44: LENKRIT

"You got your clothes and sandals all right, then?" asked Bayub-Otal, as they set out across the big meadow.

"Yes, thank you, my lord; no trouble."

"Did you have to pay much for them?"

"Nothing at all, my lord. Only they wouldn't take anything, see? Here's the money."

"You'd better keep it. You may need it. That was very kind and hospitable, don't you think, Pillan? Very kind indeed."

"No such thing."

"Dear me, why ever not?"

"That coat what she had on yesterday: them yellow buttons must 'a bin worth a sight more 'n anything they've give her."

There could be no answer to this, even though Maia did not believe that either Gehta or the old woman had thought twice about the topaz buttons. Still, neither had she, and she felt annoyed to have been so careless. She ought to have pulled the buttons off and kept them.

"Did you enjoy your company last night, Pillan?" asked Bayub-Otal.

Pillan became unwontedly fluent. "One of 'em I'd have given something to remember, only for you bein' up at the house and we didn't want no trouble."

"Oh dear! I suppose he called you a Suban marsh-frog, did he?"

Pillan grunted.

"One gets used to it. You never know, you might have the opportunity to do something quite drastic about it be-fore much longer. Did you manage to buy any food?"

Pillan jerked his thumb at his pack. "Bit in here."

"And you, Maia?"

" 'Fraid not, my lord." She had never given it a thought.

"It doesn't matter," said Bayub-Otal. "I got some, too, so we'll have enough between us for today."

They came to a rough track running north and followed it. It led to no farm or dwelling, let alone a village. All that day, as they went steadily uphill and northward, the country became more lonely, barren and wild. It was, in-deed, the most desolate Maia had ever seen; part sandy waste covered with rough grass and scrub, part rocky, with a few stunted trees and tracts of some mauve-flowering, sage-like shrub which harbored clouds of flies. During the late afternoon, as she was plodding onward with eyes half-closed against the glare and sucking a pebble to ease her thirst—for they had no water left, having come upon none since mid-morning—she suddenly realized that at last they were on level ground: in fact they had begun, though al-most imperceptibly, to descend. Shading her eyes, she saw ahead and below a smooth, green plain, speckled with brown and gray patches which were mud-built villages. Far ahead, perhaps ten miles off in the heat haze, she could just make out what looked like the irregular line of a river.

Bayub-Otal, wiping the sweat from his face, pointed towards it.

"That's the Olmen. With luck we'll cross it tomorrow; then we'll be in Urtah."

"We got to go much further today, then, my lord?"

"No; we'll get down off this crest and find somewhere to lie up for the night. We daren't risk a village—not in a place as frequented as the plain. We're still in Bekla province, you see, and likely enough there's a price on our heads by now. We'll make for those trees: ought to be some shelter there."

The woodland which they were approaching covered most of the rocky slope below. Soon they found themselves among outskirts of scrub oak, long-leaved nakai and evergreen sweetspires, several growing almost horizontally out from the faces of steep little bluffs. A few of these were precipitous, and more than once they were forced to go some distance along a sheer edge before they could find a way down.

Maia, at the end of this second long day, was feeling weary, due partly to the rough going, but mainly to her increasing anxiety and uncertainty. Normally, her instinct in such a situation would have been to do what she was told and leave everything else to her older and more experienced companions. But these Subans—she was their secret enemy. If in some way or other they were to find out the truth, they would probably kill her. Not for the first time that day, the idea occurred to her, "Why not tell them? Tell them I was forced into it—that I'd got no choice?" But what would they do then? They might not kill her, but obviously they would unburden themselves of her in one way or another; and what had she to hope for, left alone in unknown country?

Rapt in these dismal meditations and in the listlessness of fatigue, she did not notice, until Bayub-Otal called out to her, that he and Pillan had stopped at the foot of the last bluff they had descended, and were sitting among the rocks. She went back to them. Bayub-Otal nodded over his shoulder. "That cleft—there's quite a fair-sized cave inside. If you don't mind sharing it, I think it'll do us very well. There must be water somewhere fairly near, and we can cut branches and scrub to sleep on. Have a look and tell me what you think."

