutching an expensive looking phone and a large statement bag.
As she approached, Gwenhwyfar put her drink down and sat forwards.

‘Are you Gwen…?’

She was tall and
reminded Gwenhwyfar a little of Viola, though she was not as waif-like. Her deep-set
eyes were bright blue and she had thin, carefully plucked eyebrows that defined
the arch of her strong, bumped nose. ‘Yes.’ She jumped to her feet. ‘Are you Isolde?’

The pale girl nodded and they both shook hands.

‘It’s nice to meet you,’ Gwenhwyfar added. ‘Would you like a drink?’

‘I’ll go and order one, thanks.’ She offered a quick smile. ‘I won’t
be a moment.’

On her own once again, Gwenhwyfar powered through half of her hot
chocolate, keeping her eyes on the bar. She wasn’t sure what she was looking
for, a suspicious character perhaps, or something that would tell her that what
she was doing was a bad idea. Isolde soon returned with a latte, and settled
into the armchair opposite.

‘Thanks for taking the time to meet me,’ she started. She couldn’t be
older than twenty, and Gwenhwyfar found herself wondering why someone seemingly
so pampered was recruiting members for a rebellious cause. ‘It’s much easier to
talk in person.’

‘I can imagine,’ she agreed. ‘Thanks for meeting me here. It’s not really
park weather.’ Rain sheeted down the windows, and a man was hurried past the
café with an inside-out umbrella.

Isolde rummaged through her giant bag, her forearms vanishing. ‘Let’s
get started, shall we?’ She produced a large notebook and a pen. ‘So why are
you interested in
Free Countries
?’

Gwenhwyfar hadn’t been expecting questions. ‘I’m not sure, really. I
just saw the flyer and was curious.’ Isolde fiddled with a small trinket
hanging around her neck. Gwenhwyfar was distracted. ‘Is that gold?’

‘You can see it if you like.’ Unfastening it, Isolde held it out for
Gwenhwyfar to handle. She took it delicately, turning it to see it shine.

‘Where did you get it?’

‘It was my grandmother’s,’ Isolde explained. ‘My grandfather gave it
to her when they first started dating. She left it to my mum when she died, and
then my mum gave it to me.’

‘It’s lovely.’

‘Thank you,’ she beamed. She fastened it back around her neck.

‘So how long have you been living in England?’ Gwenhwyfar asked, feeling
more at ease.

‘Seven years.’ Isolde leant into the soft cushion of the armchair and
put her notebook to one side.

‘Where in Ireland are you from?’

‘Fermanagh, in the Lakelands.’

‘Do you miss it?’

‘Sometimes,’ she shrugged. There was a short silence. ‘You’re Welsh,
right?’

‘Yep,’ Gwenhwyfar nodded, pleased to talk about her heritage. ‘I just
moved here. My dad got a job in the city. My mam’s English though. She’s wanted
to move back for some time.’

‘I don’t see why,’ Isolde remarked.

‘Closer to my aunt. So how come you moved here?’ She took another sip
of her lukewarm hot chocolate. ‘If you miss Ireland so much?’

‘My dad got transferred to run Heathrow. It’s not all bad. We get
free flights, so we go away a lot.’

Gwenhwyfar nodded. Isolde had to come from a wealthy family if she
wore gold. Her father had once told her that there were hardly any reserves
left and that everything had to be recycled at a high cost.

Isolde picked up her notebook again, positioning it on her knees.
‘Have you ever been part of a political group before?’

‘Not really.’

‘So you won’t know what’s involved then, or what we do.’

‘I read what was on your website, but that’s as far as I got.’

‘Well, we’re quite different from other causes. I’ll start with the
basics. Ultimately we’d like the reinstatement of Northern Ireland, Scotland
and Wales as sovereign states.’

Gwenhwyfar frowned. ‘So you support the
Celtic Rebels
, then?’ She wasn’t sure about that. They had been
responsible for a strain of violence in the Highlands, as well as in what the
New Nationals were now calling Southern Ireland, a small area in the south of
Ireland which had changed coats and was now considered to be part of a
newly-defined United Kingdom. There had been trouble, too, at the Welsh
borders, with random attacks on any Welsh citizen deemed not “Welsh” enough.
Isolde shook her head.

‘No,’ she insisted, ‘we believe in independence gained through
non-violent means. The
New Celtic Rebels
have nothing to do with
Free Countries
.
In fact, we believe they’re only hindering any positive developments.’

