Engn

VII-2

He tried to squirm his way free. “You just want to hand me over so I can tell them where she is!”

“No, no! There's no helping Diane now. They'll take her away to Engn and there's nothing you can do. Did you think you could beat them, boy? Come on. It's you we need to save.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

She dragged him from the lane, making him stumble to his knees. She was surprisingly strong. Behind him, Finn saw a flash of silver as the ironclads appeared round the bend. If he got free now, they would see him anyway. Perhaps if he hid in the Switch House, he could let them pass by and then carry on up to the woods. He stopped struggling, rose to his feet and pushed past Mrs. Megrim, up the spiral path that wound around the low hill. The old woman followed, keeping a tight grip on the wool of his jerkin in case he tried to make a dash for it.

It was dark inside the Switch House, as it had to be. It smelled of paper and dust and, for some reason, lavender. He had never been allowed in before. Three of the walls, those facing up, down, and across the valley, were peppered with small, round windows, bright circles of daylight. Most had line-of-sight telescopes peering out of them.

Stepping awkwardly in case he walked into something, Finn crossed to peer through one opening at the front of the house, overlooking the lane. He could see four ironclads, two lines of two, trotting past towards the crossroads. One of the two at the back turned his head to look up as he went by, as if well aware Finn was up there watching. Finn held his breath. The horses didn't stop. He was safe. They really weren't coming for him.

He turned and sank to the ground, shoulders heaving. He dropped Diane's bundle to the floor, where it spilled open. He would leave it for a few minutes then go and find her.

His eyes were adjusting now. He looked around. He knew well what happened at the Switch House thanks to Mrs. Megrim's lessons. Still, it wasn't what he'd expected. He'd always imagined a room where beams of light crisscrossed, a great nest of them, each flickering as the coded words flashed through from up or down the valley. He'd imagined banks of brass machinery, mirrors and lenses on mechanical arms that snapped into place as you turned knobs or pressed buttons, connecting two telescopes with mechanical precision so that two households, perhaps miles apart, could communicate.

Instead, three walls were dominated by a higgledy-piggledy assortment of line-of-sight telescopes, each poised at a different angle, positioned to line up with the 'scopes set up in each building. Some buildings, of course, weren't even directly visible. There were mirrors rigged all along the valley so that signals from distant houses could bounce their way up. Just behind each 'scope, a mirror on a spindly metal stand directed light onto the fourth, black-painted wall. Covering this wall – the bank wall – small squares drawn with chalk were labelled with names stamped onto metal plaques: the name of the house or the title of the inhabitant. Here, all incoming messages flashed until they were routed through to their recipient. Finn found his square in the top row. Blacksmith was shortened to Smith. It was flashing a pattern of longs and shorts now, the address of the house his mother or father wished to connect to. He didn't recognize the pattern.

Most of the telescopes were banked like this, but two pairs were connected, their mirrors moved aside and lenses placed between them at precise angles so that they lined up. Finn could just see the rapid glimmering of light in the eyepiece of one of the 'scopes. He wondered what was being said.

Mrs. Megrim sat nearby, peering through a line-of-sight down the valley. Four or five connection requests flashed on the wall behind her, but she ignored them all. Which she prided herself on never doing.

“What are they up to?” he heard her say to herself.

“They're going the wrong way,” she said in reply. “I don't understand.”

“I have to go,” said Finn.

“No!” She turned to look at him. Her features were indistinct in the low light, but Finn could feel her eyes on him, pinning him to the spot. “You can't. It isn't safe.”

“Only because you brought them here.”

“You young i***t. You know nothing.”

“I know enough.”

Mrs. Megrim turned to her wooden desk, filling a corner of the room where no line-of-sight holes perforated the walls. A dim red lamp gave off just enough illumination to see by. An open book lay upon the desk, next to a sheaf of papers. Line-of-sight printouts. She picked these up and thrust them into Finn's hands.

“Here. Here's your betrayal.” She turned back to peer into her telescope.

Finn held up the sheets of paper to one of the holes in the wall and began to read. They were all trunk messages, destined for outside of the valley. He didn't recognize the destination address.

“Where is 1A11?”

“Isn't it obvious?”

“Engn?”

“Of course.”

The messages were all encrypted, the sequences of lines and dots gibberish. A child could read a normal line-of-sight message, but not these. The sender's address was perfectly clear, though. Each message, all ten or twenty of them, had been sent by Matt.

“What do they say?” asked Finn.

“I've no idea. I can't read encrypted messages, despite what people say.”

“How long has he been sending them?”

“Him? Oh, off and on for years. Some of them I deliberately don't route properly. Sometimes I just blur the imaging. Occasionally I let one through so they don't get too suspicious. But all those are from the past week.”

“Since Diane came.”

“Since Diane came.”

“Did you let any through?”

“It's against all the rules to interfere with a line-of-sight communication, you know. It's more than my job's worth.”

“Yes, but did you let them through?”

She turned from her telescope to look at him again. Her wooden chair creaked as she moved. She spoke in a whisper.

“No. I blocked every single one of them.”

“Why?”

“Because I don't like him and I don't like them,” she said.

“And you think he saw us playing together somewhere when he was out mending the roads?”

