Firesong (2 page)

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Sirene hates me. Sirene wants me dead.’

‘Not at all. You’ve played your part, like all the rest of us.’

‘Played my part!’

Albard let out a big bellowing laugh. That was rich! Albard the rebel, the traitor, the mutineer, had played his part in Sirene’s plans! No, he was the breaker of rules, the defier of authority, the one who had split away from the rest and forged his own world, where he alone had been the Master. Singer people never sought power in the world. Only Albard, the best of them, had broken the rule of rules.

‘I played no part in any plan of Sirene’s, little Jumper. They call me the lost one. I am Sirene’s failure.’

He spoke with a certain pride. What else had he left, now that his city was gone and he had not been allowed to die?

‘We must go,’ said Jumper. ‘Are you strong enough?’

‘Getting stronger all the time. But not what I was. You should have seen me in my day! I was immense! Now my skin hangs loose about me, and I rattle as I walk. Ah, mortality!’

‘But you feel your powers returning?’

‘A little. Yes.’

He looked round. There on the ground, near the hole into which he had crawled to die, lay a short sword. It had fallen from the hand of some poor fool who had died doing his will, and now lay beneath a layer of dust and stones. Albard fixed his mind on the hilt of the sword, and with great effort, he caused it to stir beneath the debris. More he could not do.

With a sigh, he stooped down, and scraping away the stones, picked it up with one hand. Jumper beamed his approval.

‘There! That’s a start, isn’t it?’

‘And if I were to cut your throat with it, that would be a finish, too.’

‘Oh, you won’t do that. I’m no use to you dead.’

‘You’re no use to me, Jumper. There’s nothing you can give me I want. There’s nothing you can do for me I need.’

He slipped the sword into the rope with which his plain woollen robe was belted, and turned his great beak of a nose northwards.

‘But we’ll find this boy, and set him on his path, and then what has been begun will be completed. Not because Sirene plans it, you understand, but because I choose it. Sirene has no control over me. I’m the lost one. I’m the one who goes his own way.’

Albard was facing the causeway across the lake, his gaze fixed on the hills to the north, and so he did not catch the look that passed briefly over Jumper’s round and foolish face. It was the indulgent smile of the parent who allows his wilful child the last word, knowing the child cannot choose but to obey.

‘So you are, if it pleases you,’ said the curious young-old creature, hopping along after him. ‘Bounce on, Jumper!’

1

The view from the sourgum tree

T
he column of weary marchers made slow progress. The land was rising, and the day was cold. The two horses pulling the heavily-laden wagon kept their heads down and held to a steady plodding pace, but everyone could see that they were growing thinner every day. The wagon’s driver, Seldom Erth, walked beside them to lighten their load. He was the oldest of the marchers, well over sixty years old, but he strode along as determinedly as the younger men, watching the track as he went for stones too big or ruts too deep for the wagon’s wheels. The ones who found it hard to keep up the pace were the children. Miller Marish’s little girl Jet was only six years old. From time to time Seldom Erth swung her up into the wagon, to sit with the cat on the pile of folded tent-cloth at the back, and rest her little legs.

There were thirty-two people of all ages on the march, as well as the two draft horses, five cows, and the cat. Hanno Hath, the march leader, had ordered that they must keep within sight of each other at all times, so the column proceeded at the pace of its slowest members. These were dangerous days. There were rumours of bandit gangs that preyed on travellers. Young men with keen eyes and ready swords loped ahead of the straggling column, watching for danger; but Hanno knew his people had little experience of combat, and had been marching for days on reduced rations. When he fixed his eyes on the horizon ahead, it was not only bandits he feared, but the coming of winter. They carried food and firewood in the wagon, but every day the supplies grew smaller, and they were crossing a bleak, barren land.

‘Have faith, Hannoka,’ said his wife Ira, walking steadily beside him. She used his childhood name to comfort him, as if she was his mother as well as his wife, knowing how great a burden he bore. ‘Have faith, Hannoka.’

‘I worry about the children. How much farther can they go?’

‘If they get tired, we’ll carry them.’

‘And you?’

‘Do I slow you down?’

‘No. You march well. You still feel it?’

‘I still have the warmth on my face.’