Gwenhwyfar drew her eyes away from an older man sitting in the corner
of the café. She imagined he was watching them, but her suspicion subsided when
his wife joined him. ‘What else do you believe?’

‘We think we should disarm all nuclear weapons and remove supplies of
viruses in laboratories which can be used for biological warfare. We also want
to work towards free and unbiased education, gender and race equality, the redistribution
of wealth and the eradication of poverty. Oh, and we’re very keen on helping
the environment, and on the importance of free and uncensored speech,’ she
added as an afterthought.

‘So you’re against nuclear weapons, then?’ The rest of the list
sounded logical to Gwenhwyfar, and the Welsh nationalist inside her was easily
seduced by the notion of being free from English “tyranny”. ‘How many members
are there in
Free Countries
?’

Isolde put her mug down on the small coffee table between them.
‘That’s the thing… because we’re so anti-Milton, we prefer to operate what we
call a chain-group. There’s a few people in charge of flyers and the website.
When they get a hit, they have a contact, who contacts their contact, telling
them the server address of the person interested. That person, in this case me,
messages the person interested and gets them to meet. If the person interested,
you, decides they want to join
Free
Countries
, their only point of contact would be me. It means that if one of
us is ever questioned, we won’t be able to reveal other
Free Countries
members because we won’t know them.’

‘So basically, apart from the person who recruited you, you’ve no
idea who you’re working for?’

‘Nope.’ Isolde seemed happy about it, careless even. ‘There are code names,
obviously, but if I passed them in the street I’d be none the wiser. I think
it’s cool, in a way. It means my identity is safe.’

‘But what about protests? How do you organise things like that?’

‘We don’t. We can attend any protest individually, but we’d have no
idea if anyone else from
Free Countries
was there or not. We don’t believe in protests as a method; it brings too much
attention and just gets you on the heightened surveillance list. At the moment
we’re recruiting.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then we do what the Alpha
tells
us to do. They’re in charge. When the time comes we’ll get a message through
the grapevine, and then we’ll act.’

‘Act how?’

‘I don’t know. We don’t believe in the current government though,’
she murmured quietly. ‘We think the call of elections in May is going to be a
televised sham.’

There was another silence. Gwenhwyfar wondered how Isolde could be so
dedicated to something she knew so little about. ‘So what’s your code name?’

Quickly she scribbled something down, tore out the page from her
notebook and handed it to her. It read
Omega
Iota Zeta
.

‘Each code name indicates a member number, or rank,’ Isolde
explained. ‘That’s why the Alpha is the first. The second is Alpha Beta. The six
hundred and twenty fifth would be Alpha Beta Alpha
.
I figured it out, even though we’re not supposed to know. I’m
five thousand, one hundred and nineteenth. You’d be five thousand, one hundred
and twentieth.’

Gwenhwyfar tried to catch the threads of her calculation. How on
earth had she arrived at that number? ‘What would my code name be?’

Isolde wrote it down on another piece of paper. It read
Omega Iota Eta
. Gwenhwyfar wasn’t sure
how she was supposed to pronounce it.

‘So there are over five thousand members of
Free Countries
?’ Her stomach felt the pumping of her heart. She
hadn’t expected to get involved in something so huge.

‘And counting,’ Isolde said, proudly. ‘If you join you’ll recruit our
next member, and then they’ll recruit someone else. We only ever have to
recruit one person each, but as the Alpha recruited many, somehow the cause
seems to expand. I think there may be different branches of code names, which
means my estimate of numbers could be much too low.’

She frowned. ‘Can you leave once you’ve joined?’

‘Yes. It’s quite easy, as no one knows who you are. We get contacted
every now and then to check we’re still active and alive—it’s usually
something coded that we have to respond to—and if you don’t reply in the
timeframe, the whole pyramid shifts up a level. Everyone gets promoted to the
number above. Technically, if you want to leave you can just not answer to the
check-ups. I was Omega Iota Sigma not too long ago.’

Gwenhwyfar was beginning to feel seduced by the secrecy. She could
join for a little while, couldn’t she? Isolde had just told her that it
wouldn’t be permanent, that she could always drop out. ‘What happens now?’

