“Where’s Snowleopard?” I finally asked one of the house ringmen when I’d reached the far end of the cave.
“He went out, Mother,” the man told her as he knelt down. “Him and the other two Oldgrounders, and a bunch of others. They said the topman had sent them.”
Later, Greenstone gave the ringmen metal from his store, so they could trade for things they needed, and had them set to work building shelters for themselves around the Headmanhouse. There wasn’t room inside for all of them, and we wanted to make them as comfortable as we could. Meanwhile, me and Greenstone went back to the Writingcave, taking Earthseeker with us, and all of the topmen in the Headmanhouse, old and new, except for a couple we left to supervise the building. An underteacher called Gerry came with us to write down what we decided.
“We’re going to have a new kind of Council,” Greenstone told them. “We want you to help us plan it. It won’t just be chiefs or teachers anymore. We’ll have topmen there as well, topmen from each chief’s ground.”
All the topmen were amazed.
“Topmen as part of the Council, you mean, Father?” asked one of the new ones suspiciously, a big, broad guy called Mehmet. “Not just there to watch the doors?”
“As part of the Council, helping to make the rules. And we’ll have ordinary ringmen and other small people, too, so everyone gets a say, women as well as men.”
The men looked at one another.
“Women, Father?” asked another one of them, like he thought he must have misheard.
“Yes, why not? Who would you go and talk to if you had a difficult problem and wanted advice, your mum or your dad?”
“My mum, probably, but—”
“So why not have women help decide the rules? The Ringwearer will be part of Council, too.”
They all looked at me.
“Well,” I said, “we all look up to Gela, don’t we? And she said women were as good as men.”
“I guess,” said the one who’d spoken, glancing uncertainly at the others.
“Believe me,” I told them. “Where I come from there are no big or small people, and men and women decide things together. It all works fine.”
“So chiefs will still be there,” Greenstone said, “and teachers will be there, but they’ll share the decisions with small people. We
Greenstone Johnson
We sent those barks out to every chief and to the topmen of every chief, to be read out in all the houseplaces of New Earth. Ringmen came and went from the Headmanhouse. A few small chiefs came to join us—my old friend John, and his friend Gelason, and a young metal chief called Tom from out top, with just two digs in his ground—and small people started to come in who’d been chosen for our new Council: ringmen, underteachers, diggers, and stonebreakers. We gave them all food and shelter until we were ready for Council to meet. They sat outside in the treelight of the Great Cave and sang songs or played football and games of chess. Something new and strange was just beginning, like nothing ever seen before in New Earth.
As people arrived, we kept hearing about chiefs going back and forth through the caves, meeting one another in twos and threes, and we heard a few stories, too, about splits among the ringmen, with some going to the houses of their chiefs, while others stayed in the houseplaces where we’d told them to wait. A few teachers came to us, including my old friend Harry, but they told us that the Head Teacher was traveling in his car out top or in the side caves, busy making trades and deals.
When we had about forty small people ready for the Council, we decided it was time. We sent messages to the chiefs and teachers to tell them the Council would meet at Second Horn next waking. Then we waited, while outside of the Headmanhouse, the ringmen practiced with their spears and knives and bows.
Everything seemed strangely bright and new. But Eden cared nothing for all of this. The trees still pulsed as they always did, and the river still flowed toward the fire.
As First Horn blew from the windholes above us and echoed up and down the cave, people started to gather for the Council. A couple more small chiefs came to the Headmanhouse, and a couple more teachers, but Dixon and Gerry and eleven others had all stayed away, and so had Teacher Michael and most of the other teachers.
Second Horn blew. There were well over a hundred people in the Red Cave, including me, Starlight, Earthseeker, six other chiefs, seven teachers, twenty topmen, fifty other ringmen, and about fifty other small people, men and women, from various caves and digs.
“This is a new Council,” I told everyone. “The first of a new kind of Council.”
