Someone will have to go for help. Pete Bradfield is dying of radiation sickness and Julie won't leave her husband. That means I get the chance to be a hero.

Supplies. I take a compa.s.s and two canteens of water. No food. I want to travel light, and besides, the others will need what little is left. I'll live off the land, or starve if I have to. I take my knife and pistol, and the machine gun we found hid in the bunker, plus all the ammunition I can easily carry. I leave the other pistol with Julie, and a spare clip of ammunition. If she has to fight I tell her to make sure that she keeps the last two bullets for herself and Pete. I know Julie is capable of that. I have a bad feeling about all this. Pete will be dead in a couple of days, long before I can bring any help, and then Julie will be alone. The smart thing for us to do would be to put the guy out of his misery and leave together. Two travelling together would stand a much better chance than one on his own. I suggest doing this to Julie, but she won't hear of any such thing. Staying behind is an empty gesture, but she won't see that. Either guilt or some misplaced sense of loyalty keeps her tied to the dying man. It's such a waste. She doesn't love Pete, even if she no longer wants me, I'm certain of that, but she won't leave him. I go to kiss her on the lips as I take my leave, but she deftly turns her head at the last moment, offering a cheek instead, so that what was intended as a gesture of love becomes one merely of friendship. In my heart I don't believe that I'll ever see her again.

The mutants are waiting for me when I come up out of the bunker, four of them ranged in a half-circle round the opening. They don't stand a chance. They are slow and c.u.mbersome, not much of a threat in spite of their size. I gun them down before they can even move. I have never killed anyone before, but I feel no regret. They are not human. They are mutants, survivors of the great plague that swept our world in the days before The Conflagration, altered beyond all recognition. Killing such misshapen creatures is no more an immoral act than the slaying of a rabid dog. I step on one accidentally. My foot sinks through his rotten flesh, like treading in s.h.i.t.

I've been walking for twenty minutes or more when I hear the sound of gunfire from behind. Someone is screaming. I double back at a run. Mutants are all around the bunker area, more than thirty of them. The four I killed must have been scouts for the pack. I should've known there'd be more of them. Julie is in the thick of it, naked and hog tied, covered in blood. I can't see what they are doing to her but she keeps screaming. No sign of Bradfield. He's probably dead and better off out of it. I feel so helpless. I can't take them all on, there are just too many. I should've insisted that Julie come with me, but there is no time for such recriminations now. There is only one thing I can do for her now. I fire over the mutants' heads and they scatter, momentarily giving me a clear line on the naked woman in their midst. For a long moment I study Julie's face, caught in the crosshairs of my gun, and then I pull the trigger. The explosive sh.e.l.l strikes her right between the eyes and detonates on impact. She dies instantly.

They give up the chase after half an hour. Mutants have no stomach for the long haul. They tire quickly and lose interest. As soon as I can afford to stop for a moment I strip off my uniform and bury it. It won't do to get caught wearing army drill. Julie might have been spared if she hadn't been in uniform. The mutants hate the military. Back before The Conflagration there were rumours that the plague bacteria responsible for their condition was developed in a military laboratory. I smear my naked body with dirt for protective coloration. Despite the tragedy of Julie's death I feel a small thrill of antic.i.p.ation. It feels good to have a purpose again and to be free of that d.a.m.ned bunker at last, breathing air that isn't stale from recycling, with the hot sun on my back and the comforting slap of the leather holster against my side as I walk.

I cover only five miles that first afternoon, but it seems like much more. I am out of condition and the forced march takes its toll. Blisters form on my bare feet and all the muscles in my legs ache. Before the day's end each step is jarring agony. Towards evening I stumble on the remains of a house. A miracle to find a building still standing in the midst of all this desolation. Something, an energy weapon of some kind I'd imagine, has sheared off the top of the house leaving only the ground floor. The walls will provide me with shelter for the night. There is plenty of broken furniture to serve as kindling and I have matches taken from the bunker, but I am in two minds about whether to light a fire. It will keep any wild animals at bay, but could well attract other kinds of trouble. The bitter cold decides for me. I sit down with my back to a wall, the machine gun cradled in my arms like a child, and fall asleep as soon as the fire has caught, its mellow warmth wrapping around me. When I wake the sun has risen and the fire has gone out. The traps I'd set the night before are all empty. My stomach feels like a bottomless pit.

