Maia (66 page)

Then, after a pause in the talk, "Are you a slave?" asked one of the girls suddenly, in a kind of quick little spurt of utterance, as though she had finally screwed herself up to the point of asking. One or two of the other girls giggled with nervous embarrassment, but nevertheless it was clear that they were all waiting for her reply.

"Not anymore," answered Maia, smiling. "I've been freed."

This let loose a flood of exclamations and further questions. "But you're no age!" "Were you born on a slave-farm?" "How long have you been free?" "Did you have to pay?" "You don't look a bit Like a slave!"

Maia, catching on to the last of these as the easiest to answer, asked teasingly, "What d'you reckon a slave looks like, then?"

To her surprise this did not seem to go down very well. Most of the girls looked grave and there was a little pause. Then one said, "Well, o' course we didn' mean nothin' personal, not if you've
been
a slave, like, but so happens there's one of these new slave-farms not so very far off from here, where the poor children's actually bred for slavery, to be taken away when they're old enough. We all feel sorry for them. My dad told me it belongs to some of those rich Leopards up in Bekla."

"Ah, that's right," said an older lass, "and 'twas the Leopards as brought the farms in, too, 'cause they wanted even more slaves-more than they dared take from the villages and from ordinary folk like us. There weren't any slave-farms, my mum said, not when she was a girl."

"I didn't come from a slave-farm," said Maia.

"Then were you-" began the girl; but another, interrupting her, cut in, "We heard about that big Leopard baron, or whatever he was; him as was murdered at the festival-terrible bloody murder, they say-and they've never found the ones as did it, neither."

"Oh, I can tell you all about that," said Maia, glad of an opportunity to distract them from any further inquiries about herself. "I was actually in the gardens by the lake that night, when it happened."

This, of course, had all the effect she was hoping for, and the whole group listened agog to her description of the party by the Barb, the murder of Sencho and the mysterious disappearance of his assailants. Of her own relationship to the High Counselor she naturally said nothing.

"Must 'a bin someone important behind it, though, mustn't there?" said the older girl, when Maia had finished.

"Well, 'twasn't
you,
Gehta, anyway," cried a little, merry girl, with black eyes and a snub nose. "That's for sure!" Then, turning to Maia, she added rather unnecessarily,

"I'm only teasing, you know. But Gehta's a real Leopard- we all tell her so. If she'd 'a bin there she'd have gone and saved that fat old Counselor, sure enough."

"Now then!" cried the deaf old woman, shaking her ladle at them with mock minacity. "How much longer you lazy wenches goin' to sit there on your bums? Anyone for any more, 'fore it's cleared away?"

Everyone, however, seemed as replete and contented as Maia felt herself. Indeed, they struck her as such a cheerful, good-natured little society and the whole atmosphere seemed so pleasant, that she couldn't help feeling, rather wistfully, that she'd have liked to stay with them. Well, but it was only a fancy, she thought, as she began helping to clear away. Like enough she'd soon be tired of getting up early to milking and dirty hands from morning till night.

She watched her opportunity to take the older girl on one side and ask her about clothes. As she had hoped, Gehta proved helpful. Between them, she and the deaf old woman fitted her out with a tidy, serviceable smock, as well as a clean shift, neither much the worse for wear, and a pair of sandals. They firmly refused to accept so much as a meld.

"Never in the world!" cried Gehta, closing Maia's fingers over her money and pushing her fist back into her pocket. "Think we're going to take money for helping out a guest? You'll be helping
us
one of these days. Fact, you can," she added in a lower voice (though the old woman was their only company). "Let's you and me just have a little stroll outside, shall we?"

She led the way across the yard to the gate of the stockade, where a fire was burning in an iron basket and the night-watchman was already pottering about near his hut beside the sheep-pens.

"We're just going for a bit of a turn before bed-time, Brindo," said Gehta. "We'll be back directly-don't worry."

The old fellow, smiling as he pretended to grumble, unbarred the gate and the two girls went out into the big, smooth-grazed meadow beyond.

"They let you go out alone after the gate's been shut?" asked Maia in some surprise.

"Well, we're not really supposed to," replied Gehta, "but Brindo's never one to make trouble, and everyone here takes the rules pretty easy. The land's open as far as

the forest, you see, and there's not really much harm you could come to."

