Mara and Dann

She finished the tale as the customers were coming in, while the girls clamoured for her to come again tomorrow and tell them another tale. The girl, Crethis, who had been as close to her during the telling as she could, short of climbing inside her arms, now returned to sit on the lap of her pale friend, Leta, whom the others called the Albina. But immediately Crethis had to leave Leta, because in came a man who claimed her. He was a sensible looking, serious, pleasant man who seemed like a Mahondi — was he one? Yes, he was. He took a good, long look at Mara, nodded, smiled, but did not ask for her. He took Crethis off with him to a private room, and Mara went upstairs.

There she found that all her dresses had been washed and hung up. Her bag of coins had been put on the table.

She tried on the two gowns from Chelops. Well, these flounced, bright cottons had seemed fine enough, then. She put on the indestructible brown garment, and stood in front of the glass. It was short on her now, just to her knees, and seemed to float around her like a shadow. She was standing looking into the water-wall when Senghor came in with her supper tray and saw her. At once he pointed to what she wore and said, "What is that thing?" For he had tried to wash it.

"Once there was a civilisation that made things which were — they never wore out."

He shook his head: I don't understand.

"A people, long ago, hundreds of years..." She thought he had taken in the hundreds and tried, "Thousands of years ago, they found the secret of how to make things — houses, garments, pots, cans, that last for ever."

"What people? Who? Where?"

"Long ago. No one knows." He stared, his forehead puckering. "There were many peoples who lived and then vanished. No one knows why."

His face, as he stared at her, was sombre, awed, but also angry. Then he decided to laugh. "You must tell this story to the girls — they would like it," he said, and then dismissed all these difficult thoughts with an energetic shake of the head.

Next day, after the midday meal, when all the house and everyone in it was sleepy and heavy, the girls because sleep was their refuge from their lives, Mara went down again and found Crethis in her place in Leta's arms. This time Mara sat so close that Crethis did not have to move, but put out her hand to stroke Mara, or touch her hair, from inside Leta's protection.

Mara told them of the cities everywhere that had fallen into ruins, and the city she had seen that could never change or fall down; and then she began to tell them of the past of where they were now, the lands around Bilma. They listened, leaning forward, so interested they forgot their sweets and the poppy, and their yawns.

"From where we are to the Middle Sea was once only sand. The Middle Sea is called that because it was once a sea, but now it is only an enormous hollow in the earth where once a moon hit — it fell out of the sky and tore the earth open. Only sand. Imagine that a white streak of sand you see on the road grows and becomes everything you see — everything is sand everywhere you look." Crethis's friend had come in and was listening. He signalled to Crethis to stay where she was, and not interrupt Mara. "Yet under this sand were once forests and fields where people grew corn. Forests and fields that fed people, and then for some reason the sand covered it all over. And then after many, many years" — she did not dare say hundreds, let alone thousands — "over the sand blew earth, and then seeds, and then again instead of sands were forests, deep forests. But people came to live in the forests, and they began to cut down the trees, and what you see now is that stage, people making towns among the forests and cutting trees and — everything always is a stage, one way of being changes into another."

The young women seemed troubled, or anxious, but not all. Some understood and leaned forward to listen, and Leta in particular followed every word.

"And when will the sands come back here?" asked one.

"Who knows? But perhaps it will all be sand again, where nothing can grow; but just when they think everything is dead, nothing will ever grow, the seasons will change and the rain is different and, instead of spreading, the sands go and there will be forests."

"As we have now," said Crethis, and she smiled over Leta's arm at the man who was listening.

"We have light forests now, and in them towns and great spaces where there are fields, and there the soil is blowing away and thinning. Deep under our feet are the sands of the time when all this was desert, sands as far as you could see."

Crethis's friend nodded, approving, which silenced the little sighs and exclamations of incredulity.

"Where did you learn all this?" he asked Mara.

"From Shabis in Charad. He taught me everything I know."

He looked hard at her, meaning her to mark it, and said, "I know Shabis."

"Do you know Darian?"

"Yes, I do know Darian."

That meant, he would know about Dann. He got up, signalled to Crethis to accompany him, and said to Senghor, "Mara will come with us." "It is not permitted," said Senghor. "I will answer for it to Mother Dalide."

The three went into a side room that had a table and cakes and a jug of juice, and even fruit, as well as the bed. Senghor tried to come in but had the door shut in his face.

Mara sat in the only chair, and the other two sat on the bed, where Crethis snuggled up to her friend, who put his arm around her, with an indulgent smile.

"My name is Daulis. I am one of the Council of Bilma." "You don't look like the others."

"Thank you, Mara. I hope I am not like them — but not all are like the ones who spend their evenings here."

"I wish you spent all your evenings here," Crethis said, and pouted. This pout and the accompanying dimples were not something put on for work, but were how Crethis was, always — little smiles, and pats and pouts, and snuggles and strokes.

"Your brother is in danger, Mara. There is a big reward for bringing him back to Charad. And for Darian, too."

"I don't understand why Shabis couldn't — just bend the rules."

"Shabis is very much the odd man out among the Generals. Dann was his protege. Darian was going to replace Dann. The other Generals criticised Shabis: they said Dann and Darian were too young. Shabis said they were both as competent as men twice their age. It is only a question of time before they are caught and taken back to Shari and a big show trial."

The tears were running down Mara's face. Little Crethis, from Daulis's lap, leaned forward to stroke them away.

"So, Dann and Darian have gone up to Kanaz."

"How?" But she knew.

"They were employed as coachmen. Pushing the coaches to Kanaz."

She could not prevent a despairing wail of laughter. "We joked that this might happen. But we said I would be riding in the coach." "He will wait for you in Kanaz."

"And how am I going to get to Kanaz?" she said bitterly. "I am to be sold here."

He looked gently at her, and smiled, and she knew that this was the man to whom she would be sold. Meanwhile Crethis was smiling up at him and her hand was down inside the pocket of his robe. Mara knew that she had to leave. She got up, and saw how he looked at her, humorously, and like a friend. She went out, shut the door, and there was Senghor.

"I am sure it is all right," she said. "It seems that Daulis is a special friend of Mother Dalide's."

"Yes, they are friends. But it is forbidden, what has happened."

Back in her room, she sat down to think. Daulis was going to buy her, but meanwhile he was making love with Crethis. This made her sad. She hoped it wasn't jealousy, and knew she was foolish.

To be sold to Daulis, when she had seen what kind of man she might have been sold to — surely this was reason enough to be happy. And she was, if not happy, relieved, and realised that her breathing had been oppressed and shallow for days. She was breathing deeply again, from her diaphragm, and she did not feel as if there were knives in her eyes.

This man knew about Dann, knew about her, and wanted to help them. Why did he? He was a Mahondi, yes. There was something here, she knew, that should have been explained. Would it be explained? When Dalide came back, he would pay the old woman the sum of money for Mara and then — she would be out of here. But Dalide might be gone for days, for weeks..

Mara was falling asleep, and she was thinking, not of Daulis but of Shabis. He loved her, so Dann had said, and she had never seen it or thought about it. Now she did think, seeing him standing there in her past, smiling at her, tall, kind, generous, but like a father, not a lover. Her heart was warm, thinking of him, but not as when she thought of Meryx, poor Meryx, who would never know he had fathered a child.

Mara's arms were full of a sweet warmth, small arms clung, and she felt a wet baby mouth open on her cheek and heard baby laughter. She woke, grieving, in the early morning. She had not allowed herself to think of the child disposed of by the wise women of Goidel, and she was not going to remember it now. Up she got, and washed and dressed and sat at the window, while the watchmen kicked aside the smoking logs of their night fire and went off yawning to their beds. Sunlight everywhere. A clear, cool sunlight, and she saw a little animal, a pet like her Shera, long ago, and it was frisking in some fallen leaves. It was so quiet here, in Mother Dalide's house. When Senghor brought her breakfast she thought he looked at her differently, but did not know what that meant. She sat at the window all morning, and nothing happened in that garden; and the guard yawning, and a small wind shaking a scarlet wall plant so that its shadows moved in patterns on the stone, were big events. Below her the women slept in their soiled beds. She knew they did not enjoy waking, often made themselves go back to sleep again, woke and slept, and got up only when they had to. At midday she heard their scolding, petulant voices, no laughter, and the big room was slowly filling, for there were sometimes afternoon customers, and the women lay around yawning and nibbling sweets and cakes, drinking juices. The weight of their sadness dragged the house down into it. The afternoons were always the worst time. Long, heavy, dragging afternoons, and the occasional customer was a diversion, and the quarrelling about who he — or they — would choose, was exaggerated to give them something to feel other than their griefs and grievances. Mara knew that in all her adventures, all her dangers, she had never known anything as bad as the hopeless dreaming that those poor women downstairs lived inside, like a poisonous air. She was thinking of herself as apart from them, different, yet she was a house woman, with them, as Senghor reminded her. She could smell the cold, sweet, slow poppy smoke. Downstairs they were lighting their little stubby pipes, or the girls who did not were leaning closer to the ones who did, drawing in great breaths that had been in companion lungs. Second-poppy, they called this practice.

A knock. What was this? No one knocked, not Senghor; but it was Seng-hor, and he said, "The women want you to go down and tell them stories."

His manner was different. And when she went into the big room, she thought the girls looked at her differently, while they called, "Mara, talk to us," and the little one, Crethis, from Leta's lap, said, "Mara, start from the beginning again."

Now Mara began earlier than she had, which was the moment of running away from her parents' house into the dark, and started with her life as a small child — that wonderful, friendly, easy, indulged life where she woke every morning to the adventure of a child's discoveries, and to the expectation of What did you see, Mara, what did you see? And, as she talked, she remembered even more details, little things half forgotten: how the water in a stream ran over a shallow stone and made patterns; the soft flower smell of her mother when she came to say goodnight. Mara talking, her mind a long way in her past, was looking at plump Crethis, with her baby face and wet pink lips, and she knew who was the infant she had been dreaming about. Crethis, lying inside a sheltering arm and looking out at Mara, was like a little girl. She was a little girl, even a baby, with her wandering hands, touching this, poking at the face just above her, and laughing. The face that was unlike all the others, with its heavy, green eyes and pale lashes, white, glistening white, and the heavy, pale hair that fell over Crethis's face so that she pulled it and laughed. But because Leta was so different, she never lacked customers, and a man came in and pointed at her, and she had to get up and go off into one of the little rooms with him. Crethis crawled to Mara and climbed inside her arms. Mara talked on, hearing in her voice undertones of longing, like a song, and thought, Yes, but I'm not telling them about how the dust piled up in the courtyards and the fountains were dry and the trees stood pining for water.

And now Crethis reached forward to touch Mara's face and said, "Princess Mara, and you lived in a palace."

Mara understood the new respect she was getting from Senghor, and the curiosity of the girls, and she said, "If I was a princess I didn't know it, and I'm not a princess now."

The evening's customers were coming in, and the girls got themselves out of their lazy poses, and sat about attractively and talking coquettishly to each other, with an eye on the door to see who would appear.

Daulis arrived. He looked worried, hurried, and at once signalled to Mara. Crethis got up but he shook his head — no. At this moment Leta came back and, seeing Daulis, went to him and talked urgently, in a low voice, holding his arm.

"Wait," he said. "Wait, Leta. Wait."

He and Mara went up to her room. Mara had time to see how Crethis cuddled up to another girl, not Leta, who was standing staring after Daulis. They did not sit down.

Daulis said, "Something bad. It is my fault. I am afraid I said something to Crethis about you."

"A princess," said Mara. "A princess in a brothel."

He made a gesture — don't. And his face was miserable, all apology and anxiety. Seeing him thus she thought much less of him: he even seemed smaller, less impressive.

"So," said Mara, "she told the girls and the girls have told customers."

"I have the money to buy you out. It is partly mine and partly Shabis's money. But now some Council members want to buy you."

"A princess prostitute?" said Mara.

"A Mahondi princess. It would be a feather in their caps. And they are going to offer Dalide double the price I settled on with her. I haven't got that much."

Mara thought, I've got it, here, on my body, but I'm not going to tell him. I might need it later even more than I do now.

"Luckily Mother Dalide is away. She wouldn't be able to resist, although she agreed on the price. I think you would soon find yourself in a much more unpleasant captivity than this one. And so we are going to move fast. I have made a statement before the chief magistrate, who is a good friend of mine, luckily, that the price was agreed between me and Dalide. It is legally binding, but I am sure Dalide and those crooks would find a way around it. I propose to take you up north with me to Kanaz immediately. And then when you have met up with Dann, we'll go on."

"Who controls the exit lines north from here?"

"The Council, of course. I am one of them. We have to leave before the others find out."

"And who is so keen to get this princess safely out of Bilma? Where am I supposed to be?"

He hesitated. "You'll soon know, Mara. I promise. You'll understand it all. Meanwhile, we must hurry."

She began putting her clothes into the sack, sad that these so beautifully washed and pressed dresses would be crushed up again.

Outside there were loud, arguing voices. Senghor and Leta. She came in, trying to shut the door on Senghor. He would not be shut out. Daulis had to push him back.

Leta said, "Daulis, why wouldn't you listen to me? I was trying to tell you. I've just been with the Chief of the Council, and he said that they are putting a guard on the north station."

Daulis sat down heavily on the bottom of the bed and put his head in his hands.

"But if you listen to me," said Leta, "Just listen. I know a way. You must marry Mara and then they can't stop you — well, you aren't married, are you?"

Daulis was silent, but a quick, almost furtive look at Mara said that he did not want to marry her.

"The marriage would not be legal outside the country of Bilma." "Wouldn't it? How do you know?"

Leta laughed, angrily. "I know. I have spent years trying to think of ways to get out. I know about the laws. There isn't a man in Bilma with any kind of expertise who has been in my bed, that I haven't used. Information. I have been in this place ten years," she said. "Ten years." And Mara could hear the horror of it, in her voice, full of hate. "Take me out with you," she said. "I have saved some money. Mother Dalide lets us keep a little. I have had my price ready for two years now. I could buy myself free, here, but when I walked around Bilma I'd be looking into the faces of men I've had sex with. In Kanaz no one will know me."

"Surely if I took anyone it should be Crethis?" said Daulis.

Leta, Mara could see, was only just controlling impatience.

"I know you are fond of her," she said.

"Yes, I am," he insisted.

"Have you thought what you'd do with her? She's not like me, she's not independent. You'd have her on your hands."

"A pleasure," he said. But it was only to keep his end up — he was looking doubtful.

"There are women who hate this life," said Leta. "Like me. And there are some who like it. And Crethis is one." Daulis shook his head — shaking away the thought. "Crethis can have six men in a night and she often does, she's popular. And she will enjoy every minute of it." Daulis had got up and was staring out of the window where sparks from the watchmen's fire fled up into the dark. "If you took her out of this house she'd be back. It's her home. And if you took her to Kanaz she'd be back into the brothels in no time."

Silence from Daulis. He had his face turned well away but there were tears on his face.

"Yes, you love her. But she's a little girl. She was six years old when she came here — and began her life as a whore. She has never spent a night alone, except when she was ill last year with the lung disease."

"I promised her," said Daulis.

"What did you promise? A member of the Council couldn't have promised marriage to a whore out of Mother Dalide's brothel?" "I promised her safety in my house."

"You're not the only one. Your friend the Chief of the Council took her out to his home, and she was back here six days later. This house is her home and Mother Dalide is her mother."

"All right, get your things," said Daulis.

Leta ran out, and as they heard her quick, light feet on the stairs, Senghor came in.

"Yes, I know," said Daulis. "It is not allowed; but I am Councillor Daulis of the Supreme Council and I am ordering you to stand aside." Senghor stood aside.

Mara and Daulis went downstairs, Mara carrying her sack, while the women not at work came out into the hall to watch. A few blew kisses, whether to Daulis or Mara it was hard to say.

Leta came with a little bag of her things in her hand, and then the three were out in the night streets of Bilma. They walked fast along side streets until they came to a big gate. The guard on it recognised Daulis and let them in. Daulis left the two women in a downstairs room while he went up to confer with his colleague and friend, the magistrate, and then they were summoned upstairs. In a few minutes Mara was married to Daulis, with Leta as the witness, by expedient law. It was a question of saying that they were both unmarried, and not promised to anybody else. Then Mara wrote her name beside Daulis's name in a great parchment book. She had not written, except for practising letters in the dust with a stick, since she was with Shabis. She was given a leather disc, on a thong, to hang around her neck, so the world would know she was married and the property of a man. And for this time she was pleased to have the protection.

Daulis asked the magistrate to send a message to the Council saying that Mara from Dalide's house was married and legally free to leave Bilma.

As they left, the magistrate asked Mara, "Are you the woman whose brother is wanted for treasonable desertion in Charad?"

"My brother has gone North. He is safe."

"With that price on his head he'd better shift himself. He's not going to be safe anywhere this side of Tundra."

And then she and Daulis and Leta were moving fast and secretly, always through lanes and side streets, to the hill overlooking the station where she had been with Dann, but skirted it, and were near the platform where a line of coaches stood waiting for the morning. They did not dare board a coach, in case there was a search for them, but saw a small shack or shed a little way off and went there. Soon they saw, in a dim moonlight, a couple of soldiers come around the hill, and then look through the coaches. They were going back, then one of them came towards the shack, peered through a cracked window, and came in.

Daulis stepped forward and said, "Do you know me?"

The soldier hesitated, and said, "I was told to arrest you."

"Where's your order?"

"There wasn't time for an order. The Chief of the Council sent us."

"Well I am giving you an order. I am Daulis, you know that, and I am going to Kanaz with my wife Mara. You have no legal right to stop me."

The soldier looked around the dusty interior of this old shed and was wondering: If it is legal, why are you hiding? But he was undecided, did not dare arrest Daulis. He went out, without saluting, and they could see the two soldiers conferring, by the coaches. They went off, slowly.

By now it was well after midnight. Leta produced some bread — she had snatched it from the kitchen as she left. They ate, hastily, wished there was water, and went out and found a fallen tree, with a lot of branches, and behind them they crouched, watching the coaches and the shack they had left, expecting a return of the soldiers. And just before dawn someone did come, but it was a tramp, and he might be more dangerous, because if he saw they were hiding, and therefore afraid of the law, he might go and report them hoping for a reward.

The sun rose. The station platform was filling. The three ran towards it, and then Mara saw the tramp standing staring at her. She knew him, could not think who it was... went to him and with difficulty recognised Kulik, because he was so thin and in rags.

She was about to retreat when he came forward and grasped her arm, bringing that hated, scarred face close to hers, dirty teeth bared in a threat.

"Give me some money, Mara," he said.

"No."

"I'll take it."

The last thing she wanted was a fracas, a noisy incident, even loud voices. She gave him a handful of small coins, and as she turned away saw his triumphant face, and heard his low, "Where's your brother? Are you going to hide him?"

She joined the other two on the platform and they got on just as the coach began to move, pulled by the young men in front, pushed by the young men behind. And as the coach was already getting up speed, a couple of officers, not soldiers, came running on to the platform, looking after them.

"When will we be safe?" asked Mara.

"Not in Kanaz," said Leta. "But it is a big town, I hear, so we can hide."

