Текст книги "Wall of Days"

Автор книги: Alastair Bruce

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

5

It takes most of the day to reach the shore. About half-way through the day I begin to recognise the coastline and head for a small cove I remember.

It is a landscape vastly different from my island. There it is all water, sedge, mud, peat. Here it is all sunlight, red rock and gnarled trees most of which are barely taller than I am. The water in the cove is a deep blue. I can see the ocean floor metres below. There are shoals of fish and growths of seaweed on the white sand.

The cove is sheltered. The tides are not big here and I trust that the raft will be safe. I start to wonder whether I will need it again, wonder under what circumstances I might have to return here. I am used to being prepared though, which is why I keep it safe. I put thoughts of return to the back of my mind.

It is not the beach from which I set sail a decade ago. That is half a day’s sail away down the coast. Once I recognised the coast I headed for this cove because it is further away from the settlement.

I can take precautions to protect the raft from the elements but not from people. There were no people living here when I was Marshal but that was ten years ago. Any sign of habitation and I will move on and anchor even further up the coast. I do not want word of my arrival to reach the settlement before I do. I do not want them to have a chance to prepare a response before I have made my case. For the moment at least I must hide from curious glances, from prying eyes.

Andalus will make it difficult. It is difficult to hide a fat white grub in a desert.

I step ashore. Something hits me when I do. I feel dry rock beneath my feet. I breathe in and taste dust, heat, a dry heat. It is only a smell, only a sense but my skin tingles. This air I breathe is home. As I tie the raft up I have a smile on my face.

Once the raft is secured I waste no time. I find a hollow amongst the rocks and lead Andalus to it. I tell him to wait in the shade. I tell him I will be gone for a little while looking for people. He is not to go anywhere, not to show his face, stick to the shadows. I have to lift his face to make him look at me. I cannot tell if he has understood but I leave him with some food and go.

I climb the cliff face. It is slow going. I am not used to the heat and the sun and I have been supine on a boat for three weeks with little food. My heart is pounding. There is a dryness at the back of my throat, something I have not felt for years. It is as if I am drying out.

After being soaked in the peat waters of the island for years, all the water is now leaching out. I am a sponge left in the sun. Home or not, still a fish out of water.

At the top I sit and rest for a while. For miles there is nothing, no sign of habitation, no smoke trails, no cultivated fields. It is dry scrubland here: a few trees, dry grass, stunted bushes. In the distance are mountains, blue on the horizon. To the left and right the cliffs stretch as far as I can see. I was not expecting to see anyone but it is still a relief. I can breathe again.

I see an eagle. It swoops down to the plains and climbs again, clutching what seems to be a rabbit or a rat. Suddenly I feel my mouth watering. I have not eaten meat since my last meal in prison.

The eagle’s catch is evidence of meat. That is unusual. In some of the sparsely populated areas a few wild animals survived the famine and our relentless search for things with which to fill our stomachs but not many. And there were laws against unlicensed hunting. Anyone caught breaking the rules was subject to punishment. All adult members of the family had their rations suspended for two weeks. For some of the older people it was a death sentence.

It was a way of life that suited us and probably still suits the settlement. When life is threatened by its environment, there is little sense in antagonising it, little sense in testing a known breaking point.

Rather rein in life than fight an omnipotent force. It was the thought behind the Programme, the set of rules of which no one wanted to speak but that saved us. Saved while killing.

I can almost smell the fire, the wood smoke. I can almost hear the crackling of dry branches and see the flames brighter than any on my island. The heat, the smell, the sound, those of a dry country free from the soaking waters of the island. I can smell the singed flesh of a rabbit.

I know it was a rabbit the eagle had caught because I can see their burrows now. It will be risky to try to catch one of the rabbits. The last thing I want now is to be caught plundering the settlement’s reserves.

But I have to. We have another four days on foot and we have few provisions left.

Four days. The mountains I see in the distance are two days away and Bran lies another two days’ march from the pass we will use to cross the range. Four days. It will seem like an eternity.

I can see no sign of humans around me and I can see for miles. If I am to catch food, this is a good place to do it. I return to the boat and to Andalus. He sits with his head down, his knees held to his chest.

From the raft I take some twine and one of my crab nets. This will work equally well for a rabbit trap.

