When he rode out in front of his armies the sight of him was never anything but provocative of emotion. All focused on him, the king, sitting so straight and firm, his great brown legs like tree trunks, his grey eyes all benevolence.
Behind him, and half his size, on her black horse, is Al·Ith. Her horse’s neck is arched under a tight rein. She is sitting sideways and is very pregnant. Sometimes the child is born and is held in front of her: a large child, dwarfing her. Her face is conventionalized, has the blunt solid look of their people. She is smiling, and holds out one hand palm upwards: in the palm is a small object meant to represent Zone Three — a mountain.
With us this scene has never been popular, as can be imagined. For a long tune it was not represented at all. This was not only because it was felt to be painful and demeaning. Not only that. There was an ambiguity in it that all of us could feel, even though there are so few of us who are capable of understanding — who are prepared to make the effort to understand — what it meant to Al·Ith to descend to that Zone in the way she did.
But later on our more adventurous artists did try and tackle it — and this precisely because of its difficulty.
Soon the early, cruder representations lost favour: some of them had even shown Al·Ith with bound hands, or a chain around her neck. But most concentrated on the soldiers rather than on Al·Ith, who was reduced to a pathetic doll-like figure on her horse. We had instead the faces of the soldiers, exuberantly cheering, rather like animals contemplating an imminent feast. In short, these first pictures all tended to caricature.
In the end a more serious school of artists took to showing the scene not very differently from how it was generally shown with them in Zone Four — a fact not without irony, and of course appreciated very much by some of us.
The pictures were of, above all. Al·Ith’s gold dress — of her decorated and opulent dress, and her bound, trapped hair. She dwindles under the weight of stuff and jewellery. Her pregnancy is not ignored, but not made much of either. Her face is only indicated. She rides between ranks of men in uniforms which are shown in the greatest detail. These pictures came to be known as ‘Al·Ith’s Dress’!
And there were some rather funny verses current, too, all about Al·Ith’s dress, and its adventures, as if Al·Ith were not inside it.
And yet all these representations failed to come to terms with Al·Ith’s real feelings as she rode behind Ben Ata, for hour after hour after hour, in that steamy dampness, in the clashing thumping noise which was making her feel faint.
The fact was that she was watching Ben Ata closely. She did not smile or wave at the soldiers, for she knew this was not expected of her — she was not anything more than a symbol. It was Ben Ata’s function to show himself through the look on his face, and his eyes. He did not miss anything. She saw how he took in, at a glance, every detail of a company of men as he slowly rode past. She knew that he was storing up what he had noticed to deal with it all later. She knew that when he was with his officers everything he had seen would be brought up and attended to.
She tended to forget him in this role, which was after all his real one, his purpose and his being — the representative and leader of his men. This she understood and respected, from her own knowledge of herself, and of her function.
She found, watching this Ben Ata, that he was absolutely and every bit in command of what was needed from him.
She respected him for this. She loved him.
She might be feeling inside that appalling dress of hers that she was being asked for almost more than she could bear but then, obviously — and it was quite clear to her, just as much as to Ben Ata — it was necessary.
Al·Ith, on that steamy, damp plain, among thousands upon thousands of Ben Ata’s soldiers, was no captive as she watched and approved Ben Ata.
I do not believe that any of our artists, or our ballad-makers or songsters, have got anywhere near the truth of that scene. And in fact perhaps those Zone Four pictures that have the child already born and sometimes even on his own little horse riding in front of both Ben Ata and Al·Ith have got nearest to it.
When at last the parade was over, and the plain full of companies of men marching back to their camps, the two were a long way from their own pavilion, and it was evening.
Not far was an old fort, and they rode there, side by side now, and in good understanding with each other. He was not grateful for her compliance, for gratitude is not in order when something necessary has to be done, but he knew the day had cost her a good deal. Besides, she was pale, and confessed to a headache. At the fort, he helped her take the bridle and saddle from poor Yori, before untrapping his own horse. Both were set free for the night, having been told by Al·Ith that they were to be waiting here in the morning. The beasts raced off in the dust, tossing their manes and neighing in relief at their freedom, and then rolled in the soft grass, while the two watched.
‘All right, Al·Ith, don’t say it,’ said he.
‘There is no need,’ she said, soft and fierce, ‘no need for it. Why make slaves of creatures who will do what you want for love?’
At which he clasped her, with a sort of groaning apology, and pulled down her hair so that he could sink his face in it.
And so they stood until they felt a coldness and saw that the mists were already as high as their waists. They went into the fort. Both were happy to accept hardship when it was necessary, and in fact they were welcoming this holiday away from the ease and delights of their pavilion. This great stone hall, with its bare flagged floor, and the roof through which stars shone because h was going into ruin, suited their mood very well. They sat together with no light except starlight, and refusing thoughts of food and drink.
