96: A NIGHT ENCOUNTER

The next morning was again clear-skied and as hot as ever. Almost every available man, including many of the Ortelgans, had been sent across the river to continue cutting the forest-track under Mollo's direction, and there were not a great many, apart from Elleroth himself, Zirek and Ta-Kominion, to wish god-speed to Maia and her two companions. Their escort—-none other than Tolis and tryzatt Miarn, with twenty men—assembled outside Maia's shelter to accompany her to Elleroth's headquarters. They had brought a litter for her, but she smilingly declined it.

"I'd rather walk, and that's no more 'n the plain truth," she said to Tolis. "After all, 'tain't as if it was all that far to Nybril. Tell you what, though; if I get tired, I'll jump in the river and swim."

At this there was a general laugh, for naturally her fame as a swimmer was well-known to everyone. It was not more than twenty miles down river to Nybril, but in view of the heat and his wish to be as considerate as possible to his guests, Elleroth had begged them to take two days over it.

"Why don't we make a raft and just float down?" Maia had asked him at supper the night before.

"A raft for twenty-six people?"

"No, just the three of us."

"You're having an escort because of the very real risk of bandits and cut-throats," he answered. "We can't rule out the possibility of some sort of robbers with boats on the river. That's the sort of thing the Leopards have reduced the empire to. Cran only knows how long it's going to take to restore law and order when we've taken Bekla."

They had given her new shoes and a brand-new cloak and tunic. (She couldn't help wondering where they had come from. The truth was Elleroth had sent to Sarkid for them, about twelve miles each way.) Her Beklan cloak and tunic had been ruined in the forest and the river, but fortunately the new tunic, like the old one, had pockets capacious enough to hold her money and valuables.

She felt in good shape and ready for anything. The most substantial reason for this—even stronger than the idolization of the soldiers and Elleroth's unconcealed regard— was the complete change in Anda-Nokomis's manner towards her. Often, during those days at the farm, she had felt wretchedly certain that nothing could ever alter his aversion and contempt—no, not if she were to call down Lespa to carry him to Melvda-Rain and crown him with stars. Her deed in Suba, with its terrible (and unintended) consequences, had put her beyond the pale, and all she had done since or ever could do was doomed to be regarded as worthless.

Yet at supper last night she had realized that this had changed. Anything that ordinary people would regard as warmth or cordiality was not really, of course, within Anda-Nokomis's capacity; yet she, who knew him so well, could perceive clearly the alteration of his feelings. She could only suppose that he must have been reconsidering one thing with another—the escape from Bekla, the raft, the waterfall and her night excursion to the Ortelgan camp— and had at last decided to forgive her. She was not to know that in fact it was none of these things which had tipped the scale in that proud, obsessed mind. Maia's disclosure that she was his cousin had brought about in him a turmoil of perplexity. For some days he had been quite unable to decide whether it could or should alter his view of her— whether it ought to make any difference to his condemnation of her unspeakable treachery. Yet nevertheless, within the hour and while he was still very much confused, it had been the real though undivulged cause of his persuading Zen-Kurel against killing her. Only much later did he realize the full significance of the fact that when she had betrayed him to Sendekar she had not herself known either that she was Suban or that they were cousins. If she had known that she was Suban, would she have done it? He had concluded not.

And then, following upon her saving of his life at the waterfall—and beyond all question that had been a brave, loyal deed, for no one could have blamed her if she had judged it impossible to attempt—had come Elleroth's very cogent suggestion that from the moment she had discovered that they were kindreds—that she was a Suban and he her liege lord—she could hardly have risked more or shown greater courage on his behalf.

Yet even all this had not been enough for a man like Bayub-Otal. What had taken him completely by surprise and finally overcome his last reservations, had been Maia's instant and unhesitating reply to Elleroth that she was a Suban and wanted to go back to Suba. And when Elleroth had hinted at what she must already have realized—she had politely snubbed him and put paid to any further discussion of the matter. Until that moment it had never occurred to Bayub-Otal that when it came to the point Maia, Suban or no, would decline reward and honor from Santil-kè-Erketlis in favor of a hazardous journey to return to Suba and live there. Neither at that time nor throughout the evening had he said one word to express his astonishment; yet he had hardly been able to sleep for its effect. And it was this effect, evidenced by all manner of minute changes in that diffident, haughty man, which Maia was well able to sense and appreciate. Anda-Nokomis, she felt, was now more truly her friend than he had ever been. Might she dare hope to recover yet another friend?

