Angel Isle

CHAPTER

10

Jex spoke briefly in the middle of the night, in a voice so faint that Maja strained to hear it.

“There is a touching point near Barda. An island off the coast. Angel Isle.”

The sun was barely clear of the horizon and the dawn still dew-fresh when the old groom came riding up the hillside, accompanied by a uniformed functionary and two servants leading pack mules. Maja was already awake, so rose and staggered down to meet them with her finger to her lips.

“Morning, missy,” said the groom, grinning. “Thought you’d be fancying a bit of breakfast.”

“Lovely,” she whispered. “I’m starving. But please don’t wake Ribek. He pretty well killed himself, running up the hill last night. Shall I get Saranja?”

The functionary interrupted with a pompous cough.

“You have two hours,” he said. “At that point a delegation from the Court of Proctors will arrive to greet and thank you for your services to the City of Larg. It would be appreciated if you and your friends are ready to receive them.”

“We’ll do our best.”

“Furthermore, I am instructed to enquire of you how the City may best reward you for the aforementioned services. We will need to know your names. Perhaps you had better wake your friend.”

Saranja was always snarly first thing, and wasn’t at her most gracious as she spelled the names out and the functionary wrote them down. He became steadily huffier, and barely controlled his astonishment at the idea that they couldn’t wake Benayu and they’d need a litter for him.

“I will inform the Court of your requirement,” he said stiffly, and bowed and turned away.

“Could have asked a bit more than that, missy,” the groom whispered to Maja. “Gave me a medal and a purse of silver without me so much as hinting.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the functionary, already fussing over his horse’s harness, making it clear he was too important to keep waiting.

“I’d better be off,” he said. “You’ll be coming back to Larg one day?”

“I hope so.”

“Look us up, supposing you do. We’ll have a lot to talk over.”

He trotted off, cupped his hands to give the functionary a leg-up into his saddle, and then swung himself up as nimbly as if he’d been thirty years younger.

They rode away down the hill, the groom keeping a respectful half length behind the functionary. The two servants stayed and unloaded the mules. There were fresh logs for the fire, fodder for the horses, cooking utensils and two hampers.

Maja opened one, found a long, narrow, crusty loaf, still warm from the oven, and broke a piece off to keep her going till breakfast was ready.

Ribek groaned, yawned, stretched and sat stiffly up.

“I’ve been dreaming of sausages,” he grumbled. “Still am. Fat chance up here.”

“It isn’t our kind of sausage,” said Maja through an unfinished mouthful. “But it’s lovely. Here.”

She offered him her plate.

“Still dreaming,” said Ribek, and helped himself. Happily she watched him munching like a well man.

“Jex spoke to me last night,” she said. “He sounded terribly weak. But he says there’s a touching point near Barda. It’s called Angel Isle.”

He nodded, but his mouth was too full of sausage for him to answer.

“Do you think it’s all right to move Benayu, supposing Sponge will let us touch him?” said Saranja as they watched the procession climb the road. “I mean, does he have to stay where he is till he’s got all his whatever-it-is back?”

“Anima, I suppose,” said Ribek, wiping the grease off his mouth and fingers and rising to his feet. “This sort of thing—it comes from another universe, Benayu says. Maybe our ‘here’ doesn’t matter there.”

“Anyway, Zara would have told us,” said Maja, rising too and moving with the others to the roadside to meet the procession.

A mounted herald in a splendid surcoat, with a banner sticking up from his saddle, led the way. Behind him came six Proctors, and several other dignitaries, all on horseback, and an armed escort on foot. The morning sunlight glittered off their spear points in the clean hill air. The travelers waited respectfully for the riders to dismount.

The herald lifted a trumpet to his lips and blew a strange, unmusical note: Paaarrrrrp! He took a scroll from his pouch and started to read.

“Plenipotentiary delegation from the Court of Proctors of the Sovereign City-State of Larg. Occasion: Award of the Freedom of Larg to the following. Saranja Urlasdaughter, please step forward.”

She did so, head high, as if born for this moment of glory. The President opened one of the boxes, took out what looked like a gold medal on a chain and hung it round Saranja’s neck.

