Maia (73 page)

Maia was half-expecting him to go on to say something like "I wonder, at that rate, that you went straight to him when you'd escaped from the temple." But he did not.

"Bayub-Otal," he continued at length, "he's had enough to make him feel bitter, if ever a man had. His mother a renowned beauty, the most famous and idolized dancer in the empire, his father the High Baron of Urtah. When he's ten his mother dies-murdered, so most people believe-and he himself's maimed so that he can never hope to be a warrior or try to compete normally with other lads. But his beloved father doesn't disown him: no., just the reverse. He gives him everything to live for. He promises him the rule of Suba-something at which he
can
hope to succeed, for he's got a gift of authority and a good head on his shoulders. The boy starts as he means to go on. He puts everything into learning about the province he's going to rule. And then Fornis-with no legal right in the work!- trades it off to Karnat while she seizes Bekla."

"But what's all this got to do with me, U-Nasada?"

"He's not even worth murdering," went on Nasada, ignoring her. "That wouldn't be politic, would it?-it'd only antagonize his aging father, and the Leopards aren't too sure of Urtah anyway. So he's left to moon about between Urtah and Bekla. With any luck he'll go to the bad with drink or women or something, and then the Leop-ards'll be able to say 'Look at the former heir of Suba lying there in the gutter!' "

"What's that to me, U-Nasada?"

"However, he doesn't go to the bad. He puts on an act of being at a loose end, under cover of which he manages to enter into secret negotiations with King Karnat. And then one day the gods send him a sign. Quite unexpectedly-and it's an enormous shock, of course-he comes upon a girl who looks almost exactly like his fabled mother as he remembers her. Only as it happens she's enslaved- to the most disgusting libertine in Bekla. She's loaned out to be basted for money, too. He finds this-well, a trifle distasteful, shall we say? But when, in his rather diffident, prickly way-for naturally, after all he's been through, he's become distinctly stand-offish and sensitive-he does his best to get to know her better, this is-oh, very naturally: no one's to blame-misunderstood and taken the wrong _way. The poor girl's looking for money to buy her freedom, but of course this isn't at all what Bayub-Otal has in mind. How can he explain? March up to her and say 'It's most peculiar, but do you know, you look exactly like my mother?' Would that go down well, I wonder?"

For the first time since they had begun talking, Maia laughed.

"But that's not his only problem," went on Nasada. "The resemblance is so uncanny that doubts and questions begin to arise in his mind. Surely the only possible explanation is that he and she must be related in some way? This is something he obviously can't set aside, but of course it doesn't alter-oh, no, it only strengthens-his determination to get her out of Bekla if he can, and make her a free and honored woman."

There was a long silence. Nasada got up, filled Maia's cup and his own with the last of the wine, sat down again and drank deeply. "Well, it's made me quite dry-saying all that."

"U-Nasada," said Maia at length, "are you telling me that Bayub-Otal loves me?"

"Certainly not.
He's
the only person who could say anything like that."

"Well, then, do you know whether that's what he feels? Has he said anything to you?"

"No, he hasn't-nothing of that kind at all. But as I keep on telling you, Maia, he's a very reticent, diffident sort of man; reserved and constrained-with good reason."

"Then how do you know all this as you've been telling me?"

"Well, partly because he's told me a certain amount himself, and partly because I know him and I know Suba. And then again, you see, I'm old, and when you're old, if you'll believe me, you often find that you see quite a lot of things without actually being told, because of all you've learned and experienced yourself."

As she remained silent, perplexed, he added, "I'm not talking about love. That's nothing to do with me and I'm not trying to give you any advice one way or the other. I can't say whether or not it comes into the business at all. All I've tried to do is explain to you how you're situated here in Suba and the reason for what you've very naturally seen as Anda-Nokomis's strange behavior towards you."

"I can't hardly take it in at all."

"I'm not surprised. I can't myself; yet here you are, before my eyes."

After a little she asked, "Where are we going?"

