Nation

by Terry Pratchett

  CHAPTER 12

  Cannon and Politics

  MAU SAT DOWN ON a god stone.

  “Where is Cox now, do you think?”

  “I hope to goodness the wave drowned him!” said Daphne. “I know I shouldn’t, but I do.”

  “And you fear that it did not,” said Mau. It wasn’t a question.

  “That’s true. I think it would take more than a wave. Hah, Foxlip said he killed Cox. That was just because he wanted to look big, I’m sure. But Polegrave said something about Cox having cannibal chums. Could that happen?”

  “I don’t know. The Raiders kill for glory and skulls. You say he kills for no reason. He kills things because they are alive. He sounds like a bad dream, a monster. They will not know what to make of him.”

  “Soup?” Daphne suggested.

  “I doubt it,” said Mau. “A cannibal has to be careful who he eats. Milo would make them strong, Pilu would give them a magic voice, and I would give them…indigestion. Who would want to eat a madman?”

  Daphne shuddered. “Just so long as they don’t eat me!”

  “No, they would never eat a woman,” said Mau.

  “That’s very gentlemanly of them!”

  “They would feed you to their wives, so that they become beautiful.”

  There was one of those pauses that are icy-cold and red-hot at the same time. It was stuffed with soundless words, words that should not be said, or said another time, or in a different way, or could be said or needed to be said but couldn’t be said, and they would go on tumbling through the pause forever, or until one of them fell out—

  “Ahem,” said Daphne, and all the other words escaped forever. Much later, and many times, she wondered about what might have happened if she hadn’t chosen a word that clearly belonged to her grandmother. And that was that. For some people, there is only one right moment for the right word. This is sad, but there seems to be nothing that can be done about it. “Well, I don’t see him being eaten by anybody, or even left on the side of the plate,” she went on quickly, to drown out the last echoes of “Ahem” in her head. “I’m sure the captain was right when he said Cox will take over any vessel that finds him, like an disease. It’s amazing what you can do if you don’t care who you kill. And he will kill. Those two were sent as scouts, I’m sure of it. And that means he’s found a bigger boat.”

  “The boat they came in is still here, but a canoe was stolen last night,” said Mau. “I think we are not good at understanding this sort of thing.”

  “I don’t think it will make any difference.”

  “That’s true. The Raiders are following—hunting the survivors. They will get here sooner or later. But I want to—”

  “Er…”

  It was a small boy. Daphne could not remember his name but he was hopping up and down like someone who does not want to intrude but needs to, well, intrude.

  “Yes, Hoti?” said Mau.

  “Er…please, they say they are running out of thorns to fence the big field,” said the child nervously.

  “Run and tell them there is a big stand to the west of the Grandfathers’ cave.” As the boy ran off, Mau shouted after him, “Tell them I said to cut the lengths much longer! It’s a waste to cut them short!”

  “You must defend your island,” said Daphne.

  He reacted as if he’d been struck. “Do you think I won’t, ghost girl? Do you think that?”

  “It’s not just your people! You must defend your gods!”

  “What? How can you say this to me?”

  “Not the metaphysical…the ones with the god stones and the sacrifices and all the rest of it! I mean the statues and all the other things in the cave!”

  “Those? Just more stones. Worthless…stuff.”

  “No! No, they aren’t worthless. They tell you who you are!” She sagged a little. Things had been quite busy lately, and “ghost girl” said so sharply had hurt. It did. Of course, they all called her ghost girl, even Mau sometimes, and it had never worried her. But this time it told her to go away, trouserman girl, you are not one of us.

  She pulled herself together. “You didn’t look. You didn’t see what I saw in the cave! You remember Air, Fire, and Water all with their globes? And the headless statue?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Mau, putting his head in his hands.

  “Pardon?”

  “I’ve upset you. I know when you’re upset. Your face goes shiny, and then you try to act as if nothing has happened. I’m sorry I shouted. It’s all been…well, you know.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  They sat in the silence you get when thoughts are too tangled to become words. Then Daphne coughed.

