8
I tried frantically to sit up, and the wood slid a little from my back. But…my feet were still trapped. I shoved with my legs, but the panels were too thoroughly wedged and inter-locked, and they wouldn’t budge. Not large enough to crush me, but quite large enough to pinion me.
The man had got the door partially open…he could shoot me through the gap—Oh Lord!—but he didn’t raise the gun yet, intent on getting out of the vehicle. Oh, the lattice-like roof girder lay between us. Why would he risk a ricochet when he could walk up and shoot me at point blank range?
Oh God! Help me!
I yanked as hard as I could; flung myself from side to side. Nothing! Wait…had the panels moved? Skin tingling horribly in anticipation of the imminent bullet, I twisted around, putting my back to the man, and got my knees against the heap, pushed with my hands as well… Yes! They were moving. And that pit-like space under the gateway was just behind the heap of broken stage flooring in which I was trapped! If I could just get free, I could throw myself over and into it… I heaved. I heard the door creak all the way open…footsteps approached quickly… The heap shifted—
A shot rang out. I flinched, but when I looked around, it was the man who was clutching his arm and swearing. Yes! One of the policemen had come! No…it was Snakey, still pinioned but holding a Lethal pistol—the policeman’s gun?—in one shaking hand, struggling to take aim again…but the man stepped to one side just as he fired, then casually raised his own gun and shot Snakey in the head.
My mouth opened on something that might have been going to be “NO!” but never came out because the man was turning back to me and I was too busy diving up and over the top of the heap. If I showed up right behind him at the pearly gates, Snakey was going to be very peeved.
I fell head first, managing to break the impact with my arms. But as soon as I sat up, I realized that I’d just swapped one trap for another. There were iron bars on the outside of the huge glass doors, and the stage I’d hoped to hide under was solid all the way down to the ground, its panels undislodged. The inside of the archway itself provided some shelter, but not enough—the man would just walk to the other side and shoot me like a fish in a barrel. And he’d be over the top of that heap any moment.
Wait… There! Snakey’s nonLee lay in the bottom of the pit where it must’ve been flung from his hand when the girder struck him. I snatched it up, snapped off the safety catch and leapt up the back of the stage to aim through a gap in the heap. I pulled the trigger just as the man spotted me.
Nothing happened. I looked at the nonLee properly and saw battery acid leaking from the crushed power magazine. On no!
The man’s momentary expression of fear had turned to derision. “Stupid pacifist schwein!” he sneered. He glanced over his shoulder at the truck. “This is taking too long!” He hurried forward again, pistol raised, and I dropped back down into the pit, my heart racing.
Lord, what do I do! Belatedly, something I’d just seen sank in. The Lethal pistol lay near Snakey’s feet, where it had fallen from his hand. But it was near the bottom of the heap…on the assassin’s side. By the time I’d hauled myself over and reached it, the man would have shot me at least three times… Bent double, I darted to the correct end of my little pit, just the same. It was literally the only chance I had.
No chance at all. Oh, Bane…
Get ready, Margo. Try for it before he’s close enough to see over.
I drew a shuddering breath, psyching myself up. The footsteps were almost here. I heard him push aside the girder…
Then a thud and an oath.
“Yeah, you bounder, up here!” Unicorn’s voice. I pulled myself up and risked a look. There he was, on top of that heap, blood streaking his face, still half trapped, by the look of it. And…oh no, his hands were empty! Like Snakey, he’d lost his nonLee in the chaos. “Yes, you son of a…!” Unicorn directed a stream of increasingly rude names at the man, clearly trying to divert his attention from me.
But the man just glanced at the truck again and moved towards me, raising his gun when he saw me peeping out. Then swore again, hand flying to his head and coming away stained with blood. U must have thrown a jagged piece of wood or something. As U readied another improvised missile, the man swung around, raising the gun…
No! Not U as well!
I launched myself up and over, diving full-stretch, reaching…my hand closed around the butt of the pistol—I rolled onto my back, already pointing the gun…the man had turned, his pistol was almost in line with me…I aimed for the center of his body, the way Eduardo had taught me to do when using an unknown weapon, and pulled the trigger.
Crack.
Red blossomed on the man’s shoulder—his gun spun from his hand and slid to rest against the truck.
“Schwein!” But he gasped it this time, face whitening.
I scrabbled back up the slope and tipped myself into the pit as he staggered forward. “Back off!” I yelled, pointing the gun again as he loomed over the top.
