Maia

by Richard Adams

  "There's only one thing it could be made of," said Maia. "Ortelgan rope: probably with bells, to give warning if a boat runs on it at night."

  "Can't we cut it, then?"

  "They wouldn't have a boom if you could get past it

  that easy. It'll be nearly as thick as your arm, and winched up level with the surface. There'll be a frontier post with bowmen, for sure."

  "But if we stop they'll recognize us," said Bayub-Otal. "This hand of mine-everyone knows what I look like: you too, Maia, come to that. And they'll be Leopard soldiers, probably warned already to look out for us. Anyone in Bekla would guess that since we escaped I'd be trying to get to Suba. If we're brought ashore in Belishba we'll be seized and held; that's certain."

  "Perhaps I could bribe them," said Maia.

  Zen-Kurel shook his head. "They all hate Katrians too much, my darling. They'd only take all you'd got and then send us back to Bekla; there or Dari."

  No one spoke for more than half a minute, while the boat, rain-heavy again now, drifted on in the dusk. The only sounds were the creak of the steering-oar and the rain on the timbers.

  "Here's what we'll do," said Maia suddenly, "and you'd just better listen, the both of you, 'cos there's no time to think of anything else. There's the guard-houses now, look, only just down there. See the lights?"

  Zen-Kurel looked where she was pointing. "Gods! One each side! Who'd have thought it? And look, further down still there's a village; can you see? That must be in Katria!"

  "Will you only listen?" she said again. "It's ten to one there'll be no one actually outside in all this rain. That means we won't be spotted until we hit the boom. Then I reckon it'll go taut and ring a bell. Each of you get hold of an oar, now. I'll take the boat over towards the left bank and run her on the boom sideways on, best as I can. Then you'll both have to jump for it. The oars'U hold you up, near enough, to go down a hundred yards and get ashore."

  "But what about you?" asked Zen-Kurel.

  "Soon as you've gone I'll dive in and swim under water far 's I can. I'll be there 'fore you, no danger. Might give you a hand out, even." She gave each of them a quick kiss. "Now grab your oars and get over that side, 'cos here it comes.'

  She leant hard on the steering-oar, turning the boat to port as they drifted down towards the guard-huts facing each other on opposite sides of the river. The smoke from their chimneys hung low over the roofs and lamps were

  alight inside. She could hear male voices, but there was not a soul to be seen. Good!

  On either side, sticking up out of the flood water between the huts and the river, were two stout posts. Their tops were cloven, and in these grooves ran, as she expected, a thick rope. Upon the river side of each hung a bell as big as her head. She couldn't see how the ends of the rope were secured; probably to iron rings, she supposed, but all she was looking at was the river between. About ten feet out on each side the rope, sagging, disappeared into the water. How far would it be under in the middle, then? Could she have hoped to sail over it?" Hardly; they'd have thought of that. It wouldn't have been worth the risk to try: if it had turned out wrong her men would never have been able to reach the bank from midstream. Anyway, it was too late to change now.

  Ahead she could see a regular undulation where the river flowed over the rope. With all her strength she shoved the handle of the oar over to starboard. The boat turned and checked broadside on to the stream: then the starboard beam drifted gently against the rope. The boat listed but the rope gave only slightly-less than she'd expected.

  "Now!" she cried, and in the same moment heard both the bells ringing. Anda-Nokomis and Zenka, clutching their oars, flung themselves over the starboard side.

  Maia remained standing in the tilted stern, clutching the steering-oar to keep her balance. This was the bit she hadn't told them about. She unbuttoned her tunic, letting it hang open, and ripped her shift to the waist.

  A voice was shouting "Turn out! Turn out!" Soldiers, one or two with torches, others stringing their bows, were pouring out of both guard-huts, peering into the rain as their eyes adjusted to the almost-gone light.

  "Help!" she cried. "Help me! Oh, Cran, I'll drown if you don't help me!"

  "What the hell d'you think you're doing, girl?" shouted one of the men; the tryzatt, she supposed. "Where've you come from?"

  "I didn't know about the rope!" she shouted. "Oh, please help me!"

  "Well, you know now," answered the tryzatt. "You mean you're alone?"

  "Yes: I took the boat to run away from home. Please help me!"

  "My stars, just look at her!" shouted another of the soldiers.

  "Can you swim?"

  "A little, yes. Oh, but I'm so frightened!"

