Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

The sun had dropped lower and now the falls lay in shadow, their multifoliate white faded to a single, smooth gray. The girl--a strong swimmer, continually in and out of the water all her short life--had swum far out into the lake that afternoon before returning to laze by the pool. Now she felt weary; hungry, too, and a little cold. Wading to the bank she paused, straddling her thighs to make water in the stream. Then, putting one knee on the short grass of the bank to clamber up, she wrung out her long, wet hair with quick, impatient twistings, pulled her shift and worn, homespun smock over her still-wet shoulders, scrambled up the slope to one side of the falls and, barefoot, sauntered away down the lakeside in the light of the sunset.

She had neither seen nor heard anything to suggest to her that she was observed. In fact, however, she had been watched for some time by a man hidden among the trees, the sound of whose approach and later occasional movements to keep her in view had been covered by the noise of the falls. As soon as she had gone he stepped out of hiding, hastened along the bank, flung himself down on the turf and in a matter of seconds gratified himself, panting with closed eyes and in his transport pressing his face into the grass where her naked body had lain. He was her stepfather.

2: THE CABIN

It was already dusk as the girl strolled through the hamlet near the upper end of the lake and on a few hundred yards, down a high-banked, narrow track leading to a timber cabin. The cabin, fairly large but in poor repair, stood beside a fenced grazing-field with an old shed in one corner. Between it and the surrounding wasteland lay three or four cultivated patches of millet and close by, the greener, conical sprouts of a late crop of brillions.

A younger girl, perhaps eleven or twelve years old, came running down the track, her bare feet sending up little clouds of dust. In one hand she was clutching a hunk of black bread from which, as she came to a stop, she took a quick bite.

The older girl also stopped, facing her.

"What's up then, Kelsi?"

"Mother's that cross with you, Maia, for bein' away so long."

"I don't care," replied the girl. "Let her be!"

"I saw you was coming: I come to let you know. She told me to go and get the cows in, 'cos Tharrin's not come home yet either. I'll have to go back now, 'fore she starts wonderin' where I got to."

"Give me a bit of that bread," said the girl.

"Oh, Maia, it's all she give me!"

"Just a bite, Kelsi, come on: I'm starving! She'll give me mine: then I'll give it back to you."

"I know your bites," said Kelsi. She broke off a small piece between a dirty finger and thumb. Maia took it, chewing slowly before swallowing.

"She'd better not try to do anything to me," she said at length. "Supper--she'd just better give me some, that's all."

"She don't like you, does she?" said Kelsi, with childish candor. "Oh, not for a while now. What you done?"

Maia shrugged. "Dunno; I don't like her much, either."

"She was sayin' this evening as you was big enough to do half the work, but you left it all to her. She said--"

"I don't care what she said. Tharrin wasn't there, was he?"

"No, he's been out all day. I'll have to go now," said Kelsi, swallowing the last of the bread. She set off up the track, running.

Maia followed with the idling pace of reluctance. Before approaching the door of the cabin she stopped and, on impulse, scrambled up the bank and tugged down a branch of orange-flowering sanchel.

Plucking a bloom, she stuck it behind her left ear, pulling back her hair to make sure that it was not hidden among the wet tresses.

Just as she entered, a chubby little girl, no more than three years old, came running through the doorway and full-tilt against her knee. Maia, stooping, snatched her up and kissed her before she could begin to cry.

"Where were you running to, Lirrit, m'm? Running away, little banzi! Going to run all the way to Thettit, were you?" The little girl laughed and Maia began tossing her in her arms, singing as she did so.

"Bring me my dagger and bring me my sword.

Lirrit's the lady to go by the side.

I'm off to Bekla. to meet the great lord--"

"Are you going to stand there all night squalling your head off, you lazy, good-for-nothing slut?"

The woman who spoke was looking backwards over her shoulder as she stirred a pot hanging over the fire. She was thin and sharp-eyed, with a lean, shrewd face retaining traces of youth and beauty much as the sky outside retained the last light of day. Her eyes were red-rimmed with smoke and a powder of wood-ash discolored her black hair.

The fire and the twilight together gave enough light to show the squalor of the room. The earth floor was littered with rubbish--fish-bones, fruit rinds and vegetable peelings, a broken pail, a dirty fragment of blanket, some sticks that Lirrit, playing, had dragged out of the wood-pile and left lying where they fell.

An odor of rancid fat mingled with the faint, sweet-sour smell of infant's urine. A long oar, cracked a foot above the blade, was standing upright against the farther wall and in the firelight its shadow danced back and forth with irregular monotony.

Before Maia could answer, the woman, dropping her iron ladle into the pot, turned round and faced her, hands on hips. She stood leaning backwards, for she was pregnant. One of her front teeth was broken short, giving her voice a sibilant, hissing sound.

"Kelsi's driving in the cows, and a fine time she's taking over it, too. Nala's supposed to be bringing the clothes in off the hedge--that's if no one's pinched them. Where your stepfather's got to nobody knows--"

"I'm done bringing in the clothes," said a cheerful, dirty-faced nine-year-old, sprawled on a pile of wattle hurdles in the shadows. "Can I have some bread now, mum?"

"Oh, there you are!" replied the woman. "Well, you can just make yourself a bit more useful first, my girl. You can pick all this muck up off the floor and put it on the fire, and after that you can go out and bring in some water. We'll see about bread when you're done." She came over to Maia, who had not moved and was still dandling the little girl in her arms.

"And where in Cran's name have you been, miss, eh? Leaving us all to break our backs until you choose to come traipsing back half out of your clothes, like a Beklan shearna looking for a night's work!" Her voice cracked with rage. "What's that behind your ear, you trollop?"

"Flower," said Maia. Her mother snatched the bloom and threw it on the floor.