Emily Rodda - The Golden Door

A burning lump rose in his throat. He wanted to cover his eyes, to block out the terrible sight. But he made himself look. He had to look.

He had done this. He had brought the poor, doomed little goat home. He had left it, forgotten, under the bell tree, to cry out and attract the skimmers.

He would have given anything — anything — to turn back the clock. But what was done could not be undone.

Hardly knowing what he was doing, he began trying to move a branch that was blocking the path to the back gate.

“Leave it, Rye,” Lisbeth said quietly.

She went back into the house. When Rye followed her, he saw that she was calmly making tea.

He could not speak to her. Over and over again, during the long night, he had said that he was sorry. There was no point in saying it all again. Yet what else did he have to say?

Lisbeth poured tea into two cups and set them on the table. Then she sat down, glanced at Rye, and patted the bench beside her, inviting him to join her.

“Rye, you are not to blame yourself anymore for this,” she said. “Your warm heart led you to it, and your warm heart is what I love in you.”

“I should not have slept,” Rye whispered. “I should not have forgotten. Dirk would not have forgotten. Sholto would not.”

“Perhaps.” His mother’s lips tightened. “But Dirk and Sholto are not here. Since they … went away, you have shouldered burdens that a boy your age should not have had to bear. You have shouldered them bravely, Rye. We have managed, alone together here, though we have had little enough. But now …”

For the first time, her voice trembled. She cleared her throat impatiently and went on.

“But now everything has changed. The beehives and the bell tree were our livelihood. Now they are gone.”

“I can work, Mother,” Rye said quickly. “I can work on the Wall!”

Lisbeth shook her head. “You are too young to work on the Wall, Rye. Even if you were not, the pay of a Wall apprentice would not be enough to support us. And there is no work for me here. No one in Southwall can afford to pay someone else to clean or cook for them these days.”

Rye stared at her helplessly. She was gazing down at her cup. Her hands were clasped tightly around it, as if for warmth.

“And the skimmers will be back,” she murmured.

“Now they have tasted blood here, they will be back.”

“So what are we going to do?” Rye asked in a small voice. He had the sinking feeling that he knew.

Lisbeth shrugged. “It is part of the Warden’s duty to give work and shelter to citizens in need. So we will do what many others have been forced to do before us. We will go to the Keep.”

Afew days later, Rye and Lisbeth left the little house in Southwall, taking with them only what they could carry on their backs. Their neighbors watched them go. Some wept a little. Others stared listlessly, too numbed by trials and tiredness to feel very much at all.

Lisbeth had used the last of their coins to pay for seats on the cart that carried passengers to the Keep.

“We could save the money and walk,” she told Rye. “But I have heard that the best jobs are given to those who look tidy and clean when they arrive. Besides, if we have no money at all in our pockets, it will be clearly seen that we are in real need.”

She spoke briskly — even cheerfully. But there was a new hardness in her eyes that made her seem almost like someone Rye did not know.

The cart, smartly painted with yellow and gray stripes, was drawn by six plump Weld goats and driven by a woman in a yellow uniform and peaked cap. Rye had always thought that to ride in it would be a great adventure. He had always envied its passengers when he saw it setting off from the town square.

But after half a day of smooth traveling along the broad, straight road, squeezed between his silent mother and an old Eastwall man who quickly went to sleep, he grew bored and restless.

There was nothing to see but square fields, clipped hedges, skimmer traps, trees rigidly pruned to the legal height, and signs — many, many signs giving information, warnings, and advice to travelers.

The signs reminded Rye of Dirk. The memory of Dirk reminded him of where this journey was going to end.

The Keep.

One step closer , he caught himself thinking. He glanced quickly at his mother, as if somehow she might have sensed his thoughts. But Lisbeth was staring into space, rocking slightly with the movement of the cart.

Rye looked down at the bundle of clothes pressed against his knees. A smooth, sturdy stick was threaded under one of the bundle’s fastening straps. It was a stick from the ravaged bell tree. He had picked it up and carried it away with him out of his need to keep some remembrance, some small part of home.

Only now did it occur to him that it could be a weapon.

He slid the stick from beneath the strap and felt its weight. He felt how well it fit into his hand. A nervous fluttering began in his stomach.

Do not think of it , he told himself. They will not let you go. You are too young.

He thought the same that night as he lay trying to get to sleep in the small, hot room of the roadside inn at which the cart had stopped just before sunset. And waking at dawn, hearing his mother turn restlessly in her narrow bed on the other side of the room, he berated himself for even thinking of leaving her alone, for any reason.

You are all she has left , he thought. The Warden would never allow you to be separated.

But about this, at least, he was to find that he was quite wrong.

They arrived at the Keep when the sun was high in the milky sky. The ancient fortress bulged from the Wall like a blister of stone. Towering over the little houses of Westwall, it looked exactly like the pictures Rye had seen of it, right down to the two huge brown animals standing on either side of the gateway with Keep soldiers perched on their backs.

“Mother, look!” Rye whispered in awe. “Look at the horses!”

But Lisbeth had seen the famous Keep horses as a girl and could not spare a glance for them now. She was carefully reading the sign that stood before the gateway.

The great paved courtyard was a confusion of people. Some were rushing about importantly with folders under their arms. Most seemed to be standing in line or just milling around aimlessly. Children clad in shabby red — the “Keep orphans,” no doubt — ran in and out, looking very much at home.

In the center of the courtyard was a bell tree, very old and gnarled and bearing only a few dry, speckled fruit. A fence of metal railings surrounded it. The label on the railings read:

Lisbeth and Rye turned away from the tree, their hearts aching with sad memories of home. In silence, they joined the other needy citizens standing in line before the door marked “Information.” The line was long and moved slowly.

When at last they reached the pleasant-faced woman at the desk beyond the door, Lisbeth told their story and showed the two gold badges.

The woman filled in a form while they waited in silence. Then she filled in another. When she had finished, she looked up brightly and told Lisbeth that she could have work in the Keep kitchens and a bed in the women’s dormitory. Rye would be sent to Welds Center to work in the fields.