by Sam Meekings
‘Bad dream?’
He nodded.
I reached out my hand and led him in. He snuggled down beside me on my small patch of straw, and we lay back to back as the dark settled around us.
He would keep coming to our room whenever he could after that. We get a lot of homesick men looking for comfort, but it wasn’t like that. It was always the same: we never touched or even said a word to each other. Though I’m sure it couldn’t have escaped the other girls’ attention that we often received a visitor in the dead of night, they were kind enough to pretend not to notice. At first I told myself I let him sleep beside me because it comforted him, because it seemed to soothe away his fears. I was doing a good deed, helping a child with night terrors. But the truth was I think I needed to feel him close more than he needed me. You forget what closeness is. I don’t mean touching or squeezing or any of the stuff the customers pay extra for, and I don’t mean things like combing out the knots in the other girls’ hair. I mean real closeness. When you forget where you are and all you feel is the warmth of the body next to you.
Out in the courtyard one afternoon – it must have been a couple of weeks after he arrived, just as the weather began to turn and we expected an upturn in business – Boy asked me why he was there. I told him. He had to find out sooner or later, and it was better coming from me than from Tall or Homely.
‘It’s going to hurt the first time, but don’t give them the satisfaction of letting them know that,’ I said.
He nodded. He’d seen it happen to some of the other boys on the trip out, after they had been rounded up and their hands had been tied and their journey into the desert had begun. He shook when he told me this, bunched his knees up so high that he could lean his head on them. But still that wasn’t what he meant. He wanted to know why he was here, while all the other boys in his hometown who hadn’t ventured north and got taken by bandits were still outside playing, waiting for their daddies to come home so that they could have their dinner.
‘He never gave me a beating except when I stole food or said something really bad. Once I took my sister’s dress and hid it up a tree – just for a joke, you know, because my brother dared me – and my father gave me such a walloping I was howling like a girl by the end of it. My legs really stung, but I knew what it was for. But what’s this for? What have I done?’
I didn’t know what to tell him. I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve it either. Maybe I ought to have told him that he shouldn’t even listen to those kind of thoughts because all they do is sink your heart in quicksand, but the surest way to make a child keep doing something is to tell him not to do so, so I had to think carefully about what I said. In the end I told him that sometimes we just have to do things we don’t like, and later we’ll get something back in return. I told him everything balances out in the end, even if it doesn’t seem that way now. I didn’t believe a word of it, but I said it anyway, and at least it stopped him asking any more questions.
He was in pretty bad shape after his first party. I stayed up all night after our guests had fallen asleep, trying to comfort him and stop his sobs from waking any of them and getting us in real trouble. We were sitting in the courtyard amidst the half-empty clay cups and the greasy mutton bones, huddled together in a pile of blankets. I was stroking Boy’s hair and telling him about my first moons here and how I got through them and all the silly tantrums the girls had and anything else that came into my head to take his mind away from his ache, and I think I had just got him calm when we heard the moan. He nuzzled in closer and we waited a few minutes in the freezing darkness, wondering if we would hear it again. After a while we caught it: a long, drawn-out rasp stretching into the night.
‘Don’t worry, I think it’s probably just a wounded dog, lost in the dark,’ I whispered.
‘If it’s hurt, shouldn’t we help it?’
I wasn’t sure what to say. I had expected him to ask whether it might be dangerous, or if it might be some wolf or vengeful spirit or wild man come to tear chunks of flesh from our shivering bodies. But he was right. If this thing – whatever it was – was hurt, then we could hardly just sit around and listen to it slowly die. Neither of us could have stomached that. I got to my feet.
‘Stay here,’ I whispered.
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘I can help. If it’s hurt, I can help.’