Later that morning I am attacked by a wild dog. The beast must be mad with hunger to attack a creature so much larger than itself. It springs up out of nowhere and is on me before I can use my gun. We go down together and roll over and over in the dirt, its teeth snapping bare inches away from my face. I get my hand on a rock and pound away at its skull until the dog is dead. I am bleeding in a dozen places where its teeth and claws have left their mark, but only lightly. More serious is the loss of half my water. One of the canteens has been punctured in the struggle, and I can do nothing except stand and watch, shaking with anger, as the precious fluid drains off into the parched ground. I cannot even eat the dog. Its coat is moulting in places to reveal the ugly blue welts of radiation sickness.

In the afternoon I sight a large pack of mutants, perhaps as many as a hundred, but I am able to give them a wide berth. I find treasure trove as well, a rapid fire laser rifle that appears to be in perfect working condition. Far superior to my own machine gun and no ammunition to carry either. Built to a Grell design it has its own compact generator. The Grell had been our friends and shared the secrets of their technology with us. We could have built an earthly paradise with the Grell science, but all we'd done was use their knowledge to fashion better weapons of destruction. I find the remains of the rifle's owner a few feet away, his back set firmly against a rock outcropping. Wild animals have stripped him to the bone; only a few shreds of cloth and flesh are left. I use the laser rifle to destroy my machine gun so that no-one will be able to use it against me.

I kill a snake. It lies on a rock, basking in the afternoon sun, blissfully unaware of its peril until my laser beam slices it in two. The separate halves twitch madly, then are still. The snake is fat. I can barely get my hand round its circ.u.mference. Mouth watering in antic.i.p.ation I gather up the brushwood to start a fire and roast the snake slowly on a makeshift spit. The tender white meat tastes surprisingly good and I have no trouble keeping it down. That night, for the first time since leaving the bunker, I go to sleep with a full belly.

My water is nearly gone. The canteen makes a hollow sloshing sound as I walk. There has to be clean water in this desolate land, but I have no idea where it is to be found. For the past hour someone has been following me. I can see a figure on the horizon, trying hard to stay concealed and failing laughably. It has to be either another person in search of the Grell or a mutant mad enough to hunt alone. I have no strength to run or fight. I climb the next rise then double back to lie in wait behind scattered rocks, hunched over my laser rifle. It is a woman. For a moment I believe it is Julie, risen from the dead to follow me, but then the illusion shatters. The woman is naked except for a sc.r.a.p of cloth between her legs. All bone and skin, tanned brown by the sun. Large b.r.e.a.s.t.s that swing from side to side as she walks. Most of her hair has fallen out. She carries a knife and a sling. I take all this in with a glance. She sees me and realises that I have the drop on her, so stands still, waiting for me to decide what will happen next. I rise to my feet and clamber down the scree. The woman's eyes never leave me. There is a stone in the sling hanging by her side. A moment's hesitation on my part will be the only opportunity that she needs. I keep my rifle trained on her. I tell her that I mean her no harm and ask her name. She opens her mouth and points. Her front teeth have been knocked out, her tongue torn loose. Some of the Fundamentalist groups who were so prominent in the years before The Conflagration used to mutilate their women in such a manner.

