Nondula (The Waifs of Duldred Book 2) Read online

  ‘Useful at last,’ said Linnet.

  ‘Don’t take it so lightly, Linn. He could’ve killed you.’

  ‘It was my fault. I heard the humming and fell asleep.’

  ‘Next time I’ll come and hide you myself. You’ve had a shock and you need something for that chest. I’m going to get Clair.’

  She wanted to stop him, but she didn’t have the breath.

  The Sanctry was a still, quiet place but Oy did not like how very still it felt. Some energy was missing. Next to the mortar were two letters. One was for Ede, the other had his name on it. He read the letter quickly and then again more slowly. It was awful – awful. He ran outside calling for Clair. He ran all the way to the library still calling her name.

  The other waifs spotted him and told him that Clair had gone with the Felluns.

  ‘She can’t have,’ said Oy.

  ‘We saw it happen,’ said Gertie. ‘Come on. Emberd’s promised to tell us what’s going on.’

  Oy would not go anywhere till Ede was found and sent to look after Linnet. Then the waifs went to Emberd’s office together. The office was very tidy, and very labelled. It was very full of shelves and drawers. Everything was ordered by size, subject, number, letter, type or date. If there had been any dust it would have been arranged in lines and indexed. When he was anxious he straightened things that were already straight. He was straightening things.

  ‘No swerving round questions this time,’ said Alas. ‘What are these Felluns up to and what do they want with Clair?’

  ‘We wanted you to have what all children should have: a space without cares,’ said Emberd.

  ‘It don’t work like that,’ said Alas. ‘When you’ve lived with cares like we have and they all get took away at once, it don’t feel right. You keep looking over your shoulder to see where the next one’s coming from.’

  Gritty agreed. ‘It’s better to know the worst, else you just imagine it bigger and worser. Tell us what you know, Emberd.’

  Emberd began with his own story: ‘I was no bigger than Oy when I escaped from Fellund. It was hard losing my family so young.’

  ‘We know it,’ said Gertie.

  Emberd smiled weakly and went on. ‘Hardest of all was losing my twin, Scriberd. I felt as though half of myself was missing.’

  Gritty nodded and reached for Gertie’s hand.

  ‘I even thought of going back to Fellund just to be with him. Then Bagla came to Nondula and an idea came to me. Bagla is a very intelligent bird. I would send her to Fellund to look for Scriberd. ‘Find another Emberd,’ I told her, ‘someone who looks just like me.’ I put a message under her tongue and off she flew. Of course I didn’t think anything would come of it. But she came back and under her tongue was a new roll of paper. It was from him, from Scriberd.’ Emberd dabbed at his eyes. ‘My parents had passed but my brother was well, and he was chief scribe to the Felluns. Let me show you. I have all his letters here.’ He fetched a file. ‘Have you ever seen such beautiful writing?’

  ‘Very nice,’ said Alas, ‘but can we get back to the healers?’

  ‘Yes, I wanted to explain that Scriberd is our spy and we can trust his word. The husbinds and husbeaus steal to please the Fellona. They take everything: land, rivers, gold, people. Some years back they started stealing our healers.’

  ‘Why?’ said Alas.

  ‘Bominata claims that the healers are poisoning her somehow. It may be that she simply wants them for questioning.’

  ‘Why so many?’ said Gritty.

  ‘I imagine she doesn’t like their answers,’ said Emberd. ‘But there is another rumour, that she is seriously ill and wants to keep it secret. It is dangerous for a Fellona to show weakness. There are many who would take advantage.’

  ‘What do the healers say when they come back?’ asked Gertie.

  ‘They don’t come back,’ said Emberd. ‘Not so far at least.’

  ‘Do you know what happens to them?’ said Alas.

  Emberd winced. ‘Perhaps the younger ones would like to leave while we discuss this?’

  ‘We ain’t young in the head,’ said Gertie.

  ‘Even so.’ Four pairs of eyes stared at him and waited. ‘Very well. They are thrown from the Akwon – the great waterfall, or out of the midden gate.’

  ‘Ain’t so bad so long as they can swim,’ said Gritty.

  ‘I don’t think you understand,’ said Emberd. ‘The waterfall is extremely high, and the midden waters are extremely foul.’

  ‘You’re saying it ain’t survivable,’ said Alas.

