“Poor Tigris!” said Mara. A shiver ran through her orange fur, despite the warmth of the day. She remembered the incidents when Begum had said she’d been sending in her sleep, and for the first time, she wondered how far her whiskers would have knotted if she hadn’t eventually stepped out. “Everyone says she was such a great Sender, but to stay trapped inside your house forever, never being able to go out…” Mara pinned her ears back, not liking the thought.
“But Tigris did go out,” said Beraal, grooming her long fur and claws carefully. “You know the bats whom you met in my house? Pola, Drac and the rest? Their clan goes back almost as many generations as ours does, and they told me that they often heard her. She did not send to the clan in her later years; her sendings became more infrequent, perhaps because she knew that they thought her behaviour was odd. But she stayed in touch with her friends the sparrows, and with some of the mynahs, and indeed, with a few of the bats.”
Mara looked from the house to the banks of the canal. It was not such a great distance.
“She came out in the evenings, often, if she could be sure that none of us were around,” said Beraal. “The bats say that Tigris was always kind. However much of a tangle her whiskers had got into, however hard the burden of sending had become for her, she would greet the sparrows every day, and even chat with the carriage horses when they went by. And they say that she met a handsome tom one day—a stranger who was passing through or some such—and that he enjoyed her stories greatly. Tigris was a marvellous storyteller, Mara.”
The Sender’s green eyes were intent, and her orange tail flicked lightly from side to side. The cats moved closer to the wall when a laughing crocodile of schoolboys wound its way down the road, but the young Bigfeet did not notice them, and they let themselves relax again.
“The bats say that some moons after the handsome tom had left, Tigris left the house, too, and made her home elsewhere.”
Mara raised her ears. “Under the canal,” she said.
Beraal brushed her whiskers with her own. “Under the canal,” she said. “Where she had her only litter of kittens, of whom only one survived. And that one became Nizamuddin’s Sender.”
The sparrows kicked up the dust near the birdbath, letting it sift through their feathers. They ducked their beaks into the water from time to time, enjoying the dust bath, hopping and chattering.
Mara had raised her whiskers involuntarily, but there was nothing—no scent from the canal, after so many seasons, to remind her of Tigris or her kittenhood. The Sender huddled, thinking back. “You’re a Sender,” her mother had said. Mara remembered the low murmur, the gentle, loving touch of her mother’s whiskers, as clearly as the sound of the traffic that had rumbled and thundered over their small, snug home under the bridge. She pressed close to Beraal’s flank, and her fur warmed, just as it had when her mother had washed her all those moons ago. And Tigris’ deep, steady voice came back to her: “It’s not an easy life,” she had said. “It’s an interesting life.” Then there had been the dogs, and the Bigfeet, and Mara had forgotten those days under the canal. It came back to her; Tigris’s blue eyes had been far away, and her whiskers had stilled as she spoke. Her mew had trembled slightly: “It’s not an easy life.” She had not been speaking mother to daughter, Mara thought. She had been speaking Sender to Sender. She had nuzzled Mara, and washed her to sleep, easing all the day’s small aches and worries, and Tigris had promised that she would teach Mara all that she knew.
Mara had been staring out towards the canal. She shivered, and turned to Beraal: “Why did Tigris feel she had to leave her house to have her litter? Wouldn’t she have been more comfortable there? Her Bigfeet wouldn’t have minded, would they?”
Beraal ducked as a cheel flew a little too close overhead. “Her Bigfeet would not have minded, and the bats couldn’t say why—Tigris never told them. But you know what my whiskers tell me? They say that Tigris left because she wanted her kittens to be born outside, just as she was. Perhaps she knew that if she’d had her kittens inside the Bigfeet’s house, she would never have stepped out, and she would never have let her kittens step out, either.”
“But she must have been scared of the outside by then, if she’d spent so long living inside, away from the clan,” said Mara.
“Yes,” said Beraal, “I can almost feel what that fear would be like, on my fur and on my whiskers. And though we’ll never know, perhaps Tigris wanted more than a comfortable home for her kittens. Perhaps she wanted you to live a different life, one where you could shake the fear of the outside from your paws and whiskers.”
