The Secret of Zanzibar, page 21
‘I’m sorry, Maxine,’ Alice started to explain, but stopped as Zanzibar stepped forward.
The grey mouse’s eyes widened. ‘Aren’t you …?’ She put a hand to her mouth and whispered through her fingers, ‘Zanzibar?’
Zanzibar smiled. ‘I’m sorry if we’re disturbing you,’ he said. ‘Maxine, is it?’ He held out a hand for her to shake but the grey mouse had ducked her head and dropped into a deep curtsy.
‘Your Highness,’ she said.
Zanzibar looked embarrassed. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘call me Zanzibar.’
Maxine lifted her head to gaze at him reverently. ‘Zanzibar,’ she said. ‘You’re here. You’re home, in Cornoliana. I never …’ Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘I never thought I’d see … After everything … Please excuse me.’ And she rushed from the room.
Alice hastened after her.
As they milled around in Maxine’s entrance hall, it occurred to Alistair to wonder what they would do in the hours before the protest. They had been so focused on reaching Cornoliana, and now they were here. What next?
Slippers Pink said, ‘We need somewhere to hide until the protest begins. Do you know of anywhere? Is Solomon here?’ She looked around.
‘Alice, Tom and I have been staying here with Maxine,’ Alex said, but as he looked around the tiny space, which was strewn with pillows and blankets and rucksacks, he said, ‘I don’t think there’s room for all of us, though.’
Alice re-entered the room, alone. ‘The cathedral,’ she said. ‘That’s where we should go. We know someone who’ll hide you.’
Slippers exchanged a quick look with Feast then said, ‘We’ll stay here and talk to Maxine. She can take us to Solomon and the other Figleafers.’
Alistair saw Alice’s confidence waver, to be replaced by a stricken expression. ‘Solomon …’ she said.
Alex stepped forward. ‘Not now, sis. Let’s get to the cathedral first.’
Why had Alice looked so upset when Slippers had mentioned Solomon? Alistair wondered. And who were the Figleafers?
But there was no time to ask the questions, for Tom had opened the front door and, after peering into the cool grey dawn for several long seconds, was motioning to them to follow.
One by one they slipped out into the quiet square and hurried after the marmalade mouse. Alex and Alice moved forward to act as advance scouts, checking that there was no one lurking in the side streets they passed. They stuck to small dark alleyways kept in shadow by the buildings towering on either side, turning into one tiny narrow street after another until Alistair was sure they must be travelling in circles. But his brother and sister and cousin seemed to know the route they were taking well, for every now and then one of them would say something like, ‘Stop a minute, there’ll be a guard on the boulevard … okay, all clear,’ before hurrying them along again.
He was in Cornoliana, Alistair reminded himself, but it was hard to believe when his only view of Gerander’s capital was a series of dark shabby streets – until: ‘Oh!’ he exclaimed involuntarily, awestruck, before hastily covering his mouth to smother the sound. For down a side street he had glimpsed a huge red dome, a flash of marble. It disappeared again, only to reappear when they turned a corner and found themselves on the edge of an enormous square.
‘The cathedral,’ Alice announced in a whisper, and Alistair heard in her tone a reverence for the magnificent building that soared above the square. It was both gigantic, so that Alistair had to tip his head back to take it all in, and intricate, with its carved niches and elegant patterns of pink, green and white marble. A slender bell tower stood gracefully alongside.
‘Wait here: I’ll wake Daniels,’ Alice told them. Before Alistair could ask who Daniels was, she was jogging across the square and around the side of the building.
A few minutes later she reappeared and waved for them to join her.
Alex nudged him. ‘Come on, we’ll go through the side door.’
To Alistair’s relief, no Queen’s Guards rushed into the square as they crossed – though even if they had, they might have been too startled by the strange sight to respond immediately. Zanzibar, his golden fur glowing in the sun’s first rays, was the first to draw the eye, but there was also Timmy the Winns, his fur a deep midnight blue.
But the grey-bearded old mouse who stood by the side door of the cathedral didn’t seem at all startled by the sudden rush of strangers across his threshold. As they stood in the dim, cavernous space, catching their breath after the quick, tense journey through the city streets, he regarded them over the tops of his half-moon glasses.
