The Sacrifice (2 page)

Here?
Where is here?
Seems
I’ve forgotten. I can remember the long ago better than the yesterday.

I’m hungry now. Been waiting a long
time for them to
bring me someone like you. You see, sometimes it feels
like I’m the boss and they work for me, and sometimes it feels like they’re
in charge and I’m their slave.

Are you a boy or a girl? Not that I’m
fussy. Your meat all tastes the same. Oh, come along now, don’t be scared. I
don’t like that. Why do you think I’m talking to you? I want to be your
friend. All I ever wanted was to make friends, just like I did with the germs and the
fleas and the bats and the rats and the monkeys and the men and … 

You know, sometimes I wonder if I remember
any of it right. If I’m even who I think I am. Am I an angel or a flea or a
walking man? That is the question. No, don’t talk, don’t make a sound, just
listen, will you?

We’d made friends with walking men,
you see, so that we could learn their language, walk in their shoes, think inside their
boxes. And we grew to talk like them, and walk like them, and think like them. Maybe
some of us even
became
men, no longer angels. As if the sucking flea could gulp
down so much blood it might turn into the beast it was feeding on.

When the fear comes on me, when my memories
flicker and die, I am scared that I am becoming just a man, just another walking
man.

With a man’s name.

Mark Wormold from Promithios.

Not Wormwood at all. Not an angel.
Won’t ever return home to the heavens where I was born.

Look at me. I was once the Starchild, the
exterminating angel, the great flea, king of the world, the mighty Wormwood. I was born
in the heavens, I fell to earth, I grew up in the great green and then I crossed the
blue and something went wrong.

I became a man.

Mark Wormold.

You see, the walking man, the human bean,
Mark Wormold
, was stronger than me. We fight over this castle, this body,
every day, fight for the best seat in the house. And sometimes he wins and sometimes I
win, but each fight makes me weaker, so that I fear that one day the walking man will
kick me out or make me his slave.

Has that already happened?

Sometimes this place feels like a dungeon,
sometimes a palace.

But I’m getting off the point. Which
was … 

God knows.

Never mind.

Never mind.

Let’s get on with it. My stomach is
turning somersaults.

Come over here, child. Sit a little closer.
Soon neither of us will be hungry any more … 

Small Sam wasn’t dead. His sister and
his friends all thought that he’d been killed, that the grown-ups who’d
snatched him from the car park behind Waitrose had eaten him, but right now he was
walking across the grounds of the Tower of London with The Kid and a load of other
children. They were heading for the White Tower, a big square lump with smaller towers
at each corner that sat bang in the middle of the castle on a small hill. Sam, who was
something of an expert on castles, knew all about the White Tower. It was the keep, the
first part of the castle to be built here. William the Conqueror had started the
building work in the eleventh century, with stone specially brought over from France,
and his son, William the Second, had finished it.

Sam felt like he was living in a dream.
He’d always been obsessed with knights and castles and fantasy. He’d lost
count of the number of times he’d seen the
Lord of the Rings
films. And
now here he was, actually living in a real-life castle. Some of the other kids even wore
armour and carried medieval weapons. Though they had to leave them at the door as they
filed inside.

The boy in charge, General Jordan Hordern,
had called a council of war and everybody in the castle was expected to attend, even
newcomers like Sam and The Kid.

Once inside they climbed to an upper floor,
where there was a big room with windows on all sides. They found places to sit on the
wooden benches that were arranged round the edges. Sam, who had visited the Tower
several times, tried to remember what this room used to look like. He couldn’t
picture it. The local kids had removed the exhibits and returned it to how it must have
looked in the Middle Ages. There were banners and pennants hanging on the bare stone
walls, and candles lit the dark interior. A long table had been set up across one end
and behind it stood four guards with halberds, double-handed weapons that looked like a
cross between an axe and a spear. There was a smaller table to one side where two girls
and a boy sat, writing on loose sheets of paper.

