Mara and Dann (26 page)

Juba said, ‘That court must have been in Rustam. Do you know anything about how it worked? What the laws were?'

Dromas said, ‘Juba, she was seven years old when she left.'

‘But Daima might have told you, Mara – did she?'

But Mara sat silent. She was most bitterly regretting the opportunities she had not taken. How had she seen Daima all those years? She had taken her for granted: a kind old woman – but she was not really so old – who had taken in two orphans, literally out of the dark, and loved them and looked after them. She had lived like them on roots and bits of dried weed and flour cakes; she had never complained about being thirsty and dirty and very hungry. And yet she had been an important person in the court of Mara's parents' predecessors, where she had lived cleanly and sweetly and gently. And she had known so much that Mara had never asked her. How much Mara would have given now to have Daima back for a week, a day, even an hour, to ask her questions. Now Daima was dead, all that knowledge, all that information, was gone, for ever.

Mara said, ‘Once when I asked her how she knew about the old cities
up on the hills, she said the Mahondis had all kinds of bits of information from the past. She did not know where it all came from.'

‘Not these Mahondis,' said Candace, grim.

‘Why don't you have it too?'

‘You forget, we have been slaves for a long time. But your family were never slaves.'

And now Mara, who was forcing herself to ask this, said, ‘Do you know what happened to my parents?'

‘They were killed the night you escaped.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Gorda was here. He told us.'

‘What happened to him? Is he alive?'

‘He made a rising against the Hadrons. A foolish uprising. He was killed with his followers.'

‘That means he did it without asking you; you didn't know about it – no, that's not possible, you must have known about it, but you didn't approve.'

Meryx said, ‘You might have noticed that we do things more – quietly.'

Mara was thinking of that night, the first time she had been in a rock house, and how he had been kind. ‘I'm sorry,' she whispered. ‘We would have been killed without him.'

‘Yes,' said Candace.

And now, when Mara was least expecting it, Candace asked her, ‘And what is your name?'

It seemed to her that her real name was about to appear on her tongue and she would say it here, among these friends, the Kin – her Kin – but at the last moment she remembered Lord Gorda's, ‘Your name is Mara. Remember that always. Mara.'

‘My name is Mara,' she said. They all nodded and smiled, at each other and at her. ‘But what is my real name? Do you know it?'

‘It would be better for you not to know it,' said Candace. ‘Who knows what the Hadrons know? – what they got out of Gorda, before he died.'

‘Perhaps one day I'll know my real name again,' she said.

‘I hope you will,' said Candace. ‘I for one think that we Mahondis have a good chance of ruling here one day. I know that not everyone agrees with me.'

At this, the next reply Mara had planned to give when asked, ‘And what did you see?' – became impossible. She was thinking, I have seen the future, and they haven't. And they wouldn't believe me.

Instead she said, ‘I saw a beetle up there on the ridge. Do they ever come down into Chelops?'

‘Yes, and we kill them,' said Meryx. ‘But some people believe they are breeding in the tunnels – Gorda saw them: he was using the tunnels as a base for his uprising.'

‘How did he get water?' asked Mara.

‘To the point, as always,' said Meryx. ‘The water was cut off to the Towers long ago. But the people sympathetic to Gorda living near the Towers helped him with water.'

Mara said, not knowing she was going to say it, surprising herself, ‘Is anyone living there now? – the Towers? Could Dann be there?'

‘We don't think so,' said Candace.

That meant Dann had been discussed when she was not there, and they knew things she did not.

‘If he is there,' said Juba, ‘then he can't last long.'

‘Do you ever send slaves to find out?'

‘Listen, Mara,' said Juba, leaning forward urgently, holding her eyes with his, making her listen, ‘we don't draw attention to ourselves. You seem to forget that we are slaves. There are penalties – death penalties – for being in the Towers. We Mahondis succeed because we are quiet, we make life easy for the Hadrons, and they don't need to think about us.'

And Candace said, ‘Don't make trouble for us, Mara. You are thinking of going to the Towers, aren't you? Please don't.'

That ended the session.

Now Mara spent her days in the fields with Meryx and went about with Juba, even to court sessions; she was with Candace when she organised provisions for the slaves, and was often with Orphne. One day Juba took her with him when he went to see the guards on the water supply – where she and Dann had come into the town, and been arrested. As she had thought, the officer in charge was a friend
of the Mahondis; though nothing was said, or even hinted, she knew that when the two men talked, everything that was said carried other meanings.

