Slaves of the Mastery (6 page)

Bowman said nothing. But in his head he spoke to her as he was branded.

Love you, Kess.

Then Pinto held out her thin arm, unable to stop it shaking.

‘Oh Kess –’ she said. The iron pressed to her young skin, and the pain plunged deep into her, making her sob aloud. But she only sobbed once.

That night as Bowman sat awake listening for Kestrel, he could still feel the pain of his burned wrist. He had not resisted the branding, or made any complaint, but deep inside
he was angry. More than the burning of his home city, this burning of the skin of children made him hate the Mastery. In his anger and his powerlessness, he did as he had done long ago, and reached
out into the unknown.

You who have watched over me before, whoever you are, help me now.

Then he thought, in the silent chill of the night, I want more than help. I want power. I want the power to destroy these people who seek to destroy me.

You who watch over me, give me the power to destroy.

O
n the island called Sirene three people stand between the high arched windows beneath the racing clouds, and sing together a wordless song. On
either side of the woman who was the first to return stand a young man and an old man. All three are bareheaded and barefoot; all three wear plain woollen robes that reach to the ankles, and are
held around the waist with a knotted cord. The song they sing sounds like the rustling of stream water, or the whisper of wind in the trees, but there is a melody here, a pattern of notes that
follow after each other in tranquil cycles. It’s the song of foreknowing. As they sing, their minds become clear and receptive, and they begin to sense what is to come.

They see the cruelty spreading over the land. They see cities burning, and people on the march. They see young women weeping and old women lying down to die. They feel the hatred in young
men’s hearts, and know the killing will go on until the time of consummation.

They hear a boy calling to them, crying out for help. They see a girl walking alone, feeling between the fingers of her hand a silver instrument made in the shape of a long-tailed S. They feel
her anger, her weakness, her danger.

The singing comes to an end. The young man is filled with a desire to act, to strengthen the weak, to bring an end to the cruelty. The old man feels his desire.

‘They must find their own way,’ he says. ‘We are to do nothing.’

The woman doesn’t speak. But later that day she takes herself off alone to the end of the island, where she can watch the distant coast of the mainland. Here she settles herself down and
without closing her eyes enters a kind of sleep, in which she slips from quietness into a deeper quietness.

In a little while a butterfly comes jigging and dancing through the air. It settles briefly on a nearby olive tree, and closes its wings. The butterfly’s wings are a brilliant iridescent
blue, the blue of lapis lazuli, the blue of a kingfisher’s breast. They shimmer in the autumn sunlight, in the gleaming light reflected from the great ocean.

Then the wings flicker into motion once more, and the butterfly dances beneath the crooked olive branches, and settles on the woman’s cheek, on the high weathered cheekbone beneath her
left eye. Here it remains for some little time, while the woman speaks to it in a way that the butterfly understands. Then the brilliant blue wings tremble again, and the butterfly is gone.

K
estrel lay on her stomach on the ground, with her legs and arms spread wide, and one cheek pressed to the earth. With her eyes closed, and all her
attention on the feel of the land against her body, she poured out her energy in radiating waves.

Bowman. Where are you
?

If he was within reach of her silent call, he would answer. But even if there was no answer, and there was none, by lying very still she could hear, as if in an echo of her cry, that he had
passed this way. Not a sound: not the print of a foot on the earth: just a distant familiar feeling that was fading fast, but not yet gone. At home she had always known on entering an empty room if
her brother had been there. His presence lingered, the shape he had made in the air, like the disarrangement of cushions in an armchair where someone has been sitting. His gentleness lingered. That
quiet gaze in his troubled eyes, that knew everything she felt without the need for words, his loving gaze lingered.

Oh Bowman, where are you
?

This faint touch of his passing was enough to drive her onwards. He was alive, and he had come this way. She rose to her feet, and set off once more.