“Really?” asked Mara, and her whiskers rose a little.
“Yes,” said Beraal. She hadn’t known Tigris very well, but from what the bats had said to her, she had begun to understand the courage it would have taken for the other cat to leave the safety of her Bigfeet’s home.
“She never told me she was a Sender,” said Mara. “But she said she would teach me what it meant to be a Sender. Before the dogs came for us.”
Beraal stretched, and as gently as she could, she rubbed her nose and whiskers along the length of Mara’s flank. “That was brave of her,” she said. “To teach you what it meant to be the clan’s Sender, Tigris would have had to return to sending herself. She would have had to raise her own whiskers, in order to show you how to control yours.”
The Bigfeet inside the house were stirring, and Beraal’s ears flickered. Mara and she rose and stretched; it was time to return to the kittens. They padded in companionable silence down the road, but Beraal had made Mara feel much better. They left the house that Tigris had lived in for so many years behind them, and as they passed the canal bridge, Beraal paused, raising her whiskers at Mara questioningly.
“We don’t have to rush,” she said. “Hulo’s with Ruff and Tumble, and though they bully him dreadfully he’s really quite good at looking after them. Do you want to go back to see your home again, before we go?”
The pigs grunted and shifted down below, and the stink rose thick from the canal.
“I don’t need to,” said Mara, and to her surprise, she found that she meant it. “Everything that was special about my mo—about Tigris—is here, in my fur, on my whiskers, in my memories. I remember the way she brought back fresh kill, and how happiness sang in her fur when she and I lay curled up together. She told me that my whiskers would take me everywhere, and they have. She came outside for me, and perhaps we would have both been Senders together.”
Beraal felt a sharp pang run through her fur; how much easier this winter would have been for the clan, if there had been Tigris as well as Mara to guide them! But the sense of loss was as brief and as fleeting as a stray scent caught and tossed aside by the winds.
“You may never have been taught by Tigris,” she said in a soft mew as they moved on. “But you have her blood, and her skills, and just as Tumble has my colouring, perhaps Tigris gave you her whiskers. It is something, to be a Sender; and something more, to be the daughter of one of Delhi’s greatest Senders.”
Mara felt her tail go up and her ears rise in happiness. She had been imagining Tigris’s life indoors, and thinking of her only memories of her mother. “If I am the daughter of a Sender,” she said, her whiskers glad, “perhaps I am not so strange after all.”
They left the canal, and Mara felt a lightness in her paws and fur. She let the last of the canal’s sounds and smells touch her flanks, and then she said a silent goodbye to her old home.
Ahead, the warrior queen slowed abruptly, hunching up her shoulders, her vibrissae rising in alarm. She signalled to Mara to get down, and the Sender obediently dropped behind one of the abandoned termite heaps that dotted the verge. The two raised their heads, and Mara took in a deep breath, puzzled. It was a bird, but she could not tell whether it was predator or prey. It waddled along the ground, its talons digging into the dirt, and from time to time, it flapped its brown and gold wings.
“What is it doing?” she asked, confused. The bi
rd seemed to be a young cheel, but Mara had never seen one of the great sailors of the sky on the ground before, so she wasn’t sure. As she raised her whiskers inquiringly at Beraal, the bird bobbed up and down, pumping its wings more strongly, letting its gold-flecked wingtips graze the dusty ground. Mara squinted at it, narrowing her green eyes. The cheel had begun raising itself up and down, as though it were doing push-ups with its talons.
Beraal gave a soft, amused mew. “That’s Hatch,” she said. “Tooth’s son.”
Mara watched Hatch pirouette on his talons while he pumped his wings even faster.
“Is he wounded, or is that some kind of mating dance?” she asked, fascinated.
“Neither,” said Beraal, though her own whiskers were twitching in laughter. “He’s challenged in the flying department. Hatch?”
The cheel stopped dead in his tracks, and then he turned warily in their direction. He pushed his wings up awkwardly, peering at Beraal.
“We were just passing when we saw you,” said Beraal, “so I thought we’d stop and say hello. How’s Tooth?”