“Saranja Urlasdaughter,” he said, “by order of the Council of Proctors I hereby invest you with the state and all the ancient privileges of a Freewoman of Larg.”

He handed her the scroll, and then almost managed to startle her out of her hero mode by kissing her soundly on both cheeks, but she recovered enough to thank him and say she was very honored and shake his hand.

Ribek when his turn came walked forward with a different kind of swagger, halfway to a dance step, took his kisses as if this sort of thing happened to him most weeks, and winked at Maja as he returned. If she’d been told beforehand that this was going to happen she’d probably have been overwhelmed with shyness, but she managed to carry it off. The President spoke to her in a gentler voice, his kisses were feather light, and he held on to her hand for a moment after he’d shaken it.

“How old are you, Maja?” he asked.

“Twelve, sir.”

“I thought so. I have a granddaughter just your age. If ever she achieves half of what you have done for Larg I shall be proud of her indeed.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Benayu had the same pronouncement read over him. His medal was laid on his chest, but he didn’t get kissed—perhaps because it would have been a hands-and-knees job, and Presidents don’t do that.

Another Proctor stepped forward, opened yet another scroll and started to make a speech.

“Last night will live in the memory of Larg as long as our walls remain, and with it will live the names of these chance-come strangers, who are now strangers no more, but…”

And so on, for some while. When he was finished, servants came round with trays of sweet fizzy white wine in silver goblets, and there were several toasts, after which they stood around finishing their wine and chatting. Ribek was in his element, and Maja stayed close by, not talking much but enjoying his enjoyment. The man who’d lettered the scrolls came up and explained what the Freedom of Larg meant. They got a month’s free board and lodging whenever they passed through, and if in old age they decided to end their days in Larg, the city would keep them in comfort till they died. Furthermore, Larg had treaties with all the seaports up and down the coast, and if they showed their scrolls at any of these they’d be treated as honored guests and helped on their way.

“I don’t suppose Barda’s one of them,” said Ribek. “I think it’s just a fishing village—or used to be.”

“Yes, we have a treaty with Barda. It’s certainly a regular seaport, and has been for many years. It’s still famous for its oysters, but it’s a great deal more than a fishing village these days. After all, Larg must have been a fishing village once. It’s a fair distance north. If that’s where you’re heading for you could consider taking a sea passage, though the season of storms is approaching, and after what we saw last night…”

“That sounds helpful,” said Ribek. “I’d love to be able to listen to the sea.”

Maja tugged at his sleeve.

“What about Benayu?” she whispered. “Zara said her powers were weaker over the sea.”

“Good point. Better not risk it,” he said, and explained to the man.

It was midmorning before they were able to move off with six of the guard to accompany them as they skirted Zara’s ward. A handsome barge took them across the river, and on the further shore there were several hundred citizens and groups of schoolchildren lined up to cheer them as they disembarked and a flute-and-drum band to lead them to another feast laid out under a vast scarlet and gold pavilion.

As they were being shown to their places one of the Provosts stopped them.

“One moment,” he said. “There’ll be a few speeches afterward, and it would be appreciated if one of you would reply.”

“Not me,” said Saranja instantly.

“All right, I’ll give it a go,” said Ribek.

“It needn’t be more than a few words,” said the Provost, clearly doubting this stranger’s ability to produce an oration up to the high standards of Larg. “And after that you would be well advised to rest. We are arranging with one of the desert tribes to guide you to the Highway, and they prefer to travel by night, when the snakes and scorpions are less active.”

“We won’t have much trouble getting to sleep after we’ve had a share of that lot,” said Ribek, with a nod at the loaded tables.

That was true. Maja, in fact, couldn’t wait, and fell asleep during the speeches. She was woken by the sound of laughter. Ribek was on his feet obviously enjoying himself, with his audience in the palm of his hand. He waited for the laughter to die.

“One last thing,” he said, still in his usual light tone. “We—Maja and I—met and talked to the Sleeper. It’s something we’ll remember as long as we live. None of you have been so lucky, but you know she’s there, asleep. She always has been, and as far as you’re concerned, she always will be. But she won’t. She’s very old, and tired and lonely, and longing to be released from her task and go. It must be terrible to die alone, far from the people you most love. At least she isn’t that. She’s right here, among them, among you. And the best thing you can do for her is to love her back. I am sure you admire and respect and honor her no end, but that isn’t the same thing. Love her. Show your love for her. Plant a rose in your garden for her sake. Teach your children to love her—don’t use her to frighten them when they don’t behave. That sort of thing. I’m sure you’ll think of ways. Whatever it is, she’ll know. Even in her dreams, she’ll know.”