We travel together. Companionship is welcome, even that of a mute. I decide to call her Rip. I once owned a dog that answered to that name, a King Charles spaniel. In many ways Rip is like a dog herself. Faithful and obedient. Eager to please. She sniffs the air and leads me to a water hole. We wash and drink, and I fill the canteen. That evening we huddle together for warmth. Against my will I am aroused. It has been so long without a woman. I grope for her in the dark, and she responds. My hands caress her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and belly, work the rag away from her crotch. Our lips press together and my tongue invades her mouth, rubbing against the stump of her own. My fingers delve between her legs and find only a hard pad of scar tissue where her c.l.i.toris should be. I feel revulsion and instinctively push her away, fighting down the urge to vomit. Wild with anger she attacks me, fingers gouging for my eyes. I knock her aside. We tumble together on the ground and when we stop rolling I am uppermost. Her legs are wrapped round me and my painfully swollen c.o.c.k is buried deep in her c.u.n.t. We are like two animals, thrusting at each other in a white fury. I nip and knead her bruised flesh between my fingers. Her nails rake my back. I sink my teeth into her shoulder, taste the blood in my mouth. There is no tenderness, only need to cause pain and to feel alive. I seem to take forever to come, the sperm shooting out of me in thick strands. She bucks under me all the while, moaning and grunting like a pig. Then I am falling off of her, the world turning madly before my eyes as the stars crash and collide in the night sky overhead.

"Carol." Her name is Carol. She traces it in the dirt for me with her finger. A Grell flier pa.s.ses overhead. We signal but they do not see us. It is good to know that the Grell are still taking an interest in the human race, have not abandoned us to the consequences of our own folly. There may yet be reason to feel hope.

We go a day without food. Then another. And on the third day we find a cl.u.s.ter of houses, standing, untouched by the holocaust. It is like stepping back in time. There is a child playing on the lawn in front of one of the houses, a boy of twelve or thirteen. Our appearance startles him. Carol gives chase. He eludes her outstretched arms, but she manages to drive him back in my direction. I dive at the boy's feet as he runs by and bring him down. Carol is upon him and rips open his throat with one expert slash of her knife before I can do or say anything to stop her. I punch her full in the face. She sprawls on her back and I stand over her glaring with anger. One hand raised to staunch the flow of blood from her nose she looks up at me. Her eyes convey hurt, lack of understanding. She points at the boy, then at her mouth, smiles and rubs her belly. I feel sick. She disgusts me. I want to be alone. I turn and walk off, not bothering to look back to see if she is following.

I search the houses thoroughly but can find nothing. No more people and no food. There is something eerie about this place. Wandering through the rooms I have the feeling that they have just been vacated, that people have stepped out moments before my arrival and will return after my departure. The beds have all been made, the tables have all been set, there are logs piled in the fireplaces. This moment is unreal, a mere ripple in the flow of events. I go back to Carol as darkness falls. She has started a fire in one of the houses. When I go inside I find her trying to hack off the boy's arms with her knife. She has stripped him. He looks healthy and well fed. If there was food here for him then there could have been food for us too. The boy might have told us where it was hidden. Instead there is this stupid waste, of human life and knowledge both. Carol wants me to help with the laser but I ignore her importuning. I sit down in a corner and close my eyes. Soon I am asleep. When I wake the air is thick with the aroma of meat cooking. Carol has an arm on a spit over the fire. It smells delicious. She cuts off a strip of flesh and offers it to me. I hesitate for a moment. My stomach aches with hunger and her eyes are so imploring. Finally I take the meat and pop it into my mouth. It tastes like pork, but perhaps that is just my imagination. I chew and chew but I cannot swallow. I have to spit it out, then rinse my mouth with water. Carol looks at me, bewilderment in her eyes. She eats her own portion with such obvious relish that just to look at her makes me feel sick. She licks the grease from her fingers and wipes them dry on her loincloth, then nuzzles up next to me. Her hand reaches for my c.o.c.k, but I push it away. I will never feel desire for her again. She disgusts me. I cannot get the image of her killing the boy out of my mind. I turn my back on her and go to sleep.

