Lost, aimless, his thoughts returned to him slowly, settling down with care. Just walk, they said to him. Get on your feet and walk.
Nico stood and hitched his pack, all that he owned, on to his back. The blood rushed from his head and he swayed for a moment, feeling nauseous and weak. Around him the park was choked with refugees, its lawns of yellowgrass long since trampled to bare earth, its trees cut to stumps that poked in sorry isolation from the ground. He placed a foot forwards, allowed himself to fall into the rhythm of a forward stride. It was without haste or even purpose that he picked his way between wooden lean-tos and patched tents stitched out of old clothing. He passed groups of dirty children, as thin as sticks, and men and women with blunted looks in their eyes, struggling to bear up to more than just the present. Some were Khosian by appearance, but many more were refugees from the southern continent, Pathians and Nathalese; or more recent arrivals from the north, from the island of Lagos or from the Green Isles. They were strangely quiet, for so many people. Dogs barked, of course. Babes howled for mothers' milk. But, overall, they saved their energies for things more important than talk.
Nico's stomach growled at the scents of their cooking. For two weeks now he'd eaten nothing but beggar's broth – hot chee with hunks of keesh bobbing in it. No one could hope to live for long on a diet like that, and already his breeches hung slack from the belt he had re-notched tighter just a few days ago. As he moved, he could feel his protruding bones rub against the coarseness of his filthy clothes. The girl Lena was right: if he did not eat properly soon, he would lie down and die, just like Boon.
Just walk, soothed his mind.
Nico pressed through the main gates of Sunswallow park into the district beyond. There, in the streets, people walked without hurry, chatting or lost in their private thoughts. Man-drawn rickshaws rattled noisily over the cobbles, bearing single passengers of every kind. From the south, Nico could hear the grumble of guns, just over a laq away.
He took off towards the heart of the city, in the direction of those guns, his loose soles slap-slapping against the cobbles, his head thrust forward. A few blocks later he rounded a corner and emerged into the Avenue of Lies. The noise was overwhelming, like stepping out of a deep cave into a roaring torrent. Shouting was more common than ordinary talk. Hordes of street performers rang bells or played flutes for small change; wind chimes strung across the streets clattered in the breeze. It was as though the populace of Bar-Khos wished to make as much clamour as possible, so as to drown out any reminders of the ongoing siege from their daily lives.
Trees lined much of the avenue. In one of them, on a bare branch that twisted and drooped its way towards the street, a black and white pica sat watching the traffic below. From habit, Nico found himself tipping his head to the bird.
The mere act reminded him of a different morning. Of the day he had left home for good.
He had seen a pica then, too. It had laughed down at him from the roof of the cottage as he took off into the early glow of dawn, his pack on his back and his head filled with naivety. He had disliked that particular bird about as much as he disliked senseless superstitions, yet he had nodded to it anyway, as his mother always did, and set his feet to the path that would lead him down to the coast road and, from there, a four-hour march to the city. He had not wished to tempt fate on that of all days.
That same morning he'd found that leaving home was hardly the joyous occasion he had dreamed about. With each step, his sense of guilt had grown ever sharper in his chest. He knew his mother would be distraught at finding him gone in this way. And Boon… Boon would pine in his own canine way.
He had gently stroked the dog as he slept on regardless on the old rag blanket beneath Nico's own bed, the hound being too old, by then, for early rises. Boon had whimpered in his sleep, like a young pup, and quietly farted.
'I can't take you with me,' Nico had whispered. 'You wouldn't like it in the city.'
He had then departed quickly, before he could change his mind.
Guilt had not stopped him from walking away, though, as he carried onwards down the path, it had struck him, with unexpected force, how he was facing more than just the groves of cane trees and swaying redgrass and the gently winding track immediately ahead. In front of him now stretched a great expanse of the unknown, a future that was daunting and without bounds. The thought might have been enough to turn him back there and then, if he'd had any suitable alternative – but he did not. Better to run away than remain in the oppressive atmosphere of the cottage with Los, his mother's latest lover. A scoundrel, Nico considered. A man he despised.
Nico had been sixteen years of age that morning. Turning the corner, losing sight of the cottage and his childhood home, he had never felt such trepidation and loneliness before then, such a bleak isolation of his spirit.
When he heard the padded footfalls of Boon approaching behind him, he had smiled within, despite himself.
Boon had appeared at his side, tail thrashing in excitement.
'Go home!' Nico had hissed without much sincerity.
Boon panted without concern. He had no intention of going anywhere that Nico was not.
Again, he had tried to shoo the dog away. His heart was hardly in it though. He ruffled the fur of Boon's neck. 'Come, then,' he had told him.
Together, with the day brightening, they had continued on their long trudge towards the city.
Nico now smiled at the memory. It did not seem a mere year ago. Rather, it seemed like a lifetime had passed since then. Change was the true measure of time, he had come to realize. Change and loss.
He was currently heading south, following the general direction of traffic moving towards the bazaar or the harbour. He did not yet know which destination he would choose; for he did not yet have one in mind. On either side of him, buildings rose three or four storeys high, drawing Nico's gaze upwards to rooftops overgrown with greenery. High above their chimneys, merchant balloons hung in the air, tethered by lines of rope. Wicker baskets dangled underneath them, and in one he spied the tiny face of a young boy. The lad was shielding his eyes as he gazed out towards the coast, watching the distant signal platforms for signs of approaching merchanters. Beyond him, the blue wash of sky thinned to white under the sun's blinding glare. Gulls wheeled up there, mere specks.
Nico instinctively turned left, into Gato's Way. The bazaar then. He wondered at himself and the unconscious choice in that. The bazaar held few attractions for someone starving and without means. Yet it was also where he and his mother used to come to sell their home-brewed potcheen once a month, travelling to the city in their rickety cart to earn what little money they could. Those trips had been the high point of his month, when he was younger; exciting yet still safe in his mother's presence.
A man pulling an empty rickshaw veered past him as Nico stepped into a riot of noise. The bazaar was a rolling mishmash of a place. Its great square, so vast that its furthest edges were obscured by smoke and haze, was open on one side to the sea front and the grey stone arms of the harbour, where masts swayed as thickly as trees in a forest. On the other three sides the space was enclosed by the shady porticos of chee houses, inns, and temples dedicated to the Great Fool. A maze of stalls stretched between them; people in their thousands jostled or bartered or perused the goods for sale. Nico, suddenly eager to lose himself amongst the press, allowed himself to be swept into it all.