He sat down. The first speech, before Maja had nodded off, had been followed by polite applause. This time there was silence. Everyone looked a bit stunned. Somebody started to clap dubiously. Slowly the rest joined in. There was nothing as crude as outright cheering, but it seemed to Maja that the clapping had a different feel about, more than polite. Meant, natural. It stopped only when the President rose smiling to thank Ribek and declare the feast over.

A tent had been got ready for the travelers to rest in for the few hours before their guides arrived. Benayu slept unstirring on one of the beds with Sponge curled up at his feet. There was a well-licked dish and a bowl of water beside the bed. Maja flopped onto hers fully clothed and was asleep before she had drawn three breaths. The next she knew she was on a horse somewhere—Levanter, her extra sense told her—with her right cheek numb from pressing against his mane and neck. The air was cold and dry. The sound of the horses’ hooves was no more than a soft pad, pad. She opened her eyes, and immediately screwed them shut against the glare of moonlight. In that glimpse she had seen a ghost, black against the glare, swathed from head to foot in a hooded cloak, its only visible feature one spidery arm holding Pogo’s bridle. Then she was asleep again.

Next time she stirred enough for Ribek, riding in the saddle behind her, to realize she had woken and steady her as she sat groaningly up.

“High time,” he said. “It’s past midnight. Best try to stay awake now, or you won’t sleep during the day. Stay there a moment.”

He slid himself down, helped her back onto the pillion and remounted. She stared around as they rode on. In every direction the desert stretched away, seeming almost featureless under the big moon. A little way ahead of the party two shadows danced along over the dusty earth. She could barely see the guides who cast them. Saranja and Rocky were on her right, with another guide beyond them. Pogo was still there on her left, led by a guide. For a moment Maja thought he was carrying some kind of sack on his back, but then she realized it was another of the tribespeople facing away, hunched down, riding sidesaddle. Benayu’s litter followed, with another guide leading each pony.

A quiet, throbbing vibration, not like anything she’d felt before, was coming from behind her. Craning round, she saw two more of the guides bringing up the rear, walking with a peculiar gliding pace and carrying short branches. As she was looking at them they halted, turned and waved their branches in the air. A breeze sprang up out of nowhere, picking up little flurries of dust and depositing them over the stretch that the party had just crossed.

Now she realized that the same sort of thing was happening ahead of them. The two tribespeople leading the way weren’t merely there as guides—they were using the same sort of magic to do something else. Drive something away, she thought—yes, of course, snakes and scorpions. She shuddered. There’d been only one kind of snake in the Valley, and it wasn’t poisonous, but still she had a horror of the creatures. She didn’t know much about scorpions, and she didn’t want to.

The night seemed endless, the desert all the same, the moon moving oh so slowly westward, the constellation of the Fisherman in the northern sky circling around the Axle-pin, invisible below the horizon, at the same slow pace as the earth turned over. She felt herself falling asleep again.

“Pinch me,” she said.

“No fun. Why don’t you sing to me? What about ‘Cherry Pits’?”

“‘Cherry Pits’?” she whispered.

“Cherry Pits” was an old, old song which mothers sang over cradles and children used for counting games. The words, when they meant anything at all, were about two lovers sharing a bowl of cherries and making some absurd promise and sealing it with a kiss for every one they ate.

“What’s so awful about ‘Cherry Pits’?” he asked.

“Nothing…Nothing…”

“Tell me.”

“I…I can’t.”

She knew perfectly well what was wrong with “Cherry Pits,” but it was a place in her mind she didn’t go. It had a door like the one in the corner of the Council Chamber at Larg, a door which she had magically caused to disappear. She had made a gap in time. On one side of the gap she had let the chickens out and scattered their grain for them and collected the eggs and brought them back into the kitchen, and on the other side of the gap, two evenings later, she had put the chickens away for the night and was coming back into the kitchen with the eggs they had laid in their secret nests during the day.

