She was often on duty alone on the tower. Regulations said there must always be two on watch; but even when there were, one would usually be asleep. Along this front there had been no fighting, no raid, not even an "incident" for years. A spy was the worst they had to fear. When Mara was on duty the Commander often came up. She was fascinated by Mara, as Mara was with her. She remembered little of her life before her capture, aged eleven, had always been a soldier, had always known where her next meal was coming from, and what she was to wear and do. She was not "in" the army, she was army. She listened to Mara's tales of her vicissitudes with her hand pressed to her mouth and her eyes wide above it, and she giggled nervously when Mara laughed and said, "You don't believe a word I am saying." Whether she did or not, she would say, "Tell me about the house with the spiders," or how the sky skimmer crashed, or how people lived in the River Towns. She had not been out of the Hennes camp, ever, except on watch-duty, had never heard of sky skimmers. Particularly she wanted to know about the flash floods, and it was pleasant to talk about flowing waters while the dust storms blew from the north.
Mara stood alone on her tower and listened to the dry whine of the wind around the corners and struts of the old, shaky building, and heard the thud, thud, thud of soil hitting the base of the tower, where it piled on a bad night as high as the shoulders of the Thores soldiers — who cleared it away in the morning — or to the waists of the Neanthes. All around this tower was a thick layer of the blown, dark earth, and as soon as the rains began vegetables would be planted, which would race into maturity, because this was fertile soil. Mara stood with her back to the south lands, or "down there," and saw the dim lights of the watchfires, that went on for miles east and west and, across a hollow of dark, the answering Agre fires. She listened to the soldiers singing below: the delicate, keening songs of the Neanthes, the Thores songs, whose words, when you listened carefully, were the double-tongued complaints of a subject people afraid to speak openly. On some nights, when the winds were not blowing, these songs seemed to rise like a many-voiced plea along miles of the frontier; and on a still night, threads and shreds of song came from the enemy lines.
One night, coming off watch-duty, she saw a movement among the heaps of dirt around the base of the tower and, then, a gleam of eyes. She leaped forward and hauled out a terrified wretch who wept and begged as she held her knife at his throat. "Be quiet," she said. "Tell me, what news of the Agre Southern Army? Do you know anything about General Shabis?" "No, I don't know anything." "Do you know about Tisitch Dann?" "No, I told you, I don't know anything." "Then what is the news along your sector?" "Nothing, only that your army is going to attack Shari." "Is that what you're spying down here to find out? Well, you can go back and tell them that it's nonsense." And she let him go to creep back to his lines.
She told Commander Roz, who wondered if she should report this back to the base when the food runners came next. She decided not to, but said she would organise a reconnaissance. Mara asked if she could go by herself. She showed Roz her old robe, which changed with the light, sometimes becoming colourless, or even invisible and said she would put it on one night when the dust was blowing, and try to overhear what was said at the watch-post opposite. When the Commander saw the garment she felt it — and made a face, as everyone did.
Mara put it on over the thick underclothes they had, for cold, and ran into the dark. It was a cold night and a noisy one, for the wind buffeted and gusted. She could feel the dust rising about her legs. She crawled the last few yards and lay flat, just outside a circle of firelight. The soldiers around the fire were speaking Charad and Mahondi too, and eating and throwing bones and scraps into the fire, and talking about the boredom of this watching life, and how they longed for their replacements so they could return to Shari. The only thing of interest they said was that General Shabis was coming to take command of the Northern Army and of Shari, and that would be a fine thing. "He's the best of the lot, General Shabis, he won't let us rot out here." Then the talk turned to women.
Mara had been thinking that she would rise up from her concealment behind some low bushes, and say she was General Shabis's aide — they would welcome her as one of them, of their army and take her to... She must have been mad to think it. She was a female, alone, and fair game. These were men who had been without women for months. No, if she was going to desert then she must choose a time when she could steal some provisions and some water, and steal through the dark evading their own line of watchfires, then the enemy watchfires and forts, and run like a rabbit to. She did not believe Shabis was anywhere near Shari.
She lay quite still, and the only bad moment was when a soldier stepped out into the dark a few paces away to pee. She heard the liquid hiss in the dry soil, and saw his face — full of longing as he stared out into the dark, thinking of his home — while the firelight flickered over it. Then he returned to his comrades around the fire. Some wrapped themselves and lay down to sleep. Two kept watch. Behind them on their watchtower others were staring over their heads into the night — to the tower where Mara spent so much of her time. She wriggled back and away and ran home. For her home now was this outpost. She told Commander Roz that General Shabis might or might not be coming to Shari, but she believed it was only hopeful thinking on the soldiers' part, because Shabis was the kindest of the generals.
The dry season passed. The lightning danced around the horizons, and the thunder came crashing as the rain fell in rivers out of the sky. In the morning all the land between them and the opposing front was covered in silvery, meandering rivulets, for the soil was so dry that at first it repelled water but then, as the nets of water thickened and glistered, the wet sank in and the soil was a dark, springy sponge. There were flowers jumping up everywhere, bright, frail flowers, and birds running about among them.