‘Sir,’ he said, stepping forward to stand before Zanzibar. ‘Welcome home.’
Zanzibar’s face broke into a smile. ‘Daniels,’ he said, reaching out to clasp the old mouse’s hand in an affectionate handshake. ‘I can’t believe you’re still here after all these years.’
‘Someone had to look after the old place,’ Daniels said gruffly.
‘I hear you’ve been doing more than that,’ said Zanzibar. ‘And I wonder if we could impose on you to hide us here until the protest?’
‘Of course,’ said the old mouse. ‘I don’t have much in the way of comforts …’ He waved a hand around the large bare space. ‘But you are welcome.’
‘I’m thinking those pews look pretty comfortable,’ Timmy the Winns said with a yawn.
And Alistair, yawning too, had to agree. ‘I might just have a lie-down,’ he said to no one in particular. He stretched out on one of the hard wooden benches.
‘I hear the Figleafers are ready?’ he heard Zanzibar murmur. ‘Where is Solomon now?’
But before he could hear the answers, he was asleep.
‘Alistair!’ Someone was shaking him.
‘Huh? What time is it?’ He rubbed at his eyes. The light filtering through the cathedral’s high windows seemed no brighter than it had when he’d first laid his head down.
‘Nine o’clock,’ said his brother’s voice impatiently. ‘You’ve been asleep for three hours.’
Alistair sat up and looked around. His parents – for he couldn’t help thinking of them in that way – were asleep, and so was Tibby Rose. Zanzibar and Timmy the Winns were in a corner talking with Daniels and some mice he didn’t recognise.
He focused on his brother and Tom, who was hovering by Alex’s right shoulder.
‘Where’s Alice?’ he asked.
Alex shrugged. ‘She’s been running messages for the Figleafers.’
‘Who are the Figleafers?’ Alistair wanted to know.
‘They’re part of FIG really,’ Tom explained. ‘They’re a group set up by Solomon Honker. They use a fig leaf as a sign that they’re supporters of the movement. They’ve been spreading the word about the protest and they’re going to work for Zanzibar when he’s restored to the throne.’
‘Alice looked upset when Zanzibar mentioned Solomon earlier,’ Alistair remembered.
Alex looked sombre. ‘Yeah …’ He sighed heavily. ‘Solomon’s dead. Sophia killed him. Alice was the last to speak to him.’ He lifted his shoulders then shook his head as if to clear it of unpleasant memories. ‘Anyway, I woke you up because I wanted to show you something.’
They tiptoed past the sleeping forms of Tibby Rose, Emmeline and Rebus.
‘You’ve got to see this,’ said Alex, and he and Tom led Alistair through the cathedral’s side door.
Alistair stepped outside then recoiled in shock. The square that had been deserted a mere three hours earlier was now filled with a sea of mice, packed in so tightly that not an inch of cobblestone was visible.
‘Check this out,’ said Alex. He pushed through the crowd to the front of the cathedral, Alistair and Tom following in his wake. ‘There must be ten thousand mice in this square!’
‘Where did they all come from?’ Alistair said.
‘I’ve come all the way from the south,’ said a voice near him. It was a white mouse with fine lines of black marbling his fur.
‘I’m from just east of the Winns,’ said a tawny mouse. ‘There was no way I was going to –’
Before she could finish she was shushed by a mouse in front, and suddenly a hush fell over the whole crowd as the cathedral doors, their hinges rusty from disuse, creaked open and a figure stepped out.
‘It’s Zanzibar.’
The whisper spread through the crowd, and then they were calling to him, waving.
‘Zanzibar! Welcome home!’
‘Zanzibar, over here!’
Alistair watched as Zanzibar took a deep breath, then stepped into the throng. He tried to imagine what it must be like for Zanzibar, after so long in prison and in hiding, to step out on a crisp clear morning in the city of his birth into a crowd of thousands, all calling his name. Was he frightened? Elated? Alistair couldn’t tell.
