Tymon thought of the judges’ covert dealings and was not sure that he did know. But in the aftermath of the meal he felt inclined to let the matter go. He was now bursting with the desire to share his discovery of the Sight with someone; nothing else was really of any consequence. He had searched for an opportunity during the feast to mention his vision to Galliano, but the moment never seemed right. Finally, when everyone had finished eating and the conversation in the hall dropped to a satisfied hum, he could contain himself no longer.
‘Apu,’ he whispered in the old man’s ear. ‘Something else happened to me during the trial. I have to tell you about it—’
‘Eh? What? I’ll be deaf as well as blind at this rate, boy. Speak up!’
‘I said, I saw something during the trial—’
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ put in Laska, from Tymon’s other side. ‘But you should be ready to stand up when you’re called, lad. The Kion is about to make an address.’
‘Now, this is important,’ whispered Galliano excitedly, as Tymon groaned in irritation at the delay. ‘I’m sure what you saw was very interesting, but you can tell me later. I must admit I’ve been hoping you’d be allowed to know about the Kion. It’s a great honour—you’re only the second Argosian who does!’
Tymon felt the stirrings of curiosity through his frustration. He had never met royalty before. The Priests’ Council had abolished the monarchy in Argos as a relic of a decadent empire; he had only the dimmest notion of what a king was, let alone how to talk to one. It was a surprise to him, therefore, when Samiha rose from the table. She held herself as straight and tall as a leaf-stem, gazing out over the suddenly quiet room.
‘Sav beni, namis,’ she announced.
The atmosphere in the hall had shifted subtly, as if everyone knew what was coming. The people on either side of Tymon hung on the shanti’s every word. He guessed that she would be introducing the Kion, doubtless under another name.
‘Today we welcome a new recruit to Sheb,’ she continued, in Argosian.
A faint sigh of protest ran through the gathering. The villagers had accepted a foreign tongue at the court proceedings out of fairness to the defendant, but enough was enough. Samiha waited for the noise to subside. Slowly, deliberately, she persisted in the alien language.
‘He is worthy. He has been tested and found loyal. We are all children of the Tree, whether Nuri or Argosi. You’ve heard by now of the events in Marak: heard that our brethren died because of the unwise and short-sighted actions of a few.’
Silence hung palpably over the hall. Tymon fidgeted, eyeing the rapt faces of the audience and only half listening to Samiha’s words. Who would she introduce?
‘It’s time to put our differences aside and work together,’ she said. ‘Without the Focals we can only see our past mistakes. What lies ahead is veiled to us. Nothing can be accomplished through hatred. Beni. In the spirit of reconciliation, let us welcome the new member of our fellowship and a possible heir to the five Focals of Marak. Come forward, Tymon of Argos.’
She turned to Tymon and held out her arms, beckoning to him. It was the call to the pledge. She had extended the invitation herself. He was perplexed an instant; what of the Kion?
And then, at long last, understanding dawned. He recalled in a rush the unquestioning self-sacrifice of Oren and his sister; Laska’s fierce loyalty; the deference shown to the shanti even by the most belligerent of her people. No ordinary priestess would command such wide respect. No temple singer would keep an audience on tenterhooks in this fashion. ‘Highness,’ Kosta had said during the trial, he remembered belatedly. He had been sharing his bread and berth with a queen. He felt Laska nudge him urgently and staggered to his feet in astonishment, knocking the edge of the table and causing cups and bowls to teeter. He retained his wits sufficiently to hurry to where she stood, and take her hands in his own. Her fingers were cool and light in his hot palms. Kion, he thought. She was the Kion. Of course she was.
‘Do you wish to join the Freehold?’ she asked gravely.
‘You!’ he breathed, with sudden comprehension. ‘He was talking about you!’
He could have smote his forehead at his own stupidity. The words of the fifth Focal came back to him with new meaning. The Key is in the bathhouse. Key, Kion. He had known her identity all along. Even her street address had proclaimed it to the world.
She smiled at him briefly, and he realised that the public question still hung between them.
‘Yes,’ he managed. He hoped his voice would carry. The day’s successive revelations had robbed him of the power of speech.