And the two looked at her with respect, and believed her. Leta, now she was out of that place which so demeaned her, was an impressive woman, authoritative because of her knowledge of life, and handsome too. She wore a dark green garment which made her pale skin gleam, and her green eyes shine. Her pale hair was in a big knot. And who is the princess now? thought Mara, fascinated by this strange female who was like nothing she had ever known.

The three of them were clutching each other and clinging on where they could. This "coach" was a contraption of wood slats and lattices, like a cage, and it rattled and bounced and swayed — surely in danger of toppling? And quite soon a mess of splintered wood beside the track showed that these coaches indeed fell over, although they did not move very fast. A good runner could easily have kept up; runners were: the youths who pulled were loping along, and had plenty of breath to shout at each other as they ran. The youths who had pushed, had leaped on to the coach at the last minute and were waiting to replace the others, when they tired. But from their talk, it was apparent that there was a place ahead where the lines had fractured. That these breaks were not uncommon could be seen by the piles of rail sections at intervals along the tracks, pieces of the heaviest wood in the forests. Soon the coach was pulled to a halt by the ropes, and ahead workmen were replacing broken rails. The three did not have to confess their unease that they were stationary not more than a couple of hours from Bilma, and that a fast horse could easily catch up with them.

At first they had travelled through a light forest; but here was a grassy valley, rather like the ones Mara had seen so often in her journey north, across the wide, dry savannahs; but the grasses were different, and the trees too: lower, more compact and dense, not the airy, wide-branched trees of the forest south of Bilma. Beneath them, to the depth of — it was believed — twenty feet, still lay the old sands of the desert ancient people had called the Sahara. And Mara thought that in her sack were two striped robes called Sahar. While the sands far beneath them had been flooded — so they said — and pushed up forests, been swept by fire, and again and again, by floods, had been sands again. While all this was going on, for thousands of years, one little word stubbornly kept an old sound, and people who did not know the names of their ancestors, or even that they had had them, could walk into a shop and say, "I want to see your Sahar robes."

On a parallel track to the lines appeared a stately procession of horses, donkeys, light carts, litters carried by — but they didn't have slaves in Bilma — and men and women walking. The people in the coach watched this caravan go by for a good half hour. Mara asked, "Then why the need for coaches?"

"A good question," said Daulis. "Some people want to end the coach service. But it takes one of those caravans a week to reach Kanaz, and it is a couple of days by coach. This is really used for urgent council work."

"And other things," said Leta, smiling at him, and he actually blushed.

"And other things," he agreed.

"This is also called the Love Trail," said Leta to Mara. "There are inns all along the route used for holidays and love." The word "love" when she used it sounded like a curse.

Daulis said to her, "Poor Leta. But soon it will all be different for you."

Her eyes filled with tears and she turned her face to look away from them. "Perhaps it will," she said at last. And then, "You are a good man, Daulis. We all of us know that." She was using the we of the brothel. "We know who are the swines." And again her voice shook.

Mara, sitting so close to Daulis, thought that she had not yet had a close look at him, and she did now, in the bright morning light. Yes, he was a good man. His face was one to trust — well, she had trusted him. But when she compared his face with another in her mind's eye, then he had to suffer from the comparison. Shabis was finer, and both stronger and more sensitive.

Mara asked, as the idea popped into her on some kind of prompting or instinct, "Do the Three Generals want me too, as well as Dann?" "I wasn't going to tell you yet. But yes, they do." "Are they offering money for me?"

"Not officially; but they have been in touch with our Council. They think you have Shabis's child."

"But that was just a bit of spite on the part of his wife."

"They think you had his child while you were with the Hennes. They plan to get rid of Shabis, and they don't want any child of his alive."

"There is a child of his alive."

"There was."

Mara thought of her life as a soldier, at the watchtowers, imagined a baby there, a child, and began to laugh. And laugh, while Leta and Daulis gravely watched her. She knew she sounded hysterical. She was tired, still frantic with anxiety because of Dann — and hysterical. "You don't know how funny it is," she said at last. "Well, the Three Generals can't know much about the Hennes. The Hennes planned to start a breeding programme, to improve their stock, using Shabis's child, if there was one, and to kidnap the Generals' children too."

"Exactly. Using Shabis's child to establish their claim over Agre. They planned to march into Agre with the child in front of their army."

"Then the Hennes don't know much about the Agre."

"And the Three Generals want the child. Because Shabis is so popular, they are afraid the soldiers will rally around Shabis and his child."

And now Mara sat silent, discouraged. She was afraid, too. Just a few spiteful words by an unhappy woman could get her, Mara, recaptured. Had caused so much fevered plotting and planning. Could have caused another war. But she was thinking too that she was to blame. How could she have been so blind and thoughtless, so blithely ignorant, living there with Shabis and not ever thinking that he had a wife who must be at the least suspicious. Though it turned out that she was poisoned by jealousy. Mara tried to imagine how she would have felt if, living with Meryx, she knew that he spent all his days with some captured woman, talking to her, teaching her, taking his midday meal with her.

"I have been very stupid," she said aloud, and told Leta and Daulis that part of her story.

Leta pronounced judgement. "Any of the house women could have told you what to expect."

"Yes, I know."

Daulis took her hand and, as she instinctively pulled away, teased her, "As my wife, Mara, you must allow me to hold your hand. If only to reassure me that you don't actually hate me."

"You know you don't want me as your wife."

She heard her voice, forlorn, sad, rough with tears. "Do you know what I keep thinking of? It's the baby I lost. The baby." And she began to cry.

Leta said, "And I keep thinking of the baby I lost."

Here Mara and Daulis looked at her, surprised, and Leta explained, "Crethis. She was my baby. I never had a baby. And I can't help thinking of her."

"And I," confessed Daulis.

Leta said, "I've always looked after her. And now I'm gone. She loves Daulis — as much as she can. Mother Dalide is away. She must be in a bad state today."

"Are you feeling sad because you left? asked Daulis. "You mean, do you think I should have stayed a house woman because Crethis will miss me?"

"No."

"Then what do you mean? Of course I feel sad. It's not only Crethis, but she is the most of it. The girls there are all I've known, as friends. But I've been trying to get out of that house from the day I found myself in it. And so — Crethis might die."

"Why die?" asked Daulis, quickly.

"You are sentimental," said Leta, "I don't respect that. If you do something that has consequences then accept them. Crethis has a weak chest. She nearly died. I nursed her. I was with her all the time. She would have died without me. Well, knowing Crethis, she's probably found someone else to cling on to already. But no one is going to sit by her bed day and night for weeks." And now Leta wept too.

The rails were mended. The young men who had jumped on to the coach went forward to pull, replacing the others who took their place in the coach.

But they did not have to clutch and cling for long, because about an hour later they stopped where there was an inn, among the dark, sombre trees of this region. Some passengers got off, couples holding hands or with linked arms. Servants came from the inn to sell food to the passengers and they brought a jar of water.

Everyone drank in a way Mara recognised: they were afraid it would be some time before they got water again.

The young men who made the coach move changed again. Now they were all tired and were not shouting jokes and bits of gossip as they ran, and the ones in the coach waiting their turn to get out and push, or pull, were silent and apathetic.

The journey went on. They were shaken, rather sick, and Leta said she had a headache. Mara was glad to accept Daulis's offer of a steadying arm, and she sat against him, her head on his shoulder, and thought that her long, fierce independence had made it hard for her to be as simply affectionate as Crethis, who hugged and caressed and stroked and kissed as naturally as she breathed. She was thinking two contradictory things at the same time: one, that she was glad to be married to Daulis, for it made her feel safe; and then that she would shortly be free and herself again and married to no one.

When it got dark they had to stop because the coaches did not run at night over these fragile and so easily broken rails. There was an inn and they took a room together, the three of them, ate in the room, and locked the door from inside, and pushed a heavy table against it. Each had a bed, and they dozed and woke, and saw that the others were awake and watching and knew that this had to be one of the nights when the first light was a reprieve from enforced immobility. As soon as the square of the window showed some light they were up and dressed, and were down by the tracks waiting. It was a fresh clear morning, rather cold, and they sat on the benches provided for travellers and ate breakfast.

Mara told them about the flying machines down south that were grounded and had to be pushed by runners, and about Felice and her flying service. Leta was amazed, for she had not heard of such machines; but Daulis said that not long ago, in his father's lifetime, there had still been these machines in Bilma, but there was a coup, and possession of the machines was what was being fought over, and at the height of the fighting the rebels had set fire to the machines, all ten of them. Their remains could be seen in a forest north of the town, what was left of them, for they had been pulled apart over the years to make shacks and huts. Mara asked, "Are you afraid of another coup?"

Leta laughed from surprise, but Daulis said seriously, "Yes, Mara, some of us are. But if there were a coup, it would be my friends who would make it. I don't know if we are more afraid of there being a coup, or not being. But it does seem as if the life of a rule, a period of peace, is never longer than a hundred years or so. And the last coup was a hundred and fifty years ago."

"And your Council is corrupt."

"Yes, some of us are corrupt."

"And there must be a lot of poor people in Bilma, otherwise you'd not have all these youths that look as if they need a square meal to push your coaches."

"Yes, there are poor people, and it is getting worse."

"Why worse?" asked Leta. She sounded threatened.

"It seems fairly clear that we are having another change of climate. They are saying up North that the Ice is retreating again."

"But there's always ice and snow up North," said Leta.

"Sometimes yes and sometimes no," said Mara. "Thousands of years of one, and then thousands of years of the other. Once, in a warm time, the sands stretched here from sea to sea. I have never seen the sea."

"Well, who has?" said Leta. "The traders talk about it, but that's all."

"I have," said Daulis. "When I was a child. But I can hardly remember it. It was rough water, crashing on rocks."

"Salt," said Mara. "Salt water."

"Why salt?" asked Leta "The traders say it is salt, but they tell us all kinds of tall stories, to see how much we will swallow."

Now the coachmen came down from their hostel, and soon the coach was off again. The shaking and rattling went on. They had to stop so the coachmen could change places, and once there was another break in the line. Because of the delay they did not reach the outskirts of Kanaz until it was nearly dark. They decided to stop at the last inn of the coach run for the night. Daulis was known there, as a member of the Council, and he dared to claim the privilege of a suite of rooms. Mara asked if any message had been left for her by one Dann, though Leta told her to be careful. "You'll be safe when you are in Tundra, and not till then."

"And you? What will you do?"

"I will get employment as a maid in one of the inns in the Centre. And if I fail, I'll go to Mother Dalide's house here." "But you ran away from her," said Daulis.

"She was my mother. At least, I don't remember another one. She'll forgive me. And besides, my colour makes me a prize."

"Once everyone was your colour — where the Ice is now," said Mara. Leta was astonished. "Everyone? When?"

"Oh, thousands of years ago," said Mara, laughing and thinking that soon she would be like Shabis, who, when teaching her, used thousands of years as one might say, last summer. "And then, later, there were colonies of refugees from the Ice in north Ifrik."

"There is still a colony," said Daulis.

"Perhaps I should go there?" said Leta.

"Then you'll lose your rarity value," said Mara. "Better stay with us."

"If you want to travel with us north, please do," said Daulis. His voice was much more than kind; and he put his hand on her shoulder, smiling. "Come on, take your chances with us."

Mara said, "I'd miss you, Leta."

And now Leta looked at them both, serious, grateful, her usually hard face soft, and said, "I'll think about it."

"At least if you fail in Kanaz, come up after us."

"Fail at being a housemaid? But I don't intend to stay a housemaid. I'm ambitious. But I'll remember what you said. But where could I find you up North?"

"People find each other," said Mara. "I'm waiting for Dann to find me."

Next day they moved into a caravanserai in the heart of Kanaz, to wait for Dann. This city was different from Bilma, that trading town so full of people from everywhere. Kanaz was not polyglot and busy. It was populated by a people with lean, flat bodies, and sharp features. Mara had seen them before, on the walls of the ruins near the Rock Village. And here they were, just as if thousands of years and many migrations had not come and gone. They were phlegmatic, slow moving, and all over the town were buildings with turrets and towers that were, Daulis said, places of worship.

"Of what?" Leta and Mara asked, at the same time.

And he told them they believed in a powerful, invisible Being who could be put into a good temper, a mood to help favour, by these fanciful, brightly coloured buildings, inhabited by men and women who wore special clothes, walked about the streets chanting and shouting the name of this Being, and were the rulers of the town.

"And Kanaz is not under the jurisdiction of Bilma?" asked Mara.

In theory yes, but in practice no. This was one of the reasons the more intelligent of the Council of Bilma believed in the imminent end of their rule. Bilma did not have the strength to bring insubordinate provinces to heel, and while harmony prevailed on the surface, the two cities watched each other, waited. So Daulis explained, and went into details of the situation which interested Mara, but Leta, not much.

But then Daulis said to Leta, "If you stay here you will have two disadvantages."

"One I already know. I shall not be such a novelty here as I am farther south. I am only a little paler than some of the people here. And the other?"

"You will have to learn the special language and customs of the priests and pretend to believe in them, because they are cruel to anyone who does not at least pay lip-service to their rule."

"And how does Mother Dalide manage to prosper here, with her brothel, in such a town?"

"She pays the priests here just as she pays us in Bilma."

Meanwhile they were all nervous. This was the biggest travellers' inn, and there were bound to be spies, both from Bilma and the rulers here. But this was where Dann was bound to look for them. The decided to stay that night, not move to a less well known place but eat their food in their room, well away from the enormous room that took up most of the ground floor, where food and drink was served.

Or perhaps they themselves should go from inn to inn around the town, asking for Dann? Mara had never told anyone about the coins hidden under Dann's scar, but she told these friends now, to explain why she did not know if he would be working in some low place, in order to eat, or if he would be decently lodged somewhere. Or — but she did not say this aloud, kept it to herself — perhaps in some place where he is smoking poppy again. For she feared this for him more than anything.

Late that night, when they had decided to sleep, and not wait any longer, there was a commotion outside the door. Mara rose straight to her feet — she recognised Dann's voice. Then he was standing there, in the doorway, and behind him the servant who had tried to bar the way of this poor coachman in his torn tunic, with his bare dusty feet. Which Dann was this? — Mara wondered, but saw in his eyes the responsible Dann, the grown up man, though his whole body seemed wrung with apology and with supplication. And the two were in each other's arms, hugging and weeping, "Oh Mara, forgive me," and Mara, "Oh Dann, you are here." The other two sat on their floor cushions and watched, silent, until brother and sister at last were able to let each other go and stand back, and look. Then Dann said, "Mara, it was the other me, not me." "I know," said Mara and thought that Dann had never before acknowledged his division. Now Dann took Mara's hands, and said, "Mara, it is easy for me to say now that it will never happen again — but you've got to help me."

"And what could I have said that would have stopped you going to the gambling room that night?"

His face seemed to crumple, and it was hard for him to look at her; and then he rallied and said, "Mara, all you have to do is to remind me that I gambled you away, and you are the most precious thing, the most..." And they embraced again.

This scene might have gone on, but there was another loud exchange of voices outside, the door opened, and Dalide came in, her hands full of travelling bundles and bags. These she set down, and then looked around the room, not the inn's best, with the supper trays still on the floor in a corner, the faded floor cushions, and in a corner a pile of shabby sleeping pallets.

"Well, Councillor Daulis, this is not exactly the kind of place one expects to find you." To Leta she said, "Pile up some of those," and Leta made a high seat with the bed pallets. On this Dalide carefully disposed herself, and then looked at each of them in turn. And they waited, apprehensively, for each had reason to fear her.

This powerful woman looked like some doll or puppet, with a voluminous red cotton garment, for the dust, over her tight leather travelling outfit, and her sharp, black button eyes, her dyed orange-coloured hair.

"Councillor, you owe me for Mara — and I hear that I could have got twice as much for her."

"Not legally," said Daulis, and took out a bag of coins and laid it beside him.

She made a gesture — wait until later. And turned to Leta there on her cushion, "Well, Leta? Have I really treated you badly?"

"No, Mother. But you know that I've always wanted to leave. And I have my quittance money."

Now Dalide turned to Mara. "I suppose you think that what you are going to find up in that Centre they talk about is going to be some kind of happy-ever-after? Well, I shouldn't count on it."

And now a long, very cold inspection of Dann, designed to shame him. He did manage to return her gaze, but they could all see he was not far off tears.

"Leta," Dalide said, "the woman who runs my house here wants to retire. Would you like to take her place?"

Leta did not seem able to take this in. She shifted about on her cushion, took her hand to her face in the beginnings of that gesture: It is all too much for me, dropped her hand, then she was sitting with both hands over her mouth, staring at Dalide. "You mean, stay here in Kanaz and run your Kanaz house?"

"That's what I said. You can do it. You are a clever woman. You know how I operate."

Daulis and Mara watched the struggle going on in Leta, and understood it. She had said she was ambitious, and the truth was that they could easily imagine her as the Mother Dalide of Kanaz.

"What makes you think I could deal with these praying people? I have no experience of them."

"They are just men. Like the Councillors. I have today paid them off for the coming year. And if there's trouble, I'm only a week away in Bilma. Or two days by coach."

"That means that yet again I'll not be able to walk about the streets without looking into the face of every man I meet to wonder if some time I've been his mattress."

"There's no need to sleep with them if you are running the place."

Leta was very still. Her eyes were fixed — staring inwards. And then she said, "Mother, I can't, I'm sorry. I think I'll go North with Mara and Daulis."

"And Dann," said Dalide. "Perhaps he'll gamble you away next."

Mara said, "Dalide, I gather you don't exactly discourage men from gambling away their women. And if you don't like Dann, then what about that little snake Bergos?"

"I don't have to like them for it," said Dalide. "Nor like Bergos. I'm a business woman. I see opportunities and I take them. And I'm not the only one who has agents in the Transit Eating House, to see what women are there to be bought or what men have got the gambling fever badly enough. Some of the Councillors, for instance — yes, Councillor

Daulis?" "I don't," he said.

"Some of your friends do." And now she said to Leta, "Give me your quittance price." "Mother," said Leta, "it is all I have."

This time it was in Dalide that a struggle took place. Her eyes were on the bag that held the quittance price, and then her face softened and she said, "Very well, keep it."

And now Leta flung herself forward, embraced Dalide's knees, pressed her face into the scarlet folds, and sobbed.

The great knot of pale hair, which glistened in the lamplight, stood out over her neck, and Dalide took out the pins, and the hair flooded down, like sunlight. Dalide sat stroking the hair, fingering it, lifting strands, letting the light play on it. The face of the ugly, little black woman was a marvel of regret, sorrow, and bitter humour. "Ever since you came to my house as a little girl, I've longed to have hair like this." And she patted her own orange spikes in a way that was rueful, comic and self-critical. "Leta, if you don't do well up North, then come back to me. I'm fond of you — though I daresay you've sometimes wondered." She pushed Leta away, and said to Daulis, "Give me Mara's price now."

"May I give it to you in Bilma?"

"No. I need it to pay for two new girls I'm taking back with me." Daulis gave her the bag with the money.

"At least with you I don't have to count it." She got to her feet. "And have you any messages for little Crethis?" Daulis shook his head. "And you, Leta?"

"Tell her... tell her."

"I know what to say. And are you coming back to Bilma, Councillor?" "I suppose I am. When I've done what I have to do." "When you've delivered these two Mahondis." "Who are these girls, Mother?" asked Leta.

