one who comes for me will say.’
‘Perhaps he’ll say I’m to go too. Like before. The three friends.’
‘No,’ said Bowman. ‘They need you here. Promise me you’ll protect them. My father and mother. My sisters. Everyone I love.’
‘I promise, Bo.’
‘You’re strong. They need you.’
The chain of small children had broken up, as they raced each other up the slope to the trees. The bigger Mimilith boys were there ahead of them. Before Bowman could stop him, Mo Mimilith had picked up one of the nuts on the ground and started to eat it.
‘Yooh!’ he cried, spitting it out. ‘Yooh! Bitter!’
‘Do you see the mountains?’ called Hanno.
‘No. No mountains.’
A sigh of disappointment ran down the length of the column. Hanno ordered a rest halt among the trees. Pinto came up, panting from running to the top of the hill, and took Bowman’s hand.
‘How much further do you think we have to go?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Bowman.
‘I don’t mean I’m tired. I was only wondering.’
Pinto was seven years old, and had to make two steps for every one of Bowman’s, but she hated it if anyone took pity on her.
Now Kestrel joined them, beckoning Bowman aside for a word in private. Her companion, the young woman who had once been a princess, met his eyes and immediately looked away. She had always been proud. Now that she had nothing, now that even her beauty had been taken from her, she was still proud, but in a different way. Her great liquid amber eyes now watched the world go by saying, I ask for nothing, I expect nothing. But those scars! Those two soft mauve wounds that ran down her cheeks, two diagonal furrows from the cheekbones to the corners of the mouth, they fascinated Bowman. They changed everything in that once so sweetly pretty face. The man who had cut her had said, ‘I kill your beauty!’, but in its place had come a new beauty: harder, older, more remarkable.
Kestrel turned his attention towards their mother, who was just now reaching the resting place.
‘Look at her, Bo. She can’t go on like this.’
‘While she can walk, she’ll walk,’ said Bowman. ‘That’s how she wants it.’
‘You know what it is that weakens her.’
Of course he knew. The prophet Ira Manth had said, My gift is my weakness. I shall die of prophecy. This was the secret that all knew but none spoke. Ira Hath, their own prophetess, was dying of the warmth she felt on her face.
‘It’s how she wants it,’ said Bowman again.
‘Well, it’s not how I want it.’ Kestrel felt trapped and angry. She heard in Bowman’s voice the same note of resignation that now softened her mother’s words: as if they had both decided to suffer for the good of others, and so refused to do anything to help themselves. ‘I’d rather never get to the homeland than have her like this.’
‘I don’t think any of us have any choice.’
‘Then let it happen soon, whatever it is. Let it come soon.’
Dock! Dock! Dock! It was the sound of Tanner Amos’s axe ringing out over the cold land. He and Miller Marish were felling one of the trees for firewood.
Kestrel returned to the women by the wagon, where a fire was already burning. Mrs Chirish, rooting among the husks on the ground, picked up one kernel and after a short inspection declared,
‘Sourgum. These are sourgum trees. We can eat this.’
Branco Such had already tried.
‘Eat them? They’re vile! I shouldn’t be surprised if they were poisonous!’
‘You have to boil them first, don’t you? Strip off the husks and boil the kernels. That’s how you get the gum.’
‘The gum is edible?’ said Hanno.
‘Certainly it is. A rare treat, too.’
So Hanno set the children to gathering the husks and shelling them, while the biggest cook-pot was half filled with water and put on the fire to boil. The Mimilith boys spotted that here and there in the bare branches of the trees were other husky nuts that had not yet fallen, so they raced each other up the knobbly trunks to pull them down.
‘Be careful, boys! Make sure the branches can take your weight!’
‘Stand back! She’s coming down!’
Tanner Amos’s warning cry was followed by a long rending crash, as the tree he had been felling toppled at last. He and Miller Marish and Mumpo then set to work with axes and cleavers to cut up the branches into cordwood.
Mrs Chirish sat over the pot and stirred the sourgum kernels as the water seethed. Seldom Erth unharnessed the horses and let them join the cows, grazing the sparse wiry grass. A group of women found places round the fire where they could lay out their blankets and their needles and thread, and get on with the making of bedrolls against the coming cold weather.
Bowman stood apart, looking towards the group of sewing women, telling himself it was better for all of them if he kept his distance from her. The Johdila Sirharasi of Gang, once a princess, now plain Sisi, sat beside Lunki, the stout woman who had been her servant, and who still, despite the changes, insisted on serving her. Sisi held her back straight, her head bent over her work, and did not speak. Every day Bowman expected her to fail under the hardships of the march, but she proved him wrong. She bore more than her share of the tasks, ate less than her share of the food, and never complained. Bowman reflected on what Mumpo had said, that he seemed to be avoiding her. That was not right.
He crossed over to the women by the fire. For a few moments, as if warming himself by the fire, he stood near Lunki and her mistress. Sisi was stitching the heavy blankets with small tight stitches, working with care and concentration. He could see from the groove the needle made in her fingertip how hard she had to push to drive the point through the stiff fabric. He could also see the smooth curve of her neck, and the rise and fall of her breast as she breathed.
‘That’s good work,’ he said. ‘That’ll keep out the cold.’
She looked up, her eyes grave, questioning.
‘The tailor taught me,’ she said. ‘I’m doing my best.’
‘Hard on the fingers.’
‘Is it?’ She looked at her needle-finger as if unaware of the pressure she was putting on her soft skin. ‘Oh, that doesn’t matter.’
Bowman heard the clatter of falling nuts, and looking up saw that Pinto had joined the Mimilith boys in the sourgum trees. They had already stripped the lower branches of nuts, and were now climbing higher, each in an adjoining tree. He could think of nothing more to say to Sisi, who sat, head bent, steadily sewing, so he moved away once
