‘I hope so,’ said Zohon grimly. ‘For your sake.’
Kestrel had no difficulty in getting the Johdila to take a stroll with her alone. Sisi had matters of her own to talk over in private with her friend. Kestrel half-listened, waiting for the moment when she could give Sisi their secret friend sign. Sisi would then do the same for her, and Zohon, watching from the shadows, would be satisfied.
‘When will I see your brother again, Kess? I must see him before the wedding. It’s tremendously important.’
‘Sisi, you must forget about my brother.’
She was making sure they walked in such a way that Sisi was facing the carriages.
‘Why? I like him. I think maybe I love him.’
‘No, you don’t. That’s all nonsense. You don’t know anything about him.’
‘That doesn’t matter.’ Sisi was surprisingly persistent on the subject. ‘Mama says that no one ever knows anything about the person they marry. They learn to like them afterwards.’
‘Well, I don’t think he’d like you.’
Sisi stopped walking and stared at Kestrel, shocked. Kestrel had been hardly thinking what she was saying, and at once regretted her words. She rather wondered why she had said them.
‘I don’t mean that,’ she said.
‘Yes, you do,’ said Sisi, blinking back tears. ‘You think I’m silly, and vain, and useless.’
‘No, I don’t –’
‘And you’re right. Only what you have to understand is, until I met you, that’s what everyone wanted me to be.’
‘Please, Sisi –’
‘So you see, I’ve been trying my best to please everyone, only I’ve chosen the wrong everyone to please. Now I’ve decided to change, and I will change, because although I am silly and vain and useless, I can tell there’s another way I can be, which is more like you. And that’s what I’ve decided to be.’
‘You’re a better person than I am,’ said Kestrel sadly. She knew that Zohon was watching from his hiding place. Now that the moment had come, she found it was much harder than she thought. It felt too much like betrayal.
‘Please go on being my friend, Kess,’ said Sisi. ‘You don’t know how important you are to me.’
‘Of course I will.’
Then, without Kestrel prompting her, she put the palms of her hands together, and interclasped her fingers, in the sign that Kestrel had told her meant secret friendship. Zohon, hiding between the carriages, saw her make the sign that Kestrel had told him meant eternal love. It was all he had been waiting for. Convinced now that Kestrel had told him the truth, he slipped away to prepare his men.
Kestrel heard him go, even as she pressed her hands together in the return sign. Tears sprang into her eyes. Forgive me, Sisi, she said silently. I wasn’t going to betray you. But it’s happened now.
That evening, word spread through the slaves quarters of the Manth people that Ira Hath the prophetess had had another vision of the future, and wished to pass it on to her people. There were still a few who believed that Ira Hath had the true gift, but most of the large crowd who gathered to hear her were merely curious.
They arrived through the evening shadows in little groups of threes and fours, not wanting to arouse the suspicions of their masters. Ira had seated herself on the ground in front of a large open fire, and the Manth people gathered in an ever-widening ring around its warmth. Dr Greeth came, as the Haths had known he would, and placed himself near the front, where if necessary he could speak against the prophecy. The others regarded Ira Manth’s utterances as entertainment. Jessel Greeth believed her to be dangerous.
When they were all settled, Ira Hath stood before them.
‘Thank you for coming to hear me,’ she began.
‘Can’t hear!’ shouted voices from the back. And, ‘Say, O unhappy people!’ shouted those at the front.
‘O unhappy people!’ said Ira Hath.
‘O unhappy people!’ chanted back the jokers in the crowd, delighted.
The effect of this mockery on the prophetess was predictable. She became angry. Wanting to wipe the smiles off their foolish faces, she called down on their heads the full catastrophe to come.
‘This city will burn!’
‘Burn!’ they wailed back at her. ‘We’ll all burn!’
The more she doomed them, the more they laughed.
‘The wind is rising! The wind will carry all before it!’
‘Wooo-wooo!’ they cried, flapping their arms.
‘We must seek the homeland! The time of cruelty is coming! Be afraid!’
‘Oooh!’ they shivered, giggling. ‘Oooh-aaah!’
