Slaves of the Mastery (2 page)

Pia Greeth, the bride, was fifteen years old, the same age as Kestrel herself. Pia looked lovely by candlelight. The boy she was marrying, Tanner Amos, seemed overwhelmed by the ceremony. Why is
Pia marrying him, Kestrel thought? How can she know she’ll love him for ever? He looked so uncertain; so timid, and so young. But he too was just fifteen, the age when young people became
marriageable; and this was the start of the marriage season.

Kestrel frowned and shook her head, and turned her eyes away from the young couple by the wind singer. At once she met the eyes of Pia’s older brother Farlo, and realised he had been
staring at her. This irritated her. He had taken to following her around in the last few weeks, and looking at her in a hopeless yearning way, as if he wanted to speak to her, but was waiting for
her to speak first. Why must she speak to him? She had nothing particular to say. Why must everybody suddenly start pairing up? She had liked Farlo well enough until he had begun gazing at her in
that goggly fashion.

So she looked away again, and there was her twin brother Bowman gazing into the distance. She felt into his mind, and realised his attention too was not on the ceremony. He was sensing something
else: something that troubled him.

What is it, Bo
?

I don’t know.

Now the young couple were saying the vow of betrothal.

‘Today begins my walk with you.’ The boy spoke in a shy hesitant voice. The vow came from the old days, when the Manth people had been a nomadic tribe, forever travelling over the
barren land. Many of the guests moved their lips with the familiar words, unaware that they were doing so.

‘Where you go, I go. Where you stay, I stay.’

Now Bowman was moving quietly away. Kestrel saw Pinto follow him with her eyes, desperate to go too. She saw her speak low to their mother, who nodded, knowing her youngest child simply
couldn’t stand still and stay silent for long. Then Pinto too slipped away.

‘When you sleep, I will sleep. When you rise, I will rise.’

Kestrel did not follow Bowman. More and more these days, he chose to be alone. She didn’t understand it, and it hurt her, but it was what he wanted, and she loved him too much to
complain.

She listened to the ending of the vows.

‘I will pass my days within the sound of your voice, and my nights within the reach of your hand, and none shall come between us. This I vow.’

The boy then held out his hand, and the girl took it. Kestrel saw her mother feel for her father’s hand and squeeze it, and knew she was remembering the time of her own betrothal. A sudden
sadness came over Kestrel, a new and unfamiliar feeling. She dug the nail of one forefinger into the palm of her hand until it hurt, to stop the tears that were rising in her throat. Why should I
be sad, she asked herself? Because ma and pa love each other? Because I never want to be married? But it wasn’t that. It was something else.

Now the guests were crowding round to congratulate the young couple. Mrs Greeth was blowing out the candles and putting them away in a box, to be used again later. Kestrel’s mother and
father were making their way up the nine stone tiers of the arena, hurrying a little, because there was a city meeting that evening, and the ceremony had gone on longer than expected. Bowman and
Pinto were gone.

That was when Kestrel found the right name for the feeling of sadness that had come over her. It wasn’t loneliness. While her twin brother lived, she could never be lonely. It was a
glimpse of something more terrible: a premonition of loss. One day she would lose him, and she didn’t know how she could go on living after that.

We go together.

The words, an echo from the past, meant to her that when the time came to die, as one day it must, they would die together. But this new feeling told her otherwise. One would die, and one would
live on.

Let me be the one who dies first.

At once she was ashamed of herself. The one who died first would be the lucky one. Why should she wish the misery of survival on her beloved brother? She was stronger than him. She must bear
it.

This was the feeling that made her want to cry: not loneliness, not yet, but the certainty that the day was coming when she would be alone.

Mumpo Inch sat on the tumble of stones that had once been part of the city walls, and gazed out towards the dark ocean. If he looked long enough he could make out the crests of
the bigger waves, rolling in under the moonless sky. He let out a long sad sigh. Another day gone, and he had still not spoken the words he had so carefully prepared and memorised. It was now
eleven weeks and two days since he had passed his fifteenth birthday, and four weeks and four days since Kestrel Hath had done the same. Mumpo adored Kestrel more than life itself, and had done for
five long years. He couldn’t bear to think she might marry anyone but him. And yet, if he were to ask her, he knew she would say no. He was sure of it. They were too young. He felt it
himself. Neither of them was ready to be married. But what if someone else asked her first? And what if she said yes?