He just directed yet another look at the truck and stumbled forward. I pulled the trigger again…
Nothing.
Either it was jammed, or the policeman had fired off most of his mag earlier.
Drawing a knife from his belt with his left hand, the man half-fell into the pit. Yikes! I started to scramble out, then paused as I caught the look of triumph that flitted across his face, even as he sagged against the wall and slid into a sitting position. Still clutching the knife, he promptly crawled around into the shelter of the gateway. What…?
Unicorn had finally pulled himself completely free of the heap and scrambled down it, immediately moving towards the truck to get the gun.
The truck.
“U! There’s a bomb in the truck!”
He lurched across the stage, stopping only to lift Snakey’s head long enough to see his blank eyes, before leaping into the pit beside me. He landed with an involuntary gasp of pain and immediately dragged me behind the archway and plastered me to the wall with his body.
Panting and shaking, we both waited.
And waited.
And waited.
It was starting to get a bit embarrassing, being in this position with a man, even U. Clearly I was wrong. Nothing was going to ha—
BANG!
It felt like the very stone of the arch jolted against my cheek. Something slammed into the glass doors with a huge smack—a spider’s web of cracks suddenly marred their smoothness. The air seemed to shiver as the noise echoed back from the buildings opposite. My ears rang. My head rang.
When everything was still and silent again, U pushed away from the wall and staggered to his feet. “Margo, please stay here, okay?” he said, very loudly and very clearly.
Moving wasn’t something my numb mind was quite considering yet, anyway.
The haze receded slightly when I realized U was approaching the assassin opposite as warily as a man creeping up on an adder.
“U…be careful…” I croaked. My throat seemed full of gun smoke and dust and, well, bomb smoke.
The man glared at Unicorn, but seemed hardly able to lift the knife anymore. Blood soaked his shirt. With a swift step, U pinned his knife hand—bent rather stiffly and twisted the knife free. His fingers went to the man’s neck, squeezing very precisely: the assassin’s eyes rolled up and he went limp.
U put the knife in his own belt and came back over to me. He looked very unsteady—definitely hurt worse than he looked. “Margo, please stay right here for a little longer, okay?” he said. He tried to shrug off his jacket, went white as a sheet and desisted. “Could I have your jacket, please?”
“What?” I whispered.
“Your jacket? Please?”
Trying not to wince—he was definitely hurt worse than me—I slipped it off.
“Thank you. Here.” He handed me a lumpy object he’d just taken from his pocket. “If you want to do something with that, feel free. Otherwise I suppose I’ll do it in a minute.” I’d never heard him so grim. “But…just stay right there for a moment longer.”
He moved to the stage and hauled himself up with another involuntary grunt of pain. Did he think there was a second bomb? I shifted to peep around the gateway. Oh… He’d just laid my jacket over Snakey. He didn’t want me to see what…what the explosion had done.
Swallowing, I turned my eyes to the thing in my hand. A field dressing. Slowly, I looked up at Snakey’s murderer, bleeding to death opposite.
Lord, do I really have to?
I swallowed again, fighting a hot, sick rush of hatred that made the blood pound in my head. The monster had killed Snakey as casually as though he were swatting an insect. He didn’t deserve to be helped.
But what had I just said on stage? What was it I’d thought about Everington? Our Lord had died for this murderous rat too.
Breathing hard with rage as well as pain, I crawled across to the other side of the archway and ripped the man’s shirt open, placed the pad on the wound and pressed down as hard as I could. If he died, I would have killed him. However much he deserved it, I didn’t want that.
Blood spilled over my hands; the smell filled my nose. I slumped tiredly, still keeping up the pressure, and rested my cheek against the crazed glass, my heart aching, my eyes closing in silent misery. Snakey…
When Unicorn came back a few moments later, Monacan police were right behind him. And press, no surprise. The camera flashes blinded me as I crouched over the wounded killer.
Police… In fact…where the heck had the police been all this time? Although, it had probably actually all happened within the space of about a minute or two, if not less. But still.
“My bodyguard needs medical attention too,” I said, as the laggard police took rather disorganized charge of my patient.
“I’m fine,” said Unicorn tersely. “Excuse me; I need to speak with Mrs. Verrall for a moment. Come on, Margo.”
“What? But you need—”
“Come on over here.” Unicorn let some of the milling policemen boost me up onto the stage, then hustled me away down the sagging steps.
“Where are we…?”
“Shhh, just come with me.”
