Maia (149 page)

"There she is!" came the cry again. She looked round. Two or three soldiers, their bows in their hands, had run along the bank from the guard-hut and were approaching her. She was utterly spent, yet she turned and swam on. She had not gone ten yards before a swift "Whaup!" sounded close to her ear. A moment later she saw the arrow floating a foot or two ahead.

I can't do any more: I'm drowning: I'll have to come ashore. Lespa be praised, they haven't seen Zenka and Anda-Nokomis: they must have got away. I shan't even

be able to try to escape: I'm as sick as ever I've been in my life. O Zenka, just when we'd found each other again! I'm so sorry, my darling!

With a few last, failing strokes she reached the dyke wall. The top was only a few inches above her. She put her hands on it, pushed feebly upward and got her chin on the coping, but she could do no more. Trying to pull herself up and out she sank back, sobbing with pain, with the grief of loss and the bitterness of defeat. And now, in her delirium, it seemed as though Queen Fornis herself was standing on the bank, her green eyes staring as once in the archery field. "Two of them I did myself!" What cruelty would be devised for her?

Two soldiers were striding towards her through the nightfall. Their footsteps came crunching over the loose shingle and as they drew closer she could see the Leopard cognizances on their shoulders.

"Ah, my lass! Not so clever after all, were you?" said one. "That's the end of that little game, then. Come on, now, up with you!" He stopped, gripping her wrists and dragged her roughly over the wall.

"It's not all that far back, Yellib," said the other. "We can carry her easy enough." They had her between them now, holding her by the arms and legs.

"Stop!"

Both men started and looked round. Anda-Nokomis, soaking wet from head to foot and almost as tall as the splintered oar he was still carrying, was stalking towards them. As he strode up they stood rooted to the spot. Authority surged from every inch of him as menace from a crouching wolf.

"You are violating the frontier!" Without taking his eyes from them, he indicated Maia with a gesture like that of Frella-Tiltheh pointing to the tamarrik seed. "You have no business here! Leave that girl instantly and get back where you belong!"

They obeyed him, laying her down on the soggy, granular shingle. As they straightened up, however, one of them found his voice.

" 'E's only one man, ain't he?"

"That's right," said the other. Then, to Anda-Nokomis, "Who are you, anyway?"

"How dare you question me?" thundered Anda-No-

komis. "I am the Ban of Suba, and if you do not immediately take yourselves back over the frontier-"

In that moment an arrow, flying out of the half-dark, struck him with terrible force just where neck met shoulder, burying itself four inches deep. A great spout of blood gushed out. Anda-Nokomis staggered and fell to the ground as a third soldier came running up, triumphantly waving his bow.

But now, from a little distance away, came cries of anger and attack, running feet and threats uttered in a foreign tongue. The newcomer pulled at his comrades' arms.

"Come on, here's the basting Katriaris! We'd best get the hell out of it, quick! Have to leave the girl, else they'll have us!"

And thereupon all three turned and disappeared upstream.

Maia dragged herself to her hands and knees. Specks of light were floating before her eyes and all manner of water sounds, real and unreal, coming and going in her ears. Slowly she gained her feet. Anda-Nokomis had fallen on one side. His blood was pouring over the gravelly shingle. She staggered across to where he lay, knelt beside him and took his head on her arm.

"Anda-Nokomis."

He stared past her, and she laid one hand against his cheek.

"Anda-Nokomis, it's Maia! It's your Maia here!"

Suddenly his eyes saw her, he recognized her. His terrible, blood-slobbering mouth moved and seemed to smile. He was trying to speak. She bent her head and kissed him.

"Anda-Nokomis-"

He grasped her wrist. Quite clearly, he whispered, "When Suba's free, you and I, we'll-" Then his hand dropped and his head fell sideways on her arm.

Someone was standing beside her. She looked up. It was Zenka. There were others all around-soldiers, some of them, and rough-looking villagers like those she'd seen in Suba, carrying clubs and mattocks, their hair and beards beaded with the rain.

"Maia! I brought them as quick as I could Oh, gods, what's happened? Anda-Nokomis-"

She clutched him round the legs, sobbing hysterically. Then everything grew indistinct, and she fell unconscious across the blood-drenched body of the Ban of Suba.

They carried her up the slope from the river to the houses-Zhithlir, southernmost village of Katria. The women and children crowded at the doors, staring silently as they slipped and staggered along the mud-churned street towards the Elder's house. Zen-Kurel limped beside Maia, himself scarcely able to keep up with the soldiers.

"You'll give her a bed and look after her, won't you?"

"Don't worry, sir," answered the Katrian tryzatt. "She couldn't have struck luckier, as it happens. There's an army doctor here on his rounds of the frontier posts."

