Wall of Days

49

By the time I get back to the cave, lugging a sackful of peat, he has returned too. There is no fish and also, I notice, no fishing rod. I walk over to him and grab his arm. My fingers sink into his flesh as if it were a cushion. Between clenched teeth I say, ‘I told you what would happen. From now on the only food you eat will be what you gather yourself.’

The rod is lying on the rocks where I left it. A small mercy. Though I can fashion another one quite easily, I am careful with the hooks. I brought a supply with me but they will eventually run out and I have not taught myself to fish with a spear. I will teach myself in a few years’

time when I am down to my last hooks. I sit on the rocks waiting for a tug on the line.

I take the first fish I catch back with me to the cave. I also find a crab in one of the traps. I will eat well tonight.

Back in the cave I build up the fire. When it is ready I place the fish and the crab on a flat stone over the top of the fire. Andalus sits up on the bed and watches the food cooking. It is not long before I am ready to eat. I do so directly from the stone, picking up the flakes of fish with my fingers. The crab I move to one side and allow to cool. Andalus moves to the edge of the bed, looking expectantly at me. I stare back at him, chewing all the while. Eventually he drops his gaze and turns away from me. He lies on his side, facing the wall. I feel some guilt.

I say, not expecting a response, ‘Tell me what happened.’ He does not. ‘Tell me, or starve.’

With my stomach full, leaning back against the cave and feeling warm for the first time in days, I try to explain Andalus’s presence once again. I do not want a companion. Not one like this anyway. I do not like getting used to having a dependant. I think again of how he came to be 50

here. If the Axumites have started exploring again, then the Brans need to know. No one would want a resumption of the hostilities. Perhaps Bran too has started exploring. We had no plans to do so when I left but that was then. Perhaps the world has changed. Or is about to.

And then I allow myself to think about what Andalus’s presence requires. I think about going back.

51

3

The thought leaves a tightness in my stomach. I am like a man with a woman he loves, uncertain of how she feels, excited but too nervous to be happy. It does not surprise me that I have decided to go back almost without realising it.

I know too Andalus is an excuse, a reason I can use to explain my return. I am under no illusions. Going back will most likely mean either execution or at the very least imprisonment followed by banishment once again. Doing my duty and turning this man over will count for very little. I do not have unreasonable expectations but perhaps there will be time enough for me to tie up some loose ends, to see Tora and Abel once again, pick up some more supplies. I can leave a copy of my ten years’ work behind with the authorities so they can study it and broaden, however slightly, the pool of knowledge. They should appreciate that. I will set to the work with renewed vigour when I return. I will have made my peace and leaving Andalus there would eliminate variables. A man is happiest when nothing is in doubt.

Ten years. It could be a lifetime, it could be all too brief. Ten years.

Less time than Bran was at war, less time than I knew Tora, than I was 52

Marshal, than the time the Programme took to run its course. More time than it took us to end the war, to reduce the killing, the waste.

More time than my trial, than it took to get here, than it took to say goodbye.

How many people have died in these ten years? The judge who sent me away? My assistants? Abel? Perhaps even, and the thought chills me, Tora herself. If she is not dead, it may be cruel to go back. Perhaps one day she awakes to a knocking on her door. It is me, wild-haired and exhausted after days at sea. I have come straight off the raft. ‘Tora,’

I say, though it is barely a croak and perhaps not even a word. Her eyes, blank at first, still full of sleep, suddenly come alive with recognition.

What then? A smile? Tears? Does she throw herself at me or does she step back? Does a man appear on the stairs, a little girl down the passageway? Each and every thing is possible. Perhaps I will go back and find her flat boarded up, the neighbours behind locked doors peering round closed curtains.

He has not moved. He breathes lightly and rapidly. Asleep I presume, dreaming. I watch him, his bulk rising and falling. I count the days since he arrived. Three days short of two weeks. He appears to have lost no weight at all. Perhaps it takes longer. I think back to when I arrived but it is too long ago.

I wonder how he became like this. Did they have hierarchical rationing in Axum? Did they base one’s food allowance on social rank? We would never have allowed that in Bran. The Programme was sup posed to be carried out regardless of social position. If you were productive you were in no danger. Supposition though. I cannot get beyond his silence.

