The Dark Citadel (The Green Woman) (10 page)

Deborah tightened her hold on her father’s hand. In
all these years of loneliness, she had built a shell that protected her from
the barbs and taunts that were flung at her, even by her givenfamily. Instead
of the thin, sinewy hand of a sick man, she felt again the strong grip that had
once enfolded her own tiny child’s hand. She remembered holding onto a single
finger as she trotted by his side, long ago, when they were still a family. Her
father returned the pressure of her handclasp. She knew he shared the same
memories.
 

“Go now, daughter. Find your mother. The times are
changing, and I must get ready to move with them. Whenever you are afraid, know
I am right behind you, wherever you are I will find you. Now go, before the
orderly comes back to give me my injection. Go to the basement where the
cleaning staff keep their equipment. Mix with the women leaving at the end of
the afternoon shift. Follow them to the Ignorant quarter. Someone will help you
find the door. Go through the desert by night, head north, and make for the
mountains. Take care, Deborah. Now go! Until we meet again.”

For ten years the barrier that Deborah had built
around her emotions had kept out the hurt of abandonment, had protected her
from the snide comments and jibes of those who had replaced her parents. She
thought she was strong, tough enough to take whatever abuse the world of the
Elders threw at her. One short conversation and her defences had crumbled. She
had opened up to let her father in; it was almost more than she could bear to
be cast off again. A real live father was surely better than a mother who might
not exist, one who made even the Elders tremble. She was afraid, but she knew
she had no real choice. To stay was to accept a sentence to a slow death.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Deborah forced
herself to smile and let the shell close up around her again. Clasping her
father for a last time to her cheek, she left the secure ward by the door the
orderly had taken.

Hera was
beginning
to think they had forgotten all about her. The small room had begun to
feel almost friendly when, at the end of her second day of punishment, she was
released and escorted to the principal’s office by two Black Boys. As she
hurried, half-running to keep up with them, her heart beat wildly.

School
detention’s over now,
she thought,
this
is where the real punishment begins.

The principal’s door opened and Hera blinked.
Panelled in dazzling white, the room caught and reflected the daylight that
entered from the huge bay window. The effect was of a room suspended in the
air, hovering above the grey city and peering like a searchlight down every
narrow street and into every tenement doorway. She shivered. The city held no
secrets from the men who occupied these high rooms. They were all exposed;
every gesture out of place, every unauthorised sentiment was monitored. How did
Deborah think she could so much as take a different route to school unnoticed?

The principal rose and motioned to Hera to
approach. Never had he looked so menacing, never had his grey eyes pierced so
deeply, never had his immaculately white robes made him seem more inhuman.

“I have just one question for you.” Principal
Anastasias spoke softly, but the softness was like a low growl. “Where is your
friend Deborah Givenchild?”

“
Ssshh
now, and
hold still. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

The voice was calm and steady, and there was a hint
of humour in it. Zachariah was set on his feet and he leapt like a fish. He
thrust his hands upwards, over his head, pushing his way out of the sack. He
struggled with the drawstring, lashing out with his fists at the hands that
tried to steady him when he stumbled. The hands were not deterred, and
Zachariah found his arms were pinned tightly to his sides.

“Well, I’ve met some ungrateful beggars in my time,
but you take the biscuit, son!” There was no mistaking the laughter in the
voice this time.

Zachariah took a deep breath to calm his
hammer-pounding heart and looked about him. He blinked though the light was
anything but bright. The roof of hewn stone and earth was supported by stone
pillars, reminding him of the Gothic-inspired architecture of one of the
temples. On each pillar was a bracket where a wavering light flickered, and the
landscape of pillars, lights and beaten earth stretched away deep into the
darkness. To Zachariah this was a vision of madness, a hellish nightmare, and
he had no idea where he could possibly be.

 
He
stared about in astonishment, curiosity finally getting the better of his fear.
He stopped struggling and asked, “Where is this?”

His arms were released, and his captor, a big man,
a giant with curly brown hair and beard, and eyes that twinkled with amusement,
stood back to look at him. The big man jerked his thumb towards the ceiling.
“Up there’s Providence, and down there,” his thumb pointed downwards, “that’s
where the Elders say your Wise God dreams up his infernal rules and
regulations.”

