The Limping Man Read online

  Hana peered at them with hatred. Her eyes threw flashing knives of hate. Then she almost screamed, almost lost her footing in the chimney, as she saw the posts sunk in the cobbled ground below the throne, each with chopped wood piled at its foot. Six. Hana closed her eyes. Morna and Deely, and one post for her mother even though she was dead. Who were the other three?

  A huge shout deafened her. It rumbled like thunder, then died away into the clatter and sigh of two thousand people falling on their knees. The Limping Man’s entourage came through a gate. A phalanx of armed constables beat a path through the kneeling men. They used leather whips and the flat of their swords. Behind them walked the Limping Man’s courtiers, men from the city beyond the burrows, then his generals in cloaks and shining boots and belts hung with swords in carved scabbards. The crowd waited on its knees, breath held in, ready to shout their praise when the Limping Man appeared.

  Hana, straining for a wider view, almost fell. Soot whispered into the depths. She kept her grip on the edge of the crack and regained her place, bracing her hands and feet on the stones. She was aware of shouts in the square, with an underlying beat. What were they saying? Not his name, he had no name. They were crying ‘Man’ in unison, a word that rang with the sound of an iron hammer beating on stone: ‘Man, Man, Man.’ Hana could not see him. His banner, held high to catch the breeze, came into sight through the black hole of the Western Gate. Its device, a crooked line beside a straight, shone as red as blood on its yellow ground. Then his litter came, borne on the shoulders of four men. The top was closed like a lid and scarlet curtains on the sides hid the Limping Man.

  The constables beat a path. The bearers carried the litter around the pond and set it down at the foot of the timber steps. Others had carried the throne down from the platform and placed it ready. The courtiers and generals climbed to their places. A man – a giant of a man, dressed in black leather – raised a horn to his lips and blew a long blast. The crowd fell silent.

  Two men, stick-thin, like insects, parted the curtains at the side of the litter and the Limping Man appeared.

  No one helped him. No one touched him. The silence in People’s Square was like the midnight silence of the burrows. The Limping Man placed a carved stick on the cobbles and levered himself to his feet. He stepped down from the litter and stood for a moment, making sure of his balance. Hana could not see his face. He was a small man, dressed in blood-red robes with yellow flames crawling upwards from the hem, and a cloth crown rising in folds and bulging at the back, where ribbons drooped over his shoulders like a waterfall. She had never seen a man dressed so foolishly. How could he hide? How could he get away when someone chased him? Then she remembered that he did not need to.

  The guard lowered his horn and the people bellowed, ‘Man, Man, Man,’ as the Limping Man walked to his throne, helped only by his stick. At each dipping step he seemed to fall, then he righted himself and the people roared. They loved him for limping. They wanted to lift and carry him, but he progressed by himself; reached his throne by himself; sat by himself and settled his stick between his knees. Four new bearers carried the throne up the steps, where they turned and set it down at the centre of the platform.

  Hana saw the Limping Man’s face, and it was – ordinary. She strained her eyes – eyes that Mam had said were sharper than a hawk’s – but still there was nothing to see, no strength, no authority, nothing in the mouth or nose or forehead, nothing in the eyes, watery and red-rimmed and pale, nothing to make people worship him. Yet the crowd, on its knees, continued its deep-throated roar of gratitude and love. She could not understand it. A round-faced little man with soft cheeks and weak eyes and a leg that tipped him sideways at every step, and yet two thousand people roared his name as though he stood so far above them that their arms, held rigid, their fingers clutching air, could never reach high enough to touch him.

  He smiled. The crowd howled louder.

  Then Hana felt something sticky crawling on her face like a midnight grub. It crossed her lips and paused as though looking for a way into her mouth. She shook her head to toss it away. A grub could not hurt her. She felt it on her cheek, then by her ear, and she released one hand from the stone to brush it into the darkness. There was nothing there. But the soft crawling continued and seemed to move through her skin and wriggle into her head. She gave a cry of fear and inched her way down the narrow chimney. This sticky touch must be the Limping Man reaching out for her. What had Mam said? He would make her love him. It was why the men in the square fell to their knees and spread their hands longingly and bellowed his name. He crawled inside their heads and made them love him. Hana felt the emotion seeping into her brain and she used all her strength to force it out. It was like someone tying her up. It was like a spider spinning a web around her. She fought it away with the memory of Mam.

