The Hangman's Revolution (25 page)

Mother would hate them, he realized, and he was suddenly
glad that his beloved mother would never know about this stage of his plan.

It certainly will not be reported in the history books, he decided.

Vallicose reached the other end of the cavernous chamber and mounted a steep ramp that led to a wooden frame. Behind the frame, a block of plastic explosive was attached directly to the wall. It was pretty obvious that being secured to the frame would not be a safe situation in the event somebody detonated the explosives. Vallicose cuffed Chevie to the structure, then left her hanging there. Chevie was so out of it that she would probably have stayed put without restraints.

There were a few murmurs from the Rams now, as this entire ritual was beginning to seem unnecessarily cruel, so Box decided to step up the rhetoric.

“And now, brothers,” he said, “an example of my power.” He pulled a radio transmitter from his pocket. “When I press this red button, the wall will disintegrate. No cannonball is necessary, no dynamite. Just a slab of the holy paste. No need to be afraid, brothers. We are perfectly safe, as the charge is shaped to blow outward. If heaven wants this witch girl to be punished, then God will allow a small portion of the explosion to consume her. If she is innocent, then the force of the explosion will be borne by the structure. Either way, once this wall comes down, the war has begun; and we will man our vehicles, stream through the hole, and sweep though the city to our assigned target. And nothing will stand in our way.”

Box was reasonably confident that his
once more unto the breach
speech would be effective, as he had spent hours in front of his mirror practicing expressions and general body language that he had copied from the great dictators of history.

“Press the button!” shouted a voice.

“Press it!” said another, and soon the call was taken up as a chant and it reverberated to the very ceiling.

There was a counter-call, too—hard to hear at first, because it was only one voice, but the voice was loud and persistent. And it was singing. One verse over and over.

“We stabs ’em,

We fights ’em,

Cripples ’em,

Bites ’em.”

The men were looking around, searching for the singer who would deflate this powerful moment. Box knew immediately who it must be, and he also knew that this interference must be handled very delicately. The singing continued, and if
Box wasn’t mistaken, some of the men were joining in—perhaps
unconsciously, but in any event, other voices lent volume to the man’s words. And just as a corridor had opened through the men for Vallicose and Savano, now space cleared around Malarkey, for of course it was he striding toward the dais, cock of the walk, as though he were the regent in this place.

“No rules for our mayhem,”
he sang.

“You pay us, we slay ’em.

If you’re in a corner,

With welshers or scams.

Pay us a visit,

The Battering Rams.”

The last word was sung on a high note, showcasing Malarkey’s very melodious tenor voice, and the man had the nerve to take a bow for his performance as many of his men applauded instinctively. Otto would never have his own revue in the West End, but he knew how to play to a room.

Malarkey stood and shook out his magnificent mane. Less a ram’s and more a lion’s. Most men would have followed their instincts and shot the so-called king where he stood, but Clayton Box did not have
instincts
as such; he had cauterized those nerves as a child, as impulse decisions were rash by nature and often flawed. What he did have was a very efficient thought process that flicked through options and possibilities at lightning speed, his jaw seesawing as he thought.

Box quickly decided that simply killing Malarkey in front of his men would make King Otto a martyr and sow the seeds of dissent at this crucial time. No, now that Malarkey had bought himself some credit with his Rams by behaving with the braggadocio that this type of thug had an inexplicable respect for, the only way to wipe his slate clean was to replace that image with an equally strong one, but in the negative column. Malarkey must be thoroughly humiliated. And then killed.

Box’s jaw returned to center as he reached his decision.

I have just the person to inflict that humiliation.

Otto Malarkey’s face was a mask of disappointment.

“Is this what we have come to, my bully boys?” he asked. “Skulking in the sewers?”

“Pah!” said a Ram, who habitually sported a hairpiece of badger pelt. “You is just hyperbolating, Malarkey. This ain’t no sewer.”

“Ah, Peeble, but there you do be in the wrong, old fellow,” said Otto. “I know it be a sewer and let me tell you for why.”

It had to be said, Otto had charisma, and the troops clustered around him to hear his argument.