Alas! she was soon made sure that there was little enough prospect of that. Zen-Kurel remained all courtesy and detachment. She was still his responsibility: just that. And that, she felt sure, was the only reason why he had gone out to look for her yesterday, when he had learned that she had set out for the Ortelgan camp. He had regarded it as no more than his duty.

It is perfectly possible—indeed it is common—to be delighted and gratified at one level of the spirit while remaining deeply unhappy at another; and so it was now with Maia. Naturally, the acclaim of the soldiers and the change in Anda-Nokomis had pleased her—she would scarcely have been human if they had not—yet she would gladly have given all in exchange for the longing of her heart.

In truth, she thought dismally, it boiled down to something very simple. It was nothing to do with what she had merited in the past or whatever she might merit now. It was nothing to do with the fortress at Dari-Paltesh or the escape from Pokada's prison; with the rafts or the waterfall or the Ortelgan camp.

The plain truth was simply that Zen-Kurel was no longer in love with her. Once he had been and now he wasn't. She loved him but he did not love her.

In such a situation both merit and reason are alike immaterial.

Where love cannot fulfill itself through reciprocity, it can do so only through sacrifice. And this, of course, was the real reason why she had instantly told Elleroth that she was going to Suba and then evaded any discussion either of her motives or of the danger. If it was the last thing she did, she was going to play her part in Zen-Kurel's return to Katria. It might very well be the vital part, too, for a boat would cost money. Besides, did either of them know how to handle a boat? She doubted it. She alone had the money to buy a boat and the skill to sail it down the Zhairgen to Katria. What was going to become of her after that was immaterial. This was high itruth. The low truth would keep till later.

This was her melancholy solace as Zen-Kurel politely greeted her that morning. Yet solace it was, sure enough, to see his obvious hopefulness and the eager spirit with which he discussed the final arrangements with Tolis as they prepared to set out.

She kissed Zirek good-bye with tears.

"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, "Säiyett?"

"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, säiyett: 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 sentry 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—"

"Ah, well, but I didn't, did I? What's gone's gone; and now's now."

"Yes," he said agitatedly, "now's certainly now; very much so. That's the rest of what I felt I had to say."

She waited—truth to tell, with some little apprehension, for she knew her man, and this loss of self-possession was so much unlike him as to be disturbing. He seemed to need time to choose his words; hanging his head, plucking at the grass and once or twice looking up as though making a false start. Finally he said, "To decide'to go back to Suba: that shows exceptional courage, too."

Another silence. "You see, there'll be those who don't know what you and I know. They'll only know about the— about the Valderra."

"Doesn't matter," she answered listlessly, her thoughts already straying.

"It would matter to me if they killed you; it would matter very much, Maia."

But not to me. O Lespa, I believe my heart's breaking! Why do I have to undergo all this talk of Suba and what's going to happen when Zenka's gone? Can't I find some way to get this man to go away?

Just as she was about to thank him for his kindness and ask him to leave her to sleep, he spoke again.

"Your loyalty to Suba—your loyalty to me, too—they do you more credit than I can express, Maia. I've come to realize that you're like me—you're not a person who asks for favors, are you? You prefer to let deeds speak for themselves. But I can't believe that it hadn't already crossed your mind that in choosing to go back to Suba you'd be in danger."

Why can't he go? she thought.

"I felt sure it must have been worrying you, even though you're too courageous to talk about it or let anyone see it. That's why I came to speak to you tonight; to spare you any further worry as quickly as I could."

As she shook her head uncomprehendingly, he took her hand in his.

"Maia, I love you. I've come to admire you and love you more than any woman I've known since my mother died. I've come to ask you to marry me—to be my wife in Suba. You'll be safe then; and happy, too, I sincerely hope and intend."

She was taken so utterly by surprise that she could only stare at him. The idea of Anda-Nokomis as a lover—as any woman's lover—now seemed so incongruous, so anomalous as to seem totally out of character. It was as though he had said that he had decided to sell himself into slavery or become a priest of Cran. She realized now that she had never—no, not even at the time when Kembri had first put her in his way—thought of Anda-Nokomis as a sexual being; as someone naturally capable of feeling desire.