“Of course, he did. I'm surprised the whole valley didn't see the three of you running around and making trouble. They must have heard you shouting at least. What did you think you were doing? None of you have the sense you were born with.”

“He sent a message through you didn't intercept?”

“Must have. The well-used 'scopes often get left set up so we don't have to keep switching them in and out, and I can't be here all the time. I have to teach you, for one thing. Try and drum some common sense into you.”

“But why? Why would he tell the ironclads about Diane?”

“Matt was a nasty, scheming bully when he was a boy and he's no better now. He thought there would be something in it for him. Why else?”

“You're saying somebody at Engn knows his private key?”

“So Matt seems to believe.”

“How is that possible?” People only shared their private keys with people they trusted completely.

Mrs. Megrim paused before replying, perhaps deciding how much she should tell him. “Matt's family weren't from here originally. His father came as a young man, said he was from somewhere up north. The whisper on the wires is Matt is an informer like his father before him. There are people like him all over, sent from Engn to keep an eye on folks and report back anything interesting. Being a lengthsman – even such a poor one – allows him to travel around, keep an eye on things going on all up and down the valley.”

Finn thought about that for a moment.

“Then do you think he would have mentioned me and Connor? Helping Diane, I mean?”

She sighed. “I can't say for sure. But possibly not. He needs your dad because he's such a useless lengthsman. And he's afraid of the Baron. He's not stupid. Perhaps he only mentioned her.”

“We just didn't think,” said Finn. “We thought you were spying on us. Matt is just so … harmless.”

“That's because you're children, and all children are stupid. And I was spying on you. I just don't report to Engn.”

Finn hauled himself to his feet.

“I have to go,” he said again. “Diane is waiting for me. They might not have found her yet.”

There was silence from Mrs. Megrim. The darkness gathered deeper around her as she concentrated on the vision in the telescope. More connect lights flickered on the bank wall now. Finn counted fifteen of them.

“Mrs. Megrim?”

She turned away from the line-of-sight and slumped into her creaking wooden chair, just a huddled shadow in the gloom of the room.

“Oh, no,” she said.

“What is it?” asked Finn. “What have you seen?”

“Well,” she said. “It seems not just children are stupid.” All the iron had gone from her voice.

“What do you mean?”

“Finn, I'm sorry. You'd better look.”

He crossed to stand next to her, sending one of the lens stands clattering to the floor. He bent to peer through the telescope.

The scene was a blur of greens and blacks and sparkles of sunlight. He turned the little knurled wheel below the eyepiece and the image sharpened into crisp detail.

A phalanx of ironclads rode in close formation down the lane from the farm. At their head rode one of the masters: unarmoured, purple robed. There was also a smaller figure within the cluster of riders. He couldn't see who it was at first but then, between the joggling heads of the ironclads, he caught a clear glimpse. It was Connor. They were taking Connor away to Engn.

“No!”

Finn burst towards the door, scattering stands and telescopes to the ground. Outside, in the blinding light of day, he stumbled down a step, rolling to the ground. Squinting, he stood and raced on, around the spiral path to the lane, then on to the crossroads. He arrived just as the ironclads arrived.

“Connor!”

He could see his friend clearly now. Connor's face was open-eyed disbelief. He sat astride one of the vast horses the ironclads rode, swaying gently in time to its leaden, unstoppable stride, hands behind his back.

“Connor!”

Now Connor saw him. He looked defeated as he stared at Finn. Something else too: apologetic, perhaps. He didn't speak.

“Connor,” said Finn one more time, but quietly, to himself. The ironclads stamped by, the sweet smell of the horses mixed with oil and metal. They turned the corner at the crossroads, heading down and out of the valley. Finn could see that Connor's hands were shackled to his saddle behind his back. On his finger, clearly visible, was Diane's ring. The finger waggled. Goodbye, he was waving. Goodbye and also, don't forget our vow. Don't ever forget.

Finn stood and watched, powerless. The clear understanding that his childhood was over, as utterly as Connor's was over, came to him. They were boys no longer, just as Diane was no longer a girl. Soon enough, Finn knew, he would be a man and then, sometime after that, he would die. And he would never see Connor again.

The dust kicked up by the horses tasted gritty and bitter in his mouth. He wormed his own finger into the ring hidden in his pocket. He stood and watched as Connor grew smaller, his head slumped forwards as he rode away.

“I'm sorry,” said Mrs. Megrim, standing behind him. “If I could have done anything I would. I thought they'd come for Diane. I didn't think…”

“Diane,” said Finn. “I have to help her.”

He was running again, back to the Switch House. He crashed in, bundled Diane's gear back into the blanket, then tore down to the lane towards the woods. He didn't care if he met his parents or the ironclads or anyone. He didn't care about the tearing pain in his side. He ran and ran, past his house, dashing headlong through the woods, leaping branches and ditches in his way, pushing through nettles as if they weren't there.

He arrived, panting, wide-eyed, in the clearing.

She was gone. He was alone in the clearing. He slumped to the log, his breathing still wild, looking around at the trees, wondering what he was going to do.

He stayed there for a long time, but no one came to take him away. No one knew where he was. Eventually the darkness thickened between the boughs of the trees. He stood and wiped his eyes with the palms of his hands. He left Diane's stuff on the ground, in case she came back, and walked away.