The Wordsmith Read online

  Purposefully, Letta turned and set off through the mud and the puddles. Within minutes, she could smell the salty perfume of the sea and hear the water pounding on the shore. She remembered how afraid she had been of it as a child. How she would wake screaming in the middle of the night convinced that it was coming to swallow them up. It was always the same dream, always the same fear. Finally, Benjamin had taken her to the shore.

  The path beneath her feet mutated and became more beach than field. She was sure that this was the way she had come that day with her master. Down this incline and straight on to the beach. She had cowered behind Benjamin, afraid to look up. She could smell it, though, and hear it: Bang, swiiish, bang, swiiish.

  ‘Look!’ Benjamin said. ‘See! The tide is going out. It cannot hurt you.’

  She had looked up and, holding his hand, had walked down until she was only yards from the water.

  ‘Look!’ he’d said again. ‘See that line. See those rocks. Each year the sea gives back a little of what it took.’

  She looked at it now. Its muddy green water suckling the earth, sucking its life force with it. Ghosts lingered in this place, the ghosts of all who had been overtaken by the sea, grey wispy ghosts who sighed on dark winter’s evenings and faded a little in the light of summer. Letta could feel their presence brooding in the background as she tried to imagine the awfulness of it. The towering wall of water bearing down, the screams, the vain attempts to flee. The victims of the Melting. How strange it must have seemed to see that usually docile body of water suddenly rear up against them, swallowing houses, villages, towns and cities. Cities once brimming with life; structured, ordered days; possessions; families – all gone. Drowned in the salty beast. Letta shivered. The wind had turned and was blowing from the north. She watched as the grey wisps of ghosts were caught in its breath and pushed across the sky until they blended with the steely clouds.

  She missed her parents, missed them with a terrible longing, and in that instant she could feel their presence. She closed her eyes and let the feeling flow through her until it lost its force, leaving her alone and shivering at the edge of the tide.

  She looked to the far horizon. Then she raised one finger and saluted them, as she always did, just in case they were out there and could see her and would know that she hadn’t forgotten them. The far horizon where they now lingered, if not in body, then at least in spirit.

  CHAPTER 2

  #151

  Danger

  Harm or hurt can happen

  LEFT ALONE, Letta immersed herself in work. As well as transcribing words, she served their regular customers, the crafters and apprentices who needed specialist words that were not on the List.

  And with only Letta to transcribe the words, the days were exhausting, though uneventful. The nights were long and dark and lonely.

  She made up three new boxes of words, which had been ordered by a carpenter for his three apprentices. The boys came to collect the words themselves. They were giddy, their eyes bright with mischief, twelve years old and just finished school. Anyone would think they been apprenticed to the Green Warriors, Letta thought wryly. She had given them saw and hammer and nails and tacks, and nicer ones like plane and chisel. Twenty-five words in all, in addition to the five hundred on the main List. They’d seemed happy.

  ‘We ready now,’ the younger one had said, smiling.

  She recognised him as one of the healer’s boys. Daniel. Or was it Crann? No. Definitely Daniel. She’d heard about him. She glanced at his tally stick. It had at least fifteen notches. Fifteen breaches of the language law.

  Letta had handed him his box, making a silent wish that he would change his ways now that he was an apprentice.

  After the boys left, she had prepared two boxes of words detailing thirty types of fruit that were to be removed. Pineapple had been a new word to her. List had only those fruits available in Ark: apples, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries. There were no pineapples.

  Letta was about to close the shop when she heard the old wooden door rattle open.

  In front of her stood a boy of her own age, but thin, the bones in his face so clear it looked as though they had been drawn there. He looked up, and Letta could see the previously hidden bright blue-grey eyes.

  ‘No harm!’ Letta greeted him, tentatively.

  He looked about him, nervously. ‘I need words,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Letta. ‘What words?’

  ‘List words. A box of List words,’ the boy replied, his right hand pressed to the left side of his chest, his eyes darting from the front door back to her face.

  Letta listened, entranced. His voice was rich and fluid, not rusty like most of their customers’. He was speaking List but not in the usual way. A box, he’d said. Perfectly legal, but most people didn’t bother with the article. Her heart quickened.

  ‘Why?’ she began. ‘Why need … why you need?’

  The boy frowned. ‘Fail,’ he said. ‘Need words. No question.’

  Letta took a step back and scrutinised him. He seemed nervous, his feet moving restlessly, eyes never still.

  ‘I wait my master come,’ she said, speaking carefully, only using List words. The boy’s eyes clouded over.

  ‘No!’ The boy took a step back, looking at the door behind him again, as if expecting someone. ‘I no wait. I hear you be wordsmith.’

  Letta flinched, his words stinging like nettles.

  ‘I wordsmith,’ she said. ‘That … that …’ She could feel herself getting flustered. She tried again. ‘I wordsmith apprentice, but he no here, so I wordsmith for now.’

  The boy raised one eyebrow, his blue-grey eyes now studying her face. His body relaxed. ‘You help me or no?’ he said, with the hint of a smile.

  Letta knew he was challenging her. She pulled herself up to her full height. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I help.’