She followed the trail of the slave march eastward, rising at dawn, walking steadily all morning, resting at noon, and walking until sundown. She slept on the earth where she stopped, and
waking, set off again without hesitation. She lived off the refuse of the march, eating the stalks discarded from vegetables, and the bones thrown out of the stewpots. The land was low and
undulating, and clothed in a dry spiky grass which scratched at her ankles. At the high point of each rise she looked ahead, hoping to catch sight of the great march, but every time she saw nothing
but the next long rolling hill, and the hazy autumn sky.

From time to time she passed dead bodies, most commonly of old people, people she had once known. She made herself look at them, made herself see the wounds of the spears that had killed them,
because the sight fuelled the anger and hatred that drove her on. But after a while she avoided the sad bundles. She was growing weaker, and was fighting the temptation to lie down herself, and
slip into a sleep from which she would never wake.

Then the day came when there were no more leavings from the march. After ten days, the provisions were evidently running low, and everything that could be eaten was being eaten. On the eleventh
day, Kestrel found nothing at all. There was no shortage of water, each shallow valley had its stream, and for a while, by filling her belly full of water, she could forget her hunger. But when the
hunger returned, the pain was worse.

On the twelfth day she began to feel dizzy. When she stopped to rest at noon, her legs gave way beneath her, as if only the rhythm of walking step by step had kept her upright. She folded to the
ground, and lay huddled on one side, and knew no more.

Some hours later she was woken by the flickering of a bright light. The sun was low in the sky, and was dazzling her eyelids. Then came blackness. Then the brilliant light once
more. She became aware of sounds: the rumble of carriage wheels, the clatter of horses’ hooves. She forced herself up onto one elbow, and opened her eyes.

There before her, quite close, moving slowly in a long line of coaches, wagons, and men on horseback, was an exquisite high-wheeled carriage, painted orange and green, ornamented with gold. In
the carriage sat a young woman, looking out. Kestrel stared at her, not knowing whether she was dreaming or awake. The young woman stared back. Then she started to scream.

‘She’s looking at me! She’s looking at me!’

The immense column of carriages came to a halt. Tall men seized Kestrel and lifted her into the air. She was carried before a man in a gold cloak, who said things to her she didn’t
understand. Then she lost consciousness again.

Kestrel half-woke to the sound of voices. One, the voice of a cross-sounding man, was saying in an impatient sort of way, as if it should be obvious to everybody,

‘Put her to death, put her to death.’

The other was the voice of a haughty young woman.

‘Nonsense, Barzan. She must be made to understand what she’s done, then she must have her eyes put out. Everyone knows that.’

‘But radiance, we can’t wait until she wakes up. We’re late already.’

‘Who said we were to wait? You can put her in my carriage, and Lunki will watch over her.’

‘In your carriage, radiance?’ The one called Barzan sounded very surprised.

‘Why not? She’s seen me already. And she’s only a girl, you know.’

Kestrel hadn’t opened her eyes, so the unknown people who were arguing over her still believed her to be unconscious. She now felt herself lifted up by several hands and carried up steps
and into a darker place, which she supposed must be the young woman’s carriage. Here she was laid down on a soft bed, and shortly felt the rumbling motion of the carriage wheels rolling over
the rough ground. The shock of all that had happened to her, and the softness of the bed, and the jogging motion of the carriage, combined to send her back into a deep sleep.

When she woke for the second time, she opened her eyes for a brief moment, and saw in the half-light of the curtained carriage two ladies, one fat and one thin. The thin one was about her own
age, and astonishingly beautiful. Kestrel closed her eyes again, and lay there listening to their conversation, hoping to find out what they meant to do with her.

She heard one of them return to her bedside and sit down to gaze at her. It was the young one, the beautiful one, with the haughty voice. After a while she said, in an approving tone,

‘She’s not at all fat.’

‘The poor thing’s starved,’ said the fat woman.

‘She won’t like having her eyes put out, will she?’

There came no answer to this. The young woman evidently took this silence as a criticism.

‘She shouldn’t have looked at me, darling. You know that very well.’

‘Yes, sweetie. But my baby should have been wearing her veil.’

‘She still looked at me. So it’s too late now.’

‘I wonder what she thought.’

‘So do I, rather.’

