The Limping Man (18 page)

Hana looked into the face of the Limping Man.

‘Stand her up. Let me see.’

The bearers pulled the unconscious guard from the roof of the litter and dragged him aside. The Limping Man was level with Hana, holding red curtains under his chin, framing his face.

‘Vosper,’ Hana whispered. She tried to spit at him but her mouth was dry.

‘Yes, indeed,’ smiled the Limping Man. ‘And you are Hana, who ran away but did not run. You should not have turned back, my dear.’

‘Someone will kill you,’ she managed to say.

‘Oh no, never,’ he said. ‘But we have no time for talking. I won’t make you love me, like Ben. Today my people want hatred, that is best. Haggie.’

‘Master?’ the crier said.

‘Tell them to raise another stake.’ He took an edge of his curtain and wiped his watery eyes. ‘And put it in the centre, Haggie. She’s a brave girl and deserves a special place. Blow a loud blast for her. Blow two.’

He smiled at Hana and raised his finger. The attendant closed the curtain and the bearers made ready to move.

Two men held Hana. They pulled her upright when she stumbled. Haggie blew the trumpet, and blew a second time. Colour, shouting, grinning mouths, the stink of men packed together like rushes in a swamp. She was in People’s Square. The sky opened up, blue like the woman’s dress in the ballroom. Hana raised her head, trying to free herself from the thick noise and hungry faces.

A tiny black dot stood motionless above her.

Hawk was there.

THIRTEEN

They chained her to a post set in front of the others and packed dry wood round her feet. The Limping Man smiled down from his throne. He seemed no more than an arm’s length away. The crier shouted and a pathway opened in the crowd. Four men with their arms tied were whipped and driven through and thrown in a heap at the edge of the pool. Then came Danatok, with torn clothes and ragged hair and hanging head. Hana cried his name. He did not look up. Nor did Hubert, walking behind with a heavy step. He did not seem to know where he was.

Ben came last. He struggled, he kicked, he tried to bite. Hana felt a surge of love and pride. He was free from the Limping Man.

They threw him with the others and because he still fought bound him with extra cords. He rolled at the guards and lashed out with his tied feet at their legs. Then he saw Hana and gave a cry of rage and loss.

‘Ben,’ she called. There was nothing to say but his name.

Guards brought in the women, twenty of them, old and young, weeping and pleading. Several seemed drugged. A few were stoical. And Blossom was like Hubert, she walked as though she did not understand her feet, so deep was the Limping Man’s hold on her.

Hana could not bear to watch. She found Hawk in the sky and fled to him.

Fly away, Hawk. Fly, she said.

He circled lower. She saw People’s Square like a basin. The crowd, the green pool, the stands, the throne. The litter, at the foot of the steps, flickered in the breeze like a fire. Ben struggled with the cords binding him.

Guards chained the women to their posts. A trumpet blast wound into the sky. It seemed to jar Hawk – perhaps hurt the wing that bent a little more crookedly than the other. He side-slipped across the square in a way that made her dizzy and when she looked again the crier was at the head of the stairs shouting at the crowd. The breeze crossing the square blew his words away. ‘Witch,’ she heard, and ‘tried to kill our master’ and ‘cannot die’ and ‘forever’. There was much more. The crowd’s roar rose in a blast that tossed Hawk back across the square.

The Limping Man raised his hand and the crier fell silent. He went to Vosper’s side and sank to his knees to listen. Then he beckoned the bearers kneeling to one side. They lifted the throne and carried it to the steps, adjusted their hold, the front pair raising the poles as they went down. The Limping Man seemed to float as he descended . . . and then Hawk’s eye caught something else, making Hana dizzy again. He watched the pool. A ripple on its surface flowed from the farthest edge towards the marble head with the crying mouth. Rat, Hana thought.

Hawk? she asked.

Why did he watch?

No one in the square saw. Every eye was locked on the Limping Man as his bearers carried the throne down the steps, adjusted their hold and crossed the cobbles to where Hana slumped against the chains holding her. Hawk flicked a look and turned back to the pond. For a moment Hana thought he was going to dive at the rat as it reached the
statue.

No, Hawk.

He banked lower. Something broke the surface: a grey head. It paused at the back of the statue – and Lo raised his face, took a breath and sank again.

Ha, Hana cried. She wished she had a voice. Lo had found the hole where Hari had escaped from the Company Whips. He was swimming to confront the Limping Man.