  “Anyway, you saw the broken one? And that arm sticking out of the water?”

  “Yes. I saw everything,” said Mau, but he was watching a woman hurrying toward them.

  “No! You didn’t! The air was getting too foul! The broken statue had been holding something. I found it while you were arguing with Ataba. It was the world. The world turned upside down. Come and see.” She took his hand in hers and pulled him toward the path up the mountain. “Everyone must see! It’s very—”

  “Yes, Cara?” said Mau to the woman, who was now hovering where she was sure to be noticed.

  “I’m to tell you the river’s gone all cloudy,” the woman said, with a nervous look at Daphne.

  “A pig’s got into the east meadows and is wallowing in the spring,” said Mau, standing up. “I will go and—”

  “You are going to come with me!” shouted Daphne. The woman backed away quickly as Daphne turned and went on, “Get a stick and walk up to the valley until you find a pig in the water and prod the pig! It’s not hard! Mau, you are the chief. What I want to show you is not about pigs! It’s important….”

  “Pigs are impor—”

  “This is more important than pigs! I want you to come and see!”

  By the end of the day everyone saw, if only for a few minutes. People moving up and down the long cave were shifting the air around, and it was nothing like as foul as it had been, but the lamps were used a lot. Every single lamp from the Judy had been pressed into service.

  “The world,” said Mau, staring. “It’s a ball? But we don’t fall off?”

  The ghost girl seemed to be on fire with words. “Yes, yes, and you know this! You know the story about the brother who sailed so far he came back home?”

  “Of course. Every child knows it.”

  “I think people from this island sailed around the world, a long, long time ago. You remembered, but over the years it became a story for little children.”

  Even down in the dark, Mau thought. He ran a hand over what Daphne called “the globe,” the biggest one, which had rolled onto the floor when the statue had broken. Imo’s globe. The World. He let his fingertips just brush the stone. It came up to his chin.

  So this is the world, he thought, his fingers following a line of gleaming gold across the stone. There were a lot of these lines, and they all led to the same place—or, rather, away from it, as though some giant had thrown spears around the world. And he was my ancestor, Mau told himself as he lightly touched the familiar symbol that told him this was no place built by trousermen. His people carved the stone. His people carved the gods.

  In his memory he could hear the spirit of Ataba, roaring, “That doesn’t mean a thing, demon boy! The gods themselves guided their tools.” And Mau thought, Well, it means something to me. Yes, it means a lot.

  “Your land was a big place, as big as Crete, I think,” said the ghost girl behind him. “I’ll show you Crete on the map later. Your people went everywhere! Mostly Africa and China and the middle Americas, and you know what? I think Jon Croll’s theory about the ice sheets is right! I went to his lecture at the Royal Society. That’s why so much of Europe and North America is just not there—er, not because he gave his lecture, I mean, but because it was covered in ice! Do you know what ice is? Oh. Well, it’s when water goes very cold un
til it becomes like crystal. Anyway, the other end of the world was a snowball, but down here it was still warm, and you did amazing things!”

  “Ice,” murmured Mau. He felt as if he was on an unfamiliar sea, with no map and no familiar smells, while her voice washed over him. The globe was a kind of map, like the Judy’s charts. Where his island was now, where all the islands in the chain had been, it showed a mighty land, made of gold. People from here had sailed everywhere. And then…something had happened. The gods got angry, as Ataba had said, or as the ghost girl said, the crystal world of the trousermen melted. It meant the same thing. The sea rose.

  If he closed his eyes, he could see the white buildings under the sea. Had it come in a rush, that great wave? Did the land shake and the mountains catch fire? It must have been sudden, because the water rose and the land became a pattern of islands, and the world changed.

  “When the world was otherwise,” he whispered.

  He sat down on the edge of what everyone was calling the god pool. His mind was too full of thoughts; he needed a bigger head. The…ancestors had brought the milk stone here and used it to make steps and wall carvings and gods, perhaps all out of the same piece of stone. And there was the broken statue of Imo. His head was probably in the depths of the pool. Imo had fallen, and so had the world.

