Firesong

by William Nicholson

  ‘The graves have no bodies in them?’

  ‘You could call them markers, perhaps. I would have buried them if I could, but where they died, the ground was frozen hard as rock.’

  Puzzled, Bowman reached into the fat man’s mind. He found there a quiet aching sense of loss, which matched the saddened tone with which he was speaking. But then, pushing a little deeper, he was startled to find a much stronger emotion: a terrible howling desolation.

  I am doomed, he heard the captain cry, deep in his heart. I am doomed.

  Bowman was bewildered. This was the man who lived in a little paradise, who loved to eat, who sang that no one was as happy as he. What could be the cause of such anguish?

  ‘You will be wondering what became of my companions,’ said Canobius, quite unaware of Bowman’s discovery. No terror sounded in his voice, and as he spoke he continued stirring and tasting and refining his marinade.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bowman.

  ‘We were a ship’s company, the crew of the Stella Marie. We went down in a storm off the Loomus coast. Our poor ship was driven onto the rocks, and pounded to matchwood. We came ashore, twenty-three of us all told, and swore never to sail the western ocean again.’

  ‘You were the captain?’

  Canobius looked round and lowered his voice.

  ‘I was the ship’s cook. Forgive a lonely man his little vanity.’

  ‘You’re certainly the captain now,’ said Bowman.

  ‘So I am. Ah, poor fellows! Our ship was gone. We set off to cross the hills, heading for the kinder waters to the east. We proposed to offer our services to shipowners there. But winter came early that year. We were poorly clothed. We suffered.’

  He shook his head, and nibbled at a spoonful of stew.

  ‘All I really miss is salt,’ he murmured.

  ‘They died in the winter?’

  ‘They did. One by one. I thought I would die too. But even then I was a stout fellow. I’ve no doubt it was my fatness that kept me alive. By the time I found the island, I was the last one standing.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘Oh, years ago. I’ve lost count. There are no seasons here.’

  ‘And since then?’

  ‘Since then, as you see. Loneliness, but happiness.’

  He beamed at Bowman. There seemed no more to say, so Bowman returned to the wagon. There his gaze fell once more on the sleeping cat.

  ‘I’ve never known Mist sleep like this,’ he said to himself.

  He knelt down and put his head close to the cat’s head. He heard Mist’s even breathing. Gently he touched the cat’s ear. The ear flickered, in automatic response, but the cat didn’t wake. He stroked Mist’s back, running his hand all the way down from the neck to the tail. Still he didn’t wake.

  Concerned, he leaned his head closer still, and reached into the cat’s mind. He found no thoughts there, not of the kind that can be expressed in words; but he found a feeling, or the dream of a feeling. It was the oddest combination of two quite separate sensations: one of happiness, a great happiness that filled all the cat’s mind; the other a dwindling, as if the cat was growing smaller and smaller, or moving further and further away.

  Bowman found he was quite unable to wake the cat, so he whispered into his ear,

  ‘Don’t leave me, Mist.’

  The cat’s ear flickered again in response, and he slept on.

  10

  Captain Canobius’s feast

  The two groups, made shy by their different choices for the coming day, slept apart from each other that night. Sisi and Lunki lay close by the Haths’ sleep huddle. They slept without blankets, because in the steamy air of the valley the temperature dropped very little after sundown.

  Bowman dreamed confused dreams, and woke in the night, and could not get back to sleep. His mind was troubled by the feeling that there was something bad in the valley, something he was missing. He wanted to warn his friends who had chosen to stay behind, but what could he tell them? Canobius was concealing some terror, he was sure of it; but he couldn’t give it a name.

  There was no light in the cloud-capped valley; not so much as the faintest glimmer of a star. Bowman could open his eyes, and then close them, and detect no difference. Perhaps because of this, his other senses were more acute. He could hear the steady sleep-breathing of each member of his group, and could follow each small movement they made as they slept. He could also sense how far they were from him. It was through this sense that he became aware that he was not the only one awake.

  Someone had sat up. He heard the exhalation of a breath. In such a darkness, a single breath was as recognisable as a voice.