53

I have come across men struck dumb by the horrors of war. Some go quiet, some cannot stop talking. Each, given time, will more often than not come round. Time heals all manner of wounds.

I will need a few weeks to prepare for the journey. I must smoke as much fish as possible, harvest grains and tubers. Though we could catch fish on the way, ten years ago there were vast swathes of ocean that were lifeless (I am lucky on my island) and we could be sailing for days without catching anything. I will need to make a bigger raft. There are two of us now, after all. I can build a new mast and some oars. I can spend time rowing, which should cut the journey time down. But I must bank on three weeks still. I have a compass but it is still possible to go off course for a day or two. Also, though we will be rowing and will have a better sail, the raft will be heavier and will sit lower in the water. We will need fifty litres of water. It rains all the time but I do not want to be collecting rainwater in an unstable boat. Fifteen good-sized fish, a handful of grains and a tuber a day: that will be plenty and will allow me to be unconcerned about provisions on the way. I will have other thoughts to occupy me.

I boil water and add crushed seeds and grains to make gruel, which I eat with the remaining crab claw. Again I do not offer any to Andalus.

I leave him in the cave when I go down to the beach for my morning swim.

While I swim I continue to think about the trip. The grains and tubers I can harvest a little at a time. They keep well. The fish that I smoke lasts three weeks before becoming inedible. Little is truly inedible but rotten fish is something I would rather avoid. If I take two weeks to prepare, the first fish will last a week into the voyage by which 54

time it will long since have been eaten. A fish caught two days before I leave will last until almost the end of the voyage.

When I tell Andalus of my plans it may motivate him to work and to speak. Whether this would be out of fear or excitement I do not know.

The two peoples are prohibited from entering the other’s territory but if he has a reasonable excuse, after years of peace, it is doubtful whether he would be imprisoned. Perhaps even the prohibition has been repealed during this time. But if things have got worse, if the end of the Programme has caused tensions to rise again and supplies to dwindle, Andalus’s presence here could very well be a pretext for a resumption of hostilities. And if he refuses to speak, he will be imprisoned for certain. I imagine him standing there silent in the face of the wrath of the settlement. It will not do. I will make him aware of this. I decide to refuse him food for a while longer. That too may loosen his tongue.

I return to the cave. Andalus stares at me, watching while I pick up my axe. I can feel his eyes on me but when I look at his face I see no hostility. The only emotion I have seen is fear. For the rest he is blank.

A man with no voice and a man with no face.

I decide to tell him now of my plan to return. I sit close to him. I tilt my head to one side at first. I am still not going to tell him I know him.

‘We are going away,’ I begin. ‘We are going to go on a trip in a raft I will build. I hope you will help.’ His eyes meet mine. I stare into his pupils.

‘We are going to a place called Bran. I used to be known there. I used to be known well. Bran will decide our fate. I hope it is to be a good one.’ He drops his eyes from mine. I take his chin in my hand and lift it up. ‘Will you help?’ I ask. His mouth drops open. I think he is going to talk. He doesn’t. Instead he gets to his feet and shuffles away from me, out the cave entrance. Where he was sitting I notice something, a 55

piece of fish. Has he been secretly catching food while I’ve been out in the forest or at the peat beds? I feel anger. I shout after him, ‘You will not plunder my island. You will not steal from me.’ I get up and go over to the entrance. He is a long way down the hill and cannot hear me. He has moved surprisingly quickly.

I am not angry for long. My anger never lasts. I am too pleased to be going back to worry about Andalus overly much. But I will stick to my plan to try to make him talk. And I won’t let him get away. He is essential to me now.

If I am to receive no help from Andalus I will need to make the most of my days. I will get up slightly earlier and forego the swim. I will alternate days of raft building with days of food collection and peat gathering. With fewer tasks in a day I can devote more time to each and accomplish more. It will be hard though and I will have little time for my survey.

It is dark today. As I set out for the forest, the clouds are so thick they shut out most of the light. It could be dusk. Though it is still dry near the cave, across the grasslands I see the rain fall in swathes, blown by the wind. Though it rarely rains heavily, today it will. It is not a good start to my labours.

I am right. The forest is wet underfoot. The rain seems to muffle any noise made by the breeze.

