– You played today.
– Mungo, it was so beautiful.
– You scored?
– But that wasn’t it. It was the pitch, and the people, and the feeling of twenty of us watching the ball, and the ball seemed like a bird that knew its own mind and was testing us, asking us questions… I felt like I had come home. I wish you’d been there to see me.
– Come on. Climb out of there. Come and show me.
He put his hand out to help her through the window.
– Wait, she whispered. She collected all the gold that they had given her when she scored and stuffed it into her backpack.
He showed her handholds and footholds in the ancient wall – the house had been one of the first to be built after the Aztecs landed. The king himself would come and look at it during the preparations for the Final.
– How d’you know where all these cracks and crannies are? she asked.
– I just do, he said.
And she knew from the way he said it that he had climbed up to her window and looked in before.
And so they ran away. They hid in the great drain that ran under the New Court. It was dry and dark in there, and they lay in the dark together and she thought of the playing surface spread above them like a blanket.
– How did you do?
– I scored. I don’t mean points. I mean I put the ball through the actual hoop. Caught it when it landed too.
He smiled and went to sleep.
They crawled out of the drain at dawn and looked around the square. She was afraid her father would come.
– Come on, Mungo said. – Let’s go. You’ve got gold. Let’s run away.
– Why would I want to run away? It’s the semi-finals.
– But you’re rich. You don’t need to play. Think of the places we could go. Tartary. Sheba. Anywhere. They say there is an undiscovered country way to the south. The people there can fly. It’s called the Dreamplace.
– So? It’s a dream. This is real. This is the navel of the Cosmos. This is the New Court. And if I make it to the Final, the god Tekutizcatetal himself will be here, watching me. We won’t see him; but he’ll see me.
– If he’s really a god, he can see you wherever you are. He can see you playing in Tartary or the Dreamland even. When it’s just the two of us.
He was holding her hand too tightly. Did he really want to run away with her? Why didn’t he want her to play in the finals? She yanked her arm free and cursed him.
– The gold, she said. – It’s not me you want to run away with. It’s the gold.
– What?
– It’s just the gold you’re after. Leave me alone. I will play and I will win. I’ll be famous and I’ll be rich.
She ran away from him, out into the square. At a cafe, in the shade, she saw the Interpretation and some others, drinking chocolate. When she got closer she saw that some of them were great players, famous players; she had a plastic model of one of them on her window seat at home.
She stood and watched them for a while. They seemed so confident and easy with each other. Then one of the Interpretation spotted her and called her over.
– Is it proper to sit here with you? she said.
– Of course, they replied. They were all smiles. One of them noticed Mungo and asked her if that was the ghostfolk boy she’d learned with.
– Yes, that’s him.
She waved to Mungo to come and say hello – they were so nice; she was sure they would be fine with it – but Mungo was already walking away.
She stayed close to them after that. Even if her father came up to them now, he would not dare try to take her away from the Interpretation. She would play today.
And Neza would be playing today. The greatest player in two empires. She recognized him from his painting on the mural. It showed the spirit of Montezuma leading Neza by the hand onto the pitch at Rome. When Montezuma had arrived in Europe, the whole land had been full of wars. Before the Real People arrived the ghostfolk would fight each other over land, water, honour, religion, oil. Not just warrior on warrior either, but warrior on farmer, on women, on children. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands were murdered or starved or poisoned. Land by land, though, they learned ulama. They learned to settle their differences in the court, at the ball game instead.
At first they still wanted blood. That shelf next to the pitch where the scoring stones were lined up – in the early days that was where they put the skulls. The winning team used to slaughter the losing team and put their heads on that shelf. It made Monkey8 shudder to think of it.
But that was in the past, like war itself. For every nation now played the game. From Scotland to the great mountains over the sea and down into hot, brown India and over the greater mountains to the windy rice fields, everyone loved the game, and the beauty and courage of the players. And the bravest and most beautiful of all was Neza. When the tribes of Italy had threatened to rise up ten years ago, he had played for them against their enemies. Ten one-on-one games, one after the other. He had won every one. He had saved the world.
And today she would play against him.
This time she did not pause for breath before running onto the pitch. When she ran out the crowd roared her name, “Monkey! Monkey! Monkey!” They already had a song about her. She looked around and saw Neza standing there, just like in the mural, as though Montezuma was leading him on to the pitch. She wanted him to smile at her but he seemed not to see her. Maybe he was angry that the crowd were singing for her not him. She wanted to tell them to shut up.
But the ball was in play. So she wanted nothing now and all her thinking stopped. Her eyes were locked on the ball, her ears listening for her teammates. She knew none of them; she was the only one of her Ten who had qualified. This new Ten had arrived today from every quarter of the empire. When they called to her she didn’t understand what they were saying. The only thing she understood was the ball.
The ball seemed to circle around Neza, as though he had some kind of gravitational effect on it. He brought his knee up and it whirled over his head towards her, but one of his Ten got a hip to it first and sent it curving up towards the stone ring. A girl. There was a girl on the other team too? A girl who was playing with Neza, feeding him passes, responding to his moves. Monkey8 hated her before she even saw her face.
The ball missed the ring but the girl was on it right away, throwing herself at it. Monkey8 jumped too. She pulled the ball down with her doubled-up knees, making her body into a kind of pouch. When she landed she had time to knee it up into the air, once for speed and a second time for direction. She sent it spinning across the court towards the scoring ring. Someone from her own team stopped it with his back and sent it back to her. She was nearer now, well in the zone. She stopped it with her shoulder and let it roll across her chest while she took her bearings. Then she saw the girl coming into her space.
Monkey8 shot. It was all she could do. She didn’t even look until the ball was speeding away from her. It was heading straight for the ring. But suddenly Neza was there, in its path, as though the ball had spoken to him and told him where to be. All he had to do was jump. He could block it with his neck, with his shoulder. If he twisted a little he might even be able to make it hit the wall and score a point. She saw him jump; she saw that he was not looking at the ball. He was looking straight at her. How could he do that? How could he jump for the ball without even looking?
He couldn’t. He missed. She scored.
There is no point trying to describe the noise in that stadium. She had defeated Neza. This time she did not walk around collecting gold ornaments; instead they threw them onto the pitch for her. She walked on golden litter. Her eyes turned to scan the crowd before she knew what she was looking for. Mungo. She wanted him to have seen. But also not to have seen. She knew that he could have done it just as well, but he would never be allowed to watch, let alone play. She looked for him anyway. Maybe it was because she did not want to turn and see Neza. Probably he hated her now. Probably he had walked off the pitch.