We went around the side of the palace and into the side streets and found ourselves among the distraught and shell-shocked crowds. We mingled with them, moving down from the Plais du Palais, up on its little fortified plateau, and towards the waterfront. When our particularly blood-stained and tattered appearance began to risk attention, U steered me into a public rest room, checking the cubicles quickly before moving a ‘closed for cleaning’ sign into the doorway.
“Quickly, wash your face,” said U, moving to the wash basin himself.
I dithered by the door. “U…this is the Gents.”
“I’m not going in the Ladies!” U looked shocked. “Wash, quick. And change your parting: you know, your hair.”
I complied, still too shaken to argue. Apparently we weren’t going back for my wig. Changing my parting was the most rudimentary of all possible disguises, but when I looked in the mirror it was astonishing what a difference it made. U pulled out his omniPhone while I was finishing up and called Raphael, using a prearranged and totally innocuous code phrase to request an immediate pick up.
“Just keep your head down and don’t look at anyone,” Unicorn said as, still a bit tattered, but somewhat less gory, we headed on to the waterside.
Now I was glad I wasn’t wearing anything fancier. I’d untucked my top from my skirt to hide the embroidered waistband, which seemed to have survived fairly unscathed—I should have felt pleased about that, it being my wedding outfit and all, but it seemed meaningless, in the circumstances. Snakey… I didn’t blend in too badly, anyway, and we reached the boat—a different one—without hiccup.
“Lie down in the bottom,” U told me, and he lay down on the opposite side of the boat and got Raphael to chuck a tarp over us. The engine roared, and we were away.
“U, what’s going on?” I whispered, once we’d cleared the busy marina.
“That whole thing stank, couldn’t you see? There wasn’t the agreed number of police—plainclothes, my foot!—the ones actually there mostly just ran away, except for a few unlucky ones. The square was rigged to allow the public to escape in the quickest possible time. I think it was a blooming set-up! I wasn’t staying a second longer than necessary.”
“Are you alright? Let me take a look at you—”
“You stay right under there, until we reach the Italian Department,” said Unicorn firmly.
“But you’re hurt—”
“I’m fine.”
“You are not!”
“The boy’s hurt inside, cara mia,” Raphael interjected. “There’s nothing you or I can do for him, except get him home.”
That was hours and hours away! How could I have let U rush us off like that? He needed a doctor! Too late now. No way would I get this boat turned around.
“We left Snakey,” I said in a small voice.
“They’ll send him back to us.” Unicorn’s voice was tight with pain. “It was…far too late to help him. But not us. Seriously Margo, we’re both safer getting out of there.”
Far too late. Far too late. I couldn’t tell if the dampness on my cheeks was tears or bilge slime.
“Wake up, cara mia.” Raphael’s voice. “We’re here.”
The motion of the boat and utter exhaustion must’ve finally combined to lull me into blessed oblivion. I pushed aside the tarpaulin, unable to suppress a wince. I ached all over. There was the shore…the lights of Civitavecchia glowing in the darkness. I checked my watch. One in the morning. We’d made good time. Of course, we’d left sooner than we’d expected.
“U?” I pulled the tarpaulin off him and he blinked at me blearily. “How do you feel?”
“As soon as we get you inside the Vatican wall, I will feel just wonderful,” he said rather hoarsely, and tried to sit up. “Oh God…” It hissed through his teeth, prayer rather than profanity.
I slipped an arm around his shoulders and helped to slowly sit him upright. By the time he was sitting on the bench, his face was gray in the boat’s lights, and he looked like he was about to be sick.
Slipping a little medical pouch from his pocket, he took out a couple of strong painkillers and a stimulant, and gulped them down. “By the time we dock, I’ll be all ready to go,” he assured me. “Don’t look so worried, I think it’s mostly busted ribs. Hurts like heck, but not very serious.”
“Don’t overdo it,” I said helplessly, knowing perfectly well that until I was safe, he wasn’t going to pay any attention in the slightest.
He made it up the ladder to the jetty, but he wasn’t at all steady on his feet. Raphael chucked the cooler up after us. “Carry that, cara mia.”
Good idea. People would assume we’d been out picnicking, and that U was drunk.
We reached the car park fairly quickly, in the circumstances, but… “I’ll have to drive,” I told Unicorn.
No argument from Unicorn. “Keys are in my pocket,” he gasped.