  ‘Sisi? Are you awake?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing. I often wake in the night.’

  ‘This is more than night. I’ve never known darkness like it. I can’t even see my own hand.’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘No.’

  They were speaking very softly, aware of the others sleeping round them. It was comforting for both of them to hear the other’s voice. It gave form to the darkness.

  ‘I like it,’ said Sisi. ‘I like it that you can’t see me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘Because of your scars?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Sisi. You think your scars make you ugly. They don’t.’

  ‘You only say that to be kind. I’d rather you were truthful than kind.’

  ‘I am telling you the truth.’

  There was a silence. Then Sisi spoke very low.

  ‘Ah, Bowman. If I was still beautiful, you’d love me as I love you.’

  Bowman hardly knew how to reply. It was strange, this darkness. It made it possible to say things that could never be said in the light.

  ‘You’re still beautiful,’ he said at last. ‘More beautiful.’

  ‘But you don’t love me.’

  Bowman was silenced.

  ‘It seems strange to me that you don’t love me,’ said Sisi after a while. ‘People have always loved me. And I love you. How can there be so much love in me, and so little in you?’

  She spoke with no reproach in her voice; only genuine perplexity, and sadness.

  ‘I can’t love you, Sisi. I told you. Someone will come for me soon, and take me away, and we’ll never meet again.’

  ‘Why not? Where will you go?’

  ‘To a place called Sirene.’

  ‘And never return?’

  ‘I’ll die there, Sisi. Before the winter is over.’

  ‘Die?’ Her voice changed. ‘You can’t love me, because you’re going to die soon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But that’s not right. If you’re going to die soon, you should love me now, before it’s too late.’

  ‘And then leave you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t want that.’

  ‘Yes. I do.’

  ‘Oh, Sisi.’

  ‘You can say “Oh Sisi” as much as you like, but when you kissed me, you liked it. Don’t pretend you didn’t.’

  ‘It’s true. But what’s the point?’

  ‘What’s the point of kissing? It doesn’t have a point. It’s just a kiss. If everything you do is in order to do something else, when do you ever get to the end of it all?’

  Bowman felt himself smiling, and wondered if she could sense it.

  ‘You make it all sound so easy.’

  ‘It is easy. Because of what you said. You said you’re going to die soon. Don’t you see how easy that makes everything?’

  He was impressed. Once he had thought Sisi a stupid child. The more he came to know her, the less stupid she seemed.

  ‘Everything you might ever have done in all your life has to be done now, or you’ll never do it.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose so.’

  ‘Now, Bowman. Do you know what now means?’

  ‘I thin
k so.’

  ‘It means now.’

  A silence fell: a silence that roared like thunder in the utter darkness. Bowman found himself calculating how far apart from each other they were sitting. If he were to put out a hand –

  He reached out one hand. With a shock, he felt her fingertips. She was reaching out to him.

  Their hands met, palm to palm. Without saying a word, their fingers interlocked, in the secret friends sign. Without saying a word, they both leaned forward, until they could feel each other’s breath on their cheeks, until their brows met and touched. Without saying a word, they kissed.

  For the rest of that warm night, they lay folded close in each other’s arms, and made not a sound. When light began to creep into the sky, they parted, understanding that whatever had passed between them belonged to the darkness, and must slip away like a dream with the dawn.

  The Manth people woke, and stretched, and washed, their usual morning chatter somewhat subdued. This was to be the day of parting. Canobius was up and about, busying himself at his pots, which now stood neck-deep in the seething waters of the lake. Beside the three big pots stood a small pot, to which he was adding ingredients from his store.

  Hanno Hath set his little group to work packing the wagon and preparing everything for their departure. Bowman shook Mist. This time the cat woke. He had slept for a whole day and a night.

  ‘Thank goodness! I thought there was something wrong with you.’

  ‘Oh, boy!’ said Mist, still half in a dream. ‘I’ve been so far away! Must I come back?’

  ‘We’ll be on our way soon. Can’t sleep for ever.’