There weren’t enough seats, of course, for even half the people there, and, but for a few oldies, everybody stood.
“Remember the power of New Earth comes from the people who live in it, whether big or small,” I told them. “There would be no metal or plantstuff or houses without small people. There’d be no one to fight for us without ringmen. That’s why Gela tells us that small people are as good as big ones, just as women are as good as men.”
Earthseeker stood up next. He had to read from a bark to remind himself of the words he’d agreed to speak.
“This is a list of things we can make new rules about,” he said, “and the Headman promises not to go against our wishes. First, we can make rules about the way we get metal and flowers and divide them up between ourselves.”
“What about bats?” someone shouted out. “Will we share them, too, or will the chiefs keep them for themselves?”
“Second,” said Earthseeker, who didn’t know what to say about bats, “we can make rules about the way the ground is divided. Third, we can make rules about the way that ringmen answer to the Headman and the chiefs. Fourth, we can make rules about things people are punished for, and the punishments that are given.”
Lots of people started shouting out all at once, but Starlight raised her hands for silence, and told everyone that we’d need to go through the list point by point, with only one person speaking at a time. She told people to put up their hands if they wanted to speak, and wait until it was their turn. It was how they did things on her Knee Tree Grounds, apparently, when they met to decide things together.
“Let’s start with how we’re going to divide up metal,” she suggested.
Some little digger from way out top put his hand up straight away and suggested that the greenstone should belong to the people who dug it up, and everyone else should trade with them for it. Another said that was going too far, and that half should go to the chiefs so that the ringmen could be fed and paths through forest kept clear.
Me and Starlight sat in our stone chairs and watched, only stepping in to choose the next speaker when the previous one had finished.
“What about us stonebreakers?” asked a tough-looking old woman from Highdig. “Not much point in getting greenstone out of the ground unless someone smashes it up and puts it in the ovens to get out the metal.”
Poor Earthseeker stood grim-faced beside us, as he watched the world he understood being turned upside down.
“You can trade for the stone with the diggers,” the first speaker said, “and then, when you’ve made the metal, you can trade it on again to spearmakers and anyone else who wants it.”
“Why not let the chiefs have it all,” another man suggested, “but make them give a certain number of cubes each tenwake to everyone who works for them? We do need chiefs, after all.”
“Why do we need them?” one of our new topmen wanted to know, and I heard old Earthseeker groan. “Seriously, why do we need them?” It was Mehmet, the big guy from Whiteblade’s ground who’d met with us in the Writingcave two wakings previously. “Why can’t we decide everything like this in a Council? You don’t need anything above topmen to keep the ringmen organized, as long as they know what they’re supposed to be doing. And I reckon those first chiefs must have been more like topmen, anyway, back in John’s time, when there were only eighty grown-ups in all New Earth. They must have had less men under them than most to
pmen do these wakings.”
I was amazed at the ideas people came up with, once they understood that they were allowed to say whatever they wanted. It was like all my life we’d looked out at the world from one narrow windhole, and imagined that this was the only way of seeing. This whitelantern tree must always be in front of that redlantern, it had seemed to us, and yet now, looking from different angles, we could see the two trees side by side, or with the redlantern in front, or both of them from straight above. We could even turn our backs on the trees completely and look at the rest of the forest that our one windhole had hidden from us.
After a long time, some time after Third Horn, Council agreed that, for the moment, half of the greenstone from the digs would go to the chiefs and teachers, to be used for ringmen and underteachers and for clearing paths, while the rest would go to the diggers, to trade with as they pleased.
“Okay,” said Starlight, “so we go on to the second question. How should the ground be divided?”
I glanced at Earthseeker, his hands gripped so tightly together that the knuckles were white, and gave him a reassuring smile. Chief Gelason had put up his hand, and I invited him to speak.
