Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

The mist penetrated every room where a fire was not burning, hanging in the air, surrounding each lamp-flame with a dull, foggy nimbus. By its very nature it seemed to cast a blight, so that honest warmth became thick and close, and shelter constrictive: yet to this the merry-makers paid no heed.

Out of the mist, slowly, grew the rain: at first no more than a moisture suspended in the air, sinking onto roofs, copings and leaves until everything was damp to the touch; then droplets, minute particles like a powder of water, felt by the hurrying home-goers on foreheads, ears and the backs of hands; and at last as a fine mizzle, drifting out of the east on the gentle but ceaseless wind rolling the mist onward into Belishba and beyond to Katria and Terekenalt.

In Maia's upstairs room at "The White Roses," where Anda-Nokomis, Zen-Kurel and she were preparing to leave, the rain, as darkness fell, had become just heavy enough to be heard on the roof above. They had eaten a meal, paid their score and bought from the landlord enough food--mainly bread, cheese and dried fruit--to last for about two days.

"That's going to be enough, you reckon?" asked Maia when Anda-Nokomis brought it upstairs and divided it to be stowed in the packs which Zen-Kurel had persuaded Tolis to leave with them upon his departure.

"I don't know," he replied. "I can only tell you what the landlord said. By the way, here are the seven hundred meld you left with him: I have counted them. According to him, it's about seventy miles down the Zhairgen to the southern border of Katria. During summer the rafts usually take three days over it, stopping off at night. But he says that now the rains have begun we ought not to attempt it at all. He tried to dissuade me, but when he saw that was no good, he said our only hope was to keep going night and day. He said if we didn't do it in a day and a half at the most we'd have no chance, because after only a few hours the river floods and becomes completely unnavigable. No boat can live in it, he said."

He paused, listening as the light rain pattered overhead and dripped down outside the windows. "The eastern provinces have already had this for hours, of course: their rain's coming down both rivers now."

"Why don't you stay here in Nybril, Maia?" asked Zen-Kurel. "I think both Anda-Nokomis and I would rather feel you were safe."

She smiled, and he half-returned it, as though despite himself. "If that boat's to get to Katria I reckon you're going to need me."

Zen-Kurel seemed about to reply, but she cut him short. "Anda-Nokomis, we ought to be going. The man downstairs is right; sooner the better, else we'll have no chance."

"You want actually to take the boat out tonight?"

"Once the rain's really settled in the mist lifts; you know that. There'll be a bit of a moon most of the night. Even behind clouds that'll give enough light for us to drift a fair old way by morning, long 's we keep a good look-out and stay offshore. We'll have to take it steady, of course, but it might make all the difference."

"Mightn't we run aground or hit something in the dark?"

"Well, that'll be all according," she answered, "but if that landlord was right about one thing, it's that every hour's one less and there aren't all that many."

Bayub-Otal was silent, considering. Standing thus, gawky and pondering, in the middle of the room, he looked so characteristic, so comically typical of the Anda-Nokomis she had come to know and feel affection for, that she burst out laughing, jumped up and took his hands.

"You afraid, Anda-Nokomis? 'Cos I am, tell you that! Come on, let's be going."

He glanced at Zen-Kurel, who shrugged and picked up his pack.

The big room downstairs was crowded and full of babble and laughter. Two groups of drinkers were bellowing different songs, taunting their rivals and trying to drown each other. Maia and her companions edged their way through the crush, reaching the door unhindered. Anda-Nokomis already had his hand on the latch when a big, fair-bearded man with a broken nose caught Maia by the shoulder.

"Don' want to be going out there, lass! Pissing down! Whyn't stay here 'n have nice drink with me?"

"All right," she smiled. "Tomorrow night I will."

"No good t'morrow night: place'll be drunk dry!"

"Then here's your health!" she answered; took his half-empty wine-cup out of his hand, quickly drained it and tossed it into the air above his head. Then, as he made a clumsy grab to catch it, she slipped past him, through the opened door and out into the misty darkness.

The rain was falling more heavily now and the mist, as she had foreseen, was growing gradually less dense. Drawing their cloaks round them and raising the hoods, they climbed the rocky lane, crossed the market-place and came to the town gates. When Bayub-Otal put his head round the door of their lodge the watchmen were sitting snug by the fire with a jug of mulled wine, playing some game on a board marked out in charcoal on the table. One of them, grumbling, got up and reached for the keys hanging on the wall.

"Off to Almynis, I suppose, are yer, like the rest of 'em? Won't be home till morning if I know anything about it. All right for them as can afford it, eh? Stuffin' good money up some painted shearna's tairth."

