“We were just lucky. We’d been sent off to collect some firewood when the cannibals attacked. So we just hid in the ice house until they’d gone.”
“Nice lad, is he?”
“Don’t you know?”
“Oh no, never met him. I’m just running an errand.”
“He’s all right, I suppose. Bit annoying when you’re cooped up in the dark with him for three days.”
“I think maybe everyone is.” Arthur gave a short, nasal laugh, which irritated Jack intensely. His fear had largely faded, now he was only curious.
THE ICE HOUSE was a small brick dome with a door that you had to crouch to get through; it looked like a brick igloo, sitting incongruously among the school’s woodlands, swathed in ivy, better camouflaged than any pill box.
As soon as it came in sight, Jack stopped.
“Better stay here, let me warn him you’re coming,” he told Arthur. “He’s kind of nervous and he’s got a knife. We don’t want you to get stabbed do we?”
Arthur gave another of his nervous, snorty laughs. “Heavens, no!”
Jack walked towards the ice house, only just resisting the urge to run. As he stooped to enter, he glanced back over his shoulder and saw Arthur standing where he’d left him. The man smiled and waved.
The ice house smelled of damp leaves and dirt. It was dark inside, only a tiny chink of light penetrated the canopy of ivy that covered the small hole at the apogee of the dome. Designed to keep ice frozen throughout the year in the days before freezers, the majority of the ice house lay under ground; almost immediately you were inside, the ground opened up into a cavernous, brick lined hole. In the half-light, Jack could just about make out the sleeping figure of Ben. He was exactly where Jack had left him, curled up on the carpet of detritus that had accumulated at the bottom of the ice house in the hundred or so years since it had last been used.
Jack scrambled down into the hole and shook the sleeping boy awake.
Spotty, unkempt and decidedly common, Ben Wyman didn’t deserve his place at Harrow. The Headmaster had insisted that the school should open its door to any refugee children they dredged up, and Ben had been the first. He claimed to be the middle class son of a school teacher from the local comp, but Jack had his suspicions about that. Ben had been wary of the Harrow boys and the haughty ease with which they carried themselves. He’d not been bullied, exactly, but he was ostracised by the other boys, including Jack. But he’d been appointed Ben’s ‘shepherd’, which meant it was his job to show him the ropes and help him find his feet, so they’d ended up spending a lot of time in each other’s company.
Even though Ben didn’t much like Jack, and Jack didn’t much like Ben, they were both too scared to be alone, so they’d stuck together.
Ben sat up quickly and rubbed his eyes. “What?” he whispered urgently, confused and still half asleep. “What’s going on?”
Jack leaned in close and spoke quickly and quietly.
“Ben,” he said, pressing his library card into his sleepy friend’s hand. “I need you to do me a favour.”
ARTHUR’S INCIPIENT EUPHORIA was enough to make him forget the pain in his legs. Even this close to his destiny, he chided himself. His ascent to the throne wasn’t supposed to be easy, but he’d been so annoyed at the prospect of having to infiltrate the cultists that he’d felt himself to be unlucky. He realised that the wall had been a warning, a reminder not to be ungrateful. This was a test, he understood that, a baptism of sorts, and it was all to a purpose. Fate had plans for him, but it was not to be taken for granted.
So he stood, chastened, and waited patiently for the boy king to emerge from the ice house. He caressed the revolver in his jacket pocket lovingly. Soon, now.
He cocked his head to one side suddenly alert. The snap of a twig. Slowly, he spun through 360 degrees, scanning the surrounding woods, but saw no movement and heard no other sound. Must have been a deer.
His suspicions were instantly forgotten as he saw two boys emerge from the small brick dome. The king, Jack, was smaller than Ben, but carried himself with a confidence sorely lacking in his friend. It was obvious which of the two was of royal blood. It showed in his bearing as clear as day. Arthur was sure that was how he must look to others and wondered how it could be that no one had ever noticed his inherent regalness while he was working at the council. He decided that people lowly enough to be working in such mindless jobs were too stupid to notice such things.
The two boys stopped in front of him. The king stood slightly closer, his friend hanging back, timid.
“Hi, yeah, I’m Jack,” said the boy, grinning as if he’d just said something incredibly clever or funny. “What can I do for you?”
And Arthur froze.
Here it was. The moment of his ascension. He stood there, transfixed by the enormity of what was about to happen.
“You had a message for me, you said?” continued the boy, his brow creasing in puzzlement.
Still Arthur couldn’t move or speak. Unconsciously, his eyes widened and his mouth shaped itself into an idiot grin.
“Um, sir?” Now the king looked uncertain, and turned to his friend, pulling a funny face and shrugging.
Arthur withdrew the gun from his pocket, still grinning, and shot the King of England, Jack Bedford, in the head, believing him to be a useless commoner.
All the confidence of the boy standing before him evaporated into terror as he saw his friend fall to the ground, and found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.
Arthur was about to pull the trigger again when he hesitated.
“No,” he said to the cowering, whimpering child. “Let’s talk first.”
THE MAN ARTHUR believed to be the King of England, Ben Wyman, sat on his hands on the soft forest ground and tried to control his bladder. The madman sat opposite him, cross legged, gun in hand, regarding him curiously.
If he looked past the madman, Ben could see Jack’s body. He was lying with his eyes open, staring at him in silent reproach.
“I never talked to any of the others, but there’s one thing I kept meaning to ask them. Did you feel it?” asked the madman. “The moment you ascended to the throne, I mean. It was about a week ago, at two in the afternoon.”
Ben didn’t know what the correct answer might be, so he said nothing. Happily, the madman didn’t seem to mind.
“I imagine you didn’t,” he continued. “It’s not really your throne. You’re not destined to remain king, you see. I am. I’ll feel the moment of destiny because I’ll make it happen. You were passive. Didn’t have the guts to go out and seize your power, not like me. I’ve proved myself, you understand? Not like you, cowering here in this dungeon, waiting for slaughter.”
Still Ben said nothing. All those years in the care home had taught him the value of silence.
Suddenly the madman tutted, as if annoyed with himself. “Why am I wasting time?” he muttered, and raised his gun.
“Yeah, I felt it,” said Ben.
The madman paused.
“Kind of like a hot flush, sort of thing,” he elaborated.
The gun stayed where it was, neither lowered nor raised.
“Made me feel all kind of powerful and stuff,” he added, unsure whether this was what the madman wanted to hear.
“And did you know?” asked the madman, his eyes narrowed, intensely focused on his answer.
“Of course,” said Ben. “’Course I knew.”
The madman nodded. “Interesting.” He stayed sitting there, gun half raised, nodding pensively.
Beneath his right buttock, Ben made a fist, scooping up leaves and dirt, ready to throw them into the nutter’s face if the chance presented itself.
“Did the other boys notice it, the change in you?”