I think about making the journey at night, sleeping during the day, to avoid detection. I weigh up the pros and cons of doing so: more chance of slipping on the mountain, less chance of being detected.

However, the only place to hide is on the mountain. If we slept during the day out here, under a tree or a bush, we could be seen for miles around. Best to be awake and hope that I see them first.

At night, under the stars, only momentarily do I feel ill at ease.

Andalus and I eat well, feasting on rabbit meat and the fruits of a tree I remember from my youth. The unease is a feeling that it has been too easy so far. I did not have to wait long for the rabbits, they seemed to jump into the trap, and the only tree of its kind for miles around was laden with fruit. Just this must mean there are still no people in this area. They would not have left such abundance behind.

This part of the settlement’s territories was never this fertile.

Nowhere was. It is dry here but at the same time it is quite different to how I remember it. It is a fertile dryness. It has the look of a country anticipating spring. It clearly has enough water for grasses and trees and animals have returned. I wonder if all the world was like this once, or even more fertile. Streams running through meadows of sweet grass, their banks lined with fruit trees, fish making the water surge. Once we were many, I am certain of it, and if we were then surely other places were like this? I used to wonder, and the thought crosses my mind again, if we looked hard enough. Though as a people we spent years in wastelands searching for somewhere to live, did we settle too soon?

Did we miss a land that knew no troubles, that had no unexplained ruins, that had a remembered past? A land filled with people, old and young, sick and healthy. Was it always around the next corner? But no.

Everything I saw that pointed to a fantastical past was dead. Buried.

Other clues to other worlds existed only in rumours and legends: stories of mythical creatures from a distant past, like the man encased in a mountain rock-face that was so meaningful for my people.

These thoughts do not occupy me for long. I have not seen stars like this for years. I have not seen them like this, seen them with this sense of wonder, since I was a boy. I would sometimes sleep under the stars when allowed, when there was no fighting, when there was no smoke, no dull-yellow fog hanging above our camp. I would lie under them and imagine myself visiting them, walking around the silver valleys with sand so soft it is like powder. I would imagine a land of perpetual night but a warm night, surrounded by even more stars, even more pinpricks of light. I would look at the moon, at its craters and wonder if anyone was looking down at me.

Tonight though, I find I am thinking of Tora and of the prospect of seeing her again. There are things that could prevent that. I make a list.

One. I die in the next four days from heatstroke, an arrow from a scout, a poisoned animal. Two. When I reach the settlement they will not let me see her. Three. She is dead. I try to work out the odds of not seeing her. It proves too complicated.

I think back to our first meeting. It was beginning to be clear war was not succeeding, was depleting us of the sort of people we needed to overcome hardships, of young able-bodied men leaving instead the old and infirm, the women and children.

I was now directing the war from Bran, making occasional trips to the soldiers. At the time I was only beginning to formulate my campaign to become Marshal. We had a civilian ruler of sorts but I wanted to combine my role with his. I was planning the future of the settlement, laying out my vision for both Bran and Axum, the only two communities any of us had ever known.

At preliminary meetings with Andalus, my close colleagues, Abel included, and I had discussed the idea. We had to persuade the people to accept my plan. It became easier for both of us, Andalus and me, to move away from the military and into politics to achieve our aims.

Our victory was made easier by the other’s support since it was clear the idea would only work if both sides adopted it. And it was clear we would need strong leaders to see it through. I became Marshal of Bran.

He kept his military title. We became leaders within a few months of each other.

It was several months, maybe even a year before this happened, that I was at a meeting held to debate the implications of the idea. Tora was sitting near the back of the hall. We were presenting our plans to prominent citizens and military officers. Tora was there I believe in her capacity as ration coordinator, a clerical post of some importance, reporting to a General.

I began by repeating the tenets of the Programme. There were to be three groups of people and three classes running across the groups.

Administrators, producers and children under the age of thirteen would be classed a, b or c. Most citizens would be a-grade. Each class contained members of each group. Class was determined solely on the basis of whether a citizen was able to carry out his or her function, whether that was production or administration. Administrators such as myself and Tora would keep the settlement running smoothly and producers, such as Tora’s mother, would farm or make goods for the use of the settlement. b-grade would be reserved for those with temporary incapacity, for those felt to be showing signs of dissent or of shirking responsibility, or for those felt to be not far off a c-grade because of age or infirmity. If a citizen could not or would not work, for whatever reason, he or she would no longer be of use, would be considered a burden and would be classed c. c-grade citizens would be eliminated.