‘Do you swear allegiance to Nur?’
‘I do,’ he answered again, stronger.
‘Do you accept that all life is sacred, that all are part of the Tree of Being and that the Sap flows through us?’
‘I do,’ he repeated. It sounded like Treeology class all over again, he thought.
And then he wondered, with a stab of anxiety, whether it was. If it was possible to See the dead, what of the Grafters’ other powers? What of Samiha’s troublesome beliefs about the End Times? Were all Grafting prophecies equally valid? Tymon’s experience of the Sight had done nothing to lessen his dislike of lurid predictions and pious apocalypses. Did he now have to believe in all that, too? But this was no moment to consider such matters. The villagers had their eyes fixed on him, waiting for him to flub his chance, to commit some error of protocol. Samiha scanned the crowded hall carefully before resuming her speech.
‘Bearing in mind the verdict of the judges, does anyone here have good reason—’ she paused, allowing the word ‘good’ to sink in ‘—to oppose this union?’
Tymon almost dropped her hands. He had not expected a direct question of this sort and winced, waiting for the blow. There was a crackle here, a rustle there, but the throng remained mute. No one dared openly contradict the Kion. She allowed an interminable instant to pass before turning her gaze back to Tymon.
‘Then you have joined our fellowship. Our pain, our joy, is yours to share.’
He assumed that the pledge was over and waited for her to withdraw. But instead, with simple solemnity, she pulled him close and kissed him on the mouth. Another ripple of surprise, pleasant this time, curled his toes.
‘Sav beni. Be blessed, Tymon,’ she said.
She let go of his hands and returned to her seat. Tymon wandered back to his own end of the table in a daze. Nurian customs did not cease to amaze him. He reminded himself that it had been a ceremonial gesture, and that she had probably delivered similar greetings to others. But the kiss lingered, oddly personal, a burr on his lips.
‘Beni, Tymon,’ whispered Laska as he sat down again. Both he and Galliano grinned gleefully at the boy.
‘You all enjoyed that,’ muttered Tymon. ‘You enjoyed holding out on me about who she was.’ He glanced down the length of the table at Samiha. Her eyes slid away from his, but her colour was high. ‘She enjoyed it even more!’ he added indignantly.
‘Now, boy, this is no joke. You don’t talk about it to anybody,’ admonished the scientist in a whisper, as the buzz of conversation mounted again in the room. ‘If you must speak of it, do so only to Laska or myself.’
‘Is there anything else I should know?’ asked Tymon. ‘She hasn’t stopped changing identity since we met…pilgrim, priestess, judge, queen…is there any more?’
Galliano chuckled. ‘Without a doubt,’ he said. ‘There’s always more where the ladies are concerned.’
Tymon finally found the time to tell his friend about his vision later that evening, after he had taken the old man back to his living quarters. He had immediately accepted Galliano’s invitation to stay in his hut among the twig-thickets; the thought of ghosts peering over his shoulder during the night was disturbing, and he had no wish to be alone. The scientist’s response to his dilemma was typically sanguine.
‘If you say you saw the Focal then I believe you,’ he said. ‘What that actually means, however, is a dif
ferent story. You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.’
Tymon settled himself on his sleeping pallet. The night was clear and the two of them had brought their bedding out onto the terrace, under the stars.
‘I don’t know what to think, Apu,’ he sighed. ‘It’s spooky. And there are some things—well, many things, really—that I don’t like about the Grafting prophecies. Do I have to believe in them, too?’
Galliano laughed softly. ‘It’s a shame I can’t help you more. I never much went in for metaphysics at the seminary. Applied Treeology was my line. But I don’t think you need to decide what to believe just now. Learn as much as you can and keep an open mind. Perhaps Grafting is just a kind of science we haven’t understood much about yet.’
There was a moment of silence. Then the old man spoke again, meditatively.