In the middle of the night, hearing the horses whickering and talking outside, they went out to them and petted them. It was chilly, and the sky was ablaze with stars. Both gazed up into the snowy masses of the mountains that hung there, filling the sky. Ben Ata said suddenly, fierce and sad, Oh, Al·Ith, you will be pleased to be home again, I know that but …’ And again he held her close and she clung close to him.
Of course she knew that this sojourn in his Zone could only be temporary, and of course she longed for it to end, but neither had said this for a long time: that she would have to leave him. She wept. She was drenched with sorrow and with loss.
That this could be the truth was more than she could understand or accept. It seemed that long ago she had floated away from anything she could understand: buffeted back and forth between such oppositions in herself.
And so she clung to him, feeling that without him she couldn’t be anything. And he held her, thinking that without her he would be only half of himself.
As soon as the light came, they got back on to their horses, and rode on, Ben Ata’s saddled and bridled, but hers not.
He had promised her a tour of at least part of his realm, and this was a suitable time for it, before she got too large to be comfortable for long hours on a horse.
Not all of this land was so low and damp. Soon they left the central lowlands behind and ascended into a drier wooded country where there were sparse villages. These were not large, and were poor, surrounded by fields of quite good earth that had been indifferently farmed.
In the fields worked women and children, and old men—the young men were in the armies.
All stopped as the two rode by. There were no cheers here, not even an acknowledgement. Al·Ith saw that these people did not know that this was their king, did not know, very likely that they had, even if briefly, a queen.
They wore brown, coarsely woven garments, and used the simplest of tools. With us, such implements had been in museums long ago.
As they rode through the huts and houses of the villages, Al·Ith looked for marketplaces, for meeting places, for dancing places. She looked for the warehouses and the storage sheds; the artisans’ shops, the manufactories.
Recently, how things were in Zone Three had rather faded in her mind,
but what she was seeing now revived her memory. She was shocked and sorrowful, contrasting the riches and the comforts of her own country with this poverty which was not even conscious of its thin bareness.
She at first kept glancing at Ben Ata, to find out how he saw it all, but realised from his glances at her, which he tried to hide, that he was hoping to learn from her. And then she did not look at him, for fear her eyes would say how very poor she thought his country. She did not want to wound him. Yet as the day went on, and they kept riding through woodlands, where the soil, she could see, was good and could be fruitful, and then coming out on the bare windswept patches of marshy field that edged the villages, and then riding through the villages which were only associations of dwelling places for — presumably — safety, she became heavier and colder in spirit.
She asked if she might see inside a house. This was in one of the better villages, where some attempt had been made to lay stones along the road that bisected it — other villages were in swamps of mud, or in hard rutted dust.
An old woman, in a thick brown skirt and a sort of ragged leather jerkin that showed her withered arms, was sitting in front of her doorstep on a tree stump, and stood up as the two rode towards her. She peered and puzzled. It seemed that she knew these must be important and powerful, if not that she was in the presence of her sovereign, for she attempted a smile, and then even a sort of bob, in the course of which she nearly fell. Ben Ata leapt down from his horse, and steadied her, and said, ‘May we enter your house and sit down?’
She had never had such a request made of her, they could see that, for she was having to work it out in her mind. Then she nodded, and went in before them to a room that was not too small, but was clearly the home of at least ten people. For on a corner of the floor were piled skins and woven blankets, to leave room for the day’s occupations. The roof was thatched, quite strongly, but not with any art. The floor was flagged. There was a fireplace in which hung hams and joints to dry in the smoke. There were strings of vegetables and herbs hanging from the rafters. A single door at the back led into a room where jars and vats showed that this family, or tribe, had food enough, if nothing much else.
In the main room were no more than a couple of benches, and a loom.
The old woman followed them, gazing, and smiling uncertainly, and from time to time she hastily smoothed her thin white hair, as the idea came to her that something of the kind was due. Then she smiled and bobbed again as they thanked her, and without sitting down, went out again, got on their horses and rode away, past doorways where children came out to watch, and some old people.
And so it went on all that day. In the evening they found a small town, where things were better and Ben Ata seemed ready to show pride, if she felt it was indicated, but she was despondent, and not able to smile. There was an inn there, of a sort, which consisted of a large room where travellers might eat and doze away the night sitting up on benches. Here they were recognized and the whole town came out to stare and admire. They ate broth and bread and roast fowl with some travellers who were too much in awe to eat, and when the meal was done, they thanked the townspeople and rode off again into the forest, where they again spent the night wakeful, but sometimes dozing a little.
He did not ask her what she was thinking, and she did not tell him. But she was secretly planning a visit for him to her land, so that he could see for himself: if she could acclimatize to this heavy lifeless air, could he not get used to the atmosphere of Zone Three? But would it be allowed? Would the Providers encourage such a thing? Wondering if similar thoughts were in his mind, she sat within the strength of his arms, under the great tree that they had chosen as shelter, and smelled the rich loamy soil all around them, and knew that there was nothing in her realm that he could not achieve in his. If that, in fact, was part of what was ordered.