  She heard, dimly, the sound of the crowd die to a murmur. She felt Mam, like clean water, wash the Limping Man out of her mind, but knew also that he had relaxed his demand, and that was why the crowd had stopped its shouting and she and Mam had won their battle. If she had been closer, down with the men in the square, he would have swept her away. Again she remembered what Mam had said: the circle round him spreads as wide as his mind can reach. Hana must have been at its very edge and had managed to keep outside.

  She stayed in the chimney with her eyes closed until her legs and arms began to ache. She must go or she would fall. But her need to see Mam overcame her fear. She climbed again and put her eyes to the crack. Roars of delight came from the crowd. It took her a moment to see why. Waist-deep in the pond, a quartet of naked guards were drowning two men. Hana was sickened. She closed her eyes, blotting out the sight. She had forgotten this part of the ritual, but remembered how Morna had said the entertainment always began with the drowning of men who had lived with the witches. When she looked again the guards were wading out and two bodies floated face down on the green water.

  A shadow fell on Hana. Claws scraped as a crow settled on the chimney. She knew why it was there: to pick at the bodies when the crowd was gone; to hunt for scraps of flesh in the embers.

  ‘Go away, crow,’ she whispered harshly, and reinforced it with a push of her mind. The crow flapped away, cawing angrily.

  On his throne, the Limping Man was smiling again. His round mouth opened, his red lips slid, and his slanting teeth gleamed in the sun. He raised his finger to the black-clad attendant, who bowed deferentially. The Limping Man whispered and the man, the crier, straightened, puffed his chest and bellowed in a voice louder than his horn: ‘Bring the witch.’

  Over by the farthest gate the crowd parted and four men marched through, carrying something – carrying Mam. Hana almost screamed. They held her by the wrists and ankles. Her head hung back. Her hair brushed the cobbles. The men handled her carefully, as though she were precious and yet as though she had never been alive. They laid her at the foot of the steps leading to the throne.

  It isn’t you, Mam, Hana cried inside herself. And then more calmly: It isn’t you. That poor dead figure in its scraps of rag wasn’t Mam. Mam was gone, Mam was free. She floated in the air. She whispered in Hana’s ears: Get away from here, my child.

  There was no harm the Limping Man could do Mam.

  Yes, I will, Hana whispered back. But I want . . . She meant that she needed to say goodbye to Morna and Deely.

  The Limping Man had risen from his throne. He leaned on his stick and whispered to the crier. He spoke for a long time, banging the butt of his stick on the platform, and the crier listened with bent head. Then he stepped away and blew his horn. The hooting and jeering and cries of hatred stopped. ‘Listen, men of the burrows,’ he cried. ‘I am the voice of the Limping Man and this is my word. Hear no other. Hear only me. I will feed and clothe you. I will keep you safe from the darkness rising in our midst. Do not go near the contamination. Do not listen to the witches. You have seen two men drown – two who broke the prohibition. The pond is wide. There is room for more.�
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  The crier paused and the crowd whooped and bayed its approval.

  ‘I will find you. I will find all who disobey.’ He paused again, then pointed at Mam with his horn: ‘As I found her.’ The Limping Man, seated again, gave a little smile and patted his cloth crown. ‘She was the chief witch, men of the burrows. She was the evil one who poisoned women’s minds, and men’s minds too . . .’

  No, no, Hana cried, inside herself. All she did was try to find out how to cure sick people. How to feed ourselves, how to live . . .

  ‘Now she is the poisoned one. She sought to escape me. She ate the frogweed witches grow. But no one escapes. I will burn her all the same and her evil spirit will feel the flames . . .’

  ‘Mam, Mam,’ Hana whispered.

  Yes, my dear, I’m with you, Mam replied. Take no notice of these men. They’re only making noises.

