He laughed, gratified by her surprise. "Never seen one before?"
"Dunno as I have."
"Can now, then."
He flipped it across to her. She caught it and, turning it one way and the other, examined the stylized design of leopards and the obverse image of Frella-Tiltheh the Inscrutable, hand outstretched above the sprouting tamarrik seed. After a minute she made to give it back, but he shook his head.
"It's yours, goldfish."
"Oh, Tharrin, I can't take that! 'Sides, anyone I was to give it to'd reckon I must 'a pinched it--a girl like me."
He chuckled. "Or earned it, perhaps; such a pretty girl. And haven't you?"
She colored. "That's worse, anyone go thinkin' that. Oh, Tharrin, don't tease that way. I don't like it. I'd never, never do it for money!"
Seeing that she was on the verge of serious vexation, he hurriedly pulled the subject back on course.
"You can have five twenty-meld pieces if you'd rather. Here they are, look."
"Tharrin! However much you got, then?"
He jingled the coins, tossing them up and down before her eyes.
"That and more."
"But how?" Then, sharply, "You never stole it, did you? Oh, Tharrin--"
He laid a quick hand on her wrist. "No, fish, no; you can think better of me than that."
She, carefree and pretty as a butterfly in the sunshine, waited silently before at length asking, "Well?"
"I'm a patriot."
"What's that, then?"
"Well, you see, I'm the sort of man who's not afraid to take risks, so I'm rewarded accordingly. They don't take on just anyone to do the kind of work I do, I'll tell you."
She knew that he was serious, yet she felt no alarm on his account; her half-childish thoughts ran all on excitement, not on danger.
"Oh, Tharrin! Risks? Who for? Does mother know?"
"Ah! That'd be telling. No, 'course she doesn't: only you. And you just keep it quiet, too. I don't want to be sorry I told you."
" 'Course I will. But what's it all about, then?"
"And that'd be telling, too. But I'm a secret messenger; and I'm paid what I'm worth."
"But darling, surely you'll need the money for this trip, won't you?"
"What's a hundred meld to a man like me? Come on, you just put them away safe now, else they'll get scattered all over 'fore we're done."
Obediently Maia put them away before returning to more immediate things.
She left him in high spirits on the jetty at Meerzat, chatting with an acquaintance who was taking his boat out as soon as he had got the cargo aboard; and strolled home at her leisure, stopping more than once to pick flowers or chase butterflies; for it was Maia's way to pursue pleasure quite spontaneously in anything that might happen to take her fancy.
It was a little after noon when she came up the lane towards the cabin. The sanchel on the bank had almost finished flowering, its orange blossoms turned to soft, fluffy seeds like long sprays of thistledown, which the first winds of autumn would send floating across the waste. There were three blooms left at the end of a long, out-thrust branch. Maia climbed up the bank to reach them, clutching the branch and almost overbalancing as she leant outwards.
Suddenly she stopped trying to reach the blooms and released the bent branch, staring towards the cabin and the patch of rough grass where the chopping-block stood beside the hen-coops.
Under a clump of sycamores on the edge of the patch, a cart was standing in the shade. Two bullocks, side by side, were in the shafts, shaking and tossing their heads under a cloud of flies. It was not they, however, which arrested her attention, but the cart itself. She had never seen one like it. It was unusually solid, rectangular, narrow and entirely covered not by any sort of tilt or hood, but by a timber roof as stout as its sides. It was unpainted and bound about with four iron hoops bolted to the timber. Unless there was some window or opening at the front (which from where she was standing she could not see) it had none; but near the top of the one side half-facing her was a long, narrow slit. At the back was a door, closed and fitted with a hasp and staple, in which a heavy padlock was hanging open.
Maia was mystified and much intrigued. She could imagine neither the use of such a vehicle--for some special use it must obviously have--nor why it should be visiting their home. Who owned it? Why had he come?
Obviously, whoever he was, Morca must know, and presumably he was indoors with her now, unless they were out looking at cattle or something like that. To dwellers in remote places, any visitor or unexpected event brings welcome variety to the monotony of the day's routine. Maia felt excited.
Jumping down from the bank, she ran across the lane and in at the door.
