Maia (140 page)

come any closer. I've just come to tell you what we're going to do."

"Cran's zard!" muttered one of the soldiers. "Basting man don't want to live!"

"These men aren't criminals," said Zen-Kurel. "They've escaped from slavery in Belishba and they've had a very bad time. They're quite ready to join Elleroth and I've assured them he'll be happy to take them on. So I'm going to guide them as far as the camp and act as surety for them. I expect to be back here by a couple of hours after dawn, but if I'm later than that, just go on to Nybril- don't wait for me." '

It was plain that none of this was to Tolis's liking. He appeared not only at a loss but flustered. "What the hell are we going to do?" he asked the tryzatt. "Damned Ka-trian! We're responsible to Elleroth for him!"

"Can't do nothing, sir," replied Miarn. "They've got him out there with them, haven't they?"

"Yes, but when Elleroth-" But before Tolis could say more, Bayub-Otal called out, "Zenka, can I come with you?"

There was a pause, apparently while Zen-Kurel conferred with his companions. Then he answered, "No, they say not."

"Very well," replied Bayub-Otal. "We'll keep you some breakfast."

"Elleroth's going to be glad a bunch of men like these weren't wasted," called Zen-Kurel.

With this he and the other two turned and disappeared once more into the gloom. The frog-croaking silence returned.

"Stand 'em down, sir?" asked Miarn after two or three minutes.

"Oh, yes, any damned thing you like!" replied Tolis petulantly. "You'd wonder who was in command here, wouldn't you?"

"D'you reckon he'll be back, sir?"

"Of course he won't!" said Tolis. "Men like that? They'll cut his throat as sure as the rains are coming! These blasted Katrians-they're all the same-throw their lives away and call it soldiering! Karnat's wildcats! I believe they'd set themselves on fire just to try and show they were braver than anyone else! Why the hell couldn't he do it some time when we weren't responsible for him? Lord Elleroth's going

to play hell! 'Why did we let it happen?' As if
we
could have had any idea what he was going to do!"

"Going to wait for him, then, sir, or not?"

"I haven't decided yet," said Tolis. "I'll tell you tomorrow."

He was walking away when Maia followed him.

"Can I speak to you?"

Tolis turned to her with the air of a young and harassed man retaining his self-control with difficulty.

"Saiyett, you're the last person to whom I'd want to be discourteous, but I've simply had enough for one night. Please go back to bed. We'll talk in the morning."

Within the hour Maia had become so much demented with fear that she could no longer keep up appearances or conceal her distress. Her thoughts-if thoughts they could be called, that succession of visions and sensations overwhelming her mind like some evil dream-were plunged into a kind of vortex, a vicious circle from which there was no escape save hysteria. It was as though she were running in terror from one room to another, only to find herself fleeing at last back into the first. This first was a sense of panic horror, much like the shock felt by one who suddenly finds herself falling from a height, or wakes to realize that the house is burning. Then followed the images-apprehensions, vivid as flashes of lightning: Zenka surrounded and fighting for his life, Zenka tortured by the fugitive slaves, Zenka's body flung into the river, Zenka bleeding, Zenka murdered. And flying from these she ran full-tilt, as against a wall, into her awareness- like that of one hearing herself sentenced to death-that this was no dream, but reality; and taking place not in the past or the future, but in, that present from which there is no escape. Thence to the weeping, the entreaties to the gods for reassurance-to the gods who could not give it. And so back to the panic, and the horror. The Serrelinda, who had made her way into Pokada's prison and into the Ortelgan camp by night, was not equal to this unremitting torment of inaction.

A common, general misery, such as a flood or some civic calamity, has at least the effect of bringing people together and uniting them in fortitude and mutual succor: "I mustn't let the others down." Perhaps the worst of a private affliction is its effect of isolation. Personal grief, like deafness or a glass prison, sequesters the sufferer and separates her from others, who cannot by the nature of things enter into

her agony. Even so may one see a maimed animal limping on among the indifferent herd.

