Maia (65 page)

"I was just putting some things together." He pointed to a half-filled pack lying on the floor. "We must be off at once, before they know you're gone."

"Can I wash, my lord? Is there time? I'd feel so much better-"

"Yes, of course. Are you injured-wounded?"

"My shoulder hurts."

"Let me see."

She pulled the tunic to one side so that he could see the burn.

"O Shakkarn!" he said. "The brutes! This damned city! One day- Did you tell them anything?"

"I couldn't, my lord, 'cos I don't know anything; not about the High Counselor's murder."

"Neither do I, but I wish I did. I'd gladly have played a part in it. That's why I'm suspected, I suppose."

Crossing to a door on the further side of the room, he called in a low voice, "Pillan!"

There was no response and after calling once more he went out into the passage, returning a minute later with a grizzled, stooping man carrying a towel and a pail of water.

"This water's not very hot-the fire's been Out an hour or two-but at least it's not cold. You can wash in here- we'll leave you-but be as as quick as you can. And here's something to tie round your shoulder. At any rate it's clean-better than nothing."

Maia, in the act of taking the cloth from him, suddenly saw that the servant was staring at her with an expression of fear and amazement, making the sign against evil with a hand held before his face. She had not imagined that her appearance could be so grievous as to give rise to feelings of this kind, and herself felt frightened to see him muttering and gesticulating.

"Anda-Nokomis," stammered the man, turning to Ba-yub-Otal and speaking in an Urtan argot that Maia could barely understand, "what does-what does this mean? Who is this girl?"

He seemed almost about to run from the room. Bayub-Otal replied sharply.

"Control yourself, Pillan! Stop this superstitious nonsense at once! I'm quite aware of what's troubling you; but there's nothing to be afraid of, do you understand? Just pick up that pack and bring it into the kitchen with you. Be quick, Maia! As soon as you're ready, just leave the water and come through: we'll be waiting for you. I've got a cloak you can wear, but no sandals, I'm afraid."

"I'll be quick, my lord."

They went out. She stripped and washed, wincing as she touched her bruises and in her haste splashing a good deal of the tepid water over the floor. Then, clenching her teeth with disgust, she got back into her grimy shift and the once-white tunic, now stiff with sweat and dirt, and fastened its four remaining topaz buttons.

If only I could get some clean clothes, she thought, wouldn't matter how rough. Oh, I could cry with it!

The short passage let her into a brick-floored kitchen where-or so it seemed-Bayub-Otal was vehemently warning or admonishing his servant in some way. He broke off as she came in. The man, with a surly air of acquiescing rather than accepting whatever his master had said, went across the room to where his cloak was hanging on a peg. Bayub-Otal handed her a dark, smoothly-lined cloak-no

doubt his own-and wrapped himself in a rougher one of coarse, gray cloth. Piilan blew out the lamps and they went into the courtyard. At the gate Bayub-Otal motioned to Maia to wait while Piilan, silently lifting the latch, stepped out into the street and stood looking this way and that. After a few moments he turned his head, nodding, and they followed him out.

It was barely three hundred yards back into the Khal-koornil and in less than five minutes, without encountering anyone at all, they were descending its final length towards the Gate of Lilies. A dim light was shining from the half-open guard-room door, but the only soldier to be seen was the sentry on duty who, having taken off his helmet and leant his spear against the near-by wall, was sitting on a bench in the shadow of the arch. Becoming suddenly aware of their approach he hurriedly sprang to his feet, snatched up his spear and challenged them.

Bayub-Otal, throwing open his cloak and spreading his arms wide to show that his sword and dagger were both sheathed at his belt and that he carried no other weapons, walked up to the sentry and stopped in front of his extended spear-point.

"I'm traveling to Urtah: I need to make a very early start. These are my servants, who are going with me. Will you please let us out?"

"No one's allowed out, sir," replied the boy. "Not until the gate's opened at dawn, and that's another three hours and more."

Maia had already been told by Kembri that the sentry would refuse to let them out; and that she was thereupon to say, as a pre-arranged password, that she was as thirsty as an ox and to ask him whether he could give her something to drink. She said this now and at once the soldier, replying that he would see what he could do, went into the guard-house and returned with the yawning tryzatt. While Maia drank some of the sharp wine which the boy brought her, the tryzatt conferred with Bayub-Otal over a bribe. Maia, well aware that the man must have received secret instructions to let them go, felt impatient of this play-acting. Whatever sum was finally agreed, Bayub-Otal was plainly not concerned to drive a bargain. A quick clinking of coins was followed by the unbolting and opening of the postern to one side of the main gates.

