Ashes Under Uricon (The Change Book 1) (2 page)

Another figure emerged out of the gloom behind Taid. He smiled at me.

“Why does he want to help us?” I said, glowering at him.

Taid turned to the boy, his arm around my shoulder. “You heard the question?”

“No reason. I saw you were walking. Doesn’t happen much these days. I’ve got a map. Thought it might help. That’s all.”

He proffered a folded sheet of paper.

“Should we take it?” Taid asked me. I shrugged. “We’ll take it. Thanks. Diolch.”

“You have the Welsh?” he asked.

“I do,” Taid said. “Not much use these days, mind you.”

“How about you help me? Now I’ve helped you.”

This conversation did not seem to be going the right way. I know I was suspicious of everything and everyone to the point of paranoia, but there was a reason for that.

Taid was just as hesitant. “I’m not sure I can help you very much. If at all.”

“Won’t take long. It’s the Welsh I need. I have it written down. Here.” He fished in a pocket and took out a slip of paper. “I copied this from the front of a book.”

He showed the paper to Taid who read it aloud. “
Y Beibl Cysegr-Lan, sef Yr Hen Destament a’r Newydd.
Good lord. Where did you say you got this?”

“It’s a book I found. Only, when I opened it I realised it wasn’t written in DogLat.”

I looked at him. “How did you know it was in Welsh?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t. I guessed.”

“You do know books that aren’t in DogLat are illegal, I suppose?” I said. He nodded. “So why did you keep it? You should have handed it in.”

“Let’s not worry too much about that, Non,” Taid said.

I gave him a hard stare. He had used my family name in front of this complete stranger.

“I’d like to see that book.” Taid gave the slip of paper back to the boy. “It is in Welsh. It’s the Bible.”

I was stunned. It wasn’t ‘a book’ – it was ‘the book’. The only legal book that I knew existed. What I had spent the last ten years of my life reading and learning. What every child in the country read and learned. I had so far covered Genesis and Mark. I was considered to be a fast learner yet I had barely touched it.

The boy was staring at Taid, his mouth open. “Are you serious?”

“It says, ‘The Holy Bible, namely the Old Testament and the New’. Those exact words. It’s many years since I saw one of those.”

“But all books were burned,” I said. “Why wasn’t this one?”

“Someone must have hidden it. Probably hoping to come back for it one day. They never did, of course. Where did you find it, young man?”

“I’m not sure I should tell you.” He was now becoming as wary of us as I was of him.

“Would you like me to report you for being in possession of an illegal artefact?” Taid used what I called his ‘official voice’. It was effective, if meaningless given our situation.

“How do I know you won’t anyway? I didn’t know what it was. I know books are illegal. I just wanted to find out what it was before I threw it away.”

I warmed to him a little. He had the same curiosity that overwhelmed me on occasion.

“We’re not likely to be able to report you,” I said gently.

Taid shook his head. “True enough. Are you going to tell us where you found the book?”

“I can show you, if you like.”

“When? Now?” Taid stared out into the still dark night.

“Better in the dark. There’s enough light from the moon.”

I shivered. The moonlight had shown me that man hanging on the wall. I wanted to leave this place anyway.

We walked in silence for about half an hour. The boy constantly paused and listened. We followed behind him. I had no idea what he was listening for, but the more he did it, the more convinced I was that I could hear something out there.

“Here,” he said eventually. We had reached a crossroad. He wandered over to what looked like the remains of a bench. He pointed down behind it. “It was in there.”

Taid went to look. “Just lying there?”

“No. It was in a bag. That’s why I picked it up. Thought there might be something useful.”

“But it was just a book. Nothing else?”

“Some papers.”

“Did you keep those?”

Taid’s voice revealed his growing concern. Or it might have been growing excitement. From where I am now it definitely was the second.

The boy looked anxious. “I didn’t touch them. Honest.”

“Did you keep them? Answer my question.” Taid held the boy’s arm.

“They’re still in the bag.” He shook his arm. “Let me go.” Taid released it.

“Where are they now?”

“I told you. They’re still in the bag.” He turned to me. I wasn’t sure whether he was expecting me to help or not. “You’re a girl, aren’t you?” he said, out of the blue.

