The Future King: Logres (7 page)

‘What was the rumour?’

‘That he’d kissed her, or slept with her, or something crazy like
that. It’s complete bollocks. Lance and Ellie denied it, but Hattie insisted
she’d seen them together. That was when Hattie became Alecto, the un-resting.
The third of the Furies.’

They fell into a long silence.

‘If you still liked Arthur,’ Gwenhwyfar began, ‘why didn’t you stay
friends with him? Why side with Lance?’

‘Same reason you wouldn’t speak to Viola when you were friends with
Emily,’ he quipped. ‘To fit in.’

Gwenhwyfar scowled.

‘Besides,’ Gavin muttered, ‘Arthur doesn’t associate himself with
thugs.’

‘You’re not a thug.’

‘Tell him that.’

Suddenly, he stopped her. They were at the corner of one of the wider
streets, hidden by the shrubbery skirting someone’s front garden. ‘What?’ asked
Gwenhwyfar. Gavin shushed her.

‘Watchmen.’ He pointed to the end of the adjoining road. Gwenhwyfar
saw two men dressed in the grey uniform they shared with their Welsh
counterparts. ‘They’ll check to see if we’ve been drinking. They’re always
looking to give out penalties round here.’

He waited with his arm barring her for a minute, but the moment the
Watchmen had turned the other way he hurried quietly across the street. Mindful
of her heels, Gwenhwyfar tiptoed after him as quickly as she could.

‘Come on!’ he whispered, waving her over. ‘Seriously, faster would be
good.’

‘I’ve never had a penalty before,’ she admitted as she joined him.

‘You’re lucky,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve heard stories.’

‘What stories?’

‘They like to do something they call a forfeit, if they don’t feel
like logging a penalty. It’s a complete abuse of power. It can be pretty nasty.
Especially if you’re a girl.’

Gwenhwyfar felt her stomach turn. ‘Isn’t that just a rumour?’

‘Rumour has to come from somewhere,’ Gavin argued.

They rounded another bend and were suddenly on the approach to
Emily’s house. More sirens keened in the distance. Gwenhwyfar faltered.

‘Oh God, maybe I should just leave it?’

‘Why? They’ll freak if you show up after what they’ve done. It’ll be
worth the photo.’

‘But I don’t even want to look at them.’

‘You just have to pretend like you don’t care, that it doesn’t bother
you. That’s the thing that annoys them most, trust me.’

He was right. She could do this, she knew she could; but that didn’t
make the prospect any less terrifying. Her sudden lack of courage only upset
her further. She drew a deep breath and quickly walked up to the house. A
glance down the drive told her that Gavin was still there, eyeing the street
apprehensively. She rang the doorbell. Emily’s mother answered.

‘Gwen?’

‘I’m here to pick up my stuff,’ she blurted, ‘I have a headache.’

Confused, Mrs Rose stepped aside. ‘Of course! I’m sorry, Emily told
me you’d gone home already.’

‘I forgot my bag,’ she excused, her heart pounding.

‘Oh. Well, the girls are upstairs.’

She didn’t bother to knock when she came to Emily’s bedroom. The
surprise on their faces would have been amusing had she been there for revenge,
and she envisioned how much more dismayed their expressions would be if she had
brought a police officer with her. Unfortunately the fantasy didn’t last long.

‘Where’s my stuff?’ she snapped. Emily opened her mouth. Silence. It
was funny how scared they all looked. Gwenhwyfar’s dark eyes cut through the
room. Her bag had been opened, and many of her belongings were strewn across
the floor.

‘You went through my bag?’ she hissed in disbelief. Stomping around
the room she whipped everything up. She noticed her hoodie was missing and then
saw it in the bin by Emily’s desk. Pulling it out from under the soiled make-up
wipes, she eyed it furiously. It was ripped. ‘Which one of you hippos did
this?’

The girls all looked to one another for help. High on adrenaline and
fear, Gwenhwyfar grabbed her sports bag and stuffed everything into it,
swinging it onto her shoulder. Charlotte’s dress was hanging on the door to the
wardrobe. She couldn’t resist.

