13
My instinct is to shout for help – or simply bite and kick – but, as I am spun around, I find myself face to face with Hart. His stare tells me to stay quiet as he slowly releases his fingers from around my face and whispers an apology. My eyes dart around the room, which is some sort of storage area stocked with uniforms and cleaning utensils. It is as low-tech as something we might have in Martindale but I can’t see any blinking camera lights.
Hart notices my movement and nods approvingly. ‘You’ll get used to where they are soon enough.’
There is so much I want to ask him but I don’t get a chance before he closes the door quietly. ‘How are my parents?’
‘They’re fine …’
‘Are they both still alive?’
‘Yes.’
Hart nods slowly and then repeats the question, unsure he can trust me. His eyes are flickering all over the place, making me feel nervous.
‘Honestly, they’re both fine,’ I say, resting a hand on his upper arm. He is wearing a white uniform much like mine but shudders at my touch. Even through the material, I am astounded by how thin he feels, especially considering I had the biggest meal of my life last night. I had been assuming that was the norm.
I let him go but he is still nodding. ‘That’s good,’ he says, repeating it over and over.
‘Are you all right?’
He doesn’t seem to notice I’ve spoken. ‘Is Martindale still there?’
‘Of course …’
‘Good, good …’ He sounds flat and distant and there is no joy in his response.
On his wrist I see the dark-faced thinkwatch we were all so keen to spy when we found out Martindale had an Elite. ‘What happened to you?’ I ask softly.
His pupils focus on me but I can’t read him. ‘I saw you last night from a distance,’ he says. ‘I was at the top looking down and couldn’t figure out if you were the girl I knew from home. It was only when you told me your name this morning that it all fell into place. You took a risk wearing that dress; I’m surprised you’re still here.’
I think of Jela the night before and know he is telling me that if she wasn’t so effortlessly pretty, then it could have been me Ignacia came calling for.
‘They took another girl. What’s going to happen to her?’
Hart shrugs. ‘She belongs to the King now. You might see her at the weekly feast. It depends how quickly he gets bored with her.’
‘What happens to us all?’
At first I don’t think Hart is going to respond but then I realise he is listening for the sound of somebody passing. Footsteps reverberate around the corridor outside and then fade into the distance. If Hart is trying to make me nervous, then he’s going the right way about it.
‘One way or the other, we all end up going the same way,’ he says. ‘There are only two people left from my year.’
‘You and Lumin?’
Hart seems confused at my knowledge for a moment but then nods. ‘If you reach the end of the year, you get a small room of your own on one of the top floors. We’re all on borrowed time though.’
‘How many of you live up there?’
Hart shakes his head. ‘Maybe twenty? I don’t know.’
I try to do the adding up in my head. The war ended seventeen years ago but, before this year, there had been fourteen Reckonings, with thirty Offerings each year. That means there are only twenty people left out of over four hundred Offerings. Lumin’s attitude and Hart’s nervousness suddenly makes a lot more sense because simply staying alive is an achievement in itself.
‘What happens to everyone?’ I say, repeating my question that he never really answered.
‘Didn’t you see what happened to that kid last night?’
I stumble over my words. As if I could have forgotten. ‘Of course, he was opposite me …’
‘Then you know it is whatever the King wants to happen to us all. A few are sent overseas as gifts but you never hear from them. Most are dead.’
‘But how has this been happening for so long with no one finding out?’
Hart looks at me as if I am stupid. The areas around his eyes are dark, although the rest of his face is pale and I feel a shudder go through me that I wish I could control. He doesn’t answer but there’s no need because it is obvious. Everything we are told comes either through our screens, thinkpads or thinkwatches. If none of those reveals what happens to the Offerings, then how are we supposed to know? Instead, stories are spread about marrying exotic leaders abroad or leading armies, so being an Offering doesn’t sound too bad.
‘Have my parents been getting their extra rations?’ Hart asks, as if abruptly remembering.
‘Yes, sometimes they share them with the smaller children around the village.’ I smile at the thought. ‘Your mum gave my friend Opie some bread because he helped her fix a door that wasn’t closing. It had swollen in the damp and was sticking.’
Hart smiles and for the first time it feels as if I’m actually talking to him and not an impersonator. ‘So she and Dad are really okay?’
‘Yes, they just miss you; the whole village does.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. When I was chosen, people kept telling me to look out for you. Your dad told me to tell you your mother is fine. That was when we all thought being an Offering was … different.’
Hart peers over his shoulder and then leans against the door before sitting on the floor. Unsure of what to do, I follow his lead, resting on the ground next to him.
‘Did they send you off?’ he asks.
‘Yes, it was like yours but there were more people and the cameras were there. Don’t you get to see the Offering here?’
Hart shakes his head. ‘We don’t see anything from outside.’
That was the impression I was beginning to get. ‘How have you survived so long?’
‘Don’t get noticed. It will be hard for you.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You’re pretty.’
‘Oh.’
I feel embarrassed and don’t know how to reply. It’s nice of him to say but I’ve never thought of myself in that way.
‘You shouldn’t wear that dress again,’ he adds. ‘Be plain and blend in. It’s the only way.’
From what he is saying, keeping my head down while I’m working for Porter now seems a necessity rather than just an aspiration. If you’re too bad then you’re expendable, too good then you’re a threat.
