leanest times of the winter, they would have lost their bitterness. But Zesi could see the pit was all but empty - a third full, maybe a quarter.
‘It’s going to be a hard winter,’ she murmured.
The girl spun around. It was Arga. Like Matu, she had lost so much weight she was barely recognisable. But a smile as wide as the moon spread across her face. ‘Zesi! Oh, Zesi!’ She got up and hurled herself at her cousin. Zesi felt the girl’s shuddering sobs. ‘Zesi, Zesi - you’ve been gone so long.’
‘Only a couple of months—’
‘I thought you were dead!’
Zesi stroked her hair. ‘Now why would you think that?’
‘Because everybody else is. My mother and my father and Kirike and—’ She stopped, and her hand flew to her mouth. ‘You didn’t know.’
‘Matu told me. I knew. It’s all right . . .’ But despite her soothing Arga was crying again, desolately.
‘Poor kid,’ Matu murmured. ‘She’s lost so much. In fact, she’s lucky to be alive, and that’s a story in itself. But at least she’s got you home now, Zesi - and Ana.’
‘Where is Ana?’
Arga said, ‘Out fishing, with Heni.’
Zesi gaped. ‘Fishing? Timid little Ana, fishing?’ And she laughed, something in the shock of the day and the absurdity of the idea forcing the bubble of humour out of her.
But Arga looked confused, Matu disapproving.
Matu said, ‘Yes, she’s out on the ocean, fishing. Things aren’t as they were when you went away, Zesi. We’ve all had to do things we weren’t used to - things we find difficult, or even that scare us to death. We do them anyhow, to stay alive.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m just - this is hard for me.’
He relented. ‘I know. This is the day you learned your father died. Well.’ He glanced at the sky, where the lowering sun was covered by a thin skim of fast-moving cloud. ‘Weather’s turning, and it’s getting late. The boats will probably be coming in soon. Why don’t you go and meet them?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Arga said, eager now. She tugged at Zesi’s hand. ‘We’ll go to the island. Ana will be so glad to see you, it’s been so long . . . Come on.’
Zesi slipped off her pack and her spear, and the priest added his pack to the pile. As they followed Arga and Matu she said to Jurgi, ‘You know, I expected to be the centre of attention. Home from our adventures in Albia.’ She patted her stomach. ‘With news of my own. Instead—’
‘I know. Whatever happened here, these folk have lived through something we’ll probably never understand. But these are still our people, Zesi. And we are theirs. Just hang onto that.’
Arga and Matu led them around the bay towards the causeway to Flint Island.
Nature was following its course, Zesi saw. The grey seals, plump after the summer’s riches, were arriving for their breeding season on the offshore rocks. They always returned to the same places, as if coming home.
But the seals were an exception, life going on amid the destruction. The beaches and marshes and tidal flats all showed signs of the ruin that the Great Sea had wrought: the dunes smashed, houses flattened, even the mud churned up and studded with dead trees and whole clumps of peaty earth. That awful layer of pale sand and mud lay over everything, thick with stones and smashed shells. There was a stink of death, and of rotting fish.
Everybody looked thin, hollow-eyed, over-worked. They seemed pleased to see Zesi and the priest back. But they were few, terribly few. Not many of these survivors seemed to be seriously injured, but there were few young, few old, and many families with gaps, a husband or wife missing, a child or two. She couldn’t have imagined a greater contrast to the happy crowds of the day of the Giving.
They came to the causeway to Flint Island. People were working out on the line of the causeway itself, doing some kind of repair work with timbers and baskets of gravel; boats stood in the shallow water alongside, laden with supplies. Arga called Novu’s name, and at the middle of the causeway the man from Jericho straightened up, waved, and came back along the causeway, picking his steps with care.
Arga said, ‘The Great Sea made a mess of the causeway. Well, it made a mess of everything. You always have to ask Novu or one of the other builders to help you across, because it isn’t finished yet. That’s the rule.’
‘Whose