The Dark Citadel (The Green Woman) (6 page)

Zachariah
threw his
filthy shirt into a corner and crouched down on his mattress with his
knees up to his chin in an attempt to stop all the heat escaping from his body.
It was cold at night in Providence, and the blanket he wrapped round his
shoulders was thin. Damp seeped up from the floor of his cell just below ground
level and chilled him to the bone. The small window was out of reach, level
with the ground of the exercise courtyard. All he could see was the vague grey
mass of the prison.

The faint glimmer that fell from the window picked
out the bridge of his nose and his high cheekbones, leaving his eyes in deep
shadow. Hugging his knees, he rocked back and forth to keep warm, and wondered
what was going to happen to him. He had no idea what his sentence would be, but
his few days in the House of Correction had taught him that his crimes were far
more serious than those of the other boys in his wing: pilfering from work
sites, faked illnesses, and missed devotions.

Zachariah had sinned against the Holy City State of
Providence. He had contravened one of the first laws handed down to the Elders
by the Wise God, that the mother is a vessel to be filled and emptied. A vessel
has one function only, useful and necessary, but one vessel is as good as
another. Zachariah had pretended his birth mother was something more than a
vessel, and he had dared to do what no child was allowed—to love his
mother.

Sitting shivering in his cold cell, Zachariah made
a resolution. He was not going to rot in the House of Correction. He was going
to get out, get away. He should have known that, despite his schoolmaster’s
request, he would never be accepted into the engineering college with the High
Caste boys. But Zachariah wanted to learn all the things he was never taught.
He wanted to explore beyond the Hemisphere, to feel the hot burning sand on his
face, to discover what the Elders were so afraid of.

Another good reason for getting away was his
impending marriage. On his eighteenth birthday, supposing he was out of prison
by then, a bride would be chosen for him. Probably a former prisoner, perhaps
even the vicious, pretentious slut of the slop buckets. His eyes narrowed at the
thought of the foul words she had shouted at him. Zachariah had had few
dealings with girls before, and he was not sure he had handled the situation
very well. But who would have thought a girl, and an Ignorant at that, would be
so forward?

He imagined himself briefly as some kind of
avenging angel, sweeping away the Elders and their awful Book, setting free the
boys forced to marry stupid, ugly girls they had never met and do stupid,
boring jobs they hated. His eyes glittered. And he would stop the Giving.

The prisoners in the House of Correction were
docile and low-risk, mainly unruly boys and sloppy workmen. Nobody could
imagine them making trouble. Consequently security was slack. Zachariah was
neither docile nor sloppy. He would find a way out.

* * * *

Deborah paced back and forth in her cell, her head spinning with confusing
emotions. She had been so sure she was meant to notice the boy in the
courtyard. It had been such a solid, warm impression. She had known so little
warmth in her life, just the fading memories of her parents, the soft voice
that she guessed to be her mother’s that comforted her when life was darkest,
and the joyful laughter of the unknown boy.

She had recognised something in the boy in the
exercise yard that made her want to trust him. She had wondered if he would
know about the dark terror that beset her and help her fight it. She had hoped
he laughed in a particular full-throated roar. That was why for the first time
in her life she had made an overture of friendship to a stranger, and in return
she had received a slap in the face.

She blushed again at the thought of the insult and
bit her lip, trying to pretend she wasn’t hurt. It was easier to bear if she
let herself get angry. Who did he think he was anyway? Well, she would show him
she
was no coward.
She
dared to stand up to them, even if
he didn’t. Nobody was going to shut
her
up in a cell until she crawled on her belly and apologized.

Mother
, she called
silently to the dull sky.
Mother!
It
was almost a sob, giving in to the misery she remembered from those first weeks
and months after her parents were wrenched from her life. In reply, like a soft
wave of the sea she had never seen, a sensation washed over her, a warm feeling
of peace and calm. She could almost feel it on her skin, like the
half-remembered touch of her mother’s lips on her forehead.
Mother!
As the echo of the cry faded in
her head she was sure she heard her name.

Deborah!

Her mother was calling her.

* * * *

High above the sleeping city the creature clung, scaly fingers spread wide
across the slippery surface of the crystal bubble, gripping with curved claws,
its wings beating slowly. Eyes round and dark, rimmed with a yellow iris like a
bird of prey, peered unblinking through the gloomy streets with their dim lamps.
Placing a bat-like ear close to the crystal, it absorbed the vibrations and
pulsations of the troubled night, sifting and analysing them, listening. The
darkness surrounding the House of Correction crept up the windowless walls as
more running shadows of hatred flooded the empty streets.

