‘Buy the gum for the bills with this and spend whatever’s left on yourself,’ he breathed, with crude familiarity. ‘I know what it’s like to be a fine young blade. Go and buy some pretty native thing to amuse you in the tent-town, whatever suits your tastes, eh? I won’t expect you back early at the mission tonight.’
The strawpaper bills might have been red-hot embers; they certainly burned a hole in Tymon’s hands as he hurried down the main ramp towards the first tier market. He felt hot with disgust, too, revolted by Verlain’s insinuations. The bribe of a talek piece, more money than he had ever had to call his own, burdened his pocket and his conscience. He was faced with a quandary. He could neither leave the handbills lying in the street, nor throw them away for fear of reprisal. He had absolutely no intention of putting them up on the walls of the town. He might not be anything more than an errand-boy for a drunkard, but he would not stoop to helping the seminary fill its tithe-ships. He clutched the irksome papers in one hand and his yoke in the other, cursing through his teeth all the way to the entrance of the first tier. There, he paused to catch his breath on a relatively deserted section of the ramp.
The start of the bazaar was still some distance away, around a corner and out of sight; its dim, confused murmur reached his ears. He lowered his buckets, wiped the sweat from his face and gazed vacantly at a nearby house-front. It was a moment before he noticed the writing on the wall.
The King shall come,
The King shall come.
The Year returns, all to burn.
Dead wood done, worlds made one.
Tymon stared at the inscription daubed in red paint. The poem, if it could be called one, stirred his heart. The words chimed in his mind as if he had heard them, or something like them, before. An enigmatic signature was scrawled below the verse, a circle attached to what appeared to be a crooked trident. He guessed that it was the handiwork of Nurian rebels, though it conveyed little in the way of a political message. The message was more of an invocation than a slogan.
‘Move along now, young fellow, move along.’
A self-important little man in military costume had walked up to him as he stood dreaming over the verse. The soldier bore a scrubbing brush and a straw pail of dirty water, and carried a covered basket on his back.
‘Step aside, you’re obstructing access,’ he sniffed.
The boy stuffed the handbills under his arm and rolled his buckets out of the way. The soldier deposited his basket on the ramp. Then he sauntered up to the wall and began scrubbing off the writing with the aid of his brush.
‘Who wrote that?’ Tymon asked him curiously. ‘What King will come?’
‘Damn Nurry rebels, may they rot in hell,’ offered the diminutive soldier. He stabbed a finger at the trident sign. ‘They mean their own dung-heap saviour, of course. You see before you the sign of the long-lost Nurian royal louse—oh, pardon me, I meant royal house.’ He snorted with derision. ‘Apparently that dried-up joke of a bloodline is going to produce the High King, the Green Lord who will restore the glory of old Nur and make the canopy bloom again. Remember your temple classes? The End Times.’
And as he said it, Tymon did remember—remembered the nasal voice of Father Rede reciting a passage of Grafting scripture, all fire and judgment and overwrought imagery. And lo, the Year shall come to pass, and five trumpets blow, and five leaves fall. And all things shall burn, for dead wood is destined to burn. Ye shall see the Tree die, and a third of the things upon Her die, and a third of the things above Her die, and a third of the things below Her die. Then shall the Kingdom be free. Then shall the King return unto his own… It appeared that ancient prophecies were still popular reading for Nurians, mused the boy. Perhaps the present held little interest for them.
The little soldier continued to scour the wall, puffing with disdain.
‘A King of Nur!’ he fumed. ‘Imagine! A bunch of dirty lice who can’t even wash themselves properly, let alone rule the canopy. They can produce as many royal louses as they like, as far as I’m concerned. None of them will stand up to us!’
Tymon peered over the man’s shoulder at the rapidly disappearing words. ‘Worlds made one. What does that mean?’
The militiaman shrugged, exasperated. ‘How should I know what this nonsense means? One thing I can tell you: some day, we’re going to teach these hoodlums a lesson. No more handouts, you lazy sons of whores. No more civilisation, you stinking barbarians. Yes, things are going to change around here. Just wait and see.’