When I wake the next morning Carol is gone. She has taken the laser rifle and the canteen. The boy's body has been further mutilated. His other arm is roasting on the spit but both legs are missing. Carol must have taken them with her. With my bare hands I sc.r.a.pe out a shallow grave in the soil of the back garden and bury the boy's pitiful remains, his head and torso. The dirt is loose and easy to move, but the work is hard and tiring. The sun is high in the sky before I am finished. When I go back into the house I find the arm waiting for me. The fire has gone out. The meat is charred and cold. I eat it though. This time I have no difficulty swallowing, and afterwards I sleep the deep, dreamless sleep of the truly content.

From a distance I see a Grell flier strafing a pack of mutants who hurl rocks in reply. The mutants stand no chance in the unequal combat and are soon dispatched. From my hidden vantage point I silently applaud the Grell victory. If the human gene pool is ever to recover from self inflicted wounds then the mutants must be eliminated. I am pleased that the Grell have taken this task in hand.

I lose all track of time. The days and nights all fade into each other. I fight and kill lone mutants. I feed on roots, and small animals when I can catch them. I drink from whatever pools I can find, no longer caring about pollution or radiation sickness. My life is unimportant. Nothing matters except my self imposed task of finding the Grell. They gave us the science responsible for The Conflagration. Only they, and they alone, possess the means to undo the terrible wounds our world has suffered as a consequence. Pustules rise on my arms and chest, diseased skin peels from the bone. I lose the compa.s.s, but keep walking in the same direction. Scenery is all the same, a desolate, blasted landscape in which everything is either dead or dying. Perhaps I am walking in circles. There are times when I do not know, hardly care. Only the reality of movement is important. I must keep moving. Walk when I can, crawl when I cannot. Somehow I survive.

I open my eyes to find him standing there looking down at me. I blink but he does not disappear as all the others have done. It is the first time that I have seen a Grell without one of their c.u.mbersome support suits. I recall hearing that their homeworld has a high radiation level. Earth will be a paradise for them now. He looks so small and insignificant, not the all powerful alien of our hopes and dreams, just a little blue man with spindly limbs and a huge bulb for a head.

I manage to force my cracked lips open, to move my swollen tongue.

"Help."

The Grell studies me dispa.s.sionately and emits a series of high pitched whistles. The voice that comes out of the translator box dangling at the Grell's side is warm and female, but that means nothing; the Grell are not creatures of gender like us.

"You are beyond help human. Soon you will be no more."

It is the truth. I am dying of radiation sickness. I've seen it take hold of others. I know the signs. My chest heaves. The air is raw and cold in my throat and lungs. The sun burns so bright that it hurts my eyes. The skin of my eyelids has turned transparent so that it is no longer possible for me to shut out the light. I work saliva in my mouth and gather strength to say what must be said but the words elude me. It seems that now I have found the Grell there is nothing I can say to them, at least nothing to justify or excuse our betrayal of their trust. At such a moment only the truth will serve.

"We were fools."

Tears sting my cheeks. Each breath burns. The Grell stares down at me. In his eyes is a look that, if he were human, I would believe to be a sign of compa.s.sion.

"You were no wiser than we judged you to be."

[Originally published in Kimota 6, Summer 1997].

THE STRANGER.

by Trevor Mendham.

Good, you are still here. A lot of people wouldn't be. Well, here we go mate, another two pints of lager. Didn't take long, did it, even with the crowd in tonight? That's one of the perks, I always get served first at the bar. Don't have to say anything, just give them the old stare. Even from behind these shades, it always works.

What's that? No, Joe, I do not drink b.l.o.o.d.y Marys. Old joke. Not funny.

So, where were we? Oh yeah. I'd just told you that I'm a vampire and you were trying to decide - am I telling the truth, am I an escaped loony or am I Jeremy Beadle? Either way you probably reckon you should be a million miles from here. No, don't deny it. I can tell if you're lying so there's really no point. It's the standard reaction I always get. That's why I waited 'til we'd had a couple before telling you. Don't worry, I'm not cross. If I was, you can bet you'd be dead by now.

And before you ask, no, I will not turn you into a vampire. This is an exclusive club, my friend, we don't let just anyone in. Whilst we might be having a nice little chat now, I'm not really certain that I want your company for the rest of eternity. No offence meant, mate.