I shrugged. “Yes,” I hissed. “So what?”

Taid interrupted. “The bag. The papers. The book. Where are they now, boy? And don’t be so insolent.”

“In the house,” he shouted, before turning to me again. “You don’t look like a girl.”

“Where’s your house, stupid?” I said, glaring at him as well as I could in the moonlight.

“What you doing with this old man?”

Taid exploded. He took hold of the boy by the scruff of his neck and turned him around. “Enough of your impertinent questions, boy. Show me where you live or I’ll drag you there like this.” He started to walk off, still holding the boy’s collar.

“Bog off! Leave me alone.” Taid released him again. “It’s down there, but I’m stuffed if I’m taking you there.”

“Do you want me to report you for having an illegal book?” Taid roared at him.

“I could report you. What’s an old man like you doing with a girl out here? And a girl whose clothes make her look like a boy?”

“Shut up, the pair of you,” I said. “Taid. What’s so important about the book? Why don’t we just let him go? He’s stupid.”

“It’s not the book, cariad. He says there were papers with the book. They’re what I want to see. They could be useful to us.”

“How?”

The boy stopped staring at me and looked at Taid. “If they’re useful then you’re going to have to give me something for them.”

“I’ll give you a good clip round the ear.” Taid was calming down again. “Take us to your house. Give me the bag. That’s all you have to do. Right?”

The boy suddenly ran off. As I ran after him it dawned on me that he was probably running to his house, so I slowed enough to make sure that I didn’t catch him. As I thought, he soon reached a house set back from the road. It was in complete darkness. He ran into the garden.

I pulled up at the gate, expecting to see him disappearing into the house. There was no sign of him. He couldn’t have gone in that quickly. I stopped to listen. Round the side of the house I could hear a rustling noise. Just then Taid appeared behind me, out of breath. He was about to speak but I put my fingers to his lips, whispering, “Shhh.”

The rustling grew louder. It was either some wild animal, or it was the boy. I chanced that it was him, crept into the garden and peered round the side of the house. I could just make him out rooting under the hedge on the far side. He was clearly looking for something. The bag, presumably. I signalled Taid to come and join me.

“He’s round there. I think he’s looking for the bag. When he finds it I’m going to grab it off him and run back here. You go out into the road and wait for me.”

“Just be careful, cariad. I don’t trust him.”

I gave him a hard stare. Now he’s telling me! He went back the way he’d come.

I peered round the house again, just in time to see the boy squatting over an old leather bag. I ran straight at him and bent to grab the bag as I passed, hoping that the surprise would catch him off guard. It did, but he recovered quickly. His hand slammed into the small of my back as I passed him. Off balance, I crashed to the ground. He reached out for the bag but I managed to roll sideways, still clutching it.

“Give me it!” he yelled.

“Get stuffed,” I yelled back, scrabbling to my feet.

He launched another slap at me, but this time I was ready. I deflected his arm and carried through with my hand. I felt the crunch as it contacted with his face. His hands flew up and he roared in pain.

“Thanks,” I shouted as I headed round the house to the front gate. Taid was waiting just outside.
 

“Let’s go,” I yelled and set off.

“Stop!” Taid shouted after me.

I skidded to a halt. “He’ll be out here in a minute. What are you waiting for?”

“We’ll go back the way we came. He won’t be expecting that.”

I set off running again, this time in the direction Taid had quite sensibly suggested. When we reached the crossroad we paused before setting off in a direction we had not taken before.

“I need to look at those papers,” Taid said, breathing heavily.

“Not here,” I said. “We need to put some distance between us and that boy.”

If I had bothered to look back I might have seen a dark figure standing in the crossroad, looking in our direction.

I awoke the next morning, cold and hungry, as usual. We had certainly lost the boy the previous night, but I still had little idea where we were, or where we were going.

“Bore da, cariad,” Taid said. He was sitting across from me.

“Is it?” I replied, still half asleep. “What’re you doing?”

It was obvious what he was doing. He was turning out the contents of the bag we had taken from the boy. All around him lay various scraps of paper of different sizes and shapes. There was no sign of the book that had been the reason for taking the bag.