The first thing to do is to build the raft. I will need at least two trees for the base. The mast and oars can be made out of a third. By mid-afternoon I have felled three trees and stripped them of most of their branches. Once these are dry they will make a large bonfire. Or they will mean I can sit in a warm and completely dry cave for a few nights.

But, unless I have miscalculated, they will not be sufficiently dry by the 56

time I leave. They would give off too much smoke. I leave the trunks where they lie. Splitting them into planks can wait for the day after tomorrow.

In the cave I put some tubers in the fire. I am exhausted and do not go out again that day. I realise it might take me a little longer to adjust to a new, more vigorous routine. I spend the last hour of daylight making annotations. I write down the number of trees I have taken, the number remaining, the ages of the ones I have cut down. All the trees I have taken seem roughly the same age. As far as I can work out they’re within a decade of each other at around fifty years old. I have three theories for this. The island experienced a few years of warmer weather when the saplings took root and now the lack of sun has stunted their growth.

They are of a variety that only reaches sexual maturity at a great age, which would be why there are no saplings. They were sown by a previous castaway, a man armed only with seeds from some abandoned part of the world, seeds which gave birth to a barren progeny.

I have not given much thought to this – that the island was inhabited before me. Yet why not? It might rain constantly but enough light gets through for vegetation other than the trees to grow. There is peat. It is surrounded by ocean, which must once have been more bountiful than now. All in all it is not a bad place to live. I could have chosen a worse place to be a castaway. Perhaps there were people here first. The common age of the trees is a possible clue. There could be signs of previous humans all around, things that are there but that I cannot see.

I could be living in the middle of a ruined city surrounded by ghostly chatter. We see what we want to see after all. But I am not convinced.

I feel that I am the first one here, the first one to make his mark in this watery prison.

57

I do feel as if I am not alone though. The figures amidst the trees, heads peering over cliff tops, bodies merging into the black cliff walls.

A consequence of being alone I tell myself. And of the life I have lived.

The longer I have not been with others the more I imagine others, the more I feel I am being watched. Of course I am not alone now.

Andalus, or Andalus’s shadow, is with me. It is possible he follows me in such a way that I do not see him but I doubt it. He would not be able to hide from me, a man who has been living on this small island for a decade. He is too large to be stealthy and even if he weren’t the island is mostly flat with little tall vegetation. Unless he was creeping through the mud on his belly I would be able to see him easily.

I do not feed him in the morning. Still he says nothing. I cannot, in good conscience, starve the man. Besides, I would not be able to return without him. My plan now is to feed him once a day at irregular times.

I reason that if I can create uncertainty about whether he will or will not be fed he may be moved to question my actions. On a grander scale, this was why there was a war. Our uncertainty over whether there were enough resources for all led us to fight for our share. It led us to fight Andalus’s people and it led to the Programme, which was, after all, a way to ensure there were never wars over food, land and water ever again, a way to ensure we knew what the future held. The Programme was put in place to prevent itself ever being necessary again, a contradiction my people lived with for many years.

I will not kill him but I will provoke him. It will be for his own good for he is unlikely to get much sympathy in the settlement if he cannot explain himself. That I treat him like an animal is not lost on me. Until he communicates with me that is the way I must be with him, for he can deserve no better.

58

I want him to talk to me before I reveal I know who he is. It is a good tactic to keep something hidden until the last moment. I have hinted that I know him of course. I wonder if it is this that is making him silent. If he were here on his own would he be talking? Speaking to everything: the plants, the birds, the rocks? It is me that puts the hand across his mouth stopping words. He could be the one playing the game. He recognises me and is searching for my weakness, gathering his strength for an attack, an attempt to take over this island.

It is unlikely I know. He seems completely in the dark about himself, about me. Again I think about what might have caused this. Driven away by a people turned against him he is no longer able to express himself, is no longer a man.

I will come clean with him before we leave. End the games.

I am stiff from yesterday’s work. I feel it as I sit facing out to sea for seven hours. Bites are infrequent. I clutch my coat around me. My head nods. I am warm. All I can hear is the sea, the noise of the waves.

I barely move other than once or twice to check the cliffs behind me.

