Midnight Robber

The limo crept along, slow as a chinny worm. A mako jumbie strode through the crowd, picking his way on his tall stilts. His tattered motley had been made into pants that clothed the stilts all the way to the ground. His chest was bare and he'd tied a long, pointy beak onto his face.

A Robber King stepped into the road in front of them, brandishing pistols almost as long as he was tall. He blew a shrieking whistle that brought to a halt the comess and carrying-on all around him. A circle of space cleared for him. People called out to him cheerfully and drew closer to see what he would do. The limousine braked, tried to go round the man. He stepped into their path again. Ione sighed. "Let he give he speech," she told the car.

Tan-Tan could have lain comfortably under the expanse of the Robber's hat. It had small white skulls bobbing all round its brim. The skulls' lower jaws yammered, but it was too loud in the street to hear if they were saying anything. The Robber's black and red outfit was the essence of Robber King style: bandoliers, holsters, chaps, alligator skin boots with enormous spurs. For a second, Tan-Tan felt the old fear: had he come to take her away for being bad?

The Robber gestured with his guns, spat his whistle from his mouth and broke into a nonsensible rant he had written especially for this day. "Arrest thou compunctively, embroiled despoilers. Dip and fall back, and hear my sultry cry." He turned his head towards the car as he spoke, and it was as though he were sitting right beside them. He must have been wearing a pointmike. Tan-Tan leaned forward to get every word of his speech. Maybe she could pick up some new ones for hers.

"My seraphic dam was a very queen of Egypt; mine pater its monarchical magnate, and I, a son of the sun, a coddled cocotte in my child's robes of ermine and cloth-of-gold. Who would curdle my kingly boy's joy, who mash me down and steal me away like jacks from a ball?"

And so it went: the classic tale, much embroidered over the centuries, mirrored the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, an African noble's son stolen into slavery on seventeenth-century Earth. The Robber Kings' stream-of-consciousness speeches always told of escaping the horrors of slavery and making their way into brigandry as a way of surviving in the new and terrible white devils' land in which they'd found themselves.

". . . and then," the Robber went on, "I wrestle the warptenned flying ship from the ensorcelled dungmaster, the master plan blaster in his silver-fendered stratocaster with wings of phoenix flame, and I . . ."

Ione opened the window, stuck her hand out. "Here," she called to the Robber. "Take this, and make we move on." She held out money in her hand.

He was supposed to stop when offered payment, but he wouldn't reach for it. "Avaunt!" he shouted. "Get thee behind me, horny horning whore of Babylon!" Someone in the crowd giggled. "Thine gelt shall not tempt me, too wise am I to be clasped by your thighs."

"Take it," Ione growled. "Is fight yard we going, you hear me? "

Fight yard. Fight yard . . . was whispered through the crowd. "Robber man," someone yelled, "take she blasted money and let she get through. She going to see she husband duel."

Ione threw the coin. The Robber leapt, swept off his hand, bent on one knee to catch the coin between his teeth and came up smiling. Tan-Tan clapped her hands and whistled to salute him. "Shut up, pickney," zone snapped. Tan-Tan pouted and slouched back against the seat.

The Robber stepped back to let them through, bowed and flourished his hat as they passed. The ring-bang ruction and the dancing started up round them again.

They reached the fight yard to find Quashee standing in the machète circle already, looking stiff and serious in his leather armour gleaming with jumbie oil, and holding his helmet under his arm. Ione made to wave to him, but pulled her hand back before the gesture was finished. She sucked in her bottom lip and hurried with Tan-Tan to a seat. Some people glared at her, some smiled. An old, white-haired woman with a cane made the kiss-teeth sound of disgust and leaned over to whisper with her companions, another old woman and an old man.

The fight yard had been rearranged to accommodate the only activity it would feature today: the duelling circle. The circle dominated the whole yard. It had rows of benches erected all round. Spectators sat on one side, everybody dressed to puss-foot, everybody excited. The duelling parties sat in two separate boxes on the other. A team of medics sat beside the fighters in one box, a stretcher propped up nearby. Higglers moved through the crowd of watchers, shouting, "Roast peanut? Topi-tambo? Chataigne? Who going buy my fresh roast peanut?"