‘I wish there were no more exams ever,’ said Kestrel.
‘I wish nothing bad happens to Kess,’ said Bowman.
‘I wish my darling children to be safe and happy for ever,’ said their mother. She always wished like that when she was worried.
‘I wish the wind singer would sing again,’ said their father.
Bowman nudged Pinpin, and she said, ‘Wish wish.’ Then they all kissed each other, bumping noses like they always did, because there wasn’t an agreed order. Then Pinpin was put to bed.
‘Do you think it’ll ever happen, pa?’ said Bowman. ‘Will the wind singer ever sing again?’
‘It’s only an old story,’ said Hanno Hath. ‘Nobody believes it any more.’
‘I do,’ said Kestrel.
‘You can’t,’ objected her brother. ‘You don’t know any more about it than anyone else.’
‘I believe it because nobody else believes it,’ she retorted.
Her father smiled at that.
‘That’s more or less how I feel,’ he said.
He had told them the old story many times before, but Kestrel wanted to hear it again. So to calm her down, he told them once more about the time long ago when the wind singer sang. Its song was so sweet that everyone who heard it was happy. The happiness of the people of Aramanth angered the spirit-lord called the Morah –
‘But the Morah’s not real,’ put in Bowman.
‘No, nobody believes in the Morah any more,’ said his father.
‘I do,’ said Kestrel.
The Morah was angry, went the old story, and sent a terrible army, the army of the Zars, to destroy Aramanth. Then the people were afraid, and took the voice out of the wind singer, and gave it to the Morah. The Morah accepted the offering, and the Zars turned back without destroying Aramanth, and the wind singer never sang again.
Kestrel became very excited as she heard this.
‘It’s true!’ she cried. ‘There’s a place in the wind singer’s neck for the voice to go. I’ve seen it!’
‘Yes,’ said Hanno. ‘So have I.’
‘So the story must be true.’
‘Who knows?’ said Hanno quietly. ‘Who knows?’
Kestrel’s words reminded them all of her defiance that afternoon, and they fell silent.
‘Maybe they’ll just forget about it,’ said Ira Hath hopefully.
‘No,’ said Hanno. ‘They won’t forget.’
‘We’ll have to go down to Maroon District,’ said Bowman. ‘I don’t see what’s so bad about that.’
‘The apartments are quite small. We’d all have to sleep together in the one room.’
‘I’d like that,’ said Bowman. ‘I’ve always wanted us to sleep in one room.’
Kestrel thanked him with her eyes, and his mother kissed him and said, ‘You’re a dear boy. But your father snores, you know.’
‘Do I?’ said Hanno, surprised.
‘I’m quite used to it,’ said his wife, ‘but the children may be kept awake for a while.’
‘Why don’t we try it?’ said Bowman. ‘Why don’t we practise for Maroon District tonight?’
They took the mattresses from the twins’ beds, and carried them into their parents’ room. There stood the big bed, with its bedspread in stripes of many colours: pink and yellow, blue and green, colours rarely seen in Aramanth. Ira Hath had made it herself, as a small act of rebellion, and the children loved it.
By pushing the big bed against the far wall they could fit both mattresses side by side on the floor, but there was no room left to walk on, and certainly no space for Pinpin’s cot. So they decided Pinpin would sleep between Bowman and Kestrel, on the crack of their mattresses.
When they were all ready for bed, the twins lay down, and their father lifted the sleeping Pinpin out of her cot in the hall, and laid her between them. She half woke, and finding her brother on one side and her sister on the other, her small round face broke into a sleepy smile. She wriggled in her space, turned first one way and then the other, murmured, ‘Love Bo, love Kess,’ and went back to sleep.
Their parents then went to bed. For a little while they all lay there, squeezed together in the dark, and listened to each other’s snuffles. Then Ira Hath said, in her prophetess voice,
‘O, unhappy people! Tomorrow comes the sorrow!’
They laughed softly, as they always did at their mother’s prophetess voice; but they knew what she said was true. Shivering, they wriggled deeper into the bedclothes. It felt so friendly and safe and family-ish to be sleeping together in the same room that they wondered why they had never done it before, and when, if ever, they would be able to do it again.
5
A warning from the Chief Examiner
The summons came early, while they were still at breakfast. The doorbell rang, and there outside was a messenger from the College of Examiners. The Chief Examiner wished to see Hanno Hath at once, together with his daughter Kestrel.
Hanno rose to his feet.
‘Come on, Kess. Let’s get it over with.’
Kestrel stayed at the table, her expression showing stubborn resistance.
‘We don’t have to go.’
‘If we don’t, they’ll send marshals to fetch us.’
Kestrel stood up slowly, staring with extreme hostility at the messenger.
‘Do what you like to me,’ she said. ‘I don’t care.’
‘Me?’ said the messenger, aggrieved. ‘What’s it got to do with me? All I do is carry messages. You think anyone ever explains them to me?’
‘You don’t have to do it.’
‘Oh, don’t I? We live in Grey District, we do. You try sharing a toilet with six families. You try living with a sick wife and two thumping great lads in one room. Oh no, I’ll do my job all right, and more, and one fine day, they’ll move us up to Maroon, and that’ll do me nicely, thank you very much.’
Maslo Inch was waiting in his spacious office, sitting at his broad desk. He rose to his full imposing height as Hanno and Kestrel entered, and to their surprise, greeted them with a smile, in his high grand way. Coming out from behind the fortress desk, he shook their hands, and invited them to sit down with him in the circle of high grand chairs.
‘Your father and I used to play together when we were your age,’ he told Kestrel. ‘We sat together in class, too, for a while. Remember, Hanno?’
‘Yes,’ said Hanno. ‘I remember.’
He remembered how Maslo Inch had been so much bigger than the rest of them, and had made them kneel before him. But he said nothing about that. He just wanted to get the interview over with as soon as possible. Maslo Inch’s white clothes were so very white that it was hard to look at him for long; that, and his smile.
‘I’m going to tell you something that may surprise you,’ the Chief Examiner said to Kestrel. ‘Your father used to