by Mary Corran
What can I do?
The answer was obvious; she could give him the promise he wanted, and did not understand why she still hesitated. Was it simply stubbornness, resisting the sensible solution for no apparent reason other than the salvation of her pride? If so, then she would give her word. Or lose him, and the loneliness would return, and this time there would be no end to it.
She stared up at the moons, her vision blurring as she watched, as if clouds had been blown across their faces, and Asher thought she saw in the skies a comet’s trail divided into three distinct tails, one solid, the two to either side thin and wavering.
I treated Mallory as badly as some men treat women, the way Sim and his friends behaved to us; as if his views and feelings didn’t matter. Is this the only way for women to be independent, by behaving with the same disregard men show us? Could they not be friends, companions, instead of enemies? It shamed her deeply that Mallory had shown himself capable of such a relationship where she had not. His concern for her was evidence it was so, his continued attempts to overcome a disposition which had been trained to habits of authority; which was only the way of the world, and no fault of his.
As the comet trail faded, she wondered drearily whether she should make a wish, for it was said to be lucky; but she did not feel as if anything would ever be lucky for her again, as if she had wasted her share of good fortune with a profligacy that appalled her.
When we’ve been to the camp. When we’ve seen if this girl is Vallis, then I’ll tell him I’m sorry, and hope he’s generous enough to forgive me. If he did not, she would have to accept her loss and remember the fault was her own. It was all she could do.
She sat by the window until dawn came up, revealing red skies as a promise of heavy rain; the visit to the camp would have to wait for another day, for the prisoners would hardly work in such weather.
Unthinkingly, her left hand slipped up to the chain round her neck, fingering the charm. For a moment it puzzled her, her mother’s gift feeling briefly like an unwelcome constriction, and she was tempted to tear it off, but she did not. She had removed the ring Omond had given her, and went over to the bed and recovered it from its hiding place under her pillow. That, at least, she would wear, in token of her better resolution. She got back into bed and slipped it on; that was one promise to Mallory she could make, and keep.
Chapter Ten
‘I suppose these blasted things are doing it deliberately?’ Mallory inquired irritably, as yet another of the goats slipped past him and headed back downhill towards the slow-flowing River Esperance.
‘Perhaps we should pretend to be going the other way — then they’d climb up,’ Asher suggested.
‘I thought Loder said these creatures were used to being driven!’ Exasperated, he swung his stick towards the rump of the billy-goat nearest to him, which responded by trying to eat the tip.
‘At least you’re wearing your own boots. Ish’s are big enough for a giant.’
Mallory looked down at the cause of her complaint and found himself sympathizing; the hill was steep and slippery enough without trying to clamber about in footwear that threatened to slip off at every step. Asher, dressed in Ish’s clothes as well as his boots, made quite a reasonable boy at a distance; close to, however, her features were too obviously female to pass muster. He hoped no one would come sufficiently near to notice.
‘Come on, you brutes!’ He began to climb again, and, with the perversity of their kind, the goats decided up was more interesting than down and followed — or, rather, led, leaping with effortless ease up the steepest possible path. The watchfulness of the Kamiri guards at the camp had persuaded Mallory some form of disguise was a necessity, and Loder, the owner of the goats, whose smallholding lay near the base of the hill, had been willing to loan them — for a price. Mallory was beginning to wonder if even a copper coin was too much.
‘Is that a cave?’ Asher asked, pointing to a shadowed depression just below the false crown of Gaunt Hill.
‘I think so.’ One of the goats disappeared inside the recess, bell tinkling distantly, only to reappear almost at once, chewing contemplatively. ‘It’s not far now.’
‘Good!’