  Emberd did not answer.

  ‘Poor Clair.’ Oy’s eyes welled. He sighed. ‘And I’m next I suppose.’

  ‘Oy, what’re you on about?’ said Alas.

  ‘I’m the last one, the last healer in Nondula. I’m next.’

  ‘What an idea,’ said Gertie.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Oy. ‘Clair says so in her letter.’

  ‘Let me see that.’ Alas took the letter and read it aloud. He slammed it down on Emberd’s desk. ‘They ain’t stealing you, Oy. We’ll get packed and clear out now. This ain’t our problem.’

  ‘We can’t,’ said Oy. ‘Linnet’s not well enough and I got to find her yellow before they come for me.’

  ‘No one will come for you,’ said Emberd. ‘No one knows about you and if they did I doubt they’d believe you’re a healer. Anyway, some of this is rumour. Scholars never jump to conclusions.’

  ‘Never jump, full stop.’ Alas folded his arms and turned one way and another in frustration. ‘Emberd, you don’t know where we come from or what we been through.’

  Gertie looked guilty.

  ‘You ain’t told him?’ said Alas, accusingly.

  ‘Some,’ said Gertie.

  ‘Well it’s this way,’ said Alas, ‘bow your head under a yoke and your masters will keep adding weight till you can’t lift your head at all and pretty soon your neck breaks. First thing to do is find out what’s really happening. If the scholars won’t act I will. Oy, any sign of a Fellun you hide and you hide good. I been training my ears so I can pick up that humming as soon as it starts. You should all do the same.’

  A short time later, Gritty saw Alas running towards the woods with a pack on his back. He gave the Porian sign for ‘don’t worry’, a diagonal chop to the forehead.

  ‘Heading for trouble and looking like he couldn’t wait to get there,’ Gritty reported.

  Alas moved swiftly through the trees. Beyond the wood was wide wavering grassland. It looked so tempting that he ran out into it and kept on running. For a few minutes he took pleasure in his own healthy body. He veered and swung and opened his mouth to whoop – and stopped dead.

  Men on horseback were running hard at him and around the horses’ hooves was a boiling mass of something murky. Then he heard the yipping and the horns; ahead was a ripple in the grass and a blur of boy and girl running. They wore shifts daubed with red letters. He could see from their faces that they were running for their lives. As the children swerved so did the horses and hounds. Alas dropped to the ground. His heart beat against the earth. As the pounding faded he lifted himself up. He could see the children breaking back towards the Scrubluns. The dogs and horses drove them out of sight. He waited and waited but nothing more happened. Only the wind troubled the grass. Yet something hung in the air. A wrong had been done.

  7 The Curse

  Oy couldn’t sleep. Thoughts and feelings spun in a wreath above his head. There were spaces where people should be. Alas’s bed was cold and flat. The herb room was empty without Clair. Then there was Linnet. She was leaking life. He knew it. And it was up to him to find a plug.

  At bird-song he got up. He crossed the bridge in the half-dark, worried his way through the sleeping Sajistry and on to the herb room. There, the only healer in Nondula sat down and put his head in his hands. He didn’t want to look at the rows of bottles and jars and books. The excitement of learning had gone. It was all above and beyond him.

&n
bsp; He read Clair’s letter again. She said they were getting closer to Linnet’s yellow. Oy must keep trying and trust his jenie. She mentioned a childhood story about kingfishers. She thought it held a clue. I am very old (surely not) and my memory is too full to find it. That was all the help she could give.

  Ede came in. She took in his feelings at a glance. ‘You can do it,’ she said. ‘Doubt will bind your jenie. Don’t think; just begin. Go on. No one’s watching.’ She turned to leave.

  ‘Ede! I can’t do it. I... I must’ve tricked Clair into thinking I was a healer. I showed off, doing things I learnt in Duldred kitchens. You know much more than me. I’ve seen you mixing medicines.’

  ‘I’m an animal nurse and a pothick. Pothicks do the mixing not the making. It takes a healer to choose the ingredients, and that’s you.’

  ‘All I did is copy. I’m a good copier is all. That’s all I do. I’m not a real person. Per knows it. He saw into me. He knows I got nothing but space under my skin.’

  ‘Oh, Oy.’

