Murgh called Grigo and whispered in his ear. Grigo whispered back.
Rotas loomed over them. ‘You’ve been challenged, Murgh,’ he said. ‘What is your reply?’
Murgh and Grigo both turned to stare towards the south-east, over the heads of the crowd, as though distracted by something happening outside the meeting ground. Then their eyes met and Ria saw a strange expression pass from one to the other. Finally Murgh shrugged: ‘I accept the challenge, of course.’
Such duels were governed by a code of honour. No weapons used: only bare hands and feet. No mercy sought or given. Loser dies. Winner takes all.
‘State your terms,’ said Rotas.
‘The Uglies burn with Ria beside them,’ spat Murgh, wiping blood from his mouth.
‘The Uglies and Ria go free,’ said Hond. He pointed at Grigo: ‘And after I kill your father I’m going to kill you.’
There were no more formalities. To a great roar of excitement from the crowd, the combatants faced off.
Ria felt confident of the outcome; she had absolute faith in her brother’s fighting skills. Hond was lean and hard, head and shoulders taller than his opponent, powerfully muscled and of prime fighting age, while Murgh was twenty years his senior, squat, with bandy legs. But then she saw that Murgh’s short legs gave him a natural wrestler’s stance, his upper body was enormously muscular and strong, and his arms, culminating in massive hands, were unnaturally long – more than compensating for Hond’s greater height.
Murgh dived low and tackled Hond’s legs. As his momentum carried them both to the ground he locked his huge hands around the younger man’s throat. Hond punched him about the head, brought his knee into his stomach and got on top of him. But it made no difference. Murgh just clung on to his throat, keeping him at arm’s length and squeezing the life out of him.
Hond’s struggles weakened, his face turned purple and his eyes bulged.
Chapter Forty-Six
Iquitos was dirty and poor but Leoni didn’t care. She felt liberated here. Suddenly out of danger. Thousands of miles away from her parents and their minions, their tame lunatic asylums and their hired thugs.
(And from Jack.)
On the morning after their arrival, while Bannerman met with his anthropologist friend Mary to finalise their arrangements for the research, Leoni and Matt explored the quaint, faded city that seemed as hot and humid as a sauna bath. Everywhere there were flyblown and neglected buildings – paint peeling off, mildew rotting the walls – which had once been ornate and opulent.
They stopped for lunch in a crowded noisy snack bar off the Plaza de Armas but Matt ordered only fruit. ‘Are you some kind of fruitarian?’ Leoni asked.
He said he wasn’t. It was just that according to some studies he’d read it was a good idea to follow a pure and simple, mainly vegetarian diet prior to an Ayahuasca session – and their first session at Mary Ruck’s lodge in the jungle was scheduled for tomorrow evening.
Leoni cancelled the order she’d just placed for a large hamburger with bacon and cheese and substituted fresh fruit. She then had a long and inconclusive conversation with Matt about the nature of reality and the problem of parallel universes which left her feeling useless and stupid. He had a lot to say on the physics of the subject that she just didn’t get at all. The guy was very smart and she was afraid he would conclude she wasn’t on his intellectual level.
Perhaps this was why he showed no sign of any romantic interest in her. Maybe she just bored him stiff?
The other thing he wouldn’t do was talk about himself. During the morning he’d resisted every attempt by Leoni to get him to spill the beans about his fortune or to provide details of his own life.
By mid-afternoon the heat and humidity became insufferable and they returned to the hotel to siesta in their separate rooms.
Leoni tried and failed to doze off.
She had a nagging presentiment at the back of her mind that there was something she was supposed to do and around five p.m. she ventured out alone in a garish three-wheeler taxi to revisit Belem, the city’s main street market. She couldn’t quite say why she felt drawn there. She just knew she had to go.
