Noman (9 page)

Mercy smiled at this and shook her head.

"No need to grab," she said. "Share the joy."

Libbet had already run off towards the trestle tables set up at the heart of the great crowd. The other children went chasing after her, so Morning Star followed.

"I'll find you again soon, Mama."

"Find the Joy Boy first, darling."

The long tables were set in rectangles, four tables to each side, with supply wagons at either end. Cooks were hard at work on the inside, boiling up great vats of rice and beans and spiced vegetables. People crowded round holding out mugs or bowls, and the cooks dolloped the food into them until they were brimming over. There was no pushing or jostling, because there seemed to be a limitless amount of food in the vats.

Morning Star's band of hungry children wriggled their way to the table side and, having no bowls, were served in their outstretched hands. Morning Star looked on the laden supply wagons and the bubbling vats with amazement and some suspicion.

"What do you put in it?" she asked one of the cooks.

"Rice, beans, onions, tomatoes," said the cook.

"Nothing else?"

The cook laughed. "Joy," he said.

Morning Star couldn't stop the hungry children from eating, but she took nothing for herself.

"How does the Joyous pay for so much food?" she asked.

"Oh, there's always plenty of money," said the cook. "We don't use money here, so anything we have when we join goes to the Joyous. And every day more and more people join us."

"Look, lady!" cried Burny.

He had both hands piled high with rice and beans. He held them up before Morning Star, gazing at her, his eyes bright with happiness. Then he plunged his face into the sticky heap, rubbing rice and beans all over his cheeks and chin and brow, eating whatever came within reach of his mouth. The other children all started to copy Burny, squealing with delight. Some of the food stuck to their faces, and some of it fell to the ground.

"Don't do that," said Morning Star. "You're wasting it."

"Let them be," said the cook. "It takes us all that way at first. It's hunger makes folk greedy, same as being poor makes folk steal."

Hem nodded vigorously at this. He couldn't speak because he was eating as fast as he could, afraid that at any moment the food would be taken from him.

The smaller children, their bellies full, announced that they were sleepy. Morning Star led them to the nearest fire, and the people round it made spaces for them as if they were their own children.

"Come along, little ones. Curl up here. My, that's a big yawn!"

"They're orphans," said Morning Star, feeling she should make it clear she was not their mother.

"Not any more, they aren't," came the friendly answer. "They're children of the Joyous now."

Morning Star had no way of knowing that the children who had attached themselves to her would be safe in the care of these strangers; but they were already asleep, exhausted by the day's long tramp. And who was she herself,
she reflected, but just another stranger? So she left them by the fire and went off alone into the crowd. It was time to meet the source of this phenomenon: the one they called the Joy Boy.

Everywhere her eyes fell she saw happy people. If this was a drug, it was a highly effective one. She studied the colors of the people she passed and saw that the joy was genuine. It was impossible to fake the colors. And yet she could not rid herself of the conviction that something here was terribly, dangerously wrong. It was just all too easy. Joy was not to be had for the asking.

Her eyes fell on a random stranger, and the stranger gave her such a warm smile in the firelight that she felt ashamed of her suspicions. Maybe life was easy, and she alone made it hard. Maybe—

Her train of thought was broken by a comical sight ahead. A group of young people were standing round a crate of large overripe tomatoes, picking them out and tossing them high into the night air. They were pushing and jostling each other as they did so, to stand under the falling tomato, faces upturned, eyes screwed shut, competing to be the one on whom the tomato landed. The sight of a tomato exploding over a face was irresistibly funny. A single tomato made a surprising amount of mess. The pulp and juice went everywhere, leaving the drenched victim to wipe the skin from his eyes and shake the pips from his collar.

"Me, me, me," they chorused as another plump red globe arced up into the air.

The one last hit was bent laughing over a water vat,
sluicing his head with splashes of water from a tin mug. When he rose up he caught sight of Morning Star and gave her a friendly smile. He was a chubby youth of perhaps fifteen, with smooth, short black hair and strong black eyebrows and full pink lips. There was nothing about him to mark him out from his fellows but for one detail that only Morning Star could have spotted: he had no aura.

Clearly something about her drew his attention. Waving a cheerful good-bye to his companions and drying his hands on his sleeves, he came towards Morning Star without taking his eyes off her for a second.

"You're new, aren't you?" he said. "You're welcome."

"I've not come to join," said Morning Star. "I was looking for my parents."

"Have you found them?"

"Yes, I have."

She became aware that the people round them were paying closer attention to her than before. In fact, she and the chubby youth seemed to be the focus of general interest.

"I hope you found them well."

"Oh, yes," said Morning Star. "They were dancing."

The youth smiled. "You disapprove."

"No, I don't disapprove. But it's not like them."

"You don't dance, I take it?"

"Not really. I'm not much good at dancing."

"Does that matter?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Suppose you were to dance and not be much good at it, would that matter?"

He went on smiling at her in the friendliest way. All the people gathered round were also smiling. Morning Star began to go red.

"No one likes to look foolish," she said.

"Indeed not," said the youth. "But when everyone is dancing, no one is looking."

A soft patter of applause greeted this statement. One young woman had a notebook in one hand and hurriedly began to scribble in it with a pencil.

This must be the one they call the Joy Boy, thought Morning Star in surprise.

"Are you—" she began, but found she could not utter the ridiculous words. "Are you—the leader?"

"The leader?" He put his head on one side, weighing the word. "No, I'm not the leader. What am I? What shall I tell our new friend?"

He looked round the crowd and gave a sweet noiseless laugh.

"I'm the disease."

The people gathered round clapped their hands in admiration.

"A harmless disease, I hope. I infect all who come near me. It's quite involuntary on my part, I assure you."

"Oh, I see," said Morning Star, not so easily impressed. "You infect people with joy, I suppose."