The near-by soldiers were far away, in a world where people talked together, kept watch, slept or rolled dice by the fire: they were close-as close as sane men standing by the bedside of one who knows he has gone mad.

Maia was aware that Anda-Nokomis was sitting beside her, since from time to time he spoke to her or touched her hand. Yet it was little he said, seeming as he did to find her affliction almost as grievous as she herself; though his recourse, characteristically, was to silence and to that lonely patience which had so long been habitual with him.

She knew that most, if not all, of the soldiers felt sure that Zen-Kurel had thrown his life away for nothing and that they thought him a fool for doing it. If anything they despised him, since his valuation of the risk he had taken was beyond their comprehension, much as the incentive of an explorer seems foolish to those who wonder why he could not have stayed safely at home.

She made no attempt to talk to Anda-Nokomis, simply keeping her lonely suffering, as it were, alight for a lamp which might somehow guide Zenka back. Yet even this flickered and died at last as she fell asleep from exhaustion.

Her sleep was full of dreams; or rather of visitations, without visual images or even any illusion of sequence in time; dreads and forebodings, by their very universality and formlessness more intense and veritable than any to be suffered in real, waking life: like huge, hazy masses driven before a great wind-transcendental sorrow made manifest-towering over and dwarfing all emotion of which mere humanity was capable. She stifled in clouds of anguish, lay buried under mountains of regret, struggled and drowned in cataracts of loss. And she, who had been unable to sleep-she could not wake.

At last, contracting, as it were, in order to enter the finite, visible world, the cloud-dreams crystallized into figments she could apprehend and seem to see-persons, time, even a situation. It seemed that Zenka-her own Zenka, her lover as he had once been-had indeed returned and was standing beside her bed in Melvda-Rain. He was weary and travel-worn, yet full of pride and fulfillment; at which she felt no surprise, for it was once more the night when they had become lovers. Yet now Anda-Nokomis was there also; a strangely two-minded Anda-

Nokomis, at one and the same time glad and despite himself sorry to see Zenka back.

Zenka spoke to him. She seemed to hear his very words. "It was well worth the risk. Good men, some of them- thousand pities if they'd been killed in a pointless scrap."

"Why," she cried gladly, "that's just how
I
felt, too, that night in Melvda! You understand then, don't you? We understand each other now, Zenka, my darling-"

As she seemed to say this, an enormous relief and happiness filled her, a certainty that now everything would be all right. Yet he appeared not to hear, even though he was looking down at her as Anda-Nokomis laid a hand on his shoulder in congratulation.

"She was very nearly your only casualty," he said. "I've really been afraid for her reason. She's been in a terrible state."

She tried to move, to stretch out her hands, tried to speak again, but it had become one of those dreams in which you couldn't. And now Zenka-it seemed to be his turn to appear two-minded. He frowned, looking down and tapping with one foot on-the ground.

"Then all I can say is, it's been
her
turn to know what it feels like."

King Karnat's trumpet was sounding for the muster. Zenka went away and she knew she had to go and swim the Valderra again. The soldiers had pulled her out and were bending over her.

She opened her eyes. It was Anda-Nokomis. Slowly, she remembered where they were and what had happened last night. Had she then bees dreaming or awake-or both?

It was broad daylight. She sat up, looking round at the interlaced branches, the drooping, withered trepsis bloom spelling "Serrelinda" and at Anda-Nokomis beside her.

He smiled his restrained, distant smile. "Our friend's back."

,"He's back?"

"He was here just now, while you were still asleep. He got those men to the camp quite successfully and handed them over to Elleroth. I don't think he was gone nine hours altogether." He paused. "Twenty miles and a sleepless night, but more peaceful than some people's, I think, all the same."

