"Right then," Anna said, zipping her coat. "Time for punishment."
He stared at her. For a second the world narrowed to the small absurdity of a girl ordering consequences, and he only laughed because adults laugh at children who pretend to be rulers. "What more do you want from me? You want me to grovel? I took nothing—" He cut himself off. "Come on. Let this be done. Let me go. I already realised my mistake underestimating you three whatever you are."
"No I won't let you go." Anna's voice dropped, sudden and cold. "I could call the police you know. But I'm a merciful Queen. Instead of jail, you'll serve me from now on. You'll be my first knight. My right-hand man in Camelot. You'll come back to my castle and you'll fight for me, at leat on weekends when I'm usually free from school, and when I find a round table you'll sit at it. Do you understand?"
He blinked, baffled, then anger sharpened his mouth. "You're joking, right?"
"I'm not," she said. Her hands were very small on the plastic sword, but she planted her feet like the queens on TV did. "You said you were in an army. You said you wanted money. My father's rich. We could help each other make something proper cool, a real secret castle base just us four."
He let out a short, incredulous laugh. "Hah, as if you even had the power to use your father's money. Little girl I'm sorry to say this but I think you're delusional, it's those video games and cartoons I tell you they are messing up you kids heads. Now let me tell you something. What I'm doing is no game. Little girl understand this, the cost of the things I'm talking about isn't a play. What my army needs are real weapons, ammunition, a underground hideout if possible to hold those things. And we not only need guns and ammo and a base, but we need body armour, explosives, good supplies to last a siege and we need real publicity so we can get manpower. My plan you see is to take over the city once we are strong enough, then the government will come lay siege to this city and in doing so the people will suffer in this city—there will be destruction and death. War isn't a storybook, but you see it's a good way to make people mad and possibly get them radicalised and on my side if I can point the blame at the government."
Anna listened like a child listening to an adult explain why monsters are real. She blinked once, then nodded seriously. "So become my knight and we'll do it together. I can help. I'm queen after all and I already have Sheepy and baby Strong with me."
He lowered his voice. For a moment he sounded almost tired enough to be a man telling a secret to a child. "It's not about crowns or you being whatever you are, the fact is that you're just kids. This is about the survival of our way of life, of our people and nation. And to survive we need more than just dreams and hope, we need assault rifles like the AK-47 that the IRA are using, also bullets for those weapons, bulletproof vests to protect ourselves and helmets, also a place to hide like I said — that's what we need. That's how we make it possible to stand."
She swallowed the last of his speech like a rotten berry and leaned close to her coat. "Strong," she whispered, soft as cloth. "Do you know how to get one? Do you—" She stopped. Asking a baby for rifles was stupid, even by her standards.
The baby closed his mouth on the teat and looked up at the man with a solemnity that made her knees go funny. For a single slow breath there was only the soft suck of the bottle, the river's low voice, and the man's heavy breathing.
Then, as if a seam in the night had been ripped, something popped the air between them—a white flare, smoke folded into light, the little theatrical poof of a videogame mount arriving from nowhere. A smell like iron and workbenches breathed out. With the sound of a hundred wooden boxes being set down at once, a pile dropped between the man and the girl.
Wood thudded. Metal clinked. Cardboard tore. The man lurched back, a raw curse spilling from him. Anna's mouth fell open. Strong's bottle slipped; he blinked, surprised at his own handiwork, then giggled like a small god pleased with a trick.
Crates—far too many for ordinary shopping—sat in a chaotic, terrible heap. The biggest had no words at all, only a crisp white silhouette of an AK‑47 and, beside it, a tidy "×15"—as if a clerk had drawn a cave painting for accountants. Below that, tiny glyphs: a rectangle for a mag, a simple loop for a sling, little stick‑tools for "other bits"—all icon, no language. Two squat boxes nearby showed nothing but bullet pictograms marching in rows. No serials, no maker's marks, no lot numbers, no logos—nothing a lawyer or a police report could bite. Just pictures. As if the System refused to be subpoenaed.
One crate's lid sat jarred enough to show black rifles nested on straw, blunt‑edged, Soviet‑ish '89 cheap to the eye, mute in the lamplight. The ammo boxes, when nudged, whispered with a weight that felt like decisions.
The man staggered. "What the fuck—what the hell is this?" He reached for the knife at his hip and found it suddenly ridiculous; a child's prop in the face of an impossible catalog order from nowhere.
Anna laughed. It popped out of her like a soap bubble—wild, ridiculous, delighted. "See?" she crowed, proud and very small. "You will be my knight. We will be a kingdom."
