Slaves of the Mastery Read online

  The Hath family lay down in their clothes with the rest. Hanno and Ira slept side by side, their hands clasped, as was their habit. Pinto curled up against her mother’s other side, Bowman beside his father. Too weary even for a wish-huddle, they felt each other’s closeness, shut their eyes, and were soon asleep.

  All but Bowman. He lay with his eyes closed, and saw again the Master’s smiling bearded face, and felt the power of his limitless will.

  Come quickly, Kess. I can’t do this without you.

  He was missing his sister more intensely than he wanted his family to know. It was at night, when the distractions of the day fell away, that the pain returned at its keenest. He had never been parted from her for more than a few hours from the day they had been born. He was so accustomed to the wild tumble of her thoughts and the violence of her desires, that this silence in which he now lived was almost unbearable. Without Kestrel, he was half-alive: less than half, since she had always been the more vital part of his being. He pined for her keen and restless spirit.

  Where are you, Kess? Come back to me, I can’t live without you.

  He poured his longing out into the silent night, reaching as far as his strength allowed. But wherever she was, she was farther away yet, and there came no answering voice.

  Second Interval:

  The hermit

  The great yew tree stands alone, near the top of a ridge of land that shelters it from the prevailing north-west winds. It has stood here longer than anyone knows, certainly for hundreds of years, guarding a small spring of clear water that, it’s said, never runs dry. Dogface chose the old yew for its solitary position, and for the fresh water supply. He eats very little, but he drinks a lot. The tree has other virtues: it’s evergreen, and so provides shelter in winter and shade in summer; its principal branches fork above the main trunk in such a way that he has been able to build a small but secure house here; and the view to the south is spectacular.

  Dogface is a tree hermit, and therefore in theory he has no possessions. There’s the snug thatched tree-house, which he occupies but doesn’t own. There’s a water jug on a long cord, which he uses but doesn’t own. And there’s a long thin sinuous grey cat called Mist, who keeps him company, but he doesn’t own. Here at least there’s no doubt of any kind. Nobody owns Mist.

  This morning, the morning that everything changes, begins no differently to any other. When Dogface wakes with the dawn, Mist is there as usual, sitting on the sill of the glassless window, watching him with a look of mild disapproval.

  ‘I do sometimes ask myself,’ says Dogface as he sits up and stretches, and shrugs off his nightgown, ‘why you trouble to stay with me. You seem to get so little pleasure from my company.’

  ‘I don’t stay with you,’ replies Mist. ‘I’m here. You’re in my vicinity.’

  ‘So you say, Mist, so you say.’ Dogface makes his way to the hole in the tree-house floor through which he relieves himself. A narrow line of brown yew leaves below testify to the daily cascade, as does the circle of brown grass on the ground. ‘And yet you must like me, I tell myself, or you would choose some other vicinity.’

  ‘Like you?’ says Mist. ‘Why would I like you?’

  ‘I don’t say there’s any reason to like me.’

  Dogface is not a vain man. He knows he’s strikingly ugly, with his long dog-like features and his bad eye. He knows he smells, not because he can smell himself, but because he hasn’t washed since he settled in the tree, which is now three years, eight months and eleven days ago. Furthermore he knows he has nothing the cat wants, for the simple reason that he has nothing. But the cat still chooses to stay.

  ‘I’ve come to the conclusion,’ he says, unreeling the jug on its long cord, ‘that your kindness to me, which I haven’t in any way earned, must come from your own affectionate nature.’

  ‘My own affectionate nature?’ Mist watches the hermit lower the jug all the way down into the little pool at the foot of the tree. ‘You know perfectly well I’m incapable of affection.’

  ‘So you say, Mist, so you say.’

  Dogface draws up the cord hand over hand, and swings the heavy dripping jug back into the tree-house. He holds it towards the cat. Mist jumps down from the sill, and takes three or four laps at its brimming top. When he’s done, Dogface drinks, long and steadily, and then splashes the remainder over his face. Refreshed, he draws a deep breath, and settles down to sing the morning song.

