"Strikes me as I know his daughter," whispered Maia.
"Oh, yes? Well, he reckoned one more trip to Bekla would set us all up for the rest of our lives. He planned to take four or five stout lads along with him, then he wouldn' need to buy so much protection--"
"All black people?"
"Of course. In my country, banzi, you'd be the queer one. In the real world, proper people are black: got it? Only he had the devil's own job findin' them, you see. The Govig--it was a name of terror. He had a job to convince anyone that he'd really crossed it twice, there and back.
"After nearly a year he was ready to go--provisions, stock, stout fellows, everythin'. I was gettin' on for eleven by then. I remember it all so well.
"And then the sickness came to Tedzhek. O Kantza-Merada, didn' they die? No one could bury them all--they threw the bodies out on the spits for the wild dogs and the birds. I wasn' allowed out of the house for weeks on end.
"After two months mother took the sickness. I remember her sayin' to Zai, 'Oh, Baru, the air---how sweet it smells!' He burst into tears. He knew what that meant."
"And she died?" Maia shivered, and drew up the blanket.
"She died. We watched her die. Ekundayo--she died, too. Pray--only pray you never see the sickness, banzi. There was a song--how did it go?" Occula paused a few moments, then sang, very low, in her own tongue. "Oh, I forget it. It means
" 'My mother sleeps for ever,
My father weeps for ever,
And still the goddess reaps for ever.'
"When it ended--after six months, it must have been-- there was no one left at home but Zai and me. All the servants who weren' dead had run away. And one night he took me on his knee--we were all alone and I remember the wind blowin' outside--and said he was still goin' to cross the Govig. " 'It's not the money, 'Cula,' he said. 'What does that matter to me, now? Though it might be some use to you one day, I suppose. But I can' stay here. What's a man to do while he walks under the sun? There's three of my lads left and they'll come, I know. But what am I to do with you, my beautiful girl? Where do you want to live till I come back?'
" 'I'm goin' with you,' I said.
"He laughed. "That you aren't. You'd only die."
" 'If you doan' take me, Zai,' I said, 'I'll drown myself in the river.'
"And the long and short of it was that he did take me. Everyone said his grief must've turned his wits, to take an eleven-year-old girl into the Govig. And I dare say he wasn' himself, come to that. He'd loved mother very deeply, you see, and he was all to pieces--desperate, really. That was why he was determined to go. He felt it was the only thing that could make him forget.
"When we set out I was proud as a pheasant. He'd rigged me out as well as any of the men. I even had my own knife, and he made me learn how to use it, too. 'You never know what might happen,' he said. I was absolutely determined that no one was goin' to be put to extra trouble or hardship on my account. I could keep up all right if I held on to Zai's hand; and I carried my own gear. At least it was soft goin'--most of it, anyway--and walkin's like anythin' else--you get better by doin' it. Sometimes Zai carried me on his shoulders for a bit, but no one else ever did. And I could cook and mend, and I could catch insects and lizards. You eat them in the Govig, you see. You eat anythin' you can get.
"We walked by night--always by night. In that heat there's no movin' by day. We went by the stars. That was one of the tricks Zai had taught himself that no one before him had ever properly understood. Most people doan' take enough trouble. They think they're goin' in one direction, but really they're goin' in circles, so they die. We were goin' east. You picked a star as it rose and then went on it for a little while before pickin' another one risin' from the same place. Whatever star we were goin' on, one or other of us watched it all the time--never took his eyes off it. You might not be able to pick it out again, you see. As soon as daylight began to show at all, Zai used to stop us. We had to make a thorn fire and cook (while we had anythin' left to cook, that was) and then be in shelter before the sun hit us.
"Sometimes there might be natural shelter from the sun-- a cave, or a dry cleft-- tibas, they call them. Sometimes, banzi, we used to hold our water for hours, and then piss on skins, wrap up in them and bury ourselves in the sand. Anythin' to keep moisture in the body.
"That was Zai's other trick--he'd found out how to spot water. There are a few--a very few--holes and wells out there, and those you can spot by the scrub--by the plants; and sometimes by birds. But then--and this was the trick-- there are patches of water--or sometimes just patches of moisture--underground: and those you have to tell by insects, or by huntin' with a forked stick in your two hands. That's a kind of witchcraft, though--I can't explain. There were times when we had to scoop up mud and suck it. And I never complained, not once.
