Here in the great light-filled spaces beneath the jewelled domes, where no objects, no items of furniture, no curtains, no lamps, were permitted to interrupt the glowing emptiness, the huge figure of the Master was striding up and down, violin to his shoulder, bow sawing on the strings, leading his private orchestra and chorus. The musicians stood, their eyes on the Master, accompanying him from memory. The chorus waited in silence, their eyes also following the Master, all swivelling at once as he swept past them and back again. Over to one side stood two patient figures, one with a large book in his hands, the other with a bucket and mop. The man with the book was Meeron Graff, Keeper of the Master’s Household. The other was Spalian, the Master’s personal servant.
The sweet chords of the strings gave way to sonorous brass, as the Master, lifting his bow, turned to greet his visitor. Striding down the cavernous space, eyes half-closed, bearded face uplifted, his bow now striking the air, the Master commanded great climbing flourishes of trumpets, and piled on mountain ranges of drumbeats, before returning to his own instrument, and with a breathtaking display of vaulting notes, drew the composition to a close in a mighty final chord.
Ortiz stood still and marvelled. The Master was bareheaded, his shaggy mane of white hair falling about his shoulders, his great grey eyes alight with the passion of the music. How often Ortiz had gazed on that noble face! In that generous brow he saw wisdom, in that great jutting nose he saw power of will, in those broad and ruddy cheeks he saw kindness. How old was the Master? No one knew. Perhaps sixty, perhaps more. He was as vigorous as ever, as strong in his appetites, and as loving. It was said that the Master had only to look into your eyes to know the secrets of your heart. But Ortiz had no secrets from him. He had been brought to the Mastery as a tiny child, after the death of his father. The Master was the only father he had ever known. Everything he did was done to win his approval and his love.
Now the last vibrations of the music died away, and the musicians lowered their instruments. The Master let his violin fall from his shoulder, and beckoned. Ortiz stepped forward, and prostrated himself on the floor before him.
‘Up, boy! Up!’
Ortiz rose.
‘You’ve done well.’
‘To please you, Master.’
The Master nodded. ‘Walk with me.’
He turned and strode over the echoing floor. This was how the Master was always to be found, pacing the upper levels, violin in hand, his eyes on the far mountains or the lake or the boundless sky. He hated crowds and silence, walls and stillness: so he was always in motion, always surrounded by great space. It was as if his outsize figure could not be contained in any ordinary room.
‘Your new slaves are being well looked after?’
‘Yes, Master.’
‘Reward and punishment.’
‘Yes, Master.’
‘The Manth were a fine people once. A people of great gifts. And now . . . You should study history. It humbles us all.’
‘Yes, Master.’
‘After the cruelty, the kindness. At present they hate me. In time they will love me.’
‘All your people love you, Master.’
‘Of course they do. It’s a natural human instinct, to love those in power. It needs very little encouragement.’
He was looking out of the wide windows at the city beyond. Two pigeons fluttered down to alight on a parapet outside. They were both silver-grey, but one had a white breast. The Master studied them with interest.
‘You see the two birds out there? The white breast will fly away first. My dinner on it!’
He moved closer to the window and waved the bow of his violin. The pigeons took to the air, the white-breasted one in the lead. The Master boomed out a great laugh.
‘There! I shall eat tonight after all!’
Ortiz said nothing. There were many things the Master did and said that he didn’t understand. It was safer to make no comment.
‘I lose as often as I win, you know? Not so long ago I lost five wagers in a row. Didn’t eat for two days.’
He laughed again, and looked at Ortiz.
‘Why do you think I do that?’
‘To train your will, Master?’
‘Not bad, not bad. I do it to keep myself in check. I have absolute power. No one can command me. Therefore I must command myself. I make my little wagers, and if I lose, I pay. How old are you?’
The personal question shot out without warning.
‘Twenty-one, Master.’
‘Do you think of marrying?’
