Noman (17 page)

"Not so many," said Coddy.

Now that he looked properly at her, it began to seem to him that there was something familiar about her.

"I was so happy when I saw your stall," said Echo. "I told my travelling companion, that's my friend Coddy's stall. He'll give us something to eat, even though we've no money. He's a good friend of mine."

"You told him that, did you?"

"I made a mistake, that's all. I thought you'd remember me, and you haven't." She reached out her hand and touched him lightly on the arm. "But I've not forgotten you."

She gave him a sweet, sad smile, and went to rejoin Seeker.

"What are you doing?" said Seeker.

"Getting us some supper." She was standing facing Seeker, with her back to Coddy's stall. "What's he doing now?"

"Looking towards us."

"Count to three."

"Why?"

"Just count."

"One," said Seeker. "Two. Three."

He broke into a soft laugh.

"He's coming, isn't he?" said Echo.

"Yes. He's coming."

Coddy came, and shuffled his feet, and looked at Echo with puzzled eyes, and finally delivered himself of a decisive nod.

"I remember now," he said.

So they were both treated to free pancakes, with free mugs of tea to wash them down.

"Seeing as we're old friends," said Coddy.

He showed an inclination to stay with them and share their company, so Echo had to tell him that they were tired after their journey and needed to sleep. She found a grassy bank by the side of the road, and there they lay down. Coddy returned to his stall. They could see him standing there, gazing wistfully towards them, silhouetted against the twilit sky.

"Have you met him before?" asked Seeker.

"Of course not."

"So you're making a fool of him."

"How was your pancake? Has it made you feel better?"

"Yes."

"Then be grateful."

She smoothed down the grass by his side.

"Just so you know," she said, "I don't usually behave like this."

"Only when you're hungry."

"Well, what would you have done? Used your power?"

"To steal a pancake? No, I don't think so."

"So you're nobler than I am. I know that, anyway." She felt the little finger of her left hand as she spoke. "I've known I'm no good for some time now. So there we are."

Seeker had nothing to say to this. She glanced at him. He was gazing up at the sky.

"I did it for you," she said after a silence. "After all, you did save me from the Orlans."

"You owe me nothing."

"I don't call it nothing. I call it everything. I wish I knew how to repay you."

"You don't have to repay me."

Echo pushed her long fair hair back from her cheek and gazed at Seeker with her big gray eyes.

"So why doesn't it work for you?" she said.

"Why doesn't what work?"

"Other men say I'm beautiful."

"You are beautiful, Echo."

"Well, then. All you have to do is ask."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I'm a Noble Warrior."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"We take a vow when we enter the Nom to live our lives simply and in the truth. And to love no one person above all others."

Echo heard this with astonishment.

"Does that mean you can't marry?"

"Yes."

"Why? That's stupid. Whose stupid idea is that?"

"It's part of our Rule. The Rule was written by Noman, our founder."

"But what's the point of such a stupid vow? It doesn't make any sense."

"It's so that we're free to serve everyone."

"Yes, but—" Echo was so shocked by this revelation that she could hardly find words to express her feelings. "What happens if you do love one person above all others?"

"Then you separate from that person."

"So it does happen? Noble Warriors do fall in love?"

"We have feelings, just like everyone else."

"And what do you do with your feelings?"

"Nothing."

"Doesn't that make you sad?"

"Yes," said Seeker. "Sometimes very sad indeed."

He spoke so gravely that Echo was at once convinced he spoke out of his own experience. Who did he love? Echo was not blinded by vanity, she saw her own faults clearly enough; but just as clearly she saw that most men found her beautiful, and most men fell in love with her. Why should Seeker be so very different?

"So suppose," she said, "you were to fall in love with someone. Suppose you loved them even more than you wanted to be a Noble Warrior. Would you break your vow?"

Seeker did not reply.

The sun was now low in the sky, and she couldn't make out the expression on his face, but she sensed a struggle was taking place within him.

"Would it be breaking your vow," she said, "to tell the person you loved that you loved them?"

