The procession went through more towns, each one prosperous, with well dressed people. What a contrast between the wild and desolate country they had walked through and these towns, which were like dreams of order and delightfulness. Except for police in their black uniforms, like the soldiers’; and several times the police stood on either side of the column of singing pilgrims, looking keenly into every face. At night most pilgrims slept in special pilgrim inns, but the four slipped away to the comfort of good hotels. They rejoined the procession in the mornings. It was tedious. Above all, Leta was getting tired. She was not used to walking, more than move from one bed to another in Mother Dalide’s. She did not say this bitterly, as they had heard her speak in the past, but actually laughed. They decided to try the carrying-chairs, as the least uncomfortable way of going faster; and so, two people to a chair, Dann and Mara in one, Leta and Daulis in another, they felt they were covering ground. But it was an interrupted progress. The chair-runners, two behind and two in front – these chairs had no wheels – stopped at certain points, set down the chairs, and fell out, others taking their place. No matter how they were appealed to, the runners shook them about; and at a place where they stopped for a meal, Mara asked about those ancient times when travelling was always comfortable, and Daulis said that more than that, everyone in the world was constantly on the move, very fast and thought nothing of it.
‘How do you know?’ was the obvious question.
‘You will soon find out how I know,’ said Daulis.
‘But why were they always moving?’
‘Because they could.’
‘Do you think we would if we could?’
‘I would,’ said Dann.
And Mara said, ‘I would like so much – oh much more than I could tell you – to find a house, in a quiet place that had water, and live there with Dann. And my friends,’ she added.
‘And your husband?’ said Daulis.
‘And I’ll have…’ Dann stopped.
‘Dann will have Kira,’ said Mara, and was about to explain Kira, and how Dann had loved her, but Daulis said, ‘I know about Kira. Shabis has told me about it.’ And then seriously, to Dann, ‘I think you may find you’ll catch up with her. I think I know where she might be … unless … ’
‘Unless she’s found some man she likes along the way. Isn’t that what you were going to say?’
19
On this last night before the river, Daulis said they should make the most of the comforts of the inn, because once they were on the boats, the river and lakeside inns would be a very different thing. And so they took care to wash well in the plentiful hot water, and to eat well, and to sleep soundly.
In the morning they walked along the road they had been following for days, and then they were standing on the edge of water where little waves ran up on to sandy verges and…What did you see, Mara? What did you see? ‘I saw the road I was on disappear into deep water.’ They could see it down there, black, clean, no weeds, and little fishes wagging their way across it. Boats of all kinds were drawn up on the shore. But the shore of what? This was not a river, for it did not flow and you could not see the other side, and it was not a lake, but channels between sandy or weedy shoals, and water that just covered shallows.
A man appeared from a waterside house where boatmen waited, and showed them a flat, wide boat with ample room for them and their bundles. Daulis bargained with him, and Mara parted with two more coins. Eight left. They took their places on piles of cushions on a flat bottom, through which they could hear fussing and lapping, and they looked over the boat edges at water they could touch, and trail their fingers through. Mara and Dann were thinking, water dragons; but the boatman said little fish might nibble their fingers, but that would be the worst. For a while the boatman seemed to be steering by the road they could still see, but then it descended even deeper.
Water had risen up, and covered the road and the land around it. When did that happen? The boatman said, a long time ago. He was tried with hundreds of years? Thousands? – but these words meant nothing to him. He said that his grandfather had told him there was a family tradition that all this, where water was now, had been frozen down to a depth nobody had been able to measure, but then the ice became water.
