Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

Outside, a light breeze was blowing, stirring loose wisps of thatch under the eaves and rippling the tall, yellow-brown grass beyond the huts. As they set off together, a little group of staring, pot-bellied children, some naked, others in rags, fell in at their heels and followed until Luma, turning and clapping her hands as though they had been chickens, sent them scattering.

It was early evening; an hour, certainly, when any village might be expected to be ceasing from labor, changing the rhythm of the sun for the gentler rhythms of nightfall, supper and firelight. Even so, Maia was struck by the listlessness which seemed to fill the whole little settlement, as though (she thought) they were all under water, or in one of those dreams in which people can move only like beetles crawling over each other on a branch. Everyone she saw appeared languid and apathetic--nowhere a song or a burst of laughter. The very birds, it seemed, were not given to singing, though now and then, as they approached the further end of the village, the harsh cry of some water-fowl--coot, perhaps, or jabiru--echoed from the surrounding swamp.

Luma appeared to feel no particular obligation to talk and Maia, after a few attempts to do so herself, walked on beside her in silence. At length she asked "How many people are there in the village? About how many, I mean?"

Luma smiled and nodded.

"How many?" persisted Maia, pointing to the huts.

"How many you think?" replied Luma, with an air of deferring to higher wisdom.

"I don't know. Three hundred?"

"Shagreh, shagreh." Luma nodded corroboratively.

"Or five hundred, perhaps?"

"Shagreh."

They had now left the huts and were walking between clumps of grass and rushes, on a path that wound between shallow pools and mud that was half water. Here the marshy smell was mingled with the scent of some kind of wild herb, peppery and sharp, and now and then with a sweeter fragrance, as though somewhere near there must be a bed of marsh lily or roseweed. In places, split logs had been laid together, flat side up, to pave the path, and over these Luma led the way, her bare feet pressing down the wood so that now and then the warm, stagnant water rose nearly to her ankles. The light was fading and as they went on the croaking of frogs, which at first had been intermittent, became continuous, spreading round them on every side.

Passing through a thicket of plumed reeds and club-rushes taller than themselves, the two girls came to a still, open pool about thirty yards broad--some backwater of the Valderra, Maia supposed, for it did not seem to be flowing. In several places here the short-turfed, level bank had been cut into, to form a succession of regular inlets, each a few yards long and about three feet deep. In four or five of these, girls, either naked or stripped to the waist, were splashing and washing themselves. One, looking up, called a greeting to Luma.

Even on the Tonildan Waste Maia had possessed a towel of sorts and (as will be remembered) Morca used to make soap from tallow and ashes. Such refinements, however, seemed unknown here. Luma, pointing and smiling, be-came unexpectedly articulate.

"This is a good place. Not many others--" (Here Maia lost her drift.) "You needn't worry; none of the men come here. Have their own place."

Stooping, she pulled off her dull-gray, curiously supple smock (Maia could still form no idea from what it could be made), stepped into one of the inlets and began sluicing her head and shoulders with her hands. Maia, strolling a little way along the bank, looked down into the dark, smooth water. She could not see the bottom: it must be all of eight or ten feet deep and it was weedless. She dipped one hand in. It felt pleasant--somewhere between cool and lukewarm; if anything, a shade warmer than Serrelind at this time of year. In fact, it was just what she needed. She undressed and, kneeling above the water, became conscious once again of the beauty of her own body. She bent over the calm surface. It was not a perfect reflection-- since leaving Fornis's house she had had no sight of a mirror--but as near as she could tell, neither her black eye nor her bruised lip were still noticeable. Looking at her breasts, she smiled to remember how Meris, on the night of the Rains banquet, had shown her jealousy of their firm prominence.

"Ah!" she whispered. "I've still got myself: that ought to be good for something, even in Suba."

Rising quickly to her feet, she plunged into the water and struck out, delighted to be swimming once again. Any road, she thought, this is something that hasn't changed. Water's where I'm at home. Water loves me.

She duck-dived a foot or two into the green gloom, swam on until she was breathless and came up through a surface glowing and reddened by the setting sun.

