Firesong Read online

  Here and there, barely able to see, they brushed against the sides of the fissure, dislodging loose flakes of stone from the crumbling surface to rattle to the ground. The path was formed out of fragments of the eroding walls, and it crackled and crunched under their feet. Just as the crack above had closed in, so now the walls seemed to be pushing closer, until the space between them was just wide enough for the bandits and their captives to walk in single file.

  ‘Keep to the middle of the path,’ said the bandit leader, his words echoing down the tunnel.

  Kestrel touched the walls as she went, feeling the cracked and crumbling surface. Then her outstretched hand struck a timber post, and another. Feeling more carefully now, she learned that the tunnel was ribbed with timber supports, at first every few paces, then closer and closer to each other. They had been set at a slant on either side, to meet overhead, forming a triangular space. Between these timber frames, showers of small stones and dust fell as they passed.

  Ashar Warmish began to sob, afraid of the tunnel and the dark. Sarel Amos, who was next to her in line, felt for her hand and squeezed it.

  ‘Not long now,’ said Barra gruffly.

  The tunnel had become so tight they had to stoop to pass between the supports. There were beams all the way now, making a timber-lined shaft just big enough for a man to pass along at a crouching shuffle.

  Then the bandit leader called into the darkness,

  ‘Watchman ho!’

  There came a faint answering cry.

  ‘Aya!’

  ‘Barra ho!’

  They came to a stop. There was the slow creak of a heavy door opening – and sudden light.

  The roar of water. The tang of wood smoke. The dazzle of sky. One by one the bandits and their captives emerged through the low doorway, past the waiting watchman. Kestrel found herself on a broad shelf cut high up in a sheer rock wall. Above her rose the flanks of a great split in the land, hundreds of feet high, unclimbable cliffs of stone. Below her, the forger of this spacious rift, a fast-flowing river, that came rushing from a crack in the far wall to tumble in a hissing spray into a turbulent rockbound lake. At the far end of the rift the water was sucked boiling and gurgling down a succession of narrow slits. Her eyes searched for an escape route, but no other fissures entered this natural fortress. The only way in and out was the timber-sided tunnel through which they had come.

  The river’s waters completely filled the rift, from wall to wall. But on the water, supported by timber piles, the bandits had built a deck that extended all along one rock side. The deck was a good fifty paces wide, wide enough to hold a settlement of thatched huts. From it projected three broad jetties, over the widest part of the pool. At the end of each jetty, a fire was burning, and pots were boiling. People came and went between the huts and the fires; most of them were men, but there were some women, and some children.

  Kestrel stood on the rock ledge and gazed down at the scene with a sinking heart. The bandits were far more numerous than she had expected, and their settlement far harder to attack.

  The bandit leader gestured at his people.

  ‘The home of the Barra klin,’ he said. ‘Your home.’

  He led the way down the steep steps cut into the rock wall, to the timber deck below. Here he was greeted by a tall woman of his own age, her grey hair tied back with string. She studied the captured girls with a careful appraising gaze.

  ‘Very good,’ she said to Barra. ‘Where are they from?’

  ‘Travellers,’ said Barra. ‘From the Mastery, I’d guess.’

  ‘Ah, well. There’s all sorts there.’

  She beckoned to the Manth girls to follow her.

  ‘Come with me.’

  She took them to one of the jetties, and told them to sit and warm themselves at the fire.

  ‘Just take care not to fall into the river. It’s ice cold. You’d be dead before we could get you out.’

  Here they sat, shivering and fearful, while the young bandits who had captured them gathered on the main section of the deck and stared at them. The grey-haired woman went into the largest of the huts, and could be heard giving orders. Shortly two younger women with babies strapped to their backs came out carrying cups of water and plates of dried meat.

  Ashar Warmish began to cry again. She cried quietly, out of fear, and grief for her dead father.

  ‘I want to die,’ she said between sobs. ‘I want to die.’

  ‘It’s going to be alright,’ said Kestrel, putting her arms round her. ‘We just have to be brave.’