The rightful king of Gerander moved steadily around the square, his progress slow as mice pressed forward to shake his hand, or just reached out to touch his golden fur.
Alistair asked, ‘Do you think he’ll be all right? What about the Queen’s Guards?’
‘He’s completely surrounded,’ Alex said. ‘There’s no way they could get close.’
‘I can’t believe they’re just doing nothing, though,’ Alistair murmured. ‘They must know by now that Zanzibar is here.’
‘There’s nothing they can do,’ Alex said confidently. ‘Not against a crowd this size.’
But even as he said the words there was an uneasy stirring in the gathering.
‘What is it?’ said Alistair, tensing. Then, as his nostrils started to twitch, ‘What’s that smell?’
‘It’s smoke!’ Tom cried. ‘Look!’
Alistair looked, and saw a grey spiral curling into the air from the top of the cathedral. For a few moments he just watched, not quite comprehending what it was he was seeing, then he saw a lick of flame and his heart began to thud. It couldn’t be …
‘It’s the Queen’s Guards!’ someone shouted as flames danced along the roof line. ‘They’ve set fire to the cathedral!’
‘Fire!’ cried another voice. ‘Fire!’ Several more took up the cry and suddenly the crowd was on the move.
Alistair was shoved from all sides as mice tried to push their way back to the edge of the square, away from the burning building.
‘But how?’ he gasped. ‘It’s marble.’
‘The roof beams,’ Tom shouted in his ear over the screams of the crowd. ‘They’re wooden – and they must be hundreds of years old, and dry.’ As if in response to his words, the air was rent by a creaking sound, then a fusillade of cracks, as the beams of the cathedral began to splinter.
‘Tibby, Mum and Dad …’ Alistair tried to move forward, against the crowd, felt elbows, knees, jabbing at him, feet stepping on his. For every step forward he took the crowd swept him back another two, so that as hard as he struggled he couldn’t get any closer.
‘Alex …’ His brother was being swept along by another current, and Alistair reached out a hand towards him only to see him sink beneath the crowd before resurfacing several metres away.
Alex opened his mouth to say something but Alistair couldn’t make out what it was over the cacophony of voices all around him, by the creaking and groaning of timber. There was the sound of breaking glass as the windows succumbed to the intense heat, which was now enveloping the enormous building in a shimmery haze.
Alistair’s eyes began to water as a gust of hot wind blasted his face as if from a furnace and then – woomph! – flames burst over the top of the cathedral. The cries from the crowd were panicky now as cinders rained down on them. Alistair himself cried out as a burning ember landed on his arm; he beat at it with his hand.
Alistair pushed against the crowd, desperate to reach the door, to find his family. The roar of the fire was loud in his ears as flames raced to cover every inch of the majestic old building. Heedless of the heat, of the smoke tearing at his throat, the cinders singeing his fur, he fought against the tide of fleeing mice, but his scream of ‘No!’ was swallowed up by a thousand other screams as, with a mighty crash, the roof of the cathedral caved in.
22
The speech
‘Sis! Sis, are you here?’
Alice had arrived home to find the house empty. She had run all the way from the far side of town with a message for Maxine, but the grey mouse was gone. She probably had last-minute arrangements to make before the protest, Alice figured.
She had just helped herself to a couple of shortbreads from Maxine’s biscuit barrel and collapsed onto the couch when the door was thrown open and her brother and Tom rushed in, yelling incoherently.
She sat up. ‘What is it?’ she asked crossly.
To her surprise, Alex hugged her. ‘Thank goodness you’re safe,’ he said.
Alice felt a twinge of alarm; he had never willingly hugged her before.
‘What is it?’ she repeated, her voice anxious now.
‘It’s the cathedral!’
Her twinge of alarm became a throb. ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘What about the cathedral?’
It was Tom who answered her. ‘It’s on fire.’
‘A huge crowd had gathered in the square ahead of the protest and Zanzibar was walking among them and then suddenly the cathedral was burning,’ Alex added breathlessly.
‘The Queen’s Guards, probably,’ Tom said.