"To Melvda-Rain. 'Rain' means a meeting-place, you know."

"What for?"

"You may well ask. Karnat's there, with his army from Terekenalt. And Anda-Nokomis has promised him the help of three thousand Subans, to be commanded by himself and Lenkrit. They're assembling now."

"What
for?"

"I don't know," he answered. "But I should imagine to cross the Valderra and defeat the Beklan army, wouldn't you? What else?"

"But why are
we
going to Melvda-Rain, then, you and me?"

"I, because I'm a doctor. You, because of what I've just told you. Anda-Nokomis thinks that the mere sight of you at Melvda is bound to have a tremendous effect."

"You mean they'll think I'm Nokomis come back?"

"Some of them may really think that. They're simple folk, most of them. But they'll think you're magic, anyway. Perhaps you are-how would I know?"

"You mean I'll be made to go where there's fighting?"

"Oh, Lespa, no! They wouldn't take you across the Valderra: not at first, anyway; you're far too precious. It'll be quite enough for them to see you at Melvda. You'll be their magic luck."

Maia said no more. Her heart was surging with excitement and fear, dismay and wonder. After some time Na-sada said, "The agreement between Karnat and Anda-Nokomis is that if Karnat takes Bekla with the help of the Subans-and he can hardly hope to do it without-he'll give back the rule of Suba to Anda-Nokomis. Such things don't really concern me, but I do know that much."

"Then what does concern you in all this, U-Nasada?"

He looked surprised. "Why, there's going to be a lot of work for me, of course. People are going to get hurt."

"Oh, U-Nasada! Like-like on the river bank? Oh,
no!
No!"

"On the river bank? When you came over the Valderra, you mean, the night before last?"

"Yes; then. There was a boy-one of the soldiers-he came from near my home in Tonilda. Lenkrit killed him- he was crying for his mother on the bank! The blood- the smell-oh, I can't tell you how dreadful it was!"

She began to weep again. He stroked her cheek gently.

"I hate war as much as you do: but there's no stopping this, I'm afraid. Go to sleep now, Serrelinda. A good night's sleep makes everything look better. Would you like another of my night-drinks?"

"Yes, please."

As he was preparing it she asked, "U-Nasada, what are their clothes made of here? I've never seen anything like them anywhere else."

"They're the cured, treated skins of a fish called
ephrit
- stitched together, you know. Same idea as leather, really, except that it's fish-skin; comfortable enough once you're used to it."

"Is that why they all smell?"

He laughed. "Yes. So do I, when I'm traveling and working among them. After all, I'm Suban and it helps ordinary people to trust me and feel I'm one of them- which I am. But I changed into a robe for you-I. even

washed!-for the same reason, I suppose. Here you are, now. Drink it up, and I'll call Luma. Do you think you'll be all right?"

"As long as I can count on you, U-Nasada, I'm sure I will."

The kilyett was drifting on down the Nordesh. The warmth of the early sun had not yet pierced the foliage or drawn out the humid vapors from the swamps. It was cool, even chilly, along the water under the green tunnel, through which could be glimpsed, here and there, patches of lightly cloudy sky. Off to the left, at the edge of a shallow among the bordering trees, a flock of ibis were stalking and stabbing in the plashy mud with their curved, dark-red bills.

Behind came two smaller kilyetts carrying Kram, his friend and four or five other young men from Lukrait. All were armed with fish-spears and light, fire-hardened wooden shields. Unlike Beklan soldiers, none had any body-armor. They could not afford it, Maia supposed, for Gelt iron was there for the buying and she remembered having heard tell that Kembri himself had once made unavailing attempts to stop Gelt selling to Terekenalt.

Green and blue dragonflies were hovering and darting across the water, and several times, from one side or another, came a sudden, light pattering, rather like hail. Maia, turning towards the sound, was never ‹juick enough to spot what had made it; nor could she anticipate where it was likely to come from next. After watching her for a while with some amusement, Nasada laid a hand on her arm and silently pointed ahead of them towards the mouth of a side-channel leading away between tall reeds. Looking along its length as they drew level she saw, all in a moment, the still surface come alive as a shoal of little silver fish leapt a foot or two clear of the water, falling back again with the pattering noise she had heard.

