moody, apparently deep in thought, I forgot that for four years every thought of him caused me - caused us all - pain.
And it was from the old ease with him that I walked up to him and embraced him, while he, after a moment, frowning with shock, turned and embraced me. ‘DeRod,’ complained, ‘why do we never see you?’ Now I was close I could have a good look. He was a man, no longer a boy.
He nodded and said with a frown, ‘But I hear you are all doing very well without me.’
Now that was an odd false note to strike, surely?
I said, ‘But DeRod, that sounds as if you are not one of us.’
He made an impatient movement, frowned, ‘I’ve got things to do.’ He was glancing up at the top of the path, expecting someone.
I felt more and more that this conversation did not - fit. He did not make sense. ‘But DeRod, we miss you. We talk about you. We wonder why you never …’
At this he shrugged me off, mi off, brusque, rude, but he felt the rudeness himself, and having already walked off a few paces he stopped and said, half-turning, ‘I’ll see you. Yes … soon.’ At the top of the path a woman had appeared. Presumably his town girl. Nothing much to say about her: she was a nice enough looking woman. But she stood there waiting for him, not looking at me at all. He was hurrying up to her, and the noise of the Fall made it useless to call after him.
And we did not hear one word from him. Not for years. Then it was always messages putting us off. And, always, there was about this communication, if you could call it that, something unexpected, discordant. We couldn’t make sense of it. What was he doing? He had become obsessed with his army. Instead of an institution that we saw as a useful way of keeping young men out of mischief, and discouraging greedy people who might be tempted by the riches of The Cities, it had become a major part of our economy. It glittered and excelled, it was marched and drilled and exercised out of its wits - the soldiers actually complained. He invented new clothes for them, using extravagant colours, scarlet, blue, gold. To stand on one of our little hills watching our army at their exercising down there on the plain - what a spectacle. And for what? He did not go to war, he did not threaten or even use it for his own prestige. He was nominally Commander-in-Chief-a title we knew had not been used before with us - but he did not interfere in the actual exercises and manoeuvres. And this went on. And it went on. We began to be alarmed at the way our wealth was being drained off into the army. And then there was a change, which we would have thought impossible.
But I am describing my visit to the burial place, and here I am still standing on the edge of the Fall, remembering, I walked down the path beside the Fall, hardening myself for what I would see. The pool for infants and small children was now a playground for the youth. It had become the fashion for them to assemble there, day and night, sitting around the edge, lolling in the shallow water, eating, drinking, smoking and - much else. For longer than most of the time these young ones had been alive, small children had not used this pool. It was now the property of The Young Hawks. Their name for themselves.
I walked by, at a small distance, because the noise was horrible, remembering the happy scenes and shrieks of the little children’s play. The Hawks took no notice of me. What they were seeing was a very old man, in the brown garment of The Twelve. Whom they had forgotten, and their parents had too. Sitting on the edge close to me were some girls and boys, about the age I think of when we became The Guardians, as always eating and throwing food about. A girl shouted at me, ‘Hey, old thing, what’s that you’ve got on?’ I went a bit closer, and said, ‘This is what The Twelve wear.’ I heard, as I knew I would, ‘The Twelve? What’s that?’ Then another girl said, ‘Hey, let me look. Would it suit me, do you think?’ Then she laughed and said, ‘I’m only joking, don’t worry. “You could easily make it,’ I said, knowing that none of them knew how to use a needle. And she boasted, ‘I wouldn’t know one end of a needle from the other.’ Her companions were all laughing and applauding. Clearly, she was some kind of leader.
‘You take a length of cloth,’ I said. ‘You cut a hole for the head.
You sew up the sides, leaving room for the arms. You can wear it as it is in hot weather, as I am now, or put it over others if it is cold.’ She was straining to listen, to understand. They know no crafts, have no skills now. They are dependent on the Barbarians. Because she was interested I went on. ‘When Destra chose The Twelve it was thought best that we should wear the simplest garb available. In cotton.’ I omitted to say that this was partly to encourage the use of cotton, which we had just begun to develop.
‘Who’s Destra?’ she asked smartly: she had decided to entertain her comrades by baiting me. ‘And who are The Twelve? I thought you were all dead long ago, ‘Well, she had at least heard of us, if not of Destra.
She began turning it into a song. ‘Twelve old men, they keep it - neat. They wear old sandals on their feet.’
‘Men and women,’ I said.
But she only grimaced, prettily, and began splashing the boy next to her with water.
I said to a youth near her, ‘Did you know this pool was once only for small children?’
He frowned. ‘Really? Oh - shame.’ He began clowning, ‘The Young Hawks have taken the little kids’ pool.’
Much laughter and then some horseplay. These were bored youngsters looking for an excuse to have some fun, as they would put it. The violence in The Cities is growing, and I had no intention of becoming a victim.
They saw themselves as hawks: now that was painful. They were a good-looking crowd, true enough, but they were soft and fatty.
‘Goodbye,’ I said, and walked on, thinking that the girl had been prompt in making up rhymes and singing them: not all of Destra’s legacy had gone.
I walked along the irrigation ditches that run out from the pool, and along the edges of the fields which grow our vegetables. There were people at work, men and women, all Barbarians. Our young despise this work, bending and tending, their hands in earth.
What do they do, then? A good question. Nothing much. They like to dress each other’s hair, tend each other’s bodies, create new kinds of food, new clothes. We are still so rich, though these days it is what we loot from others. We are rich because we don’t make war. We raid and steal and our victims are afraid of us, and do not fight back. Over the mountains that are like a barrier between us and the cities on the opposite edge of the peninsula, they fight each other and are poor. I wondered if their young people call themselves Young Eagles. Panthers, perhaps? Mountain Lions? These sour thoughts took me part of the way up the hill, approaching the burial ground. When I reached the big trees which I saw planted as saplings, I began walking cautiously: there were young people there, among the graves.