This was slow going, finding their way through marsh, then deep water, then marsh again. Sometimes the bottom was so close to the surface the boatman used a pole to push the boat along. Flowers floated on long, swaying stems. Birds ran over pads of leaves, and from a distance it looked as if they were running on the water. Big white birds sat on islands that were of massed weed, which dipped and swung with the ripples from the boat. There were no shores in sight but at evening they came to rest on a little promontory; and the boatman went off to his shelter, and they to an inn of the serviceable kind, and they ate food designed to satisfy hunger, and no more, and they sat about on their pallets talking, while the sunset died over the water. They lay down for the night covered with many blankets, and then there was another day of slow travelling. Mara felt that her thoughts had slowed, and all her life had become just this: sitting in a shallow boat just above water that smelled of weed, looking at Dann’s face, at Leta’s, at Daulis’s, and thinking that she was so much part of them, and they of her, that she could not bear to think they could ever separate.
Days passed. It grew steadily colder and often cold mists crept about on the water and clung to their faces and hair. They sat wrapped in their grey blankets, even their heads covered. Mara sat dreaming in the water, that was what it felt like, as if she was in the water, in a shell; but what a difference from that other journey, down south, so hot, the water surfaces dazzling and flashing in her eyes, feeling sick, or not, but always the wet heat, the dangers from the water, where the dragons watched and waited and, always, the reminders along the banks of drought.
Mara saw beneath her a roof of red tiles, where bunches of weed swayed, and then another roof. The travellers were floating over a drowned town, and stretched down their arms to see if they could touch these roofs. The boatman said there had been many towns round about that had sunk down. Big towns. When the ice melted the earth grew soggy and could not hold the weight of the buildings, and they sank, and the water came up. He jested that if they were fishes they could swim for many days through drowned cities. And they certainly knew how to live, in those days, he said, look down there. Beneath them the water was deep and clear, with a white sand bottom, and there was a building grander than anything in the towns they had travelled through. Steps rose into a great arch of an entrance, which was set among white pillars, and there were stairs up to higher levels where terraces held figures of carved stone so lifelike it was easy to believe these were people they had known, or knew now; and the fine roofs, of many different coloured tiles, green and blue and red, had windows in them, and porches, and it seemed the easiest thing in the world to slide over the edge of the boat and land on a terrace and begin walking about there, live there, with friends; and then there will be children, Mara was muttering, there’ll be big rivers of fast, fresh water and fountains full of water and little streams running into the house into basins of clear water…Dann was shaking her by the arm, ‘Mara, Mara.’ The boatman had stilled the boat, an oar pushing at a tussock of muddy weed to hold them steady. He was looking carefully at Mara, then bent to feel the pulse in her throat. Then he did the same for Leta, who was staring at nothing and breathing badly. Then Daulis, whose eyes were shut, and grimacing as if in pain.
The boatman and Dann whispered together. Mara was aware of a slow rocking, through her whole body – yet the boat was still. And then knew they were moving again, towards a shore where there was a long building, low-built, roofed with reeds.
‘The marsh sickness,’ said the boatman, and tied the boat up to a stump. He lifted Leta and carried her to the building and inside it. He came back and tried to prod Daulis into movement, but he was lying sprawled on his back, eyes shut. Dann and the boatman between them carried h
im up to the building, which was an inn. Mara must have slept, for the next thing was, she lay in the boatman’s arms, being taken to the building; and then she glimpsed a tall, thin, worried woman, arguing with the boatman, saying she couldn’t be responsible for three ill people. And then Mara was lying on a bed, a floor bed, in a big room, but it was a poor one, where the reeds above them were broken and needed repair, and on the edges of the gap in the roof hung water drops, which splashed down into a basin set under them. Across the room Leta lay on her pallet, very still, her arms flung out. Daulis was doubled up on his pallet, clutching his stomach and groaning. There was a horrible smell. Mara thought, Oh, I hope I haven’t fouled myself; and that was the last she knew until she came to herself again and saw Dann’s face just above her, wrenched with anxiety. He was wiping her face. Beyond Dann, the tall woman was kneeling by Leta, who was pointing at her bag where she kept her dried herbs. The woman spread out the herbs on a cloth and Leta pointed at one, saying ‘Boil it. Give it to us in water.’ And then she fell back into unconsciousness. Daulis was lying propped up, a rug pulled tight around him. He looked very bad. He’s dying, Mara thought. And then, Perhaps I am dying. And Leta? But Dann, poor Dann, what will he do, all alone? Mara sank back into the dark but kept coming to herself, seeing little bright scenes she would remember. Leta, lying with arms flung out, that bright hair dull and soaked with sweat. Daulis, so very ill. The tall woman, taking pails out, but another time she was carrying them in. Dann, always Dann, bending over her, over Daulis, over Leta, and she heard his, ‘Mara, Mara, you mustn’t die, please come back.’ She heard groaning, which she at first thought was hers, but it was Daulis. Sometimes it was full day, when she came drifting up, and the pale sun was shining down through the hole in the reeds, and there was sweat on Leta’s face and on Daulis’s; and sometimes it was dark and a lamp stood on the floor in a corner. Once she felt a weight and saw that Dann had fallen asleep where he sat by her, and his upper body was lying across hers. She was dreaming, oh, what dreams: she was running, running with enemies after her, always on the point of catching her; she was choking in dust storms; she was so hungry her stomach was like knives; and then she was conscious of the sweetest warmth, and her arms were full of a little boy, her little brother, Dann, who stroked her face and loved her; but then what was in her arms was not Dann but a baby, hers, and in her sleep she muttered and cried out that she had to go to her baby; and she held Crethis, the lovely girl who was a little child; and how sad Mara was, how sorrowful, when she momentarily came back to herself and saw that Dann was kneeling by Leta, holding a cup of something to her mouth, or that the tall woman knelt by Daulis, calling his name, to bring him back.
Sometimes when she woke she did not know whether she was in this wretched marsh-side inn, in a room where you could see the sky, or back in the Rock Village. And now she saw Daima across the room, sitting with her hands folded, smiling at Mara, and then holding out her arms so that Mara could run into them. ‘Daima,’ wept Mara, ‘I never thanked you, I never told you how I loved you, and yet without you I would have died a hundred times over.’ But it was Dann’s face she saw, when she opened her eyes, ‘Don’t cry, Mara, don’t, you’ve been having bad dreams, but it’s all right. You are getting better. Look, drink this.’ Mara swallowed down a bitter liquid that made her stomach churn and rebel.
Then Leta was up on her feet, while the thin woman held her steady with an arm across her back, and the two walked slowly up and down the room. Leta was getting her strength back. But Daulis still lay like a corpse. Mara could see from Dann’s face, as he ministered to Daulis, and the cool inspection the thin woman gave to Daulis, standing to look down at him, that they believed he was dying. And now Mara was grieving because of kind Daulis, who had rescued her: Why have I taken it for granted? Oh, oh, oh; and Dann came hurrying, ‘What is it, Mara? Where is the pain?’ But it was her heart that was hurting her, thinking of kind Daulis, dead.
He didn’t die, though he was the last to recover. Leta and Mara were practising walking back and forth around the room, and then outside, until the cold from the marsh drove them back in, while he still lay unconscious. They began to eat, mostly the porridge prepared for them by their hostess, who was called Mavid, and was a widow, just surviving here on the rare customers the boatmen brought her – though usually the boats went past to the better inns farther on. She was very good to them. More than once she made Dann sleep, and herself sat up, because she was worried about him. Dann had become thin again, and Mara too. When they stood examining each other, like people who have not met for a while, they knew that yet again they mirrored each other: two tall, thin creatures with anxious eyes deep in their heads.
‘Dann, please eat,’ urged Mara; and Dann said, ‘Mara, you must eat.’ And Mavid watched them and said she had had a brother, but he had died, and she thought of him every day of her life. Then she said that without Dann, Mara would have died. He was a wonder of a man, the way he nursed them all, but particularly his sister. There had been a night when she thought that all three of them were dying, and there was no way she could have managed without Dann. He hadn’t slept for nights. He had eaten only when she reminded him he must. When it seemed Mara was slipping away, Dann wouldn’t let her go; he made her come back, begging her, pleading with her; it positively gave her, Mavid, goose pimples to watch it, she had never seen anything like it – and so she went on.