"Margets,
we call them. You don't have them on Ser-relind?"

"No, Nasada, not as I ever saw. They're pretty."

"They always jump like that at sunset and often in the

early part of the morning, too: never in the heat of the day. They like still, narrow water."

"Oh, I remember now; Bayub-Otal was on about them once."

"A few years ago, when I was living away from Suba, I found I missed that noise. To me, it's the sound of traveling alone down these waterways. The sound of solitude- the sound of arriving in time for supper, too."

"You lived away from Suba? Where; in Bekla?"

"No; on an island called Quiso, in the Telthearna. That's up in the north, you know, beyond the Gelt mountains."

"What took you up there, then, Nasada?"

"Oh, I wanted to learn more about doctoring from a certain wise woman. There's a female priesthood on Quiso- it's part of the cult of Shardik, you know. I learned a lot from them-well, from the Tuginda, anyway."

They talked on for a time; about his wanderings up and down the marsh country, and of her life on the shores of Lake Serrelind. She found herself avoiding any mention of what he had told her the previous evening, and he for his part spoke no more of it. After a while, feeling drowsy, she went back to the stern and lay down on the smooth wood, listening to the lapping of the water, the splash of the paddles and the intermittent, raucous cries of the birds in the swamps.

The night before, she had soon fallen asleep, tired out with the day's journey and feeling quickly the effect of the drug. Their departure that morning had been hurried- breakfast, followed by thanks and farewells to Makron and Penyanis, with little or no time to ponder on what she had learned. She could not get the strange business sorted out in her mind; could not decide what she really thought about it. Was she glad or sorry that she bore this extraordinary resemblance to the legendary Nokomis? Did she now feel any more sympathy for Bayub-Otal? And her freedom- she was supposed to be free: she was no longer a slave. Yet how free was she? As far as she could understand, they meant to make a sort of princess out of her-for their own purposes. She imagined herself telling Occula; and that young lady's reactions. "Princess of frogs, banzi? Hope you enjoy it. Personally, I'd rather take over from Nen-naunir at six hundred meld a night." Free? Well, there's some might call it that, she thought. But if ever I had any

least chance of getting out of Suba, I reckon this lot's going to make it next to impossible.

The truth was that Maia, inexperienced and living largely without reflection, through her senses and emotions, was not really capable of weighing one thing with another and reaching a considered view. Such was her respect for Na-sada that if only he had told her what she ought to think, she would most probably have found herself thinking it. But he had deliberately not done so. Life had so far afforded her virtually no practice in exercising the power of choice: nor was it doing so now. With her, things simply happened; and by a mixture of patience, cunning and pluck one made the best of them. Unconsciously (and quite unlike Occula) she had come to think of life in this way.

Yet also strong in her-and of a piece with her habit of responding impulsively and living in the immediate moment-was the peasant's quickly-injured pride and resentment of anything felt as condescension; "Who the hell do they think they are?" Poor Milvushina, for all her helplessness and misery, had been enough to spark it off, let alone Bayub-Otal. One thing Maia certainly felt now, more than all her confusion and perplexity, was tart annoyance that apparently she was not wanted for herself, but only on account of her random resemblance to this Nokomis, whom she had never seen and who had died more than sixteen years before. I don't care if she
was
the most wonderful dancer in the world, she thought. I'm not her, I'm me!

As they glided on downstream and the sun moved towards noon, the channel of the Nordesh gradually widened, entering at last a broad lake, smooth and dark-surfaced under an open sky. Out of its further side ran three or four different water-ways, one disappearing into woodland, the others leading away through low-lying, spacious country; part fen, part tall-grassed meadowland where in the distance cattle could be seen grazing.