And in that gap Saranja had gone away.

Ribek was silent for a while, then said, “Well, if you can’t, you can’t. How about something else? ‘The Gooseboy’?”

“All right.”

She was astonished to find that Ribek, who could do everything so gracefully, couldn’t sing in tune. Never mind. It was still a lot more fun than being pinched. They sang on for the rest of the night, all the songs they could remember. Songs and stories were almost the only thing Maja’s mother had managed to give her. Dawn came much sooner than she’d expected, and then, almost at once, it was day.

The tribespeople halted and gathered around. Some of them threw back their hoods to reveal dark, beaky faces, their cheeks patterned with tattoos. By daylight she saw that several of them were carrying stout staffs, pointed at one end. Three of them were only shoulder high to the others—women, Maja knew through her extra sense, but without that it would have been hard to tell. The sack-like figure from Pogo’s back was also a woman, but very old. The men lifted her down, set her on her feet, handed her a staff and waited.

She stood for a while, muttering to herself, and then hobbled off using the staff, halted again and drew something from under her cloak. As far as Maja could see it was just three twigs lashed together to form a triangle with pebbles fastened to two corners and a length of cord to the third. She gripped the end of the cord between finger and thumb, swung the object back and forth a couple of times and with a twist of her wrist set it circling in a vertical plane at her side, raising a thin, throbbing whine as the air whistled through it. More of the same mysterious desert magic began to flow.

Maja heard Ribek gasp beside her.

“She’s calling to the water!” he muttered.

The woman turned slowly. The note changed, rose shriller and shriller, almost beyond hearing, began to fall again. She turned back a little, until the pitch was at its highest, and pointed.

Two of the men stood side by side with their arms round each other’s waists. A third man placed a leather pad on their shoulders, lifted the old woman, settled her onto the pad and took her staff from her. It was all quickly and easily managed, as if they’d done it many times before. They strode off, black against the glare of the risen sun. Everyone followed.

Twice they stopped to let the old woman, without dismounting, swing her water charm again and correct their course. The third time they let her down and she hobbled forward and swung her charm again. The whining note didn’t vary its pitch as she turned. She took her staff back and prodded it feebly into the ground.

Five of the guides gathered round, three using the pointed ends of their staffs to loosen the earth, and the other two scooping it away. The old woman took out her charm and swung it again. The rest stood by, humming in the backs of their throats, varying the sound in time with the pulsing throb of the charm, as the old woman spun it faster and faster.

“There’s some kind of water-spirit hiding here, I think,” said Ribek. “She used her charm to find it, and now they’re summoning it up. I can hear the charm talking to it, not in the water-language I know, but it’s words all right. It sounds as if they’re bargaining. Maybe the spirit doesn’t want to come, and the charm’s saying it’s got to unless it sends us some water…Ah, here it comes.”

Silently the hole that the guides had been digging filled from below with beautiful clear water. The tribesmen stood aside and gestured to their charges to drink.

When everyone had had all they wanted and filled their flasks and gourds the horses drank hugely, but the pool stayed full. The old woman swung her charm briefly while the tribespeople chanted.

“We from the north would also like to add our thanks, O spirit of the desert,” said Ribek formally.

As he spoke the water seeped away as quickly as it had come. The tribespeople filled in the hole they had dug and tamped the earth carefully down.

“Shade for the horses is the next thing,” said Saranja. “You can’t tell with Rocky, the ponies look pretty tough, and Pogo’s got desert blood in him. My warlord used to ride a beast like him, and it was astonishing what it could put up with. But Levanter’s really going to suffer. I’ll try and explain to them. I’m not sure how much they know about horses.”

Enough, it turned out. According to the functionary at Larg who’d made the arrangements, the tribespeople understood as much of the language of the Empire as they needed to know what was being said to them, but refused to speak it themselves. They nodded as soon as Saranja pointed at the horses and the sun and then the shadow of her hand held over Levanter’s flank. Everyone formed up as before and they headed off northwest. The only difference was that four of their guides now led the way. Every hundred paces or so, all at the same time, they broke into a little dancing shuffle, gesturing in front of them with a pushing-apart motion, and now and then Maja could sense some poisonous creature scuttling or slithering out of their path. But nonetheless the ones with the main party walked with bent heads, as if scanning every step of the way ahead, and from time to time would use their staffs to tip a rock over, in case anything might still be lurking beneath it.

