Iain Pears - Arcadia

Another murmur, but not from despair this time. Broad grins spread over all those listening. It was better than they could possibly have hoped. Yes, they’d have to pay their debt, but they’d have something to take to market as well. The Visitor had been generous; not for the first time, there were many who counted their blessings. They’d often heard tales of what life was like elsewhere, where the Visitors were not so flexible.

Their Visitor — who was trying hard to keep a solemn expression — spread out his arms. ‘The judgement is given,’ he pronounced. ‘The tithe will be made ready to depart after the Storyteller has spoken and the feast has been eaten.’

Even by nine o’clock, the air was still warm and thick with the insects which flew wildly around the lamps set to mark the boundaries of the assembly.

Only a few remembered the last time a Storyteller had come. If there was any reason for their rare appearances, no one knew what it was. But they knew that he knew everything. How the world was, how it operated, the laws of men and nature and of God. What was right, and what was wrong. Why it was that men walked the face of the earth, their past and their future. All this the Storytellers knew and kept safe.

Now he stepped forward, and waited until the Visitor — now seen as a very much lesser figure — walked to one side.

No one knew what to expect. Would it be some terrifying, awe-inspiring ceremony? Were they expected to listen on their knees, heads bowed reverentially? Could anyone listen, or were they meant to send the young away?

‘Firstly,’ said the old man, ‘I must thank you for your good work over the past year, and say how pleased I am to be here on this wonderful evening, when the world has been smiling on us so generously.’

He had a gentle, melodious voice, and talked just like a normal person — well, less roughly, obviously, but there were no words they did not understand.

‘Many of you know little about storytelling. Before I begin, let me explain. The Story is the Story of us all. If understood properly, it is of immense power. It tells you who you are, what you might expect from this life. Some believe it can foretell the future. Mastery of the Story gives you mastery over life itself. It contains precious, holy relics of the age of giants which preceded us. It tells of our rise, our glories and our occasional disgraces. It tells of our fathers and grandfathers, of the animals and the trees and the spirits, containing all the knowledge you need to please them so they will help rather than punish you.

‘I am one of the guardians of this great Story. My telling is the truthful one, no matter what tales your grandmothers may have told you in the kitchen, or your grandfathers over a pint of ale, or wanderers who offer to entertain you in exchange for food and shelter. I keep the truth and you are commanded that, if you have heard differently from my account, you remember only what I say.

‘So we shall begin, and afterwards I will explain the importance of what I have told you, and what it teaches us. I take my story not from the beginning, not even when God abandoned this earth, when the darkness fell and mankind was oppressed and begging for relief. Not even in the days of Exile, when cruelty stalked the lands. Now, to match the bounty of our days, I will tell a tale from the Return, when men led by Esilio came back to the places that once were theirs, and now are so again. They left a land of hardship, “of cruelty and ice, of hardship and desert”, as it is said, and travelled to a place of peace and plenty...’

‘How can you have desert and ice at the same time?’

The Storyteller looked almost as though he had been slapped in the face. The audience drew in its breath as one person. Many people felt a cold shiver running down their spine.

Someone had interrupted. Someone had queried a story. That did not happen. No one, even a madman, was so stupid that they didn’t know that silence — total silence — was required. Even a cough was like a rebellion.

‘Who said that?’ the Storyteller said sharply. No one dared reply.

‘I asked a question, and it will be answered. Someone spoke. He must identify himself immediately.’

The Storyteller, whose authority was now self-evident to everyone, stood and walked forward, surveying the crowd. He was insistent, but not angry. He seemed to have no doubts that his command would be obeyed.

‘Well?’

The Storyteller was already walking towards him. He knew full well who had spoken. There was no possibility of hiding or denying it. He stood over the young boy until he reluctantly rose, then stuck his chin out defiantly.

‘I did,’ he said in a clear voice, which had no trace of a shake or tremor in it. He was scared witless, but at least it did not show.

The old man nodded to the two soldiers, who came forward. He nodded again, and each took him by an arm and began to lead him to the door of the tent.

Jay did not protest or resist. He knew there was no point. His mother looked on, petrified and helpless. The worst possible thing now would be if she doubled Jay’s sin and made some noise or protest herself. Then the entire family would be shamed.

‘You’ve done it now, boy,’ one of the soldiers muttered. ‘You’re going to get a whipping like you wouldn’t believe. If you’re lucky.’

‘I just wanted to know...’

They led him to the tent where the visitors were to sleep, which had been put up for them in the afternoon.

‘Sit.’

Jay moved to obey. ‘Not in there!’ the soldier said as Jay bent to go through the tent entrance. ‘Who do you think you are? Maybe you want a sleep in the Storyteller’s bed? I’m sure he’d be happy to camp out on the floor so you can be comfortable.’

‘Please forgive me.’

‘Perhaps a glass of his wine? Would you like to try on his clothes?’

The soldier looked at Jay’s miserable, frightened face, then relented. ‘Well, we’ll forget that one, shall we? Sit down, shut up and don’t move. Right?’

Jay nodded. He buried his face in his hands and began to pray to the spirits of village and family for help. He was, in truth, more worried about his mother’s look of sadness and fear, and what his father would do, than anything that might befall him in that tent. That he could not even imagine.

The Visitor and the Storyteller stood talking, muttering, to each other a few yards away from where the lad squatted on the ground, now cold, hungry and miserable. He had been sitting there, scarcely moving, for more than two hours. It was dark, and the cold was spreading through his young body. On the far side of the village, the feast was continuing despite his best efforts to ruin it; he could hear the sounds of merriment as it went on, and he thought wistfully of the food he was missing. The best food of the year, the feast that everyone looked forward to — wine and beer, fruit and bread, pork and mutton, vegetables fresh from the ground. People ate as though they had never eaten before, or never would again. The children would be given presents — little presents, certainly, but the only ones they ever got. Then they would sing and dance...

He was missing it all. His fear began to dissipate and be replaced by resentment. What had he done, apart from ask a question? So it was unheard of. So it was rude. But to miss the feast!

One of the soldiers walked over. ‘Up,’ he said. ‘Follow me.’

He took him by the arm and led him towards the tent, which the Storyteller had just entered.

‘Now listen,’ he whispered in his ear. ‘Speak when you’re spoken to. Answer any questions. Don’t try to be funny or smart. Understand?’

He had never been in such a thing before. The tent was almost as large as his house, and rich hangings had been draped over bars to hide the fact that it wasn’t a real building. Candles — wax ones, not tallow — burned, almost a dozen of them. More hangings hid what he assumed was a sleeping area.