Reckoning (13 page)

I choose a long dress but it doesn't hug me like my mother's does and it is plain and black. Among the sparkly, short creations many of the others have gone for, it is entirely unnoticeable. My only consideration of clothes in the past was what would keep me the warmest. Having to give such serious thought to something like this seems completely silly.

As I sit on my bed, I catch Faith's eye and she clearly has the same ideas I do. She is wearing a light yellow dress and, although it would be short on some of the girls, her height means it reaches her knees. She grins and then holds up a high-heeled shoe as if asking if that's what she should choose. I shrug and point to my own, which are flat and comfortable. My dress covers them anyway but I stand and push myself up onto my toes to see what it would feel like to be those few inches taller. As I try to spin, I stumble clumsily, automatically reaching ahead to stop myself falling. At first I think I have misjudged where the wall is but then my hand presses against the wood panelling that runs around the lower half of the room. I just about manage to hold myself up and no one except Faith has noticed. She laughs quietly to herself and turns away.

For some reason I am now drawn to the wood. The top halves of the walls are painted a greyish colour but below that, roughly at the height of my chest, are dark varnished wood panels which run diagonally. The section my hands fell against feels particularly thin, so, after a check over my shoulder to make sure no one is paying me any attention, I run my hands along the grain until I reach an area a metre or so away which is distinctly thicker. I crouch on the floor using my bed as a shield and trace the palm of my hand across this segment, trying to figure out where it begins and ends. The only person who might be able to see me would be Faith but she is still facing away. It doesn't take long for me to discover there is a section roughly a metre square that is thinner than the rest. I can feel my heart beating in a mixture of excitement and apprehension as I sit on the floor with my back against it and press backwards. I am sure it is some sort of hidden door but it doesn't give way, no matter how hard I push.

Before I can examine it any further, the main door opens and Ignacia glides into the room in a purple dress that looks a lot like the one I wore at the last feast. Her hair is higher than last week, although she seems slightly rushed as she tells us it is time to go.

Through the week we have been left to find our own way around the castle, or at least the parts of it where there don't seem to be any Kingsmen. We have only visited the main hall once and I'm not sure I would be able to find it again but Ignacia leads the way, moving quickly and not checking behind her as some of us struggle to keep up.

We enter the hall opposite the male Offerings again and there is a ripple of something that feels like constrained excitement from our side. I look up to the royal box to see Jela sitting there, wearing an elaborate red dress. I wonder if she will acknowledge us or give any indication that she is all right, but she simply stares into the distance, blank and empty.

I try to look up towards the higher seats to see if I can spot Hart, Lumin, Porter or any of the others, but the lights are bright and focused directly on us, meaning I can't see anything.

Things begin much as last week, with the Minister Prime demanding silence before the anthem and the King's entrance. The King seems more in control of himself this week but less interested in us. As the food is placed on the table, I force myself to eat slower, knowing everything that Hart told me is coming true. Rather than enjoy the meal, I am instead worrying about what the King might have in store for us later. Across the table, the Elite boy from the West makes eye contact but I quickly look away with a delicate shake of my head, trying to tell him that any sort of acknowledgment is dangerous, especially here.

The food is as delicious as before but this time I try to concentrate on eating certain things, rather than trying a bit of everything. After only a week, my body feels weaker than it did in Martindale, so I stick mainly to the meat. I consider concealing some but my dress wouldn't make that easy and I suspect the potential punishment would not be worth it.

As we are all still eating, I hear a heaving, guttural noise coming from the royal box and look up to see the King bent over double being sick on the floor. The sight is so surreal that everyone around the table has stopped eating to watch. It is only as the Minister Prime starts to rise to his feet that we collectively realise we should not be staring. I turn back to my plate as the Minister Prime sits again but out of the corner of my eye I see the King wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve and then calling for more food. At first I think he is ill and it is only when I feel my stomach beginning to strain that I understand the truth; he has made himself vomit simply so he can keep eating. I risk another look upwards, watching as he swigs heartily from a bottle of wine while holding some sort of meat in the other hand. All of a sudden, it feels wrong to eat. While everyone in Martindale spends weeks and months trading and bartering over petty amounts, he is here forcing himself to be ill simply so he can eat more.

Because Wray is no longer there, the boys' benches have been shunted along and they have a little more space. I look directly across to where there is more of a gap than there should be and think of poor, frightened Wray's eyes, then risk another glance at the King. He has more food stuck in his beard than I would usually eat in a day at home. I have never truly hated anyone in the past but I now despise him. It is hard to imagine how he has somehow become so respected outside the walls and I know the easy thing to do is follow Hart's example by not standing out. Although it might get me through this year, perhaps another, I know I am only going to end up the same as Wray in the end.

Somehow, I need to find a way to fight back.

Across the table, the Elite boy is staring at me. I refuse to meet his eyes and hope no one else has noticed. I wonder if he even knows how reckless he is being, putting both of us in danger. I can't begin to imagine what he might want; we've never even spoken.

As I continue to will him to stop looking at me, the gentle chatter of noise halts instantly and I don't need to look around to know the Minister Prime is standing with his arm out. He starts speaking, every syllable rolling from his tongue in a way that makes me shudder. He thanks us for our efforts through the week and emphasises he has been getting some good reports back about us from the various Head Kingsmen. I hadn't thought that Porter might be feeding back information but I guess it is no surprise. It's not as if I have done anything out of the ordinary in any case.

There are a few mutterings around the table but nobody risks anything too disruptive.

He tells us that it is a learning process for everybody as we get to grips with our new surroundings and, for a moment, it genuinely sounds as if he is trying to be helpful. Then his true intention becomes clear.