  ‘Yes, boy, yes. Can sleep for ever. Such a happy sleep. Want it to be for ever.’

  This dreamy contentment was out of character. Bowman looked at the cat more closely.

  ‘I think maybe you’ve been sick, my Mist.’

  ‘Life is a sickness,’ murmured Mist. ‘Death is the cure.’

  ‘What! You’re not sick! You’re drunk.’

  He picked Mist up, floppy in his hands, and carried him over to the nearest stream, and dropped him in. The cat sank like a stone, and then jerked into frantic life, clawing his way back out of the pool.

  ‘Does that feel better?’

  ‘It feels a great deal worse,’ said the cat, shaking off the water. ‘And since you’re neither helpful, attractive, or amusing, I’d prefer you to leave me alone now.’

  ‘That’s my Mist,’ said Bowman, relieved.

  At his wife’s request, Hanno Hath made one last appeal to the twenty who had chosen to stay in the valley.

  ‘You still have time to change your minds.’

  ‘I was going to say the same thing to you,’ said Branco Such. ‘Give up this foolishness, Hanno. The winter will pass soon enough.’

  ‘We leave in an hour,’ Hanno replied.

  ‘In an hour! What about the captain’s feast? You can’t miss the farewell feast.’

  ‘We need all the daylight we can get,’ said Hanno; and returned to the wagon.

  Mrs Chirish was sent over to Captain Canobius to ask if it would be possible to have the feast right away.

  ‘But it’s not ready,’ exclaimed the captain. ‘I need a good hour yet. The morning herbs have only just gone into the kettle.’

  ‘Our friends are leaving, you see,’ said Mrs Chirish.

  ‘What of that?’ said Canobius. ‘My feast isn’t for those who go. It’s for those who stay. And for you, good lady, a special dish, which I shall share with you.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Corn cakes, with white truffles! I’ve been keeping them for a special occasion. There’s just enough truffles for two.’

  ‘I’ve never had truffles,’ said Mrs Chirish.

  ‘Madam, your life has not yet begun.’

  Mrs Chirish returned to the others, and told them why the feast could not be eaten yet, and how she was to be given white truffles.

  Now the horses were harnessed to the wagon. Creoth rounded up his three cows. Tanner Amos stacked the last of the wood he had chopped into the wagon’s bed. The time was come to say goodbye.

  ‘We’ll follow in the spring,’ said Miko Mimilith. ‘Only a few weeks, and we’ll all be together again.’

  The little girls clustered round Mumpo, hugging him and weeping. Silman Pillish coughed and cleared his throat and coughed again.

  ‘Sad day,’ he said. ‘Duty to the little ones. Hard winter. Sad day.’

  Creoth spoke briefly to Mrs Chirish.

  ‘Well, madam. I hope you know what you’re doing.’

  Mrs Chirish held Mumpo in her arms and wept.

  ‘Oh, Mumpie! My Mumpie!’

  ‘It won’t be long, auntie. Don’t cry.’

  Miller Marish shook everyone’s hand, saying,

  ‘It’s for the children.’

  One by one they completed their goodbyes.

  ‘When the time comes,’ said Hanno, ‘head north, across the river, over the mountains. We’ll be waiting for you.’ But the look on his grave face told another story.

  So the little group set off at last, Bowman and Mumpo in the lead as usual, followed by Kestrel, Sisi, Lunki and Pinto. Behind them came Seldom Erth leading the two horses and the wagon. Hanno and Ira walked behind the wagon. Then came the three cows, Tawny, Stumper and Dreamer. Last of all, Creoth walked with little Scooch.

  They retraced their steps in silence through the dense green jungle, following the path of the hissing stream. They were filled with sadness at leaving their friends behind, and fear of the winter waiting for them outside the valley. As for Bowman, his mind was racing with unanswered questions.

  Why had Canobius been filled with terror? What had the pigs meant, when they said the people in the graves died of happiness? There were no people in the graves. They were the captain’s memorial to his dead shipmates. The captain wasn’t a captain at all, but a cook. He had cooked them a feast, but it wasn’t for the ones who were going away, it was for the ones who were staying behind. Mrs Chirish was to have white truffles. The valley was specially suited to fat people. Menfolk and womenfolk make babies. Mouths coming out of mouths.

