Great Uncle nodded at Auntie Fai. ‘Our guest will be hungry,’ he said. He smiled grimly. ‘We may as well feast now. What we don’t eat, the army will.’
The aunties left first, with the children. The oldest of the uncles, Jaim and Ballar, stayed in the hut. The sound of their voices floated across the dust of the courtyard, where the hens scratched unconcerned by any thought of armies. Surely Great Uncle would find a way to save them all, thought Sui. Great Uncle knew everything, or almost …
Auntie Fai nodded at the horse. ‘The beast will be thirsty,’ she said. ‘You had better give it some water.’
Sui inspected the horse nervously. ‘How do you know?’ she asked.
‘All animals drink,’ said Auntie Fai impatiently. ‘Hop to it!’
‘Yes, Auntie,’ said Sui obediently.
Sui fetched the spare wooden water bucket and trudged out to the well. Usually the cousins fetched the water for the pig-pen households in the morning, balancing it on a pole they carried between them on their shoulders, though they all took turns in carrying water for the young turnips or wheat or millet. Sui glanced at the horizon, almost expecting to see the army in the distance, a brown wall of monsters like the horse inside their courtyard.
But the horizon looked as it always did — hills like dirty skulls on one side and a thin black wrinkle where the green plain met blue sky on the other.
Surely it was impossible that an army could be so close. Life just didn’t change so suddenly. The rider must be tricking them, thought Sui. But Great Uncle believed him. Great Uncle would not be taken in by trickery.
The well had been dug long before even Great Uncle was a child, and lined with rocks dug from the soil. It was surrounded by a thick straw and mud wall, like the courtyard and hut walls, and these walls too were topped with a roof of thatch made of dried wheat stems, to stop the rain washing the thick dried mud away.
Sui lowered the well bucket into the darkness. The water level was high now in spring. Later in summer the rope would fall deep into the ground before it splashed below, and your arms ached long before you’d got the bucket to the surface.
The well was too dark to see far down it, no matter how far you leant over it thought Sui. Maybe …
Sui hauled the water up from the blackness, and ran back into the courtyard. Her mother was bending over the fire, poking twigs into it so it burnt more quickly. A freshly killed goat, already cut into chunks, hung on the spit above the flames.
Sui looked at it hopefully. It had been months since she had tasted meat, not since the last festival. But the rider and aunties and uncles could easily eat one goat between them, and they were unlikely to offer any to her. Sometimes she envied Auntie Fai, who had the job of chewing Great Uncle’s meat so it was soft enough for a toothless man to swallow. At least she got to taste the meat, even if her stomach didn’t get its goodness.
‘Mama?’
Her mother turned. ‘Yes? What is it, Chicken?’
‘Could we all hide down the well? It’s dark down there and no-one would see us …’
Her mother shook her head. There were tears in her eyes, Sui saw. Mama’s tears made the army much more real …
‘The army will need to use the well to get their water,’ she said softly. ‘But it was a good idea.’
‘But where else can we hide?’ cried Sui.
The tears seemed to freeze in her mother’s eyes. ‘I’ll ask Great Uncle to choose you to escape,’ she whispered. ‘He told me once that you are the cleverest of all the family’s young ones. I’ll tell him it is important that he choose those best able to survive.’ She bit her lips so hard the skin around them turned white. ‘Now take the water to the horse, as Auntie told you to.’
Sui nodded. She hefted up the bucket and walked across the courtyard. The horse raised its head and whinnied softly as she approached.
Sui hesitated. Its teeth were enormous, yellow-brown, broad and blunt. Its mouth looked like it could chew your arm up in a single bite.
The horse whinnied again, and Sui saw its eyes.
They were brown eyes, the biggest, gentlest eyes that Sui had ever seen.
She stepped forward cautiously and placed the bucket on the ground. The horse blew through its nose at her, and lowered its head to the bucket. Its short brown hair looked smooth … almost without thinking Sui stretched out her hand and stroked the giant neck. The skin felt warm and very strong.
There was a step behind her. ‘So,’ said the rider. ‘You have made friends.’