"Local girls. One of these precious priests asked me if I wanted them. He bought them from their parents, just as I bought you, Leta. They'll be a nice change for the men, in my Bilma house. What do you say, Councillor?"

Daulis shook his head: Leave me alone. "How old are they?" asked Mara.

"They don't know how old they are. I would say ten or eleven. But they're underfed, so they look younger. I'll have them fed and prettied up in no time. Goodbye, Mara. You can't say you've done badly in my house. You've found a protector. Goodbye, Leta. Perhaps I'll see you again. I'll say goodbye to you, just in case, Councillor." She ignored Dann. And went out.

Leta ran to the window and they all crowded around her. Down in the street waited a carriage, with two mules. It was protected by a light awning, but they could see huddled together two little girls, who shrank away from Dalide when she got in and sat opposite them. Two frightened little faces: and they could hear the children's miserable sobbing.

Leta left the window, sank to a floor cushion, sat with her face in her hands, and swayed, back and forth, containing grief.

Daulis laid his hand on her shoulder and said, "That's all over for you, Leta." Then, "I'm going to sleep."

He threw a pallet into a corner, lay on it with his back to the room. Soon Leta did the same. Mara and Dann lay face to face on a single pallet and whispered to each other what had happened to them both in the last few days.

In the morning they sat around their breakfast trays, and made plans. How much money did each of them have? — was the main question.

Leta offered her quittance price, and Daulis said, "No, you keep it. We'd only use that as a last resort."

Dann said he had some change, but he was keeping it for an emergency.

"This situation not being emergency enough?" asked Daulis, and Dann laid out what he had, enough of the little coins for perhaps a day's lodging and a day's food.

What Daulis contributed was not much more: he had been counting on paying Dalide in Bilma.

Mara slipped her two hands up through her loose sleeves, untied her cord of coins and laid it down. "Eleven," she said.

"Treasures concealing treasures," said Daulis, and Leta looked sharply at him, while Dann said jealously, "I hear you are Mara's husband?"

"You may have noticed that I've not been insisting on my marital rights."

Dann apologised. Then he said, "I'm going to have to get out my coins."

"Oh no," said Mara, and untied a coin to give to him.

He went white. Really, she might have hit him. "I can't take your money after... after."

"Don't be silly," said Mara.

Leta said, quickly, tactfully, so that Mara realised she had been too casual, insensitive, "Let me have a look, Dann. Mara's told us."

Dann said, "I think one of them is just under the skin." He lifted his robe up. The scar showed white and glistening, and there were lumps under it. "Look," he said to Leta. "Feel that."

"I'm sure we could get that one out easily."

She took out a little leather bag, and from that a tiny knife, and some bundles of herbs. She wetted one of them and rubbed damp leaves on the place where the edge of the coin showed. "It will kill the pain," she said.

Mara watched, suffering. Leta saw this, and said, "I told you, I learned everything I could from the men who came to Mother's house. I've learned some medicine."

After about five minutes, she rubbed the little knife against another bunch of leaves, and made a tiny slit just above the scar and at once the coin was visible. Leta picked it out. Dann said, "It doesn't hurt," and she said, "Yes, but it will hurt a little soon."

"We should stay here until Dann is better," said Mara and Daulis said, "It's dangerous to stay."

Mara untied another coin, and said, "Go down and bribe them. It's not likely anyone is going to offer them more than this."

"Not in a year," said Daulis, and took the coin and went out.

When he came back he said he had booked the room for another day and he thought they would be safe.

Leta wrapped a cloth around her hair, to make herself unnoticed, and said she was going out to see the town. Mara wanted to go too but Daulis said she should stay. Dann asked Leta to buy him something to wear. He had only his soiled and torn coachman's garb.

Leta went, and then Mara asked, "Now, tell us about this Centre. Why are you taking us there?"

"All I can say is that they have plans for you both. Shabis told me, and it's not much more than he knows."

"But that 'not much more' is the point."

"Yes. But I'm not going to tell you more. Shabis said not. You'll find out. You've got some sort of choice to make." "It's because we are Mahondis?" "Yes."

"Where are all these Mahondis we were told are everywhere?" "There are very few of us left."

"Does that matter?" said Mara, for now she had seen so many different kinds of people, in different regions, it was hard to think one was better than another.

"I think there are people who dream of the time when Mahondis ruled all Ifrik." "All?" "All."

"Did we rule well?"

Daulis laughed. "We ruled well from the point of view of the Mahondis."

"So there are many people who do not remember Mahondi rule kindly?"

"You know, people forget quickly. This Mahondi empire was — let's see — at its height about three hundred years ago."

"So recent. And there are still people who think it should come back?"

"It is Leta who should come back. I'm getting worried."

And they were all three anxious, as the hours passed. Then Leta did come back. She had bought all kinds of things useful for travelling: two of the long black and white striped gowns, the Sahar robes, worn by men. Then she inspected Dann's little wound and said it was almost healed. She said she was glad she was leaving Kanaz, it was a horrible town. The praying men were everywhere, and they had sticks, and if someone was behaving improperly, in their view, they might hit buttocks, shoulders, or even heads. "Lucky I wrapped myself up well: they beat women if they don't like the look of us."

Dann wanted to know how much money they would need to bribe the frontier guards, to get into Tundra; but Daulis said, "Believe me, you don't bribe these guards."

"That's unusual."

"It is the regime that is unusual, you'll see. It's quite new, and still virtuous."

"How new?" asked Mara.

"Oh about a hundred years. So the usual rot will set in soon, I suppose. If it hasn't already."

After supper they each lay on a separate pallet, talking into the dark, until one after another they fell asleep.

Next morning they had to choose between using a coach again, or a conveyance like Dalide's, a light carriage, with mules. They could not face another day of shaking, so chose the carriage, which would take two days to the frontier. It was as uncomfortable in the carriage as in the coach. The driver kept the mules at a steady pace, but the road was rough. They were all sick, the driver having to pull his mules up so they could get out. And they were cold. A thin, chilly cloud blew past above them and, on the higher parts of the road, came down low enough to hide the country they were travelling through. Leta seemed ill. When Mara said she hated the woolly whiteness hiding everything, Leta said she liked it, and confessed that the vastness of the landscape frightened her. "Too much space," she whispered, hiding her eyes as they came out again from the obscuring mists. The other three consulted with each other, but with their eyes. It was occurring to them that this woman had been sheltered inside Mother Dal-ide's house, had scarcely ever gone out, had been fed and kept warm, in a horrible and degrading safety, but safety. And here she was out in the world, with no idea at all of what would happen to her.

Mara put her arm around her, and felt her trembling.

Leta let her head fall on Mara's shoulder and whispered, "Mara, have I made a terrible mistake?"

The jolting and rattling were such that Mara had to say to the two men, sitting opposite, "Leta is afraid she has made a mistake in coming with us," and at once Daulis leaned forward and, all concern, took Leta's hands and said, "No, Leta, no, of course you must be feeling bad. It's our fault for not thinking about it."

"When you go back, please take me, Daulis, I don't think I can keep up with you, I really feel ill when I look and see. It goes on and on and it is so cold and so ugly."

This was an interval in the mist, and Mara thought that this great, sombre landscape had a beauty, though the chilly dampness of everything was not where she felt at home. Was this really Ifrik? — she had been thinking.

Daulis still held Leta's hands, and a jolt brought her forwards, and he lifted her. He said something to Dann, who precariously slid in beside Mara as Daulis settled Leta in beside him. There she clung to him and wept. This proud, strong woman with her lean, hawk face was at this moment not unlike her pet Crethis.

It was a long day, a bad one, the worst since Bilma. The inn the driver stopped at in the evening, was large, being on this main route North, but looked poor and shabby. It stood in the main street — the sole street of a village that had clearly come into being only because of the inn. When the four got out, the driver said he would come for them in the morning, and demanded payment for that day. Mara had already paid him. There was an argument, which caused interest among groups of people going into the inn. Dann said to Mara, "Don't draw attention." She gave the driver a little more money. He grumbled, but went off. And now there was no need to discuss what they must do next. There was a shop, of the kind that supplied travellers' needs, and in it was a whole wall hung with every sort of cloak, cape and shawl. They bought capes of the kind that has a hole in, for the head, and large enough to make bed coverings, for they had been cold at night. And they chose grey, not the bright or cleverly woven patterns, because they did not want to be noticed.

At the inn across the road, they were given a room without comment, and the innkeeper did not show any particular interest in them. But they were uneasy, and Dann said that this was the most dangerous part of their journey: tonight and tomorrow night. The daytime was probably safe, because pursuers would be looking for them on the coaches, would not expect them to risk themselves fully visible on almost empty roads. Besides, unless these pursuers were officials, they would not have money for a carriage. Which brought the four, hiding in their room with the door well barred, to the question, Which pursuers? Representing what, or whom? How could they be recognised? If the Bilma Councillors still hoped to sell Dann and Mara to Charad, then they would not send officials, but hired ruffians. If it was the long arm of Charad they had to fear, then, again, it would be disguised as a beggar, or a pickpocket or a thief. Or a gang of thieves. Or a servant in this inn... "So, what's new?" said Dann. "I'm frightened," said Mara.

They ate in their room. Leta dosed herself with potions from her medicine bag. She was apologetic and ashamed. She still trembled, though this could not now be from cold. They wrapped her well, and laid her on a pallet, and lay down themselves, to rest. They were not only fearful, expecting to hear a bang on the door, but badly affected by the days of being shaken and jolted. Without the fear of pursuers they would have walked, and tonight they would have been healthy and calm — themselves. Walking was best, they all agreed. After that, a boat — water. And lastly, the litters, the coaches, the chairs, the carriages, which shook you to bits and left you hardly able to think.

Daulis told them that once, thousands of years ago, there had been machines that whisked travellers over the distance it had taken Mara and Dann so long to cover, in a couple of hours. They could go around the world in a day. (With difficulty Mara forced her mind away from the shape of Ifrik to encompass hazy immensities.) There was every imaginable kind of vehicle, and some that they, descendants of those great ones, could not begin to imagine, for they were like the tales of flying dragons or talking birds told to children. Once, to travel from one country to another had been as comfortable as being transported sitting in a chair or lying in a comfortable bed.

Meanwhile, they had to get through this fearful night, and then there was another day of the carriage.

Dann said he would stay awake and on guard, and he did, with his knife beside him. Meanwhile Mara slept, and Daulis watched Leta. Then Daulis watched, and Dann lay down where Daulis had been. Leta slept heavily, and seemed chilly to the touch, so they piled on to her the inn's blankets. This alone told them how different a country they were approaching: all the inns farther south might provide no more than a thin cloth, or nothing at all, for bed coverings. Here there was a stack of thick blankets and the windows had heavy shutters. When they woke in the night, they heard the shutters shaking and rattling, and the coldness of the wind could be felt inside the room.

In the morning Leta lay limp under her heap of blankets, silent, looking at the ceiling. They all three knew what she was feeling. Daulis knelt by her and said, "Dear Leta, it's one more day, that's all. And then the worst will be over."

She did not at once respond, but then sat up, throwing off the blankets, and saying, "I think I know what to do. I don't know why I can't bear this... horrible emptiness everywhere, but I can't. I'm going to wrap my head in a scarf and not look at it. And I'm going to give myself a dose that will calm me. If I sleep, then that will be best."

When the driver came with the carriage and the mules he demanded money. Mara again said she had paid him well before they started. Again it was a question of not being noticed. There were a lot of people coming out from the inn, to go to the rail coaches. And so the man was paid extra, when he did not deserve it. Mara said she was running low with money and must change another coin.

Daulis said there was no need to worry. Once over the frontier, changing money would be easy.

"And what is this paradise of a place? Dann and I have been worrying about changing money all the way from the Rock Village."

"No paradise, I can assure you. But — you'll see."

That day was worse than yesterday, but at least they had something to occupy them, looking after Leta. Through the gauzy veil she had wound around her head, it could be seen that this pale creature was white as but what could that pallor be compared with? Her skin, which usually had a lustre or glow, was greenish and looked lifeless. She lay in Mara's arms until Mara's whole body had gone numb, and then in Daulis's and then in Dann's. She kept her eyes shut, and dozed, but was always shaken awake again. There was no mist today so it was as well that she did not look out at this country — like yesterday's, enormous expanses of dark earth, with gleams of water everywhere, and clumps of reeds that swayed almost to the ground in the wind.

The end of that day's journey was an inn a mile from the frontier with Tundra, standing alone by the road; and as soon as they were in the main entrance, it was evident that it had all the characteristics of a frontier inn. It was full of every kind of person; the proprietor observed them each, one by one, carefully, in case he would be asked to describe them, and there was no doubt that among this cram and crush of travellers would be spies and agents.

They were given a room at the end of an extension to the main building: an arm flung out, consisting of single rooms one after another with interconnecting doors that could be locked, with a narrow, covered pavement, because the ground was boggy. Daulis protested that they should be given a better room, was told the place was full. Meanwhile Leta was evidently longing for one thing only, to lie down. They all went to the room, put Leta to bed, and conferred. Dann said he hated this place, and Mara agreed. Brother and sister had never been more one than in their restless, unhappy prowling about this room, as if they were animals in a trap; and then Dann said that it would be madness for him to stay here, and Mara agreed.

Daulis did not like the two going off, to spend the night in the open. They said they were used to it. No, of course Leta could not be moved; of course Daulis must stay with her. Councillor Daulis was not enjoying being reminded that, in his own way, he had been as sheltered and comfortable as Leta. He contented himself with saying that after tomorrow everything would be better.

Dann and Mara took with them some food, but no water — this landscape hardly lacked water. It was dark, but a great yellow moon was up, and they could see everything. The trouble was that there were no buildings near they could shelter in, only sheds and stables belonging to the inn. They put themselves into the minds of possible pursuers and knew that these outhouses were where they would be looked for first. There seemed to be no trees anywhere. A big cluster of rocks, about half a mile from the inn, had the same disadvantage as the inn: it was an obvious hiding place. There were rushes, and some clumps of reeds. Reeds was what this landscape had most of, in the way of vegetation. And where would these imagined pursuers look for them, if not among the reeds?

Far away to the east was the shine of water and they went there, choosing their way carefully, through this marshy land. There was a little lake, and on it a boat, tied to a stump. They lay down side by side in the boat, knowing their grey blankets would disguise them. It was very still, the sounds of the inn out of earshot. The water was still, the moonlight poured down, moving the shadows of the reeds across the surface.

They did not dare to talk. "I've never been more scared," whispered Dann, and Mara agreed. "I know there's someone after us. I feel it in my bones."

It was cold, even wrapped tight in thick cloth.

The hours went past. Sometimes Mara dozed a little, then Dann.

The moon had gone out of the sky when they heard a squelch of feet. They were terribly tempted to leap up and run — but there was nowhere to run to. They lay still. Only one person — that was a surprise. Neither Charad nor Bilma would send one agent, much more likely several.

A man by himself came to stand above the boat, where the path descended through the reeds. He was staring across the lake. Then he looked down at the boat. It was so dark now that he could not see much, only a black boat on black water with something dimly grey in it. He stayed there some minutes, sometimes looking around behind him. Then a marsh bird screamed quite close, from some reeds, and the man gave a grunt of fear and ran off.

"That was Kulik," said Dann.

"I know."

They stayed where they were, hearing nothing. The bird screamed again, and they thought that might mean Kulik was coming back.

The sky lightened. They were stiff and cold. They crawled up out of the boat, through the reeds, and between them and the inn could see nothing. They went fast, not wanting to be observed. Around the inn all was animation, and people were already streaming off towards the frontier. The two went quietly into their room and found Daulis, sitting with his back against the stack of blankets, with Leta in his arms, leaning back against him. He was stroking her hair, and she seemed to be asleep.

Daulis said that in the night someone had tried to force the shutters, then the door. The two told their tale.

"Just let's get over that frontier," said Mara. "Let's go."

They roused Leta. They all ate a little. Daulis went to pay the bill, so the others would not be seen. They went with crowds of others towards the frontier post. This was a serious frontier, not like the casual, or invisible, ones of farther south. There was a heavy wooden beam across the road, in a fence that ran away on either side of it, out of sight. The fence was not like the ones Mara and Dann had seen, of heaped coils of rusty wire. This was not rusty. It was full of sharp points and it glittered.

On this side of the wooden beam were half a dozen soldiers who stood about yawning, and waving the line along; but on the other side were about forty men and women, in black overall uniforms, with black capes for warmth, and they were looking carefully at the people they let in, and counting them by sliding beads along a string. These strings were stretched in lines along wooden racks. When one rack was full, it was taken back to a shed where it was stacked with others. On this side, no one was counting who came through.

It was a bleak landscape, all right, with a few dark trees and a greyish look to the shrubs and grasses. Leta was not wearing her veil, but was forcing herself to look about her. Daulis was supporting her, just behind Dann and Mara, who had warned them that there might still be danger.

The waiting lines spoke in low voices, mostly Charad, but there was some Mahondi too. There were also dialects which at first they didn't recognise as Mahondi. The lines were made up of families, who were from Tundra, who had been visiting, and were going home. There were also groups of officials, and it was noticeable that people coming through from the northern side were let through at once if they were officials, but the officials from this side had to wait and go through the formalities. The different groups of people in the lines were wary, eyeing each other across the gaps they were careful to leave between them, so these lines were discontinuous and no one took any notice of the soldiers who tried to move them along. Those in front of the four kept glancing back at them, and the people behind noticed them and discussed them. Three tall Mahondis, handsome people, but there were other Mahondis in these enormous crowds. It was Leta they all looked at, this Alb woman whom they were treating as one of themselves, not as a servant. And Leta, now that she was feeling better, had regained her pale, gleaming beauty, and that hair of hers in its great smooth knot shone in the weak sunlight.

It was a wearying business, this waiting, moving forward so slowly; and just as Mara was thinking, we all look half asleep, she saw Dann being pulled out of the line by two men whose lower faces were covered by the ends of head cloths. One was Kulik. They had Dann by the arms, one on either side, and were trying to hustle him towards a waiting chair. Now Mara leaped out of the line and had her arm with the poisoned serpent on it, the knife released, around Kulik's throat.

"If you don't let go I'll use this."

Neither of the men recognised the snake, did not know their danger, looked at her face, then down at the tiny sliver of a knife, then back at her. And Daulis was out of the line, with a knife in one hand and a dagger in the other. All this was happening so fast, the people in the lines had not yet noticed; but for Mara the pace was slow, every movement and gesture in a time of its own, so she was able to think, If I press this spring, Kulik will die, and then the soldiers will be forced to take notice, and there will be problems and. The two men had loosened their hold on Dann and his knife was out and at the throat of the other man. One moment, and both these men could be dead. And Mara was remembering how long ago Dann had sworn that he would kill Kulik.

But not now. Mara let Kulik go. Dann removed his knife. Kulik's scarred face turned in the familiar bare-teethed, hated grin, for a last look, and then he was off into the chair, with his aide, and the runner in the chair had the shafts up and was off, going back fast to the inn.

The people in the front had not noticed what had happened. The people behind, who must have seen, were staring ahead, their faces saying, We have seen nothing.

If Dann had been hustled off to the chair, not one of these people would have intervened, or alerted the soldiers. What kind of people were these, then? Probably they would only help someone in their own immediate group. As for the soldiers, a couple were staring after the chair, but not as if they had seen anything much.

