Firesong (16 page)

‘And so shall you! I am preparing such a feast for all of you! I think of marinating some palm hearts. The marinade is a time-consuming business. I must get on.’

He bustled off to his deck, where he kept a store of large pots. Branco Such turned to speak to the others.

‘Friends,’ he said. ‘I have a proposal to put to you all. Why don’t we stay and make our homes right where we are?’

As he spoke, he turned to look towards Ira Hath. She sat with her daughters and Sisi, sharing a breakfast of bananas and honey. She seemed not to have heard him.

Kestrel too was watching her mother closely.

‘You don’t like it here, do you, Ma?’

‘No,’ said Ira. ‘This isn’t a good place.’

‘What is it you feel?’

‘I’ve been trying to find it, but I can’t.’ She wrinkled her brow and tried to explain. ‘Everything here is squashy. Even the air is squashy.’

‘You mean fat,’ said Pinto. ‘Everything here is fat. Look at the bananas. They’re enormous.’

‘No, I don’t mean fat,’ said Ira. ‘I mean squashy. It’s not the same. Fat can be sturdy and reliable. But squashy – you can’t rely on squashy. Squashy will let you down.’

She looked across at the group round Branco Such. They were deep into an animated discussion. Ira Hath did not need to hear their voices to know what they were saying. She reached out to clasp Kestrel’s hand, and her voice suddenly sounded urgent.

‘Promise me,’ she said, ‘whatever the others do, and however weak I get, you’ll take me away from this place.’

‘I promise, ma,’ said Kestrel, frightened.

9

Talking with pigs

W
hile Hanno Hath and Bowman and Tanner Amos worked away with their axes, felling and stripping a tree for long straight timbers, Mist the cat went in search of his own breakfast. Mist was no fruit eater, but he soon found that the birds here flew too high and too fast for him to track. Simply watching them darting about gave him an ache in his neck. So after a while he went hunting for small creatures in the undergrowth. His keen sense of smell led him to a small plant concealed under larger plants, which he had never encountered before. It had fat soft dark-green leaves that curled around small yellow fruits, a little like tomatoes. The fruits he ignored. It was the leaves that interested him. They smelled ripe, rotten even, in an excitingly gamey way. He nibbled the end of one leaf, but found the taste too sharp, and ate no more.

By the time he had returned to the others, he was feeling light-headed.

‘Oh, there you are, Mist,’ said Bowman. ‘We’re ready to go back.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ said Mist. ‘You’re wonderful. Everything’s wonderful.’

He curled up at Bowman’s feet and fell asleep. Bowman poked him.

‘Don’t go to sleep now. At least get back to the wagon.’

But the cat could not be woken. So Bowman picked him up and carried him in his arms, leaving his father and Tanner Amos to haul the cut timber between them.

‘Poor Mist,’ he said. ‘He’s exhausted.’

On their return to the clearing, he laid the sleeping cat gently on the blanket pile in the wagon. Mumpo was standing by the wagon, semi-naked and dripping, having just come back from the pool. He was drying himself with a blanket, patting carefully round his wounds.

‘Better for your soak?’ said Bowman.

Mumpo nodded. ‘Much better.’

Bowman examined his wounds, to see how they were healing.

‘Soon be good as new.’

Looking up, he met Mumpo’s eyes and blushed. They both knew that the stomach wound was serious, and that Mumpo would never again have the strength and agility that had made him a champion fighter.

‘I’ll soon be good enough,’ said Mumpo with a shrug. ‘And good enough is good enough for me.’

The main body of the Manth people were sitting in a big circle near the Stella Marie, deep in discussion. The talking had stopped when Hanno and the others came out of the trees; and although conversation had started up again, it was not as animated as it had been, and many of them glanced across at Hanno with nervous guilty expressions. Hanno saw this, but decided to make no comment.

He joined them, speaking as if nothing had changed.

‘Everything we need for our journey is close at hand,’ he said. ‘We cut these timbers about ten minutes walk that way. There’s a grove of straight-trunked trees that will split beautifully. We need to make snow-runners for the wagon, and we need to build a second sled, too, for extra provisions. Tanner will take charge of the splitting and trimming. The rest of us must gather food. There’s wild maize ripening on the far side of one of the glades.’

