by Maurice Gee
‘Is Keech there?’ Duro said.
‘No Keech.’ He stepped away from the fallen board. ‘Careful. Burrows men have sharp eyes.’
Xantee and Duro looked out. The first thing they saw was a brown pond with rushes at the edge. Hari had swum there, escaping from the Whips. It was smaller than Xantee had imagined, or maybe it had shrunk since that time. The statue of Cowl the Liberator was smaller too. His mouth seemed wide in grief rather than victory. His chest and shoulders grew moss and a curtain of sun-dried weed hung from his raised sword. A black and white gull was perched on his head, but it flew away squawking when Xantee said, Get away from here. There are better places than here.
Keech’s men were close below. She picked out the one called Ratty (rat was in his twitching nose), and Richard One-eye. They had been Blood men but seemed no different from the others: barefooted, splay-footed, clad in string-stitched trousers and leather jerkins bald at the shoulder blades. There were no women. Keech must have broken the bands of knife-women Hari had told her of and returned them to their ‘proper’ place, which was cooking, she supposed, and sex and breeding. The men below her, resting on the cobbled stones where the Whips had herded their captives, smoking some sort of weed that sent a dung stink into the air, playing a game with wooden dice, cursing, laughing, looked as if women had never entered their lives. Yet if they caught her . . . Xantee could not finish the thought, but stepped back and let Tarl take her place.
‘You’ve seen them. Let’s go,’ she said.
‘I’m waiting for Keech.’
‘Why do you need him?’
‘Quiet, girl.’
‘Why?’
One of the dogs growled softly, but after a moment Tarl answered, ‘To find out.’
‘Find out what?’
He turned and looked at her. ‘If I need to kill him.’
She did not understand. When he turned away again she risked going into his mind, smoothly, like a sleeve of Dweller silk sliding on skin. He shifted his shoulders, troubled, not knowing why, then came away from the window and sat down by the wall.
‘Watch, boy,’ he said to Duro. He closed his eyes to sleep, but Xantee, still soft, kept his thoughts in motion. She found Keech there: a short man, bandy-legged but heavy in his torso. He had a blind milky eye and a lopsided face. Tarl was afraid of him. It surprised her. She had supposed he was frightened of nothing. He feared – she could barely find it – a darkness, a power, in Keech’s mind. She risked going deeper to find what it was, but Tarl’s eyes flew open and fastened on her, and the dogs, which had lain down at his sides, rose to their feet, growling.
‘What games are you playing, girl?’ Tarl said.
‘I was trying to help you sleep,’ she lied.
‘I don’t need help. Keep away.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry.’
The dogs sank down again and in a moment slept, and Tarl slept too.
What are you doing, Xantee? Duro said.
Finding out why he needs to see Keech.
And why’s that?
I don’t know. Something Keech has that Tarl doesn’t have. He hates Keech and wants to kill him. But I think he’d like to follow him too.
What for?
Getting the burrows together. Making them one. Tarl would have liked to do that. He doesn’t want to take Keech’s place, he likes dogs more than people, but he likes the way Keech has kept the burrows equal with the clerks. He doesn’t want to spoil that. And he hates the Clerk more than he hates Keech. He wants to feed the Clerk to his dogs – she shuddered – like Ottmar.
Ancient history, Duro said, turning back to his spyhole.
But still, he’d like to kill Keech.
Well, he might have a chance, because he’s here.
Who, Keech?
Duro gave a silent laugh. The king of the burrows, he said.
She went to his side and saw what amused him. There was nothing kinglike about the man coming round the edge of the pond. The picture she had found in Tarl’s mind was accurate: bandy legs, thick chest, a blind eye like a milk-stone on a beach, a face mottled grey by disease on one side, and fallen so his cheek hung like a dewlap. He was like a dog that should slink at the rear of the pack, yet here he was leading this band of savage men, telling them when to fight and when to kill. He was dressed the same as them. So, Xantee thought, it’s in his mind, it’s in his tongue.
He was white-haired, and white in the half of his beard that grew, and older than the man in Tarl’s mind. He moved as though his joints rasped, one bone against the other. But his good eye was as quick as a beetle. He carried a sword of hammered iron in his hand.
