The batface girl began to sob. Mary threw her arms round her.
‘You’re not in trouble, my dear. You’re not in trouble at all. No one can blame you for hearing it. And as for your mum – was it your mum?’ The girl nodded, still in Mary’s arms. ‘Well, she’s been foolish, but now she’s been found out, and we can help her to see sense again.’
She looked round at the other people, over the weeping girl’s shoulder.
‘This brave young woman has done the right thing. If anyone’s told you this so-called Secret Story, or if you know of anyone that’s telling it, then you should talk to your guards and get their help in having it stopped. Because it’s all wrong! It’s all nonsense. Mother Gela is alive right now, alive and speaking to us! She talks to you directly and she talks to you through her shadowspeakers. What need could she possibly have for whispered stories that are supposed to come from the past?’
And straight away, four five women came forward sobbing, to kneel on the ground to say they’d heard the Secret Story too, and beg for Mary’s forgiveness.
‘Did Leader Hunter ask you to speak about the Secret Story?’ I said to Mary, when we were some miles rockway of Veeklehouse, with our two guards far enough behind us for me to be sure they couldn’t hear. It had taken me some time to pluck up the courage to speak. ‘Only you haven’t spoken about it before.’
Mary had pulled up a dead starflower as we walked and was picking at something between her teeth with its dry stem.
‘He mentioned it, yes.’ Suddenly she stopped dead, taking hold of my arm to make me stop as well, and looking straight at me. ‘But what are you trying to say, Angie?’
‘I don’t mean to criticize, Mary. Please don’t think that. But what you said before the show about helping out the high people . . . well, it kind of made me think. And I wondered if it’s possible to speak for Mother Gela and the high people both?’
Mary frowned. I thought for a moment she was going to shout at me, and I felt scared and ashamed like a naughty child. But then she laughed and gave me a hug.
‘Oh Angie! Angie dearest! Do you know why I love you so much? It’s because your heart is pure! It’s pure and clear as the light inside a whitelantern flower. I saw that from the moment I first spotted you, out on that little grounds of yours. I just knew you would help me to see clearly. I knew you’d help me stay on the path I’ve chosen, and not wander off. Because even shadowspeakers can wander, you know, and sadly there are some that have done just that, like bloody old Suzie Batting, for instance, who only pretends to hear our Mother’s voice, but really just thinks about the pile of presents she’s building up, and the fancy shelter she’s having built for her at Davidstand.’
She took my hand, leading me forwards again.
‘Listen, Angie. Of course I have to listen to the high people. The guards and guard leaders are part of Gela’s plan. Their job is to protect Family and keep it whole. And of course, if they’re worried about something that worries Gela too, then I will happily speak out about it. But I’ve never . . .’
Again she stopped and turned to face me, still holding onto my hand.
‘I would never never say anything at a show, Angie, unless I knew for certain, for certain, that it was Mother Gela I was speaking for.’
I nodded and smiled. It was my turn to hug her. ‘You are good, Mary,’ I told her. ‘You’re good good.’
She’d said my heart was pure as a whitelantern flower, and I knew that wasn’t so. But I also knew that Mary’s was pure. It wasn’t like a whitelantern flower, not gentle and white, but it was pure pure like a flame. Of course she’d never say anything she didn’t believe herself. Of course not. Of all people on Eden, Mary would be the last to do that. Anyone who knew her could see that all that mattered to her was speaking for Mother Gela and bringing Family back home. She’d given her whole life to that. Of all people, she could be trusted to speak the truth.
And yet I still didn’t tell her about Starlight, and nor did I tell her that I myself had heard the Secret Story.
Eleven
They were right round us, their cold metal faces all alike, staring down at us from the backs of those strange blue bucks. The bucks shifted restlessly from foot to foot, snuffling with their mouth feelers and scratching at the dirt with their claws. We Michael’s Place folk formed a kind of circle, and some of the men pointed their spears out towards the Johnfolk. But we knew there was no point in fighting them. There were thirty of us, but most were oldies or little kids, and only a few of us had anything to fight with. There were about thirty of them too, but every one of them was a strong grownup man, and all of them carried either spears with long long metal tips, or bows and metal-tipped arrows.