  Had there been a passer-by, and there are none, for there’s no road or track within sight, he would have heard nothing of the discussion between the hermit and the cat. It has taken place, but not aloud. Dogface has lived alone for so long now that he has forgotten there’s a kind of speech that makes vibrations in the air. As for Mist, cats can’t talk. But in every other way than sound, they have ordinary conversations, much like anyone else; and had Dogface stopped to think about this, he would have realised that this is his special value to the cat. The more thoughtful species of animals greatly appreciate conversations with humans, but very few humans know how to do it. Mist finds Dogface ridiculous, and his chosen way of life incomprehensible, but at least he replies when spoken to. From Mist’s point of view, there’s no way of telling which humans have this knack. All you can do is address them and see if they hear you. It’s typical, Mist thinks, of the generally bungled nature of existence, that the only human he’s found who talks back is a one-eyed hermit who lives in a tree.

  The conversation between man and cat has been silent. Dogface’s song is not. Here is another bond that keeps Mist in the hermit’s company. He has grown to like his songs. The morning song in particular has a sweet waking stretch to it, as the wordless melody hums and buzzes around the tree-house, calling up life and vigour and the new day itself. Dogface has dozens of songs. There’s an eating song and a sleeping song, songs for rainy weather and songs for sunshine, songs for cramp and songs for indigestion and songs for loneliness. Mist has come to know them all.

  As the morning song heads towards its end, the cat slips out of the tree-house and stalks along one of the yew tree’s spreading branches. Here he chooses a spot and lies down, still and silent, and waits for breakfast.

  Dogface finishes his song, stands up, stretches so high he pushes on the underside of the thatched roof with the palms of both hands, and then shakes out his day robe. It’s the simplest garment imaginable: a tunic of coarse undyed wool, with long baggy sleeves, and a hem that comes down almost to the ground. Dogface never washes it, but every morning he shakes it violently out of his window, and so, he hopes, prevents the dirt from settling.

  This shaking of his shift acts as a signal to the birds that live in the tree. At once they all rise up from their various perching places, skitter around in the air, and flutter down to land on the branches round the hermit’s door. Dogface pulls the robe over his head, jerks it straight, and steps out onto the broad branch he calls his front porch. Here, forty feet above the ground, he sits down on a convenient seat-like protuberance, long worn smooth by his bottom, and all the birds come and sit on him.

  The birds love Dogface: the small birds most of all, the tits and robins and finches. A pair of woodpeckers live in the tree, and never fail to greet him, occupying always the same place on his left shoulder. The starlings come in a rowdy gang, but they never sit still for long. The blackbirds like to stand on his head, and the sparrows hop about all over his thighs and knees.

  ‘Good morning, birds,’ says Dogface, lifting one gnarled finger to smooth the feathers on a chaffinch’s breast. ‘The days are getting shorter. The swifts will be with us by and by.’

  The birds chirrup back at him, and cock their heads to one side when he speaks, and chirrup again. Birds’ brains are too small to manage conversation, but they hear the hermit well enough, and find everything he says interesting. They’re proud that he’s come to their tree. The morning gathering gives them something to think about all day, and lends variety to their life. Dogface senses this, and trie
s to say at least one new thing every morning, like a calendar that prints a wise thought at the top of each page. But first, he receives his gifts.

  He holds out his hands, and the birds fill the air with their beating wings as they deliver their tributes. Over the time he’s been among them they’ve learned what he likes, and no longer offer him worms or beetles. Now each morning his hands are filled with berries and grains and seeds, and nuts carefully pecked out of their shells. Dogface waits until one hand is full, sorts through the offerings to put aside some for his winter store, and puts the rest into his mouth. He chews the grains and the fruits all together, his hand back out again for more. This is his only meal of the day, and it’s entirely supplied by his friends the birds. In winter they don’t feed him, because they can barely feed themselves, and he hibernates, half-starved, till spring. Fortunately there’s a song for hunger that takes away most of the pain.

