by Maurice Gee
If that’s the only way, that’s what I’ll do, Hana thought.
She made her way towards People’s Square, using the route Mam had taught her. Crouching in doorways, she watched men go by. They crowded and jostled each other, but all were jovial. Some were soldiers enjoying a day’s leave before they marched. She felt them simmering with the pleasures waiting for them in the square, and the chance of killing and plunder after that. The word she heard most frequently was ‘Man’.
At the next turning, she found Mam’s way blocked so she slipped into ruined streets and climbed through broken buildings. Hawk might have shown her an easier way but he did not come. What had Mam meant – and was it Mam who spoke or was it her own voice? – when she told her she still had Hawk? Hawk brought her food, he was her spy, and he had attacked the bounty hunter, but she could not imagine how he might help her fight the Limping Man. Several times she climbed high in buildings and stood on roofs. She wanted Hawk for company but he was nowhere in the sky.
I’ve got to be without him, Hana thought. She would find a window, jump on the litter when it passed. Kill the Limping Man with her broken knife. She retreated into the back rooms of a building and sharpened the blade on a stone. Where would the best place be? Both Hari’s tale and Xantee’s spoke of a hole in the floor over the western gate into People’s Square. She had seen Vosper’s litter enter that way on the day Mam died.
Hana got her bearings and worked towards it, through rooms with fallen ceilings and leaning walls. She entered a room so huge that its far end was lost in darkness. The floor was grey with dust and grit yet seemed to have puddles here and there, not of moisture but of colour and light. She advanced cautiously, knife ready, then stopped at the first patch of light and drew in her breath. Not puddles, not just light, they were pictures made of coloured stones fitted side by side. This must be the ballroom in the story Mam had told her, Hari’s story. The whole floor, under the dust and rubble, was one huge picture of – everything. Someone had swept parts of it clear. Here was a farmyard with a man feeding hay to cattle; here a kitchen with a cook turning a pig on a spit; a golden fish swimming in a stream; a child – a laughing child – sitting in a small cart with wheels; a pigeon diving, a great golden hawk in pursuit . . . it went on and on: a man with a plough, a woman tying up her hair, lovers embracing. Who had uncovered it all, and what lay left to be uncovered? Hana felt whoever it was would not threaten her. She sat down next to the woman tying her hair. It could be Mam. She dreamed a while – Mam and Hawk, a forest stream, a little house to live in, Ben bringing fish from the stream . . .
‘Girl,’ a voice whispered behind her. She gave a halfscream, leapt to her feet, freed her knife. A figure approached from the dark end of the room.
‘Girl,’ he said, ‘put away your knife. You know who I am. Where is my son?’
‘Lo,’ she gasped. ‘Ah, Lo.’ She ran to him and hugged him and after a startled moment he hugged her back.
‘Girl, you should be far away. There’s nothing you can do here.’
‘Kill him. I can kill the Limping Man.’
‘No. Leave it to others. Leave it to Blossom and Hubert.’
‘He’s got them. He captured them. He’ll burn her today and drown him. Lo, he’s got Ben. He makes Ben call him Master. I heard. I’ve got to save Ben.’
She thought for a moment he would crumple to the floor. He covered his face – old brown hands, jungle hands, hiding his grief. He looked half the size she remembered – starved and wrinkled and grey-haired. But after a moment he dropped his hands. His eyes were fierce and he said, ‘Then I must do it.’
‘Do what, Lo?’
‘Fight the Limping Man.’
‘You can’t. Blossom and Hubert tried. We saw them. He just’ – she kicked a stone aside – ‘did that to them. And Ben tried to kill him and now he says Master.’
‘There are ways. I’ll try my way.’
‘What is it?’
‘Something I’ve been thinking of. When I left you I tried to speak with the people. I wanted to ask for their wisdom and their strength. But they were too far. I heard only a whisper. So I came here. This is the room Hari told us about when we were children. I came to see the coloured stones and speak with the people on the floor. See, Hana, this woman combing her hair, and this one tying wheat sheaves, and this one suckling her baby. See this man ploughing and this man sowing, and this girl milking her cow. I talked with them instead of the people. Come with me.’