  No one had spotted her men yet; she mustn't look in their direction for fear of drawing attention to them. By now they might have had almost long enough to get ashore and out of bowshot.

  At this point the matter was taken out of her hands. A sudden, sharp impulse of the current tilted the boat yet further, though still it hung against the ropes. Water came pouring over the starboard side. It was going to sink.

  Maia plunged forward and under water. Although she kept her eyes open, she could see nothing. The current was swift and full of frightening drags and counterflows in which she was tugged helplessly one way and another. Obviously she was going downstream, but in which direction-right or left-she had no idea. She swam on for as long as her breath would hold, then came up, turned her head and looked quickly behind her.

  Her heart sank. She must have gone from side to side, for she was no more than thirty or forty yards down from the rope, if that. On either shore there seemed to be something like twenty men, all gazing intently downstream. At that very moment one of them saw her and pointed.

  "There she is, look!"

  "Come in to the bank, girl," shouted the tryzatt, "else we'll have to shoot, and I mean it!"

  She dived again, trying, in the swirling mirk, to swim to her left. Her head seemed splitting, now, and she felt so feverish and ill that she hardly knew what she was doing. Yet when she came up once more she was much further downstream and closer in to the left bank, where the water was lying almost level with the top of the dyke.

  "There she is!" came the cry again. She looked round. Two or three soldiers, their bows in their hands, had run along the bank from the guard-hut and were approaching her. She was utterly spent, yet she turned and swam on. She had not gone ten yards before a swift "Whaup!" sounded close to her ear. A moment later she saw the arrow floating a foot or two ahead.

  I can't do any more: I'm drowning: I'll have to come ashore. Lespa be praised, they haven't seen Zenka and Anda-Nokomis: they must have got away. I shan't even

  be able to try to escape: I'm as sick as ever I've been in my life. O Zenka, just when we'd found each other again! I'm so sorry, my darling!

  With a few last, failing strokes she reached the dyke wall. The top was only a few inches above her. She put her hands on it, pushed feebly upward and got her chin on the coping, but she could do no more. Trying to pull herself up and out she sank back, sobbing with pain, with the grief of loss and the bitterness of defeat. And now, in her delirium, it seemed as though Queen Fornis herself was standing on the bank, her green eyes staring as once in the archery field. "Two of them I did myself!" What cruelty would be devised for her?

  Two soldiers were striding towards her through the nightfall. Their footsteps came crunching over the loose shingle and as they drew closer she could see the Leopard cognizances on their shoulders.

  "Ah, my lass! Not so clever after all, were you?" said one. "That's the end of that little game, then. Come on, now, up with you!" He stopped, gripping her wrists and dragged her roughly over the wall.

  "It's not all that far back, Yellib," said the other. "We can carry her easy enough." They had her between them now, holding her by the arms and legs.

  "Stop!"

  Both men started and looked round. Anda-Nokomis, soaking wet from h
ead to foot and almost as tall as the splintered oar he was still carrying, was stalking towards them. As he strode up they stood rooted to the spot. Authority surged from every inch of him as menace from a crouching wolf.

  "You are violating the frontier!" Without taking his eyes from them, he indicated Maia with a gesture like that of Frella-Tiltheh pointing to the tamarrik seed. "You have no business here! Leave that girl instantly and get back where you belong!"

  They obeyed him, laying her down on the soggy, granular shingle. As they straightened up, however, one of them found his voice.

  " 'E's only one man, ain't he?"

  "That's right," said the other. Then, to Anda-Nokomis, "Who are you, anyway?"

  "How dare you question me?" thundered Anda-No-

  komis. "I am the Ban of Suba, and if you do not immediately take yourselves back over the frontier-"

  In that moment an arrow, flying out of the half-dark, struck him with terrible force just where neck met shoulder, burying itself four inches deep. A great spout of blood gushed out. Anda-Nokomis staggered and fell to the ground as a third soldier came running up, triumphantly waving his bow.

  But now, from a little distance away, came cries of anger and attack, running feet and threats uttered in a foreign tongue. The newcomer pulled at his comrades' arms.

  "Come on, here's the basting Katriaris! We'd best get the hell out of it, quick! Have to leave the girl, else they'll have us!"

  And thereupon all three turned and disappeared upstream.