  ‘Bring her followers. Bring the other witches,’ the crier bellowed.

  The crowd by the gate parted again and guards came through, leading five women on ropes tied round their waists. Deely fought and spat, Morna walked blank-eyed, stumbling now and then. The three who came behind were from another burrow. It was part of the Limping Man’s teaching that there were witches everywhere. One was a woman who fought like Deely. The others were girls scarcely older than Hana. One wept as she was dragged along and one, the younger, darted to the left and right, pleading with the men who lined the path through the crowd. They jeered at her.

  The guards stopped at the foot of the steps. Deely raised her eyes and saw the Limping Man. She spat at him. He smiled his red sloping-toothed smile and raised his hand.

  ‘Tie the evil ones to the posts,’ the crier bellowed.

  Hana saw them drag the women to the execution place, where men with chains waited, and others with burning brands. Four men bent to lift Mam.

  ‘That’s not you, Mam,’ Hana whispered.

  No, I’m here, Mam replied, in a broken voice that meant Morna and Deely were still alive, and the other woman and the girls. Hana turned her eyes away. She turned clumsily in the chimney. There was no way she could help. All she could do was run.

  So she climbed down the chimney and ran through the empty streets of Blood Burrow. Behind her, in People’s Square, the crowd roared and hooted.

  Brown smoke rose into the air.

  TWO

  It took her three days to find the place called Country. She came to Sea first and passed between it and the broken buildings of Port. For one whole day, dawn to dusk, she scrambled at the base of cliffs running to the north. Sometimes she climbed, sometimes waded in the salty water. If the sea had been rough she could not have passed. Hana had learned to stay afloat and then sink and pull herself along the bottom while hunting for food in the ponds and underground pools of Bawdhouse Burrow but she could not swim for any distance. The sea frightened her. It might pull her out into the shining place where it met the sky. She was careful not to go deeper than her waist and drew back when small waves lapped against her chest.

  Sea gave her food, creatures with soft flesh that lived in shells fastened to the rocks, and small fish trapped in ponds. They were saltier than the fish from the underground pools but did not have the taste of mud or need to have slime scraped off their skins. She crunched them between her teeth and spat out their heads. The only fresh water she could find was a thin trickle running down the wall of a cave where she sheltered from the midday sun. When she left the cliffs behind at dusk she was too dry with thirst to look for danger. She ran to a stream flowing from shallow hills and threw herself face down at the edge, where she drank until her thirst was satisfied.

  Dusk was turning to darkness. She crept away, looking for a place where she might be safe, but found only a hollow between two mounds of sand. She lay down and slept, curled into a ball against the chill of the night.

  When she woke seabirds were screeching and a hawk circled high in the air. She knew what it was. Sometimes a hawk had made a few lazy turns over the burrows, then flown away as if there was nothing to interest it. She watched this one fly away too, then set off on her journey again.

  Country opened out on her right. It frightened her even more than Sea. There were hills, there were trees, there was a long green line stretching away – it must be forest – and mountains rising like a wall at the back of it. It was too big for her. There was nowhere to hide. So Hana ran, high on the sandy beach; ran for the whole of the day. She stopped only to drink from streams, following them back until salt water turned to fresh. She chewed weed washed up on the beach. But as she lay down to sleep that night she knew she could not keep travelling this way. She must find other food. She must find flints to make a fire. And somewhere she must find a knife.

  Mam? she asked. But Mam was not with her any more. Mam was a memory and only her lessons would help. What were they? Be still. Be watchful. Think what you do.

  ‘Thank you, Mam,’ Hana whispered, and slept.

  In the morning she turned inland. She saw no animals or humans and no sign of human habitation. There were trees. She had never been close to a tree. Some had yellow balls hanging from their branches. Fruit? In the stories Mam had told about Hari and Pearl, stories she had learned from Deely, they had eaten fruit as they escaped through the jungle. Hana pulled off one of the balls, bit it cautiously and waited for a burning in her mouth. There was none, only sweetness, so she swallowed – and waited for a pain in her stomach. But the sweetness stayed, so Hana ate. She carried away one of the balls in each hand.