He gave an unpleasant smirk and began whistling the tune to ‘The Merry Bells’, an Argosian favourite.
‘But…’ The blasphemy came bubbling out of Tymon’s mouth. ‘Surely there’s a way to reach some sort of an agreement with the Nurians? I mean, we’re all in this together, aren’t we?’
The soldier’s eyes grew round in disbelief.
“‘In this together”?’ he echoed jeeringly. ‘You’re a bleeding-heart choirboy, aren’t you? What do you know about it? All you home-borns can kiss my hardworking colonist’s rump. What has Argos ever done for us? Crippling taxes, no water relief and a stinking degenerate for a mission priest. No thank you. We know what you fine religious folks get up to at home. Perverts and drunks. That’s not the way we do things here! In Marak, we have pride! We have purity! We won’t be overtaken by a horde of dirty whiteys, and we won’t let ‘em turn our women into whores!’
Tymon retreated under the soldier’s tirade, trying his best not to smile and almost tripping over his buckets in the process. The indignant colonist reminded him very much of Father Rede. The physiognomy of the man, his accent, even the attitude of deep disdain were identical to those of his former tutor. Tymon wondered if he had happened upon some long-lost relative, or if the ‘white-necks’ all came from a certain, limited mould. He recovered his yoke and his composure with some difficulty, and staggered away down the ramp.
As he passed the little man’s covered basket, however, he hesitated. The soldier no longer graced him with his notice, applying himself with much diligence and offended dignity to his scrubbing. Tymon glanced about the ramp. None of the passers-by were close enough to mark what he was doing. With a quick movement, he opened the lid of the basket and slipped Verlain’s promotional handbills deep beneath a pile of rags and refuse. He could always tell the priest that his bills had been taken down by the soldiers. By the time the colonist’s haughty gaze found him once more, he was weaving merrily down the road, his buckets swinging behind him.
He was still grinning to himself over this private triumph when his eye lit on the second inscription. Further along the street another set of words had been daubed on a different doorway, followed by the same trident signature.
There is no haven, no place to shelter in, far from you.
Nowhere to turn, nowhere to run, for every city burns, far from you.
The smile faded from Tymon’s face and he shivered. The second verse was darker than the first; it gave him no comfort, made no promises of salvation. He wondered what madman was writing these lines and how he could possibly imagine that they would inspire popular feeling. Flames and death there were in the Nurian revolution, but no hope. No wonder the spectre of fire haunted his nights, he reflected sourly as he hurried on. Marak had rubbed off on him. He took a deep breath before plunging into the clamour and chaos of the bazaar.
His movement in the packed market was reduced to a crawl. A thick, miasmic odour of refuse hung in the air and the crowd oozed past the shops and vending booths with infuriating slowness. By the time the boy had negotiated his way to the foot of the first tier, the sun was westering. He became impatient, worried that the custom house would be closed before he arrived on the air-harbour. But barely fifty feet from the entrance to the city his progress stalled completely. A bleating herd of shillees remained between him and his goal. They blocked his path with their foolish, spotted backs and fixed him with slack-jawed stares, refusing to budge. He could neither move forwards nor backwar
ds.
As he stood there, thwarted and fuming, voices rose in protest from further up the ramp. He turned around to see a gaudy, curtained litter swaying over the heads of the crowd, accompanied by a troupe of bodyguards. The minders whipped everyone out of their way, laying mercilessly into the Nurian bystanders with their hardwood clubs. Again and again they brought their weapons down on the unfortunate people trapped in the path of the litter, shouting at them to be gone, to move aside. But there was no empty space for the Nurians to move to. Figures collapsed under the rain of blows and did not get up. The litter bearers trampled over them.
The water yoke fell from Tymon’s shoulders with a clatter. The shillees erupted into a paroxysm of bleating as he backed into the shelter of a nearby doorway. He had never seen such brutality before. The guards appeared to be overtaken by a frenzy of senseless cruelty. They struck at anything within arm’s length—man or woman, animal or child. The litter swung by Tymon and the curtains covering its sides parted for an instant. Within, he glimpsed a young Argosian woman wearing a tasselled headdress. Her face was beautiful, smiling and entirely self-satisfied. The litter barged through the city gates, scattering panicked animals on every side.