I’m going, Hawk. Stay here. Please don’t go.

She plunged down the sky into her body. The bearers reached the stake where she was chained and the Limping Man grounded his stick, bringing a sudden hush over the square. Shouts of praise burst out again as he struggled to his feet. A wind was whipping over his head and rushing down, making his robes dance and his head-dress swell. Painfully, he walked the last few steps to Hana’s stake. He flicked his hand at the crier, walking behind. The man stepped back and swelled his throat.

‘Silence,’ he cried and the crowd grew as still as water in a pond.

‘Further back, Haggie. I want to talk with her,’ said the Limping Man. He reached out and touched Hana’s cheek.

‘What a pity,’ he said.

‘Spit, Hana. Bite him,’ Ben screamed. One of the guards kicked him in the ribs.

‘I would save you if I could,’ said the Limping Man.

‘How?’ Hana whispered.

‘Easily enough. Not from death. Only pain.’

‘How?’

He smiled at her. He had the face of a kind old man, yet he was not much older than Lo. Where was Lo?

‘You should not have gone to Queenie, my dear. She didn’t know my secret. She only guessed.’

Hana wet her mouth. ‘How will you stop the pain?’

‘The witches’ way. You know the frogweed? My men will fetch some. You can chew before they light the fires. No pain, Hana. Your body will burn but you’ll be dead. All you have to do . . .’

Where was Lo?

The Limping Man gave his sweet smile. ‘. . . is worship me.’

She did not understand. Again the wind whipped into the square, swirling his robes, rocking his head-dress. Without the band holding it under his chin it would fly away. She looked into the sky. Hawk was still there. Would he dive to save her the way he had with the bounty hunter? She lost some of the Limping Man’s words.

‘. . . make you fall on your knees if I wish. But I want you to do it without compulsion. I want you to do it because I’m worthy of your love.’

‘And you’ll give me the weed?’ she whispered.

‘Yes, my dear, for you to chew. Then, no pain.’

She wanted to say yes. She wanted him to send men for the frogweed – but she remembered Mam and she could not. Again she wet her lips.

‘You are mud from the swamp,’ she said.

His soft white face turned the colour of his robes. His eyes leaked water and his pink mouth snarled, showing brown backward-sloping teeth. He raised his stick to strike her but his leg would not hold. The crier jumped to support him. A dreadful silence fell on the square.

The Limping Man pushed his face at Hana. His spittle fell on her lips. ‘Then burn and like it,’ he said. He shook Haggie off. ‘Save her till last. Let her hear the others.’ He limped to his throne. The wind puffed his robes, making him fat. Hana saw his red shoes stepping on the cobbles.

Haggie blew a trumpet blast. ‘Praise him,’ he cried.

The shout began – and changed to a huge breath of disbelief. It was like a sob. Single shouts came from the crowd. Hana twisted her head to see where the fingers were pointing.

Lo rose from the edge of the pond. Weed draped his shoulders. Water leaked from his hair. A green man, naked, empty handed, he stepped from the mud on to the cobbles.

‘Vosper,’ he said.

The Limping Man turned. ‘Who . . .?’ he began; then nothing more as Lo raised his hand.

‘See, Vosper, I limp like you. But I don’t want to be king and conquer worlds.’

The words were not important. The struggle had already begun. Hana saw waves of force coming from both men and roiling where they met, like muddy water and clean water.

The wind, leaping into the square, blew a deadly silence across the crowd. Lo was drawing his strength from the people, as much as they were able to give, from the forests, from the beaches, from the men and women working and dancing on the stone floor, from the sucking baby, from the cupped hands. Perhaps he also heard the voice that Hari and Pearl and Xantee had heard.

What did Vosper hear? His red angry face turned white. He leaned on his stick and did not totter, but drew strength from his worshippers. Hana felt him sucking it out of them. They drooped. They scarcely breathed. He drew it from the swamps. And somewhere else, somewhere else. Vosper heard the other voice. He seemed to swell as the wind ballooned his robes.

Hana felt the roiling increase. She saw Lo step back, find his balance on the wet cobbles, step forward again, holding his hands cupped, asking for strength. His toes gripped and his scarred leg strained. Grey-faced, lips drawn back, he fought to hold the tide rolling at him.

The dark water began to discolour the blue.

Ben, Hana pleaded. He was on his knees, pushing the little strength he had into his father. Hana added her own. Blossom too, Hubert too, groggy still, but partly released, tried to help.