The moon, directly ahead of them, had already risen clear of the distant trees. Bats flitted noiselessly here and there and the breeze carried a resinous scent from the pines.

"Peaceful, isn't it?" said Gehta after a minute or two. "You wouldn't think there was any danger in all the world, would you?"

Something in her tone made Maia turn her head and look at her.

"What's up, then? You mean, there is?"

"Well, that's what I wanted to ask
you,
really," replied Gehta, "but I didn't want the others to hear. You've been living in Bekla, haven't you-working in that gentleman's house as you're with? I don't want to ask a lot of inquisitive questions, only I thought p'raps you might sometimes have heard one or two of these big barons and such-Iike talking-you know, at their parties and dinners and that."

"What about?" asked Maia.

Gehta stopped and faced her squarely. "I'll tell you straight out. My dad's got a farm-not so big as this- about twenty miles west of here. One day it'll be mine and my husband's; when I've got a husband, that's to say; only I've no brothers, you see. I'm here for a bit to learn one or two things-well, like buying and selling the timber- that I couldn't pick up so well at home. But never mind that-what I want to find out is whether there's going to be trouble-you know, real bad trouble."

"D'you mean the war?"

"S'ssh!" said Gehta; though there was no one in sight. "Everything we hear-you know, from pedlars and visiting timber-dealers; oh, yes, and from our own men when they take stuff up to Bekla: they believe there are barons-you know, heldril-in some of the outlying parts that are getting ready to make trouble for the Leopards. They're the ones that really killed that fat old Counselor or whatever he was, because he was the one as knew most about what they're up to; he had his spies everywhere, or so we heard. They say some of the barons living right the way over there"-she pointed eastward-"they'd even be ready to see King Karnat take Bekla, because they reckon they'd be better off than they are under the Leopards."

"The Leopards tax the farmers and peasants and favor

the merchants and city people," said Maia. "I've heard that said again and again."

Gehta looked at her with tears in her eyes. "If King Karnat crosses the Valderra river and makes for Bekla, dad's farm's slap in the way, near enough.
That's
why the other girls say I'm a Leopard-because I'm afraid of what might be going to happen. If there's going to be fighting, I want to go back home now, before it starts. That's my proper place-with dad and mum. Only you can't get any reliable news, living here. I thought if you've been-weft- in service in the upper city, p'raps you might have heard- you know, something or other-"

"Well, truth is I reckon
you
know more'n what I do," said Maia, "About the Leopards, I mean. All I know is they're all in a great taking about the killing."

"I know the Leopards are hard on farming folk," said Gehta, "but even that's better than war. I was only nine when Queen Fornis and her lot came up from Paltesh to Bekla. They took everything we had; and the soldiers, they-you know." She began to cry. "If there was to be all that over again-oh, what's going to happen, Maia? What ought I to do?"

Maia, liking her and grateful for her help over the clothes, longed to be of some comfort. "I reckon you're troubling yourself too much. I've heard General Kembri talking; I've-well, I've waited on him at dinner, you know, and that kind of thing. And I've never heard him speak as if he thought they couldn't stop King Karnat crossing the river. As for the heldril, well, it's true you hear a lot of talk about trouble and rebellion and so on, but it never seems to come to anything."

"Oh, I do just about hope you're right," said Gehta. "It's such a worry. 'Course, I know there's nothing I could really do to make Dad any safer if I did go home, but all the same, if there's going to be trouble I'd rather be there than here; it's only natural." She paused. "Anyway, thanks, Maia. At least it's some relief that
you
don't seem worried. We'd best go back now, 'fore old Brindo starts shouting after us."

Before the night was over Maia experienced another instance of the easy-going ways of the farm. Given a very comfortable spare bed at one end of the girls' big sleeping-shed, she quickly fell asleep. Waking some time during the night she sensed, drowsily but surely enough, a kind

of muted disturbance near-by. After a few moments she realized what it was. One of the girls was not alone in bed, and unless she was much mistaken her companion was not another girl. Turning over, she saw in the moonlight that Gehta, next to her, was also awake. Putting a finger to her lips, Gehta beckoned to her and, leaning a little way out of bed, put her mouth to her ear.

"We never tell: you won't?"

Maia shook her head and fell asleep again.