‘Now you wait to hear from us. If you’re in, I’ll phone my recruiter
and tell him. Then he’ll pass it on and get it to the top. They keep any
information they have on us completely safe. In the meantime you’ll be sent a
key for coded messages. You have to memorise it and destroy it afterwards. It’s
easy once you get the hang of it, almost like learning a second language.’

‘What information do they have on us, then?’ Gwenhwyfar asked.

Isolde shrugged lightly. ‘Just your phone number, and it’s not like
that means anything to anyone. So, are you in?’

‘I’m in,’ Gwenhwyfar gushed before she could stop herself.

‘Great. I’ll let Omega Iota Epsilon
know. Don’t tell anyone we’re on a first name basis, by the way.
We’re not supposed to be.’

‘Couldn’t they see us talking online?’ Gwenhwyfar stood with Isolde,
who gathered up her coat, bag, phone and notebook.

‘Not as far as I know. It’s encrypted.’

That relaxed her slightly. At the end of the day she would just be
connected to Isolde and whoever came beneath her. It wasn’t as if the Alpha
would ever come knocking on her door, demanding that she rebel.

It didn’t take long for the two to part ways, and Gwenhwyfar remained
in the coffee shop a little longer to allow Isolde a head start. She wondered
where the other girl went to college, concluding that it had to be somewhere local.
Eventually she donned her coat for the rain, pulling up the waxy hood. When the
weather showed no signs of relenting, she braved the storm and began the long
trek back home.

Lower
Logres

She half expected to
hear something from Isolde or
Free Countries
on Sunday, but after
checking her inbox and Internet browser several times, resigned herself to a
much longer wait. Monday morning arrived with a sky cleared by the weekend
storm, and once again the weather was brilliant and blue, as if they had been
given a second summer. She debated with herself whether or not to tell Viola
and Bedivere about what she had signed up for on Saturday, but as they talked
over the most recent celebrity scandal, she decided against it.

It was after registration when Mr Hall came into their tutor room
with Emily, Hattie, Charlotte and Hector in tow. It took a few moments for the
class to fall silent, but when it did, the atmosphere was thick and
uncomfortable. The Furies stood sheepishly beside the deputy head with red
faces, while Hector hovered nearer to the door, his arms firmly crossed.

Mr Hall eyed them all sharply. ‘Well?’

Charlotte elbowed Emily in the side.

‘Sorry,’ Emily blurted out, not meeting Gwenhwyfar’s eye. ‘Sorry for
playing that prank on you.’

Miss Ray seemed surprised that this was happening now, in front of
everyone. Gwenhwyfar felt her face heat up with embarrassment. Was she to be
denied her dignity, on top of everything else?

‘Sorry Gwen,’ Charlotte added, her face red like beetroot. ‘Sorry I
ripped your hoodie.’

‘Sorry I tried on your clothes,’ Hattie mumbled.

Emily’s blue eyes slunk to Bedivere, who observed the scene with a
scowl. ‘Sorry Bedivere, for tricking you,’ she added. ‘It was wrong of me.’

Blushing, Bedivere looked away.

‘Hector?’

The boy looked to Gwenhwyfar blackly. His cheek had almost healed,
though there was still a faint imprint where Gwenhwyfar’s nails had been. She
hadn’t seen him at all last week, and wondered if he had been in school.

‘Hector!’ Mr Hall barked.

‘Sorry,’ he obliged, and despite the sneer the deputy head was
satisfied. Gwenhwyfar averted her eyes, insulted. Where was her apology from Mr
Hall? Then again, what good would it do? Sorry didn’t solve anything. The group
hovered while the deputy gazed at her expectantly.

‘Gwen?’

Her countenance blackened. She wouldn’t say they were forgiven,
because they weren’t. ‘All right,’ she mustered. ‘I appreciate the fact you
realise you were wrong.’

Mr Hall looked to Miss Ray, his mouth open to scold, but her tutor
stepped forwards quickly and waved an end to the scene.

‘Thank you girls, you can sit down now.’ She nodded to the deputy. ‘Mr
Hall, I suspect you’ll be wanting to get Hector to his lesson?’

With a final displeased glance at Gwenhwyfar, Mr Hall stiffly escorted
Hector out of the room. The rest of the class returned to their normal buzz,
whispers rippling across each table.