Yet she felt no impulse to laugh, as Nennaunir might have. Whatever else he might or might not be, Anda-Nokomis was a man of the most dutiful responsibility, a man of his word, who never spoke more than he felt, or intended to perform. If he said he loved her, what he meant was that he had formed the purpose of committing himself to being her loyal husband for the rest of his life: and also, as he had made clear, that he had considered the position she was bound to find herself in if she returned to Suba, and was ready to identify himself with it and make it his own personal concern.

The next thought that occurred to her was that, unlike Eud-Ecachlon, he did not stand to gain anything at all from marrying her, apart from herself. From the point of view of his public position she would, initially at all events, be the gravest possible liability. It was an enormous—an overwhelming—compliment; by far the greatest ever paid to her in her life. What he intended was nothing less than to invoke on her behalf the full weight of his authority as Ban of Suba, to reinstate and vindicate her in the eyes of those who would otherwise kill her. Yes, and to put that authority at risk, too, for it would take a fair old bit of carrying off, would that. They might not be so keen on him when he turned up with her and made it clear that he meant it. She could imagine the reaction of Lenkrit, for example, upon learning the news. But if she knew Anda-Nokomis, he had already thought about this. He said he loved her and he meant just that. She had in all actuality won his heart. Well (she couldn't help adding), what there was of it. For his, as she well knew, was a heart incapable either of glowing with warmth or sparkling with humor.

What a lot of strange and different things men meant when they said "love," she thought: Tharrin, Elvair-kaVirrion, Randronoth, Anda-Nokomis. Pity they can't boil them all down together—sport, pleasure, generosity, de-sire, respect. If I had any sense I'd accept this offer from a high-born, honest man who means what he says and won't ever change. But I haven't any sense—either that or else too much. I don't love him—I can't feel anything for him—so what can it matter to me? Once, in Melvda-Rain, Maia, you had a gold crown, studded with diamonds: but it's gone, gone; so what would you prefer now—bronze, lead or copper? What do I care?

She began to cry from sheer mortification, seeing in her mind's eye Zen-Kurel, the way he walked,'the curl of his hair, his trick of opening and closing his hand when he was considering a problem. Oh, don't go through it again! Don't start going through it all again, what the two of us said to each other that night in Melvda-Rain! Don't!

Anda-Nokomis was speaking. "Oh, Maia, I'm sorry to have upset you. I only meant to relieve you of anxiety by speaking as soon as possible."

She was trying to imagine herself as his wife. She could not—even though she respected him, even though it might make all the difference between safety and a death not so very different from Meris's.

Such was her distress and confusion that she could only cling to him, sobbing.

"Maia—"

"I can't say anything, Anda-Nokomis. Not now. Leave me, please! Just leave me!"

At this moment, while the poor, perplexed man, who plainly did not know what to make of it, was still holding her silently in his arms, there were sudden sounds of alarm and commotion outside the grove. A voice shouted, "Stand to!" followed by other voices, running footsteps and the clattering of arms hastily snatched up. Then came actual sounds of fighting, angry cries and the clang of weapon on weapon.

These, however, ceased quickly, as though a scuffle had broken off short. Tolis's voice called, "Tryzatt Miarn, get everyone on their feet!"

Bayub-Otal, without haste or the least sign of disquiet, gently released Maia and stood up. Having listened for a few moments, he said calmly, "I suppose I'd better go and see what's happening," went over to the gap by which he had entered and stepped outside.

"What is it, sentry?"

"Robbers, sir—something o' that. Tried to rush us, I reckon, but looks like the lads have seen them off."

Bayub-Otal returned. "I'll have to go. I'm sorry to leave you, Maia, but at least I know you're equal to it. I'll come back as quickly as I can."

Left alone, Maia did not take long to decide against remaining where she was. Wrapping her cloak round her, she got up and went outside. Her sentry was standing with his back to her, looking out through the trees,- Beyond, she could make out hurrying figures and firelight. She pushed quickly through the bushes as far as the sentry, who checked her with a movement of his arm.

"I wouldn't go out there, säiyett. Don't let them see you. Might just set 'em off again, like."

"Don't worry, I won't show myself," she answered. "I only want to find out what's happening. You can come with me if you like."