Seeker gave a low groan. His suffering had returned, not hunger this time. Echo thought she understood the cause and longed to take him in her arms and comfort him.

Seeker gave a second groan and turned onto his side.

"What is it?" said Echo, now becoming alarmed. "Are you ill?"

"It's not an illness," said Seeker, grimacing as he spoke, his eyes tight shut. "It'll pass."

But it got worse. He started to shiver violently, and sweat streamed down his brow. Echo dried his face with his badan.

"You must have a fever."

"It'll pass," murmured Seeker again.

The dusk had deepened so far now that she couldn't see to soothe him. She heard his breathing become slower and calmer, and shortly it seemed to her that he had fallen asleep.

She lay down close to him and watched him and saw that he was shivering in his sleep. The evening was warm. How could he be so cold? She put her arms round him, to soothe him, and drew his body close against her own. Now she could feel the beating of his heart.

It seemed to Echo as she lay with him in her arms that it was his caged love for her that made his body tremble; love that longed to be allowed to live and breathe.

She put her face close to his sleeping face and felt his breath on her lips.

"You can love me if you want," she whispered to him. "It's not hard."

She touched her lips to his lips and felt them tremble. She kissed him, and he responded in his sleep. Gladdened, she wound her arms tight round him and kissed him long and deep.

Then she felt a shudder pass through his whole body and a strange lurch in his chest. The vibration passed to his face, and then she too shook as she kissed him. He gave a cry from his throat, a burst of breath entered her mouth, she fell back gasping, and her whole body flushed first burning hot, then icy cold. She felt sweat break from her skin.

Seeker sprang up, now fully awake.

"What is it?" he cried. "What happened?"

"I don't know," said Echo. She felt sick and so stayed on the ground.

"Is there someone else here?"

"No. Just us."

Seeker looked round, and his mind slowly cleared. "Was I asleep?"

"Yes."

"Why was I sleeping? I'm not tired."

"You're sick. You were shivering."

"I'm not sick. I'm not shivering."

It was Echo who was shivering now. Seeker looked at her closely.

"What have you done?"

"Nothing," she said. "I'm cold."

Now she felt her strength returning. The shivering stopped. She got up and found she was wide awake and eager to be on the move.

"We could ride on if you want."

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yes. I'd rather travel by night."

She called Kell, and Seeker helped her to mount. She waved good-bye to Coddy, his face glowing red in the light of his brazier, and they set off down the night road.

As Echo rode along, the last vestiges of her strange sickness dropped away, to be replaced by a restless, prickly sense of excitement. New and strange ideas were buzzing about in her head.

"Whatever I want I can have," she said. "If I want it hard enough."

She was shocked to hear herself.

"Don't listen to me," she told Seeker. "I'm in a strange mood."

Seeker glanced at her from time to time as they went, but he said nothing.

"Everyone loves me," she said. "But I love no one." Seeker still made no response.

"I don't know what I'm saying," she said. "Something's happened to me. Why don't you speak?"

"Speak to who, Echo?"

"Me, of course."

"And who are you?"

"You think you know so much," she snapped back, "but I know so much more."

Where did that come from? she thought, blushing in the dark.

She was saved from further embarrassment by the flicker of torches ahead, and the sound of chanting. As they rounded a bend in the road, they saw before them a band they took to be pilgrims, though they were not dressed in white robes. They all carried flaming torches in one hand, while in the other hand some wielded whips with which they were lashing themselves, and others waved knives high above their heads, dropping them now and again to stab at their own flesh.

"We are weak, we are wicked, but we bleed!" they chanted as they came. "Let our blood wash us clean!"

They did indeed bleed. Their shirts were bloody and torn.

"Great god, pity us!" they cried. "Turn away your anger from our land!"

When they saw Echo and Seeker approaching, they called out to them.

"You too are weak!" they cried. "You too are wicked! Join us in penitence!"

"Who has told you to do this?" said Seeker.

"No one has told us. We bleed freely!"