“And this is No Man’s Land?”

The big man grinned. “I’ll have you know, son, that
this is
Our
Land, the Dananns’
homeland.” He held out a great paw and grasped Zachariah’s hand. “I’m Ezekiel,
and if you promise not to thump me again, I’ll take you where you can get
something to eat. Then we’ll find you a place to sleep.”

Zachariah looked long and hard at Ezekiel and the
warm smile that wrinkled the corners of his eyes and mouth. He had not much
experience of the finer aspects of human nature, but he was pretty certain he
was in the presence of a good man now. He smiled, a smile of relief and trust,
and returned Ezekiel’s handclasp.

* * * *

As they walked along, sometimes stooping where the roof dipped low and
sometimes wriggling through narrow tunnels, Ezekiel, in his deep, good-natured
voice explained about Underworld.

“So, only the Ignorants know about this place?”
Zachariah asked.

“That’s a Providence word. We prefer Dananns.”

“I’m sorry,” Zachariah stammered. “I thought...”

“Of course you did.” Ezekiel smiled. “They don’t
teach you history. The Dananns came before. But it doesn’t matter. Does anyone
else know about Underworld? All the Elders and the government ministers know,
and all the engineers and the scientists knew before they were purged, the poor
devils. Where do you think the water pipes go and the sewage? It’s us they
don’t know about.”

Zachariah looked sceptical. “So what do you do when
they come down here? Hide?”

“From who? Nobody ever comes to Underworld anymore.
It was intended as a second city beneath the ground, but they abandoned the
idea decades ago.”

“Why was that?” Zachariah was intrigued, his
interest in how things worked aroused.

Ezekiel shrugged. “They said the Wise God didn’t
like human activity so close to his own dwelling. If you ask me, it’s because
the energy is difficult to control, sometimes accidents happened. Now none of
the High Caste people come below ground at all, except for a few overseers in
the protein production plant and the mines. The place where they get the
energy, the reactor they call it, is completely enclosed. They get access from
Overworld. The rest of it, what we call Underworld, they’ve forgotten ever
existed. We found our way down here, we Ignorants,” Ezekiel pronounced the name
with bitter irony, “burrowing like animals. But at least here we can breathe
and laugh and remember we’re human beings. Up there it’s easy to forget.” His
soft brown eyes grew hard and piercing. “If ever the Elders discovered we’d
found our way down here, that we’d made this place our own—”

Zachariah’s eyes widened with horror. “I would
never betray you,” he insisted. “Never!”

Ezekiel searched his dark eyes, then nodded,
satisfied. Zachariah peered across the dark landscape, one grotto succeeding
another until the flickering lights were swallowed by the echoing darkness, and
he shivered.

“You get used to it,” Ezekiel said softly. “We’ve made
it our home. Come on, I’ll show you.”

He led the way through a tunnel in a wall of rock,
red striped with yellow, that plunged across their path. They were standing on
the edge of a huge natural amphitheatre at the top of a flight of steps cut
into the rock. The sides of the amphitheatre were studded with holes, and in
the black depths within, Zachariah could make out the flickering light of
candles. They were caves, and from the caves came the sounds of music,
laughter, and singing. He stared incredulously at Ezekiel who, by way of an
answer, took Zachariah’s arm, led him down the steps, and stood before an open
cave.

“My humble abode,” he said proudly and motioned to
Zachariah to enter. “Grania,” he called. “Company!”

The cave was
like nothing
Zachariah had ever seen before, furnished using discarded construction
materials from the great underground pipelines. Shelves, tables and chairs were
made from struts and panels. Niches carved into the rock were filled with an
assortment of coloured glass dishes and jars where lighted wicks floated in
steamy, pungent oil. Scattered across the floor lay a variety of objects
Zachariah recognized as toys: balls, rag dolls, pipes, and drums. With an
apology for the disorder, Ezekiel pulled out a box and started throwing the
objects into it.

“Children,” he grumbled good-humouredly. “Never put
anything away after themselves.”

