Eoin Colfer - Airman

… Where Declan and Conor Broekhart were battling furiously with three of the Holy Cross guard. Three were already down, unconscious or clutching their wounds. At that moment, Declan Broekhart took a blade in the shoulder, leaving his son to fight alone.

Catherine dragged her husband clear, and Queen Isabella kept her sword levelled at Bonvilain.

That girl is really becoming quite irksome. Why did I let her live this long?

Bonvilain realized that he had allowed his schemes to become too elaborate.

I need these people dead, but, more than that, I need to be in a safe place where I can regain my strength. I have funds and supporters on the mainland.

Conor drove the three Holy Cross guards back with a wide swing, then drew a pistol from his belt, firing off two low rounds. A couple of soldiers collapsed with shattered shins.

Gunfire! thought Bonvilain. That and the word ‘poison’ from the courtyard will have the Wall watch running. I must away .

The poison was in his legs now, sticking needles in his toes, cramping his muscles.

Across the room, Conor Broekhart struggled with the final guard, a huge Scotsman wielding a shortened broadsword. This was one of Bonvilain’s mercenaries and a veteran killer. For a moment Bonvilain nurtured a glimmer of hope, then Conor stepped under the big Scotsman’s swing and knocked him flat with the sabre’s finger guard.

The Airman tumbled the final guard back inside the cavity then reached behind the tapestry and sealed them inside. Their moaning could be heard through the grate.

‘Behind you, son,’ said Declan, through gritted teeth. ‘The marshall.’

Conor rounded on Bonvilain with three years of hatred glowing in his eyes. He was a figure from children’s nightmares. A man in black, wielding a bloody weapon, lips pulled back in a snarl.

‘Bonvilain,’ he said, with a strange calmness.

Generally Bonvilain would have relished the opportunity for some choice remarks, followed by swift mortal combat with this whelp, but now his system was afire with wolfsbane. His tongue felt strange and swollen in his mouth and his legs bent under the weight of his torso.

Soon my judgement will be gone. I must escape now.

Isabella stepped forward. ‘You will answer for your crimes, Hugo Bonvilain. Your reign is over. There is no escape.’

Bonvilain bent low, grunting like a wild boar. He grasped Conor’s harness, dragging the glider on to the balcony.

‘Escape,’ he muttered, drool dripping from his slack lip. ‘Fly away, Airman.’

Conor followed him, cocking his pistol. ‘I’m warning you, Bonvilain.’

Bonvilain managed a dry laugh. ‘Conor Broekhart. Always in my way. In Paris when I ordered your father’s balloon shot down. When I set the king’s tower alight. Even now. Perhaps you are magical, as people believe.’

It was difficult to understand what Hugo Bonvilain said, his loose lips bubbled with spittle and blood. The marshall rolled his body up on to the balcony’s parapet.

‘Keep away, or you will never know my secrets.’

Conor ached to finish Bonvilain, but Isabella’s light touch prevented it.

‘Don’t, Conor. I need to know everything he has done. There is so much to be set right.’ Isabella turned to the marshall. ‘Come down from there,’ ordered Isabella. ‘Your queen commands it.’

Bonvilain struggled to his feet, clumsily pulling the harness round his shoulders.

‘I have no queen, no god, no country,’ he mumbled, cinching the chest belt with rubbery fingers. That would have to do, he did not have the dexterity for the remaining buckles. ‘All I have is cunning.’

And with a focus born of hatred, Bonvilain reached inside his dragon robe to a dagger at his belt, with the intention of flicking it from the waist. Conor saw the gleam of the blade as it cleared the silk.

Isabella! Even now he tries to kill Isabella.

Conor swung his pistol, but Declan Broekhart was quicker, even though his shoulder was wounded. He hurled his sword, spear-like, with such force that it pierced Bonvilain’s vest of chain mail and lodged in his heart.

Bonvilain sighed, as though disappointed with the book he was reading, then stepped backwards off the parapet, into the night. An updraught filled the glider’s wings, floating Bonvilain over the courtyard past the disbelieving eyes of the Wall watch and hundreds of Saltee islanders raised from their beds by the Gatling guns.

Bonvilain hung there for several moments, his dripping blood painting swirls on the flagstones, before a crosswind flipped the glider about, urging it out to sea.

Conor watched him go, dropping closer and closer to the cold ocean, the silhouetted sword protruding from his lifeless heart, and with him went the nightmare that his life had become.

None could tear their eyes from Bonvilain’s corpse, arresting even in death. Further from land he drifted, and lower too until his toes skimmed the ocean. Conor wished to see him go down, to be certain that it was over, but he did not. Bonvilain was lost to sight before the ocean claimed him.

Below was consternation. The watch were hammering on the Wall access door, and the people surged against the foot of the tower.

Declan Broekhart took Isabella by the hand, leading her to the parapet.

‘The queen is safe,’ he called, raising her hand. ‘Long live the queen.’

The cry that came back was relieved and heartfelt.

‘Long live the queen.’

Great Saltee. One month later

Queen Isabella had taken to walking the Wall every morning at sunrise. She believed that it gave her subjects heart to see her there. Before too many sunrises, she could call to everyone she saw by name.

Conor often joined his queen on her morning strolls, and on the morning before his planned departure to study for a science degree at Glasgow University, they met below what had been Bonvilain’s tower.

Isabella stood with her elbows on the parapet, watching a cluster of fishing boats half a mile offshore, the small crafts bobbing in the choppy channel currents.

‘They will never find him, you know,’ said Conor. ‘Bonvilain’s mail vest has taken him straight to the bottom. He is food for the crabs now.’

Isabella nodded. ‘Without a body, he becomes the bogeyman. They say he has been seen in Paris, and Dublin. I read in the London Times that Bonvilain survives as a killer for hire in Whitechapel.’

They were both silent for a minute, convincing themselves that they had actually seen Hugo Bonvilain die.

‘What will you do with this place?’ Conor asked finally, slapping the tower wall.

‘A diamond market, I think,’ replied Isabella. ‘It seems ludicrous that the diamonds are here, and yet we trade in London.’

‘You’re making big changes.’

‘There are many things to be changed. Little Saltee, for one. Did you know that only fourteen of the prisoners are from the Saltee Islands? The majority of the other poor souls are from Ireland or Great Britain. Well, no more. I will shut the prison down and contract the mining to a professional firm.’

Conor glanced at the S branded into his hand.

Little Saltee will always be with me. It has marked my body and mind.

‘What will happen to the prisoners?’ he asked.

‘Every case will be reviewed by a judge. I suspect most have served their sentences and more besides. Reparations will have to be made.’

‘I would be grateful if you could look kindly on a certain Otto Malarkey. He is not as fearsome as he seems.’

‘Of course, Sir Conor.’

‘You will make a fine queen.’

‘My father was the scientist; I am a businesswoman. You can be my royal scientist… on your return.’