  ‘It’s true. I never had a mother. I was nobody before I met Linnet. I didn’t even know how to laugh till she showed me.’

  ‘You had a mother. Perhaps she died or gave you up. It’s sad but it happens. And what Per saw would have pleased him. Let me tell you about the Kith where our children live. It’s a place for growing without edges. If you start naming things too soon your edges get fixed. Come outside with me.’ She led him to a tree. Ede traced a leaf with her finger. ‘Is that the leaf’s edge?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Oy.

  ‘Where does the leaf end?’

  ‘There,’ said Oy, pointing to its stem. ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well it’s part of the tree.’

  ‘And the tree?’

  ‘Is rooted to the land.’

  ‘And the land?’

  ‘The land runs off all ways.’

  ‘Where does the leaf stop, Oy?’

  ‘It doesn’t.’

  ‘It doesn’t. The leaf has no edges. And it’s the same with us. When you feel the space inside you it’s because of this.’

  ‘I thought it meant I wasn’t real.’

  ‘No, melting edges are a good thing. It helps you feel for others. That’s what Per saw. He also saw that you’re a healer, a very good one. He didn’t tell you at first to protect you from the Felluns. But jenies find their own way. Do you trust me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Go on then. Let your jenie take over.’

  Oy began. At first he fumbled and spilled things, but gradually something opened inside him. To the herb pius he added carut poppy, scruttle and lyre-stemmed oldergare. He swirled the yellow liquid. It wasn’t quite right but it was close.

  Then the bakers came to ask him what flours they should use for the day and he lost all sensible thought. So he did what he had seen Clair do: he stepped outside, tasted the air and looked around (for what he didn’t know). The bakers waited. He turned with what he hoped was a calm face, and spoke as though someone else had borrowed his mouth:

  ‘Dewpod for morning, monklow and balm for the evening bread.’

  ‘Different,’ said Benet, ‘but excellent.’

  ‘You see,’ said Ede. ‘You can’t keep a jenie down.’

  Five days later Alas returned. Gritty, Gertie and Oy were getting ready for bed when Alas came in and slung his bag into the corner. He told them what he had learned:

  ‘I saw something on the way out, says to me these Felluns are worse than Afflish for cruelty. I got crossed by a hunt. It was done for sport and the prey were children.’

  ‘What do they do when they catch them?’ asked Gritty.

  ‘That I didn’t see and I wouldn’t want to, but the dogs that tailed them were evil-mad and hungry. Anyway, I gets to the city wall. I was near a day walking round it. Remember how Bram said every place has got its weak point? I couldn’t find one. It’s all rock and iron, gates and grids and chains, barely a window and no sewers – all the waste goes out of a midden gate and into the river. There’s a Chee camp outside the wall near the river, easy enough to get in, harder to get out but I managed it. I went among the Chee at night. They sit around their fires and talk, talk, talk. Most of it’s idle gossip, but I heard a few things for us to think on.’

  While the waifs were thinking, Rigaw rode in again. As usual a group of scholars went out to meet him. ‘The Fellona sends you this,’ he said. His whip snapped, dipping among the scholars, writing on Deven’s face in blood. ‘And this is from me.’ Again he lashed into the crowd, opening Benet’s shoulder.

  His men joined in with relish. Whips snaked around and above the scholars. Bloody lines crossed their robes and faces. The scholars did not cower or shield themselves. They showed no sign of pain and bled gently. Rigaw was in a frenzy. ‘Did you really think to fool us with the baker woman?’ – crack. ‘She tried to feed the Fellona bread,’ – crack, ‘and weeds. And that made her mad as a bear with itchworm,’ – crack. ‘Mad at everyone, including me. I’ll make you pay for that,’ – crack. ‘Bring me a real healer,’ – crack, ‘now!’

  The waifs watched from the balcony. Gertie gave Oy a protective squeeze. ‘Don’t worry, you’re safe,’ she said.

  Rigaw’s whip fell limp at his side. He breathed heavily. To Fellun ears there was no other sound. In fact the scholars’ humming was growing louder. The Fellun horses jigged sideways; they wanted to get away, and all at once so did the men. Rigaw sawed at his horse’s mouth but he kept his eyes on Deven’s.

  ‘There are no more Nondul healers,’ said Deven.

