The Twyning (44 page)

There, in Caz’s small hand, looking around in fear, is Malaika.

“Yes.” Caz’s voice, when at last she speaks, is surprisingly strong and confident. “It’s a rat, ladies and gentlemen.”

Staring at them, she laughs, and there is contempt in the sound. Out of the corner of my eye I notice Mr. Petheridge lean toward the doctor and say something under his breath. When I look again, the two men have disappeared.

Caz shows Malaika to those in the front row. She lowers her hands so that a small boy can see what she is holding. He smiles, and then hides his face in his mother’s skirt.

“Is this your enemy?” Caz asks, looking around her. “What is it about this animal that is so bad and terrifying to you? She’s clean, she’s intelligent, she’s gentle — she’s never bitten anyone.”

“That’s ’cos she’s a pet rat,” shouts a voice from within the crowd.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t be holding a wild beast in your hand,” says the mother of the little boy.

Caz smiles as if someone has told her a familiar joke. She looks over her shoulder to the smoldering remains of the fire.

“That was my home,” she says.

“Poor little thing,” someone mutters.

“I didn’t mind. I was happy there. Every night we were kept company by rats. They never harmed us. We left them alone, and they left us alone. They helped us in ways you will never understand.”

She narrows her eyes, and I can see that the sight of the tip, our home, reduced to a few burning pieces of wood, has truly angered her.

“You know the truth? The only time a rat will attack is when it’s afraid, when it’s defending itself. You’ve all been fooled. Rats don’t want anything from us. They’re not the enemy. They’re just . . .” She shrugs and smiles. “They’re just animals who want to survive in peace.”

“Where’s the boy?” The bearded hunter speaks up. “You said ‘we.’ Where’s the other kid?”

I push my way through the crowd until I stand beside Caz.

“I’m here,” I say.

I tense myself for strong hands to grab me, but at that moment something strange happens. The people around me seem to lose interest. As I look into their faces, I sense a sort of embarrassment about them. It is almost as if they suddenly feel ashamed by what they have been shouting and saying.

There is a disturbance at the back of the crowd.

“Out of the way!”

It is a woman’s voice, and one that I recognize.

“Make way for Molly,” someone says.

She reaches us, short of breath, red faced and very angry.

Molly Wall.

She stands beside me and places a heavy arm around my shoulders.

“What are you all doing?” she asks the crowd. “When they told me they were looking for a kid because he had done something in the war on rats, I thought the world had gone mad. Now that I see it with my own eyes, I still can’t believe it. I know some of you. What are you doing?”

There is silence for a moment. Then a man near the front mutters, “It’s them or us, Molly. Them rats are taking over.”

“Taking over? Rats?”

It is a screech from Molly, and it makes some of the people laugh. It is as if, in that moment, the full craziness of the doctor’s campaign, the great rat terror, has become clear.

“It’s stupid,” says Molly. “And you should be ashamed of frightening children who’ve got nothing in the world. What’s happened to them isn’t any fault of theirs, is it? Would you like your kids to be living in a rubbish tip?”

Heads turn toward the burning embers of what was once where we lived. One or two people at the back of the crowd are drifting off into the night.

“What’s going to become of them now?” asks a woman standing near us. “They’ve got no home.”

Molly looks at us both.

“Yes, they have. We’ve got loads of rooms at the tavern.”

There is a murmur of relief from what is left of the crowd.

I whisper something to Molly. She looks into the crowd.

“Bill? Are you there? Sounds like you’ve earned yourself a pint, too.”

Without waiting for a reply, she puts her arms around Caz and me and walks determinedly toward the lane. The crowd parts before us. As we walk to the town, I look over my shoulder.

Bill, smiling, is just behind us.

. . . as light faded the next day.

Scattered after the battle, citizens had been preparing for our return, gathering, making contact with one another.

The leaders who had survived were ordering their courts, helping ratlings who had lost their mothers, finding safe shelter in the bright and dangerous world above.

Where a court had no leader, I sent another citizen to take charge. There were complaints, mutterings, but I had no time to consider them.

— Do it.

My orders were sharp, impatient. Now was no time for discussion. I was becoming so used to giving commands that I might almost have been a warrior.

Where did I get my strength? It was not entirely from victory. I was strong because at every moment Floke was beside me. When I was uncertain over a decision, it was Floke who revealed the obvious, simple answer. It was not that he thought more than me, but the very opposite.

He was a warrior. He did things. Action explained itself.

Battle had changed Floke. He had fought, and led, and the kingdom had survived. His revelation was stronger than it had been, his eye harder. One of his ears had been badly torn, giving him the scarred look of a great warrior.

— I shall go before you to the world below, Efren.

There was no doubt, no question in his revelation that afternoon, as darkness began to descend.

I hesitated. A true leader would show citizens the way back to the kingdom. Sensing my uncertainty, he added, — You must remain safe. You have decisions to make. Stay.

And he was gone, into the dark passage that led downward to the Great Hollow.

I looked around me to the battleground of yesterday. Stay. Floke’s revelation had sounded like an order, even though I was the leader of the kingdom and Floke my deputy.