  The next day she followed the beach, rounded a headland and saw a new beach running into a blue haze in the distance. She lost heart. The seabirds screamed.

  ‘Birds, what do I do?’

  The hawk, or a different one, turned in the sky.

  ‘Hawk, tell me.’

  No answer.

  She found a place to sleep, dreamed sad dreams all through the night and woke with tears on her face. That day she did not travel but hunted below the cliffs and up a stream, looking for a place where she might stay longer – a cave, a hollow – and looking for the sort of stones that she might use to strike a spark and make a fire. None were hard enough. She found shellfish. She found more fruit. But she could not live off these forever.

  She lay down in a sheltered place where the sand ran into trees but could not sleep. Stars came out. There had been only stars straight above in the burrows. These spread down the sky to where it met the sea. Stars in strings and loops, blue stars, red stars and huge yellow ones. What were they? Mam had never told her. Hana thought they might be alive and watching to see she came to no harm. ‘Thank you, stars.’ She turned over on the sand, following their spread along the horizon, then turned her eyes inland and saw another shining there – and that could not be. Unless one had fallen, a star could not shine in the trees.

  A fire, Hana thought. People there. She wanted to burrow into the sand and hide, but night was the safest time to spy. When she knew exactly who was there, then she could run. And underneath her fear was the hope she would find women who had fled from the Limping Man.

  She left her place at the edge of the trees and moved along the beach. She lost the fire for a moment, then saw it again, flickering beyond the crowded trunks. Hana had learned creeping as a way to survive in the burrows. Her eyes were used to the dark and even though trees were unfamiliar she approached without stirring a leaf or cracking a twig. The fire was burning in a small clearing and throwing its light into a shelter built on the far side. No one was there – no one in the shelter, no one at the fire, although a pot sat on burning logs, with steam rising from it. The smell brought saliva into Hana’s mouth. She crept closer. If no one was here she could steal the pot.

  A voice behind her said, ‘Hana, you’re welcome to share what I have.’

  Hana squealed with fright and rolled to the side. She felt for the knife Mam had sometimes let her carry. No knife. She rolled again, sprang to her feet and started to run.

  ‘Hana,�
� said the man standing in the trees, ‘stay still a moment. Don’t run away.’

  It was a calm and patient voice. She stopped well out of his reach – but not, she remembered, out of the range of a thrown knife. She stepped behind a tree trunk.

  ‘I don’t have a knife,’ said the man.

  ‘How,’ Hana whispered, ‘how do you know my name?’

  ‘You carry it with you. I heard it as you came through the trees. Now, you’re hungry, I can tell. Come and sit with me and share my meal.’

  He walked past the fire, stooped into the shelter and came out with two bowls. He dipped one into the pot and laid it on the ground. ‘Fish stew, Hana. That’s yours.’ He filled the other bowl and sat down.

  Hana watched him from the shadows. He was dressed in a hooded cloak, belted at the waist. She had not seen his face, but his voice was friendly, with words separated by a pause, as though he did not speak very much. There was nothing to do but trust him – her hunger was too great. She stepped into the firelight, then saw his hands as he picked up his bowl, and jumped backwards with a grunt of fear. The fingers were too long and there were only three.

  ‘You,’ she managed to say, ‘what are you?’

  ‘Just a person, like you,’ he said.

  ‘No you’re not. Not a person.’

  ‘Yes, Hana. Of a different kind. My people are Dwellers. We live in the forests north of here.’

  She had heard of Dwellers. Mam had told her, although she had never seen one. Mam had said not to be afraid of them.

  ‘Your mother was right,’ the Dweller said. ‘But I’m sorry. ll try not to hear what you think.’

  ‘Is that how you knew my name?’

  ‘It sits on your tongue like a whisper. Now sit down, Hana. This stew is better hot than cold.’

  She sat across the fire from him and ate thick pieces of fish with her fingers. He went into the shelter and brought out a jug. She drank fresh water.