I let my head slip forward till my chin lies on my chest. I feel my eyes closing. Then I jerk up suddenly, forcing air into my lungs. I feel as if I have stopped breathing. It is a few moments of panic. My line has stayed still in the oily water as if I hadn’t moved. There is no room for error out here. A heart attack, a stroke and I will be left here on my own. Perhaps unable to move, waiting till the tide comes in and floats my body away. Andalus would be no help.

In the still of the late afternoon I return to the cave. Andalus is standing with his back to me in the middle of the cave. It appears he has not heard me coming. He sways slightly. I do not know if he is dancing or simply unsteady on his feet. He stumbles trying to turn 59

around. Not dancing then. He stares at me. I break the gaze. ‘Fish,’ I say, holding out my catch. Is this what I have come to? Here stands a man with whom I once debated the future of our two settlements, the future of the known world. From a debate over the rights of men, the right to a secure future, the right to life, the duty to the lives of others; from this to a monosyllabic grunt spat out across a cave on an island no one remembers.

Andalus turns away and lies down once more. I do not feed him tonight. He lies on his back and I watch him in the gloom. He snores lightly.

The task of splitting a trunk into planks is an onerous one and requires skills I have not honed. Somehow though by the end of the day I have split two trunks into usable planks and chopped another tree down.

My initial estimates of the amount of wood I will need have proved inaccurate. I will need two more trees. I am determined to build my boat better than the one that brought me here. I was lucky on the journey. Rough weather could easily have capsized the vessel. True, we do not get many storms anymore but they are not unheard of. That was what the settlement wanted. Lacking the courage, the conviction, to condemn me to death, they hoped nature would do their task for them. They should have remembered that nature has seldom done what we want. The crime for which I was banished was one born out of circumstances requiring an intervention in nature, a speeding up of its processes to avoid overwhelming it. That at least was how the Programme was billed and was the gist of my defence. Nature can support only so much life.

But I am being unfair to my people. They are not a violent, vindictive 60

people in spite of what they went through. Pragmatic is a word that suits them, civilized and pragmatic.

It was an unusual court case. Not strictly fair. I was allowed a defence but I was condemned months before the trial began. I knew I would not walk out of there free. The numbers against the Programme had grown too rapidly. There was anger. I asked to send emissaries to our rivals to see what had happened there but this was refused. They may have suspected treachery. I wanted to ask my accusers how they could accuse me when it was their support that enabled me to carry out my duty. I wanted to point at them and say, ‘You! You are in the dock too!’ I wanted to shame them, to make them know their guilt, to tell them, taking their hands, ‘See! You too have hands drenched in blood.’ But I am not a melodramatic man and it would not have helped my cause. I understand that I was sacrificed for the sake of the greater good. Burnt at the stake while the crowds bayed around me.

But there was nothing like that. It was an altogether quieter affair.

Tora, sitting in the corner, barely glanced at me but supported me by coming to the trial every day and sitting through every minute of it.

A few others came but not many. And they were mostly respectful.

One man though had to be dragged from the court. Towards the end of the trial he started coming regularly and sitting in my eye line. I could feel him staring at me. One day in the middle of proceedings he got up and started screaming at me. He used language such that I never tolerated in the offices or from my acquaintances. Deplorable behaviour. I understand he lost several family members. During this episode Tora looked up at me. I fancy I could see tears in her eyes. But I could not see clearly. Guards were standing in front of me while their colleagues hauled the protester away kicking and screaming. I looked 61

at Tora not at him, looked at her, trying to see more clearly, peering through a curtain of burly men.

The day has gone quickly. It has been one of my good days. I have worked hard and achieved much. It is a satisfying feeling. It is dusk when I turn to go. As I do I see Andalus. He is standing behind me about ten metres off. Just standing and looking at me. I do not know how long for. ‘What are you doing?’ I ask him. ‘How long have you been there? What do you want?’ He has startled me. I do not expect answers and I do not receive them. I walk towards him and he half turns as if letting me leave a room first. It is a gesture I remember him making years ago. He was always polite, there was no faulting him on that. This time though I cannot but feel a chill as I walk past.

I can hear him as he walks behind me back to the cave. It is a still day. In between the sucking noises made by my feet I hear his do the same. Only his are louder. When I stop his do too, momentarily behind mine. Like my shadow.

Later he takes his food without much show of eagerness or hunger.

I finish before him and lie down. I am tired and fall asleep almost immediately.

