Iain Banks: A Song Of Stone

Steam curls upwards from the car's crushed bonnet. The driver's door opens and somebody falls out, crawling on all fours on the ground, then collapsing.

Another motor sounds, there is more firing from the front of the castle, and then one of the lieutenant's trucks appears, roaring up the drive, straight for the castle. The gunfire stops; the truck disappears from view, obscured by the castle. We hear its engine rev, then stop altogether.

The rain has ceased. For a few moments there is silence and the only movement comes from the wisps of steam escaping the fourwheel drive's engine. Then we hear a few shouts, and some shots. The lieutenant takes out her radio. “Mr C?” she says. I hear a crackle in reply.

“Ah, Dopple; what's happening?”

She listens. “Okay. We got the four wheel drive; it's out of action. We're coming in now, from the ridge behind. Three minutes..” She puts the radio away. “Psycho got one at the bridge,” she tells us. “There's another two or three inside the castle, but the truck got to the gate in time; we're in.” She shoulders her gun. “Tootight,” she says to the fat soldier I shared the rear of the jeep with. “You stay here; pop anybody running away who's not one of us.” The fat soldier nods slowly.

Crouched, we move at a half run between the bushes and trees down to the rear gardens. Isolated shots sound from inside the castle. We go first to the man fallen by the side of the steaming, hissing four wheel drive. A man lies dead in the passenger seat, his uniform weltered in blood, his jaw half torn off. The driver lying on the ground is still moaning; blood seeps on to the gravel beneath him. He is a tall, gawky young man with the spotted complexion of adolescence. Our lieutenant squats to slap his face, trying to get some sense from him but extracting only whimpers. Finally she rises, shakes her head, exasperated.

She looks from the wounded man to the soldier with the machinegun, the one called Karma. He has taken off his steel helmet to wipe his brow; he is red haired. “Your turn,” she mutters. “Come on,” she says to me, as Karma puts his helmet back on, clicks something on the machine gun and points the weapon at the head of the man lying on the ground. The lieutenant strides off, her boots crunching over the gravel.

I turn quickly and follow her and the soldier with the rocket launcher, a strange tenseness between my shoulder blades, as

though vicariously preparing for the coup de grace. The single, loud bang still makes me jump.

We staid, you and I, in the centre of the castle's courtyard, by the well. We look up and around. The looters have done little damage. The lieutenant quizzed old Arthur who chose to stay with the castle rather than come with us and discovered the men arrived only an hour earlier; they barely had time to start sacking our home before our brave lieutenant arrived to the rescue. Now it is hers.

Her men are scrambling everywhere, like children with a new toy. They have a lookout on the battlements, another sentry at the gatehouse; they have mastered the castle's main gate and the portcullis a recent wrought iron replacement, perhaps more decorative than effective, but it seems to please them all the same and are now investigating the cellars, stores and rooms; our servants surprised, confused have been told to let them do as they wish; all the doors have been unlocked. The men though now most of them seem more like boys are choosing their rooms; it appears they will be our guests for longer than a weekend.

The two jeeps are parked here in the courtyard, the trucks sit outside on the far side of the moat, just over the small stone bridge; our carriage has been returned to the stables, the horses to their paddock. A few of the villagers camping on the lawns, who fled at the approach of the looters, are now returning, warily, to their tents.

The lieutenant appears at the main keep door, sauntering towards us, wearing a new tunic top; a vividly red jacket strung about with bright ropes of gold and studded with medal ribbons. She holds a bottle of our best champagne, already opened.

“There,” she says, looking around at the courtyard walls. “Not much damage done.” She smiles at you. “Like my new outfit? She spins once for us; the red dress jacket swings out.

She fastens a couple of the buttons. “This was your grandfather's or something?” she asks..

“Some relation; I forget which,” I tell her evenly, as old Arthur, patently the most venerable of our servants, appears at the door with a tray and makes his way slowly towards us.

The lieutenant smiles indulgently at the old man and indicates he should put the tray on the bonnet of one of the jeeps. There are three glasses. “Thank you… Arthur, isn't it?” she says.

The old fellow rotund, bespectacled, flush faced, head sparsely yellow haired looks uncertain; he nods to the lieutenant, then bows and mutters something to us, before hesitating and walking away. “Champagne,” the lieutenant says, laughing, already pouring; the ring which she took from you, now encircling her left small finger, clinks against the thick green bulk of the bottle and the long flutes” delicate stems.

We take our glasses. “To a pleasant stay,” she says, clinking crystal with us. We sip; she gulps.

“Quite how long do you intend to be with us?” I ask.

She says, “A while. We've been too long on the road, in fields and barns, dossing in half burnt houses and damp tents. We need some leave from all this soldiering; it gets to you after a while.” She swills her drink around, gazing at it. “I can see why you left, but we can defend a place like this.”

“We could not,” I agree. “That's why we chose to leave. May we leave now?”

,You're safer here, now,” she tells us.

I glance at you. “Still, we would like to leave. May we?”

“No,” the lieutenant says, and sighs. “I'd like you to stay.”

She shrugs, makes to inspect her fine tunic. “It's my wish.” She adjusts a cuff. “And rank has its privileges.” Het smile is quite, if briefly, dazzling as she glances about. “We are your guests, and you are ours. We are willingly your guests; how willing you are ours is up to you.” Another shrug. “But however that may be, we intend to stay here.”

“And if anyone turns up with a tank, what then?”

She shrugs. “Then we'd have to leave.” She drinks, and moves the wine around in her mouth for a moment before swallowing. “But there aren't that many tanks around these days, Abel; there isn't much of anything organised, opposition or otherwise, hereabouts just now. A very fluid situation we have at the moment, after all this mobilisation and waging and prosecuting and attrition and…” she waves one hand airily, Just general breakdown, I suppose.” She puts her head to one side. “When did you last see a tank, Abel? Or an aircraft, or a helicopter?”

I think for a moment, then just nod to accede.

I sense you looking up. You grab my arm.

The looters; the three our irregulars discovered inside the castle. They surrendered after a few shots and the lieutenant has apparently been questioning them. Now they appear on the roof above, bundled on to the walkway from the tower above the winding stair by a half dozen of the lieutenant's soldiers. The three have bags or hoods over their heads and ropes round their necks; they stumble and the way they move makes me think they've been beaten; I can hear what sound like sobs and entreaties from inside the dark hoods. They are being led to the castle's two south facing towers, whose bases flank the main gate and look over the bridge and moat towards the front lawns and the drive.

Your eyes are wide, your face pale; the gloved hand clutching at me tightens. The lieutenant drinks, watching you closely, something cold and calibratory about her expression. Then, while you still stare at the line of men on the stone skyline, her face animates, becomes relaxed, even cheerful. “Let's go