They went cautiously forward to the edge of the grove. In the light of the setting half-moon she could see Tolis standing to one side and in front of his men, who were drawn up in extended line. On the ground immediately in front of them lay two bodies: they were without armor and did not look like soldiers. From beyond, out in the dim scrub and fern, came intermittent taunts and cries of defiance.

"Go on, be off with you!" shouted Tolis. His voice, though clear and confident, was somewhat high in tone, and a mocking falsetto echoed, "Be off with you!" followed by jeering laughter.

"You'll get nothing here," cried Tolis again, "unless a few more of you fancy being killed."

At this the hubbub died down, and then a voice shouted, "All right, then; give us food and we'll go."

Tolis made no reply. A few stones came flying out of the darkness, together with a clumsily-made arrow which one of the soldiers turned aside with his shield.

"Kind of an awkward situation, sir," said the tryzatt.

"You'd better get the men back," said Tolis. "They're too exposed. The only reason I put them out there was because I hoped it might frighten the bastards away."

As the men, still maintaining line, came backing in among the trees, the same voice out of the darkness shouted, "If you won't give us food we'll have to come and get it. We've had nothing for two days."

"That's not our fault," called back one of the men. "Think we're going to waste our food on a pack of thieving swine like you?"

"We're not thieving swine," answered the voice. "We're respectable men, give us a chance. We're starving, that's what."

It was the soldiers' turn to jeer in reply to this; but suddenly above the clamor rose a new voice. "Where are you from?"

Maia started. It was Zen-Kurel, somewhere over to her left. Getting no answer, he repeated, "I asked where have you come from?"

After a short pause someone in the dark answered "Belishba."

"Why?" asked Zen-Kurel.

"You'd bin there you wouldn't ask why." Another voice added, "They're free men in Sarkid, aren't they?"

"Runaway slaves," said Tolis to the tryzatt. "I thought as much. I dare say they are desperate, poor bleeders."

"You say you're respectable men," called Zen-Kurel. "Well, now's your chance to show it, because I'm going to take you at your word."

Next moment he had stepped out from among the trees and was walking purposefully out into the dark scrubland. Anda-Nokomis's voice called, "Zenka, come back!"

Zen-Kurel turned for a moment and waved his hand; then he continued on his way.

"Silly basting bastard!" muttered one of the soldiers to his mate, a few yards away from Maia. "What's he reckon to do, then?"

She sprang forward, startling the two men, who had not known she was there. "No! No! Zenka, come back!"

She was running, shouting hysterically, when a soldier caught her round the waist and held her fast. She struggled, beating at him with her fists, then dropped her head on her chest, weeping. When Tolis and the tryzatt came up she had fainted and was lying on the ground with the soldier bending over her.

They splashed water in her face. After about half a minute she came to herself to find Tolis holding her by the shoulders.

"I beg you, säiyett, don't make a scene. The men are jumpy enough already."

"O Lespa!" she moaned. "Tolis, can't you stop him? Go and stop him!"

"Too late for that now, säiyett, I'm afraid. He didn't give me the chance. Get back, Dellior!" he called sharply to a man who had left the line, apparently to relieve himself. "No one said anything about standing down!"

There was silence all along the line now, and silence from out in the scrubland also. Maia felt as though she had become a string about to snap. This tension was unendurable, this mute waiting in the yellow elf-light of the setting moon; nothing to be heard but the frogs in the half-dry river pools; nothing to be seen but the! stillness of the arid fern. Once she allowed a low whimper to escape her. Tolis, on one knee close by, looked quickly round and shook his head.

She could not have told how long it was since Zen-Kurel had gone; only that the moon was lower and the suspense worse. She could hear the men whispering to one another, but caught no words.

"Should we give him a shout, sir?" asked Miarn.

"Not yet," answered Tolis.

She realized that Anda-Nokomis was standing behind them, hunched and watchful as a heron in shallows. After a time he murmured almost inaudibly, "Perhaps they've gone."

"With him?" said Tolis.

"Or without him: no telling."

Maia stood up. "I'm going to—"

"Säiyett, please don't compel me to stop you."

Just as she was wondering whether to draw her knife and make a dash for it, she caught sight of something moving out in the gray-yellow dimness. A shape;—one per-son or more—was approaching.

