"But there's always ice and snow up North," said Leta.
"Sometimes yes and sometimes no," said Mara. "Thousands of years of one, and then thousands of years of the other. Once, in a warm time, the sands stretched here from sea to sea. I have never seen the sea."
"Well, who has?" said Leta. "The traders talk about it, but that's all."
"I have," said Daulis. "When I was a child. But I can hardly remember it. It was rough water, crashing on rocks."
"Salt," said Mara. "Salt water."
"Why salt?" asked Leta "The traders say it is salt, but they tell us all kinds of tall stories, to see how much we will swallow."
Now the coachmen came down from their hostel, and soon the coach was off again. The shaking and rattling went on. They had to stop so the coachmen could change places, and once there was another break in the line. Because of the delay they did not reach the outskirts of Kanaz until it was nearly dark. They decided to stop at the last inn of the coach run for the night. Daulis was known there, as a member of the Council, and he dared to claim the privilege of a suite of rooms. Mara asked if any message had been left for her by one Dann, though Leta told her to be careful. "You'll be safe when you are in Tundra, and not till then."
"And you? What will you do?"
"I will get employment as a maid in one of the inns in the Centre. And if I fail, I'll go to Mother Dalide's house here." "But you ran away from her," said Daulis.
"She was my mother. At least, I don't remember another one. She'll forgive me. And besides, my colour makes me a prize."
"Once everyone was your colour — where the Ice is now," said Mara. Leta was astonished. "Everyone? When?"
"Oh, thousands of years ago," said Mara, laughing and thinking that soon she would be like Shabis, who, when teaching her, used thousands of years as one might say, last summer. "And then, later, there were colonies of refugees from the Ice in north Ifrik."
"There is still a colony," said Daulis.
"Perhaps I should go there?" said Leta.
"Then you'll lose your rarity value," said Mara. "Better stay with us."
"If you want to travel with us north, please do," said Daulis. His voice was much more than kind; and he put his hand on her shoulder, smiling. "Come on, take your chances with us."
Mara said, "I'd miss you, Leta."
And now Leta looked at them both, serious, grateful, her usually hard face soft, and said, "I'll think about it."
"At least if you fail in Kanaz, come up after us."
"Fail at being a housemaid? But I don't intend to stay a housemaid. I'm ambitious. But I'll remember what you said. But where could I find you up North?"
"People find each other," said Mara. "I'm waiting for Dann to find me."
Next day they moved into a caravanserai in the heart of Kanaz, to wait for Dann. This city was different from Bilma, that trading town so full of people from everywhere. Kanaz was not polyglot and busy. It was populated by a people with lean, flat bodies, and sharp features. Mara had seen them before, on the walls of the ruins near the Rock Village. And here they were, just as if thousands of years and many migrations had not come and gone. They were phlegmatic, slow moving, and all over the town were buildings with turrets and towers that were, Daulis said, places of worship.
"Of what?" Leta and Mara asked, at the same time.
And he told them they believed in a powerful, invisible Being who could be put into a good temper, a mood to help favour, by these fanciful, brightly coloured buildings, inhabited by men and women who wore special clothes, walked about the streets chanting and shouting the name of this Being, and were the rulers of the town.
"And Kanaz is not under the jurisdiction of Bilma?" asked Mara.
In theory yes, but in practice no. This was one of the reasons the more intelligent of the Council of Bilma believed in the imminent end of their rule. Bilma did not have the strength to bring insubordinate provinces to heel, and while harmony prevailed on the surface, the two cities watched each other, waited. So Daulis explained, and went into details of the situation which interested Mara, but Leta, not much.
But then Daulis said to Leta, "If you stay here you will have two disadvantages."
"One I already know. I shall not be such a novelty here as I am farther south. I am only a little paler than some of the people here. And the other?"
"You will have to learn the special language and customs of the priests and pretend to believe in them, because they are cruel to anyone who does not at least pay lip-service to their rule."
"And how does Mother Dalide manage to prosper here, with her brothel, in such a town?"