Out went the Commander to plant vegetables, with her soldiers. The sun dragged up clouds of steam. The clear air transmitted the singing from the opposite lines, so that the soldiers along this front answered enemy songs with their own; and for the whole of the first week of the rains it was as if the two armies were serenading each other.
All the soldiers ran out at night into the rain naked and held up their arms into it and exulted as the streams ran down their bodies. All but Mara. She was afraid to take off her cord of coins, and could not be seen with it. When they teased her about her shyness she said she had been brought up never to show her body to anyone but a husband. This made them laugh at her even more.
Commander Roz came creeping to Mara's bed and begged to come in, like a little animal, and when Mara was unwelcoming, she said, "Don't you like me, Mara?" Mara did like her. She would have liked very much to open her arms to this companion, but she did not dare. If it were known what she wore under her uniform.
Roz was kneeling by the bed and Mara was holding her hands, and she began talking about her husband, Meryx, whom she was afraid was dead, and how she could not bear anyone to touch her, only him.
This made Roz love Mara even more, this romantic woman with a dead love, who was so faithful to him and so pure.
She went back to the soldiers and told them that Mara was not to be persuaded. The women soldiers, who of course dreamed of a love of their own — and some had found love here on the frontier — and the men soldiers, who might have wives and lovers at home, all admired Mara. She became even more of a lonely and romantic figure, and people envied her.
What she had told Roz was not far off the truth. While she would not allow herself to think at all of Chelops and his possible — no, probable — death, she often felt Meryx close to her. She had only to summon up his image, when she was alone, or in bed, to feel that he was there. So it could be said that she never thought of Meryx, refused to, and yet he was with her, like a friendly shadow.
Mara stood on the tower and looked north and thought that she had been here now six months. The soldiers sent out to the watchtowers were supposed to be relieved after six months. The ration-runner
s came and said nothing had been said about a relieving company. Asked, What's new? — they replied that there were rumours of a putsch north. But there were always rumours of a putsch somewhere. Mara asked if there was news of General Shabis, but they said "everyone" was saying he and the other generals had quarrelled. Who was everyone? Some spies had said so. Had they heard anything about a tisitch called Dann? One said that he thought there was a General Dann. "A general?" A deputy-general: you know, each general has a little general attached, and he trains him up the way he should go.
Life at the watch-post became pleasanter as the rainy season went on. Farmers brought in food, and asked outrageous prices, and were bargained down. Commander Roz was always present at these encounters, for often spies were with them. Mara did manage to extract from a particularly suspect farmer, who asked too many questions, that General Shabis was in Shari. He was there to counter the expected Hennes putsch.
The rainy season went on but it was patchy. The flowers of the first rain had disappeared but there was a green film over the brown. Rabbits and deer ventured from the hills and made meals for the soldiers. As always in a land where the rains mean life, there was in everyone's mind a calendar or record of the rainy seasons, thus: last season had been a good one and filled the dams; the one before that had been poor, and the dams were low; before that had been two goodish seasons, but before them a run of bad ones. This one they were in was not really good but could be worse. Now next year — everyone would be waiting to see how that one would turn out.
Mara stood on her tower and looked north. She had been here nearly a year. Then it was a year. She had been forgotten. The dry season was here again and the black earth lightened to dark grey, though it would take some time for the soil really to dry out, so the winds could begin their work of lifting and shifting and reshaping the land.
14
Then, unexpectedly, since no one had believed the rumours, a runner came to say the army would be marching north past here, and they, the watchers on the frontier, would be absorbed into it, and must have their equipment and weapons ready. There were guns stacked in the fort. No one used them, because they were afraid the things would blow up in their faces, as they so often did. Now they were brought forth and cleaned, and every soldier checked a little stock of explosive powder. They did this because they had to but, by now experienced old soldiers, they stuffed their satchels and bags with food and warm clothing, and sharpened their knives.
