"Go on," said Bayub-Otal.
"I talked to Tharrin in prison before he died, and it was then as he told me--"
She went on to speak of the assassins sent from Kendron-Urtah and of her true mother's desperate flight and pathetic death. When she had ended Bayub-Otal remained silent, gazing down at the brook. "Do you believe me?" she asked at length.
"Yes, of course," he answered. He nodded slowly. "You couldn't be lying about that." She winced at the emphasis. "In fact, it explains a great deal." He looked directly up at her and for the first time she could see that he was moved.
"I can tell you your mother's name. Her name was Sheldis. I remember her in Suba when I was a child, but I never knew what became of her. Children don't think much about anyone who isn't there, of course. When I grew older, I learned that she'd married an Urtan and tried to settle down quietly, but they'd both been murdered on the orders of my father's wife. I suppose when the murderers got back to Kendron-Urtah they'd naturally have reported that they'd been entirely successful. After all, Sheldis, not her husband, was the one she really wanted dead." After a pause, he added, "The village is Kryle, in eastern Urtah. I'm afraid I can't remember her husband's name--your father--but you could easily find out."
While he was talking she had sensed a barely-perceptible softening of his earlier hostility; yet not enough to make her want to try to explain to him the truth, her truth, about what had passed between herself and Zenka at Melvda-Rain and the true reason why she had swum the Valderra. He had as good as threatened her life. That life---her life as the Serrelinda--had conferred on her a dignity and courage of which the Tonildan peasant girl would not have been capable. She would be damned if she was going to beg for it--or even to seem to be doing so--by offering unsought explanations. If he was so keen to kill a defenseless girl, Jet him. She was, of course, too young for it to occur to her that he himself might, beneath his harsh manner, feel grieved and sorrowful. In telling him of her mother, she had been concerned simply to let him know who it was he would be killing--a girl as well derived as himself, or nearly; his kinswoman, one whose resemblance to the legendary Nokomis was no mere coincidence.
After an even longer silence he said, "I talked to you without mincing words because I think you ought to realize how much misery and suffering you've caused with your treachery and your cold-hearted deceit of that Katrian lad. You broke his heart--do you know that? I had plenty of time in Dari-Paltesh to get to know it. He couldn't believe you'd done that to him: yet there it was, beyond doubt or argument. While you were living in luxury in the upper city, he was keeping half-alive on filthy scraps, with nothing to think about but the false words you'd said and the promises you'd broken."
She answered nothing, only looking him in the eye and waiting.
"Do you want to say anything?" he asked.
"No, thank you."
"Well, there are one or two things puzzling me, so perhaps I'll go on to ask you some questions. First, was it on orders from Kembri that you went with me to Suba?"
"Yes."
"But I suppose--I want to be fair to you, Maia--you had no alternative?"
"Not really. Only I hated you then, see. By the time we'd reached Suba I didn't hate you any more."
This seemed to take him aback; he hesitated, thrown out of his customary, bleak composure. After a pause he went on, "Then I suppose that it was just a matter of your own self-interest being too strong, was it? Here was this golden opportunity to make your fortune and you took it?"
Of all that she had been accused of that evening, the thing--naturally--which had cut her to the heart had been the unquestioning assumption that she had deliberately deceived Zen-Kurel, that she had felt no sincerity and had gone about to seduce him for her own gain. She could not, would not speak of it.
"You can suppose what you like, Anda-Nokomis."
"Very well. Now there's something else: something that struck me as odd while we were coming here. Those Lapanese soldiers who were with us--they knew you'd swum the river, of course, but they told me that no one had ever learned how you discovered Karnat's plan: it was commonly believed that Karnat himself must have told you."
"Anybody wants to think it was Karnat, that's their business."
"You never told Kembri or Sendekar what actually happened?"
"No, nor any of the Leopards."
"Then may I ask, lastly, why you went to the trouble and risk of releasing us and getting us out of Bekla?"
She shook her head.
"I suppose you're working for Erketlis now, are you? He pays better, or he's going to win and there's still time to change, is that it?"