Mara saw that Dann was energised by the danger: his eyes were bright and he smiled at Mara, and put his arm around her. "Perhaps you should sell that pretty snake of yours, for all the good it's done us."

"It's good for killing," said Mara. "So I'll not part with it yet."

And there it was on her arm, the deadly sting back in its groove, and indeed it was a pretty little snake.

Soon they were at the front of the line, and were being waved on past the beam, towards the Tundra soldiers, who were watching them come forward.

Before Daulis could speak the officer in charge said, "We know about you. But we were expecting three, not four."

Daulis said, "If the Centre had known I was bringing this woman they would have made provision for her."

"They told us to have three horses for you."

"We need four."

"Horses are not to be had for the whistling for them," said the officer. "As you must know."

The horses stood waiting. They were stout, stubby little beasts, and certainly not able to carry two people. Besides, Mara had never been on a horse. Nor had Leta. Dann had said he had, once, but it had been a striped horse, different from these, well trained and mild. These horses were anything but mild: they were kicking and bucking, and generally making it clear that they did not enjoy their servitude.

All kinds of conveyances stood about waiting for customers. "We'll find something," said Daulis to the officer.

"They're expecting you," was the reply, meaning, Don't waste time.

They walked slowly along the road, having a good look: there was nothing like it in Bilma, nor in Charad — not since Chelops, where it had been a solid surface of shining black — but this road seemed to be surfaced by a grey spider-web, innumerable tiny lines, like scratches. Daulis said the road had been made long ago, certainly hundreds of years, and no one now knew the secret of this substance.

It was then mid-afternoon. Ahead was a town, and most of the travellers were making their way there. Daulis said he knew the town, a pretty and prosperous place, and well worth looking at. But they were all tired. The inn they chose was an affair of several storeys, with servants in uniforms, and the room was large, with real beds, not pallets on the floor, and fine hangings at the windows, and carpets.

They would have to pay for it. Mara changed two coins at the reception table, for their proper value. They lay down to recover. Then they went out to an eating house Daulis knew, and all of them, including Leta, ate very well. Neither Dann nor Mara had eaten this food or imagined it existed, and Dann said to her, "I told you it would get better all the time, didn't I?"

And Mara said, "I'll agree with you when I'm sure Kulik isn't following us."

"They wouldn't let him in," said Daulis. "No one comes into Tundra except for some good reason. Like being useful to Tundra."

"You don't know this man," said Mara. And she actually shuddered. She explained, "You see, you can't get rid of him, ever. It seems he has always been in my life — and Dann's. Why? It's as if he was born to torment us and chase after us, never letting us alone."

In the room they had to make decisions. To where they would catch a boat going North, would be two days if they took a carriage or carrying-chairs. The coaches did not run here on their rickety rails. If they walked, that would take nearly a week. With one voice, Leta and Mara and Dann averred they would rather die than ever again use a carriage, a carrying-chair, or a coach. Daulis said drily that they were lucky not to be officials, who had no choice.

"So we are lucky, we can walk if we choose," said Mara gaily, for her spirits were rising, and so were the others'.

"But we are supposed to be hurrying."

Daulis said, "Well, if you knew how long they've been waiting, I wouldn't worry about a day or so. Or even a week." And then he said to Mara, "Haven't we something to celebrate, you and I?"

"What?"

Leta laughed at her. "You are no longer married, not in Tundra. That ended at the frontier."

Mara had forgotten. She was surprised to feel a little sinking in her stomach, a giddiness. Regret. She was actually feeling sad, and she said to Daulis, "For a moment then I was really sorry. But don't be alarmed."

"I've enjoyed being married to you, Mara," said Daulis. "Though some aspects of married love seemed to be wanting. Better be careful never to go back into Bilma, though. Not if you don't want to be married to me."

"Oh but I might enjoy it, for a while."

This banter was upsetting Dann. Mara said, "If you are jealous about a convenience marriage, what are you going to be like when I am really married? If I ever am."

And Dann surprised them by thinking a while and then saying seriously, "I don't know what I will do. I know I won't like it."

This was an uncomfortable little moment, for Dann and Mara as well as for the others.

Next morning, when they got back on the big road, they saw a long procession winding out of town. It was a pilgrimage and it was going to visit a shrine. These new words having been explained by Daulis, they joined the end of the procession and were handed bunches of reeds that had been dyed black and dark red. The songs were doleful, and the people's garb was dark and sad, and all the faces wore looks of resigned suffering.

The shrine, Daulis said, housed a machine that was certainly many thousands of years old, of a metal now unknown, and it had survived vicissitudes, which included falling to earth like a leaf in a whirlwind, but into a swamp, which saved it. It was believed that Gods had descended to Ifrik in this machine, and the bones of two of these Gods had been sealed inside jars and set inside the machine. There were four pilgrimages every year to this ancient machine, which was guarded by priests, but of a different kind from the ones in Kanaz. The two different orders of priest despised each other, refused to let their followers have anything to do with each other, and had often fought vicious wars, in the past.

"But," enquired Mara, "why is walking to a place a sign of devotion to that place?"

"And why," asked Dann, "four times a year? Wouldn't once be enough?"

"And what," Leta wanted to know, "is the point of the bones?"

Daulis said that it would be better if questions like these were not asked aloud, because these people were of the sort that would set on critics and even kill them.

The procession went through more towns, each one prosperous, with well dressed people. What a contrast between the wild and desolate country they had walked through and these towns, which were like dreams of order and delightfulness. Except for police in their black uniforms, like the soldiers'; and several times the police stood on either side of the column of singing pilgrims, looking keenly into every face. At night most pilgrims slept in special pilgrim inns, but the four slipped away to the comfort of good hotels. They rejoined the procession in the mornings. It was tedious. Above all, Leta was getting tired. She was not used to walking, more than move from one bed to another in Mother Dalide's. She did not say this bitterly, as they had heard her speak in the past, but actually laughed. They decided to try the carrying-chairs, as the least uncomfortable way of going faster; and so, two people to a chair, Dann and Mara in one, Leta and Daulis in another, they felt they were covering ground. But it was an interrupted progress. The chair-runners, two behind and two in front — these chairs had no wheels — stopped at certain points, set down the chairs, and fell out, others taking their place. No matter how they were appealed to, the runners shook them about; and at a place where they stopped for a meal, Mara asked about those ancient times when travelling was always comfortable, and Daulis said that more than that, everyone in the world was constantly on the move, very fast and thought nothing of it.

"How do you know?" was the obvious question.

"You will soon find out how I know," said Daulis.

"But why were they always moving?"

"Because they could."

"Do you think we would if we could?"

"I would," said Dann.

And Mara said, "I would like so much — oh much more than I could tell you — to find a house, in a quiet place that had water, and live there with Dann. And my friends," she added.

"And your husband?" said Daulis.

"And I'll have..." Dann stopped.

"Dann will have Kira," said Mara, and was about to explain Kira, and how Dann had loved her, but Daulis said, "I know about Kira. Shabis has told me about it." And then seriously, to Dann, "I think you may find you'll catch up with her. I think I know where she might be... unless."

"Unless she's found some man she likes along the way. Isn't that what you were going to say?"

On this last night before the river, Daulis said they should make the most of the comforts of the inn, because once they were on the boats, the river and lakeside inns would be a very different thing. And so they took care to wash well in the plentiful hot water, and to eat well, and to sleep soundly.

In the morning they walked along the road they had been following for days, and then they were standing on the edge of water where little waves ran up on to sandy verges and... What did you see, Mara? What did you see? "I saw the road I was on disappear into deep water." They could see it down there, black, clean, no weeds, and little fishes wagging their way across it. Boats of all kinds were drawn up on the shore. But the shore of what? This was not a river, for it did not flow and you could not see the other side, and it was not a lake, but channels between sandy or weedy shoals, and water that just covered shallows.

A man appeared from a waterside house where boatmen waited, and showed them a flat, wide boat with ample room for them and their bundles. Daulis bargained with him, and Mara parted with two more coins. Eight left. They took their places on piles of cushions on a flat bottom, through which they could hear fussing and lapping, and they looked over the boat edges at water they could touch, and trail their fingers through. Mara and Dann were thinking, water dragons; but the boatman said little fish might nibble their fingers, but that would be the worst. For a while the boatman seemed to be steering by the road they could still see, but then it descended even deeper.

Water had risen up, and covered the road and the land around it. When did that happen? The boatman said, a long time ago. He was tried with hundreds of years? Thousands? — but these words meant nothing to him. He said that his grandfather had told him there was a family tradition that all this, where water was now, had been frozen down to a depth nobody had been able to measure, but then the ice became water.

This was slow going, finding their way through marsh, then deep water, then marsh again. Sometimes the bottom was so close to the surface the boatman used a pole to push the boat along. Flowers floated on long, swaying stems. Birds ran over pads of leaves, and from a distance it looked as if they were running on the water. Big white birds sat on islands that were of massed weed, which dipped and swung with the ripples from the boat. There were no shores in sight but at evening they came to rest on a little promontory; and the boatman went off to his shelter, and they to an inn of the serviceable kind, and they ate food designed to satisfy hunger, and no more, and they sat about on their pallets talking, while the sunset died over the water. They lay down for the night covered with many blankets, and then there was another day of slow travelling. Mara felt that her thoughts had slowed, and all her life had become just this: sitting in a shallow boat just above water that smelled of weed, looking at Dann's face, at Leta's, at Daulis's, and thinking that she was so much part of them, and they of her, that she could not bear to think they could ever separate.

Days passed. It grew steadily colder and often cold mists crept about on the water and clung to their faces and hair. They sat wrapped in their grey blankets, even their heads covered. Mara sat dreaming in the water, that was what it felt like, as if she was in the water, in a shell; but what a difference from that other journey, down south, so hot, the water surfaces dazzling and flashing in her eyes, feeling sick, or not, but always the wet heat, the dangers from the water, where the dragons watched and waited and, always, the reminders along the banks of drought.

Mara saw beneath her a roof of red tiles, where bunches of weed swayed, and then another roof. The travellers were floating over a drowned town, and stretched down their arms to see if they could touch these roofs. The boatman said there had been many towns round about that had sunk down. Big towns. When the ice melted the earth grew soggy and could not hold the weight of the buildings, and they sank, and the water came up. He jested that if they were fishes they could swim for many days through drowned cities. And they certainly knew how to live, in those days, he said, look down there. Beneath them the water was deep and clear, with a white sand bottom, and there was a building grander than anything in the towns they had travelled through. Steps rose into a great arch of an entrance, which was set among white pillars, and there were stairs up to higher levels where terraces held figures of carved stone so lifelike it was easy to believe these were people they had known, or knew now; and the fine roofs, of many different coloured tiles, green and blue and red, had windows in them, and porches, and it seemed the easiest thing in the world to slide over the edge of the boat and land on a terrace and begin walking about there, live there, with friends; and then there will be children, Mara was muttering, there'll be big rivers of fast, fresh water and fountains full of water and little streams running into the house into basins of clear water. Dann was shaking her by the arm, "Mara, Mara." The boatman had stilled the boat, an oar pushing at a tussock of muddy weed to hold them steady. He was looking carefully at Mara, then bent to feel the pulse in her throat. Then he did the same for Leta, who was staring at nothing and breathing badly. Then Daulis, whose eyes were shut, and grimacing as if in pain.

The boatman and Dann whispered together. Mara was aware of a slow rocking, through her whole body — yet the boat was still. And then knew they were moving again, towards a shore where there was a long building, low-built, roofed with reeds.

"The marsh sickness," said the boatman, and tied the boat up to a stump. He lifted Leta and carried her to the building and inside it. He came back and tried to prod Daulis into movement, but he was lying sprawled on his back, eyes shut. Dann and the boatman between them carried him up to the building, which was an inn. Mara must have slept, for the next thing was, she lay in the boatman's arms, being taken to the building; and then she glimpsed a tall, thin, worried woman, arguing with the boatman, saying she couldn't be responsible for three ill people. And then Mara was lying on a bed, a floor bed, in a big room, but it was a poor one, where the reeds above them were broken and needed repair, and on the edges of the gap in the roof hung water drops, which splashed down into a basin set under them. Across the room Leta lay on her pallet, very still, her arms flung out. Daulis was doubled up on his pallet, clutching his stomach and groaning. There was a horrible smell. Mara thought, Oh, I hope I haven't fouled myself; and that was the last she knew until she came to herself again and saw Dann's face just above her, wrenched with anxiety. He was wiping her face. Beyond Dann, the tall woman was kneeling by Leta, who was pointing at her bag where she kept her dried herbs. The woman spread out the herbs on a cloth and Leta pointed at one, saying "Boil it. Give it to us in water." And then she fell back into unconsciousness. Daulis was lying propped up, a rug pulled tight around him. He looked very bad. He's dying, Mara thought. And then, Perhaps I am dying. And Leta? But Dann, poor Dann, what will he do, all alone? Mara sank back into the dark but kept coming to herself, seeing little bright scenes she would remember. Leta, lying with arms flung out, that bright hair dull and soaked with sweat. Daulis, so very ill. The tall woman, taking pails out, but another time she was carrying them in. Dann, always Dann, bending over her, over Daulis, over Leta, and she heard his, "Mara, Mara, you mustn't die, please come back." She heard groaning, which she at first thought was hers, but it was Daulis. Sometimes it was full day, when she came drifting up, and the pale sun was shining down through the hole in the reeds, and there was sweat on Leta's face and on Daulis's; and sometimes it was dark and a lamp stood on the floor in a corner. Once she felt a weight and saw that Dann had fallen asleep where he sat by her, and his upper body was lying across hers. She was dreaming, oh, what dreams: she was running, running with enemies after her, always on the point of catching her; she was choking in dust storms; she was so hungry her stomach was like knives; and then she was conscious of the sweetest warmth, and her arms were full of a little boy, her little brother, Dann, who stroked her face and loved her; but then what was in her arms was not Dann but a baby, hers, and in her sleep she muttered and cried out that she had to go to her baby; and she held Crethis, the lovely girl who was a little child; and how sad Mara was, how sorrowful, when she momentarily came back to herself and saw that Dann was kneeling by Leta, holding a cup of something to her mouth, or that the tall woman knelt by Daulis, calling his name, to bring him back.

Sometimes when she woke she did not know whether she was in this wretched marsh-side inn, in a room where you could see the sky, or back in the Rock Village. And now she saw Daima across the room, sitting with her hands folded, smiling at Mara, and then holding out her arms so that Mara could run into them. "Daima," wept Mara, "I never thanked you, I never told you how I loved you, and yet without you I would have died a hundred times over." But it was Dann's face she saw, when she opened her eyes, "Don't cry Mara, don't, you've been having bad dreams, but it's all right. You are getting better. Look, drink this." Mara swallowed down a bitter liquid that made her stomach churn and rebel.

Then Leta was up on her feet, while the thin woman held her steady with an arm across her back, and the two walked slowly up and down the room. Leta was getting her strength back. But Daulis still lay like a corpse. Mara could see from Dann's face, as he ministered to Daulis, and the cool inspection the thin woman gave to Daulis, standing to look down at him, that they believed he was dying. And now Mara was grieving because of kind Daulis, who had rescued her: Why have I taken it for granted? Oh, oh, oh; and Dann came hurrying, "What is it Mara? Where is the pain?" But it was her heart that was hurting her, thinking of kind Daulis, dead.

He didn't die, though he was the last to recover. Leta and Mara were practising walking back and forth around the room, and then outside, until the cold from the marsh drove them back in, while he still lay unconscious. They began to eat, mostly the porridge prepared for them by their hostess, who was called Mavid, and was a widow, just surviving here on the rare customers the boatmen brought her — though usually the boats went past to the better inns farther on. She was very good to them. More than once she made Dann sleep, and herself sat up, because she was worried about him. Dann had become thin again, and Mara too. When they stood examining each other, like people who have not met for a while, they knew that yet again they mirrored each other: two tall, thin creatures with anxious eyes deep in their heads.

"Dann, please eat," urged Mara; and Dann said, "Mara, you must eat." And Mavid watched them and said she had had a brother, but he had died, and she thought of him every day of her life. Then she said that without Dann, Mara would have died. He was a wonder of a man, the way he nursed them all, but particularly his sister. There had been a night when she thought that all three of them were dying, and there was no way she could have managed without Dann. He hadn't slept for nights. He had eaten only when she reminded him he must. When it seemed Mara was slipping away, Dann wouldn't let her go; he made her come back, begging her, pleading with her; it positively gave her, Mavid, goose pimples to watch it, she had never seen anything like it — and so she went on.

When Daulis did open his eyes, he saw the three sitting by him, and his smile, his own real smile, not a grimace of pain, made their eyes fill. Leta wept and kissed his hands, and Daulis said, "Dear Leta," and closed his eyes. But next day he was up, and the day after began the tedious business of walking up and down, supported by Leta on one side and Dann or Mara on the other, willing strength back into his legs.

They were a month in that inn. Mavid said she felt that she had a family again. Mara gave her four gold coins. Mavid embraced her, then the others and said she could get her roof mended, and stock her storeroom, and the boatmen would bring her customers. Their coming to her inn was the luckiest thing, and she would never forget them.

From her they learned about the history of the drowned cities. It was a long time ago, she said, and she spread her fingers, and set down her hands on the table, to make ten, ten times — and looked at them to say they understood. "One hundred," said Mara. She did it again. "Two hundred," said Leta. And again. "Three hundred," said Daulis. Three hundred years ago the frozen earth turned to swamp, and down sank the cities.

"You see," said Mavid, "the Ice is beginning to go again. When I was a little girl my parents took me to the northern edge of Ifrik. It isn't very far from here. They showed me the ice cliffs on the other side of the Middle Sea. And that is beginning to fill again. It has been dry, so they say for... for." She looked at her hands, wondering whether to attempt setting them down, fingers spread, but again, and again and again, and gave up the idea, and concluded "a very long time. I mean, a long time."

Now they were going to travel in a boat with a sail, not in one low in the water, but tall, with a good deck and a cabin under it. The water would be deep, or at least have easily-followed deep channels, from here until their destination. Which is where they would start their walk to the Centre.

"And how is it you know all this, all the inns and the ways to travel?" said Dann.

Daulis smiled.

Mara said, "Because we Mahondis stick together, that's it, isn't it?" "Yes. For better or for worse." "I can see what you think." "It's not as simple as that."

"But great plots and plans go on and Dann and I are part of it."

"You are the whole point of it all, I am afraid. I am not going to say any more, because you have to make up your own minds. Knowing you as well as I do now, I am pretty certain what you'll do — but let's leave it there. You'll understand."

The travelling now was much faster, because they sailed straight forward, with no need to dodge about among the shoals and sandbanks. Much deeper beneath them the cities stood on white sand, so Mara looked down, seeing them as birds must have done once. That was Sahara sand down there, the sands that long ago stretched from coast to coast. Cities were as temporary as dreams. Like people. And she thought of Meryx. But when I was sick and dreaming in that inn where you could see the sky through the roof, Meryx was never there. Not once. All the people I've loved — they've gone. There's only Dann now. Only my little brother.