  ‘They can do the dying,’ said Sisi fiercely. ‘I’ll kill anyone who comes near me.’

  ‘We do nothing at all for the moment.’ Kestrel spoke to them all in a whisper. ‘Eat and drink as much as you can. That way we’ll last longer when we go back into the labyrinth.’

  ‘Go back into the labyrinth!’ Kestrel saw their frightened looks. ‘We can’t!’

  ‘It’s the only way. Trust me. I know how to find the others.’

  So long as Bowman gets near enough, she thought to herself; and so long as Bowman finds a way to get us back out of the labyrinth. But she said nothing of this.

  ‘We can’t go while they’re watching us. We have to wait until dark.’

  ‘Go into the labyrinth in the dark!’

  ‘It’s the only way.’

  She saw the grey-haired woman returning.

  ‘Let them think we’ve given up,’ she whispered. ‘Do everything they say.’

  This was mostly for Sisi’s benefit. The others were too shocked and frightened to offer resistance; but Sisi was angry, and her anger could make her act rashly.

  ‘You’ve eaten? You feel refreshed?’

  The girls nodded in silence. The grey-haired woman sat down.

  ‘My name is Madriel. I’m the mother of the klin.’ She saw the tears still wet on Ashar’s cheeks. ‘Don’t cry. You’re not prisoners any more. You’re brides. You will be treated with respect and honour. Our klin has a wise father, and a strong one. He will punish anyone who harms you.’

  Kestrel spoke up for all of them.

  ‘Are we to be brides whether we want to or not?’

  ‘You will want to,’ said Madriel. ‘It is how you will serve the klin. From now on, the klin is your home and your family. It will nourish you and keep you safe while you live, respect you when you grow old, and mourn you when you die. In return you will keep the fires burning for the hunters and warriors. You will give the klin baby boys who will grow up tall and strong; and become hunters and warriors in their time. That is the way of the klin.’

  Sisi shook her head angrily.

  ‘You don’t like our way?’ asked Madriel mildly.

  ‘Do women have nothing more to do than give life to men?’ said Sisi.

  ‘Nothing more,’ said Madriel. ‘Just as men have nothing more to do than give life to women.’

  The crowd of young men that had been staring at them now broke up, and moved away into one of the main huts. Madriel gestured across the lake, where a second deck ran along the far wall, beyond the rushing water. It was narrower than the platform on which the main settlement stood, and was reached by a long railed bridge that crossed the river at its narrowest point. All along this second remoter deck small thatched huts had been built, newly built by the look of them, each one barely big enough for two people.

  ‘There are your bridal huts. Tonight you will go to them, with your new husbands, and there you will stay for five days and nights.’

  The Manth girls stared at the little huts, and suddenly their fate seemed real and close. Red Mimilith looked back towards the young men.

  ‘Are we to choose our husbands?’

  ‘Choose your husbands! Of course not!’ The klin mother was shocked. ‘They will choose you.’

  As she spoke, the young men came filing out of the communal hut to form a cluster at the far end of the broad deck. They started to stretch their arms and legs, as if limbering up for some violent activi
ty. Among them Kestrel saw again the one who had kept his concealing scarf, and she wondered fleetingly why he chose to remain masked.

  ‘The strongest will have first choice,’ said Madriel. ‘He will choose the healthiest and most fertile among you. In this way, he will give the klin strong and healthy babies. The second strongest will choose next. And so six of our young men will choose their brides. That is the way of the klin.’

  ‘But that’s all nonsense!’ exclaimed Sisi. ‘How is anyone to know who’s the most fertile?’

  ‘By the strength of their desire. When a young woman is most fertile, she is most desirable. Look at me. I’m like the flower whose petals have shrivelled and fallen. My child-bearing days are gone. No man desires me. But you’ – this to Sisi – ‘you are the unfolding bud.’

  ‘Not me,’ said Sisi, flushing and touching her scarred cheeks.

  Madriel laughed.

  ‘You think that makes you any less desirable in a young man’s eyes? My child, every part of your body is heavy with the sweet scent of youth. You’ll be the first to be chosen.’