‘Laugh now! Soon you’ll be weeping!’
‘Boo-hoo! Waa-waa!’ they cried.
Hanno Hath stood up beside his wife. It was hopeless. He knew it, and she knew it. But it was his duty to try to warn them.
‘My friends,’ he said in his most reasonable voice. ‘Tonight my wife’s prophecies make you laugh. But when you see the city burning, remember her words. Return here, to this hillside. Bring food, warm clothes, anything you can carry. And together we will seek the homeland.’
This was different. Nobody laughed. Instead, they fell to talking nervously among themselves. Jessel Greeth had been content while everyone was mocking the Haths. But now he felt he had better take control of the situation.
‘This woman,’ he said, pointing at Ira Hath, ‘tells you the city will burn. But we know who will burn if we pay any more attention to her wild ravings. Our loved ones will burn, as they burned before.’
There were nods and murmurs of agreement to this all over the crowd.
‘Why do we listen to her?’ cried Jessel Greeth. ‘Why do we go on letting this mad family put the rest of us in such danger? Let’s leave them to prophesy to themselves.’
People began to leave. Pinto tugged at her father’s sleeve.
‘Lift me up on your shoulders, pa!’
Hanno swung her thin body up onto his shoulders, and there where they could all see her in the flickering firelight, Pinto spoke to the crowd.
‘Babies!’ she cried. ‘You’re not Manth, you’re just slaves and babies! We’ll go without you. We’ll find the homeland without you. We don’t need you. So pooa-pooa pocksicker to you all!’
The crowd responded with a big cheer. No one quite knew why they cheered. Perhaps it was because they thought it was brave of a seven-year-old child to be so defiant. Perhaps they just cheered because it was good to hear the old oaths again.
Third Interval:
The tomb
The sea is rough today. High waves suck and roll, gathering themselves ever higher until they break at last, and crash in fury onto the shore. Gulls are hurled in the wind overhead, screaming their long thin screams. The coarse sand seethes with foam.
Dogface the hermit stands looking out across the grey water to the island. His robe flaps about his legs. He’s cold, and tired, and hungry. Further along the shore other solitary figures stand as he stands. They’re waiting, as he waits, for a lull in the wind.
As the day ends, the sea at last begins to grow calm. The water’s surface still rises and falls in heaving swells, but the direction of the wind is changing, and the hermit knows he can make the crossing now. He prepares his mind, and begins his song, aware that along the coast the others are doing the same.
He rises in the air and glides out over the breaking foam. The others do likewise. Soon there are many figures to be seen skimming low over the water, rising and falling with the sea’s swell, flying to Sirene.
As Dogface reaches the island he hears the chant coming from the hilltop, and knows he is still in time. They have begun the song of opening, a song that will last through the night. He comes to land on the island’s stony shore, and begins at once to hurry up the long winding path. Behind him he hears others following; ahead, the ever-louder surge of song that he has sung before in training, but never in earnest. His heart beats with excitement, and he too joins in, singing al
oud. The song is like a succession of drumrolls, it powers onward, its rhythm intensifying with each cycle, until the Singers feel their bodies move in a slow rocking stamp, forward and stamp, backward and stamp, in time with the driving wordless chords.
Singing, striding to the beat of the song, Dogface reaches the top of the hill. Here before him, lit by the silver-grey light of a sun setting in cloud, rise the towering roofless walls. Within the hall stands a great crowd of Singer people, more than a hundred, all singing, rocking, and stamping together. As Dogface takes his place among them he looks round and sees faces he remembers from his time of training; but there are no answering looks of recognition. They are deep in the song.
By the time those who followed the hermit reach the hall, Dogface too sees no one and hears nothing but the song. This is the beginning of the destiny he chose, many years ago. This is what he trained for, and has waited for so patiently. The time of consummation has almost come.
All through the night the Singer people sing their song. As they sing they feel beneath their stamping feet the slow shudder of the earth. They feel its spasms, and they know that slowly, unseen as yet, it is opening. They sing on, the rhythm never abating, urging the ground to swell, and stretch, and tear.