Ortiz controlled the excitement that came surging up within him.
‘Yes, Master. When the time is right.’
‘The time? Not the person?’
‘And the person, Master.’
‘There is a royal party approaching our borders. The ruler of our neighbour empire has asked that our two countries be joined in marriage. He offers his daughter. I am to offer my son. You know all this?’
‘Yes, Master.’
‘It seems I am in need of a son.’
Suddenly the Master came to a dead stop. He reached out his violin and his bow for Meeron Graff to take, and bellowed,
‘Stand clear!’
Ortiz stepped back. The Master hitched up his robes, opened his britches, and urinated in a long powerful stream over the smooth stone floor.
‘Aaah!’ he said with evident satisfaction. ‘One of life’s unfailing pleasures. The summons so imperious, the release so sweet! Spalian!’
His servant had not waited to be called. Hardly had the Master finished emptying his bladder when Spalian was before him with bucket and mop. The members of the orchestra and chorus looked aside, pretending they had seen nothing. Within moments, the puddle on the floor was gone, the stone flags buffed clean and dry, and the Master had taken back his violin.
‘A perfectly disgusting habit, isn’t it?’ he said to Ortiz, as Spalian departed to empty his bucket. ‘Like an animal. Why do I do it?’
‘Another of your ways to keep yourself in check, Master?’
‘Very good. So it is. No one dares criticise me, you see. I must criticise myself. But for what? Everything I do, I do for the best. So – I piss on the floor! Disgusting! Like an animal! I’m ashamed of myself! Do you see?’
He threw his violin to his shoulder, and as if in illustration of his self-disgust, played a sequence of angry notes, chasing each other up the scale.
‘I think so, Master,’ said Ortiz.
The violin was lowered again.
‘So where were we? Marriage. You’d better go and take a look at her. See if she’ll do for you.’
‘Master! Is it your wish – am I to assume –?’
‘Well? What?’
‘You yourself just said, Master, that you’re in need of a son.’
‘So I am. Someone must marry the girl.’
‘And you think that I –?’
Ortiz couldn’t bring himself to speak the words. The Master stared at him, eyebrows raised, waiting for the rest. Then he burst out laughing again.
‘Yes, yes, I’m thinking of you, boy. Of course I am. But don’t get too excited. I may name you as my son. You may marry the girl. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be Master after me. It takes more to do what I do than marrying a princess.’
‘I know that, Master.’
‘You’re not big enough for that job. Not yet.’
He smiled affectionately at Ortiz, and slapped his own enormous belly.
‘I shall grow, Master.’
‘Good answer. Well, one step at a time, eh? Go and look at the girl. See if you can stand her. Then we’ll decide.’
‘Yes, Master.’
‘Off you go, then! Brush up your tantaraza, eh?’
‘Yes, Master!’
‘And look after those Manth slaves. They’ll serve us well.’
The Manth people, in their various places of work all over the Mastery, soon found that their skills were noticed, and put to good use. Scooch remain
ed as a lowly dough-mixer for just one day. He was now established in his own pastry bakery, with three trainee assistants under him. Miko Mimilith the tailor worked up some garments that attracted attention, and now he was busy making a dress for a fine lady from the High Domain. He described his design to the others in the barracks.
‘Just a simple sheath, but with a high neck, and a train. There’s a loop of material sewn to the train that she slips over her wrist, so that the train moves with her as she walks.’
He demonstrated, swaying slightly from side to side, exaggerating the movement of his hips, so that everyone laughed.
‘Swish, swish, swish,’ he said, to show the moving of the train.
Creoth was given charge of a small herd of milk cows.
‘I know every one of them,’ he declared, ‘and I’ve given them all names. Whiteface, Tawny, Dreamer, Hop. Cherub, Angel, Cloud. Clumper, Stumper, Star . . .’