‘I …’ Sui began to apologise, then realised the rider was smiling. The smile looked strange, as though his face wasn’t used to smiling, but it was a kind smile nonetheless.
‘Yes,’ she said simply.
‘Good,’ said the rider. ‘My name is Timur,’ he added.
‘I’m Sui.’
‘I know,’ said Timur. ‘Your Great Uncle told me.’
Sui wondered why they had been discussing her. Perhaps her mother was right, perhaps Great Uncle was considering her to be one of the two to escape.
But she didn’t want to go! She wanted to go back to yesterday, when there was no thought of armies on the horizon. And, as that was impossible, she wanted her whole family to survive, to stay living right where they were, on their farm by the brown hills on the plain.
The rider, Timur, was still standing next to her, stroking his horse.
‘Does the horse have a name too?’ asked Sui.
‘I call him South Wind,’ said Timur. ‘The wind blew from the south as we rode away from the ruins and the smell of death. The wind smelt clean and strong. Even an army can’t stop the wind.’ He shrugged, and looked at the horse with so much love that Sui almost felt she should look away. ‘Sometimes, when I’m on his back, I feel like we are the wind too.’
‘Please,’ she said. ‘May I ask another question?’
‘If you like,’ said Timur.
‘How do they live, this great army? How can they find enough food or shelter?’
Timur shrugged. ‘They carry tents with them, giant felt tents, made of wool that is pressed under their saddles as they ride. And as for food, well, they hunt game and steal stores from the villages and towns they conquer. But mostly their horses feed them.’
‘Their horses?’
Timur began to untie the bags from either side of the horse’s back. ‘The horses feed on the grass as they travel and they give their riders milk and blood …’
‘Blood!’
‘From the big vein in their neck. It doesn’t weaken the horse if they only take a little each time. They carry dried horse meat too, in the pockets of their trousers, and dried mares’ milk in leather bags. When they have to cross a river, they blow air into the bags so they float across the river and help the men across.’
‘What about the women?’
‘There are no women with the army — or not for long.’ Timur looked away, as though he didn’t want to meet her eyes. ‘The Mongol women are back home in the far north desert lands, looking after their cows and sheep and goats. It is the northern desert that makes the men so tough.’
‘Would they really kill us?’ whispered Sui.
Timur did meet her eyes this time. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Sui. Stop bothering the guest!’ cried Auntie Fai.
Timur smiled his unpractised smile again. ‘She’s not bothering me,’ he said. But he nodded to Sui briefly, and went back to Great Uncle’s hut.
Sui crossed the courtyard to her mother and knelt next to the fire. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said.
‘Yes? You’re a thinking little chicken, aren’t you? Always so full of ideas.’
Her mother spoke like they were already parted, thought Sui. ‘I thought, what if we build a giant bed platform and we could all hide in it?’
Her mother stroked her cheek. ‘I think the soldiers might suspect something if they saw a giant bed platform and no-one about,’ she said.
‘We could hide in a pile of stra
w then!’
‘It is true that the wheat is waist high; we could cut it and make a pile of straw big enough to hide in. But the horses would trample it, and the soldiers would take it for them. And, no, we can’t hide in the grain bins, because they’ll take the grain too.’
Her mother had been trying to plan too, thought Sui. Everyone was, of course, not just Great Uncle. She gazed around the courtyard, at the hard-packed dirt and the dirt-coloured walls, and the dusty chickens that were dirt-coloured too. If only the family were the colour of dirt as well! They could press up hard against the courtyard walls and no-one would see them. If only when they had built the walls for Cousin Tasha’s hut last year, they had built them hollow, so they could hide inside …
And suddenly the idea came to her, so clear and simple it was as though it had been floating in front of her, waiting for her to pluck it from the air. Without thinking she leapt to her feet and ran across the courtyard.
‘Sui!’ called her mother. ‘What are you …?’
It was too late. Sui was through the door before she realised her bad manners. No-one ever entered Great Uncle’s hut without knocking and asking his permission. And she had just run in …
‘Sui!’ Great Uncle looked startled; it was the first time Sui had ever seen him look surprised.