He heard sounds behind him, and turning, saw Pinto hopping over the stones. Pinto was small for her age, skinny and lithe and sharp as a blade of grass. Because she was so much younger, Mumpo
always felt easy with her. She never criticised him, or smiled at the things he said, as others did. She only ever got cross when he called her Pinpin, which had been her baby name. She was not a
baby any more, she would tell him fiercely, staring at him with those bright hurt eyes that seemed always to be about to cry, but never did.

‘I knew you’d be here.’ She dropped to her knees behind him, and twined her arms round his neck.

‘I come here to be alone,’ said Mumpo.

‘You can be alone with me.’

It was perfectly true: she was no intrusion. He reached one arm behind him and pinched her bony leg.

‘What have you done with Kess?’

‘Oh, I’ve killed her,’ said Pinto, wriggling happily. ‘I got fed up with you always asking me about her, so I killed her.’

‘Where did you leave her body?’

‘At the Greeths’ betrothal.’

Mumpo rose to his feet, dropping the girl to the ground with a gentle shake. He was tall and well-built, like his father, but unlike his father in his prime, he had no air of authority about
him. He was too easy-going to impose his will on anyone; too simple, some said. As for Pinto, she thought he was the dearest person in the entire wide world.

‘There’s something I have to ask Kess,’ he said, more to convince himself than to inform the girl.

‘I shouldn’t bother,’ said Pinto. ‘She’ll say no.’

Mumpo blushed a deep red.

‘You don’t know what I’m talking about.’

‘Yes, I do. You want her to marry you. Well, she won’t. I asked her, and she said no.’

‘You never did!’

As it happens, Pinto had not asked her big sister this vast and frightening question. She had wanted to many times, but she had not dared. However, she was quite sure that if she were to ask it,
the answer would be as she declared.

‘You’re an evil interfering rat-girl. I shall never talk to you again.’

He was angry and ashamed. Pinto repented at once.

‘I didn’t ask her, Mumpo. I just made that up.’

‘Do you swear?’

‘I swear. But she will say no.’

‘How do you know that?’

Pinto wanted to say, I know because you belong to me. Instead she said,

‘She doesn’t want to marry anyone.’

‘She will,’ said Mumpo gloomily. ‘They all do in the end.’

It was quite dark now, so they held hands as they made their way back over the uneven piles of rubble. Pinto felt how his strong dry hand held hers, so light and yet so sure, and twice she
pretended to stumble just to feel his fingers close tight round hers, and his muscular arm hold her from falling. In reality she was as nimble as a goat, and could find her way by starlight or by
no light; but she was playing a secret game that they were betrothed, and in her head she was saying to him the familiar words of the betrothal, ‘I will pass my days within the sound of your
voice, and my nights within the reach of your hand.’

They passed the abandoned buildings of the old Grey District, now used only by gangs of unruly children for their secret games, and entered the lamp-lit streets of Maroon District. The old names
were still used, though few of the houses retained their old colour. After the changes, the citizens of Aramanth had been seized with a rage for house painting, and all over the city a rainbow of
bright colours had sprung up, on doors and window frames, walls and even roofs. But five years of sun and wind and rain had worn away the hastily applied paint, and the old municipal colours were
beginning to show through once more.

They found the main plaza full of people and noise. It turned out the meeting had ended almost as soon as it had begun, following a dispute about procedure. Everyone was streaming out of the
city hall and making their way home, arguing eagerly. Mumpo never attended the city meetings. All that happened, it seemed to him, was that everyone talked at the same time as everyone else, and
nobody listened, and so they all went out at the end with the same opinions they’d come in with.

His searching eyes soon located Kestrel at the centre of a group of young people, all talking with passionate conviction. Mumpo came to a stop at the fringe of the group, and wouldn’t join
them, even though Pinto pulled at his hand.

‘They’re just going on about nothing,’ Pinto said. ‘Like they always do.’

