land ahead. He could make out a straggling fringe of trees.
‘Trees!’
‘Not many.’
‘Could be nuts. Berries. Firewood.’
So little grew on these rocky plains that even a few lone trees gave hope. They quickened their pace, opening up the gap between them and the rest of the march.
‘We might see the mountains from there,’ said Mumpo.
‘We might.’
They were well out of earshot of the rest now, so as they strode up the sloping hillside Mumpo took the chance to say what he had been planning to say all day.
‘I talked with the princess again. She asked about you.’
‘She’s not a princess.’
‘She thinks you avoid her. She doesn’t know why.’
‘I don’t avoid her.’
‘You do. Everyone sees it.’
‘Then let them look aside,’ said Bowman angrily. ‘What has it to do with them? What has it to do with you?’
‘Nothing,’ said Mumpo. ‘I won’t speak of it again.’
They went on in silence, and so reached the trees. Their feet crunched on the stony ground. Bowman stooped to pick up one of the dark-brown husks that littered the earth beneath the trees. He smelled it: a sharp, unpleasant smell. Disappointed, he let it fall again, and followed Mumpo to the crest of the hill.
‘Do you see the mountains?’
‘No,’ said Mumpo.
Bowman felt the weariness close about him like a heavy coat. Standing at Mumpo’s side, he looked north and saw how the barren land sloped down, and then rose again, another in the series of endless waves that limited the horizon. They were crossing an ocean of rolling waves, forever denied a sight of the farther shore.
He turned to look back at his people. He saw his father and mother, walking as always side by side. Behind them a straggle of people, in twos and threes, his twin sister Kestrel with the one Mumpo called the princess. The wagon rumbled steadily along after them, drawing Creoth and his five cows in its wake. Behind the cows he could make out the plump shape of Mrs Chirish waddling along, and behind her, holding hands in a chain, his younger sister Pinto and the other small children. At the back came little Scooch and the lanky teacher Pillish; and guarding the rear, Bek and Rollo Shim.
Bowman felt Mumpo’s silence, and knew he had been too sharp with him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just hard to explain.’
‘That’s all right.’
‘I think I’ll have to leave you. All of you. Someone will come for me, and I’ll have to go.’
‘Who will come for you?’
‘I don’t know who, or when. I only know why. There’s a time coming called the wind on fire, which will burn away the cruelty in the world. And I must be part of it, because I’m a child of the prophet.’
He knew as he said the words that they would mean very little to Mumpo. He felt for a different way to explain.
‘You know the feeling of not belonging?’
‘Yes,’ said Mumpo. He knew it well, but he was surprised to hear Bowman speak of it. Bowman had his family. He had Kestrel.
‘I think I was born not to belong, so that I can leave you all, and – and not come back.’
Mumpo hung his head in sadness.
‘Will Kestrel go too?’
‘I don’t think so. I don’t know. The 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