Then they waited, staring south, until the horizon began to move towards them, and then there was the Hennes army, which engulfed them. The great army — it was ten thousand strong — marched for six hours, and rested for two, marched for six and rested, and so on, day and night, for ten days. The moon was high and bright and its light filled the sky but the clouds of dust raised by all those marching feet obscured the view around them. All the way Roz the platoon commander was beside Mara, chattering about how fine it would be when they occupied Shari, and that she had never before been with an army when it took a city. Mara was wondering how to escape. When the whole great company stopped on the rise outside Shari and looked down and saw the turrets and towers shining white above trees and populous streets, there was a silence and then a spontaneous cheer. Loot and good times were in every mind. But Mara was wondering, Why is there no opposing army to stop us? Already the truth was in her mind and she was wondering why General Izrak could not see it. If there was no defence, and this army was going to be allowed to march unopposed into the city, then a trap had been set. Mara knew that in the low hills on either side of Shari, General Shabis's troops must be waiting. She knew that she herself would be an animal in a trap if she could not think of a way to escape — but she could not, and she marched with the army, positioned about a third of the way along the column, into the streets of Shari, which were finer and grander than anything she had imagined. And still all that could be seen were the desperate inhabitants — running, taking cover in buildings, shops, even up trees. The army was halted, its head in the main square. Probably General Izrak only now understood that he was trapped, and he was wondering whether to retreat or fight. The soldiers had understood by now. And this army, which had not fought a real battle for years, was in a panic. Then Mara's chance came. The ranks broke, soldiers went off into side streets and alleys, into garden squares and houses, half in a frenzy of fear, but lured by loot. Mara dived into a shop, by herself, and had her Hennes uniform off, or rather the top part of it, and pulled on the old, brown, skin-like garment she kept at the bottom of her army satchel. Then she was out of the shop and into the crowd of fleeing inhabitants, no different from them, except that she had left the army issue kitbag with her trousers in the shop. Also all her food and clothing. She now possessed nothing at all, apart from the Hennes trousers and that old indestructible tunic. The refugees were crowding north out of Shari. Shabis's army, drawn up outside the town, stood on either side of the main road to let them through. The officers were shouting, "Go to Karas — we'll have this scum out of Shari before the solstice." "You'll be back home before you know it." "You'll find food on the road." And so on. But the refugees seemed not to hear, they were haunted and hunted and were determined on one thing: to get as far away from the Hennes troops as they could. Already they all had tales of horrors: rapes, murders, muggings.
And if Mara wasn't careful she would find herself out of Shari and on the road to Karas. She stepped out of the flood of people and there, under a big thorn tree, just where the town ended, a group of Agre officers stood watching the refugees. Mara reminded herself that she was not a soldier now, she did not have the protection of a uniform, she was a young woman. She swiftly unknotted a coin from her cord of them, using an empty booth to hide her for that moment, and went up to them, saying, "I want to speak to General Shabis."
She had expected what she got: astonishment, then incredulity, and then the ritual jeer the occasion demanded.
"He knows me," she said.
"So he knows you, does he?"
Now she took a big chance: "General Dann, is he here?" "I suppose you know him too?"
"Yes, I do."
And now their faces were those of soldiers whose mental apparatus had been overloaded. It was her assurance, her self-command that confused them. And, too, that she was a Mahondi, who looked like generals Shabis and Dann.
It was touch and go; the group could have gone on with another question, but instead there was a cacophony of leers, and then one of them came forward, took her by the wrist and, to the accompaniment of laughter, pulled her into an empty place that was usually a tea house. Before he could whip off her garment and show her what he could do, she held out the gold coin, on her palm, hoping he was not one of those who did not know what gold was, and said, "You can have this if you take me to either General Shabis or General Dann. And I won't tell them you tried to rape me."
It was her manner that stopped him, her calm. He rearranged his clothing and said, "I'm on duty."
"So I can see."
His eyes swivelled about, expressions chased themselves across his face — for a moment he was tempted to rape her after all; then he reached out for the coin, and she closed her fist over it.
"Wait," he said. He ran back to the group of his comrades. She saw their expressions change as he talked. He came to her, running. "Quick," he said. And, running, the two went off, avoiding the columns of fleeing people, through increasingly grand streets to a big building that had guards outside it. "General Shabis is on the other side of the town," said the officer. "General Dann is in there." She held out the coin; he took it, and said, "If you're on the level, tell General Dann I brought you here." And he ran off.
She walked up the steps and said to the guards that she wanted to see General Dann.
"He's busy," said one, contemptuous of a civilian.
"I think you'll find he'll see me. Tell him his sister is here."
At once the guards' faces changed. One went into the building, the other stood
eyeing her, frowning, trying to match what he was seeing, this dusty female in her odd-looking clothes, and the great General Dann.
She was taken in, along a central hall full of officers trying to look busy, and into a side room. There at the window, looking down at the chaotic scene, stood a young officer so handsome, so appealing to her that she experienced him as an assault to all her senses; and she had begun to say, "Where is General Dann?" when she saw it was Dann, and at the same moment he turned and said accusingly, "Mara, where have you been?"
At which she sank into a chair and laughed, but then began to cry, and she dropped her head on her arms sobbing, while her brother stood over her scolding, "Mara, we thought you were dead." And his voice, impatient, loving, Dann's — made her feel that she had come home. "Now you are here we can leave," he said. "We can go North."
At this she began laughing again and said, "Oh Dann, how I have missed you."
And now, as she lifted her head to look at Dann, she noticed sitting opposite her a young man, a boy, and his face was bitter as he smiled, Wouldn't you know it! And he was very jealous. Mara realised, as Dann did, at the same moment, they had been talking in Charad; and now they switched into their own tongue, and that for her — she had not spoken Mahondi for so long — was a coming home, a return to herself.
She stood up and the two embraced, and now Dann's eyes were full of tears too. "Oh Mara," he said, "you don't know what it has been like without you."
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