They passed through. Before them, in the light of the

now-setting moon; lay the empty length of the highway to Dari-Paltesh. Maia's bare feet, used as they had once been to stones and miry lanes, had grown soft during her months in the High Counselor's household. Seeing her shrink, Ba-yub-Otal gave her his arm. Pillan fell in behind them, and as the postern shut to at their backs they set out towards the wooded country west of the Beklan plain.

After following the paved highway for some time they reached its junction with the road running north into Ur-tah. This was not much more than a broad track, its ruts and marshier places mended with stones or felled saplings laid side by side. After some three miles it entered woodland, where trees stood thick about the verge and in places overhung it. The moon had set and in near-darkness Ba-yub-Otal and Pillan went forward warily, with drawn swords. They met no one, however, and within the hour, from an open place, saw first light creeping into the sky on their right.

Soon the track forked and here Bayub-Otal slid off his pack, sat down and turned to Maia with a smile.

"Tired?"

She laughed. "Never in the world, my lord. I can go 's far as you like."

"There wasn't time to offer you food when you came. Would you like some now?"

"Oh, that's kind of you, my lord, but not yet." (The priests had in fact given her a good meal late the previous night.)

"You're probably right." He evidently interpreted her refusal as a prudent wish to put first things first and push on. "We'll both have been missed by now. We'd better not stay on the direct road to Urtah: we'll play safe and lose ourselves."

"What's your plan, then, my lord? Where are we making for?"

"That all depends on the news I get; if I get any. I may or may not go to Kendron-Urtah: but if I do, I shan't take
you
there."

"Why not, my lord?"

"I'm afraid you must leave the decisions to me." The cold, almost contemptuous note that she knew so well had crept back into his voice.

"But what we have to think about now," he resumed after a few minutes, as they went on down the narrower, divergent track, "is getting into Urtah by back-ways. Once we're actually there-across the Olmen, I mean-we'll be able to take things more easily. We'll be safe then. My father would never give me up to Bekla, and the Leopards couldn't make him."

"How far's that, then, my lord, d'you reckon?"

"Forty miles at least; it could be fifty. But with luck we ought to reach the Olmen the day after tomorrow. Can you do fifteen miles a day for three days?"

"I reckon so, my lord; but I'd go a lot easier if only I had some sandals and if I could get rid of these filthy dirty clothes."

"I think you may be able to, tonight."

Once again she felt what a strange, incomprehensible man he was. He had shown himself ready to risk his life to save-as he supposed-that of one of the most desirable slave-girls in Bekla. Now he was speaking matter-of-factly of not taking her with him to his destination. What was she to make of it? And at this rate how could she hope to obtain any information of value to the Lord General?

Dawn was now breaking along the eastern skyline in a long, smooth band of ochre, and the woodland round them was full of bird-song. The dark-red east turned first to crimson and then, as the sun itself appeared, to a dazzling gold too bright to look at. The zenith became clear blue, while before them the northern horizon lay in a purple haze, foretelling a hot, cloudless day.

Some way ahead, at the foot of an open slope, stood a grove of empress trees, covered with their mauve, trumpet-shaped blooms, and suddenly, as she looked down at them, a kynat, the purple-and-gold harbinger of summer, flew out from among the branches, uttering its fluting call. In the distance shone a soft, yellow mist of wattles in bloom, and beside the track were growing clusters of three-pe-talled trillium lilies. Stooping, she picked one and tucked it behind her ear. The return of summer had been a familiar blessing all her life, and now she responded to it almost unthinkingly, one of thousands of living creatures to whom it meant the restoration of energy and confidence. She was

lucky Maia, secure in her youth and beauty. The dread of torture was gone; the filthy prison was gone. Why look for more just now? Something would happen: things would tum out all right, as they had before.

One thing, however, remained mysterious and disconcerting-the bearing of Pillan. Plainly, he still regarded her with disquiet, though why she could not imagine. From time to time, she noticed him staring at her uneasily but then at once glancing away, as though afraid to look and yet unable not to. Since their setting out, he had not once addressed her directly, and seemed to be taking care to remain at a little distance from her. Once-it was shortly after they had turned westward off the Urtah road-when she had asked him for water, he had taken the bottle off his belt without speaking and passed it to Bayub-Otal to give to her.