This boatman said there was no need to stop at inns when night came; they could drop anchor and sleep on board. Which they did on the first night; but it was unpleasant, with thick, cold mists creeping about on the water, and lights flitting everywhere, which the local people believed were the eyes of the dead, but the boatman said were insects. The next night they stopped at an inn, a big one, where water was heated for them, and they ate well. Already they were getting strong again, but they needed good sleep and they needed good food. For four nights they stopped at inns, while the boatman grumbled and said they were wasting money: they could sleep for nothing on the boat. They must be rich, he said, and asked for more. All this, the boat and the inns, used up three of Mara's four remaining coins. One left. Leta had all her money: they wouldn't let her spend it. Daulis had nothing very much. Dann threatened to prise out his five, but they made him promise to wait.

When they left the last inn, in the morning, the man and woman who ran it said that a messenger had come very early to ask after them. "From the Centre," they said. "They seemed to think you were late." And they actually nervously looked about them, and spoke in low voices.

"They certainly seem to fear the Centre," said Leta.

"If only they knew the truth," said Daulis.

They stood watching the white sail of the boat fly back the way they had come, like a white bird that hardly notices what it is flying over. As for the boatman, he said he was so used to those old cities down there he seldom looked at them. What for? "Those are finer buildings than anyone can make now so why make ourselves miserable with the comparison?"

They were on a sandy track going north-west that made its way through a pale landscape of bogs and ponds and lakes under a sky where thin, white cloud showed like shreds and streaks of ice on chilly blue. Ice was in their minds because not two days' walk north from here were the shores of the Middle Sea, from where on a clear day they could look to the other side and see the ice mountains, the weight of ice, that Mara and Dann had seen on the ancient map in Chelops — the Ice that covered all the northern half of this world, which was like a ball floating in space. Which had on it crude outlines, one of them Ifrik. Shabis had said that the other similar mass, South Imrik, was a mystery: no one knew what went on there. Some said it had preserved all the old knowledge and was so far in advance of Ifrik it couldn't be bothered with this backward place; others that it was in the same state, too poor to care about anything but itself. All the information about South Imrik came from the past, so Shabis had said.

How much Mara had learned from Shabis, how much she owed him, she thought, putting one foot in front of another, not in dust, not in dryness, but skirting puddles and avoiding marshes. She believed she was dreaming of him, a kindly affectionate figure, and when she summoned him to her mind's eye, she saw a soldierly man, smiling at her. He had loved her, and all the time what she had felt was a flame of want, but for learning, for knowing more. What she felt now was mostly shame, for having been so awkward, and so blind; but her mind did keep returning to him, with a shy and a tender curiosity.

For the most part they walked in silence. This was partly because the cold greyness dismayed them, but there was a weight on them because of Daulis and Leta. Leta loved Daulis, and he loved her. There could be no future for them, Leta said. She had exclaimed more than once that she should have accepted Mother Dalide's offer, and Daulis said, "Nonsense, there are other possibilities." What one of these might be became clear when some people came towards them along the track, like pallid wraiths, to match the landscape. They were white, like Leta, with green or blue eyes, and their hair, what could be seen of it under their hoods, was pale too. Dann had actually reached for Mara's hand, for she had exclaimed in astonishment and fear, and Daulis said, "They are the Alb people. They live near here." The Albs stared at them, but then addressed Leta, first in their own tongue, and then, since Leta shook her head, in Charad, "Who are you? Where are you from?"

Leta said, "From Bilma," which made them stare even more; and one said, "We didn't know there were Albs in Bilma," and Leta said, "I was the only one."

Daulis asked how to get to the Alb settlement, and a woman replied by pointing north and saying, "This one will be welcome," meaning that the three Mahondis would not be.

"So you are going to leave me with the Albs?" said Leta, to Daulis.

"I think you should see it, that's all."

"The Albs seem as strange to me as they must to you."

But Mara was thinking that the Albs had a kind of beauty that went well with their frigid, colourless landscape. The blue eyes, like bits of sky, and the green eyes, like deep water, and the grey — well, like what they were walking through.

"Listen, Leta," said Daulis, sounding quite desperate. "Don't you see? You must know what your alternatives are."

"I see quite well. Councillor Daulis couldn't have me in his house in Bilma. I wouldn't be a little pet like Crethis..." And here Mara and Dann exchanged humorous glances at the idea of Leta's being a little pet. "And a common whore from Mother Dalide's couldn't be your wife. And besides, in Bilma you are married to Mara."

And she fell back, behind the other three, because she was crying. Mara fell back too, and put her arm around her. Leta was muttering. "A whore. That's all, a whore."

Daulis was wretched and did not attempt to hide it.

Their path went through and sometimes over water, on little bridges of planks; and then ahead was, astonishingly, not sheds and shacks and huts, but a solid town, as fine as the ones lying under the water. Some of the houses in the lower streets stood in water, but the higher parts of the town were dry and in good condition.

"This was a copy of a town in a northern part of Yerrup. Can you see how the roofs were made steep to let the snow slide off? Can you see the thick shutters, the thick walls?" He was instructing them on how to see this town, so different from anything they had known. "Once, long ago, when the Ice came down over Yerrup, they built towns here, and all along Ifrik's north coast, that matched the ones that were disappearing, so that there would be a record and a memory of that old civilisation. All the part near the northern coast was dry then, and the towns lasted for hundreds of years, perhaps much longer, because they were looked after so well; and then the ice up there suddenly got worse. It only took a few winters, and with that cold so close the earth here became half frozen, and the towns suffered. They began to crack and fall down. So a decision was taken to build the same towns, the same copies of the Yerrup towns, a bit farther south; and they lasted until things got a bit warmer and. Those were the towns we saw, under the water. This town, Alb, is one of few still inhabitable. There is ill feeling, because when this stretch of land was given to the Albs there were many towns, but now there are only a few and some people want to throw the Albs out and take this town back."

"You mean the Albs have no real right to be here?" asked Leta, and Daulis explained that when the Ice came down all over Yerrup, the white peoples were pushed down in front of it, and many wanted to live here in North Ifrik, and there were terrible wars. But the change of climate and the shortages of food killed many of the people in North Ifrik, and the pressure of population was less, and the Albs either took or were given certain definite places to live in. There were only two Alb settlements left and this was one of them.

They were in a fine street lined with pretty trees that had white trunks and light, graceful branches. Once, Daulis said, this kind of tree had covered most of the half of the world that was now under ice, and these could be seen as survivors from primeval forests.

He knocked at a house, a woman came out, and he conferred with her, indicating Leta. This woman had silvery hair piled up, and strong blue eyes. She was not young. She took a good, long look at Leta, and nodded.

Leta said to Daulis, "I may be an Alb, but I feel as alien here as you do." For all around the streets were full of white-skinned people, like bleached ghosts.

The Alb woman said to Leta, "I know how you feel, because I was working in a town to the south, and my family called me back when my mother died. I felt I had arrived in a place where everyone had a skin disease. But you'll get used to it."

Mara, and then Dann, embraced a stiff, unresponsive woman who was immobilised by grief. As for Daulis, he hesitated, and then held Leta close, and they were both weeping.

Then the Alb woman, whom Daulis called Donna, led Leta into the house.

"Why do we have to leave her here?" Dann demanded.

"She can't go to the Centre — it would not be appropriate. And she can't come with me now because I don't know what I'll find. I'm not going back to Bilma if I can help it. Not only because I couldn't take Leta. One way or another, things will turn out all right."

"How can they if she's not with you?" said Mara.

Now Daulis was grimly silent, and for quite a time. At last he said in a low voice, "There's something you two don't seem to take into account. Leta has known me as someone who has been coming to Dalide's for years. She must secretly think of me as one of the swines she talks about." "You can't really think that," said Mara. "I sometimes don't know what to think."

"I know what I think," said Dann. "Leta believes she isn't good enough for you, and you are afraid you aren't good enough for her." "I suppose that's about it," said Daulis. "So you ought to get on very well."

"First I've got to make sure of a place we could all get on in. That's what I'm going to arrange. And now, you two. The one thing you must not do is to think you have to choose the Centre because there is no alternative. Even without me I'm sure you two would manage — you've done well enough until now. But while you are there, I'm going to go on by myself to see if a place I know is still there. It is a house, with land. It belongs to an uncle of mine, but he must be pretty old by now. If he is still alive. Other people might already have got there — the house is part of what Mara calls the Mahondi network. But it has nothing to do with the Centre and it is important you remember that."

"I would much rather go on with you," said Dann. "I don't want to go to the Centre at all."

"Listen to me. What they are going to offer you is right, from their point of view. If I was in their place — well, I'd probably do the same. I'd have to. But I'm glad to say I'm not. And you have a big responsibility, you two. What you decide will decide — well, it's an important thing. I'm not going to say any more. But my advice to you is not to decide too quickly — if only because in the Centre you'll see things that are not seen anywhere else now, at least, not in Ifrik. So take your time. But if you decide to leave in a hurry, for any reason, you can go either to where Leta is — Donna is my friend, I've known her all my life — or to the next inn. That is, going west. I'll tell them you might be along. They'll see you're all right. And I'm going to buy a horse there, and get moving."

Dann was actually in tears. "I don't want to leave Leta. How do you know she'll be happy?"

"Happy," said Daulis. "I don't think that is a word she has used often in her life. And you don't understand. If it is possible, she can come home and live with — we'll see."

"She'll think you have abandoned her," said Mara.

"What's the good of making promises you can't keep? If the place I've told you about isn't possible, I'll be going back to Bilma. I don't know what I'm going to find. The old man might have died and people simply moved in. Once, if you said 'a Mahondi place,' people left it alone. Not now. Once, if you said 'The Centre,' they fell into line. They still do, in some places. Everyone around here knows that the Centre is... you'll see."

He took them to a low rise, and pointed. Ahead was a great wall that curved away on either side, enclosing a round or oval space. The wall was of stone. There had been not a stone, scarcely a pebble, for miles.

"All that stone came from the Middle Sea," said Daulis. "They needed a hundred years, and more, to get this place built."

And now Dann, then Mara, exclaimed and pointed. High on the wall was a shining disc, a sun trap, and there were others, at intervals. "We know those things," said Dann. "They provide power from the sun."

"They used to provide power from the sun," said Daulis. "The apparatus wore out. But a lot of people don't know they are dead and think they are spy machines. And now, go around the wall to the south and you'll find a gateway. Just go in. I wouldn't have been able to say that until recently — there were guards. Go straight into the central hall. I'm going around the wall to the north. Goodbye, and I do hope so very much that we'll see each other very soon." And off he strode, turning to wave to them before he went around the curve.

"So we're alone together again," said Dann. "I like that, Mara." And he put his arm around her.

"You're the only thing in my life that has always been there — well, most of the time."

"I'm frightened, Mara."

"I am very frightened, Dann."

"Are you as frightened as when we were in that place with the spiders and scorpions?"

"Yes. And are you as frightened as." She was going to say, the Tower in Chelops, but could not say it; and he, gently, "You were going to say, that Tower where you rescued me; but no, I could never ever be as afraid as I was in that place. Never." He hugged her, so her head was on his shoulder, and added, "But I am as afraid as when we were fighting on that boat when Shabis's soldiers captured us."

"I wasn't frightened then because I was too busy stealing the old woman's money. Do you realise, if Han were still alive, she could probably make these sun traps work again?"

"Perhaps she was the last person to know the secret?"

The two stood there for quite a time, their arms around each other, talking. They could feel each other trembling.

At last Dann said, "Well, it can't possibly be as bad as all that. Let's go."

They went around the curve of the wall till they reached an enormous iron gate, designed to impress and oppress, and went in, and found the space between wall and inner wall almost as desolate as the tundra outside: it was greyish, lumpy, dried mud, with tussocks of marsh grass. Another imposing door, and they were in a high corridor that went on straight ahead, where there were big, painted doors, with faded pictures; and then they were in a very large room, circular, with pillars that supported a painted ceiling, which was cracked, and had flakes of plaster loose on it.

They waited. Mara clapped her hands. Nothing happened. Dann shouted, "Hallooo," and Mara too, "Hallooo."

They heard footsteps and on the opposite side of the round hall appeared two people. One was a woman, and she was a hurrying confusion of white and grey veils, and her face was first affronted, and then excited, while the man advanced in a calm, stately way. He wore some kind of uniform. He was serious, formal, silent, while she emitted little cries, "Oh, oh, my dears, oh how wonderful, oh at last, here you are." Then she was curtsying before Mara, "Oh Princess, we have been waiting so long for you," and before Dann, "Oh Prince, it has been so long." Meanwhile the man bowed stiffly from the waist, before Mara, and before Dann, and said, "Welcome to you both." Then the woman took a step back to look at them. She did not approve of what she saw, though her cries of pleasure and welcome broke out again, and now she embraced Mara, "Oh my dear Princess, Princess Shahana, oh, oh, oh." Mara, standing obediently inside those convulsive arms, knew she was muddy, unkempt and probably smelly. She knew too that the pressure of those arms meant, I shall take you in hand. And then the woman embraced Dann with, "Prince Shahmand." Her face wrinkled with distaste at the contact.

"I am sorry," said Mara. "I know we must disappoint you. You see, we have not been living like a prince and princess."

"Oh I know, I know," excitedly cried their hostess, who was so exquisite and clean and perfumed in her clouds of white and grey. "I know what a terrible, terrible time you have had, but now it's all over."

"Felissa," said the man at this point, "these two are clearly in need of food and some rest."

"Oh dear, oh dear, forgive me," and off she fluttered back into the depths of this Centre or Palace or whatever it was, while the man said, "I am Felix, and you must forgive my wife. She has built up such hopes on you two, and of course so have I."

He led the way after Felissa, and they were in a smaller, pleasant room that had a low table, floor cushions, and a window that looked out on a vista of roofs, like a town, all inside the enclosing wall. "Please sit." They did so. He sat, and said, "Your mother was my mother's cousin. And your father was Felissa's mother's cousin. And you are the last of that family, the Royal House. But I expect you know all that."

"We don't know any of it," said Dann. He sounded grumpy, but — Mara noted — a little flattered.

"Well Shahana, well Shahmand."

But here Mara interrupted. "I'd rather you called me Mara." And she looked at Dann, who saw her look, and said, "And I am Dann." But she thought he said it with reluctance.

"Mara and Dann? Well, for family use, if you like, but you'll have to use your real names, on formal occasions. At least, I do hope you'll agree to — well, to our plans for you."

Here Felissa came running back. "And there'll be food for you in just one moment." And now she sat opposite them and took her husband's hand and caressed it and said, "Felix, Felix, I had begun to believe this wonderful day would never happen."

"They want to be called Mara and Dann," he said to her, and Mara knew that she disliked him, from that moment, because though he smiled, it sounded like a sneer.

A hesitation, then, "We'll call them anything they like, poor dears."

And then in came an old man, with a large tray, and food. Nothing remarkable: they had eaten better at inns along the way. And Felissa said, "You must forgive our reduced style of living — but I'm sure that all that will change soon."

And she proceeded to tell them what Felix had already told, and the two marvelled that her style of fluttery, cooing, stroking — she had to keep fondling their hands or their faces — needed the whole meal to say what her husband had said in a few sentences.

Meanwhile Mara was thinking that for years she had secretly wondered about her name, her real name, the one she had been so effectively ordered to forget, and had believed, or half believed, that when she heard it a truth about herself would be revealed and she would have to cry out, Yes, that's it, at last, that's who I am. But now Shahana, and Princess, did not fit her, she could not pull the words over her, as she had dreamed she would, like a robe that had her name woven right through it. She did not want Shahana, nor Princess. They were for someone else. She was Mara. That was her name.

Through the window they could see how the light was fading. The same old man brought in lamps.

"He has prepared your rooms for you," Felissa said. "They are ready." And then, hesitating, "He has prepared your baths." And, hesitating again, to Mara, "There are clothes put out — if you like them." And she could not prevent a little grimace of dislike and disdain, as she looked at Mara's robe, the striped gown men wore in Bilma. It had mud around the hem.

"Perhaps my clothes could be washed?" suggested Mara, and Felissa said, "Of course, but these days we are short, so very short. There is the old man you saw, and his wife, who cooks, and a couple of Alb women come in to clean and do odd jobs."

"Then I'll wash them myself," said Mara.

This put Felissa into a real crisis of cries and protests. "Oh, Princess, how can you say that. Of course you must be looked after."

"Perhaps it would be better to call me Princess and Dann Prince only when there is a real need for it."

And now Felissa began to weep, her hands over her face. "Oh I hope that doesn't mean that you aren't going to agree... agree..." And they could see that if she was not old, she was getting on, for her hands were wrinkled, though delicate in shape. Her black hair was dyed. Her face was made up. Felix was elderly. He was quite good-looking, with the habit of pleasantness. But Mara was thinking, it's the same, wherever you see it, the Hadrons, or the Hennes, and — did she remember something of the sort in her own family, from her early childhood? Power. The ruthlessness, just hidden by smiles and courtesies. A coldness. And Shabis, he was strong and in command: no, that came from what he did, from his work, not from a belief in his superiority. That is what these people had. How soon could she get out of here?

"Oh please don't think we don't understand," wept Felissa. "You see we know everything, everything about you, we know everything about all Mahondis everywhere."

"Then perhaps you could tell us about the Kin in Chelops."

"Oh poor dear, yes, we know you had a child by Juba."

"I did not have a child by Juba."

This setback did not at all discompose Felissa. "Oh, then perhaps we do not always get all the truth but. There are so few of us left, and we do keep records about everyone." "Then what happened to Meryx?"

"They all went to the East. But there was a war and we don't know who."

So, she didn't know.

"There was the uprising in Chelops, and the terrible drought and big fires."

"We know about drought and fire and famine," said Dann, almost indifferently. Then, himself hearing how he sounded, said, "There was a time in our lives when Mara and I thought there wasn't anything anywhere but drought and famine and fires."

"Oh dear," cooed Felissa, and stroked Mara's hands.

"I want to go to bed," said Dann, and again heard himself, his brusque-ness. "I'm sorry. We aren't used to your kind of — fine living."

"I wouldn't call what we have now fine living," said Felix, polite, but cold.

Dann stood up, Mara stood up.

Felissa said, "We'll see you in the morning for breakfast."

Mara knew Dann was about to say, "We'll have breakfast in our room," as if he were in an inn, but her warning look stopped him.

They said goodnight. Mara knew that Felix did not like her, and knew she did not like him. It was an instant, instinctive antipathy. Felix's smile for Dann was affable, and could be thought of as kind. Mara hoped that Dann was not impressed by it.

The old servant led them through several empty rooms, all with flaking walls, mostly without furniture, to two pretty rooms, large, with floor-cushions and chairs and very large, low beds. It was a suite of rooms with a door between them, standing open. In each room a large, shallow bath of steaming water stood on the floor. The old man went off but not before seeing how Dann pushed his bath through the open door to be near Mara's. And he had stripped off his gown and was in the water, ducking his head; the water instantly turned brown. And Mara, who waited until the door shut, flung off her robe and was lying in the delicious hot water.

"What have we got ourselves into this time, Mara?" genially enquired Dann, rolling in his great basin like a fish. "Princess, are you listening?" For she had her head under water, and thought that water browned by so much travel dirt was hardly likely to leave them both clean.