  Something had been returned. The Nation had been old, older than the reef, she was saying. The people of the Nation had sailed beyond the seas they knew, under unfamiliar stars.

  He looked up and saw unfamiliar stars. The light shifted as groups of people moved around the hall. The roof glittered, just like statues. They were made of glass, she’d said. They looked like stars in the night sky, but they were not his stars. They were crystal stars, stars of a different sky.

  “I want the right people to see this,” said Daphne behind him.

  “The right people are seeing it,” said Mau.

  After a few moments’ silence he heard the girl say, “I’m sorry. I meant that there are learned men in the Royal Society who could tell us what it means.”

  “Are they priests?” asked Mau suspiciously.

  “No. Very much no! In fact some of them don’t get on with priests at all. But they search for answers.”

  “Good. Send them here. But I know what this place means. My ancestors wanted to tell us that they were here—that’s what it means,” said Mau. He could feel the tears welling up, but what was propelling them was a fierce, burning pride. “Send your wise trousermen,” he said, trying not to let his voice shake, “and we will welcome the brothers who traveled to the other end of the world, and came back at last to the place they had left behind. I am not stupid, ghost girl. If we sailed to those places long ago, wouldn’t we have settled there? And when your learned men come here, we will say to them: The world is a globe—the farther you sail, the closer to home you are.”

  He could barely see Daphne in the gloom, but when she spoke her voice was shaking. “I will tell you something even more amazing,” she said. “All around the world people have carved stones into gods. All around the world. And all around the world people have said that the planets are gods, as well. But your ancestors knew things that nobody else knew. Mau, the god of Air has four little figures sitting on his shoulders. They are his sons, yes? They raced around their father to see which of them would court the woman who lives in the Moon? It’s in the beer song.”

  “And what do you want to tell me about them?”

  “We call the Air planet Jupiter. Jupiter has four moons that race around it. I’ve seen them in my telescope at home! And then there is Saturn, which you call Fire. The Papervine Woman tied his hands to his belt to stop the god from stealing her daughters, yes?”

  “It’s just another god story for babies. I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true. Oh, well. In a way—I don’t know about the Papervine Woman, but the planet Saturn has rings around it, and I suppose they do look like a belt when you see them at the right angle.”

  “It’s just a story.”

  “No! It’s been turned into a story. The moons are real! So are the rings! Your ancestors saw them, and I wish I knew how. Then they made up these songs and mothers sing them to their children! That’s how the knowledge gets passed down, except that you didn’t know it was knowledge! See how the gods shine? There are little plates of glass all over them. Your ancestors made glass. I’ve got an idea about that, too. Mau, when my father comes and I get back home, this place will be the most famous cave in—”

  It was horrible to watch her face change. It went from a kind of desperate excitement to dark despair, in gentle slow motion. It was as though a shadow had drifted across a landscape.

  He caught her before she fell, and he felt her tears on his skin. “He will come,” he said quickly. “There is so much ocean.”

  “But he would know the course of the Judy, and this is a big island! He should have gotten here by now!”

  “The ocean is much bigger. And there was the wave! He could be looking south, thinking the Judy capsized. He could be looking north, in case you were swept along. Oh, he will come. We must be ready.” Mau patted her on the back and looked down. The children, who had soon gotten fed up with looking at big dark things they didn’t understand, had gathered around and were watching them with interest. He tried to shoo them away.

  The sobbing stopped. “What was that little boy holding?” said Daphne hoarsely.

  Mau beckoned the child over and borrowed the new toy from him. Daphne stared at it and started to laugh. It was more like a panting noise, in fact, the noise made by someone too astonished to draw breath. She managed to say: “Where did he get these, please?”

  “He says Uncle Pilu gave them to him. He has been diving in the god pool.”

  Uncle Pilu, Daphne noted. There were lots of uncles and aunts on the island now, and not many mothers and fathers.