“I know it be a sewer,” said Otto again, “for I see a rat.” He hitched a thumb at the man Peeble. “And I see a floater.” Now his thumb swung toward Box.

A fine joke it was, and this could not be denied. Laughter echoed through the hall, and even Box, as a lifelong student of human behavior, could not help but be grudgingly enthralled by this man who seemed to eschew logical behavior at all costs. Box had to admit, if only to himself, that Malarkey’s joke had deflated the pre-battle tension most effectively. Tension that he himself had painstakingly escalated.

But what could he possibly do now? The man was doomed, surely.

The colonel noticed some of his own men moving away from their units toward Malarkey, and he caught their eyes and shook his head.

Stay back,
the shake said.
But be ready.

“And now I finds me fine bully boys throwing their lot in with those as would murder Queen Vic, God bless her. Those as would trample on what we all fought for on foreign swamp and desert.”

Peeble, still smarting over the rat remark, took up the argument. “That much is true, Otto; we fought overseas for rich men. Now we fights for ourselves and each other. The spoils will be ours alone.”

“That is your right,” said Otto magnanimously. “All’s you got to do is pick a champeen. You know the rules. The Rams fight for whoever wears the fleece. And that would be me.”

“We ain’t Rams no more,” said Peeble sulkily.

Otto whipped his own ruffled shirt over his head and flung it at Peeble, landing it neatly on the man’s head.

“You is Rams until I say you ain’t Rams, runt. Now step outta my radius, Peeble, less you want me to mistake you for a challenger.” Otto flexed his muscles. “So, will you coves honor yer vow? Or will you disgrace yerselves entirely?”

Box stepped down from his platform. “Mr. Malarkey, King Otto. I am the one you seek, but your own rules prevent me from challenging. I am not a Ram, after all.”

Otto rubbed his great hands. “Easy fixed, Yankee-doodle. King’s prerogative, don’t you know. I offers a one-time-only deal. All challenges accepted. All comers flattened without prejudice.”

Thank you, Otto,
thought Box.
You have sprung my trap.

He was almost disappointed at how easy it had been, even though he was impatient to blow the wall and unleash his army of God on queen and Parliament.

“Very well, Malarkey. All comers, you say? Then you will fight my proxy, Sister Vallicose.”

An excited murmur spread around the hall. Malarkey to fight a woman in an official challenge? It was not proper. But how could he refuse?
All comers
had been his very words.

“Sister Vallicose? You would have a lady fight your battles for you, Colonel?”

Box waved away his questions. “All comers means all comers, King Otto. Quick as you can, Sister. I have a button to press.”

Vallicose entered the fighting circle and stripped off her greatcoat, revealing a torso almost as muscled as Otto’s own. And while Malarkey may have had a slight edge size-wise, Vallicose was bred for war. If Otto was a bear, then Clover Vallicose was a panther. And Vallicose owned a singular advantage in that she genuinely believed she was fighting for God. Her eyes were bright and her hands shook not with fear, but from rapture.

“You will die because the Blessed Colonel wishes it,” she said calmly to Otto.

“I cannot grapple this one,” Malarkey objected. “She ain’t right in the noggin. This ain’t our way.”

Box did not bother to respond, and there was not a man in the room so noble that he did not want these two beasts to clash—except Otto, of course—and his opinion hardly mattered now, not when there was bloody entertainment to be had.

And as a bonus, thought Box, with the dry satisfaction of a chess master who has outmaneuvered a tricky opponent, what better way to ready my men for war than with a gladiatorial contest followed by an execution?

Vallicose stretched out her neck and cracked her knuckles. “Are you prepared for hell, heathen?”

This was a rhetorical question, but if Malarkey were to respond, he would admit to being far from ready. He understood suddenly the ramifications of this contest. Even if he battered this warrior woman, he would lose face with the Rams, for fighting a female for the crown was one of the embargoes he himself had introduced (fighting females at other times could not always be avoided). And if he lost to Vallicose, then he was dead anyway. It was a hopeless situation.

Vallicose punched straight out from her shoulder, and Malarkey barely managed to step wide of the blow.

