The remaining villagers were wary and suspicious of strangers, and even after they were reassured by Dow’s highland accent, they proved uncommunicative, staring darkly at the silent Nicky and May. At best they would sell the travellers a little mutton and bread, and then urge them to move on. There was no talk anywhere of resistance, or of fighting back against the invaders. There was merely grim endurance and bare survival.
All of which only fuelled Dow’s anxiety to reach his home – but the miles could not be shortened. It was the end of their fifth day since landing before they came to territory he knew, with the road descending through a wide valley to reach the shores of Long Lake, close to the town of Fallston, where long ago Dow and the bargemen had rested on their first night away from Yellow Bank.
But there was little left to recognise. Fallston – which Dow remembered as a thriving town – was now mostly burnt ruins, surrounded by a circle of thrown-up shanties. According to the sullen residents with whom Dow spoke, the town had been torched repeatedly during battles between the warring sides; most recently six months earlier, when the Twin Islanders had won it from the Ship Kings for a second time, and so once again closed the timber route to the highlands. A garrison remained to guard the lake and the river, a thousand men strong, said the townsfolk; but because the town itself was all but uninhabitable, the soldiers had built themselves a sturdy fort some distance south along the lakefront.
Wary of that fort, Dow and his companions camped north of the town, and spent an uneasy night. But the next morning they set off along the lakeside with lighter hearts, for the Fallston folk had said that there were no troops stationed anywhere ahead of them now. With the lake and the river blocked to any timber, the high valleys and the Great Plateau had been abandoned as a no-man’s-land.
At noon the road came to the dark gorge by which the Long River descended to the lake, and they climbed up amid much roaring and clouds of mist. At the top the land opened out again, and the river ran smooth once more. Only half a mile further on they came to a point Dow remembered well; on the opposite bank, a canal led away from the river to descend through the lock system. Dow’s barge had gone that way on his earlier journey. But no barge could go there now, he saw. A great heap of rubble and earth had blocked the canal’s mouth.
There was a small farmstead on their own side of the river, and an old woman was fishing there on the bank by the track. Dow paused to greet her; and to enquire as to what had happened to the canal.
‘Why, the Twin Islanders happened,’ the old woman replied, puzzled that Dow did not know. ‘They blew it up with their blasting devices; must be more than two years ago now, the first time. They blew up the doors on the locks too. All so the Ship Kings couldn’t float timber down to the lake anymore. Oh, the Ship Kings came back for a while and fixed the doors and dug out the canal, but then the Twin Islanders blew it all up again, and that was that. There’s been no logs come through since.’
‘What of the villages higher up?’ Dow asked. ‘Have they been raided, do you know?’
‘Oh, yes, some. Twin Islands patrols, Ship Kings patrols, they’ve all been up the river at some time or another, and none of them there to do any good, only to burn and loot and rob.’
But more than that she could not say, and so Dow and the others hurried on.
Had they been forced to follow the river all the way it would have been a long journey still to Yellow Bank, but in fact only a few miles past the canal, a track branched left off the river road. It led, Dow knew, west again through the hills, cutting off a great loop the river made to the north. They followed this track, and that night made camp less than a day’s walk from Dow’s home.
He barely slept, and next morning they were on their way by first light. This was truly Dow’s native country now; the heath-covered hillsides, the glimpses ahead of the high rim of the Great Plateau, the cool crispness of the air, the smells of pine and peat, the deep blue of the sky; all of it jangled inside him with a clamour of joyful recognition. He had seen grander sights than these valleys maybe, and more fearful wonders than even the Great Plateau, but this was the indelible landscape of his childhood, moulded into him, and nothing could supplant it.
By mid-morning they had climbed over a final pass and there below them was the Long River again, rushing and full still with the last of the spring thaw. A village was visible down on the bank, and Dow knew it immediately: Pond Bend. The sight of it filled him doubly with hope. Pond Bend was his mother’s birthplace, and only half a day’s walk from Yellow Bank. Even better, the village appeared almost as he remembered it. The timber yard had been burned, yes, but everything else – the homes, the docks, even the Barrel House – seemed untouched. People moved about, tending gardens placidly in the sunshine. If only Yellow Bank had fared likewise!