‘Well that’s that, then,’ Viola said to Gwenhwyfar, who was exuding
false indifference to what had just transpired. ‘Hector didn’t look happy,
though.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ Bedivere remarked, glancing awkwardly towards
Emily’s table with ruddy cheeks. ‘Think we’ll be seeing much more of him?’

‘I won’t,’ Viola declared. ‘Tom’s ditched him, too. I made sure of
that.’

‘And Lance?’

‘As far as Lance is concerned, his and Hector’s friendship never
existed.’

Gwenhwyfar nodded. It was comforting to know that her friends stood
beside her. She also knew, however, that all she had gained Hector had lost,
and doubted that he would soon forget it.

‘Arthur!’

He was waiting for them outside their History room with the rest of
their class, standing on his own, half-in and half-out the doorway to their
empty classroom. He brightened when he saw them. Bedivere hurried over.

‘You’ll never guess what,’ he told him. ‘The Furies just apologised.
Hector too. Mr Hall brought them all into our tutor room before registration
and made them do it.’

Concerned, Arthur looked to Gwenhwyfar. ‘He did?’

She nodded, reluctant to trawl over the particulars. ‘He would’ve got
me to apologise too, if he could, but I didn’t. I mean, what have I got to be
sorry for?’

‘Nothing, that’s what,’ Bedivere declared stridently.

‘Are you all right?’

She met Arthur’s worried gaze. ‘I’m fine.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah, really.’ She forced a smile. ‘I’m just glad it’s over. I hope
that’s it.’

They let themselves in when the second bell rang. Marvin Caledonensis
wasn’t as late as expected, and by the time Gavin and Tom arrived
he was already writing on the board.

‘You’re a little early aren’t you, sir?’ Tom remarked, obviously
thrown, as he and Gavin found their desk.

‘Early to you, late to others,’ Marvin muttered, his back to them as
he scribbled out his clean, chalk letters. ‘Yes Tom, I am indeed
early
. But I thought I’d put a bit of
effort in, as your mock exams are fast approaching. I hope you’re all ready to
use those brilliant minds of yours.’

There was a murmur of discontent at the mention of exams, but with
the threat of failure the class soon settled to work from their textbooks. With
the low hum of chatter still present, and with Marvin occupied at his desk, Gwenhwyfar
prodded Bedivere firmly in the back.

‘How did it go on Friday?’ she whispered, craning over her desk. ‘You
know, the after-school club?’ Morgan looked up, and Arthur turned around.

‘It was pretty weird,’ Bedivere said, eager to share. ‘Good, but
weird. He gave us wine and everything.’

‘Wine?’

‘Red. Vintage, too.’ He looked to Arthur. ‘Where did you say it was
from?’

‘Bordeaux, in France. It was over thirty years old.’

Bedivere’s eyebrows arched. ‘No wonder it was expensive.’

‘I didn’t like it,’ Morgan volunteered. ‘It was too bitter.’

‘You still should have drunk it,’ Arthur said. ‘I’m not finishing it
for you next time.’

‘You had to finish hers?’ Gwenhwyfar asked.

‘I didn’t want it going to waste,’ he remarked, his eyes shifting to
Marvin, who was spread out across his desk with his latest read in his hands.
Gwenhwyfar caught Bedivere’s gaze. He made a face, and she felt she was missing
something.

‘So have you spoken to Marvin yet?’ he asked her when Morgan looked
up and the grotesque was gone.

‘No. I’m not sure if I should if it’s by invitation only.’

‘He won’t mind.’ Bedivere turned to Arthur. ‘Will he?’

‘He shouldn’t do.’ Arthur shifted. ‘Maybe I should ask him for you?’

‘I thought you said it was better if I did it myself?’ Gwenhwyfar
glanced to Morgan, and felt the bitterness resurface with the reminder of her
exclusion. ‘When’s the next one?’

‘Friday.’

‘I’ll do it. It might not be this week, though. My aunt and uncle are
coming for dinner, and I don’t think I’ll be able to get out of it.’ She was
still half-expecting a summons from
Free
Countries
or Isolde. She sent them a masking smile. ‘I’ll let you know.’

The rest of the lesson passed quietly, with a low murmur that Marvin rarely
achieved from his pupils. Even Tom was subdued. After a brief speech covering
their homework, the bell rang and Morgan scurried off in an effort to walk
alone.

‘It’s because I’m here,’ Gwenhwyfar said as Arthur frowned after her.
‘I’m sure if I weren’t, you and Bedivere would have the pleasure of her
company.’

