The Scorpion Rules (21 page)

The soldiers bunched up here and there, watching and bewildered. How useless are guns against those who are fearless. How foolish, to set force against innocence. Their own strength made them small.

And to their smallness, we sang.

The Children of Peace do not as a rule sing. But the Cumberlanders couldn't, wouldn't know that. And it baffled them. So we did it.

Thandi—of all people—started it. I did not know if the words were nonsense or Xhosa, but her voice surprised me with its grace. The rhythms were easy and rolling, and the music spilled down over the terraces. Soon everyone was singing. That morning there were songs from every corner of the world. Da-Xia and Elián and I were soon joined by the rest of the cohort in picking through the debris of the pumpkin trellis.

We sorted through the pumpkins, and all the while we sang. Even Elián sang for us: “Jack of diamonds, jack of diamonds, I know you of old. . . .” (It was a song about poor impulse control. Naturally.) Then some small one tried to interest the terraces in “Rockabye Baby,” and my friends slipped toward silence.

Rockabye baby, your cradle is green

Father's a king, and mother's a queen

When apples are ripe and ready to fall

Down will come baby, apples and all

I was mesmerized by the old song, so much so that I jumped when Elián spoke suddenly, and too loud. “Will Talis really— What will the UN do?”

He looked at me. In his hearing I had wished for the destruction of the entire nation of Cumberland. No, more than wished. I had
invoked
it, called it down like a sibyl calling down the wave that swamped Atlantis.
From the map,
I had said. In that moment I had wanted it, passionately. The death of millions.

“Talis will most likely negotiate,” said Grego cautiously.

“No,” said Da-Xia. “Forgive me, Gregori, Elián, but—no. We remember him, in the Himalayas, as you do not remember him here. Talis might do many things. But he will certainly not negotiate.”

“Oh,” said Elián.

It was different, considering the destruction of Cumberland, when you had to look a Cumberlander—even one—in the eye.

And so we all waited for the various things we feared.

The downside of sorting pumpkins in a manner suggesting defiance and hope was that it gave us a view of the toolshed. It was cruel to watch. There were a half dozen soldiers around it, stringing cabling, setting up cameras on tripods, a scan-and-scramble antenna (thank you, Grego). White umbrellas that bloomed on the lawn like man-high morning glories. From within the shed came banging, cursing—the ancient apple press in silent resistance.

And all the time Tolliver Burr moved here and there. Checked this and that.

I tried not to watch him, but I watched.

The prickling swarm of the pumpkin vines scratched my hands and wrists.

Finally Xie stepped between me and the scene, and caught both my hands. She raised them until we were forearm to forearm, like warriors. “There is no need for us to be here.”

“I want to—”

“To garden, to harvest, to carry on. But we wouldn't need to do this particular thing. There is no need for you to torture yourself.”

I laughed, then choked on the laugh. “It does seem redundant.”

Xie lifted our joined hands, and pressed them on each side of my cheeks, smiling. I leaned my forehead down against hers. Oh, Xie . . . In a dream I had seen her crowned. But she could not be more glorious crowned than she was now.

“You wouldn't have to show defiance and hope just exactly here,” said Elián. “Trust me, I'm a farmer. There's quackweed everywhere.”

“May all the gods bless quackweed,” said Xie. She released my hands, and tucked an arm around my waist. “Come, Your Royal Highness. Let's go weed the garlic.”

I looked toward the toolshed, where the soon-to-be-torturers were taking down the apple press. It was also where we kept the hoes.

“What are they doing in there?” said Han.

“I'll go,” said Thandi. Her hair, loose, stood out like a halo, full of light. She went with a walk that made the soldiers step back from her, vanished into the shed for a tight moment, then came back with three hoes over her shoulder. “All that's left,” she said. After all, the entire school was out gardening.