Once again, it did not occur to her that the mordancy and scorn in his manner might flow from his own pride and pain; from his sense of disillusion with someone for whom he had allowed himself the rare luxury of feeling affection. Nor did it occur to her that he might want her-- might almost be begging her--to tell him he was wrong, to give him an explanation which would somehow or other clear things up. All she knew was that apparently neither he nor Zenka had been able to see all that was plain as noonday; Gehta and her dad's farm, poor Sphelthon at the ford, the detachment of three hundred Tonildans downstream of Rallur, the horrible risk of death to which she had twice exposed herself in order to save--amongst oth-ers--two people she loved and who, whatever they might have suffered, were now indisputably alive. She felt ready to weep with chagrin. Mercifully, Occula came boiling up.
"You dirty, rotten, basting venda!"
"Ah, unmistakably one of Sencho's young ladies! Perhaps--"
But before he could say more, his name was being called from up by the sestuagas and a few moments later Zirek came running along the bank.
''Sorry to interrupt you, Anda-Nokomis, sir--you too, Maia--but there's wonderful news! Captain Zen-Kurel's taken a great turn for the better! He's in his right mind and he's been talking to me. I've told him to stay quiet, of course: but he's made a good supper and he seems comfortable. He asked me to say would you go and see him, Anda-Nokomis."
"Thank you," said Bayub-Otal. "I'll go at once."
He walked away towards the house.
Zirek clapped Maia on the shoulder. "I'm a pedlar, remember? I sell anything--good news an' all! It's cheap to pretty girls like you, too--only a kiss."
Absently, she put one arm round his neck and kissed his cheek. He raised a hand to his face.
"Tears, eh? Well, it's natural, I suppose. You love him, don't you?"
Of course, she thought, he did not know that she had overheard what Zen-Kurel had said. Himself a good-na-tured, easy-going fellow, he had probably discounted it, anyway, as the petulance of a sick man who had had a bad time.
After a moment he laughed.
"Come on, Maia! You can't fool the demon pedlar of Tonilda! D'you think I can't see what's plain before my eyes?"
"There's some can and some can't," she said, and wandered away along the bank, where the bats had begun hunting for moths in the dusk.
"Kill her?" said Bayub-Otal, with an air of indifference, moving the candle to where it no longer shone into Zen-Kurel's eyes. "Well, from all that Zirek fellow's told me, I'm sure Fornis would be happy enough to do that for you."
"Before she kills us, I mean," said Zen-Kurel. "Otherwise how can we feel safe? We know what she's capable of, don't we?"
"Well, you certainly make it sound very convincing. Would you care to do it, perhaps?"
"How can I do it while I'm like this, Anda-Nokomis?"
"Oh, well, it might wait a day or two, I suppose. But I was only thinking, Zenka, if she really is working for Erketlis now, might it perhaps be a little unrealistic to kill her? I mean, in that case it would be for revenge, really, wouldn't it, and not for our safety? If she's really gone over to the heldro side, she won't be likely to harm us any more."
"There's no telling which side she's on, is there? Do you mean to say--"
"Now, you mustn't get excited, Zenka. Just lie back and go on drinking t
hat milk. Where was I? Oh, yes, it did occur to me that we're supposed to be noblemen, you and I, though I admit no one would have thought so in Dari-Paltesh. So perhaps personal resentment wouldn't really be a very appropriate motive for killing this peasant girl--"
"But Cran and Airtha! doesn't she deserve it? Think of the--"
"Oh, no doubt. But at that rate, surely, the correct thing would be to have her properly indicted, as soon as we get anywhere where we're among heldro people and there's any sort of law and order. After all, Erketlis must know what she did. Everyone does."
"Yes, everyone does! So it's not only a case of how much she harmed us. She's made me look the biggest fool--"
"You know, Zenka, it's very odd, but she hasn't."
"She hasn't!"
"No. She's consistently kept it a complete secret, how she found out that plan of Karnat's. Plotho told me, when we were in Dari-Paltesh, that no one had any idea how she'd found it out: and those Lapanese soldiers who carried you here told me exactly the same. Everyone supposes Karnat himself must have told her, and apparently she's let them go on thinking that. She's assured me that she never even told Kembri or Sendekar--she didn't need to, of course; the thing itself was enough for them--and I personally believe she's speaking the truth. These farm people too, you see; they know what she did, but they don't know how she found out the plan. I asked them."
