‘So we’re good,’ she summed up, knowing that was something a lot worse than a lie. ‘We’re good for now, and that’s what matters. The gun goes away. We talk. Maybe you tell us what the hell is going on, Diema, and where you fit into it. Nobody dies. Nobody dies, Leo.’
He still had the gun raised. Forcing the issue, Kennedy closed her hands over it and tugged. She couldn’t have loosened his grip, but Tillman let her take it from his hands.
Kennedy drew a deep, ragged breath. She turned to the girl.
‘Could you cut Ben loose?’ she asked. ‘Or would that be too much to ask?’
The girl gave a half-shrug. ‘He’s a lot more bearable like this,’ she said. But she reached into her pocket and came up with a handcuff key, which she tossed to Kennedy with a disdainful flick of her wrist.
Kennedy manhandled the chair back from the edge before she set about freeing Rush. And before she loosened the gag she leaned down until her mouth was at his ear. ‘Don’t try anything stupid,’ she said. ‘Only Leo would be able to slow her down for more than a heartbeat. So just swallow your pride and keep your mouth shut.’
Rush said nothing, even after the gag was removed. When Kennedy had unlocked the handcuffs, he took the strip of cloth from her and wound it around his wrist. ‘I said too much already,’ he muttered. ‘She had a gun, and she said she was going to kill me. I’m sorry, Kennedy.’
‘Forget it,’ she said. Given that it was her loud mouth that had gotten him into this position, she should be saying sorry to him.
They walked back to the table. Diema faced them across it like a stern schoolmistress.
‘It was after Alex Wales died,’ Kennedy said. ‘I told Rush what he was.’
‘Alex Wales?’
‘The Messenger at Ryegate House. The one who was undercover there. Rush saw Wales kill a man with a poisoned sica. And he saw Wales cry red tears. He asked me what it all meant and I told him enough so he’d understand. I told him about your tribe and about the Ginat’Dania where you lived before your last move. I didn’t do it lightly.’
‘Who else have you told?’ Diema demanded.
‘Nobody.’
‘Not even your lover?’
The girl was staring at her with scornful scepticism. Kennedy stared straight back. ‘Especially not Izzy. In my experience, anyone who knows too much about you people does pretty badly out of it. I wouldn’t do that to someone I love.’
The girl turned to Tillman. ‘And you?’ she asked him.
He shook his head. ‘Nobody.’
‘Swear it.’
‘My word’s good, girl.’
‘Your word is water. Swear it. Swear it on something that matters.’
Tillman thought about that for a moment. Then he pointed past her out of the window. ‘You mentioned the blood I spilled here. I swear on that blood. I’ve never told anyone about your people or about Ginat’Dania.’
Diema’s face went blank, then filled with powerful, chaotic emotion. She tried several times to speak, and Kennedy tensed, ready to step in, because it looked for a moment as though the girl were going to fling herself on Tillman. But she got herself back under control.
‘Why should I believe that blood matters to you?’ she asked him, her voice thick. ‘You shed it easily enough.’
‘They were young men,’ Tillman said simply. ‘Very young men. And I had to kill them because somebody had filled their heads full of rancid crap. I hated to do it. But if you don’t believe that, I’ll swear on something else.’
Diema made a formless, unreadable gesture. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘I swear — on the same blood — you’ll never tell anyone else. Take that any way you like.’
‘Well, I’m inclined to take it as a threat,’ he said unhappily.
‘For the love of Christ!’ Rush interjected. ‘It was me that was tied up and gagged and wired to a fake bomb. Can we drop this and get to the bloody point?’
‘I agree,’ Kennedy said quickly, pulling them both away from the danger zone. ‘Diema, this meeting was your idea. What is it you want?’
The girl crossed to the hayloft doors and brought back the chair that was there. She set it down in front of her, but didn’t sit. ‘I want us to share information,’ she said. ‘And then I want us to discuss strategy.’
‘I’ll need some convincing,’ Tillman said, ‘that either of those is a good idea.’
Diema didn’t seem to have heard him. She was addressing herself to Kennedy again. ‘This was my mission long before it was yours,’ she said. ‘But I can’t make you trust me or cooperate with me. I suggest you pool what you know. Now that you’ve read the book of Johann Toller, you probably know a lot. Call when you want me. I’ll tell you what I was told, and what I’ve found out for myself, and I’ll answer any questions you have. I’ll do that without asking you to do the same. I can’t think of anything else I can offer. I’ll wait in the truck.’
‘Which is full of—’ Tillman began.
‘In the cab. You’ll be able to see me from here. Wave, and I’ll come back up.’ Now she turned to look at him, and the depth of her hate was there in her face, for all of them to see. ‘Do you know how the Elohim are bound, Tillman? Did Kuutma, who is called the Brand, ever explain it to you?’
‘You’re not bound at all,’ Tillman said. ‘You’re free to kill whoever you like. Your priests give you absolution up front.’
‘Free to kill, yes. Or to maim. Or to torture. To steal, where necessary. To damage and destroy whatever might need to be damaged or destroyed, if it will help the People. But not to do any of those things for our own pleasure or profit. And not to lie. So I tell you again that I’m not here to kill you. God kept you alive for this long so you could be useful. So you could be the stick that chastises his enemies. When your work is done, then you’ll be free to die.’
She descended the ladder, making no sound at all. A moment or so later, they saw her cross to the truck and climb into the cab, where she sat, arms folded, in the passenger seat.
‘Where do we start?’ Kennedy asked.
‘By checking for listening devices,’ Tillman answered quietly.
44
Diema remembered very little about the father of her flesh. Her mother had taken her back to the People before her third birthday, and of course she’d never seen him again after that homecoming. Three years was long enough for some memories to have stuck, but belonging as they did to another world, another life, there was less and less in her mind for those memories to adhere to. So they faded, slowly at first, then quickly and finally. But there were a few isolated moments that had stayed with her:
In one of them, she was sitting at a long, low table, sitting on the ground, so it must have been very low indeed — probably a coffee table of some kind. She was drawing with coloured pencils. Drawing a lion in a jungle. The pencils were new, and excitingly unfamiliar to her hand. They were entirely full of themselves, in her memory; almost luminous with their thisness, as new things are to a child.
And she was almost done with her picture, but there was a feeling of urgency in her mind, of a time drawing to its close. Then big, enfolding hands closed around her waist and she felt herself lifted, her legs kicking slightly, off the floor, gathered up into arms too strong to resist.