At the bottom of it, she felt, there could only be some sort of superstition. Did he perhaps suppose that she had bewitched his master? She only wished she had. Or might it, after all (he being obviously a devoted servant), be nothing but jealousy? Yet he looked too old and steady a man to give way to such feelings. She hoped he was not going to make himself her enemy. His manner, however, suggested not so much hostility as a kind of perturbation and bewilderment. Well, she wasn't going to do anything about it. He'd just have to come round in his own time.

Bayub-Otal's withered hand, she came to perceive during the next hour or so, was more of a handicap to him than she had hitherto realized. During the time when she had been with him in Bekla he had seldom or never had to compass anything more awkward than eating and drinking. Now, as she saw him fumbling, however dexterously, with his sword-belt, his pack or the ties of a sandal, or merely moving in a slightly unnatural way on account of the wrist that did not coordinate like another man's; and observed how unobtrusively he contrived to minimize the disability, she began, against her natural inclination, to feel both sympathy and respect. She had not been wrong either, in judging that Pillan, though dour by nature, both liked and esteemed his master.

If Pillan was indeed a free man, she thought, as his manner suggested, he seemed hardly the sort to remain, however well-paid, in the personal service-dangerous,

too-of someone he did not hold in regard. Besides, in a cryptic way the two of them were on familiar terms. They had a kind of game, played now and then to their evidently mutual though unexpressed amusement, which consisted of Bayub-Otal exaggerating the role of the gilded gentleman, while Pillan responded in the part of the gruff, earthy retainer.

"That purple blossom on the trees is remarkably beautiful, Pillan, don't you think?"

"Don't last long."

"Yet it's quite exquisite while it's here."

"All right for them as likes that sort of thing."

Bayub-Otal sighed deeply; Pillan spat on the ground; and both walked on in silence.

She began to understand also why, since Bayub-Otal was regarded as a danger to Bekla, Kembri had jumped at the chance to put a spy actually in his company. In this lonely country he could never have been followed without becoming aware of it. And not only did his destination remain unknown-apparently even to himself-but as the morning wore on their very route became more and more involved and unpredictable. He was at particular pains to avoid meeting such few wayfarers as they saw, now and then, approaching from the opposite direction, and would lead herself and Pillan off the track into cover. Once, seeing two pedlars coming across an open stretch where there was no chance of concealment, he simply sat down, wrapped himself in his cloak and assumed the part of a solitary traveler resting, while Pillan and Maia walked on as though they had nothing to do with him.

Maia, still young enough to feel pride in showing two older men that she could accomplish more than they might have expected, was by this time rather enjoying herself. Nennaunir could not have walked fifteen miles; neither could Dyphna. The going was easy enough and her feet, like oxen back in the shafts after winter, were beginning to remember their manage. The men were not walking fast-indeed, she could have walked faster-but then she was not carrying a pack, and Bayub-Otal firmly refused her every attempt to take a turn with his.

By about two hours before noon the sun had become too hot for comfort. The sweat was running down Maia's back and between her breasts, and she felt altogether imprisoned in the heavy material of the tunic. When they

approached a stream and Bayub-Otal turned off the track towards it, she ran ahead and, kneeling down, first drank and then bathed her arms, feet and face. The others came up as she was shaking the water from her dripping head.

"We'll stop here," said Bayub-Otal, pointing to a yew thicket a little downstream of where they were standing. "Suitably secluded, Pillan, would you not conjecture?"

"No good at all."

"You needn't stop on my account, my lord," said Maia. "I'm not done up yet, not by a long ways."

"I dare say," said Bayub-Otal, "but if we try to go on in this heat you will be, and so shall we. Why isn't it any good, Pillan?"

"Scent. Might be usin' dogs."

"So they might. Well?"

"Best go upstream, my lord. Going down's easier, so they'd likely reckon we'd done that."

Without another word Bayub-Otal stepped into the water and began wading upstream. For a good hour they made their way through shallows and small pools, ducking under branches and clambering up the few small falls they encountered. This last, as Maia could see, was by no means easy for Bayub-Otal. Pillan, however, seemed to know from experience when his master required help and when he was better left to himself.

At length, in the full heat of the day, they came to what looked like the outskirts of an extensive forest. Once among the first trees, Bayub-Otal climbed out of the stream and sat down.