The only person to be seen in the room, however, was Morca, sitting on a stool by the fire, plucking a fowl. Handfuls of feathers, brown and white, lay round her feet. Some had found their way into the fire, and Maia wrinkled her nose at the acrid smell.
Morca rose clumsily, smoothing her sacking apron over her belly, laid the fowl on one side and stood looking at her daughter with a smile.
"Well--you got back all right, then?" she asked. "You're not too tired? Did Tharrin catch the boat? On his way now, is he?"
Something in her manner puzzled Maia and made her hesitate before replying. Morca was no more--indeed, was even less--given than most peasant mothers to asking her daughters polite questions about their welfare, and Maia-- just as unused to receiving them--hardly knew how to answer.
"Tired? Oh, no, I'm fine, no danger," she said after a moment. "Mum, what's that cart--"
"And he got the boat all right, did he?" interrupted Morca. "He's gone off?"
"Well, 'course he did," answered Maia with a touch of impatience. "Why wouldn't he?" Then, impudently, "Hadn't, I shouldn't be here. The cart, mum, what's that queer-looking cart outside? Who's brought it?"
"Ah!" said Morca, still smiling. "Strikes me some people's left their eyes outside in the sun, or maybe they're just not very bright today. Haven't you seen--"
"What's up with that curtain, then?" asked Maia suddenly, looking across at the screened-off sleeping place on the other side of the room. "Hens got in behind it or something?"
"Oh, cat's been asleep in there all morning," answered Morca quickly. "But never you mind that now, Miss Maia; just look behind you at what's laying on the table. Walked right past it, didn't you?"
"On the table? Oh!" Maia, having turned about, stood staring, fingers on either side of her open mouth.
Lying across the table--otherwise bare and unusually clean--was a cream-colored dress made of some smooth, softly-shining material, its bodice embroidered with blue and green flowers. Displayed thus in the center of the squalid, smoky room it appeared marvelously beautiful and so inexplicably out of place as almost to seem unreal-- a vision or an illusion. Maia, gazing at it speechlessly, felt a kind of alarm. If something like this could materialize out of nowhere, then almost anything could happen. But what?
Walking over to the table, she looked at the dress more closely. Of course, she thought with some chagrin, she could hardly expect to be much of a judge of such things. The effect of its beauty was to subdue her, making her feel grubby and ignorant.
"D'you like it?" asked Morca from behind her.
"Like it?" echoed Maia abstractedly. The question seemed to have no meaning. It was rather as though her mother had asked her whether she liked the lake or the stars. Tentatively, she put out a hand towards the thick, creamy material of the skirt.
"Better not touch it just yet, Maia dear," said Morca. "Not until you've had a wash. There's some nice hot water ready for you on the fire, look."
Her mother's unusually amiable and coaxing manner-- certainly she did not normally go out of her way to encourage the girls to wash--following upon the apparition of the strange cart and the dress, completed Maia's bewilderment. She sat down on the bench beside the table.
"What's it all mean, then, mum? Who's brought that cart and w
hat for? Where is he now? Did he bring this dress and all?"
Morca waddled to the hearth, took up the pannikin and began ladling hot water into the tub.
"Well, it's good news for you right enough," she said. "There's two of 'em. They sell fine clothes to rich people, that's what. Clothes the like of that over there."
"Sell fine clothes?" Maia, ceasing for a moment her contemplation of the dress, turned, frowning in puzzlement, and looked at her mother. "I don't understand. What are they doing here? They can't think to be selling such things to the likes of us. Anyway, where are they?"
"Oh--I reckon they're gone down to the lake for a bit of a cool-off," said Morca. "They'll be back soon, I expect, so you'd best just hurry, hadn't you?"
"Hurry? What d'you mean, hurry?" Then, petulantly, "Why can't you explain so's I c'n understand?"
"Yes, I should do, shouldn't I?" answered Morca. "Well, I said it was good news for you--all depending on whether you fancy it, I suppose. These men have come from Thettit, that's where, and their work's selling clothes the like of that to the sort of folk who can afford to buy them-- the Governor and his captains and their ladies, I dare say. Seems they were in 'The Safe Moorings' yesterday and Frarnli told them you were near enough the prettiest girl in these parts. So they've just come out this morning to see for themselves, haven't they?"
