The Limping Man (17 page)

No, Ben, she whispered. Come back.

She listened again, and still he cried, ‘Master,’ in a voice full of devotion. She stopped her ears. She heard no more, except, distantly, the thud of a closing door.

It was a long time before she risked looking over the parapet. A sentry walked by, slow and lazy. That was all. She looked at the sky.

Hawk was gone.

TWELVE

Rain clouds boiled up from the west. Heavy drops splashed on the roof. Hana drank the last of her water and filled the bottle from the gutter inside the parapet. Her hunger did not matter, she was used to it. What mattered was bringing Ben back and the only way to do it was to kill the Limping Man. If he came to feed his toads again she would get in through a window. She tried to work one of the bars loose with her knife. The point snapped off. She knelt with the rain beating on her head. Not even a knife. Perhaps tomorrow she could hide in a building in the burrows and tip a heavy stone on to the litter . . . But she did not know which streets he would pass through, and even if she did, no stone would kill the Limping Man.

Hawk, help me, she pleaded.

The rain stopped and the clouds rolled away. He was nowhere in the sky.

Hot sun. She lay on the roof, ignoring the shade of the ferns. Her clothes steamed and her hair dried on the slates. Ben was somewhere in the palace below, perhaps crying his devotion still. If the Limping Man questioned him he would say she was on the roof. She had the horrible thought that Vosper might send Ben to kill her. The only way then would be to jump from the parapet and, if her legs did not break, run for the scrub. Where to after that? She imagined Ben coming after her – a Ben she did not know, horribly changed. She would try to wrestle him off the cliff. They would fall like Pearl and Hari. Pearl and Hari had lived. They would die.

If Hawk would only lift me up and fly away . . .

Hana slept, and when she woke he was waiting beside her. He lifted his claw off a fat pigeon lying by her head.

‘Ah, Hawk . . .’

She plucked its feathers and cut off a leg, which she offered him. He refused. She peeled the skin and ate the flesh, then sliced tender meat from the breast and ate that too. Hawk accepted the carcase after that. He opened it with his beak and found the heart and liver. Hana poured water into her hand and held it out. He drank, scooping with his lower beak, then flew away. Hana waited for the sun to go down. It touched the sea, turning red and shooting an arrow of light along the horizon.

Shouted orders came from the front of the palace. She crept to the back; found Hawk in the sky; joined him and watched until the sentries were lined up outside the palace door. She hurtled down the silver rope and shook herself into her own body. Monkey-quick, she climbed down the corner of the building and ran for the scrub, where she burrowed in and waited until the sentries resumed their march. Then she crept to the hand. The last of the sun turned it pink, and there was Hawk, perched on the broken finger.

Where do you sleep, Hawk? Where do you go?

They were questions for herself.

Will you find me in the morning? I don’t know where I’ll be.

His feathers shone in the last shooting rays – red, green, gold – then he spread his wings (she saw no wound) as if trying them, sprang into the air and flapped away. Hana heard a sentry approaching on the path. She retreated into the scrub, which was full of black pools now the light was gone. She felt her way through, although it would be safer to wait until the moon came up. But she did not want to stay near the palace. All day she had lain on the roof, close to Vosper and his toads. She wanted to get away from the contagion that had claimed Ben.

She passed the burned mansion, passed the other fallen houses, and as she went felt the Limping Man’s influence decrease. She felt sick at leaving Ben there.

‘I’ll try, Ben, I’ll try,’ she whispered; and could not make sense of her words.

Hana reached Bawdhouse Burrow as the sun rose. There was no change – the same rubble heaps, the same broken stairways, the same scummy pools in the parks, with weeds spreading on them, half-closing them like eyes. Women were usually out at dawn, drawing water from the single well. Today they stayed in their shelters, keeping their children close, keeping quiet. If the burning quota was not full the constables would take any woman they saw. She found the crawl to the shelter she had shared with Mam and rested there a few steps from the street. Sleep was hard. Fear crept into her mind with every breath. But Mam was with her too. Mam placed a cool hand on her brow. Hana, she whispered, the weed.