She asked Juba, ‘The Hadrons that are our friends – what do they get out of it?'

‘A good question. You see, they are ashamed – that is, the young ones are. They are bitter because the Hadrons in power are degenerate. They hope that when they take power themselves, they can restore Hadron to what it once was. Because once it was well governed, though it is hard to believe that now. We spend most of the time trying quietly to put right what the Hadrons have got wrong.'

Meanwhile, a great excitement: Kira had become pregnant. The father was Jan, Candace's younger son. Mara could see, going about with Meryx and with Juba, how much the news affected them: a despondency had gone, a look of discouragement.

Kira summoned a session of the Kin to announce it formally, and they were all embracing and laughing. Jan was congratulated, but seemed uncomfortable with it.

And then Kira sent a message that she had miscarried. She stayed in her room and would not see anybody, not even Ida, who wept continuously, so that Orphne had to stay with her, day and night.

Kira summoned Mara, who found her sitting in her cool room, fanning herself with a pretty, pert little fan, not like Ida's great trailing fan, and not seeming particularly unhappy. The trouble was, Kira's style – her manner, her way of walking and laughing, everything about her – was pert and even impertinent; she was full of little stratagems and tricks. Kira did not like her life. She did not believe in a future for Chelops, and had agreed to have a baby for Ida because in return Ida had said that if there was ever a possibility, she would help Kira travel North, provided the baby was left with her. She wanted to find out from Mara how to prepare herself for travelling, but she had no idea at all of the hardships and dangers of travelling.

Ida sent for Mara, and begged her to have a baby, and Mara said, ‘If I did have a baby, what makes you think I'd want to give it up?'

‘But I'd be so good to it, I have so much – oh Mara, do think about it. Look at yourself: you're better now, you could do it.'

Mara certainly had breasts again, but her blood flow had not resumed. Candace had asked her to say when this happened.

‘Are you going to make me have a child?' Mara asked Candace.

‘You might have noticed that we don't
make
anyone do anything.'

‘But you want me to have a child?'

‘You talk as if it would be easy. But yes, we'd like you to try.'

Kira summoned a session. Everyone was there.

Jan spoke first. ‘Before you start, Kira – no, I'm not going to try again. Yours is not the first miscarriage. You forget Ida miscarried with my seed.'

And his brother said, ‘And that goes for me. I'm not going through that again: all the expectations, and the hoping, and then – nothing. Three of the courtyard girls have lost my attempts at a child.'

Kira said, ‘I wasn't thinking of either of you. I don't want another miscarriage – once is enough. I am invoking the old law. It has never been repealed, has it?'

This law was that a man could have two wives, a woman two husbands, if everyone agreed. This law had been made when it first became evident that fertility was lower, there were fewer children, and many miscarriages. So morality changed to suit a necessity. For a while it had worked: there had been more babies born, but then it was evident this was only a temporary improvement. The new law had caused a lot of unhappiness, and slowly fell out of use.

The fact was, Kira had fallen in love with Juba, and by now everyone knew it.

Juba sat quietly beside his wife, Dromas, and said, ‘I'm not going to pretend I'm not flattered, Kira…' – here he took Dromas's hand – ‘but why me? I'm old enough to be your grandfather.'

Kira said, ‘You have a son, Juba. Your son doesn't have a son. Meryx is the only young man among the Kin.'

Meryx had tried to father a child with one of the courtyard girls, but had failed.

Dromas had to agree with this mating, and she was composed, dignified, but did not hide her hurt. She said, ‘We have been married twenty years. But Kira, you know I am not going to say no. I couldn't, could I, if there's a chance of a child? I couldn't live with myself if I said no…' – and here she smiled, attempting humour in this very tense atmosphere – ‘I couldn't live with Juba either.'

‘Oh yes you could, always,' said Juba, and kissed her hand.

At this Kira's eyes filled with tears, and she said, ‘So what are you going to lose? None of us young women will know what it is to say, “I have been with my man for twenty years.”'

‘I know,' said Dromas. ‘And that is why I am saying yes. But I want to say something else. None of you will know what it is to be with a man all of your youth, and to have a child with him – you have no idea of what it is you are asking me to do and what it will cost me.'

This was Kira's cue to withdraw, and perhaps say she would try with one of the field slaves. But she sat on, her face wet with tears, her eyes bright and defiant.

‘Then you may start your month tomorrow,' said Dromas, taking her hand away from Juba's.