I didn’t bother arguing. He took my hand and we tiptoed out of the courtyard and onto the dirt track leading to the gate, the blankets still clutched about our shoulders and our bare feet scuffing through the frosty mud. The moon was pulsing down, threatening to burst and flood the sky with yellow light. A spluttered, phlegmy cough echoed out from somewhere below us, and we picked our way down the track towards it. It obviously heard us coming, because as we got closer there was a shuffling and the clatter of wood. By then I knew it wasn’t any kind of wild dog, but I didn’t want to scare Boy, so I said nothing. The rocks crunched and spat as whatever it was skidded further down.
We spotted him lying gasping for breath in a thin ditch between one of the weed-tacked ridges and dips. He must have been about Tiger’s age, though he looked older at the time, his face flecked with dust and grime, his grubby beard slick with sweat. It was easy to see from his round cheeks and narrow eyes that he was, like Claws, from the middle kingdom. A long way from home. He wore the last tattered scales of leather armour over his mud-stained robe, and a bulky wooden box was strapped to his back. When he saw us above him he started to scramble away again, his elbows hauling the rest of his body down through the dirt. His exertions achieved little, however, and he soon gave up and collapsed into the mud. I put a hand to Boy’s chest, stopping us a few paces away from the panting man. One of his calves was a mangled knot of frayed muscles and flapping skin. The dirty white of what I guessed had to be bone burned out in the moonlight and the foot beneath it twitched like a lizard’s tail.
He lay there breathing heavily as we edged closer and raised a hand to the box on his back. Two of his fingers were missing and his thumb was twisted backward at the joint. His eyes met mine.
‘Please,’ he whimpered. I was right – he was from the middle kingdom. But then how had he ended up here on his own?
I wasn’t sure what to do. We couldn’t just leave him here and turn back. Could we?
‘Please.’
I took a step forward and squatted down, close to his face. Dribble was slithering out over his cracked lip.
‘You’re hurt. Who did this to you?’
His eyes darted around and he spoke again, a jumble of frantic syllables that I had trouble following.
‘We’ve got those two spare huts up at the top,’ Boy said, and I noticed he had crouched down beside me.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘They’re sick rooms.’
‘He looks pretty sick.’
‘But it’s too dangerous.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we don’t know who he is.’
‘So?’
‘So I said no.’
‘Why?’
I was about to send him back up with a stern warning when I saw the look on his face, that little gleam of excitement and animation that only a few minutes ago had been obscured by tears.
I sighed. ‘Are you going to keep on like this if we don’t take him back with us?’
‘Yep.’
‘Then I suppose we don’t have a choice.’
I bound one of the blankets round the man’s bloody leg, but he pushed Boy’s hand away when he tried to take the box from his back. In the end Boy and I took an arm each and hauled him up as he balanced on his good leg, then let him lean across both of us as he limped back up the track. We had to stop for him to catch his breath four or five times, and by the time we passed by the entrance gate he was almost unconscious. We tiptoed so as not to wake the snoring cook and his snoring camels and shouldered open one of the wooden huts to dump the bearded man on a
reeking pile of straw and musty old blankets in the middle of the floor. The wooden box fell at his side. Pulling Boy out of the hut, I swung the door closed and bolted it from the outside. If he was carrying any secrets or dangers with him – and really, what else would an injured man making some kind of desperate journey across the hills in the middle of the night be carrying? – then I didn’t want them spilling out.
The song the desert sings is a song of regret. You can hear it when the wind carries through the sand. It is a song for the seasons that pass and a song for the things that you couldn’t change. Once you’ve heard it, the song slips into some part of your body and stays there, and you hear it again whenever you’re least expecting it. Perhaps it creeps in through those holes in the heart Silk told me about. Perhaps I’m just being silly. But the things that you should have done, the things you didn’t do – they stay with you. It’s as though I spend half my time living in the mirror of my life, where everything turned out a little bit differently. And maybe that’s why I did what Boy suggested without worrying too much about what might happen later on. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to leave the bearded man to die out there. Better for me, better for Claws, and probably better for the man himself in the long run.