The next day is to be spent collecting food. I return to the seashore and fish for several hours. I spend the afternoon harvesting grass seeds.

It is a good routine, one day of heavy labour, followed by one of foraging and peat gathering and it is one I stick to for another week by which time I have almost completed the raft and gathered about half the food we will need. The raft lies slightly below the high tide mark. I have made sure to drag the planks there from the forest. It is hard work 62

but much easier than moving a whole raft from forest to sea. When I fish I can see it out of the corner of my eye, lashed to the rocks. When the tide was up I tested its balance and examined how low it sat in the water. The sight of the raft makes my heart beat a little faster. With every day the promised return to my land comes closer. I sometimes wonder why I have not attempted a return earlier but at heart I know I could not have done so.

The raft lacks a mast. I am determined to provide one. Not only will it allow me to complete the journey more quickly but it is a matter of pride. They will see I have lived well, that banishment has increased my ingenuity, my will to live, rather than diminishing it.

I am apprehensive about the reaction I will receive, though excited too. I want to return in triumph, a return that shows them I have prospered and that I bear them no grudge. But I am not foolish. I know I will have to approach warily, perhaps lie low for a few days until I am more certain of the mood of the country. Andalus though, might destroy that plan. It is difficult to hide one such as he, difficult to conceal his white bulk in the undergrowth. If there are still scouts in operation we will be picked up in no time. Two old men, one thin, one fat. Like some act from years ago: Andalus and Bran treading the boards.

Though I feed him little, my island companion does not grow thinner.

I have not seen any more evidence of food that he might have gathered but I surmise he might be finding some somewhere. Also, he does not move much. For the weight to go he would have to exercise. It is now weeks since he washed up on shore. Weeks and he has not spoken a word, not communicated with me in any way. Sometimes he follows 63

me around the island. I have seen him sitting on the rocks where I fish.

But most of the time he appears to remain in the cave lying on the bed, staring at nothing. While I smoke the fish or carve an oar I watch him watching nothing.

The three days before my planned departure are agony. I cannot sleep and think only of the journey.

The mast is lashed into place. It is not strong enough for very high winds but we are unlikely to encounter those. I have already stored much of the food on the raft, wrapped in plastic to protect it from the rain and tied on securely. I have made one of the tarpaulins into a sail.

It is makeshift but it will do.

Andalus seems to catch my agitation as well. During the night he gets up from the bed, opens the door and stands in the entrance to the cave, silhouetted against the night sky. He stands there for what seems like hours and then walks slowly back to bed. He does this for the final two nights. On the last evening I approach him after we have eaten. I have fed him well and prepared as much food as I could as we will be on rations now for three weeks. I take his face in my hands, squeezing so he feels pain and make him look at me. ‘You. Andalus.’ I say. ‘Yes, I know who you are. I know you.’ He continues to look straight at me.

‘Do you understand what we are doing?’ I have told him but I don’t know how much he understands. ‘We are going back to Bran. You remember Bran. You have been there years ago when you dealt with us.

We fought a war, we made a peace. You and I. Andalus and Bran. You remember.’ Silence. ‘I am taking you there so they can send you back to where you come from. You cannot stay here. It is not allowed.’ With this he pulls his face away, turns his head. I think he understands now.

64

I go and sit at the opposite end of the cave, my back to the wall, looking over at him sitting on the other side of the fire. ‘Are you ready to tell me what happened? It has been four weeks since you arrived. I have done you no harm. What has happened to change you so much? You used to be the most talkative man I knew. I sometimes think we stopped fighting just so you would no longer have an excuse to keep on talking.’

The joke gets no reaction.

I wait for a minute before proceeding. ‘You will have to talk in Bran.

We are not a vindictive people but you have broken a condition of the treaty. You know what the punishment is. We agreed on it in fact. You and I. They are sure to spare you if you can explain yourself: a mutiny, a rebellion, a banishment. I think that is what has happened to you.

Banished, like me. But if you were you did not take enough care, were not lucky enough to avoid Bran territory. If you do not talk, if you do not explain yourself you might well be executed.’ He says nothing.

He sits against the cave wall, his head slightly cocked. The fire flickers against his skin. Dies down. It grows darker in the cave.

‘It’s a rope we use. Death by hanging. It is easiest. There is no blood.