‘If such things as the Sap exist, mind you, I’d be inclined to think they had bounds and limitations. Everything has limitations, Tymon. That’s the way the world works. Know the rules—learn the language—and you’ll see how it fits together. Gravity, polarity, the behaviour of the stars…every mysterious thing, even the Grafting. Everything has its own grammar and logic. Sometimes I wonder whether there isn’t one mother-tongue that describes it all…’
This time, the silence was longer. Tymon had just decided that Galliano had gone to sleep in mid-sentence when the old man’s querulous voice piped up once more.
‘Oh, and do me a favour, would you? Talk to Samiha about this, for once. Tell her what you saw in the arena. And tell her how you feel about her, too, for the sake of all things green. Your torch is burning rather too visibly.’
Tymon dissolved with embarrassment in the darkness and could produce nothing better in answer than a grunt. He had not imagined that he had been so obvious. Did Samiha see through his fumbling attempts at friendship, too? It was all very well being told to declare himself, but how was he to start? With the language of the stars? She might as well have existed on a far-distant orb herself. Her rank confused him, set her apart. She seemed further out of his reach than she had been before they arrived in Sheb. How could a runaway servant court a head of state, albeit one in hiding? How could an upstart novice, even one with the Sight, be of interest to a queen?
22
He had missed something. He rifled through Samiha’s apartment, peering under weave-mats, behind curtains. Something eluded him and although he could not remember what it was, he was sure that he had left it here, in the rooms above Kion street, number six, the house with the green door. The apartment kept changing shape in the most disagreeable manner. Sometimes there were two chambers, sometimes four or five, even a panelled hallway reminiscent of the College library in Argos. If he could just find the fifth Focal again, he told himself, pacing through room after empty room, he would be able to ask him what he had mislaid. Ash would know. But the Grafters were gone, invisible. Infuriatingly, he had just missed them, too. He caught teasing glimpses—the brim of a hat through a doorway, the sound of far-off laughter. He hurried through the bewilderingly expanded apartment. They would not escape him.
Then he hesitated, struck by a thought. It was no surprise that he could not find the Focals: they were dead. How could he have forgotten? They were dead and he was back where he had started, in the room where he had sat and drunk yosha with Samiha. He had the sense that whatever it was he was looking for, it was right here, tantalisingly close. And there was the fifth Focal, after all, he realised. A dark figure wearing a hat and cloak stood in the open door, its back to him. Tymon approached it gladly. He was about to tug at the edge of the long cloak with his fingers like a little child, when the figure turned around. But instead of Ash it was Father Lace who loomed above him, blocking the light from the doorway.
‘Greetings, novice,’ remarked the Envoy. The lifeless smile spread slowly across his face.
Tymon recoiled. He glanced about him in alarm; from too many rooms, the apartment had shrunk to having only one. There was only one door, and that was obstructed by Lace.
The Envoy took a menacing step towards him. ‘I have given your post away to someone else,’ he whispered. ‘You’re a fool, boy. You missed your chance and now you have nothing left.’
‘That’s not true.’ Tymon’s voice was small and choked. ‘I have friends.’
Lace erupted into laughter, but his face stayed rigid, a mask. The boy stared in horror as the hollow sound emerged from behind frozen, grinning lips. Where the Envoy’s eyes should have been there were two empty holes.
‘Your friends,’ he gloated, ‘are all dead, or soon will be. Your hopes are an illusion. You think you’re a Grafter but you can’t even understand what you have Seen. You think that you’ve found a new home in that rat-hole of a village, but no one will accept you. You’re weak and deluded and pathetic.’
He reached out. Long, searching fingers grasped at Tymon’s throat. The boy was paralysed with fear. He tried to speak but could not; tried to scream, but no sound emerged from his mouth. He seemed to hear a voice in the distance, chanting joyously in a language he did not understand. There was a blinding flash of light. He woke up from his nightmare to find that he had rolled off his mattress and was lying at the edge of Galliano’s terrace with the morning sun full in his eyes. Someone was chanting the First Liturgy in the central arena. It was not Samiha’s voice.
Of fire were Her branches made
Fearful Her symmetry…
Tymon jumped to his feet. He tripped on Galliano’s bedding in the process, waking the old man up.