She would not admit it, but he could see how she grew weaker every day, and her pace grew slower. He adjusted the speed of the march so that she would not fall behind, pretending to himself he was doing it for the children. He hated to see her grow thinner, and quieter. She had always been a noisy woman, a woman of quick passions and short temper. Now she was quiet, conserving her energy for the long march.

Have faith, Hannoka.

He understood her well enough. She was telling him to believe they would reach the homeland, that one day they would be safe for ever. But she was not telling him she would join him there.

He shook his head, a quick angry jerk, to send the dark thought skittering away. No good to be had looking that way. His care and his diligence were needed now, today, leading his people over the cold land towards the distant not-yet-seen mountains.

Bowman, his fifteen-year-old son, strode along at the head of the column, with his friend Mumpo by his side. The time was a little short of noon, and the young men knew that soon now the march would be called to a halt, for a rest to weary legs, and a share of the dwindling rations. But Bowman’s sharp eyes were fixed on the near horizon, the crest of the rising land ahead. He could make out a straggling fringe of trees.

‘Trees!’

‘Not many.’

‘Could be nuts. Berries. Firewood.’

So little grew on these rocky plains that even a few lone trees gave hope. They quickened their pace, opening up the gap between them and the rest of the march.

‘We might see the mountains from there,’ said Mumpo.

‘We might.’

They were well out of earshot of the rest now, so as they strode up the sloping hillside Mumpo took the chance to say what he had been planning to say all day.

‘I talked with the princess again. She asked about you.’

‘She’s not a princess.’

‘She thinks you avoid her. She doesn’t know why.’

‘I don’t avoid her.’

‘You do. Everyone sees it.’

‘Then let them look aside,’ said Bowman angrily. ‘What has it to do with them? What has it to do with you?’

‘Nothing,’ said Mumpo. ‘I won’t speak of it again.’

They went on in silence, and so reached the trees. Their feet crunched on the stony ground. Bowman stooped to pick up one of the dark-brown husks that littered the earth beneath the trees. He smelled it: a sharp, unpleasant smell. Disappointed, he let it fall again, and followed Mumpo to the crest of the hill.

‘Do you see the mountains?’

‘No,’ said Mumpo.

Bowman felt the weariness close about him like a heavy coat. Standing at Mumpo’s side, he looked north and saw how the barren land sloped down, and then rose again, another in the series of endless waves that limited the horizon. They were crossing an ocean of rolling waves, forever denied a sight of the farther shore.

He turned to look back at his people. He saw his father and mother, walking as always side by side. Behind them a straggle of people, in twos and threes, his twin sister Kestrel with the one Mumpo called the princess. The wagon rumbled steadily along after them, drawing Creoth and his five cows in its wake. Behind the cows he could make out the plump shape of Mrs Chirish waddling along, and behind her, holding hands in a chain, his younger sister Pinto and the other small children. At the back came little Scooch and the lanky teacher Pillish; and guarding the rear, Bek and Rollo Shim.

Bowman felt Mumpo’s silence, and knew he had been too sharp with him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just hard to explain.’

‘That’s all right.’

‘I think I’ll have to leave you. All of you. Someone will come for me, and I’ll have to go.’

‘Who will come for you?’

‘I don’t know who, or when. I only know why. There’s a time coming called the wind on fire, which will burn away the cruelty in the world. And I must be part of it, because I’m a child of the prophet.’

He knew as he said the words that they would mean very little to Mumpo. He felt for a different way to explain.

‘You know the feeling of not belonging?’

‘Yes,’ said Mumpo. He knew it well, but he was surprised to hear Bowman speak of it. Bowman had his family. He had Kestrel.

‘I think I was born not to belong, so that I can leave you all, and – and not come back.’

Mumpo hung his head in sadness.

‘Will Kestrel go too?’

‘I don’t think so. I don’t know. The one who comes for me will say.’

‘Perhaps he’ll say I’m to go too. Like before. The three friends.’

‘No,’ said Bowman. ‘They need you here. Promise me you’ll protect them. My father and mother. My sisters. Everyone I love.’

‘I promise, Bo.’

‘You’re strong. They need you.’

The chain of small children had broken up, as they raced each other up the slope to the trees. The bigger Mimilith boys were there ahead of them. Before Bowman could stop him, Mo Mimilith had picked up one of the nuts on the ground and started to eat it.