I fished them out and pressed the button…there was the car. We managed the painful business of getting U into the vehicle—I insisted on pulling an afghan from the back and tucking it over him: he was going so cold and clammy—then I eased gingerly behind the wheel. How long had it been since my last driving lesson with Dad, on the quiet roads of the Fellest?
It was only an hour’s drive. There was no one else on the road. I could do this. “You’d better put your seatbelt on, U. I never actually took my driving test.”
He began to shake his head, then seemed to think better of it. “I really can’t, Margo. Just drive carefully.”
I frowned, but pressed the accelerator, gently easing up on the clutch. What it would do to U just now, if I kangaroo-hopped down the road… But the car moved off smoothly. Thank you, Lord.
Just concentrate on driving, Margo. But once we’d left the built-up area behind us there was nothing to distract me from my thoughts. Especially the thought that Snakey had just died to save my life. I knew he was doing his duty, but…
“Protecting you is our way of fighting the EuroGov, you do know that, don’t you?” asked Unicorn. My expression must be betraying me. “Snakey died fighting the EuroGov. He’s a hero.”
A dead hero.
“I know,” I said quietly. “It’s just…it’s hard being the one people feel they should die for. It doesn’t feel…fair. My life is worth no more than Snakey’s.”
“Well, if you want to get metaphysical about it. But practically speaking you’re worth more to our cause just now—alive—than virtually any of the rest of us. So we’re going to carry right on dying for you, if that’s what it takes to defeat them.”
I’d feel that way too, if I wasn’t me, no doubt about it.
Thank you so much, Snakey, I thought to him. And I know you’ll wave it away, but… I’m really sorry.
By the time we reached Rome, Unicorn was fighting to stay awake. His breathing sounded so painful. But he fished in his pocket for the garage door control, and soon I was easing the car inside.
We hobbled slowly along the secret passage, desperate to reach the place, and more importantly, the people, at the end, but too sore to hurry. But soon brisk footsteps and tense voices approached. They’d seen us on the cameras.
Eduardo was at the front. Unicorn stopped dead when he saw him, and his face wobbled. For the first time I wondered how U felt about this. Grieving for Snakey, yes, but…did he feel guilty? He’d been in charge.
But his face straightened as he succeeded in fighting back the tears. “Sir…” he choked.
Eduardo gave him a slightly jerky nod. “We saw it all on TV,” he said tersely. “You did…really well. You…both did.” His unconscious glance upwards included the absent Snakey in this. Then he glanced at me. “All three of you, in fact.”
I let out a breath. Thank you, Lord, that even Eduardo realized this wasn’t the time for a blow-by-blow critique of Unicorn’s every decision.
“I think it was a set-up.” Unicorn’s voice was still very strained.
“It looks that way. I’ll worry about that. You go to the hospital straight away.” Eduardo looked at me. “You too.”
“Margo?” Bane pushed his way through the crowd of VSS guys, head turning from side to side. “Margo?”
“Here.” He hurried forward. “Don’t hug me, Bane!” I said quickly. He stopped, looking hurt. “I’m a bit sore,” I added, grabbing his hands in mine and squeezing. “I do want a hug, actually, just…gently…”
He obliged.
1 month, 26 days
Murder can often be rationalized—does that make it okay?
The same goes for Sorting.
Margaret Verrall—comment on “A Rational Defense of the Sorting Program”
I slept late in the morning and stopped only to gobble a light breakfast before hurrying up to the hospital to see how Unicorn was.
“He’s okay, Margo,” Bane told me, as we went. “Jon saw him earlier. Quite a few broken ribs and a couple of small lung contusions, but his abdomen escaped serious damage. Doctor Frederick wants him out of bed within a day or two, and moving around. Something about preventing fluid build-up in the lungs. U said good, he’d get back to work as soon as the pain was a little less distracting.”
“What did Doctor Frederick say to that?”
“He just shrugged. I gather making people move around is the bigger problem, with this type of injury.”
“Really? When you broke your ribs you stayed in bed for precisely two days before getting bored.”
Bane’s turn to shrug. “Anyway, long-term, no harm done. Unlike—” He broke off and clamped his lips together.
Unlike Snakey. Poor Bane. Losing another friend, so soon after Father Mark.
“You’d better see the Major afterwards,” he added rather reluctantly.
Lucas… Oh no! “Please tell me Snail forgot to put the TV in his room?”
“Nope.”
“Uh oh…how did he take it?”
