Thyla - Kate Gordon [56]
A man’s voice, gruff and low.
‘I do not know if we’re the only ones, Tessa,’ he said. ‘There are rumours – some of the older Thylas talk of a master race back in England. They call them the Vulpis. “Victoria’s foxes”. They say that they are like us. They are an ancient race, as we are – older probably – and they, like we, now devote their lives to fighting the Diemens. To protecting the innocent.’
‘Why are they called Victoria’s foxes?’ I asked.
‘Queen Victoria, of course,’ the man growled. ‘She was the first monarch to attempt to combat the Diemens. Before Victoria, they ran rampant. They had free rein over the prisoners and street people. Nobody stopped them. Then Victoria started helping the poor and sending convicts to Tasmania, and the Diemens thought their days were numbered. That’s why so many of them moved out here. Can you imagine? A whole island brimming with convicts. A captive colony of vulnerable, reviled wretches sent thousands of miles from their families. To the Diemens, it must have seemed that Tasmania was a table, laid out for a banquet feast. I have heard no estimates of how many Diemens remain in the motherland, Tessa. I do not know if any of our brother Vulpis are keeping them controlled. Some say that the Vulpis have changed sides; that they are fighting for the Diemens now. Whatever the case, while Victoria reigns, the Diemens are weakened. When she dies, who knows?’
‘Why did they not just kill Victoria?’ I asked. ‘They are powerful, are they not? And they do not seem to think murdering women is wrong. Would it not have been easier for them?’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps Victoria is stronger than we imagine – stronger even than they. I have heard tell that they offered her immortality in return for turning a blind eye to their activities, and she refused. She is a formidable foe. A woman to be truly admired.’
‘I will be formidable also,’ I replied. ‘I will be a foe to be reckoned with.’
‘Do you regret your change?’ asked the man, his voice even more rough now.
‘No. Never. I am like Queen Victoria. I am like this for a reason. I know my duty. I will never surrender.’
Sara’s voice pulled me away from the voices inside my head, and seemed, strangely, to echo them. ‘Do you regret what you’ve become? Would you go back and refuse it? If you could? If it meant you got a normal life – a family maybe? I mean, we’ve nearly finished school and when we do … years after we’ve finished, we’ll still look the same age. What will we do then? It scares me. We’ll look sixteen forever, but we can’t keep going to school and –’
‘Sara, shush,’ said Harriet. ‘Now isn’t the time for worrying about that stuff.’
‘When is the time, then?’ asked Sara. ‘I get that I have maybe hundreds of years ahead of me, but sometimes I just want to know stuff now.’
I was very close to the Sarcos now. I walked more quietly, crouched low in the scrub. I hid behind trees. I knew how to stalk. I had done it before.
‘Maybe none of us really have the answers, Sara,’ said Perrin slowly, his voice gentle. ‘Maybe even Rha doesn’t have the answers. You know he’s had to spend years in hiding to keep his secret. Maybe that’s what we do – we just emerge into human society every once in a while …’
Perrin trailed off. From my hiding place, I saw his eyes swing around. I crouched lower. His nose twitched.
Oh, hell.
‘What is it, Perrin?’ asked Rhiannah. ‘If you’re worried about that Thyla smell, don’t be. It’s always like that around here.’
Perrin froze. He flicked his eyes away from my direction, back towards his sister. ‘The Thyla smell lingers,’ he said, simply, but I could hear the tremble of his voice. He knew I was there. Why wasn’t he saying anything?
‘Why do we have to do it at all?’ asked Rhiannah, going back to their previous conversation. ‘I mean, couldn’t we just stay out here? In the wild?’
‘Some Sarcos do. And … Thylas.’ Again, his eyes flicked in my direction, and away. ‘But we’re all half-human. We’re still connected to the human world. I know I would miss it.’
Perrin went silent