"She pays the priests here just as she pays us in Bilma."
Meanwhile they were all nervous. This was the biggest travellers' inn, and there were bound to be spies, both from Bilma and the rulers here. But this was where Dann was bound to look for them. The decided to stay that night, not move to a less well known place but eat their food in their room, well away from the enormous room that took up most of the ground floor, where food and drink was served.
Or perhaps they themselves should go from inn to inn around the town, asking for Dann? Mara had never told anyone about the coins hidden under Dann's scar, but she told these friends now, to explain why she did not know if he would be working in some low place, in order to eat, or if he would be decently lodged somewhere. Or — but she did not say this aloud, kept it to herself — perhaps in some place where he is smoking poppy again. For she feared this for him more than anything.
Late that night, when they had decided to sleep, and not wait any longer, there was a commotion outside the door. Mara rose straight to her feet — she recognised Dann's voice. Then he was standing there, in the doorway, and behind him the servant who had tried to bar the way of this poor coachman in his torn tunic, with his bare dusty feet. Which Dann was this? — Mara wondered, but saw in his eyes the responsible Dann, the grown up man, though his whole body seemed wrung with apology and with supplication. And the two were in each other's arms, hugging and weeping, "Oh Mara, forgive me," and Mara, "Oh Dann, you are here." The other two sat on their floor cushions and watched, silent, until brother and sister at last were able to let each other go and stand back, and look. Then Dann said, "Mara, it was the other me, not me." "I know," said Mara and thought that Dann had never before acknowledged his division. Now Dann took Mara's hands, and said, "Mara, it is easy for me to say now that it will never happen again — but you've got to help me."
"And what could I have said that would have stopped you going to the gambling room that night?"
His face seemed to crumple, and it was hard for him to look at her; and then he rallied and said, "Mara, all you have to do is to remind me that I gambled you away, and you are the most precious thing, the most..." And they embraced again.
This scene might have gone on, but there was another loud exchange of voices outside, the door opened, and Dalide came in, her hands full of travelling bundles and bags. These she set down, and then looked around the room, not the inn's best, with the supper trays still on the floor in a corner, the faded floor cushions, and in a corner a pile of shabby sleeping pallets.
"Well, Councillor Daulis, this is not exactly the kind of place one expects to find you." To Leta she said, "Pile up some of those," and Leta made a high seat with the bed pallets. On this Dalide carefully disposed herself, and then looked at each of them in turn. And they waited, apprehensively, for each had reason to fear her.
This powerful woman looked like some doll or puppet, with a voluminous red cotton garment, for the dust, over her tight leather travelling outfit, and her sharp, black button eyes, her dyed orange-coloured hair.
"Councillor, you owe me for Mara — and I hear that I could have got twice as much for her."
"Not legally," said Daulis, and took out a bag of coins and laid it beside him.
She made a gesture — wait until later. And turned to Leta there on her cushion, "Well, Leta? Have I really treated you ba
dly?"
"No, Mother. But you know that I've always wanted to leave. And I have my quittance money."
Now Dalide turned to Mara. "I suppose you think that what you are going to find up in that Centre they talk about is going to be some kind of happy-ever-after? Well, I shouldn't count on it."
And now a long, very cold inspection of Dann, designed to shame him. He did manage to return her gaze, but they could all see he was not far off tears.
"Leta," Dalide said, "the woman who runs my house here wants to retire. Would you like to take her place?"
Leta did not seem able to take this in. She shifted about on her cushion, took her hand to her face in the beginnings of that gesture: It is all too much for me, dropped her hand, then she was sitting with both hands over her mouth, staring at Dalide. "You mean, stay here in Kanaz and run your Kanaz house?"
"That's what I said. You can do it. You are a clever woman. You know how I operate."
Daulis and Mara watched the struggle going on in Leta, and understood it. She had said she was ambitious, and the truth was that they could easily imagine her as the Mother Dalide of Kanaz.
