It made Melanie furious. Her Sigs, didn't he love her? Didn't she love him? Yes, yes, her ugly old face was all he had in this world, and she knew his heart was in the right place. Face to face, Siggy would do anything for you. He'd go out and raid fat old pigs of their dripping, play the outlaw, give fortunes away every day. But, like Signy, not for justice, not for the sake of the common folk. He did it because he liked to please his Melanie. And perhaps, because he needed the exercise.
But certainly not for the sake of the alliance.
'No, nothin to do with you, eh, Sigs?'
Humans! Always arguing, always knowing best. And the last of the Volsons, the one man who had the name, the skills and the reputation to lead them spends his time making raids on individual old men with too much money, as if a splash of outlaw do-goodery was any answer to the genocide he saw out of his window every morning.
'It pleases some folk,' he said to her. Sure. Robin Hood Volson, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Volson steals, and the old sow hands the money over to Dag Aggerman. Wonderful, how these aristocrats can sympathise with the common folk! But Melanie didn't want some folks pleased. She wanted an end to the tyranny, she wanted justice, she wanted hope. And her beloved Siggy wouldn't help.
'Can't help…'
'Won't help,' she finished for him, and off he goes to sulk on his beloved sofa.
Oh, don't underestimate Melanie. She has a big heart, but there's a brain in there as well. It's politics these days for our Mels. She passes information to and fro, picks Cherry's brains, tries to send messages to Signy, although they are never answered.
('Won't do business with a pig,' purrs the cat-girl.)
She knows everyone, who to trust, who not to trust Gold and information: what more could the halfman leader ask for? The answer, Siggy. The alliance needs him, and she cannot deliver and that's why she huffs and growls and stamps her trotters on the cobbles as she makes her way to her rendezvous.
Under the awning, wet with drizzle, with the smells of cheap pies made of potato peelings, swedes and turnip tops filling in the air around them, the jewellery is handed over. The bag, waterproofed with wax, which Melanie always uses for this purpose is turned upside down to make sure that no little link of gold or silver, no tiny gem that might be turned into a bullet is wasted. The recipient, an old man who clips his whiskers and has to shave right up to his eyes, giving his face a curiously bald look, packs the goods on his own back.
'And how's Sigmund?' he asks her in a gruff voice.
'Ah, groink! Same as ever. Stoopid.'
'Stoopid monkeys,' agrees the old man, who has a long journey in the tunnels to the other side of the Wall ahead of him tonight.
'But e's coming,' insists Melanie. 'E makes all this, don't e?'
'For you, Melanie, he does it just for you,' says the old man, and pulls his own bag onto his shoulders.
'E as an eart.'
The old man nods. The two part, he to a drain that has a secret connection to the old Northern Line, she back through the little byways to the flat she shares with Siggy in Muswell Hill. Crosser than ever. What was wrong with Sigs? Why wouldn't he fight? Already, he was out again for his Melanie, out again that very night, off to Hyde Park, making more for the good fight. He'd come over soon. Surely no one could watch this evil for much longer. You just
Old Melanie was scared for her liddle uman. Folk didn't understand how much he'd been through. It took time.
Back through the streets. Up Wayward Road, scurry across Caversham and into the mire, mud and cobbles of Harlow Square, full of burrows and submerged basements, relics of houses long since knocked down for wood and stone. Many good folk lived underground these days, and hardly dared come out.
Coming up Battle Grove… oh, dear, Melanie, look, now! A figure appears out of an alleyway a little ahead. Melanie pauses… pauses… looks back to see where she may run. No drains near here to hide in. She sniffs with her whiffly nose and smells leather shoes, boiled fish for dinner, a damp woollen hat and hair. Didn't like it. It was a human. Never trust a uman. Flashing through her mind, rhymes she used to scare her little piggwiggikins with:
The Lamb, the man, the pig an the goat,
Went fer a ride in a liddle red boat.
The lamb, the pig and the goat got ate,
The man was the ony one left afloat.'
'Melanie, it's me.'
She recognises the voice, and relaxes, but just a little. Who ever felt relaxed in such company, even though she knows the man and where his loyalties lie? Her decision not to run for it is an intellectual one. Every bone in her body cries out for escape.
'Oh. What you doin ere?'
'We need to talk, Melanie.' The man steps forward, close enough to touch her. Close enough to hold her. Beware, Melanie Pig! 'About Siggy.'
'What about Siggy?' Nervous, her little eyes shoot from side to side. She steps back. Too close, too close! Is he alone? 'Why here?'
'There's a way to make him join Dag, I know it.'
Now, that's interesting. No one knows Siggy better than these two. If he has a plan, it's worth hearing.
A step closer, he takes another step closer. 'Conor hasn't done enough to make him see what he has to do.'
'Not enuff? What more could e do?'
The answer comes faster than piggy eyes can see, shot out on an arm of steel, fingers of iron seize her by the throat and crush her voicebox. No cries for help, no grunts; her words end here.
'He loves too many people,' hisses the man. He flings her down on the ground where she writhes, clutching at her ruined throat, struggling for the strangled air. He hauls her back up and throws her over his shoulder. 'This will show him, see, Melanie? Conor will never be content until everything worthwhile is destroyed.'
If there was any irony in the phrase, 'everything worthwhile', Melanie didn't appreciate the compliment. Gagging and straining for those precious last breaths, struggling in vain against his cyber-grip, she jolts up and down, up and down on his broad high back. Another wee rhyme spins through her brain:
'I as no eart and I don care,
Me skin's as bare as an ogre's lair.
Trusting you, you can trust me true,
TO EAT YOU DOWN TO THE TINIEST AIR!
He flings her down again on the cobbles like so much pork. Two startled Orangers spin round to see who walks so boldly up to them outside the barracks.
'I found this pig pretending to be a woman,' says the man. He lifts his hand to his woolly hat in a salute, steps backwards, eyes still on the soldiers, and before they can even ask, is gone.
'Who goes there?' cries one, far too late. The Orangers start in pursuit, but it's obvious there's no threat and anyhow, Styr has melted away. The streets are silent. Spooky! He came so quietly, he could have strangled them both and they wouldn't have known he was there.
They turn back, irritated, to where the pig is crawling like an animal up the road.
'What's going on?' With three well aimed kicks, they get her on her back. 'Speak!' Melanie croaks and gasps: no words. One reaches down and rips her dress open.
'She's a pig all right. More tits than fingers.'
The other snorts. They kick her head a few times to calm her down, and drag her into the station. Melanie's thinking that Styr could at least have finished her off; he could easily have finished her off if there were even a drop of decent blood in him. The Orangers never killed halfmen quickly. It made a better example for the rest of them.
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