‘None of you should forget, of course, that being here is a privilege. You are all our King's subjects and there are rules we all must abide by. If any of you were to come forward to reveal any untoward behaviour among your fellow Offerings, it would be looked upon most favourably. I should warn you that the opposite is also true, however. If any unpatriotic behaviour is found and it is later discovered that others of you were aware, then you will be treated as harshly as those directly involved.'

I can remember Hart's words exactly – ‘They want us all to work against each other' – and it is clear that, over the course of the week, pretty much everything he told me is true. The Minister Prime will know that people within the group are beginning to bond, which is something he will not abide. I know I will have to be more careful, even around someone like Faith. The Minister Prime wants us to look at everyone as a potential enemy and it is now hard not to.

After the meal and the speech, there are no further incidents, as the King seems too busy eating and drinking to pay any attention to us.

Later, the dorm is quieter than usual, with even the pockets of people who had become friendly now worried about inadvertently saying something out of place that could be fed back to someone in authority. Wearing us down has taken barely a week, so perhaps it is understandable why Lumin and Hart behave as they do after two years.

As the lights go out and everyone settles down to sleep, I lie awake listening to everyone's stirrings. On a few occasions I am ready to slide out of bed and return to examining the wall, only to stop myself as another girl rolls over or mutters in her sleep. To someone who had her own room at home, even if it was small, it is amazing how noisy a group of people can be while they are supposed to be sleeping.

A hint of moonlight shines through the windows and I allow my eyes to adjust to the dark as much as possible. Eventually I sit and squint into the gloominess of the far end of the room. I watch for a few minutes but, despite the odd murmur and rustling, nobody appears to be awake. Gradually, I slip between the sheets of my bed until my bare feet feel the carpet beneath me. It is only a few steps from my bed to the wall but I hold my breath over each one until I am again pressed up against the wood panelling. If anything, the discrepancy between the thinner and thicker parts now feels more apparent in the dark and it is easier to find the minuscule gap between the hidden door and the rest of the wood.

So many thoughts rush through my head; have any previous Offerings ever found this? Does Ignacia or anyone else know about it? Is it just a cupboard or a passageway? Where could it lead? Is it monitored? Is it a trap? A test?

I have to calm myself and focus on the first thing before any of that: can I actually open it? Slowly I trace my fingers around the gap, using my nails to find the corners and trying to squeeze the tips of my fingers into the opening. All I discover is that the gap narrows on one side, which is where I guess the hinges are.

Faith is shuffling in the bed closest to me, so I stop and rest the back of my head against the wall, holding my breath and listening in case she has disturbed anyone else. As I lean into the wall, I hear a gentle clicking noise before I find myself falling backwards. It is too late to stop myself as my head bounces off a cold stone floor, leaving me confused both because of what has happened and because of the unexpected bump. For a few moments, I don't move, but lie there listening. When I am certain nobody has heard, I slowly roll over and then move myself into a kneeling position.

The thinner section of wood has swung away from the bedroom, to reveal something which is too dark to see properly. In the dark I try to figure out how the door opened and realise there is a push-panel in the top right which my head was pressing against. It looks and feels exactly the same as the rest of the panelling and the only way you would know it was there was if you were already aware of it – or by accident.

I take one last look into the bedroom, trying to see if anyone is moving, and then retreat into the space behind the door, pushing it almost fully closed and finding myself in complete darkness. Using my hands to guide me, I trace the stone and creep forward, unable to stop shivering as the cold seeps through my body. A voice in my head is telling me to be sensible and return to the room but the thought of ending up like Hart keeps driving me forward until I reach another wood panel. It has taken me under a minute to creep along the passage in the same direction, so it isn't long, and I try to think my way around the outer corridors to work out where I might be, but I have no idea. My fingers quickly find a clasp on the second wood panel and I wait, holding onto it and trying to build up the courage to find out what is on the other side. Eventually I tell myself that if I have got this far, then I have already made my decision. I slowly pull the door inwards before poking my head out and risking a glance in both directions.

On the other side I find a corridor that looks similar to most of the others in the castle – except that there is a large window at one end. The single pane is so large it seems almost like some sort of lookout point. In the fraction of a second I allow myself to look around before retreating, I can't see anything other than the dim moonlight that fills the corridor. More importantly, I can't see anyone else in the area and no sign of any cameras. I run through the images in my head, over and over, trying to remember anything that could mean danger, but then I act impulsively, reopening the panel and taking a longer amount of time to take in the surroundings, before crawling into the larger new corridor and pulling the panel shut.

The area is quieter than the dorm. Slowly I creep towards the window, expecting to have someone jump out at any moment but there are no obvious doors along the panelled walls and the window is a dead end. Trying to stop myself shivering, I look through the glass at the remnants of a town that still hasn't recovered from the war. There are piles of bricks and rubble dotted as far as I can see, the only buildings apparently on the brink of collapse, shored up with various makeshift pieces of wood and stone. Despite the destruction, the bright white of the moon provides an astonishing view outside the castle. I press against the glass and try to stare around an impossible angle towards the central section of the castle, but it is hard to see anything other than the fact I am in an area furthest away from the middle. It is a long way down but, if I could somehow survive the steep drop, I would be outside the grounds and a short distance away from the cover and shelter the rubble would provide. In my head, I know it is impossible but that doesn't stop me thinking through the scenarios.

I am so lost in my imagination that the first time I realise someone has crept up on me is when I feel a hand gripping my shoulder, making me shriek with surprise.

15

In the fraction of a second it takes me to turn, the faces of the Minister Prime, Ignacia, a Kingsman and even the King himself flash before my eyes. I wonder what my punishment will be; will it happen in front of everyone and will it affect Colt and my mother? Instead it is a face that in many ways is even more shocking: the Elite from the West who spent the evening staring at me across the banquet table.