‘You impertinent girl!’ Auntie Fai bustled behind her. ‘You come out at once now, and …’
‘No,’ said Great Uncle. ‘Sui is a polite girl. She must have some reason, don’t you child?’
‘Please,’ said Sui. ‘I had an idea.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Great Uncle affectionately, and Sui realised for the first time that Great Uncle really liked her. Great Uncle never showed favourites, but now … ‘She is full of ideas, this child,’ Great Uncle said to Timur. ‘Just like her father, who was like my father … well child, tell us this idea!’
Suddenly Sui felt her tongue grow too big for her mouth. ‘I just thought …’ she mumbled.
‘Speak up!’ said Great Uncle.
‘I thought of a place we could all hide.’
‘And where is this place?’ Great Uncle spoke kindly, but without much hope.
‘In the walls.’
Great Uncle looked at her, puzzled. ‘The walls are solid mud child. We can’t hide in walls.’
‘But … but we could make new walls. Like we did when we made the new hut for Auntie Tasha. But we could make them hollow and hide inside them …’
Auntie Fai snorted behind her. ‘Impossible!’
‘No,’ said Great Uncle slowly, sucking at his gums as he always did when deep in thought. ‘Not impossible. It doesn’t take long to make a wall, and we have fifteen days. There would be time for them to dry too, so they don’t look too new.’
‘But how would we breathe inside a wall?’ demanded Auntie Fai, forgetting the politeness due to Great Uncle.
‘We could leave small holes in the walls,’ suggested Sui. ‘Too small to see but big enough to breathe through.’
‘And we stand in the walls for … how long did you say it took for the army to pass?’ Auntie Fai challenged the rider. ‘Three days? Without moving or drinking or eating? It is impossible!’
‘Is it?’ asked Great Uncle softly. ‘Think, Fai. If you must choose between standing for three days inside a wall or dying with the armies of Genghis Khan, which would you choose?’
Auntie Fai fell silent. She looked at Sui, then back at Great Uncle. ‘I can stand for three days,’ she said finally. ‘And if I die of thirst or hunger, at least I die with dignity and not at the hands of soldiers. But the children — how can they be quiet for three days? And if just one of us cries out, they will find the rest.’
Great Uncle stood up. ‘You will take cloth and tie it across their mouths, so they cannot cry,’ he said. ‘And you will tie their legs and arms as well, so they cannot move. Each of us will have a gag across our mouths too, in case we cry out in our sleep or in a daze.’
‘But what will we live on when the army has passed?’ cried Auntie Fai.
‘We will tie up the hens and the roosters,’ decided Great Uncle, ‘and as many of the goats and pigs as we have room for, and hide them in the walls too. We will keep the wheat we have left from last autumn’s planting, and the turnip and onion seed, and the millet seed that would feed us till the next harvest, and keep it to plant too.’
‘And the apricot trees?’ asked Auntie Fai. The apricots were one of the village’s main foods
Great Uncle smiled grimly. ‘You can’t put a tree into walls,’ he said. ‘Perhaps the soldiers will cut them down. We can only hope they will sprout again from the roots. Now, call in the family, it is time to plan and work.’
The children took turns carrying the water and helped the women mix the mud and straw, and the men took lumps of soft mud and piled them one on top of each other. But instead of the usual single wall, this time they built two walls, side by side, with a hollow in between just wide enough for a person to stand. They pulled the roof beams and the thatch from Cousin Tasha’s hut to put on the new one, and knocked the walls of the old hut down, so no-one in the army would wonder why a hut stood roofless in the village.
Timur worked with them. ‘I’ll stay while you build the walls,’ he promised.
‘Thank you,’ said Great Uncle simply. ‘We need your help.’
It was true. While one wall took only a day to make, a double wall took twice as long, and the walls had to dry for at least ten days, or they would be too soft and fall down if they were even nudged a little from inside. There were still all the usual jobs to do as well, the grass to be collected for the pigs, and the goats to herd, though the backbreaking job of weeding the wheat and millet had been abandoned. What was the point, when the armies’ horses would eat them before they had a chance to bear grain?