And before you panic, nor am I gonna suck you dry and leave your corpse to rot. Do us a favour, do I look that stupid? If I wanted to do that I'd have jumped you outside, alone in the dark. I'd hardly warn you and certainly wouldn't do it here in the pub!

Anyway, I've gotta be honest, you're really not my type. Young blood really does taste better y'know. And personally I've always preferred women. Some vampires reckon that there's no real difference, but I say there is. Female blood has a certain piquancy to it, an extra little bite. It's a bit like the difference between a good wine and an excellent vintage. The ordinary stuff is fine, but the vintage, when you feel it sliding down your throat, when you lick your lips and savour every last drop, oh that's just so...

Hmm? Oh, sorry, getting carried away. Actually, I don't get to taste the blood of a young female nearly as often as I used to. They don't tend to go out alone at night now. It wasn't like that in my youth - I don't know what the world's coming to nowadays. So I usually have to make do with some homeless wino. Let me tell you, meths really ruins the flavour. Almost as bad as garlic.

So what do I want with you? Just a chat, Joe, nothing more. Is that so hard to accept? I get so b.l.o.o.d.y lonely, every so often I just need to talk to someone. You humans take things like that for granted.

Think about it. Being one of the immortal undead might sound fun but it's a real pain in the neck. I can't exactly have a normal social life, can I? No holidays in the sun, no days spent window shopping. The only jobs I can get are night-shifts and let me tell you, you meet some weirdos there. As for s.e.x - have you ever tried to buy a double coffin? I can't have ordinary friends. Anyone who got close to me would soon begin to suspect something. Then it would be the whole Hammer Horror bit.

The only people I can really socialise with are other vampires and you don't get many of them around here. To be honest, most of them need to get a life - all they ever seem to talk about is themselves.

So, after I've been in one place for a while, when I'm ready to move on, I like to have a little chat with someone I'll never see again. Someone like you Joe. Some people can handle the occult better than others, I could tell from your face that you'd understand. You've got an aura or some such New Age c.r.a.p. Whatever, I felt drawn to you. I'll bet you even have a deck of dog-eared Tarot cards at home.

You were drawn to me as well, weren't you? I could see you watching me out of the corner of your eye. To be honest, at first I thought you might be a queer, but then I saw you trying to chat up the barmaid so I knew you were OK.

I tell you, Joe, you wouldn't believe the mindless bigotry I have to put up with. People just label you, stick you in a box. OK, so I'm a vampire - does that make me a bad person? I adore kids, I give money to charity and I have all of Cliff Richard's records.

Yeah, yeah. I just knew you'd bring that up again. OK, it's true. Every so often I sink my fangs into some nubile young woman and suck the life out of her. So I'm not a perfect citizen, but you can find fault with anyone if you try hard enough.

Drink up, mate, you're falling behind and it's your round next. Actually, you're doing pretty well. Most people have found an excuse to go by now. You know, they remember that they left the bathroom light on or something urgent like that. You're different, you look like you're actually enjoying this. Bet I know why. You're a journo, aren't you? Gonna write this up. "I met a vampire in the Slaughtered Lamb". 'Cept this is the Slug and Lettuce, but I'm sure you wont let a little fact like that stop you. And you'll probably give me some naff name like "Count Alucard". Actually, I'm calling myself Pinner today. It'll be something different tomorrow, time to change it again. I try not to use the family name, doesn't go down too well.

You're not a journo? Not a writer at all? I'd have staked my life on it. So what do you do then? Old family business, eh? Like me in a way! Ah, a business card. Very professional. Let's see who you are now.

Ah come on, this has got to be a gag, right? You're having me on.

"Josef van Helsing"?

[Originally published in Kimota 9, Autumn 1998]

BEYOND THE HELP OF MORTALS.