  ‘It makes no difference who chooses us,’ said Kestrel. ‘We know nothing of any of them.’

  ‘You’ll know them,’ said the klin mother, ‘when you see them walk the storm. A woman learns all she needs of a man by the way he walks the storm.’

  Before they could ask more about this, a second woman from the klin now joined them, carrying a sleeping baby in a sling round her neck, and holding in her hands a shallow basket filled with strips of coloured fabric.

  ‘The bride colours, mother,’ she said, handing over the basket.

  Madriel took the basket and picked out a blue-and-yellow ribbon. It was rough-edged, torn from the hem of some discarded garment, only a few inches long. She twisted it into a loose knot, and gave it to Sisi.

  ‘Hold it where the men can see it. I’ll tell you what to do when the time comes.’

  One by one she took the cloth strips out of the basket and distributed them at random to the Manth girls. Some were striped, some were checked, some plain. Kestrel received the plainest strip of all, a fragment of light grey material, almost white. She felt oddly pleased to have so colourless a piece of material, and was sure the klin mother had picked it out for her on purpose.

  ‘What is this walking the storm?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  There came a stir among the huts, and a group of older men came filing out. Each held in one hand a homemade weapon, a stick or a weighted cord or a whip.

  ‘The fathers are ready,’ said Madriel. ‘Come.’

  She rose, and the Manth girls rose at her command, and followed her. She arranged them in a line, kneeling or sitting as they chose, down the wide boardwalk that ran between the huts and the water. She showed them how to hold their bride colours open on their laps, where they could be seen. The older men, the ones she had called the fathers, some of whom weren’t old at all, now formed two long lines before them, their weapons in their hands. They took their places quietly, eyes cast down, with grave looks on their faces; and so stood, legs apart, facing each other, in an ever-lengthening human corridor two paces wide, running parallel to the water, all the length of the deck.

  While these lines were forming, the young men were making their final preparations. Each one bound onto his right upper arm a strip of coloured fabric corresponding to the bride colours. When this armband was in place, they wound long scarves round their necks and faces, leaving only the narrowest slit below the nostrils to allow them to breathe. From now on, they were blindfolded.

  Kestrel picked out the one with the white armband, that corresponded to the knot of material in her lap. She saw his face before it was muffled in the concealing scarf: a broad face with a snub nose.

  Not him, she thought. I won’t marry him.

  As soon as the thought formed in her mind, she chased it away. She had no intention of marrying anybody, from the Barra klin or anywhere else.

  ‘I won’t! They can’t make me!’

  This was Sisi, speaking aloud. She too had identified the youth wearing her colour, and she was outraged.

  ‘Be patient!’ said the klin mother, seeing how the Manth girls were growing agitated. ‘No choices have been made yet. Soon now you will lay down your bride colour in the place I tell you. Later, when the young men make their choices, a bride colour will be given back to you.’

  The blindfolded young men were now lining up at one end of the double row. Kestrel looked for the one she had puzzled over on the journey through the labyrinth, but now that all their heads were covered, she couldn’t pick him out.

  Barra came out of the meeting hut and strode down the centre of the rows to the far end. Here he turned, and raising his hands above his head, he clapped twice. The fathers all stiffened, and lifted their whips and their sticks. The first of the blindfolded young men was led into the starting position. The Manth girls realised now what was about to happen, and forgot their own fears in horror at what was to be done.

  The bandit leader clapped once more: this time a single clap. The first blindfolded young man set off down the lines, his boots clopping on the timber boards. The sticks swung hard, cracking onto his back; the cords lashed his arms; the whips cut at his legs. He staggered on, unable to see the blows before they landed, flinching at every sound, struggling not to cry out or to run. The blows rained down from either side, onto his head and chest and buttocks, brutal and unceasing. This first young man wore colours of black and orange, and gentle Sarel Amos, who clutched the same colours in her hands, couldn’t stop herself from crying out at his suffering. She knew neither his name nor his nature, but the chance of the colours linked them, and it was enough to make her care.

