‘We stabs ’em,
We fights ’em,
Cripples ’em,
Bites ’em.
No rules for our mayhem.
You pay us, we slays ’em.
If you’re in a corner,
With welshers or scams.
Pay us a visit,
The Battering Rams.’
And then the whole world was wet and Conor gladly allowed himself to be tugged away by the currents.
Maybe this time I won’t wake up, he thought. I need never wake up again.
But wake up he did, many hours later with Linus Wynter bending over him, green paste dripping from his fingers.
‘More Plantago, I fear,’ he explained. ‘This is becoming a habit.’
Conor closed his eyes again, fearful that he would cry. He kept himself still for long minutes, breathing quiet breaths through his nose. He could feel the cold muck on his temple, where the giant had struck him, and more on his hand where the brand still scalded.
There must be an end to this? How long could a mind endure such torture and stay whole?
‘You have been asleep for nearly twelve hours. I saved your rations for you. Have some water at least.’
Water. The very word had the power to awaken Conor fully. His throat felt flaked with thirst.
Man’s primary instinct is to survive, Victor had once told him. And he will endure almost anything to follow his instincts.
‘Water,’ croaked the boy, raising his head, until the Plantago juice ran down his forehead.
Wynter held a rough earthenware cup to Conor’s lips, dribbling water down his throat. To Conor, the drink tasted like life itself, and soon he felt strong enough to hold the cup. He sat slowly, sighing gratefully for the simple pleasure of slaking his thirst.
‘And now you should eat,’ said Wynter. ‘Keep your body strong. A fever in here could kill you.’
Conor laughed, a feeble shuddering. As though fever would ever have the chance to kill him. The Battering Ram had almost three pounds’ worth of beatings to dole out, and it was hardly likely that Conor could survive those.
Wynter pressed a shallow bowl into Conor’s hand.
‘Whatever happened to you, and whatever is going to happen, you will not have a prayer without strength in your limbs.’
Conor relented, picking a chunk of cold meat from the bowl of stew. Even when hot, Conor doubted that the meal could ever have been called appetizing. The meat was tough, with a wide band of fat and hard burn ridges along each side. But meat was strength, and strength was what he would need to go back in the bell with a mad ram.
‘Now,’ said Wynter, ‘tell me what happened today. They brought you back here on a plank. For a moment I couldn’t even find a heartbeat.’
Conor chewed on a lump of meat. The fat was slick and rubbery between his teeth.
‘They put me in a diving bell with one of those Battering Rams.’
‘Describe him,’ instructed Wynter.
‘Big man. Enormous. Tattoos all over. P. A. I. N. on his knuckles and -’
‘A price list on his chest,’ completed Conor’s cellmate. ‘That’s Otto Malarkey. The top ram. That animal has beaten more men than he can count. And he can count well enough, especially when there’s coin involved.’
‘He’s been paid coin aplenty to keep handing out daily beatings. This is how they will break me.’
‘A simple but effective plan,’ admitted Wynter. ‘Set the big man beating the little man. That tactic worked on everyone, even Napoleon.’
Conor took a drink of water. Now that his senses were returning, he could taste the saltpetre in it. ‘There must be something I can do.’
Wynter thought on it, fixing the bandage across his eyes with long pianist’s fingers.
‘This problem is more important than all the daily vexations I had planned to educate you on this evening. Malarkey must be dealt with if you are to survive, young Conor.’
‘Yes, but how?’
‘You need to rest. Lie flat and think on your strengths. Draw on everything you have ever been taught. Tease out every violent daydream you have ever nursed in your darkest hours. You must have talents: you are a tall boy and strong.’
‘And if I do have talents, what then?’ insisted Conor.
‘Another simple plan,’ whispered Wynter. ‘Older even than the first. When you see Malarkey next, you must immediately kill him.’
Kill him.
‘I can’t. I could never -’
Wynter smiled kindly. ‘You are a good lad, Conor. Kind. Killing is hateful to you, and the thought that you could ever take a life is a terrible one.’
‘Yes. I am not the kind of…’
Wynter raised a conductor’s finger. ‘We are all that kind of person. Survival is the most basic instinct. But, you are sensitive, I can tell, so I will help you along the road to murder. Since my eyes were taken from me, I have become adept at recreating images in my head. I can see the concert halls of my youth. Time and concentration fill the spaces until the picture is complete. Every velvet-covered chair, every footlight, every gilded cherub.’ For a long moment, Wynter was lost in his own colourful past, then the sounds and smells of Little Saltee shattered his mental image. ‘What I need you to do is close your eyes and picture the man who sent you here. Use your hatred of him to awaken the killer instinct.’
Conor did not need to concentrate for long. Bonvilain’s face sprang into his mind’s eye, complete with hateful eyes and derisory sneer.
‘And now, Conor, tell me, do you think you can kill?’
Conor considered everything Bonvilain had done to the Broekhart family.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can kill.’
Linus Wynter smiled sadly.
‘We all can,’ he said. ‘God save our souls.’
CHAPTER 7: THE DEVIL’S FORK
In the door opposite Conor Broekhart’s bunk there was a small rectangular window. Perhaps three times in every hour a guard passed by bearing a torch. Flickering orange light poured into the gloom of their cell, casting a vague dancing flame on Conor’s hand when he raised it to examine his Saltee kiss. There, already crusted in scab, a cursive S. He was branded now, forever a criminal.
A kind of peace had descended on Conor. Events were simply so monumental that he could not deal with them, and that brought a kind of freedom. There was nothing to do but concentrate on Otto Malarkey, the deadly Battering Ram who so cheerfully swatted his prey around the diving bell.
Must he be killed? Is there no other way?
There was not, he concluded. Sadly it was either Otto Malarkey or himself. And though Conor had never been puffed by self-importance, he sincerely believed that he had more to offer the human race than the murderous Malarkey. At the very least, he would try to avoid killing any more of his fellow man.
But how to kill Malarkey? How?
What skills had he learned from Victor? The foil, of course, had always been his greatest success. He had the strength of a fencing master in his wrists. And the agility of a youth in his limbs. But how to combine the two?
I don’t even have a foil, or anything like one.
But then Conor remembered the tool belt that had been cinched about his waist. Perhaps that was not strictly true. Perhaps Arthur Billtoe had unwittingly come to his rescue.
The following day’s routine was the same as the previous one’s. Shortly after the single cannon-shot salute, Billtoe appeared at the cell door, a fresh slab of grease taming his locks. That morning he appeared to have shaved sections of his face, leaving the rest sprouting black, silver and ginger bristle.
‘Ready for round two with Malarkey?’ he asked, rifle held before him in case Conor should prove resistant to the idea of being hammered around a diving bell by a Battering Ram.