the eyes to see such things, they would have seen the newly awakened gods hanging from the walls, gathering around the window, peering in, watching, taking part. Odin, AlFather, he was there, watching what he already knew would come to pass. Frey and Freyja, gods of fertility, they would have been there. Other gods, newly born, who had arisen from the bricks and rusty wheels, from the broken machinery and concrete and steel, they came too, to breathe the smell of destiny as if this was the smoke of a sacrifice to them. And Loki, grinning and hanging off the wall like a leech, the god who could twist the passage of time and bring it to where it was doomed to go by sudden, unexpected routes, but who could change nothing. Certainly he would be there. He wouldn't miss it for the world.
11
Siggy
She told me that she'd learned to prophesy and that I would be a great man, a king, that I'd bring Conor down and rule further than any man now living. She whispered these things in my ears but I didn't care, I was too busy at the time. I remember vaguely thinking, Signy must have sent her, that was why she was doing this. But I didn't care why she was there by then… I was just so happy she was.
But even as we did it it began to feel like I was using her, although she was keen enough and I never talked her into anything. She seemed as if she was enjoying it. Later, we did it again and she took up various positions without me asking her – this way and that way, her face down on the pillow, peering round at me, looking appalled, now I think about it Maybe she just wanted to be held but somehow couldn't bring herself to stop the sex. But she came, it seemed good. We fell asleep holding each other and when I woke up she was gone.
I saw her again a few days later, but she was furious. Wouldn't let me near her. I didn't understand, not for a long, long time. I thought, maybe she was on heat like a cat and couldn't help herself. Whatever. But it was obvious that as far as Cherry was concerned, sleeping with me had been a bad mistake.
12
When Signy told Conor that she was pregnant, the tyrant was thrilled. A child! His child. The beginning of a dynasty.
Of course Conor had access to whatever women he wanted; the Estate and the streets around were littered with his children, but their mothers were dirt for the most part. Who knew what they were? Signy was a princess, pure blood, the daughter of Val Volson. Safely locked up in her tower, she was more his than any other man owned any woman.
A son. Every empire needs one.
But there were dangers at home. The child changed things, made them worse. Surely the unseen enemies had their own plans of succession. They sat up late, in unknown rooms, looking forward to the time when Conor's face would turn black as he hung upside down from a lamp-post. In the meantime they would do everything they could to kill Signy and her unborn child.
Mother and child would have to be kept secret-safe. Conor, attacking the whole world, began to fear for the very precious things at home, never realising that the most dangerous thing of all was that which he was jealously guarding. He increased the guard on the water tower, fitted armour-proof glass to a handful of windows and sealed the others up with steel. The guard itself was guarded, lest the invisible enemies bribed them or infiltrated. No one could get in or out of the tower without his say so, unless they were a bird that could fly up to the roof.
Signy, the precious jewel in this strong box, went through her pregnancy seeing only Conor, Cherry, and glimpses through the glass of the guards circling her aerial dungeon. Every day, Conor laid his hand on her belly and spoke of his love. See how he kept her safe! What more proof could she need? One day soon, he promised her, she would come down the ladder and see their enemies staring up at her, their heads on sticks, just as she had requested. The day would come when this child, half of the Volson blood, half of his, would rule the country united at last under one king.
'Your father's dreams will come true after all!' he boasted, believing that this was still important to her.
Signy listened and kissed him and told him that he was forgiven, that she loved him. Lies and truth mingled closely in her. There were days when she felt her life could be happy after all, if only she could forget the past, but throughout her aim was unwavering -nothing less than the total destruction of Conor and all his works.
This was to be the child who would take everything back, this was the one of pure Volson blood who must replace her brother's weak heart and put him on the throne. She never questioned that the child would be a boy. She knew that, as if Odin himself had promised it. She sang him secret lullabies of hatred and revenge. The day would come – maybe she would be dead by then and Siggy an old man. But it would happen. It would happen because she planned it so. Her plans were destiny. Her revenge might take a lifetime, but there was nothing Signy was not prepared to do just so long as in the end the empire would fall and the man die like a dog.
13
Signy
I'm sitting in my wheelchair. Conor is on his knees by my side, pouring oils into the palm of his hand. The warm scents fill the room: sweet almond, frankincense, carrot oil, to keep the skin on my belly smooth. I'm vain enough not to want stretch marks when I get my shape back.
He opens my gown and we both laugh. How huge and swollen my body is and how thin, how spindly my little legs are!
'I'll give you back your legs. I'll give you back everything,' whispers Conor. He means it. In one of the rooms below us is a glass womb, one of the artificial wombs used to gestate genetically altered creatures. He captured it from a convoy delivering goods between Ragnor and Birmingham. Once the baby's born I shall go into it.
Once the baby's born. Of course, nothing may happen that might affect the baby. Heaven forbid!
Conor strokes my hard stomach. 'My king-pot,' he says. That's me, a pot of kings. He kisses my navel. I shriek at him, because the oil is dripping onto the silk of my gown. He growls and nips my navel with his teeth. It's sticking out far enough for him to do that. It feels dreadful! It tickles.
'You're supposed to be making me relax,' I scold. Conor apologises. He rubs the oil between his hands and begins to rub it into the skin of my belly, in slow, warm circles. He has warm hands, always very, very warm. Not like mine. I can make him shriek too by putting my cold ones on his stomach or on his thighs. He hates the cold. When he's finished stroking my belly, he'll want to do my big breasts.
Something to look forward to.
I feel as if I'm submerged in a pool of very still water -very still, very calm, very deep. I feel almost at peace, sometimes. But this pool is stagnant. The water is rotting. Conor is rotten, and me too – I'm the rottenest thing of all. Thoughts and feelings are like the dead bodies of drifting frogs and clots of rotting spawn.
Cherry says that you love whoever is there to love because it's human to love. We have no choice. 'It's like breathing,' she whispers. She loves me, too. See -I am surrounded by love!
Well, forgive me for not thinking so highly of love. Perhaps love is so strong that even after all Conor has done I can still love him. I
After his warm hands have done their work, we want to make love… is that the word? Conor wheels me over to the bed and I half crawl, and am half tipped onto the mattress. I remind myself of a pile of leftovers being tipped out, but I don't say so. I don't want to spoil the mood. I'm so big I have to lie on my side while he enters me from behind.