Hatch stared at her, his beak agape.
“I’m Beraal,” she said patiently, “and this is Mara. We’re friends of your father’s, after a fashion.”
Hatch closed his beak and mumbled something that might have been a hello.
Mara thought he might be annoyed that they had interrupted. “Don’t let us stop you if you’re practising your flying,” she said, extending her whiskers kindly in his direction. “We can wait here while you take off. We don’t want to stray across your flight path by accident. Besides, I’ve never seen a cheel actually take off from the ground, your dad and the squadron seem to live in the sky.”
Hatch said, “Whatever,” miserably, but he didn’t move.
Mara stared at the fledgling, wondering what she had said to make the young cheel’s feathers droop. He smelled tired to her, and truculent, and beneath that, he just smelled sad.
Beraal flicked her ears lightly and said, raising her whiskers only a little so that Hatch wouldn’t be able to hear her, “Hatch has had some trouble—as I was saying earlier—in the flying department.”
But Hatch had sharp ears. The fledgling drew his wings even closer around him and mumbled, “Can’t. Don’t wanna.” Then he turned his back on them, ruffling his feathers with some meaning.
Beraal stretched her spine, savouring the feel of the sunlight on her back, and turned to go. “We won’t bother you any more, young Hatch,” she said, and began to stroll away.
Mara studied the cheel’s rigid back, noting the sweep and strength of the wing feathers, the fully fledged tail feathers, the powerful muscles in his talons.
“A moment, Beraal,” she said. The young queen stepped around the termite mound, circling until she and Hatch faced each other. The fledgling clacked his beak, irritably.
“You can’t, or you don’t want to?” she asked.
Beraal fluffed her fur in warning. Hatch was Tooth’s son, and far from being part of their clan, they weren’t even the same species. His problems were none of their business. She had her whiskers up, and was about to let Mara know that they should leave him alone, when the fledgling spoke.
“Whatever,” he said, but his golden eyes scanned Mara. “Who cares?”
Mara sat down, settling herself on her haunches and looking up inquiringly into Hatch’s eyes. Beraal felt a sudden prickle of fear; the Sender had left her throat bare and vulnerable, and Hatch was a cheel, a predator with a sharp, lethal beak, almost fully fledged.
“You haven’t answered my question,” said Mara calmly. She began grooming her whiskers and cleaning her ears. “Can’t? Tried and failed? Never tried? Don’t mean to try?”
Hatch spread his wings out and then let them drop. Mara continued to wash herself, and after some time, she said, “I might care.”
Hatch said, “Whatever?” cautiously.
Mara flicked the tip of her tail casually and stretched until all her muscles had been fully wrung out. “I was answering your question,” she said. “I might care, because I’m curious. You look like a fine, fit, well-muscled young cheel to me, and it makes me wonder: don’t you want to join the others in the sky?”
“Can’t,” mumbled Hatch.
“Oh no, Mara, don’t do that!” Beraal’s mew was anxious, her whiskers suddenly stiff with fear.
Mara ignored her. The Sender let her long white whiskers unfurl, slowly, until they brushed the very edge of Hatch’s feathers, ruffling the pinions. The cheel clacked his beak furiously and raised his wings to their full span—but Mara continued with the lightest of strokes, and to her amazement, Beraal saw Hatch drop his wings. Instead of attacking the Sender, he shuffled from one talon to another, and combed his feathers out.
The cat and the cheel watched each other for a while, his golden eyes holding her green ones steady, and it was Mara who turned away, blinking.
“Your wings are fully formed,” she said, “well-fledged and ready to lift you up into the sky, where you belong.”
Hatch said hoarsely, “So what?” He made a half-turn, but he did not turn completely away from Mara. The mynahs chattered and squabbled on the low-running parapet of the canal, and the pigs grunted lower down as they jostled each other on the banks.
“See my whiskers?” Mara said, spreading her long white whiskers out, leaning forwards a little so that he could see the delicate, curved whiskers that graced her forehead as well. “They are as long and as white as your wings are strong and well-muscled.”
