Maia

by Richard Adams

  Not long afterwards all four of the Subans-even Pillan could hardly stay on his feet-having eaten, went to bed and slept as soundly as Maia.

  Maia herself woke about the middle of the afternoon. She no longer felt exhausted, but her shin was painful and she had a headache. The room was close and stuffy and the muddy smell seemed everywhere-in the air, in her mouth, on her very skin. For some time she lay unmoving, conscious only of her discomfort. At length, when some creature stirred in the thatch above-a dry, stealthy rustle followed by a brief scuttling-she turned her head quickly in the direction of the noise. Sometimes, as she well knew, things fell out of thatch and landed on you. As she did so she saw Bayub-Otal standing with his back to her, gazing out of the window opening. Hearing her move, he looked round and smiled.

  "Feeling better?"

  She nodded and tried to smile back, but her heart was like lead. She sat up, pressing fingers over her aching eyes.

  "Are you feverish?" he asked. "Tell me-really-how you feel."

  "I'm all right, my lord: only I've got a headache and my shin feels that bad."

  "Try to eat something: you'll feel better. People often get headaches when they first come to Suba-it's the marsh air-but it soon passes off."

  "I'd like to wash, my lord. Reckon that'd make me feel better than anything."

  He sat down on a rickety stool under the window.

  "Suban people mostly wash out of doors: I'll call a girl, shall I, to show you wherever it is they go here?"

  "Oh. Well-well, at that rate, my lord, I think I'd rather eat first."

  "Just as you like." He smiled again. "Just as you like, Maia. You're not a slave anymore, now."

  He called from the window and after a little the old woman clambered up into the room, carrying a flask and a clay bowl. These she put down, smiled toothlessly at Maia, mumbled a few words to Bayub-Otal and disappeared again.

  "She's gone to get you some bread and fish. People eat a lot of fish here; there's not much else, you see. This will be fish soup, I expect-akrow, they call it." He filled the bowl from the flask. "Yes, it is. It's good, too. I had some myself earlier on."

  She took the bowl from him. The liquid was pale yellow, not much thicker than water and surfaced with tiny, iridescent circles like a clear gravy. White fragments of fish were floating in it. Seeing her hesitate, he shook his head.

  "You just gulp it down. No spoons here. Pick out the big bits with your fingers, but watch for bones."

  She tilted the bowl to her lips. The soup was hot enough, and its taste not unpleasant. It left a coating of grease on her lips and the roof of her mouth.

  The old woman returned with wine, black bread and two crisp-skinned, baked fish on a plate.

  "Would you like me to break these up for you?" he asked. "It can be awkward till you've got the knack." He laughed. "I'm rather good at it; or I used to be."

  He was plainly in good spirits. She watched as he slit each fish along one side with his knife, took out tail, backbone and head in one piece and threw it out the window.

  "And that, too, you eat with your fingers," he said, handing the fish to her. "Makes it taste much better, I assure you."

  For the life of her she could not bring herself to take it in good part. The room seemed stifling and her headache, if anything, worse.

  "Are the people all so poor?"

  "Oh, no, these people aren't poor: they just haven't got any money."

  She ate the bread and fish, sucked her fingers and wiped them on the coverlet, which from the look of it was not going to take any harm from a little thing like that. When she had eaten a few figs and swallowed down some of the rough wine, her headache grew duller and she began to feel drowsy again.

  He watched her, sitting on his stool. "Poor Maia! How many days is it now since we left Bekla?"

  She knew that. "This is the sixth day, my lord." "Don't call me that anymore. Call me Anda-Nokomis, like everybody else. Six days-so it is. I don't wonder you're tired out. I'm sure there are very few girls who could have done it at all. You'll need at least another day's rest: but don't worry, Maia-I'll leave you in good hands, I promise."

  She stared at him, frightened. "Leave me?" He got up and once more stood looking out the window. After a few moments he replied rather hesitantly, "Well, as far as I'm concerned, you see, it's become very urgent. I've got to get down to Melvda-Rain as soon as I possibly can, and so has Lenkrit. He tells me his son will be there already, with the men from upper Suba. I've no idea what Karnat's planning to do. If he was one of our own people it would be different, but with allies there's always the risk of misunderstanding and ill-feeling. He's got to be able to trust us; he's got to believe that we mean what we say."