He nodded, not offended by her sardonic tone of voice.

"I am called the Joy Boy."

"So all this"—she glanced round to take in the great crowd—"is because of you."

"Not because of me," he said, gently correcting her. "Because of joy."

Morning Star found herself looking for a way to wipe the smile off that chubby face.

"You've got tomato in your hair," she said.

"Have I?" He brushed his hair absently with one hand. "I'll swim in the river tomorrow."

Then he held out his hand to her. It seemed needlessly rude to ignore it, so she held out her hand and he clasped it in his. His hand was dry and firm and pleasing to the touch. She understood at once that he was holding her hand in order to know her better.

"Ah." He raised his black eyebrows. "You're a rare person. May I ask your name?"

"Morning Star."

"Morning Star. You are a Noble Warrior."

"Not really," she said. "I was trained by the Nom, but I left before the training was complete."

"How is that possible?"

"That's a long story."

"But your power remains strong. No"—he furrowed his smooth high brow, searching for the right word—"there's more than power in you. You possess an immense gift. You feel what others feel."

Morning Star was surprised.

"How can you know that?"

"I too have a gift," he said. "My gift is that I am nothing. So I see you as you are."

"You are—nothing?"

She stared at him. He had no aura. How could a person be nothing? She didn't even know what it meant. But nothing about the Joy Boy was as she had expected. Even his fat pink cheeks and plump pink lips were taking on a different appearance. The very smoothness of his face now spoke to her of innocence.

"I know it's hard to understand," he was saying to her. "But it's not hard to feel, is it?"

She could feel him: like an empty space before her, drawing her in.

"It's your own choice, Morning Star. You can go on being unhappy if you wish."

She looked down and spoke low, suddenly afraid.

"Don't talk to me like this."

All this time he had been holding her hand. Now he let it go.

"So much darkness. So much fear. But what is there to fear? Joy is as simple as daylight. Step out of the shadows into the sun."

He made her a slight bow and turned back to his companions. They linked arms with him and strolled away together through the crowd.

Morning Star found she was trembling. While they had been talking she had stiffened all the muscles of her body as if to repel an attack that had not come. She only became aware of this extreme physical tension when the Joy Boy left her and she started to shake.

So much darkness.

She made her way back to the food tables and accepted a bowl of rice. Here her mother found her, and they sat down together by one of the fires.

"You've met him, haven't you?" said Mercy, watching her daughter closely.

Morning Star nodded.

"Everyone changes after they meet him. You've changed."

"What is he, Mama? Who is he?"

"I don't know, darling. All I know is that he has led me out of the darkness."

"He told me he was nothing."

"Maybe he is. Nothing or everything, like a god."

"Do you think he's a god, Mama?"

"No, not yet. But soon. That's what we're all waiting for. Your father told you."

"He called it the Great Embrace."

"That's when we become god."

Morning Star searched her mother's face in the firelight.

"Can you truly believe that?"

"Now that you've met him," said Mercy, "can't you believe it, too?"

"No. I doubt everything."

"Even your own doubt?"

"Yes. Yes! Most of all my own doubt. Oh, Mama, I don't know what to think any more."

"Then, no more thinking," said Mercy, taking her in her arms and hugging her like a little child. "You're tired. Sleep now, and see what tomorrow brings."

T
HE BARN DOORS WERE BOLTED ON THE INSIDE.
T
HE
bolts shattered at Seeker's first blow. As Echo looked on, he kicked the high doors open and the bright sunlight streamed into the space within. There, blinking in the light, eyes wide with fear, lay hundreds of small children, tethered in open stalls like dogs.

Seeker stared at the scene in silence, and the anger in him turned hard and sharp. He strode towards the stalls and the children shrank back in terror, covering their heads with their arms.

"Don't beat me!" they cried. "I'll be good!"

"There'll be no more beating," said Seeker.

The children had collars fastened round their necks. A short chain linked each collar to an iron staple in the wall. Seeker felt the collar of one child with careful fingers, but it was too tight round his neck to remove without hurting him. He took hold of the chain and snapped it with his bare hands. This simple violent action gave him some relief. He moved on to the next child and the next, breaking their chains one by one.

Echo followed Seeker into the barn. As the children found themselves able to move out of their stalls, they came to her and clustered round her, seeing her as the latest of the many adults who had come to give them orders. It never occurred to them to run away.

"At your service, lady," they piped, bobbing their heads and jingling the trailing ends of their chains. "What's your pleasure, lady?"

"You're free," said Echo. "You can go."

They gazed at her with their wide uncomprehending eyes, some of them as young as four years old, waiting to be given the orders they had been trained to obey.

"But we must serve you, lady."

"No, no. Not any more. The bad people who tied you up can't hurt you any more. You don't have to serve anybody. You're only children."

"Children do what they're told, lady. Or they get beaten."

All the little heads nodded at that, and their chains clinked.

"That's all over now," said Echo, pointing behind her through the open doors and down the road to the Haven. "Look."

A great exodus was under way. The workers were flooding across the timber causeway to the mainland.

"The men who beat you have run away. You've got no masters now."

"No masters!" The children's faces fell. "Who's going to feed us?"

Some began to whimper and then to howl.

Seeker had now snapped the last of the chains and rejoined Echo. The barn had filled with the sound of lamentation.

"We can't just leave them here," said Echo. "Who's to look after them?"

Seeker saw the miserable faces of the crying children, and the anger in him turned to bitterness. However he used his power, no good came of it. All he wanted now was to be far away and on his own.

The workers from the Haven reached the barn. It was at once clear that they were the parents of the chained children. Voices cried out on all sides, as fathers and mothers found their children and clasped them in their arms, sobbing and weeping with joy. Even now the children clung to their training.

"At your service, ma'am. What's your pleasure?"