Читать книгу Hero Grown - Andy Livingstone - Страница 6

‘Peacetime has no need for heroes.’

The storyteller swept his arm towards the doorway far above, the evening light of a high-summer evening drifting in a soft haze into the village’s meeting hall. Every face packed into the concentric circles of benches rising from his central stage to ground level high above turned to follow his gesture.

‘Listen to the sound of peace. Hear the sounds of the insects, the birds, the children, the mill wheel turning and the river that drives it. Were this a short while ago, you would have the laughter of casual conversation, the clash of the smith and the shouts of workers and lowing of cattle in the fields.

‘Nowhere are the sounds of war: the screams, the whispers of fear, the moans of terror, the shouts of hate, the silence of despair.

‘The sound of peace is the sound of nature and children, of neighbours and daily life. The sound of war is death.

‘But we have peace. So we need no heroes.’

His piercing gaze swept the benches, every pair of eyes feeling that they locked with his.

‘Or do we?

‘Do you know no ships are beaching on the nearest shore? Or that men are not marching this way already? Or that weapons are not, even now, drawn in eager hands in the very woods that skirt your homes? Or even at that door above you now?’

A nervous shifting shuffled around the hall. A smile of reassurance danced across his lips. ‘They are not. But it is well to remember that they might.

‘War rarely creeps into life. Not for the ordinary people. Kings and generals may see its approach from afar, or they may not, but for the folk of the first village, or town, or city, or trade convoy, or ship that is attacked, it begins in the blink of an eye, the strike of an arrow, the flash of a blade. In an instant, war has arrived.

‘That village, or town, or ship may not have a hero. But war is a monster with an appetite that is as voracious as it is insatiable. It feeds and grows faster than you can imagine, and without our heroes, we will be devoured. But where are our heroes, if in peace we had not need of them? From where will they come to fight our cause, to breed hope and inspiration?

‘We must always have heroes. But we see them only when life is at its worst.’

A long moment passed. With a smile, this time for himself, the storyteller reflected on the irony that, in peace, tales of war and blood were relished, while soldiers in the lull between horrors craved stories of simple peaceful life, of harvests and weddings and trips to the market.

He crouched, drawing their attention to him as if he pulled in their minds on a thousand cords.

‘Last night, you heard how a hero was born. Now listen to how he grew.’