Magnus Mills - Three to See the King

It was extraordinary the way they parted to let him through. The confrontation with Simon had caused their number to swell to more than a hundred, yet Michael passed between them with ease, pursued by a question coming as from one voice: ‘When shall we build our city of tin?’

Walking behind him were Steve Treacle and Philip Sibling, who looked most put out when the jostling mob surged around them. Only Michael himself was given room to move, and it was with some difficulty that these two managed to keep up. Steve had a bustling manner about him, and I almost expected to hear a shout of ‘Make way!’ as he followed after Michael. Philip, meanwhile, pushed along as best he could. Both of them were apparently oblivious to the one question being repeated all around them, and seemed only interested in maintaining their role as Michael’s guard of honour. It was a role that came to an end when they saw me holding the hammer and pegs.

Without a second thought, they made a rush towards where the rectangles had been. This, of course, separated them from Michael, and within seconds they were lost, powerless to move, in the midst of the seething crowd. For a moment I feared for their safety, but, luckily for them, everyone’s attention was on Michael. He, too, had noticed the hammer and pegs in my hand. He approached and took them from me.

‘When shall we build our city of tin?!’ went up the cry.

Michael held the implements aloft. His audience fell silent.

‘The next time we use this hammer and these pegs,’ he declared, ‘it will be for all your houses!’

A great cheer ensued, and from my place in the crowd I could feel anticipation stirring.

‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long while!’ he continued. ‘But it had to wait until I felt you were ready! Now, at last, the day has come, and the question can be answered! You ask me when shall we build our city of tin, and I say to you: Never!’

During the few moments it took for his words to sink in, most of the people around me just stood there gaping. Then a groan of disappointment such as I had never heard arose and threatened to drown him out.

‘Never?!’ said Alison. ‘What do you mean, never?’

‘This is the great step I told you about,’ replied Michael. ‘We have no more need for tin! Why? Because there’s clay here! Now we can make bricks and tiles! We can build proper houses, with foundations, and walls that won’t creak and groan at every breath of wind!’

‘We don’t know how to build from clay,’ said Patrick Pybus. ‘We only know about tin.’

‘You can learn,’ Michael answered. ‘And as you learn, you can build. Build a great city of clay in this canyon you’ve created!’

‘But we already have a city of tin!’ someone called from the back, to noisy acclaim.

‘Abandon it!’ he commanded. ‘Let it stand as a monument to your folly and your lost aspirations! From this day on, we build only from clay!’

There followed a brief lull, during which one or two individuals near the front repeated what they’d just heard. ‘We build only from clay,’ they said, as if testing the sound of it for themselves. ‘From this day on, we build only from clay.’ These words were taken up by a few other people, then more, and then more still, and gradually the doctrine spread. In small groups and in pairs they began to discuss Michael’s latest pronouncement. It had been a shock, for they’d assumed they only had to dig a canyon and their city could be founded overnight. Now, it seemed, a further step remained.

As I watched them drift back to the encampment, I realized he had won their obedience yet again. From now on they would build only from clay.

It was an outcome I found most gratifying.

In some respects I felt quite sorry for Simon, Steve and Philip. They had, after all, been pioneers in their particular field, and now at a stroke it was being snatched away from them. To live in a house of tin had ceased to be the great ideal. As a result, their knowledge of the subject offered no advantage. Previously they’d managed to persuade themselves that it might win them favour with Michael, but the episode with the pegs had shown them otherwise. He’d moved forward, and their only hope was to follow his lead and take their place in the city of clay.

To their credit, they seemed quickly to have grasped this, and they buckled down to the new regime within a couple of days. It was clear, though, that some of their habits weren’t going to change. At any particular time, for example, Steve could still be seen marching up to some work party or other and dishing out all sorts of orders. The difference now was that no one took the slightest bit of notice, as word of his powerlessness went before him. Undeterred, he managed to put himself in charge of the hoists, which everyone agreed was a good channel for his energy. The fact that nobody else wanted the job didn’t appear to bother him. Philip, of course, was always at hand to lend assistance, and the two of them spent many an hour maintaining an apparatus that actually required no attention.

Simon, meanwhile, had set himself the task of designing a flag to fly above his new house. His former optimism had returned apace, and he was convinced he would be amongst the first residents of the completed city. Nightly, he went round the encampment trying to muster support for his proposition that every dwelling should eventually have its own flag. Like Steve and Philip, however, he was no longer taken seriously.

For my part, I found myself spending more and more time in the company of women, though maybe I should add that relations between us never went beyond ordinary friendship, since it was impossible to obtain sufficient privacy under those tarpaulins even if the flaps were rolled down. Indeed, the place was beginning to get quite crowded. Fresh recruits were continuing to arrive in the canyon, and they, too, had to be accommodated. Sometimes I looked around and wondered where they were all going to live, but on each occasion I had to admit that the operation was fully under control. Michael appeared to be going from strength to strength. The dual supply of clay and manpower meant he had all the resources he needed, and as the canyon expanded, so did his enthusiasm for the work. Even Alison Hopewell managed to get swept along in it. Her aloofness had faded and she was now amongst the first to rise in the morning, frequently offering to go and assist him when he surveyed some new terrain. They would come back hours later, full of the joys of spring.

Yet there was one who doubted him. Jane Day had been Michael’s most zealous follower, and I thought that she of all people would fall straight into line and accept the changes without demur. Instead, when she heard that the city of tin was to be forsaken, she raised a voice of protest. This amounted to little more than a whinge: a petty complaint that bore no substance. Nevertheless, it was enough to sow the seed. Her misgivings emerged one day when a group of us, including Jane and Sarah, were working on the clay beds, preparing for the production of bricks and tiles. There were numerous kilns to be constructed before we could even think of building the city itself, and most people recognized that the whole process was going to be a slow one. Jane, however, seemed rapidly to be losing interest. As a consequence, she began to seek faults in the man whose idea it had been.

‘1 suppose Michael will be living apart from the rest of us,’ she said. ‘When this new city is finished.’

‘It’s possible,’ I replied. The tin house that stands alone is his, I presume?’

‘Yes,’ said Jane. ‘Meanwhile, the rest of us all get packed together. I expect he’ll have one half of the canyon, and we’ll have to share the remainder.’