"Perhaps there are some things that even she's ashamed of."
"Perhaps. But anyway, I've just thought of two rather more down-to-earth reasons for not killing her. First, we haven't any weapons--I only wish to Cran we had; and I'm sure these farm people wouldn't like it if we hanged her. But secondly, she's got money and we haven't any at all. Whatever we decide to attempt, money's going to be important. I don't really care for the idea of killing her and then taking her money, do you? Sencho might, I suppose. That would be quite in his line, but hardly in ours."
"All right, Anda-Nokomis, you've convinced me: so what are we going to do with her? Leave her here?"
"Difficult, isn't it?" said Bayub-Otal. "I mean, we can't get away from the fact that she very nearly got herself killed getting us out of Bekla--"
"Without her, Karnat would have taken it months ago."
"I know: but we've got our reputations to bear in mind. We both hope, don't we, that the Leopards are going to be defeated, that Santil's going to take Bekla and make peace with Karnat, and that you're going to get back to Katria and I'm going to get back to Suba."
"Have you ordered the wings for the pigs?"
"Well, but seriously, Zenka, we don't want some sort of half-and-half rumor following us for years, that we abandoned this girl--possibly left her to the mercy of Fornis-- after she'd got us out of Bekla at the risk of her own life."
"Well, what, then?"
"I think that all depends on what we decide to do ourselves as soon as you're better. What do you want to do; make for Erketlis at Ikat Yeldashay?"
"No, be damned to that!" said Zen-Kurel. "You talk about our reputations. Karnat's still at war with Bekla. I'm one of his officers and I've escaped from the enemy. My duty's to report back as soon as I can, not to go buggering about with irregulars at the other end of nowhere."
"Well, I'll go along with that, Zenka. If it comes to that, I want to get back to Suba. The only question is how?"
"The left foot, the right foot. What's to stop us?"
"Be sensible: it's more difficult than that. We're completely ignorant about our enemies. We can't go back to Bekla, obviously. If we go directly west, it'll take us into Paltesh--Fornis's province. And I repeat, we haven't got any weapons, in a country swarming with bandits and escaped slaves; though we might try to buy some later, I suppose, with Maia's money."
"Well, what's your idea, then, Anda-Nokomis?"
"We won't discuss it tonight. It's high time, now, that I left you to sleep. But it did just cross my mind that we can't be too far from the upper Zhairgen. If only we could reach it and get hold of a boat, that might be the answer."
Clystis came in, clicking her tongue.
"It's not my place to say it, sir, but you shouldn't keep the poor young man talking any more. We don't want him bad again, do we, just when he's begun doing so well?"
"You're quite right and very kind, Clystis," replied Ba-yub-Otal. "I'm just going. Boats cost money, you know, Zenka. But put it out of your mind now and go to sleep."
88: MEMS IS MISTAKEN
A week passed. Zen-Kurel steadily regained his health. He was a difficult invalid, with all the impatient restiveness of a young man not used to restraint on his bold, forceful character. He fretted to be up and about. Zirek remarked one day to Maia that he could not imagine how he had survived imprisonment at Dari-Paltesh. "You'd wonder he hadn't knocked those damn' walls down, wouldn't you?" These days were among the most unhappy Maia had ever known. She had, of course, foreseen--had not Sednil stressed it plainly enough in Bekla?--that Zenka was bound to be angry over what she had done. But in her youth and inexperience, and in the ardor of her love for him, she had entirely under-estimated that anger. She bad supposed that she would be able to explain matters. It is a common error of the young and sincere, when they know that they have at least an arguably valid point of view and have acted from honest and justifiable motives, to feel that others will surely understand if only there is a fair chance to make everything clear. The discovery that even friends and loved ones can misconceive, can remain deaf to explanations; or worse still, receive them with frigid courtesy and a humiliating assurance that to be sure they quite understand-- this is perhaps the most painful of all steps on the road to maturity. Ever since Melvda-Rain there had never been far from Maia's mind the memory of the passionate, heartfelt promises which she and Zenka had exchanged. He had made them as ardently as she. In her heart, nothing had superseded those promises--not her new-found wealth, the city's adulation, the advances of any number of rich admirers or Eud-Ecachlon's offer of an outstanding marriage. The only man who had bedded her since parting from Zenka was Randronoth, whom she had accepted solely in order to save poor Tharrin's life. By her reckoning, she had sacrificed enough to her love for Zenka to convince anyone of her sincerity. Hadn't she lived, for his sake, in almost daily danger of being put out of the way by Kembri or Fornis? And finally, hadn't she unhesitatingly entered the very doorway of death to release him and Anda-No-komis, her liege lord, from prison in Bekla?