In a low voice Tolis said, "Keep still! No one to speak!"

Within half a minute they could see that in fact three men were coming towards them.

"Is he there?" asked Tolis.

Maia passed her tongue over her dry lips. "Yes."

The men stopped some forty or fifty yards from the edge of the copse. Then Zen-Kurel's voice called, "Tolis, can you hear me?"

Tolis answered and was about to go forward to join them when Zen-Kurel spoke again. "They don't want you to come any closer. I've just come to tell you what we're going to do."

"Cran's zard!" muttered one of the soldiers. "Basting man don't want to live!"

"These men aren't criminals," said Zen-Kurel. "They've escaped from slavery in Belishba and they've had a very bad time. They're quite ready to join Elleroth and I've assured them he'll be happy to take them on. So I'm going to guide them as far as the camp and act as surety for them. I expect to be back here by a couple of hours after dawn, but if I'm later than that, just go on to Nybril— don't wait for me."

It was plain that none of this was to Tolis's liking. He appeared not only at a loss but flustered. "What the hell are we going to do?" he asked the tryzatt. "Damned Katrian! We're responsible to Elleroth for him!"

"Can't do nothing, sir," replied Miarn. "They've got him out there with them, haven't they?"

"Yes, but when Elleroth—" But before Tolis could say more, Bayub-Otal called out, "Zenka, can I come with you?"

There was a pause, apparently while Zen-Kurel conferred with his companions. Then he answered, "No, they say not."

"Very well," replied Bayub-Otal. "We'll keep you some breakfast."

"Elleroth's going to be glad a bunch of men like these weren't wasted," called Zen-Kurel.

With this he and the other two turned and disappeared once more into the gloom. The frog-croaking silence returned.

"Stand 'em down, sir?" asked Miarn after two or three minutes.

"Oh, yes, any damned thing you like!" replied Tolis petulantly. "You'd wonder who was in command here, wouldn't you?"

"D'you reckon he'll be back, sir?"

"Of course he won't!" said Tolis. "Men like that? They'll cut his throat as sure as the rains are coming! These blasted Katrians—they're all the same—throw their lives away and call it soldiering! Karnat's wildcats! I believe they'd set themselves on fire just to try and show they were braver than anyone else! Why the hell couldn't he do it some time when we weren't responsible for him? Lord Elleroth's going to play hell! 'Why did we let it happen?' As if we could have had any idea what he was going to do!"

"Going to wait for him, then, sir, or not?"

"I haven't decided yet," said Tolis. "I'll tell you tomorrow."

He was walking away when Maia followed him.

"Can I speak to you?"

Tolis turned to her with the air of a young and harassed man retaining his self-control with difficulty.

"Säiyett, you're the last person to whom I'd want to be discourteous, but I've simply had enough for one night. Please go back to bed. We'll talk in the morning."

Within the hour Maia had become so much demented with fear that she could no longer keep up appearances or conceal her distress. Her thoughts—if thoughts they could be called, that succession of visions and sensations overwhelming her mind like some evil dream—were plunged into a kind of vortex, a vicious circle from which there was no escape save hysteria. It was as though she were running in terror from one room to another, only to find herself fleeing at last back into the first. This first was a sense of panic horror, much like the shock felt by one who suddenly finds herself falling from a height, or wakes to realize that the house is burning. Then followed the images—apprehensions, vivid as flashes of lightning: Zenka surrounded and fighting for his life, Zenka tortured by the fugitive slaves, Zenka's body flung into the river, Zenka bleeding, Zenka murdered. And flying from these she ran full-tilt, as against a wall, into her awareness— like that of one hearing herself sentenced to death—that this was no dream, but reality; and taking place not in the past or the future, but in, that present from which there is no escape. Thence to the weeping, the entreaties to the gods for reassurance—to the gods who could not give it. And so back to the panic, and the horror. The Serrelinda, who had made her way into Pokada's prison and into the Ortelgan camp by night, was not equal to this unremitting torment of inaction.

A common, general misery, such as a flood or some civic calamity, has at least the effect of bringing people together and uniting them in fortitude and mutual succor: "I mustn't let the others down." Perhaps the worst of a private affliction is its effect of isolation. Personal grief, like deafness or a glass prison, sequesters the sufferer and separates her from others, who cannot by the nature of things enter into her agony. Even so may one see a maimed animal limping on among the indifferent herd.

