Mara stood on her tower and looked north. She had been here nearly a year. Then it was a year. She had been forgotten. The dry season was here again and the black earth lightened to dark grey, though it would take some time for the soil really to dry out, so the winds could begin their work of lifting and shifting and reshaping the land.
14
Then, unexpectedly, since no one had believed the rumours, a runner came to say the army would be marching north past here, and they, the watchers on the frontier, would be absorbed into it, and must have their equipment and weapons ready. There were guns stacked in the fort. No one used them, because they were afraid the things would blow up in their faces, as they so often did. Now they were brought forth and cleaned, and every soldier checked a little stock of explosive powder. They did this because they had to but, by now experienced old soldiers, they stuffed their satchels and bags with food and warm clothing, and sharpened their knives.
Then they waited, staring south, until the horizon began to move towards them, and then there was the Hennes army, which engulfed them. The great army – it was ten thousand strong – marched for six hours, and rested for two, marched for six and rested, and so on, day and night, for ten days. The moon was high and bright and its light filled the sky but the clouds of dust raised by all those marching feet obscured the view around them. All the way Roz the platoon commander was beside Mara, chattering about how fine it would be when they occupied Shari, and that she had never before been with an army when it took a city. Mara was wondering how to escape. When the whole great company stopped on the rise outside Shari and looked down and saw the turrets and towers shining white above trees and populous streets, there was a silence and then a spontaneous cheer. Loot and good times were in every mind. But Mara was wondering, Why is there no opposing army to stop us? Already the truth was in her mind and she was wondering why General Izrak could not see it. If there was no defence, and this army was going to be allowed to march unopposed into the city, then a trap had been set. Mara knew that in the low hills on either side of Shari, General Shabis’s troops must be waiting. She knew that she herself would be an animal in a trap if she could not think of a way to escape – but she could not, and she marched with the army, positioned about a third of the way along the column, into the streets of Shari, which were finer and grander than anything she had imagined. And still all that could be seen were the desperate inhabitants – running, taking cover in buildings, shops, even up trees. The army was halted, its head in the main square. Probably General Izrak only now understood that he was trapped, and he was wondering whether to retreat or fight. The soldiers had understood by now. And this army, which had not fought a real battle for years, was in a panic. Then Mara’s chance came. The ranks broke, soldiers went off into side streets and alleys, into garden squares and houses, half in a frenzy of fear, but lured by loot. Mara dived into a shop, by herself, and had her Hennes uniform off, or rather the top part of it, and pulled on the old, brown, skin-like garment she kept at the bottom of her army satchel. Then she was out of the shop and into the crowd of fleeing inhabitants, no different from them, except that she had left the army issue kitbag with her trousers in the shop. Also all her food and clothing. She now possessed nothing at all, apart from the Hennes trousers and that old indestructible tunic. The refugees were crowding north out of Shari. Shabis’s army, drawn up outside the town, stood on either side of the main road to let them through. The officers were shouting, ‘Go to Karas – we’ll have this scum out of Shari before the solstice.’ ‘You’ll be back home before you know it.’ ‘You’ll find food on the road.’ And so on. But the refugees seemed not to hear, they were haunted and hunted and were determined on one thing: to get as far away from the Hennes troops as they could. Already they all had tales of horrors: rapes, murders, muggings.
And if Mara wasn’t careful she would find herself out of Shari and on the road to Karas. She stepped out of the flood of people and there, under a big thorn tree, just where the town ended, a group of Agre officers stood watching the refugees. Mara reminded herself that she was not a soldier now, she did not have the protection of a uniform, she was a young woman. She swiftly unknotted a coin from her cord of them, using an empty booth to hide her for that moment, and went up to them, saying, ‘I want to speak to General Shabis.’
She had expected what she got: astonishment, then incredulity, and then the ritual jeer the occasion demanded.
‘He knows me,’ she said.
‘So he knows you, does he?’
Now she took a big chance: ‘General Dann, is he here?’
‘I suppose you know him too?’
‘Yes, I do.’
And now their faces were those of soldiers whose mental apparatus had been overloaded. It was her assurance, her self-command that confused them. And, too, that she was a Mahondi, who looked like generals Shabis and Dann.
It was touch and go; the group could have gone on with another question, but instead there was a cacophony of leers, and then one of them came forward, took her by the wrist and, to the accompaniment of laughter, pulled her into an empty place that was usually a tea house. Before he could whip off her garment and show her what he could do, she held out the gold coin, on her palm, hoping he was not one of those who did not know what gold was, and said, ‘You can have this if you take me to either General Shabis or General Dann. And I won’t tell them you tried to rape me.’
It was her manner that stopped him, her calm. He rearranged his clothing and said, ‘I’m on duty.’
‘So I can see.’
His eyes swivelled about, expressions chased themselves across his face – for a moment he was tempted to rape her after all; then he reached out for the coin, and she closed her fist over it.