He led Hana across the room to where a band of light lay across the floor.
‘Mostly I talked with her.’
It was a simple picture: a woman in a blue dress crossing a wooden bridge over a stream. Her black hair hung about her shoulders. She held out her cupped hands as though offering something. They were empty, and yet they held everything pictured on the floor. Hana felt her throat thicken and her eyes grow wet.
‘Does she tell you what to do?’
‘She tells me this is how things were and might be again.
What I will do . . .’ He sighed.
‘You don’t know.’
‘I’ve sat here three days, Hana. All of this is in me. I don’t know whether it’s enough.’
‘Against . . .?’
‘Him.’
‘Against the swamp,’ she said.
She offered Lo water. He drank a little. ‘Now Hana, you must get away.’
‘Are you going to fight him?’
‘I’m going to try.’
‘Blossom and Hubert –’
‘I’m different from them. I’ve lived with the people. And there is . . .’ He swept his hand at the shining pictures on the floor. ‘Now leave me. I need to be alone. Promise me you’ll find a place far away.’
‘With Hawk?’
‘Ah, Hawk is back. Yes, with him. And we’ll find you, Ben and I.’
She did not believe it. She made no promise, but touched his face as she had touched Ben’s and went away. For a short while she retraced her steps. Then she circled away from the ballroom, sometimes climbing, sometimes diving into basement rooms. Twice she crept by gaps where windows opened on People’s Square. It was thronged with people. She saw the Limping Man’s throne, with men in robes of every colour seated around it. At a third window she glimpsed – and turned away – two rows of stakes with wood piled at the foot. More stakes than last time. Men, burrows men, crowded close. They were so many that some stood up to their knees in the green pond.
Hana heard a rumble of expectation. It meant the Limping Man was close. She crawled and climbed and reached the hole above the western gate. A guard lounged there, facing the hole, resting his spear butt on the ground. He would stand straight when the Limping Man passed. It would be her signal. She edged towards him.
Tramping feet. A squadron. They marched into the square and the sound was lost in a wave of cheering. The generals came next, and rising above the shouts that greeted them, a trumpet blast. The guard beside the hole lifted his spear in a salute. Hana saw the red of the litter reflected in its point.
‘Praise the Man,’ he cried.
She drew her knife, drew her breath, and ran at him; struck him with her stiffened arm, propelled him into the hole and rode on his back down to the litter. His spear broke under him as he struck its roof. His weight tore the poles from the bearers’ grip. The litter crashed to the ground. The guard’s shoulder in Hana’s ribs knocked her breath away, but she kept hold of her knife and started ripping the crimson cloth, knowing only that the Limping Man was inside and she must kill him. Knowing too, as the knife found no bite, that she had failed. The litter had a wooden roof beneath the cloth. She reached over the edge, screaming and slashing, trying to find a way through the side curtains.
Hands gripped her and dragged her down.
She heard the crier bellow, ‘Kill the bitch.’
‘Yes,’ she heard her own voice say, pleading not to be burned. But there was another voice, soft and reasonable and sweet: ‘No, d
on’t hurt her. Treat her gently.’
Hana looked into the face of the Limping Man.
‘Stand her up. Let me see.’
The bearers pulled the unconscious guard from the roof of the litter and dragged him aside. The Limping Man was level with Hana, holding red curtains under his chin, framing his face.
‘Vosper,’ Hana whispered. She tried to spit at him but her mouth was dry.
‘Yes, indeed,’ smiled the Limping Man. ‘And you are Hana, who ran away but did not run. You should not have turned back, my dear.’
‘Someone will kill you,’ she managed to say.
‘Oh no, never,’ he said. ‘But we have no time for talking. I won’t make you love me, like Ben. Today my people want hatred, that is best. Haggie.’
‘Master?’ the crier said.
‘Tell them to raise another stake.’ He took an edge of his curtain and wiped his watery eyes. ‘And put it in the centre, Haggie. She’s a brave girl and deserves a special place. Blow a loud blast for her. Blow two.’