  He staggered on down the long line, but the relentless blows were taking their toll. They could hear him groaning now, and whimpering. Too slow to dodge, every blow landed, and with each one, he crouched lower and moved more slowly. Then a bull-hide whip sliced at his calves, and he stumbled to his knees, and did not rise again. The flailing arms of the older men fell still. Madriel gestured to Sarel.

  ‘Lay your bride colour on the ground where he has fallen.’

  Trembling, Sarel did as she was told. The older women came forward and helped the beaten young man limp away. Now the stripe of orange and black lay on the deck to mark how far he had endured, in the ordeal they called walking the storm.

  ‘Did I do well?’ he asked, his voice breaking with pain, as they unwound his blindfold.

  ‘You did well,’ they told him. ‘You passed the halfway line.’

  The second young man was in place. The father of the klin clapped his hands. The grim beating began again, as one after another, the young men submitted themselves to the ordeal.

  Some, caught by an unlucky blow, fell within a few paces of the start; and even though they were on their feet again within moments, the colour was laid where they had fallen, and their chance was gone. Others struggled on, crying out with the fear of the unseen blows as much as at the pain, until unable to bear it any longer they took the first opportunity to stumble, and so end the punishment. The one who wore the band of white was not one of these. As soon as he began his walk, Kestrel could tell he would be among the winners. He moved with a sure stocky gait, bowing his shoulders to the crack of the sticks, pushing doggedly onwards like a wounded ox. The whips couldn’t trip his ankles and the weighted cords couldn’t break his skull. On he stomped, breathing heavily, past the halfway line, maintaining the same steady speed. Kestrel found herself willing him on, for no other reason than that she held his colour in her lap; and then was ashamed of herself, thinking, Let him be clubbed to the dirt. What do I care?

  And yet the klin mother had been right. Watching the young men walk the storm made Kestrel know them. The ordeal was the same for each one, but each one suffered it in his own way. This one with the white armband had tenacity, and courage, but he was not clever. He had no sense of how to avoid the blows, or red
uce their punishing impact. He was a man who would be reliable, who would work hard, but who would never learn. His sheer determination took him to the three-quarter line, but here, worn down by the hundreds of blows he had endured, he was at last hammered to his knees.

  Kestrel rose and placed her bride colour on the deck where he had fallen, and returned to her place. She caught Sisi’s eye as she walked back. Sisi’s face showed her distress, but whether for herself or for the young men who were walking the storm, Kestrel did not know.

  The next youth was already on his way. The colours lay all down the line, showing how far each had got. Those for whom the ordeal was over were returning to watch and see how their companions fared, and to look at the row of waiting brides. These new-made veterans, bruised and aching though they were, held themselves with pride. They had walked the storm, and were now entitled to take their places as fathers of the klin.

  At last there was only one bride colour remaining, the blue knotted strip held by the youngest of the Manth girls, Ashar Warmish. One young man waited at the end of the double line, wearing a blue band on his arm. Because he was the last, the atmosphere became more relaxed. His companions were starting to talk among themselves, and compare their wounds, while the leaders, the ones whose colours were furthest down the line, were already making their choice of bride. But first the final blindfolded youth must make his way down the lines.

  Kestrel saw the difference as soon as he started. He was no stronger than those who had gone before him; nor was he nimbler at evading the blows. He simply cared less. He walked with his scarfed head held high, accepting the hammer-strikes to his back, reeling under the impact, finding his balance once more, and moving on: all as if he felt nothing. Shortly the others watching realised something unusual was happening, and their eyes turned from the brides to the blindfolded boy stalking down the lines. Already he was past the halfway mark, and he had made no sound. He turned his unseeing head towards the blows, seeming to invite them to strike him. Kestrel found herself thinking, How can he mind so little? Does he want to die? He walked on as if into the waves of the sea, turning always towards the higher wave and the higher, breasting the breakers and finding there an increase of strength. One club caught him full in his masked face with a sound of crunching flesh, but still he strode on.