"What makes you think I could deal with these praying people? I have no experience of them."
"They are just men. Like the Councillors. I have today paid them off for the coming year. And if there's trouble, I'm only a week away in Bilma. Or two days by coach."
"That means that yet again I'll not be able to walk about the streets without looking into the face of every man I meet to wonder if some time I've been his mattress."
"There's no need to sleep with them if you are running the place."
Leta was very still. Her eyes were fixed — staring inwards. And then she said, "Mother, I can't, I'm sorry. I think I'll go North with Mara and Daulis."
"And Dann," said Dalide. "Perhaps he'll gamble you away next."
Mara said, "Dalide, I gather you don't exactly discourage men from gambling away their women. And if you don't like Dann, then what about that little snake Bergos?"
"I don't have to like them for it," said Dalide. "Nor like Bergos. I'm a business woman. I see opportunities and I take them. And I'm not the only one who has agents in the Transit Eating House, to see what women are there to be bought or what men have got the gambling fever badly enough. Some of the Councillors, for instance — yes, Councillor
Daulis?" "I don't," he said.
"Some of your friends do." And now she said to Leta, "Give me your quittance price." "Mother," said Leta, "it is all I have."
This time it was in Dalide that a struggle took place. Her eyes were on the bag that held the quittance price, and then her face softened and she said, "Very well, keep it."
And now Leta flung herself forward, embraced Dalide's knees, pressed her face into the scarlet folds, and sobbed.
The great knot of pale hair, which glistened in the lamplight, stood out over her neck, and Dalide took out the pins, and the hair flooded down, like sunlight. Dalide sat stroking the hair, fingering it, lifting strands, letting the light play on it. The face of the ugly, little black woman was a marvel of regret, sorrow, and bitter humour. "Ever since you came to my house as a little girl, I've longed to have hair like this." And she patted her own orange spikes in a way that was rueful, comic and self-critical. "Leta, if you don't do well up North, then come back to me. I'm fond of you — though I daresay you've sometimes wondered." She pushed Leta away, and said to Daulis, "Give me Mara's price now."
"May I give it to you in Bilma?"
"No. I need it to pay for two new girls I'm taking back with me." Daulis gave her the bag with the money.
"At least with you I don't have to count it." She got to her feet. "And have you any messages for little Crethis?" Daulis shook his head. "And you, Leta?"
"Tell her... tell her."
"I know what to say. And are you coming back to Bilma, Councillor?" "I suppose I am. When I've done what I have to do." "When you've delivered these two Mahondis." "Who are these girls, Mother?" asked Leta.
"Local girls. One of these precious priests asked me if I wanted them. He bought them from their parents, just as I bought you, Leta. They'll be a nice change for the men, in my Bilma house. What do you say, Councillor?"
Daulis shook his head: Leave me alone. "How old are they?" asked Mara.
"They don't know how old they are. I would say ten or eleven. But they're underfed, so they look younger. I'll have them fed and prettied up in no time. Goodbye, Mara. You can't say you've done badly in my house. You've found a protector. Goodbye, Leta. Perhaps I'll see you again. I'll say goodbye to you, just in case, Councillor." She ignored Dann. And went out.
Leta ran to the window and they all crowded around her. Down in the street waited a carriage, with two mules. It was protected by a light awning, but they could see huddled together two little girls, who shrank away from Dalide when she got in and sat opposite them. Two frightened little faces: and they could hear the children's miserable sobbing.
Leta left the window, sank to a floor cushion, sat with her face in her hands, and swayed, back and forth, containing grief.
Daulis laid his hand on her shoulder and said, "That's all over for you, Leta." Then, "I'm going to sleep."
He threw a pallet into a corner, lay on it with his back to the room. Soon Leta did the same. Mara and Dann lay face to face on a single pallet and whispered to each other what had happened to them both in the last few days.
In the morning they sat around their breakfast trays, and made plans. How much money did each of them have? — was the main question.
