Free Jango by William Nicholson Page A

unending moment. Food was brought to him by a silent meek, and his bucket was emptied. Day came with the brightening of the panel of glass in the roof above, then departed again with the fading of the panel into the night. For hours at a time he lay on the hard bed and watched the distant clouds above, finding in their many forms, and in the way they were forever changing, his only reminder of the world's variety and ceaseless activity. The silence and the emptiness were hard to bear, but he sensed that here, alone in his cell, he was being given a last chance. If he failed this test—whatever it was—he would follow the Wildman into exile from the Nom.

    So he looked for ways to occupy his mind.
    He studied his room, becoming familiar with the cracks and stains on its old plaster walls, imagining that they were rivers and roads and forests on a map of an unknown land. He chose not to eat his breakfast all at once, but to hold back the apple for later—breakfast was a slab of dark bread, an apple, and water—and to eat every part of the apple but for the pips. He kept the pips on his table in a row and played games with them, making them into warriors who went on adventures. He discovered that there was a very small spider living in a corner by the door and that close to the spider's web was a hole in the wall, no more than a pinprick, through which tiny crawling insects came and went. From time to time one of the little creatures became caught in the web.

    He did his physical exercises, as he had been taught on first entering the Nom, and afterwards the more important mental exercises. Standing upright, he focused his attention first on his outer extremities—fingers, toes, scalp—and so worked slowly in towards the pit of his stomach. At each stage he felt for and found the lir that tingled through his nervous system and drew it inwards, until he could feel the concentrated heat of its power throbbing in his belly. From here he shot it like a bouncing ball into his hand, or his eyes, or his foot, like an acrobat who can balance his entire weight on any part of his body.
    When he had done everything he could think of to do, he lay on his bed and tried to guess the purpose of this strange isolation; and from that he fell to thinking about Morning Star, also alone, somewhere very near. He thought about the way she had wept over the Wildman.
    ***
    Morning Star was not afraid of solitude. She had spent many a night alone on the hills, watching over her father's sheep, and was used to her own company. What she found hard to bear was the closeness of the walls and the narrowness of the horizon. After the first few hours, the confines of her cell became unbearable to her, and she took to closing her eyes and keeping them closed. She found her way about the room by feel, letting her fingers patter over table and walls, until she could move as freely as if her eyes were open. For a time this trick made the spaces round her seem bigger. But then the unseen walls began to loom as large to her fingertips as they ever had to her gaze, so she stopped her circling of the cell and stayed for long hours, with her eyes closed, on the bed.

    Alone in the darkness she thought of the Wildman and wondered what was happening to him.
    "Are you still there, Wildman?"
    She realized she had spoken aloud. There was no one but herself to hear, but the sound of her own voice comforted her. Also she liked saying the Wildman's name.
    "Are you still asleep, Wildman? I want to be there when you wake. I want to be with you, Wildman."
    This talking aloud made her ashamed and made her happy; but since shame requires the presence of others, and there were no others, she was left with the happiness.
    "I've always been alone," she told the Wildman, as if the beautiful youth were standing by her side in the darkness. "I'm a good companion because I ask for very little. When you wake up from your sleep, maybe they'll send us both away, and we won't mind.