He smiled at Hana and raised his finger. The attendant closed the curtain and the bearers made ready to move.
Two men held Hana. They pulled her upright when she stumbled. Haggie blew the trumpet, and blew a second time. Colour, shouting, grinning mouths, the stink of men packed together like rushes in a swamp. She was in People’s Square. The sky opened up, blue like the woman’s dress in the ballroom. Hana raised her head, trying to free herself from the thick noise and hungry faces.
A tiny black dot stood motionless above her.
Hawk was there.
THIRTEEN
They chained her to a post set in front of the others and packed dry wood round her feet. The Limping Man smiled down from his throne. He seemed no more than an arm’s length away. The crier shouted and a pathway opened in the crowd. Four men with their arms tied were whipped and driven through and thrown in a heap at the edge of the pool. Then came Danatok, with torn clothes and ragged hair and hanging head. Hana cried his name. He did not look up. Nor did Hubert, walking behind with a heavy step. He did not seem to know where he was.
Ben came last. He struggled, he kicked, he tried to bite. Hana felt a surge of love and pride. He was free from the Limping Man.
They threw him with the others and because he still fought bound him with extra cords. He rolled at the guards and lashed out with his tied feet at their legs. Then he saw Hana and gave a cry of rage and loss.
‘Ben,’ she called. There was nothing to say but his name.
Guards brought in the women, twenty of them, old and young, weeping and pleading. Several seemed drugged. A few were stoical. And Blossom was like Hubert, she walked as though she did not understand her feet, so deep was the Limping Man’s hold on her.
Hana could not bear to watch. She found Hawk in the sky and fled to him.
Fly away, Hawk. Fly, she said.
He circled lower. She saw People’s Square like a basin. The crowd, the green pool, the stands, the throne. The litter, at the foot of the steps, flickered in the breeze like a fire. Ben struggled with the cords binding him.
Guards chained the women to their posts. A trumpet blast wound into the sky. It seemed to jar Hawk – perhaps hurt the wing that bent a little more crookedly than the other. He side-slipped across the square in a way that made her dizzy and when she looked again the crier was at the head of the stairs shouting at the crowd. The breeze crossing the square blew his words away. ‘Witch,’ she heard, and ‘tried to kill our master’ and ‘cannot die’ and ‘forever’. There was much more. The crowd’s roar rose in a blast that tossed Hawk back across the square.
The Limping Man raised his hand and the crier fell silent. He went to Vosper’s side and sank to his knees to listen. Then he beckoned the bearers kneeling to one side. They lifted the throne and carried it to the steps, adjusted their hold, the front pair raising the poles as they went down. The Limping Man seemed to float as he descended . . . and then Hawk’s eye caught something else, making Hana dizzy again. He watched the pool. A ripple on its surface flowed from the farthest edge towards the marble head with the crying mouth. Rat, Hana thought.
Hawk? she asked.
Why did he watch?
No one in the square saw. Every eye was locked on the Limping Man as his bearers carried the throne down the steps, adjusted their hold and crossed the cobbles to where Hana slumped against the chains holding her. Hawk flicked a look and turned back to the pond. For a moment Hana thought he was going to dive at the rat as it reached the statue.
No, Hawk.
He banked lower. Something broke the surface: a grey head. It paused at the back of the statue – and Lo raised his face, took a breath and sank again.
Ha, Hana cried. She wished she had a voice. Lo had found the hole where Hari had escaped from the Company Whips. He was swimming to confront the Limping Man.
I’m going, Hawk. Stay here. Please don’t go.
She plunged down the sky into her body. The bearers reached the stake where she was chained and the Limping Man grounded his stick, bringing a sudden hush over the square. Shouts of praise burst out again as he struggled to his feet. A wind was whipping over his head and rushing down, making his robes dance and his head-dress swell. Painfully, he walked the last few steps to Hana’s stake. He flicked his hand at the crier, walking behind. The man stepped back and swelled his throat.
‘Silence,’ he cried and the crowd grew as still as water in a pond.
‘Further back, Haggie. I want to talk with her,’ said the Limping Man. He reached out and touched Hana’s cheek.