She smiled. "I'm not used to being asked what I think, my lord."

"Then you can get some practice now," replied Bayub-Otal.

She felt irritated. Whether or not he really supposed he was giving her any power of choice she had no idea. As far as she was concerned he had as good as told her what they were going to do. Why couldn't he have said so and left it at that?

Except for the narrow opening, which made it gloomy and dark, there was nothing wrong with the cave.

It was all of thirty feet long, with plenty of room for her to sleep apart. Bayub-Otal set off with the water bottles while she and Pillan began cutting scrub-willow and oleander branches for pallets.

Later, when they had eaten and drunk, she made her own way down to the brook, washed and bathed her feet.

"I don't think we should make a fire, do you?" Bayub-Otal was saying to Pillan as she returned. "We don't want to risk anyone knowing we're here."

"Wood burns that quick, my lord, we'd never be done gett'n enough."

"I'm afraid we'll have to take it in turns to keep watch, though," went on Bayub-Otal. "You can start, Pillan, and then wake me; and I'll wake you, Maia, an hour or two before dawn. You needn't be afraid: animals are easily scared off even without a fire, and you can always wake us if you think anyone's coming."

Once she had lain down she found herself more comfortable—or else more tired—than she had expected, and slept without stirring until Bayub-Otal woke her.

The moon was almost set. She felt stiff and cramped from the hard floor. He'd left her late, she thought.

He'd given himself the most inconvenient watch, too; the one that broke a night's sleep in half. She wished he wouldn't always be so scrupulously courteous and considerate. From a man who had rejected her it came cold, and only made her feel inferior and ill-at-ease.

For a while she sat just outside the cave, wrapped in her cloak and listening, in the yellow moonlight, to the innumerable small noises all around her—patterings, rustlings and the quiet movement of leaves and branches. With moonset, however, it grew very dark and a chilly wind got up from the east. She began to feel chilled. After a time it occurred to her that since she could see nothing and her watch now consisted only of listening, she could do it as well inside the cave and out of the wind. She went back to her pallet near the cave-mouth and lay prone, her chin propped on her hands: but still she felt cold. She shivered, hunching her shoulders.

Further back in the cave, Pillan lay stretched asleep on the stones. She could just hear his breathing in the darkness. Moving slightly, he muttered an unintelligible word or two and was quiet again. She made a little joke in her thoughts: "Does he say more awake or asleep?"

His strange, alarmed reaction when he had first seen her at Bayub-Otal's lodgings—after two days in his company it struck her as oddly out of character. This rather grim, unexcitable man, who seldom wasted a word—for some reason the mere sight of her had put him in fear, and that to such an extent that Bayub-Otal had had to check him. Try as she would, she could think of no plausible reason. First time anyone's ever been afraid of me, she thought, without it was Nala.

She was feeling warmer now. Resting her forehead on her forearms, she relaxed, breathing slowly and deeply. Her thoughts began to wander into fantasy. She imagined herself back in Bekla, a famous shearna, her fortune made; living with Occula in their own house; sought after, receiving and refusing whom she would; lying late, rising in the afternoon, calling their maid to help her bathe and dress for the evening. Five hundred meld a night. A thousand meld a night! A great, soft bed all covered with silk—ah!— soft as—the lake—floating—under the waterfall—scent of water-mint—wavering down, deep water. Deep.

Her body was jarred by a thudding blow. For an instant it formed part of her dream as a kind of explosion, shattering from about her the lake, the sun and the sky above. She struggled against it, trying to hold on to the lake, trying to stop the fragments dispersing. Then came the inrush of shock and she leapt wide awake as a second thud jolted her against the stony floor of the cave.

It was gray daylight; not yet sunrise, but fully light enough to see. A man was standing over her. For a moment she thought it was Pillan; then realized with terror that it was a stranger, a man she had never seen in her life. As she sprang to her feet, stumbling over the hem of her cloak, he grabbed her by the arm, jerking her up and forcing her round to face him.