"Not far to Melvda now," said Nasada over his shoulder.

Maia, eager to learn more, scrambled down from the stern and went forward to sit beside him again. He pointed ahead. She could make out fences, barns, stockades and folds, with broad, green paths leading between them.

"Do you like the look of it?" he asked.

"Better 'n what we've left behind I do."

"We're quite a way down into lower Suba here. A lot

of it's very open compared with the swamps further north, and there's more firm ground. Melvda's not really what
you'd
think of as a city: there's nothing built of stone or brick at all. Still, insofar as Suba has any towns, Melvda's the principal one. They mostly breed sheep and cattle. There are two big fairs every year: that's why it's called Melvda-Rain. The town's really just a lot of farms-those and the houses of people who hve by the farmers-you know, wheelwrights, drovers, woodmen-people like that."

"You say King Karnat's here?"

"Oh, yes, he'll have been here for some days now. There must be thousands of soldiers camping and bivouacking: Katrians, Terekenalters; and a lot of our own people as well, coming in from all over. Anda-Nokomis told me he thought there'd be something like nine thousand altogether."

"Why, however do they all find enough to eat?" asked Maia.

"Well, that's it. They can't stay here for very long, you see. Once an army's been got together it has to be used or it starts melting away. There's a saying, 'Sun on the snow and hunger on an army.' Or sometimes it's 'Sickness on an army.' That's where I come in."

"Where are they going, then, Nasada?"

"I don't know," he replied. "That's not my business. I doubt anyone knows but Karnat and Anda-Nokomis. But if Subans are going to be wounded, that is my business; and I'll stick to it."

Soon they were among the grazing-meadows; watercress flowering white in the shallows, yellow water-lilies and patches of pink bogbean. Herd-boys called and waved to them and Kram and his friends called back, asking why they didn't leave their cattle and come and fight for Suba. Not far off, above the tall grass, Maia could now see acres of long, single-storied buildings like great sheds, roofed with shingles stained or painted in bright, contrasting colors. These formed patterns and in a few cases even pictures. One roof that she saw depicted a green field with brown, black and white cows, all picked out in colored shingles. And then-oh, how unexpected and delightful!-there on another roof was Lespa-Lespa herself, golden-haired, clouds drifting across her white nakedness, standing among her stars against a dark-blue sky.

The roofs stretched away into the distance. Among them

were groves of trees, mostly willows and trailing zoans, and here and there gardens and pools with water-flowers. They passed a smithy fronting the water, where men were at work round a blazing forge, tapping and clanging so intently that none looked up as the kilyett slid past. At their feet lay a pile of sword-blades, some with the hilts already fixed.

There seemed to be no shops, but Maia saw a timber-yard, sawn planks piled one side, trimmed tree-trunks the other, all stamped in red with characters and brands which meant nothing to her-signs denoting their vendors or purchasers, perhaps, or their destinations. A little further on they came to a temple of Shakkarn, upon whose crimson roof was depicted the goat-god Jiimself, with shaggy hide and golden horns. She raised her hand in salutation. Ah! great-hoofed thruster, remember me, for I'm in sore need of good luck!

The buildings gave place to another stretch of fields. Yet these held no cattle, but an untidy camp of ramshackle huts, low tents and rough shelters of goatskin and cowhide. Fires were smoking, men were cooking, lazing in the sun, rolling dice, fettling weapons. There were smells of trampled grass, ashes, excrement and the rotten-sweet odor of old vegetables and other such garbage. Not far ahead, a little crowd of young fellows were splashing naked in the water. Although it meant nothing to Maia, she thought it best to follow Luma first in averting her eyes and then in lying down on the floor of the boat as they passed.

"We'll be there directly," said Nasada, putting out a hand to help her up again. "Are you ready to meet Anda-Nokomis and the king?"

"The king?" cried Maia in panic. "But you never
told
me!"

