The Wind Singer. William Nicholson

Maslo Inch evenly. ‘Then why am I Chief Examiner of Aramanth, while your father is a subdistrict librarian?’

      ‘Because he doesn’t like exams,’ said Kestrel. ‘He likes books.’

      Hanno Hath saw a shadow of irritation pass across the Chief Examiner’s face.

      ‘We know this is about what happened yesterday,’ he said quietly. ‘Say what you have to say.’

      ‘Ah, yes. Yesterday.’ The smile turned to hold Hanno in its steady shine. ‘Your daughter gave us quite a performance. We’ll come to that in due course.’

      Hanno Hath looked back at the smooth face of the Chief Examiner, and saw there in those gleaming eyes a deep well of hatred. Why? he thought. This powerful man has nothing to fear from me. Why does he hate me so?

      Maslo Inch rose to his feet.

      ‘Follow me, please. Both of you.’

      He set off without a backward glance, and Hanno Hath and Kestrel followed behind, hand in hand. The Chief Examiner led them down a long empty corridor, lined on both sides with columns of gold-painted names. This was such a commonplace sight in Aramanth that neither father nor daughter looked twice at them. Anyone who achieved anything noteworthy was named on some wall somewhere, and this practice had been going on for so long that virtually no public wall was spared.

      The corridor linked the College of Examiners to the Imperial Palace, and emerged into a courtyard at the heart of the palace, where a grey-clothed warden was sweeping the pathways. Maslo Inch began what was clearly a rehearsed speech.

      ‘Kestrel,’ he said, ‘I want you to listen to what I say to you today, and look at what I show you today, and remember it for the rest of your life.’

      Kestrel said nothing. She watched the warden’s broom: swish, swish, swish.

      ‘I’ve been making enquiries about you,’ said the Chief Examiner. ‘I’m told that at school yesterday morning you placed yourself at the bottom of the class.’

      ‘What if I did?’ She was watching the warden. His eyes looked down as he worked, and his face looked vacant.

       What is he thinking? Bo would know.

      ‘And that you said to your class teacher, What more can you do to me?’

      ‘What if I did?’

      Why does he go on sweeping? There’s nothing to sweep.

      ‘You then went on to indulge in a childish tantrum in a public place.’

      ‘What if I did?’

      ‘You know of course that your own rating affects your family rating.’

      ‘What if it does?’

      Swish, swish, swish, goes the broom.

      ‘That is what we are about to find out.’

      He came to a stop before a door in a stone wall. The door was heavy, and closed with a big iron latch. He put his hand on the latch, and turned to Kestrel once more.

      ‘What more can you do to me? An interesting question, but the wrong one. You should ask, What more can I do to myself, and to those I love?’

      He heaved on the iron latch, and pushed the heavy door open. Inside, a dank stone tunnel sloped downwards into the gloom.

      ‘I am taking you to see the salt caves. This is a privilege, of a kind. Very few of our citizens see the salt caves, for a reason that will soon become evident.’

      They followed him down the tunnel, their footsteps echoing from the arched roof. The sides of the tunnel, Kestrel now saw, were cut out of a white rock that glistened in the dim light: salt. She knew from her history that Aramanth had been built on salt. The Manth people, a wandering tribe in search of a homeland, had found traces of the mineral, and had settled there to mine it. The traces became seams, the seams became caverns, as they tunnelled into a huge subterranean treasure-house. Salt had made the Manth people rich, and with their wealth they had built their city.

      ‘Have you ever asked yourself what became of the salt caves?’ said Maslo Inch, as they descended the long curving tunnel. ‘When all the salt had been extracted, there was left only a great space. A great nothingness. A void. What use, do you think, is a void?’

      Now they could hear the sound of slow-moving water, a low deep gurgle. And on the dank air they could smell an acrid gassy smell.

      ‘For a hundred years we took from the ground what we wanted most. And for another hundred years, we have poured back into the ground what we want least.’

      The sloping tunnel suddenly opened into a wide underground chamber, an indistinct and shadowy space loud with the sounds of moving water, as if a thousand streams here disgorged into a subterranean sea. The smell was unmistakable now: pungent and nauseating.

      Maslo Inch led them to a long railing. Beyond the railing, some way below, lay a vast slow-swirling lake of dark mud, which here and there bubbled up in ponderous burps, like a gigantic simmering cauldron. The walls of the chamber above this lake glistened and shone, as if with sweat. They were pierced at intervals by great iron pipes, and out of these pipes issued grey water, sometimes at a trickle, sometimes at a gush.

      ‘Drains,’ said the Chief Examiner. ‘Sewers. Not beautiful, but necessary.’

      Instinctively, both Kestrel and her father raised their hands to cover their noses against the stench.

      ‘You think, young lady, that if you do as you please, and make no effort at school, you and your family will go down from Orange to Maroon. You think you don’t mind that. Perhaps you will go down again, from Maroon to Grey. You think you don’t mind that, either. Grey District isn’t pretty, or comfortable, but it’s the bottom, and at least they’ll leave you alone there. That’s what you think, isn’t it? The worst that can happen is we’ll go all the way down to Grey.’

      ‘No,’ said Kestrel, though this was exactly what she thought.

      ‘No? You think it could be worse?’

      Kestrel said nothing.

      ‘You’re quite right. It could be far, far worse. After all, Grey District, poor as it is, is still part of Aramanth. But there is a world below Aramanth.’

      Kestrel stared out over the murky surface of the lake. It stretched far into the distance, further than she could see. And far, far away she seemed to glimpse a glow, a pool of light, like the light that sometimes breaks through clouds on to distant hills. She fixed her gaze on this distant glow, and the stinking lake appeared to her to be almost beautiful.

      ‘You’re looking at the Underlake, a lake of decomposing matter that’s bigger than all Aramanth. There are islands in the lake, islands of mud. Do you see?’

      They followed his pointing finger, and could just make out, far away across the slithering grey-brown surface of the lake, a group of low mounds. As they watched, they caught a movement near the mounds, and staring, half-incredulous, saw what looked like a distant figure pass over the mud, and sink abruptly out of sight. Now, their eyes attuned to the gloom, they began to spot other figures, all as uniformly dark as the mud over which they crept, slipping silently in and out of the shadows.

      ‘Do people live down here?’ asked Hanno.

      ‘They do. Many thousands. Men, women, children. Primitive, degraded people, little better than animals.’

      He invited them to step closer to the railing. Directly ahead, through a gate in the rails, there projected a narrow jetty. Tethered to its timbers some twenty feet below were several long flat-bottomed barges, half-filled with refuse of every kind.

      ‘They live on what we throw away. They live in rubbish, and they live on rubbish.’ He turned to Kestrel. ‘You asked, What more can you do to me? Here’s your answer. Why do we strive harder? Why do we reach higher? Because we don’t want to live