* * * *

The Ignorants felt the black waves passing. Down below in the crumbling
tenements, mothers clutched their husbands tight and reached into cribs for
newborn babies; fathers comforted whimpering children and checked the locks on
doors and windows. Hatred was something they understood. It followed them like
a shadow, never far away, crouching in the hearts of people they didn’t even
know, ready to spring. They felt the shadows growing and they were afraid.

In a prison
cell in the
One-Gated House sat a russet-haired man, haggard and thin, but with little
laughter lines webbed about his eyes and the corners of his broad, mobile
mouth. In his cell, locked up with the man, were the last books in Providence,
possibly the last books in the world. The man was reading one of these last
books. In the ten years he had been locked in the cell, he had come to know the
books almost by heart. The light that fell from the window was faint, but he
scarcely needed to see the words. Suddenly, a sound wrenched him from the world
of his book. A woman’s voice, faint and distant, was calling his name.

The call went through the man like an electric
shock, so fast he was left dumbfounded, and the precious book dropped from his
fingers. So many years he had been waiting for this call, so many years of
straining for the sound of her voice that he heard it in his dreams. The man
opened his eyes, his mouth. He tasted, sniffed the sound, struggled to retain
the words in his ear and savour them with all his senses. But the echoes faded
and died, leaving a crashing silence like a mountain falling, crushing him. His
eyes misted over, and for an instant, he felt like dying. Then he thought of
the word, the familiar syllables that made a name, and he let the tears fall.
He would hold firm, not give in. She was calling. At last!

* * * *

For days he had been buoyed up by hope; the woman torn from him ten years
before was still alive, and she still thought of him. But the call had not come
again, and hope was fading into a muddled dream as the blue eyes of Raphael,
the russet-haired man, dimmed with sickness. The whites yellowed, the lids hung
heavy and tired, and violet smudges deepened beneath them. His hand hung limp
on the bed sheet, sweat pearled on his brow, and ran in little rivulets into
his hair. His ears buzzed with fever. He hardly heard the bustling sound of
footsteps around his bed, the urgent whispering as he was rolled onto a
stretcher. But he felt the change of air on his face, the swaying movement as
he was hurried away.

As he slipped in and out of delirium he wondered if
he were dying. Could this really be the end to the dream? He gritted his teeth
and tried to rouse himself, swearing at his weakness. He refused to let them
kill him, not now when he had heard her calling after all the years of waiting.
In his fever, he imagined them poisoning him, getting rid of the last voice of
dissent against the regime. There would be no public execution for fear of
enraging the Dananns. They still remembered him and his wife, and they still
had their hopes of freedom.

In moments of lucidity he told himself he was too
valuable to kill. He was a hostage, and he was the last scientist. They would
never dare kill the only man who knew anything about the reactor. He was simply
sick. It happened. Then, in a period of calm, when the walls of the secure ward
in the prison infirmary stopped throbbing and spinning, he heard the call
again. The voice was faint, perhaps because the caller was so distant, perhaps
because she was too feeble to call louder, but he heard. Hope lit up his face
again and a faint smile curled the corners of his mouth. Suddenly he understood
why he was sick.

She was drawing him to her, and he was following.
In the only way he could.

Footsteps
stopped outside
the cell door.
 
A key rattled in the lock. The door opened and a guard entered, carrying
a tray on which were placed a small loaf of bread and a pitcher of water. The
guard grunted at the sight of the hunched shape in the bed.

“Exercise in ten minutes. Look lively, lazy son of
a whore! Wake up call was quarter of an hour ago.”

The heap of bedclothes did not move, so the guard
put down the tray and aimed a kick at the region of the hump where the kidneys
should be. Before the boot made contact, a hand reached out from behind the
door, grabbed the water pitcher, and brought it crashing down on the back of
the guard’s close-shaven head. The guard, groaning and dripping with water,
crumpled to the floor.

Zachariah pushed the door closed. With fingers
trembling at the enormity of what he had done, he pocketed the bunch of keys,
undid the guard’s belt, and strapped the stunned man’s hands behind his back.
The guard groaned again, and Zachariah stuffed the loaf of bread into his
mouth.

Drawing a deep breath, he took a quick look
outside: the corridor was empty. The trembling of his hands had stopped, and he
clenched his teeth with determination rather than with fear. Closing the door
behind him, he set off cautiously down the silent corridor. The memory of the
insolent girl came back, and he wished she could see him now. That idea gave
him courage, made him feel more heroic, though the excited pounding of his
heart was so fierce he feared it would give him away.