"Lucky?" said Zen-Kurel. "Yes, she's always been lucky, tryzatt, you know. The gods are with her, else I wouldn't be here now." He turned and looked back at those carrying the body of Anda-Nokomis, the arrow still embedded above his collar-bone.

"He
never had any luck, poor man. Not once."

"Oh, really, sir? That's bad, now," replied the tryzatt stolidly, riot knowing what else to say.

Zen-Kurel looked round him at the pall of wood-smoke, the dripping thatch of the roofs and the muddy alleys channeled with rivulets. Every hut, he now saw, had fastened to its door a wreath of yew or of cypress. The soldiers were wearing black ribbons at their shoulders, and from the roof of the Elder's house, as they approached it, a black flag drooped like a great, dead crow hung on a post.

"What's this, tryzatt? That flag, the wreaths-"

The tryzatt turned to stare.

"You mean you haven't heard, sir?"

"Heard what?"

"The king, sir. King Kamat was killed in battle four days ago, over on the western border. They've brought the body back to Kenalt for burning tomorrow."

Stunned, Zen-Kurel made no reply, halting a moment and then wandering on a few paces apart. Yet by the time they reached the Elder's house he had recovered himself sufficiently to be able to give an account of how the Ban of Suba and himself had escaped from Bekla, thanks to the heroic help of none other than Maia Serrelinda, who had brought them safely through Purn and then down the Zhairgen to the frontier.

They heated water for him, gave him wine and food and prepared him a bed. Throughout the night, however, he sat watching beside Maia. Towards morning she woke, still weak and feverish but clear-headed, spoke to him and wept

bitterly for Anda-Nokomis. She told him, too, how in the misery of her heart she had reflected that if love could not express itself in fulfillment it could do so only in sacrifice. "But it wasn't me," she sobbed, "it wasn't me, in the end, as made that sacrifice!"

At this Zen-Kurel wept too. "He insisted on waiting for

you on the shore. He said I was the one who must go for

help, because they'd take more notice of a Katrian."

"If he hadn't done what he did, they'd 'a come too late."

Maia remained low and grief-stricken for several days.

But she was a strong, healthy girl, the doctor said, and

with rest and care would be right enough in a week or two.

It was nearly two years later. The summer was proving prosperous, pasture and stock thriving and crops ripening towards harvest. There were some weeks to go until the dog days: trees, grass and flowers were still fresh and verdant, the breezes cool but the streams, even in northern Katria, delightfully warm for splashing and lazing. For a one-year-old it was perfect weather; weather for crawling about in the sunshine and getting into everything, picking things up and stuffing them in the mouth unless or until they were removed; standing up and taking a few triumphant steps before falling flat with a howl to be snatched up and comforted by the Suban nurse; for being bounced up and down by one's joyous mother in the shadows, with screwed-up face and vocal noises interpretable by the affectionate and indulgent (and what other kinds of people might inhabit the world, pray?) as intelligible speech. The gold-and-purple kynat had come, bringing warm days and the gods' blessing, filling fields, woods and the hearts of hearers with its fluting call, "Kynat, Kynat will tell!" The blue-finches sang, black-and-white plovers tumbled headlong from sky to earth and of an evening the trout rose to the
gfyon
fly.

Keril-Katria was a pleasant enough town, thought Maia, strolling in the cool of the late afternoon along the tree-lined thoroughfare now known as King Karnat Avenue. Of course it was not remotely comparable with Bekla. There was hardly a single stone building, though a few were

of brick. Most, however, were like those in Melvda-Rain- long, one-story houses of wood, painted outside in the bright colors as much favored by Katrians as by Subans. However, it was reasonably clean and safe to walk about in, possessed a number of quite good shops and honest traders once you knew where to look for them, and could even offer a certain amount of entertainment-jugglers, acrobats and dancers-well, passable dancers, if you could contrive to forget what you remembered and do your best to appreciate the Katrian style. In fact it was a nice enough place for a little jaunt, a trip to town; with quite a generous bit of pin-money, too, a couple of serving-men from the estate tor attendants and the Suban girl to look after little Zen-Otal (or Anda-Serrelinda, as most called him at home) and take him off her hands when she wanted a respite from the happy, arduous business of motherhood. It certainly afforded a pleasant break from fulfilling the duties of mistress of the household (to say nothing of those of the dutiful, affectionate daughter-in-law) throughout Melekril and spring on the remote estate. Things had gone well enough, though. In fact, they'd been very happy and enjoyable- better than the first Melekril and spring, the early months of her marriage.

It had not been easy to begin with. She had been heavily dependent upon Zen-Kurel's devotion to build up any true sense of security and confidence in her new country, her new people and surroundings. For a start, there had been the language. Katrian Chistol-to say nothing of the dialect spoken by most people on the estate-bore little resemblance to Beklan: it was in effect another tongue. Zenka had had to find her an interpreter-that same Suban girl who had now become Zen-Otal's nurse. After about a year, however, she could rub along fairly well in Chistol, though the woodmen and the laundry maids still floored her at times. Still, she could joke with them about it now: she'd come to know them all so well.

