The Wind Singer (29 page)

The Great Way was broad, and sloped gently downwards, and now they could see the plains lying before them as they went. By noon, their hunger was slowing them down, and feeling their growing weakness, they began to be afraid. Even Bowman was becoming weary. So at last he gave in, and called a rest stop. Gratefully they sank to the ground, in the shade of a broad-leafed tree.

‘How are we going to get home?’ said Kestrel. She realised as she spoke that she was turning to her brother now, as their natural leader.

‘I don’t know,’ he answered simply. ‘But we will get home, because we must.’

It was no answer, but it comforted her.

‘Maybe we could eat leaves,’ she said, tugging at the branch above.

‘I know!’ said Mumpo. He reached inside his pocket, and brought out the last of the tixa leaves he had carried with him all the way from the Underlake. He tore them into three, and gave a share to each of the others.

‘It’s not real food,’ he said, ‘but it makes you not mind about food.’

He was right. They chewed the tixa leaves, and swallowed the sharp-tasting juice, and though it did nothing to fill their empty bellies, it made them feel it didn’t matter.

‘Tastes bitter,’ said Kestrel, pulling a face.

‘Bitter bitter bitter,’ said Mumpo in a sing-song voice.

Up they got and on they went, loping and rolling, and all the insuperable problems ahead seemed to dwindle away. How would they cross the great plains? They would fly like birds, carried effortlessly on the wind. They would drift like clouds over the land.

As they danced down the Great Way, borne in the arms of tixy, they found themselves speaking their fears out loud, singing them, laughing at them.

‘Ha ha ha, to the Zars!’ sang Mumpo.

‘Ha ha ha, Zar Zar Zar!’ sang the twins.

‘Mumpo was an oldie!’ chanted Kestrel.

‘Oldie, oldie, oldie!’ they all sang.

‘What was it like being old, Mumpo?’

Mumpo danced an oldie dance for them, moving with exaggerated slowness.

‘Slow and heavy,’ he sang as he pranced gravely before them. ‘Slow and heavy and tired.’

‘Tired, tired, tired,’ they sang.

‘Like when we were all covered with mud.’

‘Mud, mud, mud!’

‘Then the mud fell off, and – ’ He sprang into the air and waved his arms wildly. ‘Zar, Zar, hurrah!’

‘Zar, Zar, hurrah!’ they echoed.

Linking arms, all three fell into the high-stepping march of the Zars, making their own band music with their mouths.

‘Tarum-tarum-taraa! Tarum-tarum-taraa!’

In this fashion, marching and singing, they came out of the forest and on to the plains. Here they came at last to a stop. Then, as they gazed across the arid wastes at the distant horizon, the effects of the tixy wore off, and they knew once more that they were hungry, starving hungry, and far, far from home.

It would have been easy then to lie down and sleep and never get up, because their singing and dancing had taken the very last of their strength. But Bowman wouldn’t allow it. Stubbornly, relentlessly, he insisted their journey must go on.

‘It’s too far. We’ll never get there.’

‘It doesn’t matter. We have to go on.’

So they went on, keeping the sun on their right side as it slowly descended in the sky. A keen wind was whipping up, and they went slower and slower, but they didn’t stop. They stumbled in their weariness, but on they trudged, driven by Bowman’s will.

Dusk was falling, and heavy dark clouds scudding across the sky, when Kestrel at last came to a stop. She drew the gold thread over her head and handed the silver voice to Bowman, saying quietly,

‘You go on. I can’t.’

Bowman took it, and held the fine silver clasp tight in his hand, and his eyes met hers. He could see there her shame that she could do no more, but deeper and stronger than the shame, the weariness.

I can’t do it without you, Kess
.

Then it’s over
.

Bowman turned and saw Mumpo watching him, waiting for what he would say that would make them believe there was hope: and he had no words left. He closed his eyes.

Help me
, he said silently, not knowing to whom or what he was appealing.

As if in answer, there came a half-familiar sound: a distant creaking and groaning, carried on the wind.

He opened his eyes, and all three of them turned to look. There, rising slowly above the swell of the land, was a pennant snapping in the wind, silhouetted against the twilight sky. Up over the rim of land rose the masts and sails, the lookout towers and the topmost decks. Then the main decks, crowded on all sides by full-bellied sails, and the whole vast bulk of the mother ship grinding slowly towards them, rolling out of the dusk.

‘Ombaraka!’ cried Kestrel.

