On by Adam Roberts Read Free Book Online Page A

should really ask your Grandhe this kind of stuff,’ said Akathe.
    ‘But you know about that.’
    ‘Sure.’
    ‘Does it sound, uh,
right
, to you?’
    ‘Don’t really think much about it.’
    ‘It’s just that I heard some other stories, and they made me think. What if God doesn’t sit on top of the world? What if God lives at the
bottom
of the wall – what if he built the wall to keep somebody out? To keep something out?’
    Akathe stopped and gave Tighe a serious look. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I had heard that you were chasing after the girl, the Wittershe girl. And everybody knows that her pahe is a mad old boy-boy.’
    ‘Well,’ said Tighe, staring intently at the strand of grass in his hand, ‘I was just wondering.’
    ‘You’d be careful, that would be best,’ said Akathe. ‘Old Witterhe is a dangerous sort to be around. I say if
my
Grandhe were the Priest I’d be specially careful who I spoke to. And I’d be specially careful who I let know about strange cosmic notions.’ He shook his head, and sniffed again. ‘You think that Wittershe girl is worth anything at all? You’re a Princeling, after all. She’s beneath you. Your pas own half a dozen goats, you know.’
    ‘We lost a goat,’ said Tighe.
    ‘Well, I heard that, but that’s not the point. You still come from an important family. You can do better than a monkeymonger’s daughter. You’ll be Prince of the village one day, and you can do better. She’s beneath you. That’s what my pashe reckons, at any rate, and I suppose she knows.’
    ‘Wittershe is all right,’ said Tighe.
    ‘Sure, but there are better, that’s all. And be wary of listening to heresy, Tighe. Just because your Grandhe is the preacher won’t protect you, I think. You know the way he is, better than any.’
    ‘Grandhe came by the house today.’
    Akathe didn’t say anything.
    ‘He came by and he was actually crying. He is upset by the death of his friend, by the death of Konstakhe, he really is.’
    Akathe was working at the watch again. ‘My pashe has some things to say about that too,’ he muttered, darkly.
    ‘What?’ said Tighe, genuinely surprised.
    But Akathe wouldn’t say any more.
    Tighe wandered back through the village. The sun was hot today and he took off his shirt. Life in the village went on. Death made no dent in it. Tighe thought of the tear trembling on the underside of his Grandhe’s eye. He had never seen the old man cry before. One person’s death could putsuch a wound in a single mind, and yet the village carried on without there being a visible gap in the weave of life.
    He climbed down to Old Witterhe’s ledge and found Wittershe cutting pelt from the monkeys. She held one captive creature firmly with her thighs and scraped his hair off with a razor. The beast screeched and muttered, but Wittershe kept a tight grip. The shaved hair was going into a cloth sac, to be used as stuffing. When Tighe said hello she scowled at him.
    ‘I had to clean your vomit off the ledge this morning, you foulness,’ she said, sourly.
    ‘I couldn’t help myself,’ said Tighe. ‘It was the thickness of your pahe’s smoke. What is that, anyway, that smoke? What does he put in his pipe?’
    ‘Something too strong for a boy-boy like you,’ she said.
    ‘Don’t say that,’ said Tighe, a little stung. ‘I’m sorry about the vomit, but, you know. I was thinking about all the stuff your pahe said last night.’
    ‘So?’
    ‘You’ve heard it?’
    ‘I know what the truth is,’ she said, scraping her razor down the leg of the squirming monkey. He looked comical, piebald, with one side pink and naked and the other still furred black. ‘And I know that your Grandhe would like to push my pahe off the wall for heresy.’
    ‘It’s not my fault that he’s my Grandhe,’ said Tighe, defensive. ‘I don’t think it sounded like heresy. I think it sounded right.’
    Wittershe stopped what she was doing and looked at him. ‘I’d be careful of saying