Beraal, who was keeping a wary eye on Hatch just in case he should lose his temper—raptors were notoriously short on patience, and he was, after all, the son of Tooth and Claw—spoke. “Mara is the Sender of Nizamuddin,” she said. “Her whiskers go further than ours can reach, and she walks further than any of us can with our paws.”
Hatch blinked and preened his tail feathers, trying not to look impressed. “Yeah,” he said, inspecting a talon. “Whatever.”
Mara flicked her ears, listening as the first few cars and bicycles began to pass them, and as the Bigfeet inside their homes began to stir. She looked over at Beraal, and knew that her mentor was just as alert; they would soon have to leave, or risk tangling with the Bigfeet on their way back to their homes.
“We don’t know each other, Hatch,” she said, “but when I saw you, the first thing I noticed was not your wings; it was the way you looked at the sky.”
The pupils of Hatch’s eyes went so dark that they almost crowded out the gold, and the feathers on his pileum fluffed slightly.
“Don’t look up much,” he mumbled.
Mara let her gaze travel upwards, watching as the cheels performed a complicated set of arabesques, Claw leading one half of the squadron high above the canal, Tooth teaching the newest flyboys how to do double and triple rolls over the rooftops of Jangpura.
“You try to keep your eyes on the ground,” she said, “but every few moments, you can’t help yourself—you take a quick look at the skies, at Mach and the rest exercising their wings. I know what that feels like. I used to play with my toys, curl up with my Bigfeet, but then I would stray back to the windows and doors, or let my whiskers stretch into the air so I could watch the cats of Nizamuddin. My whiskers took me anywhere I asked them to, but my paws, like your wings, would not carry me out with the rest of my clan.”
Hatch peeked at her, ruffling his wings slightly.
“You’re out here now,” he observed.
“The Sender didn’t go out for all of her first year,” Beraal said quietly, inspecting the termite mound. “She used her whiskers to connect with us and travel elsewhere, but she did not step out of her home until very recently.”
Hatch took a few steps forward, bobbing up and down on his talons.
“Scared?” he offered.
Mara raised her whiskers again, and let them brush Hatch’s feathers. This time, he did not flinch or call out in warning.
“I smell fear on your feathe
rs, and it smells the same as the fear that I carried on my fur for so long, the fear that held my paws still instead of letting me join Beraal on her hunts, Katar on his long patrols, Hulo on his explorations through the dargah,” she said. “But do you see the mynah, over there?”
He was marching up and down the length of the parapet, his yellow-stockinged legs flashing jauntily in the morning sun. His brown jacket bobbed up and down on the parapet, and the yellow legs gave him a dashing air, compensating for his garrulous chatter.
“See him,” confirmed Hatch. “Hear him, too. Yammers a lot.”
Mara rose and uncurled herself, shaking out her paws.
“He’s not at all like you, is he?” she said.
“No!” said Hatch, horrified at the thought. He bobbed uneasily on his talons, rather faster than before.
“Then why, young Hatch, are you waddling around like a mynah, or a sparrow, or a Babbler?”
Hatch’s eyes gleamed, the gold burnished by anger. When he called out, it was the keek of an adult cheel, not of a fledgling.
“I’m a cheel!” he said, and they saw the ripple of the muscles behind his feathers as he erected his wings.
“Then why aren’t you up in the sky where you belong with the other cheels?” Mara said, her mew so quiet that Hatch had to lean forward to hear the young queen.
“Sky’s so big,” he muttered. “Might fall out. Besides, other birds don’t like me. Tooth says I’m a freak. Not like Mach.” He peered at Mara. “My sister,” he elaborated. “Squadron Leader already. Started as Flight Lieutenant. Got promoted fast. I’m a cadet. Never flown. Don’t like flying.”
“From the time I was a kitten,” Mara said, “I thought it was the fear that kept me inside. I had better whiskers than most, just like you have a broader wingspan than most of the cheels up there, and there was nothing wrong with my claws or my teeth, but the world seemed too large, too frightening, and I didn’t want to meet the clan because they thought I was really strange.”
“Yeah,” Hatch said gloomily. He understood.
The Hundred Names of Darkness Page 24
