It seemed as though the prospect of defeat was worse than that of death. Malarkey gritted his teeth, nodding, unable to meet Conor’s eye.
‘I have your word?’
Victor had once told him that the city gang members had developed a curious sense of honour, almost echoing that of the Samurai Bushido code.
‘Yes, blast you, my word on it.’
Conor grinned coldly, a mechanism he would come to rely on in desperate situations.
‘I will trust you on it. No need for a handshake.’
It was a cruel joke. Malarkey’s arms were dead at his side like two slabs of butchered beef.
‘Very well, then, sheep. We have an agreement. Be warned, if you try trickery tomorrow, I will not be so merciful, or silent.’
Conor twisted the rings on his trident, collapsing it.
‘No need to get up, I’ll see myself out.’
Conor was surprised at his own comment. A second malicious joke in as many minutes. It was not like him to sneer at someone whatever the circumstances, but perhaps Little Saltee was moulding him into a different person. The kind that might possibly survive.
Conor filled his lungs to slide under the rim. Before salt water clouded his vision, he saw a final frustration dropped upon Malarkey: the wadded diamond pouch fell from the air hole, plopping directly on to the man’s face.
Malarkey cursed long and filthily, but his words were muffled by the sopping bag. A bag that he was unable to reach up and brush away.
CHAPTER 8: CONOR FINN
Billtoe and Pike carried Conor back to his cell on a plank and they were careless in their work. Conor endured several bumps and jolts, which almost made up for Malarkey’s neglected two shillings’ worth.
Thinking him unconscious, they chattered on about the state of the islands.
‘Bonvilain will strip this place of anything within a million years of becoming a diamond,’ said Pike. ‘I’d feel a tot of pity for the Salts, if they weren’t lower than barnacles.’
‘Barnacles,’ agreed Billtoe. ‘But at least barnacles don’t give you lip. And you don’t put yourself in for a visit to the warden’s office if you happen to stamp on a barnacle.’
They two-stepped the plank round an awkward corner, scraping Conor’s elbow along the wall.
‘I’d say you could stamp on all the prisoners you like, now that Good King Nick is knocking at the pearlies. Bonvilain never minded before.’
‘True for you, Pikey,’ Billtoe laughed, following it with a regurgitating hurk. ‘Good times are here, that is until Isabella comes of age. Possibly she’s one for the people, like her father. I hear worrying good things about her.’
‘Ah yes, Princess Isabella,’ said Pike. ‘I wouldn’t be concerning yourself on that score. She won’t wear the crown till her seventeenth birthday and that’s two years away. I would bet my Sunday boots that something tragic will happen to our little princess after that if she starts queering things for the marshall.’
It took all Conor’s resolve not to grab Billtoe’s weapon and make a bid for freedom right then, but Conor Finn dying on a cold prison floor would do little to help Isabella. He needed to bide his time and wait for an opportunity.
The guards reached Conor’s cell and simply raised one end of the plank, sliding him through the doorway. He tumbled to the wall and lay there, limbs splayed and moaning. The moans were real.
Pike and Billtoe stood framed by the doorway.
‘You know something, Pikey,’ said Billtoe, scratching an itch on his collarbone. ‘Maybe I’m getting old and soft, but I’ve taken a liking to young Conor Finn.’
Pike was more than surprised. Liking prisoners was not Billtoe’s form.
‘Really?’
‘No,’ said Billtoe, shutting the cell door. ‘Not really.’
Conor lay still until the guards’ footsteps faded first to echoes then silence. Another minute for safety, then he crawled upon his bunk hiding his face with a forearm, though he was alone in the cell. The shaking began suddenly, racking his entire body from toe to crown, as though he had grasped a wire of the electric, like a labourer he had seen working in Coronation Square, all those years ago. On another island, in another life.
There was simply too much to think about. Father, Mother, King Nicholas, Isabella. His own plight in this prison. Bonvilain, the Battering Rams, Billtoe and Pike. Images of these friends and foes passed through his mind, branding him with more pain than a Little Saltee kiss.
Mother and Father taking him to Hook Head to fly his paper kite. King Nicholas’s stories of the American Civil War and why he fought in it. Bonvilain’s face, features set in a permanent sneer. Otto Malarkey, fear of death in his dark eyes.
Too much. Too much.
Conor gritted his teeth and imagined himself flying until the shaking stopped.
Pike booted Linus Wynter back into the cell some hours later, just as Conor was finishing his first meal of the day.
‘I put yours on the flat stone by the window,’ he said to the gangly American. ‘It’s the warmest spot in here. You sit, I’ll get it.’
Wynter tutted, heading straight for the flat stone. ‘No need. I know where the griddle is. I have been here almost a year, young Conor.’ He bent down and tinkled the air with two fingers until he found the bowl. ‘But, thank you, that was very thoughtful.’
Wynter perched on his bed, selecting a lump of gristle, dripping with grease. ‘Oh Lord, it’s hardly the Savoy, is it. I spent a night there in eighty-nine. Fabulous. Full electric lighting, a bath in every suite. And the water closets – I dream of the water closets.’
‘We’ve had electric lighting since eighty-seven on Great Saltee,’ said Conor. ‘King Nicholas says that we have to embrace change.’ Conor’s face fell. ‘King Nicholas said that.’
Wynter did not comment, chewing the fatty lump in his mouth thoroughly, lest it choke him on the way down.
‘So, young Finn, are we going to swap water-closet stories all evening, or are you going to tell me of your adventures in the bell?’
‘I let Malarkey live,’ said Conor. ‘But I thrashed him soundly and he knows I can do it again. Next time I won’t keep quiet about it, and we’ll see how long he survives as head ram after that.’
Wynter froze, a dripping gobbet of meat halfway to his mouth.
‘Hell’s bells, boy. If I could look at you admiringly, I would. Nick was right about you.’
‘Nick? King Nicholas? You knew the king?’
‘We met in Missouri. He was in the balloon corps. Actually, he was the balloon corps. He towed two raggedy hot-air rigs around to various battle sites. Our paths crossed at Petersburg in sixty-five. I wasn’t much use to anyone back then, having had my eyes poked out by the teenage Jesse James. And Nick was just about tolerated by the generals, so we struck up a friendship. He taught me how to tie knots and fill ballast bags. Even took me up a few times. I had no idea that he was royalty; of course, neither did he.’
Conor had always been a fast thinker. ‘It can’t be coincidence that you’re here.’
Wynter cocked his head to one side, listening carefully. ‘No, Conor, it’s no coincidence. Nick sent me here to spy for him.’
‘You’re a spy? You shouldn’t tell me this. I could be anyone. Another spy sent in to find you out.’
‘You could be, but you’re not. I have heard of you before from Victor Vigny. He visited me here days ago and took my news to the king. The pretext was that I had stolen from him. Such cloak and dagger.’ Wynter reached out long fingers until he found Conor’s shoulder. ‘King Nicholas thought of you as a son. Victor said you were his greatest hope for the future. You’re no spy.’
Conor felt a twinge of sadness. He had thought of the king almost as a second father.
An awful truth struck him. ‘But now, Mister Wynter, you are truly imprisoned here with the rest of us.’