The near-by soldiers were far away, in a world where people talked together, kept watch, slept or rolled dice by the fire: they were close—as close as sane men standing by the bedside of one who knows he has gone mad.

Maia was aware that Anda-Nokomis was sitting beside her, since from time to time he spoke to her or touched her hand. Yet it was little he said, seeming as he did to find her affliction almost as grievous as she herself; though his recourse, characteristically, was to silence and to that lonely patience which had so long been habitual with him.

She knew that most, if not all, of the soldiers felt sure that Zen-Kurel had thrown his life away for nothing and that they thought him a fool for doing it. If anything they despised him, since his valuation of the risk he had taken was beyond their comprehension, much as the incentive of an explorer seems foolish to those who wonder why he could not have stayed safely at home.

She made no attempt to talk to Anda-Nokomis, simply keeping her lonely suffering, as it were, alight for a lamp which might somehow guide Zenka back. Yet even this flickered and died at last as she fell asleep from exhaustion.

Her sleep was full of dreams; or rather of visitations, without visual images or even any illusion of sequence in time; dreads and forebodings, by their very universality and formlessness more intense and veritable than any to be suffered in real, waking life: like huge, hazy masses driven before a great wind—transcendental sorrow made manifest—towering over and dwarfing all emotion of which mere humanity was capable. She stifled in clouds of anguish, lay buried under mountains of regret, struggled and drowned in cataracts of loss. And she, who had been un-able to sleep—she could not wake.

At last, contracting, as it were, in order to enter the finite, visible world, the cloud-dreams crystallized into fig-ments she could apprehend and seem to see—persons, time, even a situation. It seemed that Zenka—her own Zenka, her lover as he had once been—had indeed returned and was standing beside her bed in Melvda-Rain. He was weary and travel-worn, yet full of pride and fulfillment; at which she felt no surprise, for it was once more the night when they had become lovers. Yet now Anda-Nokomis was there also; a strangely two-minded Anda-Nokomis, at one and the same time glad and despite himself sorry to see Zenka back.

Zenka spoke to him. She seemed to hear his very words. "It was well worth the risk. Good men, some of them— thousand pities if they'd been killed in a pointless scrap."

"Why," she cried gladly, "that's just how I felt, too, that night in Melvda! You understand then, don't you? We understand each other now, Zenka, my darling—"

As she seemed to say this, an enormous relief and happiness filled her, a certainty that now everything would be all right. Yet he appeared not to hear, even though he was looking down at her as Anda-Nokomis laid a hand on his shoulder in congratulation.

"She was very nearly your only casualty," he said. "I've really been afraid for her reason. She's been in a terrible state."

She tried to move, to stretch out her hands, tried to speak again, but it had become one of those dreams in which you couldn't. And now Zenka—it seemed to be his turn to appear two-minded. He frowned, looking down and tapping with one foot on-the ground.

"Then all I can say is, it's been her turn to know what it feels like."

King Karnat's trumpet was sounding for the muster. Zenka went away and she knew she had to go and swim the Valderra again. The soldiers had pulled her out and were bending over her.

She opened her eyes. It was Anda-Nokomis. Slowly, she remembered where they were and what had happened last night. Had she then bees dreaming or awake—or both?

It was broad daylight. She sat up, looking round at the interlaced branches, the drooping, withered trepsis bloom spelling "Serrelinda" and at Anda-Nokomis beside her.

He smiled his restrained, distant smile. "Our friend's back."

,"He's back?"

"He was here just now, while you were still asleep. He got those men to the camp quite successfully and handed them over to Elleroth. I don't think he was gone nine hours altogether." He paused. "Twenty miles and a sleepless night, but more peaceful than some people's, I think, all the same."

Relief surged over her as over an exhausted castaway washed up on a beach. She wanted nothing: the immediate moment was enough. She lay back, content merely to re-main where she was and know that Zenka was alive. So fully did this feeling possess her that for some time she did not even mind that in this woken, real state they were not reconciled and that of course he could not have heard what she had said to him in her dream. No matter. She would still be able to help him to get to Katria; still be able to make her sacrifice.

That was enough, for she had thought herself deprived of it and now she had it back, the bitter solace of her integrity.