  Maia could make little of this, except that he meant to go away and leave her behind. Her silent incomprehension seemed to recall to him that he was speaking to her in particular. He came back across the room and sat beside her on the floor.

  "I'll explain," he said. "King Karnat of Terekenalt has his army in camp about thirty or forty miles south of here, at a place called Melvda-Rain. We-that's to say the Su-bans-are joining him as allies, which means that Lenkrit and I, as Suban leaders, need to get down there at once. We're leaving now-before dark. We're going by water- all traveling's by water in Suba. We'll get there about midday tomorrow. Once we get clear of these eastern marshes it's more or less straight all the way, down the Nordesh. You'll be following as soon as possible-" "Me, my lord-I mean Anda-Nokomis: why me?" "Oh-well-" He hesitated. "I won't explain now: but I'll see to it that you're told before you get to Melvda." "If I've got to go, Anda-Nokomis, can't I go with you?" "You're not fit to travel tonight, Maia, that's certain. You need more rest and sleep. I've suggested you start tomorrow, in the afternoon. Lenkrit's leaving Tescon, so

  that you'll be able to travel with someone who's not entirely a stranger; and I've found a sensible, steady girl to go with you."

  "No one else? Just those two?"

  He was silent, thinking. "Yes, of course there ought to be an older man as well. I don't know who'd-" Suddenly he looked up, smiling. "Well, of course! U-Nasada's going to Melvda-he can easily wait and go with you! There couldn't be anyone better."

  "U-Nasada?"

  "The old man you saw this morning-the doctor. You'll be safer with him than you would be with forty soldiers. Everyone in Suba knows and respects Nasada, you see. He goes everywhere-all over the place."

  "Is he a priest?" To Maia, as to everyone in the empire, healing was associated with religion, or at least with magic.

  "I believe he was once: I remember hearing that he started as a priest, so I suppose strictly speaking he still is. But ever since I can remember, he's been known simply as a doctor. Everyone looks up to him because he gives his skill for nothing; or for very little, anyway. It's not every doctor who understands our illnesses in Suba, you see-the marsh-fevers, the agues and all the rest of it. Very few doctors want to come here. It's not like any other province, and there's nothing to be made out of people who've got no money. Nasada knows more about Suba than anyone else; and no one's going to make trouble for him. They're only too glad to see him coming."

  "Does he live here: in this village, I mean?"

  "He doesn't really live anywhere: he's nearly always on the move. It was a piece of good luck for us that he happened to be here last night."

  She could not find it in herself to respond to his cheerfulness. Her own feelings were not far removed from despair. She might as wen, she thought, have been swept away with Thel in the Valderra. Used though she had always been to making the best of things, what was there now to make the best of? She recalled something Occula had once said: "Wherever else you go, banzi, keep out of Suba. You want the blood running out of your tairth, not your venda." Suba was a by-word for every sickness of the stomach and bowels. This headache and malaise- might it be the bloody flux that was coming on her now? She had heard tell, too, of the marsh-fever, that could

  knock down a str
ong, healthy girl like a blow from a fist and kill her in a few hours. Her body-her beautiful body! She thought of Sencho fondling and grunting with pleasure in the cool, scented, fly-screened cleanliness of the garden-room. "The marsh for frogs," ran the saying, "and Suba for the Subans." Kembri would learn soon enough, after last night, that she had been taken across the Valderra. She would be written off as dead.

  Bayub-Otal stood up with the air of a busy man unable for the moment to spare her more time. "Well, I may see you again, Maia, before I go: but anyhow we won't be apart for long. I'll ask the girl to come and,see you. Her name's Luma, by the way." Stooping, he touched her hand for a moment and was gone down the ladder.

