On by Adam Roberts

away. Tighe lay still, even calm, with his eyes open and looking at the join of wall and floor. There was nothing, then the hurting started. Like a distant grumbling that grew louder in seconds, a headache caught and swelled at the place where he had been hit. He put up a hand; wetness.
    Trying to get to his feet proved more difficult than usual. He tripped and sprawled, struggled up again and then skittered left and right instead of straight on. Like a newborn goat trying out its legs for the first time. Somehow he managed to make it to his alcove and to collapse on the matting in there.
    But his head started thumping with pain as soon as he lowered it, so he struggled up and sat with his back against the partition. He could hear his pashe moving around in the space outside. He wanted a drink, but was not about to leave his alcove whilst she was there.
    Something tickled the side of his head. He put his fingers up to his temple and felt the wetness dribbling. He felt dissociated from the wound, from the heat and the sharp fall of blood. Except for the thumping of his pain, which was very real.
    He did not exactly sleep, but his consciousness went woozy and everything shrank away except for the pain. It went dark. Only a small patch of matting was visible to him. He tried to put up his hand, but the nerves refused to convey instructions down his arm. He started sliding over, toppling, and was unable to stop himself falling all the way over. When his head slapped the matting he felt a surge of pain.
    For a time he lay like that, a great dark upon him, and in his head, behind the pain, the strange sensation of falling. Then somebody washelping him up, words were trying to pierce the pain, and his pahe was mopping at the side of his head with something. Tighe could barely even focus on the familiar features. The well-scored lines that ran from nostrils’ outside edge to the corners of his mouth. The little crag of his chin. Hundreds of dots of black hair, shaved that morning, speckling the cheeks and around the mouth.
    His pahe wrapped his head in something and gave him some water, together with some willowgrass stalks to chew. With those the pain receded a little and Tighe was able to lie down and sleep. He awoke with a very dry mouth and was able – however unsteadily – to make his way to the family sink and douse his head. That made him feel a little better.
    His pahe was at his back, putting a scuffed hand on his shoulder. ‘You doing better?’ he asked, in his soft voice.
    ‘Better,’ agreed Tighe.
    His pahe looked into his eyes carefully, like a doctor might. Then he smiled, or pressed his lips as close to a smile as they went. ‘You’ll be fine.’
    He did not ask,
How did you hurt your head
? There was no need. For one moment, fleetingly, Tighe felt the bond between pahe and boy solidly, the unspoken affiliation. He said, ‘Maybe I’ll take some fresh air.’
    ‘Good idea,’ said his pahe.
    So Tighe wobbled to the front and through the dawn-door and just sat himself down outside. It was late in the day now. He had been in his alcove for most of the day. Sunlight came straight down, split by high clouds into luminous shafts and spears that stood vividly against the darkening brown-mauve of the sky behind. Birds wheeled and flopped, swooping near the wall and pulling away from it into the enormous air. Looking for roosts, finding places away from the dangerous habitations of man. Tighe let his eyes go slack watching the patterns they made.
    With a rush in the air and a sudden whirr of wings, a pigeon landed on the turf a few yards from Tighe. He reached out towards it, but it leapt into the air, kicked out with its extraordinary wings and was away.

8
    Matters worsened in the village. Akathe and his pahe packed up the clockwork booth. Akathe’s pahe said he knew somebody in Meat, thought he could find a little work there. They paid the Doge the toll for her ladder. Tighe saw the two of them off. ‘When will