CHAPTER THREE

The night lay closed over the palace. Outside the white walls, ten shadows moved through the dust. Ten of the hundred people No Name had went toward the great chief's palace. They ran close to the columns, carrying black boxes and tools that glinted faintly in the moonlight. They did what No Name asked of them. They reached the great golden gate. The same one that in the morning had denied them entry. One of them knelt. He took out the dynamite. He stuck it to the center of the gate, between the carvings of suns and wheat stalks. The others watched. The spears of the guards on duty could be seen far off, making lazy rounds. "Ready?" the first one whispered. They nodded. They lit the fuse. The fire sparked and ran fast along the cord. "Back!" They ran. They threw themselves on the ground behind a dry fountain. One second. Two. BOOM! The blast broke the night. The golden gate flew apart in pieces. The white marble cracked. The noise bounced off the domes and woke the whole palace. The alarms sounded. The guards shouted. The torches flared to life all at once. And through the black hole left in the wall, the ten went in. With faces dirty from gunpowder. With eyes fixed on the stairs that led to the dungeons. Upstairs, on the throne, the great chief shot to his feet. The gold of his robe tangled around his legs. "What was that?" he roared. No one answered him. Down below, in the darkness, No Name heard the explosion. He closed his eyes for a second. And he smiled. The smoke was still floating in the air when the great gate stopped burning. The pieces of gold were scattered on the marble floor. The lamps trembled. The servants screamed and hid behind the columns. And then they heard them. Footsteps. Many. Steady. No Name's personnel suddenly entered the great medieval palace. Ten men crossed through the gap in the broken gate. Their faces were covered in dust and soot, but their backs were straight. In their hands they carried modern tools, flashlights, and in their eyes something no guard had seen before: certainty. They didn't shout. They didn't loot. They went straight. They went up the broken steps two at a time. They pushed aside the guards who tried to block them. They disarmed them without hitting, just with quick, precise moves. "Stop them!" the great chief roared from above. He stood up on the throne. The gold weighed on him. But the ten didn't look at him. They went down. Down the same spiral stairs they had taken No Name down. They reached the black iron door. They blew it open with a crowbar. The dungeon opened. There he was. Standing, back against the cold wall, his face lit only by one of theirs' flashlight. They looked at each other. No Name nodded just once. "Let's go," he said. They took him out. They walked back through the hallways. The whole palace was in chaos. Voices. Shouts. The sound of cups falling. When they reached the main hall, the great chief was waiting for them. Alone. With two guards on each side and hands trembling on the armrests. "You think you can just walk into my house like that?" he spat. No Name stopped in the center of the broken hall. He looked at the throne, looked at the gold, looked at the chief. "We didn't come for your house," he said. "We came for the bread. For the water. For the people." He pointed outside, toward the gap where the gate used to be. Beyond, through the smoke, you could already see lights. Torches. From the town. They were getting closer. The great chief opened his mouth, but no words came out. No Name turned around. "Burning the gold doesn't help. But opening the doors does." And he left the medieval palace with his people, while behind them the echo of the blast still bounced off the golden domes. Outside, the night smelled of gunpowder... and of bread. Then a man told the people they could recover all the goods the great chief had stolen from them. The voice ran through the mud houses like wind. "Now," he shouted. "The gate fell. The palace is open." And the people entered. Not with spears. Not with hate. They came in with empty baskets, with pots, with children by the hand. They walked through the broken marble and the smoke of the explosion, straight to the center of the medieval palace. They opened the big pantries. They took down the trays of fruit no one touched. They took out the sacks of wheat, the jars of oil, the jugs of water that had been stored for the chief's feasts. And they recovered all their goods. All their food. The women filled their jugs to the brim. The children carried hot bread they took from the palace kitchens. The old people sat on the floor of the golden hall to divide things up, unhurried, as if it were theirs. Because it was. The great chief watched them from the stairs. He tried to shout, but his voice wouldn't come out. The guards lowered their spears. There was no one to attack. No Name stood next to the broken door. He saw how a little girl took an apple from a golden tray and gave half to her brother. He saw how the men carried sacks of flour outside, toward the town. No one took more than they needed. No one shoved. They only took what had always belonged to them. The smell of bread was no longer coming only from the town ovens. Now it was also coming from the palace. And the shine of the domes, for the first time, didn't blind. It lit the way. That night the palace didn't sleep. The great chief stayed sitting on his throne. The gold around him no longer shone the same. The trays were empty. The pantries wide open. The guards came and went without knowing who to guard. Outside you could hear footsteps. Laughter. Pots clanking. It was the people, taking back what was theirs, street by street. The chief clenched his fists. The rings marked his knuckles again. "Where is he?" he spat. "He left with his people, my lord," a guard answered, head down. "They went out through the broken gate." The chief stood up suddenly. The golden mantle dragged over the marble stained with soot. "Find him," he ordered. "Make him pay." But when the guards went out, the streets were already empty. Only footprints were left in the dust and the smell of bread going from the town houses toward the palace. Down below, in the mud town, the houses had light. At every door there was bread. In every yard, water. On every table, fruit. The children ate without lowering their voices. The women laughed while kneading with flour that before had been stored away. The men fixed roofs with wood they took from the palace warehouses. No Name was sitting on a stone, in the square. No crown, no throne. With dust still on his boots. One of his people came up and left him a cup of water. "Now what, chief?" he asked. No Name took the water. He looked at the lights of the town and then at the distant domes of the palace, dark. "Now," he said, "the people learn to support the people." And the night went on. Long. But for the first time in years, no one on the coast went to sleep hungry.