He crouched, hands to his head, staring at the crates as if they might evaporate. For the first time his disbelief was raw, not performative. "You— you can't—" He looked at Strong, then at Anna, and some new, animal fear uncoiled behind his eyes. "Where did those come from? How—"
Strong reached for the bottle. Anna scooped him up and tucked him tight; the baby burbled, as if he'd only fetched a bright toy. The rifles and boxes lay where they had fallen, black and terrible and absurdly ordinary, labeled like a child's picture book for pirates.
The man sank to his heels and made a sound that might have been prayer or laughter. "Jesus," he whispered. "If that's real—if that's real, we don't need brokers. We don't need to beg."
Anna, flushed with the sugar of victory, straightened and tried on the idea of being queen again. "Then," she said, dead serious in the hush, "you will join me. Right now. Swear it."
He looked at the rifles. He looked at his own shaking hands, at Sheepy's marks on his skin, at the tiny face peeking from the jacket and the paper crown that somehow looked like a coronet. Slowly, he nodded.
Outside, the river kept its secrets. The lamplight made the picture‑crates gleam like coffins and promises. Under Dean Bridge, something very small and very dangerous had just decided the rules.
Braveheart stared at the heap. "Oh my God… this is—amazing. You're— you're— what… what are you?"
Anna hugged the jacket tighter. "I didn't do anything. Strong did it, okay? Be amazed at him. He's the real Christmas miracle."
Braveheart huffed a stunned laugh. "Indeed. Not even midnight yet. I suppose it is quite a Christmas miracle." He tipped his chin at the baby. "Thank you, Strong. Is that really his name?"
"Yeah." Anna shrugged, pleased. "I gave it to him."
"Well… it matches. He does look… strong." His eyes slid to the lamplight. The street was empty, but not that empty. "This isn't good. We're right under a lamp. If anyone passes, they'll see all of this. It's Christmas; there aren't many out—but we can't be seen with these weapons. We need them moved. Fast." He scanned the dark. "Where's this Camelot—this tent of yours? I only heard the police mention it on the radio."
"Across the river, near St Bernard's Well. It's close," Anna said.
He grimaced at the weight of the crates. "This won't be easy to carry. We'll need help or we'll be seen—" He patted an empty pocket. "Damn. If only I had help with me."
Strong blinked up at him. "Hmm," he said, as if tasting the word.
Anna's eyes went wide. "Strong… did you just—?"
The baby closed his eyes, thoughtful as a tiny monk.
A small wind knifed through the arch, smelling faintly of iron and lanolin. Light ribboned the air—then bodies thumped onto the frost. Nine in all: six peasants (three women, three men), two men‑at‑arms, and one knight, dismounted—mail dark in the lamp‑glow. One serjeant bore a crusader banner, a white field slashed by a red cross; all wore white tabards with red crosses, plain and unmistakable. They arrived shouting like a memory that had waited centuries to finish its line:
"DEUS VULT! DEUS VULT!"
> SUMMON — COMPLETE
Band of 5 Levies (4,500 SP) + 1 Levy (1,000 SP) = 5,500 SP
2 Serjeants (2,500 SP ×2) = 5,000 SP
1 Knight (dismounted) = 9,000 SP
Total debit: 19,500 SP. Arrival tell: quick cold wind; faint iron/lanolin. Oath‑binding window: 60 s.
They blinked like folk wakened in a strange land—and then fell to their knees as one. Plain wooden crosses knocked softly against mail. Their words came old‑tinged: the music of fields and fasts, of roads beaten toward Jerusalem and back.
"Are we in hevene?" whispered a peasant woman—Ysabeau, whose scar on the lip Hob and Jankin knew. They all knew one another; they had died together in a crush of sand and iron, their last sight a crescent of blades closing. The banner‑man braced the staff and wept into his glove.
Braveheart could only stare, his knife suddenly ridiculous. "What— who are these—"
The knight turned at the sound, the bar of his great helm framing winter‑pale eyes. "Silence, heathen," he said—not cruel, merely the habit of a world where scripture was law—and then he faced Anna and bowed until his forehead nearly kissed the frost. "Maistress, pawn o' Master Strong—honour it is to stand in thy presence." One by one the others echoed, voices rough and fervent: "We serve. We are thy swerd. We are thy pleugh. Gyf us taske." Their oath took before they knew they were speaking; the System wrote it into the minute.
Anna flushed to the ears. Strong blinked, solemn, then smiled a small, satisfied smile. Sheepy—saintly beast in some suddenly‑remembered catechism—pranced a half‑circle, paws whispering on frost.
"Um—thank you." Anna pointed at the crates. "Sir Braveheart is our friend. He needs these moved. Could you help?"
"Aye, maistress," said a serjeant, already turning to work. The two men‑at‑arms locked shields and posted a little wall while the levies sorted loads with the brisk competence of folk who had hauled siege stones and wounded saints. The knight shouldered the largest case; his mail sang. Braveheart—who had meant to frighten and ransom a child—found himself shepherding a medieval convoy, hands shaking, voice trying to sound in command and failing.