‘By the bells!’ grumbled his friend. ‘If sharing a house with you means being kicked out of bed every morning, then you can go back to Marak!’
‘I’ve made a mistake, Apu!’ cried Tymon. ‘I’ve missed something!’
The sense of having lost or misunderstood a vital truth was so strong that he had to lean on the terrace balustrade, breathing deeply of the fresh morning air until he was calm. He could not explain his anxiety. He tried recounting his nightmare to Galliano, but the details slipped away from him, tame and washed-out in the sunlight. Until the day before, he would have shrugged off the dream as a product of recent events, as meaningless as indigestion. Now he did not dare. Was there some significance to it? Was this a sliver of prophecy? How was he to know? How did the Grafters ever know?
The feeling of unease clung to him all morning. When he accompanied the scientist to the dining hall for breakfast, neither Laska nor Samiha, nor indeed any of the other judges were in evidence. Despite what Laska had said, he did not feel himself to be in the presence of friends. The villagers, especially the youth, were resolutely unsympathetic towards him. It was as if the trial and the pledge had never happened. No one challenged him, but no one spoke to him either, or made him feel at home. People turned their backs as he approached. He felt patently unwelcome as he sat on the floor of the hall beside Galliano—they avoided the low table this time—shovelling dry bean-flour patties into his mouth in miserable silence. He was deeply relieved when the old man suggested that they move on to his workshop and he was able to leave the taciturn Freeholders behind.
A hollowed-out knot in one of the southern branches of the promontory served as Galliano’s new workshop and hangar. It was here that the Lyla had recently been assembled. The structure for a third machine was now under way, its skeletal beginnings laid out in the hangar like the bones of a giant bird. It would emerge from the open top of the knot on its maiden flight. Galliano supervised the proceedings from a ramshackle basket-chair in one corner; although he could not see the progress of construction himself, he kept tabs on everything by haranguing his co-workers in broken Nurian. The assembly team consisted of nine Freeholders who tolerated the scientist’s exacerbated perfectionism with surprising good humour. Jamil, the large man Tymon had seen escorting Galliano to the feast the night before, was workshop supervisor. The huge, light-haired Nurian and the tiny Argosian scientist made a humorous pair, the giant bending patiently over t
he old man to receive instructions he had probably carried out himself a long time ago. He seemed to genuinely like and respect Galliano.
The spectacle of his friend’s success, his ability to overcome huge odds to settle in a new place and carry on his work, was both heart-warming and slightly exasperating to Tymon. It underscored for him how far he was from achieving the same goal. After some initial awkwardness, Jamil was able to persuade his companions to let the boy join their team, and Tymon spent the rest of the morning in the cheerful chaos of the hangar, splitting planks for the new air-chariot’s hull. The Nurians seemed happy enough to have an extra pair of hands on the job. When he ventured back to the dining hall, however, he came face to face with crushing indifference. Lunch was a torture; everyone but Galliano ignored him. Dinner was worse. The old scientist did not accompany him, pleading fatigue, and Samiha and Laska were still absent. Even his workshop mates shunned him, neglecting to invite him into their laughing groups. His own attempts at communication were met with blank stares from the villagers or an apologetic shrug, as if none of the Freeholders understood him. He was eager to tell Samiha about his experience of the Sight. But she seemed to have slipped away from him again, abandoning him just as they reached some form of understanding.
Matters did not improve over the next two days, and by his third morning in Sheb, Tymon’s enthusiasm for life on the Freehold had plummeted. He was tired of being treated as if he did not exist and desperately needed someone to talk to besides Galliano. Samiha’s continued absence vexed him. Did she consider herself too good for him now, he wondered? Did the Kion not associate with mere foreigners when she was among her own? Despite the fact that he had everything, or almost everything, that he had originally wanted—a chance to help Galliano, an opportunity to learn about the air-chariot and a new home, however imperfect—he was deeply dissatisfied. He could not shake off the low spirits that had clung to him since his dream of the Envoy. That morning, he did not go straight back to work on the planks, but squatted glumly on a twig-stump beside Galliano’s chair, answering the scientist’s good-natured banter with monosyllables.
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