It was not enough. Slowly, slowly, the Limping Man forced Lo to his knees. The cupped hands parted, spilled their life, as Lo leaned to support himself. They slid on the cobbles and he gave a cry of despair. His face banged on the stones and he lay still, except for the twitching of his crippled leg.

‘See,’ the Limping Man whispered.

‘See!’ bellowed the crier. ‘Worship him. Worship the Man.’

The strength sucked out of them flowed back into the crowd. They shrieked like fangcats. They flung their arms in the air. Some fainted in ecstasy and sank in the sea of faces all around. The Limping Man let it go on. At last he raised his stick and the crier lifted his trumpet and blew. Silence. Terrible silence. Hana wept.

The Limping Man whispered to the crier, who stepped forward, pointed his sword and bellowed at the crowd: ‘This man is the consort of witches. Their leader. He will drown in the water he came from. He will go first. This girl’ – he swung to Hana – ‘is the chief witch. For all her youth. The last of them. She will burn when the others have burned. You will hear the evil spirit scream as it flees from her. And then, my people, the world is yours to use as you wish, while you continue to worship me.’

The roar of love mounted like a cumulus cloud. The Limping Man regained his sweetness. He smiled at Hana like a little old woman. It filled her with horror – his transformation. She fled into the sky, fled to Hawk and trembled there, behind his eyes, seeing nothing for a moment. Then she looked at herself, chained to the stake; at Ben, tied at the elbows and feet, crawling like a crushed insect at Lo, and Lo, struggling to kneel and falling back. Vosper too – she saw him limping towards his throne at the foot of the steps.

A gust of wind jolted Hawk sideways. Down in the square it whipped across the crowd, over the women tied to their stakes, ballooned the Limping Man’s robes, puffed out his head-dress – and Hawk’s focus changed. Where was he looking? Why there? Why the head-dress? It seemed to throb and stir and rearrange itself as if something alive . . . A picture of a sun-warmed rock came into Hana’s mind, floating as though under water, with small ants at the foot, tearing flesh from a dropped fish bone; then warriors bursting out to fight invaders, and killing them, except for one with a mite riding in the joint between its body and head. The mite, the rider?

Hana clamped her mind on Vosper’s secret.

Hawk, she cried, but had no need. He was diving. She raced away from him, into her body, and saw Hawk falling out of the sky. He came like a stone towards the pond. He seemed to be aiming at the statue.

Hawk, she whispered. Again there was no need. His wings snapped out, half their reach, he sped across the pond, over the staked women, over Hana, to where the Limping Man had begun to turn. Slow, slow, and Hawk was fast. His claws were hooked. They caught the scarlet head-dress, pulled it from Vosper’s head, with its fastening band and its waterfall of cloth. Hawk jerked in his flight, was frozen in the air for a moment, but struck downwards with his wings, once, twice, three times, and climbed above the Limping Man. The cloth trailed from his claws as Vosper screamed. Hawk rose across the cobbles and the crowd, with the scarlet streamer trailing behind. He dropped it and it opened like a flower as he turned.

There was more. There was the green toad with the blood-red stripe on its back, clinging to the Limping Man’s shoulders.

The crowd breathed out, a prolonged whisper. The crier’s trumpet clanged on the cobbles. The toad remained placid, his mouth fastened on the back of Vosper’s neck. And Vosper dropped his stick, put his hands up to the creature and gave another cry when he felt its skin.

Hawk turned. He dived again, claws extended. They hooked into the toad and he flapped and flapped again, but the creature’s sticky pads kept their hold on Vosper’s neck. Vosper locked his hands on its back legs. Hawk beat. He beat his wings. Hawk was stronger. The pads came free. The back legs slid from Vosper’s grasp. But still Hawk could not rise with the toad. Its tongue was buried deep in Vosper’s neck, under the skull bone. As Hawk whacked the air with his wings it began to stretch, but the toad held on. The crier drew his sword.

Hana put her strength into Hawk. She did not know how, but she touched him as though with her hands. It was enough. With a wet sound the tongue came free and sprang back into the toad’s mouth. Hawk rose with the creature in his claws. It beat the air with its pads, its back legs paddled. Hawk went higher. He rose over Hana’s stake until he reached the height of the buildings round the square. The toad made a squeaking noise as Hawk let it go. It tried to inflate itself, lighten itself. But it fell like a bladder full of liquid and burst on the stones at Hana’s feet.