Dominion

TWELVE

Margie was still sitting in the position in which she had collapsed, on the grassy flank of a lightly wooded knoll. She was facing a small lake framed in gentle hills, its nearer shoreline a little more than a hundred yards away. The sun was low in a clear sky, the weather a gentle fairness utterly unlike the scorch of the morning and early afternoon of the day on which Margie had closed her eyes a moment earlier. The air here had a pastel quality, touched with mist. It was all so different that Margie understood from the start, without reasoning about it, that her journey had been a long one.

Here it was either early morning or late afternoon, with no immediately apparent way to decide which. The long grass was damp, either from morning dew or recent rain. The air was moist and fresh. Between the foot of Margie’s hill and the adjoining rise, a tiny stream murmured through tall rushes. The stream widened gradually into a small marsh at the place where it joined the lake. Immediately beyond the marsh, some high ground just along the lake shore held a string of crude, thatch-roofed buildings. Smoke rose tranquilly from a clay chimney. On the far side of the hamlet a single lane of road, unpaved and deeply rutted, followed the curve of shoreline for another quarter of a mile before turning away to vanish among more of the gentle, grassy hills.

In the opposite direction from the hamlet, to Margie’s left, a few sheep were grazing along the flank of an adjoining hill. When she got to her feet the movement was slow and uncertain, but still it caught these animals by surprise. They baaed and turned in awkward flight.

The disturbance among the sheep triggered another. A great shaggy dog that had been dozing near the buildings now awoke, with a savage volley of growls and barks. The animal leaped to its feet and started toward Margie, to halt when it reached the edged of marshy ground between.

The dog’s excitement in turn produced people. An old man and a young one appeared from somewhere to stand between two of the buildings. At first glance Margie thought that they were dressed very much like the servants at the party, but a second look showed that the clothing of these men was somewhat more varied and complex. They advanced slowly, with puzzled faces, to pause like the dog on the edge of the marsh. The young man spoke to quiet the dog, while the gray-beard continued to study Margie from fifty yards away, then hailed her. Their language was not English, nor—and this seemed additionally unfair—did it even sound anything like the tongue that the other two men had spoken before Margie in the dungeon. That scene too had seemed perfectly real. Before the world blew up in a swirl of monsters…

The peaceful landscape before Margie now was reassuring by comparison. Both men were calling to her now, but she could not understand a word.

She shook her head. At last she called back, in a tremulous voice: “I don’t know who you are, or what you’re saying. What place is this?”

The men looked at her blankly, then shook their heads just as Margie had done, and conferred briefly between themselves. Presently they advanced, wading the narrowest neck of the small marsh, to where Margie stood. Feeling uncertain and confused—but not really frightened—she smiled at them tentatively and waited. They talked to her a little more, uselessly. Then each took her by one arm, not unkindly, and they marched her back across the marshy land and up toward the buildings. These were somewhat larger than Margie had thought at first sight.

The door to one of the smaller houses stood open. As Margie was brought in by her escort, a worn-looking woman in a long, plain dress rose from a wooden bench beside the smoky fireplace, putting down her knitting. Or was it sewing? Margie had trouble remembering which was which. Anyway it was work of some kind, cloth and a large ball of snarled-looking gray thread or yarn.

The two men and the woman all talked together now about Margie, and took turns questioning her. They had only the one language, and tried it repeatedly. It was no easier to understand when they spoke slowly and clearly, or repeated the same question several times in a loud voice. She did her part by running the same experiments with English.

From somewhere nearby, Margie thought it was from inside one of the large buildings, there came at intervals a loud, determined clanging, as of heavy hammerblows on metal. The people with Margie paid this no attention but went on debating about Margie. Margie got the impression from their gestures that the woman thought they had better take the problem to someone who was over there, where all the noise was coming from, while the two men thought this not advisable, at least not right now.

