"Go on," said Bayub-Otal.
"I talked to Tharrin in prison before he died, and it was then as he told me--"
She went on to speak of the assassins sent from Kendron-Urtah and of her true mother's desperate flight and pathetic death. When she had ended Bayub-Otal remained silent, gazing down at the brook. "Do you believe me?" she asked at length.
"Yes, of course," he answered. He nodded slowly. "You couldn't be lying about that." She winced at the emphasis. "In fact, it explains a great deal." He looked directly up at her and for the first time she could see that he was moved.
"I can tell you your mother's name. Her name was Sheldis. I remember her in Suba when I was a child, but I never knew what became of her. Children don't think much about anyone who isn't there, of course. When I grew older, I learned that she'd married an Urtan and tried to settle down quietly, but they'd both been murdered on the orders of my father's wife. I suppose when the murderers got back to Kendron-Urtah they'd naturally have reported that they'd been entirely successful. After all, Sheldis, not her husband, was the one she really wanted dead." After a pause, he added, "The village is Kryle, in eastern Urtah. I'm afraid I can't remember her husband's name--your father--but you could easily find out."
While he was talking she had sensed a barely-perceptible softening of his earlier hostility; yet not enough to make her want to try to explain to him the truth, her truth, about what had passed between herself and Zenka at Melvda-Rain and the true reason why she had swum the Valderra. He had as good as threatened her life. That life---her life as the Serrelinda--had conferred on her a dignity and courage of which the Tonildan peasant girl would not have been capable. She would be damned if she was going to beg for it--or even to seem to be doing so--by offering unsought explanations. If he was so keen to kill a defenseless girl, Jet him. She was, of course, too young for it to occur to her that he himself might, beneath his harsh manner, feel grieved and sorrowful. In telling him of her mother, she had been concerned simply to let him know who it was he would be killing--a girl as well derived as himself, or nearly; his kinswoman, one whose resemblance to the legendary Nokomis was no mere coincidence.
After an even longer silence he said, "I talked to you without mincing words because I think you ought to realize how much misery and suffering you've caused with your treachery and your cold-hearted deceit of that Katrian lad. You broke his heart--do you know that? I had plenty of time in Dari-Paltesh to get to know it. He couldn't believe you'd done that to him: yet there it was, beyond doubt or argument. While you were living in luxury in the upper city, he was keeping half-alive on filthy scraps, with nothing to think about but the false words you'd said and the promises you'd broken."
She answered nothing, only looking him in the eye and waiting.
"Do you want to say anything?" he asked.
"No, thank you."
"Well, there are one or two things puzzling me, so perhaps I'll go on to ask you some questions. First, was it on orders from Kembri that you went with me to Suba?"
"Yes."
"But I suppose--I want to be fair to you, Maia--you had no alternative?"
"Not really. Only I hated you then, see. By the time we'd reached Suba I didn't hate you any more."
This seemed to take him aback; he hesitated, thrown out of his customary, bleak composure. After a pause he went on, "Then I suppose that it was just a matter of your own self-interest being too strong, was it? Here was this golden opportunity to make your fortune and you took it?"
Of all that she had been accused of that evening, the thing--naturally--which had cut her to the heart had been the unquestioning assumption that she had deliberately deceived Zen-Kurel, that she had felt no sincerity and had gone about to seduce him for her own gain. She could not, would not speak of it.
"You can suppose what you like, Anda-Nokomis."
"Very well. Now there's something else: something that struck me as odd while we were coming here. Those Lapanese soldiers who were with us--they knew you'd swum the river, of course, but they told me that no one had ever learned how you discovered Karnat's plan: it was commonly believed that Karnat himself must have told you."
"Anybody wants to think it was Karnat, that's their business."
"You never told Kembri or Sendekar what actually happened?"
"No, nor any of the Leopards."
"Then may I ask, lastly, why you went to the trouble and risk of releasing us and getting us out of Bekla?"
She shook her head.
"I suppose you're working for Erketlis now, are you? He pays better, or he's going to win and there's still time to change, is that it?"
Once again, it did not occur to her that the mordancy and scorn in his manner might flow from his own pride and pain; from his sense of disillusion with someone for whom he had allowed himself the rare luxury of feeling affection. Nor did it occur to her that he might want her-- might almost be begging her--to tell him he was wrong, to give him an explanation which would somehow or other clear things up. All she knew was that apparently neither he nor Zenka had been able to see all that was plain as noonday; Gehta and her dad's farm, poor Sphelthon at the ford, the detachment of three hundred Tonildans downstream of Rallur, the horrible risk of death to which she had twice exposed herself in order to save--amongst oth-ers--two people she loved and who, whatever they might have suffered, were now indisputably alive. She felt ready to weep with chagrin. Mercifully, Occula came boiling up.
"You dirty, rotten, basting venda!"
"Ah, unmistakably one of Sencho's young ladies! Perhaps--"
But before he could say more, his name was being called from up by the sestuagas and a few moments later Zirek came running along the bank.
''Sorry to interrupt you, Anda-Nokomis, sir--you too, Maia--but there's wonderful news! Captain Zen-Kurel's taken a great turn for the better! He's in his right mind and he's been talking to me. I've told him to stay quiet, of course: but he's made a good supper and he seems comfortable. He asked me to say would you go and see him, Anda-Nokomis."
"Thank you," said Bayub-Otal. "I'll go at once."
He walked away towards the house.
Zirek clapped Maia on the shoulder. "I'm a pedlar, remember? I sell anything--good news an' all! It's cheap to pretty girls like you, too--only a kiss."
Absently, she put one arm round his neck and kissed his cheek. He raised a hand to his face.
"Tears, eh? Well, it's natural, I suppose. You love him, don't you?"
Of course, she thought, he did not know that she had overheard what Zen-Kurel had said. Himself a good-na-tured, easy-going fellow, he had probably discounted it, anyway, as the petulance of a sick man who had had a bad time.
After a moment he laughed.
"Come on, Maia! You can't fool the demon pedlar of Tonilda! D'you think I can't see what's plain before my eyes?"
"There's some can and some can't," she said, and wandered away along the bank, where the bats had begun hunting for moths in the dusk.
"Kill her?" said Bayub-Otal, with an air of indifference, moving the candle to where it no longer shone into Zen-Kurel's eyes. "Well, from all that Zirek fellow's told me, I'm sure Fornis would be happy enough to do that for you."
"Before she kills us, I mean," said Zen-Kurel. "Otherwise how can we feel safe? We know what she's capable of, don't we?"
"Well, you certainly make it sound very convincing. Would you care to do it, perhaps?"
"How can I do it while I'm like this, Anda-Nokomis?"