"Even Meris?"
"Meris? She's got more motive than all the rest of us put together."
"What's that, then?"
"To be basted by more men than any girl yet. Do you know, she even managed to have a few while we were hiding in the warehouse? Malendik, of course; and even N'Kasit, now and again. But others, too. I was always terrified she was going to get us caught, only somehow she never quite did."
He looked up at the scatter of stars visible above the clearing. Then, turning aside and making as though to rake the fire with his wooden spear, he asked, "Did you know it was me that gave the information about Tharrin?"
"About Tharrin? To Sencho, you mean?"
"Well, Tharrin was--he meant something to you once, didn't he?"
"How did you know?"
"Oh, pedlars hear everything, you know; and people in Meerzat are no blinder than anywhere else. I've often felt very bad about Tharrin. But you see, I had to give some sort of worthwhile information to Sencho if I was going to keep him convinced that I really was a Leopard agent. And anyway, the plain truth was that Tharrin had as good as done for himself before ever I spoke a word."
"It doesn't matter now," she said. "Not any more it doesn't."
"I'd warned him to get out," went on Zirek, "but he was always such a fool. Tharrin--he never really understood what he'd taken on, you know. It was all just a matter of easy money--kind of a game--to him; until the day he found it wasn't, I suppose. 'Oh, I'm a master of cunning!' he said to me once. Cran! That was about the last damn' thing he was! Santil had already come to see him as a liability--he could never keep his mouth shut, you see. All the same, I've been very sorry, Maia. I wanted to tell you and get it off my chest."
"It doesn't matter now--not any more," she said again. "Tharrin--if he hadn't 'a done for himself one way he'd 'a done it another; I c'n see that now. But Bekla--Sen-cho--the Leopards--it's all so far away now, isn't it?"
"Not for Occula it isn't. She's pledged herself to her goddess, you know, to revenge her father; to revenge him or die. I was there, in Thettit, when she did it. I believe she'll succeed, too."
"I pray for Occula night and morning," she answered. He nodded: then raised her hand to his lips for a moment.
"I reckon my watch is finished and more than finished. The demon pedlar's given good value, as usual: I'm going to wake the young master. Why don't you get some sleep now, Maia? It's a short enough night and you'll need it all tomorrow. There isn't really anything to be afraid of, you know. None of those bastards out there's going to come any nearer, and we've plenty of wood to last till morning."
She gave him a quick kiss on each cheek and went back to her place. Her head still ached, but she felt in better spirits for their talk. Yet how strange--what he had said of Zen-Kurel and Anda-Nokomis! She couldn't tell what to make of it. Both the forest clamor and the eyes were still as present as ever, yet now she was so tired that she was past all caring. They can eat me in my sleep, she thought; I wouldn't even bother to wake. Soon she was sleeping as soundly as any healthy sixteen-year-old in the world.
90: DOWN THE DAUUS
When Maia awoke, in daylight, the first sight that met her eyes was Zen-Kurel standing a few yards away and looking intently down at her. Somehow she had the feeling that he had been doing so for a little while. His expression was certainly not one of dislike. It was difficult to feel sure exactly how it struck her; it suggested at one and the same time both aloofness--well, distance, say--and a kind of wistful admiration; rather as a man might look while standing beside a lake and watching a graceful boat passing offshore. However, it was only there for a second, for she had hardly met his gaze before he had glanced away.
She looked around her. There was no one else in sight. Uncertain and alarmed, she addressed him directly for the first time since Suba.
"Where are the others?"
"They've gone hunting."
But he hadn't, she thought. Why not? If they were going hunting, the obvious person to leave behind would have been Anda-Nokomis.
He said no more, and she began to feel tense and embarrassed. After a little she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, got up and went into the undergrowth to pass water and get cleaned up as best she could.
She remained there until she heard the others coming back.
The only person who had had any success was Meris, who had shot a fair-sized monkey. Zirek had missed a parrot and lost the arrow. It was clear, however, that both he and Bayub-Otal were in better spirits, while Meris, when Maia congratulated her, came close to smiling.
"I always could shoot," she said. "Latto used to say I had a natural eye. You never know what's going to come in useful."
"Oh, I don't know; sometimes you do," said Zirek, looking at her with his head on one side. Maia had to turn away to conceal her amusement. Yet all the same, she thought, perhaps there had once been a time when Meris's ways had had power to give him pain.
Zen-Kurel gutted, skinned and quartered the monkey with Maia's knife and they roasted it over the glowing ashes. It tasted better than she had expected; especially the kidneys, which they shared between them. Wiping her knife and sheathing it at her belt, she recalled what Zirek had said about the gods intending them to survive. Well, it wouldn't hurt to believe it: he himself evidently did. She only wished that she, like him, had the assurance of gaining everything she desired in the world.
Setting off westwards into the forest, they soon found themselves lost in the same dim maze as before.
Indeed, thought Maia, one might suppose it to be the very ground they had covered yesterday. In this place there were no landmarks, no localities, no distinctive features at all. The thought of the identical miles of jungle extending round them began to fill her with despair.
She was plodding behind Zirek, thinking wretchedly of her house in Bekla and wondering what might have happened to Occula, when Zen-Kurel, who was in front, turned quickly round, a finger to his lips, and gestured to them to remain still. For a moment she felt afraid, until she saw that he was not. The next instant he had crouched down, pointing towards a place a little way ahead where the undergrowth and bushes appeared to have been trodden al-most fiat.
As they waited silently, her ear caught a sound familiar enough from days gone by--the grunting of pigs.
A moment later the leaders came in sight between the trees; two big boars, tusked and bristle-backed, making their way along what must for them be an accustomed track. They were followed by about a dozen sows and as many piglets.
Zen-Kurel whispered first to Bayub-Otal and Meris. Then, having crept silently over to Zirek and herself, he murmured barely audibly, "They'll be making for the water. We'll follow them."
It was an eerie business--proper job for a ghost, she thought--this stealing through the gloom in the wake of the unhurrying sounder. Zen-Kurel led the way, flitting from one tree-trunk to another and often, without looking round, motioning to them to stay where they were.
At last, after what she judged to have been well over two hours, Maia found herself peering cautiously down into a shallow dell of bare earth. Here the pigs were gathered; several, on the far side, wading and rolling in a muddy, shallow morass. Beyond lay the river, overhung with trees and flowing smoothly from right to left.
Meris touched Zen-Kurel's arm. "Can't we kill one? Choose a piglet: all shoot together."
The nearest piglet was hardly more than twenty yards away below them. Zen-Kurel, Zirek and Meris crept back among the trees, strung their bows and laid arrows on the strings. Then they stood up together, came quickly forward and loosed within a second of one another.
Zirek missed, but the other two arrows pierced the pig-let's flank. It squealed shrilly and on the instant the whole sounder, heaving themselves up from the mud, went blundering away through the undergrowth. As the wretched piglet tried to follow, Meris hit it with a second arrow and it fell to the ground, jerking and kicking. Zen-Kurel, leaping down, transfixed it with his stake.
"Eat it now, sir?" asked Zirek, following with Maia and pulling his arrow out of the ground. Zen-Kurel nodded and Zirek at once set about making a fire.