‘Wait a moment, Hanno,’ said Branco Such. ‘Aren’t you making rather a lot of assumptions here? Before we start on building snow-sleds, maybe we should ask ourselves a question. Do we want to go?’

‘Of course we want to go,’ said Hanno. ‘We can’t stay here.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because this isn’t the homeland.’

‘Ah. But what or where is the homeland?’

All eyes turned to Ira Hath. She replied in the words that were now familiar to all.

‘I’ll know it when I see it.’

‘In the meantime,’ said Branco Such, ‘can you tell us anything about the conditions there? The fertility of the land? The comfort of the climate? The hardness of the winters?’

‘I can tell you nothing,’ said Ira.

‘I have the greatest respect for you, ma’am. And Hanno, you know I want to see our people settled in our homeland as keenly as you do. But please, I beg you to consider. If we leave this valley, we face the bitter hard winter that almost killed us. We must drag ourselves and our belongings through deep snow for an unknown distance, to an unknown destination. We have no certainty of reaching it alive. Whereas here we have a fertile valley, warmed and watered, virtually uninhabited, provided with everything we could ever want. Why go further? What more could any other place offer us? Are we so greedy that this richness and beauty can’t satisfy us?’

Branco’s words were listened to in silence by the Manth people, but from the nodding heads Hanno could see that many agreed with him. Kestrel came to his side and took his hand. The nodding heads angered her.

‘What are you talking about?’ she said. ‘We have to go on. This isn’t our homeland.’

‘Our homeland is the place where we make our home,’ said Branco Such. ‘Why not here?’

‘Because this isn’t it.’

He shrugged and looked at her in a pitying sort of a way, that made Kestrel want to smack his face. Hanno too knew that he had no real answer beyond his own very strong conviction.

‘This isn’t it, Branco. I know it isn’t. I can only ask you to trust me.’

‘I think each one of us must make that decision for ourselves,’ said Branco.

Heads nodded in agreement once more. Branco began to feel that he should have taken on this role earlier. After all, in the old days, in Aramanth, he had been a magistrate, whereas Hanno had only been a librarian. Hanno was a good man, but he lacked the authority of a true leader.

‘I think we should take a vote.’

Hanno looked down.

‘As you wish,’ he said. ‘I and my family will leave in the morning.’

He walked away, with Kestrel at his side. Everyone sensed that he was hurt, and because they loved and respected him, they were dismayed.

‘You know, Branco,’ said Miko Mimilith, ‘its all very well what you say, but we owe everything to Hanno.’

‘If the Haths say this isn’t the homeland,’ said Scooch, ‘then I believe them.’

‘No sky,’ said old Seldom Erth. ‘Can’t have a homeland without a sky.’

Hanno Hath, greatly troubled, said to Kestrel,

‘What else can I say?’

‘Tell them what ma says,’ said Kestrel. ‘There’s something wrong about this place.’

‘The trouble is, she doesn’t know what.’

It was Miller Marish who came up with a compromise solution.

‘Let’s wait till spring!’ he said. ‘Then in the spring we decide again, whether to stay, or move on with Hanno.’

This pleased everybody. It seemed like plain sense, and made it possible for them all to stay together. But when they suggested it to Hanno, he would have none of it.

‘We leave in the morning,’ he said. ‘We have very little time left. You’ve heard my wife. The wind is rising.’

‘Oh, yes. The wind.’

They looked at each other uncomfortably. They had never really understood what this rising wind was supposed to do.

‘No wind down here,’ pointed out Silman Pillish.

‘Principal Pillish,’ said Branco, using his old title, glad of the support, ‘you have a wise head on your shoulders. Do you think we should wait here at least until the snow melts, and the road becomes passable again?’

‘Of all the available options,’ replied Pillish, ‘it would appear to be the option that keeps open the greatest number of . . . of options.’

He realised this didn’t sound as wise as he had hoped, so he added slowly and with emphasis, to show he really meant it,

‘That is my view. I stand by it.’

‘In the light of that view,’ said Branco, ‘I suggest that we hold a vote on whether we should stay till spring. All in favour of a vote, raise your hands.’

The people looked at him uncertainly. Branco understood that they hesitated to take so big a step.