Although the temperature was more comfortable now, there was less produce on display and the crowds were much thinner than when she’d explored the market with Matt in the heat of the morning. But as she walked up and down the narrow cloth-shaded alleys between the stalls, breathing in ripe smells of fish and pineapples, splashing through shallow pools of water where buckets had been sloshed, Leoni saw that the Pasaje Paquito, the quarter of the market devoted to medicines derived from plants, was still buzzing.
Here every stall exhibited colourful bundles of aromatic roots, leaves and herbs in large plastic buckets. There were sheaves of thick mapacho cigarettes rolled with wild Amazonian tobacco so strong it was believed to have the power to ward off evil spirits. And there were literally thousands of hand-labelled bottled extracts touted as remedies for AIDS, constipation, diabetes, flatulence, impotence, infertility, business failure, malign spells cast by sorcerers, and any number of other conditions real and imaginary.
Leoni did not feel at all threatened or endangered by Iquitos. The people were naive, curious and kindly and even the gentle doe-eyed children who had begun to follow her everywhere, plaintively asking for small sums of money, were not an annoyance.
Her favourite was eleven-year-old Ramon, small and tough, a mestizo with red-brown skin, missing front teeth, a bent nose, and the roguish grin of a jungle elf. Since her arrival the evening before, when he had first attached himself to her, she had contrived to hand him close to twenty dollars in small bills and to buy him and his friends three huge meals of hamburgers and fries. She’d seen him sprinting after her when she left the hostel in the taxi a little earlier and wasn’t surprised when he appeared at her side in the Pasaje Paquito, hardly out of breath, having run the intervening mile through the town. ‘Give me one dollar,’ he said at once, and turned his huge gap-toothed smile on her.
She aimed a mock blow at him: ‘It’s always money, money, money with you, isn’t it, Ramon?’ she protested. ‘If I had no money, I don’t think you’d run ten feet to see me.’
He grinned again and repeated his demand: ‘Give me one dollar, lady. No mother. No father. Very hungry.’
Leoni began to haggle with a stallholder over the price of a love potion – she had half a mind to try it out on Matt – when something tugged at her attention.
Literally tugged.
It felt very personal and intrusive, like fingers digging into her mind. She turned in the direction of the pull and her eyes fell on a striking figure standing in a shop doorway – a man, tall and strongly built, wearing an elegant white tropical suit.
She squinted. At first he seemed to be youthful but his face was partly in shadow and at second glance she saw he might be closer to forty than twenty. She caught a glimpse of hooded dark eyes, sallow skin, high cheekbones, a wispy beard, and black hair that hung down lank and straight over his shoulders. He held Leoni’s gaze for a long moment and again she felt that strange, intimate tug within her consciousness. Then he turned his back on her and vanished inside the shop.
‘Who was that?’ she asked Ramon, who was still tagging along beside her, waiting for a dollar.
‘Who, missus?’ An evasive look crossed the little boy’s face and was gone in a fraction of a second, but Leoni saw it.
‘That man, the one in the white suit.’ She pointed at the empty shop doorway. ‘You saw him, Ramon! Don’t pretend you didn’t! He was just standing there, looking at me. What’s his name?’
But Ramon clammed up. He seemed afraid. He had seen no one, he said. And when Leoni marched over to the shop it was empty, its shelves stripped of produce. A back door, leading to another of the market’s many alleys, was swinging open.
What was going on? Where had the mysterious stranger disappeared to? And how had he got inside her head like that?
Suddenly she fe
lt it was imperative to find him – that he, indeed, was the reason she had been summoned back to the market this afternoon. A grim certainty descended on her that if she left here without speaking with him something vital would be lost.
Leoni was still peering out of the back door of the shop. In one direction the alley led to town, in the other to the riverside. On instinct, she ran towards the river.
The market was closing around her now, stallholders packing up to go home as evening fell, hundreds of small boats loading passengers and produce. She dodged around three snarling dogs fighting over scraps, splashed through a foul-smelling puddle and caught a glimpse of the man’s white suit in the gloaming just ahead.
‘Hey, you,’ she called out after him. ‘Mister. Wait a minute.’
