Simon Green - The Man with the Golden Torc

Turned out the precogs and mediums had only got it half right, as usual. Paul Anderson was a Pendragon reborn, all right, but not Arthur. Paul was Mordred, son of Arthur, back again to spread his malice in the world.

Molly and I approached him cautiously. We both knew who he was, who he had to be. I was already thinking seriously about calling in reinforcements. If Mordred had come into his full power, he was way out of my league. Fortunately, Molly’s spell had brought him back prematurely, and he was still pretty confused. Or he’d never have launched such a basic attack spell at my armour. The armour reflected the spell right back at him and blew his as yet unprotected human form to pieces. Nothing left of him but bloody gobbets, spread over a wide area.

Molly disappeared while I was organising a force to deal with the forest fire.

And the family were really scathing about this one.

That was pretty much the pattern, down the years. Molly and I would show up to claim some important person or prize, always on different sides of every argument, more than ready to kill each other to prevent the other from getting away with the prize or the person. Sometimes I won, sometimes she did, but I’d say honours were about even, on the whole. I can’t say I ever really hated her, and I was relieved to discover she felt the same way. It was only ever business for both of us; just the job, nothing personal. Except in a strange way I guess it became personal. There’s nothing like repeatedly trying to kill someone to really get to know them, and admire them. To appreciate their qualities.

"How many people have you killed, Eddie?" Molly said finally, hugging her knees to her chest.

I shrugged. The question didn’t make me feel uncomfortable, as such. It just wasn’t anything I ever thought about. "I stopped counting years ago. You?"

"Surprisingly few, all things considered. It’s a big thing to kill someone. You don’t just kill who they are, but everyone they might have become, and everything they might have done."

"Sometimes that’s the point," I said. It was important to me that she understood. That I was an agent, not an assassin. "I like to think I’ve only ever killed in self-defence, or to protect the world. To prevent future suffering or killing. But in the end…my job was just to do whatever my family told me to do. And I did, because I trusted them. If they told me someone needed killing, I always assumed they must have a good reason. In my defence, I would say that mostly they were right, and obviously so. I have killed some really evil bastards, in my time. I could give you names…"

"I probably already know them," said Molly. "You have quite a reputation, Eddie."

"Yes. I was proud of it, once. But not just as a killer, I hope?"

"Well…mostly. You never were the subtlest of agents, Eddie."

"Lot you know," I said airily. "Most of the jobs I did, I was in and out and never left a trace. That’s the mark of a good agent: to get the job done, and no one ever knows you were there."

"If you say so," said Molly, smiling. "But…did you never question any of your orders? Any of your assignments?"

"Why should I? They were my family. We were all raised to fight the good fight, to protect the world, to see ourselves as heroes in the greatest game of all. Family was the one thing you could depend on, in an untrustworthy world. So I killed the people they told me to. And if sometimes I wasn’t happy about what I did…I learned to live with it."

"That’s why you live alone," said Molly. "Apart from family, who could hope to understand the things we do?"

We sat quietly for a while, listening to Enya sing on the portable CD player. From outside came the low murmur of the wind, the sounds of the water and the wharf, and the distant rumble of city traffic. A whole world going on, just as always, not knowing that everything had changed. But that…was for tomorrow. I could feel my body slowly relaxing, winding down from a day I thought would never end.

"So," Molly said finally. "What do we do next? What can we do next?"

"I don’t know," I said honestly. "I’ve learned a lot I didn’t know, but not the one thing I needed to know. Why my family threw me to the wolves. Why I’ve been declared rogue from a family I served faithfully all my life. Why my own grandmother is so determined to see me dead. I must have done something, but I’m damned if I know what. I mean, I know now why my family have hung on to power for so long. I know what the Drood family business really is. But it’s not like I knew or even suspected any of this before today."

"Have you considered contacting other members of your family who’ve gone rogue?" Molly said suddenly. "Would you like to? I mean, if nothing else, they should be able to give you some solid hints on how to hide from your family, how to survive on your own, out in the world."

I thought about that. I still had a definite distaste for the word rogue, even though I was one now. There had always been rogues, throughout family history. Certain individuals who threw off family authority and ran away into the world. Or had been driven out, for good reason. Their names were struck from the family genealogy, and no one was permitted to mention them, ever again. Even now, back in the Hall, someone was removing all traces of my existence, and everyone who ever knew me would be instructed never to use my name again. Even my uncle Jack and my uncle James would go along. For the family. Rogues were worse than treacherous; they were an embarrassment. And so they spent their lives hiding in deep cover, to avoid being hunted down and killed.

"The only rogue I’ve ever known," I said slowly, "was the Bloody Man, Arnold Drood. Evil little shit. You know what he did? With the children? I can’t believe how he was able to hide it for so long…Anyway, the family told me what he’d done and where he was hiding, and I went straight there and killed him." A horrid thought struck me, and I looked anxiously at Molly. "They told me…but was it really true? Did I kill an innocent man?"

"No," Molly said quickly, patting me comfortingly on the arm. "Relax, Eddie. He really did do all the awful things everyone said he did. Your family weren’t the only ones on the Bloody Man’s trail. But only one of you could get to him despite his armour." She considered me thoughtfully for a moment. "How did you manage to kill him, Eddie?"

"Easy," I said. "I cheated. Let’s change the subject. Given that I’ve been such a good soldier for so long, will any of the other rogues agree to talk to me?"

"They’ll talk to me," said Molly. "I’ve had dealings with some of them, in my time. Don’t look so shocked, Eddie. You’re out in the real world now, and we do things differently here. Alliances come and go, and we all deal with whomever we have to, to get things done. I don’t have a family to back me up, so I made my own, out of the few people I really trust. I know people everywhere. Also, I know people who know people. In fact, I know of three Drood rogues living in and around London. If I vouch for you, they’ll agree to a meeting. Probably."

"I don’t care about just surviving," I said. "I won’t hide in a hole and pull it in after me, like the other rogues. I need to bring my family down, all the way down, for what they’ve done. For not being what they said they were. But…there has to be someone around strong enough to stop Manifest Destiny. Bad as my family are, those bastards are worse. And you can bet all the damage we did to them today won’t even slow them down. They’re big and they’re organised and they’re rotten to the core. If I do break the Droods’ hold on the world…who would be left strong enough to stop Truman from doing all the awful things he plans to do to everyone who’s not Manifest Destiny?"