They returned to the Wall of Silence without incident, and no ravagers followed them from the forest as they gathered in the quarantine pit in front of the main gate. Here they all had to complete the quarantine ritual under the cool regard of the unnamed watcher behind the gate's small door. One by one, starting with Grin, they went through the slow, essential steps that preserved their community. Step into the small cage in front of the gate, flip the latch, disrobe down to vest and underwear. Put boots, clothes and gear into one of the waiting baskets and grab a dipper, draw water from one of the barrels by the door and wash face, hands, arms and neck, return the dipper to its hook and step up to the viewing slot; wait, patient and clean, while the person on the other side counted down slowly from three hundred. Five minutes, the longest it had ever taken anyone to manifest the first symptoms of the quickening. Then the welcome sound of the bolts sliding back, pick up your basket and through the door to the far side while everyone else waited for the door to close and the cold, hard sound of bolts being slid back; next person to step forward, flip the latch, into the cage.
Healey had done this hundreds of times at least, in cold and rain and, back when it still fell regularly, in driving snow. He had forced himself to go through the same cruel, calm process while ravagers clamoured at the outer walls of the quarantine pits, trying to climb over the outward-slanting sheets of drywall that lined the pits. It was then that the quarantine was most important, a decade ago when they had roamed further seeking heavier, more difficult scavenge goods, and sometimes had to flee the abandoned towns with gangs of ravagers on their heels. Close calls, infected blood on your hands and face, so easy to drip down into your eyes once you passed through the gate and wiped your hand across your brow, breathed a sigh of relief, thought you were safe. Even a drop was enough. Once they had to kill a beloved member of the community right there in the quarantine cage after she washed blood from her hair into a scratch on her face, drag the body out of the pit and clean up the remains before they could do their own quarantine, so much more dangerous when you're crying tears of fresh grief.
Healey did not explain any of that background to their outsiders, though, just curt instructions on the process before he went through it himself. Of course, no such formalities were necessary for Lily, who came through immediately behind Healey, last of the group, nodded to him once and set off for her hut. Healey watched her leaving, felt the big man watching him watch her, and ignored his unspoken questions.
They dressed and set off. First up a slight slope until they were looking down on the Wall of Silence from among the line of low-cut bushes that marked the crest, and then down the hill towards the distant line of the Battle Wall. From the crest of the hill they could see the whole community laid out in a patchwork before them, the wide main road passing between close-set frames of beans and berries, vegetable plots spread around ramshackle greenhouses, the small dam surrounded by ragged berry bushes, then the Battle Wall itself grim and sinister in a line from cliff to cliff. Its gates were closed, the correct response to the news of an emergency, and all the workers had retreated from the fields into the grid of huts that stretched down from the Battle Wall to the cliff's edge, a patchwork of orange and blue and grey corrugated iron roofs, water tanks, flapping plastic and rags. Their home these last two decades, and beyond it the rich blue of the sea, stretching out calm and pure and clear to distant, forbidden Ireland.
Healey was proud of this home that they had carved out of the windswept slopes of north Cornwall, beating back ravagers and bad weather and famine and despair, pushing it all out past the Battle Wall and then later the Wall of Silence, driving everything that threatened them into the forest beyond the Field of Songs, the tiny space of respite and security they had made for themselves after years of running and hiding. Even now, decades later, he could screen out the Battle Wall and the battered rooftops of the huts and remember how it was when he first came here, looked down on the abandoned car parks and visitor center of Tintagel, saw the narrow bridge running across to the empty island, and thought, for the first time in years, I can be safe here. I can build something.
But hearing the outsiders speaking quietly to each other just behind him, he guessed to them it looked like a shabby settlement, their hard scrabble future in the dirt and the wind and the salt air of abandoned England. He sighed, and led them onward.
The gates of the Battle Wall opened for them and they passed through into the little town beyond, where faces peered out from the grubby plastic-sheet windows or half-open doorways of the small huts, stealing glances at the big man and his limping colleague. It was just a short walk then down the hill past the old visitor center, a community kitchen now, up the winding path to the bridge and over the deep chasm that separated the mainland from the ancient castle. They led the strangers up the steep steps on the far side, through small gates and between the close-crowded workshops to the meeting hall. This was their proudest achievement, a solid log cabin built on the foundations of the old castle, the roof made with tiles dragged from the nearby town, a solid shelter from the sanctuary's constant wind. The side facing the island even had a small verandah, where the other elders gathered now to meet the outsiders.
"Welcome to Tintagel," one of them greeted the big man and the limping woman as they approached. "I guess this is your home now."
#
"Tell us what happened, Sergeant O'Connor," The voice from the radio addressed the big man, coming pure and clear from the radio the woman called Specialist Manot had been carrying. To Healey it was a miracle, the first contact with the mainland in nearly a decade, so simple and easy with this technology Manot had lugged with her. He wanted to scream and yell, send us a ship! Get us out of here! But he remembered remonstrations had not worked the last time, and doubted anything had changed in the intervening ten years to soften the attitudes of the world outside.
O'Connor and Manot were proof of that: they had introduced themselves to the elders with their rank and surnames, marines on a ship called the Seawind that was part of the quarantine patrols around the island.
"We are part of Unika," he had told them. "UNIQA," he had spelled it out for them when he saw their blank faces, and then, still receiving no sign of recognition, "The United Nations Interdiction and Quarantine Action," followed by, "I'm sorry, we're still maintaining strict quarantine around the island," when he realized no one here would be particularly well disposed towards the enforcers of their isolation. "Our ship ran aground near here three nights ago."
