Renegade (6 page)

‘How long ago was that?’

‘Four years.’

He looks a lot older than twenty, lines already wrinkled around his eyes. ‘Who are you people?’ I ask.

It is hard to tell whether I should trust him – or whether he trusts me. We both have our secrets. He ignores my question and asks his own. ‘Did you come here by chance?’

I’m not very good at trusting others and know I potentially have the fates of so many people in my hands. For a few moments neither of us says anything but he continues staring at me, his
blue eyes hardening.

‘When I found everyone’s names, there was also a map,’ I say. ‘It showed locations of rebel groups. I didn’t know if it would be useful but downloaded it onto my
thinkwatch. We didn’t know where else to go after we got out so headed here.’

Knave’s top lip twitches as he tries to figure out if I am telling the truth. ‘Show me.’

My arm is aching but I raise my watch for him to see and flash through the screens until I find what he wants to see. His fingers are warm on my skin as he holds my wrist and zooms in and
out.

‘Why does your watch still work?’

‘I don’t know.’

It is a half-truth – I don’t know exactly why but suspect it is because I have taken it apart so many times, replacing parts and experimenting with the technology.

He skims through the areas of the maps that show other rebel strongholds, muttering under his breath and then unclipping the watch and taking it from my wrist before I can react.

‘Hey!’

‘You can have it back in a minute.’ He crosses to the table and picks up a thinkpad, pressing the two devices together and then returning my watch.

‘The Kingsmen caught some of our men overground a year or so ago,’ he says after sitting down again. He is staring at the pad, not at me. ‘They killed them on the spot but we
always assumed they would think there were more of us nearby. We have scouts out by the woods and Kingsmen come past every now and then. They have never found us. We’ve thought about moving a
few times but have a lot of what we need here – and as long as we’re sensible, we should be safe.’

‘I didn’t see anyone in the woods.’

Knave smiles. ‘You wouldn’t have but they saw you. You’re lucky we found you and not the Kingsmen.’

‘Where are you from?’

Knave stands and reaches out a hand. ‘Come with me.’

Before I sat, my knees were hurting but now my thighs burn with exhaustion and flames dance along my lower back. Knave reaches out to support me, gently holding my upper arm and asking if I am
all right.

‘I’m fine,’ I reply, shaking him off and forcing my body to obey.

Knave leads me into a corridor. ‘I think this was an old study,’ he says, closing the door behind us and moving ahead. Everything smells stale and damp and there are spots of water
dripping from the arched stone overhead.

‘After I jumped from the train, I was on my own,’ he says. ‘I come from the East and initially had the idea of returning home. I spent my first night in a hollow underneath the
train tracks and realised it would be the first place Kingsmen would start searching. I created a sling from branches and vines and followed a river until I found the village above us.’

Knave is walking slowly, peering over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure I am still there. At an intersection, he leads me left. ‘It was a small community at the time, perhaps a
couple of hundred people, but there were farms on the outskirts that provided food and small industries such as bakeries that kept everyone well fed. I slept in someone’s barn for the first
night and then went into the centre of the village the next day. I didn’t know it then but everyone knew everyone else, so I stood out instantly. This old guy ushered me into the back room of
an inn and told me I was asking for trouble. I was ready to fight my way out but he laughed and told me not to be so silly.’

We reach a large wooden door and Knave stands next to it, turning to face me. ‘No one ever asked any questions about who I was but within a day, someone had looked at my arm and someone
else had given me a room to sleep in.’

‘Did they know you were an escaped Offering?’

‘I don’t know how they would – they just weren’t bothered. A few weeks later, the person I was living with took me to a meeting in the village hall late one night. I
hadn’t known it before but they said they were a resistance group, opposed to the King. They didn’t know what was going on at the castle but had been unhappy since the end of the war.
They could see through Victor and the broadcasts but they were completely disorganised. They had no weapons, no knowledge of any other rebel groups and didn’t know what they wanted to do. I
think they found comfort in small acts of defiance against the Kingdom and that was their way of rebelling.’