‘Yooh!’ he cried, spitting it out. ‘Yooh! Bitter!’

‘Do you see the mountains?’ called Hanno.

‘No. No mountains.’

A sigh of disappointment ran down the length of the column. Hanno ordered a rest halt among the trees. Pinto came up, panting from running to the top of the hill, and took Bowman’s hand.

‘How much further do you think we have to go?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Bowman.

‘I don’t mean I’m tired. I was only wondering.’

Pinto was seven years old, and had to make two steps for every one of Bowman’s, but she hated it if anyone took pity on her.

Now Kestrel joined them, beckoning Bowman aside for a word in private. Her companion, the young woman who had once been a princess, met his eyes and immediately looked away. She had always been proud. Now that she had nothing, now that even her beauty had been taken from her, she was still proud, but in a different way. Her great liquid amber eyes now watched the world go by saying, I ask for nothing, I expect nothing. But those scars! Those two soft mauve wounds that ran down her cheeks, two diagonal furrows from the cheekbones to the corners of the mouth, they fascinated Bowman. They changed everything in that once so sweetly pretty face. The man who had cut her had said, ‘I kill your beauty!’, but in its place had come a new beauty: harder, older, more remarkable.

Kestrel turned his attention towards their mother, who was just now reaching the resting place.

‘Look at her, Bo. She can’t go on like this.’

‘While she can walk, she’ll walk,’ said Bowman. ‘That’s how she wants it.’

‘You know what it is that weakens her.’

Of course he knew. The prophet Ira Manth had said,
My gift is my weakness. I shall die of prophecy
. This was the secret that all knew but none spoke. Ira Hath, their own prophetess, was dying of the warmth she felt on her face.

‘It’s how she wants it,’ said Bowman again.

‘Well, it’s not how I want it.’ Kestrel felt trapped and angry. She heard in Bowman’s voice the same note of resignation that now softened her mother’s words: as if they had both decided to suffer for the good of others, and so refused to do anything to help themselves. ‘I’d rather never get to the homeland than have her like this.’

‘I don’t think any of us have any choice.’

‘Then let it happen soon, whatever it is. Let it come soon.’

Dock! Dock! Dock!
It was the sound of Tanner Amos’s axe ringing out over the cold land. He and Miller Marish were felling one of the trees for firewood.

Kestrel returned to the women by the wagon, where a fire was already burning. Mrs Chirish, rooting among the husks on the ground, picked up one kernel and after a short inspection declared,

‘Sourgum. These are sourgum trees. We can eat this.’

Branco Such had already tried.

‘Eat them? They’re vile! I shouldn’t be surprised if they were poisonous!’

‘You have to boil them first, don’t you? Strip off the husks and boil the kernels. That’s how you get the gum.’

‘The gum is edible?’ said Hanno.

‘Certainly it is. A rare treat, too.’

So Hanno set the children to gathering the husks and shelling them, while the biggest cook-pot was half filled with water and put on the fire to boil. The Mimilith boys spotted that here and there in the bare branches of the trees were other husky nuts that had not yet fallen, so they raced each other up the knobbly trunks to pull them down.

‘Be careful, boys! Make sure the branches can take your weight!’

‘Stand back! She’s coming down!’

Tanner Amos’s warning cry was followed by a long rending crash, as the tree he had been felling toppled at last. He and Miller Marish and Mumpo then set to work with axes and cleavers to cut up the branches into cordwood.

Mrs Chirish sat over the pot and stirred the sourgum kernels as the water seethed. Seldom Erth unharnessed the horses and let them join the cows, grazing the sparse wiry grass. A group of women found places round the fire where they could lay out their blankets and their needles and thread, and get on with the making of bedrolls against the coming cold weather.

Bowman stood apart, looking towards the group of sewing women, telling himself it was better for all of them if he kept his distance from her. The Johdila Sirharasi of Gang, once a princess, now plain Sisi, sat beside Lunki, the stout woman who had been her servant, and who still, despite the changes, insisted on serving her. Sisi held her back straight, her head bent over her work, and did not speak. Every day Bowman expected her to fail under the hardships of the march, but she proved him wrong. She bore more than her share of the tasks, ate less than her share of the food, and never complained. Bowman reflected on what Mumpo had said, that he seemed to be avoiding her. That was not right.