Peter Dickinson - Shadow of a Hero

‘You mean he arranged it himself?’

‘Perhaps. Your friend Parvla has already told us that Van is a very popular figure, more popular with some than Vasa himself. Vasa would not tolerate that for long, I think.’

‘But it still doesn’t make sense. Why should the Romanians be helping Otto Vasa stir things up? Don’t they want it all to simmer down?’

‘Of course. That is what the Romanian government wants, officially. But the army itself contains many nationalist extremists, and there are local politicians who would be glad to gain popularity by whipping up anti-Varinian sentiment. I now think it may have been a combination of these which originally abducted me, and the central government then took over and decided to spirit me out of the country.’

‘So it wasn’t Otto Vasa’s idea after all?’

‘I don’t know. As I told you, he has many contacts with powerful officials who are still in place. He knows things which they would much rather keep secret, so he is in a strong position both to bribe and blackmail them.’

‘But what’s in it for him? He doesn’t want the Romanians to crack down on us either, does he? He wants Varina independent, just like we do, only he wants to be boss.’

‘He has the mentality of a bandit. He will believe that when the time comes he can ride the tiger.’

‘It sounds terrifying.’

‘It is.’

‘Why don’t you tell Van?’

‘He will have heard stories of this kind and dismissed them as lies to discredit Vasa. He will not believe them, even from me. I must . . .’

‘He’s coming back.’

‘. . . forty-three Jews died in the Square. Others were hunted down in their homes.’

‘ We did this?’ said Letta, as Van came panting in. ‘Us Varinians?’

‘The great-great-grandparents of many of those whom you saw.’

‘Ancient history,’ said Van. ‘What can you expect if the price of bread goes up ten times in a month. Crumpets ready?’

LEGEND

Selim’s Return

THERE WAS A girl of matchless beauty born in the valley of the Spol. 1When she was five years old the Turks took her and offered her for sale in Jirin market. There the slave-captain of the Pasha of Jirin saw her, and bought her for his master. Years passed and each year she became yet more beautiful.

When she was almost a woman, Restaur Vax drove the Pashas from Varina, and they fled, taking their households with them to Byzantium. There they found the Sultan greatly vexed for the loss of Varina, and he cast them into his dungeons and ordered their goods to be taken from them and sold, but reserved for himself the best.

Thus it was that the Warden of the Imperial Harem came to the Sultan and said, ‘A young woman of matchless beauty has been entered in the inventory.’ And the Sultan said, ‘Let us see her.’

She was brought and stood before him and looked proudly at him, and without fear, so that he was amazed and said, ‘We are the Sultan of all the world. Are you not afraid?’

She answered, ‘I am a Varinian. How should I be afraid?’

He asked her, ‘Are you Varinians then afraid of nothing?’

‘None of us knows how to be afraid,’ she answered.

‘Not even the little children in the dark of the night?’ he demanded.

At that she laughed and said, ‘When I was a little child, sometimes in the dark of the night I was afraid that Selim Pasha would come for me, but now he is in your dungeons, so I have nothing to fear.’

Then the Sultan sent for his Chief Vizier and said, ‘We have a man called Selim Pasha in our dungeons. Let him be taken from the rack and set free, and restored to his household and his honour. Let gold and armies be given him, as much as he may ask, and say to him that he has a year and a day in which to restore to us, by what means he may, our lost province of Varina. And if he should fail, then his state shall be ten times worse than it is now.’

So it was as the Sultan commanded, and before the ice had melted from the great river, Selim Pasha raised his standards outside the walls of Potok, and behind him stood an army of seventeen thousand bazouks .

1The women of Spol Valley are still proverbial for their beauty, as the men are for their stupidity.

AUGUST 1990

VAN RODE HIS new bike north to settle things with Sue and arrange for having his own gear moved to Winchester. A few days later he was back, in time to come and have tea with Grandad and Letta. It was a Saturday so Momma came too, not because she particularly wanted to see Grandad but because Van was there. Since he’d been home from Potok, Letta had realized for the first time how deeply Momma cared about Van, in a way she didn’t seem to about Steff or Letta herself. It was the sort of thing that happened in families, Letta knew – not that Momma made a parade of it, in fact she’d probably have denied it completely if you’d asked her, but all the same she was different when Van was around, brighter and less fussed with the business of keeping the household going.

It was a lovely late summer afternoon and they had the window open, with the roofs and tree-tops of Winchester spreading away below them. They weren’t talking about anything much, just sitting there peacefully, when Van said, ‘Will Poppa be home in time for St Joseph’s?’

Poppa was in Bolivia, advising about bridges.

‘When’s St Joseph’s?’ said Momma.

‘Oh, Momma!’ said Van.

‘Twenty-seventh,’ said Letta, ‘and he better had be, because it’s my birthday the day after.’

‘Of course it is,’ said Momma. ‘I don’t know why I said that. Yes, he’ll be home.’

‘Can we have kalani ?’ said Van.

‘To welcome home our various prodigals it really ought to be trozhl ,’ said Grandad.

‘You get me the goats’ udders and I’ll do you trozhl tomorrow,’ snapped Momma. ‘I could do kalani , I suppose, though the lamb’s nothing like the same here . . .’

‘Not tough and stringy enough,’ said Grandad.

‘As a matter of fact Poppa did bring a bottle of bitter sauce home from Potok,’ said Momma. ‘I was keeping it for the goose at Christmas. And I saw some figs at Sainsbury’s, so we could have dumbris for afters . . .’

Letta was delighted it wasn’t going to be trozhl , which was a slithery sort of stew which she’d found disgusting. Kalani was just kebabs with green peppers, but you dipped them in this sauce which almost shrivelled your mouth first go, but made you want to try again. Dumbris were whole figs inside a jacket of spiced dough, deep-fried and coated with honey, intensely sweet and delectable. ‘Eat three and die in paradise’ was the saying about them. The point was that it was almost impossible to swallow more than one. However much your mouth wanted to, your throat refused.

‘No fields like Father’s. No food like Mother’s,’ said Van.

They all laughed. It was another saying, much the same as ‘Home Sweet Home’. In fact Letta had seen it again and again on plates and plaques and even T-shirts on the souvenir stalls in Potok. She could almost hear Momma purring.

‘We’ll be all right for wine,’ said Van. ‘Hector brought some home from his uncle’s vineyard. He gave me a couple of bottles.’

Grandad had been sitting back in his chair, looking benign and relaxed, but now he flashed a sharp glance at Van.

‘Old Paul Orestes has got the vineyard back?’ he said.

‘A couple of months ago,’ said Van.

‘They used to make really good wine,’ said Grandad. ‘It will be interesting to see whether the Communists managed to ruin that also. When did you see our Hector?’

( That was what he really wanted to know.)