She had not gone far along the road when she understood, by thinking hard, and with sympathy, what had happened. Now she felt sorrow because she knew that Ben Ata did, and she wished she could reassure him by even a word that she knew he had carried her to her frontier and put her across it and that he could no more believe now he had crushed her down and punished her than she could like in herself the hard accusations and criticisms of his country.
How could she! She, Al·Ith, who was not capable of a cruel or even careless word to anyone at all in her own realm, yet, with this man who was neither more nor less culpable than she, who was — for no fault of his own — king of that sad and sodden and poverty-struck land, she had let venom rule her tongue.
He back with his army, she riding to her capital, thought of each other, and with compassion.
When she reached the top of the pass that led from the plain to the plateau, she reined in Yori, and looked up at the heaped mountains all around. Her life had been lived among these mountains; and watching how they changed and deployed inside their moulding atmospheres had been her recreation and her mind’s nourishment. Now, as she gently turned her horse about and about she saw them as she always had — but saw them, too, as she had from far down in the lowlands, looking up with Ben Ata. She knew that at this moment, now, he would be gazing at those peaks, forbidden or not: he would not be able to help himself. And seeing him stand there, momentarily lost to himself among the tents and picket lines of the camps, his officers, first glancing at each other, with raised eyebrows, would one after another themselves look upwards — and then, following them, the soldiers. Al·Ith was wondering about the women, whom she suspected of being custodians of all kinds of private beliefs. Probably they, or many of them, had never ceased, when no one could see them, to watch the skies westwards, where the mountain snows jay so high in the heavens it was hard to tell them from clouds.
Now she remembered a song — yes, hearing it as she lay in Ben Ata’s arms, not taking it in then, but retaining enough to hear it again now. The song had been part of the mounting delights of their two astonished bodies:
How shall we reach where the light is,
Come where delight is?
High on the peaks light changes,
Hope ranges.
Clouds? — no,
Snow …
Rain here,
Snow there:
Freeze-fire white.
Flake light.
How may we go there
Climb in the air there
Up, up, up from this flat land,
Into the high land
That is our way
That is our way …
A woman’s high sweet voice had rung through their lovemaking, and these words would now always be melded with their memories of each other.
And yet she knew that the words actually heard by any casual person listening, soldier or uninitiated soldier’s wife, would not have been these — the initiated women would hear them, and she with Ben Ata had heard them — but had he? Well, she would ask when they met next!
She rode forward again and now all along the roads groups of people called out to her, welcoming her back. And she stopped to talk, to listen to their messages, and to tell them, too, that she was pregnant by Ben Ata. The news flew across the plateau as they called to each other, and when she rode into the streets of our capital, the crowds were lining the way and singing and calling out a welcome to the new child, and by the time she had reached her home, she was back in the high easy friendliness which is the common mood of Zone Three.
On the wide steps were waiting her sister Murti· and all the children who called her Mother. She was enclosed by them in love and welcome, and was with them all for a day and night, to hear their tales of what had happened while she was gone. Meanwhile, the bells were ringing out from our information tower, so that no one in all of our Zone could fail to know that she was home and safe and that there would be a new child.
Then, retiring with her sister, leaving the children to their Mind-Fathers and their lessons and games, she went right to the very top of the palace, where the roofs stretched everywhere, level on level, and where it was possible to climb up even farther to a spire higher than any other in the capital. Right at the top of this tower she stood with Murti and she said to Murti, who was wondering at this exertion to visit a place she could not remember ever having tried to reach before, ‘Look, look there …’ and she pointed northwest between a deep gap in the mountains there. The blue of Zone Two gleamed like sapphires. Murti· could see nothing at first but a gap in the mountains with a haze in it.
Al·Ith gazed, letting her eyes fill with the blue, and thought fondly of how Ben Ata had said it was a waste of time, so that she was smiling, and Murti·, glancing at her, knew that she was thinking of her husband, for that smile could mean nothing else. She laughed, and was about to turn to her sister and tease her, begging for facts and bits of news of this famous Ben Ata, the great soldier, but Al·Ith said, ‘No, no, just stand and look …’ For all of her life, she. Al·Ith, had had the possibility of climbing up to this high place and finding Zone Two with her eyes. No one had said she should not! But no one had ever mentioned Zone Two! And yet — yes, as a child she had come here. Now she remembered. She had been a very young girl, before menarche. She had been impelled to climb up and up, first to the immensities of the roofs spreading all over the tops of the many palaces so that she could, if she had wanted to, have jumped from one to another, and around and about for weeks of days. But instead she saw the tall spire, and the little door at its foot and she had crept up and up. And up. And at last had reached the end of the interminably swirling stairs and stood breathless and giddy on the little platform they stood on now, enclosed by the lights of the evening sky. Birds sped past, and called to them. High over the mountains the eagles swung and swerved. She had clung here and looked up and out and it had been as if her whole self had filled with a need to leave here and let herself be absorbed by that endless blue — the blue, the blue, the blue! And it was hours before she had crept down again, her head filled with blue air, and — then, what? She could not remember! She had told someone and been warned? She had not told, but had simply forgotten?