"Come from Meerzat this morning? I never saw them on the road."
"Very like they might have gone by while you just happened to be off the road," replied Morca, putting down the pannikin and looking up at her sharply. Maia bit her lip and made no reply.
"You never heard tell the way fine clothes are sold?" went on her mother. "Dresses like that aren't sold in shops or markets, you know, like the soft of things we buy-- raisins and pitch and that. Oh dear, no! The merchants who deal in these things take them to rich folks' houses in special covered carts like that one outside, and then show them privately, that's what they do."
"Well, what if they do?" retorted Maia, resentful of this instruction.
"When they go to the rich folks' houses, miss, they take a pretty girl with them, and the way of it is, she puts on the dresses so the rich folks and their wives--or maybe their shearnas, for all I know--can see the way they look when they're on, and whether they fancy them. Well," she added, as Maia stood staring at her with dawning comprehension, "d'you like the idea? There may be good pickings, I dare say. Anyway, they've waited a goodish time now to have a look at you."
"You mean--you mean they want me to do that kind of work?"
"Well, I'm telling you, aren't I?" snapped Morca. "That's if they like the look of you, of course. Do it right and I dare say you might make more money than me or your stepfather ever did--that's if you can keep yourself out of trouble. You'd best get stripped off and washed, my girl, that's what; and then into that dress--there's a silk shift goes with it, look, laid on the bed there--and then I'll call them in and you can ask them all your silly questions for yourself."
"But--but would I go on living here, or what? Does Tharrin know? He can't do, else he'd have said something--"
"All I know is they spoke to Frarnli and then they came out here. If you don't fancy it, don't do it, Miss Particular. I dare say there's plenty of other girls'll jump at the chance; and the money, too." And thereupon Morca, shrugging her shoulders, sat down again, picked up the half-plucked fowl and began pulling out handfuls of feathers with an air of detachment.
Filled with nervous excitement and perplexity, Maia stood looking at the dress with its pattern of big flowers like open, gazing eyes. In her fancy they became the eyes of the rich lords and their ladies, all staring at her as she paced slowly down the length of some great, stone hall-- she'd heard tell of such places--in Thettit or Ikat Yeldashay. There would be food and drink in plenty, no doubt--admiration--money--how was she to know? How would Tharrin come into it?--as of course he must, somehow. One question after another rose in her mind. One thing was certain, however. She, Maia, could not simply say no and thereupon forget the matter and go out with the buckets to the lake--her usual chore at this time of day. Here, clearly, was a wonderful opportunity; yet a disturbing one too--to step into the unknown. No doubt the men themselves would be better able than Morca to answer her questions.
At this moment a happy thought came to her. Of course, she need agree to nothing now; she could merely find out from the men as much as possible, ask them to give her a few days to think it over, and get Tharrin's advice when he came home!
Walking over to the tub by the fire, she stepped into the warm water and then, raising her arms, pulled both smock and shift over her head and tossed them aside.
"I'll just give you a hand, dear," said Morca. "There's a nice little keech of tallow here and I'll mix some ashes into it for you."
Maia, naked, stooped for the pannikin and poured warm water pleasurably over her shoulders.
"Where's Kelsi and Nala, then?" she asked. "Isn't it just about time for dinner?"
"Ah, I dare say they won't be long now," answered Morca comfortably. "Just turn round, dear, and I'll soap your back down. My, you are getting a fine big girl, aren't you? Turn a few heads in Thettit, I wouldn't wonder."
She certainly seemed to have recovered her good humor, adding hot water from the cauldron, soaping each of Maia's feet, as she lifted them, with a handful of tallow and wood-ash, and making her turn this way and that until at length she stepped out to towel herself dry, back and front, in the mid-day sunshine pouring through the open door. When she was ready Morca, having washed her own hands, helped her into the silk shift and the amazing dress.