  “Tell the little boy I will give him an arm’s length of sugarcane for them,” she said, “and he can stretch his arm as long as he likes. Is that a trade?”

  “Well, he’s grinning,” said Mau. “I think just hearing the word sugarcane was enough!”

  “A mountain of sugar would not have been enough.” Daphne held up her purchase. “Shall I tell you what these are? They were made by someone who did not just watch the skies and sail to new lands. He thought about small things that make life better for people. I’ve never heard of them being made of gold before, but these are definitely false teeth!”

  When she was a lot older and had to deal with meetings all the time, Daphne remembered the council of war. It was probably the only one ever to have children running around in it. It was certainly the only one to have Mrs. Gurgle scuttling around in it with her new teeth. She had snatched them out of Daphne’s hand when she was demonstrating them to Cahle, and it was impossible to get anything off Mrs. Gurgle if she didn’t want you to take it. They were too big for her, and almost certainly she couldn’t eat with them, but if she opened her mouth in daylight, it was like looking at the sun.

  Pilu did most of the talking, but always with one eye on Mau. He talked so fast and hard that the words formed pictures in front of her eyes, and what she saw was the Agincourt speech from Henry V, or at least what it might have been like if Shakespeare had been small and dark and worn a little loincloth instead of trousers, or tights in Shakespeare’s case. But there was a lot more in there, and Pilu had one wonderful talent for a speaker: He began with the truth and then he hammered it out until it was very thin but gleamed like Mrs. Gurgle’s new teeth at noon.

  They were the oldest people! He told them their ancestors had invented canoes and sailed them under new skies, to land so far away they ended up back home! And they had seen farther than any other people! They had seen the four sons of Air race across the sky! They had seen the Papervine Woman lash her vines around the Fire god! They had built wondrous devices, back in the long ago, when the world was otherwise!

  But now bad men were coming!
They were very bad men indeed! So Imo himself had sent them the Sweet Judy, the first ship ever built, which had come back on the great wave, carrying everything they would need in this dark time, including the wonderful salt-pickled beef and the ghost girl, who knows the secrets of the sky and makes wonderful beer—

  Daphne blushed at this and tried to catch Mau’s eye, but he looked away.

  And Pilu was shouting, “And with the help of the Sweet Judy we shall blow the Raiders across the seas!”

  Oh no, she thought, he knows about the cannon! He’s found the Judy’s cannon.

  There was cheering as Pilu finished. People surrounded Mau.

  There had always been wars, even among the local islands. From what she could work out, they were mostly not much worse than a fight among the stableboys and a good way of getting impressive scars and a story to exaggerate for your grandchildren. And there were often raids from one island to another to steal brides, but since the women arranged it all beforehand, they hardly counted.

  But…cannon! She’d seen gun drill on the Judy, and even Cox handled them with care. There was one right way of firing a cannon, and lots of wonderfully explosive ways of getting it wrong.

  When the crowd was gathering around Pilu for some patriotic singing, Daphne strode up to Mau and glared at him.

  “How many cannon?” she demanded.

  “Milo has found five,” said Mau. “We are going to put them on the hill above the beach. Yes, I know what you’re going to say, but the brothers know how to use them.”

  “Really? They might have watched! Pilu thinks he knows how to read, but mostly he just guesses!”

  “The cannon give us hope. We know who we are now. We are not beggars outside the trouserman world. We are not children. Once we were the bold sailors, all the way to the other end of the world. Perhaps we wore the trousers.”

  “Er, I think Pilu might have been going too far with that—”

  “No, he is clever. Should he tell them the truth? Should he tell them that all I’ve got is a few things I know and a handful of guesses and a big hope, and that we are so weak, and that if I am wrong, those of us not dead by sunset on the day the Raiders attack will wish they were? That will only make them fear. If a lie will make us strong, a lie will be my weapon.” He sighed. “People want lies to live by. They cry out for them. Have you looked at the Judy lately? I must show you something.”