Bloodtide

Melanie just stared. I thought, what is this? What was she up to now? You couldn't read anything from her face. One of the animal things about Melanie – she has no expressions. She'd make a real good poker player if she felt like it.

'Why make it a secret?' said the stranger. He was trying not to stare at me. I put my face towards him. 'Take a good look,' I told him. 'Not seen anything like that before, have you? Comes of having your face fixed by a pig.'

I said that to hurt Melanie.

'It's the face of a hero,' the man said.

I started in surprise. I stared at him. I scowled. All I'd done was survive. What kind of a hero was that? It was all crap, anyway.

The stranger put out his hand. 'It's an honour to meet you, Sigmund Volson. We all remember your father and the hopes he raised before he was betrayed.'

'All gone now,' I shrugged.

But the man shook his head. 'I've been sent here by Dag.'

I shook my head. The name was vaguely familiar. Melanie stamped her foot. 'The resistance!' she sang. 'The resistance. Groink! Dag Aggerman, e's our leader. Keep tellin yer, keep tellin yer, Sigs!'

It was true – she did keep telling me. And I kept ignoring her. What was the point?

'Couple of dogs with pop guns,' I sneered.

The stranger shook his head. 'Dag is the leader of the dog people. He's a great man,' he told me. And he smiled wryly.

Man? Halfman! I just laughed. Leader of the resistance? The people's friend, a sodding dog? Don't tell me. Men and halfmen had been at each other's throats since the first brewing. I looked closely at the stranger for traces of dog. Maybe his tongue was spotted.

'I'd thought you were a human,' I told him.

'I am. Pure blood. That was why I was sent.'

I shook my head.

'An alliance with the halfmen,' insisted the man. 'It's the way forward. We can stop Conor together. Life for the halfmen under their leaders has been better than life for humans under theirs.'

'We'm more civilised than you umans,' said Melanie smugly. She was always teasing me about our barbarity. Well, I couldn't deny it, could I?

'Men and halfmen are joining forces at last. Your father thought he could unite the people and defeat the halfmen before breaking out of London. But we have to all join together: men, halfmen, everyone.'

I shrugged. It was useless. 'Conor's too strong. Maybe Ragnor'll get him in the end, if he gets too far.'

'Ragnor's time is over. They've only kept us trapped by keeping us at each other's throats. They don't rule the rest of the county, let alone the country. It's just city states now -London, Birmingham, Glasgow. The other towns are as against Ragnor as we are. It's time, Volson.'

Now that was interesting, if it was true. But not interesting enough. 'Conor's too strong,' I repeated.

'Conor can't win this war,' said the man. 'The other cities are organising against him. They're arming us. The halfmen are strong and getting stronger. Conor's taken on too much, too soon. His trade lines are already too thin. Soon, he'll be having trouble supplying his own troops.'

The two of them were staring at me, all dribbly and excited, like a pair of schoolchildren asking for a lollipop. Well, I was fresh out of sweets. I waved a hand in the air. 'Do what you want. Don't bring me into it.'

'Youare in it. Odin gave you the knife.'

'Odin! Some cyborg from Ragnor.'

The young man looked defiant. 'Dag Aggerman believes it. So do I.'

'What possible difference could what you believe make to anyone?'

The stranger stood there looking. Suddenly I felt like crying again. Hadn't I had enough? Wasn't it time I was left alone?

'You were given the knife. You're a hero! And you have experience. You know how to organise people, you did this kind of work under Val. You're a general, a leader. Look…' The stranger was getting passionate. He really believed in this crap. 'The halfmen are united under Dag, but we need a human, someone people can gather round. We need you. You're a Volson! That means so much. You escaped Conor, you defeated the Pig! Everyone knows the story of how you fought him jaw to jaw. We need you.'

'We need yer, Sigs,' repeated Melanie. I just stared at her. She knew what a wreck I was these days. Just because I knew someone who filled the larder, she needn't think I was a leader of men, let alone halfmen.

'My people need you an so do yours,' she said. And she looked at me with those big catty eyes.

Well, she keeps surprising me, Melanie. Now she had her belly full, her brain came on. Now she was a fighter for the resistance!

I blinked back my tears and shook my head. 'Humans and halfmen -it'd never work,' I said.

Melanie just spread her arms and shook her head. She didn't need to say anything. It meant, what about you and me, Sigs?

I'd had enough. I said, 'No.' I pushed my way past them.

The stranger called out, 'Think about it!' as I left the flat. I just wanted to bawl my eyes out I ran down the stairs out onto the street. Who did they think they were? Asking for my father's dreams to be brought back to life by dogs and pigs! Fuck you, I thought. Yeah – fuck you!

7

Signy

It's spring. I can see the powdery colour of bluebells coming into flower under the trees. Soon the leaves will be too thick to see the ground, so I make the most of this flush of wildflowers. I spend hours at my window with my nose pressed up close soaking up the blue. I ask Conor to bring me bunches of them, or roots to grow on the window-sill. I fill my rooms with growing things -bluebells, primroses, daffs, tulips. If I bury my head deep into them I can smell the outside. If I close my eyes, I can imagine the wind which I haven't felt on my skin for over four years.

Cherry is out, I'm on my own. I'm on my own mostly. The endless hours spent on my own creep by like the hours of eternity.

It reminds me of a story my father once told me. In a great flat desert there's a huge mountain, the highest in the world. It stands there immense and unconquerable. Once every thousand years, a little brown bird flies across the desert and lands on the topmost peak of the mountain. It wipes its bill briefly on the stone, one-two, one-two, and then it flies away for another thousand years. When the bird has ground the mountain down as flat as the desert all around with its bill, then one second of eternity will have passed by.

One second of my imprisonment.

I'm alone, but I'm not isolated. Cherry flies to and fro with endless news. Conor tells me his lies. He wants me to have his child, a son and heir to carry his mantle. He imagines I should be proud to be chosen to be his queen. He makes promises about the day I shall leave my prison in triumph. To hear him you'd think it was his only wish, the one single thing he spends his days and nights working towards, but I've almost abandoned the idea of ever getting out of here. It suits him to keep me trapped. I'm at his disposal. His little whore, ready and waiting.

I take precautions against this child of his. I'm certain I should vomit it up if I ever became pregnant by him. A little pill every day keeps me safe. Cherry brings them to me.

There… see? A little bird flies across the windowpane, and my heart jumps. Is it her? She's been gone two days, flying across the battlefields to the east where Conor is fighting his way towards Ipswich. Already his territory is big enough for him to call it a kingdom, and himself the king. In this matter at least he tells me the truth. But they are fighting back. The people of the other cities, and the halfmen too. No one, animal or human, could be so stupid as to want to be ruled by my husband. The whole world is up for the fight. Only my brother sits at home and does nothing.

No sign of the little brown bird. I turn and go to lie on my bed, although I'm not tired. I stare at the ceiling. I have a little place I like to look at just above my bed to the right. Mostly I just stare at it, but sometimes I think of