Shadow of a Hero by Peter Dickinson Read Free Book Online

men calling to each other across a valley, boasting about how they’ve got the best sheep, the best dog, the best crook, the prettiest girl, and so on. It had a cheerful tune, but the main point was the chorus, which was pure nonsense, the Varinian version of ‘With a folderolderolio’ and you sort-of-yodelled it. Everyone enjoyed themselves. Their voices echoed off the stuccoed walls of the Embassy and up through the branches of the planes into the bright winter sky. The yodelling sounded particularly good. To Letta’s surprise they came to a verse she didn’t know. Then another. Listening carefully, she realized why.
    ‘What was that about?’ said Nigel, as the other group took up the tune.
    ‘It’s not the sort of thing an aunt should go telling her innocent little nephew.’
    ‘Oh, come off it!’
    ‘Well, he was saying . . . Hold it, I’ll tell you next time.’
    It was their turn again, and yet another verse she didn’t know. These words were even more surprising – though there were some she’d never heard before. The woman behind her shoulder had a penetrating clear soprano and sang with great gusto, but when Letta glanced up and caught her eye she stopped short.
    ‘You understand?’ she whispered in English.
    ‘Most of it,’ said Letta cheerfully. ‘I can guess the rest. It makes much more sense like this, doesn’t it?’
    The woman was not amused, and kept her mouth firmly shut during the next verse, so Letta missed most of it, and then, while they were doing the yodel, which seemed to get longer and twiddlier with each verse, two photographers showed up. The singing stopped, but the photographers wanted them to start again because a singing protest was a bit of a change. Letta heard Mr Orestes telling them that ‘The Two Shepherds’ was a patriotic anthem. A few of the women were wearing national costume – rather bogus-looking, Letta thought, with a big bead shawl and a wide-brimmed hat down on one side – so the photographers made them stand in front and sing, or pretend to in the case of the one nearest Letta. Like Mollie, she was English and didn’t know the words.
    Next, Grandad was due to deliver his protest. The photographers wanted him to take the Englishwoman in national dress up the steps with him, because she was prettier than the real Varinians, but he put his foot down. He refused to have any of them.
    ‘Not a charade, this is,’ he said loudly. ‘A protest we deliver about those serious and tragic events that in our country are taking place. A deliberate effort by the Romanian regime is being made to destroy our country, our culture, our language, our sense who we are. Those who resist they torture and kill. Let this be truly understood.’
    He had been waiting in the cold and looked frail but his voice came out strongly. Though he was a small man and his English was peculiar, the moment he spoke you forgot about that and he became the one who mattered, the centre of things. Mr Jaunis handed him an envelope and he turned and walked up the drive, with Mr Jaunis a pace or two behind his shoulder.
    ‘Who is this guy, then?’ said a man who’d come with the photographers. There was a woman with them too. They both had notepads and pencils.
    ‘He is our last democratic Prime Minister, Restaur Vax,’ said the woman who’d worried about Letta understanding the words of the song.
    ‘Spelling?’ said the reporter, and wrote it down. ‘How old, anyone know?’
    ‘Over eighty, I believe,’ said the woman.
    ‘Eighty-one,’ said Letta.
    ‘Sure, love?’ said the reporter patronizingly.
    ‘She’s his granddaughter,’ said Nigel. ‘And I’m his great-grandson.’
    Letta could have kicked him. It wasn’t his fault not knowing about her pact with Grandad, but even so . . . Luckily, no-one took him up on it.
    The woman started trying to tell the reporters about Grandad being named after the national hero, but they weren’t very interested, and at that point