There was a silence. Then the young woman went on,

‘You know, Lunki, apart from you and mama and papa, no one’s seen my face since I was seven years old.’

‘Quite right too. My baby mustn’t show her face, not until she’s married.’

Yes, I know.’ She sounded unenthusiastic.

Kestrel felt her come closer. She felt her curious fingers touch her cropped hair.

‘Wake her up, darling. Poke her.’

‘It’ll take more than poking, sweetie. That one needs food.’

‘Feed her, then. At once. Now.’

‘But she’s asleep.’

‘Push it into her,’ said the imperious young woman.

Kestrel heard the one called Lunki, evidently a servant, rattling about in a cupboard. She began to think she had better open her eyes before some strange substance was forced into her mouth.
But then she heard the young woman clap her hands and say,

‘Honey! How clever you are, Lunki!’

Kestrel smelled the honey on the spoon. Then she felt the cool trickle on her lips. Still pretending she was half-asleep, she poked out the tip of her tongue and licked the sticky sweetness. It
tasted of wild clover in summer meadows.

‘She ate it! Give her more!’

Honey drip by honey drip, Kestrel felt her strength returning. After a while, she judged the time was right to admit that she was awake. She fluttered her eyelids and opened them, and looked up
at the two ladies who were leaning over her.

‘She’s awake! Look, Lunki, she’s awake!’

The beautiful young woman clapped her hands once more.

‘Can she speak? Make her say something.’

Kestrel decided she had better speak.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.

‘Oh, you darling! Can I keep her?’

‘What about –?’ The fat servant touched her eyes.

‘Oh!’ The young woman was shocked. ‘I can’t possibly let them put out her eyes. That would be too horrible.’

Kestrel heard everything, and said nothing. She had decided to say as little as possible until she learned who these people were.

‘She can be my servant. My servants are allowed to look at me. That is, you are, you know, Lunki.’

She turned to Kestrel and spoke as if to a small child.

‘Would you like to be my servant? Or would you rather have your eyes put out with red-hot skewers?’

Kestrel said nothing.

‘She’s thinking about it. I don’t mind.’

The young woman’s sharp eyes suddenly caught sight of the silver S that was hanging on a string round Kestrel’s neck. She reached one hand and touched it, turning it this way and
that to study it.

‘I like this,’ she said. ‘I want it. Give it to me.’

‘No,’ said Kestrel.

‘No?’ Astonished, the young woman turned to Lunki. ‘She said no. But I want it. She must give it to me.’ And to Kestrel, ‘You have to give me what I
want.’

‘No,’ said Kestrel again, and took the silver voice away from her elegant white hand.

The young woman stared at her.

‘How dare you!’

She slapped Kestrel’s face. Without thinking twice, Kestrel slapped her back, as hard as she could. The young woman burst into tears. The servant saw this aghast.

‘Baby!’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh, my poor baby!’

‘You’ve been kind to me,’ said Kestrel, ‘and you’re very beautiful, but if you hit me again I’ll kill you.’

The young woman gasped for breath.

‘Oh! You’ll be so punished! Oh! You’ll cry! I’ll make you cry! Oh, you creature!’

She took Kestrel’s hand in her own violently trembling hand and pulled it and twisted it, as a confused rush of words came tumbling out.

‘Why aren’t you afraid of me? Did I hurt you? I’m sorry if I hurt you, but you’re not to – you’re not to –’ She raised Kestrel’s hand to her
lips and kissed it. ‘Why are you so unkind to me? Do you really think I’m beautiful? How would you kill me? Why aren’t you afraid?’

Gently, Kestrel drew back her hand. The young woman became calmer. Her huge amber eyes gazed at Kestrel, and her sweet soft lips trembled.

‘Please tell me. Am I really beautiful?’

‘I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful in all my life.’

‘Oh, I’m so glad.’

She was entirely sincere. It seemed that it was somehow necessary for her to be beautiful. Kestrel picked this up at once. Whatever other faults this imperious young woman had, she was not
vain.

Somehow the slaps had been forgotten, on both sides.