As she had expected, the girls were up soon after dawn to milking, fowl-feeding and the other tasks of the farm. After breakfast they said good-bye to Maia with warmth and regret on both sides.

"We don't often get someone like ourselves stopping by," said the little, black-eyed girl. "Makes a nice change." She kissed Maia. "What a pity you couldn't have stayed a bit longer." Maia was soon to find herself in full agreement with this.

"You got your clothes and sandals all right, then?" asked Bayub-Otal, as they set out across the big meadow.

"Yes, thank you, my lord; no trouble."

"Did you have to pay much for them?"

"Nothing at all, my lord. Only they wouldn't take anything, see? Here's the money."

"You'd better keep it. You may need it. That was very kind and hospitable, don't you think, Pillan? Very kind indeed."

"No such thing."

"Dear me, why ever not?"

"That coat what she had on yesterday: them yellow buttons must 'a bin worth a sight more 'n anything they've give her."

There could be no answer to this, even though Maia did not believe that either Gehta or the old woman had thought twice about the topaz buttons. Still, neither had she, and she felt annoyed to have been so careless. She ought to have pulled the buttons off and kept them.

"Did you enjoy your company last night, Pillan?" asked Bayub-Otal.

Pillan became unwontedly fluent. "One of 'em I'd have given something to remember, only for you bein' up at the house and we didn't want no trouble."

"Oh dear! I suppose he called you a Suban marsh-frog, did he?"

Pillan grunted.

"One gets used to it. You never know, you might have the opportunity to do something quite drastic about it before much longer. Did you manage to buy any food?"

Pillan jerked his thumb at his pack. "Bit in here."

"And you, Maia?"

" 'Fraid not, my lord." She had never given it a thought.

"It doesn't matter," said Bayub-Otal. "I got some, too, so we'll have enough between us for today."

They came to a rough track running north and followed it. It led to no farm or dwelling, let alone a village. All that day, as they went steadily uphill and northward, the country became more lonely, barren and wild. It was, indeed, the most desolate Maia had ever seen; part sandy waste covered with rough grass and scrub, part rocky, with a few stunted trees and tracts of some mauve-flowering, sage-like shrub which harbored clouds of flies. During the late afternoon, as she was plodding onward with eyes half-closed against the glare and sucking a pebble to ease her thirst-for they had no water left, having come upon none since mid-morning-she suddenly realized that at last they were on level ground: in fact they had begun, though almost imperceptibly, to descend. Shading her eyes, she saw ahead and below a smooth, green plain, speckled with brown and gray patches which were mud-built villages. Far ahead, perhaps ten miles off in the heat haze, she could just make out what looked like the irregular line of a river.

Bayub-Otal, wiping the sweat from his face, pointed towards it.

"That's the Olmen. With luck we'll cross it tomorrow; then we'll be in Urtah."

"We got to go much further today, then, my lord?"

"No; we'll get down off this crest and find somewhere to lie up for the night. We daren't risk a village-not in a place as frequented as the plain. We're still in Bekla province, you see, and likely enough there's a price on our heads by now. We'll make for those trees: ought to be some shelter there."

The woodland which they were approaching covered

most of the rocky slope below. Soon they found themselves among outskirts of scrub oak, long-leaved
nakai
and evergreen sweetspires, several growing almost horizontally out from the faces of steep little bluffs. A few of these were precipitous, and more than once they were forced to go some distance along a sheer edge before they could find a way down.

Maia, at the end of this second long day, was feeling weary, due partly to the rough going, but mainly to her increasing anxiety and uncertainty. Normally, her instinct in such a situation would have been to do what she was told and leave everything else to her older and more experienced companions. But these Subans-she was their secret enemy. If in some way or other they were to find out the truth, they would probably kill her. Not for the first time that day, the idea occurred to her, "Why not
tell
them? Tell them I was forced into it-that I'd got no choice?" But what would they do then? They might not kill her, but obviously they would unburden themselves of her in one way or another; and what had she to hope for, left alone in unknown country?

Rapt in these dismal meditations and in the listlessness of fatigue, she did not notice, until Bayub-Otal called out to her, that he and Pillan had stopped at the foot of the last bluff they had descended, and were sitting among the rocks. She went back to them. Bayub-Otal nodded over his shoulder. "That cleft-there's quite a fair-sized cave inside. If you don't mind sharing it, I think it'll do us very well. There must be water somewhere fairly near, and we can cut branches and scrub to sleep on. Have a look and tell me what you think."