At first light, the opening begins. Those standing where the thin crack appears jump aside, but never pause in their pulsing song. They sing now with all their power, forcing the sound out and up with a shout, a stamp and a shout, a clap and a stamp and a shout. Still more Singer people are arriving, as they have been doing all through the night. They come singing, and the song grows ever louder.
Now there comes a jarring juddering cracking sound, followed by a long rumbling groan: the sound they have long expected, but have never heard. They are the lucky ones. They are the generation who will know the wind on fire.
All down the long roofless hall, the ground is shivering and cracking, tearing itself apart like a wound that has healed and now opens again. Fragments of rock sheer off the sides and rattle down through the great space to clatter on the floor below. The Singer people sing on, rocking and stamping, feeling the earth part beneath their feet. As dawn breaks, the soft light reaches down to reveal the walls of the ever-widening rift, and the dusty vastness of the great cave below.
The ground stops moving at last, and the song ends: or rather, it changes, and becomes a quieter chant. Immediately, those close to the edge step out into space, and float slowly down. The others, singing all the while, wait their turn to follow after, in a steady stream.
Now it’s Dogface the hermit who steps off the crumbling edge, and lets himself float down into shadows. The torn rock walls widen as he falls, slanting away to meet the smooth stone floor of the great cave. To one side, in a deeper chasm cut by the fast-flowing water, there runs an underground river, an undersea river, which disappears into vaults of rock. High above him now, the lightening sky. All around him, his brothers and sisters. And before him, raised on a platform carved from the rock floor, the stone tomb.
Four columns support a shallow-pitched roof. Within, on a stone bier, there lies the grey and wizened body of a long-dead man. Here, in the stillness of the underground cave, he has lain undisturbed since the day he died, hundreds of years ago. His flesh has shrivelled away to the bone. His face has become a skull shrouded in fragments of yellow skin. His hands rest clasped on his chest, bones on bones.
When he lived, his name was Ira Manth. They call him the prophet. He has died, but his powers remain. They live on in his followers, the Singer people. And they live on in his children.
Now the song is ending in the great river cave of Sirene. The singers fall quiet. They know that they must wait, for an unknown length of time. They are accustomed to waiting. During this time, more and more of their people will come, until they are all gathered together. Then the child of the prophet will come. Then it will be time.
In this way, the prophet promised, I live again and I die again.
17
A city in song
Creoth sat on his stool in the cowshed, his hands drawing hot milk from the udder of the patient cow, and watched the dawn over the misty land. The milk hissed into the wooden pail in rhythmic spurts, the notes growing deeper as the pail filled. The cow tugged hay from the bulging net hung up before her. Others in the small herd lowed softly, impatient to be milked in their turn.
Now the sun rose above the rim of the far hills, and the burning red disc spilled sudden colour over the chilled fields. The grey forest sparkled and turned pink: and for a few moments, before the sun climbed into cloud, the world glowed as if newborn.
‘Quite a show, eh, Cherub?’ said Creoth. He dipped a ladle into the pail and drank warm milk for his breakfast, moving his arm slowly, taking slow sips. Then he rose and emptied the pail into the big churn on the wagon behind him, and moved his milking-stool to the next cow. He sighed as he settled down, wriggling his fingers to keep them supple.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he murmured to the restless cow. ‘I know you had to wait, but I’m here now.’
The cow swung round her mournful head to gaze at him.
‘And good day to you too, my Star,’ said Creoth, and set to work. Star reached for the hay-bundle, and the disappearing sun turned the underside of the clouds gold.
So it went each morning, and Creoth was content. He was not a young man any more; and his former life, already slipping into oblivion, had been solitary, quiet, and regular. Cows suited him. They made no sudden movements. They did the same things at the same time every day. Most of all, he liked their smell. The milk, of course, with its rich froth of bubbles in the pail; but also the smell of their damp hide, and of the fields they grazed, and of their manure, which was the smell of cows and grass and earth all mixed up together.