As soon as the box and its train had disappeared the crowd erupted. Cries of ‘putar’ and ‘Argosi’ filled the air. The throng parted and Tymon saw that there were bloodied bodies on the ramp. These were hoisted onto people’s shoulders, the piteous, battered limbs dangling over the backs of the bearers. The crowd surged as one towards the gates; the boy was swept along by it, his buckets abandoned. He kept his face lowered, praying that nobody would identify him as a foreigner. For now the mob seemed oblivious to anything but its own headlong momentum. It burst out of the first tier, through the air-harbour and into the tent-town, flowing through the refugee quarter like a torrent of rain. Tymon tried to keep his bearings in the cluttered, canvas-lined streets but was soon hopelessly lost. The din of voices took up a common, rhythmic chant.
‘Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.’
The stampede came to an abrupt halt in a narrow alleyway, in front of a makeshift building half-obscured by a jumble of tents and awnings. Tymon was jostled along with everyone else into an unfurnished hall decorated only with patterned weave-mats. The bodies of the victims were set down on the floor and he realised for the first time that they were all dead. The cry of ‘shanti, shanti…’ faded away. After a moment, another sound pierced the silence: a single voice chanting, clear and poignant. It reverberated in the domed ceiling of the hall. A shiver passed through the boy. He had heard that lilting voice each day, delivering the First Liturgy in Nurian. The melody it sang now was different, if equally familiar. As the Song of the Dead rang out in the hall with the solemn intonation of a dirge, Tymon understood that he had found the Nurian shrine at last.
This time the ghostly voice did not sing alone. The people in the hall took up the chant, responding to the singer in a repeated refrain. As the lament went on, individuals stepped out of the crowd, approaching the bodies in the central space. Some knelt down hesitantly to touch a bloodied face or hand. Others simply stood there with their heads bowed. One small child squatted by a man and shook his shoulder, as if trying to wake him. The death-rite worked its spell on Tymon. The wrenching melody brought a lump to his throat and the memory of the pointless butchery in the market filled him with anger. He hardly noticed that the people about him had moved away to give the mourners room. The chant came to an end and he was left alone, exposed at the edge of the circle.
‘Putar.’
The accusation hissed through the gathering, jolting him awake. He became aware of his vulnerable position—too late. He had been seen. The Nurians surrounded him with horrifying speed, and before he could do more than think of retreat, he was enclosed by a wall of hostile faces. Fear dragged at the pit of his stomach.
‘Putar. You are not welcome here.’
The general buzz of rage resolved itself into one voice. The speaker stepped out of the throng. He was a tall man with a yellow hair and waxy features, his pale blue eyes blank with hatred.
‘You are not welcome, Argos,’ he sneered, advancing on Tymon.
The mob surged forward. Tymon was pushed violently from behind and lost his balance, stumbling towards the yellow-haired man. The seconds slowed to a crawl as his grinning adversary raised a fist to meet him. He heard the dull crack as the blow connected with his ribs. He stared up at his opponent in surprise, for he had belatedly identified the man as Caro, Verlain’s accomplice. Then a searing agony pulsed through him and he fell to his knees. With a roar of triumph the members of the crowd closed in, kicking him.
‘Bas.’
The ringing command brought the tumult in the shrine to an abrupt halt. Tymon’s attackers pulled away, abandoning him on the floor. He glanced up painfully towards the source of the voice. A figure descended a ladder from a trapdoor in the ceiling; he grasped that the call to prayer was sung on the roof and that this must be the singer. The crowd opened ranks as the boy picked himself up to face his advocate. It was a woman.
‘Do not harm the stranger,’ said the newcomer, gravely.
It was an instant before he recognised her. Samiha! No longer the half-starved, runaway pilgrim, the red-haired girl was dressed in long green robes and walked tall and straight, with obvious authority. She returned his gaze coolly, as if she had never seen him before in her life.
