Seeker (24 page)

"Heya, bravas!" he called to them. "Do you lo-o-ove me?"

As he spoke, out from under the willows shot a long thin canoe, holding two men. Morning Star knew at once that she had seen them before. The canoe moved fast, driven by paddles that struck with practiced force. It reached the big clumsy raft as it was passing the mid-river point, and the two men jumped onto the ferry, leaving the canoe to ride free alongside. Each man carried a net in one hand and a club in the other.

"Tribute traders!" cried Morning Star.

Seeker picked up the Wildman's blade where he had thrown it down. Morning Star picked up his spike.

The Wildman was alone on the raft and unarmed. He could jump into the river, but the canoe would move faster than he could swim, and he had no wish to be netted in the water. He let go of the tiller and prepared to fight.

The tribute traders were in no hurry. They wanted him alive and unharmed. They advanced carefully towards the Wildman, backing him into one corner. The raft drifted downstream on the current, the empty canoe by its side. Seeker and Morning Star, running along the riverbank, shouted at him to jump, to swim. In answer, the Wildman flexed his powerful hands and taunted his attackers.

"Heya, chickens! Come and get me! Let me rip your throats out!"

He was dancing from foot to foot, charging himself up with rage for the fight. But the tribute traders had no intention of fighting him. They unfurled their nets.

Seeker padded along the riverbank, the Wildman's long curving blade in his hand, watching the gap close between raft and shore. He could feel his heart thumping and knew he was terrified and knew he had to do something to help.

"I'm going to jump!" he said, to make it so that he had no choice. "I'm going to jump!"

Morning Star ran alongside him, holding the Wildman's spike, also calculating how soon the raft would be in reach. Her thoughts had become as sharp and pointed as the spike. It was quite clear to her that she would attack. The only question was how.

The tribute trader nearest to the Wildman now made his move, sweeping the air with his weighted net, curling it over his prey. The Wildman reached up with his right hand and, seizing the net, jerked it hard, throwing the tribute trader onto his knees. But even as he did so, the second man cast his net, and it fell over him, its multitude of tiny weights clattering on the deck. The net tightened with great rapidity, causing the mesh to close all round the Wildman, and for the first time in his life he found he could not move.

"Aieee!" he screamed.

Seeker jumped. He landed on the raft, fell, righted himself, and was at the Wildman's side with his blade. The tribute trader who had caught the Wildman lunged at him with his club, but as he did so, Morning Star landed on the raft, too, more gracefully than Seeker, and drove at him from behind with the spike. Taken by surprise, he sprang back and fell overboard.

Seeker began slicing at the net that held the Wildman. Morning Star turned on the other tribute trader, who was now moving in, his net gathered once more in his hand.

"Only a girl," said the tribute trader, making a swing at Morning Star with his club. She lunged with her spike. The spike struck the swinging club and drove deep into the wood. The trader pulled, and ripped the spike out of her hands. At the same time, with his other hand, he cast his net, and Morning Star was caught.

"Help me! He's got me!"

Seeker heard her cry just as he cut away enough of the net to release the Wildman's arms. But already the tribute trader in the water had scrambled into the canoe, and his companion was dragging Morning Star off the raft. Once they had her in the canoe, they bundled her under a heavy blanket and seized the paddles. Before Seeker could reach them, the canoe was knifing away upriver and round the bend, out of sight. Morning Star was beyond help.

Seeker and the Wildman stood still, looking after her, still panting from the struggle. For a few moments, appalled by what had happened, they neither met each other's eyes nor spoke. The ferry banged at last against the riverbank and lurched to a stop.

"What did she do that for?" burst out the Wildman at last. "Now the trib traders have got her! She should have kept away from them!" He seemed more angry with Morning Star than with her captors. "Now they'll throw her off the rock! What did she have to do that for?"

Seeker spoke more quietly.

"We'll find her."

"How?
How?
You tell me how! She should have watched out for herself! If she'd looked after herself, she wouldn't be trussed up like a chicken now!"

"She did it for you, Wildman."

"I never asked! Did I ask her to help me? Did I?"