Close. Very close. Otto felt the hiss from the attack as Vallicose’s fist sailed past his ear.

“Ooooooh,” said the soldiers, and:

“Zounds.”

“What ho.”

“A sov on the lady.”

Perhaps the situation is not hopeless after all, he thought. There is, mayhap, a solution. A painful solution.

Vallicose was a little overcommitted to the blow and a step off balance, and so Malarkey prodded her shoulder with a single finger, sending her tripping forward.

“Careful, girlie,” he said. “This is a genuine fight yer in now.”

Vallicose snorted and shook herself like a bull, then she threw back an elbow that would have nearly decapitated Malarkey if he hadn’t slapped it away with his palm.

“I’ll give you that one, too,” said Malarkey. “Another man would be for punishing you, but I is a gent. A commodore, if you must know.”

Yes, Malarkey was laying on the glib, but he knew a man only got so many blocks and dodges with a scrapper of this caliber; Vallicose’s skill was clear from her speed and carriage.

If I wakes up tomorrow, I will be waking up stiff and sore, Otto thought ruefully.

Malarkey avoided a couple more swings without once attempting to land a blow himself, but his luck ran out on the fifth assault, when Vallicose caught him with a vicious straight-fingered jab to the kidneys—there wasn’t a creature on the planet who could shrug that off with a grin. All Malarkey could do was pray that his insides were not ruptured and drop into a genuflection, giving Vallicose the perfect opportunity to follow her jab with a powerhouse sock to the jaw. Most souls would have left the body at this point, and even the great Golgoth was put flat on his back minus a tooth. He took himself a long moment to let the stars clear, then he climbed slowly to his feet.

“A little advice, sister,” he said, his head hanging to his chest, blood dripping from his lips. “Punch from the stomach. I know that sounds like gibberish, but it’s sound counsel.”

Vallicose danced around him. She could smell victory. This was a fine sample of the holy carnage to come this day.

“I hope you have made your peace, heathen,” she said, and she threw out a kick that Otto managed to knock aside with his wrist.

The mood of the crowd was a strange one. The Rams had wanted Malarkey nobbled and no mistake, but now damned if Otto wasn’t holding on to his principles in spite of the wrath being visited upon his person. He would not return fire on a woman for the crown.

Again and again Vallicose struck, and Malarkey either dodged the blow or did not. And when he did not the savagery took its toll, and it was clear that the Ram king could not endure much more trauma.

“Not bad,” he commented after one punch landed square on his ear, which must have stung like the devil’s brand. “From the stomach, see?”

Box was perplexed. Why would the man sacrifice himself so? Men generally gave up their own lives for one of two reasons: love, or principle. And Box found it difficult to believe that this glorified thug loved anyone enough to lay down his life. And as for principles? They were a tool, useful for justifying extreme behavior, and it was inconceivable that Malarkey would allow his own murder in the name of principle. And yet, here it was happening before him.

Unless.

Unless he was not willing to see himself murdered, but injured only.

Why? Why would he?

Of course, of course.

Box actually slapped his own forehead.

Distraction.

Box felt the cold shudder of understanding pass through him, and his eyes lifted to the ramp; he was relieved to see nothing. But then there was a movement.

There.

There was the boy, Riley, stealing toward his companion. This entire episode was a ruse.

“Get the boy!” he shouted into the mass of soldiers surrounding the brawl. “Stop him.”

But no one responded. One shout was much the same as another in this chamber of heaving humanity and violence.

Box grabbed the megaphone and pulled the trigger.

“Stop him, you idiots! Stop the boy.”

It took a moment for the message to filter through, and by this time Riley was out the door at the rear of the chamber, having abandoned his creep toward Chevie.

Box quickly revised his instruction. “To arms!” he shouted. “Positions, everyone. The Revolution begins in one minute. Forget the boy. Forget Malarkey.”

Perhaps it was part of the ruse to divide Box’s troops, to dilute their effectiveness. There was no need for coping strategies to deal with these interlopers. Their eventual deaths would simply be absorbed into the general massacre.