  She turned to retrieve a box from the pigeon-hole behind her. As soon as she did, she remembered that she had given the last one to the tanner’s wife earlier that day.

  ‘Words no here. I get,’ she said, cursing her own carelessness. She had meant to replenish the pigeon-holes earlier but it had slipped her mind. Now she would have to leave this strange boy alone while she went to the master’s study. She could feel his eyes on her as she retreated from the shop.

  In the study, she grabbed the keys from the nail and quickly inserted the smallest one in the library door. The key glided through the mechanism with a tiny metallic click. The heavy door fell open and Letta caught her breath as she always did when confronted with the master’s secret library. Here were the words he kept in isolation, the words forever removed from everyday use. Shelf after shelf, from floor to ceiling, packed with boxes, the boxes packed with words that would survive, even if they could never be used in Letta’s lifetime.

  Nothing wasted, nothing lost. John Noa’s mantra, Benjamin’s mantra. Nothing wasted, nothing lost. If the day came that man ever needed language again, Ark would be ready.

  Letta shivered. The room smelt of paper and age and a touch of mustiness. Within it lay the precious source material, the fruits of the master’s many word-finding trips, where he searched painstakingly for any last remaining relic of the written word. Box upon box of tiny bits of language, waiting to be sorted, transcribed and filed. On one wall a tattered banner hung from a nail, its words faded and worn: In the Beginning was the Word.

  Most people could read a little, but rarely saw the written word, apart from the odd poster with information from John Noa, or their little box of words from school. The sea had swallowed the written word after the Melting. The very thought caused a shiver to ripple through her. For a second, she doubted the wisdom of what she was doing. Would her master have given words to this stranger? She hesitated. What harm could it do? He was entitled to the List. Though why had he not been given the List by his master?

  She picked up one of the boxes from the desk and headed back to her customer. As she passed the o
rderly rows of shelves, her elbow touched a box that had not been properly replaced. It tumbled from its perch and landed at her feet. She jumped as the box fell and an avalanche of cards hit the floor. She bent down and picked up the box. On the front written in her own steady hand a word looked back at her: Colours. She hastily stuffed the cards back into it. She would take it up to the shop and sort it later, but for now her customer was waiting.

  She hurried through the door to where she could see the counter. At first she thought the boy had left, and then she saw him, or at least she saw his hand on the cold marble floor. His hand, and then his arm, and then his chest, and the crater the bullet had left, and the thick red soupy blood, and then she heard the high-pitched scream of a young girl. It took her a full five seconds to realise that it was she, Letta, who was screaming. Screaming, even as the precious box of words fell from her hands and the cards fluttered to the floor: crimson, sienna, indigo, cobalt, ochre and gunmetal blue.

  Letta was about to run onto the street when she saw his hand move. He was alive. She knelt on the cold floor and put her shaking hand to the boy’s throat. His skin felt warm and smelt of wild sage. He moaned.

  Letta jumped back in fright. ‘Quiet now,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘I get help.’

  She started to rise but his fingers grasped her hand. He tried to lift his head.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Must hide. They will find me.’

  ‘Who? Who will find you?’

  The sound of a siren suddenly rent the air. Gavvers. Letta jumped up and, yanking down the cloth that covered the shop door, she slammed home the great bolts. Then she went back to the boy.

  ‘Can you get up?’ she said, abandoning all efforts to speak List.

  He groaned as he bent his knees and tried to transfer his weight to his hands. Letta grabbed him, pulling him up and almost knocking herself over in the process.

  ‘Put your arm around my neck,’ she said, her breath rasping. The blood from his wound dripped onto the floor – scarlet in the beam of light that fell from the window overhead. Letta put her hands under his arms and half-dragged, half-carried him up the stairs, down the long corridor at the top of the house. At one point he stumbled and fell against the old wood-panelled wall. The wall gave, revealing an ancient hidden space where Letta had played as a child. It was known as the Monk’s Room, though no-one knew why. For a second, the boy lay on the floor looking up at her, then turned towards the hidden space.

  ‘No further. Leave me … here.’

  His words were sticky, she thought, as though adhering to his lips.

  ‘No!’ Letta said, and with another heave, she got him to his feet and pulled him the last few strides, to where her own small room stood. There, she let him fall onto her bed. He groaned, a sound like air leaving a tired balloon, and lost consciousness.

  The room was small, with only her bed, a chair and the old cupboard that Benjamin had made for her, leaning against the wall. She pulled the chair to the side of the bed.

  It was then she heard the banging on the door. She looked from the boy to the door. The banging continued, louder and more aggressive. Letta could hear her own heart almost as loud, hammering in her ears.

  A moment later she drew back the heavy bolts on the front door and found herself looking into the face of a gavver. Letta took in the dull grey uniform of John Noa’s law enforcers before her eyes travelled to the face above it. The face had few if any saving graces. A bulbous nose spread across it, and above that, two small hooded eyes. His mouth was a thin wrinkle, no lips, just a fold of yellowing skin. Letta inclined her head and listened to his raspy voice.