They kept up this tour for several days. There were sometimes larger towns, but mostly small ones, and all had that exact and limited functioning which means that a centre serves its locality — no more. There were very many villages. Everywhere had the same stamp of on the edge of poverty. And nowhere could be seen young men, or men in the prime of life, or even middle-aged men. The women were formidable, and very strong, as if they had been forced to swallow iron very early in their lives and had never digested it. The old people stared from eyes that had learned to expect nothing. The children did not seem playful or lively, but had a hard watchful stare and were suspicious. Al·Ith was now remembering everything about her own country, even though each thought of it was painful to her, and she half wished that she could forget it all again. There was a really dreadful restlessness in her, a grief rooted in conflict.
Everything in her was rent and in argument and fighting against itself. Above all she was thinking that it was this graceless and impoverished land the child in her womb was destined to rule — and the thought was cold and heavy, making her feel an alien to him. Usually she liked to put her hand there and greet the little creature. She enjoyed feeling him stretch and prove himself. She needed to feel that she was feeding him strength and confidence. But now this friendly hand of hers was inhibited, and wanted to keep away from the child, as if her touch could only send doubting and undermining messages. Nor could she imagine how this future of theirs was to be: a mist lay between her and what was to come, and she could not remember ever before not knowing what she was to expect, so that she could prepare herself for it.
The Al·Ith who at length said to her husband that she had seen enough, ridden enough, and was ready to return ‘home’ — to their pavilion, she meant, not her own realm — was very different from the one who had ridden out to show herself off to the armies.
They turned their faces towards the central lowlands, and rode slowly back, taking their meals in the towns that had inns, but always spending their nights in the forest, or in some fort or ruin.
Al·Ith was thinking all the way home of what could have happened to this place to make it as it was, of how it might conceivably have been in some long distant past before war became its function — and of what Ben Ata could be persuaded to do that might change it.
And Ben Ata was restless and longing to get back to his armies.
For he had seen during his close inspection of the troops that day that they would not be content for long with reviews and tattoos and parades — he would have to allow them something along the lines of a war, or he would not be king for long.
Besides, he now knew perfectly well, from everything that Al·Ith had not said, but could not prevent herself from showing, that his country was a very poor place indeed.
He was out of his depth, faced with a problem beyond his powers, and unsure of himself and his purposes.
A new phase began for them.
Looking back afterwards both saw that their ride together through his realm was when they had come closest to each other, the culmination of their marriage. For now he turned out again towards his men, and she found that the women were claiming her, and that she spent more time with them than she did with Ben Ata.
Soon the child would be born, and there was not a woman in the Zone who did not know of her visit to them, one who was not implicated with every moment of this adventure.
Ben Ata came in late every night, usually mud-bespattled, and often tired. Food had been brought up for them from the camp kitchens, and when he had bathed he sat with her to eat, often preoccupied, but ready to respond if she asked him for his news and always willing to hear what comments she had to make. But war was not what she understood, and while she was interested to hear details of this life that was foreign to her, she could not contribute much. So it was that often he did not talk at all when he came in. He was ready to go to sleep early, since he was always up with the first light. And she at this time was heavy and uncomfortable and did not sleep well. Yet, wrapped together on their couch, it was in friendliness, and for mutual comfort. He liked to lie with his strong lean hand on her stomach, feeling the movements
of the baby, until the weight of it grew too much, and then he turned her so that her back was towards him, and he laid his arm just under the curve of her stomach. They made love gently. Al·Ith had not made love much before when pregnant — or she did not think she had. She had certainly spent the time of her pregnancy with the Fathers, much more than with Ben Ata now. It seemed to her that her days had been spent with the men who were the parents of the child, in sustaining and feeding and reassuring, and that this being together at such a time was of the utmost importance. Yet it was a concept too far from Ben Ata’s life for her to mention it.
And so, when Ben Ata had bathed and dressed and had kissed her, and said that he looked forward to being with her again in the evening, and had gone off shortly after sunrise leaving her still curled up on her couch, it was to the women who would shortly come up the hill from the camps that her thoughts turned. This child of hers was being sustained, through the daytime at least, by women, by the talk of women, the love of women, who longed for him to be born almost as much as for the birth of one of their own. And this, too, was not anything that Al·Ith could remember — not this fierce identification with the birth of a child as if it was some sort of a self-fulfilment. More: as if a birth was a triumphing over a threat or even a wrong, meriting the wild exulting yell of a warrior over a defeated enemy. Her children, in the past — those she had borne personally — were viewed more as a summing up or a confluence and a strengthening of influences and heritage. A child, born, was greeted as a fellow spirit, a delight, a gift — but had there ever been this passionate need to have and to hold and to exult? Well, perhaps it had been like that …
The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five Page 18