‘No!’ screeched Charlotte, as Gwenhwyfar tore the skirt from the
bodice. Satisfied, she rushed out of the room and flew down the stairs. Emily
squealed for her mother. Gavin was waiting for her in the drive. When he saw
her running, he fled too.

‘What did you do?’ he demanded as they charged down the street then
stopped for breath round the corner. ‘You trying to get us clipped?’

‘You should have seen their faces—horrified, all of them. It
was like I was some sort of ghost.’

Gavin looked over his shoulder, as if he half expected to see the three
Furies flying after them. ‘Did you vanquish them?’ he panted.

‘No. I vanquished Charlotte’s meringue, instead.’

Gwenhwyfar waved to Gavin as the car turned and then set off down the
road. She knew that her father was plucking up the courage to discover what she
had been doing out on the street with a strange boy, but kept her eyes fixed
ahead in the hope that he might not ask. After a few minutes of silent driving,
however, Garan tried his luck.

‘He seemed nice.’ Gazing out of the car window, he indicated to go
left.

Gwenhwyfar held her forehead in her hand, feigning her headache. ‘I
suppose.’

‘Is he a friend from school?’

‘He’s in one of my classes.’ The movement of the car made her feel
queasy. ‘He walked us home from the party.’

‘That was good of him. Did you have any trouble with patrol?’

Gwenhwyfar shook her head. ‘We didn’t see them.’

For a few moments nothing was said. Her father looked for relevant
road signs, as always choosing not to use the navigation system installed in
the car’s dashboard. Gwenhwyfar ignored his concerned glances, glad she had
remembered to use Viola’s sprays.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Not too great,’ she admitted. Her stomach lurched when her father
slowed the family car to a halt. Police tape cut across the road ahead, and
blue lights flashed off of the dancing ribbon. He wound down the window as a
bright-vested man approached.

‘Road’s closed due to an incident,’ the man barked. ‘Power’s out—you’ll
have to follow the diversion.’ Gwenhwyfar met the policeman’s eyes. He sniffed
in consideration. ‘Been anywhere nice, this evening?’

‘I just picked my daughter up from a friend’s house,’ said Garan.
‘She wasn’t feeling well.’

The policeman shone his torch into the car. Gwenhwyfar felt her
pupils contract in protest. ‘I see. Party, was it?’

‘Sleepover,’ Garan corrected. Another car pulled up behind theirs,
hooting. The policeman was distracted.

‘Just follow the signs.’ He waved them on.

A long while passed. For some reason the diversion took them through
the outer wall to London, where they were stopped and asked to show
identification. Such checkpoints could be troublesome at the best of times, but
it was late, and the sentry seemed unconcerned enough to let them pass without
too much fuss. When they didn’t come back through the wall in the opposite
direction Garan grew concerned. The scenery soon changed to the densely populated
area of South London, litter as well as decay becoming frequent. They were lost.

‘Bloody diversion,’ Garan muttered, peering about. Gwenhwyfar sat
forwards and turned on the car’s navigation with a huff. It recalculated their
route home, and Garan turned the car around in a side street. They drove back.
Traffic was sparse.

‘Awfully quiet, isn’t it, Gwen?’

A brick collided with the bonnet and bounced up the window,
spider-webbing the glass. Garan swerved, but then veered to get back on the
road. The car behind them blasted its horn and careered into a lamppost.

‘Dad!’ Gwenhwyfar yipped. The bonnet of the other car bellowed with
smoke. No one got out. Garan thrust his phone into her lap. She grasped at it,
shaking.

‘Call the police,’ he advised.

‘Dad, stop! Why aren’t we stopping?’

‘Call them!’

‘We need to stop!’

‘Just call them, Gwen!’

Fumbling, she punched in the digits. A figure ran across the road,
followed by another and then another, and then scores of people were streaming
through the street, slipping between buildings and jumping fences. Windows were
smashed; buildings were torched. A toothless man bounced into the side of their
car and then dozens of hands were grasping at the body. They were surrounded. Garan
slowed but kept the car moving. In his rear view mirror a man was pulled from
the crash site.