  The girl did not come at once, however, and Maia, dropping off into a half-dream, seemed to herself to be walking round the pain in her shin, which had become a kind of heavy, carved block, like those in the Slave Market at Bekla. Somewhere Nennaunir, cool and inaccessible, was standing at the top of a staircase among sycamore trees.

  She woke slowly, and lay sweating as the dream gradually dispersed. The flies buzzed in the dusky room and a gleam of red sunlight, slanting through a crack, dazzled a moment in her eyes. After a time she became aware of a curious, droning sound, something like the wind against the edge of a shutter, but varying in tone, rather as though some large flying insect were in the room. Raising herself and looking round her, she saw a girl sitting cross-legged on the floor near the ladder-entrance. Her back was half-turned towards Maia and she was gazing idly downward. The droning-a kind of humming murmur-came from her. It was repetitive, a succession of five or six sustained notes, predictable as the song of a bird. There was no clear beginning or end to the cadence and the singer, indeed, appeared ho more conscious of making it than she might be of breathing or blinking. With one fore-finger she was slowly tracing an invisible pattern on the boards, but this movement, too, seemed recurrent, a kind of counterpart of her drone. On the one wrist which Maia could see was a notched, rather ugly wooden bracelet, stained unevenly in blue and green. Her dirty feet were bare and her hair was gathered in a plait tied with a ragged strip of leather.

  This, surely, must be the girl of whom Bayub-Otal had spoken. Watching her, Maia began thinking how best to

  go about making use of her for her own comfort and relief in this dismal place. Yes, and for her instruction, too, for there must be plenty she would need to learn. It was a pity she had nothing to give her, for it was important that the girl should not think her stuck-up or feel impatient with her for not knowing Suban ways.

  The thought of pestilence came scuttling and creeping back into her mind: her very life might well depend on the girl. There must be ways of protecting oneself-things to do and things to avoid. If only she could contrive to avoid getting ill, then one day, somehow or other, the opportunity might arise to escape: though how-and here her despair returned, so that she shivered in the stuffy room- she could form no least idea. Better to think no more about that, but get on with what was immediately to hand.

  She tried to impart a friendly tone to her voice. "Are you Luma?"

  She had expected the girl to start or jump up, but on the contrary she gave no immediate sign of having heard her. Then, rather as though reluctantly turning aside from something else which had been absorbing her attention, she lifted her finger from the floor, raised her head, blinked, smiled and nodded. She had dark, heavy-lidded eyes, a broad nose and full lips; and might, thought Maia, have been quite a pretty girl-something after the style of the Deelguy-if it had not been for her sallow, mottled skin and a weeping sore at one corner of her mouth, which she licked nervously before replying.

  "Luma." She nodded and smiled again. Maia guessed her to be about seventeen.

  "I hope you're going to be able to teach me how you do things here," she said "Only I've never been in Suba in my life, see, and where I've come from it's all different."

  The girl spread her hands, smiled again and said something that sounded like "Shagreh."

  "Anda-Nokomis said you're going to come with me to Melvda-Rain," said Maia. "Do you know it? Have you been there before?"

  The girl nodded. This was better than Maia had hoped for.

  "You have? What's it like?"

  "Shagreh," said the girl, smiling. Then, as Maia paused, puzzled, she said, in a thick Suban accent, "You'd like some food?"

  "What? Oh-no; no, thank you," answered Maia. "I had something not long ago."

  The girl, however, appeared to take this for an assent, for she got up and was plainly about to go down the ladder. Maia called her back.

  "What I really want," she said, standing up and smiling, "is to wash." The girl looked at her nervously, scratching at one armpit and apparently wondering what she had done wrong. "I want to wash," repeated Maia. Still getting no response, she began to mime the act of stooping and splashing water over her neck and face.

  At all events there was nothing wrong with her mimicry. The girl's face tit up with comprehension.

  "Oh, washT' she said, laughing with pleasure at having grasped Maia's meaning. She paused, still smiling. At length she added, "You want-nowV

  "Yes, please," said Maia. "You wash out of doors here, don't you?" She pointed through the door opening. "Will you show me where it is?"