The men lounging on the cobbles made no move to rise. Keech was not that sort of king. He made his way from the western gate past the edge of the pond, paused to spit in the water, whacked a biting insect from his face, quick as a cat. No sign of sore joints in that movement. He ran his sword into its sheath, unstrapped his belt and dropped it, sat down with the dicing men and started to play. A scout crept close to him and whispered. Keech stopped the game by putting his hand on the thrown dice – his first sign of command. He listened, nodded, and the man edged away. The game went on. Another scout arrived and reported, then a third. The sun sank low and shadows crept along the cobblestones from the western side of the square.
Tarl woke and the dogs were instantly on their feet.
‘Keech is here,’ Duro said.
‘Why didn’t you wake me, boy?’ He pulled Duro from the spyhole and took his place, then made a puff of breath, more puzzled than aggressive. ‘Keech,’ he said. The dogs had their noses to the lower hole again. Xantee and Duro eased them away, using a pressure that would not antagonise them, and knelt side by side, looking out. There was Keech playing dice, his hands as quick as snakes. Xantee felt the power of the man. She sensed the darkness in him. Duro’s shoulder, hard against her, his cheek touching hers, softened her fear; but still Keech held her. Something moved in him, deep in his mind, like the shadow of a giant fish deep in the sea.
Duro, don’t go there, she said, meaning don’t try to penetrate Keech’s mind.
No, he said.
I think he’ll know.
Tarl stayed at the spyhole, muttering to himself and fingering his knife. Xantee knelt back from the hole and read his thoughts, and found confusion. Hatred of Keech. Admiration too.
‘Yes, girl,’ Tarl said, glancing down at her. ‘Keech is the burrows. Keech is king.’
‘If we stay here he’ll find us,’ she said. She felt the truth of it: some combination of senses – smell, hearing, sight, and some other sense, rising from the darkness in him – would point the man in their direction.
She looked out again and saw women emerging from the western gate. They carried bags of meat and open pots of steaming greens and put them down among the resting men. Two of them lowered a bag and pot in the circle of dice players. Keech drew a haunch of meat out of the bag – good meat, this, from some forest animal. He dipped into the pot and took a dripping handful of greens. It must have burned him for he gave a grunt of pain. One of the women laughed and he snarled at her, then grinned with the half-mouth in the good side of his face. The men ate. The women waited.
Xantee, Duro said, it’s Hans. It’s the man we caught.
He had come through the south gate and was slinking round the edge of the pond. He approached Keech and stood behind him, and Keech beckoned without looking round.
Hans crouched and whispered in his ear. Xantee could not hear what he was saying, but she read Keech’s disbelief in the sudden stiffening of his shoulders. He swung his head and looked at Hans. The man reeled back as if he had been struck.
‘Lies,’ Keech roared.
Hans fell to his knees.
‘This man is lying to me. Hold him.’
Two men sprang at Hans and jerked him to his feet. Keech rose slowly. But instead of reaching for his knife, as Xantee had feared, he took Hans’s jaw in his hand and forced his face upwards.
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‘Look at me, Hans.’ He spoke softly but his voice travelled clearly in the silence that had fallen on the square.
‘Now, what did you see?’
‘Nothing, Keech. I swear it. Empty streets, that’s all.’
‘And what do you see now?’
‘I see you, Keech.’
‘And who do you fear?’
Hans writhed but the men held him.
‘I fear you, Keech.’
Keech smiled. His good eye, sharp as a blackthorn, pierced Hans.
‘Then tell me what you saw.’
‘Keech, I saw . . .’
‘Tell me.’
‘I saw . . .’
‘It’s easy, Hans. Just turn around and face the other way.’
The men who held Hans began to turn him, but Keech hissed angrily. He meant something else.
Duro, he’s breaking into his mind, Xantee said.
‘Now,’ Keech said.
‘Keech, I saw dog marks in the street. And I heard . . .’
‘What did you hear?’
‘A voice.’
‘Where from?’
‘In my head. I don’t know where from.’
‘A man’s voice?’
