The Wind Singer

4

Practising for Maroon

By the time Bowman returned with his father, the arena was empty and the wind singer was silent. The marshals guarding the perimeter refused to let them enter. Hanno Hath told them he was the wild child’s father, and had come to take her home. The marshals sent for their captain, and their captain sent for instructions to the College of Examiners. Back came a simple order.

‘Send her home. She’ll be dealt with later.’

As father and son made their way down the arena steps, Bowman asked in a low voice,

‘What will they do to her?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Hanno.

‘They said we’d lose points from our family rating.’

‘Yes, I expect they’ll do that.’

‘She said pompaprune to the Emperor. She said the Emperor doesn’t exist.’

‘Did she now?’ said her father, smiling to himself.

‘Does the Emperor exist, pa?’

‘Who knows? I’ve never seen him, and I’ve never met anyone else who’s seen him. Perhaps he’s just one of those useful ideas.’

‘Will you be cross with Kess?’

‘No, of course not. But it would have been better if she hadn’t done it.’

They reached the wind singer, and Hanno Hath called up to the top, where they could see Kestrel curled up among the leather scoops.

‘Kestrel! Come down now, darling.’

Kestrel looked over the edge, and saw her father below.

‘Are you angry with me?’ she said in a small voice.

‘No,’ he replied gently. ‘I love you.’

So Kestrel climbed down, and as she reached the ground her courage suddenly forsook her, and she started to tremble and cry. Hanno Hath took her in his arms, and sat down on the bottom step of the arena, and held her close. He hugged her, and let her sob out all her tears of anger and humiliation.

‘I know, I know,’ he said over and over again.

Bowman sat beside them, waiting for his sister to calm down, and shivered, and wanted to cuddle close to his father too. He moved nearer, and leaned his head against a wool-rough arm. Pa can’t help us, he thought. He wants to, but he can’t. It was the first time he had ever thought this thought, clear and simple like that. He said it to Kestrel in his head.

Pa can’t help us.

Kestrel thought back, I know. But he does love us.

Then they both felt it at the same time, how much they loved their father, and they both started kissing him at once, all over his ears and eyes and scratchy cheeks.

‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘That’s my bright birds.’

They walked home quietly, the three of them arm in arm, and nobody troubled them. Ira Hath was waiting for them, with Pinpin in her arms, and they told her briefly what had happened.

‘Oh, I wish I’d heard you!’ she exclaimed.

Neither of Kestrel’s parents blamed her, or said she’d done wrong. But they all knew there would be a price to pay.

‘It’ll be bad for us, won’t it?’ said Kestrel, watching her father’s eyes as she spoke.

‘Well, yes, I expect they’ll want to make an example of us somehow,’ said Hanno, sighing.

‘Will we have to go to Maroon District?’

‘Yes, I think so. Unless I astonish the world with my brilliance at the next High Examination.’

‘You are brilliant, pa.’

‘Thank you, darling. Unfortunately whatever brilliance I have remains undetected in exams.’

He pulled a funny face. They all knew how he hated exams.

There was no visit from the marshals that evening, so they had supper together, and Pinpin was given her bath, just as if nothing had happened. Then before Pinpin’s bedtime, as the setting sun turned the sky a soft dusty pink, they made their family wish huddle, as they always did. Hanno Hath knelt down on the floor and reached up his arms. Bowman nestled under one, and Kestrel under the other. Pinpin stood with her face pressed to his chest, and her short arms round his body. Ira Hath knelt behind Pinpin, and wrapped her arms over Bowman on one side and Kestrel on the other, making a tight ring. Then they all leaned their heads inwards until they were touching, and took turns to say their night wish. Often they wished for comical things, especially their mother, who had once wished five nights running for the Blesh family to get ulcerated boils. But tonight the mood was serious.

‘I wish there were no more exams ever,’ said Kestrel.

‘I wish nothing bad happens to Kess,’ said Bowman.

‘I wish my darling children to be safe and happy for ever,’ said their mother. She always wished like that when she was worried.