The walls echoed with the sounds of clanking keys
and rough shouts from different parts of the prison. Zachariah hurried with no
real idea of where he was going. He looked for a staircase that would take him
to the level above. Around the next corner he came up against a heavy door. His
heart sank—there were three locks!

He fumbled with the keys, fear setting off the
trembling of his hands again. He looked over his shoulder and listened.
Footsteps, heavy and slow, approached from the end of the corridor. He tried
one key, then another. What if none fitted? What if this was the end of his
guard’s sector? Zachariah froze; his fingers refused to grip the next key. His
head rang with the sound of the footsteps. The keys dropped from his trembling
fingers. Why had he not brought at least a knife?

He spun round, brandishing the keys like a
knuckleduster. As he crouched on his heels, ready to leap, the footsteps
stopped. He heard the familiar clanking noise of a cell door opening and heaved
a sigh of relief. The guard’s voice wafted round the corner, rough but low,
like a father scolding a son who had fallen and hurt himself. Zachariah
listened.

“Why did you have to go and do it again? Couldn’t
you learn your lesson the first time?” The voice sighed. “Now look at you. No
hands, no job, what could you do now? You’ll be stuck in this dump for the rest
of your useless life, being fed by a prison guard.”

Zachariah heard the muffled sound of weeping.

“Get on with you,” the guard went on in mock
severity. “No use crying now. Maybe they’ll grant your wife’s petition and let
you out. That’s where you’re lucky, you Ignorants. At least your families care
about you. My wife—the bitch—nothing would please her more if I
never came home at all,” he added with bitterness.

Zachariah’s heart raced even faster. So he had been
put in the wing with the mutilated, the thieves and brawlers with amputated
hands and feet! Surely he wasn’t going to be punished like that, was he?
Struggling to keep calm he tried another key. It fitted.

Holding his breath, he opened the other two locks
and swallowed hard with relief—short-lived. He pushed open the door and
slid through. His heart pounded wildly, then skipped a beat as he heard the
sound he had been dreading most of all—the high-pitched shriek of the
alarm siren.

Deborah stood
on
tiptoe trying to see what was going on. The wailing siren was making such
a din she couldn’t hear what the guards milling about below were shouting, but
from their agitated gesticulations, she guessed a prisoner had got loose.
Footsteps crashed down the corridor. Guards shouted and banged on cell doors,
swearing when they couldn’t see whether the cell was occupied. Deborah pressed
into the corner next to the door, out of the guard’s line of vision. Footsteps
stopped outside her cell, and she knew a guard was peeping in.

“Idle little trollop!”

The door swung open, and the guard stormed in to
peer at the tumbled sheets of her bed.

“I was looking,” she said calmly from the shadows.
The guard started. “I saw him go,” she went on in the same calm voice. “Have
you caught him yet?”

“What did you see?” The guard snarled and took a
step towards her.

Deborah noted the knives in his belt, the bunch of
keys, and that he wore no protective clothing, just the white prayer cap on his
head and the prayer sash over his chest. He must have been at his morning
devotions when the alarm went.

“He was running across the courtyard towards the
little door over on the other side.”

“Which side? Which door?” He grabbed her and pushed
her over to the window. “Show me. Quick!”

Deborah appeared to hesitate, dodging from side to
side, taking up all the space in front of the narrow window. “He came out
of...there, and he ran over...there.” She pointed off to one side.

“Where? Get out of the way and let me see.” The
guard shoved Deborah aside and pushed his face up close to the iron bars. “What
door? You dreamt that one, I think,” he snapped in irritation as he strained to
see round an impossible angle.

Deborah reached for the chair. “If I could just”
—she put the chair down behind the guard —“get a bit” —she
stood on the chair— “higher…”

“There is no door in that corner, it’s just
a—”

Deborah grabbed the guard’s head in both hands and
threw all her weight behind an almighty thrust. His head went through the bars,
stopped only by his ears, and he roared in pain. He tried to pull back but
Deborah clasped her hands together and dealt him a savage hammer blow to the
back of the head. For an awful moment it stuck, but a second good shove got the
ears through.

The guard roared and jerked his head backwards and
forwards in fury, pulling frantically at the bars like the prisoners in the
stocks Deborah had seen on the public scaffold. She wondered if she ought to do
something to stop his noise, but the din from the alarm and the guards charging
about covered most of it. Calmly, she twisted her headscarf tightly round her
face, leaving just a space for the eyes. She closed the cell door behind her
and listened. She could have sworn she heard the faint notes of joyful laughter
before it melted into the satisfying clang of the cell door closing behind her.