‘What happened?’

Knave pushes the door open, leading me into a large room where there are beds, blankets, cushions, pillows and other comforts dotted around. We stand in the doorway as a dozen or so people turn
to face us.

‘This is where most of us sleep,’ Knave says. ‘There are just over thirty of us in total. This is the crypt but we managed to dig through one of the walls to make it bigger.
It’s more comfortable than you might think, plus we manage to stay warm, even in winter.’

I feel everyone’s eyes on me and turn to leave. Knave follows, closing the door. ‘When you are living like the village was, it is impossible not to be noticed,’ he says,
leading us back the way we came. ‘We still took our rations, but whenever the Kingsmen would bring them around, they couldn’t help but notice we were doing well anyway. One day, a lot
of them came. There was no warning, no orders to get out; they came with swords, spears and fire. Some of us ran for it but others . . .’

He doesn’t finish his sentence as we stop at the intersection.

‘Even the children?’ I ask.

Knave nods. He licks his lips, gazing into the distance and takes a second to compose himself. ‘Some of us hid in the woods for a few days until we were sure they’d gone and then
came back. The way it is now – piles of rubble – is pretty much how it was then. They destroyed the church and everyone’s houses, burned the crops and then left as if we had never
been here. In the space of a day, they wiped the village off the map.’

I can barely begin to comprehend the brutality, although his story explains why places such as Beaconsfield are now abandoned, even though they probably survived the war.

I ask the question, even though I know the answer: ‘Why?’

‘It’s all about control. If we are huddled together in the cities, they control the flow of food and the rations. Hungry, thirsty people only rebel if they believe they have anything
to fight for.’

I think of Martindale and wonder if that’s the fate that could one day befall my village. Perhaps it already has.

‘There weren’t many of us left afterwards but we banded together and salvaged most things that were worthwhile. Every now and then, other people will stumble across the area and we
either ignore them and let them move on, or we bring them down here if we think we can trust them. We set up a radio communication system. Initially, it was for trying to listen into broadcasts
that no one else is supposed to hear. Mainly for things such as schedules for the ration trains – nothing very interesting. Then one day, we came across a broadcast on a different frequency
from a rebel group asking if there were others out there. We didn’t know if it was a trap, or something the King’s people could be intercepting, but we have some clever people here and
found out where they were broadcasting from. I won’t bore you but, in short, there are other rebel groups around the country. Slowly, we’re becoming more organised as we salvage weapons
and supplies from other abandoned towns and share information.’

‘How do you know the King won’t find you?’

Knave shrugs. ‘We don’t, but what choice do we have? We cover our tracks as best we can and we’re careful with our broadcast codes. We all know we could be found at any
point.’

‘What are you planning?’

I realise instantly it is a question too far. If they have anything in mind the last thing they should do is share it with a stranger. Knave ignores me. ‘Recently, our comms went down.
Everything we do is triangulated through an area around Middle England but we haven’t been able to raise them, so we can’t talk to anyone else. It’s happened before intermittently
but never for this long. We’ve been cut off for almost a month and all we get are the standard screen signals everyone else does.’

‘Is that how you know who I am?’

Knave’s eyes narrow – he is worried. ‘You mean you don’t know?’

‘Know what?’

He takes my hand, guiding me quickly along the tunnels into a room that reminds me of Kingsman Porter’s office in Windsor Castle. It is packed with jumbled heaps of electrical items;
broken thinkpads and tatty cables mixed with watches and pieces of metal that look almost new. On the wall ahead is a row of screens and he approaches the first one, playing with a dial underneath
until it fizzes to life.

In the centre of the screen is my face, the location instantly recognisable. The image has been taken from the security camera outside Porter’s office at Windsor Castle. My face is staring
directly into the camera, my silver streak of hair brushed to the side. Above my image is one word in large capital letters: ‘WANTED’. Underneath are three more that send chills through
me: ‘DEAD OR ALIVE’.

My response is pathetic: ‘I’m wanted?’