The vulnerability in the grading system was that administrators would carry it out. I prevented that group hiding weaknesses in their family, friends or in themselves by instituting a system whereby everyone was regularly tested and examined by random members of the other groups. If anyone had concerns that another was in the wrong group they brought it to me. If anyone managed to beat the system it was never for very long.

I took it on myself to be the final arbitrator. I was the one who shifted names between a, b and c. I was the one to look them in their eyes. I took on a lot. I did sometimes wonder what would happen when my time came. Who would mark me? I did not dwell on that.

There would be no charity for those who couldn’t work. The only charity was to be extended to healthy refugees and to the temporarily incapacitated.

The punishment for not reporting a potential downgrade to a c would be immediate reclassification for both parties as a c. Because of this I very rarely had to arbitrate. If someone fell seriously ill you did not hide it. You had a week to assess the severity of the illness.

Some informed on members of their own family, unsurprisingly, as family members are usually the first to notice illness. Some people gave themselves up. Three of these were perfectly healthy but they refused to work. I had no choice. I did not understand their actions. Mostly though it was the old and infirm who gave themselves up, those who had had enough. They all died.

During the time of the Programme we experienced fifteen suicides.

Some left notes naming me or my ideas. These were not included in our roster of the dead.

Citizens would also not be allowed to leave. Everything in the world was divided between Bran and Axum. There was so little in the world that we could not risk someone, not of the settlements, pilfering food that could nourish our brittle communities.

It was a very simple idea. The state of the world we found ourselves in and the years of wars had left just a few thousand people struggling to survive and those who could sustain us in years to come – the young – were dying every day. Due to lack of resources only those who could contribute would be allowed to be part of the two settlements, the two settlements that would build a new world.

It never struck me as a particularly original idea. Erase the weak for the sake of the strong. Sometimes the best ideas are so simple they feel as if they’ve been tried before. But it was an idea required for the times.

It was our duty to ourselves to adopt it.

As I stopped talking Tora stood up. She was not supposed to speak.

She had been invited to observe only, not being a leader of men. Some of the older men in the audience shouted at her, told her to hush. But she was not put off. I noticed her even as she began to rise and for a moment everything stopped for me. There was something in her, at the time I did not know what, that made other things seem unimportant. I did not hear much of what she said, or do not remember. I do remember her voice though. It was soft, yet clear and firm. Somehow it held out through the cat calls, through the disapproval of men who had killed for her and for others like her. She was not to be swayed. Rather die hungry than be tainted by the murder of your own people, was one of her lines that I do remember. She was a little emotive that day but I think she came across well, certainly as determined and courageous.

As she was being led away she looked back at me. It was the first time she did that. She looked back and met my eyes for what seemed like a minute but was probably just a second.

That was, I believe, the strongest opposition I encountered to the idea. That, and the screams of the victims and their families.

We did not call them victims. We called them martyrs. A word from another time. One who believes in sacrifice and sacrifices himself to save others.

A week later I chanced upon her in the street. I was walking one way on one side of the street, she was walking the other way on the other side.

She saw me too. I actually held up my hand to wave without realising it.

She seemed to begin to respond and then thought better of it. It was a year later when finally I kissed her. A year later when she came round to the idea. At least, came round enough not to fight anymore.

I think of Tora and listen to the crickets – a sound I haven’t heard for years. It takes a long time to fall asleep.

When I wake I check that the raft is secure. I leave most of the equipment tied down on it. I take only some twine, my knife, my notes and a container for water. I don’t want to be weighed down. I take the stone too. It is one of the smaller ones but this is weight enough.

I tap Andalus on the shoulder. He stands up straight away, takes the food I give him and sets off in exactly the right direction, walking and eating at the same time. I forget that he too knows this country. I follow a few paces behind.

He cannot keep it up though and after an hour or two we have resumed our normal position of me in front, turning round every hundred paces or so waiting for him to catch up.