Dow led the others quickly down to the water, where their track joined the river trail. A short detour to the right would take them into Pond Bend, but Dow turned left, hurrying upriver, so eager was he to reach his home. It seemed now that every tree and stump and tuft of grass was familiar, every boulder and eddy in the river, every birdcall from above. Nothing at all seemed to have changed or aged in his absence. Around this bend would be the old tree that had been split by lightning, around that bend would be the site of the landslide of ten years ago, and after this long straight stretch there would be a short climb, and then a drop down and finally . . .
The sun had just vanished beyond the plateau’s rim, plunging the river into the shadow of afternoon, when they came upon Yellow Bank.
And found only ashes.
In his first horrified stare, it seemed to Dow that there was nothing left of the village at all. A great grey mound, from which protruded blackened beams that might once have formed the roof, was all that remained of the Barrel House. And around it extended only a scorched and muddy flat, dotted with smaller burnt-out mounds that had been people’s homes. Dow could not even tell which one had belonged to his family.
He stumbled down the rise and into the ash-rimmed circle. There was nothing.
But no – on the far side of the circle, one cottage had been only partially destroyed, and had since been somewhat rebuilt, with a canvas sheet thrown over the ceiling beams for a roof, and another sheet forming a door. And even as Dow and the others reached the ruined Barrel House, that door was thrown back, and a man came forth.
‘Who goes there?’ this figure cried, peering as if the day was already night, for in fact he was very old, and if not blind, then near to it.
Dow did not speak, staring still in shock at the razed village. So Nicky, after a pause, answered, ‘Friends, old man. We mean no harm.’
‘Friends?’ The figure came shambling forward. ‘I know a Twin Islands accent when I hear it. Be gone! There is nothing left here to steal.’
Nicky said no more. The old man was upon them now, and his eyes were veiled grey with age, but he could see yet, up close at least, and he peered at them one by one, until he came to Dow.
‘By the high forests,’ the old man breathed. ‘Is it you? Is it really you? Dow Amber?’
Dow stared blankly at the old man. His first thought was that this was a stranger, some wandering refugee of the war merely camped in the ruins. He was certainly no native of Yellow Bank. And yet there was something familiar about him . . .
Then the realisation came. Dow remembered a face that had always been one of three faces, a man who had always been one of three men; not villagers, no, but travellers who had often come to the village, to sit by the fire in the Barrel House at night.
He was one of the scribes.
Dow had never known their names, for to most folk of the valley the scribes were known only by their function, which was to observe and to remember on behalf of a people who by law could not write their own history down. But of course Dow had never forgotten the night in the Barrel House when the Scribes had pronounced upon his heritage, and so set him free.
This was one of those same men, the
oldest of the three; not the apprentice, nor the teller of tales, but the silent one, the master of history.
‘What happened here?’ Dow rasped. ‘Where is everyone? Where’s my family?’
‘Dow Amber,’ marvelled the scribe again in response. Then he leaned forward and spat deliberately on the ground at Dow’s feet. ‘I curse you and I curse the day I first heard that name.’
Dow blinked dumbly at the gobbet, then, the dread rising in him, he repeated, angrily now, ‘What happened here? Tell me!’
‘You happened here,’ the scribe accused. ‘Oh, how long I’ve waited to tell you, waiting for this very day, when the great Dow Amber would return to see the fruits of his madness and pride.’
Dow advanced a step and clutched the old man by his shirtfront, unable to help himself, unable not to yell. ‘Where’s my family?!’
‘Dead!’ the old man cried in seeming delight. ‘All of them burned and dead. Mother. Father. Brother. Sisters. Their ashes lie behind you!’