Of course he would come to realize that she had swum the river only to stop the bloodshed and save the Tonildans! Nasada had grasped it. So, obviously, would Zenka, in whose arms she had known herself entirely understood and fulfilled.
What--in the light of her own memories--had never once occurred to her, was that he would have concluded that all the promises, all the joy, the choosing of the daggers and every other happy delight, had been nothing but deliberate, cold-hearted deception--that he had been the dupe of the Leopards' cleverest agent. As often as she thought of that, tears of mortified disappointment sprang to her eyes.
It had also not occurred to her--and it hurt her very much that his memory should (so she felt) be at fault in this respect, since she herself remembered every whisper, every touch, every kiss and look--that he would believe that she had gone about to worm Karnat's plan out of him. Why, he himself had begun the talk of it, and insisted on telling it to her--or anyway, that was how it appeared to her in recollection. Nor did she for one moment regret-- and she wasn't going to say she did--what she had done to prevent the whole silly, nasty business of the fighting. Given, of course, that he thought she had acted cold-heart-edly from the outset, it didn't make much difference what he thought about that particular detail. Yet it added still further to her grief.
Furthermore, she thought--remembering her talk with Bayub-Otal on the bank--she had unimaginatively underrated how dreadfully Zenka had suffered. The months of foetid twilight, anxiety, bad food and near-madness, with the deaths of his comrades and his own self-reproach gnawing at him night and
day--all this, in his mind, was attributable to her alone. He was only too well aware of the dreadful things he had suffered on her account. He did not know, and there was no one to tell him--least of all herself--what she had suffered on his.
For there was no approaching him. The day after their talk she was feeding the hens when Bayub-Otal, ever punc-tilious, took the opportunity to speak to her while no one else was near. It was important, he said, that at present Zen-Kurel should not be upset or over-excited. He was sure she would understand that for that reason it would be better if she were to keep out of his way for the time being. She had responded with two words of acquiescence, followed by a correct, cold and formal apology for having, being a Suban, sworn at her liege lord; and this he had accepted with a silent bow.
Yet even had things been otherwise, her womanhood was firm that it was beneath her to take the first step. If he should later want to talk to her, she was ready. Meanwhile, though her heart might break, she felt, as any woman would feel, that she was not going to initiate explanations.
And yet, far below her unhappiness, at some profound level within her, there shone out intermittently a kind of here-and-gone glimmer--like the taulapa, that phenomenon of the Pacific, the phosphorescent streaks appearing at depth which, because they are always aligned towards the nearest land, were once invaluable in darkness to Poly-nesian navigators of days gone by. The mind of a man is like a ruled kingdom: it may often be badly ruled, or partly or wholly in anarchy, but nevertheless a ruled kingdom is what it is supposed and trying to be.
Women are microcosms, in which the mind, instinctive as the great migrations of terns, is subject to all manner of age-old, God-given stimuli comparable to seasons, stars and winds. Maia understood more of Zen-Kurel than she knew, or than he knew himself. Deep below the unnavigable tempest of his anger there still flashed, involuntary and un-regarded, his former desire; and not only desire, but also the memory of that world-changing affinity which at Melvda-Rain had cried aloud to his heart that here at last was a girl whose capacity and abilities were at least equal and certainly complementary to his own; a girl whom to love was a privilege and not an indulgence; the girl the gods had intended to stand up beside him so that one plus one would total more than two. The very excessiveness of his antipathy--his refusal to let her come near him--was in-dicatory. What was it he unconsciously feared in himself, from which he had to take such strenuous steps to keep her apart? All this Maia sometimes glimpsed as dimly and fitfully as a weather-beaten, exhausted migrant, its wings sodden with rain, might for an instant perceive, behind scudding clouds, the shape of Orion or the Southern Cross.