‘Wait,’ he said. He ran back to the group of his comrades. She saw their expressions change as he talked. He came to her, running. ‘Quick,’ he said. And, running, the two went off, avoiding the columns of fleeing people, through increasingly grand streets to a big building that had guards outside it. ‘General Shabis is on the other side of the town,’ said the officer. ‘General Dann is in there.’ She held out the coin; he took it, and said, ‘If you’re on the level, tell General Dann I brought you here.’ And he ran off.
She walked up the steps and said to the guards that she wanted to see General Dann.
‘He’s busy,’ said one, contemptuous of a civilian.
‘I think you’ll find he’ll see me. Tell him his sister is here.’
At once the guards’ faces changed. One went into the building, the other stood eyeing her, frowning, trying to match what he was seeing, this dusty female in her odd-looking clothes, and the great General Dann.
She was taken in, along a central hall full of officers trying to look busy, and into a side room. There at the window, looking down at the chaotic scene, stood a young officer so handsome, so appealing to her that she experienced him as an assault to all her senses; and she had begun to say, ‘Where is General Dann?’ when she saw it was Dann, and at the same moment he turned and said accusingly, ‘Mara, where have you been?’
At which she sank into a chair and laughed, but then began to cry, and she dropped her head on her arms sobbing, while her brother stood over her scolding, ‘Mara, we thought you were dead.’ And his voice, impatient, loving, Dann’s – made her feel that she had come home. ‘Now you are here we can leave,’ he said. ‘We can go North.’
At this she began laughing again and said, ‘Oh Dann, how I have missed you.’
And now, as she lifted her head to look at Dann, she noticed sitting opposite her a young man, a boy, and his face was bitter as he smiled, Wouldn’t you know it! And he was very jealous. Mara realised, as Dann did, at the same moment, they had been talking in Charad; and now they switched into their own tongue, and that for her – she had not spoken Mahondi for so long – was a coming home, a return to herself.
She stood up and the two embraced, and now Dann’s eyes were full of tears
too. ‘Oh Mara,’ he said, ‘you don’t know what it has been like without you.’
At this the young man got up from his place and began to exit, intending this to be seen. Dann quickly went to him, laid his hand on his shoulder, and said, ‘This is my sister.’ But with a disdainful movement the youth shook off Dann’s hand and went out, shutting the door with exaggerated care.
Brother and sister sat, close, and he held her hand and looked into her face and this – his way of looking – told her how much he had changed, for it was far from the hunted, haunted, close look she knew so well, but a frank, friendly, open examination.
‘Shabis sent out spies to find out where you were, but they came back and said you were dead.’
She told him where she had been, while he listened.
Then he said, ‘Let’s go, Mara. I didn’t believe you were dead. I was only hanging around in case you’d turn up.’
‘But you’re a general, how can you just go?’
He got up, laughing, and paced about because he was so full of elation and happiness, he could not keep still. ‘I’m just a trainee general. And anyway, Mara, I don’t care about that – do you care about that? No, of course you don’t. Shabis likes me – that’s the point. He said he thinks of me as his family. But this war – it’s stupid. I don’t want to be part of it.’
He explained the plan – the Agre plan. General Shabis’s troops were closing in around the southern suburbs, and General Izrak was trapped. When Shabis had cleaned up in Shari, then his army would make forced marches to the Hennes H.Q. and then take all the south part of Hennes occupied territory. Soon the whole country would be in the hands of the Four Generals. And the war would be over. As Dann outlined these plans, he spoke mockingly, and Mara agreed.
Dann ended, ‘A trapped boar can inflict nasty wounds.’
‘Cleaning up,’ said Mara. ‘That means a massacre.’
‘Who is going to weep for the Hennes? Or any of their kind anywhere?’
‘The army isn’t just Hennes. There are a lot of Neanthes and Thores people too.’ He was silent. ‘Why don’t you announce an amnesty for the Neanthes and Thores? They were all taken prisoner and made into soldiers.’
‘Mara, this isn’t our problem.’
‘I don’t understand why Shabis agreed to this plan. It’s silly. He could have stopped the Hennes getting to Shari.’
‘He didn’t agree. You forget, there are four generals. He was outvoted. He wanted to make a stand well south of Shari. The other three wanted a trap.’
‘And a massacre.’
‘And a massacre.’
‘I wish I could see Shabis. He was so good to me, Dann. He taught me so much.’
‘And me too. But Mara, are you forgetting we were captured? We are formally Agre prisoners. Well you are, anyway. Do you imagine Shabis would just say, “Oh, you’re off are you? Bless you my children.”’
‘Why shouldn’t he? He might.’
‘They’ve put a lot of work into me. They intend me to take Shabis’s position when he takes over General Command. They’re not going to waste all that.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘Get to Karas, first.’
‘And then?’
‘The frontier with the North Lands. It is a day’s march from Karas. Once we’re there, we’re free.’
‘First we have to get to Karas.’
‘And that is the most difficult part.’
In the street outside there was a sudden tumult of shouting and running feet. The refugees were running past this building too. Dann closed the big windows, so they could hear each other. Mara had never seen windows like those: tall, from floor to ceiling, and of thick glass. She knew about glass, had seen it a little – in the windows of Shabis’s house, she believed, but it had been too dark to see well – and here were sheets of glass; and she was thinking that a town with glass in its windows knows it is a safe town, because a single thrown stone can shatter glass. Well, Shari today was learning something very different.