As he finished the morning’s milking, he heard the rattle and tap of wagons moving down the distant high road. Looking up he saw framed in the cowshed doorway a long procession of horse riders and carriages. Some of the carriages were very grand indeed, decorated in gold pinnacles, drawn by double teams of horses. They were making their way towards the lakeside, and the causeway to the High Domain.
‘That’ll be the bride,’ said Creoth to the cows. ‘There’s to be a grand wedding today.’
He told his cows everything. They looked solemnly back at him, meditating on what he said, never replying.
‘May she be happy, eh, Star? May she be happy.’
When the guards came to the slave quarters that morning to make their usual selection for the monkey cages, Pinto whispered to her father, ‘I’ll take my turn today.’
Hanno shook his head.
‘No, darling. Today’s the most dangerous day of all.’
‘I know,’ said Pinto. ‘You and ma have work to do. But I have nothing.’
‘Well, let’s hope they don’t pick me or your mother.’
But the guards picked Ira Hath. At the same time a message arrived for Hanno Hath, requiring his presence, wedding or no wedding, in the academy library. This left no one to prepare for their escape.
‘You see,’ said Pinto. ‘It has to be me.’
‘Darling,’ said her mother to her, ‘you can’t go in the cage today. This is the day. I feel it. We can’t be sure the people in the cages will get out in time.’
‘Ma, look at me.’ Ira met her younger daughter’s earnest eyes. ‘I’m only little. I can’t do anything. But I can do this. Don’t you see? At last I can be of some use.’
‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘Don’t I?’ She leaned forward and kissed her mother’s cheek, and whispered in her ear. ‘I’m saying maybe I’ll die in the cage, so that you can get our people away.’
It was that quick kiss that moved Ira Hath most.
‘Oh, my dearest. Have you grown up too? Must you leave me too?’
‘You know I’m right. You must gather our people. I can’t do that. Today’s the day.’
Her mother turned to Hanno, unabl
e to make the decision. Hanno looked at Pinto, and saw the pride in her eyes.
‘The child’s right,’ he said. ‘Go then, my darling. We won’t let you come to harm.’
Pinto ran to the guards and told them that she was taking her mother’s place. The guards were indifferent. So long as they had one member from each kin group, their job was done.
Hanno Hath went with her to the crossroads, and watched as she was locked into one of the monkey wagons. Pinto smiled as she stood there, holding the bars, and waved at him to show he mustn’t be afraid for her.
‘I’ll be back for you,’ he said. And went on his way with a heavy heart.
Sisi sat veiled in her carriage, looking out of the window, trembling with nervous excitement. There were labourers out in the fields already, and all of them were standing still, staring at the endless procession of carriages.
‘Lunki!’ said Sisi in amazement. ‘They don’t cover their eyes!’
‘The poor heathens!’ said Lunki. ‘They don’t know any better, my pet.’
‘Do they know they’ll all have their eyes put out?’
‘I should hope not,’ said Lunki. ‘My good baby is wearing her veil.’
‘Oh, so I am. I’m never quite sure if it’s there or not.’
‘Baby drink a little milky?’
‘No, Lunki. Take it away. This is my wedding day. I can’t possibly eat.’
‘Drinking’s not the same as eating. My baby hardly needs to make her mouth move at all.’
Sisi shook her head, and turned to Kestrel.
‘What are you looking at, Kess?’
Kestrel was sitting gazing out of the other carriage window at the Johjan Guards. The mounted soldiers rode two by two in front of their carriage as far as she could see, and behind, all the way to the bend in the road. Kestrel felt as if she was leading her own army into the heart of the enemy stronghold.
‘I’m looking at where we’re going.’
In the distance now she could see the lake and the causeway, and the walls of the High Domain. Ten times the size of Aramanth at its greatest, the amber city with its tumble of jewelled domes awed her gaze. This extraordinary city-palace had been built by the people who had burned her home and enslaved her family. And yet, glorious as it was, beautiful even, Kestrel had laid plans for its destruction. This skinny fifteen-year-old with no title and no position had judged the Mastery and passed sentence of death. Her weapon was her own passionate and merciless will. Today was the day of the wedding, and the day of the execution.
Slaves of the Mastery Page 21