“I think these have been stolen,” he said, slowly.

“Yes. By us.”

“No, cariad. Someone has stolen these from somewhere else.”

“That sounds nice and vague.” I was still not yet awake. Just cold and hungry.

“Not so vague. I think I might know where they were stolen from.” He continued to sift through the papers.

I sat up, slapping my legs to get the circulation going. “Is there nothing to eat?”

He didn’t bother to look at me. “What are these papers, anyway?” I asked.

“Old poems, mostly. Pages torn from books. That’s the important thing.”

I picked up one of the papers. One edge had clearly been torn, while the other three were ragged, but looked as if they had been cut rather than torn. On both sides of the paper there was some writing that I did not recognise.

“Is this Welsh?” I waved the paper at Taid.

“They’re all Welsh. That’s why I think I know where they came from.”

I dropped the paper I was holding. On a cold damp morning such as this, when I was who knew where, going who knew where, I could not for the life of me see much point in poring over old pages of Welsh. We needed food. I needed to know what was happening. I wandered over to the door of the hut and peered out through a gap in the wood.

Something out there moved. I started back. The sound of the rain continued. I peered through the gap again. There was nothing. Nothing but the rain, beating down. Slowly, I opened the door a little. As well as the rain, there was a thick mist over everything. I could see nothing. The movement must have been a figment of my disturbed brain. Hunger does that. So I’ve heard. I turned back. Taid was still poring over his papers.

“Didn’t that bag have a Bible in it?” I said, trying to break his concentration.
 

“Still in it.” He jerked his head slightly in the direction of the bag. “Not as important as these.”

Not as important? Not as important? Only the one book that could see us arrested and … and I had no idea what might happen, but I was sure it would not be pleasant. Bibles existed in one language, DogLat. Apart from the scribbles of who knows how many students whose life task was to translate it. No other language was allowed in print. No other books were allowed in print as far as I knew. Here we were, on the run, which was bad enough. In the middle of nowhere. Without food. With nothing to drink. Nowhere to go. And my grandfather was engrossed in some torn papers written in a language that was definitely not a Lat.

“Taid. Leave them. We’re in enough trouble as it is, aren’t we? Let’s go. I’m cold and hungry. It’s lashing down out there but we’ve got to find something to eat. That bag will only get us into more trouble. Leave it. Come on.”

“You don’t get it, do you? I don’t suppose there’s any reason why you should get it. These papers are our answer. They’re our way out of all this.” He waved his hands around.

“Our way out?” I shouted. “
I
don’t get it? Taid, there’s a book in that bag which is totally illegal. Those bits of paper are probably just as bad. If they find us it’s going to be bad enough. If they find us with a Bible and bits of paper with some other writing on them, can you imagine what they’ll do to us?”

“Non. Non.” He sounded remarkably calm. “Calm down, cariad. Byddwch yn ddishtaw ‘nawr. Be quiet, there’s a good girl. Let me explain. Sit down here by me.” He gathered the papers together and patted the cold stone floor next to him.

I was still shivering. Partly because I was cold, partly because I was afraid. He put his arm around my shoulder. I looked up at him, tears rolling down my cheeks.

“I know it’s hard, cariad. But I really do think that I know where we’re going now. It’s all in these papers. I know they’re illegal. Well, illegal according to the ridiculous people who run this country now. But I know where they’ve probably come from. And I think I know why it’s this particular group of papers. They are a history of Welsh poetry. Whoever selected them must be extremely knowledgeable.”

I had stopped crying by now, but I still could not understand his enthusiasm for these papers. How on earth could a history of Welsh poetry be of use to us? Or to anyone, come to that. I knew that he was against the government. Everyone of his age seemed to be. My mother had often told him off when he said something considered offensive. If anyone heard him calling them ‘ridiculous people’ he would be hauled off and we would never see him again.

Taid could see that I did not have any idea why what he was saying was so important. “Listen, Non. I’m going to have to tell you a little story. Please just be patient and listen. I think it will explain why these papers are so important. I know you’re cold and you’re hungry. I know that you find our present situation hard to bear, but please just hear me out. It will be worth it. I promise.”