‘Tell me about the past two years,’ I say.
Hart coughs quietly and I’m not sure he’s going to respond as an eerie silence fills the room. I can hear shuffling movements in the distance but nothing nearby; the only light is coming from a small window high in the brickwork on the wall opposite. At the back of the room are rows of folded-down chairs but, considering we have both been brought up with so little, it isn’t surprising we are sitting on the floor.
‘It’s not locked,’ Hart says, nodding towards the window. ‘But there’s a big drop on the other side, plus it would only get you into the courtyard where the barracks are.’ He pauses for a moment and then answers the question, although he speaks so quietly that I have to re-run his words in my head as if to confirm he has said what I think. ‘Every week you get through the feasts is an achievement,’ he tells me.
‘How come you’re so thin if we feast every week?’ I ask, knowing it’s not the point he’s making.
‘Sometimes it’s hard to be hungry when you know what’s coming. Neither of us are a stranger to hunger, are we?’
He’s right, of course – I’m not sure how other areas might live but Martindale isn’t a place awash with food.
‘What’s coming?’ I ask.
Hart makes a noise which is a half-laugh, half-sigh. ‘That depends on what mood the King is in. A few weeks ago, there were maybe half-a-dozen Offerings left from last year. Gradually that table where you sit gets smaller and smaller. For whatever reason, he was angry and threw a full bottle of wine onto the floor – then he ordered the two lads closest to him to fight each other. They were confused but, by then, everyone knows he’s serious. Kingsmen gave them their swords and that was that. He was roaring away while these two kids sliced each other to pieces for his amusement.’
‘That’s horrible …’
For the first time, Hart seems to be thinking clearly and his words come out uninterrupted. ‘By the time it was over, they had killed each other. The King was so furious at not having a winner he stormed down to the central area, grabbed the sword out of one of their hands, and then stabbed one of the other Offerings just because he could. That was three of them gone in a matter of minutes.’
My lack of surprise is more worrying to me than anything else. ‘Is that normal?’
‘Sort of. That’s the worst I’ve seen, usually it’s more like your lad last night. He does whatever he wants.’
‘Doesn’t anyone do anything to stop him?’
Hart snorts. ‘Like who?’
‘I don’t know …’
I’m struggling to find the right words, as the full extent of what it is to be an Offering is beginning to dawn on me. ‘I don’t understand how all of this can have been going on for so long with nobody saying or doing anything.’
‘What would you do? You know what it’s like outside – everyone loves the King. He’s the man who stopped us all fighting. You’ve seen the footage.’
I have but none of it shows this version of him. It’s hard to reconcile the two sides of the same man and to separate everything we have grown up being told with what I have actually witnessed in the castle.
‘So is this it, then?’ I say. ‘We’re stuck here waiting for our eventual fate until next year’s lot come along?’
‘What do you suggest?’
‘Hasn’t anyone escaped, or at least tried?’
Hart laughs mockingly and I feel myself tensing. Out of everyone, he should understand the most what I’m talking about. We come from the same place and have seen the same things.
‘Of course people have tried,’ he says condescendingly.
‘So what happened?’
‘Let’s just say they weren’t successful.’
‘Did they die?’
‘The lucky ones did.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean.’
Hart sniggers again and I can feel my anger boiling. ‘If it is so easy to escape, why do you think people haven’t done it? The only doors and windows you’ll ever find open don’t lead anywhere important. Some have tried running, others jumping, but no one has got away. When they’re caught, they disappear for days and then you might see them again at a banquet where they are made an example of – to warn everyone what happens if you try to get away.’
Hart takes a moment to breathe. ‘You can’t even kill yourself,’ he adds, although that wasn’t what I was thinking. ‘In my year, someone tried but the doctors kept them alive so the King could think of his own way to do it.’
He doesn’t elaborate but I don’t want him to anyway. He’s probably right that the lucky ones are killed before they get caught.
Hart pushes himself up until he is standing and holds out a hand to pull me up. ‘We’ve probably been in here too long,’ he says. ‘Never forget the cameras and don’t be seen in pairs. They are always on the lookout for people who seem too close to each other.’
I think of the way Lumin and Mira hurried off on their own, while Hari was uneasy standing next to me underneath the camera. I try to catch his stare but Hart is facing the door, holding the handle and listening for movement.
‘Do you work in the Minister Prime’s office?’ I ask.
‘Yes, it’s just office stuff. Easy to go unnoticed if you don’t do anything stupid.’
‘What types of thing do you have access to?’
‘… If you don’t do anything stupid …’
His point is clear and I realise he has given up. If he had similar thoughts of escaping or somehow letting other people know what our King is actually like, then they are long gone.
‘Can I come see you?’
Hart shakes his head. ‘Haven’t you been listening? Don’t make friends and don’t give them a reason to notice you.’
‘Who do you mean by “them”?’
‘Everyone – the Ministers, the Kingsmen, the King, whoever you are working with, or for. They want us all to work against each other.’
Hart sounds paranoid but I nod an acceptance as he opens the door, checks both ways, and leaves without another word. I step into the corridor and, as he heads away from me, I wonder if that is to be my fate: a broken person living without hope.