Waking the next morning, listening to the previous evening’s guests saddling up and joking about money well spent, I thought perhaps I had imagined the whole thing. But what if I hadn’t? I knew the other girls would do the same thing I always did after a late party – doze away until their stomachs called them up for lunch. I pulled on a warm robe and ventured out into the chilly morning.
The cook was scrubbing a pile of dirty bowls, the last of the breakfast broth going cold in his big clay urn. Apart from him, the place was deserted. I took a bowl and tried to think of a way to get into the hut to tell the bearded man to get out of here before anyone noticed.
‘Those camels are looking a little famished,’ I said.
‘Huh?’ the cook grunted.
‘The camels. I was saying they look a little peckish. There’s still some good grazing lower down the hill, isn’t there?’
He shrugged. ‘Might be.’
‘Only their milk won’t be good if they don’t get enough to eat, will it?’
He dropped the dirty bowl he was holding into the water bucket and looked up at me. ‘They can survive forty days without a single bite. That’s why they live in these hellish places. Anyway, don’t try and send me packing from my own home, girl – I know what you’re up to. Whatever your guest is doing in that sick room, I don’t want to know. But let me tell you something. You better tell him to pack his bags and crawl back off to wherever he came from before the mistress finds out you’ve been handing out freebies. Understand?’
I nodded, and he went back to the washing. Once I had scooped up a bowlful of broth I carried it over to the little wooden hut. The bearded man was going to need a hearty breakfast if he was to hobble out of here before the others got up. I unbolted the door and slid in, shutting it behind me as quickly as I could.
He seemed to be asleep, his eyes scrunched shut and his lips jiggering up and down as if in some silent conversation. One hand was still pressed to the wooden box that lay beside him on the straw bed. I knelt down beside him, but when I prodded him awake he spluttered something incomprehensible and struggled away from me.
‘It’s all right, I’ve brought you some breakfast.’
He looked at me suspiciously. Did he understand what I was saying? Claws had stopped giving us lessons after the incident with Silk, so perhaps my language skills were getting a bit rusty. Or maybe his brain was just completely addled. There was caked blood on the old blanket I had wrapped around his leg, and the smell of rotten meat hung about the room.
‘Food.’ I said as slowly and clearly as I could, rubbing my stomach to show him what I meant. ‘Yum yum. You eat.’
With his good hand he reached out and took the bowl, raising it nervously to his lips. After a few cautious swigs he drained the whole thing in a couple of gulps.
‘Good. Now, you go.’
He looked at me quizzically. I pointed outside.
‘Go. You can go now. Bye bye.’
I tried to pull him up but he groaned in pain. ‘Please.’
His good hand caught mine. He moved it under his shirt to a small purse tied round his neck. It was heavy with silver. I pulled my hand away and shook my head.
‘No. I can’t. She’ll kill me.’
He pointed at his leg. ‘Please.’
‘Listen, I’m sorry, I really —’
I was interrupted by a clatter of bowls and a yelp, and I knew that the Empress was up in the courtyard. Though I briefly entertained the idea of hiding him under the sheets, I knew there was nothing to do now but own up and try to make sure she didn’t find out that Boy was involved. I got up and swung the door open just in time to see the cook clutching his head, his washing bucket upturned at his feet and the Empress’s blubbery jowls glowing red above him.
‘Listen, I can explain. He’s not a customer, I’m not serving him. You can come in and see. I spotted him when I went out to the bushes last night. He’s hurt pretty badly.’
She wobbled towards me, the loose rolls of flab on her arms jiggling as she shook her meaty fist.
‘Don’t you take that tone with me! I hope you haven’t forgotten who is in charge here.’
I ducked back into the hut and watched her squeeze through the doorway. The bearded man tried a smile. It was the wrong tactic.
‘What are you grinning about? Do you really think you can come in here and mess around with my property without paying? Who do you think you are?’