Relief surged over her as over an exhausted castaway washed up on a beach. She wanted nothing: the immediate

moment was enough. She lay back, content merely to remain where she was and know that Zenka was alive. So fully did this feeling possess her that for some time she did not even mind that in this woken, real state they were not reconciled and that of course he could not have heard what she had said to him in her dream. No matter. She would still be able to help him to get to Katria; still be able to make her sacrifice. That was enough, for she had thought herself deprived of it and now she had it back, the bitter solace of her integrity.

They brought her some food, and Tolis sent to enquire whether she still wanted to talk to him. Yes, she said, and when he came thanked him graciously and sincerely for looking after her when she'd lost her head the night before: so that he hardly knew what to reply. Well, he'd acted as he thought best: he hoped she didn't mind: decisions weren't always easy: sometimes these things had to be done. Neither of them mentioned Zen-Kurel.

Maia, little though she knew of soldiering, could not help being impressed by the practiced ease with which the Sarkidians cleaned up and cleared the camp site. Having no axes for a pyre or spades for burial, they could only commit the two dead men to the river. Both were young and not ill-looking, though sadly gaunt and famished. One, so Maia thought, a little resembled Sednil. She felt full of pity for them. At her request (she doubted whether it would have been done otherwise), the tryzatt brought her some grain, salt and wine to fling after them into the river. She picked an armful of flowers, too-thy dis and marjoram, bartsia and planella-sprinkled them on the current and as they drifted away offered a prayer that the young men might meet with Sphelthon and share his peace.

"You didn't feel in any danger?" she asked Zen-Kurel as they were setting out. She felt able, now, to address him directly, though still avoiding any suggestion of warmth or particularly friendly feeling. He, for his part, seemed to have eome to regard their relationship as one between two people working with mutual respect towards a common end, without seeking or expecting more.

"No one need have felt in any danger," he replied. "It should never have been allowed to come to blows at all." Then, as Tolis came up, he shrugged and broke off with the air of one refraining from criticism of colleagues, however well justified.

It was no more than nine or ten miles to Nybril, which they reached about noon. Unconsciously, Maia had entertained in her mind a picture of a place something like Meerzat-a little, riparian town, with regular trade and boats coming and going as on Lake Serrelind. The reality was disappointingly-indeed, dauntingly-different. Nybril Point, the rocky bluff rising above the confluence of the Flere and the Zhairgen, possessed no harbor remotely resembling Meerzat's sheltered, south-facing bay. Almost the sole advantage of the place lay in its virtual impregnability, a narrow triangle of which two sides were rivers. Long ago, some baron had built a castle there, but for many years past no baron had wished to live in so uninviting a spot, whose only mercantile value was as a stop-ping-off point for wool- and timber-laden rafts coming down the Flere from Yelda. (There was a depot on the upper Flere about ten miles south of Ikat.) In years to come Sarkid was to develop Nybril, constructing a mole and introducing ferries to either shore, but at this period of the empire's history it was still little more than a windy rock where a largely hereditary community of about two thousand souls were content to eke out a living in the knowledge that they were at least secure from pillage. Strangers, apart from the raft-men and occasional pedlars, were rare and not particularly welcome, since their reasons for coming were suspect.

The arrival of Tolis and his men, whose approach had of course been observed and reported an hour earlier, was watched by a fair-sized crowd from the walls on either side of the gates. His authority from Elleroth having been duly accepted, he was accorded a reserved welcome by the Elder, who nevertheless unbent slightly upon being told that the soldiers were to leave before nightfall.

A man appointed to act as guide escorted Maia, Zen-Ku-rel and Anda-Nokomis half-way down the steep, western slope of the headland to "TheWhite Roses," one of the two or three inns in the town, which was also a fishing-tackle store and a corn chandler's. It hardly measured up to "The Safe Moorings," and although Maia had never had any great

opinion of Frarnli, she was in no doubt that Frarnli would have been able to keep the place a deal cleaner, tackle store or no. She had not sat down for long on the little upstairs balcony before the warmth of her body brought a swarm of ticks out of the woodwork of her chair.

