Shadow of a Hero (16 page)

LEGEND

The Riddle

NOW THAT THE
five Pashas were slain, the Turks were afraid to face the Varinians in battle. But Selim was Pasha of Virnu, across the river, and he was subtlest of all the Turks.
¹
He said in his heart, ‘I will send spies against this Restaur Vax, Greeks and Bulgarians and Croats, who yet speak the language of these dogs and may pass themselves off as true Varinians, and so join his bands, and be trusted until they are permitted to stand by his side, and then they will strike him down. Moreover, to give them courage, I will put a price on his head of seventeen thousand
kronin
. Very likely these spies will be found out, but that too is good, for Restaur Vax will see that he cannot any longer know which volunteers he can trust.’

Then one came to Restaur Vax saying that he was a Varinian from beyond the river, and talking good Field. Restaur Vax questioned him closely, and he answered well, but in the middle of questioning him Restaur Vax cast his glance down by the man’s feet and cried ‘Phidi!’ which is the Greek word for a viper. At that the man leaped clear even
before
he cast his own glance to the ground, and by this he was seen to be a Greek. So they took him away and slew him.

Restaur Vax said, ‘This is Selim’s doing.’

His chieftains answered, ‘We must therefore trust no new recruits.’

Restaur Vax took thought and said, ‘Not so. We will test all who come to us with a riddle. We will say to each man, “What were you? What are you? What will you be? Answer us now with the words that you learned in your mother’s arms.”’

So it was agreed. Seventy-seven spies came, speaking good Field, pretending to be true Varinians, and saying they wished to fight the Turk. But not one of them could answer the riddle, nor did they return alive to their own pastures. But of all the many Varinians who came, none failed the test. Had they not learnt the answer in their mothers’ arms?
²

¹
Selim Pasha (1712–1777) was not a contemporary of Restaur Vax. Pasha of the Western Province from the early age of twenty-six until his death, he earned a justifiable reputation for both efficiency and ferocity, and continues until the present day to be a general bogeyman of Varinian folklore.

²
‘The Lame Girl’s Lullaby’ has the refrain
Tutunatu tunutotu tutunistu
, which is popularly explained to be in Old Varinian and to mean ‘Asleep you were. Asleep you are. Asleep you will be.’ That is to say, before birth, in the cradle, and in the grave. The point of the story is that an impostor would be unlikely to know the nonsense refrain of a cradle song.

Old Varinian was the literary language developed by the troubadours in the Middle Ages from the even older language of which modern Field is a simplification. Almost all traces of Old Varinian were effectively destroyed by the Phanariotes, Greek Orthodox officials of the Turkish Empire during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Modern Formal was developed in the period leading up to the War of Independence in an attempt to create a literary language to replace the lost Old Varinian. It is, however, unlikely that the refrain of the song was ever more than nonsense.

AUGUST 1990

LETTA WAS ESCAPING
up a mountainside. Her companion was a bandit. Somebody had told her she mustn’t trust him. The Turks were spread out below, tiny with distance. They hadn’t seen her yet. Her heart was hammering. People were shouting, running around on the now dark hillside, calling for her . . .

‘Letta! Letta!’

She jerked awake and sat up, her heart still hammering.

‘Letta! It’s Parvla!’

It was still dark, but people really seemed to be running about, and shouting.

‘Oh, do shut up. What’s going on?’

That was Janine, in English, groaningly, on the other side of the tent. It had been a hot night, so Letta had slept on her bag rather than in it. She crawled out through the flaps and stood up. Parvla was there in the folky cotton nightgown which Letta was going to try and find one like before she went home, only they didn’t sell them in shops – they were something you made for yourself. She’d met Parvla at a camp sing-song a couple of nights before. She lived near a village about twenty miles out of Potok. She was two years older than Letta and seemed older still in some ways but younger in others. In spite of that they’d got on at once, looked for each other next morning, spent time
together
, and agreed to meet again today. But not this early, with stars still out and only a faint grey line to the east, behind Mount Athur.

‘They’ve taken him away!’ gasped Parvla. ‘They came in the middle of the night, two long black cars, and rushed into the hotel and took him from his bed, wrapped in a blanket, and drove away.’

‘Grandad! Restaur Vax?’