Ed came over to Sam and The Kid. It was Ed
who’d found the two of them a few days ago, wandering, tired and wet, along the
road that led to the Tower, and he’d taken it on himself to look after them. He
still couldn’t quite get his head round the fact that they’d survived for so
long out there by themselves and had made it here alive. It was up to him now to make
sure they stayed that way. By finding them, they had become his responsibility.

‘You just sit here and listen,
OK?’ he said. ‘Just watch.’

He glanced at The Kid. He was an odd boy,
odd and unpredictable, and had his own way of talking. He was prone to speaking out and
Ed didn’t want him to pipe up during the council.

‘What’s going on?’ Sam
whispered.

‘To tell you the truth, I’m not
sure,’ Ed replied. ‘But I have to be over at the council table with the
other captains. I’ll explain anything you don’t understand
afterwards.’

He looked at The Kid again, holding his
gaze.

‘Don’t be tempted to join in. All
right?’

‘Aye aye, Skippy. Message received and
misunderstood.’

‘Seriously, Kid, zip it.’

The Kid zipped it, miming the action.

‘I’m as much in the dark as you
are,’ Ed went on. ‘General Hordern called a special meeting of the council,
so I guess he’ll tell us what this is all about.’

‘That’s him there, isn’t
it?’ said Sam, and Ed turned to see a boy with thick glasses come into the room
flanked by two more guards.

‘That’s him. I better go.
Remember. Zip it.’

Sam watched Ed go and take his place with
several other kids who were settling down at the long table. Sam suddenly felt nervous.
Apart from Ed, he didn’t really know anyone else here. He felt like a new boy
starting in big school. Other kids were always whispering about him and pointing. He
felt safe with Ed. He’d been a bit scared of him at first. Ed had an ugly scar
down one side of his face that pulled it out of shape, but Sam had soon learnt that he
was kind and friendly and not frightening at all. Sometimes, though, Ed would go quiet
and stare into the distance. Sam didn’t say anything, but he knew that Ed was sad
about something. He didn’t need to ask what. They were all sad in their own ways.
They’d all lost family and friends.

Sam and The Kid had been left alone for
their first couple of days at the Tower. They’d been given food and allowed to
sleep for most of the time. Now they were feeling more normal and Ed had offered to show
them around properly. They’d just been getting ready when they’d been told
to come to the meeting.

Jordan Hordern sat down, flanked by four
boys and three girls. He waited, blank-faced and unreadable behind his
glasses that were held together by sticking plasters round the bridge of the nose and
one arm.

He waited for the room to fall silent.
Didn’t have to say anything. It was understood.

He looked around.

General Hordern couldn’t tell anyone,
but the truth was that he could hardly see anything at all any more. It wasn’t
just that the lenses in his glasses were scratched and old. His eyesight was steadily
getting worse. There were dark patches in the centre of his vision. It was still clear
round the edges, so he had to look sideways at things to see them properly. He’d
never liked to look people in the eye before and now it was nearly impossible.

He wouldn’t let the idea enter his
thoughts, but it was there, lurking in the back of his mind. He was going blind. What
use would he be then? How could he keep his position in charge here at the Tower if he
couldn’t see anything?

It was important that nobody knew. For now
he had unquestioned power over everyone at the Tower.

The kids sat in absolute silence. He was
pleased. He’d known teachers at school who could never get a class to shut up.
Jordan had given them hell and now here he was, just a boy, able to control more than a
hundred kids.

Sam couldn’t take his eyes off the
general. Jordan scared him. There was a stillness and a coldness about him. He was like
a statue or a big old crocodile at the zoo. Sitting there without moving. Who knew what
weird thoughts were going on behind that calm exterior?

Sam could feel the tension in the room. As
Ed had explained to them, nobody knew what this meeting was about, but by the look of
Jordan it was something serious.

At last the general spoke.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s
get started.’

Sam had been expecting something medieval,
full of
verily
s and
thee
s and
thou
s and
aye
instead
of yes. It was a surprise to hear Jordan talking so normally. But why not? They
weren’t really in the Middle Ages, were they? They were in the middle of London in
the twenty-first century.