Hana understood. If she had frogweed she would be safe. If constables found her she could die like Mam. She crawled until she reached the stone blocking the shelter. There were no voices inside, no life. A man would be gone already to People’s Square but a woman would be moving about and children playing. She put her feet on the rock, straightened her legs and rolled it away. Silence again. She crept into the room where she had spent most of her life. No one lived there now. The family that had moved in was gone. The bunk lay smashed. The fire corner was cold, the ashes grey. Nothing remained except . . . Hana advanced. The pot stood on the shelf. Leaves of frogweed drooped down its sides. They crumbled when she touched them. The weed was dead.

Hana sat on the cold floor and wept. Soon Mam spoke to

her again.

Hana, I told you to go far away.

‘Yes, Mam,’ she said.

But you came back.

‘Yes,’ she snuffled.

So now you must be brave.

‘How?’ she said.

Was it Mam who answered or was it herself?

You’ve still got Hawk.

She wiped her arm across her face. She stood up and left the shelter, not using the crawl but stepping into the street. The sky was half white with clouds and half blue. No Hawk. He would be hunting. She wondered if he would bring her another pigeon. But it seemed wrong to think of eating on the day Ben would die – Ben and Blossom and Hubert and all the others. And apart from bringing food, how could Hawk help her? Perhaps only by finding a place where she could run at the Limping Man with her broken knife.

If that’s the only way, that’s what I’ll do, Hana thought.

She made her way towards People’s Square, using the route Mam had taught her. Crouching in doorways, she watched men go by. They crowded and jostled each other, but all were jovial. Some were soldiers enjoying a day’s leave before they marched. She felt them simmering with the pleasures waiting for them in the square, and the chance of killing and plunder after that. The word she heard most frequently was ‘Man’.

At the next turning, she found Mam’s way blocked so she slipped into ruined streets and climbed through broken buildings. Hawk might have shown her an easier way but he did not come. What had Mam meant – and was it Mam who spoke or was it her own voice? – when she told her she still had Hawk? Hawk brought her food, he was her spy, and he had attacked the bounty hunter, but she could not imagine how he might help her fight the Limping Man. Several times she climbed high in buildings and stood on roofs. She wanted Hawk for company but he was nowhere in the sky.

I’ve got to be without him, Hana thought. She would find a window, jump on the litter when it passed. Kill the Limping Man with her broken knife. She retreated into the back rooms of a building and sharpened the blade on a stone. Where would the best place be? Both Hari’s tale and Xantee’s spoke of a hole in the floor over the western gate into People’s Square. She had seen Vosper’s litter enter that way on the day Mam died.

Hana got her bearings and worked towards it, through rooms with fallen ceilings and leaning walls. She entered a room so huge that its far end was lost in darkness. The floor was grey with dust and grit yet seemed to have puddles here and there, not of moisture but of colour and light. She advanced cautiously, knife ready, then stopped at the first patch of light and drew in her breath. Not puddles, not just light, they were pictures made of coloured stones fitted side by side. This must be the ballroom in the story Mam had told her, Hari’s story. The whole floor, under the dust and rubble, was one huge picture of – everything. Someone had swept parts of it clear. Here was a farmyard with a man feeding hay to cattle; here a kitchen with a cook turning a pig on a spit; a golden fish swimming in a stream; a child – a laughing child – sitting in a small cart with wheels; a pigeon diving, a great golden hawk in pursuit . . . it went on and on: a man with a plough, a woman tying up her hair, lovers embracing. Who had uncovered it all, and what lay left to be uncovered? Hana felt whoever it was would not threaten her. She sat down next to the woman tying her hair. It could be Mam. She dreamed a while – Mam and Hawk, a forest stream, a little house to live in, Ben bringing fish from the stream . . .

‘Girl,’ a voice whispered behind her. She gave a halfscream, leapt to her feet, freed her knife. A figure approached from the dark end of the room.

‘Girl,’ he said, ‘put away your knife. You know who I am. Where is my son?’

‘Lo,’ she gasped. ‘Ah, Lo.’ She ran to him and hugged him and after a startled moment he hugged her back.

‘Girl, you should be far away. There’s nothing you can do here.’

‘Kill him. I can kill the Limping Man.’

‘No. Leave it to others. Leave it to Blossom and Hubert.’