‘Mum and Dad? Alistair? Tibby Rose?’ She looked into her brother’s face, her words more pleas than questions.
‘Alistair was out in the square, he should be okay. But the others …’
And then they were all rushing for the door. Alice felt her brother’s hand close around her wrist as they burst into the square and she reached for Tom’s hand, determined that they would not be separated.
As they drew close to the cathedral Alice saw a heavy pall of dark smoke hanging in the air. They were running against the crowd now, dodging the mice fleeing up the streets and alleys leading away from the cathedral.
So the Sourians would have their way after all, Alice thought bitterly. Gerandans had come together but the Queen’s Guards had thought of a way to scatter them.
The three mice ran into the square and Alice saw that the red-tiled dome had collapsed inwards, smoke billowing from inside the smouldering marble ruin. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of flames and knew the pews must be burning – the pews her family had been sleeping on, Alice thought in despair.
Groups of mice were rushing this way and that, surging like the waves of a stormy sea, so that Alice feared she would be sucked under. She squeezed Tom’s hand tightly as Alex pulled a little ahead of her, still clutching her wrist. She stumbled along behind him as he charged through the crowd like a bull. ‘Alex, don’t lose me,’ she cried, feeling his grip strain.
Ahead of her she could see chains of mice stretching from a fountain near the edge of the square, passing buckets of water from hand to hand, with those in front dousing the flames. And then, as she was jostled from behind, she turned to see that, instead of fleeing, mice were flooding back into the square now, clutching buckets, pots and pans, bowls and jars – any vessel that could hold water. More and more chains formed with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of mice braving the heat and smoke to fight the fire. But it was too late, Alice thought mournfully. There was nothing left to save …
‘I can see Alistair and Tibby Rose with Mum and Dad,’ Alex called above the cries and yells. ‘And Timmy and Uncle Ebenezer and Aunt Beezer are with them too.’
Alice looked and saw her family huddled together in the centre of the square, gazing at the smoking hulk of the once-magnificent cathedral.
She was almost sobbing with relief as she joined her family and was pulled into their midst.
‘Where’s Zanzibar?’ she shouted.
Her mother turned a tearstained face towards her. ‘Daniels was still inside. Zanzibar went back in.’
Alice gasped. ‘He ran into the flames? But … but …’ A wave of utter hopelessness washed over her, followed almost immediately by anger. How dare he? How dare he risk his life when they needed him? He was their king!
And then, from the charred doors at the top of the steps, a figure emerged: Zanzibar! His golden fur was smudged with soot and in his arms he carried the old mouse with the long grey beard. Someone ran up to help him settle Daniels on the step; it was Matron, from the orphanage, Alice realised.
When Zanzibar stood upright again, there was a cry and then another and another, merging into a body of sound, rising through the crowd. ‘Long live King Zanzibar! Long live King Zanzibar!’
The mice in the square had paused in their flight to cheer the appearance of their king.
Zanzibar stood very still on the blackened steps of the smouldering building as the chant washed over him. For several long minutes he did nothing. Then he stepped forward and raised his hands, as if in acknowledgment of the chanting, but also to quell it.
‘My fellow Gerandans,’ he said, and Alice was almost sure his voice broke on the words. ‘Friends,’ he cried, more surely. ‘This is the day.’
The chant ceased abruptly and the crowd strained forward to catch his words.
‘It is said that the rare and beautiful phoenix rises from ashes, and from the ruins of our glorious cathedral something equally wondrous and precious will rise: today marks the birth of our freedom.
‘But even as we celebrate, for surely we must – this is our day! – even as we celebrate we must never forget those who have been lost.’
Alice bowed her head as she touched her wrist. The traces of Solomon’s blood were long gone, and yet they would always be there.
‘This is a day for those who have been lost, and those who are yet to come. A day for the future generations, a day on which we declare that our children’s children will be born free.
‘Friends, through all my years of exile, through my years in prison and my years in hiding, I have thought about the Gerander I would like to see. My family have ruled for many generations, but the time for inherited leadership is over. We are all standing together today as equals, and as equals we must decide on our future. I will not be king.’