Then there were the difficulties inseparable from her position as Zenka's wife, and mistress of the estate. Maia had not been born to authority or brought up to expect to have any. The Serrelinda, of course, had had authority, but it had been of an unusual kind-that of a public darling, a talismanic beauty and heroine, with no functions to fulfill beyond those of existing and being seen; a golden meteor, trailing light. (And indeed only last year a far-ranging ped-

lar from the empire, complete with scarlet hat, green shirt and white-striped jerkin-he even looked a bit tike Zirek: it had brought a tear to her eye-had told her that what people in Bekla now said of the comet was that it had presaged the passing of the Serrelinda.) In Bekla she had never had duties to perform or decisions to make on behalf of others. She had had to begin as a complete learner; but the housekeeper, the head cook, the baker, the
clarzil-
the old beldame who minded their infants for the women out working in the fields-they'd all backed her up loyally and pulled and pushed her here and there while she was getting the hang of things. She suspected that Zen-Kurel had told them to make sure they did, and let him not hear anything to the contrary. But in thinking this she failed to give herself credit for her own likable nature and pleasant manner of dealing with people. Maia possessed natural charm and what are sometimes called "pretty ways." Men will work for advancement or wealth, for a principle or a common cause. Women, by and large, work best for people they like. Little by little Maia began to exercise authority because she came to realize that the others wanted her to. In any society, someone has to give the orders and decide what is going to be done; but most prefer someone else to do this on their behalf. Maia had first to learn that authority was expected of her and then, as it werevto put it on and wear it without tripping over the hem. It had been difficult, and more than once she had lain awake beside Zen-Kurel (with Anda-Serrelinda kicking her from within) having all sorts of second thoughts and hoping to Cran that what she had said was to be done tomorrow would turn out to be all right.

Then, of course, there had been the legend of the Val-derra to be relegated. While she and Zenka had been traveling up to the estate in northern Katria and when they had first arrived there, this had been a haunting nightmare. She was half-expecting to be murdered or at the least persecuted and victimized. But in fact, as she came to realize, these fears existed very largely in her own mind and there alone. A remote community, almost entirely self-supporting-a society of hunters, foresters and husbandmen-concerned during nearly all the hours of daylight with the unchanging, yearly round of subsistence; their art and recreation self-made, their topics and news largely that of local birth and death, good luck and calam-

ity-they took her as they found her; and they found her pretty, sensible and eager to please. There were, of course, a few ex-soldiers about the place, two of whom had actually been in Katria with the king, and certainly, when these men had had a skinful, some black remarks had been passed down in the local tavern at one time and another-remarks about basting treachery and Beklan trollops who'd found gold between their legs while poor fellows died for it in Dari-Paltesh. But the short answer from most had been that that was then and this was now, and wasn't she as nice a lass as you'd hope to come across and anyway who'd suffered more, by all accounts, than the young master and he seemed happy enough, didn't he? Little by little the pot simmered down; but it is always hard to know how to bear yourself when you have a fair notion that hard things are being said behind your back; so this had been another problem.

With her widowed father-in-law relations had, of course, been still more difficult at the outset. Zen-Bharsh-Kraill was an old adherent of King Karnat and had been a famous warrior in his day. His other, younger son, a brave officer, had been killed in the king's army (though not on the Valderra), and his daughter was married to one of the king's most illustrious captains. As a nobleman, his knowledge and outlook went not only as wide as Katria but as wide as Terekenalt itself. He knew Maia's past and her fame well enough. From the outset Zen-Kurel had had to put his foot down in no uncertain manner. There had been one terrible evening when he had hurled his goblet across the room and said that at this rate he would disclaim his inheritance, take his wife to Dari-Paltesh and set up on his own account. Maia had cried herself to sleep and woken crying, protesting that she was nothing but a hindrance and a bad bargain to him-until it came to her that she was only adding to his difficulties and transferring to him her share of the burden, since for days past he had been doing all he could to mediate and to resolve their difficulty. His outburst had been due to strain and entirely exceptional. What he needed was a sane, cool contribution from a strong, balanced partner; not a resourceless, weeping child. This was perhaps the moment when Maia made the discovery that moral may sometimes be even harder to exert than physical courage. Zenka had taken her by the shoulders in the lamplight, kissed her and looked into her

eyes. "Been to any good Ortelgan camps lately?" She had laughed-Cran alive! This fuss, after all they'd been through together!-and hugged him; they had made love and next morning a most sedate, self-possessed Maia had sought out her father-in-law and successfully conducted a long talk ending in mutual, more friendly understanding. After all, his wife had been Beklan. He was secretly delighted that Zenka had come home alive and well to run the estate and was not ignorant, either, as to who was largely responsible for this. Nowadays, so it seemed to her, old Zen-Bharsh-Kraill was coming at last to like her and respect her ideas about things in general. Predictably, the birth of Zen-Otal had altered everything for the better. Grandchildren always do.