Energised by hope, the children set off running towards the immense moving city, waving their arms and calling out as they ran, to attract the attention of the lookouts. They were seen. The great craft lumbered to a slow halt. A boarding cradle was winched down. They clambered into it, hugging each other, weeping tears of relief. Up creaked the cradle, past the lower decks, to judder to a halt at the command deck. The gates were thrown open, and there before them stood a troop of heavily armed men, their hair shaved close to the skull.

‘Baraka spies!’ cried their commander. ‘Lock them up! They’ll hang at first light!’

Only then did they realise they were prisoners of Omchaka.

The children were thrown into a cage that was just big enough for the three of them to sit in, side by side, their knees drawn up to their chests. Once locked in, the cage was winched several feet into the air, and there they were left to dangle, twisting in the wind, jeered and spat at by the guards set to watch over them.

‘Baraka scum! Got up like dolls!’

‘Please,’ pleaded the children. ‘We’re hungry.’

‘Why waste food on you? You’ll hang in the morning.’

The Chaka people seemed to be fiercer than the Barakas, perhaps because of their way of shaving their heads; but in all other respects they were strikingly similar. The same sand-coloured robes, the same warrior-like swagger, the same festoons of weapons. When the children were heard to be crying, they laughed, and reached up to poke them through the bars.

‘Snivelling girlies!’ they taunted. ‘You’ll have something to cry about in the morning.’

‘We won’t live till morning,’ said Kestrel in a faint voice. ‘We haven’t eaten for days.’

‘You’d better live,’ cried the biggest of their guards. ‘If I find you dead in the morning, I’ll kill you.’

The other guards laughed tremendously at this. The big guard went red.

‘Well, what’s your brilliant idea, then? Do you want to tell Haka Chaka there’ll be no public hanging?’

‘Kill them again, Pok! That’ll scare them!’

They laughed even more. The big guard they called Pok scowled and fell to muttering to himself.

‘You all think I’m so stupid, well, you’re the stupid ones, not me, you’ll see all right, just you wait .. .’

As night descended and the wind grew stronger, the guards decided to take it in turns to stand watch. Big Pok volunteered to go first, and the others departed. As soon as they were alone, Pok approached the cage and called up in a hoarse whisper.

‘Hey! You Baraka spies! Are you still alive?’

No answer came from the cage. Pok groaned aloud.

‘Please talk to me, scum. You’re not to die.’

Kestrel spoke, in a tiny croaking voice.

‘Food,’ she said. ‘Food .. .’

The word faded on her lips.

‘All right,’ said Pok nervously. ‘Just wait there. I’ll get you food. Don’t do anything. I’m going to get you food. Don’t die, all right? Promise me you won’t die, or I won’t go.’

‘Not long now .. .’ said Kestrel faintly. ‘Slipping away .. .’

‘No, no! That’s what you’re not to do! Don’t do that or I’ll – I’ll – ’

Realising he had no effective way to threaten them, he resorted to pleading.

‘Look, you’re going to die anyway, so it doesn’t matter to you, but it does matter to me. If you die on my watch, they’ll blame me, and that’s not fair, is it? You’ve got to admit, it wouldn’t be my fault, but I can tell you now how it’ll be. Oh, Pok again, they’ll say. Trust Pok to make a mess of it. Poor old Pok, thick as a rock. That’s what they say, and it isn’t fair.’

Silence from the children. Pok panicked.

‘Just don’t die yet. That’s the thing. I’m going. Food’s on its way.’

He galloped off. The children stayed still and quiet, in case someone else was watching, although by now the night was very dark, and the roaring wind kept the people indoors. Shortly Pok reappeared, his arms full of bread and fruit.

‘Here you are,’ he said, panting, poking loaves through the bars. ‘Eat it up! Eat it up!’

He watched anxiously, and when he saw the children begin to eat, he let out a sigh of relief.

‘There! That’s better. No more dying, eh?’

The more the children ate, the happier Pok became.

‘There! Old Pok’s not made a mess of it after all! You’ll be chirpy as sparrows in the morning, and Haka Chaka can have a fine hanging. So all’s well that ends well, as they say.’

The food brought strength back to Bowman, and with strength came hope. He began to think of how to escape.

‘We’re not really Baraka spies,’ he said.

‘Oh, no,’ said Pok. ‘Oh, no, you can’t fool me that easily. Even old Pok can see you’re not Chaka, and if you’re not Chaka, you’re Baraka.’

‘We’re from Aramanth.’