"I don't like all this, I want to leave," said Mara. Out she got and, hiding herself with a drying cloth, tugged the bell pull. At once the old man came in — he must have been just outside the door. He was eaves-dropping.

"Is there any more water?" she asked.

"It would take some time to heat, Princess."

"Then bring us some cold. And where can we throw this dirty water?" Dann, who had not bothered to wrap himself, said, "I'll throw it out of the window."

"No, Prince," said the old man. "You should not do that." Now he pulled the bell pull and soon in came an old woman. She stood in the doorway taking in naked Dann, and just-covered Mara, with her bedraggled hair.

The two old people carried out one big basin, then the other.

"They shouldn't be carrying such heavy things," she said.

"Oh, they're used to it," said Dann. And now Mara was really apprehensive, hearing that jaunty selfishness.

The basins were brought back, put side by side on the floor, and a big jug was brought of cold water. Dann slid in, exclaiming and exaggeratedly shivering. "Look, clean water," he said to the staring old woman and laughed. He was over excited.

Mara waited till the two old people had gone, and got into her bath. The water was very cold. She ducked her head in it, again and again.

Then Dann was out and had dried and was looking at his enormous bed next door.

"I'll come in with you," he said, and came naked into her great bed.

"You know, Mara, there's something about all this that."

But he fell asleep in mid-sentence. And in a moment she was in beside him and was asleep. She woke to see Felissa standing beside them, and her face was a mixture of shock, disapproval, and — Mara could have sworn it — triumphant pleasure too.

"Good morning," said Dann, sitting up, naked. "Good morning, Mara."

"Good morning to both of you," said Felissa. "It is very late. You must have been exhausted. We are waiting for you. Breakfast is waiting."

The crushed up clothes in Mara's sack had all but one been taken away. So while they slept the old man or woman had been in their room. One dress remained, the pretty gauzy one, but it was too light for this chilly place and Mara wrapped over it the blanket which of course was soiled from the journey. She could not wear it. What should she do? She took a covering from the bed, and wrapped that around her. Dann did the same.

In the room where they had been last night, Felissa and Felix sat on the floor cushions waiting. A meal was spread.

"Good morning, Prince, good morning, Princess," said Felix, signalling seriousness.

"What I saw this morning has made something easier," said Felissa. "What did you see?" asked Dann. Innocently.

Felix and Felissa conferred, with their eyes, but Mara broke in with, "It is not what you think. Dann and I have shared beds, sometimes much narrower than your beds, a hundred times. And there was Daulis and Leta. We have all four shared beds."

"We know who Daulis is, but who is Leta?"

"She is a friend — an Alb."

"Oh, an Alb." And that was the end of Leta, for them.

Felissa gushed, "There is something, a story... something fascinating... it is history... let me tell you both... you'll understand it all... you see, it is of the greatest importance..." Felix broke in with, "I shall tell them, otherwise we shall be here all day. Do you know the history of this part of Ifrik?" he asked the two.

"Not much," said Dann.

"A little," said Mara, thinking of Shabis and his lessons, which had all been in response to her questions — her ignorant questions, she knew now. "Long ago, a very long time ago." "Thousands of years?"

"Exactly; before the Ice covered all the civilisations of Yerrup. Did you know that all those civilisations, all that history, happened in the twelve thousand years of a warm spell between periods of ice?"

"Yes," said Mara.

"No," said Dann.

"Twelve thousand years. They thought it would all go on for ever. But if I may be permitted a remark you may perhaps judge to be exaggerated, I think it is true that people always have a tendency to believe that what they have is going to continue for ever. However, that's as may be. About halfway through that warm interregnum between the ice ages, towards the east from here, at the mouth of the great river Nilus, which is still there, though not in the same position it was, was a successful dynasty of rulers. The royal family kept marriage inside itself. Brothers and sisters married."

Here Dann gave a loud laugh, and then apologised for interrupting.

"Yes. If you think about it, Prince, in turbulent times this guaranteed stability. When two families marry, or even two branches of a family, there is always conflict about inheritance, and sometimes wars. The offspring of siblings are more likely to want to keep an inheritance together."

Dann's face showed a mix of emotions. One could be described as a kind of jeer, an unvoiced raucousness. There was genuine interest in this old tale. And there was a hint of satisfaction, a puffing up that made his features seem swollen.

"How long did this dynasty last?" asked Mara.

"Hundreds of years, so they say," said Felix.

"With stability? Prosperity? Peace?"

He permitted himself a little look of irony, then a laugh, exactly prescribed, and then he made a little bow towards her. "You are asking too much, Princess. Hundreds of years — of peace? No. But the kingdom was able to fight off aggressions and attacks. There was no division inside the kingdom."

And now Felissa could not remain silent. "You two are the last, the very last. You are the only two Royals of the right age." "Wouldn't any two young Mahondis do?"

"Real royalty. We need the Royal blood. Your child would revive the Royal house, the Royal family. When people know there is a Royal couple back in the Centre, and Royal children, then they would support us, as they did in the past."

"When Mahondis ruled all Ifrik?" said Mara.

"Exactly."

"And you are planning to rule all Ifrik again?" asked Dann.

"Why not? We did once."

"I don't know why you are so anxious to rule Ifrik," said Mara. "It is a desert of dust and death below the River Towns."

"Nothing stays the same," said Felix. "Now it is a time of dryness. But the drought will end. And we will be prepared. All the history of Ifrik has been that — swings of climate."

"The history of everywhere, from the sound of it," said Mara.

"Yes, but let us stick to our own — responsibilities. We believe we are in for another swing. The Ice is going again in Yerrup. There are signs.

The Middle Sea has been dry for thousands of years. There were cities built all along its bottom. But the oceans must be rising, because water is coming in from two different places: the Rocky Gates to the big ocean that once was called the Atlantic but now is the Western Ocean; and beyond the Nilus, to the east, there is a canal, which has been dry, but it is filling. There is a shallow lake now covering the cities at the bottom of the Middle Sea and the water is rising. It will be a sea again." "In thousands of years?"

"Probably hundreds. But there are stages, and different levels of the ice and the melt. The Middle Sea has been filled to the brim between Ice Ages, and it has been half full, with cities along the shores. You two may live to see it filling so fast that shores you see on one visit may have disappeared on your next."

"And you think the dryness will soon disappear from Ifrik?"

"Why should it not?"

Dann was listening, and he was more intrigued than Mara liked.

She said, "You told us you know Daulis."

"Of course. He brings us news from the south," said Felissa.

"And he told us that you have wonderful things here in the Centre, and that we should see them."

"Yes, we have, and you should," said Felix. "We believe that what has happened will happen again. We are on the verge of another great age of discovery and invention. And in the Centre we have prototypes of the inventions of the past."

"Not everything," said Felissa. "You forgot a lot of it has been stolen."

"There have been raids," said Felix. "Robbers took some of the machines and inventions."

"We have seen them," said Mara. "May we see the Centre?"

"My dears, of course," said Felissa. "You'll find everything quite easy to understand, because it is all so carefully documented. Of course you won't see the original machines. Everything was copied, and then copied again, as long as any of the old skills were left, but then there came a time... oh, it is so sad."

"You will think about our plan," ordered Felix.

"We'll think about it," said Mara and stood up, and so did Dann, and they went to their rooms.

There Dann said, violently, "They want me as a stud, and you as a brood animal."

"That's about it," she said.

Then his mood changed and he said, "I rather fancy the idea of being married to you, Mara. And all our little ones running about."

"I would say they are a little insane," said Mara, "a little mad."

"Perhaps we shouldn't be too quick to see everything as mad." She did not know what to say; she felt apprehensive. "How old are they?" he went on. "Fifty? Suppose we had a child at once. They would be really old by the time it was ready to mate. Mate with whom? You or me. There would be another child. Ideally it should be not the same as the first. Imagine it, two old people, with two old servants, who'll be dead soon, and you and me. The Royal Family. Why should the locals put up with it? They don't necessarily remember Mahondi rule with pleasure, so I'm told."

And while he said all this, it was as if he were arguing with an invisible interlocutor.

Mara said quietly, "All the same, there is something in the idea you like."

He flung himself on the big bed and lay face down. He did not reply. She stood at the window and looked out over innumerable roofs, some as beautiful as those in the drowned cities. Some were crumbling, or had even fallen down.

"I want to walk around the whole place, along the wall," she said. At first he did not move, then got up, sullen now, angry about his thoughts; and they found the old woman cooking, and said they were going to walk around the wall: there must be a walkway of some kind. She said, not looking at them, so great was her disapproval, that there was a path just inside the top of the wall, and it was in good condition most of the way, but they should be careful, and it would take them the rest of the day. She gave them some food to take with them.

They set off, westwards. The wall was at the height of their waists. In some parts there were piles of sharp wire, now rusting. They knew where Chelops had got its wire fences.

"If I were ruling here, for a start all this wire would come down," said Dann.

"I see you are expecting a time of peace, Prince Dann?" But he didn't laugh.

On one side of the wall could be seen only interminable wet earth and marshes, with paths through them, and sandy stretches, and rushes and reeds. It was a lumpy landscape that was more water than land. Inside the wall were what seemed like hundreds of every kind of building, for where some of the fine ones had fallen, reeds and mud replaced them. So this was where all the records of the great past were. The country was the same to the north, and they stopped to shelter on their little ledge of a path, from a sharp wind, crouching low to eat some bread. This wind had blown all the way from the ice fields and ice cliffs that covered Yerrup. If they could fly, as once people had flown anywhere they wished, to look down over the ice, would the great cities of those great civilisations be visible there? No, ice was not water, and so. They went on, chilled inside their thick wrappings. The eastern vistas were the same: this was where they had come, and so they knew that the marshes stretched for days of walking. All along the wall were the old sun traps. The metal of the arms had eroded, and some had disappeared, leaving the circlets of metal lying about on the wall; or they had fallen and lay on roofs or on the earth.

The light was going. Felissa and Felix had left a message that they would be served supper in their rooms, so that they could be alone to think about their decision.

"They don't like our manners," said Mara.

"When I am ruler," said Dann, and she interrupted with, "Dann, please stop it, even in joke. I'm afraid, don't you see." "What of, Mara?" He was defiant. "I'm afraid of — the other one."

He stared, then deflated, and sat moodily on his floor cushion and was silent for a while. "You are right," he said. "But I'm going to see Felix and ask to hear more of these plans of theirs. Because there are things they haven't said. For one thing, they must be planning concubines. A baby takes nine months, and then at best a year before another. Not that I'd use you so badly, Mara."

"I had thought of concubines."

"And how exactly do they plan to live in the interval before there is another Mara and another Dann? They are obviously very poor." "Another Shahana and another Shahmand."

"Do you know what? I keep thinking of Kira. I have dreams of her."

And she said softly, "And I am dreaming of Shabis."

"Are you, Mara? Well, we could start our own royal family, have you thought of that?"

"Please stop it, Dann."

He lay down on the big bed in her room, and then jumped up and went to his own bed in the next room. "I hate them," he said. "Curse them both. They've spoiled you and me."

Next morning Felissa accompanied them to the start of the Museum Tour. That was what it had been called once, and she could remember the lines of people stretching almost out of sight, waiting to get in to see the marvels of the past.

In the entrance was a tall metal shape, like a shield, with coils of wire behind it, and under it a button marked Press, in a dozen languages. They pressed, but the machine was dead. Next to this shield, or plaque, was another, and on it in the same languages, which included Mahondi and Charad, the information on the metal sheet, writing which would have come up in lights, had the thing still worked. This writing, on the plaque, in elegant black and yellowish grey, once white, was faded, and in some places illegible. Beside the plaque was a third attempt: a large piece of black slate, and on it, written in coloured earth, the same information as on the other two, but in fewer languages, headed by Mahondi and Charad.

"Start here for our tour through the ancient civilisations of The Warm Interregnum. Some of the artefacts you will see were brought from the museums of Yerrup while the first wave of the Ice was advancing. All the countries of Yerrup had innumerable museums of old artefacts. A replica of one of their museums will be found at Building 24. The first wave of the Ice crushed and swallowed some cities, but the ones on the edge of the Middle Sea were pushed over into it. There was a period when parts of the Middle Sea were half filled with the remains of the shoreline cities. The Middle Sea was already dry by then. It was this material that was brought here to the shores of North Ifrik to make the cities that copied those that had gone under the Ice. They, in their turn, went the way of all cities, to ruin. And that material was used to make other towns and cities. So some of the cities of Tundra are built of material used by those ancient peoples to make theirs."

They made their way to Building 24. The first room showed people dressed in skins, hunting, or sitting around fires. "These were the people that preceded the ancient Yerrupeans from whom we descend. Observe the shape of their heads. They lived for 140 thousand years. They retreated before the ice waves of the Old Ice Age, and returned to occupy sheltered valleys in the warmer interludes."

"They look rather like the Rock People," Dann said. He was disturbed. Mara felt the same — sad. It was painful, looking at a long extinct people. "Why should we care about them?" Dann protested, but they did, and moved on, holding hands, pleased the other was there.

The next room took them to the people who succeeded the Neanders. Again, people in skins, living in rough huts or thatched houses, hunting with knives and spears, and also with bows and arrows.

"I shall make one of those," said Dann. "Why don't we have them?"

Mara said she wouldn't have minded one of those spears at certain points during their travels.

"Well, Mara, are we being illuminated? I think not. We'd fit in very well here. Perhaps we could even teach them a thing or two about surviving."

And now at the entrance to a third room was a sign saying NO ENTRANCE, and the roof had fallen in. Peering past piles of plaster and tiles, they saw the walls were covered with scenes of wild looking people in boats that were longer and finer than any they had seen.

"So, we'll never know about the Peoples of the Sea," said Dann. For that was the description of this place.

And the next hall, a large one, The Age of Chivalry, was falling in. People encased in metal shells, with lances and spears of all kinds, with stuffed horses, had slid off them and the horses were bursting open and showing their shredded rag entrails.

It was now midday. Dann wanted to see the building described as Space Adventures, but Mara said she needed the continuity, she was already confused, and he said he didn't care about continuity. He was sounding angry as well as sad, and Mara too was angry, because of the futility of it all, a senselessness. Where these old people had lived the ice lay as thick as twice the height of the mountain that Daulis had said was where they would find the White Bird Inn. From their bedroom windows they could see it stretching up into the cold sky, and on its summit shone a cap of whiteness, snow and ice.

"I'm going to start crying, Mara, let's get out of here." And they began wandering about, lost, among this wilderness of buildings, and seeing a tall building, the tallest, went inside and stood limp with astonishment. They were surrounded by machines of a kind and complexity they could never have imagined, though it could be seen they were from the same time as the sun trap. These were not rooms, but halls, of machines once used for travelling between the stars — but stars was not a word they could any longer use as easily as they did, because all over the walls and ceilings were great maps of the sky, and there they saw the patterns of stars they had known all their lives shown as mere local manifestations, inside greater patterns. They saw that what they lived on, this place called Earth, was one of a little sprinkle of planets travelling around a central bright star, their sun; but this was a very minor star, that great pumping engine of heat that so directly ruled their lives, a little star among so many that the words thousands, or even millions, became irrelevant; and Ifrik, which they had learned to know with their feet, putting one foot in front of another, was merely a shape among several on this little ball. And the moon, whose face they knew as well as their own, was... "Enough," said Mara, "I can't take it in."

"I don't think I like knowing what an ignorant lot of barbarians we are," said Dann.

And they put their arms around each other, for comfort. They were looking at a kind of metal box that had all sorts of projections and wires and rods sticking out of it, that had gone to the planet farthest from the sun and had sent back information. But why, and what for, and above all, how? As they left this great building, a wall with writing on it informed them that before this Ice Age had swallowed all the northern parts of the Earth, machines had been sent into space as large as a big town, and in them people were able to live, it was believed indefinitely; and there were those that still believed that these machines existed, travelling about up there. And might even return one day.

"Like that crashed machine the pilgrims were singing their songs to... no Mara, let's go, I'm so sad I could."

They returned to their rooms, hoping not to meet their hosts. Again they were served a meal there, with the message that dear Mara and dear Dann should make up their minds, because time was passing.

That night Dann went off to his room, looking rueful, and embarrassed, and even closed the door between them; but Mara woke in the night to find him holding her, "What is it, Mara, what's wrong?" She had been calling out to him in her sleep. She had dreamed of peoples who emerged from a kind of mist, running and fighting, always fighting, always looking over their shoulders for enemies; and then one wave vanished and another appeared, dressed differently, of a different skin colour, white or brown or black or yellow, and they too ran, and were hunted, and disappeared, one after another; these long ago peoples had appeared and died out and... She wept and he comforted her, and in the morning he said he wanted to find Felix and ask him certain questions.

"I am sure those two are mad," she said.

"I suppose that depends on whether their plans succeed or not. If they do, then Felix and Felissa aren't mad."

And she said to him softly, "Dann, be careful. I am beginning to see that this dream of theirs can be a powerful poison."

He went to find Felix and she returned to the museums. What intricacies of invention, what cleverness, what seductive ways of living. She liked best some rooms calling themselves "A Day in the Life of." A woman's life in a little island called Britain, in the middle of the eleventh millennium, and then in the twelfth millennium. A family at the end of the twelfth millennium, in an enormous city in North Imrik. A farmer in northern Yerrup at the end of the twelfth millennium. That was the period the makers of these museums liked best because of the crescendo of inventiveness of that time. But the end of the story in every building was war, and the ways of war became crueller and more terrible. In a room in a building that had only machines of war, was a wall that listed the ways it was thought these ancient peoples would have ended their civilisations even if the ice had not arrived. War was one. She could not understand the weapons: they were so difficult and so complicated. And even when the explanations were clear enough to understand she could not believe what she was reading. Projectiles that could carry diseases designed to kill all the people in a country or city? What were these ancient peoples, that they could do such things? "Bombs" that could... She did not understand the explanations.

There was a recklessness about the ways they used their soil and their water.

"These were peoples who had no interest in the results of their actions. They killed out the animals. They poisoned the fish in the sea. They cut down forests, so that country after country, once forested, became desert or arid. They spoiled everything they touched. There was probably something wrong with their brains. There are many historians who believe that these ancients richly deserved the punishment of the Ice."

And in another room: "The machines they invented were ever more subtle and complex, using techniques that no one has matched since. These machines it is now believed destroyed their minds, or altered their thinking so they became crazed. While this process was going on they were hardly aware of what was happening, though a few did know and tried to warn the others."

Shabis had told her that the people alive now were the same as those so clever, but so stupid, ancient peoples, and in Mara's mind was a little picture of what she had found in the Tower: Dann near death, one man with his throat cut and another nearly dead. Dann had killed that man, but he did not remember it. And there was another picture: of Kulik, with that teeth-bared, ugly grin, and his murderous heart.

When she got back to her room one day, she found Felissa looking with distaste at her old brown snake, or shadow, garment.

"We don't have this in our collections," she said. "Will you give us this one?"

"But Felissa, your museums are collapsing, they are falling into ruins."

"Oh my dear, yes, but that is why we need you and Dann so badly. We could soon get everything back to how it was."

"Felissa, I have to say this: I do truly believe that you and Felix are living inside some kind of impossible dream."

