The Wind Singer (6 page)

‘What if I did?’

Why does he go on sweeping? There’s nothing to sweep
.

‘You then went on to indulge in a childish tantrum in a public place.’

‘What if I did?’

‘You know of course that your own rating affects your family rating.’

‘What if it does?’

Swish, swish, swish, goes the broom
.

‘That is what we are about to find out.’

He came to a stop before a door in a stone wall. The door was heavy, and closed with a big iron latch. He put his hand on the latch, and turned to Kestrel once more.

‘What more can you do to me? An interesting question, but the wrong one. You should ask, What more can I do to myself, and to those I love?’

He heaved on the iron latch, and pushed the heavy door open. Inside, a dank stone tunnel sloped downwards into the gloom.

‘I am taking you to see the salt caves. This is a privilege, of a kind. Very few of our citizens see the salt caves, for a reason that will soon become evident.’

They followed him down the tunnel, their footsteps echoing from the arched roof. The sides of the tunnel, Kestrel now saw, were cut out of a white rock that glistened in the dim light: salt. She knew from her history that Aramanth had been built on salt. The Manth people, a wandering tribe in search of a homeland, had found traces of the mineral, and had settled there to mine it. The traces became seams, the seams became caverns, as they tunnelled into a huge subterranean treasure-house. Salt had made the Manth people rich, and with their wealth they had built their city.

‘Have you ever asked yourself what became of the salt caves?’ said Maslo Inch, as they descended the long curving tunnel. ‘When all the salt had been extracted, there was left only a great space. A great nothingness. A void. What use, do you think, is a void?’

Now they could hear the sound of slow-moving water, a low deep gurgle. And on the dank air they could smell an acrid gassy smell.

‘For a hundred years we took from the ground what we wanted most. And for another hundred years, we have poured back into the ground what we want least.’

The sloping tunnel suddenly opened into a wide underground chamber, an indistinct and shadowy space loud with the sounds of moving water, as if a thousand streams here disgorged into a subterranean sea. The smell was unmistakable now: pungent and nauseating.

Maslo Inch led them to a long railing. Beyond the railing, some way below, lay a vast slow-swirling lake of dark mud, which here and there bubbled up in ponderous burps, like a gigantic simmering cauldron. The walls of the chamber above this lake glistened and shone, as if with sweat. They were pierced at intervals by great iron pipes, and out of these pipes issued grey water, sometimes at a trickle, sometimes at a gush.

‘Drains,’ said the Chief Examiner. ‘Sewers. Not beautiful, but necessary.’

Instinctively, both Kestrel and her father raised their hands to cover their noses against the stench.

‘You think, young lady, that if you do as you please, and make no effort at school, you and your family will go down from Orange to Maroon. You think you don’t mind that. Perhaps you will go down again, from Maroon to Grey. You think you don’t mind that, either. Grey District isn’t pretty, or comfortable, but it’s the bottom, and at least they’ll leave you alone there. That’s what you think, isn’t it? The worst that can happen is we’ll go all the way down to Grey.’

‘No,’ said Kestrel, though this was exactly what she thought.

‘No? You think it could be worse?’

Kestrel said nothing.

‘You’re quite right. It could be far, far worse. After all, Grey District, poor as it is, is still part of Aramanth. But there is a world below Aramanth.’

Kestrel stared out over the murky surface of the lake. It stretched far into the distance, further than she could see. And far, far away she seemed to glimpse a glow, a pool of light, like the light that sometimes breaks through clouds on to distant hills. She fixed her gaze on this distant glow, and the stinking lake appeared to her to be almost beautiful.

‘You’re looking at the Underlake, a lake of decomposing matter that’s bigger than all Aramanth. There are islands in the lake, islands of mud. Do you see?’

They followed his pointing finger, and could just make out, far away across the slithering grey-brown surface of the lake, a group of low mounds. As they watched, they caught a movement near the mounds, and staring, half-incredulous, saw what looked like a distant figure pass over the mud, and sink abruptly out of sight. Now, their eyes attuned to the gloom, they began to spot other figures, all as uniformly dark as the mud over which they crept, slipping silently in and out of the shadows.

‘Do people live down here?’ asked Hanno.

‘They do. Many thousands. Men, women, children. Primitive, degraded people, little better than animals.’