He never deviated or looked back but just plunged ahead, leading her deeper and deeper into the warren of mean slums lining the riverbank to the south of the wharves and the market.
Daylight was leaching rapidly from the sky, a sinister velvet tone settling over everything, and the warm air, moist and rank, was filled with the sound of night insects.
Leoni shuddered, no longer sure what had impelled her to follow a complete stranger into a slum.
In the middle of the Amazon.
The last rays of the sun picked out the fabric of his white suit amongst the shadows in a narrow alley between tin-roofed shanties. And as though in response to her attention she felt again that strange demanding tug within her mind.
At the end of the alley was a narrow wooden pier, no more than four feet wide, built on stilts like many of the shanties and extending fifty feet out over the waters of the Amazon. There was just enough light for Leoni to see the man she’d been following. He was standing about halfway along the pier, looking down at the water.
She felt a small hand grasp her own and jumped with shock, suppressing her yelp of fear when she saw it was Ramon. His eyes looked big as saucers. ‘Better come away, missus,’ he whispered. ‘That man not good.’
Leoni looked along the pier again but the darkness was now complete and she could no longer see the man in the white suit.
There was a soft splash.
Had he dived?
She squinted into the darkness but it was as though he had never been there.
Later, as she returned to the hotel, an inner voice prompted her to mention none of this to Matt and Bannerman.
They were her friends but there was no reason why they had to know every foolish thing she did.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Ria was at war with herself. Every instinct of love and family loyalty commanded her to break the age-old code of single combat and attack Murgh, but honour held her back.
Honour! What was honour when Hond’s life was at stake?
Yet still she could not intervene.
For if she did the code was unbending on what must happen next. The fight would be stopped, Murgh would be declared the victor, his terms – ‘The Uglies burn with Ria beside them’ – would be enacted at once, and Hond’s life would be his to take by any manner of execution he chose.
So one way or the other, whether or not she stopped Murgh strangling Hond now, it was certain they were all going to die. She’d just resigned herself to the obvious conclusion – might as well die honourably – when Brindle’s thought-voice rang out inside her head: ‘Fight not over yet, Ria!’
And her brother returned from the dead.
He was still on top of Murgh, and Murgh was still throttling him at arm’s length, but now, with a violent effort, choking and spluttering, Hond found his feet and jerked himself upright, pulling the other man after him. For an instant Murgh’s two-handed grip on his throat was loosened and Ria heard Hond draw in a huge, shuddering breath. Then he used his greater height to punch downwards hard and fast, a chopping right-hand blow that crashed into the side of Murgh’s jaw and continued down between his arms in a single fluid swirl. At the end of it Hond dropped his shoulder, as though he were reaching for the ground, then reversed his direction, smashed his elbow back into Murgh’s face, and, at last, tore free of his stranglehold.
Neither man immediately resumed the attack. Hond was gulping in air. Murgh’s nose looked broken and was spouting blood. For a count of twenty they circled one another.
Ria feared Murgh might still have some fight left in him but was relieved to see there was none. His one strategy had been to get his hands round Hond’s throat and strangle him to death right at the beginning. But that had failed and now he just looked old and out of ideas.
They circled again. Hond was recovering his strength and when Murgh lunged at him he slipped aside, kicked him as he shot past and sent him stumbling.
Hond waited, looking calm, breathing deep and steady, until Murgh turned and squared up to him. Then he advanced on the older man and drove three merciless, bone-shattering jabs into the pulpy mess of his nose.
Murgh sat down with a THUMP, obviously dazed, and Hond kicked the side of his head, knocking him onto his back. Taking his time, he knelt over him, pinned his shoulders, and began to punch down hard into the bloody centre of his face. This time he didn’t stop but just kept on punching until Murgh’s features became unrecognisable and Ria lost count of the number of blows.
It was what the code of single combat demanded – that one man, unaided, kill another with his bare hands.
