Land of Hope and Glory (28 page)

He paused, then nodded at Charles and Saleem without speaking, turned and led the way along the track again. He could hear his companions’ footsteps behind him, the steady strides of Charles and the smaller steps of Saleem. He wasn’t going to shake off those two in a hurry, he could see that.

For the moment, they were his men, his tiny platoon.

12

J
ack, Charles and Saleem crouched behind the undergrowth and looked down from the hills to the Thames basin. The plain appeared to smoulder beneath the first trace of yellow dawn. Obscure buildings spread out across the east in a tangled, steaming line: thin towers, smoking chimneys, walls, slanted roofs. They formed a tumbling barrier, blocking the way to London. Half-submerged fires glowed here and there, and Jack smelt coal smoke and the faint, sweet scent of sattva.

‘Are those the mills?’ Saleem whispered.

Jack nodded. He’d seen mills before in Europe, although never on such a large scale.

‘Are they still working?’ Saleem toyed with his wispy beard.

‘They’re abandoned,’ Charles replied. ‘That’s what I was told. The Rajthanans were driven out by the crusade.’

Saleem bit his bottom lip. ‘My father said there’re demons inside them.’

‘No,’ Jack said. ‘They’re avatars – like machines.’

Below them, at the base of the slope, ran a north–south road. As they watched, a squadron of cavalry appeared and trotted past.

‘Looks like the Rajthanans are pushing into this area,’ Jack said. ‘We’ll have to wait until nightfall.’

He was anxious about the delay, but there was little choice. They’d spent more than a day getting across Hampshire. They’d kept to the hills and forests, travelling only at night and keeping an eye out for Rajthanan patrols. Three days had passed since they’d left the village and the army might now be close behind.

There were twelve days left before Elizabeth was executed.

‘What about the poison?’ Saleem asked.

‘Sattva’s not poisonous,’ Jack replied. Not as far as he knew anyway.

They found a shallow cave, hidden by vines and bushes, and slept through the humid day. Jack took the first watch, then handed over to Charles in the early afternoon.

As he slept, Jack dreamt he was back at Ragusa, on the muddy plain, running. The guns flashed but everything was silent. Despite the chaos and destruction and bullets and shot, he heard nothing.

His battalion was far ahead of him – it was hard even to see them in the battle smoke. A few feet before him a body lay in the mud – Private Robert Salter, staring straight up, dead eyes reflecting the grey light. Jack stumbled and fell to his knees, then bullets pelted the ground around him and he got back up and ran on.

More bodies. Lying all around him. He had to dodge to avoid stepping on them.

He saw Sengar and Kansal, lying close together, their tunics and turbans stained with mud. He saw William – the older William. Then he saw a woman. It was Katelin, her long blonde hair splayed out as though she were floating underwater. Her face was drawn, as it had been in her last weeks, but she was still beautiful. The Celtic cross necklace hung to one side, against her shoulder. He felt sick. He stopped to look at her, but the bullets rained about him and he had to continue.

He tripped on a body and saw it was Charles, and nearby lay Saleem. He tried to shout, but couldn’t make a sound.

He staggered on. One further body emerged from the fog. He slowed. Even before seeing the face he knew it was Elizabeth . . .

He woke with a start, sweating and gasping.

‘Easy.’ Charles crouched beside him. ‘You all right?’

Jack nodded. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked around. It was growing dark, the light faint on the cave walls. ‘We should go.’

They woke Saleem, who blinked and scratched himself. ‘I’m hungry.’

‘There’s nothing to eat,’ Jack replied. The day before they’d shot a couple of hares and cooked them over an open fire. But they couldn’t waste time hunting now.

Jack loaded the pistol and Charles the musket, then they left the cave and looked down over the plain. The sky was darkening and merging with the charcoal landscape. The mills were indistinct crenellations and the fires were brighter now, livid red in the gloom.

They skidded down the slope, the smell of smoke and sattva growing stronger. At the bottom, the road ran along the top of an embankment. They scrambled up the side and paused, looking both ways. When they saw nothing in either direction, they crossed quickly and went down the other side.

They jogged across the plain. The ground was barren – coarse grass and rocks. Fragments of coal lay everywhere. There were no trees, nothing to give them cover. But at least it was a dark night and the moon was shut out by the smoke.

After a few minutes, Jack heard the distant clop of horses behind and to the north. He stopped and looked along the road. He couldn’t see far in the thickening dark, but after staring for a moment he made out grey traces of dust. The sound grew louder, the horses drawing nearer.

‘What is it?’ Charles couldn’t hear the sound yet.

‘Patrol, I reckon,’ Jack said.

He glanced around the flat and desolate plain. The first of the mills would take at least fifteen minutes to reach, even if they ran. But closer, standing alone, was a two-storey stone tower topped by a brass rod – a sattva link. It was the only place nearby he could see to hide.

They sprinted towards the tower, the brittle ground crunching like snow beneath their feet. Jack led them around the base of the octagonal structure until they were out of sight of the road. He panted and leant against the wall, sensing the quiver of a strong stream in the air. The smell of sattva coiled out of an arched entryway at the base of the building. He wondered for a moment whether there would be any guards inside, but he doubted it – normally they would be posted outside the entrance. And there would be no operators within either. Even though he’d never used the link himself, he could tell by the size and shape of the tower that it was a way station and not a terminus.