‘All we need to decide now is whether or not to vote. Those who are happy to let others decide their future for them, need not take part. All in favour of deciding your own future, raise your hands.’

At that, they all raised their hands except the Haths, and those who were most closely associated with them: Mumpo, Scooch, and Creoth. Seldom Erth did not raise his hand; nor did Sisi and Lunki, who felt it was not right for them to vote on the location of the Manth homeland, not being Manth themselves.

Captain Canobius saw all the raised hands, and came stumping over to be told what was going on. When he understood the debate, he chuckled and said,

‘You can vote all you like. You’re on the island now.’

Branco Such fancied he had an ally in the fat captain.

‘Captain, you believe we would find it difficult to leave this – er – place, I think?’

‘You may say difficult,’ said the captain. ‘You may say impossible, if you like.’

‘Because of the hard winter outside.’

‘Winter? What do I know about winter? No, no, the hard part is the wanting to go. But I must get back to my pots. I’m preparing you such a feast!’

He left them once more.

‘He’s mad,’ said Creoth.

‘That’s not true!’ Mrs Chirish was grieved that her good friend Creoth should speak so harshly. ‘He’s eccentric, that’s all. It comes from living so long among pigs, who don’t answer him back.’

Bowman heard this, and it gave him an idea. He slipped quietly away.

‘I think I may claim that a majority have expressed a wish to vote,’ said Branco Such. ‘Before we take the vote, does anyone have anything to say?’

Cheer Warmish stepped forward, her mouth pursed in bitter lines.

‘We must think of the children. I’ve lost my husband. I nearly lost my daughter. Now I have her back, I’ll not go into the snow to watch her die.’

‘We must all think of the children,’ said Lea Mimilith, reaching out to her three. Red Mimilith turned away crossly. She was fourteen years old, and felt she was no longer a child.

Miller Marish added his agreement.

‘My girls are the youngest of all the children,’ he said. ‘Whatever homeland we seek, it’s for them more than for us. They will pass the rest of their lives there. We must keep the children safe. What sort of homeland would it be without children?’

‘Beard of my ancestors!’ boomed Creoth. ‘The only one among you with any sense is the old man!’ He pointed to Seldom Erth. ‘No sky, he says. Can’t have a homeland without a sky. I call that a plain fact! You want to live the rest of your lives, and never see the dawn again? Not me! I’m sitting here sweating, and it’s not yet mid-morning. I’ll not finish my days in a kettle! I’d rather freeze to death on the open plains, beneath an open sky!’

‘Not the rest of our lives,’ said Miller Marish. ‘Only till spring.’

‘And then we vote again,’ said Branco Such.

‘And then what?’ This was the cool clear voice of Sisi. She had tried to keep out of the debate. She tried now to speak in an unassuming way. But it was no good, her feelings were strong and her voice was commanding. ‘Don’t you understand? The Hath family will leave in the morning. If you stay here, then when the spring comes, where will you go?’

This was a new aspect to the matter. Young Ashar Warmish, who had learned to respect Sisi during their captivity, asked her timidly,

‘What will you do?’

‘What I do is of no importance. I’m not Manth. I shouldn’t even speak in your debate.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Silman Pillish. ‘Our debate is about our survival. It’s about how we live, and how we die. You too must make that choice.’

‘For me there’s no choice,’ said Sisi. ‘I was raised as a princess in another place where I never had to work. A paradise, provided with everything I could ever want. To me, it was a prison. A kind fate has released me from that prison. I will not go back.’

‘Prison?’ exclaimed Cheer Warmish. ‘This valley isn’t a prison! We can leave any time we want.’

Sisi said no more. She had caught Kestrel watching her, and had seen the admiration in her eyes. She looked for Bowman, but he was gone. Sensing her own flicker of disappointment, she told herself, I didn’t speak to please Bowman. I spoke to say what I know to be true. Nevertheless, she wished he had been there to hear.

Bowman was a little way up the valley, by the side of the smaller green pool, talking to the pigs. There were two of them wallowing in the warm slime, their snouts poking up out of the water, their little eyes fixed on Bowman as he squatted on a pool-side rock. It took him some time to make a connection with the pigs. They were cleverer than the cows he had talked to before, but this made it harder rather than easier. No man had understood the pigs before, and so they refused to believe he understood them now.