The sun was already seriously hot before they reached the place they were apparently heading for, a low, rocky outcrop, promising little relief, but it turned out to have a narrow gully on its northern side. A few wizened bushes clung to the rock in what shade there was. The tribespeople broke off enough branches to light a small fire in the middle of the gully, and once it was going they twisted scraps of oily rags round the ends of short sticks, got them smoldering and worked down the gully, poking them into crevices in the rock. They used the butts of their staffs to squash whatever came scuttling out.

That done, they placed the rags carefully against the embers so that they would continue to smolder without actually burning, and then rigged up a remarkably effective awning over the gully, using their robes and the rugs from the travelers’ saddlebags laid across cords weighted with boulders at either end and propped here and there by a couple of staffs lashed together to form a pole. Stripped off, they seemed astonishingly skinny, with tough little nodules of muscle clinging to the narrow bones. Every inch of their skin was covered with patterns of tattoos. They obviously preferred to eat separately, so the travelers settled at the other end of the awning, with the horses in between, and picked and chose among the excellent fare provided by the citizens of Larg.

“I’ve been thinking about the covenant,” said Saranja in a low voice, though there was no one to overhear. “The one between Zara and the Watchers, I mean.”

“So have I,” said Ribek. “I don’t get it. All right, we can guess what’s on her side of the bargain. Larg is a sort of hostage. Her wards round the city are obviously pretty impressive, but the Watchers must be strong enough to deal with them if they want to….”

“And they must want to,” said Saranja. “They aren’t going to stop until they control everything in the universe.”

“So what’s Zara got by way of a hostage to stop them?” said Ribek.

“That’s what I’ve been thinking about,” said Saranja. “Do you remember Benayu telling us that serious magicians had to find somewhere safe to put their…what’s it called?…anima outside themselves so it didn’t get in the way of their magic?

“The Watchers do everything together, Chanad told us. Perhaps they did that together too—put all their animas into one safe place….”

“Larg?” said Ribek. “Larg isn’t exactly out of this universe. This curry comes from Larg. And…What’s up, Maja? Come on, tell us. Don’t leave it all to Saranja and me. Your guess is as good as ours. Better, probably.”

Maja couldn’t open her mouth. An odd little buzzy feeling had woken in the back of her mind while Ribek was talking, like the warning noise a stinging insect makes when you try to swat it away. She was thinking of what had happened when they’d just come back into the Council Chamber, in that instant before the door vanished—the appalling brief jolt of magic, the sense of something hidden beyond Zara’s cell, a secret inside a secret, in a place that wasn’t there, a place that was somewhere else. A way into another univ…The buzz was louder now…louder, closer…

“Stop!” she croaked. “Don’t talk about it! Don’t even think about it! The Watchers…!”

They stared at her. Saranja started to say something, and didn’t. The muttered talk of the tribespeople did not falter. The horses fidgeted. The strange, bitter smoke from the smoldering rags drifted slowly through the gully, in the oven-like heat. Ribek nodded, serious-faced for once.

“I want to tell you how my cousin Arissa was murdered,” he said. “We don’t usually talk about it. It’s a terrible story…”

It was—tragic, appalling, filling the mind, leaving no room for thoughts of the Watchers, or what might lie beyond Zara’s cell. The strange, menacing buzz lost its intensity and died away. When the story ended they sat in silence, letting it find its place in their minds, unforgettable.

“You can never tell what people will do,” said Saranja at last, “however well you think you know them. One of my warlord’s other women…”

The story wasn’t tragic, just extremely strange, with a sad ending. Maja found herself on the edge of tears for two people she would never know, but who were probably still alive, somewhere on the other side of the great desert.

“Better, Maja?” said Ribek when the story ended.

Maja probed cautiously southward, and withdrew the moment she felt the buzzy sensation starting to wake.

“I think so,” she said. “It’s like…my uncle’s old dog. She’d be lying in her kennel, fast asleep, not taking any notice of anything, but the moment she heard a stranger’s footstep she’d be up and barking.”