"I doan' know how far we went every night. Usually about ten miles, I should guess. The ground--it's soft goin', but it's very difficult and slow. Zai used to mark the days on a notched stick. We crossed the Govig in fifty-five days; quicker than either of his other two crossin's. He'd learned the tricks, you see, and learned the way, too. Some of the places we came to he recognized. And he was always cheerful: he kept us all in heart. I knew he'd get us through. I suffered--oh, yes!--and often I was frightened half crazy-- the drums!--but I never once thought really I was goin' to die. Not with Zai there."
"The drums?" said Maia.
"You hear things that aren't real, banzi, and sometimes you even see things that aren't real. I've lain petrified with fear and listened to the drums; and not by night, either--in broad, still daylight. There's a power out there that wants to kill you--doesn' want you to cross the Govig-- and we'd challenged that power. It was Kantza-Merada that saved us. I saw her once, walkin' in a great, whirlin' column of sand, taller than the Red Tower in Tedzhek, and that was the most frightenin' thing of all. Only her face was turned away; else we'd all have died, Zai said.
"When we came out of the Govig we were nothin' but skin and bone, and there were only four of us. One of the men, M'Tesu, had been stung by a kreptoor in his blanket. You have to shake your blankets, always, and he'd forgotten; just once. That was enough.
"Where we came out, it's hardly twenty miles to Herl-Belishba from the edge of the desert. Zai had friends in Herl--people who'd helped him when he came before. They were timber merchants. We stayed with them until we'd got our strength back, and they gave us clothes, too. They weren't new clothes, but at least they weren't in tatters, like ours. And of course they were the sort of clothes people wear here. Made us look less conspicuous, black or no. Zai promised to pay them in Beklan money on the way back. They trusted him, you see.
"And then we went up to Bekla. It's six days' journey, and halfway you have to cross the Zhairgen on the Renda-Narboi--the Bridge of Islands. The Zhairgen's all of a hundred and fifty yards wide at the Renda-Narboi.
"But when we got to Bekla, banzi, we found the city full of fear--fear and uncertainty. There was civil war. No one knew who the rulers were from one day to the next, and there was no countin' on law and order. That was the Leopard revolution--we'd walked right into the middle of it: Fornis, Kembri and the others; those that set up Durakkon.
"Zai went straight to the big house of Senda-na-Say in the upper city, but we never saw Senda-na-Say. They told us he'd gone east, into Tonilda. His steward told us we were welcome to stay in the servants' quarters until things were quieter and Lord Senda-na-Say had time to spare for us. He said things would get better soon; but they never did.
"There was no open fightin' in the city--only murder behind closed doors: and no one knew who was still alive from day to day, let alone who was in power. Zai said it was the worst possible luck for a trader, and we must just lie low and hope for the best.
"It was Senda-na-Say the Leopards were really after. The queen--the Sacred Queen of Airtha, as they call her-- she didn' matter. The Leopards could deal with her later, if only they could kill Senda-na-Say and his people.
I didn' understand all that till much later, of course. But I remember the fear--the horrible fear all over the city. When you're a banzi you can often see grown-up men and women clearer 'n they can see themselves."
"Ah, that you can," said Maia.
"That devils' wind--it blew down the peace and happiness of the peasants--what little they'd ever had. It blew down the right rulers of Bekla, and it caught us up and threw us down along with them; it threw us down for ever. Wait, and I'll tell you.
"One afternoon I was sittin' in the window-seat in the servants' big hall, watchin' the sparrows peckin' about in the dust outside. It was very hot, and the lattice-blinds were all drawn against the glare of the sun. I was supposed to be mendin' my clothes, but I was just idlin' really, a bit drowsy with the heat. And then suddenly the big double doors at the far end of the hall were thrown wide open, both of them, and in came a woman like a goddess come down from the sky--or that's what she looked like to me then. She might have been--oh, I doan' know--about twenty-six, I suppose--with a great mane of red hair. You've never seen anythin' like it. It glowed, as though there was light in it, and it was fine as gossamer, blazin' over her neck and all down her shoulders; and her shoulders--they were sort of creamy, the skin shinin' like pearls. She was wearin' a loose robe of light green--I can see it now---held in at the waist and wrists with a gold girdle and gold bracelets, and embroidered back and front with all manner of birds and beasts in gold thread; and you could see right through it--you could see her body underneath. There were four or five girls with her, one to hold her fan, and another to carry her cloak and so on; and a great, tall soldier behind her, with a sword at his belt. I stared and stared: but of course no one took any notice of me. I just sat in the window-seat and watched.