Vomit, urine yes but no blood. It is quick too and with our limited resources, practical. You can reuse rope. We blindfold them of course.

We are not dogs.’

He looks at me now but still says nothing. I think he looks at me. I cannot see his eyes.

‘We blindfold them and tie their hands so they cannot move. We place the noose around their neck and there is a man whose job it is to kick away the stand when it is time. We do not allow people to watch.

Just the hangman and one to make sure the victim does not escape.

Then we bury the body. Just below the surface. Their faces have to be 65

covered last. It is not a job people like doing, the burying of the dead.

‘If you do not talk I fear that may happen to you. Perhaps they will launch a mission to Axum to seek an explanation but why would they bother? It will involve much expense and to what end? The remote possibility that their borders are under threat? The presence of one man, one bloated official, is unlikely to convince them of that.’

I realise I have raised my voice. I realise too that I might be right, that Bran might not care about this one man, that they might not see the potential significance. If they do not know who he is, if they do not recognise him – and I who knew him best took a while to do so – then he and I will encounter the same fate. Then there will be nothing to stop the hatred that has had ten years to fester. Ten years for the families of those put to death to foment revenge. I realise too there is no turning back. I have gone too far.

I stare at Andalus, willing a response. I sit there for hours, looking at him looking at me. It grows so dark he melts into the cave wall, becomes black, an outline. His eyes are sockets. If I half close mine he disappears altogether, disappears into the cave, into the rock, into the dirt. He is silent.

66

4

I have placed all the provisions and equipment on the raft already and lashed everything securely to the boards. I sit Andalus in the middle of the raft while I push it out to open water. When the water is up to my waist I climb on board. I row us out a few more metres, then hoist the sail. The wind is strong but I do not think it will be too strong for the mast. As the sail fills with the breeze I am exhilarated. We set off at a pace that belies the makeshift nature of the raft and its weight. We soon reach the end of my swimming range. The wind is coming from behind us, sweeping over the island. For a few seconds I close my eyes.

I can feel the water surging beneath me, the wind and the spray.

I see Tora standing on the beach. She raises her head now. She is too far away for me to see her face.

There is a wake behind us, a stretch of calmer water leading back to the shore. I look back at the island and smile.

I feel something is wrong a second before it happens. The mast bends too far, a corner of the raft dips into the water and the opposite end lifts out. Andalus slips, the mast splits and falls forward. I seem not to hear it. I open my mouth to shout at Andalus but nothing 67

escapes. He does not react. The mast falls across him and all I can see is his form draped in the sail, like a shroud, as I am flung overboard.

The water is warm, warmer than expected. I feel for a moment like going to sleep, like sinking to the bottom, to the golden sand, to be wrapped like a baby in fronds of seaweed. It is quiet here: no wind, no flapping sail, nothing.

Through the water I see Andalus in his white cloak. I see the shape of him, crouching forward in the bow, the edges breaking up, shimmering like a mirage.

Then I am on the surface coughing, spluttering. Jerking my head around the first thing I see is Andalus, having managed to shake free of the sail, standing on the raft looking over at me. The raft bobs on the waves. The mast lies broken across the bow. I swim over, grab hold of the raft and, still in the water, rest my head on the wet planks. I retch seawater, then close my eyes.

I hear him move. He holds a hand out to me. I look up at him but the sky is too bright to see clearly. I try to pull myself up but my grip on his arm slips. It is like he is not there. I wave him away.

The tide takes us in. When we reach the shore I lie down on the sand exhausted. Andalus also lies down, arms flung out above his head.

The raft floats in the shallows. I do not move for hours. When I do it is to lash the raft to the rocks, take some food from it and head up towards the cave.

When I reach the cave I remember Andalus. I do not think him capable of sailing it but it would be a disaster if he were to try and take the raft on his own. I go back down and tap him on the shoulder. He gets to his feet without looking at me.

68

I know the broken mast is a mere setback and due to overzealousness on my part. It does not mean it can’t be done and I am doomed to fail but it takes some time to realise this. I lie for two days in the cave, returning to the raft only to fetch provisions. I make two more marks on the wall. I make these marks very slowly.

On the third day I come to my senses. I fix the mast. It is a clean break and is repaired quite easily. I end up with a shorter, lighter mast, which is by no means a bad thing. I spend the fourth day foraging for tubers and grass seeds, determined to leave again on the fifth.