  Maia dragged herself to her hands and knees. Specks of light were floating before her eyes and all manner of water sounds, real and unreal, coming and going in her ears. Slowly she gained her feet. Anda-Nokomis had fallen on one side. His blood was pouring over the gravelly shingle. She staggered across to where he lay, knelt beside him and took his head on her arm.

  "Anda-Nokomis."

  He stared past her, and she laid one hand against his cheek.

  "Anda-Nokomis, it's Maia! It's your Maia here!"

  Suddenly his eyes saw her, he recognized her. His terrible, blood-slobbering mouth moved and seemed to smile. He was trying to speak. She bent her head and kissed him.

  "Anda-Nokomis-"

  He grasped her wrist. Quite clearly, he whispered, "When Suba's free, you and I, we'll-" Then his hand dropped and his head fell sideways on her arm.

  Someone was standing beside her. She looked up. It was Zenka. There were others all around-soldiers, some of them, and rough-looking villagers like those she'd seen in Suba, carrying clubs and mattocks, their hair and beards beaded with the rain.

  "Maia! I brought them as quick as I could Oh, gods, what's happened? Anda-Nokomis-"

  She clutched him round the legs, sobbing hysterically. Then everything grew indistinct, and she fell unconscious across the blood-drenched body of the Ban of Suba.

  They carried her up the slope from the river to the houses-Zhithlir, southernmost village of Katria. The women and children crowded at the doors, staring silently as they slipped and staggered along the mud-churned street towards the Elder's house. Zen-Kurel limped beside Maia, himself scarcely able to keep up with the soldiers.

  "You'll give her a bed and look after her, won't you?"

  "Don't worry, sir," answered the Katrian tryzatt. "She couldn't have struck luckier, as it happens. There's an army doctor here on his rounds of the frontier posts."

  "Lucky?" said Zen-Kurel. "Yes, she's always been lucky, tryzatt, you know. The gods are with her, else I wouldn't be here now." He turned and looked back at those carrying the body of Anda-Nokomis, the arrow still embedded above his collar-bone.

  "He never had any luck, poor man. Not once."

  "Oh, really, sir? That's bad, now," replied the tryzatt stolidly, riot knowing what else to say.

  Zen-Kurel looked round him at the pall of wood-smoke, the dripping thatch of the roofs and the muddy alleys channeled with rivulets. Every hut, he now saw, had fastened to its door a wreath of yew or of cypress. The soldiers were wearing black ribbons at their shoulders, and from the roof of the Elder's house, as they approached it, a black flag drooped like a great, dead crow hung on a post.

  "What's this, tryzatt? That flag, the wreaths-"

  The tryzatt turned to stare.

  "You mean you haven't heard, sir?"

  "Heard what?"

  "The king, sir. King Kamat was killed in battle four days ago, over on the western border. They've brought the body back to Kenalt for burning tomorrow."

  Stunned, Zen-Kurel made no reply, halting a moment and then wandering on a few paces apart. Yet by the time they reached the Elder's house he had recovered himself sufficiently to be able to give an account of how the Ban of Suba and himself had escaped from Bekla, thanks to the heroic help of none other than Maia Serrelinda, who had brought them safely through Purn and then down the Zhairgen to the frontier.

  They heated water for him, gave him wine and food and prepared him a bed. Throughout the night, however, he sat watching beside Maia. Towards morning she woke, still weak and feverish but clear-headed, spoke to him and wept

  bitterly for Anda-Nokomis. She told him, too, how in the misery of her heart she had reflected that if love could not express itself in fulfillment it could do so only in sacrifice. "But it wasn't me," she sobbed, "it wasn't me, in the end, as made that sacrifice!"

  At this Zen-Kurel wept too. "He insisted on waiting for

  you on the shore. He said I was the one who must go for

  help, because they'd take more notice of a Katrian."

  "If he hadn't done what he did, they'd 'a come too late."

  Maia remained low and grief-stricken for several days.

  But she was a strong, healthy girl, the doctor said, and

  with rest and care would be right enough in a week or two.