They wound along the path like an impossible procession. The city lights above the valley painted constellations on kettle‑hats and coifs. A peasant woman touched a lamppost with two fingers, like a relic. "What sorcerie is this?"
"Electric," Anna said. "Wires and lights. Not witchcraft."
"Electric," the knight repeated carefully, as though tasting a foreign Host. "Efter Crist… what yeer?"
"1989," Anna said. "Modern."
They crossed themselves; Osbert swore, then begged the cross's pardon. The knight's voice remembered itself. "We were strake doun i' the Fourthe Croisade—Saracen blades i' the dust. Gif God willeth, our othes stand anew." He looked to Strong then, and the thinned air of awe around him deepened; in the helm‑slit you could see a hard man's eyes soften like wax near flame. This bairn had called them from beyond the field.
"Quite a Christmas," Braveheart muttered, and for once it wasn't theater. He looked at the baby with a new, frightened reverence—as if one wrong word might see him smote out of the world like a candle pinched shut.
Through reeds and over the footbridge they went, banner furled, blades wrapped in cloaks so the glint wouldn't catch an eye. Camelot waited—small, ridiculous, perfect: a spring‑frame tent, a half‑collapsed sleeping bag, a chipped mug of tea gone cold.
The crates went down under canvas with the care given altar pieces. A serjeant lifted a lid an inch: black rifles nested on straw like bad dreams; the ammo boxes beside them muttered with weight. "Strange craft," he murmured. "We'll ward what we kenna yet." They had come with period kit only—mail, spears, swords, the banner—and not a scrap of modern maker's mark between them.
Braveheart hefted a rifle like a farmer testing a new plough. The knight balanced it two‑handed, grave and curious. "What wapen is this? A spere wi' a blunted edg?"
"A gun," Anna said. "Like a metal arrow that goes very fast."
Braveheart half‑worked the action, thought better of it, eased it back into the straw. "Call it an advanced blunderbuss—black‑powder's great‑grandson." He glanced at the knight. "If you want, I could show you how to use them."
The knight's gaze flicked from Braveheart to Anna to Strong. "We'll listen," he said simply. "Till then—shields lockit, watches postit, gear kept oiled. We'll learn quick an' no' waste the bairn's grace." He gave three short orders; the banner planted, shields stacked, and two levies padded off to post a night watch like they'd always been here.
Anna stood on a hummock of frost, crown at its stubborn angle. Sheepy leaned into her leg like a furry herald, tail flagging with importance. Strong burbled, pleased with the world he'd made.
Under Dean Bridge, the lamplight made wood gleam like coffins and promises. The river kept its secrets. And a company that looked nothing like an army—one knight in a great helm, two steady serjeants, six levies in white crosses and old courage—had chosen a paper‑crowned girl and her sanctified child‑lord as their cause.
[Quick interlude — Strong checks the books]
Under Dean Bridge, with Camelot's canvas sighing a little in the cold by St. Bernard's Well, Strong shut his eyes and thought the word that always opened the world: System.
Cold light unfurled; numbers lined up like soldiers.
> [SOUL SYSTEM — LEDGER]
Lifetime credits available: 3,000,000 SP.
(Levels unlock from lifetime SP earned; spending does not reduce level.)
The receipts rolled past in tidy, clerkly type:
Hulk towel‑blanket — 6 SP.
Bunny sippy bottle — 24 SP.
Enhanced human milk (240 ml) — 240 SP.
Baby‑kit subtotal: 270 SP. (Running total shown earlier as 270 SP → 2,999,730 SP.)
Summon (Fourth‑Crusade cohort):
Band of 5 levies (4,500 SP) + 1 levy (1,000 SP) = 5,500 SP
2 serjeants (2,500 SP ×2) = 5,000 SP
1 dismounted knight = 9,000 SP
Troop subtotal: 19,500 SP.
Conjure — unmarked armament (Soviet '89 surplus):
Crate: AK‑47 silhouette ×15 (mags & bits pictogram) — 6,000 SP
Ammo boxes: bullet‑icon ×2 — 1,500 SP
Weapons subtotal: 7,500 SP. (Sterile packaging; no serials, no maker marks—icons only.)
The System did the little sum babies don't learn in school:
> Total spent: 270 + 19,500 + 7,500 = 27,270 SP.
Balance remaining: 3,000,000 − 27,270 = 2,972,730 SP.
Status: solvent, sanctified, slightly smug. Transaction complete.
Strong's eyes opened to the tent's dim and Anna's paper crown. He took the teat again and let the ledger fold back into quiet, the way a very rich, very small god goes to sleep after buying exactly what he wanted.