"No."

"So what did she have to do that for?"

The rest of the convoy now arrived and were told of the attack. There was much shaking of heads at the news.

"She's as good as dead," they said. "No tribute ever came out of Radiance alive."

In a silence that was very like mourning, the people and the bullock wagons got onto the ferry, and the ferry carried them over to the far bank. From here they continued on their way to the city. The canoe was long gone. Seeker was filled with bitter thoughts. He went over the struggle on the raft again and again in his mind, looking to see what he could have done to save Morning Star, but it had all happened too quickly. The Wildman was right. She should never have taken the risk. But she had done so for the same reason he had done so, an instinctive act of assistance to a friend in trouble.

Only, the Wildman was hardly a friend. He shared none of their beliefs. They weren't kin. They didn't think alike on anything. Their only point of contact was their admiration for the Nomana, and their hope that they might one day become Nomana themselves. A common goal was hardly the basis for friendship. So why had they both risked their life for him?

He glanced at him, striding along, golden hair blowing in the wind. The Wildman caught the glance.

"I'll find her," he said.

"Yes," said Seeker.

"I'll set her free."

"Yes," said Seeker.

The dream of joining the Nomana would have to wait. Morning Star must be saved.

The Wildman said no more, but he was seething with a confusion of thoughts. He wanted to say to Seeker: she did what she did without asking me, let her take the consequences, I don't care if she lives or dies. But he did care. It was as if by coming to his rescue, she had put a collar and chain on him, and now he had no choice but to be dragged towards her, wherever she was.

"What did she have to go and do that for?" he repeated angrily to himself as he strode up the road towards Radiance. "Did I ever ask her to help me?"

W
ORK IN THE CORNFIELDS BEGAN AGAIN AT DAWN.
The gangmaster and his three burly associates settled down to eat a substantial breakfast in full view of the hungry workers.

"Work hard," said the gangmaster between mouthfuls, "make money, and you too can eat when you please."

By mid-morning two more workers had fainted in the corn rows, and been sent home with nothing.

"More injustice," said Soren Similin. "At this rate, by the end of the week there'll be nobody left to pay."

Blaze let his eyes linger on the men who walked away, and the anger in them grew deeper and stronger all the time.

"My name is Blaze of Justice," he said softly to himself. "I can't stand by and see injustice done."

He was repeating the words Similin had planted in him.

"Sing!" cried the gangmaster.

The workers began to sing. The plantation owner's wagonette was approaching down the track, this time carrying only the lady of the house. The workers sang and smiled, and when she waved, they all waved back.

"
O-ho! O-ho! A-harvesting we go!
The sky is blue and the corn is high
The sun shines down and the hours fly by ...
"

Only Blaze did not sing or smile or wave.

"Blaze!" whispered Similin. "They're watching you."

Blaze seemed not to hear him. His eyes were fixed on the lady in white, who sat smiling and waving in the carriage. As it came close, he stepped out of the corn rows directly into its path, forcing it to stop.

"No!" cried Similin. "Come back!"

But Blaze never even heard him. He had learned his lesson all too well. He was burning for justice.

"Lady," he said, "your workers are not happy."

The lady stared at him, her smile fading.

"Your workers are cheated and beaten and starved," he said.

The lady turned round, as if for help.

"What's that he says?"

The gangmaster came running, beckoning to his associates.

"A troublemaker, madam," he cried. "Out of the road, i" you!

"Now they'll beat me," said Blaze, "and send me away with no pay. But I can't stand by and see injustice done."

"Can this be so?" said the lady.

She looked round at the other workers, all of whom had stopped work and were watching her every move. There was something in their cowed faces that told her it was true. The associates hesitated, unsure what to do. Soren Similin also watched Blaze, as caught by surprise as the rest.

"We'll deal with this, madam," said the gangmaster, putting one hand on Blaze's arm. "I'm sorry you've been troubled."

Blaze made no move. His steady gaze remained fixed on the lady. She looked back at him and saw how the gangmaster tugged at him and how he remained still and firm. It was his stillness that convinced her.