“Did what we all wanted to do, apparently. Tried to climb through the front of telly, he was that interested in what was happening—then shot out of the room and off through the state as though he was going to run all the way to Monaco and save you. Snail chased him for a while, tried to reason with him—Everington wouldn’t listen to a word, of course—so Snail shot him with his nonLee. For his own good, but the man’s been glowering at Snail through that window all morning.”
I blinked. “He can’t see through the window.”
“That’s not stopping him. Suppose it’s a good sign, really. Reacting to someone other than you and all that.”
Hmm.
When we reached Unicorn’s room, Eduardo was there, and Jon was there again, as well. “Do you know anything yet?” I asked Eduardo. “Hi, Jon; hi U, how are you?”
“I feel just wonderful,” Unicorn assured me, grinning positively sunnily. Huh? Was he okay? He seemed a bit… “See, here you are, back in the Vatican. Plus, I’m on morphine,” he confided. Ah…that explained it. “Oh, sorry, sir. What were you saying?”
Eduardo nodded to me in recognition of my question. “I was just telling Jack that the EuroNews are screaming—rather too loudly, in my opinion—that it was the Resistance, in retaliation for you criticizing them, but despite the fact that the assassin does appear to be a member of the Resistance, I’m quite certain he’s a EuroGov mole. But proof? No chance.
“However, the bomb was highly directional, more like a Claymore mine than a normal bomb, hence the lack of fatalities among the crowd, which strongly suggests that there was some sort of EuroGov-Monacan collaboration, though whether at the highest levels of the government or just a handful of people bribed, well, we’re not going to find out.”
“How does that support it being the EuroGov?” asked Jon. “Deliberate indiscriminate bombing of civilians is one thing the Resistance have never sunk to. Sounds more like proof it was the Resistance.”
“I did badmouth them,” I added.
Eduardo shook his head. “No, what I mean is that the directional bomb is proof of Monacan involvement. Left to their own devices, yes, the EuroGov would be quite happy to let the Resistance take the blame for the maximum carnage. But the Monacan element would most likely have insisted that none of their own citizens or visitors be killed.”
“But why are you so sure it wasn’t the Resistance?” I asked.
Eduardo made a dismissive noise. “You’ve brought the Resistance more recruits in the last year than anyone has in the last ten. It was the EuroGov, with the Monacan element providing at least a breath of morality, thank God, and they meant business. A truck and an assassin and a bomb: they had every reason to be confident that you’d be dead by the end. And if it wasn’t for Javier, Jack, and the combined efforts of all your guardian angels, you would’ve been.”
Javier. I’d hardly ever heard Snakey’s real name. In fact…
“What’s Snakey’s surname?” I asked, in a small voice.
“Alvarez,” said Eduardo shortly. “Excuse me, I need to get on.” He hurried out.
Javier Alvarez. So how did Eduardo feel about losing one of his young agents?
Unicorn was suddenly looking glum, despite the morphine. And very tired.
“Perhaps we’d better come back later,” I said.
He gave us an apologetic look. “Perhaps. Oh, don’t go without seeing the newspapers, though.” He nodded to the bedside table. “Did you notice that freestanding video tower? The whole fiasco was live, even after the stage collapsed. Even after the bomb. The tower tilted sideways a bit, but most of the cameras stayed on.
Bane shuddered, at that. “The one thing worse than having to listen to Snail and Bee narrate what was happening would have been if the blasted thing had cut out before we knew you were safe.”
I took his hand for a moment. “I’m sorry. It must have been awful—”
Bane yanked his hand free. “Don’t coddle me!” he hissed, under his breath.
“I wasn’t—” I began. Unicorn was politely looking at the opposite wall, pretending nothing was happening in finest British fashion. Choking back a sigh, I went to examine the newspapers. Soon started reading the headlines to Bane.
RESISTANCE IN M.V. DEATH ATTEMPT
HORROR IN MONACO: M.V. ALIVE, THREE DEAD
M.V. VANISHES AFTER MONACO ASSASSINATION CHAOS
But most of them, to my shock, were eschewing the more dramatic headlines and photographs in favor of a shot of me bending over that assassin with a bandage in my hand.
M.V. PRACTISES WHAT SHE PREACHES
WE NEED FORGIVENESS, SAYS M.V., THEN FORGIVES KILLER
M.V. SHOOTS ASSASSIN! THEN GIVES FIRST AID!