She smiled. "I'm not used to being asked what I think, my lord."

"Then you can get some practice now," replied Bayub-Otal.

She felt irritated. Whether or not he really supposed he was giving her any power of choice she had no idea. As far as she was concerned he had as good as told her what they were going to do. Why couldn't he have said so and left it at that?

Except for the narrow opening, which made it gloomy and dark, there was nothing wrong with the cave. It was all of thirty feet long, with plenty of room for her to sleep apart. Bayub-Otal set off with the water bottles while she

and Pillan began cutting scrub-willow and oleander branches for pallets.

Later, when they had eaten and drunk, she made her own way down to the brook, washed and bathed her feet.

"I don't think we should make a fire, do you?" Bayub-Otal was saying to Pillan as she returned. "We don't want to risk anyone knowing we're here."

"Wood burns that quick, my lord, we'd never be done gett'n enough."

"I'm afraid we'll have to take it in turns to keep watch, though," went on Bayub-Otal. "You can start, Pillan, and then wake me; and I'll wake you, Maia, an hour or two before dawn. You needn't be afraid: animals are easily scared off even without a fire, and you can always wake us if you think anyone's coming."

Once she had lain down she found herself more comfortable-or else more tired-than she had expected, and slept without stirring until Bayub-Otal woke her.

The moon was almost set. She felt stiff and cramped from the hard floor. He'd left her late, she thought. He'd given himself the most inconvenient watch, too; the one that broke a night's sleep in half. She wished he wouldn't always be so scrupulously courteous and considerate. From a man who had rejected her it came cold, and only made her feel inferior and ill-at-ease.

For a while she sat just outside the cave, wrapped in her cloak and listening, in the yellow moonlight, to the innumerable small noises all around her-patterings, rustlings and the quiet movement of leaves and branches. With moonset, however, it grew very dark and a chilly wind got up from the east. She began to feel shrammed. After a time it occurred to her that since she could see nothing and her watch now consisted only of listening, she could do it as well inside the cave and out of the wind. She went back to her pallet near the cave-mouth and lay prone, her chin propped on her hands: but still she felt cold. She shivered, hunching her shoulders.

Further back in the cave, Pillan lay stretched asleep on the stones. She could just hear his breathing in the darkness. Moving slightly, he muttered an unintelligible word or two and was quiet again. She made a little joke in her thoughts: "Does he say more awake or asleep?"

His strange, alarmed reaction when he had first seen her at Bayub-Otal's lodgings-after two days in his company

it struck her as oddly out of character. This rather grim, unexcitable man, who seldom wasted a word-for some reason the mere sight of her had put him in fear, and that to such an extent that Bayub-Otal had had to check him. Try as she would, she could think of no plausible reason. First time anyone's ever been afraid of me, slje thought, without it was Nala.

She was feeling warmer now. Resting her forehead on her forearms, she relaxed, breathing slowly and deeply. Her thoughts began to wander into fantasy. She imagined herself back in Bekla, a famous shearna, her fortune made; living with Occula in their own house; sought after, receiving and refusing whom she would; lying late, rising in the afternoon, calling their maid to help her bathe and dress for the evening. Five hundred meld a night. A thousand meld a night! A great, soft bed all covered with silk-ah!- soft as-the lake-floating-under the waterfall-scent of water-mint-wavering down, deep water. Deep.

Her body was jarred by a thudding blow. For an instant it formed part of her dream as a kind of explosion, shattering from about her the lake, the sun and the sky above. She struggled against it, trying to hold on to the lake, trying to stop the fragments dispersing. Then came the inrush of shock and she leapt wide awake as a second thud jolted her against the stony floor of the cave.

It was gray daylight; not yet sunrise, but fully light enough to see. A man was standing over her. For a moment she thought it was Pillan; then realized with terror that it was a stranger, a man she had never seen in her life. As she sprang to her feet, stumbling over the hem of her cloak, he grabbed her by the arm, jerking her up and forcing her round to face him.