Did it matter? The fact was, all her life the possibility had been here for no more effort than the climb up flights of difficult stairs. And yet it had been as if her own mind had closed itself off to what it could do. Should do. Wanted to do …
Her sister was clinging to the rail with both hands, her fine clear profile lifted, her eyes shining. She seemed to shine everywhere; the strong evening light polished her soft gold hair, and the embroideries on her yellow dress glowed. She had seen!
When she turned to Al·Ith all she said was, ‘Why did we forget it?’
And Al·Ith had no reply.
Next, Al·Ith ordered the bells to peal out an invitation for all the regions to send in messengers, and as quickly as was comfortably possible. Then she took supper with her sister, who wanted to know about this new husband, and while normally she would have told Murti· everything, without any feeling of disloyalty, or betrayal, she found her tongue weighted. Why? Only partly because news about Zone Four must be so foreign to Murti· that it would be necessary to say everything again and again from a dozen different angles before she could begin to understand it, but also because she could feel Ben Ata thinking of her. She did not like this connection with him. She could not remember ever before, with any man, whether for parenthood or for play, feeling this yearning, heavy, disquiet. She judged it unhealthy — a projection of that Zone where all the emotions were so heavy and so strong. But this is what she did feel, and it was no use behaving as if she did not. Murti· felt the resistance in her, did not blame her, but was excluded, and she went away early to her rooms where her own children awaited her.
Surely a relation with one person that narrowed others must be wrong? How could it not be wrong?
But Al·Ith knew the real questi
ons that faced her now were more urgent than these disquiets about that husband of hers, to whom she would certainly be ordered to return in due time — and she could not say whether she abhorred the thought or longed for him.
And she put herself to sleep so as to be fresh for the day ahead, which she hoped would bring her the insights she so badly needed.
The main Council Chamber of our Zone is not very large, for there is no necessity for it to contain more than twenty or thirty of us at a time, since this number adequately represents us: of course the representatives are different, according to their function. It is a square room, its ceiling not very high, situated where windows show sky, clouds, mountains, on three sides.
The floor has on it very large flat cushions, where we sit according to no order except of preference, and Al·Ith may sit anywhere: there is no need for her to be elevated or on a prominence with such a small number of people.
On this day she was in the Chamber before anyone else, and moved from window to window, looking down at our streets, and up at the mountains, and then for a long time at a certain spot towards the northwest. I was there that day, and found her when I entered — the second to arrive. I was struck at once by her restlessness, her anxiety. This was not the contained woman I had known since she was a baby: I am one of Al·Ith’s Mind-Fathers.
I stood by her at the window, and she gave me the wildest saddest look, and then sank her head on my shoulder, snuggling like a small child. But as a small girl she had been too independent and striving for such an action and I was disturbed more than I can say.
She soon pulled herself away. ‘Lusik, I don’t know myself.’
‘Yes, I can see that.’
Down below in the main square was a commotion, and we both leaned forward to watch, thankful to be taken out of our anxieties.
Delegates were arriving from all our regions, on horses and donkeys, and there were children on goats. These animals were being taken into the care of some young people whose task this was, and led under trees that shaded the square’s southern side. I had come in by camel, since I live in the extreme south of our lovely southern region. This beast, who did not often have the chance to make the acquaintance of animals other than her own kind, since camels thrive so well with us they are our main transport, was standing nose to nose with a fine black mare from the eastern herds.
It was such a pleasant and familiar scene that we were both cheered, but she said, ‘All the same, we are in bad trouble and I don’t know at all what it is.’
The room filled with our people, men, women, and two small girls who had already shown a proclivity for the arts of management and were being given opportunities to learn them.
There were twenty-five of us that day. Al·Ith sat down at once, under the west window, spread her yellow skirts around her, for she knew we liked to see her beautiful and well presented, and began.
‘We all know the situation. I take full responsibility.’ She waited, then, and looked around at us. Everyone had nodded, not in animosity, but saluting a fact. She smiled, slightly, and it was a bleak little smile.
‘What we have to know is this. In the last thirty-nine days, has there been any change in our situation?’
She paused again, looked carefully from face to face, and making sure to smile at the two little girls, who of course smiled back in adoration and total submission to their desire to be like her, and better.
‘In every region it has been the same. Animals have ailed, and lost their fertility. And we, too, have not been as we were. This I know. This we all know. And I might have known it before I did had I taken as much notice as I should of your reports.’
We all nodded again: it was the truth.
‘It is clear that everyone believes that my marriage with Ben Ata is in some way connected with this decline. We do not know why or how, but we may expect to see an improvement among us. As has already been announced to everyone, I am pregnant. This presumably is part of the prescription for our recovery.’