He was bearded, dark and stocky; broad-featured, perhaps forty years old, with the weathered appearance of a soldier or a hunter. There was about him also the air of a man accustomed to command.

Ruthless and hard he certainly looked, yet no ruffian. His eyes, as they stared into hers, had a look of assurance and authority, as though he were one who seldom needed to use violence except in the last resort.

He was wearing a padded leather surcoat, a sword at his belt and a helmet of smooth, hardened leather.

His left hand gripped Maia's arm: his right was holding a dagger, its point towards her.

Speechless with fear and the shock of her awakening, she now saw that this stranger was not alone.

With him were two younger men, similarly armed. One of these, also holding a dagger, was kneeling beside Pillan, whom he was shaking awake. The other, black against the light, stood at the mouth of the cave, his sword drawn in his hand.

The dark man spoke in an accent strange to Maia, but perfectly intelligible. "What are you doing here? Who are you?"

The unfamiliar cadence, which seemed all of a piece with his bellicose appearance, frightened her still more. For an instant the thought whirled across her confused mind that perhaps he was not human. Old Drigga had told her of forest demons who had power to take the semblance of men, yet always with some revealing imperfection— ears, hands, voice or the like.

Cowering from him, she would have fallen, but his grip literally held her upright: as her eyes once more met his, he shook her so that she lurched against him.

"Come on, answer me! Who are you?"

Pillan was awake now. The man kneeling on the floor had his knife at his throat.

"I think this is a Suban, sir."

The dark man, without relinquishing his agonizing grip on Maia's arm, was about to answer when Bayub-Otal's voice spoke from the back of the cave.

"Lenkrit! What on earth are you doing here?"

The dark man, startled, let go of Maia, who fell against the cave-wall as Bayub-Otal, still wrapped in his cloak, came forward, stepped over Pillan and stood smiling in the light from the cave-mouth.

"You'd better sit down, Lenkrit. And for Gran's sake put your knife away. You're terrifying the poor girl."

"Anda-Nokomis!" replied the dark man, staring. Then, so suddenly that, far from reassuring her, it only added to Maia's dreamlike bewilderment, he burst into a great shout of laughter. "Anda-Nokomis! O Shakkarn, and we nearly cut all your throats! That'd have been a right start to the war, that would! Here, Thel, get up, man! Get up and let that fellow alone! What's his name, Anda-Nokomis—I remember him—Billan—Tillan—something or other?"

He sheathed his knife and, stepping forward, flung his arms round Bayub-Otal's neck and embraced him.

"Pillan. Who's with you; just these two lads, or are there anymore?"

"No, just the three of us. This is Thel, and that's Tescon. Their fathers are both tenants of mine. You'd better come back here now, Tescon. If you never saw him before, this is Anda-Nokomis."

Both the young men, smiling, stood in front of Bayub-Otal, raised their palms to their foreheads and then offered him their daggers, holding them by the blades. Bayub-Otal, also smiling, took each in turn for a moment and then returned it to its owner. Pillan, who had uttered no word since he was woken, was now standing behind Bayub-Otal with folded arms.

"And the wench?" asked the dark man.

Bayub-Otal, as though recollecting himself, went quickly across to Maia, put his arm round her and supported her to a low rock near the cave-mouth.

"You've frightened the life out of her, Lenkrit. She's still trembling and can you blame her? What happened, Maia? Did they rush you or didn't you hear them coming?"

"I—I was asleep, my lord: I'm very sorry."

"That's right!" cried Lenkrit, with another great laugh. "All the damned lot of you, sound as toads in a winter ditch! Lespa's stars, Anda-Nokomis, it's lucky for you she is a wench: else we'd likely have knifed the lot of you in your sleep and that would have been that. What's she doing here, anyway?"

"Either you're rather forgetful, Lenkrit, or else you're rather unobservant," replied Bayub-Otal. "Your lads here are too young, but you're not. Take another good look at her now."

Lenkrit turned and regarded Maia steadily in the now-clear light. When he next spoke it was in a quieter, rather hesitant, tone of voice.