The truth is, I didn’t care. My thoughts were not in the world below at all.

At some moment after the battle, while I was reaching out to citizens and revealing as a good leader should, I heard deep within me a cry for help.

I told myself it was another citizen, perhaps trapped by the enemy or lost in the world above, having made an escape, but later, with daylight, I knew the truth.

I had been hearing. The message was not a revelation from a citizen but a voice reaching to me from across town.

Malaika. She was in trouble.

For the rest of the day, the cry was within me. She had called me, the only rat I had loved, and I was too busy with the kingdom to go to her.

Even when Floke returned, the faintest smell of poison on his fur, my thoughts were still of Malaika.

Could Floke sense my doubt? Almost certainly not. He was brave and decisive, but part of his strength came from not concerning himself too much with what other citizens were feeling.

— All is safe.

Floke stood before me. Beside us, the river, now back to its normal flow, rolled quietly. He continued, — There is still a smell of danger, but it is not harmful. Citizens will be safer in the world below than up here. Dogs may return at any time.

I walked to the stump and revealed to the kingdom.

— It is time to return to the world below, citizens. We shall meet in the Great Hollow.

Then, walking behind Floke, I entered the ground. Together, we followed the familiar touch-path, past the hollow where I had once lived with the Court of Tasting, down the long dark passages, until it opened out.

Slowly, feeling more weary than triumphant, I climbed the Rock of State.

And soon, as Floke and I waited upon the rock, the kingdom came to life. Rats appeared from every entrance. There were noisy reunions, gatherings of the courts. The air was heavy with the scent of relief and sadness for those who were lost in battle.

A moment of acclamation greeted the arrival in the Great Hollow of a group of young warriors, moving slowly and carefully. On their backs, its many faces looking around in wonder, was the Twyning.

On the rock were those from the Court of Governance who had survived the battle. No Growan, no Gvork or Swylar, but Driva was there, and Barcas, and the new captains of the courts.

Some humbled briefly when they saw me.

I moved to the front of the rock, with Floke, as usual, at my shoulder. Citizens were moving toward us, standing on the far side of the river. Floke revealed with quiet pride.

— We won, Efren.

I turned to him, and in that moment as we faced each other, nose to nose, I knew what I would do.

So did he.

The citizens were growing silent. It seemed to me, as I looked down at them, that their eyes were not on me but were to my right, where Floke stood.

At great occasions like this, the leader of the kingdom is announced by a senior courtier but, as Floke moved forward, I turned and nipped him lightly.

He tensed and, for the briefest moment, became a warrior facing a foe. Then, understanding, he moved back.

It started at that moment. First, the sound of the Twyning, chattering first, then singing, then plaining. Soon citizens, one after another, joined in the acclamation. The mighty noise of victory rose until it became a great single cry of triumph.

I raised my head, and slowly silence descended upon the Great Hollow.

I waited. The kingdom was expecting a great speech from its leader. The battle. The lessons we have learned. The brave dead. The future.

The smell of hope, shared by all citizens, was in the air.

I continued to wait. There was the beginning of restlessness in the Great Hollow.

— Every rat is a king.

Citizens chattered their teeth politely. I looked down to the many wise, innocent eyes of the Twyning, staring up at me.

— Every rat is a king.

Again they acclaimed, but some of them sensed that something unusual was happening.

My revelation was quieter than it once was. I was no longer revealing like a leader, or even a member of the Court of Governance.

I was beginning to sound like each of them, like a mere rat.

— Every rat is a king.

Beside me, Floke moved closer, a friend to the last.

I revealed as strongly as I could.

— But this rat is now your king, to take you all forward, every court and every citizen, to a new age of power and peace.

I turned to my friend. He moved forward as with all my strength I pronounced his name.

— Floke! King Floke!

The kingdom can always sense where its safety lies. The acclamation for Floke was as loud as any I have ever heard. The air filled with love and loyalty.

Floke began to reveal. A new Court of Governance was needed. Plans should be made for the future, a meeting of the Courts of Strategy and Spies.

All eyes, all thoughts, were on Floke, the new king. I backed toward the shadows to the side of the Rock of State, then slipped downward.

The river was cold when I entered it, and it seemed to me that the acclamation of the kingdom was growing louder.

I swam slowly downstream, as King Tzuriel once had, already smelling the world above that awaited me.

. . . rises through the floorboards. It is evening time at the Cock Inn, and the customers are gathering in the bar downstairs. In my room, it is sometimes too noisy to sleep, and the stale tobacco smell is on the sheets and curtains, but those things only make it feel more like home.

Room. Sheets. Curtains. Home.

Yes, I can say those words today and not feel a state of longing within me. Sometimes, alone in my little room at the Cock Inn, I touch the walls just to remind myself that I am no longer on the streets.

Sometimes I help Molly in the bar.

She shouts up the stairs, “Peter, can you give me a hand?”

I am Peter again. It was Molly who refused to call me Dogboy. Even when I told her that I quite liked my name, that I was proud of being good with dogs, she held firm. She was not having anyone called Dogboy sitting at her kitchen table, serving her customers beer in the bar.

So I took the name I had once left with my past.