‘Can’t we help him?’ she cried.

‘The police will help him,’ her dad responded, his jaw rigid. ‘Have
you called them?’

‘I’m being transferred!’

He revved the engine. Eggs splattered onto the windshield. Small
gangs of children swamped the vehicle and, laughing, pressed their grubby faces
against the glass. Gwenhwyfar turned to see riot vans descending. Officers
armed with bludgeons pulled the man free from the mob. The windshield wipers came
on, the washers squirting, the broken eggs smearing across the glass.

‘Galla i ddim weld blydi unrhyw beth!’
I can’t see a bloody thing!
Garan swore, slipping into Welsh. A woman
leapt up onto the bonnet. There was an opening in the crowd. Garan’s foot hit
the floor and Gwenhwyfar was thrown back in her seat. The woman vanished over
the windshield, tumbling over the roof. Several houses were on fire. Gwenhwyfar
snapped the phone shut and abandoned it on the dashboard. They accelerated
away.

‘Are you all right?’ her father asked, his voice urgent. ‘Gwen?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Good. I’ll get us home.’

He didn’t stop the vehicle to scrape the mess off the windshield, but
pressed on, hunched over the steering wheel to peer through a thin sliver of
clear glass. It was nearly three by the time they heard the crackle of gravel
sound their approach to the house. They pulled up by the front door, and then
the engine fell silent.

Garan sat still, his eyes lingering on the destroyed, sticky windshield
looming before them. He expelled a long sigh. ‘Your mother’s going to go crazy.
She was going to the spa in this tomorrow.’

‘Why did they pull that man from his car?’ Gwenhwyfar asked.

‘I’m not sure, cariad,’ Garan admitted. He withdrew his keys from the
ignition. ‘Maybe they wanted to steal it.’

‘But it crashed,’ she scowled.

‘Or take things from it,’ he tried.

‘It was on fire!’

He paused. ‘A lot of people can’t afford cars, Gwen. And they resent
people who can.’

‘Why?’

He shook his head. ‘They just do. They were probably from the protest
in London. They must have started looting once the power went out.’

She gazed through the mottled glass. ‘What were they protesting?’

For a moment Garan’s features were suspended with the look of someone
with an opinion dangling on their tongue, but then his eyes softened, and his
words were swallowed.

‘Nothing, cariad. Don’t you worry about it.’

‘I had another one of those dreams the other day, Marv.’

Mr Caledonensis looked up from his desk, his lanky frame bent over an
open drawer. ‘Oh yes?’ he invited, rummaging for a pen. The playful screams of
year sevens could be heard through the closed windows, but Arthur kept his eyes
on his desk. ‘Was it the same as your other one?’

‘Similar,’ he admitted. His mind was still on Friday night. History
that morning had been difficult, but by ignoring Gwenhwyfar and Bedivere
completely he had made it through. ‘It was different, though. This time there
was a lion.’

‘A lion?’ Marvin sat down. ‘And in what context did you see this
lion
?’

Frowning, Arthur looked out beyond the window. He was perched on one
of the tables with his feet in a chair. ‘It’s not important, really.’

‘I will be the judge of whether or not it is important, Arthur,’
Marvin encouraged. ‘Come on, your dream. Tell me what happened.’

‘Well, I was in a forest, lost. I came across that alligator, you
know, the one I’ve dreamt of before? It was sitting on a rock. It hissed at me
and snapped, and I knew it was going to eat me.’

‘And then what?’

‘Then a lion leapt out of the forest, just as the alligator was about
to spring, and tore the head off and dropped it at my feet. There was a flash
of light—something like a comet, or a fireball, exploded in front of me,
and suddenly the lion’s mane turned to fire—white-hot flames burned all
around it.’

There was a silence. ‘Is that how it ends?’

‘No.’ Arthur went on. ‘It burns so big that all the trees catch fire
and it traps me with it. The lion’s skin burns too. It turns from gold to
black, like charcoal, and leaps towards me. I try to run but the claws—they’re
hot—like coals—tear me down… and that’s… that’s when I wake up.’