  103: REUNION IN KERIL

  It was nearly two years later. The summer was proving prosperous, pasture and stock thriving and crops ripening towards harvest. There were some weeks to go until the dog days: trees, grass and flowers were still fresh and verdant, the breezes cool but the streams, even in northern Katria, delightfully warm for splashing and lazing. For a one-year-old it was perfect weather; weather for crawling about in the sunshine and getting into everything, picking things up and stuffing them in the mouth unless or until they were removed; standing up and taking a few triumphant steps before falling flat with a howl to be snatched up and comforted by the Suban nurse; for being bounced up and down by one's joyous mother in the shadows, with screwed-up face and vocal noises interpretable by the affectionate and indulgent (and what other kinds of people might inhabit the world, pray?) as intelligible speech. The gold-and-purple kynat had come, bringing warm days and the gods' blessing, filling fields, woods and the hearts of hearers with its fluting call, "Kynat, Kynat will tell!" The blue-finches sang, black-and-white plovers tumbled headlong from sky to earth and of an evening the trout rose to the gfyon fly.

  Keril-Katria was a pleasant enough town, thought Maia, strolling in the cool of the late afternoon along the tree-lined thoroughfare now known as King Karnat Avenue. Of course it was not remotely comparable with Bekla. There was hardly a single stone building, though a few were

  of brick. Most, however, were like those in Melvda-Rain- long, one-story houses of wood, painted outside in the bright colors as much favored by Katrians as by Subans. However, it was reasonably clean and safe to walk about in, possessed a number of quite good shops and honest traders once you knew where to look for them, and could even offer a certain amount of entertainment-jugglers, acrobats and dancers-well, passable dancers, if you could contrive to forget what you remembered and do your best to appreciate the Katrian style. In fact it was a nice enough place for a little jaunt, a trip to town; with quite a generous bit of pin-money, too, a couple of serving-men from the estate tor attendants and the Suban girl to look after little Zen-Otal (or Anda-Serrelinda, as most called him at home) and take him off her hands when she wanted a respite from the happ
y, arduous business of motherhood. It certainly afforded a pleasant break from fulfilling the duties of mistress of the household (to say nothing of those of the dutiful, affectionate daughter-in-law) throughout Melekril and spring on the remote estate. Things had gone well enough, though. In fact, they'd been very happy and enjoyable- better than the first Melekril and spring, the early months of her marriage.

  It had not been easy to begin with. She had been heavily dependent upon Zen-Kurel's devotion to build up any true sense of security and confidence in her new country, her new people and surroundings. For a start, there had been the language. Katrian Chistol-to say nothing of the dialect spoken by most people on the estate-bore little resemblance to Beklan: it was in effect another tongue. Zenka had had to find her an interpreter-that same Suban girl who had now become Zen-Otal's nurse. After about a year, however, she could rub along fairly well in Chistol, though the woodmen and the laundry maids still floored her at times. Still, she could joke with them about it now: she'd come to know them all so well.

  Then there were the difficulties inseparable from her position as Zenka's wife, and mistress of the estate. Maia had not been born to authority or brought up to expect to have any. The Serrelinda, of course, had had authority, but it had been of an unusual kind-that of a public darling, a talismanic beauty and heroine, with no functions to fulfill beyond those of existing and being seen; a golden meteor, trailing light. (And indeed only last year a far-ranging ped-

  lar from the empire, complete with scarlet hat, green shirt and white-striped jerkin-he even looked a bit tike Zirek: it had brought a tear to her eye-had told her that what people in Bekla now said of the comet was that it had presaged the passing of the Serrelinda.) In Bekla she had never had duties to perform or decisions to make on behalf of others. She had had to begin as a complete learner; but the housekeeper, the head cook, the baker, the clarzil- the old beldame who minded their infants for the women out working in the fields-they'd all backed her up loyally and pulled and pushed her here and there while she was getting the hang of things. She suspected that Zen-Kurel had told them to make sure they did, and let him not hear anything to the contrary. But in thinking this she failed to give herself credit for her own likable nature and pleasant manner of dealing with people. Maia possessed natural charm and what are sometimes called "pretty ways." Men will work for advancement or wealth, for a principle or a common cause. Women, by and large, work best for people they like. Little by little Maia began to exercise authority because she came to realize that the others wanted her to. In any society, someone has to give the orders and decide what is going to be done; but most prefer someone else to do this on their behalf. Maia had first to learn that authority was expected of her and then, as it werevto put it on and wear it without tripping over the hem. It had been difficult, and more than once she had lain awake beside Zen-Kurel (with Anda-Serrelinda kicking her from within) having all sorts of second thoughts and hoping to Cran that what she had said was to be done tomorrow would turn out to be all right.