When Daulis did open his eyes, he saw the three sitting by him, and his smile, his own real smile, not a grimace of pain, made their eyes fill. Leta wept and kissed his hands, and Daulis said, ‘Dear Leta,’ and closed his eyes. But next day he was up, and the day after began the tedious business of walking up and down, supported by Leta on one side and Dann or Mara on the other, willing strength back into his legs.
They were a month in that inn. Mavid said she felt that she had a family again. Mara gave her four gold coins. Mavid embraced her, then the others and said she could get her roof mended, and stock her storeroom, and the boatmen would bring her customers. Their coming to her inn was the luckiest thing, and she would never forget them.
From her they learned about the history of the drowned cities. It was a long time ago, she said, and she spread her fingers, and set down her hands on the table, to make ten, ten times – and looked at them to say they understood. ‘One hundred,’ said Mara. She did it again. ‘Two hundred,’ said Leta. And again. ‘Three hundred,’ said Daulis. Three hundred years ago the frozen earth turned to swamp, and down sank the cities.
‘You see,’ said Mavid, ‘the Ice is beginning to go again. When I was a little girl my parents took me to the northern edge of Ifrik. It isn’t very far from here. They showed me the ice cliffs on the other side of the Middle Sea. And that is beginning to fill again. It has been dry, so they say for … for…’ She looked at her hands, wondering whether to attempt setting them down, fingers spread, but again, and again and again, and gave up the idea, and concluded ‘a very long time. I mean, a long time.’
Now they were going to travel in a boat with a sail, not in one low in the water, but tall, with a good deck and a cabin under it. The water would be deep, or at least have easily-followed deep channels, from here until their destination. Which is where they would start their walk to the Centre.
‘And how is it you know all this, all the inns and the ways to travel?’ said Dann.
Daulis smiled.
Mara said, ‘Because we Mahondis stick together, that’s it, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. For better or for worse.’
‘I can see what you think.’
‘It’s not as simple as that.’
‘But great plots and plans go on and Dann and I are part of it.’
‘You are the whole point of it all, I am afraid. I am not going to say any more, because you have to make up your own minds. Knowing you as well as I do now, I am pretty certain what you’ll do – but let’s leave it there. You’ll understand.’
The travelling now was much f
aster, because they sailed straight forward, with no need to dodge about among the shoals and sandbanks. Much deeper beneath them the cities stood on white sand, so Mara looked down, seeing them as birds must have done once. That was Sahara sand down there, the sands that long ago stretched from coast to coast. Cities were as temporary as dreams. Like people. And she thought of Meryx. But when I was sick and dreaming in that inn where you could see the sky through the roof, Meryx was never there. Not once. All the people I’ve loved – they’ve gone. There’s only Dann now. Only my little brother.
This boatman said there was no need to stop at inns when night came; they could drop anchor and sleep on board. Which they did on the first night; but it was unpleasant, with thick, cold mists creeping about on the water, and lights flitting everywhere, which the local people believed were the eyes of the dead, but the boatman said were insects. The next night they stopped at an inn, a big one, where water was heated for them, and they ate well. Already they were getting strong again, but they needed good sleep and they needed good food. For four nights they stopped at inns, while the boatman grumbled and said they were wasting money: they could sleep for nothing on the boat. They must be rich, he said, and asked for more. All this, the boat and the inns, used up three of Mara’s four remaining coins. One left. Leta had all her money: they wouldn’t let her spend it. Daulis had nothing very much. Dann threatened to prise out his five, but they made him promise to wait.
When they left the last inn, in the morning, the man and woman who ran it said that a messenger had come very early to ask after them. ‘From the Centre,’ they said. ‘They seemed to think you were late.’ And they actually nervously looked about them, and spoke in low voices.
‘They certainly seem to fear the Centre,’ said Leta.