Shadow of a Hero by Peter Dickinson

weren’t stealing. They were delighted with things like video cameras and Walkmans and handed them round among themselves, and wanted to be shown how they worked, but that was more like excited kids with toys, and they always gave them back with smiles and thanks.
    ‘It can’t be drugs they’re looking for,’ Letta heard a woman say.
    ‘Something bigger than that,’ said a man. ‘They didn’t bother to open Vicki’s vanity-case.’
    ‘No, it’s guns,’ said another man.
    ‘Guns at a culture festival?’ said the woman.
    ‘We’re going to Potok, honey,’ said the second man, as if that explained everything.
    Later, Letta asked Steff about it and he shook his head.
    ‘Doubt it,’ he said. ‘More likely they were just going through the motions, as a way of keeping us here till they got some sense out of Timisoara. My guess is the Romanians never did their sums and really worked out how many of us were coming, not just from the UK, and now they’re getting anxious.’
    ‘But could it actually be guns?’ said Nigel.
    ‘I suppose it’s possible. All these countries are pretty jumpy about their minorities, and there are a lot of hotheads around. No doubt some idiots are trying to smuggle weapons in. But I think they’re just being bureaucrats. When a bureaucrat’s bothered, he invariably presses the hold-everything button. Anyway, it looks as if we’re going to have to camp here for the night, so let’s start sorting ourselves out.’
    Mollie had a contingency plan for just this kind of crisis, so it all went smoothly enough. A lot of the travellers had emergency rations with them, and there was plenty to spare in the stores truck. An old man came by in the evening, and some of the travellers who could talk Romanian chatted with him, and he shook hands and left, but came back a little later leading two mules laden with immense bundles of firewood, which he sold for several cans of stewed steak. They lit fires, whose smoke drifted up into the dusky air, and ate together, and sang as they’d sung all the way south. The sun had set in scarlet bands and night rose visibly up the eastern sky, the way it never does in England. Steff pointed at the distance.
    Their road must have swung a long way back because the hills, nearer now, were over on their right, a hard-edged ragged line, black against the afterglow of day.
    ‘See that?’ he said. ‘That’s Varina.’
    Well, at least I’ve seen it, thought Letta as she fidgeted in her sleeping-bag, trying to find a place where the iron ground was kinder to her hip. Even if we never get there, at least I’ve seen it.

LEGEND
    Father Stephan
    NEWS WAS BROUGHT to Falje that the Pasha of Potok, with all his
bazouks
, was slain by Restaur Vax and the Varinians at Riqui. Then the Pasha of Falje, though he had little love for the Pasha of Potok, was both angry and afraid, and sent letters to the other Pashas, at Slot, and Aloxha, and Jirin, saying, ‘Our brother must now be avenged with many lives, or the Varinians will feel strong in their hearts and know they are indeed a people. Then they will rise against us and slay us all. Moreover it is we who must take vengeance, for if we do less the Sultan will send armies from Byzantium, with Viziers and Generals to oversee the vengeance, and we shall ourselves be called to account. Therefore write each of you to the Sultan, as I have done, saying that we have the matter of vengeance well in hand. That done, come with all your
bazouks
to Potok and we will begin the work.’
    So the Pashas gathered at Potok. Then the Pasha of Slot said, ‘Let these Christian swine understand the full measure of our vengeance. Let us take their bishop, Bishop Pango, and crucify him on the walls of Potok, where all Varina may see him.’
    The Pasha of Falje said, ‘I have word that he has fled to the Monastery of St Valia, where there are many secret ways and places of hiding.’
    The Pasha of Aloxha said, ‘My Captain of Bazouks is a man