"A total electronic failure, Major," O'Connor replied, taking the receiver from Manot. "All GPS, navigation and communications failed and we ran aground about midnight, two nights ago." He ran one huge hand through short, wavy brown hair, a man of non-descript features and striking size looking awkward and out of place among these primitively dressed, diminutive strangers in their low-ceilinged, makeshift sanctuary.
Silence, a little static. "Please confirm."
O'Connor repeated his explanation, shrugging and looking around at his audience as he did so. They were gathered in the main chamber of the meeting hall, a comfortable room with tattered old sofas and armchairs drawn up around a battered table on which one of the elders had spread an old Ordnance Survey map of the area. The elders sat or leaned on the chairs, listening intently. Healey, Rose, Flitters and, ironically given the location, Arthur. All of them were survivors from before the Quickening, but only Rose old enough to have an adult's memory of the times before. Healey had been eighteen, in his first year of university, not yet old enough to know much about the world out there, and Flitters and Arthur were just kids when it started. Rose, too old now to venture beyond the Battle Wall, sat small and frail in a large leather armchair, watching the newcomers with sparkling, pale blue eyes narrowed suspiciously. Flitters stood behind Rose, hands tapping urgent little beats on the back of the armchair, while Arthur leaned forward, elbows on his knees, watching the conversation intently and flicking one long dreadlock between his fingers as he listened. He was darker than Manot, who was a small woman with delicate hands and ridiculously youthful olive skin. It was hard to believe she had hauled the heavy radio on the table in front of her through the forest for two days, let alone that she had done some of it with a broken leg.
As he waited for the response to O'Connor's explanation Healey glanced around the room, trying to imagine what it looked like to these people from a society that still had architects and developers and heavy machinery. The walls were solid enough, built of carefully interlocked logs that the community had dragged out of the forest and shaped for the task. A small desk stood near one shuttered window beyond the ring of armchairs, flanked on one side by a blackboard and on the other by a small wine storage credenza, in which the remnants of the community's dwindling supply of paper was stored. They had hung a large plain cloth banner on the opposite wall, which every member of the community would sign when they came of age. The signatures and their accompanying greetings radiated outward from the center of the banner in a mandala of hope and continuity, more than 300 people who had left at least a single memory of themselves in this bitter world. That banner was their battle flag, and it hung here as the final standard of their perseverance. If a horde found its way through the Field of Songs, somehow broke through the Wall of Silence and fought its way over the Battle Wall, if the final defense at the bridge seemed impossible, that banner would be taken down and the last survivors would flee with it down winding stairs to the sea, where they would take boats away from the towering spire of stone where the community had been founded, to start again.
Healey guessed that the outsiders did not see hope and perseverance when they looked around this room. They would see tattered armchairs, hear the incessant Tintagel wind hissing in tiny gaps between ill-fitting logs, frown over at the poor-quality windows in the dim light of the single globe that they allowed for light in here. They might hear the banging of the door in the entryway, which was poorly fitted, and wonder how anyone could be happy here. In truth there was no fitter and joiner in the community, and would not be until next year when the Coves would be able to spare a fresh-trained apprentice, who they had agreed to send over in exchange for a brace of chicks and Tintagel's oldest midwife. A dangerous journey for an unfair trade, but for lack of those skills many of their buildings were beginning to fragment. The wind across Tintagel was essential to its security, but merciless on buildings.
"Our satellite data had you traveling up the Severn reach, and last communication with you just after dawn, when you ran aground near Cardiff," the voice on the radio was telling O'Connor, disputing his version of events. O'Connor twisted his face into an expression of confusion and spread his hands wide, throwing his confusion across the table at Manot, who returned him the same look.
"Say again, sir? We had no communication with you, no comms of any kind, and we beached in north Cornwall."
Silence, and then, "Are you sure? Have you independent confirmation of your location? Without GPS perhaps you're confused?"
"Sir," O'Connor began, licking his lips and giving Manot another look, then a shrug, "We are in a survivor community at Tintagel castle, I saw the sign on the visitor center myself as we came in. We are definitely in north Cornwall."
"A survivor community?" The man on the mainland sounded incredulous, and in his confusion let go of the topic of the strange miscommunication between the Seawind and the mainland. "Please report."
O'Connor looked to Healey, who shrugged. "It seems safe and thriving sir," the big man told him, which seemed to settle it for the man at the far end of the relay.
"Are there other survivors from the ship?" The man asked, and O'Connor looked to Manot, who shrugged again.
"We don't know, sir. We only beached two nights ago. Had contact with infected this morning and were saved by …" He looked around "… Hunters?" And smiled when Arthur nodded confirmation. "What are your orders, sir?"
"You know the situation, Sergeant," The man's voice took a turn, became colder and more authoritarian. "There can be no extraction. You are to gather survivors from the accident and report intelligence back to us regularly until your radio battery fails. After that you're on your own. Do not waste the battery for any purpose except finding survivors and reporting intelligence. Do you understand?"
O'Connor's equable manner finally collapsed, his face twitching as he heard his fate sealed. He looked across to Manot, whose face had sunk into her hands. He looked around at the elders, clicked the button on the receiver and confirmed his fate. "I understand, sir."
Healey took his chance. He reached across to O'Connor and gently took hold of the receiver, pulled it from his grip with a nod. Pushed the button and spoke into the receiver. "Hello, this is Healey, an elder in the community that rescued your soldiers. Can you help us? We need medicines, tools, solar panels, agricultural supplies and –"
"Sorry sir," the voice on the end cut him off, brusque and firm. "There are no extractions or deliveries. Please do not use this radio for non-military purposes."
With that the communication cut off, the soldiers abandoned to the isolation of the Cornish coast.