The Pack (3 page)

Unless you had nothing. Unless you were a beggar.

That was how Bradley had started out. Begging in a doorway all those years ago; before meeting the Old Woman, who had instructed him on the value of cast-off objects and quick wits. His first memories were of sitting cross-legged, his head tipped back, his hands out before him. That was how Victor and Floris would be, when he passed them later that day, though sometimes, for passersby, Floris would lean back in the doorway and Victor would tilt his head towards her and emit a little whimper.

It was in a doorway that Hunger had found him and later brought Fearless and Shelter to him. He was much younger back then, so did well with the begging. Not well enough to fill his stomach, but well enough to share. So when Hunger poked his black nose into his doorway, his slack jaw showing his sharp white teeth, Bradley offered him a piece of bacon fat. It was enough for him to return and soon Bradley was making two piles of food scraps, one for himself and one for the dogs.

Hunger, Fearless and Shelter. He named them not because of anything he saw in them, but because of what was on his mind at the time. Though Fearless, black as Hunger, but smaller and more compact, did seem to possess courage beyond her size. Whereas Hunger's ears were always upright and alert, Fearless's flopped at half-mast; a sign of her recklessness. And Shelter, the youngest dog, her golden coat thicker than Fearless's, her snout blunter than the other dogs', less attuned to trouble, turned out to be the most placid of the three. She had become Floris's favorite.

And Bradley? Bradley Prince. “Bradley's” was the name of the shop where he had been found begging—an old ironmonger's, filled only with rusted buckets and blunt nails. And Prince? Because the Old Woman claimed Bradley had been abandoned by a beautiful young girl—a princess, no less—who had pulled up in a curtained carriage and left him with a blanket and with a tear in her eye. Of this, Bradley had no recollection, but the Old Woman was full of stories—and it was a kind of story she was telling now.

Bradley marvelled, as he did each time, at how she could transform herself into this small, fragile-looking woman. She glanced his way and saw him coming, but gave no acknowledgment. And Bradley did not know her.

She had the three cups on the trestle table and was holding up a small red glass bead.

“Come on, ladies and gentlemen,” she shouted. “Come and place a wager! Look, it's easy.”

She lifted the middle cup to show the red bead.

“Now watch the cups, please.” She swapped the middle cup with the one on the right and then with the one on the left. A small crowd had already left the nearby traders and gathered round. They would have the rest of the day to rummage through whatever was on offer. But entertainment, well, there was little of that around.

“So where's the bead now? Have a free shot, someone.”

Before a finger could be raised, a man in a brown uniform forced his way through the audience and pointed.

“There. That one.”

The Old Woman would have spotted the danger, just as Bradley had. She would recognize him as a henchman of one of the warlords from the Forbidden Territories. There was a badge with a head of a red dog sewn onto his right arm. But Bradley caught no flicker of fear in her voice and he knew she expected him to play his part too.

“Let's see, shall we? Absolutely right, sir!”

Bradley turned round and shared his amazement with the crowd.

“But watch again,” the Old Woman said and moved the cups again, this time slightly faster. “Where is it now?”

The soldier wagged his finger again. There was a time when the Zone had been infested with slithering, pointy creatures and this man, with his thin face and his wide-set eyes, reminded Bradley of one they had called a weasel. She lifted the cup and the bead winked in the sunlight. It was time for the soldier to take notice of Bradley. Bradley tapped his arm and beamed his delight and excitement. The weasel bared his teeth.

“And that's all your free ones, folks,” the Old Woman said in as light a voice as Bradley had heard her use. “Time to place your bets.”

The Old Woman reached into one of her skirts and brought out a small paraffin hand-warmer. “This is what you're playing for, sir. What are you going to put up?”

The weasel bared his teeth again and reached for the hand-warmer, as if it were already as good as his, but the Old Woman drew her hand back sharply and tucked it back under her skirts.

“And what are you putting up?” she asked again.

“This sack of vegetables.” He said it slowly, giving weight to each word.

“Show,” said the Old Woman. “I'm not a fool.”

