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. ‘It’d mean trouble for us, as you well know.’
‘I’m not one to talk to Council patrols, if that’s what you mean,’ said the man. ‘Even a bard gets a hard time from the Council these days. They’re no friends of mine.’
‘There’s talk that the Council wants to stop Omegas from being bards at all,’ the woman added. ‘It’s all the travelling around that they don’t like. They like to keep tabs on us.’
‘I’d challenge the best of the Alpha bards to play as well as me,’ said the man, flourishing his extra fingers.
‘The soldiers would have your fingers off if they heard you say that,’ said the woman.
‘We’re not about to tell them,’ said Piper. ‘And if you can keep quiet about having seen us here, I don’t see why we can’t camp together for the day.’
The woman and Zoe still looked wary, but the blind man smiled.
‘Then let’s make camp. I could use a rest. I’m Leonard, by the way. And this is Eva.’
‘I won’t tell you our names,’ said Piper. ‘But I won’t lie to you, at least, and give false names.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ Leonard said. Eva sat next to him and began pulling their things from her rucksack. She had some nuggets of coal wrapped in waxed paper and still dry.
‘Fine,’ said Zoe. ‘But we need to cook quickly – we’re still too close to the road to risk a fire once this fog’s cleared.’
While Piper stoked the fire and Zoe sat sharpening her knives, I joined Leonard on the log.
‘You said the others didn’t move like Omegas.’ I tried to keep my voice low enough that the others wouldn’t hear. ‘What about me?’
‘You neither,’ he said.
‘But I don’t feel like them. They’ve always been so –’ I paused. ‘So sure. So certain about everything.’
‘I didn’t say you were like them. I just said you didn’t walk like other Omegas.’ He shrugged. ‘Girl, you’re hardly here.’
‘What do you mean?’
He paused, and gave a laugh. ‘You walk like you think the earth begrudges you a space to plant your feet.’
I thought of the moment after Kip’s death, when