I looked round for my kids. Dave, still on Ugly’s back, was shielding Candy and Metty in his arms. Fox had come to stand beside me. His face was blank, but he silently reached up for my hand. How could I protect him? Yet even now he took some comfort from my being near.
Trueheart had come over to be with her mother. We watched the metal faces of the ringmen, waiting for them to decide what they were going to do. Every grownup, and every kid who was old enough to talk, was thinking of the old stories about how cruel the Johnfolk had been, all those years ago, in their last big fight with the Davidfolk. We remembered how they’d taken children from their mothers: boys to raise up as ringmen, and girls to make into the mothers of yet more ringmen. That was how they built up their numbers when once they’d been so few and Davidfolk had been so many. We remembered how they’d burnt down whole clusters, how they’d done for young men, and forced their dicks on women and young girls.
We had no young men with us: they were all in the guards. But we had young women. I thought of young Flame with her little baby. I thought of Trueheart. You might think an ugly batface like hers would give some protection, but I knew it didn’t always work that way. There were plenty of men who saw batfaces as being so damaged already that they might as well be damaged some more.
‘There are two three good glass knives in that bag on our buck,’ I hissed to Trueheart. ‘If they come for us, run over and grab them for us. We may not have metal but we can give these blokes a fight.’
One of the bucks came forward, a second following straight after. Their riders wore coloured longwraps, rather than the plain ones that the other ringmen wore, so we could see they were the high men in charge. The first one’s wrap was blue, the second one’s white but sewn with big writing. They stopped side by side and the first man reached up to his mask. It seemed to be fixed to his metal hat, for when he pushed at it, it folded upwards and forwards, so we could see his face underneath. He was a young young guy, no more than twenty, I’d say, with long black hair. His wore his beard tied in little bows, and though he had a proud face like high people often have, he smiled. And it wasn’t a cruel smile, but a smile like he wanted to reassure us.
‘My name is Luke Johnson,’ he said. ‘My father, Dixon, is the Headman of New Earth.’
A little shiver ran down my spine. I knew Dixon. Dixon had been with Greenstone when me and Starlight first met him in Veeklehouse. He’d been Chief Dixon then, a tall, cold, proud man with thick grey hair, who’d done his best to stop Greenstone from taking Starlight with him across the water. I remembered how he wouldn’t so much as look at me, not just because I was a low person, but because I was a batface. And I could see Dixon’s face now in this young guy who was talking to us. Luke Johnson was a younger version of that tall grey man. But, if it wasn’t just my wishful thinking, he also seemed kinder, and friendlier, and less proud.
‘My father, Dixon, is the Headman of New Earth,’ he said. ‘My mother, Lucy, wears Gela’s ring. We are not your enemies, and you don’t need to run from us. You’ve been told a lot of lies about us Johnfolk. You’ve been told that we steal and are cruel. But you need to remember it was Johnfolk who first found this forest that’s all round us and gave
it its name; Johnfolk who found the Veekle; Johnfolk who first saw Worldpool and stood at the top of the cliffs. So-called Great David had forbidden John to come here. He sent guards to do for John. He threatened to tie him to a spiketree and let him burn. And yet you’ll notice that when John had found the way for him, David was happy enough to follow him across the Dark.’
Again he smiled, and I noticed for the first time that it wasn’t just his dad he reminded me of, but Greenstone too. This guy’s mum was Greenstone’s cousin, from what I’d heard. And it occurred to me now that my friend Starlight would almost certainly have met him, though he would only have been a kid when she went over to New Earth. It was strange to think that she would have met him, not as a low person meeting a high one, but as one high person meeting another. Not that that would help us now.
