Peter Dickinson - Shadow of a Hero

‘I knew roughly what was going to happen, though it was far worse than even I had feared, but because of my name I was forced to go. The Russians provided us with a safe conduct and an escort, but before we had gone a hundred miles our escort was replaced. The new escort then arrested us. My companions were shot, without trial, massacred beside the road and buried in a clay-pit, but because of my name, which might possibly still be used to bargain with, I was kept alive. Eighteen years I spent in camps in Siberia . . .’

‘Was that where you lost your fingers?’

‘Yes, but not in fact from frost-bite. There was a misunderstanding. It is not important. Where was I?’

‘Eighteen years in Siberia. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’

‘I would like you to understand. Well, then, for reasons I still know nothing about, I was sent back to Bulgaria and spent another twelve years in prison . . .’

‘But it was better than Siberia?’

‘Prison is prison. Physically it was, I suppose, better, but there was a spirit in the camps in Siberia, among the inmates, I mean – not all of them, of course – a sort of sullen undefeatability. I didn’t find that in sleazy, deceitful Bulgaria. There! You see, in spite of all I know I am speaking and thinking like a Varinian peasant. Hatred and contempt for Bulgaria is in my bloodstream. Ah, well. At last my name came to my rescue. Very few people outside Varina have heard of Restaur Vax, though he was not merely our national hero but one of the great European poets. I mean that, my darling. This is not mere patriotism. He is fit to rank with Goethe and Byron and Victor Hugo, except that he wrote in a language known by only three hundred thousand people . . .’

‘And anyway they speak Field most of the time.’

‘That too. Still, even the ignorant can respond to the notion of a hero-poet. Now his great-grandson, bearing the same name, once a fighter against Hitler, elected leader of his people, thirty years a prisoner of the Communists, et cetera, et cetera . . . My case was an easier cause to publicize than many just as deserving. I was in the end released as part of a trade-deal, the British government of the time wishing to be able to reply to critics who rightly said that they should not be having commercial dealings with the unspeakable Bulgarian regime. I was a bit of icing on the cake of commerce, allowing them to claim that they had insisted on an increase in human rights being part of the deal. About a dozen political prisoners were released. Several thousand remained in prison. But because of my name I was one of those dozen. So, as with everything else in my life, it was my name that sent me to prison, having saved me from being massacred by the roadside, and my name that, thirty years later, released me again.’

‘And they want you to take it back to Varina now? Hey! You could change it by deed poll. Angel’s dad changed his name because he wanted to be double-barrelled.’

Grandad smiled and shook his head.

‘It is my name. I have grown to the shape of it,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it has not yet come to that. Part of the deal under which I was released was that the British government guaranteed the Bulgarians that I would not take part in political activities.’

‘Is that what the policemen keep coming to see you about?’

‘Approximately.’

‘And they’ve changed their minds? Is this a different lot? You said there was an American the other day.’

‘There are always people interested in fishing in troubled waters. But what is mainly happening at the moment is that the people I call the policemen have realized that none of the three regimes which control Varina can last, and that many Varinians will believe that the time has come to try once more for independence. Inevitably, because of my name, and whatever the British government may have promised, they will come to me, so the policemen have decided that they will have more control of events if I am acting under their protection. I am seen as a moderating influence – a ridiculous concept in Varinian terms. We are not a moderate people. So they have allowed the main organization of Varinians in exile to provide me with a telephone – which the policemen will no doubt tap – and a part-time secretary.’

‘Wow! A beautiful spy!’

‘May I be so fortunate. I was talking all this over with your momma last night.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She didn’t like it, of course. Long ago she had quite reasonably decided that her future was to forget her own roots and transplant herself here and grow fresh roots and become an Englishwoman. Still, in the end she said what Varinian women have had to say to their men for the past twelve centuries – “If you must go, you must go.”’

‘Well, don’t forget you’ve got to get my permission too.’

‘Of course.’

‘And I’m not going to give it.’

‘You forbid me to take part in any political activities?’

‘Oh, no. That’s all right. I’m talking about going. I’m not one of those stupid women who say “If you must go, you must go.”’

‘Go where?’

‘Varina, of course. You can’t go back and start politicking in Varina unless I can come too. All right?’

‘I hear and obey.’

Letta stuck out her chin and glared at him like all the tyrants who have ever sat on thrones.

‘Good!’ she said.

LEGEND

The Woman at the Avar Bridge

RESTAUR VAX CAME to the bridge over the Avar, and found it guarded by three bazouks 1who took tolls from all who passed. This oppression had lasted many years.

‘Little priestling, you must pay the toll,’ said the Corporal of Bazouks.

‘This bridge was built by Count Axur,’ 2said Restaur Vax, ‘and he decreed it free for all to pass. That is the law.’

‘Count Axur is dead seven hundred years,’ said the Corporal of Bazouks. ‘Among the living, the law is our law.’

‘Not so,’ said Restaur Vax. ‘For I am going to send you to where you may beg an audience of Count Axur, and be instructed in matters of law by him.’

He held his staff before him and the Corporal of Bazouks rushed forward and smote at him with his scimitar. But Restaur Vax parried the blow and with the after-stroke drove the butt of his staff into the bazouk ’s stomach, and smote him with his knee as he fell forward, and thus stunned him. The other two bazouks then rushed at Restaur Vax but he ran to meet them on the crown of the bridge, where the passage was wide enough for only one, and the first one he smote with the butt of his staff and with his knee, as before, stunning him also, and when the second turned to run, he followed him and felled him with a blow to the head. Then he picked up the three bodies and tossed them into the river, which carried them away. And he threw their weapons after them.

Then the woman who kept the inn by the bridge came to her door and said, ‘Why have you done this to me? You have slain three Turks at my door. I can run with my daughters to the hills, but the Turks will come and burn my roof in vengeance.’

Restaur Vax, knowing she spoke the truth, said in his heart, ‘Somewhere I shall find myself a sword.’ He took from his wallet the first ring that the Bishop had given him, a ring of fine silver set with opals and garnets, and gave it to the woman, saying, ‘Take your goods and your daughters and hide in the mountains. Return when the Turks have gone, and sell this ring and buy timber and hire labour, and build your roof anew.’

At that the woman blessed him and brought out bread and peaches and wine, and while he ate she said, ‘You are too fine a man to be a priest, and moreover my husband was an old man, and he died, so I am a widow. 3I have three good fields on the mountain, and a sound hut, and twenty-seven sheep. You could do worse.’