  When the last of the birds’ gifts is received and eaten, they all fly down to land on him once more, covering him completely, and listen for his morning thought.

  ‘My mother,’ says Dogface, ‘always told me I was a beautiful baby. She made me a little blue bonnet.’

  The birds find nothing comical in what Dogface has told them. They don’t know he’s ugly. They don’t know what a bonnet is, either. That makes it all the more interesting.

  Mist hears it all from a branch above, but makes no comment, because he’s occupied in hypnotising a sparrow. The unfortunate bird has caught Mist’s eye, and hasn’t been able to look away. Now Mist creeps up on it, and it sits frozen on its twig, and utters not so much as a squeak when he pounces.

  Dogface hears the pounce, and sees Mist bounding away with the bird in his mouth, and shakes his head. When the cat reappears a few minutes later, he makes a gentle complaint.

  ‘It really is too bad, Mist. I’ve asked you before not to eat my friends.’

  ‘They’re not my friends,’ says Mist, settling down on the hermit’s lap to digest his breakfast.

  ‘Couldn’t you eat mice or something, as a favour to me?’

  ‘Why would I want to do a favour to you?’

  ‘Now, really, Mist, this is all a pose. You know very well I’m your friend.’

  ‘Friendship is nothing more than habit and convenience,’ says the cat.

  ‘Listen to you! Purring on my lap!’

  ‘The human body is a source of warmth.’

  ‘The human body, indeed! You mean my body. You mean me.’

  ‘Yes, you are the nearest available person.’

  ‘So what will you do when I die and my body turns cold?’

  ‘I shall manage.’

  Dogface shakes his head again, and strokes the cat’s back with firm steady strokes, the way he likes it. When they first knew each other, the hermit wasn’t good at stroking, but Mist set him right. Now being stroked by him is a positive pleasure. He strokes in the right direction, and maintains a regular rhythm, with just the right amount of pressure.

  ‘Are you proposing to die any day soon?’ asks Mist.

  ‘When the times comes,’ Dogface replies.

  ‘Oh, I see. Just the usual run of things.’ The cat loses interest. ‘Don’t stop stroking.’

  Dogface says nothing more, not wanting to distress his friend, but in using the phrase ‘when the times comes’ he’s not referring to the usual run of things. Dogface the tree hermit is one of the Singer people, and like all Singer people, he is waiting for the call. In recent weeks he has felt tremors from far off, shifts and shivers in the pressure of the air, that make him more alert than usual. It’s coming soon, he’s sure of it.

  While the cat dozes on his lap, the hermit does his morning forgetting exercises. He starts at the bottom, by feeling his bare feet, how they dangle in the cool air. Then, moving up his ankles, he forgets his feet: pushes the thought of them out of his mind, and they’re gone. He feels his shins and calves, tickled by the hem of his robe, and then forgets them in their turn. His thighs and buttocks, pressed from below by the branch of the tree and from above by the sleeping cat; his stomach, slowly digesting berries and nuts; his lungs, drawing in sweet air; his slow-beating heart; his arms, one moving, one still; all in turn felt, known, and discarded. Finally his face, the stroke of the breeze, the hiss of the leaves, the brightness in his good eye, and the very mind that knows these things, all slip away and are forgotten, and he is entirely quiet.

  The bright blue butterfly comes dancing round the spreading branches of the yew tree, and settles on the windowsill of the hermit’s house. Here it remains for some moments, its wings glinting in the sunlight. Then it flutters back up into the air, circles the hermit’s sleeping head, and comes lightly to rest on his left ear.

  Dogface wakes with a jerk, nearly toppling off the tree. The cat springs off his lap and stands with his back arched, hissing.

  ‘What?’ says the hermit, looking round. ‘Who is it?’

  Then he feels the tickle on his left ear. He bends his head and becomes silent, as if he’s listening to something. Then he nods.

