The road was broken, the hawthorn hedges bulging and jagged. From time to time a spike would catch her gowns and the jerk on the material would be enough to stop her. Resuming the walk was harder each time. Finally, realising that there was unlikely to be a passing truck, she stepped into the middle of the road to walk and only had to watch for ruts and cracks in the blacktop.
She reached the gates at dusk.
In the security man’s box there were three men, not one. Two of Magnus’s personal guards accompanied the gatekeeper.
She stopped at the window. The black-coated guards stood up behind the gate man. He slid the window open and stuck his head out.
‘Bit late for an inspection, isn’t it, Parson?’
‘These are dangerous times,’ she said. ‘Never too late to be vigilant. Can you arrange an escort for me?’
The Gate man shook his head.
‘We’re fully occupied, Parson. All hands we can spare are on the task.’ He flicked his eyes towards the guards standing behind him and tried to make himself sound grateful. ‘Magnus has sent a shift of extras to keep watch while we work but I can’t assign them to you.’
Parson Mary Simonson hadn’t wanted an escort; she’d merely asked out of politeness and to comply with protocol. Parsons were entitled to go anywhere they wanted, most especially around the MMP plant, but it had been a long time since they’d actually felt welcome to do so.
‘I’ll make my appraisal alone then.’
A cloud of weakness hit her and she went momentarily blind. She reached out a hand and it found the wall of the security man’s box. Slowly the fog lifted and the faint retreated.
‘You alright, Parson?’
She was surprised to see the security man looking genuinely concerned.
‘Fine. It’s… been a long shift, that’s all.’
‘I can get some food sent out to you – we can do that much.’
She wondered if she looked as pale as she felt at the thought of it.
‘That won’t be necessary, but thank you all the same.’
She walked around the closed gate and towards the nearest building. She could feel the eyes of Magnus’s men on her back but she was unafraid.
Twenty-one
Maya Shanti was a little too willing for Magnus’s liking. He preferred women who fought. Women who struggled and cried out before giving in to him. The problem was she wanted it too bloody much. Her husband had neglected her for far too long.
She slept now, naked beside him in his huge bed. Magnus couldn’t sleep. The sex hadn’t been enough for him and there were other things on his mind. Shanti hadn’t responded yet. Why hadn’t he come? Didn’t the man care about his family? It could be argued that he didn’t care much about his wife judging by her willingness to betray him. But what about the twins? Didn’t he worry about what might happen to his two beautiful little girls? The thought was enough to make his groin tingle and his cock stir.
He pulled the cord for the maids. Far off in the mansion a bell rang.
He slipped from the bed making sure not to wake Maya. It would be better if it was a surprise. He crept to the bedroom door and waited outside for his maids. Two of them came, still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. They were used to his demands, however, ready to be of service day or night. It was their duty.
He jerked his thumb towards the bedroom.
‘Go in there and tie her up. Gag her and blindfold her. Do what you want with her. Enjoy yourselves. When she looks like she’s stopped having fun, you come and get me. Then we’ll all take our time. I think I could go on until morning. Tomorrow we’ll start on the twins.’
He sauntered to the lavatory, pulled down his pyjama bottoms, sat down on the toilet and lit a cheroot. The smoke couldn’t mask the scent of his filth.
‘What a fucking stink,’ he said.
She toured the plant in silence. The closeness of her own end made it a cathedral of nightmares.
In the dairy, the men struggled to milk the cows. Extra restraints were necessary now that automation was no longer available. When things didn’t go well, the dairymen brutalised the cows. In the past such a treatment of the Chosen would have been a serious offence. Now, no one seemed to care. Even her presence in the various barns and houses of the MMP plant didn’t affect the workers. In the past they’d have made sure to follow religious procedure to the letter whilst observed by Welfare.
In the veal yard, calves were dragged instead of carried. The barn was filled with a pulsing rhythm of fingers and sharp breaths. The slaughter men proceeded straight to the slitting of the calves’ throats without stunning. When she challenged one of the workers about this he merely said:
‘They’re practically dead anyway.’
‘But you’re not following the code of the Gut Psalter.’
The man shrugged.
‘Townsfolk need to eat. We have to supply them. It’s all about efficiency and now that there’s no power, we’ve had to cut a few corners. But believe me, Parson, it’s for everyone’s benefit.’
She’d left them to it, unable to watch.
In the main slaughterhouse conditions were slightly better but not by much. The crowd pens were still being used to hold cattle until their turn for slaughter arrived. However, the machinery that had propelled them into the single file chute and then the restraining box was unusable.
Now, the Chosen were led from the crowd pens directly to the bleeding station and the hoists. They would see the mess made by the blood of their own kind as well as seeing the bodies being swung manually along the runners to each successive station. This was unheard of. Six men would hold each of the Chosen down and two would administer the bolt. Without the pneumatic gun, the bolt was now a pointed chisel with a lump hammer to back it up. Some procedures did conform to the old ways. The slaughtermen would lay the creature with its feet facing the west – the setting sun – and the man with the hammer would speak the blessing:
‘God is supreme. The flesh is sacred.’
Then he would stun the animal.
Unused to the unwieldy equipment, the stunner mis-hit the chisel at least once for every four he got right. She saw one poor animal receive three successive hammerings before the bolt did its work properly. The atmosphere in the crowd pens was different to anything she’d encountered before. The Chosen milled and jostled like an angry crowd. They seemed half-terrified and half-enraged by what awaited them. In the past she’d never seen them anything but passive and accepting. It was as though they too had ceased to believe in the surety of their masters’ hands. They sensed more than just a worsening of their conditions. They sensed a crack in the perfection of those that husbanded them.
Further sickened, she escaped to the bullpens where no slaughter was taking place. In the past she had always taken a little pleasure in watching the huge males swagger around their pens or sleep in the straw or eat their meals as though they’d starved for a whole month. In the barn where the bullpens were, there was only one stockman in evidence. He looked young and nervous. Many of the pens were empty when in fact the whole barn should have been full.
‘Where are the rest of them?’ she asked, thinking that they’d been put out to pasture or else were being prepared for mating.
The timid stockman looked embarrassed. Obviously he knew the answer he gave was a bad one.
‘They’re slaughtering them.’
‘What? All of them?’
‘Yeah. I mean, not at the same time, but they’ll all be gone in the next few days.’