Slaves of the Mastery Read online

  Kestrel learns to dance

  Kestrel’s travel-stained black clothes were taken away and burned. She now wore the uniform of the Johdila’s servants, a plain pale green robe with a white head covering. Beneath, on a thin cord hung round her neck, the voice of the wind singer lay close to her skin.

  ‘Now you look just like Lunki,’ said Sisi. ‘Only thinner.’

  Most of the day they spent in the Johdila’s carriage, as it jolted its way over the land. But whenever the Johdila went out, Kestrel went with her. By now the other members of the court had become used to her, and took her for just one more of the Johdila’s servants.

  ‘You mustn’t mind, darling. They don’t understand about friends. It would only confuse them.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  When not required by the Johdila, she would sit and gaze out of the carriage window.

  ‘Why do you look out of the window all the time?’ Sisi asked her. It wasn’t that she objected: she simply wanted to know. Everything Kestrel did fascinated her.

  ‘Because my people came this way.’

  Every day Kestrel saw the signs. They were following the same road as the march.

  ‘Oh!’ said Sisi, surprised. ‘Do you still care about your people?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even though you’ve got me now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you don’t care about them more than me, do you? I’m terribly nice to you. Lunki says I spoil you.’

  ‘Yes, I care about them more than you. Just as you care about your father and mother more than you care about me.’

  Sisi thought about that. She did love her father and mother, she supposed, quite a lot really, only they weren’t at all interesting, and if they were to be taken away, as Kestrel’s father and mother had been taken away, she wasn’t sure she’d miss them so very terribly.

  ‘But your people are gone, darling,’ she pointed out. ‘And I’m not. So really and truly, I think I’m more important now.’

  Kestrel turned her great dark eyes on her, and Sisi felt the thrill she always felt at her friend’s strength and mystery. It was as if however long she looked she could never see to the bottom of her.

  ‘I have a brother,’ said Kestrel, ‘a twin brother, who’s as close to me as I am to myself. He knows what I’m feeling without me having to say it. If he died, I would die. But he’s alive. Every day, I come closer to him. Soon we’ll be together again, as we have been from the day we were born.’

  Tears came into Sisi’s eyes as she heard this.

  ‘I wish I had a twin brother,’ she said.

  ‘No, you don’t. It’s not good to be so close to another person.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It makes you not need other people.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Oh, Sisi,’ said Kestrel. ‘However are you going to cope with being married?’

  Sisi shrugged. It was a subject she preferred not to think about.

  ‘They’ll tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. That’s how it is when you’re a princess.’

  Kestrel looked away out of the window once more, saying as casually as she could,

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather marry one of your own people?’

  ‘One of my own people?’ The question surprised Sisi. ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. There must be some young man who’s caught your eye.’

  ‘No. There isn’t. Who would there be?’

  ‘Well –’ Kestrel didn’t want Sisi to see through her motives, and cast round in her mind for some plausible candidates. It wasn’t easy. ‘Ozoh the augur?’ she said at last.

  ‘Ozoh? He’s half-snake!’

  ‘Barzan?’

  ‘Old, dull, and married.’

  ‘Zohon?’

  ‘He’s always smiling when there’s nothing to smile about. And anyway, he only loves himself.’

  Kestrel was impressed. She hadn’t realised Sisi was so sensible.

  ‘And there’s another thing, darling,’ Sisi went on. ‘All my people are inferior to me, because I’m a princess, and my husband has to be superior to me, so he’ll have to come from somewhere else.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to be superior to you.’

  ‘Would you marry an inferior husband? Don’t be silly, darling. It wouldn’t work at all.’

  ‘He could be superior in some ways, and you could be superior in others.’

  Sisi thought about that.

  ‘Yes, that would work. I think I’d quite like that. Only there still isn’t anybody, is there? So I might as well marry this man my parents have chosen for me.’

  ‘Well,’ said Kestrel, feeling she’d done all she could, ‘I’m just glad I’m not a princess.’