‘He’s got them. He captured them. He’ll burn her today and drown him. Lo, he’s got Ben. He makes Ben call him Master. I heard. I’ve got to save Ben.’

She thought for a moment he would crumple to the floor. He covered his face – old brown hands, jungle hands, hiding his grief. He looked half the size she remembered – starved and wrinkled and grey-haired. But after a moment he dropped his hands. His eyes were fierce and he said, ‘Then I must do it.’

‘Do what, Lo?’

‘Fight the Limping Man.’

‘You can’t. Blossom and Hubert tried. We saw them. He just’ – she kicked a stone aside – ‘did that to them. And Ben tried to kill him and now he says Master.’

‘There are ways. I’ll try my way.’

‘What is it?’

‘Something I’ve been thinking of. When I left you I tried to speak with the people. I wanted to ask for their wisdom and their strength. But they were too far. I heard only a whisper. So I came here. This is the room Hari told us about when we were children. I came to see the coloured stones and speak with the people on the floor. See, Hana, this woman combing her hair, and this one tying wheat sheaves, and this one suckling her baby. See this man ploughing and this man sowing, and this girl milking her cow. I talked with them instead of the people. Come with me.’

He led Hana across the room to where a band of light lay across the floor.

‘Mostly I talked with her.’

It was a simple picture: a woman in a blue dress crossing a wooden bridge over a stream. Her black hair hung about her shoulders. She held out her cupped hands as though offering something. They were empty, and yet they held everything pictured on the floor. Hana felt her throat thicken and her eyes grow wet.

‘Does she tell you what to do?’

‘She tells me this is how things were and might be again.

What I will do . . .’ He sighed.

‘You don’t know.’

‘I’ve sat here three days, Hana. All of this is in me. I don’t know whether it’s enough.’

‘Against . . .?’

‘Him.’

‘Against the swamp,’ she said.

She offered Lo water. He drank a little. ‘Now Hana, you must get away.’

‘Are you going to fight him?’

‘I’m going to try.’

‘Blossom and Hubert –’

‘I’m different from them. I’ve lived with the people. And there is . . .’ He swept his hand at the shining pictures on the floor. ‘Now leave me. I need to be alone. Promise me you’ll find a place far away.’

‘With Hawk?’

‘Ah, Hawk is back. Yes, with him. And we’ll find you, Ben and I.’

She did not believe it. She made no promise, but touched his face as she had touched Ben’s and went away. For a short while she retraced her steps. Then she circled away from the ballroom, sometimes climbing, sometimes diving into basement rooms. Twice she crept by gaps where windows opened on People’s Square. It was thronged with people. She saw the Limping Man’s throne, with men in robes of every colour seated around it. At a third window she glimpsed – and turned away – two rows of stakes with wood piled at the foot. More stakes than last time. Men, burrows men, crowded close. They were so many that some stood up to their knees in the green pond.

Hana heard a rumble of expectation. It meant the Limping Man was close. She crawled and climbed and reached the hole above the western gate. A guard lounged there, facing the hole, resting his spear butt on the ground. He would stand straight when the Limping Man passed. It would be her signal. She edged towards him.

Tramping feet. A squadron. They marched into the square and the sound was lost in a wave of cheering. The generals came next, and rising above the shouts that greeted them, a trumpet blast. The guard beside the hole lifted his spear in a salute. Hana saw the red of the litter reflected in its point.

‘Praise the Man,’ he cried.

She drew her knife, drew her breath, and ran at him; struck him with her stiffened arm, propelled him into the hole and rode on his back down to the litter. His spear broke under him as he struck its roof. His weight tore the poles from the bearers’ grip. The litter crashed to the ground. The guard’s shoulder in Hana’s ribs knocked her breath away, but she kept hold of her knife and started ripping the crimson cloth, knowing only that the Limping Man was inside and she must kill him. Knowing too, as the knife found no bite, that she had failed. The litter had a wooden roof beneath the cloth. She reached over the edge, screaming and slashing, trying to find a way through the side curtains.

Hands gripped her and dragged her down.

She heard the crier bellow, ‘Kill the bitch.’

‘Yes,’ she heard her own voice say, pleading not to be burned. But there was another voice, soft and reasonable and sweet: ‘No, don’t hurt her. Treat her gently.’