‘No, a woman’s. A girl’s.’
‘What did she say to you, Hans?’
‘She said – she asked – if Keech knows Tarl has come.’
‘Tarl?’
‘The dogman, Keech.’
‘I know who he is. So he’s here. The women who saw him were right. With two dogs. And a boy and girl. The girl is the one who spoke to you. What else did she say?’
‘She asked where I would go to report.’
‘And you said People’s Square?’
‘Yes, Keech.’
Keech put his hand in his beard. Xantee felt him thinking; felt his thoughts flick and move like tadpoles in a pond, but could not make out what they were. She knew if she tried to go deeper he would feel her and reach out for her. She could repel him, or at least hold him still, she was confident of it, but she could not hold sixty men, even with Duro’s help.
‘And you told her tonight, Hans?’ Keech said.
‘Her voice was in me like a hand, Keech, picking up what she wanted.’
‘And mine is in you like a knife. Which is stronger?’
‘Yours, Keech. Yours.’
Keech smiled – half his mouth, the other half dead. ‘At the end she told you to forget?’
‘Yes, Keech. Forget.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘I rubbed out the footprints of the dog.’
‘And forgot?’
‘Yes,’ Hans whispered.
‘But now you remember?’
‘I remember.’
‘Then what is the thing you will not say?’
‘Nothing, Keech. Nothing.’
‘Hans, you lie. Shall I dig out your lie with my knife?’
Hans began to cry and the men holding him pushed him back and forth like a child.
‘Keech, it is . . .’
‘Is what, my friend? Is what?’
‘It is . . . the name you told us never to say.’
‘Him? The Fat One? One arm? She asked about him?’
‘She said – where is he?’
‘And you said?’
‘In the city. In Ceebeedee.’
‘Why did she want to know?’
‘Keech, she did not say.’
‘And then?’
‘She told me to forget.’
Keech signalled the men and they let Hans go. He sank to his knees. Keech turned away, fingers in his beard. Xantee felt the turmoil in his mind – hatred of Tarl and the Clerk, hatred mixed with triumph, for he saw his way. She felt him working it out, felt his mind baring ideas with a sound like clicking, as fast as a herdsman with his shears.
‘So,’ he said. She felt the weight of the word but could not see what it meant. He turned back to Hans.
‘This man is no use to me any more.’
The two who had held him drew their knives.
‘No,’ Keech said. ‘He has turned into a girl. Go with the women, Hans. You can live with the women now.’
‘Keech,’ Hans pleaded.
‘Go,’ he said. Hans stood up and felt his way blindly through the men.
Keech said, ‘Carry a pot. You’re a woman now. Make yourself useful.’
Hans picked up an empty pot and went through the laughing men, with women in a grinning clutch behind him. Keech raised his arm. The laughing stopped.
‘Burrows men,’ Keech said, ‘you’ve heard what the girl, Hansee, says. The dogman is here. I’ve waited for him and he’s come. Tarl, whose name was Knife in Blood Burrow. Blood Burrow is no more. We’re Keech men now. But Tarl has come back with his dogs. Who wants to feast on dog meat tonight?’
The men roared with approval.
‘Tarl betrayed us on the hill, when we killed Ottmar and his son. Tarl, with his son Hari, betrayed us. Now he’s back and he’ll die for it. And the girl he travels with, she will die. But take care, burrows men. She can wriggle like a worm into your heads. She can make you forget what you must know. So when you find her kill her quick. But Tarl, bring Tarl to me, and I will ask him why he wants to know where the Fat One is. I think, burrows men, that he has come back to betray us again.’
In the room, watching through the boards, Tarl groaned, ‘No.’
‘Tarl, come away. Let’s get out of here. He’ll find us soon,’ Xantee said.
‘I did not betray them. I’m burrows to the end. I’ll never betray.’
‘Men,’ Keech said, raising his arm, this time with his knife clutched in his hand, ‘soon we will hunt. We hunt tonight. We hunt the traitor, Tarl. We hunt his dogs. We hunt the girl, and the boy with her. Use your eyes. Use your noses. Sniff them out.’
The men roared again, unsheathing their knives, making them glitter in the slanting light.
