Firesong Read online

  ‘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 b
lankets 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.

  He crossed over to the women by the fire. For a few moments, as if warming himself by the fire, he stood near Lunki and her mistress. Sisi was stitching the heavy blankets with small tight stitches, working with care and concentration. He could see from the groove the needle made in her fingertip how hard she had to push to drive the point through the stiff fabric. He could also see the smooth curve of her neck, and the rise and fall of her breast as she breathed.

  ‘That’s good work,’ he said. ‘That’ll keep out the cold.’

  She looked up, her eyes grave, questioning.

  ‘The tailor taught me,’ she said. ‘I’m doing my best.’

  ‘Hard on the fingers.’

  ‘Is it?’ She looked at her needle-finger as if unaware of the pressure she was putting on her soft skin. ‘Oh, that doesn’t matter.’

  Bowman heard the clatter of falling nuts, and looking up saw that Pinto had joined the Mimilith boys in the sourgum trees. They had already stripped the lower branches of nuts, and were now climbing higher, each in an adjoining tree. He could think of nothing more to say to Sisi, who sat, head bent, steadily sewing, so he moved away once more. As he passed the wagon, Mist the grey cat uncurled himself from his bed on the tent-cloths, and jumped down to rub against his legs.

  ‘Well, boy,’ he said. ‘Are we nearly there?’

  ‘No, my Mist. First we must reach the mountains.’

  The cat did not speak aloud, nor did Bowman answer him aloud. But they understood each other well. The cat asked this question every day, and every day received the same answer. There were never any mountains to be seen, so Mist had come to believe that Bowman chose to conceal their true destination. Mist knew that Bowman had great powers, greater even than his former master, Dogface the hermit, who had been able to fly. If the boy had such powers, he could not possibly be leading all these people with so much effort for so long, without knowing where he was going. Therefore their destination was a secret. So reasoned the cat, clever but not wise.

  ‘And on the other side of the mountains, your homeland.’

  ‘Yes. We believe so.’

  ‘It must be something very wonderful, this homeland.’

  ‘We shall see.’

  ‘Do the cats there know how to fly?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mist. I don’t know that there are any cats there. But if there are, I doubt if they can fly.’

  ‘I shall teach them.’

  Bowman smiled and stroked the cat’s head. This annoyed Mist. It had always been his heart’s dream to fly, and just once he had made a jump that was so immense that it must have been flying. He had told the boy, and the boy had said he believed him, but the look in his eyes had shown that this was no more than a polite pretence.

  ‘You don’t believe me.’

  ‘If you say you flew, Mist, then I believe you.’

  ‘Well, I did fly.’

  The truth was, he couldn’t be entirely sure. The time he had flown, it had only been a short distance. A short flight is very like a long jump.

  ‘Take care, Pinto!’

  This was Hanno, calling out in warning. Pinto had seen a plump husk on a very high branch, and she reckoned she was light enough to reach it without danger. Looking across to the neighbouring tree, she saw that Mo Mimilith was also climbing, and he saw her. At once, instinctively competitive, they began to race each other.

  Mo Mimilith was three years older than Pinto, and much heavier. At first his greater strength enabled him to outclimb her. But then he felt the branches bending beneath him, and realised he was at his limit. Pinto kept on climbing, her skinny little body easily supported by the upper branches; and so was the only one to reach to the very top of the tree.

  She looked down and saw the wagon, with the horses among the cows, snuffling out what coarse grazing they could find. She saw the huddle round the fire, where the sourgum was being boiled, and she smelled its strange sharp-sweet smell. She saw her mother, seated on the ground with her father beside her, holding her hands and stroking them, as he so often did. Then she looked across and saw Mo Mimilith on his way down his tree.

  I’ve won! she thought, exulting. I’m the highest one of all!

  Only now, turning and looking up and ahead, did she think to take advantage of her high vantage point. There were the rolling hills, receding into the distance. But beyond them, far off, she could clearly discern through hazy low cloud a range of jagged white-capped peaks.

  ‘Mountains!’ she cried. ‘I can see mountains!’

  No one else would be able to climb so high. She must be the eyes for all. She looked and looked, and memorised.