  ‘No healers, no Nondula,’ said Rigaw.

  Deven showed him a blank face and a still eye.

  ‘So be it,’ said Rigaw.

  ‘I thought scholars never lied,’ said Gritty as the Felluns rode away.

  ‘Deven said there’s no more Nondul healers,’ said Gertie. ‘Oy ain’t a Nondul.’

  Back at the Sanctry the scholars queued quietly for the healer’s attention. Oy didn’t have any attention. All that blood had stopped his own from reaching his brain.

  ‘Take a breath,’ said Ede. ‘Blood always makes things look worse. Come on, we’ll do it together.’

  Benet stooped so that Oy could see into his wound. Oy shook as he cleaned and patched it. As he worked down the line he forgot to be nervous. His hands began to feel alive and warm.

  ‘What bread are you taking?’ he asked one.

  ‘Just like Clair,’ the scholar laughed. ‘I favour haw.’

  ‘You’re out of balance. Take gelder for four weeks.’

  Ede looked over and smiled.

  Linnet liked the taste and colour of carut poppy. It was very near to her yellow, she said. ‘But does it make you feel better?’ asked Oy.

  ‘Very better,’ she said. After a few days she felt so well that she asked to go to the water meadow.

  Alas carried her and Oy walked with them. Linnet loved the sweet spongy damp, the minty smell and the threading streams. She pointed across the fields where groups of arablan hurried towards the Sajistry. ‘Clever ain’t it how their clothes match the fields? If it weren’t for their hair you’d hardly know they were there.’

  ‘They’re moving fast for Nonduls?’ said Alas. ‘What’s got them so excited?’

  ‘Something’s upset them,’ said Oy.

  ‘Hush a divit,’ said Linnet. ‘Listen to the quiet.’

  Alas hitched her up. ‘Linnet, this ain’t the factory. It’s always quiet, ’part from your breath back of my ear.’

  ‘This is a different sort of quiet, like a song has stopped somewhere far off,’ said Linnet.

  ‘Well you got different ears to what I got, ’s all I can say,’ said Alas. ‘Let’s find out what’s up.’ He ran with Linnet bumping on his back and Oy hurrying behind. They intercepted the arablan in the lane running towards the stackyard. The news was bad. Rigaw had been to the borders of the Kith searching for healers. It was only the curse of the Arcann that kept him
from entering the Kith.

  ‘What curse is that?’ asked Alas.

  ‘The Nonduls were great builders once,’ explained the woman. ‘Arcann is the Nondul word. The Arcann dreamed the Sajistry and then they built it out of a mountain. Their skills were almost magical. They strung bridges between peaks that looked as though they floated in air. Then the Felluns came. They wanted the arcann to help them build the dam at Carnoffel. Our people refused so the Felluns burned the library. The first three arondahs were lost. Still we refused. Then they threatened to burn the Kith. The arcann gave in, but only if the Felluns promised never to disturb the Kith. Everyone knows that Fellun promises are worthless. So, when the last stone was laid in the dam the arcann gathered and cursed it. They did not want to do it, but it was the only way. They told the Felluns that if cracks appeared in their promise then cracks would appear in the dam. They were killed for that curse and their jenie died out in Nondula.

  ‘Now Rigaw is saying the curse is only words and how can words spoken so long ago break something as mighty as the dam? The Kith is no longer safe.’

  The arablan met with the scholars. The scholars said that Rigaw was all bluster. The curse had kept the Felluns out of the Kith for many generations. It would do so for many more. ‘Don’t disturb yourselves,’ said Per, with perfect calm. ‘Do as we have always done. Live each moment in jensis.’ The meeting broke peacefully.

  When Emberd told the waifs about the meeting Alas shook his head in despair. ‘They ain’t going to do nothing – nothing at all?’

  ‘I admit it is difficult to know what to do,’ Emberd said.

  ‘They need to pull people out of the fields,’ said Alas, ‘get ’em guarding the borders. Any sign of Felluns, spring an ambush. They’ve got the numbers to do it.’

  ‘I ask you,’ said Gritty, ‘can you imagine being ambushed by Nonduls? They’re about as threatening as thistledown.’

  The scholars were right about Rigaw’s bluster. Why else would he have gone to see Fettapigi unless he had some fear of curses?