  Luma nodded, raised her palm to her forehead and stood aside for Maia to go first down the ladder. Outside, a light breeze was blowing, stirring loose wisps of thatch under the eaves and rippling the tall, yellow-brown grass beyond the huts. As they set off together, a little group of staring, pot-bellied children, some naked, others in rags, fell in at their heels and followed until Luma, turning and clapping her hands as though they had been chickens, sent them scattering.

  It was early evening; an hour, certainly, when any village might be expected to be ceasing from labor, changing the rhythm of the sun for the gentler rhythms of nightfall, supper and firelight. Even so, Maia was struck by the list-lessness which seemed to fill the whole little settlement, as though (she thought) they were all under water, or in one of those dreams in which people can move only like beetles crawling over each other on a branch. Everyone she saw appeared languid and apathetic-nowhere a song or a burst of laughter. The very birds, it seemed, were not given to singing, though now and then, as they approached the further end of the village, the harsh cry of some waterfowl-coot, perhaps, or jabiru-echoed from the surrounding swamp.

  Luma appeared to feel no particular obligation to talk and Maia, after a few attempts to do so herself, walked

  on beside her in silence. At length she asked "How many people are there in the village? About how many, I mean?"

  Luma smiled and nodded.

  "How many?" persisted Maia, pointing to the huts.

  "How many you think?" replied Luma, with an air of deferring to higher wisdom.

  "I don't know. Three hundred?"

  "Shagreh, shagreh." Luma nodded corroboratively.

  "Or five hundred, perhaps?"

  "Shagreh."

  They had now left the huts and were walking between clumps of grass and rushes, on a path that wound between shallow pools and mud that was half water. Here the marshy smell was mingled with the scent of some kind of wild herb, peppery and sharp, and now and then with a sweeter fragrance, as though somewhere near there must be a bed of marsh lily or roseweed. In places, split logs had been laid together, flat side up, to pave the path, and over these Luma led the way, her bare feet pressing down the wood so that now and then the warm, stagnant water rose nearly to her ankles. The light was fading and as they went on the croaking of frogs, which at first had been intermittent, became continuous, spreading round them on every side.

  Passing through a thicket of plumed reeds and club-rushes taller than themselves, the two girls came to a still, open pool about thirty yards broad-some backwater of the Valderra, Maia supposed, for it did not seem to be flowing. In several places here the short-turfed, level bank had been cut into, to form a succession of regular inlets, each a few yar
ds long and about three feet deep. In four or five of these, girls, either naked or stripped to the waist, were splashing and washing themselves. One, looking up, called a greeting to Luma.

  Even on the Tonildan Waste Maia had possessed a towel of sorts and (as will be remembered) Morca used to make soap from tallow and ashes. Such refinements, however, seemed unknown here. Luma, pointing and smiling, became unexpectedly articulate.

  "This is a good place. Not many others-" (Here Maia lost her drift.) "You needn't worry; none of the men come here. Have their own place."

  Stooping, she pulled off her dull-gray, curiously supple smock (Maia could still form no idea from what it could

  be made), stepped into one of the inlets and began sluicing her head and shoulders with her hands. Maia, strolling a little way along the bank, looked down into the dark, smooth water. She could not see the bottom: it must be all of eight or ten feet deep and it was weedless. She dipped one hand in. It felt pleasant-somewhere between cool and lukewarm; if anything, a shade warmer than Serrelind at this time of year. In fact, it was just what she needed. She undressed and, kneeling above the water, became conscious once again of the beauty of her own body. She bent over the calm surface. It was not a perfect reflection- since leaving Fornis's house she had had no sight of a mirror-but as near as she could tell, neither her black eye nor her bruised lip were still noticeable. Looking at her breasts, she smiled to remember how Meris, on the night of the Rains banquet, had shown her jealousy of their firm prominence.

  "Ah!" she whispered. "I've still got myself: that ought to be good for something, even in Suba."

  Rising quickly to her feet, she plunged into the water and struck out, delighted to be swimming once again. Any road, she thought, this is something that hasn't changed. Water's where I'm at home. Water loves me.