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corded, eyes bulging. Slicing again, deeper, Rachel worked quickly, digging into the thin body, feeling for the baby that wouldn’t come. And there, finally, was the water, what was left of the fluid that had buoyed him within her. Pulled through the viscera into dryness, he was small and silent and still, until Rachel slapped him, rubbing his tiny chest so he bawled in protest. Jon scuffled again, scowling, angry and worried. Waste of time, he said. It’d die without a mother. No, replied Rachel. She would feed him.
    She placed the baby gently onto Anna’s chest, lifting one of the girl’s hands to caress the dark head of her son, and Sarah and Daniel propped her up so she could see him perched across hersmall breasts while her belly lay open to the wind. Already the flies were gathering. Rachel pulled down the shirt, covering her.
    Anna stared blindly at the small damp head. Mama, she said. Sing me that song. The one you used to …
    Sarah choked, and then began, squeezing tuneless words through gritted teeth; Anna closed her eyes. Yes, she whispered. Jeremiah.
    Rachel wasted no time, knotting the cord with a bit of twine before cutting it. Gathering up the baby, she pulled aside her own shirt and held him to her full-veined breast, pinching the big nipple into his tiny mouth. When he latched on, greedy, she looked up with a sad smile. He was strong, she told them. Ethan would have to learn to share.
    Daniel and Sarah didn’t move, and they didn’t speak. Together they sat on the dust, in the dusk, nursing their dead daughter while another nursed her son.
    Everyone helped bury her, even Jon. It was the least they could do, having done nothing.

2
    We’re all of us creatures of habit, and it never occurred to me to waste my new allowance washing the marks. Instead, I went into the Citadel, handing over a half vat for a girl and purging myself in a different way. It was a steep price for a night of indulgence, and I’d probably overpaid, but it’d been a long time between fucks and it was worth every drop to be able to forget, for a few hours at least, about that other girl, the one I’d given to Garrick, the one whose screams would stay with me for the next few days, as they always did. And I kept my shirt on the whole time.
    Watchmen didn’t get any special privileges for their work. It’s not like we chose to join, enticed by promises of fame or fortune. Truth is, most didn’t even know who we were, or what we did, and that’s what set us apart. If you wanted the uniform, and the grudging respect that went with it, you joined the Guard, but even then there was no guarantee you wouldn’t end up in the Watch. If you could read and write, you were in; if you could kill, quick and quiet, and weren’t too bothered by remorse, you were in; if you had a debt needed paying – and most of us did – you were in; and, most important of all, if you didn’t stand out in a crowd, had nothing people might rememberafter seeing your face, you were in. Whether you wanted to be, or not.
    We all looked much the same. Average height, average weight, hair cut short; none of us too tall, or too broad, some of us dark-skinned, some of us fair, some young, some older. Just men, same as any other. But no women. They could join the Guard if they wanted, if they thought they were good enough and strong enough and man enough. But none of them had what it took to be a Watchman, and never while Garrick was in charge. They had other things though, and we kept our own whorehouse in the underground compound we called home. I never used it, knowing where those men and women had come from, and how they’d been broken. I preferred the houses in the Citadel. More expensive, but guilt-free.
    Unlike the Tower, the compound wasn’t purpose-built. It’d been adapted from some old water system; a vast network of chambers and channels, all of them big enough that a man