  After a short silence, Sisi said in a quiet voice,

  ‘It isn’t at all what people think. Nobody ever tells you anything. You never go anywhere. You never meet anybody. You’re supposed to be better than everyone else but really you’re a sort of doll in a doll’s house.’

  Kestrel was touched.

  ‘You could always stop being a princess.’

  ‘What else am I good for? I’ve never been taught to do anything for myself. All I know is how to be beautiful.’

  ‘Oh, Sisi.’

  ‘Don’t tell anyone I talk like this. They wouldn’t understand. The doll princess is supposed to be radiant, and happy, and –’

  She gave Kestrel the oddest smile, and turned her head away.

  While they had been talking, the long column of carriages had rumbled to a halt. It was time for the Johdila’s dancing lesson. Soon they heard the dancing master’s tap on the door, and Sisi groaned and lowered her veil.

  Kestrel went with her to the roofless tent. The little dancing master was in a state of nervous excitement.

  ‘Ten days, radiance! They say we will arrive in ten days!’

  ‘Yes, pixie, I know. This horrible journey just goes on and on. Still, it will end, you know. In the end.’

  ‘You misunderstand me, my lady. Only ten more days, and you have not mastered the dance. It will be a disaster. I will be blamed. I will be punished.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you will. After all, you are my dancing master.’

  ‘But radiance,’ pleaded Lazarim miserably. ‘You don’t try. How am I to teach you the steps if you won’t try?’

  ‘It is a very difficult dance. It is, isn’t it, Kess?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kestrel. ‘It’s difficult, but it’s beautiful.’

  Lazarim threw Kestrel a look of gratitude.

  ‘There, radiance! Difficult, but beautiful! If my lady were to try harder, and practise the steps, the difficulties would fall away, and the beauty would remain.’

  ‘Well,’ said Sisi, unconvinced, ‘I’ll try a little. But you’re not to bore me.’

  She adopted the opening position, left foot forward, right hand raised, and Lazarim took his place beside her. The piper and the drummer began to play, and Lazarim stepped lightly to his left. Sisi, stepping to her right, collided with him.

  ‘No, my lady, no! The left foot goes back and to the side, like so.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I remember now.’

  They started again. This time they managed the sidesteps, the salute, and the spins, but Sisi could not master the arrest. Instead she went on spinning until she came slowly to a natural stop.

  ‘No, radiance. One moment you are spinning, the next moment you are still. Listen to the beat. There!’

  He demonstrated, flying round on one toe, and stopping, frozen in mid-turn, apparently effortlessly, as if his body had no weight.

  ‘You see how I bend my body, my lady? As you turn, the curve of your body counterbalances the spinning motion, so that all you have to do is make your back straight, at just the right moment, and –’

  He did it again. Kestrel, watching, was fascinated. She longed to try for herself.

  ‘It’s easy for you, pixie,’ said Sisi petulantly. ‘You’ve got a be
ndy body. I don’t think my body bends that way.’

  Kestrel could resist no more.

  ‘Maybe I could show you,’ she said.

  ‘Could you, darling?’ Sisi sounded surprised, but not at all offended.

  Lazarim was only too pleased to release his reluctant pupil.

  ‘It might help if you were to watch the steps a few times, my lady.’

  ‘Oh, good. I’m much better at watching. Kess, you’re a darling sweetie.’

  So Lazarim took Kestrel’s hand, and Kestrel adopted the opening position for the tantaraza. She had watched the dancing master for several days running, and without having tried a single step for herself, she knew by heart every move he had demonstrated with so many repetitions. She held Lazarim’s hand lightly in her own, and all her body tingled. She had not told the Johdila, but as she had watched, she had caught the spirit of the tantaraza, and once that has happened, you long more than anything to dance.

  ‘Now,’ said Lazarim, ‘we begin with three steps to the left, and three to the right.’

  ‘I think I know,’ said Kestrel. ‘But I may lose you towards the end.’