I leave Andalus in the cave all the while. He shows no signs of restlessness and spends most of the time sleeping. On the evening of the fourth day, examining my haul, I calculate that though I have made inroads into the provisions, which I cannot make up in one day, I still have enough for a nineteen or twenty-day voyage. It means I can leave for the second time five days after the first. I am excited once more.

The morning of the fifth day is quiet. There is a break in the rain.

It is warm. When I reach the shoreline, Andalus following just behind me, I remember that I have not allowed for the changing time of the tides. We are almost four hours early. I could try to drag the raft down to where it will float but the sand is soft and it will take me a long time and cost me strength I may need later. I will have to wait. I sit on a rock but am restless. I remember how I used to feel before a battle: a tightness in the chest, rapid heartbeat, a tendency to be distracted. It is something you learn to control. You have to otherwise you would not last long. In the moments before 69

battle you cannot lose focus. I have lost my edge. The long days of island time have hardened my body but dulled my instincts for a fight. True, I might have lost this before. I remember the first day of the trial. Tora was waiting with me. I could not sit still, was pacing around the room, not listening to what she was saying, trying instead to think of what I would say. She got to her feet once, came over to me. I held up my hand, impatiently, to stop her. She did stop. A little taken aback perhaps. I felt regret. But I was angry too. Angry with my people. Angry with her. She was no longer with me but was trying her best to be supportive. I stood behind her and kissed her head. Her shoulders shook a little. I did not hold her. It was my day, not hers. I get to my feet and set off down the beach at a rapid pace, almost running. I feel Andalus looking at me but I do not look back. He can do nothing while the tide is out.

I resolve to walk as far around the island as I can for half the time remaining then walk back. It is, I think, a way of saying goodbye.

Since the arrival of my companion I have not had time to go on my explorations, my investigative walks. His arrival has increased the time I spend on essential tasks and decreased the time available for expanding knowledge of the island and its creatures. It is like that with people, the ones left over: too busy surviving to rebuild our knowledge. Except me. I was never too busy to try to piece together our story, to try to remember what we used to be. I feel resentful that I have been pushed into this mode by Andalus but it was with a higher purpose, that of my return, a return that will increase the store of knowledge and heal a bit more of the past.

But I make a detour first. Something I have sacrificed, besides 70

my swims, besides my work, is my visits to the stone field. I go there now.

I have not been here but I have not stopped thinking about it, about what it means, about what it means to me. The rocks glisten. Many are half sunk in mud. I kneel down, rub the surface of one. It is smooth. I pick it up. A worm burrows into the soil where the stone lay.

Monuments are to honour the dead, to remember them. I try to picture the faces and I try to shut them out. It is no way to live. Like the bodies, the memories in shallow graves. I walk over them. My feet scuff the dirt from their faces.

I rub the mud off the stone. I take it back to the raft. It will return with me. A gesture, I know. Only a gesture.

I am saddened by what I see on my walk. Saddened for two reasons. With such a long break since my last time on this part of the island I can more easily notice the changes. Before, seeing the same piece of land once a week I would notice the water’s creep in inches if at all. It was only by comparing it to my memory of where it had been weeks previously that I would really notice a difference. Week to week there was little to see. Now though, the change is stark. A large part of the cliff face has collapsed and water has seeped into new areas of grassland. Not seeing it for so long has made the pace of change appear more rapid. Yet I do not know, without doing calculations, which of three possibilities it is: whether it is only an appearance, an illusion caused by the change in gaps between observations, whether the pace really has accelerated, or even whether I made a mistake and the island is and always has been disappearing more quickly than it seemed. Though either the second or third possibility is troubling, I resolve not to let it bother me. I am, after all, leaving the island 71

behind. Still, I do not like the uncertainty. I am not someone who tole rates uncertainty, unanswered questions.

The other reason I am saddened is a more sentimental one. Bleak though it is, it has been home and has nurtured me, held me to its wet bosom like a mother clinging to a child caught in a flood.

I see the rocks lying on the beach from some distance. They are like carcasses of a sea animal I saw once many years ago. Fifteen of them. I look round and can see more still embedded in the cliff walls.