‘No, you’re not. You’ve got Baraka hair.’

‘What if we were to unbraid our hair?’ said Kestrel.

‘What if we were to shave it all off, like you?’

‘Well, then,’ said Pok uncertainly. ‘Well, then, you’d be .. . You’d look like .. .’

He found the whole idea deeply muddling.

‘We’d look like you.’

‘That’s as maybe,’ he said. ‘But you can’t shave your hair off tonight, and in the morning you’re going to be hanged. So that’s that.’

‘Except you wouldn’t want to hang us and find out afterwards it had all been a mistake.’

‘Haka Chaka gives the orders,’ said Pok contentedly. ‘Haka Chaka is the Father of Omchaka, the Great Judge of Righteousness, and the Scourge of the Plains. He doesn’t make mistakes.’

The children did sleep that night, for all the cramped conditions in the cage, and the howling of the wind. The food in their bellies and the weariness in their bones was stronger than their fear of the morning, and they slept deeply until the light of dawn awoke them.

The wind had fallen, but the sky was leaden grey, heavy with an approaching storm. A squad of Chaka guards marched up, and formed a circle round the cage. The cage was winched down on to the deck, and the gate unlocked. The children stumbled out. The squad formed up round them, and they marched across a causeway to the central square of Omchaka. Here a great crowd was waiting, packed tight round the sides of the square, and hanging from the rails of the decks above. As soon as the children came in sight, the crowd began to hiss and call out insults.

‘Hang them! Baraka filth! String them up!’

In the centre of the square there stood a newly built scaffold, from which hung three rope nooses. Behind the scaffold stood the commanders of the Omchaka army, and a line of drummers. The children were led to the scaffold, and stood on a bench, each one before a rope noose. Then the drummers beat their drums, and the Grand Commander cried out,

‘All stand for Haka Chaka, Father of Omchaka, Great Judge of Righteousness and Scourge of the Plains!’

No one moved, since they were all standing anyway, and into the square strode Haka Chaka, followed by a small entourage. He was an old man of imposing stature, his grey hair shaved close to his skull. But it was not at him that the children gazed in amazement. Behind him, hair also shaved, walked Counsellor Kemba.

‘He’s a Baraka!’ cried Kestrel, pointing at him accusingly. ‘His name’s Kemba, and he’s from Ombaraka!’

Kemba smiled, seemingly unconcerned.

‘They’ll be saying you’re a Baraka next, Highness.’

‘They can say what they like,’ said Haka Chaka grimly. ‘The talking will end soon enough.’

He gave a sign to the men holding the three children, and the nooses were placed round their necks. Mumpo didn’t cry, as he would have done once, but he did make a small choking noise.

‘I’m sorry, Mumpo,’ said Kestrel. ‘We’ve been no good for you after all.’

‘Yes, you have,’ he said bravely. ‘You’ve been my friends.’

Haka Chaka climbed up on to a high speaking-platform to address the crowd.

‘People of Omchaka!’ he cried. ‘The Morah has delivered our enemies into our hands!’

All at once Bowman saw the way out.

‘The Morah has woken!’ he called out.

A surprised silence fell over the crowd. From the grey sky above came the low rumble of the approaching storm. Kemba’s eyes turned on Bowman, burning intensely.

‘The Zars are on the march!’ cried Bowman.

This caused consternation in the crowd. A buzz of agitated chatter broke out on all sides. Haka Chaka turned to his advisers.

‘Can this be true?’

‘They’re marching after us,’ cried Bowman. ‘Wherever we are, they’ll find us.’

Now on all sides there were voices raised in fear, intensified by the sudden gusts of wind that rattled the rigging above.

‘Nothing can stop the Zars!’

‘They’ll kill us all!’

‘Tell the sailmen! We must set sail!’

‘
Fools
!’

It was Kemba who took control of the panic. He spoke loudly, but in tones that were calm, even soothing.

‘Can’t you tell a Baraka trick when you see one? Why would the Morah have woken? Why would the Zars march? He lies to save his own miserable skin.’

‘I woke the Morah myself,’ said Bowman. ‘The Morah said to me, “We are legion”.’

These words chilled the hearts of the crowd. Kemba looked at Bowman with hatred, but mingled with the hatred was fear.

‘He lies!’ he cried. ‘These are our enemies! Why do we listen? Hang them! Hang them now!’

The crowd fell on this proposal, echoing it wildly, their newly-aroused fear streaming out of them as hate-charged anger.