‘No, mistress, please, it’s not like that. He hasn’t touched me. I only let him sleep here because he’s hurt. Look.’
I knelt back down and unwound the blanket to show her the ripped flesh and muscle of his leg. The smell alone made both of us gag. The Empress covered her nose.
‘I see, you just brought him here to stink the whole place up. Ugh! Get him out of here now, and we’ll forget about the whole thing. Is that fair?’
I nodded, though I was unsure of how to get him back up on his feet again. Luckily the bearded man came to my rescue, his good hand reaching inside his robe once again to pull a coin from his hidden purse.
‘Please.’ He held out the coin.
‘Hmm. What does he want? Can’t he speak?’
The bearded man coughed, then mimed rubbing his torn leg and sleeping.
I decided to make a guess. ‘I think maybe he wants a herbman to make him better. And to rest here a while.’
The Empress narrowed her eyes.
‘Herbmen aren’t cheap. And bed and food will need to be paid for too.’
This time the bearded man seemed to understand. He fished around for another silver coin and put it in the Empress’s outstretched palm.
He put his finger to his lips.
‘A secret. Who are you hiding from? Those are war clothes, aren’t they? Let me guess, you’re a deserter. Well, silence costs extra, I’m afraid.’
A third coin appeared, and the Empress nodded curtly, before pulling me outside the door and bolting it behind us. She warned me not to lie with him whatever he offered, because we didn’t know where he was from or what kind of dirty diseases he’d picked up. Before she retired to her room, the Empress told me that she would arrange for me to meet the herbman at the gate at sunrise the following day.
I expected Claws to be at least a little excited when I told her we had a new lodger from her part of the world, but she just shrugged. She wasn’t going to visit him, she said, and she didn’t wish to hear any more about him. I suppose she just didn’t want to be reminded of all the parts of her life she had been forced to leave behind. Ever since her fight with Silk, she had been quiet and reserved, as if all she wanted to do now was forget who she was and what she had once been. Crow’s feet had pinched her eyes into permanent squints, and these days she
couldn’t even be bothered to knot her robe tightly to keep her breasts from drooping down over her belly. She always sat with the rest of us, but she wasn’t one of the girls anymore, and instead of joining in with our bits of gossip or fantasies she would stare at Boy as he played with a spare bit of camel rope, leading it in circles as if it was attached to some invisible animal. Wherever her heart had gone, it no longer had any use for words. She was scorched earth, buckled and broken.
Silk’s new power hadn’t helped her foretell the soldier’s arrival, but she explained that away, saying that just because she hadn’t correctly identified the signs, it didn’t mean she hadn’t seen them. It got me wondering how he could have made it here all the way from the middle kingdom without being captured by bandits or dying of hunger. Was he running away from something or heading towards some place? His wounds were pretty recent – whatever had done that to him couldn’t be that far away. I tried not to worry, but I knew that if something went wrong the Empress would be sure to blame me.
The girls and I took whispered bets on what was in his box. Silk said silver, of course, or some kind of jewellery. Tiger ventured that he probably had the head of a prince he was bringing to an enemy tribe for a reward, and that was why his room stank so much. Boy joined in and said he thought the soldier had some of the emperor’s magic in there, that it was just bursting to escape and change us all into dragons. Everyone laughed at me when I suggested that maybe he had a handful of earth from his hometown to stop him getting lonely wherever he was heading to. In the end I agreed with Silk. Men will do anything for money.
It was still dark when I woke up the next morning, and the other girls were snoring. Boy was lying on his side next to me, his knees tucked up to his chest. I listened to his slow, restive breaths, drawing strength from them, until I knew I couldn’t wait any longer, and I shivered my way out into the ice-sparked dark. I stood huddled in my bulky robes and blanket at the gate waiting for the herbman. He was an old, balding man with a stern, pinched face. His young, pockmarked assistant helped him down from the donkey and we started up the trail to the hut.