“They dug two policemen and the compère out alive!” I said, reading a paper in more detail. “That end of the stage collapsed partially, and what with all the floor panels, it was enough to protect them from the blast. Oh…enough to save their lives, anyway. Sounds like they’re pretty badly hurt. Two policemen died, one hit by the truck, the other by that girder. A few cuts and bumps and twisted ankles among the crowd. Well, that bit could be worse.”
I skimmed on. So little about Snakey! Or the two policemen who’d died. Horrible. Typical press. The paper did have a close-up of Unicorn half in, half out of the heap, arm raised to launch a bit of broken metal at the assassin. ‘M.V.’s crazy bodyguard,’ read the caption.
“That’s a bit harsh,” I remarked. “I thought it was incredibly brave of you.”
Unicorn sniffed dismissively. “Nonsense. What else could I do? Wouldn’t have been much point my going off to find a better weapon, would there? It would all have been over by the time I came back. By the time I got myself free of that mess, even. Anyway, you saved us both, in the end.”
“Me? I was only alive by that time because you and…and Snakey…had both risked your lives for me.”
“It’s our job, Margo.” He really did look tired, now.
“I know,” I said miserably. “Well, we’d better go.”
“Hi, Margo,” said Snail, when I approached Lucas’s door. His voice was strained.
I managed a subdued, “Hi.”
“Snakey a fait très, très, bien, oui?”
“Oui,” I agreed. Snakey did very, very, good.
Snail opened the door without further comment, thank goodness. Lucas glared at him from the bed.
“Look, for the third time this morning,” said Snail, “If you’d run across that white line, you’d have got yourself executed!”
“He’s right, Lucas,” I said, slipping past Snail. “You really should thank him.”
Lucas’s glare disappeared like magic. Relief took its place.
“You, uh, did tell him I was okay, right?” I muttered to Snail.
“Till I was blue in the face, Margo. He doesn’t listen to me. Have fun.” He stepped back out and shut the door.
“I, uh, I’m sorry about yesterday,” I said, sitting in my usual chair by the bed. “With hindsight, the TV was a bad idea.”
Lucas was staring at me so intently. Afraid I would disappear? Or trying to tell if I was okay?
“I really am fine, Lucas,” I said. “Just like Snail told you.” Last night Doctor Frederick had diagnosed extensive bruising and a hairline fracture of one rib in my back, and allowed me to go straight home with Bane.
Looking a little skeptical—and a little wary, as though still thinking I might just go poof and be gone—he offered me the office book.
My mind strayed back to the forgiveness question as I read. Surely I did forgive him? I mean, if I could bandage that beastly assassin, surely I forgave Lucas?
“Lucas,” I asked him, once I’d finished the Office, “why don’t you think I’ve forgiven you?”
He frowned at me—wondering if he could face a long conversation after all that stress yesterday? But he finally spoke, very bleakly. “How could anyone? It’s not possible.”
“Not possible? Of course it’s possible. However can you think it’s not?”
He gazed at me, or rather through me, for a long time, even for him, as though seeking in his own mind for the reason. A look settled on his face, a look of anguish that made me not really want to know the answer.
“My own mother couldn’t forgive me,” he whispered at last. “She hated me for seven years. She died hating me.” His face crumpled, slowly, as though this time he were fighting it, then he put his hands to his face as the sobs began.
I watched him, shifting uncomfortably on my seat, then wincing as it jostled my bruises. Never had that long-growing awareness that adults were actually just like me—making mistakes, being afraid, crying—been forced on me so clearly. ‘Course, I was an adult too, now. Still hard to remember. I was only nineteen, after all.
He cried and cried, as though some dam had broken inside him and there was far, far too much stored-up pain trying to force its way out in one go. My heart twisted in response, and something around it cracked. Oh, Lord forgive me, Bane and Jon had been spot on, hadn’t they? My heart was enclosed like a granite egg as far as Lucas was concerned. So much for my forgiveness.
Still he wept, and it was painful even to watch. Moved by I know not what, I leaned forward and put my arms around him, rubbing his back as though comforting a little child. His bony hands moved timidly to knot in my sleeves, then he was clinging tight, his tears soaking my shoulder. I gritted my teeth against the pain and let him cling. And something gave a little more inside me.
Finally he ran out of tears and lay back against the pillows, face drawn and tired. “I think I was happier not remembering,” he whispered. For a moment, he sounded so sane, we could’ve been standing in his little courtyard garden back at the Facility as he extolled the virtues of fuchsias.