The custom was that when a couple were trying for a child – that is when everyone had given their permission – they were given a room, well away from everyone else, and they were excused their ordinary duties for a month.

‘Why a full month?' said Mara – and as she spoke, knew she was destroying Kira's dream of a month of love. ‘We know – don't we? – that the eggs can only reach each other for a week in the middle of the cycle.'

‘I'm prepared to let it be a week, Kira,' said Juba, ‘and if it doesn't work the first time we can try another week later.' To soften this, because Kira looked mortified, and angry, and miserable, all at once, ‘I'm so busy, Kira. For me to stop working for a month – it is a real difficulty.'

‘Bitch,' said Kira to Mara, as they all went out, ‘bitch, bitch, bitch.'

‘But it's true,' said Mara. ‘Someone would have said it, if I didn't.'

‘But it was you who said it,' said Kira.

The week of love – as the women of the courtyard were calling it – began shortly after this discussion. They were all gossiping about this passion: falling in love belonged to the past, to stories and fables and history. They had liaisons with each other, sometimes with permanent partners – lovers was not a word much in use – or more often temporary ones. They did not break their hearts when someone wanted a change, and said, ‘I want a fling with…' – whoever. In the courtyard they chattered and giggled and discussed each other's likes and dislikes, their bodies, their needs – for they varied very much. One might say, ‘When I've finished with you I'm going to try…' – whoever it might be; and the cool answer might be, ‘Oh suit yourself.' It was as if deep feelings, or any feelings, had left these women, as if some silent agreement had been come to: We are not going to want, or yearn, or fret, or need, or suffer over that ridiculous thing, love. They all frankly said that choosing only women meant there would be no heartbreaks over miscarriages and
infant deaths or not conceiving when they tried. ‘I don't want to know if I'm infertile,' they said. ‘Who cares, anyway?'

Yet when one of the field slaves managed to have a baby, and brought it in to show the Kin, all the women in the courtyard wept over it, competed to hold it, and were pettish and cross and tended to burst into tears for a week afterwards.

During the week Juba was with Kira, Candace told Dromas to be with Mara. Dromas was a Memory, and she had learned every word of Mara's history, and now she was to tell Mara as much as she knew of the history of Ifrik, but beginning with Hadron. Dromas of course knew she was given this task so that she wouldn't be sitting by herself, thinking of her husband with a very pretty young woman; but as she talked, her voice kept fading into silence, and she would sit, looking down, her hand irritably and anxiously smoothing back her grey hair, over and over again, as if she were trying to soothe away painful thoughts.

And then Mara would say gently, ‘And what happened next?'

Plenty had happened. The history of Hadron was a long one: ‘Hundreds of years,' said Dromas; and when Mara jested, ‘At least it's not thousands,' Dromas did not see Mara's point. How strange, Mara thought, that an ignorant thing like me should think so easily of ‘thousands,' of long stretches of time, while a real Memory doesn't seem to hear ‘thousands' when I say it.

The history of Hadron had begun with the conquest of this country, when the Mahondis who ruled it were defeated. In the middle of an empty plain, the cluster of twenty-five Towers had been built, with the four great, black, shining roads running in from the horizon; and this was where the rulers, the lawmakers, and the administrators were all supposed to live and govern. Soon they were making excuses, and would fly in by skimmer for a week or a day of meetings, and then go home to the regions. Then a law was passed that everyone, including the president, must live in the Towers. Meanwhile the twenty-five black, bleak, sullen buildings were being surrounded by little outcrops of shanty towns: every kind of shed, hut, lean-to, shack, made of every imaginable material, even cloth and mud and old bits of metal. The big roads remained mostly unused, except for visiting dignitaries. Alongside the roads ran dusty tracks, easier on the feet, and everywhere around the base of the Towers, and spreading farther out, were networks of paths, then simple dirt roads, from one little annexe town to another. Soon there were no spaces between the towns, and the mess of buildings
stretched outwards from the Towers, but mostly to the east, where the good water was. The shanty towns were rebuilt in brick and wood, and beyond them new houses arose, some of them fine, in large gardens. The administrators, instead of living in the Towers, built themselves houses. Within fifty years of the building of the Towers, which had been meant to stand up straight and tall and alone on the plain, a self-contained city designed to strike awe into the whole country, they were deserted, except for criminals or fugitives or as temporary housing for families taking shelter on the lowest floors until they could find accommodation in the genial and human suburbs. The Towers had become a lesson in misguided town planning, and there had been a time when people came from other countries to take lessons in how not to do it.