  She poised her body on her toes, and Lazarim felt it from the touch of her hand: she was a dancer. A surge of joy swept through him. He forgot that the Johdila was his pupil, and this girl no more than a servant. He wanted to dance.

  Controlling his excitement, disciplining his breathing, he too rose onto his toes, and clicked his tongue at the musicians. The drumbeat began, then the sweet melody of the pipe. He moved, and she moved with him. And back, and she was there, lithe and sure. The salute, not perfect, but charming. And she was spinning, round, round, round, and there! Her arms snapping, her hips curling like the crack of a whip! She held his eyes, still as a statue, eyes bright with the electricity of the dance, and click-click-clack! Click-click-clack! In she came, a pin-sharp sequence of steps for the re-join, and they were away. From that moment, Lazarim forgot his day’s task, and the Johdila, and all the Sovereignty of Gang. He surrendered himself to the dance.

  Kestrel flew like a bird in his arms. At first her mind was tracking the steps she had watched so many times, but now it was as if there were no more steps, only movement, that came as naturally to her lithe young body as breathing. She responded without question to the dancing master’s touch, unaware that they had moved beyond the strict form of the tantaraza into the rare and highly-prized stage known as free flight. The musicians played as if entranced, their blindfolded eyes following the dancers’ every move, their rising rhythm urging the dance simultaneously towards formal perfection and to complete freedom. Sisi watched in astonishment, and was filled with a loving admiration for her extraordinary friend.

  As for Kestrel, she felt like a bird that has lived all its life in a cage, and now for the first time spreads its wings and rides the boundless wind. She trusted her partner completely, and so released herself into the dance without fear. Her heart was pounding, her cheeks were flushed, and yet within herself she felt cool and sure. Nothing in the world existed but the dance. Let it go on for ever!

  Lazarim knew better than Kestrel that one part of the perfection of the tantaraza, the dance of dances, was that it came to a climax. He changed his step, and the musicians heard it, and the drummer began to beat the final rhythm, that is called the arise. This Lazarim had never practised with the Johdila, and so Kestrel had had no opportunity to study the steps. She felt at once the change of pace, and did her best to follow the dancing master, but inevitably they lost the beat. He took her by both hands, and spun her gracefully to a stop, and made her a bow.

  She was panting and laughing, full of vitality, and beautiful in a way that Sisi had not noticed before.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know that part.’

  Lazarim took her hand and kissed it in silence. His eyes thanked her with unreserved passion. Sisi clapped her slender hands together, not too hard.

  ‘Darling, how beautiful you are!’

  She was genuinely pleased. It was as if Kestrel had suddenly become a comrade in arms. They could be beautiful together.

  Lazarim turned to her.

  ‘That, my lady, is the tantaraza.’

  ‘Yes, pixie, I saw. Wasn’t Kess fine?’

  ‘Do you think you could learn to do it, my lady?’

  ‘Oh, no! Do you think I could?’

  Lazarim sighed. No, he didn’t think she could, not in a thousand years. And yet, somehow, she must.

  ‘If your radiance’s servant here can learn the steps . . .’

  ‘Don’t be silly, pixie! Kestrel’s different. You must be able to see that.’

  ‘What then are we to do?’

  Sisi understood the dilemma, but all she could think was that matters had been arranged very unfairly. She was the one who must be married, and to marry, she must dance; and dancing, she now saw, was not something that came naturally to her. Kestrel, on the other hand, danced as if she was born to it, but was not the one who was to be married.

  ‘If only Kess could do the dancing for me,’ she said, ‘I believe I could manage the rest.’

  ‘No doubt,’ said Lazarim. ‘But your future husband is expecting to marry one bride, not two.’

  ‘You yourself said one dance was enough.’

  ‘So it is, radiance.’

  ‘Well, how would he know?’

  ‘Know what, radiance?’

  ‘I must be veiled, pixie. You know that. Why couldn’t Kestrel wear my robes and veils, and dance for me? Nobody would know it wasn’t me.’

  Kestrel heard this in silence: her mind at once racing, to calculate where her own advantage lay.