"Come with me," she said, patting the empty seat beside her. "Tell me all about it."

Obediently, Blaze climbed up on the seat beside her.

"Back to the house!" said the lady to the driver.

"Madam!" protested the gangmaster. "This man's a liar and a troublemaker!"

But the lady had already told the driver to drive on, and the wagonette was rolling away down the track.

The gangmaster turned to the staring workers and spoke with thwarted fury.

"Any of you want to join him? You're free to go! Go now! I can get a hundred more for every one of you! There's always men ready to do honest work for honest pay. So if you don't like work, go now. I don't want you!"

Nobody went. Similin returned to the rows of corn and resumed picking cobs along with the others. He worked away, his hands moving automatically, his mind on this unplanned and aggravating turn of events. He had done his work too well. Now he must find a way to rejoin Blaze and carry out his interrupted plan.

The solution came shortly. A house servant arrived to tell the gangmaster he was wanted at the plantation house. Similin at once put himself forward.

"Sir," he said. "I know the man who went away with the lady. I know why he spoke as he did."

"You do?" The gangmaster glared at him suspiciously.

"He's filled with anger, sir. That's what makes him tell such lies."

"Lies is the word for it." The gangmaster turned to the house servant. "You hear that? All lies!"

"Would you like me to tell the lady of the house?" said Similin.

"I can take care of my own concerns," growled the gangmaster. Then, as if it were an afterthought, "Come along, then, if you want to come."

So Similin followed the gangmaster and the house servant down the track to the house. As he went, he thought through his plan. Blaze would make some confused half-understood accusations. Similin would be called on to deny them. Instead, he would speak up for Blaze. Both he and Blaze would be dismissed, he was sure of that. Then they could get away from this miserable place, and Similin could disclose to him there was a far greater battle ahead, in which the source of injustice could be destroyed once and for all.

The plantation house was set in a grove of trees, and not visible from the fields. As they passed between the trees, and the house came into view, Soren Similin forgot his schemes for a few moments and was lost in admiration. It was the most beautiful house he had ever seen. The building was long and low, made of timber and clapboard and painted a soft chalky white. Its shallow-pitched roofs were shingled with beech tiles that had faded to gray in the sun. All along its front face there stretched a deep veranda, over which climbed a green-leafed vine, the long deck broken by supporting posts into a series of bays. Within each bay, in cool shade, were open doors and open windows, where white muslin curtains swayed and bellied in the breeze. Everything about the house was simple, generous, and refreshing. The secretary had seen the royal temple in Radiance and knew it was far more magnificent, but this was a house you would want to live in.

He followed the gangmaster and the house servant onto the veranda and through a door at one end, which was evidently the servants' entrance. They passed down an internal corridor into a room the width of the house, with windows on either side, where two children were sitting at their lessons with their governess. Like the exterior of the house, all the interior walls were made of timber boards, painted chalk white. The floor was a pale gray, the color of the ash wood from which it was made. The curtains that filtered the sunlight were a fine white gauze. The two
children, a boy and a girl, wore white. Only the governess wore gray, but her face was bright and young. She looked up as the three men passed by, and threw a questioning look at them, but did not speak.

They passed on, crossing the main hall. Ahead was another wide, light room from which voices came.

"Never fear, my dear," boomed a man's voice. "We'll get to the bottom of this. There'll be no injustice on my land."

They entered the room. The master of the plantation stood by one window, his arms folded over his chest, his bald head nodding to emphasize his words.

"We all work together, and the Mother Bear feeds us all."

He was a large man, in his sixties, with a rich, creamy voice and a face now mottled by the years. Before him sat his wife, the lady of the house. And beside her stood Blaze.

"Aha! Here is my overseer! Come in, Pelican, come in!"

Blaze never even looked round. If he was surprised that Similin had come too, he didn't show it. The lady of the house looked up, her beautiful face shaded by sadness. Her skin was very pale, and she seemed almost fragile; an impression that was enhanced by the finely woven material of her white dress. In the white room, where even the daylight was turned white by the curtains, she was lost in the light and slipped away into nothing.