"Well, I can't say for certain that he'll be at the landing-stage, but I wouldn't be at all surprised. Anda-Nokomis is bound to have told him. Stop a moment, Tescon, there's a good lad. We must give Maia a chance to get ready."

"But U-Nasada, how
can
I get ready?" cried poor Maia, nearly weeping as Tescon turned the kilyett and drove its bow six feet into a deep clump of rushes bordered by a bed of yellow water-lilies. "I've got no shoes, no jewels, not even a necklace-and now you say meet the king! It's like a bad dream! I haven't even got a decent dress! Look at this thing!"

"You could take it off, I suppose."

That was an idea! Maia looked quickly round to see whether he was serious; but he only smiled wryly, shaking his head.

"In Bekla, perhaps, Serrelinda: not in Suba, I'm afraid. We'll just have to do the best we can. Luma, will you help Maia, please?"

"Shagreh."

It was all Maia could do not to slap the girl, who was plainly completely insensitive to her predicament, let alone possessed of any suggestions for helping her. Miserably she washed her face, neck and arms in the water, combed her hair with her fingers and tidied it as best she could. Sitting on the bow, trying to pull to some sort of rights the smock which Gehta had given her, she was struck by a sudden thought. That morning Penyanis's maid, sent to wake herself and Luma, had brought presents-a new shift for each of them. They were Palteshi work, of fine linen, beautifully embroidered. The kind-hearted Penyanis had ventured to hope that they would prove acceptable. Luma had become almost loquacious with pleasure. At breakfast Maia had thanked and kissed Penyanis, but inwardly had not really felt as much pleased to receive the gift as the old lady had evidently been to make it.

However, its possibilities now seemed rather greater. Pulling off her smock, she examined the shift carefully. It was brand-new and looked it: and it was still fresh and clean, for as yet she had scarcely begun to sweat. The embroidery was really much finer and prettier than she had noticed that morning, with a border of flying cranes in red and blue round the yoke and another, flying the other way, round the hem. It fitted her a shade closely, having probably been intended for a less buxom girl; but that might perhaps prove, if anything, a fault on the right side. It left her arms bare and fell to just above her knees. Her arms weren't scratched or marked at all. Her shin was still rather badly bruised, of course, but that would have shown anyway.

"Luma," she said, "please pull me a whole lot of those yellow water-lilies. Just go on pulling them till I tell you to stop."

The long stems were hollow, pliant and fibrous, easy enough to pierce and thread through one another. She took her time, carefully making a broad crown of bloom

for her head, a double garland for her neck and a bracelet for each wrist. When she had finished and put them on she stood up, swayed back and forth a little to make sure they were firm and would not break or fall to pieces; then stepped carefully down the length of the boat to where Nasada and Tescon were waiting with their backs turned.

"This is the best I can manage, U-Nasada. D'you reckon it might do?"

He turned, and for several moments sat looking up at her without replying. At length he said, "To be young- as young as you are-as well as very beautiful-that's rather like being able to fly or disappear, you know. There aren't any rules for someone like you."

She was too flustered to grasp what he meant. "Is it all right, Tescon?" she asked with anxious impatience.

He answered simply "Yes," never taking his eyes off her as he backed the kilyett out of the rushes and turned the bow into open water. Then, with the other two boats following, he began paddling slowly downstream towards the buildings in the distance, beyond the camp.

As they drew closer, a sharp bend and a grove on either bank cut off their view ahead, but when at length they came floating out from among the trees Maia saw, about two hundred yards away, a wooden landing-stage which extended along the riparian side of a courtyard strewn with rushes. Round the other three sides stood the same kind of long, shed-like buildings that she had seen earlier; yet these were still more ornate, their walls decorated with stylized, brightly-colored likenesses of beasts and birds, their roofs painted blue, with yellow stars. Everything was constructed of unpolished wood; yet such was the trimness and quality of the workmanship that the place certainly did not lack dignity and even a certain grandeur. Whatever else they might or might not be, thought Maia, the Subans were clearly carpenters.