  ‘Wordsmith here?’ he asked, his eyes fastening first on her face, then taking in the blood on the floor, the cards scattered on the white marble.

  There was an air of aggression about him that frightened her. She shook her head. ‘Master on word-finding –’ Too late she remembered there was no list word for trip or journey. She hesitated. ‘He away word finding,’ she said, the clumsy words thick in her mouth. ‘He no back for short time.’

  She waited for his response. He took his time formulating his next question.

  ‘Where boy?’

  Letta frowned. ‘No understand?’ she said, creasing her brow into a puzzled mask.

  The gavver snarled, pointing at the blood on the floor. ‘Boy! Where he go?’

  ‘Run away. I don’t know,’ Letta said.

  The gavver’s hand shot out and slapped her across the mouth. Letta tasted the dull, metallic blood on her tongue just before he grabbed the collar of her shirt and pulled her close. ‘Where boy?’

  She struggled to answer. Struggled even to breathe. ‘I … I don’t know. I tell you. I don’t know.’

  His grip tightened. Letta’s eyes bulged in their cavities even as little black dots started to dance in front of them. Just then, the door burst open, and a second gavver stood there, red in the face and panting loudly.

  ‘Carver! Come!’ he said. ‘Down lane! He hurt, but able run!’

  Carver swung round, releasing Letta reluctantly, and started for the door.

  ‘That way!’ his colleague shouted.

  As soon as Carver left, the second man turned to Letta and, with a barely perceptible nod to the stunned girl, he was gone.

  Letta released a long slow breath, putting her hand to her bruised throat, feeling her lip thicken and swell. Then she slammed the bolts home for the second time and stood, her knees weak, her head spinning. She looked down at the congealing blood on the floor and the word cards lying helplessly beside it. Once more the siren screamed outside. But this time Letta felt it was screaming at her, and it was only a matter of time before they would return for their quarry. Her eyes went to the door behind the counter and the boy she knew waited for her at the top of the stairs.

  Letta took away the cloth that covered his wound, her fingers moving gently, her eyes darting from the bandage to her patient’s face, worried lest she hurt him. It was healing already, the wound drying out and crusting over. As she watched him, his eyelids flickered, and slowly the eyes opened.

  ‘It all right,’ Letta said quickly. ‘You safe.’

  He tried to sit up, then fell back against the pillow, his face white and drained.

  ‘Easy,’ Letta said. ‘Rest.’

  ‘You wordsmith.’ His voice was ragged, his breathing shallow.

  ‘Yes,’ Letta said. ‘Wordsmith. Letta. What your name?’

  ‘Marlo,’ he said and closed his eyes again.

  ‘Marlo,’ Letta repeated softly. ‘Marlo.’

  She let him sleep then. She had closed the shop and brought her work upstairs with her so that she could fill the school boxes for Mrs Truckle, but she found it difficult to concentrate. The night had fallen quickly and outside rain lashed the street and beat on the window.

  She shivered. What had she done? She had no idea who the strange boy was. He wore a tally stick, but, when she examined it, there was something not quite right about it. Normal tally sticks had a mark burnt on the base. The mark was an individual one, no two the same. This tally stick had no such mark. It was illegal to interfere with the tally stick. She looked at it again. It had three notches on it, showing he had broken the language law three times. Twenty breaches meant expulsion from Ark. There were other things too. When she had removed his shirt she found old scars on his back. Large black shadows where the skin bloomed, black as night. She had heard of the Black Angel. Hurts and heals at the same time. She had asked the master about it once but he had brushed her questions aside.

  ‘Not something you need to worry about,’ he’d said. ‘Do your work. Keep your head down and the law will have no truck with you.’

  Yet she couldn’t erase from her memory the face of the gavver who had slapped her. Instinctively, she put her hand to her swollen lip. He had treated her like a criminal. Criminals had always been shadowy creatures to her, people bent on the destruction of the new world; bandits who roamed the forest; or the
surly inhabitants of Tintown. Yet here she was, harbouring someone who could be a felon, maybe even a Desecrator. She pushed that thought away, but the question still nagged her. Who was he? She picked up a card and started to write.

  Plough: Break and turn over earth

  He was no farm boy, she was sure of that. His hands were clean and soft. A healer? Perhaps. She looked at him again. A sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. He moved his head restlessly.

  ‘Finn!’

  Letta went to him.

  ‘Shh,’ she said. ‘Relax.’

  ‘Finn!’ he cried out again. His eyes shot open, bright with fever.

  Letta stepped back.

  ‘Don’t tell them about the pump house,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell anyone. North of the river. We mustn’t betray them. The gavvers …’

  He started to climb out of bed. Letta moved quickly.

  ‘No, Marlo,’ she said firmly. ‘Lie down. No gavvers. Rest now.’

  She pushed him back onto his pillow and was relieved when he closed his eyes again. It was the fever, of course. She knew that, but it still frightened her. And he was speaking the old tongue, not List, throwing words about in an easy, fluid way, not thinking about where to find them, confident that they would come.

  Betray, he’d said. It was such a rare word. She had only recently learned it herself. Deliver to an enemy by treachery.