‘What a pity,’ he said.
‘Spit, Hana. Bite him,’ Ben screamed. One of the guards kicked him in the ribs.
‘I would save you if I could,’ said the Limping Man.
‘How?’ Hana whispered.
‘Easily enough. Not from death. Only pain.’
‘How?’
He smiled at her. He had the face of a kind old man, yet he was not much older than Lo. Where was Lo?
‘You should not have gone to Queenie, my dear. She didn’t know my secret. She only guessed.’
Hana wet her mouth. ‘How will you stop the pain?’
‘The witches’ way. You know the frogweed? My men will fetch some. You can chew before they light the fires. No pain, Hana. Your body will burn but you’ll be dead. All you have to do . . .’
Where was Lo?
The Limping Man gave his sweet smile. ‘. . . is worship me.’
She did not understand. Again the wind whipped into the square, swirling his robes, rocking his head-dress. Without the band holding it under his chin it would fly away. She looked into the sky. Hawk was still there. Would he dive to save her the way he had with the bounty hunter? She lost some of the Limping Man’s words.
‘. . . make you fall on your knees if I wish. But I want you to do it without compulsion. I want you to do it because I’m worthy of your love.’
‘And you’ll give me the weed?’ she whispered.
‘Yes, my dear, for you to chew. Then, no pain.’
She wanted to say yes. She wanted him to send men for the frogweed – but she remembered Mam and she could not. Again she wet her lips.
‘You are mud from the swamp,’ she said.
His soft white face turned the colour of his robes. His eyes leaked water and his pink mouth snarled, showing brown backward-sloping teeth. He raised his stick to strike her but his leg would not hold. The crier jumped to support him. A dreadful silence fell on the square.
The Limping Man pushed his face at Hana. His spittle fell on her lips. ‘Then burn and like it,’ he said. He shook Haggie off. ‘Save her till last. Let her hear the others.’ He limped to his throne. The wind puffed his robes, making him fat. Hana saw his red shoes stepping on the cobbles.
Haggie blew a trumpet blast. ‘Praise him,’ he cried.
The shout began – and changed to a huge breath of disbelief. It was like a sob. Single shouts came from the crowd. Hana twi
sted her head to see where the fingers were pointing.
Lo rose from the edge of the pond. Weed draped his shoulders. Water leaked from his hair. A green man, naked, empty handed, he stepped from the mud on to the cobbles.
‘Vosper,’ he said.
The Limping Man turned. ‘Who . . .?’ he began; then nothing more as Lo raised his hand.
‘See, Vosper, I limp like you. But I don’t want to be king and conquer worlds.’
The words were not important. The struggle had already begun. Hana saw waves of force coming from both men and roiling where they met, like muddy water and clean water.
The wind, leaping into the square, blew a deadly silence across the crowd. Lo was drawing his strength from the people, as much as they were able to give, from the forests, from the beaches, from the men and women working and dancing on the stone floor, from the sucking baby, from the cupped hands. Perhaps he also heard the voice that Hari and Pearl and Xantee had heard.
What did Vosper hear? His red angry face turned white. He leaned on his stick and did not totter, but drew strength from his worshippers. Hana felt him sucking it out of them. They drooped. They scarcely breathed. He drew it from the swamps. And somewhere else, somewhere else. Vosper heard the other voice. He seemed to swell as the wind ballooned his robes.
Hana felt the roiling increase. She saw Lo step back, find his balance on the wet cobbles, step forward again, holding his hands cupped, asking for strength. His toes gripped and his scarred leg strained. Grey-faced, lips drawn back, he fought to hold the tide rolling at him.
The dark water began to discolour the blue.
Ben, Hana pleaded. He was on his knees, pushing the little strength he had into his father. Hana added her own. Blossom too, Hubert too, groggy still, but partly released, tried to help.
It was not enough. Slowly, slowly, the Limping Man forced Lo to his knees. The cupped hands parted, spilled their life, as Lo leaned to support himself. They slid on the cobbles and he gave a cry of despair. His face banged on the stones and he lay still, except for the twitching of his crippled leg.