By D.F. Lewis Phil had been tramping for miles. The pain in his backside he put down to haemorrhoids, though he would have been hard put to spell the d.a.m.ned word. The itching was at one moment delightful and the next worse than agony itself, veneering the insides of his denims with overlapping reddy-brown skidmarks. He hoped the pain was haemorrhoids, blotting the thought of wiggling cancers from his mind. He couldn't afford medication at the best of times. Sensible not to think about it.

In the wimpish light of the moon, he could see the outline of a lorry upturned on the hard shoulder. Hit and Run. And the pedestrian who had hit it had surely run! Phil laughed to himself like a stand-up comedian who'd lost his audience. Dossers were funny even without their cardboard bedding. It was ages since he'd had a good booze-up and a long smoke. f.u.c.king had been pretty well hand to mouth, too.

Not averse to helping himself, whenever the opportunity arose, he clambered aboard the rear end of the lorry. The cha.s.sis had been buckled by the force of its skid into the deep ditch, the driver's cab pointing up towards the cloudless night sky.

His usually inscrutable face began to reflect his mood and broke into a wide grin, when he discovered that the lorry's payload was a number of ruptured cardboard boxes with cigarettes spilling out. He could not make out the make. He had been so long without gla.s.ses, he had entirely forgotten that his eyes needed them. It didn't matter, of course. In any event, he did not know his own thoughts.

He did not have a match upon his person, so he scratched at his b.u.m where it itched quite exquisitely as if that were a consolation prize. He would need to scale the articulates of the lorry towards the cab end and rifle the driver's corpse (if he had one) for a lighter or something.

He forthwith fell off the back of the lorry in a flurry of self-misunderstandings and a grunt of disapproval at his own lack of co-ordination and panache. Thousands of cigarettes scattered around him like flakes of long snow.

He shivered, as the darkness became noisy. n.o.body slept at night any more - the flights that were permitted to lift off from the nearby airport took advantage of fuel being cheaper after daylight hours. Something to do with storage propulsion. Phil shrugged. Something was wrong.

He glanced up at the cab - a real shadow etched against the moon's faint widening blur. The moon was a ghost of a planet. He shrugged again. Shrugging made him warmer, more alive, comforted. His mittened paws could no longer feel themselves nor each other. The cab might have to wait for morning, however distant in time that happened to be.

The droning in the sky increased like long thunder.

It would be better in the cab, if he could but reach it. He could do with a drag. He took a fistful of cigarettes, trying not to break them in his numbed grasp.

He lodged one foot upon the petrol tank that had been punched out from the lorry's underbelly by a tough tussock during the crash. Phil then noticed for the first time that the cab itself was stove in, as a result of an ancient tree root growing outlandishly from the waste ground high bordering the freeway.

There would be little room enough for both him and the driver.

He hoped that the driver had been scrunched beyond recognition. Phil dreaded undamaged corpses more than anything.

On finally reaching the cab, he panted, cross-eyed with effort. He unbent the door, sending up a horrendously nail-gritting squeal with the splayed hinges. It exploded with loose screws in all directions. Like a cyborg berserker being sick.

Phil had one of the cigarettes behind his ear. The others he hoped were undamaged in his jerkin pocket. The driver was wrapped around the steering column, the large face mooning upward, merely a few inches from the shatter-crazed windscreen. A jagged shard from the vanity mirror had skewered both eyeb.a.l.l.s in one go, taking most of their glistening egg-white substance with it and out through an ear. The overlong neck had a steamy slime guttering down the wrinkles.

The driver had been no human. Whether Phil realised, only Phil knew.

The driver's belly was covered in gapes, where the satiny overalls had been st.i.tched back by splinters snapped off a dial's gla.s.s cover. His innards were far from red, more a pulsing grey, with a sentience which derived neither from breath or heartbeat.

Phil's eyes were pinp.r.i.c.king with the luminosity that emanated from the cab's sunroof. He had not worried about the nature of this light source - nor did he now. He was too busy rummaging in the glove compartment for something to light a cigarette.