‘That’s been on a constant loop in between any other programming for the past three days,’ Knave says, nodding at the screen. ‘You were lucky it was us who found
you.’

‘Why?’

‘The other evening, our screens turned themselves on. It was hard to see what was happening because the footage was from security cameras. It has never happened before but we
couldn’t hear anything anyway. There was a flash of people fighting but it was really hard to make out and then the last thing we saw was the King choking on something before the screen
turned itself off.’

I tell him I had set those cameras to broadcast and then about my imprisonment and the way I was made to fight Imrin, before we eventually escaped.

He shakes his head. ‘That’s not what it looked like. We couldn’t tell what was going on but the next day, the King was on camera saying that the traitor Offering Silver
Blackthorn had tried to kill him. They showed footage of him choking and you running away.’

‘That’s not what happened. We knew someone would help the King before the fruit killed him. It was meant as a distraction.’

Knave shrugs. ‘It doesn’t matter what happened – that’s what everyone saw. The whole country thinks you’re a traitor. Not only that, but the King offered a
year’s rations for the capture of you or anyone associated with you. Last night, there was a programme showing capture squads searching for you around Windsor – small groups of men with
weapons. I thought you knew – when Vez said it was you, I assumed you were hiding from the capture squads.’

I shake my head, partly in disbelief but mainly in fear. ‘I didn’t know . . .’ I reach for a chair and collapse into it, the weight of everything feeling too much.

‘I’m sorry,’ Knave says, but it isn’t his fault. He asks if I want something to eat or drink. Or somewhere to sleep. I barely know what to say but ask him to take me to
Frank.

I don’t even try to memorise the layout as he leads me through more tunnels into a stone room he calls the medical bay. There are two beds and some equipment against the back wall. One of
the beds is empty but Frank is asleep in the other, his leg covered by a sheet.

‘How is he?’ Knave asks a man I assume to be a doctor.

The doctor rubs something away from his eyes and stifles a yawn. ‘I’ve sedated him so he can sleep and done what I can but I’m not sure yet. If the leg is infected, he might
lose it because I don’t have everything I need here. I’ll know more tomorrow.’

Knave turns to me. ‘Is that all right?’ I nod, satisfied that Frank’s getting good care, but the doctor’s yawn is infectious and my body is aching. ‘The others have
been given a room to share. We brought your bags and made sure there were plenty of blankets and things for you to make yourselves comfortable. We didn’t think it was fair for you to have to
mix with us on your first night.’

I ask him to lead me there and he takes me back into the corridor. ‘Can I ask you another question?’ Knave goes on.

‘Okay.’

‘What is it you actually want? You came to find us but never said why.’

I am so tired that I can’t hide it any more, speaking through a yawn. ‘There was this lad named Wray. We’re all the same age but he was smaller and more vulnerable than the
rest of us. The King killed him on our first night, just because he could. So many of us have died, names you wouldn’t know. Others, like Jela who is with us, have survived but he took
something from her. One way or the other, with or without you, I’m going to do something about it.’

Knave laughs gently but not in a mocking way. He understands. ‘Do you have a plan?’

It is my turn to laugh. ‘Not yet. You?’

‘I have an idea or two. First we have to fix our communications devices.’

We reach a door, which Knave tells me is temporarily our room. I reply that we’ll talk in the morning and then enter the room. Almost everyone seems to be asleep but Imrin has stayed awake
for me. I say I’m fine and kiss him on the forehead, before taking the soft tortoise from my bag and curling up into a ball.

* * *

I sleep more peacefully than I have in a long time and the next thing I know it is morning and Imrin is shaking me awake. His breath tickles my ear as he asks what happened the
night before. I keep my eyes closed, enjoying the way they feel shut, and tell him everything that Knave told me. As I talk, Imrin gently strokes my hair, smoothing it to my head, his lips brushing
the back of my neck when he speaks. We have cuddled together before, usually in the hidden passageway that connected our dormitories, but this feels more natural. Even though I can sense the others
around us, we may as well be on our own because it is only his voice I sense; his breath, his hands.