He was bearded, dark and stocky; broad-featured, perhaps forty years old, with the weathered appearance of a soldier or a hunter. There was about him also the air of a man accustomed to command. Ruthless and hard he certainly looked, yet no ruffian. His eyes, as they stared into hers, had a look of assurance and authority, as though he were one who seldom needed to use violence except in the last resort.

He was wearing a padded leather surcoat, a sword at his belt and a helmet of smooth, hardened leather. His

left hand gripped Maia's arm: his right was holding a dagger, its point towards her.

Speechless with fear and the shock of her awakening, she now saw that this stranger was not alone. With him were two younger men, similarly armed. One of these, also holding a dagger, was kneeling beside Pillan, whom he was shaking awake. The other, black against the light, stood at the mouth of the cave, his sword drawn in his hand.

The dark man spoke in an accent strange to Maia, but perfectly intelligible. "What are you doing here? Who are you?"

The unfamiliar cadence, which seemed all of a piece with his bellicose appearance, frightened her still more. For an instant the thought whirled across her confused mind that perhaps he was not human. Old Drigga had told her of forest demons who had power to take the semblance of men, yet always with some revealing imperfection- ears, hands, voice or the like.

Cowering from him, she would have fallen, but his grip literally held her upright: as her eyes once more met his, he shook her so that she lurched against him.

"Come on, answer me! Who are you?"

Pillan was awake now. The man kneeling on the floor had his knife at his throat.

"I think this is a Suban, sir."

The dark man, without relinquishing his agonizing grip on Maia's arm, was about to answer when Bayub-Otal's voice spoke from the back of the cave.

"Lenkrit! What on earth are you doing here?"

The dark man, startled, let go of Maia, who fell against the cave-wall as Bayub-Otal, still wrapped in his cloak, came forward, stepped over Pillan and stood smiling in the light from the cave-mouth.

"You'd better sit down, Lenkrit. And for Gran's sake put your knife away. You're terrifying the poor girl."

"Anda-Nokomis!" replied the dark man, staring. Then, so suddenly that, far from reassuring her, it only added to Maia's dream-like bewilderment, he burst into a great shout of laughter. "Anda-Nokomis! O Shakkarn, and we nearly cut all your throats! That'd have been a right start to the war, that would! Here, Thel, get up, man! Get up and let that fellow alone! What's his name, Anda-Nokomis-I remember him-Billan-Tillan-something or other?"

He sheathed his knife and, stepping forward, flung his arms round Bayub-Otal's neck and embraced him.

"Pillan. Who's with you; just these two lads, or are there anymore?"

"No, just the three of us. This is Thel, and that's Tescon. Their fathers are both tenants of mine. You'd better come back here now, Tescon. If you never saw him before, this is Anda-Nokomis."

Both the young men, smiling, stood in front of Bayub-Otal, raised their palms to their foreheads and then offered him their daggers, holding them by the blades. Bayub-Otal, also smiling, took each in turn for a moment and then returned it to its owner. Pillan, who had uttered no word since he was woken, was now standing behind Bayub-Otal with folded arms.

"And the wench?" asked the dark man.

Bayub-Otal, as though recollecting himself, went quickly across to Maia, put his arm round her and supported her to a low rock near the cave-mouth.

"You've frightened the life out of her, Lenkrit. She's still trembling and can you blame her? What happened, Maia? Did they rush you or didn't you hear them coming?"

"I-I was asleep, my lord: I'm very sorry."

"That's right!" cried Lenkrit, with another great laugh. "All the damned lot of you, sound as toads in a winter ditch! Lespa's stars, Anda-Nokomis, it's lucky for you she is a wench: else we'd likely have knifed the lot of you in your sleep and that would have been that. What's she doing here, anyway?"

"Either you're rather forgetful, Lenkrit, or else you're rather unobservant," replied Bayub-Otal. "Your lads here are too young, but you're not. Take another good look at her now."

Lenkrit turned and regarded Maia steadily in the now-clear light. When he next spoke it was in a quieter, rather hesitant, tone of voice.

"I-see, Anda-Nokomis. I wonder I didn't before. But the light was bad, of course, and we were all a bit flustered. And then, poor girl, someone's been knocking her about, haven't they? But-well, it's incredible-amazing! Your sister, is she? I never knew you had one."

Bayub-Otal shook his head. "As far as I know, she's no relation at all. Her name's Maia and she comes from To-