The splash and smack of the water filled her ears: there was no other sound. It was close, protective, a helmet of sound!--only herself and the water--like old days on Serrelind, with the evening light fading before supper-time. She swam a dozen strokes, then turned on her back and floated, looking up at the pink-tinged clouds.

Suddenly she became aware of a turmoil of high-pitched screeching coming from the bank. Luma and the other girls were gathered in a cluster, some clothed, some still undressed, but all waving at her, gesturing and calling shrilly. Since they were all shouting together--and in their Suban dialect, at that--she could make out very little, but what was clear enough was that they wanted her to come back at once. Whatever it was all about, it was evidently urgent and important to them. What a pity, she thought, just as she was enjoying herself. Still, she was in their hands: it wouldn't do to upset them.

She struck out for the bank and as she did so felt a sharp little stab at the back of one knee, like a needle or the bite of a horsefly. This was followed, a moment later, by a similar pain in her ankle. Each, if there had not been two at once, might almost have been--ow! there was another, in her thigh--one of those little pangs that everybody feels at times, but which seem to have no perceptible cause. Reaching the bank, she stretched up her arms to pull herself out, but before she could do so two of the girls had caught her hands and hauled her bodily on to the grass. They were all chattering together.

"Why didn't you tell her?"

"How could I have known?"

"She's a foreigner, she wasn't to know--"

"Stupid thing to do--"

"Take her back quickly, Luma!"

Maia, sitting up on the grass and looking down at her ankle, saw, just above the heel, a glistening, liver-colored strip some three or four inches long and not quite as thick as a rat's tail. As it compressed and then extended itself with an oozing, undulant motion, she realized with horrified disgust that it was alive. And now that she could see it, she could also feel that it had pierced her skin and was sucking.

Overcome with nausea, she was about to pluck at it when Luma caught her wrist.

"No, saiyett, no!"

"Let me go!" She struggled, retching and crying. She could now feel at least two more of the loathsome creatures on her legs and body. Why were the girls preventing her from pulling them off? It must be some horrible, crazy superstition: they were sacred; or else she, as a stranger, had to give them blood--something like that. She screamed, struggling in hysterical frenzy. Four girls were holding her down now, one to each arm and leg.

An older woman, swarthy, with discolored teeth, was bending over her, trying to speak. From shee

r breathlessness Maia became silent and listened.

"Akrebah,saiyett: akrebah only come in the deep water. You should have stayed in one of the pools by the bank. If you try to pull them off they break; the head stays fastened on, then it has to be cut out. You have to touch them with a smoldering twig, then they let go."

The woman's look was direct and down-to-earth, but at least there was nothing contemptuous or unkind in it. She did not think her a fool for not knowing. Blinking back her tears, Maia did her best to pull herself together.

"You mean I got to go back to the village 'fore they can be took off?"

The woman nodded. "It's not much, really, long's you let them alone. But if you'd stayed out in that deep water, you'd have had thirty or forty--they're like flies. Then you'd have been real bad."

"How was I to know she didn't know?" Luma was indignant. "Even the children know about akrebah!"

Maia, determined to do what she could to recover the respect of these girls--one or two of whom clearly thought her either a born fool or else a spoiled lady too fine to blow her own nose--walked back to the huts uncomplaining and trying her best not to hurry. Clearly, she was just beginning to scratch the surface of Suba, a country where one had to beware of water, the natural blessing and plaything of mankind. No doubt she had more to discover. The air, of course (which she was drawing into her lungs), was tainted: that was common knowledge. How about the earth? It was difficult to see how fire could be, but perhaps burns turned putrid here.

As the woman had said, the removal of the leeches turned out to be a matter of no great difficulty. At the first hut they came to, behind which a fire was burning in an iron basket, matters were explained to the woman and her husband (who was eating his supper). The man, with a few perfunctory words of sympathy, broke off his meal and disappeared, Maia stripped yet again and the goodwife, taking a glowing twig, went to work so quickly and deftly that she felt almost nothing. About to dress again, she became aware that her hostess, who had slipped indoors, had brought something in a clay bowl which she was now offering to her.