After every statement she paused and looked around, for signs of disagreement, or that anyone wanted to add to what she had said.
‘Well, then, it is thirty-nine days since I was taken to Ben Ata.’ The was taken came out of her with a bitter emphasis, and she at once regretted it, offering us a quick apologetic smile. By now there was no one present who had not seen her inner distress. There was an atmosphere in the Council room I had not experienced before. More than anything could have done, Al·Ith’s state told us how things were in our realm.
She waited quietly. ‘There has been no change at all in that time? No? Now, I have been pregnant for five days. Has there been any change in that time?’
At this one of the little girls said, ‘My sheep had twins yesterday.’
We laughed, and the proceedings halted while Al·Ith explained to her the gestation time for sheep.
Meanwhile, we were wondering if there had in fact been any change in the last five days? Discussion began. Al·Ith was listening carefully. And then she jumped up and went fast from one window to another, returning to the west window where she leaned, gazing out and up. This was not what any one of us had observed in her before. After a time I, as the only one of her parents present, went to the window and looked where she did. I could see only the massed piles of the western ranges.
She was reminded by my being there of her duty, and sat down again.
The little girl who had spoken about her sheep was humming.
It was one of our children’s games.
Find the way
And find the way
And follow on and through.
Through the pass
There we must pass
And gather in the blue …
Al·Ith was leaning forward, listening. There was not one of us who had not heard it a thousand times. The children made patterns of stones and hopped through them in certain definite rhythms which kept varying according to the rules of the rhyme.
We believed Al·Ith was as usual paying especial attention to children and waited.
But she was still leaning there, intent on the little girl, who was quite oblivious of Al·Ith, but sat swaying a little, humming, and even softly clapping her hands. She was a child typical of the eastern regions: a sandy little thing, with bright blue eyes and pale hair. These scraggy chickens tended to grow up into the wildest beauties, oddly enough, and the men, too, were handsome. When we had our festivals, hearts tended to beat faster when the companies from the east came riding in, smiling charmers all of them, conscious of their power over us, ready with their songs of a much harder fiercer past …
‘What is your name?’ asked Al·Ith.
‘Greena.’
‘Well, my little green one, come here.’
The child skipped forward and sat at Al·Ith’s knee. She took her hand.
‘What is the rest of that song?’
‘What song, Al·Ith?’
‘You were singing. What comes after “And gather in the blue”?’
The child tried to think. She glanced around at her sister for help.
By now we all understood that something important was happening.
As for me, I had been present at certain heightened moments in that room, but nothing like this. The air was snapping with excitement, and Al·Ith’s lassitude had gone. She was as she normally was: alert, lively, all attention.
‘Is there any more of that song?’ Again the child looked for help at her sister, another little wisp of a girl, but she shook her head. Then, she scrambled to her feet. ‘Yes, yes, there is … I think … ‘ and sank back to the floor.
‘Listen,’ said Al·Ith, ‘what I want you to do is this. Go down to the square there — where the animals are. Forget about us up here for a time. Play that game. Just play it as if you were at home with your herds and your families. And try to remember what comes after “And gather in the blue”.’
The two little girls sprang up, and ran together out of the Council Chambe
r, hand in hand. We were smiling and we all knew it was because every one of us was seeing them as they would be in such a short time.
‘What is all this about, Al·Ith?’ asked a young man from the north. He was in fact her son by adoption, and had grown up near her. He even looked like her, as adopted children so often did.
‘I’m on the verge of it,’ she said, looking fast and close into all our faces. ‘Can’t you feel it? There’s something! What!’ And in her urgency she was up again and pacing all around the room, this time standing at the windows without seeing out. ‘What is it?’ We said nothing, but waited. We all know that when one of us is on the edge of an understanding that we help by thinking with her, him, and waiting. ‘I just don’t know, don’t know … ‘ and then she whirled round to the west window and leaned over. As many of us who could, crowded there and looked down. The two children had laid out their pattern of pebbles and were skipping and singing.
We could not hear the words.
Feeling our eyes on them they stopped, and looked up. We drew back out of sight.
‘We must wait,’ said Al·Ith.
We sat down. Of course we hoped to know more about her visits to the other Zone, but did not want to say anything that would bring the shadow down over her again.
She knew what we were thinking, and with a sigh, met us.
‘It is very hard to describe it,’ she said courageously, and we saw the animation had left her. ‘It is easy to describe it outwardly. Everything in it is for war. Fighting. It is a poor place. We have nothing in our realm to compare with it. As for the spirit of the people …’ She was faltering, with pauses between words. Again we recognized that she was in the grip of something. ‘War. Fighting. Men … every man in the whole realm is in the army …’ She tailed off, silent. She had virtually stopped breathing. ‘Every man in uniform …’ She stopped again, and her eyes lost all their lustre while she went deep inside herself. As for us we sat absolutely still.