Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

"I only hope you're doing the right thing, lass," said he. "I suppose you know best; but it's not too late t'o change your mind even now, you know."

She shook her head, her eyes brimming.

"No, I can't do that. But I'll miss you, Zirek, very much I will. Don't forget me, will you?"

"That's not likely," answered he. "When I'm a rich man, with my own estate, I'll send for you to come and be my guest; you and your husband, eh?"

"Oh, Zirek--"

"Look, they're starting," he said quickly. "Don't get left behind, my pretty girl: that wouldn't do, would it? Might never get to Kat--I mean to Suba."

He grinned, putting a hand on her shoulder. "It's true what I said in the forest that night, you know. He is still in love with you. You wait and see if I'm not right. Only we never really seemed to get any time to talk, did we, you and me?"

He kissed her once more; then turned aside as Elleroth came up to wish her well. A minute or two later they were on their way.

Two of the soldiers were familiar with the country between the camp and Nybril; a half-wild, little-frequented district, the indeterminate borderland between Sarkid and Lapan. With these as guides they made their way unhurriedly downstream. All that morning they met no one, save for three young fellows out hawking and, later, an old man gathering sticks. This seemed encouraging. Local people, at least, were apparently ready to venture out on their normal business. Tolis asked the old man whether he was not afraid of robbers. The old man shrugged.

"One's always afraid. These are rough times. But you have to live, and I haven't much that any robber would want. I scratch a living and trust in the gods. What else can you do?" Maia gave him ten meld and they left him staring after them, shading his eyes with his hand.

After some six hours the guides were sure that they were now at least halfway to Nybril, and Tolis and Zen-Kurel began looking for a place to camp for the night.

Maia, having persuaded one of the soldiers to come with her to carry back her clothes, strolled half a mile upstream and swam down to cool off. Like the Urtans at the Olmen, the lad was disconcerted at her stripping naked, and she could not prevail upon him to walk back along the bank beside her. It was the same when she waded ashore: everyone was busy elsewhere. Yet in her absence they had done enough and more to show her what they felt for her. Camp had been pitched upon the edge of a little grove, and in the center of this they had erected for her an arbor with which Lespa herself might not have been displeased. Leafy boughs had been bent, interlaced and tied down to form a kind of hedge round a central patch of turf, and here they had made her a bed of pliant branches and a mattress of grass covered with cloaks. At its head, strands of scarlet trepsis had been entwined on the hedge-wall to read "Serrelinda."

Later that evening she danced for them: "Astiguata" and "The Long Reeds," two dances of Tonilda which she'd known from a child; artless stuff--hardly the thing to set the upper city alight. But then she had no Fordil--only their rhythmic clapping and a man who sang "Diddle did-dle di-do." Yet she enjoyed it, while to the men it was like water in a desert. After supper enough wood was collected to keep a fire going all night, sentries were posted and most of the men were soon asleep.

Maia lay wakeful. A few stars twinkled through the branches and she could just make out the gentle, continuous lapping of the river fifty yards away. Nearer by sounded the minute rustlings of the thicket in the sultry dark. They had given her a personal sentry--more as a mark of esteem than from any real need she might have to be guarded--and from time to time she could hear the man quietly moving or clearing his throat a little way off among the trees.

It seemed to her now, in that state of half-dreamlike imagination often induced by silence, night and fatigue, that she herself had been gliding away--yes, a year and longer now--upon a river fully as grim as that which Zirek had evoked in his tarpli for Meris. She thought of all those she had encountered, good and evil, who had gone under in that river--Sencho, Sphelthon, Tharrin, Durakkon, Milvushina, Jarvil, Randronoth, Meris. She thought, too, of those whom likely enough she would never meet again-- the three girls she still thought of as her sisters; Sednil, Ogma, Nennaunir, Otavis and above all, Occula. "O Lespa!" she prayed. "Sweet Lespa, that's preserved me through so much, preserve Occula too. Don't suffer that cruel woman to kill her; and let the two of us meet again one day. Le it be part of your dream."

She herself was still adrift on that river which had killed so many. Towards what falls was she drifting now and where would she come ashore? Danger, she thought, always danger, danger. I live in danger like a fish in water. Never a safe bed and a strong, loving arm round me, same as any girl back in Meerzat.

Suddenly she sat up quickly, startled by sounds of movement just outside the entrance to her bower.

The sentry was making some slight but deliberate noise to attract her attention. After a moment, his voice said, "Saiyett?"

"What is it?" she said sharply.

"There's one of the gentlemen wants to speak to you, but he says only if you're not too tired."

"Who is it?"

"It's the Suban lord, saiyett: Anda-Nokomis."

Anda-Nokomis, that chilly exemplar of propriety, the last man in the empire to make his way to a girl's bed at night! Her curiosity was aroused. Whatever he might want, it could not be her body: and whatever it was he wished to say, he was giving her the option of refusal. But then he would, wouldn't he?

What could conceivably be at the back of this? She really could not refrain from finding out.

"Very well," she answered. Drawing her cloak around her, she propped herself on her elbows and waited.

After a few moments Bayub-Otal, cloaked like herself, came quietly through the opening and sat down on the ground beside her. She could tell at once that he was agitated.

"Maia," he said, speaking just above a whisper, "thank you for letting me come. I haven't sent the s

entry away, so you needn't worry about appearing compromised. I need to talk to you alone, and there seemed no other opportunity."

"Not tomorrow, in Nybril?" She shrugged, putting on a little act of not being particularly interested but nevertheless bearing with his whim, however incorrect.

"I felt--I felt I ought to speak to you before we reach Nybril."

"Ought?Why, what have I--"

"No, no! I only meant--"

He stopped. She had never seen him so hesitant and unsure of himself. This was not the haughty, frigid lord of Suba whom she had come to know so well.

"I--" Then, suddenly, "Maia, what I want to say to you is that I've done you wrong. I've done a very grave wrong to your honor and integrity as a Suban, and I'm extremely sorry for it. May I ask your forgiveness?"

"Why, how's that, then, my lord?" This was disconcerting--embarrassing, too.

"Please don't call me that. Use my name,"

"Well, then, Anda-Nokomis, there's nothing to forgive."

"Oh, yes, there is. If you had treated my honor as a Suban as I've treated yours, I believe it would have driven me to--"

She put her hand on his. "Ah, well, but that's different, in't it? I'm not the Ban of Suba, am I?"

"I've slighted and insulted you on account of what you did before ever you knew yourself to be Suban. >I've altogether failed to realize the depth of your loyalty to me or your feeling for Suba."

I can't disabuse him, she thought. What good would it do? It'll be better for both of us if he goes on thinking I've been acting on account of being Suban. Zirek could see the truth, but not Anda-Nokomis, thank the gods.

"Well, dun't matter, Anda-Nokomis, honest. You needn't get so worked up; you're making me feel that awkward. Let's just say n'more about it. Reckon I'd 'a felt the same as you if I'd bin shut up all that time in that old fortress."

"If only you'd learned earlier that you were Suban--"