Now Dann and she discussed difficulties. As always it was a question of details, for both knew – how well they knew – that getting one small thing wrong could mean calamity.
First of all Dann was a senior officer and could not be seen just walking off on the road north: that would be desertion. He must have the right clothes on. Then, both he and Mara were conspicuous. Here Dann took her to a wall where there was, she thought, a window beyond which was a tree; but she saw it was a glass that showed a tree which was behind them, outside the windows in the garden. She was longing to examine it, find out – but Dann said, ‘Quick, we must be quick.’ They stood in front of this glass, which reflected, and saw how alike they were: tall – Dann must have grown six inches since she saw him last – strongly built but finely made, with shining black hair and great, dark eyes. He was handsome, as she had seen in that first moment of shock; but already she was feeling him as something like an extension of herself, and she needed this little distance put by the glass that showed them to themselves, even if in a confusion of leaves and branches, so it seemed they were standing in a tree, to see just how good-looking he was. And he was smiling at her reflection. ‘Look how you’ve turned out,’ he said. ‘You’re a beauty. You’re going to get yourself raped if you aren’t careful.’
‘I nearly was.’ And she told him what had happened. ‘But I bought myself off. Do you ever think that we nearly left the gold behind?’
‘Yes. Often. And how many have you left?’
‘Fifteen.’
‘And I have six hidden. Apart from…’ He touched his waist. ‘When I can get these out safely, I must. They itch sometimes. Meanwhile I’m glad to have them there.’
What were they going to wear on that dangerous road?
Now he went to a cupboard and produced Mara’s old sack. ‘I’ve always taken it with me. Just in case. I didn’t really believe you were dead. That wouldn’t be like you. And now it’s going to save us.’
She pulled out the two slaves’ robes.
He said, ‘You’ve got to get those Hennes uniform trousers off.’
She pulled them off and stood in the brown tunic, reaching now to her knees.
‘You’ve got to get that off too. People would be curious.’
She was shy of him; he saw it, turned around, and she slipped on the old robe that would never be white because of the dust that had dyed it.
There was a knock. Dann went to the door, and opened it a little. A lot of noise came from the hall. He said, ‘Right, I’ll deal with it. Meanwhile, don’t disturb me until I say.’
‘And now we really do have to be quick.’ He whipped off his uniform and, as he did, said, ‘Goodbye, General Dann.’ Was he regretting it? At this last moment was he hesitating? If so, Mara could not see that he did. She caught just a glimpse of naked Dann, not ugly or starved or all ribs and bones or knobbly, but beautiful, he really was so beautiful – and then he had on the slave’s robe, and she said, ‘What a pair of freaks we look.’
‘Not freaks enough. Get your hair covered.’ She bundled it into a piece of cloth and tied it tight. He pulled on the woollen cap Mara had kept in her sack. Into this sack he emptied some fruit and bread that had been brought in for General Dann’s consumption.
‘Water,’ she said.
‘We are supplying water on the route to Karas,’ he said. ‘Water and soup, for the refugees.’
‘Which we are now.’
‘Yes. Quick.’ This room was on the ground floor, and the windows looked into a little garden, beyond which the refugees were streaming past. Dann took his knife from the discarded uniform, put it into his knife pocket, slid in a little bag which held the coins. She took up her sack, but she had left her knife in the army satchel she had jettisoned. Dann flung open the window, admitting the sounds of shouting and anger, and leaped out, and she followed. In a moment they were across the garden and among the refugees. A sentry who had been idly watching the fleeing crowds saw the
two too late, perhaps thought they were refugees who had strayed into the garden, or decided, to save trouble, that he had not seen them.
15
Mara and Dann, each with a sack over a shoulder, were among people who were half running, ten or twelve abreast, along the road to Karas. On each face was a stunned, disbelieving anger. All knew that when they returned to Shari their homes might not be there, would at least be looted and despoiled. Children were crying. Already people were falling out of the stream to rest a little by the side of the road, unable to keep up.
Outside the town the crowds turned for a last look: smoke was rising here and there. The trapped soldiers, careless, or drunk, or perhaps deliberately, were causing fires. There was a clamour from the besieged town, shouting and screaming but also singing.
The refugees passed through the troops that were on either side of the road, and Dann was trying to make himself inconspicuous, and held his arm across his face, as if shielding it from the sun.
Immediately beyond the town was the first feeding station set up by Shabis for the refugees, serving soup and bread and water.
Mara and Dann waited in line for some water – they had no container – drank as much as they could, and ran on. They were attracting attention because of this vigorous youthful running, and so they slowed to a fast walk. It grew dark, and some people settled for the night near the next feeding station, but most went on. The moon was now at half, but still yellow, and bright, and it illuminated the road. It was easy to walk. In the middle of the night, near a feeding station, the two ate soup and drank from the great jars that stood by the road, each guarded by a soldier. They slept a couple of hours, with a crowd of others, and felt they were reliving old times when they lay down back to back, each facing out, to be alert for thieves.