  Lazarim was shaking his head.

  ‘Your father would never permit it.’

  ‘I don’t see why we should tell him.’

  The dancing master stared at her. She was right: who else would ever know? The plan really might work. It was madly dangerous, of course. But it could work.

  Sisi too was all at once seized by her idea. She turned eagerly to Kestrel.

  ‘Would you do it for me, Kess darling? Do say you would! You know I can’t do the stupid dance, however much I practise, and if I don’t dance I can’t marry, and if I don’t marry everything will go horribly wrong, and there’ll be wars and things, and my father will be so cross!’

  Kestrel looked at her, and then at the dance master. Would her plan be helped if she put on the Johdila’s wedding dress, and danced in her place? Not in any obvious way that she could see at present. On the other hand, if she agreed, she would be part of a dangerous secret, and secrets were always a source of power.

  ‘Please, darling. You’d look so beautiful in my wedding dress.’

  Sisi was gazing at her anxiously. Kestrel realised she hadn’t given an answer.

  ‘What about them?’ Her eyes indicated the two musicians.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘They might tell.’

  The Johdila turned to the musicians.

  ‘If you tell anything you’ve heard here, I’ll have your tongues pulled out, and rabbits’ heads pushed into your mouths, and your lips sewn up.’

  The musicians hung their heads, too terrified to speak.

  ‘And your eyes will be burned out with red-hot skewers,’ added the Johdila, for the sake of tradition.

  ‘They’ll say nothing, radiance,’ said Lazarim.

  ‘So there you are. Nobody will ever know but us three.’

  It seemed to Sisi that the whole intractable problem, that had hung over them since the start of their journey, was now solved. She felt proud of herself.

  ‘Do friends tell friends they’ve done something clever, if they have?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kestrel.

  ‘I have, haven’t I? It is a clever idea, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a clever idea.’

  Kestrel looked at Lazarim, and in both their eyes was the unspoken question: can we make it work? For Lazarim, it was a godsend, a delivery from wha
t had seemed certain disaster. For Kestrel, it was just another chance, placed in her way by fate. And of course, it would mean she would have to dance.

  ‘If I’m to dance,’ she said, ‘I’d better learn to do it properly.’

  9

  The shadow of the monkey wagon

  The Manth people were woken to their first full day in the Mastery by the creak and rattle of food wagons. Their breakfast was mugs of dark sharp-tasting tea, and lard cakes. The tea was wonderfully stimulating, and the lard cakes rich, moist, and filling. Their strength returned.

  Bowman and Mumpo walked the perimeter of the marshalling yards, looking for weak points in the walls that penned them in. There were many. They found loose planks that could be forced aside, and places where the timber stockade could be scaled. Soldiers were on duty on the far side, but not in any great number, nor were they paying much attention. The big gates, barred on the outside, looked as if they could be forced open, given enough determination.

  ‘We can get out of here,’ said Mumpo.

  ‘They’d come after us,’ said Bowman. ‘They have mounted soldiers.’

  A different voice spoke from behind them.

  ‘We could hide.’

  They turned to find Rufy Blesh following them, listening to them. He had a wild look in his eyes.

  ‘You’re thinking what I’m thinking, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘There’s not so many of them. We could make a run for the trees.’

  ‘All of us? The children and the old people too?’

  Rufy looked away. ‘Not all. But some is better than none.’

  ‘No,’ said Bowman. ‘We must go together.’

  He was surprised to hear the authority in his own voice, but he knew he was right. The Manth people must stay together.

  ‘Then we’ll never go.’ Rufy’s voice was harsh. ‘Don’t you see what’s happened? Our people have been whipped like dogs. They’re frightened now. They’ll do as they’re told. They’ll choose to be slaves. You watch.’

  ‘Not me,’ said Mumpo. ‘I shall fight.’

  ‘Come with me, then, Mumpo!’ Rufy cried. ‘You’re like me, you’ve no family left. We can slip out in the night, and hide in the forest.’