“That remains to be seen,” sneered the weasel, in what he imagined to be repartee. But he peeled down the sack until the vegetables sat in his arms: carrots sleek and red to their tips, golden onions, potatoes still tight in their skins.

There was a shared sound of indrawn breath.

“A sack—a whole sack of vegetables,” one woman sighed, jiggling her baby on her hip.

“Aye, a small one though,” a woman in a moth-eaten fur coat sniffed.

“But look at them, look at them, when did you last see…”

“Good prizes, each one,” a silver-haired gent spoke for them all.

“But you'll never get your hands on these, old woman,” the weasel sneered. “Let's play.”

The Old Woman lifted one of the cups extravagantly high and brought it down slowly on the glass bead. “Watch the cup,” she instructed, “remember, watch the cup.”

She moved the cups around as slowly as before and took her hands away. The weasel was thinking, staring at the cup, but somewhere he had lost his nerve. His finger snaked out, then he withdrew it and tightened his grip round his vegetables.

There was nothing for it; Bradley would have to play the game. He pointed to his sneakers as his stake—true, they were split, but the boy seemed to have bound them well with string and with winter coming on, another pair of shoes in the family would always be welcome. The Old Woman nodded assent and Bradley, biting one of his knuckles—a nice touch, the Old Woman would tell him later—pointed to one of the cups. The Old Woman raised it and there was the bead.

“Yes!” Bradley shouted and the crowd clapped.

“I knew it,” said the weasel.

“I knew it too,” a boy, who had wormed his way to the front, said for the benefit of the crowd.

“Aye, and me,” said his friend.

“We all bloody knew it!” a woman from the back shouted, and the crowd laughed as the weasel clenched his jaw, and the Old Woman meekly handed over the hand-warmer.

“Huh. So,” the weasel said. “Again.”

“All right,” the Old Woman said, showing in her hand this time, briefly, an old brooch, a stone—amber as her eyes—in a swirl of silver. The weasel bared his teeth.

The Old Woman raised the cup higher than ever.

“Watch the bead.” And slowly she moved the cups around, though for a couple more circuits than before. Still, a small child could have followed the cup in question.

The weasel was excited now, on the balls of his feet, and the crowd with him.

“That one,” he said. “That one.”

“You're sure? That's the one you want?” the Old Woman asked, gently, as if he were a small child.

He shook his head up and down furiously.

But no one was more excited than Bradley was. He nodded agreement and elbowed the man, as one fellow gambler to another to endorse his choice. The weasel turned briefly to him. His teeth were bared from ear to ear—it was as close to a grin as he had. The hand-warmer would have been nice for himself, these cold winter nights; but the brooch he could trade on—there was always someone looking for something to brighten up his wife's day; something shiny and useless to remind her of better times.

The Old Woman pulled her sleeve back—no trickery—and in the silence reached out to the cup. The weasel nodded firmly as she placed each of her fingers over it and raised it up.

Nothing.

The crowd gasped.

The weasel's thin shoulders slumped with the shock; long enough for the Old Woman to reach over and pull the sack from his hand.

“No, wait a minute. It's a set-up. Where's that boy?”

But Bradley was nowhere to be found. He had taken the sack of vegetables from the Old Woman and, as long as there was no trouble, he would soon have it back in the basement, safely waiting for the night's meal.

The weasel had other ideas. “I've been tricked. Come on, someone must have seen it. Come on, it'll be you next.”

But it wouldn't be, because they had seen the Old Woman operate before. She was working, earning a living. Everyone had to do what she could to get by. The soldier was from the Forbidden Territories, which edged onto the Invisible City. That was the only place you could get vegetables like these, traded for solder perhaps, a bag of silvery tears melted down from old computer boards. It was the only way the apples and oranges, the carrots and potatoes that travelled through the Zones ever ended up back there.

The soldier—now a stranger—was rising to fury. “My sack, you dirty old bag of mischief, where is my sack? If it's not in my hands within a minute, you'll be a sack of broken bones yourself.”

He was cursing the fact that he had come here on his own; cursing his own misplaced confidence.