‘She’s probably just got somewhere to go before class,’ he excused. ‘So
what have you two got next?’

‘English,’ Gwenhwyfar replied, gathering her coat. ‘You can walk with
us, if you like?’

‘Sure.’ He hoisted his rucksack onto his shoulders and followed them
both out into the corridor. They were caught in the current.

‘What are you doing for break?’ Bedivere asked brightly. ‘Don’t tell
me you’re sitting with Marvin again?’

‘I was going to read in the library, actually. Refresh myself on our
homework for the week.’

‘Homework?’

‘Marvin asked us to read
1984
,’
Bedivere divulged.

‘Well, if you need a break from it you can always come and sit with
us,’ Gwenhwyfar suggested. ‘Bedivere hangs out with me and Vi now, anyway.’

‘You do?’

‘I’m only doing it to irritate Lance,’ he grinned.

‘Lance? You sit with him?’

‘Technically he sits with me.’

Arthur looked to Gwenhwyfar. ‘You too, Gwen?’

She hadn’t anticipated that Lancelot would be a problem. ‘Yeah, but
only because he’s friends with Tom,’ she explained. ‘It’s not like I
like
him.’

‘Can’t we all just sit somewhere else?’ Arthur appealed. ‘Just the
three of us?’

‘We can’t do that, it’s not fair on Vi,’ Gwenhwyfar objected.
‘Besides, Lance will be on his best behaviour. If not, he’ll get kicked off the
table. It happened a lot last week.’

Arthur’s scowl thickened.

‘It’d mean we could all spend some time together at least,’
Gwenhwyfar pursued. ‘You never know, you might like them. They’re actually
really nice. They don’t hang around with Hector, anymore.’

‘And they can’t stand the Furies,’ Bedivere encouraged. They strolled
three abreast down the busy corridor.

‘I’ll think about it,’ he relented. ‘Not for break, though. Maybe
lunch? Where will you be?’

‘The canteen,’ Gwenhwyfar told him, as they paused outside their
English room. ‘You’ll see us. You’d better come.’

‘I will if I can. See you later?’ Smiling, he shrugged out of their
company. Put out by his reluctance to make plans, Gwenhwyfar watched him stride
down the corridor.

‘He’ll sit with us,’ Bedivere assured her. ‘Don’t worry. He’s
probably just reluctant to be seen with the
cool
crowd
.’

He grinned at her, and then Ms Appelbauer opened the door and called
them promptly into class.

‘Where is he?’

Gwenhwyfar dumped her mobile phone on the wooden table. They were
still waiting for Arthur to join them, but with much of their lunchtime gone his
sudden arrival was looking all the more unlikely. They were sitting outside in
the warm sunshine on a bench opposite the Wormelow wing of the canteen. Viola
was boasting about her latest test shoot, while Tom held a protective arm
around her, gazing at her proudly.

‘Maybe he got held up with Marvin?’ Bedivere murmured, looking over
his shoulder for the fifth time. ‘It’s not like he can’t find us.’

 
‘He’d see us, if he was
looking for us.’ Gwenhwyfar rubbed her thumbnail, and pushed away the varnish.
‘I’ll text him. I wanted to see if he’d like to walk home together, anyway,’
she whispered. ‘What’s his last lesson?’

‘Politics, same as me.’ Bedivere pressed his chin into his fist. ‘Though
he won’t be going home, he’ll be going to work.’

‘I can walk him to work.’ She punched out a quick message to Arthur
and then fell back into watching the others idly, paying particular attention
to Lancelot, who sat with his jaw cupped in his bruised hand, his dark eyes tracking
every slight movement. The conversation had migrated to the Furies’ apology.

‘So they came in with Mr Hall, then?’ Gavin was asking, with a folded
frown. ‘What did Hector say?’

‘He barely apologised at all, did he, Gwen?’ Viola asked. Gwenhwyfar sat
forwards with Bedivere, and shook her head.

‘Hardly. Mr Hall made him. He definitely wanted me to say sorry, too.
Though I don’t know what for.’

‘For what you were wearing, obviously,’ Lancelot remarked, with a
slow roll of his eyes. ‘Or maybe for what you were drinking. I don’t know, it’s
usually one or the other.’

‘That’s not Gwen’s fault,’ Bedivere objected, rising quickly to the
remark.