“Is it just what we were talking about?” said Saranja. “I mean can we talk about where we’re going, and what we’re hoping to find there?”

“I don’t know. I mean, yes, I suppose so, if we’re careful. But not now, not here.”

Ribek chuckled.

“So we continue to pass the time,” he said. “Lighter fare, do you think? This might be a good moment to tell you about the miller’s daughter,” he said. “There was a young mill hand whose wife bore him a son. Being an honest and thoughtful man, he determined to toil night and day at his craft until he had enough put aside to buy the mill he worked in, in order that he could leave it to his son. But a year had barely gone by before his wife bore him a second son.

“‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I must buy or build another mill.’

“But another year brought another son, a fourth year a fourth, until he had six sons…”

This wasn’t one of the stories her mother told, so Maja hadn’t heard it before and was already enthralled. Despite that her head began to droop. She was cross about it. She wanted to listen to the story. It struck her that she fell asleep far too easily these days, but it was hot, and the night had been endless and her stomach was full of good food. She half woke a couple of times and heard another snatch of the adventure, but by the next time it was over and Ribek and Saranja were sitting on the far side of the gully talking in low voices. It wasn’t about Larg, or anything magical. But it was something that mattered, something serious.

When she finally woke Ribek was gone. No, there he was, standing at the other end of the gully, silhouetted against the sunset glare beyond him. The tribespeople were laughing at him as he swung something vertically beside him. He turned, laughing too, and offered the object to them. Now Maja could see that it was a little triangular charm made of three sticks like the one the old woman had used to summon the water-spirit, but a bit smaller. Of course he’d wanted to try her water-magic, so he’d made himself a charm.

Someone took it and passed it to the old woman, who bent over it, then rose and hobbled forward. Her spidery arm reached up and plucked at his beard. He didn’t back away or resist. She bent over the charm, peering at it and fiddling with it, then took his hand and pushed it close to his mouth. She spat into her palm to show what she wanted. Obediently he spat, and waited while she smeared his spittle carefully into the corners of the triangle and then handed it back to him. He turned to the desert and tried again.

This time Maja sensed the flow of the magic and the snarl of the water-spirit’s response. Ribek let the swinging slow and cease, and the spirit subsided. The old woman clapped her hands together and hooted and the others responded with a rhythmic outburst of clapping and hooting. One by one they rose and touched Ribek on the cheek and returned to their places and fell silent. Ribek bowed to them, making a wide gesture with his arms to tell them how deeply he was honored. One of the men rose and made signs to him, pointing at the old woman and a boy who shyly held up his own water-charm, and then at Ribek, and finally made a sweeping, dismissive gesture at the rest of the group. They murmured quietly for a little while, then rose and began to gather up their things.

Maja was still sulky with sleep when Ribek lifted her onto Levanter’s rump.

“I want to know what happened in the story,” she said. “It wasn’t my fault I fell asleep.”

“You were tired, and no wonder, all you’ve been doing. My turn for a nap now. You’ll have to take the reins.”

He knotted the reins and laid them on Levanter’s neck, bowed his head and in a very few strides was asleep, swaying gently in the saddle to Levanter’s movement. He started to snore, rather more musically than he sang. Maja huddled against him, arms round his waist, enjoying the pleasant fantasy that she was protecting him, holding him steady, keeping him from falling, while he sat there helpless and vulnerable.

Sometimes she wondered what he thought about her. She was fairly sure he was fond of her, loved her, even, but it wasn’t the same kind of love that she felt for him. Not that she really understood her own feelings for him. They were love all right, but they weren’t the sort of consuming, world-altering passion you hear about in stories. Dimly she could feel stirrings of that kind of love, the love whose language was glance and caress and close embrace, but she pushed them away. Not yet, she told herself, not yet. Not until he can feel the same about me. Till then she wasn’t going to think about it. It would be a nuisance, coming between them, an embarrassment to them both. They were much more comfortable as they were. Why spoil it?

Ribek woke when they stopped at midnight to rest and eat and water the horses. The old woman summoned another underground stream to the surface, while Ribek watched and listened, fascinated.

“Are you still all right?” he said as he lifted her back into the saddle.