‘I wish the wind singer would sing again,’ said their father.

Bowman nudged Pinpin, and she said, ‘Wish wish.’ Then they all kissed each other, bumping noses like they always did, because there wasn’t an agreed order. Then Pinpin was put to bed.

‘Do you think it’ll ever happen, pa?’ said Bowman. ‘Will the wind singer ever sing again?’

‘It’s only an old story,’ said Hanno Hath. ‘Nobody believes it any more.’

‘I do,’ said Kestrel.

‘You can’t,’ objected her brother. ‘You don’t know any more about it than anyone else.’

‘I believe it because nobody else believes it,’ she retorted.

Her father smiled at that.

‘That’s more or less how I feel,’ he said.

He had told them the old story many times before, but Kestrel wanted to hear it again. So to calm her down, he told them once more about the time long ago when the wind singer sang. Its song was so sweet that everyone who heard it was happy. The happiness of the people of Aramanth angered the spirit-lord called the Morah –

‘But the Morah’s not real,’ put in Bowman.

‘No, nobody believes in the Morah any more,’ said his father.

‘I do,’ said Kestrel.

The Morah was angry, went the old story, and sent a terrible army, the army of the Zars, to destroy Aramanth. Then the people were afraid, and took the voice out of the wind singer, and gave it to the Morah. The Morah accepted the offering, and the Zars turned back without destroying Aramanth, and the wind singer never sang again.

Kestrel became very excited as she heard this.

‘It’s true!’ she cried. ‘There’s a place in the wind singer’s neck for the voice to go. I’ve seen it!’

‘Yes,’ said Hanno. ‘So have I.’

‘So the story must be true.’

‘Who knows?’ said Hanno quietly. ‘Who knows?’

Kestrel’s words reminded them all of her defiance that afternoon, and they fell silent.

‘Maybe they’ll just forget about it,’ said Ira Hath hopefully.

‘No,’ said Hanno. ‘They won’t forget.’

‘We’ll have to go down to Maroon District,’ said Bowman. ‘I don’t see what’s so bad about that.’

‘The apartments are quite small. We’d all have to sleep together in the one room.’

‘I’d like that,’ said Bowman. ‘I’ve always wanted us to sleep in one room.’

Kestrel thanked him with her eyes, and his mother kissed him and said, ‘You’re a dear boy. But your father snores, you know.’

‘Do I?’ said Hanno, surprised.

‘I’m quite used to it,’ said his wife, ‘but the children may be kept awake for a while.’

‘Why don’t we try it?’ said Bowman. ‘Why don’t we practise for Maroon District tonight?’

They took the mattresses from the twins’ beds, and carried them into their parents’ room. There stood the big bed, with its bedspread in stripes of many colours: pink and yellow, blue and green, colours rarely seen in Aramanth. Ira Hath had made it herself, as a small act of rebellion, and the children loved it.

By pushing the big bed against the far wall they could fit both mattresses side by side on the floor, but there was no room left to walk on, and certainly no space for Pinpin’s cot. So they decided Pinpin would sleep between Bowman and Kestrel, on the crack of their mattresses.

When they were all ready for bed, the twins lay down, and their father lifted the sleeping Pinpin out of her cot in the hall, and laid her between them. She half woke, and finding her brother on one side and her sister on the other, her small round face broke into a sleepy smile. She wriggled in her space, turned first one way and then the other, murmured, ‘Love Bo, love Kess,’ and went back to sleep.

Their parents then went to bed. For a little while they all lay there, squeezed together in the dark, and listened to each other’s snuffles. Then Ira Hath said, in her prophetess voice,

‘O, unhappy people! Tomorrow comes the sorrow!’

They laughed softly, as they always did at their mother’s prophetess voice; but they knew what she said was true. Shivering, they wriggled deeper into the bedclothes. It felt so friendly and safe and family-ish to be sleeping together in the same room that they wondered why they had never done it before, and when, if ever, they would be able to do it again.