The jingle and clop of the horses grew louder. He edged around the wall and looked back. Ten horsemen cantered past along the road. He could just discern the red-brown of their uniforms – Rajthanan cavalry. They didn’t slow their pace or even look in Jack’s direction.

He slipped back around the tower and saw Saleem standing beside the entryway, staring up into the darkness.

‘Keep away from it.’ He didn’t want Saleem to do anything stupid. For extra effect he added, ‘There’s one of your demons up there.’

Saleem stepped back quickly, his fingers fiddling with the bullet hole in his tunic as if it were an old wound.

Jack peered ahead to the jagged row of mills. The buildings were closer now, but still partially concealed by the dark and the blotches of smoke. Two red fires flickered like a pair of watchful eyes at the top of one of the nearer towers.

‘Which way now?’ Charles asked.

‘Over there, I reckon.’ Jack pointed to the open ground between two clusters of mills.

They struck out across the plain, with one silent gathering of mills to the right and another rising from the gloom to the left. The ground suddenly changed to gravel beneath their feet. When he looked down, Jack could tell they’d come to a road – he saw the faint trace of the route snaking away across the flat land.

He stopped, listened carefully and heard more horses coming towards them. Squinting, he saw the wisps of dust from the hooves and the dark patches of the animals moving against the even darker background.

‘Another patrol.’ He looked around. The nearest mills weren’t far – less than five minutes away if they ran. ‘Follow me.’

They sprinted across the open ground. Jack hoped they hadn’t been seen. It was dark, so they might be lucky, but on the other hand they would stand out clearly on that empty plain. The breath became tight in his lungs and the familiar pain wormed across his chest.

A ten-foot-high stone wall stretched around the mills for as far as he could see. An arched entrance lay less than fifty yards away to the right. He looked back and made out the horses cantering along the road. They were close enough now for him to see the red tunics of the riders.

With his throat burning and his legs aching, he finally reached the arch. Charles and Saleem drew up beside him. Cracks fanned across the wall and the parapet was shattered in places. Pillars stood to either side of the entrance, listing slightly to the right, and a statue of the elephant-headed god Ganesh squatted above, also tilted to the side.

Jack glanced back and his heart lurched when he saw the riders leave the road and strike out towards them.

‘Think they’ve seen us.’ He nodded towards the arch. ‘In there.’

They ran through the opening and came out in a silent, cobbled street that was lit by the red gleam of the two floating fires. Crumbling stone buildings formed a hacked line against the night, and a wide crater lay across the middle of the street.

The sound of the horses grew louder. Jack led the way to a structure that was little more than a broken wall and a mound of rubble. They hid around the side of the collapsed masonry and peered back at the archway.

Jack heard a distant, regular thumping. It sounded as though some of the mills were still working – although that seemed unlikely, given that the place had been abandoned.

Five Rajthanan horsemen clopped through the arch and into the street. Their leader raised his hand to halt them and then scanned the surroundings. Pain jabbed Jack in the chest and he heard Saleem breathing hard behind him. He drew the pistol from his belt.

The riders spoke to each other for a minute, but Jack couldn’t make out what they were saying. Finally, the leader ordered them back out of the entrance and Jack heard the horses trotting away.

‘Have they gone?’ Charles asked.

‘Think so,’ Jack replied. ‘Wait here.’

He crept back down the street, keeping close to the walls and the thick shadows. When he reached the arch, he pressed himself beside it, then looked out. He could see the plain, with the hills they’d left behind in the distance, but nothing else. He stuck his head out further and spotted the horses disappearing in the direction of the road. It looked as though the Rajthanans had given up – perhaps they’d been unsure about what they’d seen, or decided that three people on foot were no danger and not worth pursuing.

Jack went back to Charles and Saleem. ‘They’ve gone. For now, at any rate. We have to keep moving. They might be back at any time.’

They all glanced up the street. The ruined buildings melted towards the earth and the walls were pocked with holes. Sticky soot bled over the stonework. The ground was gored by shell craters and spent round shot lay scattered about like giant animal droppings.

‘What happened here?’ Saleem asked.

‘There was a battle for the mills,’ Charles said. ‘But the Rajthanans were beaten.’

Jack remembered the news reports. About a month after London fell, the mutineers had marched on the Thames basin and routed the Rajthanans.

‘Which way now?’ Charles asked.

‘We’ll go through the mills.’ Jack nodded up the street. ‘It’ll be slower, but it’ll be easier to hide if we need to. There’re too many patrols about.’

‘Are the Rajthanans back here?’ Saleem asked. ‘I mean, here in the mills?’

‘Looks deserted.’ Although Jack could still hear the faint, monotonous pounding. ‘Keep your eyes peeled, all the same.’

They sneaked forward, picking their way around the holes in the road and staying in the shadows as far as possible. The buildings were all the same – large rectangular blocks with no decoration, save for cupolas and spires that floated far above. Giant entryways and shattered walls opened on to gloomy interiors. Smaller roads led away to the left and right, but Jack ignored these and kept straight ahead.

The air was thick with coal smoke, and tiny tremors continually crossed Jack’s skin. They’d passed into a sattva stream so wide it was more of a lake.

He noticed Saleem holding his arm up to his face and breathing through his sleeve.

‘Poison,’ Saleem said when he saw Jack looking at him.