House of Ashes by Monique Roffey

these men were a hand-picked bunch.
    Ashes was now worried, scared for his life, and he promised himself that if he got out of there alive he would get off the island and take himself on a trip. He would take his wife and his sons,
they would go to Trinidad. They would go for carnival, and he would go to Lord Wellington’s tent and sit and listen to him and the other calypsonians sing. In particular he liked the song
called ‘Jericho’, an old tune now, by Lord Wellington, but it was about a time just like when River was shot. It was a song about the guerrilla fighters of Trinidad, not so long ago
fellers, all shot too. He liked the name of the hero in the song, Jericho, because it was the name also of a famous city in the Bible. Jericho was a town where palm trees spread their roots to an
underground well in the desert and so the city was lush and green, an oasis in those arid holy lands. Jericho was known as the City of Palms. And yet the subterranean roots of the palms may have
had something to do with why the walls of the city fell flat when the Israelites ransacked it, claiming it back and slaughtering everyone inside. Jericho, in his mind, was also a City of Blood.

THURSDAY MORNING,
THE HOUSE OF POWER,
THE CITY OF SILK
    Dr Mahibir had arranged the cheese puffs on a chipped parliamentary plate. He had lined some of the less broken teacups up along the counter in the tearoom and he was making
tea. Ashes noticed that the doctor limped around, but could see no wound. He hadn’t been injured, yet something was wrong with one of his legs. It wasn’t a new limp; his awkward manner
of walking looked like an old habit. He seemed in quite good spirits considering everything. He had been the first hostage to be untied; he was useful. Hal had let him free in order to assess the
wounded, hostages and gunmen alike. They had found a First Aid kit in another cupboard in the tearoom; it had bandages and ointments and so Dr Mahibir had gone about attending to people as best he
could. One of the young boys had accidentally shot himself through the foot and he had bandaged the wound. Several of the brothers had been nicked by bullets. But Minister Bartholomew Sheldon
needed to be taken away to hospital immediately, he advised. He had been badly shot in the back of the thigh and he would bleed to death by lunchtime. The Prime Minister had stopped bleeding, but
he was also diabetic and could lose his sight without his medication. They should take him to hospital too, but the PM insisted he would be the last parliamentarian to leave the House. Hal refused
to let him leave anyway. The doctor had been up all night tending to the injured. Now he was making a tray of tea and cheese puffs.
    Some of the brothers had eaten the chicken in the fridge. The woman under the table in the back room had died. Father Sapno had left hours ago along with the Deputy Prime Minister, Elias de
Gannes, and they had a list of demands written down on a scrap of paper: 1) that the Prime Minister would immediately resign; 2) a free and fair election to be held in 90 days; 3) a reversal of
plans for the IMF loan; 4) reinstigation of the Cost of Living Allowance; 5) a full amnesty for the gunmen. Under the list of demands were the signatures of every minister in the chamber, including
the Prime Minister’s, signed while Hal pointed a pistol to his head.
    If these demands were not met, Hal and the Leader had decided they would blow up the television station and the House of Power with all the explosives they had with them. They would not be
taken. They would kill everyone, including themselves, in the name of their righteous cause. They would go down fighting.
    ‘Would you care for a puff?’ Dr Mahibir asked Ashes.
    Ashes stared at the tea tray. ‘No thanks, I’ve already had one.’ And then he remembered he hadn’t yet eaten the puff in his army pants pocket and that now it must be very
squashed. He couldn’t eat anything. His feelings were