Eventually they thought to offer Margie a place to sit down, a wooden stool that like everything else in the little house looked homemade. She had a cousin who had lived in one of those crazy communes once and had told Margie all about it. This must be, somehow, something similar. Now the woman was bringing her a wooden bowl, complete with wooden spoon, containing a thick substance that looked like unrefined oatmeal.

Margie said yes, thank you, and tried some. For oatmeal, it wasn’t bad. Then the spoon rested idle in her hand for a while when she noticed two objects that were leaning against the roughly plastered wall just inside the open doorway. They were a short spear, and a shield of what looked like tough, thick leather. The spear’s metal point was the size of a man’s hand, its shaft was handcarved wood, straight and sturdy as a hoe handle. The shield was round, and bossed with metal decorations. But it was the functional look of both objects that impressed Margie.

Meanwhile the people who had been interviewing her had things to marvel at too. Her clothing, for one thing. They were not really surprised at the dirty rags her costume had become, but after she had given permission with a smile, they rummaged through her shoulder bag. One of the men held up the jeans against himself; evidently they were not considered women’s garb.

Presently the men put her things back in the bag and went out together, leaving Margie with her porridge and the woman for companionship. The woman, who had gone back to fussing with her tangled thread, watched Margie closely, smiling now and then. Once she offered Margie a chance to try the knitting or whatever it was; her guest’s helpless refusal came as a surprise.

Margie finished her porridge. Perhaps half an hour went by, with recurrent bursts of hammering from the other building. Men’s voices could now be heard also, growing progressively more excited. At last there came a prolonged cheer. Maybe, Margie thought sourly, they were watching football.

Actually she knew better. There wasn’t even an electric light in sight, or a radio, let alone a TV. And now the sun was getting ready to set.

The housewife crouched over her hearth, where a tiny fire was smoldering, and from the embers lighted a lamp of a kind Margie had never seen before, a clay bowl holding oil in which a mere shred of cloth floated for a wick. The smoky, flaring glow of it filled the little house unevenly.

Before the sun had gone completely, the two men who had found Margie on the hillside were back, their bulky figures darkening what light the open doorway still gave. And between them now was a third man, a little shorter than they. At first Margie could see him only in silhouette against the dying of the light outside, and then he came closer, into lamplight. He had a fair beard and mustache, and a large nose, and blue eyes that were hard to meet. He was dressed somewhat more richly than the other two men, and at his side was belted a sword in an ornate leather scabbard. The other two deferred to him, that was plain, and the woman of the house made a sort of curtsey at his entrance. Margie didn’t know what to do, and so sat still.

The short man spoke to Margie, at first in the same language that the other folk had tried. His voice was light and clear, as if he could be a singer if he tried. When there was no response, he experimented with another tongue, that Margie thought might be French, and after that a third one, Latin-sounding. Was it the same the two men in the dungeon had spoken? Margie couldn’t be sure.

At last the man of importance shook his head, and turned away, issuing orders to other men who had come up to stand in front of the house. Then the whole group of them moved away. Presently two young women came to the house, both robed in white as if for ceremony. With smiles and gestures they conducted Margie through the dusk to a larger building, set a little apart from the rest of the settlement.

Margie found herself in a lamplit hall, big enough to dance in, rows of posts set in the floor supporting beams with thatch above. A dozen other women were present, mostly young and all similarly dressed. As if, she realized, this were a convent of some kind. She supposed such places still existed. Obviously they did here. There were no crosses anywhere, nothing that she could recognize as a religious symbol.

Nunnery, sorority, whatever, Margie was too tired to care. The women showed her where the outhouse was, and went there with her. Yippee, just like summer camp. Then they gave her some water with a little wine mixed in, and some soup in another wooden bowl, and a piece of crude, dark bread. And, finally, when she’d begun to think they’d never ask, a straw pallet in a small back room. She had a roommate, who lay down in white robes on another pallet at Margie’s side, and promptly went to sleep.

Margie collapsed on straw, utterly exhausted. She ought to try to think things through…