Mumpo wasn’t listening. He was watching Kestrel. In common with many of the younger set, she cropped her hair short and ragged, and wore faded black robes in reaction against the
multi-coloured look favoured by the older people. Her face was odd and bony and wide-mouthed, not beautiful in the usual way: but there was about her a restless intensity that drew and held the
attention. To Mumpo, she was entirely beautiful. More than beautiful: she was so alive that sometimes he felt her to be life itself, or the source of life. When those eager black eyes met his, he
felt the jolt of her vitality, and everything around him seemed brighter and more sharp-edged.

‘Why weren’t you at the meeting, Mumpo?’

With a start, he realised she was talking to him.

‘Oh, that sort of thing’s not for me.’

‘Why not? You live here, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Then don’t you care about the city that’s your home?’

Mumpo said the first thing that came into his head, as he usually did.

‘It doesn’t feel like my home.’

Kestrel stared at him, and said nothing for a long moment. Then she turned back to the others, made some abrupt goodnights, and walked away.

Mumpo and Pinto followed more slowly. Mumpo’s rooms, where he lived with his father, were close by the Hath family’s quarters, in the heart of the city.

‘I always say the wrong thing,’ he told Pinto sadly. ‘And I never know why.’

Bowman had not been at the meeting. He had walked the streets of the city, trying to locate the source of the danger he had felt at the betrothal. It was as elusive as a smell.
Sometimes he thought he had it, then he lost it again. He turned his face to the wind and sniffed the air, hoping this would guide him. But it wasn’t a smell, or a sound: it was a feeling.
Bowman could feel the presence of fear a mile off, and could sense the joy that bursts out as laughter before the smile was even begun. But feelings were hard to trace. They came as often from
inside himself as from the outside world.

Now it was gone again. Maybe he was making it all up. Maybe it was hunger. He decided to go home.

When the rest of the family returned, they found him standing on their little balcony looking out at the night. The stove was almost out. Hanno Hath bent down to coax it back into life.

‘You’ve let the fire go out, Bo.’

‘Have I?’

He sounded surprised, so Hanno Hath said no more about it. People said Bowman was a dreamer, or more unkindly, that he went about half-asleep, but his father understood him. Bowman was as awake
as any of them; more so, perhaps. But he was attending to different things.

‘That was a waste of time as usual,’ said Kestrel, coming into the room. ‘The only person who said anything worth hearing was Mumpo, and he’s the biggest fool of
all.’

‘He’s not a fool!’ protested Pinto, entering after her.

‘Oh yes, we all know Mumpo’s your pet.’

Pinto flew at Kestrel, fists tight-clenched and flailing, hot tears springing up in her eyes. Kestrel struck back at once, hitting her on the nose. Pinto fell sobbing to the floor.

‘Kestrel!’ said her father sharply.

‘She started it!’

Ira Hath picked Pinto up and soothed her. Pinto’s nose was bleeding. When Pinto discovered this, she was secretly elated, and stopped crying.

‘Blood!’ she said. ‘Kess made me bleed!’

‘It’s not much, darling,’ said her mother.

‘But she made me bleed!’ Pinto was triumphant. The one who draws blood is always in the wrong. ‘Tell her off!’

‘You made yourself bleed,’ said Kestrel. ‘You hit my hand with your nose.’

‘Oh!’ said Pinto. ‘Oh! You lying witch!’

‘All right, that’s enough.’ Hanno Hath’s mild voice had the effect of calming everyone down, as always. ‘So Mumpo said something interesting, did he,
Kess?’

‘I was going to tell you, only Pinpin –’

‘
Don’t call me Pinpin
!’

‘Am I allowed to speak?’

‘I don’t care. Say what you like.’

Actually Pinto was interested, because it was about Mumpo.

‘He said Aramanth doesn’t feel like his home.’

‘Oh, that poor boy.’

‘Yes, but it made me think. It doesn’t feel like my home, either.’

Hanno Hath threw a glance towards his wife.

‘So where is your home, my Kess?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, you may be right. All the old books say this was only ever meant to be a way station on the journey to the homeland.’

‘The homeland!’ His wife snorted crossly. ‘What is this homeland? Where is it? I’ll tell you where it is. It’s somewhere else. That’s where it is. Wherever
you live in the real world you find troubles and discontents, so you make up a somewhere else that’s better. That’s all your precious homeland is. So we might as well make the most of
where we are now.’