“I don’t think ground was ever supposed to belong to us chiefs,” he began, “but I do think—”
Suddenly we heard a woman’s voice just outside the cave, screaming in terror, and Quietstream came running in from the left doorway, followed by ringmen in metal masks.
“Whisperer!” the masked men shouted. “Whisperer! Stop her!”
Starlight Brooking
Some of the ringmen who were already in the cave grabbed hold of Quietstream and held her, while more masked men came pouring into the already crowded space until there were ten of them squeezed in round the doorway, with their blank, unblinking metal eyes and blank, unsmiling mouths. One of them was taller than the rest and wrapped in blue. He pushed forward into the middle of the cave and pulled off his mask.
“Tom’s dick, Dixon, what do you think you’re doing?” demanded Greenstone. “I’m the Headman, in case you’ve forgotten. This is my house, and Quietstream is my helper.”
Dear Greenstone. He acted like a Headman, too. He acted like he was as strong and sure as his dad.
“I’m afraid your helper’s a whisperer, Headman.” Chief Dixon gave the smallest bow that it’s possible to give without it being invisible. “She must be taken to the Questioners before she whispers to anyone else. That’s unless the rules your grandfather made have changed without my knowing.”
“She stays in this house,” Greenstone said. “This is a Council. You can join us if you want, but these men here weren’t invited, and they must leave.”
Again Dixon gave his barely visible bow.
“I’m afraid there’s more,” he said. “You see, Quietstream isn’t the only whisperer in this wallcave. There’s another one who’s even closer to you.”
Chief Dixon waited, watching the troubled faces around the cave until he was sure that even the slowest had understood. Then he looked straight at me.
“That’s right, people. It’s your darling Ringwearer I’m talking about. The fishing girl Greenstone picked up from the Davidfolk. This helper here is most likely the one who first whispered the words to her. But did the Ringwearer report the woman? No, she did not. Did she at least keep the words to herself? No, quite the opposite; she told everyone! In Batsky, in Narrowdig, in Winghouse: All over New Earth she’s been standing in front of crowds and shouting out those wicked lies for everyone to hear. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, she’s been doing it with our mother’s ring on her finger.”
I looked round at the faces in the cave. Some looked shocked and bewildered; I guessed they’d no idea that I had spoken words from the Secret Story, and now they felt I’d deceived them. Others looked guilty and scared, and I figured they’d known quite well where those words came from but had come along anyway, thinking that the Ringwearer and the Headman were powerful enough to keep them safe. I’d let them all down, the ones who knew and the ones who didn’t both. I’d moved these people like pieces on a board, knowing that me and Greenstone were taking a risk, but not really thinking about the risk I was putting them in.
“We can protect you!” I shouted out to them. “We can protect you from this man and his ringmen and all the others like him! But if you want us to do that, you have to stand by us. It’s you who give big people their power! Give your support to us and we’ll protect you. Turn to Chief Dixon, and we can’t.”
Some of them didn’t even look at me. They all knew the punishment for listening to whisperers, and why should they trust me now, anyway?
“It’s really true!” I called out to them. “You’ll see it’s true if you just think it through for yourselves. What can Chief Dixon do, if all of you stick with us?”
I saw a few people nodding, but not many, and even the ones who nodded didn’t otherwise move or shout out their support. After all, even if they did still trust me and Greenstone, how could they be sure of one another?
“She’s right,” called out Greenstone from over by his stone seat. “We warned you this could happen, but what can these few men do, if all you lot stay with us?”
Dixon pretended to shake his head sadly, as if he were more disappointed than angry to hear this nonsense coming from the mouths of the Ringwearer and the Headman. And then he put on a new and soothing voice as he spoke to the people in the cave.
“Many of you heard her saying those lying words in your houseplaces. And of course now you feel bad because you shouted and cheered. But no one will blame you for that, I promise you, because you were tricked. You thought you were listening to a true Ringwearer, and you didn’t know where the words came from. Of course you cheered. There’s no fault in that.”