“I’m fine. I’ve been getting a story ready to tell you. It’s going to be better than yours.”

He didn’t answer until they were on their way, and he had, deliberately, she thought, dropped Levanter back behind Rocky.

“Can we leave the story for another time, Maja? I’d rather you told me about ‘Cherry Pits.’ It’s something that happened at Woodbourne, isn’t it? Saranja’s told me a bit about Woodbourne. You’ve never said a word. No, Maja, tell me. I’ve told you almost everything I know about Northbeck. It’s your turn now. Come on, Maja. You need to tell someone. Please.”

She shook her head. He waited. Levanter plodded on. As if from a long way off she saw a girl standing in an empty room. No, only one corner of a room and part of the two walls that made it. The scene was lit by moonlight and starlight, and the floor was desert. A door shaped itself in the corner, but the girl had lost the key. Now Ribek’s figure—Maja would know it anywhere—appeared beside her and put something into her hand. A key. The girl stepped forward.

He’s right, she thought. I can tell him because I love him.

“My uncle…,” she began. “My aunt…”

She stopped. It was too difficult. Even those five syllables.

“I know about them,” said Ribek quietly. “Saranja’s told me. She told me roughly what happened. Your uncle had had one of his rages and stormed out, and after a bit your aunt sent you out to fetch him in….”

“Yes. He was in the barn. I’d done it before. I never knew if he’d just snarl at me, or be nice to me. It was all right that morning. He told me to come and sit beside him and he’d teach me a song called ‘Cherry Pits.’ He put his arm round me and I put mine round him and we started. I was comfortable, happy…”

He waited in silence while she fought for control.

“And then my aunt came in. She didn’t say anything. She picked up an old halter and snatched me away from him and tied it round my wrists and then tied it to a ring in the wall so that my arms were high above my head with my face against the wall and she gave him a riding stock and said, ‘Whip her.’

“He whipped me once. ‘You are never to do that again,’ she told me. ‘Whip her again. Harder. And again.’ Each time he whipped me she said, ‘Never.’ He did it ten times. I was sobbing and screaming.

“Then she untied me and took me into the kitchen and told me to strip off my top and lie face down on the floor. She rubbed some salve into my back and told me to dress again and took me out to the old dog-kennel and put a collar round my neck and chained it to a ring in the floor so I couldn’t stand up. She brought me scraps of meat and bread in a dog bowl and gave me a bowl of water to lap. She didn’t say anything till she let me out next evening. ‘You are less than a dog in this house,’ she told me. ‘Remember that. Now go and get the hens in and look for the eggs.’

“That night Saranja came to my room and whispered to me that she was going away. She asked if I wanted to come too, but I was too afraid.

“That’s all.”

Ribek rode on in silence. Maja waited. She felt as she had back then, spoiled, loathsome…

“Thank you for telling me,” he said gently, at last. “It must have been hard for you. Did that sort of thing happen often?”

“That was the only time. She never hit me herself.”

“And your father? You haven’t said anything about him.”

“I don’t know anything about him. I don’t know who he was, or where he’s gone to, if he’s still alive. I think he must have done something too dreadful to talk about. I wasn’t allowed to ask. My mother only cried when I did, and my aunt found out and tied me to my bed for a day and a night.”

“Mm. You haven’t asked Saranja, she says. She thought you knew.”

“Oh! Does she…? Can she…?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

He pushed Levanter forward till they were alongside Rocky. Maja could tell Saranja had been waiting for them from the way she looked down at her and smiled.

“My…Ribek says you…my father…?”

Still smiling, Saranja reached out and touched her cheek.

“I’m your half-sister, Maja,” she said gently. “I thought you knew, but they’d made you too afraid to talk about it. I hope that’s good news.”

She didn’t understand for a moment. Then she did. Her body went stiff. She gripped Ribek as hard as she could and gulped for breath.

“My uncle…,” she croaked. “And my mother…That’s why it was all my fault!”

Ribek snorted. Saranja pulled Rocky to a halt, and Levanter automatically stopped too. She let go of the reins, leaned across and took Maja’s hand between both of hers.