‘Why not, shanti?’ cried the yellow-haired man. ‘He is a putar. Our enemy.’
‘Not this one, Caro,’ she answered. ‘The Focals spoke of him.’
Her explanation seemed to be sufficient for the crowd. Nobody challenged her, and although the man named Caro frowned angrily, he did not speak. Tymon was given no chance to respond. The clamour of voices mounted about him and he was seized by many hands and thrust out of the shrine into the relative cool of the evening. The doors slammed shut behind him. He blundered a short distance down the street, his head reeling, before he understood where he was. The Nurian shrine stood not a hundred feet from the air-harbour quays. He had passed the little street almost every day on his errands for Verlain without noticing it. The entrance of the shrine was hidden from where he stood, but he could make out the domed roof of the building, silhouetted against the brilliant evening sky. High above it, the Friend star shone clear and bright.
He made his way slowly back through the first tier, doubled up with pain. The yellow-haired Nurian had cracked his ribs. The memory of the mangled bodies on the floor of the shrine and the unexpected reunion with Samiha all throbbed together in his mind, and he felt sickened and shaken. He wandered into the deserted market and tried to retrieve his water buckets from the side of the ramp. But the yoke was too heavy to lift in his bruised state. He gave up and continued laboriously on to the mission. He met a squadron of soldiers coming towards him who informed him that there had been a riot in the bazaar, and that he should return to the mission immediately. Tymon acquiesced silently. He could not look the guards in their faces. He arrived at the compound exhausted and awash with conflicting emotions. He had no wish to associate himself with the brutality of the colonists. But his crushed ribs confirmed that he had no hope, indeed had never had any hope of finding refuge with Samiha.
The pilgrim girl had been right there in the city all this time, but had obviously thought it unnecessary to contact him. She was a shanti, one of the infamous Nurian priestesses. Her responsibility lay with her people, not with him. He did not know whether to hate or respect her for it. The reality of his tenuous position, of being caught between two worlds, came home to him with full force. He understood clearly that if revolt broke out in the city no one would shelter him, not even the one person he had come to consider a friend. And yet she had saved him from being beaten to pulp, or worse. She evidently had no wish to see him hurt. Like the rhyme on the wall, her words haunted him, teasing recollection. Who were the Focals? Why did the mere mention of them suffice the Nurians in the shrine? And why abov
e all was someone like Samiha associated with Caro, an ally of the Council?
His questions had no answers and he was too tired to pursue them. The mission was quiet as he dragged himself through the gates. Verlain was nowhere to be seen. The boy lurched gratefully into his smoke-free cubicle and eased his aching body into his hammock. Whatever the risk to himself, he decided, he had no intention of leaving the matter as it stood. He would find Samiha the next day and attempt to speak with her privately. He would insist that she acknowledge him. He could not simply sit by while the maddening girl with flame-coloured hair slipped through his fingers once again.
15
The next morning, however, he could barely stand up. His ribs were sore and inflamed and he extracted himself from the hammock with great difficulty. Verlain was evidently back in his sleeping quarters, for oily tendrils of som crept over the wall, accompanied by the priest’s resonant snores. Tymon hobbled out into the courtyard to find Amu Bibi hard at work with her indefatigable broom. She clucked in disapproval at the sight of him, and threatened him with the broom-handle until he stripped off his tunic and showed her his injuries. A large purple weal stretched over his left side.
‘Ai,’ she expostulated, raising her hands in dismay. ‘You fall on angry fist!’
She made him lie on the couch under the awning and disappeared into the kitchen, reemerging a few moments later with an assortment of salves, ointments and bandages. These she applied to Tymon’s bruises, scolding him briskly in her polyglot style. The boy had discovered that her quaint speech was more than a personal eccentricity. Many Nurians in the city spoke a ‘twig-tongue’, a form of Argosian liberally spiced with words in their own language. Over the past few weeks he had reviewed his first, hasty judgment of the old woman’s mental ability: she was as sharp as a hardwood pin.
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