Zachariah’s eyes opened wide with astonishment.
“I’ve never seen so many toys.”

A woman appeared in the cave entrance, her arms full
of black lumps that she placed in an iron basket on the hearth. Her head was
bare, and black hair, tied back in a loose plait, fell gracefully over her
shoulder. Zachariah, embarrassed at the impropriety, tried not to stare. She
laughed, ignoring his red face.

“Up above they don’t like children to play, it’s
true. They don’t much like children, come to that. But we Dananns have never
heeded their rules, have we, Zeke?”

“Not if we can help it, no.” He laughed. “Where are
they, by the way?”

“With Fionnuala, listening to stories.” The woman
turned to Zachariah and held out her hand. “I’m Grania. Fionnuala’s my sister.”

“Your
sister?
”
Zachariah asked in a small voice and pressed the hand briefly and awkwardly.
“You have a sister?” It was all getting a bit too much to take, so many
infractions of the rules, announced so casually. These people were condemned to
death several times over.
 

“Like Grania said, we don’t much care for the
Elders’ rules. Now then,” Ezekiel rubbed his hands together, “I expect you’d like
something to put you on till suppertime.”

From a shelf by the hearth, Grania took a round
loaf of bread and cut several thick slices from it. She then set a bowl of salt
and a small jug of oil on the table and passed a water crock to Ezekiel, who
went outside to fill it at a tap fitted into the main water pipeline. Zachariah
watched, astonished a man would take an order, even an unspoken one, from his
wife. Ezekiel put the jug and three cups on the table and pushed the soya bread
towards Zachariah.

“Now,” he said, leaning his huge forearms on the
table, “let’s hear your story.”

Zachariah blushed and stammered into his bread.
Surely the woman wasn’t going to sit there next to him, was she? He glanced
sideways and caught Grania’s eyes laughing at his discomfort. It wasn’t that
she was young and attractive or anything. She was probably old enough to be his
mother. Her hands were coarse and red from work, and there were dark hairs on
her arms.

He blushed again. The point was that he shouldn’t
be able to see her arms or her hair. She should cover herself in front of
strangers. He wriggled and broke his bread into small pieces, hoping she would
go away, but she didn’t, she just sat there, laughing at him.

Ezekiel placed a hand on his arm. “We already told
you, we don’t have the same rules as your Elders. If we did, you wouldn’t be
here. Ezra and Diarmuid would have turned you in. We don’t like the way the
Elders treat people. All people. And that includes women and children as well
as men. You understand? We are all children of the Mother, all due the same
respect. Grania has as much right to listen to your story as I have.”

Zachariah lowered his eyes to the little pile of
crumbs his agitated fingers had made, and swallowed hard. “It all started when
Father was killed.”

Ezekiel and Grania looked at one another and
smiled.

The cloakroom
was
buzzing with an excited whispering. The women and girls wrapped themselves
tightly in their shawls and passed on the news with shining eyes and excited
voices. There had been a breakout. Not one but two prisoners had escaped, a boy
and a young girl. Both extremely dangerous subversives.

Deborah mingled with the crowd as her father had
suggested, but it was only now as the lockers opened and closed, as the white and
blue gowns were taken off and the grey or black shawls were put on, that
Deborah remembered her own outer clothes had been taken from her. How could she
have been so stupid? With no headscarf, no shawl, she would be arrested for
immodesty on the threshold of the prison.

The doors had opened, but there seemed to be some
kind of a hold up. Standing on her toes to peer over the heads of the women in
front of her, Deborah was horrified to see four Black Boys checking the papers
of every worker before she left. The atmosphere was tense. Women and girls
looked uneasily at one another and huddled closer together. They were used to
being afraid; they were Ignorants. Any excuse was good enough for tormenting
them.

The friendly banter, the calling out to friends and
neighbours over the sea of heads had stopped, and the crowd was quiet except
for a persistent, fearful murmuring. Deborah looked wildly from one face to
another, not knowing how to approach people she did not know, hoping someone
would guess from her distress, from her unshawled appearance, from the way she
slid backwards as the crowd moved towards the doors, that she needed help.