I took one; Xie and Elián, the other two. “Thank you,” I said, to Thandi, to all of them. My voice was smaller than I would have liked. Then we walked down toward the terraced gardens. Two of the soldiers peeled from the group by the shed and followed us. No one remarked on it.

The garlic was on one of the lowest terraces. It was cooler there, though the sun was drying the last scraps of mud, leaving the bare earth of the newly planted bed cracking like the bed of a drained lake. It smelled of fall. And, of course, of garlic. The shadow of the induction spire swept over us like a clock hand. We stood with the soldiers at our backs, looking down at the alfalfa field and the loop of the Saskatchewan River.

“Could we make it to the river, you think?” said Elián softly.

Neither Xie nor I looked around at the Cumberlanders and their guns, though of course they were vital to that calculation. “Perhaps,” said Da-Xia. “But to what end?” We hadn't a boat, and as suicides went, drowning was slow. Interruptible. I doubted there was an escape of any kind in that shining water.

“We should at least think about it,” said Elián. “About getting out of here.”

“I do,” said Xie. “All the time.”

It ripped my heart to hear her say it. It ripped my heart because—I never had.

Down the slopes came the whirr of a power saw. The apple press, with its footings sunk deep into the packed earth—Tolliver Burr was having it cut free.

O
h, September days—how long they are.

Confine thyself to the present,
Aurelius wrote. But I could not. The minutes prickled by. The afternoon wore heat for a while and then took it off like a jacket. By the time Tolliver Burr had me summoned, I was shivering.

The first thing he did was smile at me. Then he took a step away and looked me up and down, and framed me with his fingers. “Hmmmm,” he said.

And I was embarrassed. Embarrassed! “I do hope I meet your expectations, Mr. Burr.”

“Tolliver,” he said absently, as if he'd almost given up on that. “You're lovely, Greta. You're a picture. But . . .” He made a loop in the air with his hand. “Perhaps a shower?”

The apple press was standing in the bunch grass beside him. I tried not to notice it, but in truth I saw it sharply—the pale splinters of wood where the supports had been sawn free, the mica flecks in the granite pan. They had a couple of gantry spiders set up to turn the cranks.

“A shower,” I said.

Burr smiled and nodded. “So you look your best.”

Fervently I hoped that if I threw up again, it would be on Tolliver Burr's crisp white shirt.

“The Precepture does not have showers, Mr. Burr.”

“Hmmmm,” he said again. “Well, if you don't, you don't.” And then, over his shoulder: “Ginger, get the princess a bucket and a washcloth.” And to me: “Do you have anything else to wear, Greta? Or shall I find you something?”

I thought of the flower-figured taffeta gown, the dress that had turned to a constrictor in my dream. “Mr. Burr,” I said, “I will wear this.”

“But . . .”

“If you're going to martyr me,” I said, “you may as well dress me as a monk.”

“Martyr! Oh, no! I shouldn't think it would go that far.” Tolliver Burr swooped his hands around, taking in the cameras, the lights. “I'm a professional, Greta. A persuasive man.” He smiled again— It looked corpselike on his desiccated face. “It won't take much, I promise.”

And he might be right. The parliamentary elections coming—the public pressure—

Pressure.
An unfortunate thing to think.
Pressure,
I thought. And then I could no longer think. I wondered if they had drugged me somehow, or if I was simply that afraid.

“I've got a hardlock override into the public broadcasts,” Tolliver Burr was saying. I was hardly listening to him. “The viewing audience may well be unprecedented. I'm sure the PanPols will demand that the government save their princess. And of course, your mother loves you.”

Of course.

Someone had put a bucket of soapy water at my feet. I looked at it and tried to remember what to do. Burr picked up a cloth, softly wiping my face, washing each of my fingers. “You're beautiful, Greta. A natural.”

I came back to myself with a cry: “Don't touch me!”

“There you are,” he said encouragingly. “Just natural reactions, dear. Don't bother to act. Truly, you'll be fine.”

I staggered back from him, and I was still reeling when two soldiers took me by the elbows.