‘Well, I say it was us Johnfolk who found Wide Forest,’ Headmanson Luke corrected himself, ‘but actually there was no such thing as Johnfolk and Davidfolk back then. John Redlantern didn’t want to split Family in two. That’s another lie you people get told. He wanted everyone to follow him. He wanted to find a way for everyone to spread out from Circle Valley into all the rest of our beautiful Eden. I know you’ve been told that John was the disobedient one, the one that turned away from Mother Gela, but think about that for a moment. How come Gela guided him to the ring? Don’t tell me it just happened! It had lain on the ground for generations since she lost it, remember, but John was the one who found it. And do you know what? That isn’t the only time that Gela brought the ring to us. Just thirty forty hundredwakes ago – ten years, I guess you guys would call it – a wicked woman stole that ring and brought it right across the Pool to Old Ground here. We thought we’d lost it then. But it still came back to us. Gela brought it to us again!’
While he’d been speaking, the rider behind him had also lifted up his mask, the guy with the letters sewn on his wrap. He was young young too, and he had one of those faces you can’t help liking at once: kind and smiley, beaming out at us delightedly like we were the most interesting people he’d ever met and all he wanted was to be friends.
‘Hi, I’m Teacher Gerry,’ he said. ‘You probably don’t know what that means exactly, but in New Earth, teachers don’t just teach, we also learn and figure things out. Do you see what it says on my wrap here?’ He pulled his wrap straight so we could see the words. Out of all of us, only Tom and Trueheart could read, but Teacher Gerry saw our puzzled faces and read the words aloud for us. ‘It says “Become like Earth”. Because that’s what our Mother and her Father want us to do. They don’t want us to waste our time repeating the same things over and over, but to learn and make things better. Otherwise why did our Mother guide John here across Snowy Dark? Why did she lead him across the water to New Earth? Why would she help us find metal, and not the Davidfolk?’
‘That’s right,’ said Luke. ‘Like I said, John was Gela’s true son and he was trying to help whole Family of Eden. And that’s what we want to do too. We’ve not come here to hurt you people or drive you off your ground. Not at all. What we’ve come here to do is to bring the True Story of Eden back to Old Ground – Mainground, as you call it – and to drive away the false one. We’ve come to make your lives better. We really have!’
I looked round at my Davidfolk companions. Tom’s face was stiff and cold, and Clare’s lips were tight. What these men had just said was all just typical Johnfolk lies as far as they were concerned. That had been confirmed for them when the Headmanson told us his mother was wearing the ring – Gela’s heart, they were thinking, how could this wicked man sit there and say that without shame! – but whether he’d spoken of the ring or not, they’d still have dismissed everything these two men said, and so would Davidson and Kate and all the other grownups there from Michael’s Place. The Headmanson and the Teacher might as well had said ‘la la la’ for all they’d heard and taken in. Only Trueheart seemed to be really listening, her eyes darting between the two men like she wasn’t just hearing them out but trying to weigh up what they said.
As to me, I was more familiar with the Johnfolk way of seeing things than any of the others, because I came from the Kneefolk, and our Jeff had sided with John. But that didn’t mean I liked what they said. All this talk of new ground, and metal, and becoming like Earth, all this pushing forwards no matter what! How about the other side of all that, I wanted to ask? How about the fighting, the killing, the cruelty? How about the dividing up of one Family into Johnfolk and Davidfolk, high people and low people, men and women? Was it really possible that our kind gentle Mother could have wanted all that for her children?
‘So what do you want with us?’ Tom called out, his voice tight with cold cold rage.
The two men on buckback looked at each other. Two good-looking high men, used to being listened to and having their own way, they smiled like they were sharing some private joke.
‘We want to be your friends,’ said Luke Johnson. ‘It’s as simple of that. Of course, if your guards come and fight us, we’ll fight them back – and we’ll beat them too, because our spears are ten times better than their spears, and our knives ten times sharper – but we don’t want to fight, and we don’t want you to feel you have to run away from your homes. We want you to stay with us. If you do, we’ll send underteachers who’ll show you how to read and tell you about the True Story, and all we’ll ask of you is that you accept me as your chief, and ringmen as your protectors, instead of the guard leaders and guards you have now. But it’s completely up to you.’