"I know him!" cried one of the penitents. "I was there! I saw him on that terrible day! He's the one that made the earth shake!"

"He must be a god!"

At once they fell into a frenzy of whipping and stabbing, their eyes shining as they punished themselves, their voices proudly lamenting.

"See, Lord, the blood on my shirt! All fresh today!"

"Look here, Lord! The scars of the whip never heal!"

"Count the knife holes in my jacket, Lord! Every hole a wound!"

"Stop!" cried Seeker. "I'm not a god!"

"Not a god?"

They lowered their whips and their knives and stared at him.

"Then how are we to appease your anger with our suffering?"

"I'm not angry."

There was a moment of silence. The floggers looked at the stabbers and the stabbers looked at the floggers.

"Some god somewhere is angry."

"Not me," said Seeker. "So you don't need to go on hurting yourselves."

"Not hurt ourselves?" They laughed bitterly at that. "Use your eyes. The whole world is hurting."

One of them spoke for all.

"Some god somewhere must be angry. Don't ask us which god, we're not priests. But I'll tell you this for nothing. It doesn't surprise me. The people have fallen very low. Lower than dirt, most of them."

He gave himself a sharp flick with his whip.

"When we bleed, it makes up for the lowness."

The others nodded in agreement.

"Flogging is elevating."

"And stabbing," said a stabber.

"Come on, friends! On our way! He's not a real god. He's not even angry."

With that, the penitents resumed their flogging and stabbing and set up their chant as they went on down the road.

"We are weak and we are wicked, but we bleed! Great god, feel our pain! Turn away your anger from our land!"

Seeker and Echo continued into the night, which was now all the darker after the glare of the torches.

"You could have stopped them," said Echo.

"I can't give them what they need."

"You mean you won't."

"I have other work to do."

"Other work!" Suddenly her voice was sharp with scorn. "What is it that's more important than saving people from their misery? Why have so much power and not use it?"

She had no idea what she was saying until she said it. But Seeker answered without surprise.

"My power has been given me for one purpose only."

"Who told you so? This Noman, who told you not to love?"

"Yes."

"Why listen to a miserable old man?"

Secretly Echo was astonished at herself, that she dared to speak her mind so freely. But the new force within her was driving her on.

I have life, she thought. I must give him life.

Seeker said nothing, so she spoke again, even more insistently.

"They've turned you into a killer. You go to kill on the orders of an old man who longs to die. But you're not old, you're young—like me. Why aren't you hungry for life? Why aren't you hungry for love?"

Seeker raised his hands to his ears.

"Leave me to do what I must do," he said.

"You're afraid to listen. You're afraid I'm right."

Seeker strode on in silence. Echo rode beside him on Kell, not knowing what had changed in her but filled with a new certainty.

He loves me, she told herself. Only his vow forces his silence.

Then came a further conviction, which was stronger in her than all that had gone before.

I bring him life. I will teach him how to live forever.

They travelled on in silence through the cool night hours until the drooping of Kell's head told Echo that they must stop to sleep. Dimly in the starlight ahead they saw a grove of umbrella pines; and responding to the natural instinct of all creatures to find a burrow for a bed, they lay themselves down within the circle of trees.

Both were unable to sleep. In time the moon rose, and by its pale light Echo was able to see Seeker's face.

"Are you angry with me?"

"Not with you, no."

"I'm cold," she said. "Are you cold?"

"A little."

"I could warm you, if you like."

He made no objection, so she wriggled close to him and laid her head in the crook of his arm.

"Am I warming you?"

"Yes," he said.

"And you're warming me."

She smiled in the night, happier than she had been for a very long time; and so smiling, she surrendered herself to sleep.

W
HEN
M
ORNING
S
TAR WOKE, SHE HAD NO IDEA WHERE
she was. All round her was the darkness of night, but this was not her own private darkness, which she so dreaded. This was the world's night, which glowed with quiet colors. Above her reached broad bars of amber. Round her, walls of dark blue. A door glowed with the blue-red tones of a damson.