He invited them to step closer to the railing. Directly ahead, through a gate in the rails, there projected a narrow jetty. Tethered to its timbers some twenty feet below were several long flat-bottomed barges, half-filled with refuse of every kind.

‘They live on what we throw away. They live in rubbish, and they live on rubbish.’ He turned to Kestrel. ‘You asked, What more can you do to me? Here’s your answer. Why do we strive harder? Why do we reach higher? Because we don’t want to live like this.’

Kestrel shrugged. ‘I don’t care,’ she said.

The Chief Examiner watched her closely.

‘You don’t care?’ he said slowly.

‘No.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Then don’t.’

‘Prove you don’t care.’

He opened the gate in the railing and held it wide, inviting her to pass through. Kestrel looked out along the slick boards.

‘Go on. Walk right to the end. If you really don’t care.’

Kestrel took one step on to the narrow jetty, and stopped. In truth, she was frightened of the Underlake, but she was bursting inside with angry pride, and would have done anything to wipe that smooth smile from the Chief Examiner’s face. So she took another step.

‘That’s enough, Kess,’ said her father. And to the Chief Examiner, ‘You’ve made your point, Maslo. Leave her to me.’

‘We’ve left your children to you for too long, Hanno.’ He spoke evenly as always, but now there was an undertone of sharp displeasure. ‘Children follow the example given by their parents. There’s something broken inside you, my friend. There’s no fight in you any more. No will to succeed.’

Kestrel heard this, and went cold inside with fury. At once, she started to walk briskly down the jetty. She looked straight ahead, fixing her gaze on the place where the far-off light streamed down on to the dark surface of the lake, and put one foot in front of the other, and walked.

‘Kess! Come back!’ called her father.

He started after her, but Maslo Inch seized his arm with one hand, and held him in a grip of iron.

‘Let her go,’ he said. ‘She has to learn.’

With his other hand, he operated a long lever by the jetty gate, and there came a hissing gurgling sound, as the posts supporting the far end of the jetty began to sink into the lake. The jetty sloped downwards, becoming a ramp tilting ever more steeply down into the mud. Kestrel gave a cry of alarm, and turned and tried to run back up the boards, but they were coated with slime, and she couldn’t get a grip. She started to slither backwards.

‘Papa!’ she cried. ‘Help me!’

Hanno lunged towards her, pulling furiously in the Chief Examiner’s hold, but he could not free himself.

‘Let me go! What are you doing to her? Are you insane?’

Maslo Inch’s eyes were locked on to Kestrel, as she tried in vain to stop her downward slide.

‘Slipping, slipping, slipping,’ he cried. ‘Well, Kestrel, do you care now?’

‘Papa! Help me!’

‘Get her out! She’ll drown!’

‘Do you care now? Will you try harder now? Tell me! I want to hear!’

‘Papa!’ Kestrel screamed as she slithered off the end of the sloping jetty, and into the lake. Her feet hit the brown water, and with an awful sucking sound they disappeared into liquid mud.

‘I’m sinking!’

‘Tell me you care!’ called out Maslo Inch, his hand gripping Hanno’s arm so tight his fingers had gone white. ‘I want to hear!’

‘You’re mad!’ said Hanno. ‘You’ve gone mad!’

In desperation, he swung his free arm, and struck the Chief Examiner hard across the face.

Maslo Inch turned on him, and suddenly he lost all his self-control. He shook Hanno like a doll.

‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ he screamed. ‘You worm! You dribble! You maggot! You failure! You fail your exams, you fail your family, you fail your country!’

At the same time, Kestrel realised she wasn’t sinking any more. Somewhere beneath the surface there was hard ground, and she had only sunk to her knees. So she took hold of the sides of the narrow jetty with both hands, and began to claw her way back up. She didn’t call out any more. She just fixed her eyes on the Chief Examiner and willed herself up the slope.

Maslo Inch was too absorbed in screaming at her father to notice.

‘What use are you? You’re a nothing! You do nothing, you make no effort, you expect others to do it all for you, all you do is read your useless books! You’re a parasite! You’re a germ! You infect everyone round you with your sick lazy failure! You disgust me!’

Kestrel reached the top of the jetty, took a deep breath, and with a yell of blood-curdling fury, threw herself on the Chief Examiner’s back.