They were eating fish broth with black bread when Tolis came in to tell them, with aloof but self-conscious cor-rectnessr that he was now leaving. If he had been expecting any sort of protest he was disappointed. Zen-Kurel, having ordered up a bottle of wine to drink to Elleroth's fortunes and a speedy heldro victory (which Tolis could hardly decline) thanked him most courteously for all he had done for them and then insisted on accompanying him to the town gates to bid farewell to tryzatt Miarn and the men.

Anda-Nokomis went too but Maia, who felt angry, stayed behind. Having slept until the cool of the evening, she washed in a pail of tepid river water and then went out onto the balcony, taking with her a stool which she hoped would prove to be without inhabitants.

She had a spacious view of the confluence, and for the best part of an hour, with the slowly-setting sun full in her eyes, sat contemplating the scene below her, the converging rivers and the comings and goings on land and water. To her left the Here, boundary between Sarkid and Be-lishba, came flowing down from a blue distance of woods interspersed with cultivated, plain-like country. Far off, she could make out grazing flocks and smoke-crowned villages. A peaceful, fertile country it looked-Sarkid of the Sheaves, the hero Deparioth's land. On her right the upper Zhairgen came swirling round the base of the rocky promontory which cut off her view of the wilder country through which they had just come. She recalled how someone, at a party in Bekla, had once described Nybril to her as being like the stone in a cherry.

Yet it was the water below her-the water and what was on it-which most closely engaged her attention. As we know, Maia was knowledgeable about water, and what principally struck her was its unpleasant choppiness and general look of nasty, unmanageable turbulence. Where the two mainstreams met there was a clearly visible seam and an extensive area of broken water, in which she could see logs, large branches and other flotsam tossing and tumbling. Maia, like everyone else in the empire, was accustomed almost unconsciously to animate impressive places

and natural phenomena, just as she had animated the forest of Pura. Under that water, she felt unreflectingly, dwelt a spirit-demi-god or demon-harshly jealous of his realm, who brooked human beings thereon with an ill grace and hard sufferance.

Nybril, as she could now appreciate, was suitable for a river port only to the extent that from it, during the summer, merchandise could be sent downstream on rough, expendable rafts. The town had not grown up as a port but as a stronghold. The current was too strong for the place to be readily accessible except from upstream. It could never enjoy Meerzat's regular, easy comings and goings of boats. To be sure, there were a few small ones tied up along the little front below, but they did not look at all strongly built or fit for rough water, and she supposed that they were used only for fishing under the lee of the promontory and perhaps for direct crossings into Belishba at seasons, such as this, when the water was low and the current slack enough to permit of it.

The sinking sun turned the whole, receding expanse of the river-the broadest she had ever seen-to a dull crimson, glittering with quick streaks and flashes of gold. By contrast, the great cracks in the dried mud exposed along the banks showed pitch-black-deep, jagged crevices as broad as a man's hand. Even up here, high above the meeting-point of the two rivers, there seemed to be no breeze. The big, palmate leaves on the trees below her hung still as though waxen and nothing stirred the white dust that covered the steep zig-zag of the lane descending to the quay. I ought to feel at peace, she thought: there's no danger and there's a bed for the night. And yet I feel-well, I dunno: it's not right, somehow; it's not what t expected. I'll be glad when we've been able to get fixed up to go.

Hearing a movement behind her, she turned to see Anda-Nokomis standing in the entrance to the balcony. She smiled and gestured to him to join her, but though he came forward to sit beside her he did not smile in reply.

"Soldiers gone?" she asked.

"Oh, yes; some time ago now."

"I ought to have gone to thank them myself. Wish I had, now."

"You can't be blamed," he answered. "That young Tolis fellow should never have taken them away. He did it out

of pure ill-humor. They very nearly mutinied: they'd been looking forward to a night on the town-such as it is."

"You mean he resented what Zenka did last night?"

"I do."

"I wish I was still-well, what I used to be," she said. "I'd 'a seen as he heard some more about it 'fore I'd done."

"But if you were, it would never have happened, would it?"

She laughed, but once again he did not.