Her labor-surprisingly for such a well-built, healthy girl-had not been easy. During her pregnancy she had often felt poorly and run-down-a good sign, the doctor said, for the baby is a parasite on the mother and her malaise shows that the baby is getting all it should. It had been a strain. She was not in the best of spirits and was all-too-much inclined to dwell on Milvushina. As her time approached, Zen-Kurel had effected a masterly surprise. One day, without a trace of fore-warning, she had woken late to find Nasada sitting beside the bed. Actually struck dumb for a few seconds, she had wondered whether he could be real. Then she flung herself into his arms, crying with happiness and relief, already sure that now everything was going to be all right. The old man-still dressed like a Suban marsh-frog in his fish-skin smock and bone amulet- told her how Zen-Kurel had sent to Melvda-Rain and begged Lenkrit, now Ban of Suba, to ask him to come and attend his wife's lying-in. Lenkrit had readily put a kilyett and paddlers at his disposal.

"I hope you'll tell me," he said, when she had recovered herself and they had had breakfast together, "all about your adventures on the Zhairgen. Twenty minutes crossing it was quite enough for me."

That evening, at supper, she had worn her diamonds and, later, shown him once again poor, Randronoth's cabinet of the fishes. It had its place, now, on her dressing-table, and contained her brooches, ornamental pins and the like.

"U-Nasada, do you remember the night when we had supper in Bekla, and you told me as this was made from the bones of fishes bigger than my room?"

"I remember, Serrelinda."

"Do you still think that?"

He laughed. "I don't just think it, now: I know. I've learned a lot in my travels."

Well, let him tease, she thought. U-Nasada ought to be allowed a tall story or two. Just to see him once more sitting at her supper-table in the lamplight-a less luxurious and elegant supper-table these days, but plenty on it all the same-filled her with confidence and reassurance. Everything she'd done, she thought, had been right after all-the heart's commitment, the suffering, the danger- and now she could thank him for his part-no small one- in bringing about this happy outcome.

"Do you remember how you told me I'd do better in Suba than in Bekla?"

"Yes, I do. More truth, I said, didn't I? Something like that."

"I know what you meant now. It just suits me here- I'm happier than I ever dreamt I could be-and it's not so very different from Suba, is it?"

"What a shame," he replied, 'about Anda-Nokomis! They've put up a fine memorial to him, you know, at Melvda. It says he was the steadfast Ban of Suba, who died for his people."

"Oh, he'd have liked that!" She paused. "Might even have made him smile, poor old Anda-Nokomis." Then, "It was me he died for: I never forget it, and neither does Zenka."

He confirmed to her what she had already heard by rumor and report, though it seemed of little importance to her now, in the midst of all the duties and preoccupations of her new life: namely, that Santil-ke-Erketlis had taken Bekla unopposed after a three days' march in the blinding rains; that the Leopards had been displaced and slavery ended in the empire. Kembri was dead, but when she asked about Elleroth Nasada knew little about him. Nor could he tell her anything of Elvair-ka-Virrionorof Form's.

"No one in Suba knows," said he, "what's become of Fornis. She seems completely to have vanished. Very odd."

"Nor they don't know in Paltesh, even?"

He shook his head. "There's something strange about it. I wonder-?" He hesitated. "Such an evil woman-" Then he seemed to check himself. "Well, never mind. Perhaps we should just thank the gods she's no longer in

Bekla and leave it at that. Surely we've got something better to talk about than Fornis."

"Shagreh."

"Great Shakkarn! You said it right!"

"Well, they say it here too, see. Comes in useful and all, U-Nasada; kind of a philosophy, like, in't it?"

"You look very well on it, anyway. You must be doing what you like."

"I am."

"That's the real secret of health, of course. I tried to tell Kembri that once, but he wouldn't have it."

Three days later she went into labor. It was a trying affair, lasting over thirty hours. She was not helped by her memories of Milvushina. Without Nasada, however, it would have been a great deal worse, for the midwife was an old body armed with snakeskins, a rabbit's paw, dirty hands and mumbled charms. Nasada was short with her. He remained completely calm and confident throughout, so that Maia, as she bore down again and again, felt strength pouring out of him into her racked, sweat-drenched body. He was like a glowing brazier at the center of the house that was her labor, seeming to warm and encourage everyone-but particularly the heroine-by his mere presence. He had, his manner suggested, seen it all before and was in no doubt of the outcome. She found herself wondering whether he would have saved Milvushina. Very likely he would.