"There were only a few of the lower servants about in the hall at the time. They stood up, of course, and Zai and his men stood up too. The lady looked round, and as soon as she saw Zai--naturally, you could pick him out anywhere--she walked over to him and said 'Are you the jewel-merchant from beyond the Harridan?'
"I could see Zai wonderin' what to answer, because he hadn' told anyone except the steward. And while he was hesitatin', this princess said, 'Oh, you can trust me, U-Baru. I'm a close friend of Lord Senda-na-Say. In case you doubt it, here's his seal-ring, which he's lent me to show that you can trust me. He'll be here himself tomorrow; but you know the seal, doan' you?'
"Well, Zai did know it, of course: so then he showed her all the jewels he'd got with him--the opals and sapphires and the rest. And she purred over them like a great cat and held them against her white skin, and one of her girls held up a silver mirror so that she could admire herself.
"I was afraid of her: I was afraid of her because I could see that her girls were afraid of her; and because I could see what Zai was feelin' and what all the men were feelin'. They were--well, bewitched, really. A woman like that can turn men into fools, you know--yes, even my father. But he was--well, like a starvin' man, wasn' he? I can see that now. She'd have stiffened the zard on a stone statue, that one.
"At last she said very graciously, 'U-Baru, I'll buy your jewels and pay you well for them. Wait until tomorrow, when Lord Senda-na-Say will return. Then he and I will see you together.' And then she and her girls left the hall, and the soldier with them.
"We supposed--well, you know--Zai and the men supposed that she must be some marvelous shearna that Senda-na-Say was keepin'. But the only puzzlin' thing about that, according to Zai, was that she'd spoken of seein' him again together with Senda-na-Say, and the last time Zai had been in Bekla Senda-na-Say had always seen him together with his wife. Still, said Zai, who was to tell? That might have changed.
"We didn' know who she was, and there were a few other things we didn' know, too. We didn' know that Senda-na-Say had already been murdered, and that his steward-- Zai's friend--was in the hands of the Leopards: he'd told them everythin' he could think of, in the hope of savin' his own life: and amongst other things he'd told them about Zai and the jewels. The woman--she was Form's of Paltesh; her that the Leopards set up to be Sacred Queen of Airtha, after they'd killed the rightful one."
"Her that's Queen now?" said Maia.
"Yes; her that's Queen now. Six and a half years she's been Sacred Queen of Airtha--the mortal consort of your god Cran. What have you heard of her?"
"The god's in love with her, Tharrin used to say. That's why the crops thrive and the empire's safe. She's the sacred luck of the empire, and that's why she can do anything she pleases and take anything she wants."
"Yes, well, she did that all right. Listen. Zai and his men had been lodged to sleep in the hall with the men-servants: but I used to sleep with the women, of course. The buttery-maid had taken a likin' to me and I used to sleep in her room, along with two other girls a bit older than I was. Before I went to sleep the girls used to leave me and Zai together for a bit, so that we could pray to Kantza-Merada. That's what they did that night. We prayed, and then he kissed me and left me to go to sleep.
"I never saw Zai again. That night the Leopards seized the house, and Queen Fornis's men murdered Zai and the others, and took the jewels."
"But weren't they hidden?" asked Maia. "Like you said?"
Occula was silent. At length she said, "Yes; but they-- found them: in the end. Any man talks--in the end."
"And--and you?" said Maia.
"I've often wished they'd killed me too. Next mornin' it was all over. Just the girls cryin' and sobbin' and each of them tryin' riot to be the one who had to tell me.
"They'd only killed Zai and his men. There wasn't any-one else worth killin', you see. The Leopards took over the palace, servants and all. I might have become a slave there, I suppose; but someone or other--the new steward, perhaps--decided that it would be best if I was sold. I dare say they didn' want a slave--even a chikl--who knew they'd murdered her father. Or perhaps the new steward just saw a way to make a bit of easy money.