‘Yes.’

Letta was dopey, unable to think or feel. This seemed to be still part of her dream, with the dark hillside and the people moving around with angry cries, and her heart still uselessly hammering.

‘What’s everybody doing?’ she said.

‘We’re all going up to the Square, I think.’

Letta pulled herself together.

‘Oh. Right. Thanks. I’d better find Nigel. You go and get dressed.’

While she was groping for her clothes she told Janine what had happened, but Janine simply groaned and turned over. She pulled her jeans and shirt on over her pyjamas and started down the hill, but before she’d gone more than a few yards she heard Nigel’s voice, calling for her as he climbed.

‘Here!’ she shouted, and found him.

‘What’s happened?’ he said. ‘Something to do with Grandad, I gather. Is he all right?’

‘I don’t know. Somebody came and took him away. They’re all going up to the Square.’

‘Us too? We’d better check in with Mum and Dad. They’ll be worried sick.’

Blundering among tents they made their way down to the main path. People were already streaming along it towards the town. Their voices were mostly low, but Letta could feel their anger
like
a thickening of the air. The crowd grew denser and slower, but then she and Nigel were able to branch off towards the University, where a lot of lights were on and yet more people were pouring away towards the town. Mollie was in her room with a knapsack packed and Donna ready and dressed but fast asleep, waiting for them.

‘Well done,’ she said. ‘Steff’s gone up to the hotel. He called the office here five minutes ago and said he’s arranged for us to be let in at that back entrance. Apparently you can’t get to the front at all. Ready?’

Even by the back way they barely made it. All the streets in the centre of Potok were jammed with furious Varinians. At one place they passed there were crashings of glass and yells of rage from a courtyard. In the thin dawn light, Letta saw a man run forward and hurl something. Another crash, and more yells. She heard a bystander ask what was up and somebody tell him that Romanians lived there. The bystander immediately rushed into the courtyard, yelling and looking for a missile of his own.

Letta and Nigel had paused to watch, and Mollie had gone ahead. In a moment of panic, Letta thought they’d lost her, but then she spotted her, craning back to see where they’d got to. When they caught up she said, ‘For God’s sake don’t get separated. Keep with me.’ There was a snap in her voice, which Letta had never heard before. As they struggled on, Letta realized that Mollie, too, was afraid.

Steff was waiting for them at the kitchen doors. He was obviously extremely relieved to see them. He took Donna onto his shoulder, still totally sogged out with sleep, and as he led them towards
the
front of the hotel he talked over his shoulder to Mollie.

‘Not as bad as we thought. Kronin’s brother – you remember, the guy in the Ministry of Culture – says it’s all a mistake and he’s furious about it.’

‘Are they going to send him back?’ said Mollie.

‘If they’ve got any sense, but nobody’s in their office yet. We got Kronin’s brother out of bed.’

‘It’s really nasty out there, Steff. We saw a gang of people breaking windows. Does anyone know where they’ve taken him?’

‘Timisoara, I should think. Bucharest in the end. They may just shove him on a plane and send him home.’

He led the way into the entrance hall, where groups of people were standing around talking in low voices. From beyond the doors rose a dull, deep roar, not much louder than the noise the crowd had made the opening day, but quite different. They didn’t wait but went straight upstairs to what had been Grandad’s room. Momma was coming out of the bathroom with a sponge-bag. She’d been crying.

‘Oh, darlings!’ she said in English. ‘Isn’t this too awful. I’m so relieved to see you. Has anyone seen Van?’

At that moment the telephone in the little den rang, and stopped. Poppa appeared in the doorway with the receiver to his ear, beckoning them over.

‘Right,’ he was saying. ‘We’ll do that . . . Not a hope – it’ll never get near the hotel. No, it’ll have to be somewhere right outside the town . . . All right, Min and Letta . . . They’ll have to have an escort – I’ll see if anyone here can fix anything. But listen. Do they realize what they’ve stirred up
here?
If they don’t let you come back . . . I’m sure you are . . . If they don’t see that, then they’re crazy . . . Kronin’s called his brother. He says it’s a mistake. So . . . Right, here she is.’

He passed the telephone to Momma, who listened and murmured her answers, crying again now. Poppa moved the others aside so as not to interrupt.

