19 Turning Their Backs

19. TURNING THEIR BACKS It would have been good if this was THE END. But unfortunately this is a Hiccup story, and if I have said it once, I have said it a hundred times: this is the story of becoming a Hero the Hard Way. We've become so caught up in listening to Hiccup's speech that we've forgotten about the witch. All the while that Hiccup was talking, and the Vikings were listening, the witch had been busy. Scuttling and slaloming through the hairy legs of the watching crowd, like a bony white dog, searching, searching. Looking for someone. And she found him. Whisper, whisper, whisper in Snotlout's ear. It's all about timing you see. That's what the witch had learnt from her twenty years in the tree trunk. And on this occasion, her timing was impeccable. Just at that moment, when it was all in the balance, when it looked like, against all odds, that everything might just go right in the end after all, someone threw a stone.

Snotlout threw the stone and Snotlout was an exceptionally good shot. The stone connected with Hiccup's helmet with a bright clear ring, and it fell to the ground. Hiccup gave an appalled gasp and tried to put his hand to his forehead. Too late. The Eldest Elder's quick old eyes saw something there, and his knobbly old arm reached out, and slowly, sternly, he brought down Hiccup's hand to reveal…

…the Slavemark. You see, that was what the witch had seen, earlier, in the hut. Hiccup had done a wonderful job of keeping the Slavemark secret over the years.* *To find out how Hiccup got the Slavemark read How to Ride a Dragon's Storm. But when Toothless crept under Hiccup's helmet, in that moment that he lifted it up from Hiccup's forehead, before letting it fall again, the witch had seen the Mark that was hiding underneath. The Slavemark was the ultimate mark of shame in the Archipelago. It meant instant banishment from your Tribe, and a life lived for ever in slavery. The crowd let out a cry of horror. 'The boy is a slave!' yelled a Murderous. 'No wonder he wanted us to free the dragons, and the human slaves as well! He is a slave himself!'

'We have been tricked!' called out a Visithug. Roars of indignation and shaken fists. 'Silence!' cried the Eldest Elder, his white beard all a-quiver. And he turned to Stoick, aghast. 'How is it that your son has the Slavemark? Surely you are not trying to foist upon us a leader who is a slave?' Stoick was barely able to take this in. 'But… but… this isn't possible… Hiccup, how could this be? There is some mistake, surely?' Hiccup had put his hand up to his forehead again, almost as if he was hoping that the Mark wasn't really there. 'I was given the Mark by the Wanderers long ago on the slave ship when I went to America,' explained Hiccup. He brought his hand down again. 'It was an accident… but there is no shame in this, Father…' He had lost the goodwill of the crowd, however. It was all a question of timing. In that time, in that place, a person with the Slavemark could never be a Chief, let alone a King. 'Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,' sighed the Eldest Elder. This was all very confusing.

'Hiccup cannot be the King,' ruled the Eldest Elder. 'He is disqualified because he has the Slavemark. You, then, shall be the next King of the Wilderwest, Stoick, for you were the runner-up in the sword-fighting competition.' 'Stoick should be banished too!' came a hissing voice and the witch Excellinor rose, almost as if she were floating, on to the platform. She held up her iron-tipped fingernails. 'These are surgeon's fingers,' hissed the witch. 'What do we do when we meet a cancer, a tumour, or a canker in our bodies?' she screamed. 'We rip it out, we tear it from our flesh, so that the rest of the body may have a chance to live! So it is,' sneered the witch, and she snuffled a little, like a dog, 'so it is with runts. What is the motto of the Hooligan Tribe, Stoick?' 'Only the strong can belong,' said Stoick, who had turned very white. 'None of you idiots know your history do you?' purred the witch. 'Hiccup is the name given to RUNTS in the Horrendous Haddock family, isn't it, Stoick? 'Your son,' the witch spat out the words as if they were an exceptionally nasty taste in her mouth,

'your nasty, puny, odd little son, was pronounced a runt by the Naming Dame, wasn't he, Stoick? You should have set him out to sea, according to the Law, shouldn't you? But you DID NOT! Deny it if you can, Stoick the Vast!' Stoick could not. Thirteen years before, the Naming Dame had indeed pronounced Hiccup a runt. It was a private ceremony, so only he and Valhallarama knew this secret. But he and Valhallarama had wanted a child so very, very badly. They had argued to themselves that the Naming Dame must have been wrong. They kept their baby, and in so doing, they broke one of the most sacred Laws of the Archipelago. The Hooligans had watched Hiccup growing up, watched and wondered why he was so skinny and ordinary-looking. But never had they suspected that their own, most respected, Chief would have broken the Law in this way. Many among them had painfully said goodbye to their own infants, suppressed their personal feelings for the good of the Tribe. Was it possible that Stoick, their great leader, had not done the same? And all around the amphitheatre the sky