They had set off before dawn after two wasted days when rain had fallen in sheets, making the venture pointless since, even if the prisoners were taken out to work in the quarry, their faces would be invisible through the downpour. They had left the horses some way from the base of the hill, unsure whether two riders might not be regarded with suspicion by the guard, for the camp occupied the highest piece of ground for miles around and strangers could be spotted all too easily, the original reason the old fort had been built on Gaunt Hill by a robber band a hundred years before. The Kamiri had seen its advantages and made use of it; the camp could only be approached from one direction — the west — since from all others the sides were too vertiginous for even a goat to scale.
They crested the first peak and found themselves staring across at the second; to reach it, they had to descend to a narrow gully, then climb again up a mostly barren slope, the upper reaches deliberately denuded of vegetation, to a height several hundred feet above their present position. The high walls of the old fort had been strengthened and reinforced, and two watchtowers added for security. Mallory could just make out the tiny figures of guards in each.
‘Where should we watch from?’
He peered down towards the gully at the sparsely wooded slope and pointed to a jumble of rocks halfway. ‘There, I think. There should be enough cover, and we’ll get a good view of the quarry.’
Asher nodded. ‘I agree.’
It was obvious that at some time in the fairly recent past a firestorm had passed directly over the hill, for much of the undergrowth had been burned away, leaving blackened scars; however, much of the serious deforestation was evidently the work of local farmers, and of the Kamiri themselves, for there were more neat stumps than standing trees dotting the hillside.
‘I wish it weren’t so open.’ Mallory frowned. ‘Oh, well. Let’s go.’
The herd had already split up and spread out over the slope, bells tinkling in every direction; one stood perched precariously on a narrow ledge overhanging a perilous drop. Mallory was glad Loder had offered to gather them himself, and equally thankful he did not have to make his living escorting such uncooperative beasts; although, glancing at Asher, he thought he recognized a similar recalcitrance in his companion.
‘Isn’t it horrible?’ She was staring up at the grey walls of the camp, rearing up towards the skies, apparently impregnable. Even so early in the day, guards manned each corner of the forbidding structure. Mallory wondered how many prisoners were inside. Would it even be possible to rescue one of them, if the girl they had come to find proved to be Vallis? It looked a hopeless endeavour.
The jumble of rocks proved better suited to their concealment than he had expected; two large boulders, a crack between them, hid them from sight to the fore, and another, overhead, leaned forward, providing shelter from above. It was rather like being inside a cairn, and Mallory and Asher slipped inside and sat down to wait, Mallory unwrapping a small portable telescope from inside his jacket. The quarry was almost directly opposite their hiding place, a deep pit dug into the further hillside, perhaps two hundred feet or more in diameter; he could make out wooden-runged ladders leaning against the walls and some sort of pulley mechanism on the rim nearest to them, presumably used to lift cut stone from the pit.
‘How soon, do you think?’ Asher asked softly.
‘Anytime now.’ She looked tired, dark rings under her eyes suggesting she had not slept well for days; the high, narrow cheekbones were more prominent than a week ago, and in her boy’s clothes she looked smaller and slighter than her normal self. That she was obviously unhappy softened him towards her; since their argument at Kepesake they had spoken little, but he had had time to reflect on the points of conflict and to try to understand a little the reasons for her rashness. Whom, a
fter all, had she been able to trust in all the years since her disappearance? Why should she place reliance even on himself when he had not been there when she needed him? His feelings for her at that moment were a mixture of frustration and admiration; frustration for her cussedness, and admiration for her courage and strength of will.
‘Do you think she’ll be there?’
Mallory started, temporarily forgetful of his surroundings. ‘How should I know? We can only hope.’
She turned back to the crack in the boulders, watching the gates of the camp. He shared some of her tension; if this girl should not be Vallis, where else could she be?
‘How do we recognize her?’ she asked suddenly.
‘When she was small, they say she looked very like her father; she was dark, like him. But I think if we see her, we’ll know. Otherwise why have we come?’
The hills were very still; around them hummed the buzz of insects, the chirps of birds, and the chiming bells of the goats. The suddenness of the grating sound from the camp shattered the stillness and made them both jump.