A s...o...b..ring slick of a sensation upon the back of his flinching neck... He turned his whole body round with the effort of a skewered jack-in-the-box with its lid stuck. The driver was flapping flayed muscles and jerked the gear-lever as if he were stirring stew one moment and tugging free a reluctant rib-bone from a fellow berserker's chest the next. The ignition churned on one sickening note, never truly firing. The driver's club foot pumped vigorously on the clutch pedal in a ludicrous attempt to roll start.

The vehicle lurched and began to judder irrhythmically. The shattered windscreen ballooned inwards. And through the jagged lens-holes which ratcheted forwards to slice around the edges of Phil's throbbing eyeb.a.l.l.s, he fleetingly focussed upon a patch of starlight grown far too large to be a moon of Earth.

Phil shrugged, as he felt the stinging white tubes meticulously inserted into his mouth, ear holes, empty eye-sockets, a.n.u.s and p.e.n.i.s. The haemorrhoids audibly burst one by one in salute to a fine human being.

Some were his own thoughts, others not.

Half-knowing he was on a UFO, Phil shrugged, shrugged again and died. And lived again to die again, this time more horribly, for ever and ever.

[Originally published in Kimota 9, Autumn 1998].

A MATTER OF BLOOD.

by Martin Owton.

The first thing Aron noticed was that the man was young; scarcely older than Aron himself. The second thing he noticed was that the man was a mess; someone had beaten him thoroughly, breaking his nose and splitting his lips. His eyes were swollen shut, the flesh purple around them. Someone had splinted his broken right arm, bound up the shattered fingers on both hands and plugged the stab wound in his side with clean linen. He lay back on the pallet, his breath rattling harshly between his ruined lips; he would live but would carry the scars to his grave.

Aron turned questioningly to Simeon.

"I couldn't just leave him there, not after what that b.a.s.t.a.r.d did to him." The boy threw his arms wide in a gesture of frustration. Aron liked Simeon, liked his openness and enthusiasm. Yet he knew that Simeon's idealism would have had him taking on the perpetrator of this violence if the watch had not arrived when they did. The boy was an able pupil, but at sixteen not yet full grown and could easily have got himself a similar beating or worse.

"You shouldn't have been down there anyway. Don't you know how dangerous the taverns in the Swamp are?" Aron said.

"You live down there," Simeon replied.

"I am not a merchant's son with a coat that cost more than a docker earns in a six-month. Besides, I can look after myself. What is the point of me teaching you to look after yourself if you're going to put your neck in a noose the first chance you get?"

"I got out alive. Anyway this isn't about me. Will you listen to his story?" Simeon gestured to the injured man.

"Very well," said Aron. "For the price of breakfast."

"My name is Roger de Beaune," the young man said, his words distorted by his injured mouth. "I come from Fox Hollow, a small village five days walk from here. A year ago I was happy. I worked my father's farm and I was walking out with the most beautiful girl in the village. Then Seranna fell pregnant, and my father insisted that I put her aside. Her father threw her out of their house and I was powerless to stop her leaving the village."

"Was the child yours?" asked Aron before he took a bite out of a warm bread roll.

"Certainly. I was all ready to make the arrangements with the priest, but father just exploded when I told him and wouldn't hear of any wedding. He thought she wasn't good enough for me. He was a hard man." Roger swallowed noisily. Aron took another bite of his roll and waited for him to continue. "So she left and I couldn't do anything. That was last spring."

"And now you're in Oxport."

"My father died at New Year. The farm's mine now, so I came to find Seranna."

"You found her?"

"I found her in that tavern, last evening. I was going to take her away, but then he came." Roger seemed to shudder at the memory.

"You realise what kind of women frequent The Sailor's Ease?"

"I know what she has been driven to, if that's what you mean. That doesn't matter to me. I love her and I want to take her back to Fox Hollow, and she wants to go with me."

"You're sure she wants to go with you?" Aron asked as he speared a sausage with his knife.

"Yes certain. She wept in my arms and begged me to take her away. We were leaving when he stopped us."