‘This is a special meeting of the war
council. In fact it’s a military tribunal. Which means it’s a
trial.’

The kids on the side table started writing
furiously. A hum and murmur went round the room, but it was quickly silenced when Jordan
raised his hand. Everyone was looking around, though, trying to work out who
wasn’t there. Who might have been arrested.

‘A boy has been caught trying to steal
food from the storerooms. As you know, when I took control, I wrote up a list of rules
and stealing is one of the worst crimes on it, especially stealing food. You all know
the rules. So there’s no excuse for breaking them. Having said that, I want this
trial to be fair. So I will give the suspect a fair hearing. Bring him in.’

All heads twisted round now towards the
doors as a boy was shoved through them, his hands tied behind his back, an armed guard
on either side of him. He was tall and fair-haired and had a bruise on one cheek. His
shirt was slightly torn. He looked like he’d been crying, his eyes all red and
swollen. Mixed emotions – fear, anger, defiance, hatred and embarrassment – flickered
across his features.

The boy was made to stand in front of the
big table and his hands were untied. Everyone in the room was staring at him.

‘What is your name?’ Jordan
asked.

‘You know my name, Jordan, you
arsehole,’ said the boy
and a couple of the kids giggled. Jordan
didn’t react; his expression didn’t change; he didn’t even blink. He
remained cold, blank, patient.

‘Tell us your full name.’

‘No.’

Jordan raised his head now and stared at the
boy. He so rarely looked directly at anyone that the effect was quite powerful. The boy
dropped his own gaze.

‘Bren,
Brendan
,
Eldridge.’

‘And what have you been charged with,
Bren?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, this is
stupid. This isn’t a proper court. We’re all just kids. I know I did wrong.
So give me a slap and let’s get on with our lives.’

‘What have you been charged with,
Bren?’

‘Stealing! You know it’s
stealing, OK? I stole some tinned fruit. Big deal, boohoo. Naughty me.’

Jordan looked over towards the side
table.

‘The charge is stealing
food.’

‘Big deal,’ said Bren.

Jordan paused for a few seconds before going
on. ‘Without food we die,’ he said.

‘Tell me something I don’t
know.’ Brendan gave Jordan a dismissive look.

Jordan ignored him. ‘Stealing from
other kids is one of the worst things you can do,’ he said. ‘If we
don’t look out for each other we’re all going to die. Therefore, Brendan, I
reckon stealing food is as bad a crime as murder.’

‘Oh, come off it, Jordan. It was just
some tinned peaches.’

‘Was it?’

‘Yes, it was. You know it
was.’

Again Jordan turned to the side table.

‘Make a note of that. The suspect has
admitted to stealing the peaches.’

‘Hey,’ said Bren. ‘No, I
didn’t. I was talking hypothetically.’

‘I’m going to call Captain Ford
for evidence,’ said Jordan and he nodded to the boy sitting on his right, who had
long straight black hair and Japanese features. The boy stood up.

‘For the record, can you state your
full name and occupation, rank and regiment?’ said Jordan.

‘Seriously?’

‘Just do it, Tomoki.’

‘My name is Tomoki Ford. Captain of
the Tower Watch.’

‘Can you tell us how you caught the
thief?’

‘Alleged thief,’ said Bren.
‘If we’re going to have a proper trial then I’m innocent until proven
guilty, aren’t I?’

‘You’ve already made a
confession,’ said Jordan.

‘I wasn’t under oath.’

‘We don’t bother with that. You
already said you stole the cans of fruit.’

‘Prove it.’

‘OK,’ said Tomoki. ‘About
ten days ago Captain Reynolds of the Service Corps came to see me. He told me that he
thought someone was stealing from the Tower stores. He’d noticed some small things
had gone missing, and when he checked he found out that other stuff had gone as
well.’

He took out a piece of paper from his pocket
and showed it to General Hordern.