Anda-Nokomis made no reply as the man went stumping outside. Stooping over the chain of the gate, he looked back at them over his shoulder. "Come on, then, let's have it! 'Zact money, too: none of your ten-meld pieces; I can't change 'em."

"Have what?" asked Zen-Kurel brusquely.

The man clicked his tongue with impatience. "Two meld each after dark: you know that as well as I do."

"I certainly don't--" Zen-Kurel was beginning, when Maia broke in.

"Here is ten meld, but we don't want any change. Have a drink with us, just to start off Melekril."

"Well, there's a good-hearted lass!" he said, pocketing the coin and drawing the chain. But as she passed him he drew her on one side and muttered, "I'm sorry to see you off to Almynis, a young girl like you: I've a daughter no older. Why don't you find yourself a good husband and forget these tricks? She's hard as stone, that one. You mark my words, she'll cheat you and you'll only wish you'd never seen her."

She would have liked to reassure him, to tell him he needn't worry on her account; but there was not time. Taking his rough hand in both of hers, she bent and kissed it quickly; then turned away and rejoined the others. She never knew whether the man had been within his rights in demanding the money.

The moon gave no more than the dimmest, suffused light from behind the clouds, and they had to pick their way slowly along the track running parallel with the walls. The baked, high-summer earth was slippery with the rain which had not yet turned it to mud, and patches of mist were still hanging on the high ground between the gates and the steep descent towards the Flere. Once they came over the top, however, and within sight of Terebinthia's house below, the going grew a little easier. The place was blazing with light, which glittered among the veils of rain drifting across the hillside. They could hear the music and laughter half a mile off.

Maia, knowing no other way, led them along the wall, on to the now-soggy lawn beside the river and so up the garden to the door. When she rang the bell the huge Deelguy opened at once. Looking past him she caught a glimpse of the big room crowded with men, some with girls on their knees, all gazing at something out of sight beyond; probably a kura, she supposed. The giant bowed, spreading his hands.

"You comming in, yoss?"

"No!" she replied firmly. "Tell your saiyett that Maia Serrelinda is here. Say I've brought the money and we want to go straight to the boat."

He was back almost at once. "She say you gowing the money, then I take you."

"No!" she said. "Tell her we'll pay the money when we've got the boat."

This time the Deelguy returned with Terebinthia, who was wearing a very low-cut sleeveless, scarlet dress and a heavy necklace of penapa stones. "Don't be silly, Maia. Come in and have a drink."

"I'm sorry, saiyett, but the river's rising and we're in a hurry. If you'll come down to the boat-house with us--or send your man, I don't mind which-

-I'll hand over the money once we've got the boat and seen as she's all she should be."

"Then you can go without, you little cow," said Terebinthia.

"That would be a pity, saiyett. I've got all your money here and what's more, I've got two armed men to defend me. So I'd have to go away, wouldn't I? and do all that talking as you were so anxious about this afternoon. I wouldn't want that, would you?"

For fully ten seconds Terebinthia glared at Maia, who returned her stare unwaveringly. Then she snapped, "Very well. Braishdil, fetch my cloak and a pair of clogs. Come with us yourself and bring a torch."

The boat, as far as Maia could see, was as she had been that afternoon. Having checked the oars and all the other equipment, she nodded to her friends to climb in. Then, carefully turning her back on them, she paid out the money on a bench, the Deelguy holding the smoky, flaring torch as Terebinthia counted it, biting each coin.

"You're going to your death, you know, Maia," said Terebinthia finally, having dropped the last hundred-meld piece into her scrip. "That's your own affair, of course, but in many ways I wish you weren't. You'd much better stay here. You'd soon make a lot more than ever you did at Sencho's, you know."

"I'm sorry, saiyett. We just see things different, that's all."

"Evidently," replied Terebinthia. "But I'm afraid the truth is that you won't be seeing anything at all soon, Maia. I've been perfectly straight with you: that's a good boat. But if it was twice as strong, it wouldn't get to Katria in the rains. So just remember, I told you to think better of it and you wouldn't. Braishdil, push it out."

She watched silently as the great, lumbering fellow dragged the boat free from those against it as easily as he might have pulled a piece of firewood out of a pile, drew it forward and pushed it out into the dark water along the verge. As soon as it was clear of the bank she called, "That'll do!" The man left them and followed her out through the side door of the boat-house. They heard the chain fastened and then saw the torch bobbing back up the garden until it was lost to view. They were alone in the darkness, the river and the falling rain.

Their thick, soldiers' cloaks were drenched. Maia could feel hers wet against her shoulders and the upper part of her back.