It is as if the island is starting to give up its treasure. A sparse treasure indeed.

They look like humans too, prostrate on the strand.

I run my fingers over the one that is paler than the others. It is slightly warm, warmer than expected. The ridges in it like skin.

There is something wrong with this scene, the bodies on the beach.

I cannot put my finger on it. I leave it un settled.

When I return, the tide is lapping at the raft and it is time to leave.

I help Andalus on board, push the raft out further, climb on myself, hoist the sail and we are away again. This time there is no strong breeze and the sail is barely full. There are no surprises. We float away from the island like a couple of pleasure seekers, a pair of friends on an adventure for a day. I look back once. I see the beach, the cliffs in the north, my cave. The island is already grey, darker than the sky.

From out here, it is a vast canvas of grey and in the centre, growing ever smaller, my life for the past decade, sinking into the sea, like a pebble dropped into a pool.

We drift for days like this. We eat, sleep, fish, drink. Sometimes I row. It is like life on the island before Andalus, having my routines 72

back. The raft floats atop the shining sea. There is nothing else. No other vessel, no birds, no dolphins, no sound. I see the clouds reflected on the sea. Wrapping my coat around my head I hear my breathing, the water lapping against the wood, the occasional flap of the sail.

Andalus sometimes snores. We sit at opposite ends of the raft. I am always hungry but not overly so. I am always thirsty too but again I can cope. I know how to ration myself. Andalus does not show dissent over the rationing. He does not show dissent at all. He lies with his hand in the water, the other across his brow. A feminine pose, the pose of a fop, a man of leisure. I wrap my coat around my head to block it out. The water, the raft, the man sitting opposite me, a silver fish, my wrinkled hands. I think of the going away and of the homecoming. My breathing grows louder in the dark.

She stands on the shoreline. One arm is at her side, the other to her forehead. She shades her eyes with her hand. The palm faces outwards, towards the sea. She watches me sail away. She is the only one who watches. I look at her too: the woman who loved but not enough.

I see her again there. Now she is older. Perhaps she is grey. She scans the sea with her hand held to her face. I wonder what is behind her, behind her on the plains, across the mountains, through the barren fields to the white walls of the settlement of Bran and the story of my future.

Days into the trip the sea becomes like glass. I think back to the ruined city, the statue at the bottom of the ocean. I wonder if I sail above it again. I look over the edge. I think of how it would be to drop silently down through the clear water, breathing water, swimming like a fish 73

and then to stand on the streets of a long-forgotten settlement with buildings around me reaching up into the gloom. What would I find there? Around the corners of narrow streets, deep within abandoned buildings, would I find our story, our beginning? Deep in the murk shapes appear. We drift across them. Again I can see ruins floating beneath us. I look out for the statue, leaning over as far as I can. In the distance, too far to see properly, a shadow appears near the surface. I wonder if that is him. Still sleeping beneath the ocean. It flickers and is gone. We drift onwards.

Three days later we pick up some speed. I am hungry still. I too trail my fingers in the water. I try not to look at Andalus. Once he stood up.

I screamed at him. I have not shouted like that for years. He cowered and I apologised. ‘It’s for your own good,’ I told him. ‘Just sit down.

We’ll be there in a few days.’

This was a guess. I have my compass to tell me the way to go but I do not know how far we have come. The only markers I have are ruined buildings at the bottom of the ocean. We could arrive tomorrow, we could arrive in a week. I think the pace is quicker overall than last time but the currents seem to be against us. Perhaps on the outward journey I caught one of them which bore me all the way to the island and now we are sailing against it, struggling against it. We point one way but the ocean moves the other beneath us, the island just over the horizon, waiting to suck me back in. Perhaps we have not moved at all.

But today I know this cannot be. Today I wake to sunshine. Before I even open my eyes I can feel it. I stand up and drink it in. I take off my shirt. I spread out my arms and lift up my face. I stand like this 74

for what seems like hours. Standing on top of all this water, for the first time in ten years, I am dry. The boards of the raft begin to steam.

Andalus lies unmoving.

Three days after the sun breaks through I see land.

75

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 76

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 77

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 78

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 79

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 80

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 co-ordinator, 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 81

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 82

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 83

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 84

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.

85

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.

86

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.

87

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 88

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, 89

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.