Aghast, Dow hurled the scribe aside and whirled about to face the great pile of rubble that had once been the Barrel House.
‘There,’ spat the old man from where he sprawled on the ground. ‘There lie buried nearly all the men and women and children of Yellow Bank; for it was to their Barrel House that they retreated when the Ship Kings came, a hundred marines and more, bent on capturing the family of the famous Dow Amber.’
Dow was staring sickly, unable to speak. It was Nicky who now took his part. ‘Tell the story, old man,’ he instructed. ‘Tell everything.’
‘Why else am I here?’ the scribe retorted. ‘Why else have I lingered so long in this graveyard, if not to tell the last tale of my life?’
‘Then tell it!’ Nicky repeated.
The old man now rose to his knees, assembling a tattered decorum. ‘Hear me, Dow Amber, and hear me well, for this will be my final pronouncement. I am the last Scribe of this valley. My two brethren are already dead, slain, and I feel that my own death draws near. No Scribe shall follow me, no apprentice shall learn from me the tales that should be told; all that we Scribes have ever known, the history of this high land, will die with me. Ah, but what of that? It is the least of the ills that have befallen us since your departure from this village.
‘Four years ago that was now. And at first it seemed to my fellow scribes and myself that we had indeed pronounced correctly when we sent you away to the sea. Word came to the highlands of your taming of the infamous maelstrom, and your mother and father were filled with both wonder and pride that you should dare such a terrible thing. But then stranger news came; that the great towns of Stone Port and Lonsmouth had been burned, and that you had sailed away with the Ship Kings.
‘What were we to make of this? Why had you gone with the enemies of your own folk? Would you ever return? But before we heard further word of you, instead we learned of the outbreak of war between the Ship Kings and the Twin Isles – and, briefly, our hearts were filled with hope. Might this not mean our own liberation? And indeed, the Twin Islanders came and won great battles off our coast, then their armies landed and drove the Ship Kings away from the towns.
‘But soon the Twin Islanders proved only to be masters in place of the Ship Kings. They spoke of freedom, and of brotherhood between us, but always that freedom was to be delayed until the war was won, and there was no brotherhood, only the drafting of our young men and women – by force when all else failed – to work in their factories and mills in the lowlands. And where the Ship Kings took half of everything, the Twin Islanders took even more, until poverty and hunger stalked this valley, where no hunger had been known before.
‘But one thing they did bring with them was news of you. The great Dow Amber, they said, the heir of Honous Tombs, was fighting on the Twin Islands side, after performing many wonders in the frozen north, and escaping the clutches of the Ship Kings. So we too, the Twin Islanders said, should serve them loyally and without complaint, just like Dow Amber. We should slave in their factories, and if we were obedient and worthy, then one day maybe Dow Amber would return to lead us.
‘But you did not return. Instead, the Ship Kings returned and there were more battles and this time the Twin Islanders lost and retreated to the west, burning everything as they withdrew. Then Ship Kings raiders came upriver, burning what was left, and seeking a village called Yellow Bank – from whence, they had learned, came their hated enemy, Dow Amber. For you had announced your heritage to the world by then, and inevitably the secret of your true home had leaked out.
‘Precautions were taken, and a watch was set here, alert for any attack, so that your family would have time to fly into the hills – but in vain. It was a year ago now that a force of marines came upon Yellow Bank by night and slew the watchers in cunning silence, and so caught the village unawares. By the time any alarm was raised, Yellow Bank was already surrounded and your family was trapped with everyone else.
‘The men fought as best they could, but soon enough everybody had withdrawn to the Barrel House. Till dawn they held out. Then the attackers ceased their forays and called to all inside. Give us the family of Dow Amber, they cried, and the others will be left unharmed.
‘It would have been wise, maybe, if they had done so, though perhaps it would have made no difference. In any case, they refused, and so the Ship Kings set a fire before the Barrel House doors. In the inferno that ensued all within were killed, your mother and father with them, and your brother and sisters too.’