The crowd shuffled forward, closer to the guards,
and Deborah prepared to turn and run. She felt a hand take hers and hold her
still, a hard, firm hand, but warm and comforting. She turned sharply, hoping
to see his face at last. She knew it was him, the one who sang and laughed out
loud in her dreams, who comforted her when she was miserable, but she saw only
women, their eyes fixed anxiously on the Black Boys. In confusion and
disappointment, she stumbled backwards and trod on somebody’s foot. She turned
round, stammering apologies.

The girl took her arm and whispered, “What’s up?
Where are your things? Are you in trouble?”

The phantom hand slipped away, and Deborah clutched
at the girl, gratitude lighting up her face. Suddenly she felt brave again, in
charge of the situation. “I’m a prisoner. Help me get out. Please!”

The girl stared hard at her, weighing her up. It
took her less than a minute to decide Deborah didn’t look like a spy. Leaning
forward into the mass of shawls and scarves, she tapped a tall woman on the
shoulder. “Aysha, pass us Juno’s shawl, will you? Is her security pass still
inside it?”

The tall woman asked no questions, she simply
pulled a long grey garment from her bag and felt the deep pockets. She nodded
and handed it wordlessly back to Deborah and her friend.

“Put it on, quickly,” the girl urged. “Juno’s her
cousin. She had an accident this morning and was sent home. Aysha picked up her
things.”

Deborah pulled the long shawl down over her
forehead and across the lower half of her face so only her eyes were visible.
She tucked her hands into the deep pockets and clutched the identity card
gratefully. The guards weren’t looking at the photo on the passes anyway, just
checking each woman had a card. From the look of disgust on their faces,
Deborah could guess what they were thinking. Holy Mother! She’d heard the
insults thrown at Ignorant girls often enough. The Black Boys’ thoughts were
easy enough to imagine—they were just so many dozens of filthy sluts.
Watching them filing past under their noses was bad enough without having to
make them uncover their faces and look at their ugly snouts.
 

Infected by the tension and suppressed violence in
the air, Deborah stuck close to the girl as the crowd moved towards the doors
and the checkpoint. The girl, sensing her anxiety, took her arm and tucked it
tightly under her own.

“My name’s Persephone,” she whispered. “What’s
yours?”

The guard took their cards and shoved them back
having scarcely glanced at them. Deborah caught the expression of utter
contempt in his eyes—it told her she was less than human, and her guts
squirmed in fear and anger. So this was how it felt to be an Ignorant, she
thought.

* * * *

Guard Isaiah Deodato hated Ignorants. They were base and vile and
brutalizing them was allowed, so he did. He despised the men he beat up, and
scorn led easily to hatred. He hated them, too, because they seemed to do as
they pleased, broke the laws, idled their time away drinking and singing. But
he hated them most of all because, in spite of everything, they seemed to have
a good time. He was pleased at what was going to happen to them. It was only
right they should be punished for it in the end.

He called after the two girls. “You’ll be laughing
on the other side of your faces before long. Providence’ll be well shot of you,
little trollops!” His voice was bitter and angry and he shouted louder than he
intended. The guard opposite looked at him sharply, but Guard Isaiah would not
keep quiet. “Well, what? It’s no secret. They know they’ve got it
coming—thieving degenerates. All they produce now are mutant abortions.
They’re vermin—it’s high time they were exterminated.”

All the women in earshot started, shocked. They
wrapped their shawls tighter about them and hurried towards home. Other guards
had joined in the taunting. The Ignorants had been threatened before, but this
was different. They could sense a new danger hovering over them. Persephone
pulled Deborah along, through the crowd of women and the whispering that was
gradually rising to angry muttering and shouts of defiance.

They hurried along the dark, uneven streets fringed
with badly deteriorated buildings, down a pot-holed track into the heart of the
Ignorant quarter. Persephone darted into a dark doorway, pulling Deborah after
her, and up an evil-smelling staircase to the fourth floor. Bursting into the
apartment, she threw herself sobbing into the arms of her astonished mother.

“Lugh was right, Ma. It’s started, the final
ordeal. Gehenna is close. And this time they’ll leave none of us alive!”