Mumpo had left them, to live at the training school. He was to make his debut at the manaxa to celebrate the coming wedding. Pinto missed him badly: all the more so because she was now made to go to school every day, and she didn’t like it. The other children were happy enough, because they had been given a new exercise book each, and a new pencil-case, with four pencils in it, and an eraser and a ruler. The pencils were all beautifully sharpened. Dr Batch told them they were to keep them sharp, and he would inspect them every day. ‘Dull pencils for dull writing,’ he said. ‘We want sharp pencils for sharp thoughts.’
Pinto hated having to sharpen her pencils, without quite knowing why. Her companions put it down to her being a Hath, and having a peculiar mother. Once more, as in the old days of Aramanth, the Hath family seemed to be out of step with the rest. Alone among the slaves, they were not settling down to their new life, nor were they taking advantage of the new opportunities.
Hanno Hath went on stacking books at the depository. Ira Hath refused to be moved to a more demanding job than laundry seamstress. She didn’t speak of it to anyone, but she felt she was growing weaker. When she prophesied now, it was in a quieter voice. However, few people listened to her any more. They knew she only ever said the same thing.
‘O unhappy people!’ they told each other, mimicking her prophetess voice behind her back. ‘Seek the homeland. The wind is rising!’
They laughed, and flapped their arms up and down, pretending her wind was blowing them away.
‘It doesn’t matter whether they listen or not,’ said Hanno. ‘What matters is that you prophesy. Let your voice be heard. If all they do is laugh at us, well, we can bear that, I think.’
Bowman too remained at his humble post as night-watchman. Here as the cows grazed and later slept, watched by the silent grey cat who always accompanied him, he listened for Kestrel’s slow approach and practised his secret powers. Ever since the visit of the hermit, he had known that he was destined to destroy the great power that ruled all their lives. So every night, alone in the pasture, he worked away at his mind control exercises as steadily as an athlete in training to run a champion’s race.
One night while he was engaged in this way, he heard a voice calling to him from the darkness.
‘Bowman! Are you there?’
‘Yes. I’m here.’
A slight figure appeared, loping over the night-damp grass. It was Rufy Blesh. He joined Bowman in the circle of lamplight. He looked at the cat, and the sleeping cows, and the distant dark lake.
‘This is what you do all night? Just sit here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is this what you’re going to do for the rest of your life?’
‘I hope not.’
‘Well, it is. Unless you do something about it.’
Bowman could feel the restless anger in him. Rufy was not a safe person to confide in.
‘We have to wait, Rufy.’
‘Wait for what? Wait for how long? Until we’re all old? Aren’t you ashamed of every single day you live here?’
‘There’s nothing we can do. You know how they punish us. You know the price we’d pay.’
‘Yes, I know.’ He became excited. ‘Don’t you see? That’s how they make us enslave ourselves. I’ve been thinking about it, and there’s only one answer. We can only ever escape by paying that price. A few will suffer, but the rest will go free.’
‘Can you do that?’ asked Bowman. ‘I can’t.’
‘Why not? If this was a war, some of our people would die. Well, it is a war. Some of our people have died already. If we never fight back, what did they die for?’
‘I can’t do it, Rufy.’
‘Then you’ve surrendered. You’re defeated. You’ve truly become a slave.’
‘I don’t think so –’
‘Yes! You have! You’re as bad as all the rest. You’ve given up!’
‘Rufy, I know they killed your mother –’
‘This isn’t about my mother! This is about me! She’s dead. I’m not dead. I have all my life ahead of me. So have you, Bowman. I thought that you at least would want to fight back.’
‘I do. But this isn’t the time.’
‘This isn’t the time. Wait. Be patient. That’s all I ever hear. But nobody ever does anything, and nothing ever changes.’
He jumped up, and suddenly held out his hand for Bowman to shake.
‘Goodbye, Bowman. You’re the best of them.’
Bowman shook his hand.
‘Don’t do anything rash, Rufy,’ he said. ‘Remember you’re not alone.’