‘He seems all right,’ he said in a low voice. ‘They’ve stopped at Paçel, just over the border. They’re giving him breakfast. They haven’t told him anything except that he is to ask for some clothes and two members of his family to escort him, so it looks pretty certain they’re going to put him on a plane . . .’

He broke off and went over as Momma beckoned, but she seemed to change her mind and started talking in a language Letta didn’t know – Romanian, probably. She asked questions, but mostly listened. At last she gave a heavy sigh and just stood there, shaking her head. Poppa took the telephone out of her hand and put it back in the den.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘That was a Captain, army, I think, not police. As far as I can make out – it’s a terrible line and my Romanian’s rusty – he wasn’t in charge of the people who took Grandad away, but he’s somehow taken over. He says he’s got to wait for orders. They’re taking him to Timisoara. They want me and one other to go with him. Letta . . .’

‘I want to stay here,’ said Letta.

It was all she knew. The nightmare from which she’d woken kept lurching back round her, swallowing her, drowning her, and then ebbing away. Had she really struggled along through the
furious
crowd, watched the men hurling stones in the courtyard, almost lost Mollie? Yes, of course, but still it all seemed full of the shapeless terror of dream. Even here, in the big, lit room, watching Momma stand shaking her head and saying she didn’t understand . . . All she was certain of was that she must stay and face whatever danger Varina faced. Parvla was out there, somewhere among the roaring crowd . . .

‘You’ll do what you’re told,’ snapped Momma, and then, ‘I’m sorry, darling. I don’t want him worrying about you. Don’t you see?’

Letta pulled herself together.

‘I’m sorry,’ she managed to say. ‘Whatever you want . . . It’s just . . .’

Then Van came rushing through the doors, hair tousled, a smear of dirt down one cheek, but with glittering eyes and a fizz and fever in his movements.

‘Oh, there you are!’ cried Momma. ‘That’s wonderful! How did you get in?’

‘Climbed,’ he said. ‘Some of the gang gave me a leg-up to a bedroom window round at the side. Isn’t this terrific? Isn’t this just what we wanted! They couldn’t have done it better for us if we’d asked them!’

Quite unaware of the appalled hush that filled the room, he rushed to the window and stared out. It was almost light now, with the stars gone and the topmost points of the ridges on either side of the valley tipped with the first rays of the sun. Below them stretched the shadowy slopes and lower still came the tiles and stone of the cathedral, not warm red and gold as they would be at noon but dull brownish and grey. And then, below everything, the immense, dark, roaring crowd.

‘You’re not going to ask if we know anything about what’s happened to Grandad?’ said Poppa quietly.

Van turned, making at least a pretence of shame.

‘Oh yes, of course. I’m sorry. Anyone know where they’ve taken the old boy?’

Poppa told him the news.

‘That sounds all right,’ he said. ‘Provided they haven’t beaten him up or anything. If they just ship him out.’

‘If they’ve got any sense at all they’ll send him straight back,’ said Poppa.

‘Well, let’s hope they haven’t got any sense at all,’ said Van. ‘This is just what we wanted. Otto Vasa’s going to make a speech to them in a bit. They asked me downstairs to check that was OK with you. He’ll need the balcony.’

There was another silence. Momma and Poppa and Steff looked at each other. Letta could see they didn’t like it at all, but it was difficult for them to say anything. They’d always kept out of Varinian politics, partly not to make things difficult for Grandad and partly because it wasn’t their sort of thing.

‘What’s going on?’ whispered Mollie, who hadn’t been able to follow Van’s rapid Field. Letta told her.

‘Is this a committee decision?’ she said. She was talking about the main Festival Committee, who’d run everything so far.

‘No time for that,’ said Van. ‘Anyway, it’s not just culture any more. And we’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot.’

There was a knock on the door and two men came in with the podium Grandad had used, and microphones. The loudspeaker system was still in
place
because there was going to be a closing ceremony in the Square before they all went home. Again Momma, Poppa and Steff looked at each other. Poppa shrugged unhappily and stood aside to let the men through. They opened the central windows, and when the crowd outside saw the podium going into place, their steady angry roar swelled up and rose in pitch. Van strode across to one of the side-windows to watch, but the rest of the family moved to an inside corner of the room.