learn that we need to be more cautious?’ Zoe said.
‘In case word gets out?’ I said. ‘Isn’t that what we’ve been trying to do? We’ve been trying to spread the word ever since we left the deadlands, and we’re getting nowhere.’
‘It’s one thing for word to get out about the refuges,’ Piper said. ‘Another for word to get out about us, and where we are. If it had been Zach, and not The Ringmaster, who found us the other day, we’d all be in cells by now, or worse. I’m trying to protect you, and keep us all alive. We don’t know who we can trust.’
‘You saw what happened at the refuge,’ I said. ‘And there are more people turning themselves in every day, thinking it’s a haven. We could stop them, if we could spread the word about what really happens there.’
‘And you think two strangers can do it better than us?’ Piper said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We need people who travel without raising suspicion. Who draw a crowd to hear them wherever they go. People who can make the news catch on, so it starts to spread by itself.’ An Omega bard could count on a welcome at any Omega settlement, and an Alpha bard could expect to be hosted at any Alpha village. Bards were the roaming memory of the world. They sang the stories that would otherwise be buried along with their subjects. Their songs traced the love stories of individuals, and the bloodlines of families, and the history of whole villages, towns, or regions. And they sang imaginary tales as well: great battles and fantastical happenings. They played on feast days, and at burials, and their songs were a currency accepted all over the land.
‘Nobody’s listening to us,’ I said. ‘They listen to bards. And you know how it works. Songs spread like fire, or plague.’
‘They’re not exactly positive things,’ Zoe pointed out.
‘They’re powerful things,’ I said.
Piper was watching me carefully.
‘Even if we can trust the bards, it would be a lot to ask of them,’ he said.
‘Give them the choice,’ I said.
Neither Zoe nor Piper spoke, but they’d stopped their packing. The music was drawing nearer. I looked back down the hill to the pair approaching. The bearded man wasn’t leaning on his staff; instead, he swung it loosely in front of him, back and forth, sweeping the air for obstacles. He was blind.
When they reached the edge of the woods, Piper called a greeting to them. The music stopped, the sounds of the forest suddenly loud in the new silence.
‘Who’s there?’ called the woman.
‘Fellow travellers,’ said Piper.
They stepped into the clearing. She was younger than us, her red hair plaited and reaching all the way down her back. I couldn’t see her mutation, though she was branded.
‘You heading north, to Pullman market?’ the man asked. He still held the mouth organ in one hand, the staff in the other. His eyes weren’t closed – they were missing altogether. Below the brand on his forehead, the skin stretched uninterrupted across his eye sockets. His hands had extra fingers, unruly offshoots from every knuckle, like a sprouting potato. Seven fingers, at least, on each hand.
Piper avoided his question. ‘We’re leaving tonight, when it’s dark. You’ll have the clearing to yourselves.’
The man shrugged. ‘If you’re travelling at night, then I shouldn’t be surprised you don’t want to tell us where you’re headed.’
‘You’re travelling at night, too,’ I pointed out.
‘Night and day, at the moment,’ the woman said. ‘The market starts in two days. We were delayed at Abberley when the flooding swept the bridge.’
‘And I always travel in the dark, even if the sun’s shining.’ The man gestured to his sealed eye sockets. ‘So who am I to judge you for it?’
‘Our travel’s not your business,’ said Zoe. The woman stared at her, and kept staring, taking in Zoe’s unbranded face, her Alpha body. I wondered whether my scrutiny of the bards had been so obvious.
‘True enough,’ the man said, unflustered by Zoe’s tone.
He and the woman moved to the centre of the clearing. He didn’t take her arm, but guided himself with his staff. Watching him negotiate the unseen world reminded me of how it felt to be a seer. When I’d navigated the reef, or the caves under Wyndham, my mind had been groping the air for directions, reaching out before me just as the bard’s staff did.
He settled on a fallen log. ‘One thing I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘If you’re travelling at night, you’re avoiding the Council patrols. But you don’t move like Omegas.’
‘One of them’s not an Omega,’ said the woman, shooting another look at Zoe.
‘She’s with us,’ said Piper quickly.
‘It’s not just her.’ The blind man turned to face Piper. ‘It’s you, too.’
‘I’m an Omega,’ Piper said. ‘Our companion here is, too – your friend will tell you that. The other lady may not be an Omega, but she’s with us, and isn’t looking for any trouble.’
‘What did you mean, they don’t move like Omegas?’ I asked the man.
He swung his head to face me. ‘Without eyes, you get good at listening. I’m not talking about hearing the sound of a limp, or crutches. That’s the obvious stuff. But it’s more than that. It’s the way Omegas walk. Most of us sound a little slumped. We’ve all copped enough blows, missed enough meals, to keep our heads low. Most of us, you can hear it in our steps: we don’t step high, or wide. We drag our feet: a little bit of shuffling. A little bit of flinching. The two of them,’ he gestured towards Piper and Zoe, ‘they don’t sound like that.’
I was amazed that he could tell so much just from the sound of their movements, but I knew what he meant. I’d noted the same thing when I met Piper for the first time on the island: the unabashed way that he held himself. Most people on the island had begun to shed the diffidence that the mainland stamped on Omegas, but Piper wore none of it. Even now, thin and with the knees of his trousers blackened and fraying, he moved with the same loose-limbed confidence as he always had.
The man turned back to Piper. ‘You don’t move like an Omega, any more than the Alpha lady does. But if you’re on the road with an Alpha, I’m guessing your story’s not an ordinary one.’
‘You heard what they said: their story’s not our business,’ said the woman, pulling his arm. ‘We should go.’
‘Surely we’ve covered enough miles for a rest?’ he said, planting his staff in front of him.
‘Why are you so keen to stick around?’ Zoe asked him. ‘Most Omegas keep well clear of us. Of me, anyway.’
‘I told you,’ he said. ‘I’m a bard. I collect stories, the way some people collect coins, or trinkets. It’s my trade. And even a blind man can see that there’s a story here.’
‘It’s a story we can’t share with just anybody,’ said Piper.