Yet as he watched his father being beaten to death it seemed that Grigo’s self-control broke and he rushed towards Hond, with a guttural howl. Braves stepped forward to bar his way but he was fast-footed and dodged them all. Too late Ria saw the long Illimani knife glinting in his hand – the knife that had killed Rill; the knife she had seized in battle and that Grigo must have taken from her in the ambush. Before she could cross ten paces to stop him he had plunged it with such force into the centre of Hond’s back that it passed through his body and out of his chest.
A collective gasp of outrage rose from the elders and rippled out across the huge crowd as Grigo pushed Hond’s limp body aside, slung Murgh over his shoulder and strode away with him.
Ria saw Murgh was not dead.
As he was carried off he opened one eye, filled with hate, and glared at her through a mask of blood.
Ria dropped to her knees beside her brother, cradling his head, willing him to survive, forgetful of all else. But she knew at once there was no hope for him.
Hond was gone. He had been taken from her and then returned, only to be snatched away from her for ever. The breath had left his body. Not even the magic of the Uglies could save him now.
Ria raised her face to heaven to proclaim her anguish but no tears would come. Instead she was cold and clear in her grief, wide awake, as though she had dived into a mountain stream. Laying Hond back on the ground, she stood up and signalled Bont and Bahat: ‘Grab Grigo and Murgh before they get away. They broke the code. I want them dead.’
She was already hastening to the bonfire to free the Uglies when she saw that Grigo’s uncle Grine, his shoulder bloody where Hond had speared him, hadn’t given up the fight yet. He was rallying braves from Murgh’s faction and now four of them rushed to intercept Bont and Bahat while others, shouting their defiance, formed a protective ring around Grigo and Murgh.
The elders had seemed frozen with shock during these events, unable to react fast enough to exert their authority. But silence fell across the meeting ground when Rotas at last rose from his stool and adopted the ritual posture – arms crossed high over his chest – that signalled he was about to pass judgement. ‘The settlement of disputes by single combat is ruled by an ancient and binding code,’ he intoned. ‘By the cowardly murder of Hond, Grigo has dishonoured the code and there can be only one judgement. HOND IS THE VICTOR AND ALL HIS TERMS MUST BE ENACTED. Ria and the Uglies go free. The lives of Murgh and Grigo are forfeit to Ria.’
‘Fuck your forfeit,’ yelled Murgh. ‘We’re walking out of here. Try and stop us!’
Despite the beating he’d received he wa
s on his feet again, standing beside his son in the midst of their growing group of defenders – a phalanx that had already swollen to thirty strong. He looked confident, like he knew a secret no one else did, and was hurrying away unopposed when one of the peculiar short spears of the Illimani whistled down out of nowhere, falling almost vertically, punched a hole in the top of his skull, tore through his brain, split his palate, skewered his tongue and his lower jaw, burst out in a splash of meat and blood below his chin and embedded itself in the earth between his feet.
‘WAIT FOR THE FIRE!’ Grigo screamed over the heads of the crowd, seeming to appeal to someone far away. ‘YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO WAIT TILL WE START THE FIRE.’
But the air was already filled with a menacing whirr, and a flight of the same short spears hafted to jagged flint points arched overhead and fell upon the meeting ground, killing men, women, children, braves and elders until the dead and injured lay heaped everywhere.
At once the sky darkened again and a second volley came in.
Ria took a spear through the muscle of her thigh; painful, but not crippling. She pulled it free and balanced it in her hand. Ligar and Vulp suffered flesh wounds but could still fight. Amongst the elders Torba and Otri were killed, Krant was speared through the foot, but Rotas and Ezida survived uninjured.
Almost the entire population of the Clan had scrambled to pack into the meeting ground to witness Ria’s trial but now, after two volleys from an unseen enemy, the bloodied survivors scattered, shrieking and screaming, fleeing the next avalanche of spears.
All except Kimp and Chard, the fathers of Duma and Vik. Ignoring the danger from above, they were climbing the huge pile of firewood heaped up to burn the Uglies. They had axes in their hands and murder in their eyes.