"Oh no, dearest Mara, you are wrong. Felix and Dann are talking, and I'm so glad." She stroked Mara's arms, and then her face, and murmured, in her intimate, caressing way, "Dear, dear Mara." And then, brisk and busy, "Dear Princess, you are such a lovely girl, I would so like to see you in."

Spread over Mara's bed were gowns and robes that she had noticed hanging in the cupboard but, thinking they were Felissa's, had not touched them. She had walked through a hall full of clothes, from ancient times, but by then could not take in any more news from the past.

These clothes had been taken from the museum.

"Please, please, put this one on," entreated Felissa, and held up a sky-blue garment of shiny material that had a full skirt, and — this was something Mara had not seen or imagined — was tight about the hips and waist, and had bare shoulders and a bare back. "This was a dress they called a ball gown," said Felissa, "they danced in it."

"How is it these things haven't fallen apart from age?"

"Oh, these aren't the originals, of course not. They brought the originals here to Ifrik, when the ice began, to the museums they were making then, and as they faded and decayed they were always copied and replaced. Probably these are nothing like as wonderful as the originals, because we are not as wonderful as those old peoples."

"But we are as warlike," said Mara.

And now a quick, shrewd glance, far from the intimate, caressing style of her social self.

"Yes, warlike. I'm sorry to say that is true. But that is what dear Prince Shahmand — Dann — is discussing with my husband."

She held out the dress. Mara pulled off her robe and got the thing on somehow, but her waist was too thick for it and it gaped. She stood in front of a big glass that Felissa wheeled in from her own room and saw her-self — and fell on the bed laughing.

"But you look beautiful, Mara," Felissa fussed.

Mara took it off.

Now, to her amazement, Felissa removed her garments that were composed of so many veils and draperies of grey and white, and stood revealed in long pink drawers, and a kind of harness for her breasts. "Yes, these are from the museum too. But they are beginning to rot and we do not have the means to replace them so I thought I might as well have the benefit."

She took from the cupboard a pink gown, all laces and frills, and put it on. She paraded up and down, glancing at herself in the looking-glass, and then at Mara, smiling. Mara saw she did this often: these clothes were not really here for Mara, Felissa wanted Mara to admire her.

And she was a pretty old thing, or perhaps not so old, quite slim still, but her limbs were hardly. And Mara could not prevent herself looking at her own smooth, fine, silky limbs.

Mara sat there while the modes and fashions of hundreds of years paraded in front of her. She had not heard of fashions, until now, and found the idea of it amazing and even absurd. From time to time Felissa cooed, "Oh, do try this on, Mara, it would suit you." But that was not the point of this little scene.

Mara sat on, smiling, and thought that nothing more ridiculous had ever happened to her than to watch an elderly brown-skinned woman parading about in clothes made for thousands-of-years-ago women — white women, who clearly had a very different shape, for not one of Felissa's experiments closed at the waist. Mara imagined these clothes on Leta, and found that hard too. That great bundle of fair, shining hair — yes, that would suit some of these dresses.

And so passed that afternoon. That night, when Dann came to their rooms, he went straight into his and shut the door. He did this as if casually, but it was a bad moment, and his conscious glance at her showed it. She wanted to know about his discussions with Felix, so she knocked, and there was no answer. She knocked louder. He came to open the door, and she knew who it was who stood there frowning.

"I don't like this place and I want to go," she said.

"Just a little bit longer."

"What does he want you to do?"

"He wants me to raise an army from the local youngsters. There are a great many, he says, that are dissatisfied and they want the Centre to be the way it once was. This place is like a fortress. He says I was General Dann and I should know about war. Well, I do know, Mara." And she saw his suddenly foolish, proud smile.

"And we would feed this army by stealing food from the farmers?"

"But they would benefit, because we would protect them."

"Protect them from what? This place has a good government, Daulis said so."

"The government would be on our side. They like the Centre." "So why do the farmers need protection?"

"Oh, there are raids sometimes. Don't nag at me Mara. I need to know more before I tell you." And he shut the door in her face.

Mara spent some days in the museums. She was in a place where she could satisfy every hunger she had for knowledge, for information, to find out — learn. Some of the buildings were as good as hours of talking with Shabis. Even a wall, with a few lines of fading words, could tell her at a glance about things she had puzzled over all her life. She felt her brain was expanding. She felt she was soaking up new thoughts with every breath she took. And all the time she was thinking of Dann, with this Felix, whom she hardly saw, because he disliked and distrusted her and knew she was trying to persuade Dann to leave. This ruthless, cold man, with his social smiles and courtly manners, was not stupid. Felissa was stupid, because of a conceit of herself that made it impossible to discuss anything. Any conversation at once returned to Felissa. For instance, Mara asked her about the tombs in the sand that had held old books, old records, the city that had been found when the sands shifted; and Felissa at once said that she knew nothing about it. Mara persisted: she had been told about The City of the Sands.

"Who told you? It's nonsense. What sands?"

"Those leather books in the museum. There's a notice saying they were copied from books made of paper made from reeds."

"If there ever was a sand city I'd know about it. I've made it my business to know everything."

Now Felissa was meeting her as she came back from her days spent wandering through the things, and peoples, and tales of the ancient world, to clutch her hands, and stroke them, and murmur how happy she was that Dann and Felix were getting on so well, and how wonderful if would be if Mara could soon tell them she was pregnant.

Dann was silent, was morose, was very far from Mara, who watched him and Felix walking together, back and forth, in the great empty space between the outer fortress wall and the inner building. The good-looking, elegant Felix, and handsome Dann — they made a fine couple. Dann was deferring to Felix, perhaps not in words, but his demeanour was respectful, and the tones of his voice almost obsequious. And she knew only too well the rather foolish inflated look that was getting worse every day.

If she did not end this now it would be too late.

One night, when he shut the door between them, she knocked until he opened it. There he stood, the other one, and she heard without surprise, "Mara, I'm going to do it. There's everything here to make something wonderful. And look at me — everything that has happened to me, and my being a soldier, it all fits. Even you must see that." And he turned away, pulling the door to shut it, but she held the door and said, "Dann, I'm leaving tomorrow, by myself if I have to."

He whirled about, his face ugly with suspicion and with anger. "You can't leave. I won't let you."

"Your marvellous plans depend on one thing. On me. On my womb." And she tapped her stomach. "And I'm leaving."

He gripped her two arms and glared into her face.

"Dann," she said softly, "are you going to make me your prisoner?"

His hands did not lessen their grip, but they trembled, and she knew her words had reached him.

"Dann, are you going to rape me?" He furiously shook his head. "Dann, you once told me to remind you that when you were like this in Bilma, you gambled me away in a gambling den. I'm reminding you."

For a few moments he did not move. Then she saw the other one fade out of his eyes, and from his face, and his grip lessened, and he let her go. He turned away, breathing fast.

"Oh Mara," he said, and it was Dann himself talking, "I am so tempted to do it. I could you know. I could do it all so well."

"Well, I'm not stopping you. I couldn't, could I? Tell those two that a prince with his royal blood and a concubine are quite enough to start a dynasty. I'm sure it must have been done. But you mustn't stop me, Dann. I'm going tomorrow morning with or without you."

He flung himself down on his bed. "Very well. You know I wouldn't make you a prisoner."

"You wouldn't. But the other Dann would."

She shut the door, and in her room assembled the clothes she had brought with her, put them neatly in her old sack, and lay down on her bed to keep a vigil. She was afraid to sleep. After a night of quite dreadful anxiety, the door opened and Dann stood there with his sack.

They embraced, quickly and quietly let themselves out of their rooms, went down the long empty passages, into the central hall, and then out of the big building, through the empty space between the walls, and found the big gate locked. Dann took up a stone and hit the lock and it fell into pieces.

It was only just light. They were walking east, returning to Leta. There had been no need even to discuss if this was what they should do. It was cold, and they were bundled in their old grey blankets. The sky was low and grey. Here they were, Mara and Dann, with scarcely more between them than they had had when they first set out far away down in the south. They saw the tears running down their faces, and then they were in each other's arms, comforting, stroking, holding hot cheeks together; and this passion of protectiveness became a very different passion and their lips were together in a way that had never happened before. They kissed, like lovers, and clung, like lovers, and what they felt announced how dangerous and powerful a thing this love was. They staggered apart, and now Dann's gaze at Mara, and Mara's at Dann, were wild and almost angry, because of their situation. Then Dann stood with his arms up in the air and howled, "Oh, Mara," and Mara stood, eyes shut, rocking slightly, in her grief, arms tight across her chest, and she was gasping, "Dann, oh Dann, oh Dann." Then both were silent, and turned away from each other, to recover. On the same impulse they set off again, but with a distance between them, and they were both thinking that if they had stayed with the two in the Centre this was what they could have had, a passionate love that was approved, permitted, encouraged. They were in a pit of loss and longing.

Dann said, "Why Mara, why are brothers and sisters not allowed to love each other? Why not?"

"They make too many defective children. I saw why in the Museum. There was a whole room about it."

Her voice was stopped by grief and he was crying, and so they walked, well apart from each other, stumbling, and sobbing; and then Dann began swearing, cursing his way out of his misery, and Mara, seeing what anger was doing for him, began cursing and swearing too, the worst words she knew; and the two went faster now, fuelled by anger, swearing at each other and at the world, until they saw the Alb settlement in front of them. A doleful singing was coming from there, the saddest chant imaginable. Soon they could hear the words.

The Ice comes The Ice goes We go As the Ice flows.

They arrived at Donna's door, knocked; she came out, and said at once, "If you've come for Leta, she left not more than an hour ago."

She was staring past them at a crowd of Albs dancing and singing, their robes flying in a chilly wind. To the two Mahondis it really was like seeing an assembly of prancing, whirling ghosts.

"Where was she going?"

"To find you. But who else she hoped to find — that's another thing. But she could never fit in here. She's seen the world and the Albs here live as if no one but themselves exists."

"You mean, you don't fit in either?"

"No, I don't. They don't accept those born here who then spend time outside. Like me. They see it as treachery. As a criticism of them. They are small-minded people. They have only one thought, that their grandchildren or great-grandchildren will return to Yerrup when the ice melts. And it is going at last, so it is said."

The Ice will go Then we shall go

Where the Ice has been Will be fresh and green.

So chanted the dancers.

"We have been singing that or something like it for — well, they say it is fifteen thousand years. Who knows how long? The first refugees from the ice made a rule that these songs should be taught to every child and sung every day. They say there was a time when the songs spread all over Ifrik and became children's games. And they didn't even know what ice was."

When the Ice has gone We'll build our homes Where wait for us Our forebears' bones

"Poor fools," said Donna. And then, "I'm going to miss Leta. Though she left partly to save me trouble." She sounded so sad Mara put her arms around her. "You are good people," Donna said. "Sometimes I don't know how I shall stand it, this eternal wailing about a life that was lived thousands of years ago. Or what will happen in another thousand. And now, you'd better hurry. I don't like to think of Leta alone. She's gone on the road north of the Centre. And, by the way, is it as sad a place as they say?"

"Sad and old and falling to pieces."

"Once it was the pride of the North Lands. Everyone took their education there." "You too?"

"Oh no, not me. My grandparents' generation was the last. They were educated, you may say, above their needs. That was a great time though. The Centre ruled all the North — and ruled well, for autocrats. But now there is an administration that rules in the name of the Centre, and most people don't know the Centre is an old dog with no teeth."

They said goodbye, and the two set off westwards again. They heard Donna call after them, "Remember me. If there's a place for me where you're going, I'll come running."

When the wall of the Centre appeared they began a wide detour northwards. They were walking slowly, as if they were very tired, or even ill, Mara thought, watching how Dann stumbled along, stopped, went on. And she had to force her dragging feet. She was so sad, and knew he was too. She wanted to put her arms around him, her little brother, as she would have done before the scene at the Centre, but was afraid. He stopped walking, so did she, and they stood side by side. Without looking at her, he took her hand. She felt the strength of that hand, of his life, and thought, We'll soon be all right. He'll feel better, and so will I. Meanwhile she was so heavy with grief she could have lain down and... but where? Pools and marshes surrounded them and mud oozed around their feet.

He said, "Do you know, I'm sorry for those two. Poor old Felix and Felissa. For years and years they've been dreaming of their little prince and little princess, and then what did they get? Us." He was trying to sound humorous, but failed.

"Their dream came to an end, with us."

They were standing very close, just linked, and very cold under their capes. A cold wind blew from the north. Was blowing, they knew, off mountains of ice.

"And what about our dream, Mara? We couldn't get more north than this. This is north of north, the northern edge of the Ifrik North Lands."

They looked around them, and saw the interminable, grey, wet marshes, dark water, pale rushes and reeds, a low, dark, hurrying sky. Harsh cries of birds, the dismal sounds of frogs, like the voices of the marsh itself. And the wind, the cold, cold wind that whined over the waters.

"This is what we have been travelling to reach, Mara."

"No, it isn't."

"It's what I am feeling now."

She dared to put her hand around his wrist, warm and tight, and he cried out, "There's that too. Now I feel like an orphan. Now I really am alone."

She did not take her hand away but kept it there, consoling and close, though she felt as bereft as he did.

"Do you think those two will send someone after us? To get us back?"

"No," she said. "We were such a disappointment to them — no, I don't. Do you know what I think will happen? They'll die soon, of broken hearts. They've got nothing to live for now."

"Why do I feel so afraid then?" He was looking around again. There was nothing: in all that endless grey and black marsh and water — nothing, not a soul.

"I know. I am afraid too. It is because there is nowhere to hide." "Not unless we pretend we are water rats."

He was trying to sound brave, and to make her laugh, but instead their eyes met and what they both saw was only grief.

"We must go on," said Mara. "Daulis said so. And there's Leta."

They went slowly on through that day looking ahead for Leta, and behind them for possible pursuers, and actually joked that if they ever did reach safety it would be hard to lose the habit of looking over their shoulders. Above them the clouds were hurrying westwards, as if to remind them to walk faster. The big mountain at first did not change, but at last it was towering over them, with its cold white snowcap, and there was a track going off with a sign saying, The White Bird Inn. The bird was no poetic fancy, for tall, slim, white birds stood about in dark water, their reflections making two birds of every one of them, and flew about over the marshes, letting out cries that the two could not help hearing as warnings. It was dusk when they reached the inn, which was not much more than a large house. They had scarcely knocked when the door opened and a man emerged who took them by the arms and hurried them to the back of the inn. "I'm sorry," he said, "but you mustn't be seen. There's someone after you." The two heard this as if there was nothing else they could have heard: their feelings of apprehension had deepened with every hour of walking. "I didn't like the look of him," said the innkeeper. "He was in the uniform of the border guards, but that's a trick we've seen before. There's many in that guards' uniform the guards would slit the throats of if they caught them."

"Did he have a scar?"

"A nasty one."

"Then we know who he is."

"He said he was looking for runaway slaves." And now this new friend — he was that, they could see — examined them closely, first Dann, then Mara, waiting.

"We haven't committed any crime," said Dann.

"Then I'll ask no questions," said the innkeeper. And they both heard what he had not in fact said: And hear no lies. "There's a price on our heads. From Charad." "That's a long way off."

"Not if he can get us to the border with Bilma. He has accomplices there." "It's a long way from here to the border." He was thinking hard, and on their behalf, they could see. "I've done my best to put him off. He's been several times in the last week or so." "Why should be come here?"

The man laughed and there was pride in it: the pride of a lifetime was in his face. "This is the only inn between here and for miles beyond the Centre going east, and for miles west, and that's only a farm that puts up travellers. Everyone comes to me for news. He would have to come here. Roads meet here. I sent him south, but that road ends in water, and he came back. The road ahead west ends in the sea — you'll find your friends along there. I told him that along that road he would find only well-defended farms, and that genuine guards patrol there, and if they saw him in their uniform that would be the end for him. There are no guards, but he's not to know that. I sent him off into the marshes on the marsh tracks, saying he might find you there. I thought he might fall into a quick-marsh and drown. I know when I'm looking at a man the world would be better without. But he was back, all right. He knows there's a track up the mountain but I told him the hut up there was swept away by an avalanche. I hope he believed me. Your friend Leta is up there. Daulis told me to look after her. I wanted her to stay here till he came, or you did, but she was anxious to see snow. I told her that if she'd seen as much of it as I have she wouldn't be in any hurry to see more. She'll be pleased to see you. If you don't mind my saying so, I don't think she's suited to rough travelling." He stopped, and Mara finished for him, "Not like us."

"No, not like you. Daulis told me you two could look after yourselves. I can see he was right. But be careful, be on your guard." He went inside, came out with two heavy cloaks, twice the weight of the ones they had brought for cold, thinking they were thick enough to keep off any cold they could meet with, and handed them a bag of food. "There's some matches. Try not to need a fire. You can melt snow for water over a candle — I've put one in. There'll be a moon in a few minutes." And as they thanked him and moved off, they heard, "Be careful, you two." And then, when they had gone a few paces, "Don't come down too soon. Give that fellow a chance to get away. Keep a watch. It's three hours to the hut."

"It sounds to me as if this path up the mountain is the only place left for Kulik to look for us."

"Yes, and our friend the innkeeper knows that." But Dann was alive again, danger was invigorating him. And she felt better too, leaving the dank weight of the water-filled marshes behind.

The way led up through boulders of all sizes, which seemed in the dim light like crouching enemies; but the moon came up and showed the track, and struck little flashes of light off the boulders: crystals, embedded in the rock. A mist was gathering below them, and soon they were leaving behind a sea of white, lit by the moon, and they could see their shadows down there, like long fingers pointing to the east, moving with them. It was cold. Without the innkeeper's cloaks they would have done badly. Up they went, until they saw ahead a large hut, with beyond it the white of the snow that lay over the summit of the mountain. They were in a white world, the mist shining below, and above them snow and the big white moon shining on it. They ran past the hut to gather a little snow and taste it and marvel at it, for they had never seen the stuff before. The edges of the snowcap were little white fringes and lacy crusts on grass that crunched under their feet, and sent the cold striking up into their legs. Down they went to the hut, and knocked, afraid of what they might see, but when the door opened it was Leta and she was alone. They shut the door against the cold and embraced, the three of them tight against each other. They could see she had been frightened, alone, and how glad she was to see them. If she had known, she had said, she would never have come up, but she thought she would just touch the snow, and taste it, and then go down, but the dark came."I'm sorry," she said, "but I'm not like you. I don't know how to judge dangers — or distances." Inside the hut it was not much warmer than it was out. Leta had lit a floor candle, a little one, and had melted some snow to drink. They huddled on the floor inside layers of wool. Leta had a cloak from the innkeeper too. Even so they were clenched, trying not to shiver, and they ate the food, and huddled close, talking late, about the Centre, and what Mara and Dann had been offered. Dann was making a ridiculous story out of the old people's plans, and their long wait for their royal children, and the more he talked the funnier it got, until his eyes met Mara's and he faltered and stopped. "The truth is," he said, seriously, "if Mara and I had been different people, perhaps it could have worked. After all, everyone seems to think the Centre is a wonderful place, and they would believe what they heard."

"Everyone except those who know the truth," said Mara.

"Very few of those, still," said Dann.

Leta said, "We all heard about the Centre down in Bilma. We would have believed anything we were told."

"Even that a brother and a sister were making a new royal family?"