"We'll leave it at that, Pillan. Food and rest now, until it's cooler."

They ate bread and cheese, dried figs and last year's apples, soft and wrinkled. Maia, having wandered a little way along the bank, stripped off the horrible tunic, wrapped herself in her cloak and fell asleep almost at once, without even a thought of possible wild beasts. It had, however, occurred to her that she could rely on not being molested by her companions, and this was pleasantly reassuring.

When she woke, the sun was sinking behind the forest. Long shadows were falling across the rough ground beyond the edge of the trees, and from somewhere not far off came the evening sound of a
semda
singing its falls and trills. Buttoning on the tunic (which by now felt almost like leather, particularly under the armpits) she returned

to the others. Bayub-Otal was keeping watch from a tree while Pillan, seated on a log, was mending a sandal-strap with twine. She picked up one of the packs and slipped the straps over her shoulders.

"Don't do that," said Bayub-Otal. "Until we can get hold of some sandals for you, you've got to go easy on your feet. If they give out we're all in trouble."

She was compelled to give him the pack.

For a time they went north along the irregular edge of the forest, until what little they could see of the sunset had begun to fade behind the trees. Maia, anxious at the prospect of spending the night in such a wild, lonely place, was on the point of asking Bayub-Otal what he meant to do, when in the distance they caught sight of a man rounding up a flock of sheep with two dogs.

"We'll try him for a night's lodging," said Bayub-Otal. "He might give us away, I suppose, but I think the odds are against it. After all, he's not to know who we are."

The shepherd, who seemed good-natured enough, showed no particular surprise at their request, merely replying that they had better come back with him to the farm and have a word with his master. Someone further off, however, had evidently seen them approaching, for when they reached the gate of the stockade surrounding the big farmhouse and its barns, they found a group of ten or twelve men and girls already gathered to have a look at the strangers. Bayub-Otal, greeting them courteously, left Maia and Pillan to wait while he went to see the farmer.

Pillan was not one to take the lead in talking with strangers and Maia, for her part, thought it best to assume the role of the modest wench, diffident of speaking up before her betters had settled what was to happen. One or two of the girls smiled at her and she smiled back, but nevertheless remained demurely seated beside Pillan on a pile of planks in one corner of the yard.

After a short time the farmer, a burly man of perhaps forty or forty-five, came strolling across the yard, chatting with Bayub-Otal as he came. Evidently the two of them had hit it off well enough and reached an understanding. Pillan and Maia stood up respectfully, but the farmer did not trouble himself to speak to them, merely calling forward another man-the stockman perhaps, thought Maia, or the head forester (for timber was plainly a substantial part of the business)-to see to the gentleman's servants.

A minute or two later she found herself among six or seven lasses, all somewhere around her own age, who had been told to take her with them to supper. Just as she was going, however, Bayub-Otal called her back and, slipping a hundred meld into her hand, suggested that she should try to use it to get some sandals and fresh clothes.

Maia soon gathered that the farm, though no more than sixteen or seventeen miles from Bekla, was regarded by the girls as an isolated place, off the beaten track. The chance arrival of a stranger, and one who had actually lived in the great city at that, was a godsend-a most welcome break in the routine of their lives. Only two or three of them had ever been to Bekla. During supper- strong broth, weak beer, bread and cheese but plenty of it, dispensed by a good-natured, rather deaf old woman whom they called "saiyett" when they remembered-she was fairly pelted with questions, but had little or no trouble in answering them or in giving a convincing account of herself; for though perky and inquisitive as blue-tits, they were not in the least skeptical and ready enough to accept whatever she told them. How had she hurt her face so badly? Oh, she'd been tripped up in the market by some lout who thought it was funny. One of her boy-friends had thrashed him for it. They must have had a rough day's journey: her clothes were in such a state? Oh, this had once been a party tunic belonging to a rich Beklan lady- a friend of her master-who'd given it to her as a cast-off. That's why there were leopards on the pockets. It had been nice once, but since it was as good as finished she'd thought she might as well wear it out on the journey. It hadn't been a good idea, though; it was too thick and held the sweat. She was hoping to pick up something else. They were a long way off the direct road to Urtah, surely? Oh, her master had some relatives he wanted to visit further west-no, she couldn't say exactly where, never having been there as yet-but that was what had taken them out of their way.