It was only a flash. He gathered the Office book to his chest, hugging it, and fixed his eyes on the fuchsia. Within a few moments, his eyes closed and he slept—peacefully.
Peaceful was the last thing I felt. I’d just understood the depth of my failure—and taken the first step towards rectifying it?
Lord, finally I understand—it’s not as simple as just saying the words, or going through the actions, or even wanting to mean them. I didn’t really forgive that assassin yesterday, because there’s no forgiveness without love. You have to mean it with your whole heart. Can I do that? It’s so easy to think of these people as monsters, whatever we say…but there’s nothing monstrous about wanting your mother to forgive you…
1 month, 23 days
A Monacan hearse brought the body of Javier Alvarez, the dear friend I knew best as ‘Snakey,’ home yesterday afternoon. They’d put him in an incredibly fancy casket, as though that might make up for his death in some way. They made a great deal of panoply about the handover, too. But perhaps I’m being cynical and uncharitable. Perhaps it really was their way of honoring our fallen soldier. Either way, we kept Snakey and sent that ridiculous casket back with the hearse.
Today, he was laid to rest after a beautiful (and packed) Requiem Mass, in a simple wooden coffin (much better suited to his ideas about avoiding vanity) in the ancient graveyard of the Swiss Guards, now the resting place of all ‘military operatives of the superstitious rebel organization known as the Underground’ as the EuroGov would put it. An ‘organization’ to which Javier was proud to belong and in the service of which he gladly gave his life.
We know that his faithfulness and generosity will not go unrewarded.
Margaret V.—blog post, ‘The Impatient Gardener’
I sat among the crush of palm trees and headstones in the little courtyard garden, beside the fresh grave. I’d slipped away from the reception being hosted by the Swiss Guards in their barracks, desperate for a few moments’ peace and quiet. By myself. Since I’d got back from Monaco, Bane had been combining his unrelenting black mood with a smothering level of overprotectiveness. I couldn’t blame him for feeling that way, but he was driving me crazy. And… I just wanted some time to think.
The press were still going on about me helping the assassin. I’d been so pleased with myself, for managing to do it. Now, after what I’d realized the other day, I felt such a hypocrite. I’d helped him, but I hadn’t forgiven him. Not properly. And the other thing…
“I shot that guy, Snakey,” I whispered. “With a Lethal. I had to do it, he was about to kill U.” And me. “It’s just…horrible to think how close I came to killing him. I can hear you saying, you weren’t trying to kill him, you were trying to stop him from shooting U. It’s just…sobering, I s’pose. I’ve always admired those who refuse to harm others, even to save their own life. The ultimate in loving the other as yourself. But we have a duty to protect life. So that meant I had to do it. Whereas if it had just been me…”
I fell silent, remembering U’s words in the car: we’re going to carry right on dying for you, if that’s what it takes to defeat them. Right now, in light of that, could high-mindedly refusing to exercise my legitimate right to self-defense ever count as anything other than completely selfish?
After what Snakey had done…maybe not.
“Margo? Margo?”
“Hi, Bane.” I smothered a sigh.
“See.” Jon’s voice. “I said she’d be here. No need to panic.”
“Who said I was panicking?”
Smothering another sigh, I murmured, “Bye, Snakey,” and got stiffly to my feet, wincing as my cracked rib and bruises made their presence felt.
1 month, 21 days
So I’m going to do a series of posts on organ donation because people seem hardly to know what it is. Basically, it means using an organ to cure someone, in much the same way as EuroBloc hospitals do today, but the organ has been donated—voluntarily—by a person who has died naturally, through ill health or accident. For many of those in the Underground, of course, ‘organ donation’ carries negative connotations, similar to ‘abortion’ or ‘euthanasia’, since it was these three things that led to the acceptance of Sorting. But organ donation in itself wasn’t a bad thing.
Margaret V.—blog post, ‘The Impatient Gardener’
Coo, coo. Tap, tap.
I stopped typing and glanced at Bane. “They’re asking for you, Bane.”
He didn’t move from the sofa. “They want food, not me.”
“Aren’t you going to give them any?”
He flopped face forward on the sofa and pulled a cushion over his head.
Now he wouldn’t even speak to the doves. Getting me back alive really hadn’t done anything at all to raise his spirits long-term. What with Snakey’s death, very much the opposite.
After a moment’s hesitation, I clicked to save the draft post about organ donation that I’d been working on for a couple of days prior to the trip, and went to sit beside him. “Bane, please talk to me.” I didn’t touch him or do anything that could be interpreted as coddling. “Don’t shut me out like this.”