All my life I had been trained to go quietly. But now—I fought. Why should I not fight? It was hopeless, it was impossible, but I fought anyway, and they had to drag me—if not screaming, at least shouting and kicking.

Someone shoved me to my knees; even as I got up again, someone else jerked my hands out onto the stone tray of the press. My chin hit the stone. There was blood in my mouth. Black sparks in my eyes. Soldiers everywhere. They had plastic straps with smart adhesives. I fought, but it took them less than ten seconds to strap me down, wrist and elbow. I jerked and pulled against the straps. They bit into my skin, raising welts along their clear borders. I did it another moment, unable to stop myself.

And then I stilled.

The tray was low; I was hunched awkwardly, my tailbone as high as my shoulders. I took a deep breath, and I knelt. There was dignity in that. Tradition. A queen at the block.

I looked up.

The Cumberlanders had pulled me away from Da-Xia and Elián when Burr had summoned me. With desperate eyes I sought past the apple press, past the cameras, past Burr, to see what had become of them.

They were behind a line of soldiers, clear back by the top of the terraces. Thandi and Atta were holding Xie. She was struggling in their arms, shouting and kicking just as I had. Grego still had his arms full of pumpkin, and Han was gripping Grego's arm, his mouth hanging open. Elián was standing with Armenteros. He had grabbed her by the arm and appeared to be spitting into her face. Armenteros's aide-de-camp, Buckle, had Elián by the other arm. The blood was pounding in my ears; I could not hear them.

Burr was pacing away from the press, considering it from a few different angles, adjusting cameras and nudging diffusers, checking things off on his clipboard. I looked at the cohort, I looked at Elián, getting my breath back, trying to focus. None of the younger Children were in sight. Herded back into the Precepture hall? Probably best. This could make a mob of them. Someone could be hurt. I looked at my own hands, fingers tensed and bunched on the grey stone. Yes, indeed. Someone could be hurt.

“If you could just bring them over here,” said Burr to the soldiers guarding my cohort. “We'll need them for reaction shots.” He consulted a clipboard. “There are supposed to be six. Where's the last one?”

A gust of silence, and then Elián raised his hand like the well-mannered Child of Peace he most certainly was not. “Right here.”

“Elián . . .” Armenteros's exasperation was well-worn. Clearly Elián's ridiculous defiance was not a recently acquired trait.

Elián dropped his grandmother's arm and drew himself up. He stepped away from Armenteros and Buckle.

Burr flicked two fingers up and down. “In uniform? No, no, he clashes dreadfully. Is this the grandson? Someone get him his whites.”

“I don't want him in whites,” said Armenteros.

Elián started fumbling with buttons. “He doesn't want me in chamo, you don't want me in white—did anyone bring my bowling shirt?”

“Elián, you're being childish,” said Armenteros.

“Childish!” He yanked off his soldier's shirt and threw it at her. “Maybe I can grow up to be a famous torturer!”

“I'm trying to save our country, Elián,” she said blandly.

Elián stood there, bare-ribbed and shivering.

“There's no denying he's got something,” said Burr, absently framing Elián in a rectangle of fingers. “I'd love to have him to zoom in on, General. Those eyes could bring it all home.”

Armenteros ignored him. “Elián, there's no point in a delay. Do you really think the princess wants to be kept in suspense?”

“Let's ask her,” he said, and before anyone was sure it was right to stop him—he was the general's grandson, after all—he had walked over to me. He smiled down. “Hi.”

I tried to speak, failed, swallowed, and croaked out, “Hi.”

“Greta,” he whispered, and knelt. He was across the apple press from me. I could see what Burr meant about his eyes: they were liquid, huge, showing whites. Terrified. I was sure we matched. He took a deep breath and put his hands on the stone. Our fingertips touched. “Told you I was Spartacus,” he said. Then he raised his voice to call to the Cumberlanders: “Now I think we're set to go.”