"I—see, Anda-Nokomis. I wonder I didn't before. But the light was bad, of course, and we were all a bit flustered. And then, poor girl, someone's been knocking her about, haven't they? But—well, it's incredible—amazing! Your sister, is she? I never knew you had one."

Bayub-Otal shook his head. "As far as I know, she's no relation at all. Her name's Maia and she comes from Tonilda. Strange; isn't it? In Bekla she belonged to that brute Sencho: she was—well, in his household."

Lenkrit drew in his breath sharply. "Was it her that killed him, then? And you got her out? Is that it?"

"No, she didn't kill him, but she was being questioned by the priests. She managed to escape from the temple and we got her out of Bekla with us the night before last."

Lenkrit took Maia's two hands in his own and kissed them.

"Well, Shakkarn be praised I didn't kill you, Maia." Then, seeing her puzzled expression, he turned back once more to Bayub-Otal. "Hasn't she been told?"

Again Bayub-Otal shook his head. "Not yet. And not until I say." Then, abruptly, "Have you got food? Let's talk while we eat. Maia, I must explain to you. This is Lord Lenkrit-Duhl, the Ban of northern Suba. He and I are old friends, but what he's doing here I don't know any more than you do. No doubt he's going to tell us."

They sat down and the two young men, opening their packs, took out hard bread, cheese and dried tendrionas. Maia, who was still feeling badly shaken, did her best to swallow a few mouthfuls. She had grasped little of the conversation, but at least she knew that she was no longer in danger of her life.

"You were in Bekla when Sencho was killed, then, Anda-Nokomis?" asked Lenkrit.

Bayub-Otal nodded. "I was in the gardens that night. So was she—she was actually one of the girls attending on him."

"So of course they arrested her: I see. And they've been setting about her, by the looks of it. They didn't arrest you, though?"

"They would have, but two nights ago I got a warning to clear out. I bribed the tryzatt at one of the gates and we were away before dawn. But what can you tell me, Lenkrit?"

Lenkrit wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and tossed what was left of his bread to Thel to put back in the pack.

"Karnat himself s in Suba now. He must have got about six thousand men there: and Suba itself s been preparing since the end of Melekril."

Bayub-Otal nodded. "That was why I stayed on in Bekla— to do my best to mislead them and disarm suspicion." He held up his right hand in his left and let it drop again. "More useful in my case than reporting to Karnat for sword-practice, wouldn't you agree?"

"Not at all, Anda-Nokomis. Karnat's publicly declared you the rightful Ban of Suba. We're all waiting for you."

"Was it Karnat who sent you here, then?" asked Bayub-Otal.

"Karnat wanted someone to cross the Valderra and find out as much as possible, so I took it on, with these lads here. There were two things he wanted us to do and we've done them—or as good as. One was to reconnoiter a route for the army from the Valderra to Bekla, and the other was to find out what was going on in Chalcon. We've been the very devil of a way east, Anda-Nokomis—well to the other side of the highway from Bekla to Gelt. And if he takes my advice, that's the way Karnat'll be coming; east as far as the Gelt road and then straight down it to Bekla— keep north of all that rough country you must just have come through. The Leopards won't be expecting that."

Bayub-Otal nodded and after a moment Lenkrit went on, "We're on our way back now. We must have done something like twenty miles since yesterday evening. We've been going by night, you see, ever since we crossed the Valderra. We happened on this cave on our way east five nights ago, and lay up here for a day. We were reckoning to get back to it this morning and what do we find but you? You were lucky, because it's been daggers first and questions afterwards—not in Urtah, but all the time we've been in Bekla province. It's much too obvious that we're Subans, you see."

"Well, but the Chalcon news?" said Bayub-Otal.

Lenkrit paused a moment; then drew from beneath his cloak a wooden, tubular object, pierced with holes and roughly stained red and blue. Maia, taken unawares, could not suppress a quick "Oh!" of recognition and surprise. It was a Tonildan shepherd-boy's home-made pipe—an object familiar to almost any Tonildan. She had once made one herself; and played it, too, after a fashion.