“What is there to say?” he said blackly, though he rolled over slightly to free his mouth from the cushions.
“Just…talk to me. Tell me how you’re feeling.”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know how I’m feeling.”
“Then tell me how I can help you.”
“Seriously?” He sounded so bitter. “Not that there’s even any chance of the EuroGov’s offer still being available, after…well, Monaco. Not that you cared about that.”
“But…I thought you didn’t want to accept it!”
“I don’t.” He sat up abruptly. “And I won’t stoop to it; I’d rather die. Not that that’s saying much, just at the moment.”
“Please don’t talk like that, Bane.”
“See, you don’t want to know how I’m feeling. You just want me to say something that will make you feel better.”
“No, I don’t! Bane, I don’t want you to lie to me! I just…I wish you didn’t feel that way. You were so much more positive to start with.”
“Ignorance is bliss, isn’t it? I thought I could learn to be like Jon, all happy and fulfilled—but I’ll never be able to do things the way Jon can. I’ll never be able to forget what he’s never known. I’m useless, and I’ll be useless for the rest of my life—”
“No, you’re not! You’re being too impatient! Maybe you’ll never be quite as good at stuff as Jon is, but you’ll be almost as good one day, if you just keep trying!”
“It’s not that simple! You just don’t understand. Snakey understood better than you do! But you went and got him killed, didn’t you?”
I felt like he’d just punched me in the stomach. That false guilt which I’d been trying so hard to suppress surged up inside me. “Bane…how can you even say that?”
“It’s true, isn’t it?” he snapped. “You wouldn’t listen to me and now he’s dead!”
“I didn’t make him go with me! He did his duty, Bane! Would you have had him not do his duty? Had him simply let me die?”
Bane was silent. I stared at him, still stunned by his attack. Was this what he’d been thinking? That my going to Monaco meant I didn’t care about his eyes? That Snakey’s death was my fault? I felt sick. But Snakey hadn’t just done his duty, he’d also kept his word to Bane…
It was like someone had switched a light on in my head. Bane didn’t think it was my fault. He thought it was his fault, because of Snakey’s promise to him: no one will hurt her while there’s breath in my body. No wonder he was so depressed! He couldn’t cope with the pain of that guilt, so he was pushing it off onto someone else.
The realization lessened my hurt—at least slightly. “Snakey died because of the EuroGov, Bane. Not because of me, not because of him and certainly not because of you.”
“How did we get on to it being my fault?” he practically yelled. “We were talking about you nagging me all the time!”
“I’m just trying to understand, Bane, but you won’t talk to me anymore!”
“Because all I get back is, ‘Don’t say that, Bane!’ You want the truth? I wish they’d killed me! I wish they’d finished the job, one piece a day or whatever, it would be better than this!”
My chest was tight, heart thudding, a cold prickling over my entire body. “You don’t mean that.”
He was silent for several long, shuddering breaths. “Maybe not the bit about one-piece-per-day. But I wish I’d died there. Then I wouldn’t be this…this millstone around your neck.”
I grabbed his shoulders and made a futile attempt to shake him, only succeeding in making my fractured rib twinge. “Don’t you dare say that, Bane Verrall! I’ll say if you’re a millstone around my neck, and you’re no such thing! And I won’t let you give up whilst there’s breath in my body!”
“And how does that not make me a millstone?” he asked sarcastically.
“You just want an excuse to give up because it’s easier than carrying on!”
“EASY? Nothing about this is easy!”
“Well, I thought hell would freeze over before you gave up on anything!”
“I never said I was giving up!”
“Well, you’ve certainly got everyone else ready to give up on you! The Foxes only came around the other day to commiserate about Snakey, and even Jon thinks—”
“OH, SHUT UP ABOUT WHAT JON THINKS!” His clenched fist rose…and stopped suddenly in midair.
His face froze with it, turning automatically towards his upraised hand as he tried to see it.
“Bane!” I protested, shocked.
He flexed the clenched fist as though surprised to find it attached to his body, his lips shaping something that might’ve been, “Oh God,” then he buried his face in his knees.
I put my arms around him and rubbed his back and kissed his hair, and eventually he managed to cry. He’d wept a few times right at the beginning, but never like this. Nothing I said or did seemed to comfort him. Eventually he fell asleep with his head in my lap, and I sat there stroking his hair for a long, long time.