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17 packs. Yet he took the risk, for the sight of the mansions in Compound and the flowering trees and the carriages rolling in the streets, and creatures he scarcely recognised as human, their bodies were so tall and fat and white. Their skirts and cloaks were made of cloth that shimmered in colours only seen in the burrows in bits of broken glass and scraps of tile.
He climbed against the downflow of drains into Compound. He slid under grilles in the night, submerged, and came up on the hill behind the crescent of mansions facing the sea. Roads as broad as city blocks ran through the parks surrounding them. Hari sped across like a hunting cat into the gardens and slid, like a rat now, into the lily ponds. Sometimes, in the warm months, he would lie in a pond all night, moving only to drink the water trickling from fountains or creep to the mansion windows and hide in the flowering trees, wrapped close to the trunk. He watched the people inside – he knew they were people, like him; Lo had told him – watched them sipping drinks from tiny glasses and eating food from huge plates laid before them by serving men who must have had their tongues cut out for they never spoke. Before dawn broke he crept around to the back of the mansions and hunted in the rubbish bins for scraps of food (no feral dogs here, no dogs at all, and no cats, for Compound families had no fondness for animals). Carrying bones to gnaw on, he scouted along the cliffs, working out ways of escape, places where he might climb or jump, if guards ever saw him. He circled the giant marble hand raised on the cliff edge as a memorial to Families slain in Cowl’s revolution. Then he followed the drains down to the sea, where he slept in caves in the cliffs while day lasted, before the dangerous journey back to Blood Burrow in the night.
Tarl knew about these expeditions and encouraged them, trusting Hari not to be caught. He questioned the boy closely about everything he had seen – numbers of guards, location of barracks, weak places in the wall, drains that surfaced in unpatrolled places – preparing for the rebellion Hari knew would never come. There was no way the starved population of the burrows could ever be organised to fight, and nothing to fight with; and, for most of them, nothing to fight for except food. There had to be some new thing – a new idea, a new ally, a new source of strength. Lo, the old Survivor, had taught the boy this. Hari was the only person in the burrows who knew that Lo still had a voice and could speak.
Hari ran and scrambled for an hour after leaving the window above People’s Square, going deeper all the time, past the dangerous edges of Keech Burrow and Keg Burrow, cutting through Bawdhouse Burrow, where women screeched invitations to him, heading for the forbidden district of Port, where Whips patrolled the streets and Company vessels lined the wharves two deep. (Hari had seen the ships on nights when he crept and swam through the piles under the wharves.) Lo’s cell was in an abandoned tongue of Bawdhouse poking into Port. On stormy nights the old Survivor could hear the sound of the sea. He came from a family of ocean-farers and had sailed as a mess boy before a cannon flash blinded him in the war Company called Liberation War in the year it called Year One. He was ninety-nine years old, the last survivor of the war left in the burrows.
Hari stopped by the curtain blocking the narrow entry to Lo’s tiny room. He waited, panting softly from his run, and soon Lo’s voice, creaking like an old door, said, ‘I hear you, boy. Come in. There’s no need to wait.’
Hari pulled the curtain aside, stepped in and let it fall. The room was dark but he knew where Lo lay on his bed of rags in the corner.
‘I bring no food or water. I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘I have enough. And I need little. You’ve been running, boy.’
‘Company has taken my father.’
Lo was silent. Hari heard him shifting, heard him groan as he
He climbed against the downflow of drains into Compound. He slid under grilles in the night, submerged, and came up on the hill behind the crescent of mansions facing the sea. Roads as broad as city blocks ran through the parks surrounding them. Hari sped across like a hunting cat into the gardens and slid, like a rat now, into the lily ponds. Sometimes, in the warm months, he would lie in a pond all night, moving only to drink the water trickling from fountains or creep to the mansion windows and hide in the flowering trees, wrapped close to the trunk. He watched the people inside – he knew they were people, like him; Lo had told him – watched them sipping drinks from tiny glasses and eating food from huge plates laid before them by serving men who must have had their tongues cut out for they never spoke. Before dawn broke he crept around to the back of the mansions and hunted in the rubbish bins for scraps of food (no feral dogs here, no dogs at all, and no cats, for Compound families had no fondness for animals). Carrying bones to gnaw on, he scouted along the cliffs, working out ways of escape, places where he might climb or jump, if guards ever saw him. He circled the giant marble hand raised on the cliff edge as a memorial to Families slain in Cowl’s revolution. Then he followed the drains down to the sea, where he slept in caves in the cliffs while day lasted, before the dangerous journey back to Blood Burrow in the night.
Tarl knew about these expeditions and encouraged them, trusting Hari not to be caught. He questioned the boy closely about everything he had seen – numbers of guards, location of barracks, weak places in the wall, drains that surfaced in unpatrolled places – preparing for the rebellion Hari knew would never come. There was no way the starved population of the burrows could ever be organised to fight, and nothing to fight with; and, for most of them, nothing to fight for except food. There had to be some new thing – a new idea, a new ally, a new source of strength. Lo, the old Survivor, had taught the boy this. Hari was the only person in the burrows who knew that Lo still had a voice and could speak.
Hari ran and scrambled for an hour after leaving the window above People’s Square, going deeper all the time, past the dangerous edges of Keech Burrow and Keg Burrow, cutting through Bawdhouse Burrow, where women screeched invitations to him, heading for the forbidden district of Port, where Whips patrolled the streets and Company vessels lined the wharves two deep. (Hari had seen the ships on nights when he crept and swam through the piles under the wharves.) Lo’s cell was in an abandoned tongue of Bawdhouse poking into Port. On stormy nights the old Survivor could hear the sound of the sea. He came from a family of ocean-farers and had sailed as a mess boy before a cannon flash blinded him in the war Company called Liberation War in the year it called Year One. He was ninety-nine years old, the last survivor of the war left in the burrows.
Hari stopped by the curtain blocking the narrow entry to Lo’s tiny room. He waited, panting softly from his run, and soon Lo’s voice, creaking like an old door, said, ‘I hear you, boy. Come in. There’s no need to wait.’
Hari pulled the curtain aside, stepped in and let it fall. The room was dark but he knew where Lo lay on his bed of rags in the corner.
‘I bring no food or water. I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘I have enough. And I need little. You’ve been running, boy.’
‘Company has taken my father.’
Lo was silent. Hari heard him shifting, heard him groan as he
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