‘In the end, we’re all alone in this world. That’s what I’ve learned.’
With that he walked off into the darkness.
Bowman looked after him, his mind full of troubled thoughts.
‘I should have said more,’ he said aloud. ‘But what else is there to say?’
The grey cat stared back at him with reproachful eyes. Bowman had become so used to the cat’s presence that he often spoke to it aloud, although this was really no more than a form of speaking to himself. Mist found this one-sided conversation particularly galling.
Bowman returned to his exercises.
‘Watch this, cat! Watch the staff!’
Now he could lift his staff the way the one-eyed man had done, and make it come into his hand.
‘Believe me,’ said Mist, ‘when you’ve seen one flying stick, you’ve seen them all.’
‘These are the powers of the Singer people, cat. I’m going to be a Singer one day.’
‘One day? How about now?’
‘You look at me so oddly, cat. I wonder what you’re thinking.’
‘So why don’t you try to find out?’
‘I wonder if you understand every word I say.’
‘Oh, spare me!’
‘Raise one paw.’
Mist thought about it. On the one hand, the request was demeaning. Raise a paw, indeed. He wasn’t a kitten. On the other hand, he had to find some way to make this child of the prophet work harder at their communication problem.
Yawning, to show he felt no kittenish eagerness to please, he raised one paw.
Bowman stared.
‘You do understand me!’
‘Wonderful! Now let’s work on you understanding me.’
‘Turn round in a circle.’
‘Oh, please. I’m not going to lie on my back and wave my legs in the air, so don’t even ask.’
Mist turned round in a slow dignified circle. Bowman looked down at him in silence for a few moments. Then he sank gently onto his knees.
‘Forgive me if I’ve not shown you proper respect,’ he said. ‘There are so many things I don’t understand.’
This was an improvement. Mist was almost touched. The boy’s not as stupid as he looks, he thought. He approached him, tail raised high, and rubbed his body against the boy’s legs, as a gesture of goodwill.
‘If you’ll be kind enough to come close to me, and sit still,’ said Bowman, ‘I’d like to know you better.’
Mist did as he was asked. The boy
was so polite he could hardly refuse.
Bowman lowered himself onto his elbows and rested his forehead against the cat’s face. At first Mist found this made his whiskers tickle, and he moved his head away. But Bowman waited patiently, and they found a position in which both were comfortable, where the cat’s brow was pressed to Bowman’s right temple. Here they remained in silence for some time.
Bowman worked hard. First he cleared out his own mind. Then he sat in silence, seeking nothing at all. Then, very gently, he started to reach into the cat’s mind.
He felt the cat flinch at the first intrusion.
‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said.
Mist found the experience quite unlike anything he had ever known before. The hermit had simply been able to hear him. This was something else. As the boy had said, he was seeking to know him.
‘Too fast,’ the boy was saying. ‘Slow down.’
Mist tried to slow down the race of impulses within him. It wasn’t easy. His senses were constantly feeding him impressions, sounds, smells, flickers of movement, that kept him forever on the alert. Everything that was other than him was either danger or prey. All the time, even in sleep, his body was coiled like a spring, ready to hunt or flee. Slow down, the boy said. Not easy.
He tried to let his mind drift. Suddenly he fell into a memory, a sensation of close warmth, of small shrill sounds, of great joy. Above him in his memory the sky was moving, a sky that smelled sweet and felt warm. He wriggled his body, as it was wriggling in his memory, wanting to feel all round him those other wriggling bodies – and there it was! The full moment returned! He was lying on dry leaves in a sandy burrow, among his brothers and sisters, and his mother was moving her long body over him, and he was reaching up to suck. Startled by the intensity of the happiness the memory brought him, Mist nuzzled his head against Bowman’s and whimpered aloud. Bowman found the memory, or at least, the way the cat felt it.
‘There,’ he said softly. ‘There, there.’
William Nicholson - [Wind on Fire 02] Page 15