Leta laughed and said that if they knew what went on in Mother Dalide's, brothers and sisters making assignations, then Dann and Mara would not have been so surprised at Felix and Felissa.

And now they were so tired and chilled that when Mara and Dann lay down on the floor with Leta, as close as they could, spreading the woollen folds into three thicknesses, to cover all three, there was no danger in the closeness, only a need to shiver themselves into warmth. Dann said, "Don't you think we should keep awake and watch?" and Mara said, "Yes," and then they had fallen asleep. They woke in the morning stiff and chilly, and pushed open the door and saw that the mist still lay low below, but only for a certain distance. Beyond the edge of the mist the ground broke abruptly into a great chasm or canyon that stretched west and east as far as they could see. Once the Middle Sea had filled it: a warm, blue, lively sea that had bred civilisation after civilisation — whose artefacts and pictures crammed many halls in the Centre — and where ships had made great and dangerous journeys; but now all they could see were rocky declivities. But if they looked across the canyon, this enormous hole in the earth, there far away was a line of white, which they knew was not clouds, but the edges of the ocean of ice that had engulfed Yerrup. The three stood in that white landscape of mist and snow and stared at the faraway white, the bright sun making the sky sparkle; and they went back inside the hut and shut the door, to huddle there, feeling themselves to be nothing, their sense of themselves diminished by the white immensities, and above all by knowing how close they were to the terrible enemy, Ice.

But should they go down into the mist? It was so thick they could not see the path. They decided to stay up in the hut that day, although it was so cold and they dared not light a fire.

And now Dann pulled up his robe, so that Leta could see how well the scar had healed where she had taken out the coin, and said that since they had nothing better to do, and since he was so cold anyway he wouldn't be able to feel a thing, she might as well take out the rest.

"They have worked their way to the surface," he said: and there they were, five little rounds just under the skin.

Out came Leta's bag of healer's tools and herbs and she had rubbed the place with the herb that numbs, and had nicked out the first coin with her sharp little knife before Dann knew it.

"Are we sure we aren't going to need to keep them hidden?" asked Mara, and Dann said, "We'll be with Daulis soon."

"Why are you so sure of that?" asked Leta, and they could see her love and her anxiety.

"Because he'll want to find us," said Dann.

"And now don't look," said Leta, and Dann lay back and gazed at the roof of the hut: reeds from the marshes. She took her knife, rubbed herbs on to it, and cut. She eased out, easily, the four coins, and staunched the beads of blood as they welled up. Soon the bleeding stopped. The long scar was mostly white, like a very old wound, and the new raw bits would soon be the same. Leta went out, fetched a handful of snow, and spread it over the wound. She told him to lie still and soon he would forget he had ever had those coins in him. And so Dann lay, on his back, with a wool cape covering the bottom part of him, to the scar, and brought around to cover his chest and shoulders; and Mara and Leta squatted under the other cape, and they chatted and from time to time looked out to see if the mist had lifted. It had not. The coins, five of them, lay on a strip of cloth, shining, perfect, beautiful little things, with their tiny, incised pictures, back and front, of people who had lived so long ago.

"Is there any other metal that could have lived inside flesh for — how long Mara?.. well, it's years now — and never change or get poisonous?" said Dann.

"Silver," said Leta, "but it's not worth much."

"Gold has always been like nothing else," said Mara. "I saw that in the Centre..." and she stopped. She was saying, it seemed in every other breath, "I saw it in the Centre." She was already earning amused looks, but probably these looks would soon be impatient, even irritated. She said quietly, "I wish I could spend my life there, just learning, Leta. You have no idea, no idea at all, of how wonderful those ancient times were, what the Ice destroyed."

And Leta questioned her about the medicines and plants she had seen in the museums, and Mara explained what she had seen, and so they entertained themselves that day. At evening Dann sprang up and said his scar was as good as healed. "And now, what are we going to do with the coins?"

Leta said, "You could put them with my money. I still have my quittance money almost intact."

"No, Leta. It is in a bag, and a bag is easily snatched away," said Dann. "We must each of us have something, in case we are separated. Mara has her gold coin and some small money. Where am I going to put mine? If feel as if I'm back in that horrible Tower, knowing that I would be killed if anyone suspected I had even one gold coin."

"I think you should put them in your knife pocket," said Mara. "It's long and narrow."

"Which is the first place any thief would look, apart from the other obvious place."

Mara cried out, "Do you realise this is the same discussion we have had over and over again, all the way up Ifrik?"

Leta said, "Daulis will find us soon. He must." She was tearful, then apologetic because of it. "I'm only going to feel safe with him," she said. "I'm afraid of being single. In the Alb settlement they were gathering outside Donna's house and shouting, 'Where is the Bilma whore?' — no, they didn't know that I had been one, but if you are a single woman, you are a whore. They wanted to get at Donna, so it was 'the Bilma whore.'"

Dann and Mara reassured her, held her, comforted her; but when she said she did not know why but she was so frightened, they had to agree. "I don't know why I feel uneasy," said Dann. "Has the mist cleared?"

It had not.

"We must keep guard tonight," said Mara. Leta said she would watch with them, but she wasn't used to it, and fell asleep. Mara and Dann sat on either side of the door, both with their knives out and ready. Listening to every sound, the silence became full of noises, which turned out to be snow shifting on a slope, or the wind tugging at a broken roof reed. They went out to see how the mist was doing, because of the pressure of their anxiety, which made it hard to sit still. The many boulders were appearing and then going again, as the mist blew across the slopes. They thought one moved... decided they were mistaken, tried to fix the pattern of the boulders in their minds, failed because of the shifting mist, stood peering and staring, their hearts pounding. Then the mist cleared, and not far below them the boulder they thought had moved, did move, and a man's shape was visible for a moment before it disappeared behind a large rock.

There was a thin, wet moonlight.

"Give me your snake," said Dann, very low.

"We can't have a corpse up here. They'd know it was us."

"If it is a poison, no one would think it was anything but cold, he died of cold. A knife wound would have guards after us."

She slipped off the snake and he sprang the knife and was off down the slope. Mara, her knife in her hand, went quickly after him. One minute she was in mist, the next, the wind had driven it off. She could not see Dann, could not see Kulik.

Kulik, always Kulik. How strange it was that again and again all through her life there was Kulik, the danger in a place, or in a group of people — her enemy and Dann's too. Now she thought, I'm going to kill him. I want him dead. This is the time and this is the place. And then never again will I be looking over my shoulder, or see someone I seem to know, and he turns his head and I see Kulik. Meanwhile she could see neither Dann nor Kulik.

Then, while the mist swirled, she heard loud breathing, and the sounds of feet slipping about and scuffling on stones. The mist parted and she saw Dann and Kulik, wrestling. This was a deadly life-and-death fight, and Dann's face — but she had never seen that face — and Kulik's showed they both knew it. Kulik had Dann's hand, with the snake knife in it, held up well over both their heads, and his other hand was pushing Dann away from him, while Dann was gripping that hand at the wrist, and had his nails deep in the flesh — Kulik's face was tortured with the pain of it. Their breathing laboured and groaned. And then Kulik tore his wrist free of Dann's grasp — Mara saw the blood from Dann's nails running down — and there was a knife in his hand. Mara shouted, "Kulik," and he let go Dann's hand that held the snake, and had turned to run, because he had seen her there, with her knife, not more than half a dozen paces away. Two of them against one, and it was clear he knew now that the little snake gleaming silvery in the moonlight was a deadly thing, because he kept his eyes on it, as the main enemy. That face! That scarred face! The bared teeth! The cold, ugly eyes! — Mara was so full of hatred that she could have rushed at him with bare hands, but she threw her knife, aiming at his neck. It struck his shoulder and fell clattering. Kulik came straight at Mara, who was now defenceless. She could see that he was as full of murder as she was. Kulik was within striking distance — all this was taking seconds, the time of a breath. The blood was pouring off his shoulder, and from a wrist. He had his knife in his right hand. Dann leaped to intervene, and was between Mara and Kulik; and now the little snake flashed, just as the mist swirled up, half hiding Kulik, who went stumbling off down into the thick mist.

"I felt it touch," said Dann.

"Him, or his clothes?"

"Flesh — I think."

"Then we'd better move fast," said Mara.

They woke Leta, gathered their belongings, and left the hut. It was by then well after midnight. Soon they left the brilliance of the sky and moon and snow behind, and were descending in thick mist, watching their feet on the path, afraid of falling, of losing the path, and perhaps of stumbling over Kulik's body.

By the time they reached the bottom of the mountain the mist had gone and the sun was rising. At the inn they knocked at the back door and handed back their thick capes. The innkeeper said they were honest people but he expected no less of Daulis's friends. Then he said he thought he had seen someone going up the mountain early in the night, but the mist was thick. Dann and Mara conferred, with their eyes, and then Dann told what had happened. He said the poisoned knife had only just touched flesh, but probably that was enough to kill. "And," he added, "I hope he dies. If you think that I have no pity for him — no, I haven't. It's not a runaway slave he's after, but a runaway general, and if he did manage to get me into Bilma it would be the end of me, and of my sister too."

The innkeeper stood silent. He did not like what he heard, that was clear. Then he said, "If anyone asks, then I won't know about any fight. And if he turns up here asking for help I'll turn him away."

"There's probably a dead man on the mountain," said Mara.

"If so the snow eagles will dispose of him. And dry bones don't tell any tales."

Off they went on the road west, and before long they saw Daulis coming towards them. Leta stood waiting, and her face was such that Mara and Dann reached for each other's hands, but what their eyes told each other made them look away quickly and back to Leta, who was in Daulis's arms.

The four walked briskly on, leaving the low, wet lands behind, because the road was climbing into hills and fresh airs and breezes. That night they slept, all together, in a room in a house where Daulis knew the people; and before they dropped off, Daulis said this was the last time they would share a room together, because next day they would arrive at — but they must wait and see.

In the middle of the next day they stopped as they reached the top of a hill, stunned, silenced. In front lay a vast blue, which went on and on until it met the paler blue of the sky. This blue was flecked with little, white, moving crests. On their faces was a salty wind, and salt was on their lips.

Daulis stood by, smiling with pleasure, and watching how Leta and Dann and Mara stared and looked at each other to share their astonishment, and stared again, until he said, "You'll be seeing the Western Sea every day of your lives now."

They went on, with the sea at their right, for they had turned south to climb a long rise towards a large, low spreading house, of red brick, with verandahs and pillars. Two dogs came down to greet Daulis — big beasts, friendly, licking the hands of three newcomers as if to say there was no need to be afraid of them.

Friendly, handsome, well fed dogs: this was a new thing for them all, and told them that times of famine or even hardship were behind them.

And now it could be seen that on the verandah of the house were two people, and Dann ran forward shouting, "Kira!" and he bounded up white steps and stopped, staring, at the fresh, pretty woman, who was smiling at him from where she reclined in a chair.

Mara heard her say, "Well, Dann, you've taken your time," and then he was kneeling beside Kira and kissing her hands and then her cheeks, and then they were in an embrace.

Mara was looking beyond the two at a tall figure, a man, thinking, But I know him; and saw it was Shabis. She had never seen him out of his soldier's garb before. He stood leaning forward a little, smiling at her and, it seemed, waiting. She took some steps towards him, and stopped. Her heart was thudding and she was afraid her breathing would stop. He came forward, took her hands and kissed them, and said in a low voice, so only she could hear, "This time, Mara, are you going to promise to notice that I love you?" She had to laugh, and then. But he did not kiss her, only held her and said, "Mara, I've thought of you every minute of the day and night."

A likely story, thought Mara wildly, summoning commonsense to her aid; but then she was in his embrace, knowing that these were arms she had dreamed of, or perhaps remembered, and that, as she stood there, her face against his shoulder, his face on her hair, she was at home.

Kira said, "So here we all are at last. We are a family. We are a Kin. Just like Chelops."

"You are forgetting me," said Leta, and Daulis said, "No, Leta, we could never do that."

Kira said, "Aren't you going to introduce Leta and me?" And held out her hand. Leta took it. They all looked at the two hands, the brown one, covered with what seemed like a hundred rings, and the other pale one, roughened, reddened, grubby.

"Are we two going to get on, do you think, Leta?" said Kira.

"Why shouldn't we?"

Kira said laughing, "I'm easy to get on with provided I always get my own way."

At this Dann said, "I'm not going to let you be a bully again, Kira, and don't you think it."

Kira, seeing they were surprised at this brisk marital tone so soon after they had met again, said "Oh Dann is such a boy. You're such a boy, Dann." Then, as Dann turned away, frowning, she said quickly, "Dann, you know me, come here." He did, but sat down only close enough for her to put out her hand to touch his arm. "Dann," she coaxed. Slowly he softened, and smiled, and they could see how hopelessly he was fascinated by her.

Soon they were sitting around a big table in a room where windows overlooked the Western Sea, where the sounds of the sea accompanied their talk, and from where they could see a little spring that became a stream and rushed and bounded down the hill past the house, widening into pools, narrowing again, finally bursting down a low cliff into the sea: water into water.

On the table was not much more than bread, vegetables and cheese.

This was their situation. The house was large, and in good repair — the recently dead uncle had kept it so. Squatters had moved in, but left amicably when Shabis arrived. There was enough food in the storerooms to keep them going till the harvest. There would be a time, not of hardship, but of being careful, till the farm could be brought back to what it had been. The fields grew maize and corn, barley and cotton, sunflowers, melons and squashes; grew, too, grapes; and there was a grove of ancient olive trees that supplied the oil that stood in a big jar on the table. There were goats, the minikin relatives of the enormous milk beasts of the south. Soon they would have fowls, for eggs and for the table, and when there was enough money, would buy a couple of horses.

Now there was a general accounting.

Mara slid her hand under her gown and brought out the cord that had on it one gold coin, which she laid on the table. Dann set out his five gold pieces. Leta fetched her bag of coins from her sack, and said, "My quittance money." Shabis said that he had arrived with very little, and laid out a handful of small money. Daulis said that his contribution was the farm. And now they looked at Kira, with her heavy gold earrings, bracelets, rings. She was about to take off her bracelets, but Shabis said, "Keep them, we'll know where to come when we are short."

Kira smiled, her lids lowered.

And now, the weapons.

Dann showed his knife, and Daulis produced a knife and a dagger. Shabis had his General's sword and small gun, which he said did not work but frightened people. Leta had a knife. Kira shrugged and said she relied on other people to defend her. Mara showed her knife and slid the poisoned serpent from her upper arm, and it lay glittering on the table as if it wanted to be admired for its workmanship.

Then she said, most passionately, "I shall never wear that again. I never want to see knives and daggers and weapons again."

"My dear Mara," said Shabis, "what sort of time do you think you are living in?"

She slid back the snake.

"So what dangers may we expect now?" asked Dann.

"At the moment, probably nothing much. But as the Centre weakens and dies, the authority of the Tundra government will weaken too. Already we see lawlessness in places where people have learned that the Centre is — what it is."

Now Daulis showed them a big room full of weapons of all kinds — not merely knives and daggers, but swords and lances, and the bows and arrows that had intrigued Dann, axes, and many different kinds of guns, which Mara recognised from the Centre.

"All stolen from the Centre," said Daulis. "In the last hundred years or so the things pilfered from the Centre have found their way all over Ifrik."

Dann said, "Pilfer is a funny little word for stealing sky skimmers and road hoppers and guns and sun traps!"

Mara said that what she wanted from the Centre was to go there, spend time there, and learn.

Shabis said, "But Mara, you have farming skills and they are needed here."

"And besides," said Daulis, "you two had better keep your distance from the Centre, at least for a time."

"But every day it crumbles a little more, it is disappearing. As soon as I can I'm going there. I am. I must."

"Meanwhile we must all know how to use at least some of these weapons. There are always madmen and thieves and people who enjoy killing to be reckoned with."

Mara looked at Dann. He was looking at her. Both were thinking, they knew, of Kulik, who might not be dead. And Mara was thinking that now, just as often before, vague and possible dangers were taking a definite shape — Kulik, who was going to haunt them both — because of their uncertainty. Into her mind's eye came a picture: a skull among the boulders on the mountain, rocking or tumbling as the winds blew or as crows trod the bones looking to see if they had missed something; the skull turned its face to her and she saw the terrible teeth-bared grin that had been in her childhood nightmares.

She said, "Do you think we should have some kind of guard?"

"Yes," said Dann. "I'd feel easier."

"The dogs," said Daulis. "That's what they're trained for."

Next, they had to bring each other up to date with their stories.

Shabis, seeing that it was only a question of time before the other three generals arrested him on some charge or other, fled from Agre, and made his way North, in the same way the others had.

Shabis did not know how it had been with Mara, except in the barest outline, from Daulis; and having had this outline confirmed, said he wanted to know more later. "Everything," he said. "I want to know everything about you. Just to set my imagination at rest. You have no idea the horrible things I was imagining, when you were with the Hennes."

Daulis said that they all knew his story.

Dann told Shabis and Kira what had happened to him.

Now it was Kira's turn. She had run into Shabis in Kanaz, and he had looked after her on the journey here. Kira did not say much, but her eyes were on Shabis, and told Mara that it was not Dann Kira wanted, but Shabis. Mara felt this as a stab to her heart, and she thought that loving someone meant that a look, a touch, a sigh in the dark, could flood you with happiness or doubt. She had done better, she thought, when she had had a heart like a stone. She saw Shabis was smiling at her, knowing what she was thinking, wanting to reassure her. And Leta too, who always picked up the slightest nuances of feeling, was smiling at her, It's all right, Mara.

And Mara was reassured, she knew Shabis loved her. But she could not prevent a bitter little thought: You don't know what Kira is like. She glanced at Dann to see what he had caught of this little play of looks, thoughts, feelings, and he was looking at Kira and then, thoughtfully, at Shabis.

When the night came, they had not finished all they had to tell each other, but next day would do. "And next week, and next month, and next year," said Shabis, "but now it's bedtime."

Kira and Dann went off together — "Just like an old married couple," said Kira, with a flirtatious look that included them all, but lingered on Shabis. Then Leta and Daulis went, but shyly.

Mara and Shabis sat on.

Shabis said, "And now I must tell you about the Chelops people." His manner had changed, as if he, Shabis, had withdrawn himself, leaving a formal, almost cold voice and eyes where she could see only a man doing his duty.

From his spies, and from travellers, he had pieced together a story which he believed was more or less accurate. When the townspeople attacked the eastern suburbs, the slaves repelled them. Then the slaves rioted and most of the Hadrons were killed. The Kin collected together a company of themselves, including some babies and children, and slaves who were ready to go with them, and went east, meaning to reach the coast where there was a Mahondi Kin. They did not know a war was being fought in the area between Chelops and the coast. Some were killed, but some escaped, including a woman called Orphne and the head man, Juba. At this point Shabis hesitated, but went on, "Orphne is living with Meryx, and they have a child. They reached the coast."

Mara was so strongly back, in imagination, in Chelops that, thinking of the people dead, she wept. And then, happy about Orphne, and both happy and unhappy about Meryx, she felt for the second time that day a pang of jealousy so sharp that she got up, staggered blindly to a couch, flung herself down and sobbed. Shabis came after her and, no longer withdrawn into a correctness that was meant to reassure her he did not want her to repudiate her old lover, put his arms around her and she clung to him. Soon he led her off to the bedroom that would be theirs.