  Mist sees this with concern. Something unusual is happening. The cat dislikes change; particularly change without explanation or warning. He sees the blue butterfly fly away from the hermit, away over the treeless plains. He sees the clouds streaming by overhead, massing on the far horizon. He sees birds circling, cawing, a flock of rooks. Nothing out of the ordinary in that. But the hermit is stirring, long before his accustomed time.

  Dogface stands up, and returns to his tree-house. He bundles up his night robe, his jug, and its cord. Mist watches him with irritated surprise.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I have to go,’ says the hermit.

  ‘Go? Go where?’

  ‘I have a message to deliver.’

  He emerges once more onto the branch that is his front porch, and calls to the birds.

  ‘Birds! I have to leave you!’

  Word spreads rapidly among the birds, and they all come flying down to settle on the branches round him.

  ‘I’m going now,’ he says to them. ‘Thank you for your kindness to me. I will repay you in my own way.’

  Then he steps off the branch, and floats slowly to the ground. This doesn’t surprise the birds, who can all fly, but it astounds the cat. Mist gapes as the hermit’s feet land gently on the ground below. Hastily he claws his way down the rough bark of the yew’s trunk to follow him. The birds too follow.

  ‘How did you do that? Humans can’t fly.’

  ‘Some humans can,’ says Dogface, attempting clumsily to walk for the first time in almost four years.

  ‘All right,’ says Mist, running beside him, ‘I admit it. Now I’m interested.’

  The birds follow overhead in a long stream, calling to each other and to the hermit. Some are saying goodbye, others are asking questions, but they still can’t talk in a way that he can understand. Dogface, being a Singer, could make contact if he really tried, but all he would hear, after long effort, would be, ‘What’s a blue bonnet?’

  As it is, his mind is on other things. He’s excited. If the time has come to deliver the message, then that other time, the time for which he trained, for which he’s been waiting for so long, must be approaching at last. How far off now? It can only be a matter of weeks. It will take him several days to find the child of the prophet; and then many days more before he can meet up with the others. He half-regrets having chosen to be a tree hermit. His legs haven’t been exercised enough in the tree, and now, already, they’re aching. He realises he’ll never complete the journey in time on foot. Under normal circumstances no Singer uses his powers for personal convenience, but Dogface judges this to be a special case.

  ‘Mist,’ he says to the cat loping beside him, ‘are you coming with me?’

  ‘What does it look like?’ says the cat.

  ‘Then you’d better jump up on my shoulders. I’m going to be going too fast for you.’

  ‘I may not be staying wi
th you long.’

  ‘All you have to do is say the word, and I’ll stop for you to get off.’

  On this understanding, Mist climbs up and settles himself on the hermit’s right shoulder.

  ‘Hold on tight.’

  Dogface focuses his mind carefully, and starts to hum a song the cat hasn’t heard before. Shortly, he rises a few inches into the air, tilts forward at an angle, and begins to glide over the ground. At first he moves slowly. Then he picks up speed, without gaining height. Soon he’s scooting along as fast as the clouds that stream by overhead.

  Mist has all his claws out, gripping tight to the hermit’s robe, but once he’s become accustomed to the speed of their travel, and finds his point of equilibrium, he becomes very excited.

  ‘Now this is something!’ he cries. ‘This I like!’

  He leans his furry face forward, and feels the speed-wind ruffle his whiskers, and imagines how it would be if he could fly. He pictures the fieldmice rooting in the grass, unaware that he’s gliding above them. He sees himself floating through the air in absolute silence, unheard, unseen. He sees himself drop, in the perfect inescapable pounce.

  ‘You must teach me how to do this,’ he says. ‘This I have to learn.’

  ‘It would take too long,’ says the hermit. ‘We have too far to go. And it wouldn’t get you what you want in the end.’

  He doesn’t want to share his secret, the cat reflects, not really surprised. But I shall find it out. And then, ah, then, an end to the arrogance of birds! Let them flap their silly wings and fly away from me. I’ll rise up and spring, and up! Up! I’ll scoop them from the very clouds!

  Mist has found his dream. He will go wherever he must go, he will do whatever he must do, but one day he will be a flying cat.

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