  The questions and the fragments of remembered words crowded in on him, but he could make no sense of them. Maddeningly, he was taunted by the feeling that he was somehow putting them in the wrong order, that if only he could arrange them correctly he would be able to read their message.

  The luxuriant growth was giving way to hardier trees now, and the air was cooler. They were passing the place where Mist had chased the bird, and led Bowman to the three lines of graves.

  Five. Eight. Thirteen.

  Twenty-six graves. How many shipmates on the Stella Marie? Twenty-three, the captain had said. Why the extra three mounds?

  ‘Stop!’

  The little column halted behind him.

  ‘Something’s wrong. Mumpo, I need you.’

  ‘What is it, Bo?’ asked his father.

  ‘I’ll tell you if I’m right.’

  He led Mumpo through the trees to the graveyard. There were the rows of mounds, neatly tended, as he had first seen them.

  ‘The captain told me there’s nothing under these mounds,’ Bowman said to Mumpo. ‘But I want to see for myself.’

  They picked the mound that looked the most recent, and with their bare hands they scraped away at the earth. In that damp warm climate, the earth was soft, and came away in sticky lumps. For a while all they found was more earth. Then their scrabbling fingers hit something that was not earth. Feeling their way more carefully, they brushed away the soil, and found cloth. They followed the cloth, disturbing it as little as possible, until they found its end. Beyond it lay several ridges of earth, harder than the soil they had been brushing away. Only this too was not earth. It was skin and bone. It was the decaying soil-encrusted back of a dead man’s hand.

  Carefully, respectfully, trembling a little, they covered up the grave they had disturbed, and rose to their feet. Mumpo looked to Bowman for an explanation.


  ‘Why did the captain say the graves were empty?’

  Bowman was revisiting his memory of that feeling he had stumbled on, deep inside Canobius. Was it terror?

  I am doomed.

  Mouths coming out of mouths. The island is impossible to leave. People die of happiness. Mrs Chirish is to eat white truffles. A happy sleep, the cat had said. Want it to be for ever.

  ‘Quick!’ cried Bowman. ‘We must go back!’

  There was no time to explain.

  ‘He’s going to kill them all!’ cried Bowman. ‘I have to stop him!’

  He and Mumpo set off at a run. The others turned the wagon round and followed as fast as they could.

  The twenty Manth people who had chosen to stay behind had formed an orderly line, to be given their share of the feast. A mouth-watering aroma rose from the steaming mixture. Captain Canobius held the ladle above the pot with a beaming smile.

  ‘You’ve never tasted anything so fine in all your lives, I promise you!’

  He had just dipped the ladle into the stew when the sound of running feet surprised them all. They turned to see Bowman and Mumpo come bursting out of the trees.

  ‘Don’t eat it!’ cried Bowman, panting for breath. ‘It’s poisoned! He wants to kill you all! He’s killed other travellers before us! You’ve all seen their graves!’

  Utter astonishment filled every face. Their eyes turned towards Canobius. He looked as surprised as any of them.

  ‘Kill them all?’ he said. ‘What nonsense! I don’t know what he’s talking about.’

  ‘Then eat it yourself!’

  Bowman had his breath back now. He jumped up onto the deck of the Stella Marie, took the brimming ladle from Canobius’s hand, and held it up to his mouth.

  ‘Eat it yourself!’

  Canobius took the ladle. He looked from Bowman to the stew, and then, with great dignity, back to Bowman.

  ‘I will eat it myself,’ he said. ‘It would make me happy to do so.’

  He sat down on the deck, tipped the ladle towards his lips, took in a mouthful of the palm-heart stew, and ate it.

  Bowman watched, confused.

  ‘Am I wrong?’ he said. ‘I thought you’d found a poisonous plant that put people to sleep for ever. I thought you were giving Mrs Chirish her own special food because you wanted her alone to stay alive.’