I walked a little way in his direction, the people stepping back hastily to let me through, as if I was something dangerous to touch, like the scalding bark of a spiketree. I stopped in the middle of a bunch of ringmen who’d followed us down to Edenheart a couple of wakings ago, and had promised to fight for me and Greenstone against any chief that stood against him. But now their eyes darted uneasily between me and Chief Dixon, between Dixon’s masked ringmen and their own friends. One of them ran his tongue over his lips. Another chewed on a nail.
“Okay, that’s enough, Chief Dixon!” Greenstone called out from where he still stood by the Headman’s chair. “Or just Dixon, as I should call you now, because you’re no longer a chief of mine, and John Cave is no longer your ground. I’ll divide it up between the ringmen here who’ve promised to protect me. They keep their promises, and it seems you don’t. You, my friend, are on your way to the Rock.”
The ringmen around me glanced uneasily at one another. Chief Dixon laughed.
“Don’t talk to me about keeping promises, Greenstone. When you put on the Headman’s hat you promised to carry on the work of John and Mother Gela, and protect the rules of New Earth. And yet look what you’ve done. You stood there beside this false Ringwearer, and you did nothing to stop her lies. You’re not—”
“You say I told lies, Dixon,” I interrupted him, “but if you ask the people who were there, they’ll tell you I never once claimed my words came from Mother Gela. I just repeated some of them because they seemed to make sense. It’s the teachers, not me, who claim to know what Mother Gela thinks, just like the shadowspeakers do among the Davidfolk.”
He glared at me, his face dark with rage, but I could see that his eyes were unsure. He couldn’t know for certain which way this would go, after all, any more than I could.
“That’s a ridiculous—” he began.
“Excuse me, I haven’t finished. The teachers say they know what Gela wants, but all they do is write things down on their barks and then use those same barks to prove that what they say is true. I’m the Ringwearer, but I don’t know what Mother Gela thinks. All I know is that she was the mother of all of us, and I’ve never heard of a mother who said it was okay for her child
ren to do for one another, or for some of them to live in big houses and others in dark dark clusters where there aren’t even trees to give out light.” I held the ring above my head, making myself as tall as I could. “This is our mother’s ring,” I called out, “and when I put it on, I promised to be a mother to everyone, not just to the big people.”
Many people nodded this time, and a few even clapped, but there was no cheering, no chanting “Mother! Mother! Mother!” Not with Dixon present, and those masked men. And the ringmen round me had backed away a little, leaving me in my own circle of empty space.
Dixon sighed, like a grown-up dealing with a naughty child. “I repeat,” he called out to everyone in the cave. “No one will be blamed for hearing the fishing girl’s words when she was the Ringwearer, or for cheering her, or even for following her here. But anyone who stays with her from now on is doing so knowing that she’s a whisperer. You all need to think about that. Specially those of you who were nodding and clapping while she spoke.”
“He’s trying to frighten you,” called out Greenstone, still over by the Headman’s seat.
He would have said more, but the metal-faced men round the doorway moved aside to let in a new arrival, and the bald, fat figure of Teacher Michael came striding into the cave. I guessed he’d been waiting outside for the right moment.
“Listen carefully, people,” he boomed out.
His boy, hurrying along behind him, placed a wooden box on the ground in middle of cave. Climbing on top of it, the Head Teacher stood in silence for several seconds, frowning down at us all while he caught his breath. become like earth, read the words on his pale longwrap.
“This man Greenstone is no longer your Headman,” he finally said. “His father only became Headman because a previous Head Teacher chose him over his brother, Harry. It was a bad choice, and the teacher who did it went crazy soon after. So now I’m making another choice. Chief Dixon is Headman now. He’s a great grandson of First John just as much as Greenstone’s father was and, unlike Greenstone, he’s been true to John and true to President and true to Mother Gela. You’re not Headman anymore, Greenstone. And the fishing girl’s not Ringwearer.”
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