"You've seen one of these before, then?" asked Lenkrit, looking round at her.

She nodded, but said nothing. "Daggers first and questions afterwards." Had they, then, killed the Tonildan boy the pipe had belonged to?

"Don't worry, Maia," said he, reading her thoughts. "It was fairly come by. I was given it two days ago by a little lad herding goats on the edge of the Tonildan Waste. Shepherd-boys were about the only people we dared question, you see. Grown men and women would have been much too risky. We told these boys we were traveling merchants and asked them what news they'd heard lately. This particular lad was very sharp and sensible. He told us his father was just back from Puhra, where all the market-talk was about Chalcon and Santil-kè-Erketlis. I was so pleased with him that I gave him five meki—more than he'd ever had in his life, I dare say—and he was so pleased with me that he gave me his pipe.

"Well, the news, Anda-Nokomis—and I think it's probably reliable—is that Santil's near enough openly in arms against Bekla. He wasn't going to wait to be treated like that other poor fellow—what was his name?—Enka-Mor-det. He's left his estate and gone into the Chalcon hills— taken his servants, tenants—the lot. And men are joining him from all over, apparently."

"Have the Leopards sent anyone against him, then?" asked Bayub-Otal.

"The lad couldn't say. But he did tell us one other thing which made me prick up my ears. He said his father had heard rumors of some sort of trouble further south, too. Who would that be, do you suppose?"

"Elleroth of Sarkid; the Ban's son? He's the most likely."

"Just what I thought myself. Listen, Anda-Nokomis: suppose—just suppose—that Karnat, with his army half as big again with Suban auxiliaries, crosses the Valderra and succeeds in going straight on to Bekla."

"Well?"

"Then Suba's rewarded for its indispensable help by being made an independent province in its own right— which it always should have been. You rule it, Anda-No-komis—which everyone wants, seeing you're the rightful, legal heir, and son of the finest Suban girl that ever—"

"And Karnat?"

"Once there was peace, I doubt Karnat would require a great deal more from Suba. Well, come to that, we haven't got much to give him, have we? Frogs, ducks, reeds—Suba's always been a place on its own. Karnat himself s only valued it because it put him east of the Zhairgen. But you must come and talk to him yourself, Anda-No-komis."

"I fully intend to," replied Bayub-Otal, "as soon as I can get there. He's at Melvda-Rain, I suppose?"

Lenkrit nodded. "He's an honest man: we all think so. As for the Subans, it's you they're ready to fight for— Nokomis's boy, that that damned Fornis cheated out of his inheritance."

"Well," said Bayub-Otal, standing up somewhat abruptly, "when do we start? You'll be wanting to sleep now, I dare say, if you've come twenty miles during the night."

"Yes, we'll lie up here today, Anda-Nokomis, and get across into Urtah tonight. After that it'll be easy enough until we come to the Valderra. You see, the Beklans have got outposts—standing patrols—all along the east bank, from Rallur right up to the hills in the north."

"Where's the main Beklan army itself, then?" asked Bayub-Otal.

"At Rallur. They've built a light bridge across the Olmen—just above where it runs into the Valderra—so that they can move south quickly if they have to. But all the signs are that they think they won't have to; anyway, they've got hardly any outposts downstream. They must feel sure that we can only get across upstream."

He smiled and Bayub-Otal, nodding, smiled too. To' Maia, though she had not really been following all that Lenkrit had said, it was clear enough that they had some unspoken knowledge in common.

"When the three of us came across," resumed Lenkrit after a few moments, "my people put on a little act about half a mile away—you know, shouting and pretending they were coming over—to distract the Beklan patrol: so we got across the ford without being spotted. But there'll be nothing like that coming back. It's true there are several fords to choose from, but every single one of them's watched. I think," said Lenkrit with a certain relish, "I think we'll hardly avoid a little scuffle."

Bayub-Otal nodded again. "Well, you'd better sleep now. That boy there's half asleep already."