‘They’re coming.’ Asher did not make the mistake of pointing, but Mallory, looking toward the camp, saw gates being opened. Asher stroked the ring on her middle finger in a nervous gesture.
A long line of people began to stream from the camp in single file. Mallory counted at least forty prisoners and more than a dozen guards, with even larger numbers of scent-hounds.
‘They’re taking no chances,’ he whispered. No prisoner could hope to escape alone in such open terrain against these odds.
‘No.’
The group was still too far away for Mallory to identify individuals, all dressed identically in brown tunics and trousers; only their shapes and movement told him there were several women as well as men in the party. Compared with their guards, the prisoners looked short, none approaching the height of the Kamiri, and Mallory felt renewed loathing for the invaders who herded their prisoners — his own people — like so many sheep, depriving them of their dignity as well as their freedom. This girl must be Vallis; she must.
‘They’re too close together; I can’t see,’ Asher said impatiently.
‘They’ll spread out when they get down to work.’ Even as he spoke, several of the brown-clad figures were already descending into the pit via the ladders, their guards arranging themselves about the edge, some of the hounds now loosed but most on long leashes held in the hands of the grey men. Shouted orders could be heard in the distance, and in a short time only two brown figures were still on the rim, standing by the pulley; unfortunately, a guard obscured his view, and Mallory could see neither prisoner clearly.
‘Get out of the way,’ he muttered.
The wind, which had been only a gentle breeze, was growing stronger, coming now from the north-west; against the sky ominous orange-grey clouds were forming still some distance away. Mallory noticed the change and crossed his fingers, hoping they would come no closer, although there was a breathless feel to the air that came as a warning.
‘Where’s the glass — I can’t see that one,’ Asher whispered.
‘Which one?’ Holding up the telescope, Mallory looked towards the quarry.
‘The one wheeling the barrow.’
The guards had moved away and he now had a clear view, briefly, of all the prisoners. A quick glance assured him there were only half a dozen women, most of them in their thirties or forties. He sought out one who looked younger, but saw at once it could not be Vallis; not only was she too old, but fair-haired, where the young Vallis was dark, like both her parents.
He turned the telescope on the two women working the pulley, one of whom was certainly young, from her demeanour. She was very tall for a woman, with long, narrow bones, and for a moment his heart leaped; but then she turned, and he saw that what he had imagined was dark hair was only a trick of the light. The girl was about the right age, but her hair was almost white, her appearance subtly alien, separating her from her companions; this was no Darrianite. Although he could not see her eyes, he knew they would be a deep greyish-brown, the brows and lashes as pale as her hair.
‘But that’s a Saff girl,’ Asher protested. ‘What’s she doing here?’
‘I can’t imagine.’ Feverishly, he fixed on each prisoner in turn, unwilling to accept that the worst had transpired: the girl was not in the quarry. And probably not in the camp at all. Mallory tried to tell himself her absence was due to accident, or some other excuse — that she was ill or injured — but he could not help himself believing she was simply not there.
‘She’s not there, is she?’ Asher’s despairing whisper echoed his fear.
‘I don’t think so,’ he answered shortly, filled with a consuming disappointment. If the girl was in the camp, they had no means of discovering her unless she came out with the work party; if she was not, they would have to begin all over again, and he had no idea where to start.
‘It’s my fault. We wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t suggested it.’
‘Don’t be silly. How could you have known?’ He felt constrained to try to lift some of the burden of failure from her. He had, after all, been as anxious as she to believe this the solution to Vallis’ disappearance.
‘That woman — the one who escaped to Saffra — this must be what she wanted to say, that one of their people was here.’ Asher sounded utterly defeated.
‘I wonder how she got here?’ It was rare for the Saff to venture outside their own lands, and he had never met one as young as this girl, who could be no more than twenty. Even Amrist received their roving ambassadors with an overt respect for members of a race he neither understood nor had any power to dominate; in any case, their status as neutrals in any dispute, offering only refuge but not assistance, meant they presented no threat to his military authority.