  Some way off, the rolling land levelled out and became rocky and craggy: it seemed to be a huge desert of cracked and shivered land, a rubble of boulders and fissures. On the far side of this broken plain, where the cloud lay low over the land, there was a belt of dark forest running from side to side of the visible world. Within this forest gleamed a river; and beyond the river towered the mountains. They rose through the cloud, to rear their bare-toothed peaks all along the white horizon.

  Bowman called up to her.

  ‘Can you really see the mountains?’

  ‘Yes! Far, far away!’

  People were gathering below, staring up at her.

  ‘Be careful!’ That was her father, who could see how the treetop swayed under her weight.

  She came scrambling down, a little too fast, showing off, and grazed one arm. She pretended not to notice. The marchers gathered round her, eager to hear what she had seen.

  ‘There’s a river,’ she told them. ‘And a forest. But before that, empty land, for miles and miles, all full of cracks.’

  ‘Cracks? What kind of cracks?’

  ‘Like cracks in dried mud. Only much bigger.’

  ‘Did you see any people? Any houses? There must be people living somewhere.’

  ‘No. I didn’t see anyone.’

  ‘How far to the mountains?’ asked the teacher, Silman Pillish.

  ‘Miles and miles. Days and days.’

  ‘Days and days!’

  ‘And how far beyond the mountains?’

  This question was addressed to Ira Hath. She was the prophetess, the one who knew the way to the homeland; though, as she told them again and again, she would only know it when at last it lay before her. She had seen it in a dream. They would find it on the other side of mountains, at the end of a path rising between steep slopes of land. It would be snowing. Ahead, the sun would be setting. Red sky, falling snow: and framed in the V of the hills, a land where two rivers ran to a distant sea.

  ‘I’ll know it when I see it,’ she said. ‘First we must get there.’

  ‘It’s just beyond the mountains,’ the people told each other. ‘The homeland!’

  Even though the mountains Pinto had seen were so far away, this news gave everyone heart. They felt the end of their journey had been sighted. Their task now was to survive the getting there.

  While Hanno Hath questioned Pinto more closely about what she had seen, Kestrel went up to Bowman.

  ‘It’s only mountains,’ she said, very low. ‘We don’t know the homeland’s on the other side. There might be a desert on the other side, or a swamp, and then more mountains, before we
get to the sea.’

  ‘There might.’

  ‘So there’s nothing to get so excited about.’

  ‘No,’ said Bowman. ‘But people need hope.’

  ‘I don’t. I don’t want hope. I want what’s real. I won’t believe we’re getting to the homeland until I see it.’

  ‘You don’t really want to get to the homeland at all, do you, Kess?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ Kestrel was irritated that Bowman could think this of her. ‘I don’t want to be wandering about for ever, always tired and hungry. Why would I want that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just feel that you’re frightened of the homeland.’

  ‘Oh, you feel. You’re always feeling. Why would I be frightened of the homeland? It’s the place where we all sit about being happy for the rest of our lives, isn’t it?’

  Too angry to wait for his reply, she took herself off to the far side of the trees, where Mumpo and Tanner Amos were chopping wood. For a few moments, as she listened to the dock, dock, dock of the axe, she thought how maddening her brother could be, with his assumption that he knew her better than she knew herself. Then as she calmed down she realised he was right. She was afraid of getting to the homeland; and not only because of what it meant for ma. There was something else.

  She tried to make out the shape of her fear. She could imagine the journey ahead, but when she tried to imagine the end of the journey, all she saw was a blank. It was like a book without the last few pages. All at once there was nothing. That was what she was afraid of: the nothing. But nor did she want the journey to go on for ever.

  What is it I want? she thought, shivering. What’s wrong with me?

  Tanner Amos and Mumpo between them filled the bed of the wagon with firewood. And now Mrs Chirish’s sourgum was beginning to set. She dipped a spoon in the sticky froth and drew out a scoop of the amber-coloured gum, and waved it back and forth until it cooled. Then she nibbled at it.

  ‘There it is,’ she pronounced. ‘Fetch some dishes.’

  All the people round the fire had a taste. Some liked it and some didn’t. It was odd, both sweet and sour at the same time, and it got stuck in the teeth; but it was edible, no question about it.