Through all of this long report Dow was staring at the Barrel House ruins, a mist of rage and grief darkening his vision. Now he spoke. ‘You saw this yourself? You were here to know it as truth?’
The scribe barked a laugh of disgust. ‘You think that I lie, or repeat mere rumour? No, I was not here. But I have spoken with those who were, for not all the folk of Yellow Bank died that night. A few souls eluded capture in the confusion of the first attack, and hid in the hollows of the slopes above. They heard and saw the massacre, and came down when the Ship Kings departed. They reside now in Pond Bend, and having met with them, I committed myself, as the last Scribe, to come here and wait with the dead; for I felt sure that one day you would appear.’
‘And surely,’ breathed Dow, ‘here I am.’
‘Yes – though too late. I wonder what they thought, your mother and father, as the flames rose? Did they wonder why you had never come for them, or for your brother and sisters, when you must have known their lives were in danger, once you saw fit to reveal your ancestry to the world? Were they disappointed in a child who with all his powerful friends and ships and cannon, sent no one to protect them? And as they died, did they curse the son who had delivered such terrible enemies to their door?’
‘Shut up, old fool,’ came Nicky’s voice. ‘You know nothing of the truth. Dow cannot be held solely responsible for this. Many have wrought it – and he was misused and deceived in ways that made it impossible to do the things you claim he should have done. He is victim here too, not perpetrator.’
‘Victim!’ the scribe scoffed.
Nicky had turned to Dow. ‘My friend, do not take this burden upon yourself. This is an act of war, and the war would have started whether or not you ever left this place, or left your family. The Twin Isles and the Ship Kings would be fighting over New Island regardless of whether Dow Amber had ever ridden the maelstrom or wandered in the icy north. You are not to blame.’
‘Aye,’ nodded the old man, ‘the war is not his doing, and nor did I say it was. But the war need not have come to this valley, and to this village, and to the people who lie buried here, were it not for Dow Amber. That blame he cannot escape.’
Dow was nodding. It was true, every word the old man spoke. The pain was ice around his heart. They were all dead. His mother and father, who had sacrificed so much so he could go to sea. Edmund, his brother, who would have been fifteen now – and little Tara and Karen, who wouldn’t have been so little anymore, but thirteen, young women . . . They had all di
ed because of him. And he, in all these years away, how often had he even thought of them? As he roamed the world wilfully and threw himself heedless into foolish dangers, how often had he considered their danger? What had he done to help them, to defend them, to save them?
Nothing at all.
The shame was like a voiceless scream building inside him. He couldn’t even give them a decent burial now – even if he dug into this obscene pile of ash, he could never know which of the bones he found might be his father’s, or his mother’s, or . . .
‘Dow!’
Nicky was at his side and had been repeating his name for some time now. Dow turned his gaze slowly to his friend, but inside he was frozen still, and Nicky’s face was vague and far away.
‘This is terrible beyond belief, I know,’ the young Twin Islander said, ‘but you can’t let yourself be crushed by guilt that isn’t yours. You are needed now, more than ever. You must fight. You must stand and lead your people, just as you’ve always intended!’
‘Lead!’ came the old man’s crow. ‘He will find no one to lead here, nor anywhere on New Island. No one will follow Dow Amber. News of the infamy here at Yellow Bank has spread all down the Long River, and at the naming of Dow Amber men will spit and women will curse and children will sing rhymes of his cowardice and desertion. Dow Amber – the Great Abandoner, the Great Traitor, friend to our enemies. But don’t take my word for it. Ride down the river and see for yourselves – you’ll all be lynched within a day!’
Friend to our enemies. Dow savoured the title in rich self-loathing. Yes, it described him exactly. The scream was building and building inside him, and when it came out it would never stop.
The scribe was not done. ‘Go away, Dow Amber. Go back to your adopted people. Twin Islanders or Ship Kings; it does not matter which, only that you are a New Islander no more. Go sail in your precious ships and leave us be.’
The War of the Four Isles Page 31