Hunger and Bradley watched from the shadows of a doorway. Hunger padded from paw to paw, though only Bradley could have heard his growl. He held onto him loosely by one pointed ear.

The weasel threw the table over and advanced on the Old Woman.
Change,
Bradley thought,
go on—transform yourself; be what you are and envelop him in the span of your arms.
But the Old Woman held herself resolutely in check; this was a secret miracle she would only share with Bradley and the Pack.

“Now, Hunger.”

Three great bounds and Hunger was standing between the soldier and the Old Woman. The hackles stood up at the back of his neck like a brush and his growl rolled like gravel deep in his throat. He made a couple of warning lunges, his jaws snapping, teeth clicking. Instinctively, the soldier raised his hands to his throat and his face.

“All right, that's the way of it, is it?” he spat. “That's how you play it round here. But remember, old woman, this isn't over—for you or for that boy.”

He turned and stomped off. Some in the crowd laughed as they turned and headed back to the traders. A warming thing excitement was—aye, and small victories too—but it wouldn't be long before they'd all be stamping in the cold again and blowing on their hands.

“Fuss over nothing,” one man said.

“Still, what I'd give for a hand-warmer now, eh?” said his companion. “Here, lady, give's a hold of that baby!”

The Old Woman would give it a rest for a day or two; lie low at the sight of a uniform. She could afford to.

Bradley passed Victor and Floris huddled in a doorway. Victor bent his head down, but Bradley held the sack open and they both peered in, their eyes brightening.

“Tonight,” Bradley told them, “we all eat like princes!”

4

THE LAND OF WOLVES

The Old Woman stirred the thick vegetable soup, rocking the pot slightly on the brazier, sending sparks high into the sky. Floris watched them as if they were the most wonderful fireworks. Anything shiny and sparkly she loved.

Victor, though, never took his eyes from the pot.

The Old Woman tasted the soup with the wooden ladle that hung from her waist. “Heaven,” she said, wrapping one of her layers of skirt round the handles and lifting the pot off and laying it on the ground before them. “Here, use this bread in it till it cools.”

So the children ate. “Slowly, slowly,” the Old Woman said. “Now taste your carrots and your onion, they're in there too, so there's vegetables enough for nights to come.”

When they had almost had their fill, Bradley signalled the dogs in. And what a lapping and a slurping there was, till Hunger took the pot off and rolled it along the ground, working it with his snout.

“And now, the hand-warmer,” the Old Woman said, her hand raised in mock seriousness.

Bradley brought it out of his pocket. “I was going to—”

“Aye, I'll bet you were,” she smiled. “A good day, Bradley Prince. One of the good ones.”

“Yes, and it's not over yet,” Bradley said. “There's still time for a story.”

“Oh, a story—Lord save us, another story,” she said.

“Yes, and
we
choose this time—Victor, Floris and me.”

“So, what's your story to be about then?”

“The dogs,” said Floris. “Tell us about the dogs again!”

The Old Woman pulled an old box beneath her and rested her elbows on her thighs. She had worked her miracle again and when she craned forward, she could sweep her head between each of the children, her face sometimes in darkness, but for the amber spark of her eyes, and at others lit red by the burning brazier.

The story was for Floris first, so it was to the twin-headed body of Floris and Victor that she began to speak.

*   *   *

“Far from here, across the Forbidden Territories, beyond the Invisible City, there is a road that travels north. It passes between fields that are green with potatoes, with turnip heads and carrots; fields that have plump cattle and sheep nibbling on their juicy grass. Once these fields were for everyone—for the villages that are nearby and for the cities too. Now, as you know, very little passes the Invisible City, the city you must never see.

“The road travels north, till the farmland runs out and the road becomes a dirt track, dusty in the summer, muddy and impassable in winter. It goes on like this for mile upon mile, while tall firs thicken around it, and if you're lucky, a deer may cross before your eyes, silently, in a great bounding leap.” And here the Old Woman's hand curved before them. There was no other world now but the one unfolding before them. Victor's eyes glowed with the freedom and the space this story was conjuring in his mind.