‘But where to start, eh? Where to go? There’s a question.’ Keech was almost whispering. ‘Shall I tell you? We’ll start here. Keech men, I smell dog. They’ve come to us. I smell traitor. I smell Tarl.’
Tarl stepped back from the spyhole. ‘No,’ he bellowed. He drew back his fist and smashed the rotten boards on the window, raining broken wood into the square. He thrust his head through the hole.
‘I am Tarl. I’m not a traitor. I’m Blood Burrow,’ he cried. He pushed out his arm, holding the black knife. ‘Here is my knife, my knife for the burrows. Show me the Clerk, I will kill him.’
Keech gave a little spring of triumph, slapping his bare feet on the cobbles. ‘Bring him to me. Kill the girl,’ he shouted. His men broke around him and streamed across the square. Their rush was so sudden Xantee did not know which way to run. They scattered the retreating women, knocked Hans to the ground and trampled him.
Xantee, there must be stairs for them to get up here, Duro said. ‘Tarl, which way to the stairs?’
‘No stairs,’ Tarl said, stepping away from the window.
‘They’re going to kill us. Where do we go?’
Tarl shook himself, restored himself. His eyes darted. ‘They’ll have to climb. Follow me.’
He ran from the room, followed by the dogs. Xantee and Duro ran after him. He led them back the way they had come, away from the corner of the square the men had rushed to. Xantee heard them shouting, making hunting cries, as they climbed the rubble to reach the floor where Tarl had smashed the window. Tarl was quick and sure, knife unsheathed, dogs at his heels. He took them along the south side, turned north the way they’d come. They reached the corner where the gatehouse stood and edged their way around the gaping hole in the floor. Cobblestones gleamed below them, and suddenly a man was there, creeping, slinking. It was the scout, Hans, who raised his eyes and saw Tarl and the dogs, and screeched, ‘Here, here. The traitor is here.’
Tarl raised his knife to throw, then saw he would lose it. ‘Hurry,’ he cried to Xantee, and ran on.
She rounded
the hole, stepping surely, with Duro behind her. Suddenly, below her, Keech came into being, like a wraith; but was fleshy, hairy, snarling, single-eyed, and stabbing into her with his mind. He was no knife-thrower or he could have killed her then, while she stood stunned by the strength of his blow. She felt Duro grab her and force her on, and his touch helped her recover.
No, she said to him – a command so strong she almost felt his arms spring away. With no pause she hurled a stronger command at Keech: Let go.
Keech staggered. He opened his mouth to call for his men, but she said: Be quiet.
He half obeyed – only half. He spoke to her: Girl, you’re no match for me. I can turn you into mud.
She knew that if she weakened it was true. He would wrap her like a spider with a fly. All Hari’s teaching, all Pearl’s, all Tealeaf’s, were concentrated in a pair of words in her mind: Believe. Act. And she heard, far off, or thought she heard, the soft singing double note of her name: Xantee.
She stared into Keech’s deep black eye. He heard a voice too, she heard it say: Keech. He was strong. He would fall on her like a slide of wet clay from a mountainside. But he was slow, using his powers as though they were muscle and bone.
She knocked him over. She rolled him howling on the cobbles. She could have made him stab himself with his own knife. But she baulked at that and he had time to scream, ‘Here, burrows. Here.’ His black eye fastened on her again, but she closed it easily, flicked its lid shut.
See nothing, Keech, until morning.
Duro forced her on. He half carried her. She had used all her strength. All she wanted to do was lie down against a wall and sleep.
Keep going, Xantee, Duro commanded. He was putting strength in her, was moving her legs and keeping her eyes open. Tarl ran on ahead. She saw him dimly, saw the dogs like shadows at his side. He waited at a beam that climbed across a hole where water glimmered deep down.
‘Are they coming?’
‘They’re coming,’ Duro said. Xantee heard cries, heard bare feet slapping on stone floors. It seemed far off, but as her mind recovered, she understood it was close, no more than a corridor away.
‘Tarl, where are we going?’ Duro said.
‘We’re running, boy. That’s all,’ Tarl said.