It felt strange; heavy and enveloping. Maia's sensation was of being altogether encumbered and swathed in the thick, smooth material falling from shoulders to ankles. Awkwardly, and filled now with a certain sense of self-doubt, she tried a turn across the room and stumbled as the skirt swung against her knees like a half-full sack--or so it felt. Looking down, she saw the blue and green flowers curving outward over her bosom, while their stems seemed gathered again at her waist by the corded girdle binding them together. "Oh, that's clever!" she thought. "That's pretty! Who'd ever 'a thought of that, now?" Clearly, there was more in this clothes business than she had ever imagined.
"It feels sort of heavy, mum," she said. "I dunno as I'm going to be able to manage this--not without they show me."
"Oh, they'll show you, no danger," replied Morca. "There now, drat! We've got no salt, look! What's left's all damped out! Slip the dress off, Maia dear, and just run up to old Drigga and borrow a handful, will you?"
Maia stared. "Damp? At this time of year?"
Morca shrugged. "I must have left it too near the steam or something, I suppose. Never mind. Won't take you more than a minute or two, will it?"
"That's a job for Nala, more like," said Maia. "Running errands."
"Well, she's not here, is she?" retorted Morca. "Sooner you're gone, sooner you'll be back again, won't you? Come on, now, I'll just help you out of the dress."
When Maia returned a quarter of an hour later with half a cupful of old Drigga's salt, the visitors had evidently returned from the lake. While still some little distance up the lane she could hear their voices raised in conversation with Morca, but as she came in at the door they stopped talking and turned to look at her.
They were certainly not at all what she was expecting. In her mind's eye she had unconsciously formed a picture of tall, dignified men--she was not sure how old they would be--but certainly well-dressed and-groomed; exotic, perhaps--dark-skinned, with pointed beards and gold rings in their ears, like the merchants in tales and ballads. Looking at these men, however, her first thought was that they would have appeared rough in a crowd of drovers at Meerzat market. One, certainly, was tall, and looked strong as a wrestler: his long, black hair, however, was lank and dirty, the bridge of his nose was broken, and down one of his cheeks ran a ragged, white scar. His hands looked like those of a man accustomed to rough work. His companion, yo
unger, and hardly taller than Maia herself, was standing a little behind him, his back to the fire, picking his blackened teeth with a splinter of wood. He had sandy hair and a slight cast in one eye. He leered at Maia, but then at once looked away, dropping the splinter. A length of thin cord was wound round his waist like a belt and in this was stuck an iron spike. His feet, in metal-toed wooden clogs, fidgeted with a shuffling sound on the earth floor.
Her mother, seated on the stool, had finished plucking the fowl and was now drawing it, flinging the guts into the fire as she worked. Maia looked about for the dress, but it was nowhere to be seen.
"Here she is back, then, your fine young lady," said Morca, standing up and wiping her hands on her apron. "What d'you think, then; will she do for you?"
"Here's the salt, mum," said Maia, embarrassed and not knowing what else to say.
"The salt? Oh, ah, to be sure, the salt," answered Morca. "Right; well, put it down on the side there, Maia, that's a good girl. These are the gentlemen, then, as are ready to make your fortune if you want."
"Oh, yer, that's right, that's right," said the sandy-haired man, speaking in a kind of quick, low gabble. "Make y' fortune, that's right."
Maia waited for one or the other to say more, but neither did so. A silence fell, the tall man merely glowering bleakly down at her, while the other continued his shuffling from side to side.
"Well, then, we'll just have a drink on it," said the shorter man at length. "D'you want to step outside for a minute or two, missus, or how d'you want to settle?"
Maia now realized even more clearly that she must talk to Tharrin before agreeing to anything. Little as she knew about the ways of the world, it was plain that these men must be--could only be--the servants or underlings of the real dress-merchants themselves. She had not known her mother was such a fool.
Obviously, she would have to find out for herself who and where their master was and tell them to say that Tharrin would take her to see him in a few days' time.
Lucky I've got a bit of a head on my shoulders, she thought. Mother's no help; I'll just have to handle this myself. I've got to show them I'm a smart girl, that's what.
"Do you want me to put the dress on now?" she asked, speaking directly to the taller man.
"What? The dress? No!" he answered in a kind of growl; and resumed his silence.