Free Voices in the Dark by Catherine Banner Page A

already?’ she said. ‘Anselm, we have missed half the speech. It’s my fault. Why didn’t you tell me?’
    She was brushing the tears from her face and struggling to lace up her boots, and then she took me by the hand and hurried me after her down the stairs. A thousand questions were burning in my mind. But then we were out in the street and running along the deserted alleys. The voices still rose from the Royal Gardens. A few white flowers lay trampled in the dust. All the way there, I wanted to ask her.But as we reached the gates of the gardens, the crowds came surging back towards us.
    ‘What is it?’ said my mother, tightening her grip on my hand.
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Can you see them?’
    ‘No.’ I glanced about. ‘Wait – over there.’
    I made out Jasmine on Leo’s shoulders, somewhere near the fountain. We struggled towards them through the crowds. Halfway there, they met us. Jasmine was crying. Mr Barone and Michael were arguing loudly.
    ‘What’s going on?’ I said.
    ‘The king has declared war on Alcyria,’ said an old man close by. ‘Get back home, because there’s going to be trouble.’
    The gunshots started just after we reached Trader’s Row. They were all over the city, quick rifle volleys and angry shouts. People were still hurrying past the shop windows or calling for their relatives. Leo put up the grilles on the shop windows. Next door, I could hear Michael and Mr Barone still arguing.
    ‘I just don’t believe it’s true,’ my mother kept saying. ‘Another war. I just can’t make myself believe it.’
    ‘If Aldebaran was here …’ said Leo.
    The shouting and the gunfire went on until the early hours. Eventually we went upstairs and tried to sleep, out of disbelief more than anything. There was nothing else to do. On the way to Mass the next morning, we passed people leaving the city. They were driving north in old horse carts with their belongings piled around them, avoiding our glances as if they thought we would condemn them for their loss of nerve. The church was more crowded than ithad been for weeks. Father Dunstan preached about the steadfastness of the Lord in times of trouble.
    When we came out of the church, Michael was waiting by the fountain.
    ‘Michael!’ called Jasmine, and ran towards him, but he did not swing her up into his arms as he usually would have done.
    ‘You had better come,’ he said.
    ‘What is it?’ said Mrs. Barone.
    Michael led the way back towards Trader’s Row, and we followed at a jog. I could see nothing wrong at first. Then I made out the letters on the wall of the shop and the black space where the front window used to be. Leo ran ahead and went in at the side door, and I heard him go quickly up the stairs. ‘I was in the back room,’ said Michael. ‘I heard the noise and came out, but they had guns.’
    ‘Who was it?’
    ‘I don’t know. The Imperial Order, I think, but I don’t know.’
    We caught up with him and stopped in front of the building. ‘They didn’t take anything,’ said Michael. ‘They ran away down the alley as soon as I came out.’
    ‘This is it,’ said Mr Barone, shaking his head. ‘I can’t stay here any longer.’
    It could have been worse. But my skin turned cold all the same, looking at the destruction. While we had been at Mass, someone had smashed all our windows and the Barones’, and NONE OF YOU ARE SAFE was daubed in six-foot letters on the wall.
    I wanted to talk to Michael that night, but the light never appeared at his window, and when I called his name, he didnot answer. There was only air between us now that the windows were smashed, and I could hear him walking about his room. ‘Michael, I need to talk to you!’ I said in exasperation, but he did not stop his pacing. Eventually I gave up and put a board across my window and went to bed. The whole city seemed in a stupor the next day. No one went out.
    ‘Have you spoken to Mr Barone?’ Mr Pascal asked us when he came into the