5

A warning from the Chief Examiner

The summons came early, while they were still at breakfast. The doorbell rang, and there outside was a messenger from the College of Examiners. The Chief Examiner wished to see Hanno Hath at once, together with his daughter Kestrel.

Hanno rose to his feet.

‘Come on, Kess. Let’s get it over with.’

Kestrel stayed at the table, her expression showing stubborn resistance.

‘We don’t have to go.’

‘If we don’t, they’ll send marshals to fetch us.’

Kestrel stood up slowly, staring with extreme hostility at the messenger.

‘Do what you like to me,’ she said. ‘I don’t care.’

‘Me?’ said the messenger, aggrieved. ‘What’s it got to do with me? All I do is carry messages. You think anyone ever explains them to me?’

‘You don’t have to do it.’

‘Oh, don’t I? We live in Grey District, we do. You try sharing a toilet with six families. You try living with a sick wife and two thumping great lads in one room. Oh no, I’ll do my job all right, and more, and one fine day, they’ll move us up to Maroon, and that’ll do me nicely, thank you very much.’

Maslo Inch was waiting in his spacious office, sitting at his broad desk. He rose to his full imposing height as Hanno and Kestrel entered, and to their surprise, greeted them with a smile, in his high grand way. Coming out from behind the fortress desk, he shook their hands, and invited them to sit down with him in the circle of high grand chairs.

‘Your father and I used to play together when we were your age,’ he told Kestrel. ‘We sat together in class, too, for a while. Remember, Hanno?’

‘Yes,’ said Hanno. ‘I remember.’

He remembered how Maslo Inch had been so much bigger than the rest of them, and had made them kneel before him. But he said nothing about that. He just wanted to get the interview over with as soon as possible. Maslo Inch’s white clothes were so very white that it was hard to look at him for long; that, and his smile.

‘I’m going to tell you something that may surprise you,’ the Chief Examiner said to Kestrel. ‘Your father used to be cleverer than me at school.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ said Kestrel.

‘Doesn’t it?’ said Maslo Inch evenly. ‘Then why am I Chief Examiner of Aramanth, while your father is a subdistrict librarian?’

‘Because he doesn’t like exams,’ said Kestrel. ‘He likes books.’

Hanno Hath saw a shadow of irritation pass across the Chief Examiner’s face.

‘We know this is about what happened yesterday,’ he said quietly. ‘Say what you have to say.’

‘Ah, yes. Yesterday.’ The smile turned to hold Hanno in its steady shine. ‘Your daughter gave us quite a performance. We’ll come to that in due course.’

Hanno Hath looked back at the smooth face of the Chief Examiner, and saw there in those gleaming eyes a deep well of hatred. Why? he thought. This powerful man has nothing to fear from me. Why does he hate me so?

Maslo Inch rose to his feet.

‘Follow me, please. Both of you.’

He set off without a backward glance, and Hanno Hath and Kestrel followed behind, hand in hand. The Chief Examiner led them down a long empty corridor, lined on both sides with columns of gold-painted names. This was such a commonplace sight in Aramanth that neither father nor daughter looked twice at them. Anyone who achieved anything noteworthy was named on some wall somewhere, and this practice had been going on for so long that virtually no public wall was spared.

The corridor linked the College of Examiners to the Imperial Palace, and emerged into a courtyard at the heart of the palace, where a grey-clothed warden was sweeping the pathways. Maslo Inch began what was clearly a rehearsed speech.

‘Kestrel,’ he said, ‘I want you to listen to what I say to you today, and look at what I show you today, and remember it for the rest of your life.’

Kestrel said nothing. She watched the warden’s broom: swish, swish, swish.

‘I’ve been making enquiries about you,’ said the Chief Examiner. ‘I’m told that at school yesterday morning you placed yourself at the bottom of the class.’

‘What if I did?’ She was watching the warden. His eyes looked down as he worked, and his face looked vacant.

What is he thinking? Bo would know.

‘And that you said to your class teacher, What more can you do to me?’

‘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.