"I wasn' sold in the market. It was a private sale. Domris bought me. She was on one of her trips from Thettit-Tonilda to buy girls for her house--the Lily Pool, it's called. It wasn' her house then, actually, though it is now: but she was helpin' to run it. She liked to buy girls very young and train them. I was a curiosity, of course--a black girl. Hardly anybody'd ever seen one. I might as well have been blue or green.
"Domris was kind enough as long as you did what you were told. 'It's bad luck for you, dear,' she said to me, 'but seein' it's happened, let's jus' try to make the best of it, shall we? It's a hard world for most women, you know-- for me as much as you. I doan' like it any more than you do, but you be a good girl and do as I say and I woan' cheat you.'
"And to do her justice she didn', the old cow. She was hard as rock and she's made me as hard as rock, but at least she didn' cheat me.
"At the start I thought I'd never be done cryin'. I doan' know why I didn' die of grief. But there were three or four little girls about my age who all had more than enough to cry about, same as me. And none of them had come alive through the Govig, so I decided I was better than them and I was still Zai's daughter even if he was dead; so I'd be the one that didn' cry.
"I learned the trade; and banzi, I turned myself into a one-girl fortress. The men were outside, and I was inside, with Kantza-Merada. They could get into me but they couldn' get into me, if you see what I mean. I learned to play the hinnari, to sing, to dance the Silver Zard and Goat in the Circle. They all told Domris I was the spiciest little piece they'd ever known in their lives--the dirty fools! You can build a wall round yourself, banzi, and live untouched inside it, believe me you can. You do as I tell you and you'll be all right.
"Domris let me keep quite a nice little bit. She liked me: I took good care to see she did--and I laid it out carefully; you know, clothes and make-up and whatever bits of jewelry I could afford. I had plans, you see. I didn' mean to go on being the mainstay of the Lily Pool until I'd been basted to bits before my time. Well over six years' hard work and I
reckoned it was time for a change."
"She let you go?" asked Maia Wonderingly.
"Ah, it wasn' that easy, banzi. I had to make a bargain with Domris--talk her into it. It was one night about three months ago.
" 'Ever thought of sendin' me to Bekla, saiyett? I said. 'It'd pay you hands down in the long run."
"She looked puzzled and stuffed another sweet in her mouth. 'How can it--m'm, m'm--do that, dear?' she asked.
" 'Why,' I said, 'all sorts of ways. I could be your eyes and ears in Bekla, and the times are so uncertain that that might make a lot of difference one day--swift news in a pinch, you know. But better than that, I could buy for you. You lose the best of the Beklan market now, jus' through not bein' on the spot. You come up to Bekla once or twice a year and have to take what's to be had when you're there. I could save you all that trouble, and you'd do better into the bargain.' "
"But how could you do all that?" asked Maia, "just being a slave in someone's house?"
"Oh, banzi, did you think I was aimin' no higher than that? I was tryin' to persuade Domris to set me up as a shearna in Bekla--a free woman. But she wouldn'. Well, it was flyin' too high, really--I can see that. Anyway, she wasn' havin' it. But finally she agreed to sell me to a well-connected dealer in Bekla, on his promise that he'd dispose of me only to some wealthy house where I'd have a good chance of gettin' on.
" 'I'll speak to Lalloc next time I go up,' she said. 'He knows the market and he sells to all the wealthiest Leopard houses in the upper city. And that's the best I can do for you, my dear. But if you manage to get your own head above water--and if anyone can I should think it's you-- let me know, and I'll certainly engage you to buy for me-- on commission, too.'
"So that was how it was arranged. Lalloc agreed to pay Domris ten thousand down and another two thousand if he was able to sell me for more than fourteen. And out of that two thousand, if it comes off, I'm to have five hundred for myself. It's not much, but it may make a lot of difference to us, banzi, if only we can hide it safe, wherever we get to. That's what all this damned fuss has been for, this last two days-- now do you see? I've got a position to keep up. Lalloc told that Megdon fellow to take me over from Domris at Thettit and see me up to Bekla, but of course if you let yourself in for being carted about by bastards like that, they're not goin' to take the trouble to help you to stand out from a bunch of ten-meld sluts. You've got to see to that sort of thing for yourself. And so I did."