"You never laugh, Anda-Nokomis. I could make a beggar laugh easier 'n what I can you."

"I
am
a beggar, actually. I don't particularly like coming to ask you for money, but I've no alternative. The man insists on a down payment tonight. I don't know where he thinks we might disappear to, I'm sure. I nearly refused, but it would have been more trouble than it's worth."

"How much, Anda-Nokomis?"

"Three hundred meld."

"You'd best take three thousand, and give some of it to Zenka. Then you needn't either of you go short or be caught without. Come on, now-" as he hesitated-"that'll be best for all of us. You don't want to look silly or short of money in front of these people."

"But will that leave you with enough?"

"Did ought!"

"Are you sure?"

"I'll count it out in front of you if you like, Anda-Nokomis."

This time he did smile as he shook his head. She gave him the money and they were silent for a little while, watching the glow fade from the breadth of the river below.

"Did
you
resent-well, anything that happened last night?"

She looked round at him quickly. "Oh, no, Anda-Nokomis, never!"

Yet evidently he was expecting her-waiting for her- to say more. She sought for something-anything-to smooth over the situation. He deserved all the kindness of which she was capable. "How
could
I resent it?"

"Why, as I said, because I've treated you badly and insulted you. I misjudged you, Maia."

"And
I
said, didn't I, as that was all over? No, Anda-Nokomis, of course I didn't resent you asking me to marry you. And I believe you when you say you love me. I reckon

we both understand each other better now than what we ever have, don't you?"

"And yet-I don't have to ask for my answer, do I? If I'd known earlier how you feel, I might not have spoken. But you'd succeeded in keeping your feelings very well concealed until the moment when you actually thought Zenka had gone to his death last night. I had no idea."

Would he ever make a ruler, she wondered; a man capable of perceiving so little?

"But Anda-Nokomis, at that rate why ever did you think I got him out of the gaol in Bekla?" t

"Why, you could have had several reasons: because you'd learned he'd been my closest friend in Dari-Paltesh, because you knew it would please Santil-ke-Erketlis, or simply because you weren't going to leave a man like that to the mercy of Forms."

That was the trouble about Anda-Nokomis, she thought. To himself he made perfectly good sense and you couldn't really argue with it. And it was all rubbish; it missed the only real point. Her feelings had been plain both to Zirek and to Clystis: probably to Meris, too. Fortunately, however, she didn't have to say this. While she was still wondering what she
could
say, he spoke again.

"But Maia, I'm afraid that at that rate it must be very disappointing for you."

"Unless," she said suddenly, as the idea came into her head "-I've only just thought-unless I
wasn't
altogether dreaming."

"Dreaming? When?"

"When he said about it being my turn to know what it felt like."

He frowned. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't-'

She dropped on her knees beside him, put her arms round his neck and kissed him-the first time she had ever done so.

"My lord-my cousin-my dear friend: I'll tell you one thing, anyway-I've never been paid a greater compliment in my life, and I'm sure I never shall be again. I mean that with all my heart!"

"There's nothing more to be said, then?" he replied.

"There can't be: I'm so sorry."

"But Suba, Maia-your safety-"

She threw back her head and laughed as gaily as once she had in the fishing-net. "Occula used to say 'Stuff it!'

Look, Anda-Nokomis, we're here, the three of us, something like eighty miles from Katria and Suba, and no real idea yet how we're going to get there. You said-and don't think I don't feel it very kindly-that you wanted to relieve my anxiety. Surely the best way to relieve
everybody's
anxiety is to put all this by just for now, and stick to the job of getting ourselves down-river. 'Cos tell you the truth, I reckon 'tain't going to be all that easy. If you really want to do something for me, do that."

He was silent for what seemed a long time. "Perhaps you're right," he said at last. "We'll do as you say."

He stood up. "Where's Zenka, do you know?"

"No; I thought you did."

"Let's go and find him-have a drink-order a good supper-anything you like. And then tomorrow we'll see about getting a boat."