Leta offered her quittance price, and Daulis said, "No, you keep it. We'd only use that as a last resort."
Dann said he had some change, but he was keeping it for an emergency.
"This situation not being emergency enough?" asked Daulis, and Dann laid out what he had, enough of the little coins for perhaps a day's lodging and a day's food.
What Daulis contributed was not much more: he had been counting on paying Dalide in Bilma.
Mara slipped her two hands up through her loose sleeves, untied her cord of coins and laid it down. "Eleven," she said.
"Treasures concealing treasures," said Daulis, and Leta looked sharply at him, while Dann said jealously, "I hear you are Mara's husband?"
"You may have noticed that I've not been insisting on my marital rights."
Dann apologised. Then he said, "I'm going to have to get out my coins."
"Oh no," said Mara, and untied a coin to give to him.
He went white. Really, she might have hit him. "I can't take your money after... after."
"Don't be silly," said Mara.
Leta said, quickly, tactfully, so that Mara realised she had been too casual, insensitive, "Let me have a look, Dann. Mara's told us."
Dann said, "I think one of them is just under the skin." He lifted his robe up. The scar showed white and glistening, and there were lumps under it. "Look," he said to Leta. "Feel that."
"I'm sure we could get that one out easily."
She took out a little leather bag, and from that a tiny knife, and some bundles of herbs. She wetted one of them and rubbed damp leaves on the place where the edge of the coin showed. "It will kill the pain," she said.
Mara watched, suffering. Leta saw this, and said, "I told you, I learned everything I could from the men who came to Mother's house. I've learned some medicine."
After about five minutes, she rubbed the little knife against another bunch of leaves, and made a tiny slit just above the scar and at once the coin was visible. Leta picked it out. Dann said, "It doesn't hurt," and she said, "Yes, but it will hurt a little soon."
"We should stay here until Dann is better," said Mara and Daulis said, "It's dangerous to stay."
Mara untied another coin, and said, "Go down and bribe them. It's not likely anyone is going to offer them more than this."
"Not in a year," said Daulis, and took the coin and went out.
When he came back he said h
e had booked the room for another day and he thought they would be safe.
Leta wrapped a cloth around her hair, to make herself unnoticed, and said she was going out to see the town. Mara wanted to go too but Daulis said she should stay. Dann asked Leta to buy him something to wear. He had only his soiled and torn coachman's garb.
Leta went, and then Mara asked, "Now, tell us about this Centre. Why are you taking us there?"
"All I can say is that they have plans for you both. Shabis told me, and it's not much more than he knows."
"But that 'not much more' is the point."
"Yes. But I'm not going to tell you more. Shabis said not. You'll find out. You've got some sort of choice to make." "It's because we are Mahondis?" "Yes."
"Where are all these Mahondis we were told are everywhere?" "There are very few of us left."
"Does that matter?" said Mara, for now she had seen so many different kinds of people, in different regions, it was hard to think one was better than another.
"I think there are people who dream of the time when Mahondis ruled all Ifrik." "All?" "All."
"Did we rule well?"
Daulis laughed. "We ruled well from the point of view of the Mahondis."
"So there are many people who do not remember Mahondi rule kindly?"
"You know, people forget quickly. This Mahondi empire was — let's see — at its height about three hundred years ago."
"So recent. And there are still people who think it should come back?"
"It is Leta who should come back. I'm getting worried."
And they were all three anxious, as the hours passed. Then Leta did come back. She had bought all kinds of things useful for travelling: two of the long black and white striped gowns, the Sahar robes, worn by men. Then she inspected Dann's little wound and said it was almost healed. She said she was glad she was leaving Kanaz, it was a horrible town. The praying men were everywhere, and they had sticks, and if someone was behaving improperly, in their view, they might hit buttocks, shoulders, or even heads. "Lucky I wrapped myself up well: they beat women if they don't like the look of us."
Dann wanted to know how much money they would need to bribe the frontier guards, to get into Tundra; but Daulis said, "Believe me, you don't bribe these guards."
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