So Hanno set the children to gathering the husks and shelling them, while the biggest cook-pot was half filled with water and put on the fire to boil. The Mimilith boys spotted that here and there in the bare branches of the trees were other husky nuts that had not yet fallen, so they raced each other up the knobbly trunks to pull them down.
‘Be careful, boys! Make sure the branches can take your weight!’
‘Stand back! She’s coming down!’
Tanner Amos’s warning cry was followed by a long rending crash, as the tree he had been felling toppled at last. He and Miller Marish and Mumpo then set to work with axes and cleavers to cut up the branches into cordwood.
Mrs Chirish sat over the pot and stirred the sourgum kernels as the water seethed. Seldom Erth unharnessed the horses and let them join the cows, grazing the sparse wiry grass. A group of women found places round the fire where they could lay out their blankets and their needles and thread, and get on with the making of bedrolls against the coming cold weather.
Bowman stood apart, looking towards the group of sewing women, telling himself it was better for all of them if he kept his distance from her. The Johdila Sirharasi of Gang, once a princess, now plain Sisi, sat beside Lunki, the stout woman who had been her servant, and who still, despite the changes, insisted on serving her. Sisi held her back straight, her head bent over her work, and did not speak. Every day Bowman expected her to fail under the hardships of the march, but she proved him wrong. She bore more than her share of the tasks, ate less than her share of the food, and never complained. Bowman reflected on what Mumpo had said, that he seemed to be avoiding her. That was not right.
He crossed over to the women by the fire. For a few moments, as if warming himself by the fire, he stood near Lunki and her mistress. Sisi was stitching the heavy blankets with small tight stitches, working with care and concentration. He could see from the groove the needle made in her fingertip how hard she had to push to drive the point through the stiff fabric. He could also see the smooth curve of her neck, and the rise and fall of her breast as she breathed.
‘That’s good work,’ he said. ‘That’ll keep out the cold.’
She looked up, her eyes grave, questioning.
‘The tailor taught me,’ she said. ‘I’m doing my best.’
‘Hard on the fingers.’
‘Is it?’ She looked at her needle-finger as if unaware of the pressure she was putting on her soft skin. ‘Oh, that doesn’t matter.’
Bowman heard the clatter of falling nuts, and looking up saw that Pinto had joined the Mimilith boys in the sourgum trees. They had already stripped the lower branches of nuts, and were now climbing higher, each in an adjoining tree. He could think of nothing more to say to Sisi, who sat, head bent, steadily sewing, so he moved away once more. As he passed the wagon, Mist the grey cat uncurled himself from his bed on the tent-cloths, and jumped down to rub against his legs.
‘Well, boy,’ he said. ‘Are we nearly there?’
‘No, my Mist. First we must reach the mountains.’
The cat did not speak aloud, nor did Bowman answer him aloud. But they understood each other well. The cat asked this question every day, and every day received the same answer. There were never any mountains to be seen, so Mist had come to believe that Bowman chose to conceal their true destination. Mist knew that Bowman had great powers, greater even than his former master, Dogface the hermit, who had been able to fly. If the boy had such powers, he could not possibly be leading all these people with so much effort for so long, without knowing where he was going. Therefore their destination was a secret. So reasoned the cat, clever but not wise.
‘And on the other side of the mountains, your homeland.’
‘Yes. We believe so.’
‘It must be something very wonderful, this homeland.’
‘We shall see.’
‘Do the cats there know how to fly?’
‘I don’t know, Mist. I don’t know that there are any cats there. But if there are, I doubt if they can fly.’
‘I shall teach them.’
Bowman smiled and stroked the cat’s head. This annoyed Mist. It had always been his heart’s dream to fly, and just once he had made a jump that was so immense that it must have been flying. He had told the boy, and the boy had said he believed him, but the look in his eyes had shown that this was no more than a polite pretence.
‘You don’t believe me.’
‘If you say you flew, Mist, then I believe you.’
‘Well, I did fly.’
The truth was, he couldn’t be entirely sure. The time he had flown, it had only been a short distance. A short flight is very like a long jump.
‘Take care, Pinto!’
This was Hanno, calling out in warning. Pinto had seen a plump husk on a very high branch, and she reckoned she was light enough to reach it without danger. Looking across to the neighbouring tree, she saw that Mo Mimilith was also climbing, and he saw her. At once, instinctively competitive, they began to race each other.
Mo Mimilith was three years older than Pinto, and much heavier. At first his greater strength enabled him to outclimb her. But then he felt the branches bending beneath him, and realised he was at his limit. Pinto kept on climbing, her skinny little body easily supported by the upper branches; and so was the only one to reach to the very top of the tree.
She looked down and saw the wagon, with the horses among the cows, snuffling out what coarse grazing they could find. She saw the huddle round the fire, where the sourgum was being boiled, and she smelled its strange sharp-sweet smell. She saw her mother, seated on the ground with her father beside her, holding her hands and stroking them, as he so often did. Then she looked across and saw Mo Mimilith on his way down his tree.
I’ve won! she thought, exulting. I’m the highest one of all!
Only now, turning and looking up and ahead, did she think to take advantage of her high vantage point. There were the rolling hills, receding into the distance. But beyond them, far off, she could clearly discern through hazy low cloud a range of jagged white-capped peaks.
‘Mountains!’ she cried. ‘I can see mountains!’
No one else would be able to climb so high. She must be the eyes for all. She looked and looked, and memorised.
Some way off, the rolling land levelled out and became rocky and craggy: it seemed to be a huge desert of cracked and shivered land, a rubble of boulders and fissures. On the far side of this broken plain, where the cloud lay low over the land, there was a belt of dark forest running from side to side of the visible world. Within this forest gleamed a river; and beyond the river towered the mountains. They rose through the cloud, to rear their bare-toothed peaks all along the white horizon.
Bowman called up to her.
‘Can you really see the mountains?’
‘Yes! Far, far away!’
People were gathering below, staring up at her.
‘Be careful!’ That was her father, who could see how the treetop swayed under her weight.
She came scrambling down, a little too fast, showing off, and grazed one arm. She pretended not to notice. The marchers gathered round her, eager to hear what she had seen.
‘There’s a river,’ she told them. ‘And a forest. But before that, empty land, for miles and miles, all full of cracks.’
‘Cracks? What kind of cracks?’
‘Like cracks in dried mud. Only much bigger.’
‘Did