The next day in the early morning the mountains ahead of us catch the sun. I can see a green valley leading up to the summit of one of the mountains. This is the pass. In this light everything is clear. I feel I can touch the mountain, though it is yet miles away. I breathe the cold dry air. I can also feel the heat of the sun beginning to warm the landscape, as if I were a rock basking in the rays, as if I were the grass, the leaves, singing in the wind.

This pass is the only way across the mountains. I have to hope that we don’t meet anyone coming the other way.

I have been scanning the horizon for people all the time. My eyesight is still keen and I have not seen anyone. I wonder though. I wonder if we have been seen already and the watchers take care to remain out of sight. Last night I pictured them just beyond the circle of light made by the campfire. They watched expressionless as we ate and slept.

We walk through the day watching the mountains grow ever larger.

We make camp at the base of the pass. We eat well again that night and lie down under the stars. The country we are in has changed so much in ten years. What else will have changed? I think of my reception.

Will I get a chance to say what I want, to tell them why I’m here, why I’m back, before a knife in my back stops my tongue, before an arrow pierces my throat?

I take a branch from the fire and walk around our camp. I hold the branch above my head. It illuminates bushes, sand, trees, but no people.

I extinguish it and stand for a while in the cool air. I am in complete darkness watching Andalus through the fire. Just his head appears through the flames and the smoke. Slowly my eyes grow accustomed to the dark. The night opens before me.

It is further to the summit than it seems. At mid-morning we leave the trees behind and walk, following the natural contours of the slope, criss-crossing the side of it. The way up is defined by a sheer drop to our left and by scree to our right. The sight of the peak brings energy surging to my legs. Within minutes though, my lungs are bursting and I can think of nothing but where to place my feet and how to slow my breathing. I stop, realising Andalus has disappeared. I shiver as a breeze comes over the peak. I stare down the path, close my eyes, open them. I see him again. He is struggling. I wait.

I should not push him too hard. If he were to die, to disappear, I would have no excuse. I wait till his breathing has slowed then offer him some water. He drinks the whole thing in one go. I do not stop him. I say gently, ‘We will go more slowly. You are not made for this. I would not want you to die before we reach the settlement.’ He looks at me when I say that. He appears to have half a smile, as if he suspects the double meaning of my words. It is an expression I remember from earlier days.

It is afternoon by the time we reach the summit. We round an outcrop and there it is. A vast plain stretches away beneath us. It is coloured variously, yellow, pink, blue, white, as far as I can see. Wildflowers softening the landscape, giving the air, it seems, a delicate perfume.

I am amazed. I have never seen flowers like this. But the flowers are not all I can see. There in the distance, so far away you cannot focus directly on it is a plume of smoke and a smudge on the horizon. This is it. This is the settlement I left all those years ago. I stare at it for ages. Andalus comes up and I can sense him watching me. I turn to him briefly and point to the smudge. He looks blankly at it and goes to sit on a rock.

I am surprised we have not come across any people. Though we are still probably two days’ march away, I would expect there to be scouts, patrols. I would expect farmers and foragers. I would expect to see signs of nomads, the people who choose not to live within the security of the settlement, though these could have been eliminated in the intervening years. Even in my day there were not many left. Yet we have seen nothing. Nothing and no one. I wonder again if they have seen us. Perhaps they have been camping at the top of this mountain, waiting, looking out at the two figures approaching slowly across the plain. Perhaps now they are hiding behind the next rock, waiting to fall on us.

We descend to the valley floor where we make camp. I sleep little in the warm night. I fancy I can smell the people. Wood smoke, charred meat, sewers, the smell of water seeping through sunbaked earth in sluices that I helped dig. I fancy too I can hear them: voices, breathing, laughter even. It is like I’m back on the island.

The next day we walk towards the point on the horizon where I saw the settlement. We walk through fields of flowers.

But this is not paradise. This is what we fought over, lands like this. We fought and buried our dead under the ground of fields like these. Face upward, naked and open to the earth. Perhaps we thought this was a way of bringing the earth back. There are rumours we were worshippers of nature once. Perhaps the earth is in our blood after all, our veins running with soil like an hourglass.

Towards dusk a solitary tree appears on the horizon. We have left the flowers behind now and this part of the plain is white. Little grows in the rocky soil. The tree is a stark blot on the landscape. When we get closer I can see that it is dead. It is large and still sturdy but dead.