“No, Maja,” she said. “You must stop thinking like that. You’re the only person whose fault it wasn’t. My parents never loved each other. She loved somebody else but he didn’t want to live at Woodbourne. She married my father because she wanted a daughter who could hear the cedars. He was a poor man and he married her for the farm, but it was never his. It was hers, and she didn’t let him forget it. She gave him two sons to go with it, but they weren’t what she wanted and he knew they could never inherit the farm. Then she had me. After that she wouldn’t let him touch her.

“Something like that has happened again and again in our family, a woman forsaking love and wasting life trapped at Woodbourne for the sake of the story, but it’s never turned out so bad. Ever since I was small I’ve known I wasn’t going to let it happen to me, though she was determined that it should. I think I knew in my heart that if it did I would end up like her. Anyway, I believe that by the time I was born she already hated my father. That’s why she gave her sister a home when their parents died, though she treated her more as a maidservant than a sister. She must have known what would happen, and known that your mother was too great a ninny to say no. You were born so that she could hate him properly, and punish him by punishing you. That’s their fault, all three of them. Not yours.

“And you still haven’t told me if you’re happy about being my sister. Because I am. Very.”

“Oh, yes! Yes! But everything else…”

She still couldn’t take it in. It couldn’t change anything. It had all happened. But it wasn’t her fault, and that changed everything. It even seemed to change how she thought about Ribek. If her father had never been allowed to love her, and she’d never been given a chance to love him…And what had her aunt done, to make her mother so hopeless…?

“Ribek?”

“Hm?”

“Can we sing ‘Cherry Pits’ now?”

He still couldn’t sing in tune. But they were lovers in the song, weren’t they? She loved him for that, and found herself singing the song as if it were true. He laughed and did the same, but it wasn’t Ribek singing, of course, it was the lover in the song. He couldn’t sing in tune either.

When they’d finished all the verses they knew they invented some new ones until Maja couldn’t think of any more. Then she told him “The Owl-Witch” and he told her “The Miller’s Daughter” all over again, which lasted until, just as the eastern stars grew faint with daybreak, something changed. She knew what it was at once.

“Benayu’s awake,” she said, whispering as if she’d been in a sickroom.

Ribek leaned over and murmured the news to Saranja.

“I’ll tell him what Zara said,” she answered, and reined Rocky back.

Behind them Maja sensed the contact of two hands and heard the mutter of Saranja’s voice. She could feel Benayu’s almost overwhelming listlessness.

“Good moment for him to wake,” said Ribek. “Looks as if we’re here.”

Concentrating on events behind her Maja hadn’t noticed what was happening ahead. The sudden change made it a bit like coming to Larg all over again. They must have been climbing for some while back, but on a slope too gentle for her to be aware of it. Now they had reached the summit and were looking down a rather steeper slope into a world where it was already day.

The sun was not yet risen. Below the pale dawn sky lay a level plain, blazing with color, sheets of scarlet, purple, yellow and clear bright blue, spreading between barren outcrops of rock. Through this glory ran the Imperial Highway, with a way station immediately below them. The amazing dazzle of colors was—she concentrated—flowers!

“What…what…why…?” she stammered. “It isn’t magic, or I’d feel it.”

“Rain,” said Ribek. “Fellow at Larg told me about it. It happens for about three weeks this time of year almost every year. Rainstorms sweep up the coastal plain and last year’s seeds germinate and grow, and the eggs of several sorts of moth which have been lying there all through the dry season hatch and pupate and turn into moths just in time to pollinate the flowers so that they can produce a fresh lot of seeds, and the moths mate and lay their eggs ready for next year, and die. It may not be magic, but it’s magical.”

This was as far as the tribespeople would go. Ribek doled out chunks of salt to each of them, which was all they wanted by way of payment. As he did so they touched his cheek and he raised his hand in blessing.

“We’d better do that to the old lady,” he muttered. “There’s not a lot of them can talk to the water-spirit, just her and that lad there in this group. The ones who can—me too now, I suppose—are kind of special.”

He led the way, and Saranja and Maja copied him. The tribespeople responded with a few pleased hoots. The old woman hobbled to the litter, raised Benayu’s limp arm and touched his hand against her cheek. He stirred and muttered as if he’d been still asleep. Then they went their separate ways, the tribespeople back to their desert home and the travelers down to the Highway.