Even Great Uncle worked at the walls, though he needed a stick to walk, and his joints were almost too stiff to move in the mornings.
Sui heaved another bucket up from the well. The water smelt cold and fresh and she was hot, despite the wind from the hills.
‘Let me carry that for you.’
Sui started. Timur had the ability to walk so softly you didn’t know he was there. Sui wondered if it had come from having to lie so still for so many days, as the army passed over him. Would she have the same quality, she wondered, if she too survived after the army had passed?
‘It’s alright,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I can manage.’
‘It’s no trouble. I want a drink anyway.’
She handed him the bucket and watched him drink. He didn’t look so strange now, mud-streaked as they all were. Or perhaps, she thought, she had got used to his strangeness.
‘Where did you live before?’ she asked suddenly.
‘A long way north and east. I have been travelling for what,’ he shrugged, ‘perhaps three years now.’
‘How old were you when the army captured you?’
‘About your age.’
Sui blinked. Timur smiled grimly. ‘You thought I was older? Well, I am now.’
He began to walk back to the farm. Sui followed him. ‘Timur …’ It was the first time she had used his name.
‘Yes?’
‘Was your village like our farm?’
‘No. It was a town, oh, much, much larger than your farm here. We had a farm just outside the town walls, but our farm was bigger than yours too. We raised horses.’ He glanced up at South Wind, peacefully tearing at the grass outside the courtyard walls and ignoring the goats who grazed on either side. ‘I’ve never been without a horse. I don’t think I would have survived without South Wind. I don’t think I would have wanted to survive.’
‘I …’ Sui stopped. She had been going to say that she hated horses. Horses were going to bring pain and death. If it wasn’t for horses, the armies would never find their small farm on the plains. But how could she tell that to Timur?
And it wasn’t true, she realised. She hated the idea of horses — giant
creatures with armies on their backs. But South Wind was different. He was powerful but he looked friendly too, nibbling at his grass in the sunlight.
For a moment she wondered what it would be like to ride on the great horse’s back like Timur, and race with the wind as he had done. She thrust the thought away. It would never happen now. She and her village would live … or they would die … but in either case, Timur and South Wind would be gone.
‘Sui!’ Auntie Fai bustled up towards her. ‘What are you doing, lazing about? We need more water!’
‘I’m sorry, Auntie.’ Sui took the bucket from Timur and carried it over to the mud puddle and tipped it in, then began the walk back to the well again. She glanced up at the horizon automatically, as they all did now. The blue sky gazed back at her. The green plain was still.
By the third day the hollow walls were finished and the new hut was capped with wooden beams and thatch. The walls gaped at each side of the doorway. Such small gaps, thought Sui, but they were wide enough to wriggle into and, as Great Uncle said, if the walls were any thicker some soldier might wonder why and investigate. Now they could only hope the walls would dry before the army reached them.
She looked across the plain again. It was still empty, apart from an eagle hovering high above the hills.
‘Sui! Dinner!’
Sui walked slowly towards the fire. The family ate together now, instead of in their separate huts. Even Great Uncle ate with everyone else. They ate well too. All the remaining seed had already been walled up with the precious plough, and the dried apricots and beans and dried goat’s curds and withered turnips from last harvest.
But Great Uncle said the older goats and hens and pigs would never survive being walled up for three long days, and there was no point leaving their meat for the army. There was meat to eat every day now, with only green herbs and wheat shoots to accompany it. Sui had never thought she might get sick of eating meat and long for millet porridge.
Great Uncle sat in his big wooden chair and Timur, as their guest, sat next to him in the only other wooden chair the farm had. They sat on the upwind side of the fire so the smoke didn’t blow in their faces. Sui sat next to her mother and took the bowl she handed her. She sniffed at it. Goat again, an old one by the look and smell of it, and tough. She took a chunk between her fingers and began to nibble it.
The Book of Horses and Unicorns Page 6