I remember this tree. It was not dead then. On one of the very few occasions that we saw each other outside of our normal hours Tora and I came here. We sat in the shade. We didn’t talk much. She lay with her head in my lap. I stroked her hair. I reach out and touch the bark. It is smooth, like paper. I remember the touch of her hair.

We spend the night camped beneath the tree. It is four hours from here to the town walls.

We start early in the morning and soon crops begin to appear: fields of barley, wheat and finally corn that is taller than I am. We have no choice but to walk through it.

It is quieter and darker in the field of corn. We walk for several minutes before I see it. Or think I see it. Between the leaves, hidden by shadows, a face. A momentary glimpse of a face and a swish of the corn leaves. I stop, chilled. I hold out my hand to Andalus but he has stopped already. I wait. There is only stillness. I walk forward a metre.

Stop. Listen. Again nothing. There is nothing I can do about it anyway.

If I am to be discovered now then so be it. I walk on.

A while later without warning, we burst through the last of the maize. In front of us is a white road curving around the field and on the other side is an orchard of orange trees. Under the trees is long grass. It looks soft and is such a luminescent green I imagine the water here must be abundant. I think back to Tora’s mother dozing in the speckled shade beneath her orange tree, protecting what little fruit it managed to bear. These trees bear no relation to their parents. They are laden with green leaves and ripening fruit.

But beyond the orchard is what we have come for. The timber walls of the town rise above the trees. The walls, baked grey by the sun, are tall enough to prevent us seeing any buildings or roofs. Except one, and this one I know. This one is so familiar as to have been anchored in my mind. My offices – the offices of the Marshal of Bran. I feel my heart beating. I pull Andalus across the road and into the shade of the trees.

The walls disappear again.

I sit for a few moments thinking but there is no planning to be done now, no calculations. All that remains is to walk around the walls to the gate, straight down the main thoroughfare and up to the office. There I will find an official, whether that be Marshal Abel or someone else, and say what I plan to, say something: ‘Here I am. Kill your Marshal if you must,’ and that will be that. That is the extent of it. What happens after that needs no planning. It needs adaptation to circumstance.

I rise, helping Andalus to his feet and begin the walk. We are on the side of the town exactly opposite the gates. I walk anti-clockwise, making sure Andalus does not stray. I walk within sight of the road, though far enough into the trees to make sure we can hide quickly.

When we have done half the circuit of the walls, I see the road branch to the left, leading to the gates. I follow it, still in the orchard, until I judge we are about thirty metres from the walls, take a deep breath, and head out into the sunlight. I am holding Andalus by the hand.

From here we need to walk quickly but not too quickly, and confidently but without arrogance.

We emerge onto the road and I notice the gates are shut. I don’t stop however as they are often shut. I scan the turrets above the gate for sentries but there is no one there, no one that I can see. This is different. I walk up to the gates. I am unsure what to do. Hesitating at first, I knock. There is no reply. I knock again, louder this time. I wait. I put my ear to the door but cannot hear a thing. I open my hand and bang on the door three times. I look round at Andalus. He has his back to me. He is rocking on his heels, facing the plains, facing the mountains. He begins to walk away. I grab him by the arm, tell him to stop.

I turn back to the gates. There is no handle on the outside. Instead I push. I put my shoulder to the gate and shove but nothing gives. I call out, ‘Bran.’ I call again, ‘Bran.’ I think I can hear an echo. I put my ear to the gate but I can hear no footsteps. It is mid-afternoon.

I take a step back, grab Andalus’s arm again and walk away. I walk all around the town looking for someone to let us in, someone who can tell me where everyone is.

But I see no one. Sometimes Andalus walks ahead of me. I watch him. He appears to melt into the earth. There is a heat mirage. His feet disappear. He floats, circling the town.

We are back at the gates. I try again – knocking, calling – but there is no answer. I sit down, my back against one of the gates, my head resting against the wood. I pull Andalus down beside me. I close my eyes and wait.

I listen. I find myself listening for waves, for wind, for gulls. There are none of these. Thoughts float to the surface. I try to listen for other things to quieten them.

Eventually I fall asleep.