‘What do we do now?’
‘Don’t give up, Ash.’ He put a hand on her arm, taken aback as she flinched from his touch. ‘This is only the first try. We’ll find her, you’ll see, even if we have to look somewhere else.’ He wondered bitterly if he would ever be able to offer her more than a friendly hand, or whether the scars of her marriage went too deep to heal, and knew a flare of impatience with himself, and, unfairly, with her, for his frustration.
‘But I don’t know where else to look. I don’t know what the Oracle meant, if this was wrong. Unless the Oracle is false.’
‘Yes, you do know. You can find her,’ Mallory contradicted. ‘If the Oracle said so, it was true. Think.’
‘But I don’t know where to begin.’ She turned away in despair.
‘Don’t!’ He had not expected her to take it so hard. ‘This isn’t like you. Ash, you don’t give up.’
‘Perhaps I should learn how.’
He thought at first she was joking, then realized she was in earnest. There was anguish in her expression, as if she had lost everything she held dear, and Mallory was silenced by feelings of inadequacy not entirely free from exasperation.
‘Do you want to go back now?’ she asked, after a short period of silence.
‘There’s no hurry.’
Mallory watched the prisoners morosely, wishing it were possible to stage a mass exodus; it was intolerable to have to leave them in this place. At a distance, it was possible to be pragmatic about their collective existence, but close to he could not ignore the stooped backs and weary faces; the women disturbed him most, working alongside the men, taking their share of the heaviest tasks. It seemed unnatural, and he was shocked that none of the men thought to help as two struggled to hoist a weighty block of stone on to a wooden cart.
Each of them has a family, a home. It was Amrist and his Kamiri, in their quest for ever more lands to rule and gold to swell their coffers, who had condemned his people to this existence. There were those who admired Amrist’s achievement, his conquest of the known lands, as if his dream of an empire should be assessed of greater value than the aspirations of all those whose lives he destroyed, whether soldiers, or f
armers, or merchants, or their wives and children; Mallory was not among them.
Perhaps this is how Asher feels, for the women she tries to help. He had not grasped before how easy it was to overlook the plight of people who did not impinge directly on his own life. Sympathy there was, but a distant sympathy, tinged with impatience for those who must in some way have contributed to their plight. His thoughts wandered to some of the things Asher had told him of the poverty and ill-treatment of the women of Venture, and he was struck by his own automatic dismissal of much of what she had said; he had always believed that while men had a wider remit, it was somehow natural for women to spend their lives bearing and rearing children and caring for their husbands, as if in being born female this was what they wanted in life, not that they were sentenced to this form of life imprisonment by their menfolk.
Now, he could see it was not so great an exaggeration as he had imagined; bound by the necessity to care for their children, by the constrictions placed upon them by custom, they were almost as much prisoners as those in the quarry. Yet their function had a financial value and was vital to the economy of the cities of Darrian; without children, there was no purpose in building trading empires or cities. They might as well let it all rot and live on what they had. In giving birth to and bringing up the next generation, women were a significant force in the economy; unpaid and unregarded, their labours — in every sense — were quite as essential as those of their men.
His thoughts were uncomfortable; just as many ignored the plight of those in the internment camps — unseen, and thus out of mind — so they ignored this, too. Not nature, but the value placed on a woman’s labours, set her low in the scale. Why were Amrist’s soldiers, with their power of destruction, rated more highly than those who gave and nurtured life? Was it only that it was easier to reward aggression than generosity?
He was glad to be disturbed in his musings by a commotion from the pit. Peering across, Mallory realized he could no longer see clearly. While he had been absorbed in his private abstractions, it had grown dark as the orange-grey clouds he had seen earlier were blown directly overhead, their colour now more copper than orange; the air crackled with heat-energy. The wind had changed direction and brought the storm straight to them.