‘Pocksicker!’

She locked her arms round his neck and her legs round his waist and squeezed with all her might, to make him let go of her father.

‘Sagahog! Pooa-pooa-pooa-banga-pompaprune! Pock-sicking udderbug!’

The Chief Examiner, taken by surprise, released Hanno Hath’s arm and turned about to pull Kestrel off him. But whichever way he swung, she was always behind him, her wiry little arms throttling him, her muddy feet kicking at his ribs.

The tussle was short but intense. During it, much of the mud on Kestrel’s legs was wiped on to the Chief Examiner’s clothing. When at last he got a grip on her and tore her off, she let go, and he threw her farther than he intended. At once she sprang to her feet and ran.

He made no attempt to chase her. He was too shocked at the sight of his muddy clothes.

‘My whites!’ he said. ‘The little witch!’

Kestrel was gone, streaking away as fast as she could, up the tunnel towards the distant door.

Maslo Inch brushed himself down, and pulled back the lever that raised the jetty to its former position. Then he turned to Hanno Hath.

‘Well, old friend,’ he said, icily calm. ‘What do you have to say to that?’

‘You shouldn’t have done that to her.’

‘Is that all?’

Hanno Hath was silent. He would not apologise for his daughter’s behaviour, but nor was it wise to say what he really felt, which was that he was intensely proud of her. So he kept a neutral expression on his face, and looked with inner satisfaction at the mudstains on the Chief Examiner’s once-pure robes.

‘I now see,’ said Maslo Inch quietly, ‘that we have a far more serious problem with the girl than I had realised.’

6

Special Teaching

K
estrel ran out of the tunnel, and straight into the grey-clothed warden. He must have heard her coming, since he had dropped his broom and was waiting for her, arms spread wide. As soon as he had her tight, he picked her up and dangled her in the air, where she kicked as hard as she could, and screamed at the top of her voice. But he was a big man, bigger than he’d looked bent over his broom, and he was strong, and her screams didn’t seem to trouble him in the least.

Maslo Inch came out into the courtyard, followed by her father, just as two more wardens came running, drawn by the noise she was making.

‘Papa!’ she screamed. ‘Papa-a-a!’

‘Put her down,’ said Hanno Hath.

‘Be silent!’ cried the Chief Examiner, with such terrible authority that even Kestrel stopped screaming.

‘Get this man out of here,’ he said more quietly, and the two wardens started to hustle Hanno Hath away. ‘Take the girl to Special Teaching.’

‘No!’ cried Hanno Hath. ‘I beg you, no!’

‘Papa!’ screamed Kestrel, kicking and struggling. ‘Papa-a-a!’

But she was already being carried off in the opposite direction. The Chief Examiner watched them both go with a grim and unmoving look on his face.

‘What more can you do to me, eh?’ he said softly to himself. And he strode away to change into clean white robes.

The separate building set aside for Special Teaching was inside the old palace compound, on one side of a small deserted square. It was a solid stone structure, much like any other in this grandest of the city’s districts, with a high handsome door at the top of three steps. This door was opened from the inside, as the warden approached with Kestrel in his arms. It was closed after them, by a doorman dressed in grey.

‘Referred by the Chief Examiner,’ said the warden.

The doorman nodded, and opened an inner door. Kestrel was pushed through into a long narrow room, and left there without a word. The door closed with a click behind her.

She was alone.

She realised for the first time that she was shaking violently, out of a combination of fear, rage and exhaustion. She took several deep breaths to steady herself, and looked round the room. It was empty and windowless.

She turned her attention to the door, hoping to find a way of opening it. The door had no handle. She felt all over it, and round its edges, but it was close-fitting, and there seemed to be no way to open it from the inside. So she turned back to examining the room.

All along one wall hung a plain grey floor-length curtain. She drew the curtain back, and found there was a window behind it, looking through to a much larger inner room. Cautiously, she drew the curtain all the way back, and stared at the strange scene beyond. It was a classroom. Sitting at the rows of desks, with their backs to her, were a large number of children, perhaps as many as a hundred. They were all bent studiously over their books, working away in silence; or so she supposed, for no sound of any kind came through the glass. There was a teacher’s desk at the far end, and a blackboard, but no teacher.