Tom looked round at the men who were his closest friends: Davidson, Little Harry, Blackknife. Then he looked at Clare in a certain way that he had, half-hoping she’d know better than he did what to do, half-resenting the fact that this really did quite often turn out to be the case. Harry’s dick, how dare she have good ideas? Wasn’t he the man, and wasn’t he supposed to be the cluster head? This time, though, she had no more of a plan than him. No one did. Well, why would we? Nothing like this had ever happened to any of us before.
Tom ran his tongue round his lips. ‘Okay,’ he said to the Headmanson, ‘well, if we really have a choice, we’d like to go to Davidstand. Will you let us through?’
Again the two high men looked at each other with that private smile. The two of them were close close, I suddenly thought, closer than just friends. That look that passed between them was like the one you sometimes see in the eyes of men and women who have recently started slipping together, and they’re giving each other more pleasure with their bodies than the rest of the world together could ever hope to give.
‘Alright,’ said Luke Johnson, ‘I’ll let you through. I can see that most of you are too old or too little to fight us, and I can see that you, my friend, have lost your fighting hand. I don’t think you’ve got anything much we’re likely to need on those bucks of yours, either.’ Someone among us must have looked surprised at that, because then he laughed. ‘Oh I can see you’ve got blackglass spears and leopardtooth knives, but believe me, dear people, we really aren’t bothered by those one bit. You can keep them. They’re no match for metal. Keep them by all means. And, if that’s really what you want, we’ll let you go on to Davidstand.’
‘Bear in mind, though,’ said Teacher Gerry, ‘that in a few wakings, Davidstand will be ours as well, just like Veeklehouse is now.’ He laughed. ‘Ours again, I should really say, because John was the one who first found the place. I wonder if you knew that? John called it Ellpool and he and his people lived there for some time. Soon it will be Ellpool again. Your guards fight bravely enough, there’s no denying that, but they’re no match for us. The Veekle is ours again already, and before long we’ll have whole of Wide Forest in our hands and be crossing Snowy Dark to take back Circle Valley.’
‘That’s right,’ said Luke. ‘But still, we’ll let you through if you’re sure that’s what you want.’ He watched Tom’s face, his eyebrows raised, waiting for our cluster head’s f
inal decision, and then another thought occurred to him and he spoke to us all. ‘Just one thing, though. Just one favour. I’d like you all to ask yourselves, as you carry on, whether your guards would be as generous as us in the same position? I know you’ve been told how bad and cruel we Johnfolk are, but would bad cruel people just let you go like this?’
‘We want to go to Davidstand,’ Tom repeated, and then just stood there with his face all tight and closed up, waiting to see if they really were going to let us carry on. It didn’t seem likely. And the ringmen showed no signs of moving out of our way.
‘You know what,’ Teacher Gerry said to us. ‘I’m sad that you won’t stay with us because there really are things we could teach you. You Davidfolk just pass on the old stories from Old Family, and you don’t think enough about where they came from or how the women that used to run Old Family might have changed them when they had the chance. Me and the Headmanson here know you’re not bad people. We know you love Mother Gela in your own way, and we respect that. But there’s a lot you don’t know. For example, you know nothing about President, Gela’s dad, not even that he was her dad. Or even that President was a man. And that’s a big shame because, important as our Mother is, wonderful as she is, kind friend that she’s been to all of us, her power comes from her father President. He was the Headman of all of Earth. He had the starship built, and the other sky boats, and it was him that made lecky-trickity and telly vijun and all the wonderful things we know they had on Earth. And of course it was him that told the Three Disobedient Men to return to Earth, and him that sent his daughter Gela to fetch them back. In fact he’s behind the whole story, when you think about it. He might seem to be on the edge of it, but really he’s out there all the time, looking in, reaching in himself only when he has to, so as to make the story go the way it needs to go. I believe he even meant for Gela to come to Eden, and that he arranged everything to make that happen, just so his children could have another whole world to make their own.’
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